Nomenclature and mania

After a month of dry spell, it finally rained. It looks lovely now with everything turning a little green again.

Emily came last week and just passed by. A few days back Dennis went by without even knocking on the door in my place. Last year it was, I believe, Ivan.

Well they do come and go and I am talking about the hurricanes that frequently visit US. A fleeting thought.. what if back in India we started naming the cyclones which visit us with equal frequency?

Probably the one that hits Gujarat might be called Shantiben or Keshubhai. So the news would read.. Keshubhai caused hundreds to be homeless and wrecked havoc in western coast of Gujarat.. not that it may be wrong when other puns are intended.
Shantiben disrupted the quiet and peace of rural and urban gujarat alike.

The one that hits Orissa would be innocently named Behra. The 9 pm news might sound...

An alarm has been sounded all along the Orissa coast as Behra is coming. People have been notified to seek shelter and remain out of the way of Behra to minimise threat to life.

And then this particular is the best. When some cyclone hits my native state.. the newsreader would need a glass of water on the table.

A high severity A.S.R.D.B.G.J.K.T.P.N. Subba Rao hit southern coastal Andhra yesterday night. It is believed that A.S.R.D.B.G.J.K.T.P.N. Subba Rao [glass of water] has wind speeds of about 200 km/hr. Fishermen are advised to stay out of sea as A.S.R.D.B.G.J.K.T.P.N. Subba Rao [glass of water] may still be strong in the region for the next 2 days.

As I mentioned before I was going to write about Harry Potter. But then there are damn so many sites that have almost the whole book autopsied. Hell......!! - The Potter mania.. Anyways, since I already have written a short non-spoiler, here it goes:

Harry Potter never ceases to excite me. The sixth book is no less. Ok, for those of you who feel I may reveal the story - there are no spoilers. Go ahead and read this post and the book too.

Though not as fast paced as the goblet of fire, this book, I believe, has one of the most well written build ups in the series. It has got stuff for everybody. Some excitement for the first time Potter readers, some romance to keep up with the teening protagonists, some dark magic for the seasoned and then some action in the end to pack it off in filmi style. But wait this has some deep emotions too. It would be surprising if you already do not know that somebody important is gonna die. Keep guessing till you read it!!

Also there are a lot of differences in this book when compared to the previous potter's [form and style wise]. Let me not write about that lest the beans be spilled.

A good book, a quick page turner; a sit-after-dinner-finish-before-the-moon's-gone one.

Enjoy.

Guru Devo bhava...

Still remember one of those classes of "moral science" when I was in the 4th or 5th grade and the class was being explained how man and woman came to the world [read Adam and Eve]. Nurtured by science and encouraged to put everything under the magnifying glass of inquisitive questioning, one of us stood up to bell the cat.

student: If God created man and woman how do you explain evolution theory.
sister: What are you talking about?
student: The evolution theory by Charles Darwin that say humans evolved from apes.
sister: I would say I have never seen any monkeys becoming humans all my life...

student shows a lost-in-kumbh-mela look. Laughter in the class.
Angry looks from the sister. Hush hush....

Even today I think maybe Charles Darwin was wrong and my innocent "moral science" sister was correct. Irony is that they belonged to different times. Had Charles Darwin been present there, he would have jumped out of the window then and there without a second thought. At least my school would have been marked well in the world atlas then.

Take another one. This time a science class:

Teacher: Sun is in the centre and earth revolves around it. Sun is stationary.
Smart student: My dad says that everything moves in space and universe. Nothing is stationary.
Teacher: That is wrong.

Next day student brings a big book [of the league of "brief history of time"] with appropriate parts highlighted. Teacher looks at it while the classroom waits in suspense as in an Hitchcock thriller.

Teacher: Well, that is for big people. For smaller classes Sun is stationary.

Duh!!!!!!! So while I completed my primary school, the Sun remained stationary. Till date I do not know if I have become big enough to understand that everything in universe moves and revolves.

In one of our geography classes - on the marvels of science and how technology has apparently reduced distances - a mention of FAX.

Student: What is the full form of FAX?
Teacher: Fast automatic xerox [without batting an eyelid]

Guess the teacher in all his knowledge [or the lack thereof] was good in creativity.

It took a great effort from my Dad to change my conviction and faith from my teachers and that FAX means Fascimile Automatic Exchange.

Take a look at this one:

Scene History class:

An old teacher was reading out some chapter concerning comparisons of scientific advances in ancient India and not-so-ancient India. Digressing from the text in book [a proactive discussing teacher!]:

Teacher: So you know we had lot of technical advances even when Rishis were there
They wrote vedas understood astronomy and all.

Bored class.. students yawning.

Teacher: TVs are invented in this century in the western world and it is now that we know of live cricket. But think of Mahabaharata. Sanjay gave a live account of the war to Dhritarashtra. Surely they had some sort of TV invented then.

Had the class been not sleeping, half of it would have fainted.

My age does not permit me to remember everything. My senior years were spent more in comprehending the objectivity of the classes than understanding what was being taught. So I do not remember such education from that part of my life - not until I reached engineering.

In a physics or a mathematics class in my I year:

A new teacher hands out the answer sheets after correction:

Student: Maa'm... you have given me zero for this problem.
Teacher: Yes the answer is not correct.
Student: But that is because I made a calculation mistake in the last step. I think I should get some marks for the logic.
Teacher: Let me see.
checks out the problem.
Teacher: Laagic [logic] is correct but procedure is wrong.
Student: Excuse me, sorry?
Teacher: Yes ma.. laagic is correct, but procedure is wrong.
Student: You mean my steps are wrong.
Teacher: No ma, steps correct. Laagic is correct but procedure is wrong.

You know its better to sit down in such situations than to argue.

All those who still have a dominant child in them, go and watch "Charlie and the Chocolate factory" - you will probably enjoy it.

Coming up next - Harry Potter - 6.........

Is it that bad?

One of the previous nights, I talked to my friend who just returned back to India after an year long stint in the US of A.

His increasing weight and loss of hair on his head only start his long list of woes. He complains that it takes him a good one and half hour to travel to work in the shuttle. His pocket got picked while having a breakfast and ergo he lost his new mobile phone. Our friends are getting married - A was engaged last week; B is getting enagaged next week. C is shifting jobs. He doesn't have much company for the weekends. Work sucks. Traffic sucks. Life sucks.

I tried to forget it, rubbish it - but it stayed. It stayed like that small grain of your last sandwhich stuck in some tooth of yours. So small, so harmless but yet you cannot take it out of your mind. You keep probing it, digging at it till it is safely out.

So I sat down reflecting. All this gives me scares - for I too have to go back to India some time soon.

He did the same work here that he does in India. So basically if work sucks there so should it have here. It didn't seem to suck that much here - nah.... work is not a problem.

#He is one of those die hard vegans. So food gets a thumbs up in India.

#He feels lonely there - not that he had too many friends here!

#He doesn't have broadband internet at home there - but then why does he need it when he comes back home only to sleep.

#Friends are getting married. Umm.. He says that he hasn't thought much about it. Wait.. you need to understand the implications of that statement. He used to say "no marriage before Dec 2006". Now that's a sea of change in his eagerness to tie the knot. So that too is on track.

#No entertainment there. What did he do here. Visited just one place in a whole year. He has no right to complain.

I cannot pin point the root cause of his problem and woes. People just seem to crib.

Agreed we have huge crowds, corrupt govt officials, bad transport and roads, power cuts.... but then we have learnt to live with these for all these years.

So why crib when we know how it is over there.

Advantage India:

-- You never get to eat all the chats and pani-puris on the road side.

-- The idli-vada-sambar/dosas/upma/paratha's gets replaced by bread-butter-cereals. Give me a break!

-- Tortillas can never match the chappatis.

-- Crossing the road on foot is no longer an adventure. You need to wait for the weekend to plan for an adventure.

-- We have to drive to national park to see wildlife. There they just dwell on the roads.

-- Emergency grocery shopping is never a skip hop jump at the nearby Anna's shop.

-- Milk never gets delivered to my door.

-- Office means 9 hrs of straight work. [Back there it is 10 hrs of work and 2 hrs of gossip catching]

-- Nothing like the creamy tea - all I do here is have a black tea, for the creamer is made of soya. #^#$%#&%&

-- No longer I get to see the fresh vegetables on a cart.

-- I have forgotton what it is like to travel in a train with the wind blowing in your face.

-- I never get a chance to chase cockroaches and rats.

-- Nothing beats the pickle made by my mom.

The list goes on.................

I mean no offense to people who might think otherwise. But it is all about those people who know what it is out there; all wanting to get back home and then act like chimpanzees once they are there. [I might have acted like one had I not done some soul search on this].

It's been 2 days since this post is gestating. I read it, re-read it umpteen number of times. It looks incomplete. I cannot figure out if there can be a completion. I will leave it at this point with the thoughts still lingering in the back corridors of my mind.

I am just trying to remain optimistic for my impending return.

Winking in the night

I turned in my bed and lay on my back. 10 minutes later I turned again and lay on my left [side]. 5 and half minutes later on my right. 10 minutes later I lay with my dorsal part up. Yeah, basically sleep was eluding me.

So I jumped out of my bed and being temporarily out of stock of good reading material, I turned on my desktop. So there I was writing this piece of god-knows-what. I reflected upon my day - it was a pretty normal, dull routine day.

Saw sarkar today.. was not bad for all the reviews I had read - worth a watch, methinks. May not be Godfather and have a matching Al Pacino but still not bad.

So as I blinked as to what else to write, a thought that had passed through the intricate hidden layers of my creative grey came back to me - winking.

I realized that it is a big secret of people who are successful and charismatic: they have mastered the art of the wink. They know how to use it at key moments that bring others into their confidence and confer a sense of intimacy.

Winking is intimate and subtle. So don't employ it with other more flashy gestures of intimacy. For example, it's incorrect and not civilized to wink at people with your pants down.

I guess there are some general understandings about winking.

Get the gesture right. It’s just a brief, barely perceptible flicker. You shouldn’t put the entire side of your facial muscles into play. If you do, it won’t look like a subtle gesture of good natured intimacy; it will look like someone squirted lemon in your eye.

If you wink for too long, you might be mistaken to be a drunkard.

Only wink when you say or do something that’s meant to be funny, sarcastic or notable. If you wink at someone and say “Help me with vacuuming the house” people will be confused.

Winking is an art and I think I am pretty good at it. The wonderful part is I can wink with both my eyes at the same time.... yeah you can also try it. It's pretty interesting and nobody is offended by it.

Adios and keep trying the 2 eyed wink. Get back to me if you need a training guide on that.

Of Iced Mochachino, cheesecake and lake Austin

Mozart's is what they call it and truly doing justice to the name they brew some of the finest coffee in the town. Located at the lakefront this is a real good place to sit on a rickety wooden bench and devour a book as you quitely sip on your coffee. Student's, elders, couples, book lovers and all other species line up for the rich serene experience.

Evening 7 pm is still a hot sunny time down here. So me and my friend settled down on a bench soaking the warmth of the sun reflecting from the clear lake waters. We talked about a few important things and then lot about unimportant things [they just seem to come by]. A turtle or two swam close by in circles.. probably they expected me to part with a piece of my cheesecake.. nah! In the distance a weirdo overdid his ski-jet stunts and a cop hauled up a big party boat.. guess he expected them to have just a few pepsi and colas on a party??!!

Troubled where all this takes you..? 2 hrs of quality time without the crowds getting to your nerves, a place to eat all the desserts you want without the waiters pestering you even once and all this in the heart of a city. I never remotely dreamt of anything close except maybe in hill stations and other such bollywoodish places.

So as the Sun made way for the stars and the moon suddenly I slapped my arm real hard. As with the quality of certain things mosquitoes also do get better in US [wherever they are found]. The stagnant waters of the lakes openly welcome all species of living things. But for that, so good is the place that even a 40 mile to and fro drive does not bring down my spirts in any way.

Bangalore, do you hear it?

Plan to make it a weekend reading getaway.......

Au revoir

Here I am

"Why have I not been writing for the last few days?" - this has been a question posed to me by my dear admirers. Well, don't I have a right to be on a vaction any time?

But then writing is something I do as a relaxation. And on a long weekend I am pretty much relaxed to want to do writing. This weekend, I saw "War of the worlds". Went for hiking in the killing heat, gulped down a litre of gatorade without a drop of pee coming out and saw that Independence day is just another day off in the US without much fanfare.

So as we were driving to this nice hiking place called "hamilton pool", I came across a hoarding which said "No swimming today due to high levels of bacteria". Come on how could they know that I was harboring all the bacteria under the sweat on that day? Only after seeing the colour of the water there, I did realise that perhaps they might be talking about the water [you would agree after seeing the snap]. But the sign stands there everyday for whole of the year - "No swimming today"! But the place was worth a visit and a good hiking.



Talking about such boards and signs there are a few others that I have come across which never fail to amuse.

In a shop: "Aaj nakad kal udhaar" [Cash today, credit tomorrow - when will this tomorrow come - eternal wait!!]
In a video coach: "Video not working today" [perhaps the next time I board the bus?]

As I was browsing through the net, found an archive of old road signs put up by a gentleman at this site

I mentioned before that I did happen to see WOTW. It mostly screams Spielberg. It has all the great visual effects - a fair job done in retelling H.G. Wells seminal classic. For those who have just seen the trailers so far - you might have already guessed that it's Cruise trying to save his family from aliens. What it lacks is originality. Come on we have had enough of aliens invading us without even understanding why. Please come up with some different subject. Only the ending seemed a bit different for the 2 odd hours long drag [I am not revealing it - for those who still wanna watch it]. A no-no even for Spielberg fans.

Salut.......