Sunday, March 26, 2006

75th: Some Unfinished Business

This is the 75th post for this blog. I thank everyone for visiting and reading.

Wanting to take a walk down memory lane, I thought about highlighting some of this blog's better posts but I've decided to go the other way highlight the worst of this blog, ie, the stuff that even I didn't think was good enough to finish or put up. These are posts that went unfinished and for good reasons too, read on and you'll know why.

(An untitled post written on the morning after a night of drinking )

Its 1:30 PM and I've not had breakfast or lunch, the sun is screaming at us, have a migraine, so the chances of me makign any sense in this post is absofuckinglutely not possible. I realise that by embedding an F word I've officially made it impossible for my mom to see this blog. Yeah, we South Indians still hold on to what we call as moral values, which is the stuff we love rubbing on everyone else's noses.

This reminds me of sex, the taboo topic, does any South Indian remember having the birds and the bees conversation with their parents or any other elders? Or a sex ed class tht we so often hear about from the american media? I sure as hell didn't. Heck when I was 8-9, we sat around after class wondering how babies happened. As we were discussing on how this could happen, we had one nerdy guy was saying that this might involve a man and a woman lying naked together, man the way we laughed at him that evening! He was infact laughed at and ridiculed for the rest of the year, I bet wherever he is, he laugh's his ass of when he remembers the dumbasses in school. We've all had to learn as we go along in our own bumbling ways.

Last night I was at Zara's a local bar that I frequent, there was a Colombian band playing, the lead singer was a boxum redhead earing a extra tight midriff baring number over her ample body (in the colour of screaming red that too). The boys drooling over her had to be seen to be believed. A table of 50+ uncles were getting really tuned into the music, which only sounded at times like SCREEEECHHH, DINGCHAK, DINGCHAK or at times like a military march meets the sounds of the jungle to me. Was it Latino?...who the fuck knew what she were singing, probably an ode to the dumbass drool laden tam boys (and a few girls, what is wrong with chennai these days??????). Back to the uncles, they all looked like they are the type tht would give you a 'in my days, we lived only for our work and family' kinda shit to you, sigh.



(An unfinished post titled "The Case of a Missing Telephone, the case like the post never did have a closure)

0910 hours
Monday Morning
At my workstation

I ain't there.


0959
Hrs Monday Morning
At My Workstation

Still ain't there..Running late aren't we?


1034 Hrs
Monday Morning
At My Workstation

I finally appear. (phew). Fire up my laptop, it wheezes to life. Gulp a cup of hot bournvita, correction Coffee (image man, image!). Reach for the phone to check voice messages. BLING BLING!

No Phone.

I check in the usual places, under the table and the waste basket. Not there!

I reach to call the admin. BLING BLING. No Phone! Cursing, I walk over to my neighbour's workstation, hang his phone mid-sentence, monday morning office romances can wait. I call the admin

Me: Hello, this is R. in the second floor
Sore Throat: Yes
Me: My phone is missing.
Sore Throat: Cell Phone?
Me: No landline.
Sore Throat: Landline?
Me: Landline.
Sore Throat: Not Cellphone? (Einstien!)

Me: Can you send someone up with a replacement?
Sore Throat: Umm...what is your extension?
Me: 4114
Sore Throat: Ok...I will call you back right now
Me: But my phone instrument is gone, how will you call me
Sore Throat: oh?

Sore Throat despatches the Thompson twins (as in the Thompson twins from the Tintin comic series)
Thompson: Err. Mr. R., when was the phone lost?
Me: I saw it last on Thursday when I left town and I just got back today.
Thomson: Ah, it must have been stolen during that time.
Me: (Looking Blank)
Thompson: Did you lock up the phone in your desk drawer?
Me: No. I never do that
Thomson: But for safety, when you are not using your phone you should unplug and lock it up
Me: But what about voice mail? And by the way isn't a phone safe in a bank?
Thomson: Hmm..No..yes..but..Ahhh..
Thompson: Ahhh..

(An untitled & unfinished story)

He opened his eyes slowly. Bright Lights everywhere. As his brain started getting used to the surroundings, he realised that he was in an airport lobby. Airport lobby? He had no idea how he got there. Where was he going? He checked for his laptop bag which should have been on his side. It wasn't there. 'Where am I going?' he thought. He had no idea. Slowly he remembered that he was driving his car in his usual style, fast. Then it all came to him, images of a dog in the middle of the road, him swerving to avoid the dog, the spinning, the crashing noise and the fire..

Cold sweat ran down his back. He could feel his heart beat a crazy tune. He reached slowly to feel his legs and arms. He was ok. OK. He could feel the tension ease, he chuckled. I made it, he thought. Was it a dream? Maybe it was all just a dream. He got up, stretched his long legs. No aches, no stiffness, he felt fitter than ever before. He grinned, he just couldn't believe he made it, boy, what a dream. Coffee. He needed coffee. He looked around, taking in the crowded lobby for the first time. A busy day at the airport. Now, where was he going? He needed coffee, to get his mind working. Too much of travelling for you son, he said to himself. No coffee vendor anywhere. He walked over to the check in counter.

It's funny, he thought, there were large queues for each counter except for the one he was walking towards.

He walked in and putting on his best salesman smile. He said "Hi, how are you doin?"...

(An unfinished post titled 'Death')

Interesting topic to start the week off isn't it? There is so much of seriousness and finality that surrounds death that we don't freely talk about it. Fancily enough the idea for this post came from this new sitcom that I've begun to like called 'Scrubs'. In one of their episodes, this character lists out all the things that he should do before he passes away. Now, I'm not usually fond of creating lists but this one intrigued me. I just wanted to make a realistic list of things that I would like to do (by realistic I'm ruling out a date with Claudia Schiffer in the near future, I don't want go there, our first date didn't go so well, you see).

Anyway, getting to the issue in hand, I thought I should write down fourteen things that I would like to do before I die, being a sort of a checklist. Why fourteen you may ask, why not fourteen is all I have to reply. I have specifically chosen to exclude sex and food from this list because I would end up filling all the entries with them and end up looking like a leery glutton, which I am not, in most part. So without further ado, here is my list of 14, in scrambled order.

13. I would like to travel up a hot air balloon. Heights scare me, the very thought of being stuck in a wicker basket a few thousand feet about the ground at the very least sounds stupid, But you have to admit, it does look beautiful from down below, so I think the scenery from up there should be better

9. I would like to address a crowd of a thousand people. Now I am afraid of speaking in front of a large group of people. While I've been in sales most of my career, I've preferred to deal with one or two individuals at any given point of time. The thought of being in front of a thousand people and not being able to check if the zipper is up is a galling thought but that's a bridge that I must cross. I just have to.

3. I would like to save a life. Hopefully it would be the life of an oversized muscleman, who will then proceed to follow me around and thump anyone who remotely bothers me. Just the thought of a man Friday is fantastic. Well I really can be shallow you see.

11. I would like to shake hands with Boris Becker & Diego Maradona. Two personal heroes!

10. I would like to backpack across Africa. Anyone who knows me, has heard me rant and rave about this for years. Hopefully I will do this before too long.

1. I would like to have a dozen children.

(I had a list of 14 then, I just didn't go the distance with this post. Oh and the unfinished painting put up in this post is of Napoleon started in 1798 by Jacques-Louis David)

Sunday, March 19, 2006

For all those who seek love on the Internet...beware...you just might find it

(Have a great week ahead!)

Saturday, March 04, 2006

The Pitbull Lady

Early morning air travelers belong to two categories, the groggy or the grumpy. I'm the groggy kind. My weekly trip to Bangalore is usually on the 6 AM Sahara Airways flight. This means that I'm usually up by 3:45 AM to get ready, when I say 'I get up', I use the term loosely since it usually just refers to my body, my mind wakes up after a hot cup of south indian filter coffee at 8:14 AM.

This one trip was no exception, I sleep walked through to the baggage screening area, lugging my two bags along. Suddenly I was rudely pushed away. As I regained balance, I spied a vision in brown rushing past me towards the queue. This turned out to be a lady about 5 ft no inches in height wearing a snarl on her face like that of a Pitbull terrier (atleast like the ones I've seen on TV) . She threw an 'excuse me' at me, which sounded more like a four lettered swear word, ringing a jarring note on that idyllic morning. Her face, I saw, had a natural nastiness that made it ugly, too bad I thought, she might even be pretty if she smiled.

As I reached that line, I could see her pushing her cart against the person ahead of her and trying to get that person off the line. The fact that the Pitbull lady had the permanent snarl on her face seemed to unsettle the sleepy bunch of people in that queue. Soon after, she abandoned any pretenses of being on that line and moved forward directly. This bundle in brown had such a forceful personality that people rather than complaining just let her go. No one knew how to handle her and in any case no one wanted any piece of her. We were just letting her get away with pushing us around, writing it down to this being someone who was late for a flight.

Anyway, I scanned my baggage and while turning the corner to the check-in counter,I could hear loud high pitched growling/shouting which went something like 'how dare you ask me to pay extra for my luggage, you go check your machine, it's not working' and 'do you know who you are talking to??? I want to speak to your manager!'. I immediately realised that the Pitbull lady was at work there too. The counter girl looked like a hunted rabbit, her eyes seemed to desperately search for some help. None was forthcoming. Soon the counter girl gave in and allowed what must have been 7-8 Kgs of extra weight. Apparently no one had a clue as to handle this pint sized pain. As she left the counter, she left on her wake a lot of people gaping at her rudeness, she didn't look like she gave a damn.

When my turn came at the counter I flashed my best "Have a nice day smile" at the harried girl who looked like she might be going through a nervous breakdown. 'Was the flight on time?' I politely encountered to which the flustered girl could only nod.
=
We boarded at 5:40 AM. I settled down in my seat (7C), accepted an orange juice from the smiling flight attendant when I saw the Pitbull lady approaching with her usual scowl lighting up her face. What do you know, she was 7A. I silently mouthed a swear word as I got up to let her in. Soon after I found myself helping her stow up her baggage in the overhead bin since she couldn't reach up, then found myself removing the bags again on her request so that she could get her reading material out. She took it for granted that I would do this, I guess she had the experience in getting people to do what she wanted them to do. I shook my head and sat down.
_
This lady was dispensing bad attitude with a zeal of an overloaded vending machine.
-
She moved into her window seat and buried her nose into her book. Atleast she was very focussed on it, thank god but I wasn't taking any chances, so I kept my eyes averted from her side. As the flight taxied, the cabin lights were dimmed. I could hear a growl next to me. I turned and looked at her. She wanted me to switch on her reading light since she couldn't reach it. Cursing the guy who invented the concept of chivalry, I reached up and turned the light on. I promptly got a scowl & a growl for a thank you, a ray of sunshine she sure wasn't. I was dreading the 40 minute journey sitting next to this lady, I had a very busy day ahead and this lady was well on her way to screwing up my start.
-
When I settled back, I suddenly caught a glimpse of the book she was holding, Hot Chocolate for the Mystical Lover by Ariele Ford. I choked back my laughter. Well well well, what do you know, huh?
-
As the pitbull read her book, I settled back on my seat. I couldn't but help thinking about the poor bastard who was stuck, getting all that hot chocolate lurvin from her. Somehow now my journey didn't appear so long & bad after all, whatever happened in the next 40 minutes, my life was nowhere close to being as fucked as that guy's.
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Contented, I slowly closed my eyes to grab some shut eye. For some, life really is a bitch ain't it?

Wednesday, March 01, 2006

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Blank!!

I have nothing to write about, yet all the intent to put up something. I've been thinking that in such moments out of sheer selfishness, I thought I should invite guest posts from the regulars. So, if you are a regular reader of Life and Other Such Events (umm that is this blog, incase you are wondering) and wouldn't mind sullying your reputation by writing a line or two here, please send me an email (the address is in my profile).

The blank page is supposed to be an automatic filter. Anyone who gets to this message makes the cut. If no one figures out this 'cute' trick of mine (which I am shamelessly recycling), then I would have to revert to the original font colour (black), this blog really doesn't have any standards anyways.



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Update: After sifting through the 476 responses to this call for guest posts, I've decided that none of those fitted the tone of this blog (well atleast this sounds better than admitting that I got no responses lol)