Unfaithful

Breaking up is always hard, especially when you've been together for years and years. When you've stuck together through thick and thin, ups and downs, highs and lows.

After much introspection, extensive correspondence with leading agony aunts and repeated viewings of Oprah, the decision was made. Enough was enough, and it was time to move on. One clearly needed a new barber.

The lowest of the lows, by all accounts, was the haircut that was administered on the sixteenth of November last year. It was then that the first seeds of doubt were sown in the ol' subconscious. These feelings tend to fester, dear Reader, and these seeds tend to germinate, until drastic measures are taken.

So, after some deliberation, one went to Another Barber (whom we shall refer to as AB) who runs his shop with his son (whom we shall call AB junior). Ten minutes later, it was complete. A trim of impressive quality.

So that, you may have thought, would be that. Except, of course, that it wasn't. Because the Ex-Barber's shop lies strategically en route to almost everything (i.e. office and pub). And so it was the very next morning that one found oneself walking by the Ex-Barbershop. And hence the Ex himself.

Now barbers, as the astute reader may have noticed, are sensitive folks. They're also observant, and they're as sharp as, well, razors. His eyes immediately darted toward the ol' cranium. It dawned on him, gently as a receding hairline, that there had been a Cut. Locks had been hewn, curls had evidently been sheared. And, the end result being rather uniform and admittedly rather dashing, it was clearly not his own work.

He looked at the One in wounded scrutiny, betrayal writ large upon his countenance. How, those eyes seemed to implore, could one have gone elsewhere? Did one not enjoy his earnest banter? Did one object to his ludicrous prices? Or, horror of horrors, had a Lady Barber come between us?

One did what one most often does in these situations. One chose to lie. One turned the ol' laptop-bag around, letting the artfully-positioned Air India tag loom as large as possible. One was what you might call 'outstation', one conveyed through a helpless look. I don't know what 'outstation' means, his eyes beseeched right back. It means one was visiting the Homeland, one ocularly elucidated. And Patel Hair Art charges about a twentienth of what you charge, one added disdainfully. He seemed satisfied at this, for Homeland visits are the One Exception to the Rule of Barber-Loyalty. And that was, in fact, that.

One can't keep lying forever, of course. Eventually he shall realize that he has been, how shall we say, Replaced. Never mind, dear Reader. He will cope.

And the agony aunt types have taught us much. It's like this : if one returns to the Ex-Barber, then one shall be his forever. And, if one never returns to him, then one was never his to begin with. Et cetera.

And one doesn't know how long one will stick with the ABs either. You see, there happens to be a rather fetching Lady Barber just down the road.

Glossologia

So one was under much dismay,
A fairly longish-standing gripe.
A basic problem, you might say,
Of the linguistic type.

One turned it over in one's head,
One asked around, as should be done.
And certain people, when consulted,
Replied thusly to the One:

"The Supreme Polyglot, we suppose,
Is the person you require to seek.
His PhD he did compose
In perfect tense, in ancient Greek!

"He once rewrote with obvious glee
The Serbo-Croat vowel forms.
Then rolled his r's and, unknowingly,
Caused two minor thunderstorms."

Ah, 'twas a truly glorious day.
One set off at a lively trot
In Kalbadevi, South Bombay,
To find the Supreme Polyglot.

Instinct led one straight and true
To this old flat in disrepair.
(3 BHK, decent view,
One shall not say exactly where.)

(In hindsight, this flat did possess
A certain real-estate appeal.
A real Gujju, Heaven bless,
Would've surely clinched the deal.)

But one focused on the Quest at hand
And quite soon one became aware
Of a slightly balding, strange old man
Sitting on the floor right there.

What on earth could this portend?
Was this the man that one had sought?
Was the Quest now at its end?
Was this the Supreme Polyglot?

He sat amidst a sea of texts
Speed-reading them in twos and threes.
Chuckling softly to himself
In articulate Cantonese.

Words in many tongues he muttered
At one point he said "Chomsky Lives!"
Then voicelessly and gravely uttered
Alveolar fricatives.

It was just as one had thought!
The Quest was now come to an end!
It was the Supreme Polyglot!
(It took a while to comprehend.)

So one walked up to this old man
Who saw the One and moved away.
(That always happens.) One began
What one had come here to say:

"'Twas a decade ago, in a foreign land .."
One began, quite choked with feeling,
"That one decided, you understand,
That one found languages appealing!"

"Ten years of language-learning grind
And one finds one has now become
Unceremoniously confined
To dilettantic dabbledom!

"Many years it has been, sir,
With no real change in status quo.
One's still quite an amateur
Das ist was bothers me zo!

"A spot of German, bits of French,
A word or two of Dutch and Greek.
But in the final count, you see,
'Tis only English one can speak!

"And things have gone from bad to worse!
There was a time when once one spoke,
One could hold forth, and one could curse,
In the tongue of Gujju folk!

"And till some years back (much remorse),
One could converse through word of mouth
One could engage in intercourse
With noble Ghaatis to the south!"

(At this point he looked rather shocked.
One understood the reason why.
By 'intercourse' one meant but 'talk',
As one hastened to clarify.)

"But long ago was the fateful day
That one bid Desi tongues goodbye.
They've sort of just faded away
Since one became an NRI.

"So one has a problem, see,
Saviourize, one does insist!
You must help, O Supreme P.!
Help this poor try-linguist!"

He sneezed in Latin, coughed in Dutch,
He hummed an old Arabian song.
His accent had a Swedish touch
(His Swedish was extremely strong.)

A modest lunch he then began
With bread and butter, jam and cheese.
He took a bite in Catalan
And chewed in modern Portuguese.

"A tale of woe you tell, my son,
(Assuming what you say is true.)
But what exactly, so-called One,
Is it that you want me to do?"

"To work towards the common good!
One's wildest hopes you would surpass,
If you'd agree to teach, the One would
Sit a daily tuition class!

"Evening sessions, starting today,
To impart language-learning flair!
One shall be thy protege
O linguist extraordinaire!

"One shall learn, O great SP,
(At an astronomic rate)
To enounce multilingually,
To fluentially conversate!"

And, by God, he did agree:
"I shall condescend to assist.
You already do seem to be
A notable try-linguist."

"One's listed Things to Learn, among
Which Gujarati is first!" one cried,
"Must focus on the Mothertongue!"
To which he thusly replied:

"Fear not, my young misfit!
SP, whose help you now avail
Before this language bug had bit
Was once one Shaileshbhai Patel!"

And tears of pride and hope emerged
The world became a joyful blur.
That evening one was seen submerged
Neck-deep in Gujju literature.

Someday now one shall begin
Apprehending, as it were,
Medieval Mandarin
At the feet of SP Sir.

Domicile

He is standing in a familiar lane. There is a building ahead, and a door on the ground-floor landing. A faded plaque displays a well-known name.

Through sheer force of habit, he presses the thumbworn doorbell. Faithful still, it rings out from within. He pauses to absorb the echoes of a sound that has become for him the very definition of a belltone, an acoustic model of how a good chime should sound.

But there is nobody inside, he remembers. There hasn't been for years. He takes out a rusted key and, after a brief struggle with the padlock, enters a musty living room.

Shrouds. A number of shrouds, grotesque and misshapen, cram the modest space. It is a while before he realises that they do not cover corpses, but furniture. The ancestral heritage underneath is a proud, antique mahogany, distinctly colonial in design, perhaps a century old. The sheets have tried valiantly to protect it from the dust, but the dust, after years of laying siege, is winning the slow-motion battle, smothering the wood in painstakingly uniform confection.

These are the same sheets that served as indoor tents many years ago. They were good tents. They could be military shelters, or Red-Indian tepees. Or imaginary havens of protection from an irate uncle. Or secret hoards for the precious chocolate visitors sometimes brought from abroad.

He moves forward in the dim light, picking his way through the eerie shapes to the big glass door that leads to the garden.

The garden is no more. It was filled in with concrete a decade ago, to create a sort of extended porch, after everyone realized that a lawn was too difficult to maintain. But if you stare long enough, and it's the right sort of day, then the concrete melts away and you can see the grass underneath, a resonant, freshly-watered shade of green, just like it used to be.

He makes his way back in, stepping briefly into the kitchen. Some of the old utensils are still around, steel tumblers and plates, the sort that used to be given as gifts and had an illegible name engraved near the bottom. But the glasses are empty. No Rasna or Rooh-Afza or Gold-Spot or Thums-Up for him. For once.

The bookshelves in the study look forlorn and somewhat smaller without their payload. Most of the books have been carted away by eager cousins, others nestle in neem and mothballs in an old trunk in the loft. He finds the spot where a floor tile had chipped, making a little cracked pattern. He'd always say that the crack was shaped like a seahorse, although he cannot honestly find anything seahorse-like about it now.

The ceiling fan looks down from above, incongruous in its perfect stillness. He does not remember it ever being still, even in the middle of winter - it would always be humming its way round, rattling away to itself, never tiring, never breaking down. And it is so close - he can touch its blades without too much trouble. It used to be a distant, divine windblower, reachable only by tall grown-ups. The whole house, actually, is a lot smaller now. It used to be a giant labyrinth of secret pathways, of great halls and corridors, of hideouts known only to a select few.

But it is already late. He makes his way back to the front door. After a few minutes of fumbling with the padlock and a spot of obsessive-compulsive checking to make sure it is secure, he heads back.

He might wear the vagabond tag as a badge of honour, might pride himself on his adaptability, might claim to be well acquainted with, and rather fond of, dozens of countries. But, in truth, there is a place that means just that little bit more to him than other places do. The place that he grew up in. The place he calls home.

Phase of

One had never liked cabbage, until one day one realized that one liked it very much indeed. So much, in fact, that one insisted on having nothing but cabbage sabzi for breakfast, lunch and dinner. We call the stuff kobeech out West, and every day the maharaj would be instructed to cook generous amounts of fresh kobeech, with precisely the correct amounts of haldi and tadka and so forth, for one's noble consumption. One was only eight years old at the time, but this was fairly extreme even by the young One's standards.

Nevertheless, things continued in an altogether hunky-dory manner for a month or so. Until what we shall call the Fateful Day. For it was on this day that one discovered a Worm in one's cabbage bowl (there was, naturally, a special cabbage bowl). And, what is more, one nearly ate the worm before the discovery. The gentle reader might point out that the impending ingestion should have been of greater concern to our intrepid annelid than to the young One, but the young One did not somehow see it that way. The amygdala duly kicked in, the associative conditioning was complete before one could say 'Ivan Petrovich Pavlov' (presuming one could say 'Ivan Petrovich Pavlov'), and cabbage became, once again, a Disliked Food.

You see, gentle reader, when one sits down to Critically Assess one's Life So Far, the major point that tends to strike is that one has gone through Food Phases, intervals characterized by the single-minded pursuit and devourment of the Currently Beloved Food. The above was, of course, the entire life-cycle of the Kobeech Phase in what might be called a Nutshell.

Many phases followed. There was the Softy Ice-Cream phase, the Plain Paneer phase, the Marie Biscuit phase, the khakhra phase (they had to be spiced just right) and the particularly obsessive Cadbury’s Twirl phase.

And now, one finds oneself in the throes of a new Phase. It all began with a Japanese restaurant and a generous helping of sashimi. The traditional accompaniment for such foodstuffs, as you may be aware, goes by the name of wasabi. A pungent chutney made from the root of the eponymous plant, it tends to grab you by the respiratory system. And one now feels a strange affinity towards this condiment. One can taste wasabi just by thinking about it. Reminiscent of mustard, but with a cleaner, sharper twang. Mouthwatering. Magnetic.

One shall now proceed to look for some wasabi, for immediate consumption. And one will find it somewhere, even if one has to wade through piles of wormy kobeech.

Blogpost at OIAB

Time elapses at a different rate in the land of Narnia. You could spend half a lifetime in Narnia and come back to find that you'd been gone only a few days, or minutes, or perhaps no time at all.*

Things are somewhat similar on the blogosphere. Time passes much slower at http://cachacamonopoly.blogspot.com compared to, say, http://www.desipundit.com. So, even if one posts weekly, the gentle reader might receive an update about once a fortnight, or once a month, or perhaps once a quarter. 'Tis tragic, of course. But 'tis relativity.

In any case, that is not the point of this post. No.

For it has been brought to one's attention that a Bollywood film entitled Shootout At Lokhandwala has been released in recent times. One finds this most interest-piqueing. Shootout At Lokhandwala. As opposed, presumably, to Mild Fracas At Flora Fountain.

We had discussed the fact that cellphone companies have major issues when it comes to naming their products. But their woes pale, yes, Pale to the Point of Transparency in comparison to the woes of our filmi folks. 'Tis an arithmetic matter, you see, for we have way more phillums than cellphone models. And producer-types need their phillums to stand out from the celluloid crowd, as opposed to mobile chaps who can simply change a couple of letters here or there.

Let us at this point delve into the history of our Industry, because said filmi folks have, over the years, hit upon several solutions to the nomenclature problem. After the Golden Age exhausted most of the zippy Urdu terms for love, faith, destiny and so forth, they began to string together multiple words, sometimes managing to form a sentence.

They then realised that the names of the more popular phillumsongs tended to roll off the collective tongue with something of a flourish, an epiphany that led, in the heady summer of '93, to the A. Khan starrer Hum Hain Raahi Pyaar Ke, named after the D. Anand song. Its success was presumably what led to a flurry of song-named flicks over the next decade or so - Pyaar Kiya To Darna Kya (1998), Bas Itna Sa Khwab Hai (2001), Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna (2006), amongst many others. Much fodder was provided for Bollywood-related quizzes and for Wikipedia's disambiguation pages.

And so the reader gains an appreciation of the background story, the milieu in which our Lokhandwala team was operating. Most potential film names had been taken, twice over. Most song names had been used for films, and for the title songs of said films, and for saas-bahu serials, and for the title songs of said saas-bahu serials, and for songdance-type reality shows, and for the theme jingles of said reality shows.

So they took the direct approach. They were going to show a Shootout, right? At Lokhandwala, right? Well, there you had it. Shootout At Lokhandwala. No frills. You knew exactly what you were going to get. A hearty Shootout, at no less a place than Lokhandwala. Paisa vasool.

Others have tried to be different, and come up with a) Tarzan: The Wonder Car and b) Fool N Final. Clearly, being straightforward has its advantages.

So one shall now take your leave, gentle reader, and proceed to work on one's groundbreaking script for next summer's blockbuster, Anti-War Protest Opposite Mother Dairy.

* To the trained mind, it is evident that the Narnian universe moves around at a substantial fraction of the speed of light. Relatively speaking.

Our teaming masses

So one had spent an entirely ludicrous sum of money and stayed awake all night and half the morning on multiple occasions to catch the Homeland's national team in televised action, in a contest as distinguished as the World Cup of Cricket. One had braved the neighbour's persistent complaints, intense office-hour sleepiness and repeated viewings of a deeply irritating S. Khan/P. Zinta car commercial that seemed to go “Ek haseen .. khwab hai humne .. dekha-dekha-dekha”. And then the Team had to go and knock themselves out.

And we have gone and turned into a billion blue blistering barnacles, anchoring ourselves to our recollections of that exhilarating Sharjah summer and that NatWest Trophy run-chase, clinging to the memory of that special evening at Lord's many years ago, while seething and screaming at the state of the team today. Despite the best dimaag-thandofying efforts of the folks at Videocon.

With the exception of One cricket fan. For the One does not seethe or blister. One does not mope longfacedly after a defeat. No. For one is nothing if not Solution-Oriented.

Ruminating or mulling over the situation can yield Insights, people. And, with characteristic perspicacity, one has reached the Crux of the Matter. Which is this : the Indian cricket team is underperforming because it suffers from a lack of reservations. No, it's not that they're uninhibited - most of them are fairly reticent sorts, especially when batting. We refer to Reservations. Where are the quotas, people? How can we uplift the Teeming Masses if we prevent them from Teaming?

Clearly, things must be done. The time has now come to formulate an Action Plan, with Bullet Points.

• Five places must be reserved for SCs/STs/OBCs.
  
• Two places must be reserved for civil servants and defence personnel, or their relatives.
  
• Two for ex-servicemen.
  
• Two places for the descendants of freedom fighters.
  
• One place for NRIs.*

The mathematically astute reader might point out that this is already too many, for a cricket team comprises of but eleven souls. There then arise two options:

a) A senior official could consult with cricket's governing bodies and lobby for the number of players in a team to be increased to 200,000,000 so that all the children of the country are given the opportunity to shine.

b) We could take players who fit into multiple categories, hence reusing the same individual to pacify different groups. For instance, a person who hails from a backward caste, has what is called a defence background, and lives abroad would be a near-permanent fixture in the side. Cricket can always be taught.

What is important, people, is that the gross under-representation of certain groups in the team be rectified. We are a democracy, after all.


* Well, a little self-serving never hurt anyone.

The Word incarnate

So there's this word that's quickly finding its way into the vocabularies of net-savvy sorts worldwide. Avatar. As in the Sanskrit for incarnation. Apparently it's a little cartoon that represents the user when he logs on to a chat client.

While the purpose of these avatars is quite unfathomable to the One, it may be noted that one considers instant messaging itself to represent the very nadir of technological progress, irrefutable proof that the global village is nothing but an extended gossip club. It is one's firm belief that the world will one day grind to a screeching halt because every single person is asking every other person what is up with them, and receiving the reply that nothing significant is actually up followed by a reciprocal inquiry into what is up with them.*

But that is not the point of this post. The point is that one has a Problem. Yes. One has never quite figured out how to pronounce these adopted words, particularly when one is abroad, which is most of the time. 'Tis a Major Issue. Do you stick to pronunciations so Sanskritized they'd make the VHP weep in collective joy (but risk not being understood by anyone except their local rep) or do you say 'ave-a-tar and submit meekly to linguistic neo-imperialism?

It was okay in the old days. We had 'jungle' and 'guru', which gave you only a little leeway pronunciation-wise. There are only so many ways you can say 'guru' - you can roll the 'r' a little this way or that, but it's difficult to do anything substantially word-altering. Then came 'mantra', where the English pronunciation begins to diverge from the Hindi/Sanskrit, and that was the start of one's woes. But 'avatar' takes the cake, for it is unlikely that the original pronunciation would even be understood in foreign lands, at least not in the middle of a sentence, and it is certain that the English pronunciation would be met with much scorn by Homelanders.

Tailor the pronunciations to the audience, many have told us. Firstly, this requires observation and analysis and hence involves *gasp* thinking. And secondly, what does one do when the audience is mixed? When you have a fifty-fifty split between People Who Speak At Least One Indian Language and People Who Don't? Dilemmas ensue, do they not?

And where will this end, pray? Given the rate at which they're assimilating our words, we might find accented Hindi passing off as reasonably good English at some point in the future. Tum samajhta haai hum kya bolta haai?

Fear not, though. We'll just wait for Kalki to come and clear things up.


* Actually one's just sour-graping because one has no friends except for the kind folks who make friendship on Orkut, but don't tell anyone.

Where credit is due

One had a dream, people. This was back in the days when laptops were as large as briefcases and cellphones had monochrome displays. We speak of the time when the Rock ruled the WWF and Vikas Bhalla pretended to rule our music channels. When nobody knew Mallika Sherawat. Yes, there was such a time.

Anyhow, the point is that one had a dream. A Burning Ambition, no less.

Young folks, it is said, usually dream of such things as buying a house, buying a car, getting married and settling down. Not the One. No. One aspired only to enter the databases of major telemarketing companies as a potential customer.

At the end of a long day spent listening to the protests of assorted Unclejis, she would dial the next number in that neverending list. A nondescript sort of number, its perfection not immediately apparent to the untrained eye.

One would receive the call with a curt hello, delivered in one’s burnished baritone. "Sir, would you be interested in the new credit card we’re offering sir ..", she would stammer. Yes, one would have that effect on people.

One would gently tell her that she had precisely two minutes to make her sales pitch. We have very little time, you see, us high-tech sorts. She would breathlessly list the merits of the scheme, while one made rapid mental notes. When she’d finished, one would make a general remark thanking her for her efforts while managing to work in a stylish pun about, say, the current economic situation in eastern Mongolia. One might then ask for further details, compare this with competing offers, and construct cost-benefit analyses.

Subsequently, after thorough rumination and extensive correspondence, one might agree to the purchase and leave her quite speechless with gratitude. Yes.

One was all prepared, too. To the point of reading up on the current economic situation in eastern Mongolia. But privacy, it seems, is a much bigger issue out phoren than it is back home. And such is the tragedy of one’s life. Not one call from a dulcet-voiced telemarketer, not one single unexpected tinkle.

Nevertheless, one shall soon be the proud owner of a credit card from a Leading Financial Services Company. So what if one had to go and apply oneself. Look, it comes with free movie tickets.

On becoming a Socialite

For years one wished to dare to dream,
To beat a different groove.
One wanted to surpass oneself
Yes, one wished to Improve!

One worked one's way through learned Books
For logistic support.
(By "Books", of course, one means those of
The Self-Improvement sort.)

To build spheres of influence
To chicken-soup the soul
One must devise, they all point out,
A monthly Major Goal.

To become highly effective
To meteorically rise
It becomes essential, also, to
Robustly socialize.

One pondered long, one pondered hard
One thought all day and night.
And this month's Major Goal was set:
Become a Socialite.

Soon it seemed we'd bitten off
Much more than we could chew.
For, since the start of October,
We were almost halfway through!

You understand that one now felt
An acute sense of woe.
In these things, one had realised,
One had some way to go.

One tells all one's finest jokes
And folks just stand and stare.
(Just between you and the One,
It's worse when girls are there.)

And so it seemed like spiteful life
Was extracting its toll.
Then last night, one dreamt one had fallen
Down a rabbit-hole.

One dreamt of this caterpillar
Avuncular, and stout.
He asked one what the matter was
The tale came pouring out.

One soon finished telling him
Now one could only plead -
Help us, please, one cried out,
O chain-smoking centipede!

He looked at one with grave concern
(As caterpillars could.)
He'd been nodding all the while
To show he understood.

His brow now furrowed to a frown
He bit his lip; it bled.
He looked the One both up and down,
"It'll take some work", he said.

He went and spoke to friends of his
(As one would later find)
And came back with some points that he thought
One should keep in mind.

He knew this was his big debut
He looked at what he'd wrote.
He popped a vitamin or two
And then cleared his throat.

"Think of witty things to say, boy,
(Hope you're taking notes.)
And take some time out every day
Practise your anecdotes.

"The way you speak might put folks off
(It shouldn't, but it may.)
You'd be well advised to learn to
Speak the Orkut way.

"You must say u when u mean you
And n when you mean and.
N a Yo! when u mean Hello there!
Sounds positively grand.

"And take some tips from Bollywood.
You could choose to cultivate
An AB Junior three-day stubble,
A Salman Khan-ish gait."

And saying thus, the caterpillar
Waved a last goodbye.
(He later grew up to become
A Social Butterfly.)

One woke up, as one contemplated
All he'd deigned to say.
By Jove, we'll heed his kind advice,
Beginning today.

How well this'll work, or how poorly,
We cannot claim to know.
(This is one's Goal for October;
We have three weeks to go.)

At least it helped one write the rhyme
Of which you just partook.
One might now write, if one finds time,
A Self-Improvement Book.

Aaj Bloggy ka janamdin hai

Far out in the uncharted backwaters of the blogosphere lies a small, yellow blog, which fancies that it is still read once in a while by the odd bloghopper. But there is one thing about this particular blog that makes it quite remarkable. This blog, you see, is exactly one year old.

Today, give or take a few time zones, is this blog's Happy Budday. Yes. The blog is all grown up, and one is so proud. We shall celebrate, naturally. We shall invite all the neighbourhood blogs over, we shall full-throatedly sing old film songs involving laddoos and well-fed bachchas, we shall play a few invigorating rounds of Simon Says, and we shall send all the li'l bloggywoggies home with bulk-discounted Return Gifts. Ah, joy.

***

This, of course, might be a fine time to look back, to ponder over what this journey has been like and where it has brought us. To take you from the moment a bright-eyed tech intern in faraway Europe clicked a Rediff link marked "Blogs", to the moment he decided to begin one himself, to the moment he discovered that people were actually reading what he wrote, to the moment he realized that he’d been writing it, off and on, for a whole year. And to ruminate on these experiences.

But we shall not do that. No.

Blogging about blogging, one fears, may smirch the experience. There are many things that one has observed, much that could be said vis-à-vis why one blogs, and why one writes the way one does, and why one hasn't been posting much lately, and what one thinks of one's writing, but that would likely serve no purpose beyond making one a tad selfconscious next time one posts. So let us lead the unexamined bloglife, and let us enjoy it.

That said, one would like to thank the kind folks who've linked up, and those who drop by and comment, and the nice people at DesiPundit for linking several times over the past year. 'Tis much appreciated.

Oh, and let's listen to Spiderman, Spiderman.

Still hopin'

One recalls having discussed one’s feelings re. passwords a few months ago. It turns out that the opinions expressed in that post merely foreshadowed the deeper trouble that was to follow. We speak, of course, of the singular events that came to pass last-to-last* Friday.

‘Twas on Friday morning that one was informed that a certain password was due to expire (again). One duly undertook the password-updating process. This, you might be aware, involves typing in the Old Password and then the New Password, occasionally followed by a Reconfirm New Password that, Sysadmin informs us, must be identical to the New Password.

Now one’s last three passwords, if you can keep a secret, have been MeghnaNaidu123, MeghnaNaidu124 and MeghnaNaidu125**. Always quick to spot a trend, one entered MeghnaNaidu126 as the New Password (and as the Reconfirm New Password) this time around. And waited with what is sometimes called Bated Breath.

The Gentle (if Hypothetical) Reader should be informed that one has been through a lot in life. One has survived temporary cripplehood, forced relocation, and multiple viewings of Jaani Dushman – Ek Anokhi Kahani. But nothing could prepare the One for what came next. For the computer had the gall, the Gall, to output thusly:

“Invalid password. The old and new passwords must differ in at least three positions.”

Yes. The system had evidently been Upgraded, and this meant the end of the MeghnaNaidu series as we knew it. Sustained outrage was felt, and some pain too. But one was not going to let this go without a fight. No. One went straight to the Sysadmin, and proceeded to give him what is commonly called a Piece of One’s Mind. One pointed out that one had used only Meghna Naidu passwords ever since Kaliyon Ka Chaman was released, and that one was in no mood to change the pattern just because some dorky operating system said so. This produced nothing beyond a condescending smile (which undoubtedly hid a certain bewilderment, for the chap had no clue who Meghna Naidu was, but being a Sysadmin he couldn’t very well admit to not knowing something, could he?)

Friday afternoon, people, found the One distinctly forlorn. And with good reason, for Sysadmin had given one a supposedly random password that sounded like a cross between a Klingon expletive and a Forbidden Curse, and one knew that there was absolutely no chance one would remember it. So one finally gave in and, in flagrant violation of password protocol, wrote the word on a little scrap of paper that was then kept in a clever, undisclosed location.

So clever, in fact, that one never found it again.


* One has always wanted to say “last-to-last” on this blog.

** And if you can’t, they’ve been something else entirely.

Murder by numbers

Today one has been subjected to a revelation of some import. You might call it an epiphany, even. Today one has learnt that The Magnitude Of A Cellphone’s Model Number Bears Little Or No Correlation To The Richness Of Its Features (or, to restate, that Larger Numbers In The Name Do Not Necessarily Mean That The Cellphone Is More Advanced).

One does not like things that are named numerically, for these names are usually strings of largely random digits that one has much trouble remembering. (There might be folks out there who memorize them as a sort of hobby, but for the One that holds about as much charm as being handcuffed to a dead zebra.*)

‘Twas much better in one’s day. As gadgets go we had, for example, the quaintly-named Game Boy. This was followed by the Game Boy Color, which was in turn followed by the Game Boy Advance. What these monikers might lack in linguistic flair, people, they more than make up for in semantic precision. You just knew that the Game Boy Advance was newer, pricier and generally better than the plain ol’ Game Boy. You just knew it.

But now, you don’t know anything. That 2370 might sound like a poor man’s version of the 8846, but for all you know it’s the hottest thing around. You smirk when a colleague speaks of his 1002, quite sure that the 9084 you secretly plan to buy is better by an order of magnitude, until the chap informs you that the 1002 can operate his washing machine and generally do everything short of writing his blogposts and will only be available next month.

But let us get all incisive-shincisive. Let us delve into the psychology of the chaps in the marketing department. What in the world were they thinking? One might not know much about marketing (not that there’s much to know in the first place) but one does understand that brand recall plays some sort of role. We know the routine – initial media hype, glitzy product launch (extra points for gyaan-spouting Bollywood starlet), repeated advertisement during saas-bahu soaps. All intended to enhance B.R. Okay. But. But. How, pray, does one recall a brand name that reads like a blooming Sudoku puzzle? And if you absolutely must take your brand names from the telephone directory, can you at least ensure that the numbers go in ascending order? You know, like, small to big?

The latest of the lot is apparently the N85 or some such. Let us not dwell on the fact that this sounds more like a nightly bus service than the state of the art in mobile communication. Rather, let us hope that the next offering isn’t called the F15.


* Do bear with the analogies – you might even find an original one here someday.

Ordeal on Avenue 6

[Drama in Real Life]


The One, 24, stepped out of his cubicle late in the evening. The mild-mannered engineer had had to cope with many things that day, including an irate boss, a particularly intransigent semaphore, and the Collected Hits of Himesh Reshammiya. He happened to glance at his watch as he made his way to the fifth-floor lobby. It was 7:45.

He pressed the button and waited for the lift to arrive. The lift reached his floor shortly, and he got on board. Four, three, two, one, he counted on the large LED display. He emerged from the lift at the ground floor and looked around. It was now 7:46.

Looking up, he saw a sudden flash. It was a moment before he realised that it was merely a lightbulb. Bulbs were installed as standard on each floor of the building. They required two hundred and thirty volts of electricity and consumed sixty-one milliamperes of current to emit eighty watts of yellowish light. It was still 7:46.

He stepped out of the building, looking around with a strange, inexplicable discomfort. It was a warm evening in downtown Singapore, despite the unexpected afternoon shower that had left the roads dangerously slippery. He began to walk towards the bus stop, still feeling vaguely ill at ease.

With a start, he recalled that he had not consumed his dinner and realised that that was the reason for his discomfort. He would, he decided, have to make a detour to the foodstalls. But the foodstalls were on the other side of the road, some distance away.

On this particular road, called Avenue 6 by most Singaporeans, there is a zebra crossing for pedestrians. He began to cross the road at this zebra crossing. It was 7:52.

As he reached halfway across the tarmac, he suddenly felt his legs slipping out from under him. It was the slipperiness that he had noticed earlier, that which could have been ascribed to the afternoon squall. However, he quickly righted himself and continued on his way, managing to successfully cross the road. He reached the foodstalls in due course and ordered some food, sitting down at a table to eat it.

With a jolt, he heard his phone ring. He answered it immediately to find that it was his mother, who called him every evening. After some general chitchat, they finished the conversation and he returned to his food. Eventually, he finished his dinner and caught a bus that went from Avenue 6 to his apartment. He reached his stop in a few minutes and made his way home, pausing only to glance at his watch. It was, in fact, 8:03.

“One hell of an eventful evening that was. I’m just glad I made it back”, he says, relaxing on a couch in the comfort of his living room.


The One still puts himself through the same ordeal nearly every day. The bulbs in his office building were replaced recently with ostensibly superior energy-saving ones that emit a bluish light. And Avenue 6 still remains as slippery as ever, although the nimble are able to cross it sometimes.

Reports of bloggywoggy's demise are greatly exaggerated

Behold, people, how eventful the Life has been over the last couple of months:

1) The Homeland has been visited. One takes these trips very seriously, and plans for them weeks in advance, and prepares lists of Things To Do and People To Visit. And one usually returns with suspiciously similar lists entitled Things That Must Be Done Next Time and People Who Suddenly Remembered Important Appointments And Hence Regretfully Found Themselves Unable To Meet The One This Time But Who Shall Surely Be Visited Next Time.

2) Back in Singapore, a tearful farewell has been bid to the Abode and a New Abode has been moved into. It’s true that the New Abode is rather cool, but one might reveal that nothing can quite take the place of the Old Abode in this hoary old heart.

But let us now look forward now, let us summarily carpe each diem. Tags need to be done. And one shall do them. Miscellaneous things need to be said. And one shall say them, by Jove. Yes.

Scrappy do

Glad tidings we bring today. The Orkut network is growing, yes, it is expanding by Leaps and Bounds. One has exceeded all expectations by managing to assimilate as many as nine Distinct Individuals into said network in but a few weeks. But it was not easy, gentle reader, no. Much time was spent tinkering with the profile. Potential candidates for Friendship were shortlisted and shorter-listed. Many earnest make-frndshp messages were written. Sweat and tears were bahaofied in equal measure.

And a steep, steep learning curve was negotiated. The Orkut Scrap, one discovers, is an unusual form of communication that might appear superficially to resemble the blog comment. However, Orkut etiquette requires the scrappee to respond to a scrap in the scrapper’s scrapbook rather than his own* - this, you would note, stands in contrast to blog etiquette, which requires that the blogger reply right where the comment was made, i.e. in his own commentspace. The matter might be interpreted as an eloquent commentary on how interpersonal dynamics in a networking milieu differ from those in a predominantly creative environment, but one does not generally do eloquent commentary and one sees no reason to make an exception this once.

But ‘tis an empowering experience, this Orkut business. One is evidently connected, through the immediate network, to as many as 19,882,317 souls. Now, gentle reader, one has Contacts. One knows People, yes, People who themselves evidently know People. And having Contacts, you would realise, means that one is now in a position to Get Things Done, that too through Various Means. Yup. One merely has to go to a Relevant Person on this twenty-million-strong network and establish a rapport, perhaps by citing mutual acquaintances. “Hey, one knows Atul D, who knows Francis K, who knows Maniben P, who knows you! Ain’t that just chummy?”

Anyway, one shall now get back to writing pithy scraps in various scrapbooks. Mercy boku.

* It took the entire network several attempts to drill this into the head of the One, but it is well understood now.

Cream tea, please

An over-Blytonized childhood, one recalls, had elevated Cream Tea to near-mythical status in one’s fledgeling mind. It was, clearly, a beverage that went well with thrilling holiday adventures and all’s-well-that-ends-well boarding-school feasts. Something that caused every self-respecting juvenile to squeal with uncontainable delight and generally proclaim that things were as jolly as they possibly could be. One gathered that it was also drunk by distinguished old gentlemen at idyllic country manors and by fashionable ladies at the Royal Ascot.

And thus, over the years, one had built up this mental image of a frothy, buttery version of our chai, perhaps with liberal lashings of crème fraiche and a cherry on top. An entirely rich and wholesome affair. It became one’s personal ambition, people, to taste a cup of this sinfully posh, delightfully British indulgence.

So you will appreciate that the happiness knew no bounds when it was learnt, at a certain point in the mid-nineties, that the Father had been posted to London. Practically the first thing the young One did upon touchdown was to walk into this café, a nice and typically English teahouse-type place, and proudly say what one had been dying to say for years and years.

“Cream tea, please.”

And then one took one’s place at a table, and waited with what is generally referred to as Bated Breath.

And presently, people, it arrived. A tray that held a) a pot of boiling water with a couple of sad, soggy Earl Grey teabags dangling within (okay, so teabags are supposed to be soggy, at least when they’re inside boiling water, but there’s just no excuse for being sad)*, b) an empty cup with accompanying saucer and c) a plate with a couple of scones on it. But where, in the name of Frederick Algernon Trotteville, was that frothing cuppa, that Legendary Beverage?

After much argument with the waiter (one could argue well for a twelve-year-old) it was ascertained that said Legendary Beverage constituted of precisely the items lying on one’s table.

And then, gentle reader, there was nothing much to be done. One took a bite out of the scone. And poured oneself some Earl Grey. And tried one’s best to enjoy one’s First Taste of Cream Tea. And ruminated on how some things sound so much better in books.

* One has made one’s feelings re. these matters amply clear previously.

Kin-dread spirit

It has recently been revealed to various distant relatives that one plans to make a trip to the Homeland in the near future. And it is remarkable how hitherto-unknown persons are seen to be crawling out of the very bark of the family tree to tactfully demand various gadget-type items from Singapore, apparently unaware of the fact that their local electronics store could sell them the same things at practically the same price in this liberalized age. One’s attempts to point out the above fact are met with vague and entirely unfathomable replies to the effect that items from phoren are generally “of better quality”.

Amongst said kinfolk you would find the young Distant Cousin, a stripling of great pestilentiality, who evidently burns with the need for an imported PDA* at the age of eleven. The ownership of such a device, one gathers, would allow him to reach the coveted position of Coolest Kid in School, presumably qualifying him to use terminally-hep exclamations like “yo!” as part of everyday conversation. (This is in addition to the yaar, pronounced with the r silent, which he already uses about five times every sentence).

Further, it is most disconcerting to note that many of said kinfolk appear to consider one an authority on all gizmos electronic. This, as the diligent reader of this blog will know, is patently untrue. Yes, one has admitted to owning and even using the occasional gadget. But that was a long time ago, people. We’ve all passed a lot of water under the bridge since then, as the Russian translator said.

In any case, while it remains to be seen when exactly the trip can take place, it is practically certain that the prodigal son shall return to the fold with suitcase upon suitcase full of megapixel digicams, DVD players, ultrasleek mobile phones and the like, with perhaps a small rucksack for his own meagre possessions. Whatever will the customs people say.


*That’s Personal Digital Assistant, people, not Public Display of Affection. Even he wouldn't dare.


Update: A change of some magnitude has been made to the design of this blog. The gentle reader, upon clicking the link called "Comments", shall now actually see the comments (as opposed to the entire permalinked page). One stuns oneself sometimes.

Grilled, sir?

It’s Thursday evening. The One walks into the local outlet of a sandwich chain. He is Majorly Hungry.

"Hello, sir. How can I help you, sir?"

[He is very pleased at being referred to as ‘sir’. Twice, too.] "Can I have one of those, please?" [points to large, healthy-looking sandwich]

"Certainly. What sort of bread would you like, sir?"

"Huh?" [note the poise, the skilful articulation]

"Would that be Honey Rolled Oat, Monterey Cheddar, Parmesan Oregano, or Hearty Italian sir?"

"Erm." [Valiantly attempts to give general impression of ruminating on the qualities of Hearty Italian vis-à-vis Monterey Cheddar, attempting to conceal the fact that his culinary knowledge begins and ends at the Gujarati Thali. Perhaps Monterey Cheddar tastes like overcooked khandvi.]

"Honey Rolled Oat bread for you, sir?"

"Yes. Honey Rolled Oat, please."

"Which sauce would you like, sir?"

"Huh?"

"Would that be the Red Wine Vinaigrette, Spicy Mexican Chipotle or Delicious Honey Mustard sir?"

"Erm. The wine thing." [If it’s alcoholic, it can’t be that bad.]

Maybe they should call people inside in batches of four, make you sit in a big black chair while you order, and give you a two-minute time limit. After you’re done ordering, maybe a voice-over could say, "And at the end of that round, O haggard geek-type person, you have scored no points at all. Thank you very much!" *polite applause*

Con air

What is with the air-conditioning here? One has spent much of last week in a state of partial popsiculation owing to the fact that the A/C* at the office is set to temperatures that only an unusually hardy polar bear could appreciate. One observes that that the hotter the general climate of a place, the lower the temperature to which its A/Cs are set. It’s as if they want to compensate for the swelter outside by ensuring that a chap’s bloodstream is at least thinly glaciated when he leaves a building.

Now one steps into and out of several buildings during the course of a typical day**. And it has been noted that this freezing-one-minute-boiling-the-next business confuses the One’s otherwise faultless hypothalamus, invariably resulting in the Sniffles. Yes. The One, people, is currently wheezing like Thomas the Tank Engine at his phlegmiest. Some people have blamed a) one's immune system and b) one's dietary habits for this state of affairs, but their arguments hold no water because a) one has sat through a screening of Salman Khan’s Har Dil Jo Pyar Karega followed by a full-throated group rendition of Remo Fernandes’ O meri munni *** without any noticeable ill effects and b) one has none to speak of.

Anyway, the tragedy is that one has had to make Arrangements, at great personal expense, for a fine jacket to be sent all the way from home. (Not that jackets aren’t available here, it’s just that one gets disturbingly attached to old clothes.) To Singapore, where you know it’s a cold wave if you don’t find yourself dehydrated on your way down to the bus stop.

Such, as one never tires of pointing out, is life.


* It seems that the thing is called an aircon here, as opposed to an A/C. Yup. Ain’t that, like, a totally life-enriching nugget of info.

** It’s not something one sets out to do, in case you’re wondering. It just happens.

*** One recalls he quite outdid himself the very next line by going “Munni munni bay-beh”.

The book tag

Yes. A full year after this tag was first seen in the blogworld, it has reached these humble backwaters. Many thanks to LAK. One warns the reader that this might turn out to be a rather rambly and self-centred post (yes, even by this blog’s standards). And one shall use the first person, just this once (hey, it’s books we’re talking about – that’s getting personal).


1. Total number of books I own

Here, in Singapore, I have very few indeed because I don’t buy books too often these days (I’m not counting techie books, of course). Refuse to be burdened with a surfeit of possessions and all that.

If we’re talking about the family home back in India the number is probably close to five hundred although, to be honest, many of those have not been bought by me or even explicitly for me; everyone in the family reads quite a bit. And I’ve read maybe half of them, which is apparently characteristic of a genuine book-lover.

If we count the books I used to have as a child and then passed on to cousins, and the books at the grandparents’ places that I have full access to and shall inherit (at least if sibling and cousins can quietly be eliminated), then we’re talking thousands.


2. Last book I bought

I picked up a copy of The Source by James Michener at a garage sale last year. Haven’t bought any books since then. Imagine.


3. Last book I read

Jeeves in the Morning by P.G. Wodehouse. I think I’d read it before, but a bad memory is something one tends to take full advantage of.


4. Currently reading

The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy by Douglas Adams. Yes, of course I’ve read it before. Come to think of it, I seem to be in the middle of a sort of rereading-old-favourites phase. I find that I can appreciate writing much better now that I’m trying to write a bit myself.* And I always have the niggling feeling that I haven’t read a book ‘properly’ enough, that I should come back to it when my sensibilities have evolved to the point where they can fully appreciate its worth.

I’d also started Tom Sharpe’s The Throwback and John Banville’s Book of Evidence, but had to return them due to various library-related issues that have been hinted at on this blog and will not be discussed now because that would make me extremely mad.


5. Five books that mean the most to me

Okay. In approximately the order that I read them.

1) Dr. Seuss’s Green Eggs and Ham : Because whenever I attempt to recall my very earliest memories, I see a pair of curious catlike characters engaged in a semi-heated, perfectly rhymed exchange that goes:

“Do you like green eggs and ham?”
“I do not like them, Sam-I-am!”

I read somewhere recently that Seuss used only fifty different words in the book, nearly all of them monosyllabic, and that Sam-I-am consistently speaks in trochees while the other, unnamed protagonist speaks exclusively in iambs. Quite remarkable.

And, well, now you know where the penchant for whacky poetry comes from.

2) The three kiddie books E.B. White wrote – Charlotte’s Web, Stuart Little and The Trumpet of the Swan. Each is an absolute gem. I fancy I spent a large part of my childhood believing that animals in foreign countries really could talk.

3) I, Robot by Isaac Asimov : Asimov was probably the closest thing (you will, of course, forgive me for calling him a thing) I ever had to a teenage idol. I was always more of a robot-stories person – I remember having read a couple of Foundation books, but psychohistory never appealed to me as much as the robots did. The idea of imposing a hierarchy of laws on an automaton, and investigating how those laws would cause it to behave in unusual situations, thrilled me greatly.**

I read one of Asimov’s books again a few months ago, for old times’ sake. And, to my amazement, I was disappointed. The language did not flow, the characters weren’t fleshed out properly. The ideas were there, of course, the imagination was impressive; but the execution lacked flourish. I guess I’ve outgrown him. Strange, it feels.

4) 1089 and All That by David Acheson. A marvellous little book that made me look at mathematics with wonder, mitigating some of the damage inflicted by years of schooling.

5) Silas Marner by George Eliot. Rarely read outside literature classes at your local Arts college, perhaps, but I found it to be brilliantly written, and very moving, at many different levels. It offered me an intriguing look at the idea of ‘rootedness’ at a time when I’d just left home myself for the world beyond. Plus it was short.


I haven’t read that much, to be honest, especially after engineering happened. It was with much awe that I read the book-tag posts of some of the scorchingly erudite folks we find on the blogosphere. I nurse more than a tinge of regret for not having kept that childhood reading habit going, at least not with the same pick-up-book-first-thing-in-the-morning intensity. Ah well.


* Yes, that’s what I’m doing on this blog. Not to look so surprised.

** If anyone’s interested, one has found an IEEE paper on the technological implications of the Laws here. Do read it through, and kindly explain it to us afterwards.