The dogs of Goa

I realised that I need to write something humorous to lighten up the sombre mood in the blog that my previous few posts have created. So I give to whoever bothers to visit this red - light -area of a blog an incident that happened a few years ago on a sleepy road parallel to a sleepy beach in Goa at a time of the night when everyone had gone to sleep.

Anyone who visits Goa for a holiday knows that the time cycle that you daily follow back in your hometown goes for a toss! Our mornings began at 12 noon, our lunches were had at 6 in the evening and our nights ended usually at 4 a.m. in the Morning. On one such day, I think it was a Tuesday because weird things tend to happen to me on Tuesdays, don't ask me why, or rather on one such night we felt the need to get some dinner at 12 a.m. in the night. So three people were allotted the task of retrieving the chow from a late night neighbourhood eatery. Unfortunately the road that lead to this dubious delicatessen was a one mile long affair with no street lights.

So on a moonless night, three weary souls, namely Paul, Pranay and Moi left for the afore mentioned chow palace. Now I use the names of my other two friends without their permissions so kindly don't mention this to them If you ever happen to meet them by chance walking down the road or something.
After a few minutes into our journey, when none of us had spoken more than a sentence or two, Paul who more often then not tends to come up with ridiculous ideas, came up with another ridiculous one. "Lets race to the place!", he said with the typical enthusiasm that only he can display. Now it actually indicates the type of simple souls Pranay and Me are that we actually agreed to this plan.

Somewhere deep down from my consciousness came up a voice, which keeps on surfacing occasionally, "This is stupid, You Idiot!" I don't know why but this voice which resides in the nether regions of my brain always keeps on abusing me whenever it speaks.

So just about the time when the minute and hour hands of a clock rendezvous in an upright manner, three dark figures started running down an unlit street which until now had been so quiet that the sloshing sound emanating from an urinating mosquito would have been heard.

Just a few days ago before leaving for the shores of Goa, I had visited a local store and bought a pair of Hawaiian chappals for what I had thought as quite a bargain. How i wish I could turn back the clock and exchange them for some noiseless sneakers! We ran! And then it started! Dogs, Dogs and more dogs! Dogs of all kind! Barking dogs! Howling Dogs! Dogs wailing in their mother tongues some ballads of lost glory and tales of woe!

Now just close your eyes
and try to visualize...
First ran Paul,
the swiftest of us all.
Then ran Pranay,
shoving me out of the way.
And then came I,
crying my whiny lil' cry,

And behind me were the dogs, teeth gnashing, jaws open, tails wagging all the time barking their hellish barks. Of course the fair citizens of Goa whose cottages were lined up on either side of the road weren't going to forgive us for our sinister crime. Cries of "Tommy Go!" "Jimmy Catch!" "Moti Kill!" joined the cacophony of barks as these well bred dogs joined their savage cousins in our pursuit!

The hotel was visible now! Were we going to make it? But by now the dogs had overtaken me! One of them jumped on my back and as I fell to the ground! Another two pounced on Pranay! Only the slippery Paul managed to reach the doors of the deli into safety! But then he peered out and saw his stricken comrades!
Giving the war cry of "Har Har Mahadev!" he joined in the melee trying to ward of the canines trying their level best to rip off our throbbing throats!

Have you ever been mauled by a dog? Of course you might have or might not! Those who haven't believe me it is one of the scariest experiences in the world. You grow numb with fear. The pain hits you like a rush of wind, knocking you out with a solid punch. You cry but your wails are cut off by the fangs that have pierced your once unblemished neck!

Of course nothing of such sort happened! Soon through a combination of some Karate moves, some Kung Fu chops and some Hakka Noodles borrowed from the kitchen the dogs were separated from us. We reached the safety of the hotel, took the food parcels that awaited us and started on our way back! We waited a full hour before proceeding to do so. While returning everything seemed to be pretty calm! The dogs satiated with their fill of Manchow soup had drifted back to sleep!

Paul looked at me and suggested "Shall we run again?"

The voice from deep inside of me came to the fore again. Surprisingly this time I wasn't the target of his tirade! "Kick him in the balls!", it suggested. I couldn't agree more!

How to lose a friend

I guess when the time comes for me to hang up my boots, to retire from whatever career path i will have trod in the opaque future, I will probably end up writing a book based upon the title of this post.

I seem to have this curious knack of turning very good friends away from me in just a moment of unexplained lunacy.
It happens thus, The day begins, the morning shows no signs of this being a day out of the ordinary. A chance circumstance causes me to meet up with my friend, a topic comes up and then in a stupendous mind boggling display of insanity I say something or do something that causes extreme anguish or hurt to my friend and just like that we are friends no more.
I like to end friendships with a single line - "Have a nice life!"
On second thoughts maybe that should be the title of my book.
And then just like that a once strong close friendship is broken.

The reasons why these events occur, in a alarmingly frequent rate nowadays, never stands up to even a cursory scrutiny later on. Try as I might I cannot explain why I behave the way I do.

Do we all have these demons locked up away in our brains which are released all of a sudden which make us lash out in a selfish, callous, irrational manner. Is this an indication of a deep rooted psychosis, which makes me destroy things that meant something special to me at one time? I guess it's called foot in the mouth disease, but the rush of blood to my brain that precedes it choking off the air supply to all my brain cells which are good and just and rational is inexplicable.

I have this thing, this fad where I like to observe my actions at a later date dispassionately, from a third party perspective. Somehow these observations always tend to come to the conclusion that I was in the wrong. Or maybe these conclusions are not so dispassionate or unbiased as I perceive them to be. Maybe they are clouded by the overwhelming feeling of self-hatred that I possess and which tends to consume me from time to time. Or maybe this is all just crap!

God! I need to stop overanalysing so much!

A life so ordinary

There used to be a guy
He had a simple wish
He never had hopes too high
No real dreams too!

Friends found him funny
Women found him a waste of time!
His bosses found him a waste of money!
His parents had given up long ago!

Why did he choose to be so
Don't be under that illusion.
Ever waking hour he hoped to let go.
Non achievers wish they could achieve too.

He used to get up every morn'
Today's gonna be 'the' day, he'd declare.
I'll show some guts, he said with scorn!
Every evening he'd smile his pain away.

A life so mediocre, a life so ordinary
Life lacking purpose, the years pass by.
No tensions to speak of, not much to worry.
And so it went on, time plunging ahead.

No one seemed to remember his birthdays.
Nor did anyone cry the day he died.
A life so ordinary.
A life so misspent.

Speaking of Sohail Khan Movies...

...I would just like to state that It is so disheartening to see that a guy so untalented behind the camera, in front of the camera, as a screenwriter is given the backing of producers, financers, distributors and whoevers to continue to make horrible, bloated, unbearable, ridiculous movies. the latest case in point being his Aryan - a Rocky rip-off, a Cinderella Man wannabe!

I still shudder when I recall the three unbearable hours of agony I suffered which I underwent locked in a movie theatre watching his brilliant, fantastic, mindblowing movie "Maine Dil Tujhko Diya!"

I hope one day Sohail Khan realizes his true calling in life, quits show business and joins Nerolac Paints as a supervisor to monitor the rate at which a tracter emulsion dries after being applied on a wall.

Plot Outline for - A week in the life of a rioter.

This is something I've never tried before. I mean, trying to write something that is not a movie parody, a Hariteman story or even a movie review. It's something that I hope will turn out to be a biting social satire, something along the lines of what a Joseph Heller might produce.
Its basically a short little story about a guy called Tatya who's a professional rioter.

Hmm. Now what is a professional rioter. It's a guy who is a regular at all sorts of protests starting from a protest rally against Aishwarya's costumes in Dhoom 2 which denigrate Indian culture, to a riot because the statue of a famous Dalit leader was desecrated.
He's a guy you call whenever you want to stage a rally which will have enough carnage to attract the attention of the media vultures, the guy who will have the loudest voice and who can by-heart any slogan that you want him to with a few minutes.
He is a highly paid fellow because he also leads a small coterie of like-minded peers to these rallies.

Why am I thinking of writing this - It's because I'm pretty much frustrated with the state of affairs in India today where everything is considered sacred and no one seems to have a sense of humour. I don't know whether this is a recent development with us Indians or were we always born with such a lack of tolerance. Whatever be the answer, one thing's for sure. This surge of 'Protest Rallyism' has been fuelled by the media revolution that has taken place.

The story mostly will be about how Tatya goes about his business, how he is very professional about it all, and how much armchair angst I feel about India.
Most of all I hope people who read it don't ridicule it as quickly as they would ridicule a Sohail Khan movie.
Finally I hope that I am capable of writing something intelligent!

Man! I need to cut down on the self-deprecation!

Stuck home on a Sunday

I have entered a phase in my life which I occasionally enter every few months.

It involves me not setting foot out of my house for the entire weekend. I just stay curled up in bed and read a book. The odd thing is that I feel very guilty doing this. I mean, after a grueling 5 days of Office I should be going out with friends to movies or shopping(especially since I really need to buy some new clothes) or maybe to go give my bike for Service, which it seriously requires.

But I can't and won't - no matter how much I get berated by my parents for being so lazy.

So, one might question, which is this great piece of literature that is keeping me so occupied. the current book that has attained this privileged position is Harry Potter - The Order of the Pheonix.
One might snigger hearing this, but I've always found the Harry Potter books to be something that you tend to read in one go, which is getting difficult with every successive volume in the series expanding in size alarmingly.

Why I am I jotting down all this uninteresting tripe??? I have no clue myself!

The next post I plan to write is a detailed critique about the characterizations and plots of all the Hari Puttar novels. Hahaha! No ones gonna read that!

BTW in a completely unrelated topic, if anyone gets damn frustrated in their love life, I recommend dimming the lights and listening to the music of Kailash Kher - Kailasa.
And also Strings.

Signing out!

Shawshank - A review

This is what my favourite movie critic had to say about my favourite movie.
For now I reproduce over her his comments. I'll attempt a review soon in my own words.

Roger Ebert is the best in the business, in the matter of movie reviews, and though how we respond to a movie is completely subjective, I generally tend to agree with his views.



BY ROGER EBERT / September 23, 1994

"The Shawshank Redemption" is a movie about time, patience and loyalty -- not sexy qualities, perhaps, but they grow on you during the subterranean progress of this story, which is about how two men serving life sentences in prison become friends and find a way to fight off despair.

The story is narrated by "Red" Redding (Morgan Freeman), who has been inside the walls of Shawshank Prison for a very long time and is its leading entrepreneur. He can get you whatever you need: cigarettes, candy, even a little rock pick like an amateur geologist might use. One day he and his fellow inmates watch the latest busload of prisoners unload, and they make bets on who will cry during their first night in prison, and who will not. Red bets on a tall, lanky guy named Andy Dufresne (Tim Robbins), who looks like a babe in the woods.

But Andy does not cry, and Red loses the cigarettes he wagered. Andy turns out to be a surprise to everyone in Shawshank, because within him is such a powerful reservoir of determination and strength that nothing seems to break him. Andy was a banker on the outside, and he's in for murder. He's apparently innocent, and there are all sorts of details involving his case, but after a while they take on a kind of unreality; all that counts inside prison is its own society -- who is strong, who is not -- and the measured passage of time.

Red is also a lifer. From time to time, measuring the decades, he goes up in front of the parole board, and they measure the length of his term (20 years, 30 years) and ask him if he thinks he has been rehabilitated. Oh, most surely, yes, he replies; but the fire goes out of his assurances as the years march past, and there is the sense that he has been institutionalized -- that, like another old lifer who kills himself after being paroled, he can no longer really envision life on the outside.

Red's narration of the story allows him to speak for all of the prisoners, who sense a fortitude and integrity in Andy that survives the years. Andy will not kiss butt. He will not back down. But he is not violent, just formidably sure of himself. For the warden (Bob Gunton), he is both a challenge and a resource; Andy knows all about bookkeeping and tax preparation, and before long he's been moved out of his prison job in the library and assigned to the warden's office, where he sits behind an adding machine and keeps tabs on the warden's ill-gotten gains. His fame spreads, and eventually he's doing the taxes and pension plans for most of the officials of the local prison system.

There are key moments in the film, as when Andy uses his clout to get some cold beers for his friends who are working on a roofing job. Or when he befriends the old prison librarian (James Whitmore). Or when he oversteps his boundaries and is thrown into solitary confinement. What quietly amazes everyone in the prison -- and us, too -- is the way he accepts the good and the bad as all part of some larger pattern than only he can fully see.

The partnership between the characters played by Tim Robbins and Morgan Freeman is crucial to the way the story unfolds. This is not a "prison drama" in any conventional sense of the word. It is not about violence, riots or melodrama. The word "redemption" is in the title for a reason. The movie is based on a story, Rita Hayworth and the Shawshank Redemption, by Stephen King, which is quite unlike most of King's work. The horror here is not of the supernatural kind, but of the sort that flows from the realization than 10, 20, 30 years of a man's life have unreeled in the same unchanging daily prison routine.

The director, Frank Darabont, paints the prison in drab grays and shadows, so that when key events do occur, they seem to have a life of their own.

Andy, as played by Robbins, keeps his thoughts to himself. Red, as Freeman plays him, is therefore a crucial element in the story: His close observation of this man, down through the years, provides the way we monitor changes and track the measure of his influence on those around him. And all the time there is something else happening, hidden and secret, which is revealed only at the end.

"The Shawshank Redemption" is not a depressing story, although I may have made it sound that way. There is a lot of life and humor in it, and warmth in the friendship that builds up between Andy and Red. There is even excitement and suspense, although not when we expect it. But mostly the film is an allegory about holding onto a sense of personal worth, despite everything. If the film is perhaps a little slow in its middle passages, maybe that is part of the idea, too, to give us a sense of the leaden passage of time, before the glory of the final redemption.