Atithi Tum Kab Jaoge!

He was an unwanted guest for sure. For more than a month, he had been most unwelcome at our place. We would see his doings especially in the Kitchen and curse ourselves for the fate that had be-fallen us. But did that affect him - no! He would go about his business with a peculiar aplomb - sampling a fruit, playing around with the wheat flour and sniffing away at stuff with nary a merciful glance at us hosts.

Soon, it was time for us pitiful victims to start plotting revenge. After much discussions and strategic planning the TRAP was laid down. He didn't bite the bullet, the first few rounds. Cunning fellow that he was! The enticement in the trappings had to be made more tastier to lure him into it, we felt.

On that fateful day, we did not realize that the bait had been taken. Pi was drudging along to make another savoury snack for that night's plans. And it was only when she was about to set it up that she noticed the slight little commotion from the inside! The sly creature was hiding with nary a sound! The brave me tried to coax him out onto the visible part of the trap, but he clung onto the shadows like a ghost. Trying in vain to fool us, but ultimately he could not hide himself from the piercing gaze of my car's head-light. His fur-ball shining unevenly in the glare and the light reflected from his michievous eyes betraying his stealth.

Yes we had caught our unwelcome guest and his fate was in our hands! I demanded gruesome and swift justice, but was over-ruled unanimously by the ladies in the house. Finally we mercifully dumped him near a vegetable vendor cart in the deep of the night. Hopefully he found some food and embarked on an adventure in search of a new abode. Heres fervently hoping he does not end up at our place again!

I know

Yeah, I know. I have been away from here for a long while. But instant noodly stuff like twitter and facebook make it hard to come back to blogging. Also being busy at work does not help at all! :)

But have some stuff on my mind and I want to regurgitate it out here some day soon! Till then...

Have you seen my childhood...

The other day, I was singing (trying to sing is the best way to put it) "Childhood" by Michael Jackson to Neil and today while driving down to office I get to hear of MJ's death :(

He was a big impression while growing up and in some ways I was pained with his downfall, all the bad publicity, rumors about his humongous debts and the constant criticism that he was surrounded by for close to 10-15 years.

I remember when he was going to perform in Mumbai years back, I so wanted to somehow end up to watch the show and had harboured desires of actually seeing him perform some day. Hmm, not meant to be.

Hmmm, kinda sad to post back-to-back RIP blogs. But R.I.P the one and only, the absolute "King of Pop"...

CHILDHOOD
---------------

Have you seen my Childhood?
I'm searching for the world that I
Come from
'Cause I've been looking around
In the lost and found of my heart...
No one understands me
They view it as such strange eccentricities...
'Cause I keep kidding around
Like a child, but pardon me...
People say I'm not okay
'Cause I love such elementary things...
It's been my fate to compensate, for the
Childhood
I've never known...

Have you seen my Childhood?
I'm searching for that wonder in my youth
Like pirates and adventurous dreams,
Of conquest and kings on the throne...

Before you judge me, try hard to love me,
Look within your heart then ask,
Have you seen my Childhood?

People say I'm strange that way
'Cause I love such elementary things,
It's been my fate to compensate,
for the Childhood I've never known...

Have you seen my Childhood?
I'm searching for that wonder in my youth
Like fantastical stories to share
The dreams I would dare, watch me fly...

Before you judge me, try hard to love me.
The painful youth I've had

Have you seen my Childhood.
-------
Written and composed by Michael Jackson

Neda - "The Voice"

In memory of Neda Soltani....

----------------------------------

I touched your forehead - it was cold,
You were dead but there're things to be told..

I watched your face beautiful like the moon,
But what was the use - you were gone so soon..

I held your hands tenderly in mine,
Feeling disoriented in these sands of time..

When I kissed your lips, I felt so sane,
Your mere sight vanished all the pain..

Now that you couldn't listen - I wanted to say,
I love you - but I couldn't even whisper and pray..

You were rested flowers grew on your grave,
Silence, memories and tears are all that I can save..


R.I.P.

You Can't Touch This!

I hope many remember the good old DD pre-MTV days (those who have been fortunate enough to have seen that one-channel era :p) when they used to show the Grammy Awards winner segment as a 30-minute summary. Many of the songs, artists that I ended up listening later were picked up from those segments. One song that made a big impression then was "You Can't Touch This" by MC Hammer!

Those baggy pants, those funky gyrating dancing steps and yes the cool tune left a lasting impression. And today I see this flashmob video on youtube, where a group of people got into a shopping mall and performed an impromtu version of it leaving the buyers speechless. So much fun! I hope I do get to be a part of such a "You Can't Touch This" flashmob someday :D Don't you? Its high-time we started some flashmobs here in India too! Enjoy the video for now :)

Sunshine makes me Happy!

Thanks Pi! Sunshine will now really make me happy :D

My mother tongue is umm...

Answer this honestly..

How many sentences can you converse in chaste Hindi without adding a dash of some English? Most of you (including yours truly) will answer 1 or 2 at maximum. Yes sirree, the entire nation has been afflicted with this Hinglish flu!

Its everywhere, on TV, news, media, the newspaper, the college katta or the office smoke rooms! I myself bemoan this linguistic impurity and sometimes wish I could use one language at one time and not end up using this mish-mash of words.

But seems this is not just an Indian phenomenon. I recently met up with a Finnish guy and while generally conversing, he too was moaning the liberal mix of English words back home. Guess what do they call this mish-mash - FINGLISH! :) Am glad we are not the only ones who have been linguistically corrupted :P

Poking a big one?

So, its election time and for many its somehow fashionable to vote this time around! I voted too (not for the fashion part though :)). Frankly, I was kinda impressed with the organization of the whole thing.

The first part about finding which place to go to, my family's voting numbers (yeah they did not send out voting cards to us) was a bit frustrating - but thankfully there was a guy sitting with a laptop doing the job for you. That his laptop was about to conk off with his battery running out made it a tad more exciting is another matter..

So I find out the location which turns out to be a nice school with an iscrutable name (Kroot school!!) pretty close to my home. I go in and there are nice rooms with organized numberings put up in front. There are no serpentine lines (is that a good or a bad thing?) in the sweltering sun and in a matter of 5 minutes am done with the voting!! I go in to get my finger inked to proudly show to everyone in office that I voted.

I put forward my left hand's thumb to indicate a big thumbs up for the entire process. The lady poker-facedly says - "Put your left hand's MIDDLE FINGER forward please!!".

Did I hear her right! But middle finger it is. I am smilimg ironically at this tradition by now - they could have picked up any other finger and am fervently hoping that they did not pick this to poke a big one into the face of democracy!

Did you vote then?

Indian Idles!

I sometimes wonder as to where the talent of our country is. Sure we have a lot of reality shows which try to promote and make visible unknown talents, but the quality seems to be hardly up the mark.

In contrast, reality shows abroad tend to churn out latent talents in hordes. Take the ongoing "Britain's Got Talent" show. It has thrown up Susan Boyle to the world and the fact that her video on youtube has been watched 30+ million times speaks about the liking the world has developed for her.

Or for that matter take the 12 year old singing sensation Shaheen Jafargholi too!

Even American Idol has produced some good artists with Chris Daughtry being a personal favorite - and he did not even win the show!

Hmmm, remains to be seen who will steal the Indian thunder or we will see all Indian Idles whiling their time around!

Snow!!

I experienced proper snowfall (I had seen some itsy-bitsy flakes a while back in Boston) in Munich and it was pretty much fun. The Muncheners however used to shake their heads whenever it snowed, since this was one of their coldest winters and they were expecting a lot more sunshine at this period of time. I was happy though! Here is a video I took on the penultimate day of the trip. Luckily I could convert it into flv format using mencoder on Linux and the video size is now down from 71MB to 1.6MB! Hope you like it :)

Fools!!

The PuneTech folks seemed to have had a hearty laugh playing a good and a professional one on April Fool's Day. Basically they had a news item complete with news footage about how Pune is beating recession much better as compared to Bangalore. As Navin mentions in today's followup, its sad that a lot of people fail for it and actually tweeted, debated, argued about it too :P

Check out the fun here :)

Punetech Prank!

Eternal Sunshine....

So, we saw "Benjamin Button" the other night and Pi wanted to watch a similar Oscarish, Award-winning movie as a follow on. We settled on the Jim Carrey - Kate Winslet starrer "Eternal Sunshine Of The Spotless Mind" and yeah it is an interesting kind of a movie. Both the parties trying to erase-out each other from their respective memories and yet being drawn back together again and again because of the subconscious attraction makes for an interesting theme.

Jim Carrey was good in his non-comic, no-facial-contortions role and what can I say about Kate Winslet. I liked her the first time I saw her in Titanic and she is such a sweetly, dainty, cute actress :). The name is pretty interesting. It comes from the poem "Eloisa to Abelard" by Alexander Pope.

....
How happy is the blameless vestal's lot!
The world forgetting, by the world forgot.
Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind!
Each pray'r accepted, and each wish resign'd;
....

Watch it for an interesting perspective..

Back...

So after about 3 weeks in Munich, I am back to home-sweet-home. As I look back, it was an interesting trip. It was good to spend time in a Non-US place after a while. I think European folks do a good job of keeping their History alive. Munich had city tours, the Third Reich tours, hop-on_hop-off buses which did the rounds of the city, ofcourse the Beer tours, Museums and everything else that had to do with its history over the past centuries.

I sometimes wish that India too would develop such an organized system to showcase our history which I think is so colorful and varied in its own right! Anyways, back to home-sweet-home, back to terra-firma and back to the grind :)

Here are some pics of my trip. Check them out!

Munich Trip

Japan in Recession?

So some days back, I was watching BBC and they were talking about how Japan is officially in recession. Toyota, Sony had their worst quarters, because USA is not buying anything at all.
But am wondering, if Japan is in recession, how come they can afford to send their kids to Munich for tourism. Gawd, my hotel is full of Japanese teenagers. Its kinda cute in some ways to see them go about their business during breakfast. I guess I haven't told you that "The Grave Of The Fireflies" is one of my favorite movies :).
As I was discussing with one German who said "As long as the Japanese send their kids to Germany for vacation, I wouldn't believe that they are in recession!". Nein!

Dachau!

The trip to Dachau last Sunday was enlightening... The reason Dachau is so famous is because it was the first official concentration camp and hence ended up acting as a blueprint for all the further ones.



Arbeit Macht Frei (Work shall set you free)

I learnt that the initial reason for their creation was to arrest all anti-Nazi people (of which there were a lot!), but later on as the war progressed they turned into the most inhuman places on earth, where people died of overwork, cold, disease, murder, torture, gas chambers and what not. It was indeed a dark chapter in the German History and it is indeed great to see the remarkable turn-around in such a short span. I took a picture towards the end of the tour but somehow could not smile...

Ah Munchen!

So I am here in Munich for about 2.5-3 weeks since the 9th. One week has past and it has been a good one. Work wise, I have done ok and well as per checking out the place goes - not too bad I think :)

Firstly, am handling the cold pretty well - one thing is that they are nearing the end of Winter and its becoming warmer. Yesterday, it was just pleasant - perfect for a weekend.

As a Roman I am doing what the Romans (err Muncheners) do. Guzzling down loads of beer (and getting puffed as a side-effect :() and trying to check out the local food and places. I was lucky enough to find some Indians and entertainingly HUNG out with them on Friday night. Infact I had grand touristy plans for Saturday, but I slept at around 5 in the morning on Friday night - so ahem saturday was just walking around checking out the history of Munich, the origins of Oktoberfest and obviously stuff about Hitler. This guy has left such a mark on this country and the world too for that matter. Its amazing how many times he survived dying before he went on to become the greatest wannabe dictator on this earth.

Its Sunday morning and true to the appeal of my tourist guide yesterday I am going to search my soul and go visit the concentration camps in Dachau. I learnt that some German families have adopted the controversial practice of introducing their kids to some places in these camps at the tender age of 7! But they claim, the kids end up becoming humane and with a lot of respect for humanity and basic equality. Nice... More updates later

Pinto!!

Hmmm, I really think Freida Pinto is going to make a career for herself in Hollywood. Not even Aishwarya Rai has made proper inroads in so many years and Freida has already been on all the needed-to-be-on shows including Jay Leno, David Letterman, Oprah etal. Plus she looks awesome on the red carpet!

I just hope we don't have to ever say - "Afraid Pinto didn't make it" :P

Contact - Part Deux

One such night, Xanthippe's parents got up because of the hue and cry, Xanthippe was creating. It was way past the retirement hour and concerned they rushed to the terrace. Xanthippe was shouting excitedly over something she had observed in the sky. She was too excited to speak for a while. They calmed her down with difficulty.

"Mom! You won't believe my probability stars today. A space window opened for exactly 10 seconds, i saw some weird creatures in that window. Mom, they were really peculiar. Oddly symmetric to say the least, they had a pair of legs, pair of arms, a pair of eyes and a pair of ears too!! Very much against the much-proved odd-organ evolution thesis dont you think Mom?" Xanthippe's mother looked indulgently at her precocious daughter. She took in her ruffled body hair, sleepless three eyes brimming with excitement, one central arm pointing in the general direction of the sky and smiled. "Come now Xanthippe dear, its very late girl. You must definitely have had a dream. I am sure ALIENS dont look so oddly symmetric!! Lets go back to sleep honey"

Contact - Part 1

Xanthippe was a precocious girl. She liked all things bright and wonderful. But then, she liked the skies too, not the dark sulky ones, but the ones adorned with a thousand stars. She would spend hours looking at them, getting excited over a shooting star and going into raptures over a passing comet. Her doting parents recognized Xanthippe's love. The onset of her tenth temporal eon was welcomed by a gift so precious that she was literally over the numerous Lunar Planets over it.

Thus began her sojourns into the skies. The UltraPhotoTelescopic Amplifier that her parents gifted to her was the most advanced machine available for personal use in those times. Equipped with stochastic capabilities, to people with time and probability on their hands, it was a peek into the Universe in its entire vastness. Xanthippe would spend hours with it, adjusting probability variables, spatial coordinates and contrast parameters. The sky was her best friend now.

Affection!

So I am driving down to office and a teenage girl is driving along-side on a two-wheeler with her granddad riding on the pillion. All of a sudden her hair gets loose and starts going helter-skelter in the wind. Like any respectable teenager she seems concerned because of the disarray in her appearance. Granddad to the rescue! With one hand he balances himself lest he falls down and the other hand lovingly forms a temporary hair band to keep it in place! Ah, so much affection.Pretty sweet, aint it :)