footloose

the world cup

2011-04-03T11:46:00.002+05:30

for two years, this blog has not seen a new post. returned today to remind myself of the day we discovered mahendra singh dhoni. what a man. what a captain. what a world cup.

summer love

2009-03-11T13:23:00.002+05:30

i spied a hint of yellow in my mom's grocery bag yesterday. instantly, all manner of electric pulses made their way to my brain and lit up an area described scientifically as mangothalamus -- are they? could they be? wait, what month is it? kind of early no? -- such thoughts criss crossed (remember kriss-kross & jump jump, any of u fellow fossils out there?) at the speed of light, arguably of course. anyhow, i demanded a clarification on the source of the yellowness and held my breath. the mater gave me a look, paused for effect and nodded.

ah yes, they've been duly sliced, bowled & forked. low-carb diet plans may as well hang themselves with the undying hope of being reincarnated along with the monsoons.

vocabulary

2008-12-04T14:44:00.005+05:30

i have a little buddy in the neighborhood. all of 15 months old, he drops by chez moi every so often to hang out with the family.

about a month ago, he spotted the moon while playing ball in the garden. he stood besotted by it for a while and then slowly, with great concentration and awe, repeated after my mom -- 'mmmmmoooooooonnnnn'.

a couple of days ago, he was in our living room when the tv was switched on. he turned to my parents and said -- 'booooooomb'.

if i had to bet my life on someone

2008-11-20T17:22:00.003+05:30

i would just have to pick mahendra singh dhoni, wouldn't i!

it's been that kind of a day

2008-11-12T22:13:00.001+05:30

you know, the kind where you look in your cupboard for a receipt and find a stack of old photographs? that kind of a day.

a sense of entitlement

2008-10-23T09:09:00.003+05:30

economic crisis happens => companies lose money => people lose jobs

that's just how things work. what baffles me is how the indian news media has been crying foul over job cuts, framing every instance of corporate cost-cutting as the sacrifice of poor employees by rich corporate honchos. what do these so called reporters understand about the financial position of these companies? what do they understand about cost structures, bankruptcy risks or long-term strategies governing management decisions? without any fact-based analysis, the media has been rather quick to convict managements of greed & incompetence.

case in point, the indian airline industry. kingfisher & jet airways have been losing tens of crores of rupees every day. in order to stem the bleeding, both have resorted to cost cutting measures. jet laid off several hundred employees while kingfisher announced pay cuts for its senior pilots. jet had to quickly retract its decision after its fired employees took to the streets & sought help from hoodlums like raj thackeray. and now kingfisher is facing flak for cutting pilot salaries. there was a guy on barkha dutt's show, screaming hoarse that vijay mallya should curb his extravagant lifestyle before punishing his poor pilots who have each spent 15 lakh rupees on their training programs. several questions for that genius and other people of such persuasion:

- did mallya coerce these pilots to spend all that money in training & to join his company?
- did mallya provide lifetime guarantees for all jobs & salaries at kingfisher?
- what exactly are mallya & goyal supposed to do with all the redundant workforce? take empty flights for sorties in the sky for the amusement of said geniuses?
- maybe mallya has a lot of personal wealth. why stop at paying people's salaries out of his own pocket? maybe he should make out his will to all kingfisher employees.

truth is, we're all on our own out there. we invest in our training & education because we expect a reasonable lifetime ROI out of it. but like all investments, this too comes with risks associated. it's no different from investing in the stock market. if a broker loses money on a kingfisher stock, does he ask mallya to pay for his losses? the broker invested in the stock knowing fully well that there's risk associated with his investment. he was prompted by his own greed for high returns. the pilots who joined kingfisher bet their training money on a booming airline industry. unfortunately, the industry slumped and it'll take longer for them to recover their investment. it's not like the airline industry is dead, it'll probably recover in due course & provide many more jobs & attractive salaries. but if the media & politicians insist on irrational employment practices, they'll simply end up breaking the industry's back.

tagged out of inertia

2008-10-19T11:49:00.003+05:30

poked, commented & phoned out of it by the vyas. so here goes.

my oldest memory: watching a movie out of a tiny square window, projector whirring in the background. kulfi & popcorn during the break & rabbit spotting on the way back home.

10 years ago: i bought my first computer.

my first thought this morning: what a strange dream that was. what was it?

you built a time capsule today what would it contain: a bar of chocolate, a bottle (um, make that a case) of the finest wine (can u imagine what a treasure that would be!), chai & coffee, seeds (of everything), candles, matches, a macbook with a wi-fi card and a ping pong ball.

this year: gives me a sense of deja vu.

14 years from now: stocks might be up.

done and dusted

2008-08-27T06:08:00.001+05:30

am hanging up my suits, folks. chaos, here i come!

august 15

2008-08-16T09:04:00.002+05:30

heard this song from karma on the indian radio station...

amazing how it manages to pierce through the cynicism after all these years.

happy independence day!

why be consistent...

2008-08-13T09:42:00.000+05:30

...when u can be inconsistent?

it's been 15 years

2008-08-11T19:17:00.001+05:30

since jurassic park was released. i feel like a fossil.

trip mexico

2008-07-27T00:05:00.001+05:30

is an unmitigated disaster. don't even ask.

blur

2008-06-20T06:00:00.005+05:30

about a week ago, i realized that i wasn't seeing distant things too clearly. a tiny voice in my head said, "well, so much for lasik.". another rather loud and excited voice drowned out the first with, "woohoo! i can wear real glasses again!". so the blur didn't bother me one bit. and then, something incredible happened.

i decided to work from home this afternoon. but first, i decided to make me some chai. you know how these things go. once the chai was made, of course, i had to step out and get some fresh air. as i stood in the balcony, sipping chai and just letting the mind wander, i looked at the slightly blurry buildings in the distance. for some reason, i widened my eyes. the buildings came into focus. and then blurred again. so i tried doing the eyes wide open thing again. back in focus. back out of focus. after a while, they stayed focused. and then it hit me. my poor eyes could very well see things in the distance but were simply not used to doing so.

what an awful lifestyle we have fashioned. noses buried in laptops, eyes never looking more than 10 feet away. closeted. cubicled. all the time.

of nightmares and peas and an ill tempered sunday morning

2008-05-18T08:11:00.008+05:30

so a nightmare woke me up at 2 in the morning. fine, it was that and jetlag. yes yes, i must be the only person on the planet suffering from 2-week long jetlags and suchlike. but let's stay focussed.

the nightmare. basically, it was about reliance running the world. need i say more? i promptly woke up, rebooted and went back to sleep.

now here's the kicker. the nightmare came back. first thing after i woke up. that too, through the mater. i will suspend you no further.

ma: thanks to reliance...
me: WHAT!
ma: i said, thanks to reliance, you're going to get peas for breakfast! in this season!
me: I HATE RELIANCE. and besides, i don't like to eat unseasonal foods. i will not touch those peas.
ma: why do you dislike reliance so much?

noise about last night's IPL match changed the subject.

me: i hope we get an SRK vs. PZ final. oh wait, but i like dhoni. fine, let's have a ganguly vs. dhoni final.
ma: what about sachin? you don't want sachin in the final?!
me: I DON'T WANT that reliance anywhere close to winning. i want sachin to play brilliantly but mumbai to lose quite miserably.

and then i heard some sniffling on TV. it was dravid, of course.

me: bah, i can't stand dravid.
ma: what's wrong with you? what did he do now?
me: well, i just don't like him. he's such a bore. and besides, he declared when sachin was batting at 194*.

and then the newspaper landed and i promptly engrossed myself in news of cannes and kareena kapoor. breakfast was served. and i ate the peas. with quite unwarranted relish, to be perfectly honest.

screaming over rooftops

2008-05-11T08:22:00.002+05:30

has got to be the best way to trade soundwaves. just had a totally fun, totally public catch-up session with the neighbours. traded everything from breakfast invitations to updates on current tan levels & flirtatious grandkid.

screw cell phones, i say! henceforth, i shall drive up (erm, bike up?) to the closest rooftop to holler at ya.

a spring in my stride

2008-05-02T18:51:00.003+05:30

a glint in my eyes & a grin from ear to ear.

what, oh, what could it be?

earth day

2008-04-22T20:13:00.003+05:30

it's funny. the west is trying to go back to growing vegetables in backyards while we're merrily replacing our vegetable stalls & bandis with shiny supermarket chains.

the NYT had some interesting thoughts on why we might bother doing something about climate change.

trust the onion

2008-04-08T07:34:00.002+05:30

to be hysterical.

what do you do

2008-03-20T01:59:00.001+05:30

when you report to three idiots?

sunday funday

2008-02-25T09:44:00.003+05:30

it's pretty cruel what they did to sunday. it used to be the star of the week. i mean, wednesday had chitrahaar, thursday had chitralahari & saturday had spiderman. but sunday, it was in a league of its own. star trek, ek do teen char, assorted cartoons & fairy tales, famous five, ramayan/mahabharat, news for the hearing impaired, a regional film AND an evening hindi film -- all crammed into every special sunday. not to mention blondie, hocus focus and all that good stuff in the deccan chronicle.

and look what happened to poor sunday now. friday has become the new shah rukh khan. and saturday has become aamir. even thursday outshines sunday these days. but since everything is so consistent on this blog, thursday must also have a movie star analogy. i'll call it akshay kumar. poor sunday's fallen like rajesh khanna. sadly, it has no bachchan-style chance of revival. no KBC or anything to its rescue. (um, KBC only airs weekdays. symptom, symptom.)

anyways, the point of this uncharacteristically long post is that i feel very strongly about the plight of sunday. i've been thinking about this for a while and have come to the conclusion that there is only ONE way to save sunday. and that is to eliminate monday. yes yes, it is a bit extreme, but it must be done. monday has turned into mogambo and it's up to us to to take it down.

save sunday. save the world. who's with me?

entranced

2008-02-23T22:14:00.003+05:30

by the 'khwaja mere khwaja' track from jodhaa akbar. words fail me.

tagged

2008-02-09T22:45:00.000+05:30

by the vyas. and challenged *not* to whine about work or gloat about africa. bah, total dimaag kharab, i tell u. but heck, it's saturday and mohd. rafi has put me in a good mood. so here we go!

"post 5 links to 5 of your previously written posts. the posts have to relate to the 5 key words given (family, friend, yourself, your love, anything you like). tag 5 other friends to do this meme. try to tag at least 2 new acquaintances (if not, your current blog buddies will do) so that you get to know them each a little bit better."

family: heh. here's one with sheetu.

friends: this one stars a vyas, a car and a cop. fun fun. has to be my longest, most enthusiastic post yet!

myself: my life in a nutshell.

my love: aw, it's complicated. can't make up my mind between this and that.

anything i like: one of my favorites.

stuff of dreams

2008-02-08T19:46:00.000+05:30

sometimes (very, very rarely), robohit can post uber cool stuff. unintentionally, of course.

heh

2008-02-06T21:59:00.000+05:30

this one popped up on my gmail window:

"a high-brow is someone who looks at a sausage and thinks of picasso"

and for some reason, it's giving me the giggles.

i am guilty

2008-02-03T06:49:00.000+05:30

of thoughtcrime,
they say.
it is unwise to speak
your mind;
for you might offend
t h e m,
say they.

i see it quite simply.
i think. i speak.
they listen. and interpret.
if they don't like
what they hear, or decipher;
they may as well
just take a hike.

alright, alright. so it's been a crappy week. and this is even crappier portry (although, you *have* to appreciate the use of 'decipher'). but all this corporate nonsense reminds me of this quote from sheetal's blog:

"what men call social virtues, good fellowship, is commonly but the virtue of pigs in a litter, which lie close together to keep each other warm" ~henry david thoreau

enough said.

against notes

2008-02-03T05:01:00.000+05:30

he: you're not taking notes.
me: no, i'm not.
he: oh, if you can remember all i said, that's great.
me: ??
he: i don't really care, but other people might be offended.
me: ?!!! *is he out of his freaking mind?*
he: no, seriously. they might see it as an insult, if you don't take notes.
me: i don't take notes.
he: well, it might limit your career.
me: well, i just don't take notes.
he: there's no problem, i'm not really going to count this against you. but i would strongly advise you to take notes.
me: *why the f*** are we still having this conversation?*
he: i used to be stubborn about this also, but blah blah *proceeds to back up the stupidity with a story*
he: so you see, it's your job to take notes.
me: i don't take notes.
he: that's okay. i'm not really going to count this against you. but you should take notes.

needless to say, all notebooks in sight shall be burnt.

ever feel like

2008-01-28T05:21:00.000+05:30

you've been there before?
feel that pulse quicken
and hold your breath, wondering
what you'll see
if you turned that corner
again?

and the 38th happened while i was sleeping

2008-01-04T18:37:00.000+05:30

life's wickedness knows no bounds.

besotted

2008-01-02T15:29:00.000+05:30

i've been up since 2:30am. jetlagged as usual. i called my parents. made some chai. fooled around on facebook. contemplated 2007. planned the great escape of 2008. twiddled my thumbs. tossed moments from last week around in my head. and tossed some more. there's one stand out. far and away, the best. you know love at first sight, right? like that.

i thought it would be one of those palaces. it isn't quite. it strikes you differently. it's not far at all from the bustle of charminar. but it seems far far away. aloof. beautiful. in its own world. not cold. just dreamy. my jaw dropped when i first caught sight of it. and i couldn't take my eyes off it. or my mind, as it turns out. falaknuma, it's called. reaching for the sky. mirror to the heavens. or like my walkie talkie urdu dictionary says, quite simply, divine. vicar-ul-umra took nine years to build it. and almost went bankrupt for it. it's that kind of a palace.

how's it going?

2007-12-09T22:02:00.000+05:30

two months into the consulting life and the questioning has already begun. there's no glory to be had. no rush of blood to the head. no startling insights. no sudden bursts of creativity. just a steady pace. a steady race. a steady snip of the the scissor hands. a cut here. a cut there. heads roll. and the dollars roll in. and it seems, that's all that matters. the question then is, what am i doing here again?

story of my life

2007-09-14T09:34:00.000+05:30

happy independence day!

2007-08-15T14:11:00.000+05:30

happily, there's been a deluge of independence day specials everywhere. but nothing as special as this tribute by india's best musicians. gives me gooseflesh every time.

that thing called star power

2007-08-10T07:05:00.000+05:30

so here i was, still waking up after my siesta, holding my chai and letting harsha bhogle give me an update on the oval test. harsha, sunny & i shook our heads at how jaffer threw his wicket away. and then it was time for a break. harsha made mention of some special guest or other. geoff boycott, i hoped. and then, for a teensy weensy moment, the camera shifted. SHAH RUKH KHAN!

i was suddenly awake, excited and unexplicably gleeful.

you'd think she'd know me by now

2007-07-16T22:21:00.000+05:30

aunty: "so footloose, do you like watching movies?"

jaw crashes to ground. eyes fall out of head.

heartbreak on centre court

2007-07-08T23:29:00.000+05:30

"anyway, i lost", said nadal. i wish he won. anyway, he will.

stuck in my head

2007-07-03T09:27:00.000+05:30

is that something-else rahman song from sillunu oru kaadhal, new york nagaram.

i've no clue what the song's about but it keeps coming back to loop endlessly on my laptop. in my head. on lazy afternoons. at midnights.

the oldest trick in the book

2007-06-29T11:35:00.001+05:30

so my camera's been dead since the first lion sighting on safari. it fell at the precise moment that i had been saving its batteries for. after much murphy-cursing, i left my sleek little sony to its lifeless fate for the next 3 weeks. and then, over chai on a nice rainy afternoon, a much-had epiphany struck. like a bolt from the blue. just like they say. i took my sleek little sony and flicked it. and again. no luck. no life. epiphany failed.

this morning, emboldened by my success with the idea customer service chaps, i tried my luck again. and voila! i have a fully functional sony DSC-T33. what can i say, these laaton ke bhoot are just wired to be beaten.

and btw, all you fellow idea dialer tone sufferers, call idea right away. you just have to say the d in dialer for them to scamper around and promise prompt action and freedom from all d-rated promotions.

whoa! this thing looks good, steve!

2007-06-27T19:58:00.000+05:30

i'm thrilled with the brand spanking new iPhone.

NYT has a pretty promising review. my favorite parts:

"You’ve probably seen Apple’s ads, showing how things on the screen have a physics all their own. Lists scroll with a flick of your finger, CD covers flip over as you flick them, e-mail messages collapse down into a trash can.

...

You scroll with a fingertip — much faster than scroll bars. You can double-tap to enlarge a block of text for reading, or rotate the screen 90 degrees, which rotates and magnifies the image to fill the wider view.

Finally, you can enlarge a Web page — or an e-mail message, or a photo — by spreading your thumb and forefinger on the glass. The image grows as though it’s on a sheet of latex."

so! what about africa then?

2007-06-22T09:59:00.001+05:30

first things first. to travel, you need visas. and it ain't fun running around for those with an indian passport. if you actually manage to wangle a passport, that is. pick any mildly exotic destination and you can look forward to a maze of broken links, long obsolete 6-digit phone numbers and bheja fry travel agents. and then there's the ever ubiquitous note on foreign embassy sites: "no visas required for citizens of commonwealth countries EXCEPT india, pakistan, bangladesh, sri lanka..."

so anyhow, sapped and battle scarred, i got on the kenya airways flight to zambia. could barely lift a finger, so there was no question of excitement or enthusiasm. i exaggerate, of course. or the opposite. but you get the picture. had to change flights in nairobi. as i dragged my feet across the tarmac, i saw the sunrise. the great african sunrise. my first sunrise in decades. it was a spirit awakening moment. a life altering one even. and i fell in love with the vast, unspoiled, dark continent. NOOOOOOT! was a pretty lovely sunrise though. and that was that. welcome to africa.

my brand new buddies rescued me at the lusaka airport just as i was cursing myself for not calling ahead to find out what exactly the plan/protocol was. the three of us then stylishly rode off in mawala's chariot to meet up with the rest of the gang. and a fine, fine gang it was. and fun, fun too. a very good thing when you have three weeks of 24x7 to spend together.

the most unexpected thing about lusaka was this constant sense of deja vu. everything about it was familiar. this was NOT the africa i was promised on the discovery channel or even the BBC, come to think of it. from its street-side stores with crazy signs to its fancy multiplexed malls, lusaka could've been any city in india. the landscape was familiar. the mango trees were familiar. and most jaw droppingly, even the street dogs were familiar.

wow. such a long post. and i'm still on day one. now you know why i was stalling.

more after the break. don't touch that remote!

if you broke your camera

2007-06-22T09:50:00.000+05:30

like i did, you might want to check this out. precis writeups on the best digital SLRs in the market.

when, oh when, will we have teeny SLRs?

that feeling of redundancy

2007-06-20T19:27:00.000+05:30

seems like every thought has been thunk, every song has been sunk. every feeling has been felt, every word has been sait. every angle has been shot, every clever thing in the world has been dont.

i figured. i might as well sleep.

the african hangover

2007-06-15T14:30:00.000+05:30

is going to last a while. at least as long as my tan does. i've been back a week & i'm still shocking assorted people. 'ooooooooooh, what happened to you!', is the common refrain. that, of course, is the cue for my african story. i've told it several times. and i still haven't told much of it.

trouble is, i'm still figuring it out. and by the time i figure it out, i might not want to tell the tale any more. even if i do, you might not want to hear it any more. and that's just the way it goes.

i protest

2007-05-18T14:51:00.000+05:30

against this madness.

hyderabad is hurt, but i hope it gets well soon.

there are 10 types of people in this world

2007-05-08T17:41:00.000+05:30

those who understand binary, and those who don't.

old joke, new toon. courtesy xkcd, of course.

he's got radioactive blood!

2007-05-07T13:44:00.000+05:30

no, really! got radioactive blood, does our friendly neighborhood spiderman!

fist pounding, hair tearing, mind numbing

2007-05-04T22:21:00.000+05:30

head banging, skin crawling, teeth gnashing. it's been that kind of a day. fiends, defined here, can do that to you. the boy at the gym. the girl at the gym. the travel agent woman. the hospital staff. the doctor's assistant. the embassy phone. fiends all.

and did i mention that idea cellular randomly sticks 'dialer tones' on your cell, your wishes be damned? in the midst of all the fiend-fighting today, out came the most jarring filmi song and danced on my nerves. out of mine own cell.

so call me then.

where are you from?

2007-05-02T10:39:00.000+05:30

nice work again at xkcd!

can't hardly wait!

2007-04-28T17:23:00.000+05:30

can't hardly wait.

---
rain?! r-a-i-n?!! gah.

---
bat first?! f-i-r-s-t?!! what're you smoking, punter!

---
murphy at work?

---
game over. punter's right. woohoo!

i am never going to die

2007-04-27T18:26:00.000+05:30

said the man who wrote this prayer:

"Dear God, Compassionate and Merciful, Master of the universe, we who are steeped in sin, kneel in supplication before Your throne and beseech You to recall from this world Saadat Hasan Manto, son of Ghulam Hasan Manto, who was a man of great piety. Take him away, O Lord, for he runs off from fragrance, chasing filth. He hates the bright sun, preferring dark labyrinths. He has nothing but contempt for modesty but is fascinated by the naked and the shameless. He hates what is sweet, but will give his life to sample what is bitter. He does not so much as look at housewives but is entranced by the company of whores. He will not go near running waters, but loves to wade through slush. Where others weep, he laughs; where they laugh, he weeps. Evil-blackened faces he loves to wash with tender care to highlight their features. He never thinks about You, preferring to follow Satan everywhere, the same fallen angel who once disobeyed You."

he's the same man who wrote toba tek singh. went by the name of sadat hasan manto.

story of the vanishing bees

2007-04-24T18:00:00.000+05:30

and suchlike in the new york times.

btw, anyone see a crow in hyderabad lately?

"have i entertained you?"

2007-04-22T16:26:00.000+05:30

he asked. at the end of his last ever international cricket match. ever. the answer, brian charles lara, is a super emphatic YES.

i could've pelted something at pietersen for the glee he showed on running lara out. and samuels. oh god, samuels. how could you?

of course, i'm hardly being fair. or rational. hota hai, in cricket. these boys will be duly forgiven in time. but brian lara won't be forgotten. ever.

the four legged freaks

2007-04-18T09:22:00.000+05:30

the deccan chronicle ran another story on dogs attacking humans. complete with gruesome, bloodied faces of innocent kids on the front page. the marauder, of course, was duly killed. and since we need to see to believe, a picture of the dead dog was buried discreetly in the inner pages.

it doesn't take a genius to deduce that a sinister, sinister plot is being hatched to eliminate the human race. what else could explain the recent fury of the four legged freaks? it all started with that big, fat elephant that trampled its mahout near some temple somewhere. i mean, you take an elephant out of the jungle. give it three square meals a day. and a plush job at a temple. complete with make-up and jewelry perks. not to mention all the attention of fawning devotees. and frequent television coverage to boot. i mean, rakhi sawant would kill for this gig, man. and what does the silly, over-fed jumbo do? it goes and kills its mahout. tramples him in full public view.

so anyways, it all started with that. and now the other freaks seem to have gotten their cue. excitable and abundant as they are, the dogs have taken up the cause with utmost relish. leopard attacks have been happening off and on, but there's what, three of them? not enough. i believe i read something about monkey attacks too, but that might be a figment of my imagination.

let's not worry too much though. these freaks have the saddam syndome. they think they can defeat the greatest species on the planet with their measly claws and canines. we have the authorities and poachers on our side. and they have guns. let's just hope the insects don't join the brigade. swarms of mosquitoes and roaches can be pretty damn hard to fight with guns and canons. it's a good thing we went nuclear.

the match was supposed to sizzle

2007-04-17T11:16:00.000+05:30

... but ended up a bit of a fizzle. so said anasuya mathur on 'turning point' about the aussie-srilanka non-match yesterday. i laughed so hard, i fell off the sofa.

but really, i've never liked craftiness of the ranatunga variety. and the legacy seems to have stuck. what's with this 'hiding cards' business? just go win your cricket fair and square, yo! jayawardene, of course, pleads innocence... and i sure hope he is.

going back to 'turning point', it's been such a pleasure to watch the show without rabid navjot sidhu drowning out poor ajay jadeja. and since he could finally finish his sentences, jadeja came up with this:

'the aussies were frustrated, of course. here they were, wanting to crush the lankans... and there were the lankans, lying lifeless, asking the aussies to crush them'. or something like that. no fun kicking a dead dog, i tell ya.

and oh

2007-04-13T13:13:00.000+05:30

OH, it's friday the 13th! such a rush it is!

abhi nahi aana

2007-04-13T13:05:00.000+05:30

stumbled on the song this morning. been listening to it ever since.

the essence of hyderabad

2007-04-09T10:35:00.000+05:30

i was back in the old city last nite. it seemed more crowded than before. more alive. and for once, i was glad not to be in the driver's seat. as we inched closer to the charminar, i braced myself. there's something about these old monuments that makes you hold your breath in anticipation. when i finally caught a glimpse, it was beautiful. there was ugliness all over it. soot, peeling walls and maintenance patches. but it was still beautiful.

this time, the usual road to chowmohalla palace was blocked. a bunch of kids watched as we asked a cop for alternate directions in the old city maze. they prodded one shy kid to go with us -- 'madam ko raasta dikhao re!'. he hesitated for a bit before hopping into the car to show us the way. i asked him why the road was blocked and that was all the spark he needed:

'naya raasta banare, madam... sadak ke neeche lights daalte kate... ekdum bombay jaisa ho jayenga apna hyderabad!'. he went on 'do teen saalon mein dekho, madam... charminar poora badal jaata... traffic rok dete kate, charminar ko achha banate kate... abhi elections aate na... uske liye unko kuch to karke dikhana padta!'

such excitement the kid had. he was absolutely convinced of charminar's glorious future. i was too.

my first youtube video

2007-04-05T07:07:00.000+05:30

stars a parrot. there was something irresistible about the way it perched on a branch and just let the breeze do its thing. just 18s long. it's time to buy more memory for the ol' camera.

charulata and the goat

2007-03-28T18:07:00.000+05:30

it's been two days since i watched charulata and i can't get the film out of my head.

satyajit ray is a name that you learn to respect in india. even if you never watched any of his films. charulata was the first ray movie i watched since i grew to my full height. and i was absolutely, utterly fascinated. am still. and very, very glad that i watched it on the big screen. i almost didn't. 'coz i couldn't imagine why or how 'the lonely wife' could be interesting.

of course, there was no goat in that film. or in the french film called the goat. which, i guess, was precisely its point. a funny, funny flick!

and all this good stuff thanks to the hyderabad international film festival!

it's just not cricket, love

2007-03-22T20:33:00.000+05:30

that's what maud might've said of the goings on these days.
here's what sambit bal had to say. sanity isn't altogether dead.

can you laugh like this?

2007-03-21T12:34:00.000+05:30

bah. kids. thanks for the link, poput!

rest in peace, bob woolmer

2007-03-19T10:02:00.000+05:30

you will be missed.

koffee with kousin

2007-03-16T17:21:00.000+05:30

she: fool, i've decided to stop eating chicken.
me: why. *sigh*
she: u know, those chickens are given lots of hormones and stuff these days.
me: oh.
she: i've decided to eat only fish from now on.
me: but fish have lots of mercury (or was it lead) these days.
she: yeah yeah, i won't eat only fish. guess i'll have to eat vegetables too.
me: vegetables have pesticides.

point is, we worry too much about this stuff. i mean, look at the hyderabadi mosquitoes. they get bigger and fatter each year. the stronger the repellant, the stronger the mosquito. simple. and this is not some new fangled thought process. it's as old as chanakya. apparently that guy put poison in chandragupta maurya's food every day so the king would develop resistance to it. and how do i know all this? wikipedia, of course.

the cartoon's from xkcd. pretty funny stuff there sometimes.

there's a beehive in my balcony!

2007-03-16T10:20:00.000+05:30

and let me tell you, it's the third time that the bees have honored us thus. we are, of course, buzzing with excitement.

funny men get through

2007-03-12T12:00:00.000+05:30

if you ever watched the late late show, you'd know that craig ferguson is a funny funny guy. i absolutely love him. him and jon stewart. they'll make you laugh so loud, your mum will have second thoughts about having you in the house. see for yourself!

ferguson on shyamalan (bah, not like that)
ferguson on microsoft (my current favorite)

but really, this is not about the funnies. when i looked for my ferguson fix on youtube this morning, i found this.

and he struck a nerve. just like jon stewart did on crossfire.

or like roberto benigni did with life is beautiful.

edit: right after i hit publish, i found this on indiauncut.

getting all touchy feely

2007-03-09T13:03:00.000+05:30

so i went barefoot in the lawn this morning. and my soles wouldn't rest till i told you how good the grass feels on them!

i just think it will happen, soon.

2007-03-03T18:16:00.000+05:30

i thought it would last my time —
the sense that, beyond the town,
there would always be fields and farms,
where the village louts could climb
such trees as were not cut down:
i knew there’d be false alarms

in the papers about old streets
and split-level shopping, but some
have always been left so far;
and when the old part retreats
as the bleak high-risers come
we can always escape in the car.

things are tougher than we are, just
as earth will always respond
however we mess it about;
chuck filth in the sea, if you must:
the tides will be clean beyond.
— but what do i feel now? doubt?

or age, simply? the crowd
is young in the M1 café;
their kids are screaming for more—
more houses, more parking allowed,
more caravan sites, more pay.
on the business page, a score

of spectacled grins approve
some takeover bid that entails
five per cent profit (and ten
per cent more in the estuaries): move
your works to the unspoilt dales
(grey area grants)! and when

you try to get near the sea
in summer …
it seems, just now,
to be happening so very fast;
despite all the land left free
for the first time i feel somehow
that it isn’t going to last,

that before i snuff it, the whole
boiling will be bricked in
except for the tourist parts —
first slum of europe: a role
it won’t be so hard to win,
with a cast of crooks and tarts.

and that will be england gone,
the shadows, the meadows, the lanes
the guildhalls, the carved choirs.
there’ll be books; it will linger on
in galleries; but all that remains
for us will be concrete and tyres.

most things are never meant.
this won’t be, most likely: but greeds
and garbage are too thick-strewn
to be swept up now, or invent
excuses that make them all needs.
i just think it will happen, soon.

-- going going, philip larkin

an encore of paheli

2007-03-03T00:23:00.000+05:30

i first watched paheli a couple of years ago. watched it again on tv tonite, braving all the ads. such a fun film it is, and beautifully made.

and yes, men should wear dhoti kurtas. women should wear lehenga cholis. in rich earth tones. we must all travel on carts and camels. and drink water from brown pouches tied with strings. use kandeels for light. and write with peacock feathers. we shud dance in the desert rain. and pretend to be puppets.

just for the loveliness.

scorcese's the man!

2007-02-26T18:05:00.000+05:30

man, how did i miss the charminar?

2007-02-25T11:08:00.000+05:30

so i went down to charminar on a friday night. and got what the fuss was all about. the place has an incredible incredible charm. so much life! and to think i discovered manhattan before my own backyard!

i stopped several times to ask for directions and of course, heard a lot of 'seeeeeeeeeeeeeeeedha jao's. when i stuck my awestruck face out of the car, one man convinced me to visit the chowmohalla palace... 'dekhne layak cheez hai... aap kabhi bhi aa jao... sirf jumme ke din band rehta'.

clocky. gotta hate the damn thing.

2007-02-08T13:19:00.000+05:30

clocky.

an alarm clock that can run away from you! ugh. how horrendous is that?

apparently, "while this clock can survive small bumps and falls, it is not guaranteed to withstand an assault by someone who has had to drag it out from under the bed". but of course.

the worst good smell in the world

2007-02-07T22:11:00.000+05:30

"the first thing i noticed about bombay, on that first day, was the smell of the different air. i could smell it before i saw or heard anything of india, even as i walked along the umbilical corridor that connected the plane to the airport. i was excited and delighted by it, in that first bombay minute, escaped from prison and new to the wide world, but i didn't and couldn't recognize it. i know now that it's the sweet, sweating smell of hope, which is the opposite of hate; and it's the sour, stifled smell of greed, which is the opposite of love. it's the smell of gods, demons, empires and civilisations in resurrection and decay. it's the blue skin-smell of the sea, no matter where you are in the island city, and the blood-metal smell of machines. it smells of the stir and sleep and waste of sixty million animals, more than half of them humans and rats. it smells of heartbreak, and the struggle to live, and of the crucial failures and loves that produce our courage. it smells of ten thousand restaurants, five thousand temples, shrines, churches, and mosques, and of a hundred bazaars devoted exclusively to perfumes, spices, incense, and freshly cut flowers. karla once called it the worst good smell in the world, and she was right, of course, in that way she had of being right about things. but whenever i return to bombay, now, it's my first sense of the city - that smell, above all things - that welcomes me and tells me i've come home." -- gregory david roberts, shantaram

i know this smell. and this is exactly how it feels.

get.off.ur.ass.

2007-01-29T10:02:00.000+05:30

and go places. no, really. look!

ladakh. 'nuf said.

right said, sid :)

and the tenth is just as sweet

2007-01-28T23:29:00.001+05:30

rescued by the hippies.

2007-01-28T15:34:00.000+05:30

italian restaurant inside a cave

"calcata is also charmingly backward. there are many places to get a tarot card reading or a box of incense, but to withdraw money from an A.T.M., mail a letter or other modern conveniences, you have to drive to calcata nuova or three miles to faleria."

sounds like one heck of a place. and possibly a worthy home for some small eyed folks i know :D

i'm explaining a few things

2007-01-27T20:47:00.000+05:30

and you'll ask: why doesn't his poetry
speak of dreams and leaves
and the great volcanoes of his native land?

come and see the blood in the streets.
come and see
the blood in the streets.
come and see the blood
in the streets!

-- pablo neruda

skyte. sky. kite. get it?

2007-01-24T11:48:00.000+05:30

i've been accused of abandoning mon blog. bah, all this documentation of life, i tell u. i quite like hazy, air-brushed memories. but then again, i took all these pics so i might as well show 'em off. voila. sankranti, hyderabad.

kite sellers.

kite buyers.

school kid kites.

monster kites.

kite. kite?! kite.

kite flying. hard work yaar.

ah. results. fun.

heat. ice-creams. snatch!

airbrushed kite. prettyness.

spot the accuser!

yun hota to kya hota

2006-07-30T19:27:00.000+05:30

naseeruddin shah's first movie as a director was interesting and entertaining. the humor was easy. the style was not self-conscious. you could see naseer behind the camera, his eyes crinkling. it left me thinking. reflecting. playing back scenes. scouting for reviews to see what others felt. always a sign of a good one.

u have to listen to this

2006-06-12T00:02:00.000+05:30

there was a shrill shriek in the distance. darkness all around. then there was a gentle tug. rays of light and a paw on my nose. my eyes flooded with a toothless grin. and a bundle of drooling fluff was all over me. best wake up call ever :D

p.s. well, it wasn't exactly a toothless grin... there's one budding tooth that's not quite visible but sure can be heard.

it's may day!!!

2006-05-02T06:46:00.000+05:30

the alarm went off this morning at 7am. i contemplated going to the biz law class for 1/2 a second. turned off the alarm & went back to sleep. and then peeked at the alarm. i saw the date. i love you, may :)

let the countdown begin!

finality kills creativity. i want to be confused, by choice.

2006-04-29T06:52:00.000+05:30

so said prasoon joshi. i like the guy.

check out his interview here.

i spy with my little eye

2006-03-19T07:06:00.000+05:30

that season called spring!!! saw more than a few signs of it this morning. and the snow, it's definitely not for the southerners.

when you figure...

2006-01-12T01:13:00.000+05:30

... out what you want to do for the rest of your life, you are anxious to get started.

must be true. quote from 'when harry met sally'. quoted by steve jobs :)

of gauss, game and groggy

2005-09-28T08:51:00.000+05:30

what a week! my b-school experience definitely doesn't fit the bell curve. the extremes would end up flattening the poor thing beyond recognition. actually, they'd end up skewing it to the negative.

swades

2005-09-26T05:51:00.000+05:30

there's something about the music of swades that gets me. always. i loved it when i was home. i love it even more out here. stirs something within. and it's not just the music. maybe it's all the memories that go with it too. vyases, it's been a year since that dandia nite. driving through empty roads. chill in the air. wind in our faces. u humming away. me discovering swades. beautiful.

beautiful.

bat out of hell. back into hell.

2005-08-19T07:22:00.000+05:30

hell is where there's no home.

now THAT's what i call cricket

2005-08-08T07:51:00.000+05:30

i'm in love. again. the interest had waned with boring, clinical, undramatic matches. but edgbaston brought back the spark. what a perfect test match. there was *nothing* the coach could do. *nothing* the captain could do. *nothing* the manager could do. it was down to the tailenders to save the match. tantalizing stuff!

http://content.cricinfo.com/engvaus/content/story/215305.html

my heart broke when that silly english wicketkeeper took kasper's wicket. still, glad that it wasn't my man lee that got out. love the aussies. and glad the pommies made such a match out of it.

rain ride

2005-06-28T21:28:00.000+05:30

the monsoons always sneak up on you. always.

there'll be dark clouds. gusty winds. swaying trees. and then just a misty spray. again and again. till you stop noticing.

and then one day, when you're on your way home and stuck in traffic... you notice how dusty the windshield is. and then you notice a few raindrops. very slowly, they start crowding the glass. too quickly, you turn on the wipers. you notice how the blades could've scratched the glass. too much dust. not enough raindrops. but they keep coming down. flick switch. glass wiped clean. glass blurred again. repeat. not raindrops anymore. not misty spray. rain. torrential rain.

struggling wipers. some old song on the radio. big puddles on the road. splashing through. not stopping. not quite seeing. best ride ever.

in the papers the next morning. uprooted trees. frozen traffic. power outages. snapped wires. all reported with glee. all drenched in 17.1 mm of rain. precious. more to come. yippeee!

stay hungry. stay foolish.

2005-06-17T07:47:00.000+05:30

Commencement address by Steve Jobs, CEO of Apple Computer and of Pixar Animation Studios, delivered at Stanford University on June 12, 2005.

I am honored to be with you today at your commencement from one of the finest universities in the world. I never graduated from college. Truth be told, this is the closest I've ever gotten to a college graduation. Today I want to tell you three stories from my life. That's it. No big deal. Just three stories.

The first story is about connecting the dots.

I dropped out of Reed College after the first 6 months, but then stayed around as a drop-in for another 18 months or so before I really quit. So why did I drop out?

It started before I was born. My biological mother was a young, unwed college graduate student, and she decided to put me up for adoption. She felt very strongly that I should be adopted by college graduates, so everything was all set for me to be adopted at birth by a lawyer and his wife. Except that when I popped out they decided at the last minute that they really wanted a girl. So my parents, who were on a waiting list, got a call in the middle of the night asking: "We have an unexpected baby boy; do you want him?" They said: "Of course." My biological mother later found out that my mother had never graduated from college and that my father had never graduated from high school. She refused to sign the final adoption papers. She only relented a few months later when my parents promised that I would someday go to college.

And 17 years later I did go to college. But I naively chose a college that was almost as expensive as Stanford, and all of my working-class parents' savings were being spent on my college tuition. After six months, I couldn't see the value in it. I had no idea what I wanted to do with my life and no idea how college was going to help me figure it out. And here I was spending all of the money my parents had saved their entire life. So I decided to drop out and trust that it would all work out OK. It was pretty scary at the time, but looking back it was one of the best decisions I ever made. The minute I dropped out I could stop taking the required classes that didn't interest me, and begin dropping in on the ones that looked interesting.

It wasn't all romantic. I didn't have a dorm room, so I slept on the floor in friends' rooms, I returned coke bottles for the 5¢ deposits to buy food with, and I would walk the 7 miles across town every Sunday night to get one good meal a week at the Hare Krishna temple. I loved it. And much of what I stumbled into by following my curiosity and intuition turned out to be priceless later on. Let me give you one example:

Reed College at that time offered perhaps the best calligraphy instruction in the country. Throughout the campus every poster, every label on every drawer, was beautifully hand calligraphed. Because I had dropped out and didn't have to take the normal classes, I decided to take a calligraphy class to learn how to do this. I learned about serif and san serif typefaces, about varying the amount of space between different letter combinations, about what makes great typography great. It was beautiful, historical, artistically subtle in a way that science can't capture, and I found it fascinating.

None of this had even a hope of any practical application in my life. But ten years later, when we were designing the first Macintosh computer, it all came back to me. And we designed it all into the Mac. It was the first computer with beautiful typography. If I had never dropped in on that single course in college, the Mac would have never had multiple typefaces or proportionally spaced fonts. And since Windows just copied the Mac, its likely that no personal computer would have them. If I had never dropped out, I would have never dropped in on this calligraphy class, and personal computers might not have the wonderful typography that they do. Of course it was impossible to connect the dots looking forward when I was in college. But it was very, very clear looking backwards ten years later.

Again, you can't connect the dots looking forward; you can only connect them looking backwards. So you have to trust that the dots will somehow connect in your future. You have to trust in something - your gut, destiny, life, karma, whatever. This approach has never let me down, and it has made all the difference in my life.

My second story is about love and loss.

I was lucky – I found what I loved to do early in life. Woz and I started Apple in my parents garage when I was 20. We worked hard, and in 10 years Apple had grown from just the two of us in a garage into a $2 billion company with over 4000 employees. We had just released our finest creation - the Macintosh - a year earlier, and I had just turned 30. And then I got fired. How can you get fired from a company you started? Well, as Apple grew we hired someone who I thought was very talented to run the company with me, and for the first year or so things went well. But then our visions of the future began to diverge and eventually we had a falling out. When we did, our Board of Directors sided with him. So at 30 I was out. And very publicly out. What had been the focus of my entire adult life was gone, and it was devastating.

I really didn't know what to do for a few months. I felt that I had let the previous generation of entrepreneurs down - that I had dropped the baton as it was being passed to me. I met with David Packard and Bob Noyce and tried to apologize for screwing up so badly. I was a very public failure, and I even thought about running away from the valley. But something slowly began to dawn on me – I still loved what I did. The turn of events at Apple had not changed that one bit. I had been rejected, but I was still in love. And so I decided to start over.

I didn't see it then, but it turned out that getting fired from Apple was the best thing that could have ever happened to me. The heaviness of being successful was replaced by the lightness of being a beginner again, less sure about everything. It freed me to enter one of the most creative periods of my life.

During the next five years, I started a company named NeXT, another company named Pixar, and fell in love with an amazing woman who would become my wife. Pixar went on to create the worlds first computer animated feature film, Toy Story, and is now the most successful animation studio in the world. In a remarkable turn of events, Apple bought NeXT, I retuned to Apple, and the technology we developed at NeXT is at the heart of Apple's current renaissance. And Laurene and I have a wonderful family together.

I'm pretty sure none of this would have happened if I hadn't been fired from Apple. It was awful tasting medicine, but I guess the patient needed it. Sometimes life hits you in the head with a brick. Don't lose faith. I'm convinced that the only thing that kept me going was that I loved what I did. You've got to find what you love. And that is as true for your work as it is for your lovers. Your work is going to fill a large part of your life, and the only way to be truly satisfied is to do what you believe is great work. And the only way to do great work is to love what you do. If you haven't found it yet, keep looking. Don't settle. As with all matters of the heart, you'll know when you find it. And, like any great relationship, it just gets better and better as the years roll on. So keep looking until you find it. Don't settle.

My third story is about death.

When I was 17, I read a quote that went something like: "If you live each day as if it was your last, someday you'll most certainly be right." It made an impression on me, and since then, for the past 33 years, I have looked in the mirror every morning and asked myself: "If today were the last day of my life, would I want to do what I am about to do today?" And whenever the answer has been "No" for too many days in a row, I know I need to change something.

Remembering that I'll be dead soon is the most important tool I've ever encountered to help me make the big choices in life. Because almost everything – all external expectations, all pride, all fear of embarrassment or failure - these things just fall away in the face of death, leaving only what is truly important. Remembering that you are going to die is the best way I know to avoid the trap of thinking you have something to lose. You are already naked. There is no reason not to follow your heart.

About a year ago I was diagnosed with cancer. I had a scan at 7:30 in the morning, and it clearly showed a tumor on my pancreas. I didn't even know what a pancreas was. The doctors told me this was almost certainly a type of cancer that is incurable, and that I should expect to live no longer than three to six months. My doctor advised me to go home and get my affairs in order, which is doctor's code for prepare to die. It means to try to tell your kids everything you thought you'd have the next 10 years to tell them in just a few months. It means to make sure everything is buttoned up so that it will be as easy as possible for your family. It means to say your goodbyes.

I lived with that diagnosis all day. Later that evening I had a biopsy, where they stuck an endoscope down my throat, through my stomach and into my intestines, put a needle into my pancreas and got a few cells from the tumor. I was sedated, but my wife, who was there, told me that when they viewed the cells under a microscope the doctors started crying because it turned out to be a very rare form of pancreatic cancer that is curable with surgery. I had the surgery and I'm fine now.

This was the closest I've been to facing death, and I hope its the closest I get for a few more decades. Having lived through it, I can now say this to you with a bit more certainty than when death was a useful but purely intellectual concept:

No one wants to die. Even people who want to go to heaven don't want to die to get there. And yet death is the destination we all share. No one has ever escaped it. And that is as it should be, because Death is very likely the single best invention of Life. It is Life's change agent. It clears out the old to make way for the new. Right now the new is you, but someday not too long from now, you will gradually become the old and be cleared away. Sorry to be so dramatic, but it is quite true.

Your time is limited, so don't waste it living someone else's life. Don't be trapped by dogma - which is living with the results of other people's thinking. Don't let the noise of other's opinions drown out your own inner voice. And most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition. They somehow already know what you truly want to become. Everything else is secondary.

When I was young, there was an amazing publication called The Whole Earth Catalog, which was one of the bibles of my generation. It was created by a fellow named Stewart Brand not far from here in Menlo Park, and he brought it to life with his poetic touch. This was in the late 1960's, before personal computers and desktop publishing, so it was all made with typewriters, scissors, and polaroid cameras. It was sort of like Google in paperback form, 35 years before Google came along: it was idealistic, and overflowing with neat tools and great notions.

Stewart and his team put out several issues of The Whole Earth Catalog, and then when it had run its course, they put out a final issue. It was the mid-1970s, and I was your age. On the back cover of their final issue was a photograph of an early morning country road, the kind you might find yourself hitchhiking on if you were so adventurous. Beneath it were the words: "Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish." It was their farewell message as they signed off. Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish. And I have always wished that for myself. And now, as you graduate to begin anew, I wish that for you.

Stay Hungry. Stay Foolish.

Thank you all very much.

parineeta

2005-06-12T17:06:00.000+05:30

mr and mrs smith. d. parineeta. bunty aur babli. naina. was a long list for one sunday. if a certain mutant didn't conspire to land in the city this morning, i might've given parineeta a miss. but it did. and i didn't. the mutant is a good thing :)

i loved parineeta.

for its old world charm

for the romance

for vidya balan

for saif ali khan

and for a tune that won't leave my head.

stair wars - episode II

2005-05-26T08:56:00.000+05:30

hahahaha... i crack myself up. the stairs can make me tumble. but they WON'T make me crack. the second time round, they did get me good though. enuf to warrant a trip to the hospital. wheelchair, x-rays and all. felt some excitement at the possibility of a long cherished fracture dream coming true. not to be. a sprained knee and some exaggerated limping is all i have to show. episode III might still be the best one yet.

beating the odds silly

2005-05-24T20:08:00.000+05:30

i tumbled down the stairs. again. WTF?!!

know where they sell parachutes?

the importance of le derrierre

2005-05-21T14:35:00.000+05:30

early saturday morning. i had a book in one hand. a bowl of sliced mango in the other. a bottle of water tucked under my arm. the brother's oversized slippers on my feet. together, we slipped down the stairs. went flying and landed with a BIG thud/crash/glug, five steps down. me on my butt. the book on the floor. the glass bowl all over the place. don't remember what happened to the bottle.

a path so treacherous

now listen carefully. your derrierre is a good thing. a very good thing. feed it. pamper it. and don't listen to the likes of kate moss or heidi klum.

if you see a contradiction...

2005-05-01T20:19:00.000+05:30

check your premises. one of them will be wrong.

i'm ironing out a contradiction in my mind right now. will be back. sooner than u think.

oh yeah. you're back, tiger.

2005-04-11T21:24:00.000+05:30

the brilliance of brian lara

2005-04-10T20:17:00.000+05:30

who comes back after an eight-month break from first-class test cricket to score 196 runs?

brian. charles. lara.

my toes just touched the water

2005-04-10T19:55:00.000+05:30

norah jones has been keeping me company in the car. didn't quite like her at first. she was too quiet. too boring like. so i went back to her after exhausting all other options. including u2 revisited. which was awesome. u2, that is. vertigo ran to roaring (swearing?) applause. but back to norah. told u she was all quiet and non-intrusive. she can make u do a double take, though. found myself increasing the volume first (interesting how that made her sound much better). and then repeating a song so i could listen more carefully. and then again. she does grow on you, norah does.

you ever do that?

2005-04-09T06:35:00.000+05:30

i've gotten into this habit of reading stuff backwards. been at least a few years now. dunno how or why this started. it's not like i read words backwards... more at the sentence/paragraph level. so each time i see a long-ish article, i move right to the end and work my way back to the front.

i freak me out.

bloody hell indeed

2005-04-06T07:45:00.000+05:30

*horror* look what i missed!!!

new boy dhoni making a splash. niiiiiiiiiice!

viru and dhoni doing pakistan's dhulai!

sachin getting run out. awwww... why him?!!

bees getting into the act! that's right, get 'em green ones!!!

razzaq threatening to make a match of it...

... before inzy almost killed him. for running him out. a-g-a-i-n. *chuckle*

the post match banter where inzy got all witty.

man of the match. 148 runs. 15 fours. 4 sixes. bloody wow!

bloody hell

2005-04-05T08:02:00.000+05:30

that's the first thing i said this morning. while still in bed. definitely not a good way to start the day. reminds me of something i read a long time ago... a little snippet written by a man describing his new born son. the kid, only a few months old, had a favorite word. he'd repeat it each time he saw something that excited him. and each morning, when he opened his eyes, he'd say it again --- 'WOW'.

restlessness...

2005-03-26T20:13:00.000+05:30

mind on overdrive. too much caffeine. long weekend. hot summer day. hour on the treadmill. 100 channels of shit on the tv. hair won't listen. clothes won't fit. walk out in a huff. nirvana at crossword. three new books. one chilled brrrrista. glance in the mirror. back to prettyness.