Freedom at Midnight

India is impossible to define or confine in a few sentences. Here the wheels turn, halt, wobble, break-down and then complainingly start rolling again. Its a vast melting pot of people all thrown together to co-exist. India is everything, its a metaphor for life. There is no distant way to say what it is, you can never understand it unless you have felt it.

Its frustrating and limiting and then being free again. Its a land of heterogeneity, of races and cultures so diverse that they could fit a continent. And ironically we have been called a sub-continent :)

I don't intend to write up a primer to understanding India, it's as I said, to be experienced. However, as it is Independence Day today, I could not resist myself from watching a few black and white,grainy videos of our Freedom Struggle. They still give me goose-bumps, watching them is unlike anything I have seen in my life. Scores of people marching 400 km just to take up a handful of salt? Getting caned in most brutal fashion but not retaliate or run away? They were a different breed of people, fearless and self-less, not defying or destroying but calmly and persistently disobeying the Establishment. Yes, we did have our share of revolutionaries and proponents of armed struggle, but people embraced Satyagraha overwhelmingly and the struggle remained famously non-violent. Thats what makes me so proud to be a free child of India.
The images and videos lift me out of the mundane existence that we have become accustomed to and take for granted. They give me belief in the strength of our country and its collective humanity.

And a prayer for peace:


"Om dyo shaanti, Antarikshagwam shaanti
Prithvi shaanti, Aapah shaanti
Roshdyah shaanti, Vanspataya shaanti,
Vishwedeva shaanti, Brahma shaanti
Sarvagyum shaanti, Saa ma shaanti-re dhi.
Om shaanti, shaanti, shaanti."

BWSSB ... may I have some water please?

If you live in any of the big cities of India, chances are that you would have seen such days. The days when the taps whistle, water supply boards are untraceable and the water tankers make a killing. Well, except for me it has been almost 365 days of intermittent water supply and consistent bucket-hauling trips to a gracious neighbour's.

Now its become even better with everyone in my lane getting plenty of water but not a drop for us.

Incidentally ours is the last house and the combined curse (supposedly) of extremely low pressure and an upward bend in the pipe, makes it impossible for that holy liquid to trickle down to our parched tanks. And boy, when it does, do we feel blessed! So each day, my friend checks the meter below and announces the bad news solemnly "Buckets tomorrow".

Is it Karma? I don't really remember what I did to upset the Municipal Corporation gods, this past year has been hell. "Pay the linesman", confides our helpful neighbour, she has a private well in her house! Pay him? I would rather string him up.

You know that the situation is going to worsen when you can spy 100 liter drums being sold at your nearest departmental store. Oh yeah, I watch out for the signs.

Time to change the neighbourhood, suggestions anyone?

The curious case of my degree and some rum induced rant

My parents instilled the fear of karma into me, "Reap as you shall sow!" So here I am, already at the end of  four years of my professional life and still have no news of my engineering degree. Its a constant source of entertainment for my colleagues and friends, and an obvious thorn in the flesh for me.

If only I had studied and got into a decent college. Another "if only", the god damned thing seems to pop out everywhere in my life like a flaming Jack-in-the-Box. Its my mom's favourite lament, "if only ......".

So why am I thinking of my B.E. degree at midnight? Must be one of those Rum and Coke moments. Aaahh ... yes, we did after all have a great time stirring-up the muck in our lives today over a glass, under the cool breeze and star-light of Bangalore skies.

Did you notice that nothing works like alcohol to set loose a spirit of camaraderie? "You are not alone", thats what the conversation soothingly says to you and you slip away into its arms like a willing child. Of course, some annoying people turn to their blog!

A farewell

A close friend of mine will be leaving Bangalore soon, marking the way that we all are going to live our lives separately. Four years out of college, and it still hasn't sunk-in that we are gravitating away from the back-slapping chumminess that we share with our friends. But now friends will go their separate ways, and I will take mine and hope that we keep in touch.

I'm not particularly sad or broody about him leaving, its just that he won't be near enough for me to drop into his place every time I feel like. I'm going to miss him just like I miss the Dehradun winters, wistfully and retrospectively.

Deutschland raft!

They say an opportunity comes dressed in overalls and looks a lot like work... umm, I don't know, it looks a lot like football to me :) The lucky bastards of  the SAPLabs India football team are getting an enviable chance to tour Germany! How lucky is that?
Heheh ... well considering that I have been working there for the past two years and never got a chance to go for work, this seems like a great offer. Fly to Germany with all your buddies, have no work hassles, play football in the evenings and just roam around Europe in whatever free time that you get. Oh and I forgot, drink all the freshly brewed beer. Awesome!
So, duly, I have my passport photo snapped and my Visa form filled and my fingers crossed for a first taste of Europe.
P.S. any suggestions for places to visit WILL BE considered seriously!

A Quality Shoe

My past two weekends have been sacrificed to shoe-hunting. Man, I feel like a girl! My male pride is hurt, I have never ever been this fussy about anything in my life. I'm not getting any decent, wearable pair of shoes for even 3k. Its a travesty! Its unthinkable! And it has pissed me off completely.

What's more, the sales-people they have in these huge air-conditioned stores are so bored with their work that they can't even try to show you anything. Sir, its right in front of you, help yourself. 

Whatever I want is way too expensive and whatever they offer, is what I wouldn't be caught even sleep-walking in. So there's a classic example of Life, sermonizes my brain. Yeah, yeah smart-ass.
Then suddenly a known melody fills out the ensuing gap with delightfully apt words...

 " You got your
   toecaps reinforced with steel,
   Hard-wearing
   sole and heel,
   Make those tired feet feel like new.

   Take your pick,
   black or Brown
  Great for the country
   or the man in town,
   You're gonna need a quality shoe"

User name already exists

That's the story for most of us late starters to the Web, the address is already taken. And English, being the common denominator with a paltry 26 alphabets, doesn't help either. 
The story is that I was checking out the WordPress online blogging thing, and well, there it was. I couldn't get a goddamned user name. Let me tell you that I'm very imaginative with words and letters, and I tried a lot of awesome names and mythology references, but the Server God wasn't appeased. I was vanquished. All the awesome names were taken by all the awesome people. 
So what can a guy do? Rant against the civilization.