Doodles of a crazy man!

Woody Allen writes in one of his books "Side Effects": Q: How long should a man's legs be? A: Long enough to reach the ground! I had not laughed that hard while reading something in a while. Had planned to write a post on "Annie Hall". Did not have any time off late. Will do soon. Hopefully!

At the lunch table last friday, a colleague's mobile beeped. Twee Twee SMS. He picked up his mobile and read out the message: "Hey buddy, I am planning to throw a party to all my friends tonight. Please attend it without fail. Venue Taj Hotel". A few of them laugh. I feel sick.

Huh, it was a really really long time, wasn't it? Well, it was the longest stretch of time where I did not get any idea to write. It finally took the Bangalore-Mysore highway to get me to write. And of course, I was getting "lot" of request to resume blogging too. "Lot" does not mean lot of people. It was lot of request from a single person - my wife! Disclaimer: This is not a travelogue in the true sense of word. As always, its highly unstructured, deeply personal and hardly useful. Driving on the Bangalore - Mysore highway is always a very intimate experience for me. It holds a thousand memories, its a meditative sort of journey which had helped me clear up my muddled thought process many a times in the past. It is here where I used to get the ideas for many of my earlier posts. I will just write about some random things that come up to my mind when I travel here. Bangalore "How long does it take to drive from Bangalore to Mysore?". You can never ans...

Terrorist (to his wife): Honey, I am going out for lunch with a few friends. Wife: Okay fine. So you dont need your "tiffin box" today? ****** Terrorist in Delhi (TiD) calls his friend Terrorist in Chennai (TiC) TiD: Hows you dude? How was the weekend? TiC: Pretty boring machcha. Did nothing. Stayed home all day. How was your weekend? TiD: Awesome. We had a blast!

One of my blog posts has been featured in today's edition of Bangalore Mirror. http://www.bangaloremirror.com/index.aspx?page=article&sectid=21&contentid=20080918200809181857294071e48f63f&sectxslt=

The biggest change in the transition from your mid-twenties to the wrong side of twenties is the exponential increase in the invitations to kids' birthday parties. If you were born during the seventies-eighties like me, I can bet most of you would not have celebrated your birthdays as a kid. Celebration, as it is known today. When I was a kid, mom would make bisi bele bath, curd rice, some sweet and invite a few relatives over to breakfast or dinner. " Mane maTTige " was the mantra then. The old people would bless me with vidya, buddhi, ayassu, arogya, aishwarya - all combined together did not make much difference to my happiness as lets say a Lacto King candy did then. The not-so-old ones would gift a pen set - an ink and a dot pen - with a clearer instruction - "You should study well and get good marks". Go to school, the class teacher would announce that you were the birthday kid. Yes, we could wear "color dress" when mere mortals suffered in their...

The traffic signals are abuzz with hawkers selling cheap plastic flags. No one sells the yellow cleaning clothes this week. Metal badges of the tricolor are the flavor. I am sure Pat Pat Pataaki Pallavi, Huchch Huchch Harsha and their ilk will have some stupid quiz on the radio as usual. Sample - when did India get independence? Option A: 3167 BC, B: 712 BC, C: 1947 AD. Send an SMS to *** and win goody bags. That imbecile orkut acquaintance of yours will send that old forward, which you would have read at least a hundred times - dont we all know now that 36% of the NASA scientists are Indians and 38% of Microsoft employees are Indians? Dont be too surprised if you find Abhinav Bindra added towards the end of the mail - with a mismatched font. The whole nation feels a sudden surge in patriotism this week thanks to Bindra. Majority of them (including me) who had no clue what a 10m Air Rifle means vigorously google it out to know what the hell that is ...

Remember the baddies in movies of yesteryear who would tie up the old rich man and threaten him of dire consequences if he did not offer that "one signature" so that they can get the possession of his bungalow, car, factories, properties, his undergarments etc? How simple were those times! Nowadays even for a simple home loan, the bank guys insist you to sign in at least fifty places. No wonder the recent movies have no baddies who ask for that "one signature". I am sometimes happy that such naivety in Indian movies is gone. But, I sometimes miss the stupid charm of such scenes! *** Another major improvement in Indian cinema is the disappearance of the "poor hero". I dont think there is any other country which glorified and celebrated poverty as much as we did. In the old movies, the poor guy is a honest ' paapa ' person. And rich guy is evil. Almost always. The reality is, a poor guy need not always be the one who was cheated by the evil guy. He c...

Ravi Shastri is a great commentator, or so he thinks. Its not too surprising when someone is in the company of Sanjay Manjrekar, Arun Lal and the likes. And lets not forget, he was the inventor of that historic phrase - " The last thing the team needs at this stage is a run out ". As if there would be some stage when "run out" will move up in the "necessary" list. Well, anyways! Thank heavens, his statements are not as ridiculous as Arun Lal who would say - " Rameez, I reckon when the required run rate keeps shooting up like this, the batsmen have to get the boundaries ". But, Shastri provided ample entertainment last night at the IPL finals presentation ceremony. " Ladies and gentlemen, on stage we have Sharad Pawar, president of Board of Control for Cricket in India, Lalit Modi - Chairman and Commissioner of IPL,......., Sharad Pawar - president of Board of Control for Cricket in India " With so much (repeated)attention sh...

I am too just-married to get tired of writing stuff related to the wedding. Gone are those days when people were anxious to know what gifts they got. Nowadays its all about hoping that the unwanted gifts dont exceed the storage space at your home. There are 3 broad categories when it comes to gifting 'items': Innovative types Only 2% belong to this category. They know your tastes, they know how usable it is to you, they know that the chances of someone else gifting the same item are slim. Ganesha types If I were Lord Shiva or Vishnu, I would have cursed the entire humanity for how I am ignored when it comes to gift items. A typical conversation of a couple goes about like this: Husband: We have to go to that wedding in the evening. Wife: What gift shall we buy? Husband: Some Ganesha gift item of course. Wife: (smiling) Of course! (What else?) 54% of the people fall under this category. Ganesha has got great range, he comes in all forms - from the most ar...

I think only a misandric person could have formulated the customs in a South Indian marriage. How else can you explain the dhaare ceremony where the bride will be in a beautiful saree and the groom in a ridiculously translucent white kachche ? The bride gets her hair beautifully styled and the groom gets a mysore peta to cover his receding hairline. Utmost attention is given to the bride's face for her to look divine, while all that the groom gets is two drishti bottu (to ward off the evil eye) placed with such precision that guarantees maximum possible pathetic looks! Trust me, every man finds his woman absolutely stunning in the wedding saree. But, I am yet to meet a woman who thought her husband looked mind blowing in that white kachche . Not just that, I spent the last week before marriage running from store to store searching for that elusive white underwear (you guessed it right, to go along with the translucent white kachche ) while the...

Pauline Thomason once said "Love is blind, but marriage is an eye-opener". But, even the pre-marriage phase also can open your eyes to so many things. And if you are as general-knowledge-deficient as me, every moment is a new discovery. If you have a sense of humor, each discovery can be complete fun. *** Just before the saree shopping, mom asked about my fiancee - " AvLu work sarees wear maadthaLa? " I understood it as "work 'ge' sarees" and told - "No mom, she generally wears jeans or salwars to work" Mom was least surprised by the all too familiar stupidity of her son and said - "Work sarees do not mean the sarees which you wear to work. It means sarees that involve lot of handiwork like embroidery, mirror work etc." *** Shopping for sarees will introduce you to so many new things - crape silk, tusser silk, raw silk, butta, mango border, peacock border, temple border...

It was late night. Surprisingly, the first auto I stopped agreed to come from Rajajinagar to BTM. The driver looked like Vijay of the movie "Duniya". He had long hair, wore a gaudy shirt and sported a 92.7 FM logo on his faded cap. I dont initiate conversations with auto drivers in general. But, when they start an interesting conversation, I know how to keep it going. He was silent for almost 15 minutes. " Saar, I will get the gas filled for the auto. Jusht 2 minutes ", he said as he took the deviation off the main road. I remembered my dad warning me just an hour back that Bangalore is no longer safe and to be careful while going home. " It wont take long, right? ", I tried not to sound too worried and suspicious. " Jusht 2 minutes saar. We can join the main road directly from there itself. See, here is my driver identity. I did not get time to stick it on to my seat ", he seemed to sense my uneasiness. " No thats fine, I just meant to ask ...

Disclaimer: Good understanding of Hindi , English , Kannada is recommended. And absolute tolerance towards non-sense is mandatory. I was just thinking about how some proverbs have multiple meanings when you interpret it using multiple languages. There is a proverb in Kannada called " Hani hani kooDidare haLLa " (Same meaning as "little drops of water makes a mighty ocean") Hani = Drop; haLLa = Water body Now, " hani " sounds exactly like "honey". "Honey" is a term used to address a very lovable female (or male depending on your gender and orientation!) Now " Honey honey kooDidare " means adding many such lovable females to your list - which means having multiple affairs. " haLLa " can also be interpreted as in " haLLa hidyadu " which means "to be in ruins". So, this proverb also means that multiple affairs are not advisable. Have you noticed that people from different countries have differe...

Parijata has tagged me to list five posts of mine with the following subjects: Family I have rarely written about my family. The only one I could find was the visit to Chamundi hills with my brother . Friends There are very few posts I have written about my friends too :( Now I feel like I am too self-obsessed than what I originally thought myself to be. The only post I could find was one of the conversations I had with my friend Bata . Myself My blog is too full of myself, but there are only few posts that I love when I read it again at a later date. My first earthquake was definitely one of them. The history behind my name is another. And how can I forget Crime Diary that made me quite famous :) My love If "My love" means the usual "My love", I have not blogged about that ;) But, let me interpret this in a generic way as something I love - and yes, you guessed it right, it has to be movies! I like India's contribution to world cinema and of course my ...

Most of the people unnecessarily hype up Akbar's religious tolerance. Not that he was not a religiously tolerant man, but what annoys me is that his other great qualities are completely overlooked in this frenzy. Akbar was not only one of the earliest kings who started the trend of inter-religious marriages, but also perhaps the first king to prove that inter-lingual marriages can work. Who was 'that' wife, you might be wondering right? Its the same Jodha, the rajput princess! "What? we saw the movie and both of them seemed to speak Hindi and as far as we remember we did not see any subtitles when either of them spoke. Are you sure?" If these are the questions you are having, step back for a minute and observe what you had overlooked. Jodha spoke 'shuddh hindi' with an overdose of sanskrit, a language that would have become extinct, if not for those uninhabitable suburbs of Barjatya's Sundarnagar. Akbar spoke his hindi with heavy influence...

What happens after a man dies? Is there a God waiting to settle things? Is there another world? An afterlife? Does Chitragupta use the latest version of Tally for his accounting purposes? Or do dead people get bored to death waiting in never ending queues for their turns to come up as he flips through the pages of his dusty old books? Would St.Peter's job be outsourced to some other Indian saint from a tier 2 city? Will the Indian saint have lost it to a mexican or a philipino by the time you reach there? Do the jehadis get their share of 72 virgins? Or will they be given a raw deal citing the dwindling male-to-female ratio as the reason? No, these are not the exact questions I am having. I am thinking more on the lines of what happens to the online world of a person after he dies. Have you ever wondered what will happen to the email account of a person once he dies? What happens to their blog? Their flickr account? Their adsense? I have no clue why, but this question h...

You are asked to do the estimation for a module or a task. You consider the coffee breaks, orkut scrapping and the innumerable hours spent on Wikipedia and IMDB. You make a very high end calculation and add 30% buffer to it and send it to your lead. Your lead takes into consideration the time he would lose in mindless discussions, unwanted conferences and adds his 30% buffer. Your manager thinks of time lost in motivational meetings, online trading and the estimation goes up by 30% more. Finally, your account manager not wanting to be left alone, follows the 30% funda and sends the final estimation to the client. Everybody seem happy dreaming about the happy days ahead. But, from the day the project starts till it ends, everybody starts slogging their posteriors off. I wonder, where all those 30 percents vanish! I know this was a lousy post. But, there are many reasons why I wrote it: One, I dont have enough time. Two, I am in a cribbing mood and is there a better listener than a blog?...

You know when the supposed-to-be-motivating team dinners and unavoidable lunches with acquaintances become much more painful to me than they usually are? When the topic happens to be on food habits. Here is a sample: "You dont drink?", asks the team mate in a friendly tone. "No" "You dont smoke?", unable to hide his surprise. "No" "You dont even eat chicken?", the italics for "even" would barely convey the utter shock he would experience. "No" "Man, you are amazing. Do you at least eat eggs?", the shock has now turned to pity and the look in his eyes tells that he cannot survive another "no" for an answer. "I eat eggs. In fact, I love them", would be my biggest sentence in the whole conversation. "Thank God, you at least eat eggs", he exclaims, a mighty relieved now - and in his book my existence is not as useless as it would have been if by any chance I did not eat eggs. I e...

Why dont the Lufthansa air hostesses smile? They seem too unfriendly, too cold. Its okay if Indians dont smile, we are used to it. Any others, we expect a smile, even a very fake one. Their entertainment facilities suck! There is a common TV on which we have to watch the movie being played. And why oh why are they so costly? I hate the Frankfurt airport too, it looks too hostile. I guess visiting Singapore raises the expectation too much. Not every airport is Changi! I observed that the seat numbers in a row are listed A-B-C, D-E-F-G, H-J-K. There was no "I". I remember noticing this in other aircrafts as well. Not sure what the funda behind this is. Any idea? When I asked for Asian Veg meals, I was told that it was over. I thought of taking a salmon meal and eat everything else except the main item. But, then the air hostess asked me if I am okay with a "Hindu meal". That was the first time I had heard something like that. What has a food got to do with religion? D...

Many guys dream of becoming pilots and many girls of becoming air hostesses when they are kids. Thats what I have heard. At least from so many movie stars. But, I was a different kid. I never wanted to be a pilot. In fact, I never wanted to be anything. I was happy spending long hours looking at my fishes photo book or drawing using my sketch pen set with 12 colors. Even when I was in high school, I did not know what I wanted to become. But, I could realize that not knowing an answer was looked upon with contempt. So at some point in time, I was giving the answer as "I want to do IAS in future". Till today, I have no clue why I gave that answer. A country as screwed up as ours definitely did not need an IAS officer like me. But seriously, I wish I had the guts to do an anti-Luther King and proclaim - "I dont have a dream"! After the PU, it was the usual medical or engineering question that was posed by the people. When you are quite decent in your studies and when y...