Face deep in a tub of deliciously, creamy ice-cream, I had the misfortune of coming across an article in the Economic Times. Yes! I eat ice-cream and read. Also the stray pup I tried saving last week had been killed by a truck. Sweet, cold, chocolatey food makes me feel better.
It is bad enough that there is a divide (with jagged rocks to fall on for those who try to cross over to the other side) between US, commoners and THEM, ‘crème de la crème’ who get invited to every ‘Premier’ opening, regardless of whether it is a movie or exhibition or an ‘exclusive’ peak at a new store. But to rub salt on open, bleeding wounds (from the attempted cross over) or to add yet another blow to our bruised egos, there was THIS very sign outside the new Haagen-Dazs outlet in south Delhi – ‘Entry restricted only to holders of international passports’.
The series of reactions that followed are (1) GASP! (2) Mother-&@#%*^# (3) Annoyance deep enough to chuck the tub of sin across the room (4) A sense of calm found only through meditation (5) A cynical laugh
Needless to say, wheels began stirring in that part of my mind, which could well be described as ‘delightfully duplicitous’ and I came up with wonderfully, shrewd schemes. Plant a bomb, blow the place up to smithereens and blame it on Osama (Well knowing the turmoil our world is going through, it could very well be possible). Mix rat poison into the ice-cream. Gas the damn place. Accompany a friend and pee on the door. Hey! I’m a commoner, remember. Were you expecting ‘original’ ideas?
It has been 62 years since the existence of ‘Dogs and Indians not allowed’ signs. So, I’ll just take my patronage elsewhere and stick my face in there. Hopefully with the 6-8 dollars less in their monthly P&L account, they’ll decide to ‘Quit India’.
Thursday, December 17, 2009
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
Distraught
Passed by your mangled carcass.
I couldn't shed a tear.
Why did I even try?
Should I have brought you home?
Was my mother right?
Was I trying to prove something?
I am Distraught.
I couldn't shed a tear.
Why did I even try?
Should I have brought you home?
Was my mother right?
Was I trying to prove something?
I am Distraught.
Friday, December 4, 2009
Bombay or Mumbai
A few strands of grey hair here and a few lines on her face there, she stood outside the glass doors. With a bouquet grasped in her hands, she earnestly looked over the crowd……searching for me, her daughter.
I stood outside the office, held in an embrace by a hunched, pot bellied man whose smell reminds me of deep, secure, comfortable sleep. Baba.
Whine. Whimper. Yelp. Squeak. A blur of black and white fur. A wet nose in my ear. A lick across my neck. Apache.
Raindrops. Drizzle. Puddles. Grey sky. Grey sea. Grey buildings. Grey thoughts.
Drive down the Eastern Express. To Bandra, past Parel. Then to Worli via the sea link. Then off towards Colaba.
Lunch in Leopold’s. I spot the bullet holes. Not enamoured.
The week turns out to be grey.
I can feel the eyeballs burning into my back as I walk into campus.
I don’t care. I’m grey. Grey doesn’t care.
As the hours pass by.
Sunlight appears over Grey Bombay.
Bandra: A few cobbled roads. Quaint Christian houses. Lovely stores and boutiques.
Colaba: Anitiques hanging by the roadside. Uber cool youth roughly brushes past. Lebanese food at Picadilly. Parsi food at Paradise.
Carter Road: ‘Out of the Blue’ and ‘Olive’
Andheri: Anna’s and Rohan’s house. Tina and B’s hotels.
Powai: College in the uber cool Hiranandani layout.
Mahim: Graffiti on the roadside walls.
Parel: Dad’s office. Pheonix Mills.
Worli: A mall and the Sea link.
Sion: Doesn’t it rhyme with ‘lion’?
Ghatkopar: R City Mall. Tara’s place.
Thane: A village. With big, huge apartments. My home.
Trains: Malleable dough of seemingly unimportant human flesh.
Gateway of India: It’s smaller than I thought it would be.
Taj: Still standing strong. Also smaller than I thought it would be.
Bollywood: Amitabh’s House. A very pregnant Perizaad Zorabian. A scrawny Amrita Rao.
Friends: Anna. Purti. Rohan. Pavi. Tanu. And more.
A constant: B.
Now, I see colours.
I stood outside the office, held in an embrace by a hunched, pot bellied man whose smell reminds me of deep, secure, comfortable sleep. Baba.
Whine. Whimper. Yelp. Squeak. A blur of black and white fur. A wet nose in my ear. A lick across my neck. Apache.
Raindrops. Drizzle. Puddles. Grey sky. Grey sea. Grey buildings. Grey thoughts.
Drive down the Eastern Express. To Bandra, past Parel. Then to Worli via the sea link. Then off towards Colaba.
Lunch in Leopold’s. I spot the bullet holes. Not enamoured.
The week turns out to be grey.
I can feel the eyeballs burning into my back as I walk into campus.
I don’t care. I’m grey. Grey doesn’t care.
As the hours pass by.
Sunlight appears over Grey Bombay.
Bandra: A few cobbled roads. Quaint Christian houses. Lovely stores and boutiques.
Colaba: Anitiques hanging by the roadside. Uber cool youth roughly brushes past. Lebanese food at Picadilly. Parsi food at Paradise.
Carter Road: ‘Out of the Blue’ and ‘Olive’
Andheri: Anna’s and Rohan’s house. Tina and B’s hotels.
Powai: College in the uber cool Hiranandani layout.
Mahim: Graffiti on the roadside walls.
Parel: Dad’s office. Pheonix Mills.
Worli: A mall and the Sea link.
Sion: Doesn’t it rhyme with ‘lion’?
Ghatkopar: R City Mall. Tara’s place.
Thane: A village. With big, huge apartments. My home.
Trains: Malleable dough of seemingly unimportant human flesh.
Gateway of India: It’s smaller than I thought it would be.
Taj: Still standing strong. Also smaller than I thought it would be.
Bollywood: Amitabh’s House. A very pregnant Perizaad Zorabian. A scrawny Amrita Rao.
Friends: Anna. Purti. Rohan. Pavi. Tanu. And more.
A constant: B.
Now, I see colours.
Thursday, December 3, 2009
Blast from the past!
An essay I wrote a couple of years back on 'Personality Development'.
Superhero. What are the first few famous names that occur to you when you hear the word ‘Superhero’? I’m sure it would be Superman, Spiderman or may be even Batman. What most people do not know is that Batman is not really a ‘Superhero’ even though the comic book creators have categorized him as one. Batman is in fact just a human being, with of course the additional benefits of having fancy gadgets. Where Superman is an alien brought up on Earth and Spiderman obtained his superhero powers by being bitten by a scientifically created spider, Batman is just your average Joe trying to fight crime on the streets of Gotham City.
I hold Batman as an example of who I want to become. Well, that is not entirely true. I don’t quite want to be a ‘caped crusader’ fighting off criminals. I don’t want BE him. I want to be LIKE him. After gaining admission into IBS, Chennai, I am compelled to live away from a known and sheltered place called ‘home’. I live now in an entirely different city. I fend for myself. My mother is not around to clean up after me and cook for me. Neither is my father around to swipe his credit card. (I am an only child, hence spoilt rotten.) I cook and clean and manage my own limited finances. That takes care of my personal development.
At college, I meet new people, get to know them better, accept them for who they are and learn not to judge them. I gather knowledge behind the career path I’d like to follow. I will obtain first hand work experience through SIP this semester. I have also had the misfortune of experiencing that no matter how talented or capable you are, you may not bear the fruits of your labor. You will be evaluated based on whether or not you are in the ‘good books’ of your superior. It is necessary to be shrewd and ‘play your cards right’ along with being talented and capable. It is only with a politically correct mix of the above, will you achieve your desired goal. After all it is a rat race out there and you are in fact just a rat. This is just the beginning of my professional development.
So here I am before you, an average Joe with the powers of personal and professional skills, ready to take on the world. I may not be ‘Batman’ fighting crime but I’m pretty sure that given a few years, I will be ‘Supermom’.
Superhero. What are the first few famous names that occur to you when you hear the word ‘Superhero’? I’m sure it would be Superman, Spiderman or may be even Batman. What most people do not know is that Batman is not really a ‘Superhero’ even though the comic book creators have categorized him as one. Batman is in fact just a human being, with of course the additional benefits of having fancy gadgets. Where Superman is an alien brought up on Earth and Spiderman obtained his superhero powers by being bitten by a scientifically created spider, Batman is just your average Joe trying to fight crime on the streets of Gotham City.
I hold Batman as an example of who I want to become. Well, that is not entirely true. I don’t quite want to be a ‘caped crusader’ fighting off criminals. I don’t want BE him. I want to be LIKE him. After gaining admission into IBS, Chennai, I am compelled to live away from a known and sheltered place called ‘home’. I live now in an entirely different city. I fend for myself. My mother is not around to clean up after me and cook for me. Neither is my father around to swipe his credit card. (I am an only child, hence spoilt rotten.) I cook and clean and manage my own limited finances. That takes care of my personal development.
At college, I meet new people, get to know them better, accept them for who they are and learn not to judge them. I gather knowledge behind the career path I’d like to follow. I will obtain first hand work experience through SIP this semester. I have also had the misfortune of experiencing that no matter how talented or capable you are, you may not bear the fruits of your labor. You will be evaluated based on whether or not you are in the ‘good books’ of your superior. It is necessary to be shrewd and ‘play your cards right’ along with being talented and capable. It is only with a politically correct mix of the above, will you achieve your desired goal. After all it is a rat race out there and you are in fact just a rat. This is just the beginning of my professional development.
So here I am before you, an average Joe with the powers of personal and professional skills, ready to take on the world. I may not be ‘Batman’ fighting crime but I’m pretty sure that given a few years, I will be ‘Supermom’.
Tuesday, December 1, 2009
LET’S PLAY BALL!
“Blog, I think I have neglected you for a really long time. I am really very sorry. Please try and forgive me! I’ll do anything to make it up to you.”
Boy! That must have been uncomfortable for you (my readers, if you do exist ie). I did not mean to get you involved in this. Blog found out I was cheating on her with my Life and she was, needless to say, NOT happy. To the extent she gave me ‘writer’s block’. I had to appease her with an apology and this – a brand new post depicting a brand new chapter to …..Sssshhhh….. (looks left and right) L-I-F-E.
What was supposed to be a vacation to Mumbai culminated into a move to the damn city. I bid a dramatic but quiet adieu to a city I will always hold close to my heart and was purged into a heartlessly competitive city.
So here I am, displaced from everything familiar and certain, into a new home, the 9th postal address I have had in 5 years, a new campus, new faculty, a new set of batchmates, and yet another altered game plan.
I did what came easiest to me. Threw my hands up and wailed my guts and heart out.
Skype/G Talk with a red eyed, puffy faced, sniffling, snort filled girlfriend must have been an unpleasant experience for B. Till he decided to turn up for an entire week, knock some sense into my head and go back to the Village.
He reminded me of a choice I had to make. Either strike out or deal with the curveball Life threw at me and knock it outta the park.
Weighing my options (I didn’t have too many), I realized that I have enormous opportunities before me.
•Discover the unchartered territories of a smog filled city
•New sources of Retail Therapy
•New Watering Holes to drown in
•More places to get caught gorging on food
•A new culture to discover
•New connections to make
•Bollywood (No. I’m not making an attempt to get into the industry. Just grab moments to stare at the occasional famous person!)
•A challenging dissertation (that too on Retail)
•The last few months of Student Life
•A giant leap into the Real World
An Easton Reflex in my hands, I narrow my eyes and spit.
Boy! That must have been uncomfortable for you (my readers, if you do exist ie). I did not mean to get you involved in this. Blog found out I was cheating on her with my Life and she was, needless to say, NOT happy. To the extent she gave me ‘writer’s block’. I had to appease her with an apology and this – a brand new post depicting a brand new chapter to …..Sssshhhh….. (looks left and right) L-I-F-E.
What was supposed to be a vacation to Mumbai culminated into a move to the damn city. I bid a dramatic but quiet adieu to a city I will always hold close to my heart and was purged into a heartlessly competitive city.
So here I am, displaced from everything familiar and certain, into a new home, the 9th postal address I have had in 5 years, a new campus, new faculty, a new set of batchmates, and yet another altered game plan.
I did what came easiest to me. Threw my hands up and wailed my guts and heart out.
Skype/G Talk with a red eyed, puffy faced, sniffling, snort filled girlfriend must have been an unpleasant experience for B. Till he decided to turn up for an entire week, knock some sense into my head and go back to the Village.
He reminded me of a choice I had to make. Either strike out or deal with the curveball Life threw at me and knock it outta the park.
Weighing my options (I didn’t have too many), I realized that I have enormous opportunities before me.
•Discover the unchartered territories of a smog filled city
•New sources of Retail Therapy
•New Watering Holes to drown in
•More places to get caught gorging on food
•A new culture to discover
•New connections to make
•Bollywood (No. I’m not making an attempt to get into the industry. Just grab moments to stare at the occasional famous person!)
•A challenging dissertation (that too on Retail)
•The last few months of Student Life
•A giant leap into the Real World
An Easton Reflex in my hands, I narrow my eyes and spit.
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