God bless those nukes ...

I am drowning in nostalgia. Normally this is something, long dyed in the wool, old folks do. Its kind of surprising that 24 something me is also feeling this. Maybe it's just because I have lost touch with most of my close friends and the lack of work in office leaves me much more time for introspection.

Anyhoo, I once again rummaged though some old folders of mine and I discovered this weird lil' poem that i'd written in 1999 (oh so long ago ...). I can faintly remember having written it, and it must have been around the time we did those nuclear (or as that dyslexic dodo George W. Bush pronounces then - nucular ... as in Duh! Isn't it time we dropped some nucular bombs on Eye-ran!)
tests and the world tried to whip our asses for it.
It was obviously before the IT revolution occurred in India and we started controlling the back offices of all those Bloody Amreekan corporations. Here goes ... pretty juvenile stuff I warn you ... not that I write any better now!

God bless those nukes!

One fine morning, you switch on the TV tuning into the news.

And suddenly comes this headline out of the blues.

“India goes nuclear!”

You intently listen, taking in every word.

And you sit down starry eyed,

Feeling a sense of joy, a sense of pride.

You no longer feel that the P. M is a nerd.

Then you hear, the western world imposes sanctions.

Presidents of U. S, the U. K shout anti- India slogans.

Then your euphoria melts into worry.

You think, let’s hope our feat doesn’t make us sorry.

You learn a week later.

Pakistan carries out a feat much greater.

It carries out 6 nuclear tests,

Leaving international confidence in tatters.

Amidst all this you will hear a chant.

In their minds people say to themselves,

“ God bless those nukes!”

The Indian government which was quickly losing hope,

Suddenly say that there is a chance to tighten our rope.

They conduct five nuclear tests,

In the name of safety of defense interests.

And as people come together to forget,

Poverty, misery, corruption and a tight budget.

Mr. Vajpayee aptly puts in,

“God bless those nukes!”

Threatening sanctions on India the US of A declares,

To the whole world that their country cares

For nothing but the world’s best,

& That it has no selfish interest.

As Mr. Clinton would secretly admit,

“God bless those nukes!”

The Pakistani people adamantly say,

That the Indians deserve what they got.

The Pakistanis surely do love,

India being in a tight spot.

The Pakistani Government is glad that

They could show off their power.

But as sanctions start to hit

Rushing in a huge shower,

The Pakistanis blatantly declare

That the sanctions are very unfair.

But as Nawaz Sharif says to himself,

“God bless those nukes!”

But as India and Pakistan suffer,

And as the world rebukes,

People in both countries chant,

“God bless those nukes!”

Murder and me

I have this favourite dream of mine ... It involves me putting a contract over the one person who I truly hate ... who is directly responsible for my life not being much much better than it is now.
I will not reveal who he ... yes he's a he ... is.
Well this dream is not so much a favourite of mine as it is ever recurring। The reason it does not find much favour with me is because I always end up getting caught for the crime.
The dream is of two parts. The hitman bumps of his target ... depositing his body off Worli creek (a most reliable place to dispose off bodies according to Maximum City) ... never to be found again. This is the part I like.
Then the hitman gets nabbed by the cops and he leads them to me. This is the part I dislike.
Two things are noteworthy over here.
One - The cops are somehow never corrupt in my dreams (since they're Mumbai cops this is something really hard to believe) and bought off to remain silent.
Two - I never seem to have the sense not to reveal my identity to the hitman while placing my contract.

What to do? It's not like I've written the script. It's what unfailingly happens always. I don't know how many times I've had this dream. I generally never remember my dreams. Only this one leaves me with a weird feeling in the pit of my stomach (weirder than normal that is) when I wake up thus leaving behind it's trail.
I have been having this dream for the past two years ... that's about the time when I first started hating him.

The dream is not always exactly the same though. It differs in some key areas even though the end result is often the same.
Firstly the face of the hitman always varies. It's always someone famous. Someone who's either played a hitman in the movies or someone truly evil in real life. Like Narendra Modi. Hehe.
Secondly the way he exterminates the target changes. Bullets, knives, pitchforks have all made appearances at one point of time or the other.
Thirdly the way he gets caught is sometimes different. Sometimes he reveals it in a drunken stupor to his mistress who moonlights as a bar girl and who is also a part time police informant.
Sometimes he leaves behind a witness. Sometimes he gets caught for a completely different crime and then to gain leniency in his sentence, he strikes a deal with the cops revealing the identities of those who placed the contracts ... like me of course.

Maybe the reason I always get caught in the end is because of the innate conscience within me which knows that killing is wrong, that murderers should never get away with their crimes, that justice should always be done in the end. But why is it then I like it when he gets murdered. Why does realization and repentance of my sins only occur when I get caught?

The reason behind a hitman always being involved ... rather than me committing the deed myself is simple enough. I'm too fattu to do something like this.

But, But, But If a similar opportunity does present itself in real ... say supposing I make friends with a hitman who offers me the chance to bump anyone off as a favour to me (I know it's far fetched)... will I take it?

What do you think? Could I ever be a murderer?


Or maybe I already am one.

Van Phool

Just to show off I have decided to jot down here verbatim a Hindi poem that I had learned byheart for my fourth standard exams and that has stayed with my ever since and probably will till the day I croak. Its called Van Phool. I don't know who the author is and I don't know whether the poem is still available in fourth std. Hindi textbooks. This is a futile exercise in wasteful pointlessness and you can skip reading this post if you want to. I seriously mean it.

वन फूल
---------

फूल काँटों में खिला था
सेझ पर मुरझा गया।

जगमगाता था उषा सा कंताको में वह सुमन,
स्पर्श से उसके तरंगित था सुरभिवाही पवन.
ले कपूरी पुन्खुदियो में फुल्ल मधुरुतु का सपन.

फूल काँटों में खिला था
सेझ पर मुरझा गया।

प्रकार रवी का ताप झंझा के असह झोंके कठिन.
कर न पाए उस तरुण संघर्ष कामी को मलिन.
किन्तु प्राची से अलग हो रह ना पाया एक दिन.

फूल काँटों में खिला था
सेझ पर मुरझा गया।

Maximum City

I just have completed reading the bestseller Maximum City by Suketu Mehta. It's a book about Bombay or Mumbai as it had just been rechristened when Mehta moved back to it after having lived 20 odd years in New York. The book is almost 600 pages long and people who generally get scared of such huge books (must be something to with the childhood fear of textbooks which themselves were gargantuan monsters) or those who don't read anything other than the Harry Potter meganovels, would be apprehensive to wade through its pages.

However once you do so, you find yourself entrenched into a world that seems at once so familiar to Mumbaikars (when he describes the crowded state of the metropolis) but also sometimes seem to be happening in some far off world. For Mehta's book is peppered with the accounts and experiences of some of the more extreme citizens of Mumbai - extortionists, gangsters, bar dancers, super-cops, Bollywood directors and super rich and super-orthodox Jain patriarchs. Mehta has found himself in the company of varied personalities like Bal Thackeray, Vidhu Vinod Chopra, Sanjay Dutt and Chotta Shakeel at one point or other during the course of the book.

I found myself hating and applauding Mumbai at various points of time, alternating between wanting to move from this accursed city as soon as possible or strengthening my resolve to stick it out here between different chapters. But throughout I was constantly completely engrossed in the simple words (he also has peppered the novel with coarse Bombaiyya phrases that seem so natural to our ears) that Mehta uses to weave a rich and vividly coloured tapestry which is what this novel really is.

I spent all my free time this past week devouring up pages of this book, while I should really have been studying for the dreaded CAT which looms ever closer. But i have a long history of starting mega-novels just before an important exam. Like the time I started and completed Ayn Rand's Fountainhead 10 days before my second Semester Engg exams.

Anyhoo, I seriously recommend this book. I am sure that once you start, you will be hooked onto it, and when you finish you will have that heady feeling within you telling you that you've read something worthwhile, something that will remain with you.
Peace out.

In reality ...

I hate reality shows.

They have almost nothing to do with reality but everything with theatricality, artificiality and have basically been reduced to the status of farces sometimes even degenerating to the level of a perennially putrid Ektaa Kapoor Saas-Bahu drama.

I must confess though immediately that when these shows first started even I was hooked onto them as much as the next idiot-box addict. I had slavishly followed the first Indian Idol Season, watched all episodes of the second season of Nach Baliye (more to do because I wanted to watch a particular female contestant) and partially followed Indian Idol 3. But as time has progressed I have come to realize that what a colossal waste of time it has been for me. There are many reasons why my outlook on these shows has changed -

Un - The fact that the fate of the contestants is placed on audience voting means that talented contestants get kicked out at crucial stages, ugly regionalism, factionalism, gender biases all come into the fore as people tend to vote for a participant just because he is from their region, regardless of how talented he really is. Thus a Vada Pavwala will never vote for an Idli Dosa Sambhar wala who in turn will never vote for a Bloody Communist Rassogula.
Also women hardly ever seem to reach the final rounds of these competitions no matter how well they perform, so what incentive do they really have of even participating! Finally the people who really win are the channel and the telecom companies who make crores of rupees on the millions of smses that are made. (scope out how many times i use the word really)

Dos - The new fad of upcoming movies being introduced on these shows, with the makers, stars of these films descending on the music show and pretending to be a big fan of the singers and many promise the wide-eyed participants that they will be singing in their next film, promises which they never keep.
Also these shows seem to function on only 2 levels, sentimentality or controversy.
Needless and over exaggerated and nauseously irritating in both cases.

Tres - Ever since loudmouths like Himmesh (Oo! I hate him with all my heart and all my soul!) have become judges on shows which my mother unfortunately is a huge fan of, all I can hear in the house at nights is their obnoxious voices booming from the telly. To see pompous buffoons like Himmesh and Ismael Durbaar and Abhijeet prancing around as if they are all-knowing all-wise kiss-my-ass-if you-know-what's best-for you-types gurus, spouting their equally inane fundas makes me ... grr ... it makes shiver me timbers.

Thus after having put forth my reasons (I'm sure there are many more, I just can't think of them right now) I again strongly reiterate - I hate reality shows...

...But not as much as I hate the current garbage that passes of as news on the hundreds and thousands of national 24 hour news channels out there.
It's funny in a way but sometimes these reality shows seems more real than what news channels peddle as news.

Buts thats a grouse for another time. Enough negativity for one post.
Lets all fold our hands, close our eyes, exhale out noisily and get rid of all the bad vibes and negative energy. Aum Shaanti Shaanti Aum!

Bheja vu ki Deja Fry?

As October begins to sinks its teeth into me, as I spend another Saturday morning glued to my PC screen reading nondescript blogs, the occasional movie review and chatting with umpteen friends online while all the time having this uneasy feeling in the pit of my stomach I get the feeling that I have experienced all this before.

Of course, just last year I went through this same routine and the reason for it is so achingly obvious - come mid-November, December the entire jamboree of MBA entrance exams will begin, few of which in I will fare well enough to have an outside chance of securing a GD/PI call and in most of which I will score miserably average percentiles. CAT, XAT, SNAP, NMAT , SHIT ....

Okay, I made up the last one but they seriously should consider naming an exam that. Even last year I did not study well enough, just commuting to and fro to office taking away most of my energy. Foolhardily I have decided to try again. Fortunately this time will be my last, one way or the another!!!

Why am I dong an MBA? Is it just because the rest of humanity (the brown skinned ones that is) is also doing so? The answer is yes!
Why not remain in technical field, to which my talents (or the lack thereof) are more suited? Is it because the Indian IT industry sucks? Yes again!
Why not give up all mortal attachments and go do penance in the Himalayas then? I wish it were so easy.

People who have graduated can empathize how difficult it is to start studying again once courses as abominably unbearable like engineering have finished!

So once again, this year too, I will be spending a lot of cash on applying for these exams and colleges, with very low returns on my expenditure.
If again I am unsuccessful in garnering admission by way of these exams I will hop onto the GMAT bandwagon, then maybe something else.

Who knows one day I might actually even sit down and study something.