A number of times in my life, I’ve likened myself to a lot of fictional characters. And have behaved what that character would’ve done in that particular situation. Part of this had been accentuated by a wave of Calvin books that swept by me in no time. Calvin thinks of himself as different characters in difficult situations and tries to struggle with his nemesis of the moment accordingly, only to realize towards the end that he actually is not what he thinks of himself to be. Reality strikes and things come back to haunt him.
Lately, I’ve wanted a lot to be like Forrest Gump. If, if I could just run away from some of the things in life.
The other day, I found a couple of lines a friend had scribbled in my yearbook (and I quote) “…you the complex kid, who’s got all the candy the world has to offer and yet...yet the yearning for that elusive chocolate that you missed.” Of all the things that my friends have said about me, this to my mind is quite a close description. And lately while I’m yet to find my elusive chocolate I think the life of this supposedly complex kid has got that bit more complex.
“Can I just run away with you to an island with loads of chocolates, water, a pile of Frasier and movie DVDs, music CD’s , my home theater system, comics and some cricket magazines and books?”
The question to be asked is: If the thought of escapism is quite soothing in itself, what unbridled joy might a real escape actually bring?
Friday, December 15, 2006
Tuesday, December 5, 2006
The Art of Superficial Science
I have a problem.
Many of my close friends are getting married. The problem I have is I hate attending weddings. And a lot of my friends think that an ideal way for me to express my warmth towards them is for me to attend their weddings. I disagree completely.
If you conduct a dipstick among my friends I think most of them will tell you that I’ve been a decent friend to hang around with. I have smiled, laughed, frowned, teased and listened to all my friends. I’ll continue doing all of that and more all my life but one thing that really pisses me off more than eating Mutton Palak (They serve it in our canteen. I don’t know why!) is that one line that I dread hearing from my friends.
“You can’t even attend our wedding?”
What the bloody f**k?
I brought you home on my shoulders when you were pissed drunk. I let you copy from my notebooks when you didn’t know that Gobi Desert was not a sweet dish but a spot on Asia’s physical map. I was the one who actually told that girl you finally married that you liked her. And I still haven’t told your wife yet that you got rejected five times before by 3 different girls before you proposed her.
So what have I done wrong if I didn’t attend your stupid wedding? What was in it for me anyway? You’re the one who gets married, gets all the gifts and takes a vacation for the honeymoon. How will it help me if I attend your goddamn wedding?
Now the puritan will stand up and give us the explanation that joys and sorrows are meant to be shared. He must’ve heard it from his father and his father must have heard it from his neighbor who in his green fields must’ve heard some donkey braying in Tadzhik (a Central Asia dialect) that joys and sorrows were meant to be shared. This entire world creates a superfluous din about this whole rigmarole of wedding celebrations but nobody realizes why they do it.
Make a grand announcement from Qutub Minar. Carve an invitation card with sandalwood. Let a thousand odd people eat so much that they can’t even shit properly the next day. Decorate cars with flowers. Get dressed in your finest suit and drive your bride away on a rented limousine. Wake up next morning like a pauper, make a list of all those people who didn’t attend the wedding and then call them up and moan, “You didn’t even attend our wedding!”
Just as Robert De Niro’s exclaims in Goodfellas, I’m left wondering, “What’s the world coming to?”
Can’t the world see through the contorted custom, the hollow celebrations and the redundancy of inviting people to weddings? And on top of all of this, the reckless expectation, that everyone should attend these weddings. Sorry, but I fail to get this. Completely.
The last wedding I went for, I cringed and cribbed and cursed myself for the whole of 50 minutes I’d to be there. There was a group of friends who were seemingly having fun. They danced on the streets of Delhi for no good reason with some losers trumpeting distorted versions of old Hindi numbers ahead of them. I shook a leg and wished I had drowned in Red Sea. And then I hear my friends telling me , “Yaar, shaadi mein bahut mazaa aaya…” .
I asked my friend, "Isme mazaa kya aaya?"
He looked at me as if I asked the dumbest thing ever and shrugged his shoulders saying , "Mazaa to aaya..."
Now let’s spend a moment on the logistics. Even if you go for your best friend’s wedding, you can’t speak to him one bit. The guy/girl will have a plastic smile on his face all the time. He won’t be your college buddy he used to be. He wants you to be there, even if he won’t be able to see you. Why? Even he doesn’t know. But his family must’ve told him, “Invite all your friends”, so if his friends don’t turn up, he’ll be questioned and if you didn’t go his level of conviction in the “Yes! They came!” in his bellow won't shine through.
I can understand the importance of big moments and the need of friends around you in such moments. But the moment you’re getting married to someone, somewhere you’ve chosen your best friend for life, so why do you need your old friends to be there physically to gape at you? And if you haven’t chosen your best friend to marry, why the hell are you even getting married?
So my dear friends, get married, have a great life, live long and stay happy! I wish you well even if I don’t attend your wedding. I just can’t practice the superficial science of being able to attend weddings and not feeling hollow about the entire celebrations. Meanwhile, I’ll continue being the friend you could always hang around with.
Like the good old college days, I think…
Many of my close friends are getting married. The problem I have is I hate attending weddings. And a lot of my friends think that an ideal way for me to express my warmth towards them is for me to attend their weddings. I disagree completely.
If you conduct a dipstick among my friends I think most of them will tell you that I’ve been a decent friend to hang around with. I have smiled, laughed, frowned, teased and listened to all my friends. I’ll continue doing all of that and more all my life but one thing that really pisses me off more than eating Mutton Palak (They serve it in our canteen. I don’t know why!) is that one line that I dread hearing from my friends.
“You can’t even attend our wedding?”
What the bloody f**k?
I brought you home on my shoulders when you were pissed drunk. I let you copy from my notebooks when you didn’t know that Gobi Desert was not a sweet dish but a spot on Asia’s physical map. I was the one who actually told that girl you finally married that you liked her. And I still haven’t told your wife yet that you got rejected five times before by 3 different girls before you proposed her.
So what have I done wrong if I didn’t attend your stupid wedding? What was in it for me anyway? You’re the one who gets married, gets all the gifts and takes a vacation for the honeymoon. How will it help me if I attend your goddamn wedding?
Now the puritan will stand up and give us the explanation that joys and sorrows are meant to be shared. He must’ve heard it from his father and his father must have heard it from his neighbor who in his green fields must’ve heard some donkey braying in Tadzhik (a Central Asia dialect) that joys and sorrows were meant to be shared. This entire world creates a superfluous din about this whole rigmarole of wedding celebrations but nobody realizes why they do it.
Make a grand announcement from Qutub Minar. Carve an invitation card with sandalwood. Let a thousand odd people eat so much that they can’t even shit properly the next day. Decorate cars with flowers. Get dressed in your finest suit and drive your bride away on a rented limousine. Wake up next morning like a pauper, make a list of all those people who didn’t attend the wedding and then call them up and moan, “You didn’t even attend our wedding!”
Just as Robert De Niro’s exclaims in Goodfellas, I’m left wondering, “What’s the world coming to?”
Can’t the world see through the contorted custom, the hollow celebrations and the redundancy of inviting people to weddings? And on top of all of this, the reckless expectation, that everyone should attend these weddings. Sorry, but I fail to get this. Completely.
The last wedding I went for, I cringed and cribbed and cursed myself for the whole of 50 minutes I’d to be there. There was a group of friends who were seemingly having fun. They danced on the streets of Delhi for no good reason with some losers trumpeting distorted versions of old Hindi numbers ahead of them. I shook a leg and wished I had drowned in Red Sea. And then I hear my friends telling me , “Yaar, shaadi mein bahut mazaa aaya…” .
I asked my friend, "Isme mazaa kya aaya?"
He looked at me as if I asked the dumbest thing ever and shrugged his shoulders saying , "Mazaa to aaya..."
Now let’s spend a moment on the logistics. Even if you go for your best friend’s wedding, you can’t speak to him one bit. The guy/girl will have a plastic smile on his face all the time. He won’t be your college buddy he used to be. He wants you to be there, even if he won’t be able to see you. Why? Even he doesn’t know. But his family must’ve told him, “Invite all your friends”, so if his friends don’t turn up, he’ll be questioned and if you didn’t go his level of conviction in the “Yes! They came!” in his bellow won't shine through.
I can understand the importance of big moments and the need of friends around you in such moments. But the moment you’re getting married to someone, somewhere you’ve chosen your best friend for life, so why do you need your old friends to be there physically to gape at you? And if you haven’t chosen your best friend to marry, why the hell are you even getting married?
So my dear friends, get married, have a great life, live long and stay happy! I wish you well even if I don’t attend your wedding. I just can’t practice the superficial science of being able to attend weddings and not feeling hollow about the entire celebrations. Meanwhile, I’ll continue being the friend you could always hang around with.
Like the good old college days, I think…
Saturday, November 25, 2006
The rewritten script
I’m seldom taken in by surprise. Even if I am, I act like I’m in control. Nothing bothers me. The best I’ve always done is when there’s chaos around me. I love tough times because when I’m in one , all I tell myself is how soon I’ll recount victoriously the tale of how I survived that phase. I control the pace of everything around me. I’ve a great set of friends and I live like a millionaire even though I’m not one. I always believe there is a way to make everything happen the way you want it to happen. In short, there’s nothing in my life right now, that isn’t in alignment to the script that I chose to write and I thank my Lord for that.
Yet what happened last week is so bizarre that I’m still struggling to figure this one out.
For once, I’m a little stumped by what confronts me. Its one thing that I was never prepared for this and it’s another that even my best preparation would have not helped one bit. Imagine reading a book, that you were told, had pictures on all the left hand pages of the book. You went as far as the middle of the book only to realize that the right hand pages of the book had pictures too.
Now, would you turn back all the pages to look at all the right hand side pictures as well? Or would you go ahead and keep looking at the pictures on the left hand side of the book? Or would you look at the pictures on both sides of the book?
But what if, to go ahead you had to choose only one side of the book to look at.What would you do?
Imagine waking up one fine morning and being told that you actually had two identities. Two lives. Two separate lives...
Yet what happened last week is so bizarre that I’m still struggling to figure this one out.
For once, I’m a little stumped by what confronts me. Its one thing that I was never prepared for this and it’s another that even my best preparation would have not helped one bit. Imagine reading a book, that you were told, had pictures on all the left hand pages of the book. You went as far as the middle of the book only to realize that the right hand pages of the book had pictures too.
Now, would you turn back all the pages to look at all the right hand side pictures as well? Or would you go ahead and keep looking at the pictures on the left hand side of the book? Or would you look at the pictures on both sides of the book?
But what if, to go ahead you had to choose only one side of the book to look at.What would you do?
Imagine waking up one fine morning and being told that you actually had two identities. Two lives. Two separate lives...
Monday, November 20, 2006
Looking back. And ahead
Since I’m back after a long time, need to warm up to blogging all over again and hence this is going to be an attempt at flashback over the last month.
1. My radio station finally hit the airwaves in style. The media campaign has been received well and Fever104 FM is on its way to Bombay next. After weeks of long hours at work, I’m retaining sanity and with it signs of survival.
2. Lately I’ve been in love with rickshaw rides as the weather in Delhi is an absolute ripper these days. Have also been spending some gorgeous Sundays between newspapers, movies and friends. On the flip side, I’ve had to quit my theater group.
3. And lastly, there was one and only one thing I thought and dreamt I’d buy for myself after getting a job on campus. It was the only thing that I wanted to own. Not a car, no shoes, no clothes and no watches and no laptops and no cell phone. There was no looking forward to any of it. Just this fervent anticipation in a beauty called a Sony Music System. Last week I finally uncorked the splendid lady in my room. In a tribute to my idols, the first armory I played on my system comprised a Dire Straits tape, a VCD each of “Taxi Driver” and “And Justice for All” and the Floyd Pulse Concert DVD.
And the last bit of it only reinforces what I always believed in. A dream is at best a trivial pursuit but when you get there it does feel right. :-)
1. My radio station finally hit the airwaves in style. The media campaign has been received well and Fever104 FM is on its way to Bombay next. After weeks of long hours at work, I’m retaining sanity and with it signs of survival.
2. Lately I’ve been in love with rickshaw rides as the weather in Delhi is an absolute ripper these days. Have also been spending some gorgeous Sundays between newspapers, movies and friends. On the flip side, I’ve had to quit my theater group.
3. And lastly, there was one and only one thing I thought and dreamt I’d buy for myself after getting a job on campus. It was the only thing that I wanted to own. Not a car, no shoes, no clothes and no watches and no laptops and no cell phone. There was no looking forward to any of it. Just this fervent anticipation in a beauty called a Sony Music System. Last week I finally uncorked the splendid lady in my room. In a tribute to my idols, the first armory I played on my system comprised a Dire Straits tape, a VCD each of “Taxi Driver” and “And Justice for All” and the Floyd Pulse Concert DVD.
And the last bit of it only reinforces what I always believed in. A dream is at best a trivial pursuit but when you get there it does feel right. :-)
Sunday, October 22, 2006
A 100 Wishes!
My cell hasn’t stopped buzzing since this morning. I haven’t written the latest bestseller, neither have I scored a half century at Lords nor have I found out that Bin Laden is still alive. I have still not breached my boundaries of a fairly simplistic existence in any manner and yet my cell has been incessantly buzzing with messages wishing me and my family a prosperous, happy, safe and what-not Diwali.
Having immersed myself in some of the Freakonomics theories to quite an extent, I found myself asking the question, “Why do people send these mass messages/e-mailers wishing others on festivals like Diwali?” My question is specific to only these “mass dispatches” and not towards people wishing each other on Diwali and the like on a one-on-one basis.
I even mapped the profile of people who sent me these messages. Who exactly are these people? I didn’t get too far with this one. There were all kinds. Vendors, agencies, bosses and friends. There was no way I could find a common thread in this diverse group of people. My next step was to map these people on demographics. Here too, there was no skew towards any gender or age. So this theory also went for a toss. As a last resort, I shall try to put in my understanding of this phenomenon.
But before that, a basic truth of our times. Technology has infinitely increased convenience and killed the warmth between people. Earlier, Ms. Arora and family would either meet up or call Ms. Bhandari and family on Diwali day. Today, Ms. Arora finds the click of an SMS to be of immense convenience to make up for that meeting or call or that greeting card. Now this is between friends who’ve been there for each other for some time. There’s another side to it and this is where I think I might be jumping into a controversial net. But let’s see if we can think this through.
These SMS/Mailers have helped people who hardly know me to wish me. This has enabled these people to cast the net of their acquaintances wide without any incremental cost. The downside being that if I hardly know anyone, receiving a “Happy Diwali” SMS from these people is not exactly my idea of the beginning of an endearing relationship with such people. I’m sure these people are also aware of this fact. If they are, then why do they still do it? More importantly, do these people expect a reply from us? In case of mass e-mailers, am not sure if they do or not but in case of SMS’, I’ve a sneaking suspicion that they are expecting a reply. This means I receive an SMS from someone wishing me “Happy Diwali” which doesn’t excite me at all. As a gesture of simple courtesy, (I make it a point to always respond whenever approached on mail/call/SMS/Orkut) I reply politely wishing the sender as well. Now this is obviously personalized because I’m replying to someone’s message. The sender feels good having received this personalized reply. It is now that the whole exercise of wishing people through mass mailers/SMS’ seems that bit of a farce to me.
Firstly, you put me in a mass basket.
Secondly, if I reply, you’re happy about it.
Thirdly, in this whole exercise, I didn’t feel special at all getting either wished or wishing you. Nevertheless, you’re the one who walked away with the personalized reply.
It somehow hence seems that the people who actually were sending these mass messages want to be wished themselves. I’d agree that no one consciously sends these dispatches thinking that ‘Since I want to be wished let me send out an SMS/E-mail to the 312 people in my address book.’ But the more I think about it, it appears to me that the singular underlying motive for which people seem to be sending these “mass dispatches” is self-gratification.
While it might be a coincidence, a majority of my friends, who sent these messages were also single. This also leads me to believe that for such people their need for self-gratification was even more than the average 24 year old who was committed, engaged or married. These were all nice people but probably lacked that constant backing in their life that keeps them informed about how nice or good or great their own existence was. Consequently being wished in return on an occasion like Diwali just happens to be an occasion to feel good about themselves.
A loophole in my explanation is that why do I feel obliged to reply. I could rant about courtesy but my simple view is every action has a reaction. My reaction is against the stimulus and here I’m trying to pin down the reason for the stimulus.
Another view that might go against my theory is that these people wished others on a mass basis because they simply thought it’s a nice gesture to wish everyone with least effort. That’s all!
To which my reply is, if someone is that special enough to deserve this nice gesture, what’s a little extra effort in sending a simple personalized SMS/E-Mailer? And if someone is not that special enough then why even bother?
Having immersed myself in some of the Freakonomics theories to quite an extent, I found myself asking the question, “Why do people send these mass messages/e-mailers wishing others on festivals like Diwali?” My question is specific to only these “mass dispatches” and not towards people wishing each other on Diwali and the like on a one-on-one basis.
I even mapped the profile of people who sent me these messages. Who exactly are these people? I didn’t get too far with this one. There were all kinds. Vendors, agencies, bosses and friends. There was no way I could find a common thread in this diverse group of people. My next step was to map these people on demographics. Here too, there was no skew towards any gender or age. So this theory also went for a toss. As a last resort, I shall try to put in my understanding of this phenomenon.
But before that, a basic truth of our times. Technology has infinitely increased convenience and killed the warmth between people. Earlier, Ms. Arora and family would either meet up or call Ms. Bhandari and family on Diwali day. Today, Ms. Arora finds the click of an SMS to be of immense convenience to make up for that meeting or call or that greeting card. Now this is between friends who’ve been there for each other for some time. There’s another side to it and this is where I think I might be jumping into a controversial net. But let’s see if we can think this through.
These SMS/Mailers have helped people who hardly know me to wish me. This has enabled these people to cast the net of their acquaintances wide without any incremental cost. The downside being that if I hardly know anyone, receiving a “Happy Diwali” SMS from these people is not exactly my idea of the beginning of an endearing relationship with such people. I’m sure these people are also aware of this fact. If they are, then why do they still do it? More importantly, do these people expect a reply from us? In case of mass e-mailers, am not sure if they do or not but in case of SMS’, I’ve a sneaking suspicion that they are expecting a reply. This means I receive an SMS from someone wishing me “Happy Diwali” which doesn’t excite me at all. As a gesture of simple courtesy, (I make it a point to always respond whenever approached on mail/call/SMS/Orkut) I reply politely wishing the sender as well. Now this is obviously personalized because I’m replying to someone’s message. The sender feels good having received this personalized reply. It is now that the whole exercise of wishing people through mass mailers/SMS’ seems that bit of a farce to me.
Firstly, you put me in a mass basket.
Secondly, if I reply, you’re happy about it.
Thirdly, in this whole exercise, I didn’t feel special at all getting either wished or wishing you. Nevertheless, you’re the one who walked away with the personalized reply.
It somehow hence seems that the people who actually were sending these mass messages want to be wished themselves. I’d agree that no one consciously sends these dispatches thinking that ‘Since I want to be wished let me send out an SMS/E-mail to the 312 people in my address book.’ But the more I think about it, it appears to me that the singular underlying motive for which people seem to be sending these “mass dispatches” is self-gratification.
While it might be a coincidence, a majority of my friends, who sent these messages were also single. This also leads me to believe that for such people their need for self-gratification was even more than the average 24 year old who was committed, engaged or married. These were all nice people but probably lacked that constant backing in their life that keeps them informed about how nice or good or great their own existence was. Consequently being wished in return on an occasion like Diwali just happens to be an occasion to feel good about themselves.
A loophole in my explanation is that why do I feel obliged to reply. I could rant about courtesy but my simple view is every action has a reaction. My reaction is against the stimulus and here I’m trying to pin down the reason for the stimulus.
Another view that might go against my theory is that these people wished others on a mass basis because they simply thought it’s a nice gesture to wish everyone with least effort. That’s all!
To which my reply is, if someone is that special enough to deserve this nice gesture, what’s a little extra effort in sending a simple personalized SMS/E-Mailer? And if someone is not that special enough then why even bother?
Wednesday, October 18, 2006
The Declaration
"You put all of them together , add an extra 10% and if they can do better than me, I'll never... ever... ever give another shot at this in my life! "
Did Howard Roark ever make such a statement?
Would I?
Did Howard Roark ever make such a statement?
Would I?
Wednesday, October 11, 2006
Bend Over and Dont Scream
Launch. Radio. Vendors. No.No.No.Exciting. Getting fucked. Transmitter.18th Floor.King of Delhi.What am I doing? This is Great! Fuck! Theater.Screw the Virgin! Fantastic.Intellectual.9 am to 9 pm. Calvin and Hobbes.Shirts. Sony Deck.Radio Sets. Bitch! RJ's. HT House. Merchandiser. Jack Daniels. FM104. No Network. Voice Artist. Pyongyang. "Been there myself!". Marketing. Three cubes of Ice. Building. Updates. Music.
Post launch, shall be coming up with an autobiography on the making of the marketing launch campaign for 104FM titled, "Will Survive, Wont Survive..." :-)
Post launch, shall be coming up with an autobiography on the making of the marketing launch campaign for 104FM titled, "Will Survive, Wont Survive..." :-)
