The spam story

Disclaimer: This piece is the recollection of one of my distant memories, so it may not be exact, Though it is a real life incident, resemblance to any of you may be highly possible!

Back in the days, when hotmail, yahoo had just hit our senses, I was a naive internet dilettante. I used to create email accounts like a maniac. I had at least three accounts in hotmail, five accounts in yahoo and two accounts in rediff(if you had more than that, then you a bigger maniac, you unsocial psychopath!).
One fine day, I received a mail from some Ms. X(let's call her Ms.X as I don't remember her name and you don't need to know either). So I received this letter from this Ms. X, asking to move a huge sum of money she was about to inherit from the massacred parents. She had written that she had barely become eligible for marriage and she would inherit all the so called "huge sum of fortune" only if she got married. Her simple request was, I had to finance her flight tickets from some distant African country to my country and marry her and she would share a part of her fortune with me and go her own way.
The deal sounded so inviting. But the problem was, I was still underage to get married and I didn't have the money to buy her the tickets. Though I dearly wanted to be her knight in shining armour, I had to give up this thought for reasons mentioned above. That time, I had cursed my limited pocket money and I had cursed myself for losing a beautiful wife with truckload of money!(why beautiful? you should have read her letter, moron!)
So I gave up this idea to rescue this lady, but I was really lucky for I had another opportunity of rescuing another damsel in distress. But yet again I was left cursing my fate for the same aforementioned two reasons.
Days passed and those ladies with deep pockets slipped into oblivion, one day while talking with my friend(who of course was a bigger internet freak than me) I told him about the ladies and their stories. He laughed and said, "you a**$%&e, they all are fake, they just try to trick you to send money for the flight tickets and then... kiss your money goodbye! It is called spam!"
I became a spam wiser that day onwards and however sympathetic their mail be, they can't trick me because I don't give a rat's ass to such spams these days.
But you know what? Now a days they are trying to sell me lotteries, replica watches, viagra and some kinda of "manhood enhancing" medicines! As if I need them ;)

Five Blasts rock Bangalore

Shit! I'm scared man! there have been 5 serial blasts in Bangalore, around the place I work! :(
The situation is like, whether to stay back at office or to go home.
Normally these people target intellectual properties, you know! Intellectual properties... like me, like my office!
Oh my god! How am I going home today? God be with me. Mommy, I want to go home....

Lighter side of the story: I'm not as scared as I've written above, I simply want to go home earlier than usual, so making myself prepared to skip rest of the day's work! :)

Still, you people around Bangalore, be cautious. That's what I can say.

My abnormalities

After years of sporadic introspections, I have come to know, well, I have several abnormalities... :)
And I must say I have never tried to normalize them, for they've bailed me out of several dire circumstances and desperate situations. So these abnormalities have been blessing in disguise. You too might find several similarities, read on:

1. The sense of direction : This might be because of my ethnicity, I'm not sure. I feel this is because the way I learned to recognize directions. As I come from hills, all that I learned about directions was either up or down. :) Quite comical, but this is how it is. In hills, when you give directions to a certain location, either it has to be up or down from your relative position, and each place has it's own signature, that is, no two places are identical. So it easier for a person to have the picture of the direction to a place once he reaches. But in cities, woah! I find everything similar, I can't make much difference out of them. Now, here something comes handy when I travel, advertisement hoardings and shops' title boards. After staying so many years in cities, still I use this trick to track down the route to a given destination. But the problem arises when the hoarding changes or the shops' title boards are written in the language I can't read!

2. Left or right : I can't make out which side is left and which is right, the way people do. I have to think for a while, and then I conceive the idea of left and right. Sometimes(especially while in autoricksaws), by the time I sense which is left and which is right, the vehicle passes the given diversion. :)
So now a days, I've come point my hands towards the direction I need to go, don't think about left or right, sounds pretty crude, but serves my purpose!

3. Dreamless : This could be funny to those people who dream even during the days... :)
For me dreams are like oasis, a year has 365 days and I dream may be 5 to 6 times in a whole year. How I long to dream not to be mentioned here dreams, how I long to dream those wonderful, success story dreams.
The funny part is, I had to make up stories when I was in primary school, every friend of mine used to have a dream to tell, and I use to fake a dream!! Hardest part comes when my loved one says, she had seen me in dreams! Now what the hell should I say? If I say I don't dream, I might be tagged with a heartless adjective, and if I say even I had seen her in my dreams, it's an outright lie. I wont write here what I do in such situation. :)
P.S : I sleep like a hog. :)

4. Photographic memory : Lots of people find this abnormality similar to theirs, but I have twist in the tale. For me it's easier to remember what I read, what I hear, word by word. Sometimes my radar picks up the conversations not related to me in remotest sense and still makes me remember. I used to see the entire book, word by word(well, not exactly), during my examination. :)
But with this privilege, comes a disadvantage, I forget things quickly, and pretty quickly. Good part is I still remember the essence/gist of what a particular sentence meant.

So far they have helped me in some way or other. So I would conclude it's better to have abnormalities if you use them in good effect.

My first go at carting

When we reached Patel's Inn, everything was calm and silent, so boring I thought while getting down from the vehicle. A few, countable people were here and there, a medium sized car park area and a few coconut trees overlooking it, what a waste, I thought again. After the heavy lunch at The Beach, I had already started feeling sleepy and ambience of the place was so grasping, I nearly somnambulated. :)
But when I turned to the right, the asphalt was calling. A topsy-turvy, serpentine, black asphalt, guarded by colorful tyres on both the sides, looked quite exciting. The call was undeniable, excitement unstoppable.
The same adrenaline rush that Schumacher, Alonso and Hamilton feel, though not of same degree, but yet, I felt this afternoon. Man, this was my first encounter with the go-carting and of course first time behind the four-wheels. Felt great, at first I was a bit hesitant but the way it was zipping past us, it surely made me ready to have a go. So my turn came, my first seven laps behind the wheels, in driver's seat. My lap started after I handed the ticket to the instructor/coordinator. First curve came, I conquered it with ease, second came, third came, then came fourth, fifth curves, I managed them, but when the sixth curve came, I lost the balance, the car skidded and slam! it hit the pile of old tyres and got stuck. The person who was roaming around the track came, leaping the track boundaries created by the old tyres, pulled my car and helped me to be back on the track. I raced away, again the same adrenaline rush, the heat of the gen-set behind my seat, screeching of tyres, everything added to the excitement. Completed one lap, again the same curves, I crossed, again I hit the same place(sixth turning) and got stuck, same guy came and pulled me(along with my car) from the pile of disarrayed tyres, I raced again. I lost the measure of time and the number of laps and the race was over, the person flagged a stop sign and my race of excitement was over. Poor me!
Liked the experience, and I remember I hit the same pile of tyres four times in total during my seven laps of happiness. :)
When I came out of track, my friend asked, were u drunk? how many times did you hit the same pile of tyres? I simply smiled! :)
Everybody completed their share of race/laps and we were happily back in the vehicle, all of the reckless drivers. While coming back I fell asleep, woke up only when the destination had arrived. But the experience was unbeatable, I wish to visit the place some other day and soon.

Of ads and jingles

Sometimes when I'm down, bored or upset, I dont feel like talking, I curse each and every object, alive or dead and even then satisfaction eludes me. The last resort is the idiot box, for it wont retort back even if you say something nasty about it. Yes I mean it, the idiot-box, and I dont like soaps, the reality shows or the movies that the airing channels boast of, but one thing about it that always cheers me up are advertisements. It's the ads I watch TV for... :)
Indian ads have come a long way from the time, when Jaaved Jaafri jumped out of the office breaking the window in Humdard ka Cinkara and "Raju tumhare daant toh moti jaise chamak rahein hain". The widest variety of ads that they air in each channel are treat to watch and amuses me to an extent undefinable. Some are funny, some are stupid, some are vulgar, some are outrageously ridiculous and some are meaningful, yet they all have same effect on me, they relieve pressure off me. I've many favorites and the list keeps changing, rather keep getting appended in my long list of favorites. These ads came and went by, but the dont stop me from amusement.
My personal favorite these days is Vodafone Astrology alerts, where a guy waits for this partner-to-be in a lift the whole day.
I remember my old days when I was barely six or seven, television had just hit the scene and sunday used to be the day when Doordarshan used to telecast everything good that used to be in its kitty. So our neighbours used to come to our place to watch Mahabharata, it used to start from 9AM. It was a fine sunday for everybody, pleasant weather, doordarshan tuned TV and we the viewers, but not for my uncle, who was watching it relishing with equal enthusiasm, oblivion of the question that would hit him like no other. After the first session of Mahabharata got over, TV screen was flooded by a flurry of ads. And then came an ad.... "Pyaar hua, ikraar hua hai, pyaar se fir kyon darta hai dil...." I as an avid ad fan, hadn't been able to get hold of this ad, the more I watched the more anxious I used to become, so finally I had to give answers to my anxiety, the answer I dint have, so I asked my all-knowing uncle, what this ad was about! So I asked, all that followed was a deep silence. After few gasping uncomfortable(for everybody except me) moments, my uncle said-"You'll know it when the time comes...". The time flew by, doordarshan got replaced but myriad new channels, that particular ad went out of broadcast, and I've come of an age where I can make out the messages that ads want to deliver across the consumers, but still I can't forget that particular incident!
And did I tell you, my time came and I knew it all ?!

Happy Valentine's Day

Happy Valentine's Day! Did u hear that from somebody? did u? Okie, did u wish somebody? Well... I did. :)
This Valentine's Day brings me the vivid memories of my college life, and I'm all smiles. Valentine's day used to be amusement for us, me and my bunch of friends. All set from a week or two before, plans in place, targets locked(each of our ladies chosen), we used to wait for this day to come, revising and re-devising the plan, trying to change the targets and swapping them. Wonderful memories! At that time, our innovation always used to be at its best, creativity oozing out from everyone of us. How would one approach to his valentine-to-be, what choicest of words one would be saying, attacks and counter-attacks. It used to be no less than a chess match, the only difference was we were players and we ourselves were the set-pieces. The long awaited day, 14th of February, would come, we used to raid the town, fully loaded with emotions, sometimes we used to hit targets and other times(well most of the times) we used to return empty-handed, emotionally drained. But still our valentine's day would continue for another one week or so. There's a different kind of joy when good things lengthen, get stretched. So we used to stretch the V-day too. And why shouldn't we? After all those days of preparation.
And gradually all would fade away... some happy with their targets, some happy without them, waiting for another V-day to come.
But as they say, life has to move on and so did I, and now I've come a long way from those days, and I'm into a relationship, that too a steady one, I still miss those days, the thrill, the anticipation, acceptance, rejection, happiness, gloom, everything.
I long to go back in those days where Valentine's Day used to be a 2 weeks' affair, preparation, execution and aftermath. I know I can't, but still I long to...
Anyways, memories remain, to cherish! This retrospection gave me a really happy feeling. Thank you guys, without you those days wouldn't have been such enjoyable.
Cheers!

Visit to Puttaparthy, the journey

Day is Friday, the 25th of Jan '08. Everybody is in haste, packing bags, preparing the breakfast, getting ready... today we are leaving for Puttaparthi, visit to our very own Sai baba's birth place, hoping to get a glimpse of him, a "Darshan". So, all set, we get into the auto (oh my! the dreadful auto), to reach the boarding station, Yashwanthpur. Aunties and uncles are yet to come when we reach there, so we grasp the opportunity and light a cigarette. They arrive after the butt had been severely crushed below one of our shoes. We board with a happy feeling, the elders with a happy feeling about getting a "Darshan", younger ones are always happy as long as their demands are fulfilled, and for me, as I already told, I'm in the picnic-mode, so can't be less happier. :)
The boggies are almost empty, a few people here and there. We occupy one of the compartments, aunties starts their own chit-chats, uncles have their own agenda to discuss, and I'm too happy to spend more of my picnic-days travelling, occationally clicking pictures from the window, of whatever I felt interesting.


One of the interesting things



The train had hardly covered a distance of 2 hours, a shrill voice out-sounds the constant sound of the locomotive and intrudes my imagination, my imagination of the place, my imagination of seeing Sai Baba in real person, my imagination of another part of my picnic-days. Shortly after this alien sound intruded, I became aware of the fact that this sound wasn't alone, there was a harmonium accompanying it. Now the source of the sound appeared, a boy of 13 to 14 years of age, wearing a blue chequered shirt and black half-pants, a harmonium slung across his neck. Think of any of Amitabh's movie of 70s and 80s and think of Amitabh's childhood character, whose mother dies of a disease, or whose father is killed by the goons, or who has no parents but still has his younger siblings to look after. Think of that character, and you can get the idea how how this boy must be. Otherwise see this picture.


The singer



Now he starts singing, my uncle wants him to sing the popular hindi songs, and this boy has no option but to oblige, he starts belting the hindi numbers in a bit awkward accent to make my uncles happy, accompanying him in this quest is his harmonium, equally shrill, but much more melodious. May be he had learnt these hindi songs with a great pain, may be he didn't have the access to the basic ameneties for listening the songs and grasp each and every bit of the lyrics, so he was singing at his own pace, and I was finding the lyrical error at my own pace though I didn't let anybody know that I was observing him(I find lyrical-error very quickly, because I have a fairly good lyrics memorizing mechanism, this is one of the very few good properties my brain possesses). Had he been in some singing contest like Indian Idol, Javed Akhtar would have thrown his chappal at him. Pity he doesn't own a tape-recorder or a radio, I thought. I'm sure he doesn't own one. But my uncle was no less than Annu Malik in criticizing and passing the comments. Yet I'm sure it didn't make any difference to him, for two reasons. One, he hardly knew hindi and that too my uncle's hindi..., forget it. Two, may be he's used to it, so I didn't see any change in his expression as per the comments. Now my uncles started enjoying his songs so they sing along one or two of the songs. I thought what if this fellow had been in some reality singing competition, even though he wouldn't have won(would lose due to lack of votes), I'm sure he would have learnt a lot of singing technics. So after few more anti-flawless songs, he bids them goodbye grabbing everything that my uncles gave him, comes to our compartment, where I'm seated near window, I put my hand in my right pocket (that's where I keep all my change, left pocket will always have my celfon in it :) ) pull out a 5 rupee coin, and place my hand just above his, ready to release it(the coin), but all of a sudden his hand placed just below mine, comes up, and cuts short the 5 rupee coin's journey, snatching it from my hand. He leaves compartment and us, and gets down in one of the stations, I felt one of our fellow travellers boarding down. I sympathized his agony, that's the only thing I could do. Thought his life too is not different than the '70s '80s Amitabh's childhood character. But the future? Will he be a Bijay Dinanath Chauhan? Will he become a Don? God knows...
Our journey resumes normally, as all the normal journey should, but I've this strange thinking, what will become of him? what? what?
Finally at 1.30 PM, we arrive at Sri Satya Prasanthi Nagara(did I get the name correct?), we get down from the train, get into a bus which we hire for 100 bucks. I had neither seen a conductor of his age, or his rage, nor had I seen a passenger like that, must be of around 40 to 50 years of age, with yellowish/reddish teeth, the remains of just finished paan all over her teeth and corners of her lips. Everytime the bus stopped to pick or drop the passenger(s), they quarrelled, vehemently, may be they bombarded each other with some "your mothers and your sisters" kind of speeches, and they quarrelled until another drop/pick-up point was reached. So it's was a horrible experience of Puttaparthy at the first encounter, but I's sure of things becoming more calm and soothing after we get down, after all this is Sai baba's place. During the ride, one I had feeling of grabbing that boy and throwing him out of the bus window. Oh my my, did I tell you why they were quarrelling? They were quarrelling because the lady with paan had got into bus with two big plastic bags, and the boy wanted a fare for those plastic bags too, paan lady wasn't complying, so the boy was trying to get rid of her in every stop, was trying to get her down, by sometimes pulling her, sometimes her plastic bags. And everytime, she fired him with dangerous words, I didn't understand the language, but the expression in her face clearly showed what it was....
At last reached, Puttaparthy, got down the bus, felt very tired and hungry, but was happy that finally we reached the destination, and I didn't think of the singer met back in train, didn't think of the quarrelling duo of the bus, only thing I thought that time was.... ah ! the food and a bed to rest...

a visit, reunion, a performer, the traffic et all

My uncle and his family's long awaited visit to our place has finally turned into reality. And it has made a kinda reunion here, at least for me. From the day they(my uncle and his family) landed here I've deserted my previous house and shifted at my cousin's place. So it's kinda picnic for me, and of course, I came across, a lot of new experiences which I'll hereby narrate :) ...
First thing I came across is it takes 95 bucks to reach Majestic railway station from my place. And came to know that the traffic is not the only nuisance in the city; there are "autowallahs". The more I try to befriend them, more they try to cheat me.... Reached railway station half-dead, criss-crossing the traffic with myriad vehicles and the fare-meter read 93, but I dint get my change back from this so called auto-driver after I handed him bill of 100, and wen asked about the return, he simply said "No Change". Felt like hitting one "sucker-punch" in his face. After baptizing him with choicest of swear words, I entered inside the station.(Swear words were in my mother-tongue so I'm sure he must have thought them as substitution for a thank you and must have wondered how long, multi-syllable a thank you in my mother-tongue is! As he rode away smiling, I thought whether he really thought a "Thank you" can be that long, or was it because of the extra 7 bucks he earned....???? well... god knows)
Met uncles inside and came back with them in a hired cab, destination; cousin's place. When we had finished with our dinner, the day had grown old enough to take us to bed.
The next day; now the actual adventure starts, navigating the bangalore traffic in a two wheeler. No no, it's not me who does the navigation, it's my traffic-dexterous friend, Ashu, who gives me a pillion ride, and I get ample time for the observation.
It exactly takes 30 mins to reach office from home, whatever route we take, it's always the same, 30 mins. And these 30 minutes.. ummm... makes me feel like I'm a performer, though nobody watches us performing and it's not something like I'm live on some TV, but still the way we overtake and by-pass the plethora of human-carrying machines on a black labyrinth of bangalore's road-way, it really surges the adrenaline to rush across every single cell of my body. The way bus-drivers drive, sometimes I feel like they are the highest road-tax payers, and as if they own the road. And I cannot stop comparing the autos(autowallahs included) with the monkeys, yes you read it correct, monkeys. Their indifference, the way they trouble a person who is late for work by asking double the actual charge, the way they drive, everything reminds me of monkeys. Sometimes I find them sadistic, especially when it rains. When it does(rains) most of them wont ask where one wants to go, they will stop the auto near you, but wont ask you where you want to go, instead, they'll simply stop it there and wait, wait for you to ask them... and when you do, they wont say "double" or some exorbitant amount of money, they'll simply say "no", a firm no. I wonder what kinda pleasure they get, seeing others suffer....!!!
oh I drifted away from the main topic.... the performer... so I was saying I feel like a performer when I get a pillion ride... many two wheeler riders WILL laugh at me and my haughtiness but this is just my way of interpreting things, one of the beautiful things that this city has to offer. The skills my rider, Ashu has, I sure feel like I'm in safe hands(legs included, otherwise who'll change gears... :) ) The way he manipulates the tiny spaces between two four-wheelers, the shortest and less congested path from point A to point B, you ask it and he knows it all, and I like that, really like that. I'm sure most of you have seen a tight-rope walker walking across on the rope. When he does that he's very careful, every moment, every second. A small mistake can cost him worth lot more than the pain.... so, alert all the time... my friend here too, is as alert as a tight-rope walker, and add the skill of smooth-riding in bangalore's traffic, wow!!! One hell of a rider. And we perform at bangalore traffic during the mornings and evenings, weekdays. Death defying manoeuvres between the four-wheelers, whizzing past a slower vehicle, navigating the shorter but tiny "gully's", managing the 4-way intersections and passing through them, you name it and we do it all.
My days are still being spent at cousin's place, I still perform in the bangalore traffic everyday, sans Saturdays and Sundays. Come ride along with me and be a performer... cheers...

Day II @ Konnappna Agrahara

The very next day.... I followed the same routine that i had gone thru on saturday. In fact, all my weekends hav gone by similarly.
So after the luncheon in nearby restaurant, we are off towards newly constructed flyover, which now beautifies the otherwise deserted electronics city.
My fren had promised me to show me the "touch-me-not" the other day, so mission of the visit : "touch-me-nots" :)
Reached the side of the newly constructed flyover where a vast area was covered with so called touch-me-nots.
Cameras in hands, mission in minds... :) we start the same monkey business. I took two videos featurin touch-me-nots. And then started capturin the surroundings. We found one tiny flower that was blossomin amidst the touch-me-nots. I stuck myself near it and took its pictures. It was really lovely, here's how it looked like.


My centre of attraction

Now we shifted our focus towards the main attraction, the flyover. The sky was clear, bright blue with some clouds here and there. The sky looked beautiful, decorated by the chunks of clouds scattered around. So I planned to capture it along with the black-surfaced road. So self-timed the camera, placed it in the middle of the road. The result was beautiful.



After that, while returnin back I took this picture. I really liked the composition of the colors it has captured. Really one of the few I've really liked.



Finally sunday has come to an end, I pack my bag again and start my journey towards my cousin's place.
Phew! that was a great weekend...

Visit to Konappna Agrahara

Day is saturday, I start the day rather late than usual, lazin around, draggin my butt around in a very typical "me" fashion. After all the household chores, I pack my bags for a visit to fren's place.
Distance covered. Destination reached. So after the initial hi's and hello's, we climb up to the building's terrace, to get the beautiful sunset frames(We literally climbed up the terrace, for it had a small openin to get thru and the metal ladder we used for the purpose was almost inclined at 80 degrees. :) )
The sun started to go down the horizon and we started clickin pictures vehemently. And shit! my memory card ran out of space and I missed quite a few shots while deletin the old pictures.
Here are few of my attempts to capture that moment.



The sun sets majestically

That's not me, I was busy takin pictures