ME:       Have you heard of Mensa?

A:         Who?

ME:       Mensa mensa…

A:         What is that?

ME:       It’s the intelligence thing…

A:         No...I’ve only heard of mafia…

ME:       What? Pasta?

A:         No… maaafiaaa…

ME:       Okay. Never mind.

A:         B just messaged saying sheep overtook her.

ME:       (Lmao) WHAT??!!

A:         Yeah, she got startled it seems.

ME:       (Lmao) What? She was walking?

A:         Yeah. She was walking and three sheep overtook her. They crossed diagonally and she almost tripped over one of them.

ME:       (Lmao) Okay…I’ve got work… I’ll talk to you later…

As I stand on the threshold of a new year, I’ve realized a few things. That,

-          I miss the pepsi colas and jumbo pepsis that I could get for 25p or 50 p or Re.1

-          Sometimes you run out of synonyms for words

-          You realize you are getting old when you start saying, “Tereko yaad hai…apne time pe…”

-          It’s scary when you don’t know what you want to do for a living

-          It’s easier to not talk

-          It’s not as easy to listen

-          In the trains, I don’t like the way First Class passengers remind the obviously non-first class passengers of where they have intruded

-          I want to backpack across the world

-          Being jobless leaves you sleepless, depressed and restless

-          Few people behave knowing that we are all just humans

I wish you all a very Happy New Year! Hope it gives you the ability to be honest, compassionate, strong and truthful – to yourself and to others.

ME:       Do you get a weird taste in your mouth just before you have a stomach upset?

J:         Umm no

I get weird tastes all the time

ME:       :D

J:         :)

Haha

No no I don’t

Y? U obviously do from that Q

ME:       Just asking... cuz I do

J:         :)

ME:       You know what

J:         Hehe

ME:       S, you and I should meet

Yes

J:         Yes

ME:       Arrgh... I think I have stomach upset

It’s feeling weird

J:         Cool

ME:       How is that cool?

J:         (It’s NOT cool)

Hehehe

ME:       You're cracking jokes?

J:         Yeah

And nuts!

:)

ME:       I was expecting empathy not obscure humour

J:         Empathy for stomach upset?

Tsk no sorry

Pls!

ME:       Why not?

I’m in discomfort!

J:         It’s paltry

ME:       It’s appreciated

J:         But it doesn’t come

So leave it!

ME:       Grr

J:         :-I

ME:       Am posting this

It's funny

J:         Post

J:         Where the hell does he work?

ME:       Who?

J:         Zerxes

ME:       Don’t know

Why?

I think in Persia

J:         PERSIA???

ME:       Yes

J:         THE PLACE PERSIA????

When the fuck did he get there?

ME:       Ages ago

J:         How many ages??? Wasn’t he in college?

ME:       Don't know... wasn't counting

J:         No problem :)

ME:       I think the Spartans killed him or something

J:         Who? Zerxes?

ME:       Yes

J:         He is quite alive and kicking

Here on gtalk

ME:       Ask him

J:         Is that a phantom?

ME:       If he was killed by the Spartans

J:         He just left

I think he left bcoz he feared exposure

:-I

Phantom of Zerxes!

ME:       Ain?

J:         Yeah I know

Forget

You can hear nothing but the sound of your own breathing as you lie almost completely submerged in the bathtub. You get goose bumps from how good it feels…the hot water covering every inch of your tired body. And when you can see nothing and hear nothing but the proof of your existence, everything fades away and world seems to have been made only for you. Only you exist. And everything else exists for you. Not by itself and for no other purpose but to serve you. You feel somewhat like Truman from The Truman Show. You expect a camera to fall from the sky any minute and to see people waiting for their cue. Everything that you externalized suddenly rushes in with a whoosh and you remember what it’s like to see the world from your eyes. As everything inside of you seeps out of your pores and into the water, it suddenly becomes too hot and you don’t want to stay in another minute. You climb out of the bathtub and wonder if you should have let the cold water run for a bit longer than you had and then maybe, just maybe you could have stayed in a little while longer. You look into the mirror and wonder why the face you see belongs to a stranger and why no one can feel, see, taste or hear the same way you do. You wonder why you are an individual, complete and whole, and yet count on everything and everyone else but yourself for your existence. Then you remember that you are only human and the bathtub is as close to heaven as you can get while you are alive.
 

Of course it is easier to get rid of animals that make our life inconvenient rather than try and live in harmony. One would think that as we evolve, we’d try not to destroy nature completely. Dogs bite because they are dogs and it’s in their nature to sometimes behave just like an animal. And more often than not they are provoked. If tomorrow your child hurled a stone at you would you rather squeal and run away?

A lot of people want to sterilize all dogs because some bite. Logic states that this will inevitably lead to the extinction of one complete species. Or would they rather play God and create a zoo where dogs will be kept for breeding just so we won’t have only pictures to remind us 10 years down the line as to what dogs look like? How does sterilization solve the problem? Just because they can’t mate and procreate, will they stop biting?

And if this is how people propose to treat something that rarely attacks us or harms us, how do we tackle fellow human beings who frequently harm us? What do we do about rapists? Would we consider castration as a solution?
 

It’s a girl!


Nandini.

I’m in love with her already. And I’ve decided to spoil her silly.

:-D

It’s just a goddamn language. By definition, it’s just a bloody means of communication. That’s its very basic function. It helps you tell other people that you are in deep shit; that you need help; that the prices of tomatoes are obscene. And that’s where it all ends. What next? Every country’s army and navy claiming that the Morse code is theirs? I cannot believe that such idiots exist in grown men’s bodies. I don’t see Scotland, Ireland and England fighting over their accents. Of course, the fact that they all speak English would have made things slightly less complicated. It’s about time that they realized they live in India. And that India is a country that does not have just one language that people communicate in. And they sure as hell don’t fill in anything other than Indian in a form that asks for nationality.

What gives someone the right to tell me where I belong and what language to revere? Just because someone was born in a place where their grandfathers happened to live, it does not give them any right or ownership over the land. Just because someone was born in a city, it does not make them rightful inhabitants of the city. Open your eyes and try evolving, you territory marking Neanderthal fools! If you want to resist globalization by being a stubborn ass, go ahead and open an Orkut or Facebook community and dedicate it to your dear language. Would you rather have had Manmohan Singh try and negotiate the nuclear deal with Bush in Marathi?

Fine, the state is named Maharashtra. And Shivaji did all that he did. Everybody respects and appreciates that. But I’m damn sure that he never divided and ruled. Go ahead, claim Shivaji as your own. But do not tell other people what to do. And when you are beating your chests like apes and shouting infantile, vitriolic slogans, just know that when Shivaji was fighting, you were nowhere near to being born. You did not lift one lousy finger to help build his fort that you are so proud of. You did not feed his noble steeds. And most of you have no clue how the language, which he thought was convenient to communicate in, evolved. You. Weren’t. There.

Claiming a right over something that you yourself were never involved in personally is just like taking credit for someone else’s hard work; it’s equivalent to plagiarism; it’s equivalent to a greedy man who ill-treats his father but dotes over him because someone told him he is rewriting his will. It sure is convenient. But know that someday it will come back and bite your ass so hard that you won’t be able to sit comfortably for centuries.

And by the way, I think it’s high time that you learnt English.

In the quiet of the night,

If you listen closely,

You can hear them,

All the whispers and

The hushed voices,

Whispering from a distance,

Words just escaping your ears,

Like a breeze, hissing,

Driving you mad.

Writing is like a freight train. It’s hard to stop once it starts. Since my trip to Bangalore, somehow the inclination has disappeared and I’m forcing myself to write; which is strange considering that I love to write. It’s been a very long time since I last posted. I’m struggling to find my rhythm. As I’m trying to develop my style of writing, I’m discovering how hard it is to think out of the box. To some lucky ones it comes naturally and for some, like me, it’s something that has to be worked on relentlessly.

It’s been a long time since my last job and now, finally, I’m getting restless. The problem is that there are many things that I think I’ll enjoy doing and want to try my hand at. I’m now faced with a problem of choice. I have a strong idea what I want to do but the issue of choice enters into the picture because there are many fields that meet my requirement. I’ve decided that I want a job that involves music, writing or both. So, you can imagine the confusion.

It’s not helping that the world is profit-oriented. Regardless of ability, talent or interest, you get a job only if you have the experience. Getting a break when you are trying to switch fields is, I have discovered, difficult. It’s no longer about going to work because you want to do something that you know you will enjoy and love. It is now all about earning money even if the job is such that you would much rather kill yourself than get out of bed every morning. I threw away good money which was about to get better and a promotion because I liked what I was doing but wanted to do something that I would love doing. I know that I’m not alone when it comes to something like this but now I’m starting to wonder whether that was stupid.

A couple of days back a friend was talking about how a 2BHK in Mulund (!) now costs 80 lakhs. And all I could think was how long it would take me to buy a flat considering that I’m jobless and penniless. Living has become expensive. And it’s not like it was easy before, what with all the emotional mess that we tend to get ourselves in. Let me ask you something. Where is all the money? What are people doing with all the extra money that they have? What is Christiano Ronaldo doing with his? Since when did bits of paper and metal start having so much importance that people kill for it? Since when did we start hoarding money like food for a rainy day? I’m now starting to think that maybe, just maybe, the barter system was much better.