Dindu was aware of his emotional insecurity. Frequently he would fall into his negative self and lose all his energy to fight back. Handling emotions had never been easy for him especially when he grew up and emotions started becoming stronger and choices more complicated. Relationships and family meant nothing more than an emotional liability. He could never draw strength from his family and was mostly left alone in making important choices of his life, the choices he thought he would never have to make. Somehow he was surviving, but he barely felt alive.
Jay had come in his life a year ago. She was a pain in the beginning, with all uncomfortable questions and those curious, honest eyes. But slowly a bond started building between the two. Dindu could speak openly to her, which evaporated his hardened feelings and his heart felt lighter. Jay was always happy to be a listener. After a few months, Dindu had reached the threshold where friendship starts transforming into a relationship. He was feeling emotionally more stable and alive for the first time in many years. He had decided to let her know how he felt about her.
He still remembered the morning he had thought he would let her know. A strange aura had descended on her face that day. She looked beautiful, much prettier than she usually was. The same morning Jay had introduced him to her fiancée. Dindu remembered that he had managed to smile and congratulate them both and wished them luck. They got married a few months later. Dindu had excused himself from attending the wedding because he had been transferred to a different city. The day before he left the city, he wrote in his diary:
May be the real question is ‘When it will be’ and not ‘Who it will be’. It will be hard. It was a tough choice…
Showing posts with label Dindu. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Dindu. Show all posts
Monday, July 28, 2008
Friday, July 18, 2008
changing times...
“You always have to have everything your cousin has. Don’t you understand that your uncle is a police commissioner and your aunt is a manager in the bank? Your mother is just a housewife and I am a junior engineer in the electricity board. We don’t earn as much as they do. We must save money for the future. We are not same! Don’t ask me ever again to get you something which you saw your cousin has! Learn to control your feelings!”
It was almost 10 years ago. Dindu had asked his father to buy him a computer to help his studies at the college. He always got similar answers - when he had asked for a cricket bat, video game or a fountain pen or when he had asked his father to take them to a new place for summer holidays instead of going to their uncle's house as they did every year. After that day he had stopped asking.
Dindu was lying on his back in a lonely corner of the beach - his eyes focused on the infinity of the sky, a cloud intercepting the infinity every now and then. Earlier that evening Dindu had a conversation with his father. His father called him from the village saying: “Look at your cousin. Learn something from him. He has got a better paying job, he married to a beautiful wife and now soon they will have children. I had saved some ten lakh rupees to spend on your marriage, but you never listen to what I say. You don’t care about your parent's feelings.”
It was almost 10 years ago. Dindu had asked his father to buy him a computer to help his studies at the college. He always got similar answers - when he had asked for a cricket bat, video game or a fountain pen or when he had asked his father to take them to a new place for summer holidays instead of going to their uncle's house as they did every year. After that day he had stopped asking.
Dindu was lying on his back in a lonely corner of the beach - his eyes focused on the infinity of the sky, a cloud intercepting the infinity every now and then. Earlier that evening Dindu had a conversation with his father. His father called him from the village saying: “Look at your cousin. Learn something from him. He has got a better paying job, he married to a beautiful wife and now soon they will have children. I had saved some ten lakh rupees to spend on your marriage, but you never listen to what I say. You don’t care about your parent's feelings.”
Dindu didn’t know whether he felt surprised or betrayed. It was almost dark. He realized, it no longer mattered whether he kept his eyes open or shut. He picked himself up and started walking towards his home.
Thursday, June 19, 2008
dindu's asstrology...
I am a believer of astrology. May be because I was a susceptible kid and I used to hang around with my late-grandfather (may his soul rest in peace) while he prepared the horoscopes for some people and gave harmless advices to other believers about when ‘the eleventh day of shukla paksha is’ or ‘when the full moon really begins’ or ‘when to break the amavasya vrata’ or ‘when the dreadful panchak yoga will end’ etc. A distinguishing skill is always a cool thing to have. Unfortunately grandfather passed away before I could actually learn some advanced tips or tricks. But I received from my grandpa’s legacy one astrology software which could give some charts and generic forecasting about a person if one knows his date, time and place of birth.
I tried impressing Dindu one day with this software. But Dindu didn’t believe in astrology. His mind is pseudo-scientific (because if it was scientific then he surely would have believed in astrology). Questions like ‘how can a planet affect a human being’, ‘if two people are born at the same time, at the same place will they have same life/future’, ‘if planets decide everything then what are we doing here’ etc. inhibit his juvenile intellect. He even went to the extent of insulting astrology by mistyping it ‘asstrology’ whenever we had online discussions on the subject. He didn’t know that astrology is not for knowing the fate of a person, but to plan for the contingencies that arise because of the forces stronger than human beings. It’s like this - if you hear the forecast on the radio that it is going to rain, then you can plan to take umbrella with you. That’s what astrology is about – ‘this is what the big guys (planets, stars, constellations…) are planning in near future, how are you going to deal with it’.
Anyhow, I took Dindu’s date, time and place of birth, fed into this software I had bequeathed, and told him – ‘Machi! From May 11th to June 13th this year, Venus is squaring with Mars and Sun around Gemini, Cancer and Virgo; be careful with the girls, stay at home on Fridays.’ But he didn’t listen to me and eventually he was caught in the heavy rain without the umbrella.
Dindu was hanging around with this girl for a few months now and on Friday the June 13th he took her to a Starbucks somewhere in Chennai. Then they went to watch ‘Gone Baby Gone’ at the local multiplex. Later in the night when Dindu went to drop her home, while she was closing the door of her house Dindu asked ‘Can I kiss you?’ Instead of kissing the gentleman she asked ‘Do you love me?’ It took Dindu some time to gather what just struck him. I know the first thing that would have crossed his mind was my advice ‘be careful with the girls, stay at home on Fridays’. But now it was too late and he had to answer the most frightening question he could imagine.
He tried starting with a smile and a long ‘hmmmmm…’ which was cut short by ‘Do you love me or not?’
Dindu said ‘I don’t want to answer this question because it…’
The girl snapped ‘Then why do want to kiss me? Why are we wasting all this time? $*** $** $*** **$*blah blah**$$**$*$*$’ I can imagine it was all special character conversation for a while. I mean, we all know a lot of people get impressed by such stereotype melodramas of the movies and TV serials. She snapped the door in front of Dindu and tambi’s Ethmoid bone had narrow escape from a lifetime fracture. From the moment of door snapping, for three days Dindu didn’t come out of his home. Apparently, the girl had mailed him the unprintable epitaphs of their friendship. Dindu didn’t know what got her suddenly, he had asked only for a kiss, not for all her hair!
After listening to Dindu’s tragic booby trap situation he had got into, I tried consoling the man.
Me: Come one man! Forget what happened. Move on.
Dindu: No macha! It was my mistake also. I shouldn’t have asked for the kiss.
Me: Oh come on man! That’s no fault of yours. But are you looking only for sex or do you see a future of this relationship?
Dindu: I don’t know man, there could have been a future, but I didn’t do anything wrong. I had just asked. God knows if I had kissed her without asking I would have been dead by now.
Me: If you don’t want ‘only sex’ then what are you really looking for?
Dindu: I don’t know man! May be I just want to know more about her! I don’t know her completely, how can I say whether I love her or not. Now she is not even giving me a chance to explain what I feel.
Me: Well, you could have also asked her whether she loves you or not!
Dindu: And if she had said ‘yes’ what would I say. I don’t want to make a commitment now and later back out. And she does not understand this.
Me: Well, you need to identify what is the basis of your relationship or friendship or whatever sinking-ship it is now!
Dindu: ?
Me: I mean people become friends with each other because of various reasons. Two people complain about the same thing or hate the same thing – they become friends. Two people are afraid of same thing – they become friends. Two people gossip about the same thing/people – they become friends. Such friendships don’t last longer than a Twenty20 match. What kind are you?
Dindu: Well, I can’t say. But this one was a little stronger. Our likes and dislikes matched, though some conflicts were there, yet we are, actually were easy going – but I don’t know, I won’t say it was so strong that I can commit myself for life.
Me: Then you have to tell her the same thing. See, the real test of the ‘-ship’ is when you both face challenges together, trust each other with almost like a bird trusts its wings – otherwise you cannot really go anywhere with the ‘-ship’. People stay together for all their life, but very few develop a strong relationship.
Dindu: Right man! But she is not even answering my calls. I don’t want both of us looking like fools in the future who made a stupid decision because of storming hormones or whatever TV dramas and movies they watched. I don’t want both of us to become each other’s weakness. I want her to become my strength and in turn I will become her strength.
Me: Macha! You already know the answer. Just let her be with herself for sometime. Let her logical self take over her emotional self and then you go and talk to her face to face. If she understands your point then you will know you can go forward, if she doesn’t understand and starts bullifying you, then you will know she is NOT the ‘one’.
Dindu: Ok man! I will do that. But before talking to her, I will give you a call to know if that is the right time for me to go and talk…
Me: What do you mean? I have already given you whatever I could say about the subject…
Dindu: No macha! I mean about the astrology thing. I mean, the day I go and talk to her, my planets should be at the right places…
I tried impressing Dindu one day with this software. But Dindu didn’t believe in astrology. His mind is pseudo-scientific (because if it was scientific then he surely would have believed in astrology). Questions like ‘how can a planet affect a human being’, ‘if two people are born at the same time, at the same place will they have same life/future’, ‘if planets decide everything then what are we doing here’ etc. inhibit his juvenile intellect. He even went to the extent of insulting astrology by mistyping it ‘asstrology’ whenever we had online discussions on the subject. He didn’t know that astrology is not for knowing the fate of a person, but to plan for the contingencies that arise because of the forces stronger than human beings. It’s like this - if you hear the forecast on the radio that it is going to rain, then you can plan to take umbrella with you. That’s what astrology is about – ‘this is what the big guys (planets, stars, constellations…) are planning in near future, how are you going to deal with it’.
Anyhow, I took Dindu’s date, time and place of birth, fed into this software I had bequeathed, and told him – ‘Machi! From May 11th to June 13th this year, Venus is squaring with Mars and Sun around Gemini, Cancer and Virgo; be careful with the girls, stay at home on Fridays.’ But he didn’t listen to me and eventually he was caught in the heavy rain without the umbrella.Dindu was hanging around with this girl for a few months now and on Friday the June 13th he took her to a Starbucks somewhere in Chennai. Then they went to watch ‘Gone Baby Gone’ at the local multiplex. Later in the night when Dindu went to drop her home, while she was closing the door of her house Dindu asked ‘Can I kiss you?’ Instead of kissing the gentleman she asked ‘Do you love me?’ It took Dindu some time to gather what just struck him. I know the first thing that would have crossed his mind was my advice ‘be careful with the girls, stay at home on Fridays’. But now it was too late and he had to answer the most frightening question he could imagine.
He tried starting with a smile and a long ‘hmmmmm…’ which was cut short by ‘Do you love me or not?’
Dindu said ‘I don’t want to answer this question because it…’
The girl snapped ‘Then why do want to kiss me? Why are we wasting all this time? $*** $** $*** **$*blah blah**$$**$*$*$’ I can imagine it was all special character conversation for a while. I mean, we all know a lot of people get impressed by such stereotype melodramas of the movies and TV serials. She snapped the door in front of Dindu and tambi’s Ethmoid bone had narrow escape from a lifetime fracture. From the moment of door snapping, for three days Dindu didn’t come out of his home. Apparently, the girl had mailed him the unprintable epitaphs of their friendship. Dindu didn’t know what got her suddenly, he had asked only for a kiss, not for all her hair!
After listening to Dindu’s tragic booby trap situation he had got into, I tried consoling the man.
Me: Come one man! Forget what happened. Move on.
Dindu: No macha! It was my mistake also. I shouldn’t have asked for the kiss.
Me: Oh come on man! That’s no fault of yours. But are you looking only for sex or do you see a future of this relationship?
Dindu: I don’t know man, there could have been a future, but I didn’t do anything wrong. I had just asked. God knows if I had kissed her without asking I would have been dead by now.
Me: If you don’t want ‘only sex’ then what are you really looking for?
Dindu: I don’t know man! May be I just want to know more about her! I don’t know her completely, how can I say whether I love her or not. Now she is not even giving me a chance to explain what I feel.
Me: Well, you could have also asked her whether she loves you or not!
Dindu: And if she had said ‘yes’ what would I say. I don’t want to make a commitment now and later back out. And she does not understand this.
Me: Well, you need to identify what is the basis of your relationship or friendship or whatever sinking-ship it is now!
Dindu: ?
Me: I mean people become friends with each other because of various reasons. Two people complain about the same thing or hate the same thing – they become friends. Two people are afraid of same thing – they become friends. Two people gossip about the same thing/people – they become friends. Such friendships don’t last longer than a Twenty20 match. What kind are you?
Dindu: Well, I can’t say. But this one was a little stronger. Our likes and dislikes matched, though some conflicts were there, yet we are, actually were easy going – but I don’t know, I won’t say it was so strong that I can commit myself for life.
Me: Then you have to tell her the same thing. See, the real test of the ‘-ship’ is when you both face challenges together, trust each other with almost like a bird trusts its wings – otherwise you cannot really go anywhere with the ‘-ship’. People stay together for all their life, but very few develop a strong relationship.
Dindu: Right man! But she is not even answering my calls. I don’t want both of us looking like fools in the future who made a stupid decision because of storming hormones or whatever TV dramas and movies they watched. I don’t want both of us to become each other’s weakness. I want her to become my strength and in turn I will become her strength.
Me: Macha! You already know the answer. Just let her be with herself for sometime. Let her logical self take over her emotional self and then you go and talk to her face to face. If she understands your point then you will know you can go forward, if she doesn’t understand and starts bullifying you, then you will know she is NOT the ‘one’.
Dindu: Ok man! I will do that. But before talking to her, I will give you a call to know if that is the right time for me to go and talk…
Me: What do you mean? I have already given you whatever I could say about the subject…
Dindu: No macha! I mean about the astrology thing. I mean, the day I go and talk to her, my planets should be at the right places…
Monday, June 2, 2008
idea(tic) indigestion...
Dindu isn’t very happy with his legendary name – Dindigul Krishnamachary Senthil Santhosh Srinivasan. Somebody told him his name sounds more like IUPAC name of an organic compound, something like 1-iso-2-cyno-tetra-butanoic acid. I told him - ‘what’s in a name machi, dindu who lives in chennai will remain dindu by any other name’. It gave him some confidence and last time when he left the conversation he was headed towards the beach near his house, for solitude or for sinking his ass in Bay of Bengal - no idea, until...
After a few days, Dindu pings me long distance and says:
Dindu: Macha! I have found out a great secret of life.
Me: Hey!!! Good man! What is it? Some fountain of youth or something, or some money tree, or a power to read other people’s minds, or the answer to 'why-the-hell-am-I-doing-my-job'?
Dindu: Tch, no da! It’s the omnipresent law, the simple fact, which is so common that common man fails to see it.
Me: Duh! What’s that?
Dindu: A common man sees other people the same way s/he sees a tree.
Me: Ohhhkk!!! Silence for a couple of seconds… more silence…
Me: So??? What does that mean?
Dindu: What I mean is, when an average person comes in contact with some other person or thing, s/he judges the person or the thing with the immediate knowledge about the person or the thing and the way that information is correlated to the person who is making the judgment.
Me: Ok! I don’t understand a thing.
Dindu: Figuratively, a person looks at the branches of the tree and says tree is like this or like that. Very few care about the roots of the tree. Also, the judgment might differ depending on the current state of interest of the person.
Me: How?
Dindu: Assume there is a huge tree with lot of branches and leaves. Now, if a person wants to take shelter from the sun or the rain and comes across this tree, this is in interest of the person – the tree is a haven. If a person wants to build a house on the same spot as the tree or a person’s kite is stuck in the tree, then the tree becomes trouble. You see?
Me: So? How does this relate to person to person relations?
Dindu: Similarly, when a person comes in contact with other person, the quality and strength of this contact link depends on their immediate state of interest and their immediate knowledge about each other.
Me: But who has the time to dig the earth and look at the roots?
Dindu: That’s the reason of failure of so many relationships. It’s like two beggars begging each other assuming that the other is an emperor. Eventually they come to realize that both of them are beggars and then they fall apart (source). Moreover, if you are looking for diamonds you’ve got to dig, if you want dust it’s everywhere!
Me: Whoa, that's heavy! I will get indigestion man. Phew! What the heck are you eating these days?
Dindu: Dae! Nothing da... I am just spending more time in the beach…
Me: Tch! Ok da, after this over dose of your brain, I need to go pinch a loaf…
Dindu: Dae fu****r!
Me: Can’t stop man!!! Meanwhile check this. Bye bye…
Dindu: Puranboka. Wait!!!!
After a few days, Dindu pings me long distance and says:
Dindu: Macha! I have found out a great secret of life.
Me: Hey!!! Good man! What is it? Some fountain of youth or something, or some money tree, or a power to read other people’s minds, or the answer to 'why-the-hell-am-I-doing-my-job'?
Dindu: Tch, no da! It’s the omnipresent law, the simple fact, which is so common that common man fails to see it.
Me: Duh! What’s that?
Dindu: A common man sees other people the same way s/he sees a tree.
Me: Ohhhkk!!! Silence for a couple of seconds… more silence…
Me: So??? What does that mean?
Dindu: What I mean is, when an average person comes in contact with some other person or thing, s/he judges the person or the thing with the immediate knowledge about the person or the thing and the way that information is correlated to the person who is making the judgment.
Me: Ok! I don’t understand a thing.
Dindu: Figuratively, a person looks at the branches of the tree and says tree is like this or like that. Very few care about the roots of the tree. Also, the judgment might differ depending on the current state of interest of the person.
Me: How?
Dindu: Assume there is a huge tree with lot of branches and leaves. Now, if a person wants to take shelter from the sun or the rain and comes across this tree, this is in interest of the person – the tree is a haven. If a person wants to build a house on the same spot as the tree or a person’s kite is stuck in the tree, then the tree becomes trouble. You see?
Me: So? How does this relate to person to person relations?
Dindu: Similarly, when a person comes in contact with other person, the quality and strength of this contact link depends on their immediate state of interest and their immediate knowledge about each other.
Me: But who has the time to dig the earth and look at the roots?
Dindu: That’s the reason of failure of so many relationships. It’s like two beggars begging each other assuming that the other is an emperor. Eventually they come to realize that both of them are beggars and then they fall apart (source). Moreover, if you are looking for diamonds you’ve got to dig, if you want dust it’s everywhere!
Me: Whoa, that's heavy! I will get indigestion man. Phew! What the heck are you eating these days?Dindu: Dae! Nothing da... I am just spending more time in the beach…
Me: Tch! Ok da, after this over dose of your brain, I need to go pinch a loaf…
Dindu: Dae fu****r!
Me: Can’t stop man!!! Meanwhile check this. Bye bye…
Dindu: Puranboka. Wait!!!!
Monday, April 7, 2008
i don't...
The first lines of warning from Fight Club:
If you are reading this then this warning is for you. Every word you read of this useless fine print is another second off your life. Don't you have other things to do? Is your life so empty that you honestly can't think of a better way to spend these moments? Or are you so impressed with authority that you give respect and credence to all who claim it? Do you read everything you're supposed to read? Do you think everything you're supposed to think? Buy what you're told you should want? Get out of your apartment. Meet a member of the opposite sex. Stop the excessive shopping and masturbation. Quit your job. Start a fight. Prove you're alive. If you don't claim your humanity you will become a statistic. You have been warned - Tyler.
‘Writing is a great habit. It brings discipline in thoughts, precision in words and clarity in ideas.’ Dindu told me this when I last had a conversation with him. I was amazed at the concept and happy at this realization which happened to his otherwise lazy arse, a little while after he started writing seriously.
My conversations with Dindu are never without arguments, simply because our points of view do not match. He believes in God and I don’t. He thinks ‘A’ and I think ‘Z’. He is SRK fan and I think he sucks. He doesn’t believe in taking bath, but I can’t do a single day without taking bath - and similar such small things where I am on the North Pole and he is stuck up somewhere at the 75 degrees of latitude down in the southern hemisphere. But it is good that we never misunderstood our differences in opinion as animosity. ‘Life goes on’ - we quip after we are done with all abusing and shouting out special character words on each other, where usually our arguments end. Next time, though, same argumentative cycle gets repeated.
This time the topic was the old ‘ghisa pitaa’, monotonous, stereotype, most discussed subject which haunts the-twenty-something’s heavily – marriage. You never intend to end up discussing something gross like that, but then at one moment you might be discussing the chaos at Terminal 5 of Heathrow airport and suddenly there will be nothing to talk about and at that very moment someone will ask ‘So! When are you getting married?’
Dindu: Dae! I heard inflation is going to 7%. Is that good or bad for me?
Strange! Tambi interested in inflation?!?
Me: Of course bad man, unless you are a ruthless hedge fund manager who sits in the-top-floor-river-facing-cabin at HSBC branch for investment banking. Inflation of 7% means an invisible hand is eating away the value of money which you have kept in your savings account. If you have 100k Rs in your savings account right now, they will be worth 93k Rs after one year given you don’t get any interest on your savings. So you need to save the value of your money by investing it into some investment instruments like Stocks, bonds or fixed deposits.
Dindu: Hmm… So! When are you getting married?
I hope you can imagine the level of frustration a person might have had here. I was religiously explaining inflation to him and even an iota of his brain wasn't interested in that. What happens when red hot iron is super-cooled with dry ice? It gets pissed off, big time!!! Apparently all the inflation chat was just a precursor to this.
Me: What the f*** happened suddenly!!!
Dindu: I might be getting married to a girl soon.
Me: Good for you man that it’s a ‘girl’ and not a ‘boy’. You will do well.
Dindu: Dae B******. No kidding. When are you getting married?
Didn’t he get the message with ‘What the f***!!!’? Patience… Take a deep breath… Count till five… 1… 2… 3… 4… 5…
Me: Cough… Cough… whenever I get the guts to say ‘I do’.
Dindu: Why do people get married man?
Me: You should tell me that a**h****! You are the one who is getting into it.
Dindu: I don’t know man. I am getting into it because all my cousins are done with it. My parents are now forcing me to get into it.
Me: That’s good enough a reason tambi! They do it; I do it - simple valid reason. My Mama asks me to brush my teeth, I do. My Pop asks me to have hairline in the left side of the head inside of in the middle, I do. Who the hell am I? Wake up man! I have told you so many times already that people have different reason of doing what they do. So you need to find your own.
Dindu: Macha! I have been thinking a lot about this from past few weeks. I have also written my thoughts about it in my journal. What I have concluded is that, marriage is not a law of nature. It is just an institution established by human species in early times of its evolution. What I can imagine is – as human population grew and disorder prevailed in society, some scholarly people introduced this concept, which is nothing greater than the concept of ‘currency notes’.
Me: Yeah, if you say so. Basically it helped people to identify who is whose father/mother and which one is which one’s child. Basic law of nature is – every species struggles to keep itself alive. Darwin! But you need to remember that we no longer follow nature’s code. We are the most intelligent species. We follow social code now which is smarter than natural laws. So better be realistic.
Dindu: True. We might have been able to outsmart nature in some ways, but we will never be able to overpower it. And I am not only talking about the nature outside of us, I am talking about our very own nature. The nature, that makes us feel our emotions - happiness, anger and pain… that nature.
Me: Are you trying to say that there is still some natural reason left which can justify people getting married?
Dindu: Yes da! There has to be some fundamental law. Otherwise why would a man get attracted towards a woman and vice versa?
Me: But how will you explain men getting attracted to men and women getting married to women though not enough instances in India till now.
Dindu: That’s not natural man. That’s bloody gay thing. That’s psychological disorder man. Even science has proved it.
Me: Ha ha ha… Crap! What exactly are you trying to say man? Where the f*** is this conversation headed?
Dindu: I am not trying to make any scholarly hypothesis here boss. I just want to understand a few things before I get laid.
Me: You don't have to be married to get laid. Understand like what?
Dindu: I want to understand why parents love their children, even among animals?
Me: Snake eats its own eggs. Cats and Lions – they eat their own infants.
Dindu: Ok da…!!! Most of the animals! But what makes us humans to love our child even when it is disabled and cannot speak and walk? Why do saints preach that we should be compassionate towards criminals and diseased? Why does a person fall in love, get married and then one day get divorced?
Me: Answer to last question might be because we are driven by our needs and when needs are satisfied we no longer care about the objects which we earlier used to satisfy those needs. I don’t know about the first two.
Dindu: But then there are people who stay married for whole of their lives.
Me: Come on man! Life is not algebra where two plus two is always four. It’s complex. You make mistakes, you learn, you move on. You make choices. Nothing is forever here. May be your first marriage won’t be successful. Try second. If that fails, try third. What’s the big deal in that? There is still polygamy in many cultures. You never stay with your first mobile phone forever, do you? As technology advances and your mobile-phone doesn’t change with it, you change it! You upgrade.
Dindu: What the f*** man. This is not a joke.
Me: I am not laughing a**h***. First of all it was you who turned this conversation from inflation to marriage. And now you don’t know what you really wanted to discuss. What the f*** man.
Dindu: Why the f*** are you so arrogant man?
Me: Look who is saying this!
Dindu: F*** this. Life goes on.
Me: C’est la vie.
So I log-off and tune into this new song to which I have got addicted to. Mad World by Gary Jules which says:
If you are reading this then this warning is for you. Every word you read of this useless fine print is another second off your life. Don't you have other things to do? Is your life so empty that you honestly can't think of a better way to spend these moments? Or are you so impressed with authority that you give respect and credence to all who claim it? Do you read everything you're supposed to read? Do you think everything you're supposed to think? Buy what you're told you should want? Get out of your apartment. Meet a member of the opposite sex. Stop the excessive shopping and masturbation. Quit your job. Start a fight. Prove you're alive. If you don't claim your humanity you will become a statistic. You have been warned - Tyler.
‘Writing is a great habit. It brings discipline in thoughts, precision in words and clarity in ideas.’ Dindu told me this when I last had a conversation with him. I was amazed at the concept and happy at this realization which happened to his otherwise lazy arse, a little while after he started writing seriously.
My conversations with Dindu are never without arguments, simply because our points of view do not match. He believes in God and I don’t. He thinks ‘A’ and I think ‘Z’. He is SRK fan and I think he sucks. He doesn’t believe in taking bath, but I can’t do a single day without taking bath - and similar such small things where I am on the North Pole and he is stuck up somewhere at the 75 degrees of latitude down in the southern hemisphere. But it is good that we never misunderstood our differences in opinion as animosity. ‘Life goes on’ - we quip after we are done with all abusing and shouting out special character words on each other, where usually our arguments end. Next time, though, same argumentative cycle gets repeated.
This time the topic was the old ‘ghisa pitaa’, monotonous, stereotype, most discussed subject which haunts the-twenty-something’s heavily – marriage. You never intend to end up discussing something gross like that, but then at one moment you might be discussing the chaos at Terminal 5 of Heathrow airport and suddenly there will be nothing to talk about and at that very moment someone will ask ‘So! When are you getting married?’
Dindu: Dae! I heard inflation is going to 7%. Is that good or bad for me?
Strange! Tambi interested in inflation?!?
Me: Of course bad man, unless you are a ruthless hedge fund manager who sits in the-top-floor-river-facing-cabin at HSBC branch for investment banking. Inflation of 7% means an invisible hand is eating away the value of money which you have kept in your savings account. If you have 100k Rs in your savings account right now, they will be worth 93k Rs after one year given you don’t get any interest on your savings. So you need to save the value of your money by investing it into some investment instruments like Stocks, bonds or fixed deposits.
Dindu: Hmm… So! When are you getting married?
I hope you can imagine the level of frustration a person might have had here. I was religiously explaining inflation to him and even an iota of his brain wasn't interested in that. What happens when red hot iron is super-cooled with dry ice? It gets pissed off, big time!!! Apparently all the inflation chat was just a precursor to this.
Me: What the f*** happened suddenly!!!
Dindu: I might be getting married to a girl soon.
Me: Good for you man that it’s a ‘girl’ and not a ‘boy’. You will do well.
Dindu: Dae B******. No kidding. When are you getting married?
Didn’t he get the message with ‘What the f***!!!’? Patience… Take a deep breath… Count till five… 1… 2… 3… 4… 5…
Me: Cough… Cough… whenever I get the guts to say ‘I do’.
Dindu: Why do people get married man?
Me: You should tell me that a**h****! You are the one who is getting into it.
Dindu: I don’t know man. I am getting into it because all my cousins are done with it. My parents are now forcing me to get into it.
Me: That’s good enough a reason tambi! They do it; I do it - simple valid reason. My Mama asks me to brush my teeth, I do. My Pop asks me to have hairline in the left side of the head inside of in the middle, I do. Who the hell am I? Wake up man! I have told you so many times already that people have different reason of doing what they do. So you need to find your own.
Dindu: Macha! I have been thinking a lot about this from past few weeks. I have also written my thoughts about it in my journal. What I have concluded is that, marriage is not a law of nature. It is just an institution established by human species in early times of its evolution. What I can imagine is – as human population grew and disorder prevailed in society, some scholarly people introduced this concept, which is nothing greater than the concept of ‘currency notes’. Me: Yeah, if you say so. Basically it helped people to identify who is whose father/mother and which one is which one’s child. Basic law of nature is – every species struggles to keep itself alive. Darwin! But you need to remember that we no longer follow nature’s code. We are the most intelligent species. We follow social code now which is smarter than natural laws. So better be realistic.
Dindu: True. We might have been able to outsmart nature in some ways, but we will never be able to overpower it. And I am not only talking about the nature outside of us, I am talking about our very own nature. The nature, that makes us feel our emotions - happiness, anger and pain… that nature.
Me: Are you trying to say that there is still some natural reason left which can justify people getting married?
Dindu: Yes da! There has to be some fundamental law. Otherwise why would a man get attracted towards a woman and vice versa?
Me: But how will you explain men getting attracted to men and women getting married to women though not enough instances in India till now.
Dindu: That’s not natural man. That’s bloody gay thing. That’s psychological disorder man. Even science has proved it.
Me: Ha ha ha… Crap! What exactly are you trying to say man? Where the f*** is this conversation headed?
Dindu: I am not trying to make any scholarly hypothesis here boss. I just want to understand a few things before I get laid.
Me: You don't have to be married to get laid. Understand like what?
Dindu: I want to understand why parents love their children, even among animals?
Me: Snake eats its own eggs. Cats and Lions – they eat their own infants.
Dindu: Ok da…!!! Most of the animals! But what makes us humans to love our child even when it is disabled and cannot speak and walk? Why do saints preach that we should be compassionate towards criminals and diseased? Why does a person fall in love, get married and then one day get divorced?
Me: Answer to last question might be because we are driven by our needs and when needs are satisfied we no longer care about the objects which we earlier used to satisfy those needs. I don’t know about the first two.
Dindu: But then there are people who stay married for whole of their lives.
Me: Come on man! Life is not algebra where two plus two is always four. It’s complex. You make mistakes, you learn, you move on. You make choices. Nothing is forever here. May be your first marriage won’t be successful. Try second. If that fails, try third. What’s the big deal in that? There is still polygamy in many cultures. You never stay with your first mobile phone forever, do you? As technology advances and your mobile-phone doesn’t change with it, you change it! You upgrade.
Dindu: What the f*** man. This is not a joke.
Me: I am not laughing a**h***. First of all it was you who turned this conversation from inflation to marriage. And now you don’t know what you really wanted to discuss. What the f*** man.
Dindu: Why the f*** are you so arrogant man?
Me: Look who is saying this!
Dindu: F*** this. Life goes on.
Me: C’est la vie.
So I log-off and tune into this new song to which I have got addicted to. Mad World by Gary Jules which says:
I find it kind of funny, I find it kind of sad;
the dreams in which I'm dying are the best I've ever had..
the dreams in which I'm dying are the best I've ever had..
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
dindu's pool of reality...
Now we know that US economy is headed for a severe stagflation (inflation + unemployment) and $ is going to lose its shine sooner or later, and this situation is going to affect the economies around the world including India. Experts say that this can even resemble the 1929’s Great Depression. Makes me nervous to read and watch. Be cautious everyone! Don’t curse the fate/fortune/religion/god once this systemic failure leaves its rot behind. After reading this thought provoking and hair raising interview of Shankar Sharma (of First Global) you will find that on a fundamental level, this is a result of ‘living beyond one’s means’.
Apart from the interview above, I had another thought provoking/hair raising conversation last weekend with Dindu. Dindu can be very witty at times, though most of the times he is lying ‘vetti’ in his sofa changing TV channels which is his favorite hobby. The 'witty'ness happens mostly on days when he takes bath – which is almost once in a while if not more, and more especially when he goes for his swimming lessons at the local leisure centre. That reminds me of the controversies that follow Dindu wherever he goes. On the first day of his swimming, he came out of the Men’s change room, but while going back landed in the Female change room. He was only a few moments away from being beaten up by the ladies, but apparently they have to remove their shoes/slippers before entering the pool side. This wasn’t all. Next time while trying to swim across the length of pool (which would be around 50 meters) he lost breath in the middle, slipped and fell over a bunch of ladies standing at one corner. One lady caught Dindu by the neck and she could have drowned him in the pool had not the instructor intervened. And as it turned out to be, ‘next time’ was the day we had this conversation.
Dindu was just back from the claws of death. And when a person somehow experiences his death, it makes him even wiser, and takes him nearer to Buddhahood (in his case – Dinduhood). So Dindu and I had this conversation in which Dindu told me about the ten fold principles he envisioned when his head was under the water in the hands of a beautiful woman, who he intends to ask out for a cup of coffee on his next leisure centre visit. Here is Dindu's ten principles of Pool Reality.
1. World is like a huge swimming pool, with different depths, currents, temperatures and cleanliness of water at different places.
2. Boundaries of this swimming pool are very uncertain. At some places this pool is very broad, at some places very narrow. These boundaries are the good and bad, positive and negative, light and dark.
3. We need to be inside this pool whether we wish or not.
4. Our body and mind have limitations – i.e. we cannot hold our breath for more than a limit of time and we cannot stress our body beyond a point.
5. If we try to swim across this pool in a single breath, that might lead us to beating by some group of ladies. That is, we will lose our balance and gasp for breath if we don’t relax and breathe at regular intervals.
6. When we lose our balance, we start sinking in the pool whose depth we don’t know. Then our survival instinct forces us to grasp the nearest possible corner. Sometimes we land in the ‘good’ corner and sometimes in the ‘bad’ corner.
7. There are very few people who swim in the deep water. The places where the depth is less the crowd is more. Advantage of being in the shallow water is that it is safe but there is risk of getting suffocated in the crowd. There is risk of getting drowned and being left alone in the deep water but ‘it is better to be breathless in the pure air than being full of breath in foul air’.
8. Most of the people swim only across a narrow breadth of pool. Their relative position never changes. They swim in circles.
9. It is difficult to swim in a straight line at a single stretch. So every swimmer follows a non linear path as given in the below diagram called ‘Dindu’s Pool of Reality’.
10. Basic thing a mortal human being needs to learn is how to stay relaxed and balanced in the middle of deep water. And how to keep breathing!
Dindu thinks that he can liberate this world by making humans understand this ten fold charter. My best wishes are with the tambi.
Meanwhile, I am stuck with a very difficult choice to make. Big dilemma going through my little brain currently - 'To MS or not to MS'.
Apart from the interview above, I had another thought provoking/hair raising conversation last weekend with Dindu. Dindu can be very witty at times, though most of the times he is lying ‘vetti’ in his sofa changing TV channels which is his favorite hobby. The 'witty'ness happens mostly on days when he takes bath – which is almost once in a while if not more, and more especially when he goes for his swimming lessons at the local leisure centre. That reminds me of the controversies that follow Dindu wherever he goes. On the first day of his swimming, he came out of the Men’s change room, but while going back landed in the Female change room. He was only a few moments away from being beaten up by the ladies, but apparently they have to remove their shoes/slippers before entering the pool side. This wasn’t all. Next time while trying to swim across the length of pool (which would be around 50 meters) he lost breath in the middle, slipped and fell over a bunch of ladies standing at one corner. One lady caught Dindu by the neck and she could have drowned him in the pool had not the instructor intervened. And as it turned out to be, ‘next time’ was the day we had this conversation.
Dindu was just back from the claws of death. And when a person somehow experiences his death, it makes him even wiser, and takes him nearer to Buddhahood (in his case – Dinduhood). So Dindu and I had this conversation in which Dindu told me about the ten fold principles he envisioned when his head was under the water in the hands of a beautiful woman, who he intends to ask out for a cup of coffee on his next leisure centre visit. Here is Dindu's ten principles of Pool Reality.
1. World is like a huge swimming pool, with different depths, currents, temperatures and cleanliness of water at different places.
2. Boundaries of this swimming pool are very uncertain. At some places this pool is very broad, at some places very narrow. These boundaries are the good and bad, positive and negative, light and dark.
3. We need to be inside this pool whether we wish or not.
4. Our body and mind have limitations – i.e. we cannot hold our breath for more than a limit of time and we cannot stress our body beyond a point.
5. If we try to swim across this pool in a single breath, that might lead us to beating by some group of ladies. That is, we will lose our balance and gasp for breath if we don’t relax and breathe at regular intervals.
6. When we lose our balance, we start sinking in the pool whose depth we don’t know. Then our survival instinct forces us to grasp the nearest possible corner. Sometimes we land in the ‘good’ corner and sometimes in the ‘bad’ corner.
7. There are very few people who swim in the deep water. The places where the depth is less the crowd is more. Advantage of being in the shallow water is that it is safe but there is risk of getting suffocated in the crowd. There is risk of getting drowned and being left alone in the deep water but ‘it is better to be breathless in the pure air than being full of breath in foul air’.
8. Most of the people swim only across a narrow breadth of pool. Their relative position never changes. They swim in circles.
9. It is difficult to swim in a straight line at a single stretch. So every swimmer follows a non linear path as given in the below diagram called ‘Dindu’s Pool of Reality’.
10. Basic thing a mortal human being needs to learn is how to stay relaxed and balanced in the middle of deep water. And how to keep breathing!Dindu thinks that he can liberate this world by making humans understand this ten fold charter. My best wishes are with the tambi.
Meanwhile, I am stuck with a very difficult choice to make. Big dilemma going through my little brain currently - 'To MS or not to MS'.
Monday, January 28, 2008
charity begins at pub...
"When one is drunk, one tends to speak the truth" goes the age old cliché in the Boozers' Bible. Keeping aside the New Year resolutions for a while, Dindu and I were in this resto-pub last weekend. My limit is 60 ml. After that I start seeing things more vaguely clear. Dindu's limit is 180 ml, but his supernatural bird eye view becomes active as soon as the first drop of alcohol goes inside him. And then begins the conversation, where almost everything is discussed once again in the same old monotonous way - from marriage to monogamy, from racism to religion, from sex to sensex, from poverty to privatization, from girls to globalization - you name it.
Dindu: Macha! Why don't you order another large?
Me: No Thanks! I am done.
Dindu: You don't know.. A man is mortal only until his first kiss and second drink..
Me: Dae! I don't want to achieve half-nirvana. Perhaps I will cross one drink limit only when I am going to become fully immortal.. You know what I mean right.. he he he..
Gobhi Manchurian arrives; Dindu snatches the plate from waiter's hands, places two tiny pieces in my plate and starts eating the rest.
Dindu: I want to earn a lot of money and do some charity, like Bill Gates and Warren Buffet. I want to do something so that I am useful to at least four people around me.
Me: Don't worry man! You will be useful to four people. You, your wife and your two children. You will do a lot of charity.
Dindu: Dae! No kidding. I am serious. I really want to be useful.
Me: Ok man! No more drinks for you. Finish this and we are off.
It was the deepest corners of Dindu speaking - the desire to be useful. But just by desiring if one could get everything I would have dated Kangana Ranaut, Katrina Kaif, Jessica Alba, Kate Moss, Rachel Weisze etc etc (you name) by now.
...
(Sigh! I go into a reverie of one of these ethereal beauties sitting with me instead of the drunk-and-about-to-puke-his-brains-out-Tambi)
...
Most of people want to do charity. Some in even big way - Gates, Buffet likes. In my opinion these guys (Gates, Buffet) have already done a lot of charity by creating so many jobs and opportunities and by making things easy. What they are doing now, by giving away the wealth they have accumulated, is just the visible part of their charity.
Charity for most of the people means giving away the money. And mostly those people feel the urge for charity, who possess enough disposable income, which again depends on person's individual view of when his or her income crosses the disposable threshold. A person earning 8 lpa might not feel like charity, whereas a person with 3 lpa might consider doing it. Nothing bad about that a
s such, but it is difficult for me to digest the idea of giving away money to some ‘xyz’ foundation without knowing what they are going to do with it. I am ultra cynical. And I am always afraid that the collected money will be used by some people in buying tickets for watching a live India Australia match.
'Break the knees of a poor man, then give him crutches to walk' - This is the real definition of charity, as I look around. Society first makes the poor man and then searches for people to do charity to help the poor man out. Society first prepares the criminal, and then cries out to ban the capital punishment. I mean... give me a break.
May be it’s our Indian DNA. People have lived with monarchy for so many centuries, how democracy can suddenly become our culture in just sixty years. Democracy has never been our way of life until after 1947. Democracy was thrown on us Indians who were habitual of living as subjects of Emperors and Dynasties. May be that’s one of the reasons why still dynasties rule us – Gandhis, Nehrus, Scindias, Rajas… Duh! Or may be because after independence we blindly copied the architecture of government and economy from Soviet Union! I am not sure…
I just wonder how cultures become prominent in a society. Why don’t we throw the garbage in a bin instead of on the road? Why don’t we pay taxes? Why don’t we go the right way while driving? Why do we insist on hanging onto old useless customs? Well, one doesn’t have to answer them… just need to think... the answers may come for better…
Meanwhile, I dumped Dindu at his house and flew back to Hyderabad.
Next morning Dindu woke up, called me and said 'Dae! I gave the waiter a tip of 500 rupees! Why didn't you stop me a**h***?!?'
I said 'Relax machi! Just assume that it was charity for the poor man!'
Dindu: Macha! Why don't you order another large?
Me: No Thanks! I am done.
Dindu: You don't know.. A man is mortal only until his first kiss and second drink..
Me: Dae! I don't want to achieve half-nirvana. Perhaps I will cross one drink limit only when I am going to become fully immortal.. You know what I mean right.. he he he..
Gobhi Manchurian arrives; Dindu snatches the plate from waiter's hands, places two tiny pieces in my plate and starts eating the rest.
Dindu: I want to earn a lot of money and do some charity, like Bill Gates and Warren Buffet. I want to do something so that I am useful to at least four people around me.
Me: Don't worry man! You will be useful to four people. You, your wife and your two children. You will do a lot of charity.
Dindu: Dae! No kidding. I am serious. I really want to be useful.
Me: Ok man! No more drinks for you. Finish this and we are off.
It was the deepest corners of Dindu speaking - the desire to be useful. But just by desiring if one could get everything I would have dated Kangana Ranaut, Katrina Kaif, Jessica Alba, Kate Moss, Rachel Weisze etc etc (you name) by now.
...
(Sigh! I go into a reverie of one of these ethereal beauties sitting with me instead of the drunk-and-about-to-puke-his-brains-out-Tambi)
...
Most of people want to do charity. Some in even big way - Gates, Buffet likes. In my opinion these guys (Gates, Buffet) have already done a lot of charity by creating so many jobs and opportunities and by making things easy. What they are doing now, by giving away the wealth they have accumulated, is just the visible part of their charity.
Charity for most of the people means giving away the money. And mostly those people feel the urge for charity, who possess enough disposable income, which again depends on person's individual view of when his or her income crosses the disposable threshold. A person earning 8 lpa might not feel like charity, whereas a person with 3 lpa might consider doing it. Nothing bad about that a
s such, but it is difficult for me to digest the idea of giving away money to some ‘xyz’ foundation without knowing what they are going to do with it. I am ultra cynical. And I am always afraid that the collected money will be used by some people in buying tickets for watching a live India Australia match.'Break the knees of a poor man, then give him crutches to walk' - This is the real definition of charity, as I look around. Society first makes the poor man and then searches for people to do charity to help the poor man out. Society first prepares the criminal, and then cries out to ban the capital punishment. I mean... give me a break.
May be it’s our Indian DNA. People have lived with monarchy for so many centuries, how democracy can suddenly become our culture in just sixty years. Democracy has never been our way of life until after 1947. Democracy was thrown on us Indians who were habitual of living as subjects of Emperors and Dynasties. May be that’s one of the reasons why still dynasties rule us – Gandhis, Nehrus, Scindias, Rajas… Duh! Or may be because after independence we blindly copied the architecture of government and economy from Soviet Union! I am not sure…
I just wonder how cultures become prominent in a society. Why don’t we throw the garbage in a bin instead of on the road? Why don’t we pay taxes? Why don’t we go the right way while driving? Why do we insist on hanging onto old useless customs? Well, one doesn’t have to answer them… just need to think... the answers may come for better…
Meanwhile, I dumped Dindu at his house and flew back to Hyderabad.
Next morning Dindu woke up, called me and said 'Dae! I gave the waiter a tip of 500 rupees! Why didn't you stop me a**h***?!?'
I said 'Relax machi! Just assume that it was charity for the poor man!'
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
one morning...
Coffee is the most important drink of the day for me, after Honey-Lemon Tea. First thing that goes inside my stomach every morning is either the sweet and sour HL-T or simmering 
bitter black coffee. Without these drinks, morning isn’t morning at all. And now when I have a nothing-to-boast-of 160 kbps connection at home, which takes 5 light years for icicidirect-dot-com to open in unhappy hours, I try checking all my inboxes in happy hours along with my drink lubricating every cell of my body from my throat down to my bowels. Slurp! Burp, Burp!
Long centuries of evolution of homosapiens have brought a poignant monotony among them. Now there isn’t only one crazy restless person in this world. For every person awake at 5 in the morning, there is another at some other city, thinking along almost the similar line of thoughts. So, as I log on to my gmail at this relatively godforsaken hour of day, I see Dindu coming online just a second later; and a pop up chat window another second later.
Dindu: ‘Man! Which subject is the most important subject that should be taught to everybody?’
Me (sotto voce): Is this fellow sleep-walking or something? Morning 5 O’clock and he is asking me this? Sure this fellow is sleep-walking.
I had this friend of mine in college, who once slept with his hands on the keyboard, while typing a project report and when he woke up the other day and submitted his project report, his Automotive Engineering instructor sent him summons and asked whether he wants to finish his studies or not. Surprised when Vikesh (name changed) came to his room and checked his report, he was surprised to see his wildest of fantasies about Latetia Casta and Katie Moss documented in the report, instead of Analysis of Crank Shaft Design. We all had cramps in our stomachs for the rest of the term.
Dindu: Maths, Chemistry, Biology, Political Science, Psychology… which one?
Me (sotto voce): What the f*#k! Who cares! Tambi has gone nuts early in the morning!
Dindu: Dae! Are you there or not?
Me: Hi Man! How are you? I hope you are in India and fully awake? It’s 5 in the morning?
Dindu: **ck off! What the hell do you think, I am sleep-walking or something? Surya and Asin are here with me, pissing me off with this question… tell me…
Me: Surya and Asin? I know you are Surya, who is Asin?
Dindu: Not me a**h***. I am Dindu. These two are here beside my bed and asking me these stupid questions. Tell me fast. This Surya fellow is suffering from short term memory loss; he forgets everything after 1 minute. So tell quickly, or else he will hit this shovel on my head…
Damn! I logged off immediately leaving Dindu in his four dimensional world, before he could start behaving like a screwed up schizophrenic. Tambi must have watched some Tamizh movie late last night and got severely affected by that. Phew!!!
Enya playing in my iTunes, I sit in my terrace watching the changing colors of sky, drinking the sweet-sour honey lemon tea, at the same time thinking about what could be the most important subject in this world.
Waste!
I have struggled to find my favorite subject for almost quarter of a century now. In my school days, it was mathematics – may be because my old-man used to teach me and I alw
ays scored in 90’s. In higher secondary it became English – may be because my teacher was so pretty. Four years of engineering made me so blasé that I viewed every subject with an equal eye – so no favorites there. In interviews where I had the highest grade was my favorite, just like everybody else. And enter this post education life; I slowly start taking interest in Economics and Computer Science, I don’t know why. But for a subject to be favorite means one needs to know every minute detail of it, its history, its current affairs and its future. I am just a novice when I try to find my location w.r.t. these subjects.
It is very silly to ask what the most important subject is. Like the story of the asshole becoming the boss of body, it is madness to cry for a subject. The basic idea I am trying to form my life on is – ‘one must know something of everything and everything of one thing…’ Subjects are subsets of life, not the other way. Subjects are means of understanding life, not the other way. It is possible to find connections between Operating Systems and Biology, Political Science and Chemistry, Psychology and Physics, J2EE and Journalism, Oracle and Ontology… you name it… Just need an eye…
bitter black coffee. Without these drinks, morning isn’t morning at all. And now when I have a nothing-to-boast-of 160 kbps connection at home, which takes 5 light years for icicidirect-dot-com to open in unhappy hours, I try checking all my inboxes in happy hours along with my drink lubricating every cell of my body from my throat down to my bowels. Slurp! Burp, Burp!Long centuries of evolution of homosapiens have brought a poignant monotony among them. Now there isn’t only one crazy restless person in this world. For every person awake at 5 in the morning, there is another at some other city, thinking along almost the similar line of thoughts. So, as I log on to my gmail at this relatively godforsaken hour of day, I see Dindu coming online just a second later; and a pop up chat window another second later.
Dindu: ‘Man! Which subject is the most important subject that should be taught to everybody?’
Me (sotto voce): Is this fellow sleep-walking or something? Morning 5 O’clock and he is asking me this? Sure this fellow is sleep-walking.
I had this friend of mine in college, who once slept with his hands on the keyboard, while typing a project report and when he woke up the other day and submitted his project report, his Automotive Engineering instructor sent him summons and asked whether he wants to finish his studies or not. Surprised when Vikesh (name changed) came to his room and checked his report, he was surprised to see his wildest of fantasies about Latetia Casta and Katie Moss documented in the report, instead of Analysis of Crank Shaft Design. We all had cramps in our stomachs for the rest of the term.
Dindu: Maths, Chemistry, Biology, Political Science, Psychology… which one?
Me (sotto voce): What the f*#k! Who cares! Tambi has gone nuts early in the morning!
Dindu: Dae! Are you there or not?
Me: Hi Man! How are you? I hope you are in India and fully awake? It’s 5 in the morning?
Dindu: **ck off! What the hell do you think, I am sleep-walking or something? Surya and Asin are here with me, pissing me off with this question… tell me…
Me: Surya and Asin? I know you are Surya, who is Asin?
Dindu: Not me a**h***. I am Dindu. These two are here beside my bed and asking me these stupid questions. Tell me fast. This Surya fellow is suffering from short term memory loss; he forgets everything after 1 minute. So tell quickly, or else he will hit this shovel on my head…
Damn! I logged off immediately leaving Dindu in his four dimensional world, before he could start behaving like a screwed up schizophrenic. Tambi must have watched some Tamizh movie late last night and got severely affected by that. Phew!!!
Enya playing in my iTunes, I sit in my terrace watching the changing colors of sky, drinking the sweet-sour honey lemon tea, at the same time thinking about what could be the most important subject in this world.
Waste!
I have struggled to find my favorite subject for almost quarter of a century now. In my school days, it was mathematics – may be because my old-man used to teach me and I alw
ays scored in 90’s. In higher secondary it became English – may be because my teacher was so pretty. Four years of engineering made me so blasé that I viewed every subject with an equal eye – so no favorites there. In interviews where I had the highest grade was my favorite, just like everybody else. And enter this post education life; I slowly start taking interest in Economics and Computer Science, I don’t know why. But for a subject to be favorite means one needs to know every minute detail of it, its history, its current affairs and its future. I am just a novice when I try to find my location w.r.t. these subjects.It is very silly to ask what the most important subject is. Like the story of the asshole becoming the boss of body, it is madness to cry for a subject. The basic idea I am trying to form my life on is – ‘one must know something of everything and everything of one thing…’ Subjects are subsets of life, not the other way. Subjects are means of understanding life, not the other way. It is possible to find connections between Operating Systems and Biology, Political Science and Chemistry, Psychology and Physics, J2EE and Journalism, Oracle and Ontology… you name it… Just need an eye…
PS: The images are paintings by Mr Sunil Padwal, a famous modern artist.
Tuesday, January 8, 2008
a manchurian tale...
An excerpt from the book on Behavioral Economics I was reading a couple of days back:
capricious Capricorn. I asked him what gift he wanted for his b’day. And guess what… no no no… you won’t be able to guess… He wanted me to courier gobhi-manchurian from the flyover-bakery at Hyderabad to his beach house in Thiruvannmayur, Chennai. Can you believe it? Even beyond the wildest and remotest of imaginations! I can say Dindu will do anything for that gobhi-machurian. He suffers from such pristine hunger for this Indo-Chinese hybrid dish that he will even kill anyone for you if you offer him flyover-bakery’s gobhi-manchurian. After gobhi-manchurian, kothu-parantha comes next in his I-will-kill-for-it list. Oh! But this is not about that, this much was just to increase the length of this post which otherwise could have ended only after the first paragraph.
Allegedly, Dindu has been given the option (i.e. euphemistically, an ultimatum) by his parents that he should either find a girl of his choice by his next birthday or he will be emotionally and tangibly cuffed with the girl of their choice. Woho! Can I get the email id of Karan Johar? I think I have a real life story for him and SRK taking shape - "Chuk de Dindu".
Upon that, Dindu has been told by his family astrologer that if he marries before seeing (i.e. euphemistically, rejecting) twelve girls, it will not be good for his post nuptial life. Somewhat like King Kansa who was told by aakashvaani (radio waves of mythological era) that he will be killed by thirteenth (??) son of Vasudeva! The astrologer left him wondering (the reflection of first paragraph) what will happen to him if he marries less than or equal to twelfth girl he comes to see and know of. Will his married life be that of a chivalrous and beloved hubby (particularly exciting) or he will become an uxorious partner or even worse be labeled a cuckold of worst sort (particularly frightening). That’s what is meant by “overestimating the likelihood of something one can easily imagine…” Dindu just knows he has to go a long way - 12!!! Wish him luck...
When I ask him how much dakshina he gave to the astrologer he refuses to tell me. I guess he has been… you know… I don’t know about how his planets are placed in his birth chart, but I can say his rational brain and thinking cells are a little misplaced for the time being…
Anyhow, myob is slowly becoming my philosophy. So I have stopped giving advices to already overloaded poor Dindu. It’s natural that if one gets overloaded with choices, often one ends up making no choice at all. And that’s where Dindu is right now. Spending most of his weekends at the Chennai beach, wandering aimlessly, wondering why he wonders what he wonders…
“We overestimate the likelihood: of something that we can easily imagine, especially if it would be particularly frightening, like a plane crash or particularly exciting, like winning the lottery; of something that has given us a short-lived extreme experience; or of something we have recently experienced. Likewise we underestimate the likelihood of things that happen relatively often.”It reminded me of the latest conversation I had with Dindu 1 2. It was his birth day last week. Capricorn, you see! His Lazy Ass is very proud of being
Allegedly, Dindu has been given the option (i.e. euphemistically, an ultimatum) by his parents that he should either find a girl of his choice by his next birthday or he will be emotionally and tangibly cuffed with the girl of their choice. Woho! Can I get the email id of Karan Johar? I think I have a real life story for him and SRK taking shape - "Chuk de Dindu".
Upon that, Dindu has been told by his family astrologer that if he marries before seeing (i.e. euphemistically, rejecting) twelve girls, it will not be good for his post nuptial life. Somewhat like King Kansa who was told by aakashvaani (radio waves of mythological era) that he will be killed by thirteenth (??) son of Vasudeva! The astrologer left him wondering (the reflection of first paragraph) what will happen to him if he marries less than or equal to twelfth girl he comes to see and know of. Will his married life be that of a chivalrous and beloved hubby (particularly exciting) or he will become an uxorious partner or even worse be labeled a cuckold of worst sort (particularly frightening). That’s what is meant by “overestimating the likelihood of something one can easily imagine…” Dindu just knows he has to go a long way - 12!!! Wish him luck...
When I ask him how much dakshina he gave to the astrologer he refuses to tell me. I guess he has been… you know… I don’t know about how his planets are placed in his birth chart, but I can say his rational brain and thinking cells are a little misplaced for the time being…
Anyhow, myob is slowly becoming my philosophy. So I have stopped giving advices to already overloaded poor Dindu. It’s natural that if one gets overloaded with choices, often one ends up making no choice at all. And that’s where Dindu is right now. Spending most of his weekends at the Chennai beach, wandering aimlessly, wondering why he wonders what he wonders…
Wednesday, November 21, 2007
dindu's dilemma II...
For past few days I had been busy writing drafts of recommendation letters for 
my professors and managers. I am trying hard to get out of the country you see. For MS. All this time I had been living with these words - good communication skills, good team player, diligent, focused, calm, keen, eager, talented... He he he... And I found that it’s very difficult to write all good things about oneself. Especially, when you have to make sure that all recos ‘must not’ smell similar or you will be in trouble. Because no two people will write the similar things about you, isn’t it? But they ask you to draft the thing! So, all this while I was juggling with words and their synonyms…
Met Dindu the other day. I hope by now you are at least a little familiar with this victim of multilateral nomenclature. Same old coffee shop, same hot coffee and same old Dindu and same youthful I – we were peacefully 'sight-aDichhifying' when suddenly Dindu got eerie.
D- ‘Dae Machan! Tell me one thing seriously man… if you are a 10 pointer then…’
R- ‘Wo.. oh.. ho.. wo..!! What happened suddenly?? You are scaring me man. ‘Seriously’ and ‘10Pointer’ are the words which have scared me throughout my life… And I am not the real 10 Pointer man… You know that it was only in one fateful semester… What shit is flying across your mind?’
FYI: 10 Pointer is the term similar to ‘Five Point’ Someone. 10 Pointer is a person who has ‘A’s in all courses of his Engineering academic history. I happened to have all ‘A’ in 6th semester of my history which earned me the sobriquet of ‘one sem’ 10 P, but people tend to miss the ‘one sem’ thing most of the times and create confusions…
D- ‘Whatever man! You made ‘A’ in Design of Machine Vibrations man!! You made ‘A’ in Heat Transfer!! Fucker!! Now tell me the answer of these questions if you are a real fundu mechanical engineer:
1) What is the role of girls/female/ladies in this world... Why are they born… and how is that a guy need to have a relationship with her?? Just pure love (with no lust) or love with lust. Give justifications for all your answers .
2) Why do they say girls are equivalent to goddess/Lakshmi..what quality in them we should recognize and respect to consider them equivalent to goddess. What do you think they possess that needs to be respected.'
R- ‘Ha ha ha ha… Fuck you man! If I made ‘A’ in those courses, it was because or the formulae that could be mugged and the firm support of people behind me who were ready to make happy ‘D’s. It was relative grading man! And also if I can solve Navier Stokes equation or Gyroscopes doesn’t mean that I can give you the answers of these questions. This is philosophy and psychology dude, not springs and Machines. There is no formula I know which can solve the above problems! Such questions are answered either by spiritual saints or psychiatrists!’
D- ‘I don’t know machan! You give me the answer… Write something about it in your blog… You just get me the fucking answers man, before I get married!’
Silence... Sip... Sip... Sip...
my professors and managers. I am trying hard to get out of the country you see. For MS. All this time I had been living with these words - good communication skills, good team player, diligent, focused, calm, keen, eager, talented... He he he... And I found that it’s very difficult to write all good things about oneself. Especially, when you have to make sure that all recos ‘must not’ smell similar or you will be in trouble. Because no two people will write the similar things about you, isn’t it? But they ask you to draft the thing! So, all this while I was juggling with words and their synonyms…Met Dindu the other day. I hope by now you are at least a little familiar with this victim of multilateral nomenclature. Same old coffee shop, same hot coffee and same old Dindu and same youthful I – we were peacefully 'sight-aDichhifying' when suddenly Dindu got eerie.
D- ‘Dae Machan! Tell me one thing seriously man… if you are a 10 pointer then…’
R- ‘Wo.. oh.. ho.. wo..!! What happened suddenly?? You are scaring me man. ‘Seriously’ and ‘10Pointer’ are the words which have scared me throughout my life… And I am not the real 10 Pointer man… You know that it was only in one fateful semester… What shit is flying across your mind?’
FYI: 10 Pointer is the term similar to ‘Five Point’ Someone. 10 Pointer is a person who has ‘A’s in all courses of his Engineering academic history. I happened to have all ‘A’ in 6th semester of my history which earned me the sobriquet of ‘one sem’ 10 P, but people tend to miss the ‘one sem’ thing most of the times and create confusions…
D- ‘Whatever man! You made ‘A’ in Design of Machine Vibrations man!! You made ‘A’ in Heat Transfer!! Fucker!! Now tell me the answer of these questions if you are a real fundu mechanical engineer:
1) What is the role of girls/female/ladies in this world... Why are they born… and how is that a guy need to have a relationship with her?? Just pure love (with no lust) or love with lust. Give justifications for all your answers .
2) Why do they say girls are equivalent to goddess/Lakshmi..what quality in them we should recognize and respect to consider them equivalent to goddess. What do you think they possess that needs to be respected.'
R- ‘Ha ha ha ha… Fuck you man! If I made ‘A’ in those courses, it was because or the formulae that could be mugged and the firm support of people behind me who were ready to make happy ‘D’s. It was relative grading man! And also if I can solve Navier Stokes equation or Gyroscopes doesn’t mean that I can give you the answers of these questions. This is philosophy and psychology dude, not springs and Machines. There is no formula I know which can solve the above problems! Such questions are answered either by spiritual saints or psychiatrists!’
D- ‘I don’t know machan! You give me the answer… Write something about it in your blog… You just get me the fucking answers man, before I get married!’
Silence... Sip... Sip... Sip...
Wednesday, October 24, 2007
dindu's dilemma...
As I write this down there are four kinds of people out there – happy 'but' married, unhappy & married, unmarried 'but' happy and unmarried & unhappy. This blog is dedicated to those who fall in the first and third kind!
Dindu is the alias of my good old (by age and agility) friend. His name (full as well as alias) has a long story behind it, about which I will write in detail later, but for record his full name is Dindigul Krishnamachary Senthil Santhosh Srinivasan. I know what you are thinking, but neither does he have five different heads or faces, nor does he suffer from MPD. But he has been suffering from being born in a conservative south Indian family since long. During fresher period in college, when his peers were dining out in the mess after healthy ragging sessions, Dindu was still found explaining & spelling out his name to his north Indian seniors! He was baptized Dindu after his wing mates found that he could not sleep without at least five pillows (FYI… Dindu stands for 'pillow' in Thamizh) around his flabby body - one below his feet, two stuck between his groin, one pressed under his ass and one embraced in his arms, but none below his head!!!
Dindu was serious when I last met him during a quick weekend coffee at a café shop. He was looking around at the happily-coffee-sipping-couples and suddenly his melancholy became conspicuous.
He said "I think... I *NEED NOT*... get married man… Period… What about you... Do you want to get married in life or not???"
I was left wondering by the length of silence he left between each sentence.
I said "Dae! You're making me uncomfortable! You think you NEED NOT get married, ok understood! But don't ask me about my getting married. I haven't made up my mind and I don't have any intentions in near future... of making up my mind. Moreover it's more than a question of NEED/NEED NOT. Phew!!! Tambi! Drink your coffee and enjoy the weather around. You want a cookie?"
But the @$hole made me think! The question that bothers almost every youngster, especially those (I included) who have relatively achieved quite a success in their respective social subset, have a steady cash flow, and according to their society there is nothing left for them to do except get married and get 'you-know-who' some grandchildren to play with!
Well yes! There are certainly some advantages of getting married. If you are married, people don't think you are a homo/lesbian. In your professional life you are considered more credible and committed. People would know that you are the guy who is going to stick around till the end because you have got lots of bills to pay coming month. Moreover you get a life partner who will go with you everywhere, so you will not have to ask some stranger to look after your baggage when you want to go to the loo at an airport or bus station. Most important thing is that if you are going out of station for a long time, you will not have to worry about dumping your stuff at some friend's place. Precisely, your life is settled and you are a happily-ever-after kind of man/woman.
But there are visibly some of the disadvantages also which are too important to be missed. For example, you will not be allowed to smoke and drink beer watching India Australia T20 match. Eating pizza is an offense. Every weekend you will have to go out shopping, not to shop, but to lift the carnage your missus made in the shopping mall! Hanging out with your unmarried friends in bars and pubs becomes an emotional crime you make against your beloved spouse. You will not be able to do things which you could do only when you were alone! Often you will be reminded of the six packs SRK has and that you don't work out and that you should! Kids… After five years you will have to clean the shit of your kids who regard your lap nothing more than a public toilet. In a nut shell, your frequency of saying 'give-me-a-break' will increase exponentially, from once in a month to once in every day. (Note: These experiences are as told by other happily-married and not-so-happily-married men).
Then… why people marry? The reasons people marry vary, but usually include one or more of these: procreation, social and economical stability, family formation, emotional security, legitimizing sexual relationship or public declaration of love etcetera.
Procreation…? Well, there are already more than one billion asses around in this country. Thousands new come out every day to burden the limited resources, as if getting manufactured in an assembly line. Perhaps, we Indians were busy learning non-violence and celibacy when we should have been learning how to use condoms! So, if you think that nature has given you this obligation to keep the human species alive… rethink, let me assure you that given the current rate of supply & demand of homosapiens, there won't be a shortage of this inventory for many years from now. Let those who are already there absorb first. So people who marry just to have their family tree expanded – they are not doing very good thing for the society!
Social & Economical stability…? Hmmm! That could be a valid digestible reason, given you search right kind of in-laws for yourself. Get hold of the son/daughter of some big shot in government services, or some reality champ or a businessman, or even a movie star (but make sure you have some back-up plans). Well, getting a working spouse isn't bad idea at all, unless you are not ready to tolerate some attitude. Or if you want some 'no attitude' spouse you narrow down your options further.
Large numbers of people marry to chaste their sexual frustration which, in middle & lower class India, is possible only after getting married. Well, I can bet that if sex was not so taboo a subject and not so hard to get in our Indian culture, there would have been less than half (if not less) of the marriages than they are happening today.
Blessed are those couples who found their 'soul-mate' in each other and so have taken the next step of saying 'I DO…' That kind of marriage makes the most sense. But behold! We have already had so many 'love marriage/arranged married' group discussions earlier, hajar times, haven't we? No offense to the happily-married couples, whichever mode they have chosen! Peace be with them!
And so I said "Dae Dindu! I think it is a little complicated to understand something without experiencing it. Why don't you get married and see what happens. Give it a shot machchi! Be a man! I am with you!"
Dindu said "He he he… Poda!! If it comes to experimenting why me? Why not you?"
I - "Puramboke! *You* were the one who brought up the topic, *you* were the one who made me think, *you* were the one who wanted the answer and now *you* are the one not ready to take the advice! b@$***! Then *you* will be the one who pays the bill!"
Dindu (imitating Rajini) - "Tambi! Katam! Katam!"
PS: By the way have you ever thought that hole of the a$$ is actually whole of the a$$, rest of it is either bum or buttock?
Dindu is the alias of my good old (by age and agility) friend. His name (full as well as alias) has a long story behind it, about which I will write in detail later, but for record his full name is Dindigul Krishnamachary Senthil Santhosh Srinivasan. I know what you are thinking, but neither does he have five different heads or faces, nor does he suffer from MPD. But he has been suffering from being born in a conservative south Indian family since long. During fresher period in college, when his peers were dining out in the mess after healthy ragging sessions, Dindu was still found explaining & spelling out his name to his north Indian seniors! He was baptized Dindu after his wing mates found that he could not sleep without at least five pillows (FYI… Dindu stands for 'pillow' in Thamizh) around his flabby body - one below his feet, two stuck between his groin, one pressed under his ass and one embraced in his arms, but none below his head!!!
Dindu was serious when I last met him during a quick weekend coffee at a café shop. He was looking around at the happily-coffee-sipping-couples and suddenly his melancholy became conspicuous.
He said "I think... I *NEED NOT*... get married man… Period… What about you... Do you want to get married in life or not???"I was left wondering by the length of silence he left between each sentence.
I said "Dae! You're making me uncomfortable! You think you NEED NOT get married, ok understood! But don't ask me about my getting married. I haven't made up my mind and I don't have any intentions in near future... of making up my mind. Moreover it's more than a question of NEED/NEED NOT. Phew!!! Tambi! Drink your coffee and enjoy the weather around. You want a cookie?"
But the @$hole made me think! The question that bothers almost every youngster, especially those (I included) who have relatively achieved quite a success in their respective social subset, have a steady cash flow, and according to their society there is nothing left for them to do except get married and get 'you-know-who' some grandchildren to play with!
Well yes! There are certainly some advantages of getting married. If you are married, people don't think you are a homo/lesbian. In your professional life you are considered more credible and committed. People would know that you are the guy who is going to stick around till the end because you have got lots of bills to pay coming month. Moreover you get a life partner who will go with you everywhere, so you will not have to ask some stranger to look after your baggage when you want to go to the loo at an airport or bus station. Most important thing is that if you are going out of station for a long time, you will not have to worry about dumping your stuff at some friend's place. Precisely, your life is settled and you are a happily-ever-after kind of man/woman.
But there are visibly some of the disadvantages also which are too important to be missed. For example, you will not be allowed to smoke and drink beer watching India Australia T20 match. Eating pizza is an offense. Every weekend you will have to go out shopping, not to shop, but to lift the carnage your missus made in the shopping mall! Hanging out with your unmarried friends in bars and pubs becomes an emotional crime you make against your beloved spouse. You will not be able to do things which you could do only when you were alone! Often you will be reminded of the six packs SRK has and that you don't work out and that you should! Kids… After five years you will have to clean the shit of your kids who regard your lap nothing more than a public toilet. In a nut shell, your frequency of saying 'give-me-a-break' will increase exponentially, from once in a month to once in every day. (Note: These experiences are as told by other happily-married and not-so-happily-married men).
Then… why people marry? The reasons people marry vary, but usually include one or more of these: procreation, social and economical stability, family formation, emotional security, legitimizing sexual relationship or public declaration of love etcetera.
Procreation…? Well, there are already more than one billion asses around in this country. Thousands new come out every day to burden the limited resources, as if getting manufactured in an assembly line. Perhaps, we Indians were busy learning non-violence and celibacy when we should have been learning how to use condoms! So, if you think that nature has given you this obligation to keep the human species alive… rethink, let me assure you that given the current rate of supply & demand of homosapiens, there won't be a shortage of this inventory for many years from now. Let those who are already there absorb first. So people who marry just to have their family tree expanded – they are not doing very good thing for the society!
Social & Economical stability…? Hmmm! That could be a valid digestible reason, given you search right kind of in-laws for yourself. Get hold of the son/daughter of some big shot in government services, or some reality champ or a businessman, or even a movie star (but make sure you have some back-up plans). Well, getting a working spouse isn't bad idea at all, unless you are not ready to tolerate some attitude. Or if you want some 'no attitude' spouse you narrow down your options further.
Large numbers of people marry to chaste their sexual frustration which, in middle & lower class India, is possible only after getting married. Well, I can bet that if sex was not so taboo a subject and not so hard to get in our Indian culture, there would have been less than half (if not less) of the marriages than they are happening today.
Blessed are those couples who found their 'soul-mate' in each other and so have taken the next step of saying 'I DO…' That kind of marriage makes the most sense. But behold! We have already had so many 'love marriage/arranged married' group discussions earlier, hajar times, haven't we? No offense to the happily-married couples, whichever mode they have chosen! Peace be with them!
And so I said "Dae Dindu! I think it is a little complicated to understand something without experiencing it. Why don't you get married and see what happens. Give it a shot machchi! Be a man! I am with you!"
Dindu said "He he he… Poda!! If it comes to experimenting why me? Why not you?"
I - "Puramboke! *You* were the one who brought up the topic, *you* were the one who made me think, *you* were the one who wanted the answer and now *you* are the one not ready to take the advice! b@$***! Then *you* will be the one who pays the bill!"
Dindu (imitating Rajini) - "Tambi! Katam! Katam!"
PS: By the way have you ever thought that hole of the a$$ is actually whole of the a$$, rest of it is either bum or buttock?
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