Watch

Black light that scorches the soul
and a sunscreen prescription
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sTJ7AzBIJoI

Resolutions

Heard Somewhere: The years rush by, it's the days that are hard to pass. This new year-looking forward to a life more lived!

Damn these Traffic Diversions!!

Why are the Chennai City Traffic Planners drawing their inspiration from the Infinite Improbability Drive*? Someone explain to me why driving from Point A to Point B, now requires me to pass through every conceivable point in every conceivable universe along the way?!! Oink!!Oink!

*Douglas Adams on the Infinite Improbability Drive
"The Infinite Improbability Drive is a wonderful new method of crossing interstellar distances in a few seconds; without all that tedious mucking about in hyperspace. As the Improbability Drive reaches infinite improbability, it passes through every conceivable point in every conceivable universe almost simultaneously. In other words, you're never sure where you'll end up or even what species you'll be when you get there."

Hole in my Soul

Something’s not right with the world. I wake up feeling restless, mind struggling to reclaim a junkyard of experiences, heart gasping for breath like some fish out of water, searching….always searching, for something that’s missing.

For what Godammit? Searching for what? I keep asking myself. Why these long melodramatic dialogues to self? Everyone else seems happy enough going through the motions of life. What’s your problem?

My mom calls it ‘pseudo-intellectualism’! “You think too much. I've always told you to stop studying. You should have become an airhostess ” she advices. I look stunned. “You need a baby- It’s your biological clock acting up” someone adds helpfully. “You need to love God- I can’t believe your parents brought you up without any belief” diagnoses my homeopathic doctor. I go back to my musing.

I wiki ‘Meaning of Life’. The first few lines are reassuring. “For thousands of years, men and women of every age, race, and culture have sought to understand the meaning of life”. I see that everyone from Plato to ‘The Offspring’ have had an opinion on the subject. Mmm.. Wiki even gives space to my own personal view on the subject “Life has no meaning, but as humans we try to associate a meaning or purpose so we can justify our existence”. Wiki is helpful.. to the extent that information overload can possibly be. There are no answers. I feel breathless again.

J krishnamurthy… I suddenly remember that my dad used to sport a book on his teachings at one time. Those were the days I was convinced we had nothing in common except some DNA. I Google J Krishnamurthy. He says, “Man cannot come to [truth] through any organization, through any creed, through any dogma, priest or ritual, not through any philosophic knowledge or psychological technique. He has to find it through the mirror of relationship, through the understanding of the contents of his own mind, through observation and not through intellectual analysis or introspective dissection”. I read the lines again.

“I’m telling you- He is a pseudo-intellectual. He will confuse you even more ” pronounces my mom smugly. “Just like your dad”. Thanks ma.

I wonder if my mom has any answers. She goes for Bhajan once a week, claims she miraculously finds solutions to her problems by opening random pages of religious books and watches Baba Ramdev contort his body parts on Astha channel.

I hear the faint notes of an electric guitar and a muffled voice growling (can’t call it singing) about disfunctionality and despair. It comes from my brother’s room. My mom shakes her head. She looks worried.

I am out of ideas. I am tired. I recall a few lines from an old Aerosmith song. “There's a Hole In My Soul, That's been killing me forever. It's a place where a garden never grows”.

Jhoom Barabar Jhoom

Being a friday evening and all, I did what I usually do:
(i) zipped home from work with Alanis Morisette blasting loud enough to drown out the curses of people in my way (subsequently behind me and yes, still alive! Why do you ask?)
(ii) stopped by the neighbourhood video store, to take my pick from a wall full of DVDs.

Now, if you've ever shot balloons at Eliot's beach you probably know what I'm talking about. You aim at the blue n yellow specimen at the very center of the board and end up getting the dog sitting 5 feet away. Suffice to say, I had no idea how this movie (JBJ) ended up in my DVD drive. For heavens sake, all I wanted was 'Nuvvostanate Nenodantana' with good English subtitles (See, I don't understand Telugu. Sometimes I don't even understand these English subtitles but thats for another day).

So yeah, real low expectations with this one. Hey, its supposed to be a big flop after all. Truth be told, I've had a thing for Abhishek for a while now (you too? what a surprise!) but ever since he got hooked err hitched I've been avoiding him like a yeast infection. Thankfully, he isn't terribly hot in this movie (please, I'm still recovering) but his act is fantastic and his comic timing, perfection. Camera work, script and direction get an A+. Music is OK. Ricky's ring tone is genius...it goes.."Ei Handsome" :). Unfortunately people have gotten so used to the Govinda/Akshay kumar genre of one dimensional slapstick routines that humour needs to be literally force fed to get a laugh out of the juntas these days.

Anyway, If you like fantasy, you should have no problem with this movie. Its one dream sequence after another and even the bits that are supposedly real leave you confused as to the nature of reality. If JBJ were a perfume, The Matrix would be its top note and David Dhawan its base note. The only discordant note is Preity Zinta whoes dialogue delivery is every bit as botoxed as her wrinkles. Lara Dutta as a french pakistani is incredible and so is Hafee bhai as Ricky Thukral's best bud. Ricky darling as an obnoxious punjabi hip-hopping weirdo is a fabulous character and my ex-love excels at it. There are many many wonderful moments in the movie which will leave you ROTFALMAO.

Quirky, crazy, hysterical, hilarious, ridiculous, spoofy, surreal, weird, hammy and cliched. Over the top and out of the roof!! Loved it :)

10 questions I am currently pondering (in no particular order of importance or for that matter, sense)

1. Why do great books end just when you've made best friends with their characters?
2. Why must every vehicle on my lane either block the road or attempt to overtake me?
3. Does the Door (RFID) at work record details of my coffee breaks in an excel sheet?
4. Does my Boss ever stop working? (More importantly, does he monitor those excel sheets?)
5. Where have all the Thiruvanmiyur-Beach crabs disappeared to?
6. Will humanity travel to the stars?
7. Doesn't my dad's snoring ever wake him up?
8. Why do I sleep the soundest just before an alarm goes off?
9. What if someone turned off the gravity? (Any chance my Boss would notice and/or take the rest of the afternoon off?)
10. Was I intelligent before education ruined me?

Summer Night

I laugh with joy
as a sharp wind herds
wisps of dark clouds
across an indigo sky

the moonscape dims
and I suddenly see-
the woods are a'flicker
in floating fireflies.