Careless Whispers

Inspired by Chhaavis thoughts and buddhas empty spaces:

"Relativity is an absolute concept" well no bigshot scientist said this, nor did any hifi philosopher, but this is wat I feel. Sounds weird doesn’t it? Grey cells activated? This is not abt science where an "Absolute zero" absolutely exists; Welcome to the real world this is abt life.

Ever wondered how the underprivileged of the society seem to manage a smile more often than the apparently happy well to do people? Take dipu for instance (for those who don’t know dipu, he’s the nephew of Mishraji, Patel Hall cycle shed’s karta dharta.) u’ll always find him happy in his own world, dwelling in the happiness of small things which we think is too insignificant to demand worthy care. While we frown over, complaining abt the inadequacies of our life, his life seems to be complete enough to give him enough reasons to smile. So do we have a right to complain? Maybe NO, maybe yes, after all its all relative.


Let me expalin furter, a few days ago I saw a kid, shabbily dressed, unkept hair, a thick layer of makeup (dirt) all over his body running carefree towards an elder (I think it was his brother) and both gleaming with happiness, I don’t know anything abt them, wat the occasion was or any other apparent reason, but after a bad day in office when I saw them I started wondering if they look so happy, do I have the right to feel miserable? Maybe NO, maybe yes, after all its all relative.

There was an article today in HT, abt a blind cook, we are blessed wen compared to him, we take things for granted, those which others might value more than their life, we tend to ignore think of them as bare essentials. Frnds, family, well paying job, we have all yet we fret. We irk coz we have to work over time, we are troubled coz it takes 1.5 – 2 hrs to reach home, we agonize coz the food was not gud, Wat abt them who want but don’t have jobs? Wat abt them who donot have a home to reach to, wat abt them who cannot have 2 square meals a day? So do I have a right to be piqued? Maybe NO, maybe yes, after all its all relative.

I can think of scores of other issues, hundreds of other comparisons, thousands of other situations, but nothing strikes to me as absolute, light – dark, near – far, hot – cold, emotions, love, beauty, comfort, greed, competition, performance. I recieved a nice fwd a few days ago, "Not Everything that counts is counted and not everything thats counted counts", but alas our world revolves around the counted and therefore we fret, we fume, we are annoyed, antagonized, bitter… is it rightful? Maybe No, maybe yes, after all its all relative.

24 Words start with hair in an oxford pocket dictionary, the single word hair requires so many words to be explained.
Hair n. 1 a any of the fine threadlike strands growing from the skin of mammals, esp. from the human head. b these collectively (has long hair). 2 thing resembling a hair. 3 elongated cell growing from a plant. 4 very small quantity or extent (also attrib.: hair crack).  get in a person's hair colloq. annoy a person. keep one's hair on colloq. keep calm; not get angry. let one's hair down colloq. enjoy oneself by abandoning restraint. make one's hair stand on end colloq. horrify one. not turn a hair remain unmoved or unaffected.  hairless adj. [Old English]

The objective of this blog is not to "get into your hair", so "keep ur hair on" and "let ur hair down".
Every where u see ppl sport different hairdos, some long some short some curly some straight, beaded or with a pony tail, black or white/gray (but now a days they are available in all imaginable colours, blue, saffron, red, green, of course the favourite blondies…). I have restrained from such adventures my self but I can’t help admire those who do go fwd with it. Recently one of my frnds (Bani, for those who know him) turned blonde, everyone around him was startled by the change, but when u asked him, all he offered was a I don’t care expression and shrugged. Now whether it was a "chutiya kat gaya shrug" or "I don’t care shrug" is open for interpretation but now that he has become a blondie no one can do anything abt it. There was also this mogambo inspired guy that was in the insti, I wonder if he still has that weird style.
Then there were the Jha’s and the Mayank’s who worked very hard for their long flocks but then had to part wid them when they entered the professional world. But the award for the best hairdo would go to Tripathi thou, for almost two years now he has had the guts to wear a style that very few in India keep. Inspired by Gautam Pandey, one of our seniors, who always had that barthez style - I’ve never seen him with any hair at all, (and maybe me as well, I went for that look for a while in my 2nd yr) he keeps his head shaved and thou has removed the french cut (parental pressure before job), he still keeps a goti.
For me short and simple works best, but every now and then I get tempted to do something different. This time I’m allowing them to grow as long as possible, but patience is a virtue I don’t think I’m blessed with, not atleast when it come to this and I’m running out of it. Very soon I’ll be back to the normal short stuff, till then as the saying goes "enjoy while u can".

watched a couple of movies this weekend, dont have much time to think and write a new blog but have enough for time pass, so heres a short review for the benefit of those who havent seen them and might have plans for the same

1 friday nite James -> typical hindi movie full of voilence and a hot grl who's more often than not wearing dresses that revealed more than they hid, i can sware they couldnt have been shorter. the trend of cost cutting has not left the movie industry untouched, the producer has done huge cost cutting in the dialogue dept, whenever there was any scope of a proper filmy dialoguedono characters ke voice mute ho jaate the, music tej hojata tha and kewal hoth hilte dikhte the. aur mar/action ka to aisa hai ki sunny deol ko bhi sharam aa jaye ki usne abhi tak itne movie banaye lakin kya hi kiya, apna hero to god hai literally, vishnu ka avtar hi samajh lo. so if ur interested in a modern day masala movie with lots of "sex and voilence" then nothing like it

2. sunday nite Cindrella man -> iske bhi main protagonist ka naam James hai aur yeh bhi fighter hai (james roddicks (shayad) - boxer). the movie is based on a true story set during the great depression in america. rise of the phoneix type story, keeps u glued to ur seats till the end, BTW iss movie ko jahan dekh raha tha (fame, malad i.e inorbit) wahin par suman ranganathan bhi thi, normally to main movie ko chor usse hi dekhta but the movie was so gud that u wont feel like looking idhar udhar. + kal mayank (my ex co trainee in LnT) ke saath last time LnT ke co-employees ki tarah pub jaane ka bhi plan tha but did not regret missing that, pura fultu paissa wasool, atleast at par if not better than million dollar baby, definetly one of the best boxing movies ever made

Moral of the story : if u have to c a movie and have to choose b/w the two then go for the latter

Ever felt that the whole world is conspiring against u? Well I get that feeling quite often, mostly its in the BEST buses. The conspiracy begins as the day ends, after a long tiring day u get out of the office to realise that u’ve just missed the office bus and will have to struggle it out on the BEST buses. U resign to the fate and get to the bus stop to find that suddenly all the buses are going in the opposite direction, and even those that are coming are not the ones on your route. U start realising that its that kind of a day, wen come wat may u have to, u will be F***ed.

After waiting for wat seems like ages u see it an overcrowded bus coming ur way, its the bus, the very bus u had been waiting for and u make ur self mentally prepared to somehow get into the overflowing bus. However the bus moves a lil ahead of its usual stop and those at the back suddenly become the ones in front. Not willing to let all those hrs of wait go to waste, u decide to get on the bus even thou more than half of the queue has decided otherwise and somehow u manage to do that, half ur body dangling outside but at least ur on. The bus moves slowly towards home sweet home, and u move slowly inside the bus. Then u look back and see another bus for the same place coming from behind and surprise surprise, this ones got lots of empty space. But u r too bloody packed to get to the exit before the next stop and even if by any chance u do get to the door, the other bus already over took u. Next u reach the highway to find that its jam packed and it might take u hrs to reach home, so u decide u want to take a train, u get down at some stop and decide to take another bus or auto, but as soon as u take the turn u find urself in the same sticky situation, similar traffic, similar jam. U’ve had too much and now there is just one option take the bulls by the horn, u start walking and after ages reach the station. But if u thought the tough part is over, think again. For a new comer getting into or out of the locals during rush hour can be a nightmare, but ur determination finally got u thru. But a conspiracy, if planned perfectly cant let u go so easily, just before ur home station the train stops, without any reason (they say there’s no signal, but u know better), or else y other trains zoomed past u while only that train was stopped?

Finally the ordeal is over, it takes u almost 2 to 2 and a half hrs from office to home, the same 2 hrs would have taken u to Calcutta from Kgp, or to Jamshedpur, or a lil more than that and u’ve reached Ranchi form Jamshedpur.

But slowly u come to terms wid life in Mumbai, u get to know the tricks of the trade, u start to understand how and wen to strategically let a bus go, u understand how to balance ur odds between the relatively less crowded buses and the always full locals. U also realise which local, from which platform u should let go if its more than x minutes delayed (the value of x is determined from x-perience). U know that the conspiracy is not against u but all "freshers". Welcome to Mumbai, but without ragging?? Forget it.

They say change is the only constant. No sir not for me, maybe in most of the cases its true but just read on and then tell me, where is the change???

Scene 1, I was in school, class 7th. As soon as I stopped looking at grls as if they were abhorrent objects of disgust, I fell for one. The grl was very intimidating & I could never muster enough courage to approach her, thou I gave hints, some subtle some obvious but could never confront her. I daresay she smelled something fishy (she being a bong, that’s not a far-fetched guess) but nothing came out of it. A few years on I came to know (from very vishwasniya sutr) that it was not a totally gone case, there could have been some mutual sparks, but she’s too much of a women for me to handle anyway.

Next stop, 2 years down the line. I hardly knew this grl, xcept that she was a very gud frnd, of the grl frnd, of a very gud frnd of mine (it was more complicated than it sounds). What all u can do with a little bit of daring and motivation from those bastards, we call frnds, I gathered courage and with full gusto, approached her, on a chauffeur driven bicycle, ready with a mode of quick escape in case of any tragic eventuality. Fortunately the reply wasn’t an efficient and probably appropriate use of her sandle. I had struck gold this time, but for what? We hardly knew each other b4 this rendezvous, and after exchanging a couple of "love letters" we knew we were heading no where, so very amicably we parted our ways.

"Dil to pagal hai dil deewana hai" next scene 2 years later (even thou there was a minor incident, where I started to feel for a girl, unfortunately (or fortunately?) she had brotherly feelings for me, so that crashed before it could take off). I was in class 11 now, but the lack of opportunity (and courage) forced me to wait for an entire year before I could come up with a masterpiece of a letter. Usse padh kar ladkon tak ka dil phisal gaya, my grl (who were) frnds, all agreed that it was the best, unfortunately my best wasn’t enough. No change in luck yet.

Having watched lots of hindi/english movies and serials, I was very happy to be going to college, all the while thinking "ab to mera bhi number aayega". New people, new places, new frnds and new faces (wow it rhymes) something ought to happen, just a little luck and the stag tag would be out in the bin. In addition to the many new things I pointed earlier there was something else that was entirely new to me. Welcome to kgp, welcome to the land of the infamous non-males (I’m sure kgp grls no longer mind being called this, ab tak to adat ho gayi hogi). Not that there was no representation of the female species at all, but Lt (females) --> 0. Still a fighter has got to fight it out. I had a minor fling with a M Tech student, which I better not talk about, there were also lots of others who I thought were worth attention, but most of them got that attention from someone else before u could even blink your eyes.

Finally the last stop has been Mumbai, the land of opportunities, but how, where, when?? Not a single grl in my office, so chances are that I will have to fight it out real hard, when the going gets tough, the tough gets going. Out of box thinking is essential I guess, and I have put on my thinking caps. My frnds, very soon u’ll see results, how long can one be with "lots of grl frnds, still single" (can’t help but foster such foolish optimism, or else what’s the fun in life?). Mera number aayega I’m sure mera number aayega, after all change is the only constant, is it not?

Women have always been the most talked abt subject in any mans life. Right from puberty till death do us part (implication is male bonding, alas still no woman in my life L ) discussing females have been and will be the top most priority (thou not publicly acknowledged) of all men.

Remember those days in the school when if u were made to sit beside a grl it was the biggest punishment, and how u later started to think u were such an idiot then? Remember how we used to classify and categorise, the beautiful non-males of our colleges, ranking them was a favourite ragging question? How t shirt with comments reading " 99.9% women are beautiful, the rest are in my college" sold like hot cakes? How we used to come up wid theories every 2nd day on how to go abt a particular "target" and why is it natural to find beautiful grls in a certain location and why grls there are generally beautiful… the topics were endless and so were the discussion. Well life has moved on, frnds have changed but discussions are still the same. Recently a discussion wid one of my colleagues (its amazing to find men from all over the country are the same pigs that we were in our college) enlightened me with a new kind of classification for women.People with such inventive thinking should be rewarded, and their work of art should not go unrecognised and unappreciated. Unfortunately I don’t see that coming for him, so with the little power of expression that I have on the net I would like to make sure that this theory stays alive and does not gets burried under the dunes of time.

There are three broad categories in which u can classify the female Homo sapiens. Each categories can have several sub categories, depending entirely on the one who is classifying.
1. You don’t like her in 1st sight, but gradually as u see her over and over again u start appreciating her charms, the way she dresses, her beautiful smile…
2. She is out of bound. Too much out of your league. Two sub categories come to mind instantly,
a. she’s a few notches over you class
b. she’s a few notches below you class (difficult but not impossible)
3. Her beauty dazzles you wen u 1st see her, but not for long, as the shine withers down, so does her appeal.

Wat say makes sense doesn’t it? Of course "family (g/f) wale" or extreme romantics may have a difference in opinion (some one some where is made for u) but for me this works just fine

a couple of corrections for the previous blog
1. all kinds of plastics have been baned this time, so this is more of an extension of the previous ban (the fate of packing material for milk, food etc is not yet clear but as for now they are banned as well)
2. after a preliminary order that the ban be imposed immediately, the govt has now extended the implementation by a month

came across a very nice quote today very relevant to the topic : "plastic don't pollute, people do"