bridge of Rama

But then, he thought to himself, if he was not all these things, if he had not done what he had done, had not the nature that he did possess, then he would not be Ravana at all. Then he would be... Rama. Or something close to Rama. A virtuous warrior beyond compare.
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she

"Plans?? for tonight?? are you mad!! no plans for valentine's... it just a usual day" shrieked a colleague when I asked her about plans for the love day; "Valentine's day, eeks!! I don't do all of that. No such day for me, I'm going out for dinner with my parents" informed another co worker when I asked her the same question. "Happy gay day Arjun... why are such days so publicized... sigh" messaged a friend from back home, while another one texted "CP was filled with red balloons today!!! This is going to be such a horrendous day".

Besides removing the plenty curse words my female friends were very lenient in using to express their feelings, nothing from the above quotes has been fabricated; my parents have suddenly started following my blog and so I'm trying really hard to keep it as clean as possible... I want them to think that I'm still the kid whose mom never allowed him to read Sidney Sheldon books.

I love women. I am sure God created them amidst a lot pomp and grandeur (probably his team was winning the World Cup back then), cause he sure knew what he was doing. From the wondrous miracle of birth to the infinite amount of care and affection they can offer... the ability to look good in everything from lingerie to bikinis and even our clothes for that matter, they pretty much kick our asses in everything that one can possibly think of. Without them being around, we would all have been a bunch of naked baboon like men jumping around with no sense of ideation.

Some of the good looking ones might sure be prude airheads; some might be slightly less intellectual than the others and while most of them are bad drivers, they still have abilities that probably stretch far beyond the masculine level of comprehension. Like the ability to understand and mold themselves in whatever situations arise. Like my four very intelligent and understanding friends who I mentioned in the first paragraph. On one day when they can expect things without having to use their various weapons of emotional blackmail, they know its better to put on a mask of denial and vehemently hate the day knowing that they are after all in the company of men like many of us.

Normally I would have refrained from writing a post about Valentine's day. Having my own arsenal of defense mechanisms, like last year's post on Lust day (read here), I would have preferred to plagiarise another anti-valentine's article and have fun mocking at the comments, but this year, after witnessing the animosity people (mostly women) had against the love day, I couldn't resist.

The fear I had when I initially thought off this post was off being mistaken as a crusader of love, a wannabe cupid, a blind moronic love fanatic and a hopeless romantic. Besides the last one, neither of the previous ones are true. I'm neither an incarnation of St. Valentine nor am I a nincompoop who believes that 'love conquers all'. I'm just a fan of the V day; a fan most of whose partners have entered post today in the yester years and have never lasted the distance till the next year.

Like many of those who clichéd reply is that everyday is Valentine's day for us, I do fall in the same category. So to all those of my kin who believe that it might be too much to handle for their fragile egos to do something extra on this day and to those of the fairer sex, who prefer reminding themselves a thousand times over about how lame the day really is, please stop. Affection sure doesn't need one specific day to be frolicked about, but it doesn't even harm anyone to spend an extra buck on those over priced roses and/or chocolates. It might just help you ease out an ongoing altercation or even have an upper hand in a near future one. Besides, the resultant pleasure will definitely go beyond the gratification you get from one your 18/21+ websites ;).

I love women. Besides the few exs for whom a tit bit of disdain still remains, I think all of them are near perfect and almost Utopian. My mom, who has helped me achieve this level love and respect (and also the hopeless romanticism) for women and who also happens to have been my Valentine for the last 21 years, is my perfect example of this flawlessness.

One special day for love may not really be appropriate when the entire year is there to do so, but I still can't help but quote (again with the fear of being perceived as a love crusader) from this movie I recently saw, Happythankyoumoreplease (yes, its one word without spaces... its the guy who plays Ted in How I Met Your Mother, Josh Radnor's directorial debut and is a good watch). Go get yourself loved... its not such a bad feeling after all.

do dooni chaar

I heard someone saying awhile back that absolute poverty is better than relative poverty. For the benefit of those with a non-economic background and/or lack of basic common sense, absolute poverty means not being able to afford a certain basic minimum standard of living, while relative poverty means being less rich in comparison with someone else. In simple terms, if you are spending your days on the road hunting for free food and shelter (and obviously not reading this blog) then you fall under absolute poverty and if you are born with a silver spoon in your mouth and a silver plate under your ass, while someone else is born with a golden spoon and a golden plate under his ass, then you're relatively poor to him/her i.e. relative poverty.

Even though it is not alien technology, I did spend 3 years of college studying Economics and not completely spending time chasing after the fairer sex, as many would think; I do know my economics definitions.

Coming back to the 2 mentioned terms, no sooner did the uttered statement hit my ear drums than the economics loving machinery in my head went on trials to test the validity of the statement. Briefly, the conclusion printed itself out and I realized that this it was probably the simplest yet the wittiest of economic theories I had come across.

The funny thing about money is that you never know how poor you are till you start earning. This being primarily because when you reach the stage when your bank account and what goes into it is more important than your hairdo and what colored jeans you're wearing, you also reach the stage when the priority status of your bank account and the brand of your jeans become equally important. With earnings, however marginal they might be come along expenses.

Having recently entered into this earning-spending stage, I realized it was easier to start looking at Wonder Woman for assets other than just her Golden Lasso than it is when the prize tag attached to that lasso and other things alike becomes visible.

Desires, wants and needs, all have a bar-code sticker attached to it. Though I would love to believe that the later one realizes this the better it is, it will be a distant pipe dream to do so. Like puberty, this also hits when you is not fully equipped. Besides the instilled feeling of pride of making it out completely on your own, versus the sting of breaking even in the bank account initially month after month, the proud feeling for most of us fortunate ones still overcomes the latter.

One can be a timid sheep against the mighty shepherd economy and run on the principle of 'though shall not want'; but as the sun sets, though shall still need and that can nobody run away from. Being a few steps ahead of the threshold of this stage, my ill-experienced foresight suggests that the only formula which would work is to make sure that this doesn't become a vicious systemic cycle. Thus giving a shut-eye to the means and earning a quick rupee here or there doesn't seem that bad an idea for now.

The only flipside to those certain days when I sit and scan the partially sorry state of my bank accounts is that at least now I know why on those certain evenings dad was unusually grumpy after checking his daily stack of mails; a stack which was mostly filled with payment notifications from various utility providers or how we know them as bills. After having my gears grinded by these similar bill days, I know now why even awesome exam results and successfully masqueraded study hours didn't go too far in getting his jolly self back.

Just like any other social or interpersonal aspect of life, one is in the strongest suite when he/she has nothing to lose. Simply taking it ahead from there, provided that you can charm yourself into getting a free meal twice daily as well as some shelter and clothes, being absolutely poor and having nothing to lose sounds much better than being relatively poor.

rocky balboa

If one poster speaks a million words, two speak 5 million words
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180 days of mumbai

A few years back when I realized I was mature enough to take a few immature life decisions, I took 2 trivially vital ones. This also being the time when my brother had moved to Mumbai to try his luck in the fashion world, I had tasted the glory of being the only child in the house. After almost 16 miserable years of living life in a bracket under the nail of an obscure tyrant, I had promised myself that no matter where I end up, I shall never live with my brother ever again. The second decision was that I will never under no circumstances live in Mumbai; should have realized earlier that "never say never" is not just one of those lame ass proverbs that desperate dudes use for dudettes who don't reciprocate to their delicate feelings.

There was also a third one to stop moving around with a palpating heart on my sleeve to cease falling around for every second floozy who comes around, but that didn't really work out well and is a complete different story.

The funny thing about irony is that while only a few people know what it means, the majority of others just use it cause its the easiest to remember figure of speech (sorry metaphor, you lose by quite a margin) and the remaining handful, whether they know about it or not, actually get to experience it. Albeit being a close drinking buddy, irony has mostly been a fiendish companion. And so I write this while living and residing in Mumbai sitting in a bachelor pad that I share with my now fairly successful model/actor/writer brother.

6 months in Mumbai is how long has it been so far and as one would expect, it has been an adventure. Though even till today I don't know where the earlier animosity for Mumbai stemmed from, but it was always there. I had never visited the city till back then and had only heard stories... lots of them, about the traffic, about the weather, about the people and about the trains of course.

I will not dare to be naive and admit that I have seen everything that the city has to offer in the tiny duration of 6 months, but I also can't deny that I have had my share of experiences here. Ranging from hospital visits to flicked wallets, the nightmarish ones have indeed taken their toll. But on the flip-side there have even been those which managed to match the gladness I felt when I could finally manage to pop a cherry some aeons ago (boooyeah ;). Fortunately for me, the latter ones out scale the former ones.

Being as pensive as I can ever get, I still can't get myself to realize how these 180 days have passed so quickly. Though I do realize one thing, living here hasn't changed me or dawned any realization of how difficult real life is and how one has to constantly struggle. I however do know that I've become a supreme-man to a set of kick ass super proud and super-prime parents and other fairy caretakers, who have always been around to remove the various chunks of kryptonite that seldom enter in my periphery.

After the initial horrendous months of infinite adjustments, things have thankfully settled down. And even though it is still a wee difficult to live in a house smaller than most office cubicles, to travel for long hours stuffed with 60 other men who I hope know what being plutonic means and to break even in the bank account month after month, I think I have finally discerned the formula to deal with it all. So, the bachelor pad has obviously been super primed, the work place has been taken as a second home, the train journeys have managed to become funnier by the day and well the bank situation, solves itself out somehow or the other.

I was told awhile back that I don't necessarily have to live the city, but rather accept it the way it is. And since doing that, the distance from then till here has been as awesome as all the 6 Rocky movies. The Smallville'ish town of Ahmedabad will always be home, but like Clark Kent's Metropolis, Mumbai is second home now. In spite of there being days when a bus ride back to Ahmedabad seems to be the only thing my neurons manage to ponder about, the feeling fades quickly.

Sitting on top of a supremely awesome kick ass dream job, the seldom instances happening around and the city itself doesn't fail to remind why exactly is Victoria Terminus has been used as the opening shot of a gazillion movies and why Mumbai is called the city where dreams come true.

homecoming

Bus ticket from Mumbai to Ahmedabad, 1000 rs.

Return bus ticket from Ahmedabad to Mumbai, 1200 rs.

Cost of 2 free Sunburn passes given up to come home early, 9000 rs.

Being welcomed home after 3 months by a sweater clad basset hound who refuses to stop licking your face... priceless

There are some experiences that money can buy, for everything else, just come back home.
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article 52

"A Bro is not required to remember another Bro's birthday, though a phone call every now and again probably wouldn't kill him"

Happy Birthday Aman
Cheers!!!

lust - n. intense or unrestrained craving

At times I feel like a wannabe serial killer who fascinates about murder to satisfy his homicidal needs; and every time it happens so, before I loathe myself and start heltering skeltering around to get away from this feeling, the realization dawns that its time to pull up my socks and stop being a wannabe. Blood lust is the term coined for what killers go through; and even though there are more than a few times that I try (and try very hard) to understand the mind of a murderer, I fail to do so. Fortunately, blood lust is not what I feel. I have however been bestowed with a different kind of lust, one which involves knowing everything of anything. And like the very conventional lust for actions that first pop in everyone's head when one reads the word lust (yea, giving it a bold and italic effect will make you think more about it), I enjoy my knowledge lust as much as I do enjoy the former one.

The best compliment ever given to me was that I am like Wikipedia. And even though this one was given at a time when the complimenter was as smitten by the complimentee as the latter was with the former, I still can't help but chuckle every time I think about it. I'm not cocky enough to think that I am actually Wikipedia, but I do consider sports, mythology, movies, superheroes and history (yes, men in tights... haha) as my forte. Moving ahead and not making this a very self centered post, I come to realize that I am also surrounded by some who share my knowledge lust. And even though theirs might be in varying proportions, I'm glad to have a father, an idol, a best friend, a boss and few others I can't remember on the top of my head, who share this thirst.

If ignorance in involuntary, naivety is not. There is a thin line of dichotomy between the two, and even though everyone may not possess the lust for knowledge, it doesn't take much to move from this side of the thin line to the other. So if you chose to believe that Ramayana and the Mahabharata didn't actually happen but are weaved tales of a saint, then you're being ignorant; you need to give them a read. And if you opt to believe that India have a strong chance in winning next year's World Cup or that peeping boyfriends are actually unforced errors and not deliberate attempts to gain attention, than you are being knowingly and very innocently naive.

Similarly there is a tiny one step distance between being Wikipedia and being Microsoft's Spell and Grammar check. Its outright fun being the guy with all the "knowledge" and all of the fun trivia amongst a group of respectable ignorant and some naive folks; but in a country like ours, where an entire off the books grammar system exists, going Microsoft Spell & Grammar Check on everyone won't take you too far being popular and sought after.

I conclude that it is not completely possible for me to understand the mind of a serial killer. And unless I commit a heinous feat myself, I may never know what it feels like. Probably the only drawback of this lust for knowledge is that one can never be content. No matter how much one feeds in the fortress of solitude upstairs, knowledge will still be infinite.

Just like one doesn't need to be a lust driven sex crazed animal to justify getting laid; knowledge lust should not be the only reason to keep you away from the ignorant quota. Whoever said ignorance is bliss besides never getting laid also didn't know what it feels like to be on this side of the fence.

PS - For those who started reading the post because the title was interesting, do care to curse yourself at least once... sex got the better off you... yet again

the Indian football dream

3 months ago Wavin' Flag was the song on everyone's lips and the one set as their ringtones. Shaikra's Waka Waka also did manage to get its share of caller tunes, and this was all amidst the fan frenzy the ongoing FIFA World Cup had created. That was also the time when I had moved from the small town of Ahmedabad to mighty Mumbai, so fortunately for me I experienced everything from matches on big screens to free vuvuzela give aways and more importantly an atmosphere with like minded, jersey clad, football fanatics all around me. This really made me wonder, how big football is and how big it can get in a sub-continent over-populated with cricket lovers.

Living in Ahmedabad, it wasn't as if I didn't know that football was very sought after in our country. I knew that 1,25,000 football crazies had gathered at the Saltlake stadium when the sport bid good bye to one of the best goal keepers it had seen. I knew it when Sunil Chhetri signed a 3 year deal with Queens Park Rangers, but sadly never got a work permit from the British Government. I knew all about Maradona's India tour and the chaos that went behind it. Yes, I did keep myself updated with the news, but could never realize the magnitude of it till I experienced the World Cup in Mumbai.

I had underestimated the sport's reach in India. It comes second only to cricket and even though the fan base is majorly filled with support for the EPL big 4, Manchester United, Chelsea, Arsenal and Liverpool, I realized there lies a huge store of untapped potential for football in India. Even though I have been a loyal and devoted Red Devils fan for the last 10 years or so, I won't deny that it pinches every time I realize that I cannot muster up the same level of devotion and obsession for an Indian club… or even for our infamous Indian football team.

I'd hate it if football comes out to be a demi god for those who treat Sachin as God and Cricket as a religion… being a sports lover, I have my own fanaticism for cricket and the Indian cricket team. The inception and success of the Indian Premier League not only proves that its possible to boost love for an already crazed sport to infinite levels, but also that if the right amount of dynamism is put, the I-League or the Durand Cup and others alike can be bought very near to cricket if not beyond it.

Comparing the EPL to I-League will surely be apples to oranges, but I can't help but reason that if the EPL can grow to this magnitude in terms of not only its fan base but also as an invaluable TV product, beyond the borders of its tiny origin country, if put through the right channels and with efforts not unknown to the professionals and sportsmen in India, football will not be too far behind.

Football may not have a Sachin Tendulkar of its own, but we still have cities like Goa, Kolkata and Mumbai where the sport is big. In a massive country like ours, it may be difficult to replicate efforts and its effects made at city to another, but considering the untapped potential in our upcoming footballers and possible future infrastructural avenues, cities like Bangalore, Delhi and Ahmedabad may also end up having a Mohun Bagan for them.

Even though my team ended up on the losing side in the World Cup final match, the experience of witnessing the World Cup here made it possible for me to look at the bigger picture football has produced. How I wished at the start of every match that I could chorus along Wavin' Flag to the Indian contingent coming through the tunnels at South Africa and not to some other country I haven't even been to.

bumblebee

If a picture speaks a thousand words, a poster speaks a million.
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