Doodles of a crazy man!

"Hey Pinky baby, Mama told me that you did some great painting today at school" , said papa as he entered the room with his brown suitcase late that night. "Yeah papa", smiled Pinky, obviously happy for the recognition she was getting. Pinky, the 6-year old was wearing a baby pink skirt. She had two short pony tails that made her look like a mickey mouse with a normal nose. "Good, so what did your teacher say?" "Very good". She smiled, as if a smile represented the end of a sentence. "So what did you paint today?" "I painted a...a..." "I got it. I know you are not into too much abstract or symbolism. You must have done something representational. Was it a scenery?" "Yes. I painted one hill, one river, one sun...", she was interrupted by the over-enthusiastic papa. "I know sweety, it must be as wonderful as Koppelaar's 'Landscape Near Bologna'. Your last year painting of your school was very...

"Araluthiru Jeevada Geleya ... Snehadaa Sinchanadalli ... " (Blossom O Dear Friend...In The Sprinkle Of Friendship) Shreya Goshal has been singing this song for more than a hundred times at least, in my ipod from the past few weeks. I am simply in love with this song. Easily the best song from " Mungaaru MaLe ". Perfect song for a morning travel. I don't like Shreya Goshal in general (she reminds me of Aishwarya Rai!) but the way she has sung this song is divine. Jayanth Kaaykini's lyrics is superb (when was the last time I heard a song with good lyrics?) and the orchestrization is amazing (guitars, drums and sax used very intelligently) Many of the guys whom I talked to have agreed this was the best song from " Mungaaru MaLe ". But, I was surprised to know that an overwhelmingly higher percentage of girls liked the Sonu Nigam version of the same song " Anisuthide ". I just asked myself "What would Freud say?" (the new slogan...

I got a forward from a friend which was something like this: "Arjuna always wondered why Rama did not build the bridge to Lanka himself and took the help of monkeys. So he met Hanuman to clarify this. Then, Arjuna had a bet with Hanuman that he would build an unbreakable bridge and if he failed he would enter the fire. Then, he skillfully built a bridge of arrows. Hanuman prayed to Rama and placed his tail on the bridge and it broke down. As per the bet, Arjuna was about to enter the fire when an old Brahmin happened to come there. He told that since a bet is not valid without a witness, they should start over again. Arjuna prayed to Krishna and constructed the bridge of arrows. Hanuman stepped on the bridge arrogantly, but nothing happened. He walked around, jumped, but no, the bridge did not move an inch. Now, the old Brahmin turned into Krishna and he said - 'The first time Arjuna thought that he was building the bridge and Hanuman took Rama's name, so the bridge fell d...

The bus comes to a screeching halt. I open my eyes ever so slightly. Its somewhere near Hanakere. The road is blocked. We are the first vehicle to get stopped. Che, we should have started 2 mins early! There are very few villagers near the road blockade. Only a few teenage tapori looking guys orchestrating the road block. One guy with a gaudy t-shirt and a faded cap, looks like the leader of the group. Yaakkh thoo! He spits on the ground, emphasising the sense of ownership he feels for the road. The group starts making some jokes and laugh loudly. They hardly convey the pain and distraught you would expect from the farmers. They get a good number of old tyres, collecting which might have taken some effort. They distribute two tyres per person and start burning it on the road quite religiously. The fire brings a festival mood among that group. I could easily visualise the leaders of futute generation in them. Honestly speaking, I am not aware of the complexities and the extent of diffic...

I watched the movie "The Abyss" yesterday. Unadulterated hollywood alien-sci-fi garbage. Pseudo-emotions mixed with american-arrogance, so much crap that it would have given Karan Johar some serious inferiority complex. But, this made me think why so many alien stories are so similar. Lets come to the assumptions in the alien movies: 1) Aliens always love to make contact with the humans (If I were an alien, I would try to make contact with crocodiles - much more interesting, right?) 2) Aliens are generally much more intelligent than humans (Its hard to beat the dumbness of humans - probably aliens don't watch Big Boss! Also, since 'they' contact us by reaching 'our' planet, they must be better than us!) 3) Aliens by default understand or learn English (by intercepting the cerebral signals and interpreting with the aural waves and decoding to hexadecimal system - you will be given some such nonsense by the story writers) If you tell the aliens "howdy...

I am not a very gifted person. No, I am not talking about talent or the obvious lack of it. I am talking about gifts (or presents). I got one such rare gift from my cousin Krupa . "Do you read books?", asked Krupa when I had called her. "I don't read regularly, but I read. Yaake?" (The latest survey shows that 8 out of 10 questions people ask me will have the reaction 'yaake?' from me. May be I am too curious to know what made people ask me such a question!) "Nothing, I just asked" I met her that evening and she handed over me a book, with a note inside - "To a person who is almost as irritating as the author of this book!". The book was "Without Feathers" (and the second page of the book containing an Emily Dickinson quote - "Hope is the thing with feathers") Guess who the author is? Yes, its the same bespectacled genius - Woody Allen ! I was like "Wow, where did you get this?". I was as excited as a si...

Conversation 1: (Having dinner at a restaurant in Basaveshwaranagar on thursday night) "Do you remember there used to be a hero in Kannada films?" "Who? How did he look like?" "He was not very famous. He had curly hair" "Oh okay, Sunil?" "No, but he acted around the same time. I think he has acted movies with Sudharani." "Who else? Shashikumar? Ramkumar?" "No, he was not a Kumar. I know him, but I cannot remember the name" "He has acted with Shruthi? Abhijit?" "No, he was not very famous I guess" "Raghuveer? Gulzar Khan?" "Namskaar pa. He was not that bad. He was generally a poor guy, a tailor in some movies. He always has lot of problems." "There were lot of bad movies and bad actors around that time. There was a movie called 'Mangalya' around that time. Malashree and Sunil are lovers and Sunil's brother Sridhar marries her so that..." "Yeah, its S...

(Late evening discussion at my home on sunday) "You have got a pimple, anna", exclaimed a friend of mine. "So?" "Somebody has a crush on you!" "Really? This is the first time I am hearing this theory" "Yeah, you did not know about it?" "No, I am getting pimples from more than 10 years. I never realized who all those people were", I started laughing. What started out as casual talk soon turned out into serious discussion. I was proposing theories, building stories around it. Okay, lets assume that the pimple-crush connection is right. But, whats the use? We will never know who the person is. Its like getting missed calls in old phones which don't have caller ids! May be there should have been ids associated with pimples. Then, it would have helped the crushee recognize the crusher (is that the right word? ;)) Nobody there calls this pathetic joke of mine as a pathetic one. They are such nice people! Okay, this theory sounds...

"Hey, you got the mail?" "No, what about you?" "Just got the mail from Alexandra" "What does she say?" "Prices are reduced" "Again? Really?" "Yeah, its just $2.00 for 100 mg now" "Wow, last week it was $2.38. Its a huge price drop" "Will it reduce still?" "What? You mean the price?" "Ha ha, of course the price" "I don't think so, the holiday season is over" "Okay, what are you going to do now?" "Mark the mail as spam and delete it" "Hahaha" - we all have a hearty laugh. A typical conversation in our cubicle block every time any of us receive a spam mail on aphrodisiacs!

Location : Meeting Room Number of people : Twelve, may be thirteen "So how are things going on?" "Good, good" "Are we on target for friday?" "Yeah, we have a couple of difficulties, but we should be in a position to fix them up" "So, no other hurdles other than that?" "We fixed a few blocker bugs, so hopefully the testers will test those modules. But, we cannot rule out any other blocker bugs being detected since these features started working." "That seems scary to me. What do you say?" "No, lets see how it goes. We will monitor things closely and we only take a call after that. We should just prioritize and move forward" "Okay, if you are confident, I am okay with it. So, how are the remaining modules looking up? Do we have enough clarity or is it blurred?" "We are okay, just need answers to some questions thats all. So, I would say we have a clear vision" At this point of time, I turn...

The Christmas trip to Goa was quite amazing. We had planned for this trip from a very long time. What was planned as a trip needing a tempo traveller turned out to be a Tata Indica trip. No R&D was done for the trip, no planning. We had not even booked for any hotel rooms (Take that for audacity!) We leave Bangalore pretty late on friday night (as usual all estimates got screwed up) and even an uncomfortable car like Indica could not stop me from having a decent sleep. I was half awake the next morning near Karwar and I was humming the song "I ain't gonna miss her tonight". Hey, I don't seem to remember whose song it is. Have I heard it before? Then, it strikes me that it was some stanza and tune I had composed during early morning sleep! It does not take me even a minute to realize that the inspirations for this song are two contrasting songs - Jim Reeves' "I Miss Me" and Eric Clapton's "I Ain't Gonna Stand It". Its not plagiarism,...

My deep "second innings sleep" of monday morning was disturbed by the familiar loud voice. The radio in the volvo bus had caught the signal of some number one radio station of Bangalore (Did you know that there is no "number two" radio station in Bangalore? Every channel claims to be number one!) Harsha and Shwetha were as loud and incoherent as any RJs (I feel only Sunaina Lal is tolerable, for that contagious energy!) Their job was not only playing bad songs, but to give irrelevant solutions to unwanted problems of useless people. Some guy called Raja had mailed them about his problem! Raja knew Pinky from the last two and a half years. It looked like they were in love. Or at least they were headed that way. From the last month or so, Raja was not able to talk to Pinky. He had mailed these experts to help him out! Shwetha was shouting her lungs out "Should Raja wait for Pinky? Or should he forget her and get on with his life? For option A, SMS A to...okay Raj...

Running out of original ideas is not the only reason why I am writing this article. ;) I happened to stumble upon Devil's Dictionary last week. It is a satirical book by Ambrose Bierce , having funny interpretations of English words. There are very few things that have made me laugh whole-hearted and this was definitely one among them. Here are a few definitions that I loved very much. Abstainer : A weak person who yields to the temptation of denying himself a pleasure. Absurdity : A statement or belief manifestly inconsistent with one's own opinion. Acquaintance : A person whom we know well enough to borrow from, but not well enough to lend to. Admiration : Our polite recognition of another's resemblance to ourselves. Apologize : To lay the foundation for a future offense. Armor : The kind of clothing worn by a man whose tailor is a blacksmith. Brain : An apparatus with which we think we think. Congratulation : The civility of envy. Conservative : A statesman enam...

I am quite a cricket fan myself and I love watching and playing cricket (arguably the best left handed batsman of Kuvempunagar ;)) I don't care if it is a test match or one-day, Indo-Pak series or World Cup. I can even watch the galli cricket, as I adore the art in the game. Its the poetry in the game that appeals to me. I always considered that Indian cricket team consists of some amazing players, but we are nowhere near when it comes to a good team. We have never won convincingly for too long and we are never predictable (Its not just a problem with India, but all the sub-continent teams) Off late, India have been playing pretty badly (as bad as they are capable of) and we are seeing intense reactions from the "fans". I somehow don't understand many of the logic behind the anger of the "fans"! 1) The most stupid statement I hear very often is "Cricketers are playing badly because they are concentrating too much on advertisements". Come on, can an...

I looked at him as I locked my computer on this friday evening. He was finishing the final few activities in the project, as he was supposed to leave onsite on another assignment. I queued Anoushka's Yaman Kalyan and Kirwani back to back in my ipod and lifted my bag. He was playing some old country songs in his winamp, while his IDE was talking to cvs to check in the last set of files. I entered the cab and removed my slippers. (Being barefoot makes me so happy!) He was tying the lace of his shoes - getting ready for his longest association with shoes, after his high school days. He is 26, well, an year younger to me. I know him quite well. Its not surprising that we share the same name. People have told me that we are so alike (many can't differentiate between the two of us), but somehow I feel we are pretty different, in spite of all those similarities. He has never seen snow, never been to skiing. He has never heard Prem Joshua (Jeez, and he still claims to have a great co...

December 2002. It was when a lot of people were quitting the company where I was working. Everyday somebody used to come to my cubicle and say "Today is my last day...I have not yet decided where to join...well, keep in touch" Then, I think I had the concept in the back of my mind. While I was listening to some country song, I just happened to utter the line "Admiration's the name of the feeling that I had". I thought for a while and the second stanza was ready. By evening, I was done with the whole song (including the tune!) Until late 2004, nobody was even aware of the existence of this song! One evening, there was power cut at my home and I recorded this song in my mobile out of sheer boredom (which I had intended to delete later and forgot!). My brother listened to the song the same weekend, when he was looking at my mobile and he kind of liked it. Even a few of his friends and some of my colleagues heard it and they also liked it. Finally, I developed great...

It took me a few minutes less today to complete SuDoKu, Kakuro and other puzzles in Bangalore Times. I still had another 10 mins to reach office. What to do? Read Bangalore Times, of course! We all know its a crappy paper, but we all read it (like the old people who crib and watch mega serials and soap operas!) I expected to read some crappy article like - green is the 'in-color' this season or why pubs should be opened even after 11 or Mahima loves her dog more than her mom or why women are preferring metrosexual male to the ubersexual male or something like that. But, I was disappointed. Today's topic was about Bangalore being renamed to Bengalooru! One college student was of the opinion that "ooru" would be like village name. Kid, the word for village is haLLi, if you care to know. Some businessman suggested that government should concentrate on improving infrastructure than on these "silly" things. Mate, its as ridiculous as saying that you stop goin...

He is on 49. The innings has been long. He is no specialist, but importantly he has managed to hung in there. Oh, he seizes the opportunity and scampers for a quick single...and thats 50! No, I am not giving some cricket commentary. Its about my blog! And this is my 50th post :) If somebody had told me an year back that I would be blogging , I would have told "You must be joking". Well, life has its own weird way of proving you wrong! And here I am writing this post when the entire country is busy bursting crackers. The English classes in my PU days were mainly of two types - one is somehow escaping from getting caught by the teacher (My PU friends, remember A Meera?) and second is getting thrown out of the classroom. The reason? I hated writing on anything we were assigned. I always thought that writing was not my medium of expression and speech was far more effective in conveying what I wanted to. But, my visit to Salt Lake City late last year forced me to open my ...

The last week was pretty hectic. We had our company's anniversary day and it was communicated to us just a week back. I was not even given a chance to say no for my performance. My work as such was pretty hectic. I was not getting any ideas. "about:blank"! I tried to do a sequel skit to the last year's "Munnabhai J2EE". It did not excite me at all. I could do a great spoof on Pulp Fiction. Nah, many people would not have heard about the movie, let alone appreciate the spoof. Finally, I started writing a skit about software companies taking underworld projects like supari killings and extortion. It came out okay on paper, it was kind of satirical comedy. A better actor would have pulled it off beautifully, but I was not at all confident. I was running out of ideas, and more importantly I was running out of time. I was feeling pathetic. I love this phase, because most of the times, it is this phase that gives you different ideas. Just 3 days left, one of my fr...

I had been to Chamundi hills this saturday with my brother. We both love to observe people and do unwanted analysis and build imaginary theories or stories around that. We stopped to take some rest near the 600-mark. A group of middle aged pot bellied uncles were arguing about who would reach the hill top if they started running now and some intense discussion about chicken curries. It got boring after a while and our attention turned towards two vehicles parked nearby. One was a scooty KA-09 EE-33 something. Other was a Kinetic Nova KA-09 EE-38 something. We started doing our analysis with the minimal details that we had. The analysis made below are highly prone to inaccuracies, due to the lack of details. Since the vehicles are scooty and nova, they must be the vehicles of two girls. Since scooty looks like an older registration, it must be of one of the friends - who must be confident among the two. The second girl had no intention of buying a vehicle. But, her friend would have ...