Back and Forth

My pathological inability to throw away old stuff is manifested in the totally unused 'Shift+Del' combination on my laptop. Stuff that no longer is relevant, just like being consigned to the lower shelves of the cupboard manages to get burned onto a disc and relegated to permanent storage. Is it any wonder that at last count I had 554 movies on 225 discs or that my gmail storage has consistently been about 80% full as far back as I can remember ....

While I prefer to blame my genes (and I have plenty of evidence to back me up), there is no running away from wading through the clutter for something important or the humongous clean up job that looms when the shit hits the fan. So it was that I set about deleting stuff from my inbox. Clearing out old mails that are no longer relevant, drafts that are never going to be sent and conversations that are better off in the trash wasn't such a big deal. Once before, when faced with an ultimatum to delete, I had even registered a new ID and forwarded all the conversations there. Probably its just as well that I don't remember the password now.

So anyway, I chanced upon a conversation from a long long time ago, and I couldn't help but smile. Yes, you'll probably think both parties have the mental age of a 5 year old (and that is true sometimes, won't blame you there) but nevertheless, it was just impromptu and fun. This was way back in the past, and there have been so many after that.

Rest assured, there are somethings I will never delete ...

M: dozed off??!!
:P
Me: scope
M: wide
Me: screen
M: TV
Me: cabinet
M: joey!!
Me: kangaroo!
M: austrailia
Me: fosters
M: mug
Me: shot
M: doctor
Me: quack
M: duck
Me: hunt
M: helen
Me: troy
M: brad .....?!
Me: mr smith
M: angelina
Me: marianne
M: french
Me: wine
M: red
Me: shawshank
M: prison
Me: stripes
M: zebra
Me: discovery
M: earth
Me: 1947
M: aamir :)
Me: innova
M: role
Me: lead
M: pencil
Me: HB
M: 2B
Me: or not 2B?
M: stuttering parrot
M: !
continue na...
Me: (how is stuttering parrot related to hamlet)
M: (if u hv read "the mystery of the stutterin parrot" !!)
(hehe...)
Me: ok ...
treasure island
M: pirates
Me: silicon valley
M: (??)
Me: (pirates of silicion valley - movie about bill gates, etc)
M: (ok)
microsoft
Me: (there is potentially no end to this)
bugs
M: (hehe..but its fun)
lady
Me: drivers
M: accidents
Me: serendipity
M: fortune
Me: seeker
M: endless
Me: space
M: jam
Me: dravid
M: tamil
Me: rassam
M: rice
Me: jeera

It's ironic where the conversation ended. Or just profoundly prophetic. Either way, the last few items have featured in more conversations than I can remember and have been an endless source of humor, leg pulling, exasperation and death threats. But mostly humor.

May the rhyme outlive the reason ...

Where do I begin .. What do I say ...

A mish-mash of thoughts.

Originally wanted to write the usual two lines about 12x06, but there really wasn't anything interesting there. Or maybe I wasn't in the mood to get entertained. All it did was remind me of the NE118 and consequently, home. Even the Corvette in the shopping mall was meh.

Went to make coffee, and discovered that all cups / mugs were in the sink and I surely wasn't going to wash others' dishes. So I had mine in a glass tumbler. Which reminded me of Roopali. The one night we decided to drop pretense and go there for coffee instead of Barista. Sitting there, under the awning, the remaining 3A's discussed bikes, philosophy, movies and so many things. Until they closed. Then we sat till 3 am on the steps outside Subway just talked and talked. We rued the passage of the 'good old days' and lamented growing up. Wonder what we would talk now.

On another note, tried to watch Dasvidaniya as a side-movie, fully expecting it to be a rip off of The Bucket List. I was surprised because in my opinion, it is much better. While TBL has one acting god in Jack Nicholson and an actual God - Morgan Freeman, it is still a fairy tale. Not everyone drinks coffee made from pooped beans and flies on a private jet to exotic locations.

Sure, my bucket list would most probably feature racing a vintage Shelby Mustang around an oval, but would I? Not unless I happened to share my hospital ward with an eccentric billionaire. The smaller film is to me, the more personal one, where buying a car, any car is an aspirational decision. Where it is not an exotic Safari or a trip to the pyramids that will satisfy you, but a simple 'foreign' trip - anywhere.

Though I liked it because only when playing Charades can you put 'You' before 'I' in I love you. Even when it is love without consequence, love for love's sake.

A Spot of Indigestion

During school days, summer vacations broadly fell into two categories, ones where you would be busier than Gordon Gecko shuffling from one camp to some class or ones where you would catch an afternoon nap listening to Grandmother's stories. While I didn't exactly listen to stories in the later years, my vacations did follow the second track more or less faithfully. Lazy, relaxed and yes, filled with books. In fact, there was a bookstore near our house which had a small library in the back. I finished that one year. Admittedly I gave the M&Bs a wide berth but otherwise all the books that a 12 year old might read were devoured in no time. It took little for boredom to set in again. I experimented with picking up the World Book Encyclopaedia and reading entries at random but that lost its appeal much too soon.

Then one day I discovered what was hidden behind the World Books. Let me explain. The bookcase in which the World Books were stored initially had started life as a display cabinet and was far too deep. It was built into the wall and as such there was no way to estimate its depth from the outside. Hence there was a stash of books neatly lined up behind the display books, no doubt kept there by my mom who hates clutter and who must have patted herself on the back for thinking of this clever hiding place. Before the suspense gets to you, let me emphasize that I hadn't discovered a Marilyn Monroe edition of Playboy. I must also warn you that all this reminiscing is a build up to a rant (I do seem to do that often, don't I?).

You see, what I had discovered behind the encyclopaedia were old issues of Readers' Digest. Issues going back to 1973. It was this treasure trove that kept me entertained for many days after that. Not just summer vacations, but these issues became regular reading and there was a time when there used to be at least 3-4 of these under my pillow. As far as I could remember, we had had a subscription to RD. But there was something about those issues, maybe what one would call timelessness, that retained their readability 20 years past the date on the cover.

Sadly, I think they have lost it. And it hasn't happened today, its been happening over the past couple of years - ever since they redesigned it and it became worse when taken over by the India Today Group. The 'Win 17 kgs of gold' gimmick just re-enforced the down-the-drain feeling. Not surprisingly, the American Edition displays an even lower expectation of what constitutes a 'Reader'. The issues I have been reading for about 6 months are barely one third the thickness of the childhood ones but seem to have atleast five times as many advertisements.

Its a sign of our times perhaps that we see articles like '10 ways to...' and '5 things that...' in here, a publication that is (I suppose) aimed at the somewhat discerning reader. If I want to read articles like these, there are always those magazines at the supermarket checkout counter. Where are the human interest stories? Where is Drama in Real Life?

In fact, the whole redesign is very picture and graphic oriented which is totally unnecessary in my opinion. It is looks like a presentation, full of bullets and list and large fonts where you try to cover up the lack of material with every clip art in your collection. Due to the large number of advertisements, and obviously advertisements are full of pictures and color and large fonts jumping out at you, sometimes an article gets lost in all that clutter. Its not that hard to miss an article which uses the same sort of stock images of people doing the same kind of everyday activity portrayed in advertisements. Frankly, it looks like the management types have taken over everything, and ruined it in the process.

My last point may be a very small one but it is one which annoys me no end. A business reply post-card stuck in it after every few pages makes it impossible to hold the spine in one hand and flip the pages. Trivial, I know, but its the small things that make a difference.

I guess I will have to stick to the dusty yellowed pages for my reading pleasure. Old is truly Gold.

From the pages of History - II

Part 2 of the 'From the pages of History' series.

Loyal readers of this blog (there are 5) should know that it was a team effort and I was merely the archivist by default since I happened to pen down the first point on a page torn out of my book.

MMJ is so dark that....

1. ...Mrs. MMJ uses night vision goggles in bed.
2. ...Luke Skywalker hates him cause he IS the dark side of The Force.
3. ...even Voldemort calls him the 'Dark Lord'.
4. ...he is the leading cause of global warming.
5. ...dark, darker, darkest, MMJ. (Oxford Dictionary (India) 2005 edition)
6. ...our classroom blackboards turn green (with envy).
7. ...his parents have labeled his childhood photo album, 'The Dark Ages'.
8. ...Metallica's Black album was actually dedicated to him.
9. ...the jokes he cracks in class are called Black Humor.
10. ...pencils are available as HB,B,2B,...,7B,MMJ.
11. ...when he eats dark chocolate it looks like a milkybar.
12. ...in school he was listed under 'apparatus' for 'Radiation of black body' experiment.
13. ...when he goes for an X-ray, they have to use white film.
14. ...when he was small, his mother used talcum powder for the 'tika' so that 'drishta lagnaar nahi'.
15. ...his sunscreen is -40 SPF.
16. ...his shadow gets embarrassed in his presence.
17. ...he stars in the new Hollywood flick, 'Opaque Man'.
18. ...he calls himself 'Mr. India' at night.
19. ...blacks call him 'coloured'.
20. ...he makes carbon paper by wiping his face on tissues.
21. ...Osama is thinking of using him to defeat face recognition technology.
22. ...first God said, "Let there be light", and there was light. Then God said, "Let there be darkness." And MMJ was created.
23. ...when he directs a movie, the credits will say, M. 'Night' Jadhav
24. ...when he tried Xeroxing his butt, the machine ran out of toner.
25. ...when he wore torn pants to school, the kids asked him why he had sat in tar.
26. ...when MMJ was created God said, "Shit!!, Jal Gaya!!"
27. ...when he grins, it is like chicklets floating in the air.
28. ...he was the CIA's most successful shadow operative...until he was posted to Alaska.
29. ...he offered to work naked for MIB.
30. ...when he was disowned by his relatives, they called him 'the white sheep of the family'.
31. ...when he returns after a long hiatus, he says he is, 'back in black'
32. ...he did so much proxy voting last time, they had to make provision for eraz-ex at his polling booth.
33. ..he leaves fingerprints on charcoal.
34. ...when he goes to Cafe Coffee Day, it becomes Cafe Coffee Night.
35. ...he is stopped by the cops for wearing black visor helmet.
36. ...Iron Maiden were so scared of him, they wrote 'Fear of the Dark'.
37. ...when he appears on TV it goes out of sync. [!! - nerdy]
38. ...when feminist groups protest about his behaviour, they whiten his face with neutral polish.

This list was born in a very dull and largely silent System Programming class and achieved minor fame over the next few days as people vented their frustration at the protagonist and his (evil) ways. However, me and Akshay possessed the largest list of complaints since he happened to be our final year project guide.

From the pages of History

Much has been said and written about the apathy of youth. They don't care about their country, couldn't be bothered about the environment and have an atrocious taste in music. I know, I am one of them. To be honest, I agree with points #1 and 3 (Linkin Park? really?) but point #2 has me thinking. Albeit involuntarily, the youth do contribute to saving the environment.

I mean, back in the day it wasn't a pressing need to save the environment that made us share a ride to college but a simple desire to maximise canteen money while keeping the loss of mobility to a minimum. And The Bong must have really been the scraping the bottom of the proverbial barrel when he agreed to sit behind me, when we did the 15 min record dash from SCOE to Parihar Chowk on my Kinetic, arriving cleanly shaven and white knuckled. Then there are books. In school, for every subject we had a classwork notebook, a homework notebook and a composition notebook, plus about a dozen textbooks and a calendar. In engineering college it came down to one notebook - if that and textbooks which one invariably bought second hand (always buy one owned by a girl because they highlight all the important stuff). Reduce and recycle. In four years of engineering I alone must have saved about an acre of rainforest.

Which brings me to the one subject for which I had made a separate notebook. One subject which I did not ever bunk and could always be seen frantically taking notes. I paid so much attention that for once the 50 guys out-attentioned the 3 girls in class. If someone tapped my shoulder to say something I would get pissed off and give them dirty looks. And joy of joys! The fruit of my labour is not lost as I had feared. Apparently it survived the transcription into a word document, 3 different computers and a couple of DVD burns, as I found the small folder hidden in forgotten backup folder on my external drive.

So here I present, once again, the best of PSP

1. Certain amount of work done is done
2. Whatever amount of grasping here is to be reproduced at the time of exam
3. In Poona there is certain amount of height difference is there
4. We are sending letters to parents for safer side of ours
5. Always we are preparing substraction (sic) between these two values
6. Whenever we have addition certain amount of contradiction we are getting
7. In practice we are having atmosphere acting on surface of earth
8. Whatever amount of pipe connection is there, at bottom we are getting connection
9. The liquid flowing may be of liquid state or it may be of various gases or it may be of liquid state
10. This is the law of zeroth law of thermodynamics
11. Whatever amount of heat addition is there that amount of utilisation is there if no other lossesses are there
12. Can you have calculators
13. If you touch coil you are getting much more hotter on the inside
14. Whatever amount of airs from both sides are there are kept as it is
15. We are having certainly a amount of work done to be done in this
16. This the law of ENERGY OF CONSERVATION
17. In book also certain amount of jumbling is there
18. Certain persons are thinking in fashion that I want a work but I am not spending energy
19. Machines are drived by a single engine
20. Initially I had not said anything; Lastly question paper is given
21. Whatever amount of matter is flowing through it that is flowing through entire system
22. Power is morely transmitted
23. With the help of certain amount of hammer we are hammering on it
24. We are having certain amount of jamming, so not to happen it, we are giving certain amount of taper on it
25. We are preparing certain amount of section on this tooth which is called as tooth
26. These tooths are certainly inclined so that contacting area is certainly increased
27. One more important another is there
28. Thirdly, number Fourth, Heat exchanger
29. Today, class is of full of strength
30. Fire tube boilers are generated to 25 bar
31. Don't jumble in between fire tube and water tube
32. When they are preparing cream and other arrangement in milk industry
33. Rope is (a) belt of round configuration
    
34. There are certain amount of advantages over disadvantages
    

(who would have thought that a lecture about friction and ways to reduce it would degenerate into eroticism)

35. Two muffs are separated in two separate halves
36. We are having a bush and in the soft material we are inserting the shaft
37. In between the shaft the balls are placed
38. We want to press the balls on the shaft

For the record, the subject was Elements of Mechanical Engineering (EME). A subject which proved quite entertaining all the way to the end of the exam and the ride home, thanks to The Bong - a story for another time.

The Best Burger in New York

An episode of How I Met Your Mother (4x02) has this impassioned speech by Marshall when they spend a whole evening running around to find the 'perfect' burger that Marshall had had eight years ago.

Just a Burger? Just a burger. Robin, it’s so much more than “just a burger”. I mean…that first bite—oh what heaven that first bite is! The bun like a sesame freckled breast of an angel resting gently on the ketchup and mustard below—flavors mingling in a seductive pas-de-deux And then…a pickle…the most playful little pickle! Then a slice of tomato, a leaf of lettuce and a…a patty of ground beef so exquisite; swirling in your mouth breaking apart and combining again in a fugue of sweets and savor so delightful. This is no mere sandwich of grilled meat and toasted bread, Robin: this is God…speaking to us in food.

While I later found out that it was lifted from Amadeus, obviously Salieri wasn't talking about burgers. The scene was great, balancing the comedic tone of the series with the poignant, passionate appeal of a man who has spent eight years looking for his long lost 'perfect' burger and is one hat-tip away. And we are shaken out of our reverie when Lily gets her riposte in

And you got our wedding vows off the internet..!

Me? I was thinking about the Tandoori Chicken at 'Toni Da Dhaba' back in the days when childhood (mine) was carefree and youth (parents') was forgiving. When driving half way to Lonavala in December to sit on a charpoy with a fire-in-a-drum nearby was not a big deal. Nothing has come close since. Has it been 8 years? Probably more....

Past Continuous

I miss that town
I miss the faces
You can't erase
You can't replace it



I miss it now
I can't believe it
So hard to stay
Too hard to leave it



If I could I relive those days
I know the one thing that would never change