| Wednesday, April 01, 2009 |
| Random bleeds |
And then I thought wasn't it me who willingly embraced the situation, labors, elation and people that came along with it.
Is it truly "one big happy package" or are we choosing to conveniently forget unhappy moments till they punch you in the eye?
How often do we fight the walls within to label it, "my right to be happy"?
Do we approach people with the "enhancement needed" board? Why then do we become intolerant?
Is it ok to crave for attention?
Is patience a virtue?
Is blue a people's color? Is there anyone who hates, er...dislikes it?
Do we ever get bored of eating food?
Is there anyone in the social world who doesn't live envy or jealousy? What makes people achievement driven then? Nope! It aint just the joy of achieving.
Do you judge people, places or things? If not, how did you decide to be at X place, in Y company, among Z people?
When do we stop fighting for rights, seats, territories, candies, people and toys?
What does 'living a simple life' mean? Even picking a banana needs precision and choice.
Do you make way for ambulance on the road?
If a woman's legs, breasts, buttocks, long mane, shoulder, neck, fingers, painted nails, eyes, lips, waist turn on a man...what exactly turns a woman on?
Why is cream smeared on people's faces to celebrate their birthday? And why only a cake? Why not bananas, kaju katli, pizza or macaroni?
What is more fun, calling or texting? Why do you tire your fingers then?
If Devil wears Prada, Divine wears Khadi?
And that's just some mid-week musing. Wander by again, if you wanna.Labels: Random |
posted by Shiv @ 4/01/2009 09:43:00 PM  |
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| Tuesday, January 27, 2009 |
| India on Rails |
If you are a touring non-native or an ambitious Indian with a decent pay, chances are you would seldom take the rail route to travel between cities. More so with cheap airlines vying to get your footprints on board their "shoe-string" jets.
Yours truly aint a common face on the rail routes either but she likes to witness the changing face of Indian Railways every once in a while. And believe her if you will, every train trip meets her with a fresh array of surprises...if we decidedly ignore some of the permanent irritants. Both inside and outside the wagon.
This one's an attempt to capsule changes she took in while she crisscrossed the face of the nation; for leisure, on job, out of it, as a student and as a kid in an army of wedding-goers.
Summer vacations at school mostly meant a trip from the plush and pomp of the nation's capital down to Chennai (then Madras) and a little beyond. The girl hated most of it except she found windfall gains in as many feets she touched touring the smutty city. The sight of a huge water body also excited her for she'd never seen Yamuna (the feeding river to the capital) swell more than a choking gutter.
The in-betweens of the travel, the train journey was well planned.
Ma sets about packing food for the 6 meals the family will have to have onboard and Pa went out buying packets of knickknacks to keep the kids busy through the journey. The kids for their part made sure they packed as many games as possible, hoping to travel for eternity, without having to reach any destination.
The kids sure had reasons for it...they could hop over from one berth to the other, play games, strike conversations with strangers and hoping they'd let them get a bite of their packed food - poori aalo, parantha and pickle etc. Somehow the array of south india food ma meticulously packed never appealed to the boy and girl - not the Idlis coated with gun powder, not the tamarind and lemon rice, nor the curd rice and fryums and pickle.
The railways pantry dal vada and cutlets were the family's favorite and each one of the four secretly hoped the other would ask for it. Just when the guy's making way into the next wagon Pa will give up and yell for him from this end of the wagon.
The boy and girl's faces light up and the mother would pretend like she aint party to anything happening inside the compartment. For she'll look out of the window every time the kids wanted something from the blue trays or cane baskets or gunny sacks.
The cling of the bottled fizz was something the kids skipped sleep and play for. All activities froze and both kids turned to look at pa and ma with puppy eyes knowing perfectly well that their requests will meet meek protests from the parents and slowly wither away in favor of one bottle of fizz shared between both kids.
The hawker would dig for a chilled bottle from the bucket full made cold with blocks of ice and pop it open with a mild froth threatening to spill but will give away the protest too soon. Boy gulps first and let's out a loud burp from the mouthful of carbonated water traveling down the throat and the girl takes a calculated sip fearing letting out a similar burp.
Slowly the bottled elixir makes its way down into both their stomachs and before the parents can rest a little, there are hushed tones of wanting to make a trip to the restroom. The girl never makes the trip alone for she is convinced the hole in the commode is too big to swallow n spit her out of the train...not to mention the dread of poop n muck all over her. On most occasions the stench in the restroom would kill her desire to relieve herself.
And that also explained why she sipped water and fizz and nibbled on food. By the time the journey ended the kids would surface grime-streaked and the girl would have a million zits and boils to tell the story of how she managed to skip trips to the toilet.
Innumerous times friends made oboard only because they let the boy and girl play with their kids or they themselves got down to striking lenghty conversations or playing cards with the family. Mailing addresses exchanged and promptly misplaced, forgetting all that transpired in the two days after hopping off the train and pushed and shoved through to meet the uncles and aunts who'd come to meet the family at the station.
The girl's first solo train journey happened when she was frequenting Bangalore as a student. Her decision was initially met with a loud protest by her Pa. She only smiled to her Pa's opening statement, "Don't you know everyone's out to lure girls on the trains?" He went on explaining how people lace food with sleeping pills and kidnap and steal and other not so pleasant things that they do only to girls. Decidedly, she made her journey without a hair amiss.
The solo journey was one of the many observant trips she made in a few successive years to come. Since she didn't turn out to be a natural conversationalist, she found time aplenty to absorb eyefuls. She noticed how people gave into the constant cradling of the train and slept ever so often.
Most conversations would end in some kind of edible exchange, paying for each others' tea, sharing biscuits or a meal, or at least exchanging visiting cards (now that's not edible). The railcar would fall silent at undefined hours with precision. By 11:00 in the night you'll only hear loud and stifled snores play a sonata of their kind. And if you stayed up too late, you'd hear mild protests of wanting the lights turned off.
On many trips she also took in details of book reading habits of people - ranging from zehar hoon mein, kamsin jawaani to Midnight's Children, Lotus Sutra, King Lear - Abridged, Bhagawad Gita and Khooni Darinda.
In the sleeper class, people have this tendency to travel more than one person per seat. Also, unreserved travel is in abundance. But amidst all this chaos, sweat and grease exists a truly kaleidoscopic experience that doesn't die out for someone with a keen eye.
During winter months, travel up north finds most women often striking up a conversation with their knitting needles. Men occasionally leave their seats to summon the chai boy from the pantry or take a bidi break standing in small groups at the entry to the wagon.
The beggars vary in dexterity too. Some are crippled and simply ask for alms, some sell cheap items at a premium and there is this lot who strike the right note with flat chips of stones that flirt with each other in rhythmic harmony. They are true entertainers for they have the best of movie songs stashed away in their mental database only to be instantly replayed on request.
Capturing memories with a pair of eyes is one, living it is another. Go get yourself a sleeper class train ticket and make a rail trip...you'll come out grimy but you'd have lived the Great Indian Soot Coated Dream.
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| posted by Shiv @ 1/27/2009 06:36:00 PM |
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| Monday, January 26, 2009 |
| Ex Sgt Mr S. Krishnamurthy - You were missed |
Today is 26th January 2009, the 59th republic day of India.
You didn't wake me up at 8:00 in the morning and remind me a zillion times that I'd miss the parade. But I woke a good hour and half later and I didn't miss it today Pa. But you were missed.
The parade started in all its gradeur, valor and glitz. They began with the usual listing of all the presidents from since independence and you weren't here to talk about how Radhakrishnan, Venkataraman and A P J Abdul Kalam espoused the right causes and brought zest to the post at large. We didn't talk about how the parade needed to start an hour earlier than scheduled to let Shankar Dayal Sharma walk to the flag hoisting dias. You were missed.
Pratibha Patil hoisted the flag and you were missed, for we didn't talk about the flag knot or the why's of the salute or we didn't debate about whether to stand up in respect of the national song if one were under a ceiling.
They didn't showcase much tanks this year but I continued to wonder and missed asking you if there is a possibility the tank's gun mouth could open fire at the president or any of the others sitting behind the bulletproof screen. You weren't around to tell me about what goes into making bulletproof vests and screens.
We didn't rave about how the Indian Army and foot soldiers will win the contest of gallantry and courageous lives any day. Though you reserved your special corner for the Indian Air Force and its ways that shaped your life for a good 21 years.
The gorkha regiment looked brilliant and impeccably coordinated like always. I am not sure I saw Delhi Police walk the parade this year. I possibly missed the detail cz you were missed and I said so to Ma over phone.
There were no ex-servicemen parading this year. But I missed asking you yet again about why you never participated in the parade even though you received invitations year after year.
There were no bravery awardee kids atop elephants this year Pa. They resorted to packing them into a bunch of open jeeps.
A whole bunch of tableaux made it to this year's parade. Tamilnadu didn't display 'karagattam' (dancing with metal pots stacked on the head) like you always claimed Pa. They portrayed a 'teru kuththu' (street play) scene this year. It was colorful and Kathakali (a traditional dance form from Kerala) like.
Not many school kids performed this year. Just two and of course one by a zonal cultural group and other was a Delhi based school.
You were missed.
The fly past happened and even as the Big Boy formation (IL-76, two A-32s and two dorniers) inched towards Raisina Hill tears welled cz we didn't run up the stairs to see it live from atop our apartment right after we finished watching it on TV. An IL-78 and two sukhoi 30s formed - I think the “marker” formation. You weren't around to correct me. Arrowhead formation (5 Jaguars) followed soon. I still missed watching it live with you. Called Ma to check if she watched it live from the terrace...strangely, none flew from above our house this year.
And ultimately, our favorite moment of the parade unfolded. Three sukhois jetted past and split into a vertical charlie.
You were missed and missed a lot.
But I sent you a hug with the vertical charlie...hope you get it.
Love,
Your daughter |
| posted by Shiv @ 1/26/2009 03:19:00 PM |
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| Thursday, January 17, 2008 |
| US - 101 (episode 1) |
I grew and fed my apprehensions with red wine and flushed the stench down with mouth fresheners.
When we flew down into Amsterdam I had my first realization of being in a place unlike anything in my country. Things were bigger, better, faster and more organized. People went about with destinations stuck to their forehead. I wandered apprehensive and spotted a ground staff. I walked to her, expecting her to greet me for being here or something like a “good morning!” or “welcome to Amsterdam!” just to be doubly sure that I did not board a different plane at Hyderabad. What I heard instead was, “You need to look at the monitor and note the tier to board your next flight.”
I was startled. In all my quarter-decade existence I was trained to approach a ground staff to feel reassured or guided. I was expecting her to be pleasant and smiling. She shooed me away.
I mumbled a thanks and walked away from her and closer to the electronic display. Spotted the flight I was to board in a couple hour , matched it to the tier number and walked away aimlessly.
I desperately wanted to talk to someone I know. Anyone...a friend, my mum or some boring acquaintance from any of the companies I’d worked for in the past. I could even talk to a cigarette to look preoccupied, but smoking wasn’t allowed, except in the airport bars. I didn’t know where they were and I wasn’t inclined to look for it, fearing some other kind of mental torture or questioning.
When people accidentally glanced at me, I dug into the boarding pass, pretending to read something important. I wandered at the airport hoping to strike gold on some idea that would keep me occupied for the next two hours. Decidedly, I coud go to a coffee shop and just sit around with a Dutch news daily. But I had a hundred dollar wad and feared the coffee shop guy wouldnt have change or I wouldn’t know if he returned the exact balance. I didnt even know the units of US currency. Nobody at school taught us about cents and dime and how many of them make for a dollar. Besides, I didnt know what to do if I had to pay in Euros. I didn’t know the conversion rate...nor did I have my laptop to google for it.
Eyes spotted a phone booth to my right and gleefully glided to it. I decided to call the friend I was visiting in the US. Picked up the receiver and didnt hear a dial-tone. A list of instructions appeared on the LCD. I hurriedly checked if someone was looking or trailing me. I was satisfied to see no one around. Hung the receiver back and read the sticker on the face of the phone booth. It said I could use a Visa card. I was joyous. Thankfully, I had something I could use globally...[sparing Nepal and Bhutan of course.]
I was relieved to hear my friend on the other end. I told her I feel clueless of everything around; even to make a simple phone call. She was glad the learning had begun. And I felt better after confiding into someone about how I felt.
I almost instantly took charge of my new life in a new continent. Stuck the receiver back and walked to the duty-free shop. I entered it like how the humming bee knows which flowers to sop up nectar from. I picked up a few magnet stickers for the refrigerator and walked around the payment counter casually noting how people paid for stuff they bought. To my relief there were people paying in USD and even high denomination notes like a 100. I knew I cracked my first international commercial transaction.
After 22 hours of cold indifference and straight-faced “enjoy your meal” on board the KLM flight, I was glad to see land approach. The last half hour in the flight was spent looking over the shoulders and heads of people seated far left and right of me. We did finally touch down at la la land.
I knew I had a great deal of learning to do in the weeks to come. Though it was my first flight out of my birth country, I continued to pretend like I was tired of flying in and out of time zones every fortnight.
I believed a hundred dollar bill is like a 100 INR, which frankly was not to be. When you hand out a crisp green hundred dollar bill, people scan you with suspicion, because it’s like the salary day beauty. Also because people believe in the power of plastic money. They pay 50 cent parking tickets with their Visa.
I was still new to the feel of fresh air and cold wind and my friend dragged me out to shop at Ikea...the world famous in America - furniture store.
They have this USP of selling stuff in flat packages. Which means you have to nut, bolt, screw and knock it together on your own. It’s like building your toy home with your own rickety hands. The carpenter in me didn’t complain much cz it spelt fun for the day to come.
For almost the entire first week, we only went from one shopping center to the other. They were huge, innumerous aisles of frozen and canned food, rows of fresh and frozen meat, assorted bread, racks and cartons of wine and spirits to select from, jams, jellies, sauces, condiments, some 5 varieties of potatoes, 10 of tomatoes, 15 of oranges and all that. Basically, any departmental store was your key to grow obese and penniless.
At the cash counter, faces grin and almost always break into, “hey! How are you doing today?” The first few times I imagined people were mistaking me for someone regular at those stores. But soon grew used to it cz they say that to everyone...a sheer way to greet people to lure them into patronizing the store.
Some weird thought made me paste an Indian face to the greetings. I was trying to imagine folks at Lifestyle or Food Bazaar quip in joy of having you at their store. I’d be convinced they’d quit of over working. Not because Indians always sulk and frown but because we are just happy people and we do not need to look any more happy than what we already are, lest someone called the asylum folks over with their pick-up van.
Anyhow, it was a welcome I deserved after the moth-eaten reception I met at Schipol airport, Amsterdam. I don’t have anything against the country or Europe - the continent, but they could all do with some generous dose of “chill pill”. Labels: amsterdam, international, travel, US |
| posted by Shiv @ 1/17/2008 06:33:00 AM |
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| Monday, October 29, 2007 |
| Scribblings that never met the dawn |
Reproduced here is a mini-collection from a huge pile of my writings - still to be published or never published for various reasons.
Why am I doing this?
Failure gets to me on gloomy days and I need audience for the sprouts from my peapod mind. Leave me a note - like it or hate it. Atleast I'd be read. *wink*
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(1) Travel Tales - Nagarjunasagar, Andhra Pradesh, India.
Quick facts:
Distance from Hyderabad: 160 Kms (check!)
Preferred mode of transport: Car or Bike
Duration: 1.5 days (max)
Two powerpuff women, one car and a back hatch full ‘pick me up’ food. I assure it wasn’t mission: Feed Somalia.
For that fun-starved migrant IT junta in Hyderabad…weekends have long spelt Nagarjunasagar and close vicinities. Oh! And being Venusians doesn’t earn you brownie points here. But if you can tide over occasional ogles, you just did yourself good.
By experience, you don’t need a lot of field work before the trip. Just get out and head towards Begumpet, preferably in your personal vehicle. Stop as many times as it takes for you to get the routes right along the way. From a frustrated witness’s perspective, the max you’d need to do this is possibly three to five times…that is if you score in negatives on the DQ (Duffer Quotient).
Alternatively, take the straight road from Secunderabad railway station to the Uppal crossroads. Drive straight past Kamineni hospital and reach the ring road junction and continue on the road marked towards Srisailam. You’ll need to take a left turn ahead and the rest of your journey is one straight stretch of tar coaled beauty.
If placid waters and rising sun is what you lust, the author suggests get out in the wee hours of the morning and I bet you’ll stop at the first sight of the water body on your right. The morning mist drapes it like honey-laced milk. Only it is water I talk about and I am not sure it is potable as is. Your urban lungs will reel in gratitude but I vouch it is as short-lived as your morning caffeine shot.
Nagarjunasagar is a place of contrasts. The water gushes from one end and growls at you like a monster with a toothache. The other side wears a tranquil shade of green and earthen yellow. The tarred Mercedes bends divide the two worlds. And if you road rage, the curves are all for you to explore. Oh! And don’t miss the Hollywood spoof side of the dam wall. It reads…Nagarjunasagar Left Earth Dam. I think they just tossed in “Left” and “Earth” to keep the moron in me guessing. Still at it.
Only bikers are allowed to drive over the dam wall, cars and other vehicles stay put. You could walk the stretch and feel the wind on your face. Personal experience says you’ll lose ground at least once, irrespective of your weight claims.
Once you get to Nagarjunasagar, there’s not much to keep you busy yet. An easy miss is the View Point…unless; you are interested in looking at the parched dam wall through a labyrinth of cables.
Head to Ettipotala falls (about 15-odd kms) from Nagarjunasagar and you’ll find picture perfect frames to fit into.
For a start, there are more than one ways of experiencing it. If you belong to the salon visits and ‘manicure me perfect’ breed or you are traveling with your family and toddlers, the APTDC roped in some area of the forest and made it eye-candy for masses and families at large. They even organize a light show at night. By all means, pose pretty or macho, slurp an ice-cream from the APTDC stall and if you got some time on you, feed the monkeys.
If you are a little adventurous, talk to a local, agree on a tip and get him/her to take you to the seldom explored side of the falls.
And, if you didn’t belong to either clan above, you are one of us people and it aint rocket science to get to the foot of the waterfall, where it leaves a murky water pool. Take a dip, splash it around or swig it at your own risk. A word of advice here, watch your foot! It’s either slippery ground or blame it all on the stray cattle.
Enroute to the Nagarjunasagar dam you’d have driven past Poonami Vijay Vihar, the AP tourism run hotel. While one can imagine I recommend it for food and stay…the lesser known angle is the view from their lawns. The bougainvillea laden railings look out to vast expanses of calm Krishna waters. This is your borrowed space to recline and muse and you take my word on that.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------- (2) Fitness - Zareer Patell
Some zippy jazz plays in the background as we walk into the large ‘sweat it’ hall from one of the many doors of the school he conducts classes in. It doesn’t take a keen eye to sift a salubrious 50-something man out of the many panting women and the rare ‘give me more’ man. Sparing the receding hairline, none else gives away his age. Unmistakably, the fitness instructor you read and heard about.
The initial phone conversations will either discourage you beyond repair or force you to make just one visit. If it is the latter, you’ll only be convinced to stay on and absorb the zing in the air. And “fighting fat” can’t get better when you spring, sprint, stretch, twist, squat, punch, kick and combat. From aerobics to weight training, cardio kickboxing to self-defence, tai chi and personalized consultations…name it and you’ll find it here.
Zareer Patell only makes the most honest and cutting comments the first time he meets you and in all the sequent meetings, you’ll know that’s the way he is given to work. If you are fat, he doesn’t call you “healthy”. He puts it matter-of-factly. The author offers it’s all part of the big plan…if you persist, you’ll gain from his experience in more ways than you’ll ever imagine.
There are some weird/unique things first-timers can’t help but notice here:
- On your first day, you’ll only watch them sweat. A pseudo-preparatory class in effect.
- The classes span 45-mins here…unlike the conventional hour (or, more or less)
- The “picnic” students get to go on after half-time.
- The cutting edge numeric system that Zareer follows in the class
- The fee pattern
- And the most important…no two days look the same.
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(3) Theater - A review of "Love Letters"
In the times of Saturday night love-stories and MMS scandals, Andy Makepiece Ladd and Melissa Gardner play snail-mail lovers…liked, trusted, desired, ignored, forgotten but loved all the way.
The intricate weave of a lost art of communication with a fading emotion is delivered to a packed audience by two powerful artists and the result; junta laps it up like ‘Podgy’, Andy’s pet.
Through the length, the two-act play delves into their contrasting backgrounds, interests, career-graphs and personal lives. The characters bear no resemblance, they seldom meet but the yearning for the other is felt almost always – at the dance party, over wedding invites, the christmas greetings, even in the nostalgic paintings of “Kangaroos hopping over the Orange Juice”.
Splattered with generous slang and sarcasm, the play makes an easy watch even for the late-night movie buff. Only, Love Letters will make you drive back thinking about the lost pen pal you met while on the train to spend vacations at your grandparents.
A perfect reason to channel primetime audience away from the KKK clout. |
| posted by Shiv @ 10/29/2007 07:22:00 PM |
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Name: Shiv
Home: Hyderabad, India
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