The Age of Man

I hate when people say how good it feels to give. I think that is utterly selfish and hypocritical behaviour. If you want to give, give for the cause, not for your own satisfaction or peace of mind.

I felt for the victims of the Haiti disaster but since I did not have the power, ability or compulsion to help them directly, like many others I thought it best to place my contribution in the hands of those who did have the compassion, capability and resolve required to render relief. I know it isn’t simple to empathize with someone caught in the aftermath of a catastrophe, to imagine the mental and physical trauma they are experiencing. But as a closet claustrophobic, I can only partially identify with the emotional distress of being trapped without hope. And this is before even trying to comprehend the heartache of loss suffered by the survivors. Grim.

While I was reading an article on the quake in an online newspaper, I came across a comment from another reader who swore not to donate a single penny. He couldn’t understand why whenever there was a crisis in some third world country, they always looked to the United States and the United Kingdom for help. Well Nathan from London, I’m sure you’re entitled to your own view, but all this comment did was it made me donate twice as much as I had planned to, just to even out the karma. I live in a country many people in ‘developed nations’ might prefer to refer to as third world, but I don’t want for much more than my country can offer. Nathan, you obviously never learned it in school but you need to be grateful every single day, that you were born into your family and not somewhere the sun didn’t shine so favourably.

I am not a proponent of religion. As for God, I believe in an entity that is omniscient and omnipresent (omnivorous too, maybe), a Creator and Destroyer; but I do not take God the Protector for granted. I believe in people. People have to look out for people and therein lies the root of all that is good. And by good I am referring to the most common understanding of what is right as opposed to what is wrong, not other definitions that may be twisted by religious observance, upbringing or social circumstance.

So fuck you, smiling pricks; be charitable, but stop telling us how warm and fuzzy it makes you feel. Giving doesn’t grant you the right to gloat.

And fuck you, Nathan from London. You are simply one of the bad ones.

Foreign types with the hookah pipes say: Is antidisestablishmentarianism = establishmentarianism? If yes, then whatever happened to brevity?

Travis – Sing

Hootie And The Blowfish – I Only Wanna Be With You

In the air

I don’t travel frequently, so when I do take a trip I always hope to meet an interesting member of the opposite sex during the journey, who can at least uphold one end of a stimulating conversation. I’m always looking for the random stranger that I won’t soon forget (in a good way, not because she swiped my wallet).

Recently on a bus to Mumbai, hitherto Bombay, I found myself seated beside a pleasant lady. We weren’t both supposed to get on the 8:00 AM bus, since the travel company in its infinite wisdom had given me a ticket for 8:30 AM. I realized this error too late, however, as with most things in this country, it’s easy to wriggle your way into almost anywhere, provided you know the words. Long story short, I boarded the bus I wanted and ended up beside the same girl who travelled with me in the shuttle to the bus station.

Much like a ’92 Ford Escort on a wintry morning in Oxfordshire, she took a while to warm to me, choosing to ignore my icebreakers. After about half an hour of persistence, I finally elicited a response when I commented on her funky shoes. Apparently, they were quite popular with the girls up North, but I really think they could have found a name more feminine than ‘Gladiators’. She though, had a very pretty name (which I shall not reveal, for no particular reason) and was visiting from Jaipur to spend time with her sister and see the ‘big city’. While she described all the things she liked about Pune, I wondered to myself if this was the same city I lived in or if, being a tourist, she had access to an ocean of serenity hidden within the city, which was only revealed to visitors.

We chatted on for a while as she shared her snacks and slowly revealed more about herself without needing much prompting. It was slightly intimidating to learn that although she was younger than me, she was already Regional Service Manager at a bank, but heck it wasn’t like I’d ever see her again, so I told her I was a Director of Sales (no I didn’t).

It was a long, slow ride and eventually we both fell asleep. The shared arm-rest between our seats wasn’t wide enough, so our arms were up against each other. I suppose it would have been good manners to either let her have the entire arm-rest or move my elbow away so that it wasn’t touching her. Or she could have done the same, out of Bharatiya Nari modesty. But she didn’t, so I didn’t. For the rest of the journey, every time the bus lurched so that our arms moved away from each other, I (or she) readjusted and they would come together again and sleep continued unabated. When she finally awoke and began to settle her hair, the missing warmth on my arm woke me too. Our conversation didn’t resume and she was soon at her stop. Her casual goodbye simply involved inviting me to come up North ‘soon’ and then she was gone.

I’m not saying she’s the stranger I won’t soon forget and I don’t want to read too much into these sorts of casual meetings, but all the same, I think they’re special because for a short time you can be completely open with someone without worrying about being judged since in all probability you’ll never meet them again. Or you could lie, and they’d never know the difference.

Soylent Green is people!!

Robbie Williams – You Know Me

Animotion – Obsession

Finishing line

Good gravy, I’ve almost missed another month. I know it looks like I’ve been away from here for a long time, but I haven’t really. In the process of starting my Tumblr page, I may have left behind my November post in favour of ‘micro-blogging’, but that was just a minor oversight. I’m still here, and Tumblr will only be my new graffiti wall, not mind space.

The time for retrospection, revelry and resolutions is upon us and most everyone around my age is under great pressure to be happy. Appropriately enough, I’ve been looking back at myself over the past year to find the bright spots and the not-so-bright ones, all essential to passing the time. While there were enough low points that I’d rather not dwell upon, one memory certainly stood out as a highlight to remember for a long time yet.

So far, I have never been in an unsuccessful interview. Or rather, I have passed every interview that I have ever attended (and having said that, I hope I haven’t jinxed myself). Early this year, I was the subject of a totally unconventional interview, conducted by a young lady who was obviously quite experienced at this sort of thing. She had with her a notepad in which she recorded my every answer, which kinda made me nervous, but I wasn’t sure why. On the subject of names, she first struggled through spelling mine, but was then quite giddy when she found out that she shared my mother’s first name.

She then asked me to show her my home city on a globe of the world and then had me calculate the amount of time it took to get from Point A to Point B. Contrary to a regular interview, she wasn’t concerned with the process, only the final answer; she was quite satisfied with mine. After that, she suggested that I shift home.

Of course, there was a cultural disparity since we were from different countries, which was probably why she was so interested in every little detail that I provided. But I still couldn’t believe my lucky streak; yet another interview in which I could do no wrong! At one point, she even high-fived me when she found out that I enjoyed Jolly Rancher candy as much as she.

And then we had dinner and she gulped down all of the root beer I had brought along.

I really should mention that she was 8 years old.

KT Tunstall – Christmas (Baby, Please Come Home)

Koop – Strange Love

And now, the news

Ok, I haven’t had time to write something special for today, so I give you this delightfully horrific little story by Edgar Allan Poe: Read!


On a side note, too bad about poor Caroline Wozniacki’s on-court spasm. Although, I’ll bet that video of her cramping up is really popular on the Internet and her grandchildren will probably watch it when they’re old enough to surf the net unsupervised!


Warren Zevon - Werewolves of London
Michael Jackson - Thriller

When September Ends

One of my favourite cinematic scenes is when someone crashes through a wall. No matter if the wall looks like it was constructed of papier-mâché, it’s still a greatly dynamic instant. I’m pretty sure I can’t break through a regular wall, but drywall is very much within the realm of possibility! Idly dreaming during (sometimes unnecessarily) long work meetings, I can imagine myself busting through the wall into the adjacent conference room. And just in case that isn’t intimidating enough to the unassuming folks on the other side, I can also be green and make caveman-ish sounds. Easy peasy!

I know I have a long way to go still, but at some point during the journey I would like to experience the event that becomes my story. Many people have many stories to tell, some more than others, but only a few have the story, the tale they tell that stokes the ember of interest in every listener. Whether horrific, fantastic or ecstatic, the story never fails to enrapture its audience. And I don’t mean the fluff you might catch in a break room, cafeteria or around the water cooler. This is serious stuff; the kind of stuff that is passed down within families, from generation to generation, changing ever so slightly with every new retelling but never forgoing the wonder of the original. In fact, the story is narrated so often by its owner, that with every passing year it either evolves into something more fanciful than before, or loses some of its less major elements to the clutches of time.

Unfortunately, I have no follies of youth to speak of, no movie-style romantic trysts, nor had any adventure that can be recounted with great gusto and pride. I might say my existence is absolutely unremarkable at present, if only that wasn’t such a cliché for someone my age. Unlike the general trend, I like to look at my life from the outside in, thus requiring more than just a personal sense of satisfaction or achievement to be suitably happy. Which doesn’t mean that I yearn for acknowledgment or approval by the people that surround me; on the contrary, it doesn’t matter as much as my own critique when I look back in at the events that have gone by and continue to do so, shaping my path through time. Narcissistic though it may seem, I think honest retrospection and self assessment does me well, rather than enduring the condescending, biased or disinterested opinions of others.

I don’t want to be greedy in wanting everything at once without having paid the price by facing the rigours of lice life, but I also hate having to think of an unpredictable future in which dreams can be forgotten or snuffed out in an instant, without anyone ever knowing they existed. This has certainly been the nature of things from time immemorial, but I don’t think it’s unfair to want a highlight before it’s too late. I don’t know, maybe it’s all this dreary rain that’s got me edgy and maybe tomorrow I won’t even feel the same way. But at the moment, this is my retrospection and I don’t want to lose it.

“Your world is nothing more than all the tiny things you left behind.”

The Turtles – Elenore

Skeeter Davis – The End of the World