The Sentinel

Not the crappy Michael Douglas film but a brilliant short story by Arthur C. Clarke which was later adapted into an epic movie called 2001: A Space Odyssey by Stanley fucking Kubrick. The very movie I got the header image for this blog from.
Read it here.

Dinner With Friends: My name is Wiseguy

9:00 pm
Dinner, with friends.

9:07 pm
AG sits across me but I'd prefer he sat somewhere else so that XY would sit across me and I could look at her instead.

9:25 pm
There are nine conversations happening between eight people, I'm in two of those, only one of these is going two ways but it's only about deciding what to order, AG is not a part of any of the nine. And there are awkward silences interrupted by more scattered, simultaneous conversations.

9:45 pm
My food's not here yet, the talk's all about work and gossip, I'm bored. So is AG by the looks of it.

9:47 pm
Me: AG..

AG: Yeah?

Me: ......

AG smiles, passes his hand through his hair shyly.

9:50 pm

Me: AG

AG: C!

Me: ........

AG smiles, he's enjoying this. I must play it cool.

9:53 pm

Me: AG

AG: .......

Me: AG

AG: What?

Me: ..........

I sense a little irritation. Are we ready? Must test.

9:54 pm

Me: AG

AG replies with a cold stare. Yep, we're ready. All systems go.

9:55 pm

Me: AG!

AG: Fuuuuuuck! Kya hai bey?!

Me: AG, OG, lo ji, suno ji,
main hoon manmouji, 

karta hoon main jo woh tum bhi karo ji, 

one two ka four

four two ka one!

My name is Ga'-an*

My name is Ga'-an

sau kilo ka vazan,

mera naam hai Ga'-an

AG: FML

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

More Dinner With Friends

*The G in AG rhymes with Lakhan. Not exactly though but the sound's pretty much similar.

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Make Music, Not Powerpoints

This is what I've spent a lot of my time at work playing with. Months, definitely.

I make arrangements which make me feel like I'm Daft Punk. Or a guy who makes elevator music or the music you hear in retail spaces.

Here's the ToneMatrix created by André Michelle, from his laboratory of genius inventions. Hope you create beautiful music with this.

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Feel Lucky Punk?

A year and a few months ago, I started the cricket blog. I had a vague idea of what I'd be writing there; the first few posts there show me going ahead although not in one direction all the time.
Friends wouldn't visit despite all the posting on FB, there's only so much cricket a non-fan can take. So the idea was to lure poor suckers to the site.
I had this great idea about using this scene from a movie I love, Dirty Harry.
I searched and I downloaded this image:

That wire in the background sure looks ugly. So I had to remove it. Thanks to my limited Photoshop skills, the building facade behind the wire which I would've had to patch up would've looked pretty bad as well. So the building had to go. I magnified the image till I could see warts and all, then went about selecting and erasing little corridors around Harry Callahan's frame. Select. Erase. Repeat. Ah, all cleared. Now just select a whole bunch of the building together and delete it.
Since there's no backdrop, I didn't see the need for the colour. Too gaudy that colour on a white background. Desaturate. Adjust contrast till it can pass off for stylish.
I put a nonsensical blog post together but couldn't work the immortal line into the body. The 'feel lucky, Punk?' question. So I added that to the image. And I added a 'Well... do ya?' for good measure to reinforce that question. In bold, stencil font. To look bad ass. Hey presto this image:

I searched a combination of related keywords, alternate versions of the dialogue, etc to find that no one had done this version of that Clint Eastwood image ever. My retelling was completely new, original. When you consider the size of the Internet and the amount of data present, putting something old in a way that's never been done before feels good.
Do you feel lucky punk is the name of the image I created and it's the same in the meta tags of the image. I got quite a lot of hits thanks to that image, very crucial to the ego at that fledgling stage that it brought visitors to the blog.
It did well for itself, it appeared on page one of Google Images for Do You Feel Lucky Punk, it was the first result on page one at a point, I'm not kidding. Then it spread. Other much more frequently updated blogs used the image, their greater frequency automatically rating the image they've used higher. And they didn't simply link to the image. They went to the trouble of saving a copy and re-uploading that to their own blog like any blogger would.
 The same license I had to take an image from a movie and turn it into a new piece of content is the license bloggers have to use the image off my blog. To add to that, my domain mapping with WordPress expired sometime around June this year and due to a combination of events, I couldn't renew it.
The links for fckingblog.com all became invalid, now having been replaced by fckingblog.wordpress.com. The image whenever it showed up in Google Images would have led to a broken URL, leading to unfavourable ratings on the search ranking. But other images from around the same time Do You Feel Lucky was posted still kept bringing in visitors. I have no idea how to salvage this image in that situation. From then the race was lost, the clones took over. I searched images for do you feel lucky punk and this very image came up on three different blogs (cropped version in the third one), I'm on page four of the results but I'm yet to see a thumbnail with the link to my blog under it.
I've had other images bringing me in traffic and one relatively recently posted image is very close to overtaking Do You Feel Lucky on the all time list. I hope it does feel lucky because I thought it deserved to have it's story told.

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Dinner With Friends: Chicken where it shouldn't be (Little NSFW)

A night in a different city, on a dinner with friends. A city I'm in on a work trip, just for a day, so this dinner is pretty much the only time I can spend catching up with friends.
We decide on a place where we can eat and talk. Eat eat, Talk talk and also Afford afford. Sad thing we couldn't Drink drink or even just drink.
It's all looking good and it tastes fine but then wait a minute, what's this? The friends inform me the paneer is normally rubbery. Haha, guys but this one's a bit too much.... hold on.. can't be.. is this.. yes it is..*spittle flying.. it's CHICKEN! What. The. Fuck!

Anonymity Breeds Contempt - NYTimes.com

A good read this: Online, Anonymity Breeds Contempt - NYTimes.com

One of the many, many, many articles you find on this topic, especially on sites like WSJ, NYT and the Guardian etc where the Internet is still thought of as a big confounding monster while Indian sites focus on the outrage on day to day issues.

I agree that making people sign in/verify an identity would make them more responsible in their comments but it's not a rule that applies everywhere. It's that very anonymity that also sees some people express strong thoughts, share stories which they wouldn't share otherwise. Heck, people will help people or at least take that first step towards helping others anonymously but not in the view of others.

Do the negatives posed by trolls outweigh the positives? Leave a comment. Gangbanger, I'm looking at you.

*******

Originally posted this on BCC! by mistake because I didn't select which blog I wanted to post it to on Blogger from the tiny dropdown box in the top corner where I would've totally seen it. Thank you Google Chrome's Blogger Extension, you take me three steps ahead and two steps back.

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My Jaipur Jaunt

I went to the Pink City. I saw the sunrise from above the clouds, the brilliant radiance of the sun bursting out over a carpet of clouds made me think the word awesome is thrown around too much and for far too little nowadays.

The one I saw was a thousand times better

I met friends. I met more friends. I saw where they came from, their families, caught up with their news and now know them a lot more. I ate kachoris. I saw camels. Lots of camels.

I wore a suit. I agreed to be photographed wearing a suit. I danced in a baraat. After discovering it was the wrong baraat, I joined another one, upon confirming that this was the one I was supposed to dance in, I danced in this baraat.

I blessed a couple, well, wished them actually. I was thinking of stuff to say and all I could think of were sports cheers which could have been a bit inappropriate so I just ended up playing it safe, congratulating the groom and wishing them a happily married life together. I ate surprisingly little considering it was an all-vegetarian buffet, I never let chances like these go by, I didn't even have ice cream. I couldn't get myself to drink much, I realized that sometimes you just shouldn't.

I suffered from frostbutt. It's not as bad ass frostbite butt it hurt. Hehehe.

I went to a temple, that was a serious affair, no kidding around. I saw more camels, after all I was near the frickin desert.

I did have one meal of the sort I was hoping for: large amounts of non spicy dhaba food followed by lassi, it filled me like few meals ever have.

I woke up early all by myself for the first time in months. I didn't get a window seat again. I chose to look out of the window instead of watching a movie despite the view not being as great as the one on the onward journey (late sun rise).

I tripped and made a fool out of myself and shrugged it off and walked out all the same.

I came home.

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The corpse stays in the picture - Dan McCoy

The corpse stays in the picture. - By Dan McCoy - Slate Magazine
An undead actor shares a lifetime of delicious show business anecdotes.
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Imitation, flattery and self deprecation

Lasith Malinga got a taste of his own medicine today, or so to speak, when his Mumbai Indians team-mate Harbhajan Singh imitated his action while bowling against him during a dull passage of play on day four of the third test between India and Sri Lanka.

Malinga was batting on 59, having added 144 runs for the eighth wicket with triple centurion Thilana Samaraweera and it did not seem that the Indians would get a breakthrough any soon when Harbhajan Singh decided to bowl in Malinga's unique round arm slinging style. The off spinner who already had two wickets in the innings went past his usual run up spot in the 124 over of Lanka's first innings in the third session of the day.

He began in true Malinga style, first, he kissed the ball, ran in over the wicket with his right hand mimicking the action of a piston elbow downwards, did the small skiddy jump to give him width to accommodate the uncoiling of his right arm and then launched the ball towards the maker of this unique action himself. Malinga, wide eyed and almost in peals of laughter, swung and missed completely, fooled by the lack of pace on the ball, he saw it crash into the base of middle and leg stump.

Not only was it a surprise that Harbhajan managed to send down a legal delivery, he also took a wicket, something he hasn't done much of late with his own flapping arm meets butterfly stroke action.
At the press conference Harbhajan remarked, "I imitated his bowling and got a wicket, he imitated my batting and got out".

Sri Lanka declared immediately with their score reading 730/9 in reply to India's first innings score of 501.
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Zombies were people once

1

The world is not what it used to be, but it is much better than it had once threatened to become. As if the three world wars before it had not been enough the outbreak seemed intent on changing life as we knew it the most. It was also the one that succeeded the most, the state the third war left the world in was a perfect one for it to wreak havoc.

It succeeded because it wore no uniform, it knew nothing of the boundaries men drew, it held nothing sacred, not the air, the water, not the life that grew. It reached into our homes and destroyed the minds of our young, destroying the very future we had so vainly fought for.

That it was yet another catastrophe which some of us managed to escape and eventually, partially control has proved to be a tragic loss in victory. We must live with what we did to survive, all that which went against everything we stood for as a evolved society, all principles consigned to the fires we set.

Having paid such a price, we still have not been able to defeat the foe, we are not even close to understanding it completely. Collectively, we try not to think of what will happen when the threat overcomes the temporary barriers we have set up, more as an assurance for ourselves than anything else. But the fear remains in our hearts. Even now, when one of us is careless, or is plainly unfortunate to have circumstances conspire against them so that they take ill, we have no solution but to let go. And make sure.

It is therefore, an indication of how much we deserve such a fate when men use it to gain an advantage or vengeance. The over-simplistic, fear induced, short term policies in place and the prevailing paranoia only helped. You could accuse the decision makers of being opportunistic themselves but for a little part of you that envied them and the position they were in. When you don't know which day will be your last, you do want to live each as your last, deny yourself nothing even when all you want is everything.

Despite having seen the relentless evil of the disease, some still thought of how they could use it for their own benefits. You just needed to point a finger and make noise, the mob did the lynching.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++
This is the first part of what could be a longer story. Could. Inspired a bit by District 9. More soon.
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I paid 700 bucks to watch it rain, so did 50,000 others

I wrote a post on the Bored Cricket Crazy Indians blog a while ago, before the India vs Australia series started. The gist of it was that I was happy that a lot the play in the tests and two of the three ODIs had been scheduled on weekends so an office-goer like me can catch a lot of it. Without being late for work all the time like I was during the India tour of South Africa or the India's tour of Sri Lanka earlier this year.

But that's not what this post is about it.

It's about the first ODI in Kochi, this past Sunday. It was rained out. It rained two days before the match and everyone was skeptical. The day before the match however saw good weather with the sun shining through the day as local boy Achettup of SoaL let us know on twitter. The day of the match came and I got up early in the morning, hoping my trump card of the day David Warner would run Shane Watson out before wasting a lot of balls for a poor score and that Australia would crash to defeat and the new look Indian team would send out a warning before the World Cup.

But it rained.

Sadanand Dhume: Pakistan: Friend or Foe? - WSJ.com

From here: Sadanand Dhume: Pakistan: Friend or Foe? - WSJ.com

Perhaps the most surprising thing about the so-called Afghanistan war logs released by WikiLeaks Sunday is our continued capacity to be shocked.

But the detail gives the leaked documents their punch. Even if some of their gaudier revelations—say a plot to sell American troops poisoned alcohol, or to assassinate Afghan officials with a bomb disguised as a gold Quran—need to be taken with a grain of salt, they nonetheless create a bleak picture of life on the ground for American troops.That the war isn't going as well as advertised is already painfully evident—last week alone, the Taliban kidnapped two American sailors and killed five soldiers. Allegations of Pakistani double-dealing—of accepting a torrent of American dollars with one hand while arming and sheltering the Taliban with the other—are hardly new. Nor are revelations that the country's Directorate of Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) has apparently perfected its own version of don't ask, don't tell. Don't ask your clandestine operatives too many questions about their ties with Islamist militants, and don't tell the Americans more than the minimum required to keep the aid faucet open.

Mark Twain's "Concerning the 'Interview.'"

From here.

No one likes to be interviewed, and yet no one likes to say no; for interviewers are courteous and gentle-mannered, even when they come to destroy. I must not be understood to mean that they ever come consciously to destroy or are aware afterward that they have destroyed; no, I think their attitude is more that of the cyclone, which comes with the gracious purpose of cooling off a sweltering village, and is not aware, afterward, that it has done that village anything but a favor. The interviewer scatters you all over creation, but he does not conceive that you can look upon that as a disadvantage. People who blame a cyclone, do it because they do not reflect that compact masses are not a cyclone's idea of symmetry. People who find fault with the interviewer, do it because they do not reflect that he is but a cyclone, after all, though disguised in the image of God, like the rest of us; that he is not conscious of harm even when he is dusting a continent with your remains, but only thinks he is making things pleasant for you; and that therefore the just way to judge him is by his intentions, not his works.

The Interview was not a happy invention. It is perhaps the poorest of all ways of getting at what is in a man. In the first place, the interviewer is the reverse of an inspiration, because you are afraid of him.

Theodore Dalrymple on Self-Esteem vs. Self-Respect

With the coyness of someone revealing a bizarre sexual taste, my patients would often say to me, "Doctor, I think I'm suffering from low self-esteem." This, they believed, was at the root of their problem, whatever it was, for there is hardly any undesirable behavior or experience that has not been attributed, in the press and on the air, in books and in private conversations, to low self-esteem, from eating too much to mass murder.

Self-esteem is, of course, a term in the modern lexicon of psychobabble, and psychobabble is itself the verbal expression of self-absorption without self-examination. The former is a pleasurable vice, the latter a painful discipline. An accomplished psychobabbler can talk for hours about himself without revealing anything.
Insofar as self-esteem has a meaning, it is the appreciation of one's own worth and importance. That it is a concept of some cultural resonance is demonstrated by the fact that an Internet search I conducted brought up 14,500,000 sites, only slightly fewer than the U.S. Constitution and four times as many as "fortitude."
When people speak of their low self-esteem, they imply two things: first, that it is a physiological fact, rather like low hemoglobin, and second, that they have a right to more of it. What they seek, if you like, is a transfusion of self-esteem, given (curiously enough) by others; and once they have it, the quality of their lives will improve as the night succeeds the day. For the record, I never had a patient who complained of having too much self-esteem, and who therefore asked for a reduction. Self-esteem, it appears, is like money or health: you can't have too much of it.
Self-esteemists, if I may so call those who are concerned with the levels of their own self-esteem, believe that it is something to which they have a right. If they don't have self-esteem in sufficient quantity to bring about a perfectly happy life, their fundamental rights are being violated. They feel aggrieved and let down by others rather than by themselves; they ascribe their lack of rightful self-esteem to the carping, and unjustified, criticism of parents, teachers, spouses, and colleagues.

Shahid Afridi: Slasher

*I once had a nightmare in which Shahid Afridi was a knife-wielding psychotic serial killer with a laugh that could curdle milk still in the udders of a cow. It was a fucking psychotic dream to have, I was recovering from a fever and India had managed to lose some stupid Kitply Cup to a very unorganized Pakistan team just recently. I think it must have had something to do with that. Most probably it had something to do with one of his celebrations upon taking a wicket for the Deccan Chargers in the inaugural IPL where he had that madman smile on display.

"The serene little coastal town where dream me was studying was filled with fear of the devil who had suddenly decided to let loose on their town.

Dinner with friends: Descent to drinking

So where exactly do you stay in that suburb, I live around the same area...and how's your roommate, you stay with him only no?
I live a little far out.. but it's not that isolated. In fact, the roommate and I saw you the other day..
Where?
On that road
Why didn't you say hi?
We were in a bus so...
*sheesh
I know, I didn't see you actually but roommate did and he was like, "Isn't that her?" and then I looked and it was indeed you and I was like, (*crackle)"Copy that, roommate. Visual ID matches profile of Name, Your"(*more crackle)
......(*crickets chirping)
It seemed funny at that time. We were laughing and people in the bus were looking at us and then roommate said, "We should have waved", and I said (*crackle)"Copy that,(*closing crackle) yeah we should've. So many things in life I regret not having done" and then he was like "Yeah, man. I'm paying shit loads for that sexy class that I never fucking go for" and then we just kinda sad for a while till we saw the bar and suddenly we just knew what we had to do to be happy and then we bought some shit we needed to get and then drank like mad and then went home and ate. But after a while it got boring so we went back to the bar and drank a lot more. (*Dual purpose pause: reflective and to catch breath) I now have a bad feeling about how I have so many stories of what I did which start with different stuff and all end up with me drinking a lot.
Err, urm.. yeah. I think I should leave now.
Oh..ok, bye. Waiter, drinks menu please.


I like imagining stories which are about one man's journey of self destruction.

The Weaver, the Princess and Goldman Sachs - Yahoo! India

The Weaver, the Princess and Goldman Sachs - Yahoo! India

It's late but I remembered this when I was having a conversation with my friend about taking losses and working up to such a size that your failure is tied to the failure of others.

In other news, I can take on 29 Justin Biebers in a fight. It's true, it's true.

Created by Oatmeal

Synecdoche, New York

I finally managed to finish watching Synecdoche, NY last night. I've been trying to watch it since last week but could not watch more than half an hour or 45 minutes at a time. Important things like life came up and the movie had to wait.

It's a very weird movie, I'll have to watch it again at least twice to make sense of it. Charlie Kaufman's earlier work was easier to 'get'.

Being John Malkovich, Human Nature and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind were all much more direct and went somewhere as in you knew that there was a story, it had started, it was progressing and when it was coming to an end. S,NY just ambled along, getting unbearable at times and I kept expecting him to do something sooner. The trauma and the violence of the end of his parents was another shocking thing. Sent me on a guilt trip thinking whether I've been greedy. The distressed chronology didn't help either.

Synecdoche, New York (screenplay)

I'll have to read up more on this because it's irritating that I finished a movie a good ten hours ago and it's still in my head.

Also, for some reason I keep typing Synechdiche.

Getting shitfaced on Mean Streets

I saw Mean Streets this weekend and it's a great movie. Martin Scorsese made better pictures later but the best part of his movies are the little sequences he makes which add that flavor to his movies. I saw some of the things that he used in Mean Streets which later went on to be his distinct signatures.

Sometimes they serve to establish something (like that tracking shot in Goodfellas where Henry first takes his girl to the hangout) and sometimes just to entertain. I loved this one in which he shows Harvey Keitel getting wasted and having a good time. 36 years later, Dev D retried this sequence with good results but the original still owns!

Song: Rubber Biscuit by The Chips

Dinner With Friends: Revenge Saga

A group of friends are having dinner together; it's been a few years since college. In that time, some have made a lot of progress professionally (Oaers), some not so much (Slers).

Conversation's flowing, everyone's having a good time, when an Oaer talks about his job as a marketing man at a company. A Sler complains about not having that company's service close to where he lives despite their claims of being available everywhere. The Oaer jokingly puts the Sler down, tells him he ought to move to a better place. They all laugh about it and move on. Except for Mr. Sler.

From there, the movie turns into a dark, disturbing, bloody payback story.

I always had a flair for twists.

You can reach altitude with just aptitude and attitude. Parents, give latitude.

Every activity is a potential profession, and every talent has a reality show. Here’s a sample guide that may help parents spot their offspring’s future vocation.

Your child...

...ignores you when asked to do something (Flight crew)

...keeps interrupting when adults are talking (News anchor)

...stays up late and goes to school bleary-eyed (ipl player)

...insists on lighting the candles during a power cut (Social activist)

...beats up all the kids in the neighbourhood (Collection agent)

...wakes you up at night with inane requests (Call centre executive)

From here

Why I Do What I Do

I have decided to start a segment where I will answer questions about myself so that my millions of imaginary fans can understand their idol (Moorthy, geddit?) better.

Of course I will be making up the questions and the answers won't be serious so don't be upset if I happen to talk about the time I spent with yo momma, it's not true. Perhaps I should add a disclaimer to each of these posts.

I'm sure there are a lot of questions I can answer about me, I just have to think of them and then place one finger after another on the keyboard such that a coherent article is produced.

Till then, Adios!

Apple Launches New Product

Apple Inc. is developing new device for Maharashtra MLAs to take Oath in Marathi - It's called - ''iShappath''

A colleague came up with that. He comes up with 30 jokes a day, most are cringe-worthy at best. But once every 3 months, he comes up with dynamite like this. I tried to add one more joke in it to add a personal touch but I couldn't. It's a gem of an original.
(On a related note here's an article you should read. And this reference.)


I posted it on my Google Buzz feed (crediting him of course) and it was hit with all the pretty ladies and one dude. Here's proof:

I think you can make out that it was very popular and all the resharing carried my name to lands far and wide where people are now in awe of my wit.

This brilliant chapter of my life has inspired me to write a movie about me and my colleague. It begins with me making an important and impressive presentation at work. Here it is established that I'm a ruthless, shrewd, go getter in life with amazing business acumen and a brilliant sense of humor. My colleague asks a few questions which are very stupid but I answer each of them properly because deep down I'm kind and big hearted.

After the presentation, out of nowhere, he cracks this joke and all of us go crazy after hearing it. He just shrugs and takes the appreciation that comes his way. Then we forget about the joke. This shows that he is not an ambitious character. He is vague about what he wants and is content with whatever is handed to him despite having the potential to do more with his life.

The next day he makes it his Google Status but doesn't publicly share it on Google Buzz. I Ctrl+C, Ctrl+V it and post it on my Buzz feed (giving him credit obviously) where it becomes all the rage and by being reshared repeatedly, it finds its way to the inbox of people from all over the world. I've got a nice song in mind for this sequence with lots of very quick cuts.

Encouraged, I post it on my twitter but here the dark side of my personality takes over. I don't give him credit. It's a great success. Eventually, Sachin Tendulkar retweets me. Variants develop as people from all over the world start swearing in Marathi and make it a trending topic. The Shiv Sena and the MNS both want  to felicitate me and be 'on their side'. I use my power to broker a peace deal.

I write a book, do stand up shows, give inspirational talks and my company flourishes.

I am the fucken juggernaut by this time and I literally have to peel the girls off me when I go on the streets but I stay loyal to the girlfriend as is shown in a sequence in which Kristen Stewart unsuccessfully tries to seduce me at an after party.

But while all this happening, the colleague has gone mental. A gollumization has occurred and in all shots of him now onwards he will be pictured hunching in dark rooms, talking to himself, eating common pests and scheming a revenge plot. He feels I have wronged him, not given him his due (true) because I have always been jealous of him and hated him (untrue).
He thinks I'm a problem, he decides to fix the problem. From a bell tower. With a sniper rifle.

Now obviously I wouldn't want a movie starring me to end with me dying an abrupt death or a slow, emotional, tear jerking death. It would also be lame if the colleague decides to kill himself because men can live with shit they've done so long as it was
a) a crime of passion
b) only once
If they do it more than once, they accept themselves for what they are (a monster) and tell themselves that they would've understood or have done the same if they were in their shoes and have forgiven them.
Getting back. He manages to 'fix' the problem and as my sexy sexy wife (I'm traditional like that) weeps over my stunned, dying self... we see him making walking away. That's how it ends. With a big fuck you/fuck yeah depending on who you sympathize with. That's life bitches.
Fuck you if you think it's impossible, @shitmydadsays is being made into a CBS sitcom starring Captain Kirk William fucking Shatner himself so there.

Tiger Woods Grand Theft Auto

from an email forward:
Just went to Planet M looking for the game Grand Theft Auto. The salesgirl asked me to describe it to her. I said its about a black man driving around with an iron bar, crashing cars, fucking whores and evading police.

The bitch gave me Tiger Woods PGA tour 2010

The Most Insane Journey Ever

Today is the first anniversary of the most batshit crazy journey I've ever been on. I've wanted to write a post about it since last year so here it is.
The occasion: Sashtiabdhapoorthi of the senior Mr. Moorthy
The location: Thirukadaiyur Temple, Thirukadaiyur for reasons of tradition.

A post from the future - India's T20 WC Journey

14th June 2010
I found this post as a draft from September 19th, 2007 in my dashboard. This was a draft for the Conjunctivitis post that follows this one. I didn't even spell the word right the first time but I make the changes once I find out. 

I was wondering why I abandoned this post that night suddenly. It was about the good fun I had the previous weeks when I wore an eye patch to class, spoke like a pirate to everyone and pretended that I had a parrot on my shoulder while taking swigs out of my water bottle pretending it was rum.


So I found out what held me from writing this post, why I didn't get back on it for the next three years to write the post I should have written then. I thought it would be cool if I wrote it like I saw the future; only I didn't realize that only the draft will be dated September 2007, when I finally published it last week it duly noted June 2010 so that was a facepalm moment. Nevertheless, here it is.


19th September 2007
Tonight, India will revive their T20 World Cup campaign. Spectacularly, Yuvraj Singh will hit Stuart Broad for six sixes in an over as India post 218. My friend calls me from Lalit's (a bar with cable tv) and tells me I should be there. I follow the match on Cricinfo because of my ongoing prelims. England go on to make some 200 but it's just not enough. Tomorrow we meet South Africa who are unbeaten till now and chased down 200+ in the opening match of the tournament. Anticipating an ass-kicking, I decide not to go watch it.
20th September 2007
But tomorrow I say, "What the heck, it's India playing well in a World Cup!" and go to the bar. En route we meet juniors who tell us that Lalit won't have us because we sit for too long and don't order much. We go across the street to another bar. Free starters with every bottle of beer! That’s a dealmaker if you’re an out of town student. Should've found this place earlier. 

We watch India's batting, it seems to be going nowhere but then Rohit Sharma takes India to safety in his first international innings. We marvel at his batting. Then the first five South African wickets fall in a hurry with too little on the board. Justin Kemp is spectacularly run out, we marvel at Rohit Sharma's fielding. Forget winning this match, South Africa doesn't look like they'll make the minimum runs they need to qualify on the basis of NRR. Poor guys like they're gonna be eliminated after one loss despite having won every other match they played. Then we run back to the hostel to beat the deadline and rejoice our entry into the semi finals.
21st September 2007
The semi final is on the same day as the last prelim paper, a paper all of us from the hostel have decided to skip. Also a friend decides to take us out on a treat, his birthday treat was pending thanks to the aforementioned prelim exams. Plans are made to go get wasted but not totally wasted at a cheaper bar before heading on to the one with the TV.

All of us are excited by the possibilities of our chances in life and of the team's chances in the semis.  Pumped on hope, I decide to write the paper. I skip dinner to study. 
22nd September 2007
I wake up late, mug for 2 hours before going out to write the paper, I am the only one from the hostel and one of the only 10 people from class sitting for the exam. Then I go over to a friends place where we work on proposal for a freelance project we intend to take up during the Diwali break. I have not eaten all day.

I catch up with my friends just as they're about to leave for the cheaper bar (Gokul). One of them borrows the only belt I have. Since we're already on the way I decide against going to the hostel and borrowing one from someone else. Fuck fashion.

 Everyones happy and pumped up, even the waiters. The booze arrives immediately, whiskey for some and beers for the rest. We wait for the starters and the mixes. It was too good to be true. I say fuck it and start doing whiskey shots. Second activity done alone that day. One evil friend cheers me on till I down a half in shots. Then the soda arrives with the chakna and the rest of my friends orders. Birthday boy has extinguished the whiskey budget so now I must settle for beer. The words headrush and brainfreeze cannot touch with a long pole euphemisms for what I felt after mixing those two.

By the time we're on our way to Panchratna of cable tv, free starters with beer & allows young people to sit for long hours without ordering much fame, I'm smashed. So's a friend. We're in different cabs but seek each other out every time we stop at a signal to slap each other. Saved from being ran over by the comparatively sober ones.

70% of the hostel junta is already at Panchratna. High fives all around. Classmates ask me how my paper went. They joke till this day of the hearty, slurred replies I gave then.

Luckily we had a teetotaler from the group go there much in advance to reserve the biggest table he could find which had a good view of the tv. He does what he is told.

The match begins. The hothead of the group who unfortunately also happens to be the beefiest is getting buzzed when he spots a white guy in the bar. The white guy is on the way to the loo when he stops him and asks him if he's Australian. He says fuck the Aussies I'm English. Hothead breaks out into a smile because we've already pummeled the English.

Sehwag goes out pretty early. So does my liver. I very bravely make my way to the loo when my pant falls down. Thankfully most eyes were on the match, I recover quickly and by now am escorted to the loo. Two friends facilitate the retching, then one takes me back to the hostel.

23rd September 2007
I'm up at 5 because I DON'T KNOW THE FUCKING RESULT! I grab my roomie's phone from his hands (he sleeps with it in his hand, in an embryo position, he's 5'5" and a 100kgs, it's fucken weird) and connected it to the laptop and connected to Cricinfo. HALLELUJAH!

God bless you whoever you are Joginder Sharma!

Then I go for that proposal I told you about. It was for the launch of a restaurant so the owner invited us to the tasting. After a fucken awesome multiple course lunch, we make the presentation. He loves it but thinks we're quoting too much. We agree to take some time to decide. He never called after that. That was the last time I tasted Kashmiri cuisine. Not missing it though, what's up with eating lotus stems people?


The finals are on a Monday afternoon. The hostel general secretary and the common room secretary run pillar to post getting quotations, permissions and all that jazz to set up cable for an evening in the common room. We've got DD in the common room and all India ODI matches are to be screened on DD according to a government order. But a T20 match is not the same as a ODI match, DD should have the terminology changed to LOI so that T20s fall under the category. Meanwhile, an emergency meeting is held where all the hostelites unanimously agree to pay a hundred bucks each to set up cable just for a day.
24th September 2007
Everything falls in place half an hour before the match is to start.

Public pooper, a guy from the hostel cheers Pakistan very vocally and draws the wrath a lot of people. We learn that he's their unlucky charm, they fail miserably when he supports them. We back off him and yell at the tv instead. College guys who wouldn't have made it home on time sneak into the hostel. The warden doesn't shoo them away and let's them watch with everyone else.

People try to outdo the witticisms as the match begins. Sehwag is out with an injury. Yusuf Pathan, unknown quantity earns our respect first with the near run out then with the six in the first over. We cheer all the big hitters while Gambhir silently makes runs at the other end. Uthappa goes early, Yuvraj is planned well against, he goes early, so does Dhoni. Rohit Sharma gets a few runs in the end to take us to a respectable score.

What a start RP gives us, but it's only Hafeez not the dangerous Imran Nazir thats gone. Nazir takes apart Sreesanth. Then Pakistan consolidate when suddenly, Uthappa runs out Nazir. But they again consolidate, For a while, Then a wicket falls and soon another as Shahid Afridi walks in. Irfan Pathan, sends him back almost immediately. Uproar. Bedlam.

But this Misbah guy is still there. The equation seems out of reach then. One over later it isn't. Another bad over could totally fucking turn this match. The bad over comes as if on cue, Sreesanth gets hammered by their fucking bowler. But Appam has the last laugh when he gets him out with the last ball of the over.
Wickets have fallen but it's getting too close for comfort.

RP bowls a tight penultimate over and gets a wicket but concedes a four off the last ball. Some 13-14 needed off the last over and it's Joginder fuckin Sharma who comes on.
WC 2003 Final reminders as he sprays it all over the place and gets hit for a six on the second ball. Just some 6 required with 4 balls to go. Then Misbah lifts the mood of the wrong nation. b Joginder c Sreesanth. Champions by 5 runs. Shoaib Malik gets called a lot of shit for apologizing to all the Muslims all over the world. Bharat ki shaan Irfan Pathan is man of the match. Suck on that, Shoaib! There's jumping (I jumped), high fives (I high fived), yelling (truly guttural screams of pleasure) and hugging (I dodged ones which came my way) in the common room. 
It's time to go celebrate! Hit a bar! Drink like mad! 
We tell the bartenders we're related to Rohit Sharma. Doesn't work but who cares, we are the champions. Marine Drive is one big party zone.
25th September 2007
The next day is a dream. I love reading all the newspapers I can get my hands the day after a good win. I spend the whole afternoon after class in the common room going through every article about the win in every English daily. I even try going through the Hindi and Marathi papers but abandoned he idea to play TT.
26th September 2007
It's raining slightly and lectures have been cancelled. My sister calls to ask if I'll be going to see the open top bus parade. So does a professor. Who knows when they will win something again I think and decide to go.

Prelims for the other folks have started so details of where we meet are smsed. We go take up position right on the flyover at Marine Drive, fought off photographers who wanted to set up equipment there. Pros should have come earlier. There’s a slight drizzle and the sea’s choppy but the place fills up. Down below are huge crowds on both sides of the road, the flyover is choc-a-bloc. People who’ve left someone watching over their shops, people on an indefinite break from their offices, people stuck because the traffic wasn’t moving and college kids from everywhere. Young teachers get their nursery school children and ask us if we’d be kind enough to move and not swear in front of the children. We give them two spots, ask em to keep rotating the kids and tell em to cover the fucking ears of the fucking kids of they don’t want them to hear the fucking swearing.

K and the two secretaries join us and they wonder if it would be a better idea to go to the stadium instead. They wonder. K, as always, is hyper. The dude weaves his way to the stadium through the rain, through the thousands of people everywhere, through the stadium security and back in 45 minutes. His inputs are no good, we still can’t decide which place is better to see the team so we decide to stay put.

Photographers have managed to wiggle into good spots. They’re prepared for hurricanes, with their tripods, fastening cables, thick fucken rain protection stuff for the cameras and all. People go past in jeeps, playing loud music and waving flags while the crowds try to see if they’re famous folks. We’ve been on the bridge, in the rain for an hour and a half now. Then we see the colour breakout at Girgaum Chowpatty from our vantage point.

We see it inching forward and suddenly it’s not drizzling anymore. In half an hour the procession is close enough for us to differentiate between the tiny figures partying on it.
First come the two-three layers of security. The irritating song playing stereo system on wheels is next, a motorcade follows that and finally we have the team in the open top bus. Followed by more layers of security courtesy the various organizations which make up our many lines of defence.

Yuvraj was the first person we could recognize, dancing a stupid dance and having fun. Everyone looked fucken tired but Yuvraj, Sreesanth and Uthappa were the only guys dancing. We could make out Dinesh Karthik, the Pathans, Venkatesh Prasad, RP Singh, Sehwag and Dhoni on top and we yelled out to the captain to hold aloft the trophy. We were disappointed that he didn’t bring it out. Probably kept it downstairs to keep it safe from the rain.

One guy had the bright idea of taking up a spot on the other side of the flyover so that he could wave the team goodbye and hopefully see them for just that little bit longer. So we ran over when the bus passed under the bridge.

We yelled at the top of our lungs hoping someone would wave back. Sreesanth looked at us did the fist-on-heart solidarity thing; Irfan Pathan gave us a thumbs up, it made the waiting worth it. The bus moved on, the public continued. 


Would’ve been great to have pictures or videos to show for it but then that's what this post is for.

Blood Cellphones

A long, long time ago, I'd paid dramatic lip service to the issue of blood diamonds in only the second post of this blog.

Now here's an ad running on TV of late. I like the song.

Besides diamond mining, the other, rising scourge of Africa is undoubtedly Coltan mining. Coltan and derivatives, especially tantalite are important components in cell phones. Obviously, more people buy cell phones than diamonds. The lucrative demand and the willingness of companies to look the other way for better margins makes it the dangerous This is not a new finding, reports on this issue have been around since 2001 when the demand for computer chips and cell phones started to pick up again after the dot com bust.

I've been thinking of buying a phone since last month and have been tempted to buy a smart phone with which I can tweet and update my Facebook and this blog all on the go, maybe save up for a while and get an iPhone 4. Then you read stuff about workers committing suicides and blood cellphones.

So now when people ask me why I don't dump my piece of shit phone for a new one, instead of telling them the truth that I can't afford anything, I expound upon the suffering of people from Congo to China so that they can have their stupid fun on the go in Mumbai.

I am not a songwriter

YouTube - Yeh Tumhari Meri Baatein

Before this song came out, I had a very simplistic approach to songwriting. The plan used to be: take rhyming words, build a narrative around them, mix, repeat till you get atleast three stanzas and let auto tune take care of the rest.

Relax, I'm not about to start writing songs.

We are all Bored Cricket Crazy Indians

My post from BCC!. It's just a rant made up of Rage Against The Machine song names. And I named it after a Rage Against The Machine song. Click on the link:


Bored Cricket Crazy Indians (BCC!) - when you have nothing better to do: Bulls on Parade

I was thinking about the circus that accompanies the Indian team's premature exit from a tournament. But then I realized that the mess even applies to the administrative mud slinging matches which happen from time to time. Including the embarrassingly hilarious one playing out right now.

It begins with either of the following: A political rift, a selectorial gaffe or a genuinely shit performance.

Camps form, statements are made and sides are taken. There is attacking and barracking. The F**k You's and the Thank You's. Accusations, lawsuits, and 15000 page replies to them.

Some drop bombs, others rally around the family, with a pocketful of shells.

Meanwhile, the all important, cable subscribing fan is the one left without a face, in the darkness of greed. Victims of an in house drive by, they say jump, we say how high.

The voice of the voiceless, guerrilla radio of blogs crackle on but no one listens.

All that's left for them to do is to continue. To continue to rage against the machine.

Magic Bus Active Tees

Magic Bus Active Tees

Magic Bus is a well known not for profit organization working with under privileged children in India. Their vision is of letting every child exercise his/her right to play. Sport has a great power to impart life lessons, build character, teach and thus sport is a great agent of change, sport will give direction to the young minds of today.

Not for Profit organizations never have it easy bringing home the dough, Magic Bus identifies this problem and has decided that being a Social Enterprise is the way to go. They've gone for the classic way of making money using the internet: Selling T-Shirts.

The range is designed by FCUK and available for sale online at Zoomin.com.

If you've got change to spare, head over there. 

Services Will Resume Shortly

I beg forgiveness, plead pre-occupation and promise to return soon.