Once upon a time...

"But you promised the kids two days back Vineet...." Nisha called out from the kitchen over the rhythmic noise of the blender. "Okay then...leetts go" sighed Vineet and lifted his tired back from the sofa, just as the two "monkeys" as he called them, jumped on him with delight.

The drive to the park was..well, just as a drive would be on a friday evening on the Bangalore roads. A good one hour later, there they were...the thousand odd bulbs on the 'Fun World' hoarding, mirroring the glow in the eyes of the children.
The "monkeys" jumped out of the car and dragged Nisha all the way to the ticket counter - Aryan,6 on the left and Karan,4 on the right - while Vineet drove on to the end of the parking lot. As Vineet returned to the entrance, the parking ticket in hand, the day's exhaustion weighing heavy on his breath, the kids cried out in unison "daaaddyy..lets try the giant wheel. You didn't let us the last time. Now we have become big boys.....pleease".
"Hmm...okay fine..but go with Mummy...I am too tired today"..Vinnet slumped on the nearest bench.
"You make such a lousy dad"...Nisha retorted as she turned to go with the kids
"..but a wonderful husband" she whispered with a quick peck on his arm....the marital bliss glowing crimson on her cheeks.

Vineet smiled at the sight of Nisha shrieking with fright as the giant wheel picked up speed. Nisha and the kids had brought in a sense of peace and completeness in his life. He had found happiness in every small moment of his marriage, whether it was Nisha pondering for hours over which saree to buy or changing Karan's nappies with Aryan clinging on to his neck. Vineet drifted away to sleep with the smile still in place.

As he woke up, his eyes blurrily took in the milling crowds and delightful kids. He had slept for a good half and hour. Nisha and the kids would probably be on their nth ride by now. Through the blobs of colour that transformed into people of different shapes and sizes, he saw a face which looked very familiar. As he caught the lady's eye, he saw just cold indifference in that look...the look of stranger. And yet he had caught on to that momentary flicker of recognition in her look. There was a boy, of maybe 5 or 6 with her. They were coming his way. Vineet turned his face away from the two.

She settled herself on the same bench, right next to Vineet. He turned to her with his lips curled in the slightest hint of a smile -"Hi". "Hi",she smiled back. "Your son?" he asked, his eyes scanning the place for the person who could be his father.
"yeah". "Whats your name?" he put on his best kid voice for the boy with a red-yellow 'Nickelodeon' cap crowning his head. No reply. He bent to take a closer look at the face under the red-yellow cap. The vacant look in the boy's eyes struck him like a thunderbolt.
"Vikram cannot understand what you are saying...he..he is mentally challenged" - the lady put in words what the boy conveyed through his eyes.

"I....well...why....that's so.." Vineet fumbled with his words. For once, the corporate lessons in public speaking and effective communication didn't come to his rescue. He faced her with a strange sense of guilt and pity written on his face
"Don't be", she was reading his face like the daily newspaper supplement "I don't want him to grow up with eyes full of pity watching over him. The looks will haunt him all his life, the way they haunt me when I sit in solitude. And well, dont feel sorry for me either..I knew it was going to be an abnormal child. A blood group mismatch. The doctors had warned me."
"Then why? You could have..." Vineet could not get himself to complete the sentence.
"Its not that easy. I wanted him to get a chance to live...to experience life, to come to this place just the way other kids do, to feel the soft slushy mud on his feet, to gaze at the raindrops cosying themselves on the fabric of his shirt...it's been a tough decision"..her voice faded away.

The cold breeze tugged at Vineet's skin...his eyes had been fixed firmly on a group of children playing tag-n-catch, a facade for the thoughts that raced through his mind. There was no sign of Nisha and the kids. He turned to face her. She had opened a pack of 'Hide and Seek' biscuits and was feeding Vikram. She offered him some biscuits. He broke a piece and held it infront of Vikram. The pair of eyes moved from the biscuit to him and back, devoid of the glee that the choco-chip biscuits normally bring about, devoid of any comprehension.

Vikram was on his fourth biscuit now. "Thanks for feeding him. He loves these biscuits.Atleast...I think he does.And sorry...he has messed up your shirt"
"Thats the least I could do". Vineet's mind went back to the days when Aryan would slobber all over his office clothes. He hated it. Nisha had a name for it "fatherhood blues" she would tease him.

Minutes of silence."So...you here with your family?", a nonchalant question. "Yeah, with my wife and sons", a nonchalant answer. " Nisha is a good wife.She loves the kids and me. Aryan is so smart..he is all of 6 and knows all the answers. Karan is 4..so he knows all the questions. Life is..." Vineet realised he was rambling on incoherently. He gave a nervous laughter "well..Iam sorry".

She didn't reply. Silence again. Then she smiled with understanding -"Its okay. I think we should get going. Shouldn't we Vikram?" The nickelodeon cap remained in its position, pointing downwards where its bearer had fixed his gaze.

"So...where is his father? I mean...your husband isnt here?"
The cracks in his voice betrayed the tension behind the phlegmatic tone.
A bead of sweat trickled down his forehead and into his eye, replacing the tear which was never there.

"I didn't get married Vineet. As for his father...he doesnt even know about Vikram.
Or atleast he didnt till now..."

"Why??" Vineet kept repeating the word to himself more than to her.

"Its okay Vineet. I saw the look in your eyes the day I had that asthma attack. Through my struggle with my breath, I could see your struggle with your emotions. You could have walked out of that hospital room and out of my life. What made you hold on for a year longer...I don't know.
So when you called me up to call it quits, it wasn't a shock for me Vineet. I had seen it coming. There were no questions to be asked. No explanations sought.And there was no point in me telling you about Vikram. You could not handle it then...you cannot handle it now."

She placed her hand on his shoulder. He wanted to cling onto it with all his life.
"Go on Vineet. Take care of Nisha and the kids. Vikram and I are just fine."

He watched her walk away, the red-yellow cap bobbing up and down the path.
The tears refused to stop. And there she was - a hazy blob of colour, just the way she was when she walked into his "happy complete and perfect" life that windy evening.

of weekends n bachelorette parties...

Well well....so after what seemed like an endless chain of "at-work-weekends"...there it was finally !! The ultimate weekend which takes you back in time some 2 or 3 years....to a non-descript place which means the world to its inhabitants...a place where almost every day is like a sunday and yet weekends are special !!!!! weekends which are greeted by the toothy grin of the dhobin at the door, weekends with the "one-hour-oil-champi and head baths", weekends with the discussions in the Qt over the latest "enlightening gossip" -courtesy sunday times, weekends with the special grubs and long siestas, finally culminating in a steamy (hold on hold on!!!)..coffee over heated discussions !!!

whoa...looks like i am back on the memory lane !!!!
so its >> (yup..that the fast fwd button :p) to this weekend when we had a bachelorette party for one of our friends...infact the first one of us to willingly step into the trap, which we euphemistically refer to as marriage !!!

so there we were with corny ideas for the party and cornier ideas for gifts....shoppin for a greater part of saturday !!!
and what was the result ? well..we got the gifts...but only after we got masks which would cover anything between 1/3rd to 2/5ths of our faces !!!!clowns, scarred n bald burglar faces, the-kid-with-a-moronish-look...u name it and we had them in the 2-D form !!!!! and of course, trumpet-shaped whistles and the little bottle with soap solution and a loop of wire -your own kit for making soap bubbles !!! :))
Not to mention the 2 or 3 snack breaks that we took....(shopping builds up an appetite u see !!)
The occassion demanded some personal shopping too -on account of a broken sandal, faded bag n so on...n 'voila' the lil' genie had just done a disapperaing trick out of the 1000 bucks in my wallet !!!

come sunday, and there we were at the venue, decorating the house with balloons and colored paper (oops..did i forget to mention them !!)

and there it is...a quick summary of how things can go just the way u dont want them to....

>> u lug about 3/4 bags full of party stuff only to realise that u have left the most important gift at home !!!

>> the guy at the cake shop refuses to write a message on the cake....and u have a icing-cone all to urself for demonstrating ur calligraphy skills (gosh...why didnt i attend that summer course for calligraphy in school ??? )

>> the person in whose honour the party if being given is on a fast....n can make leeway only for one-meal-per-day sans onion n garlic !!! (whew !! we actually found a restaurant which catered to the needs)

>> all your cryptic clues for the gifts are ripped apart by just about everyone in the group !!!!

>> when the waiter at the restaurant says "should i repeat the order"....ur ears choose to interpret it as "could u repeat the order" !! n there u r...rattling off the names to a laughtrack -courtesy your friends !!!

>> you raise a toast to the "guest of honour" with apple juice in micky mouse and donald duck adorned styrofoam cups (dont ask me why !!!!!)

>> you rent a cd player and a movie boasting of the "sexiest scene of the century" only to find that the scene has been "snipped off" the disc -courtesy censor board !!

>> the party ends with another mini party sponsored by the "guest of honour" (now..why did i put that here ????sponsored treats are always welcome :p :p)

>> And you realise the party is over....just when u forget all about the major issue pending at work and get into the party groove !!! Time sure flies fast !!!

So now...its time for the accounts to be settled (strictly on monetary terms folks..dont read between the lines !!) , updates to people who couldnt be there and sharing of snaps !!!!!
A weekend to relive 4 years of togetherness....and weeks,months and years ahead to relive the weekend !!! :))

So all you singles out there, start your quest for the "better half" !!
May there be many more bachelorette parties and invites to the same in my inbox !!!!

Amen !!! :))

fishy-tails !!! :p

I just fished this joke out from a very tired n bored mind

Baby fish: Mummy Mummy I dont want to go to the 'school'
Mamma fish: Why beta ???
Baby fish: Becos there are very 'fishy' things happening out there !!
Mamma fish: Oh stop 'cra(i)bbing' and go now
Pappa fish: Come on son...be a man(???i dont know wat u call a male fish :(( )
and its 'fry'day today !!!! its weekend time. :))
Baby fish: okay i will go...but only if u promise to get me the latest
'fis(c)her price' toy
Mamma fish: no...first 'fin'ish this glass of bournvita
Pappa fish: why have a 'roe' now ?? i will get him the 'toy'
Mamma fish: but..but..he is 'hook'ed to these games
Pappa fish: thats okay..i dont want to feel "gill"ty about not giving my child
what he wants
Baby fish: yippppeeee.......!!!!!

Omigosh....finally the lack of good fish in blore is gettin to me !!!
So its good'buy' from my side....:))

sleeping child...

She woke to the sound of raindrops drumming faintly on the terrace. A fine spray sneaked in through the fine gap in the window and settled itself on the rug in sparkling pearls. All groggy from the 9 hour long slumber, she painfully opened her eyes wide enough to find her way through the clutter in the one-room-apartment to the bathroom. A haze of cigaratte smoke engulfed her as she entered the bathroom...damn the guy in the next room who comes back at unearthly hours and thinks that the loo is actually the best place to have a smoke in !! She coughed for a good 5 minutes - and then admonished herself silently for thinking that he would actually quit smoking out of respect to her lungs. She opened the tap full three rounds...water trickled out in a thin stream and finally stopped, all the time mocking at her with strange gurgling sounds. She got out of the room, walked down the stairs to the water pump and switched it on. Raindrops caressed her cheeks and washed away the remnants of the nights dreams from her eyes. For some moments she stood still, her closed shut not too lightly not too tight. And it brought back memories of a time long ago in a place far away where caring hands would button down her bright pink raincoat. When tiny size 3 black and brown sandals would wade through knee deep waters. When an upturned umbrella would be reason enough to come back home and not attend classes. When hot pakoras and milk with bournvita would compensate for all the runny noses and bitter cough syrups. A strange chill crept into her. She hugged herself tightly and got back into the room.

The water had now given up the resistance and surrendered itself to the flow. She triumphantly made gurgling noises at the tap and suddenly felt herself blush with embarassment at her own idiosyncrasy. A good half an half later she emerged from the bathroom, the smell of soap lingering onto her skin. A demure fragrance holding its own against an arrogant cigaratte smoke. She took out freshly ironed clothes and smoothened out the stray crease. The raindrops continued their dance on the terrace. Five minutes and 3 cosmetics later she was all ready to face the day. The raindrops had got into a frenzy and pranced about on the terrace in a trance. She was getting late. The shirt cringed at the idea of getting itself wet in the rain and the trousers had wrinkles of worry all over them at the same thought.

The clock in the neighbouring house struck nine thirty with a friendly chime and she had no other choice. Bracing herself against the torrent, she stepped out onto the terrace. Only if she could find an auto soon enough... !!! The raindrops egged her on to join them in their dance. But she had no time for them. No time for nostalgic thoughts. No time for reveries. Her steps quickened. But there was no sight of an auto anywhere on the road. The familiar yellow-n-black was missing this morning. It was then that the last evenings headline struck her. "nationwide stir" !!! She ran towards the bus stop cursing herself, cursing the autowallahs and cursing the system for making them go on a stir. The roads were full of puddles and water seeped out of manholes and flowed with a newfound sense of freedon onto the wide roads. Her stomach churned as she walked through the water. The busstop was deserted except for a few souls who greeted her with smiles of empathy as she got under the shelter.

The sight of a bus on the other end of the road made everyone stand up and walk to the edge of the road. An unwanted bus number would be greeted with sighs while the lucky few would smirk with delight and get onto the bus. Somehow it reminded her of the small kiosks which she would cross on the way to school. Oranges and apples were just a cover for the gambling that went on in these places. A group of ten-twelve odd workers gathered around the place, waitin for that one number which would change their lives. And the damsel of fate would play peekaboo with them, take away their sweat-drenched money and yet they would return the next day with renewed hopes and borrowed money.

And as though waking her up from this reverie, a car sped by splashing water on her. She started counting till ten - a trick her mom had thought her when she was still a very impatient and cranky child. Just when she crossed 10^2, she saw the number that made her break into a smile. She had seen her bus. But what she failed to see what the number of people who were sitting/standing/hanging from the bus....!! It was an arena where warriors in formal attire, armed with briefcases and lunch boxes fought with each other for the coveted seat. Strategies were being devised in each mind as to the best way to get to the next available seat. Scheming brains were calculating the probability of a getting a seat. Wet umbrellas and dripping jackets were makeshift shields in the battle. A fat lady left a stamp of her size 6 foot on her shoe. Scuffles were breaking out. She had neither the intention nor the inclination to be one of them. And just when she had resigned herself to 20 minutes of standing, the seat right next to her got vacated. And before the battling warriors could notice it, she had already ascended onto the coveted throne.

And thats when she noticed the bundle of pink and yellow lying on the lap of the lady in the next seat. It was a girl, maybe about 3 or 4 years old. And she was blissfully sleeping in her mother's arms. Blissfully unaware of the raging feud about her. The raindrops adorned her face...swaying with the silent breaths that she took. There was something beatific about her face. An angel of peace and patience in a mad mad world. The smile on her face said a silent prayer to the lord 'forgive them lord for they know not what they are doing' !!!

She looked at the kid and the latent energy of the sleeping child somehow found its way into her. The glow of patience touched her and she sat there -immobile, not batting a lid, hungrily taking in the lesson that the sleeping child was imparting her.

The bus stopped with a jerk. She stood up and pried her way to the door through the still-battling warriors. As she stood on the last step, she looked back. And there it was the bundle of pink and yellow...still smiling at the folly of everyone around her.

The driver honked impatiently screaming at her to get off the bus. She smiled forgiveness and got off...forgiveness for herself. Forgiveness for everyone around her.

work-a-holy-ics anonymous....(I)

Fed up with hours of working on a bug-fix
made me so frustrated as to send a one-liner mail to one of
my friends - "why do we have to work??"

and pronto came the reply - "interesting question..but why do we
have to receive a pay-check at the end of every month??"

...and it was back to fixing the bugging bug again...!!! :))

what's in a name???

As I swiped my card today morning at the office entrance...i just happened to reflect upon the fact that names are of absolutely no use. cos when i swipe my card, all that the blinking light on the id recognition device gets from my swipe is the 8 digit employee number. When people want to contact me in office, they again know me as extension number so-and-so or cubicle number so-and-so. So why do i need to have a name ??

And this is not a phenomenon that starts at work. If you are an Indian, in all probability your parents would have decided a pet name for you long before you even made a grand-entrance in some sterile hospital room. And you would have carried the tag of 'Chunnu' or 'Baby' or 'Dolly' right through childhood and maybe even through your adult years. And all this after each member of you family spent days consulting the stars and 'google'-ing 'baby names' sites for naming you.

In school, it is the roll no or the id no that becomes your identity. Your friends have their own special ways of calling you...(There was a 'miss runny nose' and a 'miss funny voice' in my school too)
Even the teachers seem to call u by every other name except your own.."you there on the last bench"..."you there dozing in the corner"..blah blah !!!

On the net you are know by your IM-id or your email id (some of them are quite misleading...ever tried cool_dude@xyz.com or hot_babe@abc.com) !!
Or worse still whenever the people in the computer support team call me up... they insist on referring to me by my IP Address. And that makes me so mad...I could almost murder them !! But whats the point I would still be a mugshot with a number in the files and a number on a pinstripe background in the cells.

And the irony of the situation is that while im blogging this iam surrendering myself to the blog-name that in retrospect sounds very corny to me !! :((

Before my gray-cells (or whatever is left of them) decide to commit harakiri...lemme not think more on this !! i rest my case...cos i have no intentions of being a numbered headstone with some heart-touching words upon it...!!! :))

a day of trivialities..

When i came across Arundhati Roy's 'God of small things...' i always pondered upon Ms. Roy's choice of title !! And it took me till today to understand in full gravity the importance of trivialities in our lives !!!

>> a seemingly innocuous statement got me in trouble with a dear friend !! what seemed to me like a trivial remark meant great offence to my pal n to the third party who refused to play the silent spectator like most third parties n was very vocal in her disapproval of the remark !!!!

>> i just realised that a very trivial act of mine had touched the hearts of two people so much so that they took two pages each in my autograph book to thank me for the same !!!! (and it goes without saying that i took two more pages in their autographs book to gracefully accept the thanks while tryin to play it down at the same time!! c'est rien, mon cherie)

Thinking about how much importance people attach to all the little things in life brings me to something i read sometime ago (dont remember where) about how something as little as increasing the storage capacity of a mail inbox makes the day better for thousand different people !! And today being the day of realisation..how could i miss out on that one ??? The people at Yahoo! just increased my mailbox space to 1 GB...hallelujah !!!! If i were one for the spirits...i wud have drunk one to the little things in life n to the profits of Yahoo!

Just as a passing thought...delving into a bit of etymology...trivia (three roads literally) comes from the fact that people met at road intersections and had discussions !!! Then why does trivial imply something of very less importance ??? Think about this the next time u are havin a chat at the nookad shop over some chai and pakoras !!! :D

shoe-per dooper !!!

Just happened to have a very interesting conversation today with two of my peers.
It goes something like this...

J: (in the midst of removing his shoes) guess what...my shoe has been sticking out its tongue at me !!! well..am not going to care much...it is such a 'sole-less' being.

N: can't really blame it...can we ?? after all it is being 'booted' about day in and day out...!!

The convo till now is repeated by J & N in a highly amused manner to H. Not to be beaten at the game, H retorts

H: mine is much worse...it is just developing teeth

N: ouch...that must have been a nasty bite !!

J: why dont you just sho(o)e it off ??


By now N is trying her best to keep the game alive or rather bring it to an end with a final punch...a la Ali !!! If I had been more morbid and less euphemistic..maybe I would put it as giving the game a befitting funeral with the best of the lines etched out on the headstone.

N: hey guys...lets cut it out...its such a s(c)andalising conversation

H: it stinks (did anyone talk about toe-jam???? yucks!!!)


Unfortunately (or was it ???!!) the conversation was prematurely aborted thanks to a task which was much higher on the priority list than our sole-barring conversations !! Hallelujah !!!!!

bliss-ters n raindrops!!!

When the rain gods decide all of a sudden to
shower their blessings on this end of the world (read it as
a parched desert..with all its due share of hyperboles!!!)
and when a overworked person has some few minutes of time
on her hands..with an unusually fast net speed...the result
lies behold !!!!!


oh the bliss of a drop
of the elixir of life
gushing down a parched throat
without a single strife !!

oh the bliss of water
murdering the leaping flames
like an all covering shroud
hiding all the mortal shames !!

oh the bliss of lightning
and deafening strokes of thunder
heavy showers striking the desert
nature's miracle or blunder !!??

oh the bliss of time
on your much worked hands
composing worthless prose
with equally worthless strands !!

crash landed at home !!!

Am back home after a very tedious flight journey ...courtesy the de-icing procedure at CDG, technical fault of unknown origin at Vienna and a grounded copter at Goa airport....!!!

Well...special thanks to the wonderful lunch at Mumbai airport, Hitchhikers guide to the Galaxy and the 'Kareena-Shahid'news story running on all the news channels...for keeping me company during the 4 hour wait at mumbai airport !!!

Looks like blogging is going to be a lot more frequent now that there are lot many memories and even larger number of family gatherings to talk about. But net here works at an amazingly slow speed....(one more excuse for my frequent bouts of good old vintage laziness)!!!

Lots of unfinished drafts....thread of thoughts left unwoven with a knot at the end to remind me of the times when the French food was not heavy enough to lull my grey cells into deep slumber of inactivity !!!

But first a good nights sleep to catch up on !!!(or rather another good nights sleep to catch up on !!) 'Jet lag' is what I tell all those who call up at 10.30 am only to catch a very 'just-outta bed' hullo on my end of the phone...!!! May not be a very plausible excuse..especially some 5 days after reaching home...but sounds very swanky ;)

So long....Bonne nuit...gute nacht....good night...im outta here !!!
:)

Of cocktails and graphs...

Everyone's life is a cocktail. Each ones cocktail differs from the other's.

Well..I may just sound like yet another of those innumerable homosapiens who love
to ponder upon the true meaning of life. But any other better statement coming out of the mashed matter which my brain is at the moment would just about qualify for the achievement of the century.

After a long stint of relentless work, after guzzling down nearly the whole of the insides of the coffee machine, after hours of sitting infront of the computer trying to make sense out of code which to me a month back seemed like the epitome of perfect reasoning and logic in the making...the best i can manage is the above statement.

And after all...life is but a cocktail. Some people just dont have the punch in theirs.....while others just get heady with one sip. For some time I try to be an analyst...more like the managers who spend the late hours of the day in office with those graphs and charts, trying to decide the best way of action for maintaining the liquidity level..or simply deciding whether the lady with the bright red lipstick in cubicle 4 makes a better choice to be booted out of the company than the short nerdy man in cubicle 6. Only its not liquidity level or any employee id:12344 thats being analysed at the moment. Just am trying to analyse the composition of the cocktail that I was talking about which I happen to have in my glass at the moment.

There it is....the graph as I can clearly see it circling the rim of my glass...snaking all along the way. Looks like the ones I used to copy paste from some site right onto my project reports in college. Well it does have more curves than you can ever expect at Milan Fashion Week.

There you go...a mix of late hours into the textbooks and early hours in the coaching classes. Hmm....more of content and less of punch. Typical drink for the
first time visitors to the pub. Slow and steady rise...!! A tumultuous stretch lasting for around 3 to 4 years equivalent of the rim. High in places and meandering like a dying river in the rest. The type of combination that one expects when the visits to the pub start figuring more frequently on one's calendar and when all the sense of adventure is poured generously into the glass. More like a fiery tequilla with a slice of lime on the highs while plain old tomato juice with a dash of pepper and tabasco on the lows....!!! And then peaking for a stretch of about 6 months...seeing new highs...seeking to shoot up and away from the rigid boundary that is the rim of the glass. A combination like never tasted and tried. A combination which only a person on buddy terms with the bartender would dare to try.

A cocktail which fires up the insides with just one sip giving a hangover enough to last a lifetime, stronger than even all the martinis, vodkas and tequillas from all the taverns of the world put together and an olive to top it all. And then I see a steep fall...!! Gauging its length, seems like almost a weeks equivalent in time. No punch, no kicks..more like a citrus punch - the only punch it has is in the name. More like a person trying to adapt to a no-alocohol kind of life after the doctor has put an expiry date tag on the liver after a thorough checkup. And then abruptly the graph stops....there is no information, no figures, no status reports to go on.

The lights go off...the analyst locks his office. He has a satisfied look on his face. He has just analysed the past thru the graphs which are now safely locked away in his mind, each rise and fall burned in his head just like the nerds in the cubicles burn MP3s on the cds after office hours. But yet he is clueless about the future. Each day comes and goes...the graph has to go on circling the rim of the glass...spiralling down the stem until it comes to a point when it can't go on.
And when the last drop of cocktail has been downed and all the colored bottles of liquer cleared from the bar, when the drinks spilt by the inebriated few have been wiped away, there stands the empty glass with the peaks and troughs - a testimony of a life which was.

strokes of joy

Well...too many things have been happening over the past 1 or 2 weeks. I had not even recovered from the extreme fatigue of the 4 day Italy trip that we had...(a rather Colossal trip I shud say..no pun intended!!)...and voila, there we were...8 people and a bag of croissants bundling themselves into the train to Paris !!!

The L'Église Notre-Dame with its intricate stained glasswork and ambience right out of 50's movie made all the gals in the group go "oh so romantic..." almost in symphony. And as usual, the guys just contorted their faces into an expression which can be easily mistaken for a severe case of constipated guts.

I always like to have a private conversation with god. The ones without any frills attached...no formal introduction, no formal prayer. Just a one-to-one talk where I do all the talking. And there I go ask forgiveness for the nasty looking brat who bullied me in kindergarten, eating all my lunch one hungry afternoon. I ask god to forgive "miss-snooty" who made fun of my dressing sense in high school. And then I emerge out of the prayer room, an apostle of forgiveness and god's own "ombudsman", my ego a lot heavier than my halo !!!

Yeah..so after the church, there we are again, the octet and the bag, minus the croissants (its amazing how all that praying kicks up your digestive enzymes) standing infront of the Opera. Opera always reminds me of Bianca Castafiore with her earsplitting "Ah my beauty past compare, these jewels bright I wear!" in Tintin books. And the Opera had each of its glass panes intact in place...doesn't look like they have many performances going in there. And neither did i catch a peek of the crème de la société with their status precariously balanced on their monocle, their stares sharper than the even the sharpest staccato octaves and chords of the opera divas.

And after everyone vettoed, almost in unison the suggestion of attending a performance in there (dunno what made me suggest it in the first place...would you buy split personality with a weird taste!!), we were on our way to see the one and only 'La Tour Eiffel'. And voila, there it was staring at us magnanimously, bestowing upon us the sudden realisation of the promixity to the monument which probably has lent its glory to many a movies in the already cluttered romantic genre.

Our decision to climb up till the second floor of the tower was inspired more by the lesser tariffs than by our faith in our daily doses of energy drink. After a nearly 300+ steps (frankly, i lost count of them after sometime) climb and 32.5 curses later (i remember each one of them clearly though...that 0.5 was thanks to my friend punching me halfway through the profanity, more out of frustration than out of her sense of righteousness...with due 'respek' to her elementary school moral science classes) there we were on the first floor majestically poised above an even more majestic city !!!

And with the help of the friendly information boards (which surprisingly had notes in English too), we were trying to locate major landmarks in the maze of buildings, each not much different from the other. And there I was pointing out the Musee de Louvre to the tourists around me who looked all confused and lost in the maze of concrete below...Entry my dear turned not-so-dear friend

hey what you doing here? come over to the other side...The Louvre looks so cool from there!!!

There goes my last shred of dignity etched onto the metal in deep marks 'Born Loser' alongside a barely visible 'ich liebe Gunther'...marks of love by a deutsches Mädchen

After a 360-degree view of the city, there I was walking up to the second floor, not any wiser than I was before about the Parisian landscape.

There's a feeling I get when I look to the west
And my spirit is crying for leaving
In my thoughts I have seen rings of smoke through the trees
And the voices of those who stand looking

Woe oh oh oh oh oh
And she's buying a stairway to heaven

The sheer excitement of making it sans a stretcher to the second floor was dampened only by the extreme fatigue in our legs and the mad rush to catch the lift to the 3rd floor. And there we stood amidst gaping mouths of tourists and clicking cameras and couples romanticising the moment with all their hearts. The feeling that you have standing up there, up on a monument which you have always dreamt of visiting only through the heavily marked and dog-eared pages of the history textbook, staring down at a place which no author however expressive, no artist however imaginative can do justice to...it almost felt like we had conquered le tour Eiffel. Had someone handed a flag to me at that moment, I would have planted it right there as a silent witness to our great achievement.
That probably explains the number of names that have been etched out up there in the metal with anything ranging from ball point pens to car keys.

With the night sky over Eiffel and the blue beams spanning out, the city just lit up as though in celebration of the beauty that Paris beholds. But I liked to imagine that it was our 'conquering the Eiffel' that they were celebrating. The commercial streak in me makes me think that probably a champagne store up there would do glorious business !!

Tired limbs and frozen hands
not one can descend to earth
when energy does drain out
of bravery there is a dearth

so there were the eight travellers
in the farthest of the far corners
returning back to reality
may god bless the elevators

Well..I am just hanging on to the last shreds of our dignity by putting our descent to the earth in the elevators in prose. Poetry was probably invented by someone who wanted to present all his failures in a glorified version to the world.

And when you are so tired (more at the heart than in the bones), the exhorbitant costs that people quote for the souvenirs just doesnt reach your brains. And having spent almost a fortune on buying a distorted piece of metal which looks like the Eiffel put through a thousand compresses and run over by a million elephants drunk on mahua for almost everyone back home who would put himself through the torture of listening to our French experiences in lieu of the souvenir, we took the metro to one of those corners of the city which reminds us of home.

And what better than a dinner in a restaurant serving cuisine from back home to end the fabulous day !!! So fate be it, it was 8 souls with satisfied appetites and grumbling legs that returned to their homes that night after a trip to Paris.

The 4 kilometre walk back home from the station did nothing for our legs but it was during this walk that we actually ruminated about the day and there it was..the realisation staring at us right in our face, just like the Eiffel did earlier in the day !!!!

in the aftermath of the noon...

The alert flashes yet again on the screen. It is a reminder i set for myself, which now lies obscenely overdue at 3 days. I can feel the mouse slipping out of my grip and rushing towards the 'Snooze' button. One 'click' and the reminder retreats in defeat, vowing to return with vengeance. A lady is crooning away in the background..resting only for a mere 3 seconds - just enough for the 'Repeat' button on my Winamp to get into action. I have lost count of the number of times the lady has started singing all over again...she deserves some rest. But the wicked streak in my fingers is at its best, refusing to oblige her with a soft click on the 'stop' button. And she croons on...

One look at the system clock assures me that there are 4 more hours to go before i can officially call it a day and return to my dishevelled apartment with dishes in the sink that remind me of the dinner party we had last week. The silence in my cubicle betrays my state of inactivity to the outside world. A couple a rapid clicks of the mouse and few random taps of the keyboard breath a sense of life into my cubicle which is rapidly sinking into a lethargic slumber. But belive me...aimlessly minimising and maximising a couple of open windows does not serve to amuse even a 3 odd months old toddler.

The mail alert in the corner of the screen reminds me that i should somehow lay my hands upon the DVD of 'You've got mail'. I would have opted for a P2P had it not been for the 8 simultaneous downloads of F.R.I.E.N.D.S -season 9 sucking every ounce of speed from the processor. Well...yet another damsel in distress with a virtual memory problem sending out a SOS. My mind races out of my seat, down the stairs and right into her office where I can rectify the problem. My feet refuse to oblige. It must be the stubborn genes in me (which my mom sometimes blames on her great-grand aunt) all congregating in my toes. The meek surrender smiley (it goes like ^:)^ ...ever tried it??)mocks at me from behind the yahoo messenger icon.

Reclining in my new chair with a backrest that bends back in proportion to the amount of fatigue in my body, and munching on the walnuts which were passed over to me by the gal in the next cubicle (hallelujah !!finally found a good purpose that these cubicles and open workspaces serve..expect more about them in my next few posts)...i evoke many a 'are you comfortable? should i get you a pillow?' responses from my cubicle-sidies !!(its amazing how coining such terms makes you feel that fraternal bonding in the air). They dont even care to camouflage the sarcasm with a smile..hasn't anyone ever heard of sugar coated cyanide ???

"But Jesus was saying, "Father, forgive them; for they do not know what they are doing." Luke 23:34

I hear bells...but christmas is 2 months away. Santa would probably be too busy making some last moment additions and deletions to the 'good kids' list...surrounded by pointy-eared elves in a costume similar to the one that i wore to my 1st standard fancy dress competition. The bells don't stop ringing. I am tempted to think that it is Santa sending me a last minute reminder to do some good and maybe scrape through as a small note scribbled in the minutest of handwriting in the footer of the 'coveted list'. When was the last time i ever tied a string to a dragonfly and hung it upside down from a tree ? or collected fireflys in a see-thru case and fashioned my own table lamp out of a convoluted sense of aesthetism? Looks like i do have a chance of making it to the list, more out of my apathy towards life than out of my good-heartedness.

Having derived some consolation from this realisation, i pick up the phone. Yet another task to be done...yet another deadline added on my calendar. By now im swearing under my breath...there goes my last chance of getting a gift for Christmas.

Another alert flashes on my screen. Its a message alert on my messenger.Its the gal in the next cubicle again...sending out an interesting link to a site which has some amazing illusions. Sometimes when i have nothing better to do, i imagine myself as a philosopher and give sermons to myself on how life is nothing but a big illusion. I tried explaining the same to my colleagues at the lunch table one day. But i guess lesser mortals are just too weak-hearted to see the big picture and accept the harsh reality. The word 'illusion' is now avoided worse than the bubonic plague at the lunch tables...!!I cannot even talk about illness because by the moment i say 'ill'..everyone has said their goodbyes assuming that the 'usions' will follow like a faithful labrador.

As i open the link to the site, my screen is bombarded by a thousand different popups...!! By the end of the evening, I have won an all new digicam (which they promised to deliver at my doorstep in 2 weeks), have signed up for a newsletter which gives the latest in all relaxation techniques, have got an account on a site which will actually pay me to use their email service and have got a pop-up blocker installed on my system.

I glance at the system clock which says 6.25 pm. But I know better than to trust it. Thanks to the friendly warning 'Is your computer clock wrong ?' with the little sandclock icon that kept turning up and down. What a boon for the unfortunate creatures whose spend a whole extra 5 minutes in office all because their system clock "chooses"(refer to my previous post) to run 5 minutes slow.

I decide not to get fooled by the chicanery of the clock. A few letters entered into the searchbar and there i have some 12,345 records giving me the exact time as it is now. Having convinced myself that the clock is indeed correct (which i am sure it is doing to win my trust so that it can catch me unawares in the near future), i start the systematic ritual of logging off from my system. I always liken this act to the much debated act which we euphemistically refer to as 'pulling the plug', the only difference being that the the misery and suffering being put to an end in this case is all mine. A couple of 'endtask' and 'close' button-clicks later...it is all done. C'est tout, c'est ce

The lady stops crooning. The chair springs back to its position. The walnut shells lie in the trash-can whispering sweet nothings to each other. The screensaver valiantly tries to hang on to the last shreds of life, flickering momentarily before the screen goes black.

And yet again my cubicle slips into a deep slumber of inactivity...


" They told me it was the lunch
some blamed it on the heat
they cursed the dim lights
nor did they spare the seat

speculations and accusations
not a clue we could find
but i know its right there
right up in the mind "

choices..

hmpf !! Choices...sometimes i wonder who made them. Take for instance now: i started creating this blog for myself (why??because i chose to !!) . I was asked to choose a name for my blog. Whats in a name anyway. A blog with any other name would still remain a blog. Thinking of it now..would "the-nameless-blog" have been a better choice ?

And just when the last tinge of doubt and apprehension over my choice of name was fading away from my mind, i had to choose a design for the same. Should i opt for black...nah..thats too negative. Reminds me of the English classes in Elementary School...chapter 5, page 36 of the Grammer coursebook "...as black as the devil's heart" !!
Or should it be grey? Not going to help...associated with too much of wisdom..grey cells, grey hair..so on and so forth. Pink reeks of romance (thanks to the candy floss love stories of Bollywood where ever other day the oh-so-romantic hero leaves secret bouquets with Shakespearean ballads written over pink cards dipped in oodles of 'Dioressence' (courtesy:Christian Dior) for the oh-so-beautiful female protagonist)

Just when i had gone over the previews of each design one thousand and one times and each one looked no different from the other...I noticed the 'verdana' font size 10 text which said that I could change the design any time I chose to. Well...so much so for the critical evaluation of each design and colour !!

Choices and more choices..thats what life boils down to finally. My day starts with a choice and ends with one. My computer whom i like to regard as my truly faithful companion thru the thick and thin of life (did anyone talk abt hard disk crashes??) just loves to shove the question into my face whenever I make any decision 'Are you sure ?' with two little buttons that seem to lure me with equal intensity towards them. Each time i ponder over my decision for what seems like an eternity. And the few times when I click on the 'yes' button, more out of frustration than discretion, turn out to be the times when i accidentally delete my presentation just minutes before my seminar.

I go to the restaurant for lunch and again i am faced with a fusillade of choices. The pangs of hunger which drive me to the restaurant faster than any Pest Control agency can drive the rats out of your house, seem to be forgotten in the war of the choices. My stomach doesn't seem to mind though...even if it does, it has no choice but to be silent except for the occasional growling reminders which evoke 'how-so-uncouth' responses from the ones around.

When work meanders around drooping eyes, I walk to the coffee machine. And there you go, a whole set of new choices. Sugar? Milk? Decaf? I walk back to my office with the weirdest combo i can think of (all my sense of adventure poured generously into the not-so-generously-sized coffee cup)...wide awake even before i could take the first sip of my drink.

I can just go on and on about how choices ruin our lives...but I have to go home and cook dinner. Now what can i possibly cook ?(rings a bell...doesn't it ??) Life would have been much more simpler had it been a set of commandments written down in a user-friendly manual.

"page 356: thou shalst cook pasta on the 23rd day of october 2004 for dinner, boiled medium for 15 minutes and 34 seconds, tossed in 41/2 drops of olive oil for 5 minutes and 30 seconds, topped with fried onions and tomato slices cut at a .6 cm thickness...."

Well...I was just thinking that i have started on such a negative note...i think i shud have rather chosen the black coloured template for my blog. As a mark of protest for this life where all you get is to make choices and more choices. Or rather...pink adds a soft touch to the tough life and even tougher choices that you have to make. Or maybe if after all this random rambling, if i still show signs of wisdom, then grey would make my day....
Well...can I just choose not to choose?