Rain and Other Elements

Foreword
I can not draw. I can handle a mouse and colour parts of my screen even less. This is my idea of trying to devise ways of amusing myself.

Yesterday, something akin to a thunderstorm took place. Clothes escaped from lines, thunder shook the windows and the cat sought refuge under the car. I, being at the nearest mall, trying to finish Batman novels at the store itself so that I did not feel compelled to buy them, was blissfully unaware of all this. Until, that is, the people whom I was originally supposed to spend the evening with decided it was time to leave. Which is when the entire place suffered a blackout and the fire alarm got activated. Which is when the first part of the drawing takes place. There I am, in the middle, wondering if there was any way on earth I could convince the others of the joy of an icecream while walking back home in a thunderstorm. There are the others, doing things I was not really paying attention to, being lost in an icecream reverie.

I did get the icecream, acquiring which I escaped my disapproving guards and had it while being drenched in the rains, which poured down with an unequalled alacrity. Ice cream finished, I crept back to my friends with a docility they did not believe in and we went back to our respective homes, the rains now being officially over for the day.

The rains, being what they are, came back today, in the form of drizzles at intervals. The weather turned from insane to miserable, the sky turned a depressing grey from a fiery black, and I, horrified at being awake at an early hour, decided to mope and strolled along dejectedly from room to room, singing dismal songs to myself. However, when you sing Ella Fitzgerald songs, you require, nay, crave an audience. Hunt-the-cat took place until it was found trying to sleep on the backyard porch.

"Now, Opuntia," I announced as I took my place beside it, " I know we do not get on well, but your cat friends have betrayed you and my friends may well be cats. However, this animosity between us has to stop, we are all the other has. I even have a song about it. It was sung by Ella, pure of tone and pure of heart, not unlike you and I. In fact, Opi, this is between you and me, I want to be her. Now, I want you to be a true judge. You have heard her work before. You usually saunter around at my window whenever I play her songs. So, now, here we go."

Thus, I started giving the cat a rendition of Let's call the whole thing off, halfway through which, it gave an agonized yowl and scampered away.

Which is why I should definitely be allowed to get a dog.

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The Nights Before Examinations

Midnights, creeping in, usually find me gaping at the window, absentmindedly doodling on the margins of my notebook. My doodles usually conform to depictions of typhoons, Chinese fans and noses. It probably reveals something deeply disturbing about my psyche, but I choose not to delve on it.

It is 12:30 soon and the cellphone tinkles. The first message of the day is a cryptic plea from an unknown number. I read it again and again to make sure I have not skipped a few words or sentences.

"Sweetie (it says), I miss u. V hv not met up for so long. I know u hv exams but cant u make some time. If yes, give me a missed."

I gaze fascinated at this epistle for a long time and then call up Bonky.

"Whom do you know," I ask wonderingly, "who would miss me?"
"You should really learn some phone skills, you know. How come you never say a hello?"
"But who is capable of missing me," I ask insistently.
She ponders. "Apart from the entire faculty in our department, I really can not think of anyone else. Why do you ask? Having a sneezing fit?"
Whereupon I tell her the story.

"Hmm," she says after a few moments reserved for giggling. "Give this person a call. See who it is."
"Is not that a bit desperate," I muse.
"Honey, when you can not recall any person who would miss you in the middle of the night, chances are you are desperate."
"We are not having this conversation. Go study."

It is now one hour and ten minutes. I have finished my seventh typhoon and am starting on my fifteenth nose. The cellphone tinkles again. This time it is a phonecall.

"I have not started Indian Economics. Do not ask me anything. Go away."
"Umm, Pongs," says the voice on the other side. "I am in love."
"Oh dear," I sigh. "Now?"
"Uhh, yes?"
"Who is it? Does he have any single friends? Please do not get married before I get a boyfriend," I plea, my voice trailing away into a whine.
"Well, I met this guy in the metro. I actually bumped into him and apologized. Then I looked into his eyes, oh Pongs, such dreamy eyes, and fell in love."
There is a pause.
"Uh," I say, breaking the pause. " Then?"
"That is it," she replies, matter-of-factly.
"You do not know the guy," I exclaim, scandalized.
"I do know that he is my soulmate," she mumbles in a small voice. I can even visualize her puppy face.
"OK, honey, you know I am all for this sort of thing. But I can hardly help you hunt for the love of your life. I shall be very busy the next couple of months."
"Oh no," she hastens to explain, "that is fine. Actually I called you to help me find a perfect song for this moment."
"Oh."

It is close to two. I have actually read something from my notes and fallen into a reverie, most of which involves ghosts materializing through open windows.

The cell phone tinkles again. I start the conversation with the familiar denial of ever studying Indian Economics when I am interrupted.

"Could not care less. Listen, I bought two club sandwiches for dinner today. You know the hostel food. But I could only finish one. If I keep the second one for breakfast, what are the chances it will not stink or something?"

I blink.

"Is this a probability question," I venture, flabbergasted.
"No, idiot, I am asking you. You are a girl. You should know about stuff like this. Food and rotting and things."
"Ohh. Right. But, you see, I do not," I reply, as gently as possible.
"I knew I should have called Deep. He would have known. By the way, we have to go to Chennai in a month's time," announcing which he hangs up.

Wherein begins a flurry of phone calls, messages and further downloading of application forms.

It is soon almost half an hour past three. I have now degenerated into spelling my name in Bengali. Succeeding in that, I now venture to spell the names of the characters in Harry Potter, faltering badly with Hermione, and shift to spelling the names of the characters in Feluda.

The next tinkle on the phone is Bonky.

"Want to go out for coffee tomorrow?"
"No."
"Eh, this is coffee we are talking about, something you have Freudian dreams about. How can you refuse coffee," she asks, taken aback.
"Bonks, I have been practically stuck in this house for three months. My face is now a deathly white, and my dark circles make me look like a poltergeist. I actually have a haze all around my face. I look like an indeterminate mass. If you take me out for coffee tomorrow, everyone would think it was the family ghost's day out."
"Want to meet up in your park and crib about our lives then?"
"Yeah, all right. Also, I need a couple of notes. Get me the text on commerciali.."
"Never mind, Pongs, I think I will take a nap tomorrow," she says, a little wistful.
"Bleh."

It soon is five. I close the windows, give the books a malevolent gaze, avoid my image in the mirror and thankfully go to sleep.

This morning, however, I blogged.

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Titles have never been my strong point- Yet more tags

We have been tagged again, and with an unabated tag obsession, we proceed to thank Doubletake for furthering the delights of Tiggery Pokery.

To continue with the tradition, we will first post the rules, an indelible part of any tag presenting activity:

RULE #1 People who have been tagged must write their answers on their blogs and replace any question that they dislike with a new question formulated by themselves.

RULE #2 Tag 6 people to do this quiz and those who are tagged cannot refuse. These people must state who they were tagged by and cannot tag the person whom they were tagged by. Continue this game by sending it to other people.

(Here, I strangely am reminded of a Friends episodes where Monica, with a very familiar obsession, exclaims "Rules are good! Rules help control the fun!")

1. If your lover betrayed you what would your reaction be? Nothing. The most I can do is give him a puppy and when he learns to love it, kidnap it. That would show him.

2. If you could have one dream come true which one would it be? Owning a farmhouse in Italy. Getting a dog. Growing oranges.

3. Whose butt would you like to kick? My Indian Economy professor. He has a rather substantial one and I would not be able to miss.

4. What would you do with a billion dollars? Invest them. Make more.

5. Will you fall in love with your best friend? No.

6. Which is more blessed: loving someone or being loved by someone? Both are horrible things one does not discuss in public.

7. How long would you wait for someone you love? Considering my fickle heartedness, I think I would make a very loyal lover. Probably forever. Or until I realize I am touching 35 and the body clock is ticking away.

8. If the person you like is secretly attached, what would you do? Secretly attached will not exactly be news coming my way. But if attached, thank my stars. I could pine away without actually being in a relationship.

9. If you could root for one social cause which one would it be? Littering.

10. What takes you down the fastest? Sneezes. Indian Economy. Heels.

11. Where do you see yourself in 10 years' time? Doing things my mum fears I will end up doing.

12. What's your fear? Aging.

13. What kind of person(s) do you think the person who tagged you is/are? This kind of stuff embarrasses me horribly. She is wonderfully fun, wonderfully clever and nicely insane. She is a kindred spirit.

14. Would you rather be single and rich or married and poor? Why should I be poor? He can be if he wants to. I am going to make lots of money. Also, sign pre-nuptials.

15. What is the first thing you do when you wake up? Swear.

16. If you fall in love with two people simultaneously who would you pick? The one who picks me.

17. Would you give all in a relationship? Things I will not give in a relationship- Time, conversation, patience. Other than that, all right.

18. What's eating you now? Do not get me started.

19. Do you prefer being single or in a relationship? Look at the above answers. I am commitment phobic. I prefer single any day.

20. Tag 6 people... I have my own rules for Tiggery Pokery. No singling out names. If you actually care enough for this, do it.

Now for the second tag (yes, there are more than one. Oh, joy)

Ten songs I have been listening to over and over again for the past one week:

1. Safety Dance- Men without hats
   
2. Dreaming of you- The Coral
3. Butterfly- Talvin Singh
4. Can't take my eyes off you- Frankie Valli
5. Falling- Nitin Sawhney
6. Ae Ajnabi (A.R. Rahman/ Udit Narayan)
7. More than a feeling- Boston
8. Thee kuruviyil (Harini, Johnson, Mukesh/ A. R. Rahman)
9. Amintirile- Alternosfera
   
10. Sparks -Royksopp

I would add New York Nagaram to this list, except for the fact that I have been continuously listening to this song for the past one and a half years and, hence, believe it is slightly above lists.

We tag everyone, we tag anyone. Pick any tag you please. But we make a special mention of the second tag since it is Doubletake's contribution to the tag world.

Our aim is, after all, to spread sunshine and joy.

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Chronicles of Part-2 Exams: Bollywood, the Student and the Free SMS Scheme

From: Bonky
To: Everyone

Seedhi Zabaat zindagi bawal ho gayi
ho teri ek nazar se zindagi nihal ho gayi
nihaal ho gayi
nihaal ho gayi
etc etc

From: Me
To: Bonky

ya se...
Ye mera dil pyar ka diwana..(add appropriate sounds here)
Diwana, diwana, pyar ka parwana

Why are we doing this?

From: Bonky
To: Me

Neele, neele ambar par chand jab chaaye,
pyar barsaye, humko tarsaye

Pingu and Jo insist on spending all the free sms on their boyfriends. So I am reduced to this.

From: Me
To: Everyone

I finally have understood Cournot after like 3 weeks :D
I am so delighted I could weep, weep, weep. In fact, I will do so
(weep, weep, weep)

From: Jo
To: Me

Isn't Cournot, like, one page? In fact, even I have finished Macroeconomics. I am so delighted, I am going shopping tomorrow.

From: Me
To: Everyone minus Jo

Jo is such a bitch.

From: Bonky
To: Me

I have decided to spend all me free sms on you. So what's up?

From: Me
To: Bonky

Great, now even I will start wondering if I am a lesbian. Right now, I am having fried chicken. Diet be damned.

From: Bonky
To: Me

#@$#, I know. My regime has gone for a toss. My life looks so bleak I spent the whole afternoon watching Vivah today.

From: Me
To: Bonky

You too :D
We are such soulmates. In fact, I alternated between that and Swarg. Swarg has Govinda and Juhi. Govinda is Juhi's servant, then becomes all glamorous and Juhi falls for him. If our servant becomes rich, would we marry him?
(p.s., wish Mithun and Govinda had mated and produced a kid. He would be the greatest dancer on earth)
(p.s.2 OK, I have a crush on Govinda)

(n.b. I write long sms)
(n.b. 2 What is the plural form of sms?)

From: Bonky
To: Me

My heart is set on Mimoh. I doubt I would want any other son of Mithun, even if he is a hybrid of Govinda..am a loyal lover...

From: Me
To: Bonky

Mimoh is mine, woman :O
You always want my men. Mimoh is the only one who makes me see unicorns and rainbows when he dances. You know, I thought I would never know love. I never realized it would come to me in this form where my beloved is sundered apart by cities and superstardom. But someday, we will gaze into each other's eyes and realization will strike him and he will dance. He will dance Bonky like he has never danced before and love will envelope us. Then we will have a son and call him Gomoh.

From: Pingu
To: Everyone

I was playing diner dash on my cell phone and lost for the 12th time in a row. I was so frustrated I banged my head on the floor and now I am dizzy. Stop studying till I feel better.

From: Me
To: Pingu

Heh, I am busy telling Bonky my love story with Mimoh. You have no fear from us.

From: Pingu
To: Me

Mimoh is gay toh :O

From: Me
To: Pingu

Ki jata :O
More somman is expected from a Bengali towards Mithun's son. Of course, most people I fall for do turn out to be gay, so won't protest much.

From: Pingu
To: Me

Of course! Should have got the link. But there are better gays man. What is wrong with your taste? Jo ladki kabhi Karan Johar ke kwhab dekhti thi, woh aaj Mimoh pe utar aayi? Ghor kalyug!!

From: Me
To: Everyone

I am leaving Oligopoly. It has stopped making any sense. Nash can go screw himself.

From: Jo
To: Me

Oh, but that is the most major chapter. I have just finished Duality. I also bought (long list follows)..And is not Nash dead or something?

From: Me
To: Everyone minus Jo

Jo is such a bitch.

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Dead Turtles

Which was mostly what the weekend has been about. Dead turtles lined up in a broken line, buried ostrich-like in an otherwise pristine beach. At twilight hour, a lone turtle being washed up on the shore, a lone moon directly above me with a lone star underneath and I, plopped down on the golden, silky sand, the sound of the sea enveloping all other sounds and the wind in my hair, the best caress one could ever receive. A seemingly endless beach with two occupants, one of them, sadly, dead and the other, feeling the waves lap at her feet.

And highlights from the world of Television :

• I watched Apna Sapna Money Money for the third time. Watching it for the first time somehow numbed me from actually providing an opinion. Decided to watch it a second time and write a review. The third time was accidental. However, the sneaking suspicion drew on me that I was starting to enjoy the experience. My system is not only immune to ASMM, but considers a regular dosage of it a health option. Is ASMM to me what Gunda is to Greatbong? Or Ingrid Bergman to Alfred Hitchcock? Or Shahrukh Khan to Karan Johar (more on this later in this post)?
• The trip was on a bus which played (horrors) videos. My poor earphones knew when they had been outnumbered. The insomniac in me gave way helplessly to songs from Muskaan, Kasoor, Raaz and songs from a similar genre. Of course, newer movies did get a chance with special preference to Fool 'n Final. Needless to say, today, I am a changed girl and will never ever abuse Himesh Reshammiya again. FnF has shown me light. In fact, while I type this, I am downloading three of its songs.
• Spent a Saturday evening morosely biting a biscuit and watching Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gum for what seems like the 42nd time in the last six months. Its when you do this that you begin to wonder whether this is how you thought you would end up once in college.
  
  Then again, you forget all about wondering that and begin wondering why you find Kabhi Khushi Kabhi Gum so morbidly fascinating. You just stay numb and watch the idle rich fight the injustice they face from the world, the dictates of their hearts, moribund traditions and, of course, their sacrificial, all suffering parents who do not seem troubled watching their sons, husbands or even the occasional elderly father practically making out with the neighbour's daughter, but take offense at the slightest hint of theirs wishing to make the affair legal by the sacred ties of matrimony.
  
  I seem to have mixed up too many movies in this description, but then, who has not watched these movies. You may pretend to like Apocalypse Now and cry over Casablanca and argue about the significance of title of The Streetcar Named Desire, but you have, on the sly, watched all of Karan Johar's movies and have caught yourself laughing and sighing along with it. There is no solution to the eternal problem named Karan Johar. But its scary to think that a hundred years later, a new generation would be looking at our world and its culture through his eyes and find similarities between the the Greek and the Indian culture. Greece had its Helen, Menelaus and Paris. Our country had Shahrukh Khan, the rest of the world and Karan Johar.
• Kyle XY now has an additional character who looks uncannily like Michael Jackson and claims to be a female in love with Kyle. All this is obviously a diabolical plot by the producers to prove that Michael Jackson is actually a female android which is the reason he feels attracted to young boys. Boys because his soul is of a girl. Young because as an android, he lost out on the first 16 years of his life. Its a compensation for a lost youth spent under microscopes and brain scanners.
  

Okay, so I have just watched TV endlessly for the past few days and have nothing to write about and just desperately want to update this blog thing of mine.

Oh, I caught an oyster at the beach. It did not have anything in it sadly.

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The Year That Will Be

One of the few facts I have managed to retain from long forgotten History lessons is that Akbar was made Emperor at the tender young age of 13 and until he came of age, Bairam Khan, his general, ruled on his behalf. Possibly, all it does purport to mean is, fifty years down the line, Gowarikar's son might be casting Hrithik's grandson in the lead role of his movie Bilawal-(enter future wife's name here), with A.R. Rahman's son giving music rehashed from his father's incomplete works. It might also mean the Mughal empire was a democracy and one failed to understand it.

The only fact one can grasp here is, here is a 19 year old, with an entire country's reins falling into his laps, and here is another, musing on what the young inheritor's mother might have meant? What Times of India (yes, I proudly and unflinchingly proclaim I read it, and actually read Calcutta Times before heading for the headlines, if at all) displays boldly as a quotable quote has me fumbling for answers. What did the Benazir Bhutto mean when she said Democracy is the best revenge? Revenge against what? And why revenge? Would not it have been easier focusing on a few salient issues like actually bringing in the democracy for the betterment of the countrymen and countrywomen?

Then again, I never did really understand politics and possibly all the hidden agendas elude my flighty little brain. For how can I possibly deny the whole Bhutto tragedy caught my eye because

1)Bilawal Bhutto is hot. Period.
2) My young, inexperienced life has not seen many assassinations and one so close home always generates excitement.

God bless her soul though. She might have treated the idea of being killed philosophically, but it must have been rather a nasty surprise.

When Shakespeare did say what's in a name, he must have said it in an unthoughtful, unreflective moment, possibly just after giving a series of autographs and wondering how good a name Rob Ray would have been. For there is something about the name Akbar which makes the beholder of the name greater than mere mortals. Though the original Akbar did shy away from forcing his own religion upon his subjects, one of the few things he abstained from, his namesake, Akbar Khan, however, can apparently do anything. He is planning to re release Taj Mahal. Some kind of a Valentine's Day surprise to the unsuspecting world. Of course, all this might be a stepping stone to greater deeds like Ram Gopal Varma releasing a director's cut of RGV ki Aag as a Halloween surprise or on the death anniversary of Veerappan.Which might lead to the sales of a special DVD collection of Fardeen Khan's earlier movies. One fears the worse and actually goes on to wondering whether this might all lead to a Tushar Kapoor starring Yash Chopra movie, but one remains hopeful.

A.R. Rahman turns another year older today. I will always revere the man. For creating the two most perfect pieces of music ever. Parts of two separate songs. But when confronted with it, one does realize what perfection is. For then it does make you feel how absolutely small you are. How completely insignificant. And how wonderfully lucky. For some very curious reason, Bhojpuri movies make me feel the same way. As if in the presence of some greater god. Or perhaps the Messiah of a long lost, dignified, reawakened religion. Perfection, again, is such a subjective topic.

I bring in the New Year, as usual, with forgotten resolutions and a horrible tummy ache from over eating. Realization also strikes that 3 a.m. in the morning is not the time to churn out my thoughts in form of a blog post. What should have been random is strangely confessional (I did not mean to admit that despite Greatbong's tirade, Bhojpuri movies still hold a compelling fascination for me) and that is never a very comfortable thought to go to sleep with.

Good night, blog world.


Book today: The Story Girl, L.M. Montgomery ( compelling, beautiful and an indelible part of girlhood)
Movie today: Lawrence of Arabia (good, but long. Makes the watching rather arduous for someone who is not much into war movies. Probably means I have no taste)

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Reflections on Oranges, Death and Om Shanti Om

Its five months since my first University examination (yes, this will be a cribbing, moping, depressing post again). They have been an eventful five months. I have been hospitalized, fallen in love twice, have suffered an entire month of joyous celebrations, have convinced my parents that I actually have an ambition by sheer glib talk and have made a foolproof plan of bombing the University building. However, the people in charge of correcting my papers appear to be having an even more eventful time, for the results are still as far off now as they had been five months ago. And there has been not one day since these five months I have not moaned and groaned and wished death on myself. Yes, I have been a pretty depressing company. My university does that to you. For all I know, my examination answer sheets have been recycled as flyers in the Nandigram issue, used to make temporary refuges in the cyclone ravaged areas (bit of a prediction here) or crafted into jhalmuri containers. They may never have been checked. I may not exist in the University registers. Its the sheer madness of uncertainty which actually brings on the severe depression and the forewarnings to close relatives to buy something white this Puja.

It was while I was watching OSO when i suddenly realized what is the implication of death. No its not the reincarnation jazz. My very own personal view of the movie is that its sheer rubbish and watching Budhdha Mar Gaya is more fruitful. At least you know what you are watching will give you the headache of a lifetime. But it did give me food for thought. So I will be more kindly to the movie and agree it has a few amusing moments. And I do wish Shahrukh Khan's hairdresser has that baby and gives him the damned hair cut already. He is beginning to look like a mop.

Death, I realized, is not just the end of troubles, its the end. A simple end of everything you know, wish, love, think and experience. Its not a forced removal of the future, its the discontinuity of the present. The end of the sheer excitement of existence. When I die, it just would not be the things I am looking forward to I would losing out on, even if they are rather nice things like finally getting to watch all the F.R.I.E.N.D.S. episodes, actually watch the last episode of Kyunki Saas Bhi Kabhi Bahu Thi, know why Kyle XY has no bellybutton (I am thinking I watch too much TV), marrying Johnny Depp, and, of course, see how I finally turn out.

But there is so much more to life right now. There are some lovely things to live for even if Johnny Depp never finds me maddeningly attractive. (This post is just another way to convince myself that life is not all about getting a first class, bear with me). So I began listing out all the reasons I enjoy just being alive for. Here is a bit from the last revised draft

• Oranges : They mark the beginning of winter for me, my favourite season. What is winter if not spent on some rooftop, soaking in the afternoon sun, eating orange after orange and doing Maths? (This actually goes in good points about High School. Nowadays, I do maths with the radio on, snuggled in rugs, with mugs of coffee surrounding me).
• Mathematics : Much as I hate the subject, I love the organization which comes with it. It appeals to my messy self like a spirit finite calling to the infinite (I do not know what that means). It has begun affecting my writing style. Now whatever I write has to be bulleted. Its by sheer force of will power that I do not add footnotes.
• Mosaic floors: They have all these small stones where, if you squint slightly, you can actually make out faces. Marble floors are cold, inhumane things which provide us with no imaginary human company. When I have a home of my own, I will keep the marble floors and get a puppy. That, I think, will be slightly less mad.
• A.R. Rahman
• Chalk: I eat them. More accurately, I nibble them. I find the dry texture fascinating, despite the fact I often choke on them. Of course, I mean white chalks. Coloured chalks have a weird bitter taste.

So there you go University Examiners, even if you fail me now, I still win.

You have not broken me.

Yet.

As a byword, in case you watched OSO, they show SRK's reincarnated self was afraid of fire because he had died in a fire. I am afraid of

• fire
• water
• ghosts
• heights
• dogs
  

I am guessing in my previous birth, I died when the ghost of a dog, blazed in flames, attacked me on a rooftop, from where I was forced to jump, falling right in to the middle of a swimming pool where I drowned. Only then do all my rational fears make sense.

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Filler

Andha saalayil nee vandhu saeraamal
Aaru degeree-il en paarvay saayamal
Vilaki poayirunthaal thollayae illai
Ithu vaendaathe vaelai
- An excerpt from the song Hey Goodbye Nanba
Film Ayutha Ezhuthu
Lyricist: Vairamuthu

(If only you hadn't been on that street;
If only my eyes hadn't tilted 6 degrees;
There would have been no trouble...
For we have landed ourselves into unnecessary work)

Found this paragraph extremely cute which, obviously, led to an incessant need to share it with the rest of the world. In case people are wondering which song this could be, its the Tamil version of Hey Khuda Hafiz, from Yuva.

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Because I am Not Sleepy

This post is about nothing. It has no literary value whatsoever. No opinion will ever be dictated here. I probably should be sleeping while I type this, but I do not care. Let dark circles remain a permanent feature of my physical attributes. I will show them they are not everything.

Love is a weird thing. Here you are, thinking there is no man on earth who could be everything you wish him to be (which includes having the guts to dance on the roof of a train and be a criminal mastermind) and then suddenly you see him serenading Audrey Hepburn. Life suddenly becomes topsy-turvy. And anyone who suggests this is a school girl crush, may you get the Wagga Wagga disease.
Kolkata buses have many faults. But no one could label them dull. From banters between a fisherwoman and the conductor to free-for-alls, they never lack the human element of comedy. However, the government thinks otherwise. What with too many passengers being dragged to depots because they fall asleep on long bus rides and snore past their stops, they decided not to risk the unpredictable presence of over sensitive passengers and went and added radios. They possibly voted for television firstly, but what with the universal demand for soaps clashing with the fact that they are mostly R-rated, they decided on the radio, where the most harmful thing for children's ears would be the Bula-di advertisements. But since everyone knows them and can recite them backwards, word- perfect, that was not much of a scare.
(BTW, what is it with minibuses and Big FM? Has Mukesh Ambani taken over RT-72 bus? Is a chain of buses the next big thing he wishes to gift his wife after that joke of a jet plane?)

So here was I, one sad Friday afternoon, dragging my sorry self to a Statistics class, pondering on the meaning of life when the friendly, neighborhood radio decided to play the title track of Bhul Bhulaiya again, for what I could make out, the fifth time in the hour. That was when I realized how desperately I was in love. For Gregory Peck materialized in front of me singing that very song, for ME!!! For the next five minutes, i gazed openmouthed at the conductor, for Peck always seemed to hang around him, resurrected from death, lip syncing a pseudo-rap song from a Hindi movie, all because I have a wild imagination and have watched DDLJ absolutely too many times.

I could not concentrate much on my tuition either. Peck seemed to hang around a lot near my teacher's left ear, just looking in that heart warming manner of his.

As if I do not already have enough reasons to quit bothering to educate myself further.

I still do not feel sleepy. I might prolong this post a bit more. I wonder how many of my blogrollers are busy deleting my link.

People who have ever loved Mathematics might appreciate this. What with too many late nights trying to deduce why a particular question was taking you three months to solve and was a possible contender in next year's examination, the subject tends to overcome your senses. You live, breath and feel Maths. I went a step ahead, I started walking Maths.

The area I live in has islands. They are the names for circular edifices at every crossroad, with shrubberies in them. If the following picture belonged to wikimapia (it does not, its a Palit original), it would show islands like this.



Yes, slightly messy. So was Picasso.

Anyway, here is a crossroad, many cars, its late in the evening, Spiderman here is a figment of my imagination and there I am, in the right hand corner lower footpath, waiting there for fifteen minutes. All because I wanted to reach my destination by taking a path which was tangent to the island.

Given,
OP is the radius, not that it matters.
The red star shows my desired destination.
Drivers do not like me. I am a bad pedestrian.

Required to find:
A tangent which does not kill me.

I actually went to and fro the footpaths, around eleven times, till I found the right tangent, starting somewhere two meters away from my starting position.
Also, the angle alpha signifies nothing. I have forgotten what two tangents do when they intersect. Probably start a family of baby tangents and eventually end up getting divorced, but by then, I was home.

Ah, the first glimmers of sleepiness. Let the end be now.

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Mostly About Bellybuttons

Disclaimer: If any reader actually thinks this entry will be perverted, explicit and a joy to an entire section of male population, I am afraid I will have to disillusion you. Not only is it only partly about bellybuttons, it mostly talks about male bellybuttons. There, you have been warned. Now proceed at your own risk.


A Saturday night is usually a very evil way of ending a week when you have

1. no life
2. no chance of midnight revelries
3. a broken down computer, mainly because you repeatedly curse at it

After weeks of slogging for *mumble mumble mumble*, I finally had a morning when I could sleep for as long as I liked, for I have been blessed with parents who actually think I need as much sleep as I can get (They live in la-la land). Which obviously meant that I had an entire night to myself to do anything I liked without parental control or sunlight (I personally am not very fond of sunlight. Its way too over rated anyway). Hence I gave up some of my most precious, treasured, cherished and rare to find free hours to channel surfing.

After wandering around aimlessly at a few Bachchan movies, I finally reached Star World where they were showing Kyle XY which is about some boy who is different from everyone else. Why? He has no belly button. Oh, granted he has this really super memory and he completed reading every section of some encyclopedia in just an afternoon, and, oh, he has these amazing reflexes, but I mean, come on, no belly button? How cool is that? Spiderman did that reflexes thingy and androids or whatever he is supposed to be have huge memory reserves. Everybody knows that. But absence of belly buttons is the most unique Superhero trait ever. They might actually call him the NO BELLYBUTTON MAN, for he would roam around masked but topless, the bellybutton-less, washboard flat stomach being his stock-in-trade. It also helped that the robot or whatever the lead character is supposed to be playing is gorgeously cute which held my interest wonderfully. But his bellybutton-less existence had me spell bound and I spent a major part of an hour wondering what would life be like without a bellybutton. Other than the fact that if one did not have a bellybutton, there would be just one lesser body part to pierce, nothing really came to my mind. Does that make the belly button a vestigial organ?

The next batch of channel surfing led to a not-so-obscure movie called Dil Vil Pyar Vyar which is basically a meaningless movie with too much of sentiment, something I abhor, but has a few songs by Hariharan. I realize Mukesh loyalists cringe at the thought of his classics rehashed, but personally, any song sung in Hariharan's mellifluous voice is magical and an entire experience in itself. Hence, I steeled myself to watch a movie I would probably whimper for the rest of my life at the memory of. Unsurprisingly for a movie with 14 songs, one soon came along with a skimpily clad Hrishita Bhatt and a horror called Jimmy Shergill who actually had the gumption to wear an orange floral shirt with white trousers and a white jacket. Mercifully, the camera did not concentrate much on him. It was too busy following Bhatt's bellybutton in and around the railway station the song was shot at. It was then I made an observation that Kyle XY would not be much good as an actress over in India.
Because he has no bellybutton.

It was over an hour when realization finally struck me. I mercifully went to sleep.

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Falling

Some day the wind will change and you will see me clearly
One day these dreams of mine will bring me to my time
Some day i will become what i am meant to be coming to
One day but that's a million some days from today

Lately the sunshine makes a different shape around
Lately my music has a different sound to show me
Lately i ask questions of the world but no one is listening
Tell me when i go to sleep what will the morning bring me?

Falling, falling, falling, or am i flying?
Flying, flying, flying, or am i falling?

Though this is perhaps one of the most beautiful and lasting songs I have ever heard in a lifetime of music, I never could fathom its meaning completely. Sometimes I thought I understood what it was all about, but the last refrain always jumbled up all meanings born in my head. Until, that is, I came across this.



The song has a whole new aspect now. And never was it more beautiful.

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Rahmania

Who will I tell my life story to if not to everyone on the internet?
oh, and if you are interested in funny stuff, don't read this.
My devotion to A.R. Rahman's music began in a very roundabout way..
It all started with Veer-Zaara, Having hated Shahrukh Khan for about my whole life, I typically ended up having a crush on him (my crush list grows weirder as I grow older and includes Karan Johar, Ranveer Shouri, Prashanth {the hero in Jeans} and Rupert Grint, and oh, for about one and a half hours Joy Mukherjee). So there I was, in what I concluded was real love and decided to see all the SRK movies ever made which incidentally included
1) Chamatkar
2)Karan Arjun
3)Koyla
4)Shakti
which led to Dil Se, and I was floored, not by him, but the music, and what had been a liking turned into an obsession.

A.R. Rahman grew gradually into a mania for me. The effect his music has is probably indescribable, but I will try for once. Have you ever heard a tune, wordless tune, which has brought a lump in your throat because of its tragic beauty, that you try to listen to it again and again so that you might envelope your whole soul into the music, so that your mind is the music itself? Unless you are in love with music, you won't understand what I mean.

A.R. Rahman's music is probably the closest thing to love I have ever experienced. Unsurprisingly, ever since this obsession, I have never had a crush on anyone, ever. All I ever wish is to meet him once and thank him for everything he has given to music, for making my life so much more better.

And here starts another long, long wait for the album Guru to release. I wish I was a Tamilian and lived there to have access to all his creations and understand him. But Rahman is unbeatable in one characteristic, his music can portray emotions even if they are wordless, so language, somehow, is not much of a barrier.

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