Getting Addicted..

There cannot be someone who doesn't get addicted to something or the other at some point of time. ( sorry about the excessive some's! ) I'm no exception to it. I have been addicted to so many things since i came to Bangalore, fortunately all enjoyable addictions!
The first one. After trying to do some work, at which i failed miserably, i took to a lot of orkutting. Typing scraps in tamil has suddenly grabbed my attention. I find it fun to type in tamil, especially to someone who cannot make head or tail out of it!"Dei don't do too much" is a standard reply. But its fun to watch people that way. They really get irritated. So from now on, if you have any enemies, start typing everything in a script they cannot decipher. There are 5 options in orkut, so choose your script and shoot!
The second one. Foosball. What a game! The designer of this game must have had a lot of blows and hardships in life i guess ! ;) We already have formed a team consisting of four. The next step is to set up sessions: pre-lunch, post-lunch, pre-dinner, post-dinner and on some crazy days, during the evenings. Whether we are working or not is secondary, me buying a foosball table in the house that I dream to build is vouched. 'Foos' has already become more stylish for we call it 'Fooz' now. So its high time confuse becomes confooz!!
The third one. Typeracer and Slapster. Now that its already evident that i have nothing to work on, the only thing left is exploring everything in orkut. In such a search, typeracer and slapster stand out uniquely. Slapster first, the best application to pass time, to take revenge on someone you loathe, to improve your mouse handling skills :) . You just don't know how your time dissolves like sugar in water when you are at it. The next and the better one, Typeracer. Sporting a very interesting GUI feigning a car race is this interesting application that improves the typing speed on continued practice. Just wish i had the time to invite my friends and race. Now its just restricted to random people and guests. Even thought Orkut is trying to copy facebook a lot, it seems to be a crowd-puller for it has a very light interface. Facebook, on the other hand is very crowded and tries to stuff lot of things onto one screen which hampers readability. If you are really looking at your watch very frequently and have nothing at all do, typeracer is your solution!
Finally, the season finale of House MD. Its quite surprising that I'm not making a separate post for the last two episodes of the season for they deserve one. But then, it has become one more addiction too. Now that 4 seasons of House MD are over, i have been watching them continuously. None of the episodes match the strong storyline and technical brilliance of the last two episodes in season four. These two episodes have actually made me watch previous episodes again and again, for which i actually had a big argument with my cousin asking how she could watch them again and again! But them i'm defeated now! The finale has just vaporized any blocks I had to watch the episodes again and again. Guess she is going to have some company when we meet next time :) If anyone is as jobless as I'm and is getting addicted to things, they could drop by and leave out their experiences as comments!

Keying the board..

January 6 1966:
Shekhar gazed out of the window and looked at the sky as drops of water came down rapidly, as if they had been in solitary confinement for years and were released now. His heart beating fast, his hands jerking without control, with ambulance sirens dominating the air, with an expression that had a mixture of fear and expectation, he looked up at the sky, for it is a common place to search for god. He needed some support, he needed the confidence. And the sky seemed to be the only source of it. With the mind swaying from one thought to another, with legs not willing to stay at the same place, he started walking towards the room where his wife was crying out in pain. He had faced it a few years back, but still he couldn't bear the voice crying. He just prayed that it gets over soon. Following a deep cry came the cry of a baby. With his face bearing relief and eagerness, he waited outside the room when the nurse brought the baby out. Holding the baby with fragility, he kept staring at it with happiness, tears rolling out of his ears. Dileep, he wanted the baby to be called as decided by him and his wife. With a light heart, he went to see his wife. She was safe, the nurse had said.
In a few days, he got back to his work, composing music and arranging equipments. He owned a lot of musical instruments and considered them to be like one in their family. He was a good composer, Shekhar with all the heart and compassion and devoted his life and soul to music. Even though he had a new addition in his family, he gave most of his time to music and its compositions. He tried to find sometime for Dileep but he could not do it wholeheartedly. Yet he did find some time during weekends. He had loved the kid, the kid`s cute smile melting his heart away to glory, a feeling that was similar to what he felt when he was immersed in his work. Life had not been too harsh on him, he had earned the money to support his family. Happy, was the way of life.
Right from the age of two, dileep had shown immense interest towards music. He had admired his father more than Shekhar had admired music. He had a great liking for music and his fathers instruments. He enjoyed pressing the wrong keys and listening to awkward sounds in the beginning. His mother, a silent listener had the pleasure to watch her son lose himself in glory. He had liked the keyboard more than any other instrument. Within a short span of time, the awkwardness in music had slowly taken a backseat and he was able to make serene music. He played the keyboard at the age of four making his father`s gaunt visage still in amazement. Music became an ally to the family which was affluent with happiness. Time had gone fast, atleast it seemed to. He had to go to school. At the same time, when he got the time he would accompany his father to shows and studios. Hence the spirit of music had engraved deep in him right from the early age of four. In one such trips, he had played a tune in his father's harmonium that had attracted a person in the studio. After seeing this kid playing such a good tune, he urged dileep to start classes and learn formal music,for he had seen the potential in Dileep. His father acquiesced and made dileep learn formal music. He had learnt music for five years. At the age of nine, his interest in music had further deepened.
When Dileep was nine years old, his father had fallen ill. In a couple of days, unable to bear the pressure, he had failed to expand his lung. He had died, leaving behind his wife and four kids. The entire burden of supporting the family fell on Dileep's shoulders. Having no source of income, the family was forced to sell out the musical instruments, the lifeless creatures that gave life to music. Life got tough, and it was not easy to run a family of five with no income. When the instruments had exhausted, Dileep had no other way but to start working. Hence he joined a big music troupe at the age of 11 as a keyboard player. He had got to know of the troupe as he had sold a lot of his instruments to them. Seeing the potential in her son, his mother had really encouraged him to learn music with all devotion. The journey began. An ocean that can never be conquered.
For the next few years, dileep had worked with various composers and music directors. He had to travel a lot. His schooling, which was intermittent because of this had to be stopped completely in a few years. He had sacrificed his studies for music. Was this a worthy sacrifice?
Of course it was, for we now know dileep as A.R.Rahman.

A day trip from SBC to MAS

I left at 5:15 in the morning waiting for an auto in Bangalore. With pre-calculations as always, i had estimated the fare to be around Rs 84 as the station is approx 12 kms away which was quite reasonable with the current hike in fuel blah blah blah!. Goddamn i am a calculated moron! I got into one immediately! As he started the auto he started talking in Hindi! I replied something in all the sucky hindi i know! The only thing that he uttered in non-hindi was "one and a half" and i did hear it correct. I thought for sometime.
After being in India for so much time, having got used to the jargon of auto drivers, i havent heard anyone say something like that. Nothing came to my mind. So i asked him what it meant. He saw me. He then glanced at my watch. He asked me: "Whats the time"? I replied "5:30". By now, he came to know how scholarly i was in Hindi! So he decided to abstain from using it. He now started speaking in broken sentences. He said " After six, one. Six before, one and a half ". ( Rules Suck! ) Ok, now i knew he was referring to the meter rate. The calculated moron in me started calculating again. I calculated it and left it as nothing much could be done now. Roads were empty and deserted. So we reached the station in a matter of 15 minutes. As usual, the calculated moron in me had calculated the time wrong. I thought it would take atleast 30 minutes to reach. And here we are! fourty five minutes earlier. The train was at 6:30. So i just went and sat in the platform chair for sometime. A train was standing in front of me. Not realising that it was my train, i was just whiling away my time in the chair. I started walking in a while when i happened to see the number board of the train. "Wait a minute! Does that number sound familiar?? 2608". ( Trains without name boards suck! ) It then struck me what it was, so i quickly boarded the train and found my window seat. I kept my bag, and came to check the list of passengers in my coach, the reason being the obvious! God! Everytime i did this, i felt like some chetan bhagat`s hero in one of his novels.
The name chart had something unique about it. With the whole city bearing the airtel hoardings featuring Madhavan and Vidya Balan, the train list was having the same thing. Airtel Advertisements. I actually did like those ads. They were sort of cute but din't expect airtel to be so desperate! The whole chart had a pic of these two like a watermark and the all the names were printed on top of it. Now how desperate is that! As i browsed through the list, i found a 25 yr old guy`s name below mine. Relieved that it was not some old idiot with whom i have to put up and sulk that it was a guy ( course i am straight! ), i got a bottle of water and waited for the train to start. Airtel and Vodafone have been in the news for quite sometime, for their innovative ads, vodafone taking the lead. But just in ads. The network sucks. The chhota credit ad especially. I wish I met the guy who conceived the idea. Now thats what i term brilliant!
The train started in a while and i pulled out a novel and started reading it. The seat next to me was empty when the train started. Even more relieved, i sat comfortably and started reading. Now came the fight for the seat. The guy next to me din't turn up. Instead people came running towards me with handkerchiefs in their hands ( selling handkerchiefs in trains should be banned completely! ) A guy had won the race. He put the kerchief next to me and waved for one more person who turned out to be his wife apparently. The guy was asking if the seat was empty in english. I replied in english. Both sat next to me and started conversing in tamil, assuming i din't know tamil. It's really fun when something like this happens. The way it boosts your confidence when you have the feeling that the person sitting next to you can't understand a word!! You can scold him whatever you want! Actually these people bought open tickets, found my place empty,so came and sat next to me. But their triumph of finding a place din't last long. A fat ( never seen someone as fat as her! ) lady came and ousted those two claiming it was her seat. And then the standard procedure followed. Waving her hand to one more guy. I was just looking for that female to sit. There was no place for her to sit in this type of seat. In this scenario, she had called one more guy. I thought i was going to be pushed out of the train!! Cramped is the word!! The TTR came. He had actually agreed to give them this seat if they took care of him! They had agreed to do it. She gave him a hundred rupee note as he slyly put it into his coat. He then asked "RS 100 extra charges", with a wicked smile across his countenance ( don't know how people get this wicked smile when they ask for money! The expression is same with everyone asking for money! UNITY IN DIVERSITY! ) He took this too and slyly put it in his coat. I have no clue how such people eat even without a prick of feeling guilty by earning this way. It did have an impact on me for sometime but then i was relieved that i din't have to see any more newer designs of handkerchiefs flying here and there! That ended the kerchief episode.
Then came the fun part. The train stopped at some place. A lot of intersex people entered the train. Yeah you read it right.. "I-N-T-E-R-S-E-X". They went to people and outstretched their arm, asking for money. This is the improvement in the begging industry. The latest fashion in begging i guess! In future i foresee a B.Tech, M.S, Ph.D or a B.Tech, MBA combination in begging too!! One of them came to me and stretched arms. I was listening to songs in my ipod and acted as if i had not noticed. The arm was in the same way for the next half a minute. Then she said: "HELLO MISTER, Paisa". Now came the biggest confusion of my life. I have never been so confused in talking to someone. As opposed to "HELLO MISTER", i din't know whether to respond as "HELLO MR/MS/MRS" ;) ( Designations Suck! ). I just gestured her to go away with my hand! I felt like laughing for so much time! This is a big business now. They got down from my train, walked to the opposite side and got onto another train!! And when they got down, they went and gave the money to some person there. Guess he is the manager of these things! Must be a Chartered Accountant in this business, i thought!
The train reached chennai by noon, the horrible weather doing its rounds. The people, madly rushing out of the station. I came out of the station and got a bus immediately. I reached a place near to mine and decided to get an auto. None of them stopped. No one even came to me as opposed to mad race that used to exist among them when they find someone standing alonside the road. I reached home half an hour later. Then only i came to know of the auto strike for the fuel hike. Whether the fuel hike is profitable to the government or not, it made me stand in the scorching sun for so much time! ( The Government Sucks! ). So that sums up the journey, something that will never be forgotten for the disparate experience it tagged along from a normal journey!