Rant 102: Walking away - A short story

They had not spoken in two years, not in real life anyway. She spent months agonising about whether to see him again. Then months spent imagining this day, she had hoped to see him for longer. The meeting lasted 10 minutes.
He looked to have much to say, or did she wish it were so? Perhaps it was his stare. He sat calm and composed - seemingly not aware of the people around them. People generally seemed lost in their own little world.
"Would you like to sit down?" he at last said.
She shook her head. His appearance had changed much, but his voice still had that quality of making you feel wanted.
"Have you been doing well?". Another general query. For god's sake, I wish he'd ask me something real.
"Yes, I'm alright," she heard herself say. "A bit tired, but otherwise good." She had driven three hours straight. She felt like she had been driving all day. The sea air was doing her some good so far. She hoped he wouldn't be able to smell the alcohol on her breath.


A bird cried out, the pitch straining her ears. She winced slightly at its last shriek. He smiled. She wished she'd accepted his offer of a seat.
"I've missed you," he said. At last, something real. This was the first real thing she had heard him say in over two years. She nearly burst into tears. She nearly hit him.
But all she could do was say, "So have I."
"I was hoping we could meet up," he began again. "But I don't really know where I want to go from here."
I know, it's my fault. It's always been my fault, and I can't begin to say how sorry I am.
She said: "To be honest, I wasn't sure what today was going to be like. I'm still afraid of how this looks. I've not told my parents about this, of course."
"I understand."
"To be honest, I don't speak to my parents much."
"I'm sorry to hear that."
He had maintained his voice thus far. She marvelled at his composure. Then again, that night two years ago as well, he had seemed composed, nay, resigned to his fate. Her own shrieks were entrenched in memory, not so much of his, if any.
They had left him for dead, on the steps leading up to the railway station. Did they intend for her to find him? Face down, and lying on his right cheek, he was conscious as she helped him to a sitting position. Unrecognisable, but that had much to do with the blood from his head wound. She cried for help. He told her not to worry. Then he passed out. The doctors had been a godsend.
"Your parents must be worried about you?" he continued.
"They always worry about me. Mostly about who I'm seen with." Now she could feel her strength returning. The large whisky she had drunk earlier in the morning had helped - not to mention the refill - but the anger at her own flesh and blood now brewing inside her was the real fuel.
"Then perhaps today was ill-advised."
"No!" she retorted. "I wanted this. I wanted today to happen. It was a choice between this, or another day without saying what I really wanted to say that night."
"Which was..."
"I'm sorry. I fucked up."
The words seemed to echo inside her own head. She felt relieved, almost happy, at having finally uttered them.
She felt him walking away. "It's okay," he said. After a pause he added: "I suppose I needed to hear an apology of some sort from someone. But really, I never held you responsible for anything. Apart from stealing my heart, of course! And in any case, I'm in a much happier place now. So all is forgiven."
I know. And I'm happy you're happy.
Slowly, she laid the flowers near his headstone. There was nothing left to do but walk away.

Rant 100: Why I love tennis - the story behind the picture

I’ve often thought about doing a full blog post about the pictures that I click and share on my photography page (click here if you want to have a scroll). For one reason or another I’ve never been able to. But this being my 100th Rant, I thought I’d take the plunge.

So, to set the scene - I’d finished work at 7pm, and was torn between going to the gym or playing tennis with a friend. As it turned out my friend was not available to play. And so I ended up on my own at the tennis court.

And suddenly, I was a five-year-old again!

Tennis in the Twilight (location: Goole Tennis Centre)

Flashback to the early 90s in Jamshedpur. My father decided to enrol a four-and-a-half-year-old me in tennis lessons. Now, growing up in India, with cricket as the unofficial national sport, I was a bit bemused. In fact, I even resisted. Why would I want to play something like tennis, when I could instead be out playing cricket with my neighbourhood friends? Everybody played cricket, literally everybody. Whether it was at school, or at the local park. Still, my father persisted, and took me on his little green-yellow lambretta scooter to a local recreation centre called “United Club”. Among things like showing movies, food, swimming pool, they had two clay tennis courts.
I can remember it very clearly now, the first time I stepped on to a tennis court. My father was introducing me to the coach, but I was lost in a different world. Somehow, by some stroke of luck, I was transfixed by the court. Red clay, with pristine white lines, and with a net across the middle. It was mesmerising, it really was. And that’s part of the reason why I remember those first few steps so vividly. From then on, I was hooked on tennis.

Tennis is an individual sport, and in many ways it suited me perfectly. I’ve always had my own rebellious streak so perhaps a team sport like cricket or football was not best suited. In tennis, I work for my own win, mistakes are mine to bear, and my creativity is mine alone. I can be as crazy, or as subtle as I want. At the moment of hitting a ball, nobody can tell you how to play the stroke - you play it, and be it on your head. I loved it.

But tennis is also different. And this goes back to the fact that not a lot of people played it - at the time - in Jamshedpur. I was taught the basic strokes, but I would regularly struggle to actually play much. My coach and his colleagues Tillak Sir, Ganesh Bhaiya and others, to their immense credit, seemed to love that I loved the sport so much, and would therefore basket-feed me about 200 balls every day. But that was about it. At the start I was not good enough or old enough to play a proper match against them, though it never stopped me trying, and none of my age-group peers played tennis. I was on my own. And still I played and loved.

In fact it came to a point when even ball-feeding from the coaches stopped, given I used to be the only kid who would rock up every afternoon - couldn’t blame the coaches. But still I came, and grew to love the game even more.

One reason - because even when the coaching stopped, even when the coaches did not emerge from the clubhouse in the 40-degree heat, I continued to play. I would be dropped off by my father at around 3pm - on his way to work - I would be given a tennis ball by the coach, and I would stand at the court baseline and hit against the perimeter wall. I was playing against myself. I would play games of my own. How many shots could I do in one “rally”? How many volleys could I do standing closer to the wall? How many tap-ups could I do in a minute? The stats, as it were, eventually became irrelevant. What mattered was that I was gaining valuable experience of my own limits; I was learning a lot about the proper grip on a racket - the coach would sometimes observe and give a few pointers - I improved my agility and balance, and my movement around the court area. I am still a predominantly baseline player and rely on a strong top-spin game. Basically, those years spent banging against wall, I could do whatever the heck I wanted in that time without being troubled by parents or siblings or friends, and without being judged for it as well.

It helped me find myself at a very young age.

And so I found myself again… 24 years later, on a brisk but sunny evening in Goole, East Yorkshire, nearly 6,000 miles away from those sun-baked courts in Jamshedpur. I stretched, jogged, then started hitting the ball on my own, swung some forehands, some backhands, smashed some serves.

I learned.

Rant 99: My English is apparently very good

There are various ways of being an immigrant these days. You could be seeking a better life, more money, seeking love, or maybe fleeing war and persecution. But whatever label we put on ourselves - or, rather, whatever label society chooses to put on us - the language I speak and how I speak it has had an impact on how I am perceived.

Take English for instance, purely on a basic level. Here is a conversation I have had on several occasions since moving from India to England in 2011.

Other person: “Are you from India?”

Me: “Yes.”

Other person: “Your English is very good.”

Me: “Err… thanks.”

*resists temptation to say “so is yours” *

Now, unless you were my English teacher, or the one who marked my exam papers, I have never really needed validation of my level of English. Case in point, my journalism professor in England once said my spoken English was “impeccable”, which led to an awkward silence in a classroom mostly filled with British students.

I grew up in an English-based school, in a country that is arguably one of the fastest developing in the modern world, and with parents and friends who spoke more English than Hindi. India has embraced many parts of western culture and one of those is certainly the language. Also bear in mind the education system in India is largely a product of the British colonial presence pre-August 1947. Hardly surprising then that the vast majority of urban and suburban children in India grow up with better English than Hindi - or any other regional language. To put it another way, if I had to choose a language to save my life, it would be English. My English is not perfect - no way would I describe it as “impeccable” either - but it does the job for me.

So why do the aforementioned feel compelled to compliment me? I suppose in the case of my journalism professor it’s part of his job, which makes it okay to an extent. In the case of the ‘other person’ - the captain of a village cricket team I was part of - it could be the need to feel superior.

That is my theory as to why somebody feels the need to point out how good (or bad) my English is - dominance. Is there a perception that an immigrant, or in simpler terms a foreigner, must surely be in a state of perpetual struggle with his new environment and culture? And is there a case that this applies only to foreigners/immigrants from the developing or third-world countries? I’m still searching for a complete answer, but perhaps there is some merit to be given to anecdotal evidence. Why else would somebody feel that he or she must comment on the language of a foreigner, bearing in mind I have never heard the same being said by one Englishman to another? Ah we are of this country so surely we speak our language best, and the fact that you grew up in another country means you can never be as good as us.

Could another theory be that it’s simply ignorance? That the cricket captain - like many others who think my English is “very good” - is just not as aware of the wider world? It feels weird writing a statement like that in the 21st century, but perhaps that is also part of the truth. It doesn’t make it acceptable in any case.

I do not feel that speaking/writing good Hindi is the sole preserve of Indians. In fact, Hindi can boast Sanskrit (central Asia) and Persian influences so who am I to assume that someone in Tajikistan or Iran does not speak impeccable Hindi? Or that if someone from Tajikistan or Iran speaks Hindi to me, that I must make sure he knows how good his Hindi is?

He probably knows how good his Hindi is so, you know, thanks but no thanks!

Rant 98: Born in the wrong country

Identity
I’m not the first person who when asked “where are you from?” falls down a mental black hole of uncertainty and insecurity. I’m also sure I’m not the first person who feels their identity is in a constant flux.

And so the question raises itself again: Where am I truly from?

To clear the basics: I was, I am told, born in the state of Orissa in the south eastern part of India. I am told it was in the summer. I remember growing up in Jamshedpur, in the state of Bihar (now Jharkhand) in eastern India. So, surely, I must identify with that place?

However, a mixture of insecurity during childhood, peer pressure, social embarrassment, bullying, failure to achieve expectations, and a general desire to see the wider world forced me to reject the place I grew up in. Jamshedpur is still the place that I know best - geographically speaking - and it is still the place where I have spent the most amount of time at a single stretch. But I am not from Jamshedpur.

To continue the basics: I did my basic bachelor’s degree in Manipal, in the coastal belt of south west India. I rejected an opportunity to study in the United States and packed off to a university known more for its party scene than its academic prowess. I spent three years doing a degree I had supposedly wanted to do. I made some friends, had some adventures, and eventually scraped through with a degree. However, among the many regrets was the fact that I had wasted three years of my life indulging in forms of excess I had not expected of myself. Add to that more social exclusion, being generally bullied, and rejected in areas of love. All of these add up to more bad memories, more regrets, and more feelings of shame when remembering the past. I am not from Manipal.

I spent the next two-and-a-half years working out of Mangalore, which was just an hour away from Manipal - again on the coast. Here, I found myself professionally. I became good at what I did. I made two very good friends, had some amazing experiences, found love, then lost it, then indulged in excess and then found my future wife. And yet, I do not identify myself as being from Mangalore. This one I am at a loss to explain why.

My then-girlfriend-now-wife had been visiting from England. We fell in love and I eventually came over to the UK to do my Master’s degree. There was a great deal of excitement about being in a totally new country. And an equally exciting prospect was leaving India behind. Not just the land, but all my bad memories. I had resolved to change myself. I had resolved to run away from all that I hated about India, all that I hated about my association with India. I was of the opinion, that if I separated myself by vast oceans and thousands of miles, India would never catch up with me. My past, I hoped, would never resurface. And thankfully, there has never been a major occurrence of that so far.

And so I resolved to change myself. I tried, and I still am trying, to become British. It’s a weird moment in my life when I admit to myself, that I need to begin a new identity. Secret agents perhaps have it easy when changing identities, as it’s part of the job. They don’t necessarily choose having to become someone else. They are required to. I’m choosing to change my identity.

Since late 2011, in fact, I have consciously tried to change my habits, my way of speaking, my way of communicating, my way of cracking jokes, my way of watching television, heck even my way of drinking water.

I do not know if what I am doing is correct. It’s difficult to integrate into a culture that is so vastly different from the one you grew up in. Even in the multicultural world of 2015, there are some things I can just never hope to be; or some things that you just can’t choose into being. On a day-to-day basis, "being British" - or whatever I am doing is called - isn’t easy. I’m sure there are many Brits who say the same thing.

It’s difficult. But I am trying.

I am not from England. But from November 2015 onwards, a part of me has officially staked claim to being from England. A part of my identity has been reborn. And this time, I get the feeling it's the right country.

Rant 97: We're on Facebook!

At long last, I have taken the leap and created a facebook page for the photos that I take and love. If you're of a generous disposition (!) then please do take the time and have a look around.
I have been taking pictures as a very serious hobby and passion for the last six years and I hope to continue that for the rest of my life. I will try and post at least one photo a day (hopefully more) and I do hope everyone enjoys them as much as I have enjoyed taking them.
These photos are to view and enjoy. If they do catch your fancy beyond the usual, and you would like to purchase a high-quality version - digital or print - please do get in touch via the Facebook page, and I will be happy to oblige!

The Archaeological Park in New Delhi has some fascinating sights to behold. But for these kids, a swimming and diving session into a Mughal-era pool was all they wanted! It is true the best things in life are, quite simply, free!

Rant 90: Turn the page

I was struggling to find a way to incorporate all the stories I've had so far since I came to the UK last year in September... I suppose you will have to make do with this for now
View Larger Map

To Live is to Die

i am inured to death...

Everyday I wake up thinking "there is at least one person on this Earth who has already died today or will die today...at least one..." it is a thought that's not very comforting, how we take death so matter of factly when it appears in newsprint or on TV, how we are so inured to it that we just expect that the next time we wake up, a thousand people, who are loved by a thousand others, will be gone forever...

But then again, what is death? Do we really know? Nobody has ever come back and said "oh yeah, it's a sad place!" OR "oh yeah, it's the best existence ever". 

So basically, it is the ultimate unknown..forget the depths of the ocean or the vastness of space..death is the one question nobody can answer...i think that if somebody can answer the question of death, then he/she can answer the question to life as well

...no one knows if you feel happiness or sadness at the end of it. No one knows if you feel pain or are painless. No one knows if there is an "other side". I use the word "knows" in the pure scientific sense where "knowing something" involves absolute proof...

i am inured to death...

and it started one fine morning in the city of Jamshedpur, Jharkhand (formerly Bihar), India, where my father was taking me and my brother to the local recreation club (United Club) for a swimming session. We were on a yellowish-greenish Lambretta scooter, license plate starting DBI....the three of us, and were just about to enter the main road in Kadma outside our house when a crowd of people on the road caught our attention.

what's going on? why are there so many people? why is there a truck standing in the middle of the road with a crowd of people around it? why is there a delay to me leaving the house at the age of who-knows-what, to me enjoying an enjoyable swim?

the answers came as we moved closer...i managed to poke my head through the crowd and caught a glimpse. a man lying on the road with his right cheek almost drowned in a pool of blood and his head was literally opened up. a large section of his brain was on the road. a motorbike lay right next to him...

i wish i could draw, i wish i had spent more time in the art school that was situated about 200 metres from this death scene. i wish i could draw this death scene for you, but i can't. i have it in my memory...the way the pink brain matter was flowing out from his head, the way everybody in the crowd was just standing shocked...the way his eyes and mouth were open, while the brain matter and blood inched its way towards full view from behind his head on the road.

Apparently a baby gains 80% of his knowledge from his/her mother...maybe the remaining 20% is what his/her eyes can show in the first few years of life

...i was told later that the man lying dead was a policeman who had been chasing somebody on his enfield motorcycle and had collided with a truck...whether this is true or not i don't know but it has stayed with me since...

maybe this is why I'm inured to death.

i spent all of the next day poring through newspapers, looking for something, anything on this incident.. even a small column...we had a cousin living with us at the time, Lipsa, and i distinctly remember her saying something along the lines of "oh it probably wasn't that big an incident, otherwise it would have made the news".  the newspaper was sort of a 50% orange colour..like an economic times kind of colour

I did not find him. i looked really hard, promise. i really wanted to...this man who was probably doing his duty, who lived by it and literally died by it, who had the potential to change human nature itself with the simple action of catching a law-breaker...he deserved a mention...people needed to know...but nothing  that i found suggested he was given a mention...

does it mean no one cared? no it doesn't. a mother, a father..perhaps brothers and sisters, perhaps friends...the shock when somebody you know and love dies. is that unbearable? 

BUT does my policeman friend care? you don't know do you? you don't know if he's feeling really pissed off about his death. should he feel pissed off? maybe it's all over, or maybe he's sitting in a cloud playing a harp...if somebody ends their life, people might say "oh that's a bad thing because he's left all of us so sad, and he's so selfish yada yada yada"

nobody ever stops to think that maybe the guy who's dead can no longer care...

five people crying...five thousand crying? doesn't make any difference to that person...he's gone...

today i read that a plane crash in Nepal had killed some people, while a woman in Ireland had allowed her son to be taken away by people to be shot in the legs for being a drug user. at the other end, it was breaking news that some person was seen in public wearing a bikini a few months after her fake implanted boobs had exploded...

sometimes i feel like the world wasn't good enough for my policeman friend...

Both Death and News have come a long way

Rant 88: I miss you

I am about to embark upon a new chapter in my life. It will take place in a foreign land. I will be taking on an educational challenge that will define my career, meeting new people, building on some acquaintances, and continuing a very special relationship. I cannot begin to describe how excited I am about this new chapter. (For brevity's sake, let's assume: I am excited).
However, I will leave behind some incredible memories and:-

1) The culmination of perhaps India's most revolutionary time since the Emergency. I do not have an opinion on the cause that "team Anna" and the government are at loggerheads over. However, the buzz about anti-corruption seems to have reached a frenzy and god help me, I might just miss that.

2) The first ever Formula One Indian Grand Prix. Like it for its thrill-a-minute excitement or hate it for the extreme waste of natural resources, the sport will gain a huge amount of attention once the five red lights go out at the Buddh International Circuit in Delhi. I will miss being a part of the action.

3) Metallica's first Indian concert. I fell to the peer pressure tactic of listening to heavy metal back in my high school days. And while I've discarded most of the bands that I thought I liked back then, Metallica remains a band that I still enjoy very much. I probably cannot tell my E flat note from my B-Major-extended-then-drop-it-down-two-notches-before-using-your-thumb-on-the-E-string chord, but the acquired listening taste towards ear-splitting music is well worth the intense neck pain from a night of drunken headbanging whilst rapidly air-guitaring. I will miss doing that on the national stage.

4) Sporting revenge. After all the back-slapping/public flogging about how England thoroughly beat the flying shit out of India was over, we realised that England probably had the upper hand thanks to home advantage. Well, among several other reasons I'm sure, but let's keep the home advantage tag for argument's sake. Well Sir! you'll find that India are top dogs in our own backyard as well! Come October and England visit India, so bloody hell, I'm going to thoroughly miss the sight of our Men in Blue exacting revenge.

Rant 86: Chaos is always politically correct

I've always wondered what the world looked like when the lights change...
shame a butterfly is used mostly as an unlikely example of the impending madness...


The madness spares no one, regardless of gender, race, creed, colour, or any other form of man-made distinction...when it's time to go, it's one big fucking blur...

Ah there it is!

Rant 83: What is real beauty?

Beauty is a grey area...there is no black and white...or is there? Maybe India has a few answers to the questions of absolute beauty that my camera and I have been searching for.

Real Beauty is...

...our religious uniqueness?

...our History, as fresh as the flora that adorns it?

...the adventures of a middle-class upbringing?

...the value of simple memories?

...perhaps of a simple meal?

...our resourcefulness?

...enshrined in a fundamental right?

...the power to take a stand against injustice?

...the joys of a national passion?

...the joy of losing yourself in the moment?

...perhaps it is the realisation that the search for answers is endless?

Rant 81: My love-hate relationship with Rain

When I was little, I hated rainy days. Absolutely did. For the simple reason that I was unable to go outside and play. Of course, this was back in the east-Indian city of Jamshedpur when the rainy season lasted no more than a month or so.
But having spent the last four-and-a-half years in the south-western part of India - where rain accounts for half the number of seasons - it's much harder to ignore it.
I'll admit, I still hate that it prevents me from going outside, but it was this very fact that allowed me to view it from a slightly different perspective today. An 18-200mm perspective to be precise!
I pursue my hobby of Lawn Tennis at a local club, which requires me to wake up at the ungodly hour of 5:30am. My bed lies just below my living room window and when I awoke this morning, I followed my usual ritual of looking up to see how much of dawn had broken, and was greeted by this (top right).
Now, this kind of opening to the day is not uncommon obviously and there have been several false alarms regarding impending rain straight after. However, I wanted to wait a bit before getting ready so that if it did rain, I could just go back and finish my sleep. I waited 20 mins, no rain. 30, no rain. Brilliant! I proceeded to make a strong cup of coffee, which guaranteed an instant brain kick-start and total awakening. Lo and behold! Just as I finished my cuppa, the heavens opened up.

I've never figured out how the saying, "It's raining cats and dogs" came to be. I mean, there have been freak cases where it's rained frogs and leeches, but never cats or dogs. Not that I intend to patent anything like, "It's raining frogs and leeches" (or maybe the French already have, who knows?). Anyways, I decided to have a little foray with the camera.
I headed out to my balcony and was immediately drawn to the line of water droplets building up on the parapet above me. It's like looking at a monstrous pearl necklace, only the pearls are constantly falling off to be replaced by new ones, (a woman's ultimate dream perhaps???).
However, try as I might, I could not capture the exact moment of when a droplet was falling off, or should I say the moment when it was in the air. All kinds of experimentation failed, from using flash to increasing the ISO and shutter speeds to crazy levels. But nothing worked. The moment of release for the droplet was just too unpredictable, and hence the fastest shutterspeed could not make up for a slow response time on my part. If anybody out there has a suggestion, please do leave a comment or email me at bibhashdash@gmail.com

But then, just as I had lost all hope of capturing a dramatic moment, the droplet fell, I followed its path, and it was time to dance. There was something so chaotic, and yet so simple and elegant, in the way they randomly burst upon the ledge. And I danced along with them. Switching my shooting to "burst mode", I was led by the elusive droplets, chasing them all along the ledge and everytime, they gave me different beats. Mother Nature's platinum album!

Thirty minutes and 150-odd images later, the rain at last ceased.






It left some lush green memories in its wake


and some unseemly ones as well....

But overall, I learned that no matter how much one may dislike rain, it is one of the most beautiful....


Oh crap, it's started again...

Rant 80: A mirror image

For the eye sees not itself...

Rant 73: One day to learn life

One day...that's all it takes to make you feel like new person. One day...that's all it takes for you to get perspective on your problems and frustrations. One day...that's all it took for me to realise life ain't all that much to lose my mind over.
One day and a 256 Kms round trip...that's exactly how long it took.
My buddy Yashpal and I hacked out a trip to Sakleshpur, a place in the Western Ghats, within 10 minutes on Saturday and the very next day at 5:30am, we were ready to go! "La Poderosa" (the Mighty One!) aka my motorcycle was ready and waiting.
True to our own tardy selves, though, we were only able to reach the highway proper by 6:30. However, we were still able to catch a glorious sunrise and the buildup towards a "bright" day.
A few kms outside of Mangalore city limits, we stopped at an elevated road to catch a glimpse of the image on your right. And some distance after that, the sight was akin to what religious nuts call heaven...I mean, it gave you the feeling that whether there actually is one or not, sights like these are good enough for humans to live in hope, which I concede is not a bad thing at all.
We got ourselves some breakfast and continued.
Despite the point of this trip being not the destination but the ride itself - meaning we made several pit stops for pictures and such - I think we made pretty good time.
Soon enough, we were coming towards our first glimpse of the proper Western Ghats, and this was as daunting a sight as I've ever seen. The hill, standing tall, telling you that "boss! you humans have fucked up the planet good, but you can't fuck with my species"
Sure enough, during the initial climb we were given a damn good example of why we should know our limits when tackling the hills. No doubt left in our minds as to how we should play this. If this huge hunk of metal fell prey to the dangers of the hill curves, then our two wheeler was at even greater risk.
It was not all gloom and doom though. The ghats here are famous for small and big waterfalls which provide a helpful respite from the day's wanderings and we too stopped for a breather.
The water was brilliant, cold and refreshing to the core. We also did the usual posing for pictures, while I also tried my hand at some slow-shutter speed snapping, trying to give the stream a smooth-flow effect.
Dunno how well that worked out but there you go.
Then began the real test of our trip. The really screwed up roads of Karnataka. All you people who've ever wished to walk on the moon (not the Michael Jackson style...the one with actual rockets), look no further than the ghat roads to practice your moon buggy tricks.
There aren't any potholes here, because they're all huge enough to be upgraded to the crater category!
Anyways, Yashpal came up with the brilliant analogy of how best to deal with the frustration of riding through the fucked up roads.
"Don't get frustrated, think of this entire trip as life itself. The initial stages were good, smooth roads, cool air, nice views. There will be bad stages in the middle, potholes, craters, but if you keep the ultimate goal in mind, i.e. destination then these holes will seem minor."
I don't care a lot about the destination that we reached (except they have these things being sold at various points of the entrance), but if the point of wading through all those craters was so that we could get the chance to see this, then I am willing to take up the offer of taking a moon buggy through these ghats any day of the week.
Pics below were seen on the return journey actually but well worth stopping amid heavy traffic on a curve with a slight drizzle falling.

Thanks babe!

Rant 72: Flashbacks

Sometimes...

when I forget what a beautiful morning looks like...

When I forget what it's like to walk through fields in twilight...
When I forget what a sparkling night looks like...
...Manipal always takes me back.

Rant 64: Azad Hind Blogpost

Ok so my Friday nights are getting weirder by the day....BUT!!!!!!!
this is the limit
NOW,
I pride myself on the number of documentaries and movies I have seen on the second world war. Indeed, I can probably give a very informative Rant on Hitler's military moves during this period. However, among the many renditions of this futile war, there is one movie that just ticked me off.
As an Indian, I am proud of how much my earlier generation fought for the freedom but to see it condensed into THIS piece of bollywood influenced K-serial-esque DRAMA SHIT!! is just pushing it.
honestly! the movie Bose: The Forgotten Hero is perhaps the crappiest WW2 movie I have ever seen. I have only one sentence to describe it.

It is nothing less than a drama-induced Wikipedia article!


Basically, a fallen hero's life condensed into a 3 hour movie that jumps so fast, an olympic gymnast would be ashamed at the speed of it.
DO NOT WATCH IT! EVER!!!!!!!! you would do better to spend your time in a moth-infested library, researching Subash Chandra Bose's life

PS: I know I am being a tad hypocritical by linking wiki articles here but it's basically to prove my point....If you can't GET it ...then sadly you need to think harder..or maybe watch this crappy movie

Rant 62: My Office Part 5

If you’re the head of an organization and you like the fact that your minions are doing good, productive work and you enjoy that your own superiors look upon you as a reliable manager, then I guess you would be having constant worries about your office's productivity levels. Day and night, you may be tortured by this worry, so much so that you start hating those D-Cold Total ads that claim relief from five types of pain (which now cannot even rid you of the one in your head alone).
Well, even though I may not be the graduate of a top-notch B-School, I can still give all you current and prospective managers a simple, yet effective tool of optimizing the productivity of your workforce. It’s called, Chair-Sense.
Believe it or not, a number of pointless research studies have shown that the choice of chairs in the office can either boost or hinder productivity. Let’s face it, we all love to sit for hours on a comfortable, if slightly ominous, deadline and hey, if I’m going to hatch some proverbial eggs while the whole world zooms by me, I damn well would like to do it on a nice ergonomic, fart-compatible, well-bottomed-out chair.
So here’s a rough guide to office chair selection. Remember, variety is the key to productivity:-

1) The Night Rider: With new improved aerodynamics, this sleek looking model is sure to leave you in good spirits. After all, who doesn’t benefit from a good half-an-hour snooze?!? This chair has been put through countless wind tunnel (night-shift) testings. Our experts (night-shift employees) have spent hours in near-180 degree positions so as to maximize your potential to view the office TV in a comfortable and "productive" position. Ideal for those with cravings for heavy lunches.
please note: the company is not liable for any spinal injuries resulting from sudden breakages while in near-180 degree positions. The firm does, however, intend to take full credit for the laughs that such sudden incidents generate amongst your colleagues.

2) The Brood-o-Matic 2000 (street name, the Muse Throne): All you world-weary Nestors, this is the chair for you. Designed especially for the many "devoted" hours you spend pretending to ponder with left hand fixed firmly on arm rest (scratching your chin... Yes yes, we know, solitaire is a tough game). The side arm rests have been fixed with an extra springy base to provide maximum comfort during those long endurance levels of cleaning up your chicken’s shit in Farmville; and with motorcycle-grade shock absorbers for supreme agility during heated battles in Mafia Wars. Lock and Load!!!

3) The Trumpet: Once you have imbibed the suggestions from your newspaper’s horoscope section ("you are strong, energetic, outgoing and will definitely get some action today despite your pig-like odour and drool" etc) and have filled yourself up with enough Red Bull to rival Maverick's F-16, take a ride on a model we lovingly call Jerry the mouse. The pure symphony of squeaky noises from your constant "adjustments" will leave even Pavarotti spellbound. Let the whole world know how often you roll around inside your cubicle or shift your backside just that wee bit for a quick and noiseless…well …you-know-what. Let your boss figure out how much you miss your baby crib with some good old-fashioned rocking! Remember it’s all about the music.

It’s of course difficult to list all the models here but do take the time to research all your options before choosing the right mix of chairs. Remember that each employee has different tastes and thus is suited for one particular chair. If perchance he/she feels at ease with more than one type, then congratulations, you have found a go-getter; somebody who can fit in anywhere and in any situation. You may now promote him to your post and take a long awaited vacation into the world of retirement.

Rant 61: Talking to myself..the sequel to Rant 5

So here is a sequel to the getting out of my mind phase. The only difference is the "mine" character which was originally my brain, is now me in the future......"me" is still the same old me

Mine: I shouldn't do this but I pulled you out for a moment to give you a hint.

Me: A hint???

Mine: Take wrong turns, talk to strangers, open unmarked doors. And if you see a group of people in a field, go find out what they're doing. Do things without always knowing how they'll turn out.

Me: Why tell me this?

Mine: You're curious and smart and bored and all you see is the choice between working hard and slacking off. There are so many adventures you miss because you're waiting to think of a plan. To find them, look for tiny interesting choices. And remember, that you are always making up the future as you go.

Me: So wait, what is this place? Am I going to wake up thinking this was a dream?

Mine: Think of this as after the game, outside the theatre. To go in, I had to suspend disbelief, forget the outside.

Me: So you, why are you giving me hints that I'm going to forget?

Mine: You'll forget this trip but I think the hints should stay with you.

Me: If this is a game, are you - are we cheating???

Mine: Yep.

My thanks to some very experienced friends from 2007-2009.

Rant 59: My Office part 4

Things I like about my office:-
1) The work…(love the ass covering don't you?)
2) Watching free tv and browsing free internet

3) a semi-sleeper push-back chair with roller wheels (ultra deluxe, for even bigger fans of Durgamba travels) ...which translates to: wheeeee!

4) The security lady trying her level best to run the metal detector around all who enter/leave…but thanks to my daily intake of Kellogs all nutritious corflakes (kidding of course), I am one step ahead…most of the time at least.

5) catching snoozes within the three walls of my work-station in weird angles so that the security cameras don’t catch me…

6) Upma with coconut chutney for breakfast in the office canteen.


Things I don’t really like but have to deal with anyways:-
1) ass kissers

2) frigggin’ cold-ass air conditioning

3) insane amount of wiring below the work stations, which basically means I cant stretch my legs out in all directions

4) office gossip. I’ve pretty much grown out of my high-school phase of hating people who talk behind my back. It made college a whole lot more bearable. This monster, in a different guise, is slowly rearing its ugly head!! Am trying my best to keep my own head straight.

Rant 51: A new class of criminal

Every now and then, there just has to be that one movie that fucking blows you right out of your reality zone and pumps you so full of adrenaline that by the time you leave the theater you’ve already calculated how much you’ll have to cut back on daily expenses just so you can buy the collector’s edition DVD set of that particular film.
At this moment I can think of only two such movies (there may be more of course but I’m not going to make the effort to think all that hard now).
Inglourious Basterds is one such while The Dark Knight was the other.
(no I haven’t bought DVDs for either, but it would definitely be worth it…and someday, it will be for me)
No rewards for guessing why both these are so firmly entrenched in the mind of a not-so-hardcore-movie-buff like yours truly: THE VILLAIN.

I’m not going to waste words comparing Bollywood’s villainous characterizations with those of Hollywood. No sir! The gulf in class is very, very apparent.
What we can think about, is the difference between the villains in the afore mentioned films and those in other Hollywood films.

Heath Ledger bloody-well stole the show in The Dark Knight. Right from his little Magic trick at the beginning (Tadaaaaaa! It’s gone!!!) to his renditions of the tale of his scars (you wanna know how I got these scars?) to the absolutely mind-blowing WHY SO SERIOUSSS!
Scheming, smiling, laughing, terrorizing, haunting. Whatever -ing suffixed word you choose, fact remains, he was the kind of villain you literally wanted to get your hands on. Trust me, the more sadistic acts he committed, the more I wanted to strangle him. But no! something in the back of my brain wanted to see more depraved acts, more girls tied behind chairs over sticks of dynamite in a room full of gasoline cans, and more hospitals being blown up.
In other words, he was perhaps the personification of the very limits to which a man’s evil can reach. And like it or not, we all have a curiosity towards finding out what that limit is. The sad part is, we experience more satisfaction in realizing the limits of others rather than our own.
But back to the villains
Hans Lander.

Now what do we call him? I doubt if you can call him scheming on the same plane as the Joker. He was simply caught up in a situation where he had to do his duty, no matter that he did in a stretched out fashion, taking his time with every "kill". His every action/dialogue belying his actual purpose. Perhaps he differed from the Joker with respect to being overly meticulous. Size up the target, lure it into a false sense of security, put on a mask of ignorance, feign an interest in sidebar conversations and finally…attack to eliminate. The funny part was, even though most of his actual actions might be termed "evil" how far was it from the inhumanity meted out by the basterds in their quest to kill as many NAZIs as possible. Again, a good representation of all the evil we thought was only in fantasies.
Another notable difference between the two stalwarts was the manner in which they were finally apprehended. While the Joker was probably laughing all the way to jail, Lander proved that when the barrel is pointed in the wrong direction, attitudes change.
Other aspects of inglourious basterds that were amazing:-
1) Deviation from history: killing off the NAZI high command, including Hitler, Bormann and Goering. I completely expected at least the top three to survive by some miracle.
2) Blood and gore: normally I’m not big fan of these, but the overhead, shot early on, in the movie of a NAZIs head being smashed literally to pulp with a baseball bat sparked a minor fascination that was only topped by the repeated pumping of bullets, towards the end, into Hitler’s lifeless body by the basterds.
3) The fact that it wasn’t just Hans Lander who stole the show (as opposed to the Joker). Every single actor had a definite share of the stealing. Maybe a little less for Brad Pitt due to his over-the-top-fake southern drawl.
With all due respect to both actors, I still consider the Joker portrayal as a winner between the two. Maybe it’s because the Joker didn’t have a ‘thousand-year Reich’ behind him for leverage or maybe because he did those evil, crazy things not for money…but (as Alfred the Butler puts it) "just to watch the world burn"
The world (of films) needed a new class of criminal, and they are here.

Rant 49: If Truth be told...

• South Park is not even half as funny on VH1 with all the "good" stuff either bleeped out or (worse!) completely cut-out (as much as bootlegged copies)
• Procrastination levels in a person are directly proportional to the number of dishes / clothes that are craving his/her attention at home.
• Work sentiment in the office is directly proportional to the Internet Bandwidth available there.
• Friends will always have an opinion on your behaviour/ thoughts/ on what you say… but will mostly spill it out in front of other friends when they want to look cool…(only) very rarely will they let it out to you.
• Musical preferences cannot be imposed upon someone, nor should you be held socially accountable for them.
• The Air Conditioning in the office will always seem to get worse (read: colder) just when you think it’s at the right temperature.
• A bad cricket team will always lose, no matter how many "informed" individuals cram themselves in front of a 14" TV and scream instructions.

MFL