Murphy is really after me. Sometime back, I had one of those days...you know, when everything seems to go smoothly till things come crashing down like a roller coaster with a loose bolt.
Guess what? One of those days turned into two.

Morning greeted me with cold and left me sniffling in the shower. I sniffed in so much, water ran up my nose, down my throat and out my mouth. And our tank had been chemically treated recently.
Do the math.

Sitting down with a glass of warm milk and toast, I started feeling quite dandy, almost over the morning's mishap when my hard disk crashed. And I don't even mean Windows. Although it does crash more often than our outdated fighter jets that the government's been trying to phase out for years.





Anyway, that crash left me devoid of all my movies and TV shows collected and recorded for the better part of three years and running. That comes up to around 400 GB of video.
400 FRIKKIN GIGABYTES!!

The day can't get any better, right?

HELL YEAH it can!

Post breakfast I put on some clean clothes and run for class. Time for some music! But wait...my Ipod...You guessed it! The Big Red Cross. It's like the Apple version of the Windows blue screen of death. Apple ain't so invincible after all. But that's not the point here. My Ipod had some of my best collections...around 10GB of it, which of course, again went for a nice little toss down the scrapyard. Apple store tells me my pod is beyond repair and the only thing I can do now is to avail of a lousy exchange offer that gives me a Rs.2000 discount on a new ipod. Big deal!
WHAT ABOUT MY SONGS!!!
Aarrgh!! I just want to strangle them when they say "Sir, I'm sorry but our policy doesn't cover data recovery." Frikkin policies.

Bloody Murphy and his stupid laws. It's all his fault I tell you. Someone should have given him a wedgie or something when he came up with his theories.

On my way back home from the apple store, a big fat woman sits next to me in the bus. Now, I am by no means of small build. Covering more than half the seat's breadth, I can barely share shoulders on a seat for two with another guy my size(not to say I'm fat, but healthy is a better word :D ) Well, Madam Fat-ass comes and sits next to me with all the attidude and air of an overfed piglet. Shoving about a bit and literally squeezing my butts into the window of the bus, she makes herself comfortable(or as comfortable as I was not), gives me a look of disdain and softly says, "Kitna jaga lete hain log!"(How much space can people take up!)
HELLO! I heard that, lady! Try not comparing yourself to a sperm whale for once and you'll know how much extra space you take up. I think the earth has tectonic movements just because you're at the gym doing jumping jacks. For that matter, can you do jumping jacks? Guess not.
And She Stinks!! Oh MY GOD! I've been with my share of women, but none positively reek! Did her perfume just rot?
An hour and half later(blame Mumbai traffic) I got off the bus, took in about fifty deep breaths of fresh air polluted only by toxic exhausts of autorickshaws and drove back home from the parking lot at Chembur.

What a day man! I'm glad to be back home, in front of my laptop.
(which thankfully hasn't crashed)
(yet)
(it's been giving me screen trouble)
(might crash soon.)

Rant over.


P.S. Any "Awwww"s and "Relax"s will get a volley of nonsensical comments in unthinkably bad English(since I like to carry on my threats from the previous posts)

P.P.S. I am accepting Ipod Nanos and new Seagate hard disks. Please send me a mail with your choice of what you want to gift me and I shall get back to you within a few seconds since it's about a gift for me.

You may now return to your mundane lives.

Thank you.

He ran, blood pulsating in his veins. “No no no, I won’t go back to that hellhole!” The world was a blur. Muffled sounds of padded feet drew closer. They were at his ankles. A bolt of shooting pain as the canines dug into his spine and his body fell, limp.

A growl.

SNAP!

Darkness.











.

(Diya at my balcony)

It's the festival of lights. Each year I go out with my friends, have dinner, fire away rockets into the vast open skies and go "Oooh" and "Aaah" at the marvellous display of fireworks that light up the night sky. However, this year I'm stuck in a colony where diwali isn't being celebrated for "technical" reasons, and have no way of going out.

Sucks right?

Well, it did give me a chance to introspect a little bit.

Every festival, be it Deepavali, Holi, Christmas, Eid or Navratri, we never fail to send out a little sms or an email with Warm Regards and Best Wishes for the season. On the receiving end of practically a hundred sms's today, I started finding it weird that I wished for them to stop. They didn't really mean much.
Well, of course they do, you say?
Tell me, when was the last time you wished someone for a festival and really meant it? I mean really really meant it? Long back wasn't it?
In this age of super connectivity and extensive social networking, it seems we've ended up building such an insanely huge "friends" list that we often forget who our friends really are. But no, I'm veering off topic. The Warm Wishes right? Well, let me tell you, out of the hundred messages, most were SMS Forwards....shitty way to wish someone in my opinion. It's utterly impersonal. The only ones that really meant something to me were the simple one liners that said "Hi! Hope you're doing great this festival of lights. May this year bring you lots of luck, blessings and prosperity." It's formal, but written personally by the sender, not just a forward someone else sent out.

Little truly is more.

Introspecting takes you to places within yourself that you never knew even existed, especially when done sitting in the soft flickering light of a diya. With all the partying, hanging out with friends, living life as if there were no tomorrow, a lonely evening with my thoughts suddenly meant more to me.

With a little wish and a poem I shall leave you guys with the same thoughts that got me started at the beginning of this post. Do those forwarded messages hold any value, when sent by an acquaintance, or even by a close friend? Or do they leave you with a feeling of impersonal acceptance of a wish that you would rather not pay much heed to?

Sparklers of varied colors,
or by the humble diya's light,
We celebrate this very day,
for the defeat of wrong by right.
So with this message I pray,
may God's grace shine upon you.
Wish you a happy and safe deepavali,
and a prosperous new year too.

Shubh Deepavali everyone!

My cousin had a baby sometime back. Really cute lil bugger he is, named Aabir. The poor guy hasn't even learnt to walk but he talks like crazy!! Squeals all day long like the little piggy that went to town.

Sis: Where's my cutey-weeutie aabir? (and then proceeds to make all those weird giggly-gurgly baby noises that you're expected to make when talking to a baby so that they understand you. Yeah right.)

Aabir: SQUEEEE! SQUEEE! SQUEEE!!

Then people start rushing in from every other room to say "AWwwwww"
It's like a television show I tell you.

But ever stopped to think what the little tyke must be thinking, lying in his pram, helpless and left with no option but to bear the torture?

Stranger bends over and gets REAL close to the baby: Aww...he's SHO CUTE!
Baby: Big Head. Might eat me. Quick! Act cute!

Stranger: Come to uncle Sam!
Baby(looking inside his nose): Oo! A cave! I see lions and tigers and bears, Oh my!

A stranger squeezes his cheeks.
Baby: Lemme get a hold of YOUR beard, big guy! Then we'll see who's the boss.


Alright, enough of small talk. Getting to the REAL issue here. Do you know why all kids, as they grow up, get obsessed with Fire Trucks? Do you? huh?
Oh you do?
Well, you don't. So let me show you.




As for all the little Fire-truck obsessed kids out there with pet Frogs - Yes, you too, the one with the ponytail and a moustache. Here's to your good health!




P.S. Posted this on the move. So don't really know how big it is or how it's gonna look.
Enjoy! :)

I've been clicking pictures around town ever since I bought a camera. I've always wanted to do a photoblog, but never got the initiative.
Procrastination sucks innit?

Anyway, I've a set of photos that I'd wanted to share with you guys.
Enjoy!

1. FOOD!!
Sometime back, I went for a nice lunch with my family to the Taj hotel, Mumbai. Remember my chocolate fantasies? Well, enjoy a glimpse of some more :P

Clockwise from left to right,
- Vanilla Ice cream with Hot Chocolate Sauce
- Lemon mousse
- Apricot and chocolate cake
- Chocolate mousse with butterscotch cream
- Masala Chai concoction (which was my personal fave)
Oh and a choco-stick coz it reminds me of school :P

2. DRINKS!!
Cafe Vihar at Churchgate used to me a regular lunch home for us. The bar wasn't badly stocked either. Good for a quick beer or a rum or two after work.

From left to right:
Top shelf - Bacardi breezers, White Mischief, McDowell's, Director's Special, Bagpiper, Royal Stag, Imperial Blue, Smirnoff, Alcazar
Lower Shelf - Golconda, Old Monk, Signature, Antiquity, DSP Black, Blender's Pride, Royal Challenge, Peter Scot, Teacher's

1. And New Life:
A Red Whiskered Bulbul - This beautiful girl built her nest right outside my window. Expecting eggs soon enough!

She looks at me. Haughty gal, ain't she?

Posing away, checking whether I'm clicking or not.

Dear Adult,

Why is everything so complicated for you? You seem to interpret more than what anything really means. For anything someone says, they must have meant something by it. It must have had some ulterior motive. Else, why would they say it in the first place? You worry about us kids and scold us for messing up, even if the reasons may have been well out of our control. But when the same mistakes are committed by you, you shall go to no end to justify it.
We of course, have no say in whatever you do. How can we? We're just kids. How much do we understand worldly matters you say? It would surprise you to know actually how much we do.

Weren't you ever a child?
Do you not remember the simple things in life?
Running around the block, arms outstretched, flying off to far-off places in your mind? An adult does the same, he's put in a straightjacket and detained for life in a Godforsaken jailhouse for the mentally retarted. That must surely mean all children are born insane.

We hold hands when we walk, be it a boy or girl. It feels nice. That's it. Two young adults do the same, the boy is beaten up by the girl's relatives, the girl is publicly humiliated and blamed to have shamed the family's name. Surely the boy must have tricked the girl into holding hands. Then he shall run away with the girl, do bad things to the girl and leave her. All that speculations just for holding hands. Try holding hands yourself, with a friend if nothing else. Adults forget the value of companionship.

Everything has to have an ulterior motive.

Do you remember finding an extra chocolate and giving it to someone else and simply saying "Gift." Do you? An adult does the same and he's labelled corrupt. A box of sweets on diwali must definitely mean he's planning to come to you for some favour. Why else would he bother to send such an expensive gift to you?

Reasons reasons reasons. Why do you complicate stuff?

You blame us for making you worry. Yet, you fight amongst yourselves. Do you really think we do not know what happens behind those closed doors? You make us worry too. We observe, dear adult, and we understand more than you ever shall. Life's simple for us kids. It makes everything much much clearer. There's always some whites, some blacks, and few greys. Sometimes it feels like your life is just a mixed bag of greys.

These were just some of the things that I could think of. Truth be told, there's numerous others. You just have to look with your heart as we do. I request you, adult, to please act. Act now and save yourselves from the deep pit that you have dug for yourselves. Not everything is as simple as it appears. Yes you've told me so many times. Today, I tell you, not everything has to be so complicated. It's your life. Whatever you may say, it's up to you to control it.

Sometimes I feel growing up is a bad thing. Of what I see, adults stop listening to their hearts. I can still hear mine. It whispers to me whenever I go wrong. Try waking your heart up sometime. It's still there.
I have faith in you. Have faith in yourself.

Take care,

With lots of love and the biggest hugs my tiny arms can give,
Child.