Worn out

According to a study, women spend nearly a year of their lives deciding what to wear.

Pick your reaction:

(A) Oh! (Typical guy reaction)

(B) No! (Typical girl reaction)

(C) So? (My reaction)

You drive me cra-Zee!

Reason #37 why Zee TV frustrates me...

ps: I totally don't buy the 'The kid wrote it, that's why' theory. Anyone who watches this show will know that the character of the kid is smarter than the entire Zee TV team put together.

Don'ts and don'ts

When I was a kid, Mom, in a bid to master written Hindi (she'd picked up spoken Hindi when Dad was posted in UP), had subscribed to almost every Hindi magazine there was. Manorama, Manohar Kahaniyan, Sarita, Sarika, and what not. Every now and then, I'd give them a read too. Of all, I remember Sarita very clearly, a Reader's Digest-sized magazine, which had the crappiest Bollywood section of all magazines, and yet I devoured it with gusto.

The magazine also had a feature called "Mujhe shikaayat hai..." ("I have a complaint...") where people wrote in to complain about other people's habits that annoyed them. It was very interesting to read that feature because every now and then I'd read something and go, "Oh, me too!" or "Oh oh oh I know someone who does this!" or "Oh no, I do this! You mean this annoys people??"

I have a few too. Here are the top five things people sometimes do that annoy me:

- People rubbing birthday cake all over someone's face
- People not telling their kids off when they misbehave
- People turning up late with no good reason
- People talking while they're brushing their teeth
- People scraping the cutting board with the sharp end of the knife

Contributions from bewdas are most welcome. Perhaps together we can put together a list of don'ts to follow, and in the process become better people (aka less annoying to others). :P

A thought-ful post

Lately, I have been thinking about thinking. Or in fancyspeak, metacognition.

Throughout the day, millions of thoughts race across our heads at breakneck speed, sometimes not even pausing enough for us to register them. There are the happy thoughts, and there are the not-so-happy thoughts. The older we grow, the percentage of the latter grows with us. There are a million things to think about, and not surprisingly a large portion of it is again, about thinking.

How much we think! Ugh.

What people in the past thought about us and what we thought of them. What they thought we thought about them and what we thought they about us. What we made people think. What people made us think. What people are thinking about us and what we're thinking about people. What people think we're thinking about them and what we think people are thinking about us. What people will think of us and what we will think of people. What people will think we will think about them and what we will think people will think about us. You get the drift. I could go on, but there are only three tenses. Of course, there's the fourth kind of 'tense' which is what listing all of this has made me. There's just so much unnecessary thinking. And no matter how many times we tell ourselves and the people we care about that it's not worth it, sometimes we just can't help thinking. 'To hell with it!' is an excellent strategy, but it does have its moments of failure.

Most of the time, it's easier when people just express the thoughts in the form of speech. Out with it. Over and done. But they don't. They don't and we don't and all of us just choose to clam our mouths and trap the thoughts in the head. For the better. To keep things cordial. Us confusing them, them confusing us. We don't talk, we think. Because talking would be worse. But sometimes, thinking is worse. To keep on thinking is even worse. Not only does it drive us nuts, all this thinking... is almost exhausting. But it remains, an essential part of human life, to think about things that are not worth thinking about, even though no one really likes to nurse an occasional migraine or two.

So, in order not to think, we do things. We do things in the hope that we can think about the things we're doing, and not think about the things we shouldn't think about. However, this only works if we're actually thinking about what we're doing, and not cheating our way through this solution. And then of course, there's the random wellwisher. One who comes along to invalidate whatever we're feeling with advice as moronic as, "Hmmm... Try not to think about it." Actually, that does give us something else to think about -- how to decapitate said wellwisher using nothing but dental floss.

Sigh. Thoughts. Complex words that do not have a speech bubble wrapped around them. Words expressed in a language no one can understand fully. Can't live with 'em. Can't live without 'em.

However, the best way to get rid of any thought is to blog about it. It's a tried and tested method. For some reason, it helps. Stops right there. We can carry on with life. And that's what I am trying to do. It's not like I have a particular thought in my head right now that's driving me crazy. It's the thinking about thinking that's driving me crazy. And I do hope that after hitting 'Publish post', I can stop thinking. About thinking.

PS: Any 'wellwisher' bewda will be dealt with using the famous thwack of Bhai's weekend edition rolled-up newspaper, or as Viv calls it -- 'weapon of ass destruction'.

Dead uncertain

So I open a drawer and find a large dead cockroach with its head half-bitten off.

(No, I didn't scream or run away, I reserve that behaviour for lizards.)

I stared at the mutilated corpse for a minute like a psycho, trying to determine the cause of death.

It wasn't me for sure.

All right, what could it be?? Do I have something more sinister to fear?

:|

PS: Viv thinks it must have tried to hit on a female preying praying mantis.

Come again?

While rehearsing for the dance we did for Shub's surprise birthday party, I realised that this song, even though featuring rather heavily in all our get-togethers, has actually never made it to 'Video of the week' at the bar. Before you do a double-take and yell, "WHAT? You guys danced at Shub's surprise birthday party??", take a look at the video. You'll soon be yelling, "WHAT? You guys danced to THIS at Shub's surprise birthday party??"

Oh the singing. The dancing. The lyrics. The movie title (Operation Diamond Racket). I have no words to describe them.

Presenting, bewdas and bewdis, "If you come today", second only to the legendary Benny Lava.

*respect*

Second innings

"Hmmm... Aren't you going to work today?"

"Errr... It's Sunday."

"I know. But why don't you go to work today?"

"Because it's..."

Okay, you get the drift. This is a typical Sunday conversation between Mom and Dad. They are one of those typical Indian couples where the wife pampers the husband to the point where he can't do anything by himself, and then she complains that he can't do anything by himself. So on Sundays, when the whole world is relaxing, Mom's work doubles. Every half an hour, Dad wants either the newspaper, or a glass of water, or his glasses, or his slippers, or the remote control, and so on. And like all men, he is not equipped to see that all the stuff is right there in front of him.

And so the cycle continues, and so do Mom's brave attempts.

"Hmmm... why don't you go out and do some gardening?"

"It's mid-afternoon. It's hot."

"I know. But why don't you go out and do some gardening?"

"Because it's..."

Dad retired on 30th June after spending his entire working life in the same bank (do people do that anymore?). At times I can't believe my Dad has retired. I feel as if this doesn't make him old, this actually makes me old. Dad can never be old, he's always going to be this energetic guy going on his morning walks, and writing his columns, and gardening, and not to forget driving Mom crazy.

I sent him an sms today. "I'm writing a post on your retirement. Do you remember when you joined the bank?" The reply came in 10 seconds flat. "29 Sep 1973."

Holy cow.

1973. I looked it up. The year of Bobby and Zanjeer and Abhimaan and Anamika. (Yeah, this is how I "look up" things.) That sure was a very long time ago. 36 years straight. In the same bank. And we get restless and demand a long service award after completing two years in a company. How did they do that? How did they not get bored?

In a way, I guess it was because of the frequent transfers he had. There was always something happening. When I think of the frequency with which I was yanked out of one school and placed in another, I wonder how I coped. In the early years, I remember crying. I missed my friends, my teachers, my schools. I would write long letters to Grandpa listing all the things I hated about my new schools. He would, in turn, completely overlook the plot and mark up all the grammatical errors I had made with a a red pen and go through it word by word when I met him during the summer holidays. Sheesh.

And just when my letters would start carrying a little less anguish and a little more acceptance of the new place, school, teachers and friends, Dad's transfer order would arrive. Time to pack up. Time to move on. Time to start afresh.

In hindsight, it wasn't that bad. It taught me a lot of things, the most important one being -- nothing is forever. Perhaps, in a way, that also helped me pack my bags and move to a strange land at the age of 18, all by myself, with not a clue whatsoever of what the future held. It was just a natural progression of the change I was very used to.

But I wonder how Dad will cope with the new change in his life now. How will he take to being at home all day? Maybe he'll just fill the house with plants. Now that he's going to his own "I built it with my own hands" house, this green-fingered artist has the whole backyard as his canvas. Aside from the coconut trees growing there, he also has the bonsais he had made himself (yeah, he literally "made" the bonsais, and some of them are decades old). I remember him instructing the truckwala who ferried our stuff from one city to another, "Bhaiya, mere paudhon ko kuchh nahin hona chahiye. Ho sakey toh ek aadmi ko peechhe baitha do, pakadke rakhega." After we reached the new place, Mom would do a stocktake of how many pieces of cutlery she had lost to said Bhaiya's crazy driving, while Dad would do a close inspection of whether any leaf had changed in colour or direction during the arduous journey.

He sure was as devoted to his plants as he was to his bank. I remember one of those annoying uncles who crack really bad jokes (everyone has one of those, don't they?), "Sir, bank toh aapki doosri biwi hai! Heh heh heh!" while Mom and I rolled our eyes at each other and Dad smiled politely. But I'm glad I got that trait from him. That deep regard for work. I have been ridiculed because I truly deeply believe in 'Work is workship'. I know we don't stay in one company all our lives anymore so the sense of loyalty is different. But I have found a workaround. To shift that sense of loyalty from the organisation or the people, to the work itself. The actual work that you do. No matter who you are, no matter where you are, no matter what you do, and no matter how long you have been doing it. To take something up and do a good job of it. To a certain extent, that actually takes care of all the other negativities at the workplace that bog us down on a daily basis.

So, for someone like Dad (and me too), sitting at home doing nothing is not really an option. It's horrifying, in fact. We get too fidgety. In fact, a month ago he had asked me, "Can you go inside the Internet and find me a retiree-level job?" I like how he talks about "going inside the Internet". To him, the Internet is something that people go into and things come out of, like how last year "worms were coming out of his inbox" (virus attack in his office computer).

So Dad, maybe this could be one of the things for you to do -- go inside the Internet and learn more about it. Forget the retiree-level job. For now at least. Stay at home. But don't drive Mom nuts. The remote control is right there in front of you. Where it always is.

And if I could give you one advice on how to make the best of your retirement, it's this.

Start a blog.

Wax lyrical - results show

Erm.

It looks like Bollywood has too many songs with weird lyrics for this poll to get anywhere. These are some of the toppers:

Tak tana na na tandoori nights tandoori nights tandoori nights

Chadh gaya oopar re, atariya pe lotan kabootar re

Telephone dhun mein hansne wali, Melbourne machhli machalne wali

You are my chicken fry, you are my fish fry

My vote? Well, just like one of the commentators Buddy, I was actually pretty sure that 'Dil dance maare' would enjoy a landslide victory. Buddy, you wanna share the hat?

Wax lyrical

So this song from Kismat Konnection was playing on the radio.

Saade naal kar le party...

Kudi tu lagti hai naughty...

Correct me if I am wrong, but no matter how stylishly (or unstylishly) you pronounce the words 'party' and 'naughty', they will not rhyme in any universe. I can only think of one word that starts with 'p' and rhymes with 'naughty' but ahem, I doubt anyone would want to do that anybody's naal.

And that was what sparked the poll of the month: Which song do you think has the weirdest lyrics?

Do leave your votes in the comments space. The results will be out in the next post.

PS: To avoid influence, comment moderation has been enabled. (However, this has not stopped the gold-yellers in the past and I doubt it will this time.)

The adventures of Veshtiman

The Veshtiman post has been due since this post, and finally here it is, the tale of the multi-talented Veshtiman and his multi-purpose veshti. Why veshti, you may ask. Because our superhero is Indian, and India is a hot country, and anyone who watched Krrish in his black spandex costumes would agree that he could have done much better if he had a better ventilated superhero costume.


Cue theme song

Veshtiman veshtiman

Has a veshti for every plan

Save the day, save the desh

Only he in his veshti can!

For people who do not know what the heck a veshti is (I made the mistake of asking an innocent question, "Is it the same as a lungi?" and really heard the music from Viv), google it and come back. Or simply click here. Only then will you understand the true essence of Veshtiman in the next few paragraphs.

(Note for Physics nerds - Don't question the physics behind Veshtiman's amazing antics. Where there's a will, there's a way. Okay? Okay! Besides, Veshtiman offers agarbatti to his guru Rajnikanth every morning before venturing on his adventures.)


Those who have just returned from google, wipe that horrified look off your faces. Veshtiman cleverly avoids any wardrobe malfunction by actually wearing underwear underneath the veshti. This also sets him apart from the odd fashion sense of the run-of-the-mill superheroes. Finally we have a superhero who is comfortable in his own skin. Literally.


Veshtiman works out of India. No international roaming facilities. India has enough problems to keep him busy. And because he is an Indian superhero, his main superpower is inspired from the Indian epic Mahabharata, particularly the Draupadi striptease scene. He uses his veshti to carry out a variety of world-saving activities, and before you go "hawwwww!", let me just tell you that as soon as he pulls one veshti off, another one instantly appears in its place as his lajja-wastra.


He can ferry people out of danger zones by serving as a budget carrier. He can untie his veshti, tie it around his neck as a cape and fly from Kashmir to Kanyakumari faster than the Shataabdi. We are not quite sure how exactly having a cape assists flying, but in a world of cape-sporting-flying superheroes, you gotta stay competitive and look as good as the others.


He can stop heavy objects which are about to fall on petrified people (who choose to simply look up and scream instead of getting the hell out of the way). He achieves this by making a hammock of sorts with his super-tensile (and not to forget strong and light as carbon fibre) veshti. The same technique can be used to save the lives of suicidal people.


A la Krishna in Mahabharata, he can protect the lajja of hapless women (who learn karate every saturday but can't fight off the leering local goon), by supplying a limitless number of veshtis to cover up the collective lajja of the women. The final veshti can then be used to whiplash the goons into oblivion.


Veshtiman also regularly supplies the homeless with waterproof roofs and thermal blankets, made of -- you guessed it - his veshti material. (okay that sounded eerily like waste material.)


He can also use his veshti for delivering urgent medical care. For instance, during a virus scare such as SARS or H1N1, he can cut up the veshti into smaller strips and distribute them to be used as face masks. The veshti also has medicinal properties and can be used to bandage wounds.


When a speeding train is about to ram into a stationary car on the tracks (whose occupants again, prefer to just sit there and scream rather than get the hell out), he ties the two ends of his veshti to poles on each side of the track to act like a giant rubberband which slows down and eventually stops the train before it can crash into the car (the occupants are still in there, by the way, still screaming, with relief this time I presume).



And in case you're wondering what happens to the used veshtis, after every super-deed, he simply autographs the veshti used and flings it towards his hysterical fans.