Teens...

..........Every number marked on the scoreboard of life brings with it a certain set of  eccentricities. At one stage we’re drooling , laughing, throwing up and tripping over at random, much to the amusement of people around us. Once this age passes, we realise that we shouldn’t have drunk so much the previous night .

But indulging in crazy, drunken acts is something that most of you might have to wait for, until you’re as old as me at-least .
OK.. no.. i am not that old but  I’m talking about teenagers.

When I look at the teens of today, I can’t help but think about the nature of time and how the shift into adults suddenly alters their priorities. I think for about two seconds, after which the teens’ cargo pants catch my attention which has enough pockets to hold the entire cast of a karan-johar movie (dog included)
When it comes to hairstyles, the gelled look is dominant, with styles ranging from ‘I look like a mafia don ’ to  anything in your imagination.  And that’s just the guys.

The girls, as always, are smarter in that they actually look older than they are. This gives rise to awkward situations, such as when a dear friend back in hyderabad spotted an interesting specimen (he later termed her as a BHBB – Badi Hokar Babe Banegi). The sight of her brought about several thoughts in his ex-teenager mind, thoughts about acts that are illegal in all civilised countries.
Yes, he was thinking of using her as a suicide bomb to blow up the assembly ... All because he was stuck in traffic for hours due to a political meeting . My friend is full of shit really. An air-strike is way more effective than a suicide bomb.

Losing touch with humanity

Life is a journey through hope, pain, pleasure, ecstasy, fear, monotony- a series of seemingly unrelated events unfolding , which mathematicians might classify as a set of infinite random variables, a number of possibilities and probability functions .

After all, what is the equation of good karma? How can we quantify it?

Of course, if you believe in karma, i.e. the idea that one’s thoughts and actions determine the course and nature of future events, then the randomness of events reduces to an illusion and you realise that no matter how insignificant or painful it might be, there is a reason for everything. Yes, it’s natural to not see this fact, to be ignorant of one’s own destiny being moulded around each moment of one’s existence, to be blind to the scenes scripted by one’s own hand, being played out on the stage called the world.

It’s so easy to dismiss simple coincidences without too much thought.
You meet someone new, say in college or at the workplace, and after a few minutes of conversation, realise that the two of you live not far from each other and have a few common friends too. Big deal?Maybe, maybe not. After all, since the two of you stay in the same city, your living in the same locality, attending the same college, working at the same office or having a few friends in common aren’t really earth-shattering events.

What about coincidences that may be a little harder to explain in logical terms? For example, you’re cleaning out your room and chance upon an old album, which was forgotten for years .You open it and a young boy, maybe twenty years younger smiles back at you-it’s you, with friends who swore they’d stay together but eventually went their own separate ways. An hour later, you decide to look them up but as usual, the task gets put off till ’tomorrow' and a few days later you’re busy with your life again, when the phone rings. It’s your long-forgotten best friend – the face in the album now has a voice.

“What a coincidence!”, you exclaim excitedly.

Is it really? Would he have called had you not come across that album a few days ago?

Faith, in the idea that a higher power exists and governs the world, fuelled only by the actions of the souls it governs – a karmic feedback system.
Try questioning the faith of people  – like the man whose otherwise perfectly functional car broke down on the way to work, thereby delaying his arrival at the office in the WTC, New York, on the morning of Sep. 11,2001, even as his co-workers arrived at the usual 8:30- 8:45 a.m.
A young girl, nine years old maybe, killed while crossing the road, by a junkie who decided that red lights aren’t for him. Wrong place, wrong time. But the question still echoes in silence – Why?

The idea of karma is an internal aspect of Hinduism and has been embedded in the Indian psyche since ancient times. The cycle of life and death, past lives and reincarnation, the idea of one being responsible for one’s own destiny are implied by the idea of karma itself.

This fits in beautifully with the idea of karma and reaffirms the notion that nothing is a coincidence. Even the existence of life on earth in its present form is poised on a delicate balance of mathematical precision.
It’s easy to see that our physical world is far too symmetrical and precise in its construction to be a coincidence. It’s the same with the spiritual world; only in this case, no observations and measurements exist to give us a clearly defined view.

So here we are, billions of souls, journeying along our respective paths, not realising that ever so often, they cross and merge and separate, but never do they completely detach from each other. We are in this together, this cosmic puppet show-but the script written by our own. The wars, religious conflicts, political games and other divisive instruments becomes starkly clear when we realise that we are bound together by quantities as fundamental as time and space.

Why then, do we insist on drifting apart and losing touch with humanity?

2011 is out ....2012 is in ...

An optimist stays up until midnight to see the new year in. A pessimist stays up to make sure the old year leaves.
Many pessimists (like me) look forward to the new year for a new start on old habits.
Welcome 2012.. lets see what you've got in addition to what 2011 or 2010 or all the old years did not !!!


Wish you a great 2012 ahead !

Read at your own risk ..

...I am in a foul mood today...

I had a terrible terrible night….awake for most part, tossing and turning, this way and that. I blame it on my monthly insomnia, where once in a month, for no particular reason, I just cannot sleep. I tried everything…increased the fan speed, decreased the fan speed, chucked my blanket for a lighter sheet, held the phone, held myself, read for a while, sang songs in the head, thought pleasant thoughts, and all I remember from the night is staring at the clock, watching the seconds hand go round and round, slow as ever.

The last I remember is watching it turn 5 AM and I think I finally caught a few winks before I woke up in the morning. And here I am, sitting in office, sleepy as hell, feeling tired and most importantly feeling low.

I am sick of everything. I am so so restless.

A simple Indian wedding..

My cousin was in Hyd a particular weekend. He wooed me into attend a random wedding and being totally jobless that weekend and since the wedding was at my fav town , I obliged ( grrr.. regrets) . Typical Indian connection like “aunt’s son’s brother-in-law’s something ki shaadi”. Dude, my cousin has some capacity to socialize!

Of course he brought more food stuff to eat that I was happily bragging about and sharing with friends.

Anyhow, so the two of us, the Boy (why do only boy-cousins ask me to accompany for weddings.. ptch ptch )and me, ended up driving to Warangal for the wedding. Of course being the enthu cutlet the boy is, we reached early. Before anyone else. No girl’s side and no boy’s side. The chairs in the garden were still upside down and the band wallahs were lazing around on the grass in their baniyans. You can imagine! 

The boy looked at me sympathetically, and told me I should hang out someplace and be back in about two hours, just to meet the bride and groom. And of course he was totally comfortable there, having spotted someone we’re supposedly related to, and of course I haven’t met, ever in my life. Before I knew it, random kids were calling him anna,bhayya and touching his feet and I was lost. The boy? Lesser said, the better. I ran away to a corner and called all friends in warangal to see where we could go. The only friend I know who lives there was busy so I was on my own.

And so I landed up at some Plaza and squealed in delight spotting a nice restaurant there. And then the realization. Just as I walked in. Dressed up in “I –am-attending-a-wedding “attire, with matching footwear ( borrowed from the boy..), I looked quite silly. And the Sholapur chappal clicking on the hotel’s marble floors were not helping!

Any how, so I settled in for a beer. The waiter looked quite concerned, and asked me if we wanted to be seated “upstairs” if I wasn’t comfortable! *rolls eyes*

And that’s that. I went to pick him up, ate a hurried dinner, congratulated the people in question and left. Now that I think about it, I still don’t know the names of the bride and groom.

We were from the bride’s side, in case you’re wondering!


P.S: you must have heard of bachelor parties before wedding days.. but I havenumerouse hilarious experiences of bachelor parties on wedding days where the groom wasn’t allowed to go marry.. :P
Will put that up soon..

No communication is better than bad communication…

…. But … Let’s talk!

I hate the formal pleasantries in general discussions but sometimes I feel the hunger for a conversation. Interaction. Communication. Being in touch beyond the customary “How are you? All good?”..you know what I am saying..

And I notice it every time... How a face to face conversation with a friend is nicer than one on the phone. How a phone conversation is nicer than a text. How a chat on Gtalk is nicer than one on Twitter…you get the drift?

I have finally come to terms with the fact that Facebook, for instance is NOT a place to “keep in touch” with friends. It’s a social network, best to share interesting links with people from all walks of life. Seeing someone’s vacation pictures and liking someone’s status updates is NOT being friends. Being in touch means so much more. If we stopped making the effort of picking up the phone and actually talking, how much do we know really?

Gifts or Cash or Cash-gifts ?

…. the holiday season is back at its full swing in North America.

As far as I can remember, Amul chocolates were the first ones to cash in on the whole "gift for someone you love" idea in India, much before Archies and Hallmark came about and created a thousand reasons to buy cards, pendants, cassettes and a whole lot  of gift items.

I was considered one of the uncool people in school, I didn't believe in Valentine's Day. According to the Valentine's Day myth, if you 'proposed' someone, they had to say yes. The idea had terrified me, more so because a) I didn't have that many suitors and b) I was rather shy then (!). After much resistance I decided it was worth the effort of making a Valentine's Day card... Only to learn I was still uncool because who wanted a hand-made card? Archies had much better options. So I scraped money to buy one only to be told there was a Rose Day and a Chocolate Day card -- and a rose and chocolate respectively -- to be bought as well...

One terrible Friday ...

…it was raining ..oh wait.. pouring … what the heck!!!!


It genuinely was a terrible Friday. Not in this life had I ever thought I’d see a day like this. I was munching on a samosa in office looking at the rain and commenting on its ferocity… when my colleague called us and asked where we were. I told him we were in office and he lost it. He was frantic when he said, that the weather was giving way and we should rush home before it really started pouring.


Oh here it is, we thought, at least once every year, Hyderabad witnesses that day when naalahs give way and you end up taking hours to reach home, wading through knee deep water.

Life and Marriage- Love is wrong, parents are right?

Life and Marriage are similar in many ways. A) there are no guarantees in either. B)  there are no fixed rules for living a good life or a ‘making’ a good marriage that applies to all people. Then there’s the bit about both life and marriages throwing up surprises. Sometimes,  nasty ones. It started two weeks back with an email from a reader in the US and as one was looking through  the contents a colleague announced, “Someone left a strange comment on one of the tech stories” and ‘pinged’ me the comment. It was disturbing.

“Hi, I am from Bangalore and have been in love with a girl from Mysore for the last two years. She is a Punjabi and her parents are forcefully trying to marry her off to another man. I spoke to her father about letting us marry; he has refused and threatens murder. She is ready to leave her family and marry me but we are scared: What if her father kills us?” Even as one thought of possible suggestions for the distraught couple, a recently heartbroken friend called.

Who Will Cry When You Die?

Coming soon ..