Sure he needs no mics after what he's saying. He'd just whisper this and even that mouse in my kitchen would be listening with ears all pricked up.
Lax Gaurav, not all my 300 hundred words are going to be in third person. Here I go with why 'I' want all those things you own. Being true to me, I have to reason this out with you rather than just say my thing the way it is. I completely agree with your 'deriving sense of identity' theory. Though, the hierarchy in my case drastically differs - relating with people > experiencing life > creating meaning > owning things. I live my life (subconsciously) around this structure.
So, coming to the point (with a bit of bush beating, I agree!) I’d want all that stuff you own to give-away to different people who mean a lot to me. I’m really trying to put this across in the most non-crass (read refined) way and I see myself super stumbling. But what the heck, I have my reasons pieced out.
Before I hit 300 (and with no six packs, arghh!! Where did that come from?!) I must spell out which part of my life deserves what.
All your furniture and soft furnishings will sit very pretty in my sister’s new house. She has a little of her own. I’d like to add to it what you own.
All your electronic goods, appliances and utensils (including the hundreds of bar glasses) will find their place at my parents place.
All your clothes, books and DVDs will make a perfect surprise for my brother-in-law. He will take them to bed while my sister is with the soft furnishings (Hahaha!) I might just borrow some books from him but that again depends on your collection.
Three hundred it is, but I must say luck to you! Though, I don’t know if you’ve really cracked it this way.
P.S.: I live with none of them. I live alone. And, I don’t lie :)
Wednesday, 16 July 2008
Saturday, 14 June 2008
A lump in my throat
- I see that aeroplane going across the skies...it's gone now. May be it's somewhere behind the clouds. And aah, now I see it again. It's a game I play with the plane - where it has the vantage. I'm just playing on 'plane' luck and still hope to win. The optimism that makes me, me.
- Music.
- And then music again.
- Music, that speaks volumes. Brings back from chapters that were closed forever.
- Millions cheering for that one cause. I'm a part of that million, but I hear and feel my presence so distinct. It's difficult to get lost in the crowd, really difficult.
- Childhood. It was all so simple and all so sorted. They made it like that. It doesn't get made like that anymore.
- He hugs the son, the son holds him tight. A moment between the two, just the two.
- A pat on the back and it's forms.
- Music.
- And then music again.
- Music, that speaks volumes. Brings back from chapters that were closed forever.
- Millions cheering for that one cause. I'm a part of that million, but I hear and feel my presence so distinct. It's difficult to get lost in the crowd, really difficult.
- Childhood. It was all so simple and all so sorted. They made it like that. It doesn't get made like that anymore.
- He hugs the son, the son holds him tight. A moment between the two, just the two.
- A pat on the back and it's forms.
Friday, 13 June 2008
My Rain-quote
It's that time of the year when we discuss the most happening superhit release of this season at the box office - "Rain and the City"! Yep, its housefull everywhere because with the mad show-ers you're probably on house arrest. The window is perpetually shut because it's raining diagonally man! The rains seemed to have done their homework and learnt their maths well - they're calculated and do their bit just when you plan to step out of the house. Welcome to the mumbai monsoons - I can't help but mention the infamous bollywood dialogue, "Mumbai mein do cheezon ka thikana nahi, ek ladki aur doosri baarish".
Every year, come monsoons and come news channels with water logged Mumbai 'Images of the Day'. Though this is just the onset of the monsoons, last Friday it rained like it hadn't in a hundred years or so. After we wound up the show and celebrated the fact that Suren and I will not have to see each others faces for two whole days, we hopped in to our daily home drop vehicle. We'd just reached Matunga when our fancy Nepali cab fella turned back and very matter-of-factly said 'gaadi isse aage nahi jayegi'. We didn't give up as easily as he did and insisted on trying to figure some lane and by-lane to get to Bandra somehow - which we later realised were lame and by-lame to say the least. After doing a round-a-round and a couple of more, like haara hua juaris, we got back to the Mirchi studio and spent the night looking for food and drink. We managed couple of sandwiches and hot chocolate after ransacking the canteen - just to get fired by the pantry fella the next morning (Suren ate like he hadn't known food before this, or was it the sandwiches I'd made. Umm...)
Being in the thick of all this, we at Mirchi decided to start a blog with all sorts of details that would help you, me aur aavaam on a rainy day. I'm putting down couple of numbers which you can probably print-out and stick on your desk or study. Trust me, the rains never tell and come. So like Baden Powell said - Be Prepared!
Be nice, be useful and befriend!! Post other numbers, traffic details, etc. which you think can help combat the rains (yes, battling the rains in Mumbai is close to playing one of those on PS2. You got to get your strategy in place before-hand) Leave a comment and we'll take it from there. But in all this stress remember, rain - feel it on your finger tips, hear it on your window panes, coz loves coming down like rain...!
Some important numbers
For emergency complaints like building or wall collapses - 1916
Mumbai Traffic Helpline - 3040 3040
Fallen trees, short circuits or fire - 2308 5991
Electricity Complaints
South Zone - 2218 4242
North Zone - 2414 5888/ 2414 4891
BSES Ghatkopar - 2500 0770
BSES Goregaon & Malad (E) - 2840 2411
BSES Goregaon (W) - 2872 1312/2872 2743
BSES Andheri (E) - 2832 8321
Every year, come monsoons and come news channels with water logged Mumbai 'Images of the Day'. Though this is just the onset of the monsoons, last Friday it rained like it hadn't in a hundred years or so. After we wound up the show and celebrated the fact that Suren and I will not have to see each others faces for two whole days, we hopped in to our daily home drop vehicle. We'd just reached Matunga when our fancy Nepali cab fella turned back and very matter-of-factly said 'gaadi isse aage nahi jayegi'. We didn't give up as easily as he did and insisted on trying to figure some lane and by-lane to get to Bandra somehow - which we later realised were lame and by-lame to say the least. After doing a round-a-round and a couple of more, like haara hua juaris, we got back to the Mirchi studio and spent the night looking for food and drink. We managed couple of sandwiches and hot chocolate after ransacking the canteen - just to get fired by the pantry fella the next morning (Suren ate like he hadn't known food before this, or was it the sandwiches I'd made. Umm...)
Being in the thick of all this, we at Mirchi decided to start a blog with all sorts of details that would help you, me aur aavaam on a rainy day. I'm putting down couple of numbers which you can probably print-out and stick on your desk or study. Trust me, the rains never tell and come. So like Baden Powell said - Be Prepared!
Be nice, be useful and befriend!! Post other numbers, traffic details, etc. which you think can help combat the rains (yes, battling the rains in Mumbai is close to playing one of those on PS2. You got to get your strategy in place before-hand) Leave a comment and we'll take it from there. But in all this stress remember, rain - feel it on your finger tips, hear it on your window panes, coz loves coming down like rain...!
Some important numbers
For emergency complaints like building or wall collapses - 1916
Mumbai Traffic Helpline - 3040 3040
Fallen trees, short circuits or fire - 2308 5991
Electricity Complaints
South Zone - 2218 4242
North Zone - 2414 5888/ 2414 4891
BSES Ghatkopar - 2500 0770
BSES Goregaon & Malad (E) - 2840 2411
BSES Goregaon (W) - 2872 1312/2872 2743
BSES Andheri (E) - 2832 8321
Thursday, 24 April 2008
Why does the buttered side of the bread slice have to hit the floor first?
Murphy's Law is what they call it. And speaking after being hit with experience time and again - its one law that can never go wrong. No matter how hard you try - you can go on a date and do an under-the-table sequence with GOD, but if Lord Murphy has planned for things to go wrong, they will!
Instances that reaffirm my faith in Lord Murphy and his Law:
- The lights seldom go off in my society. It's one of those swanky places that make it to the headlines even if there's a micro-mini load shed of 5 seconds. I recently had a show down with the landlord and was moving out with bags and lots of baggage. While shifting, first the lights called it time-out for three whole hours and then the lift decided to call it a day-off. So what if I was shifting out of the 7th floor. Its Murphy man, Murphy!!
- Every noon, the Western line trains are astonishingly empty. Here's a day when I'm wincing with pain due to a bad cheese pizza I devoured the night before. The least I can do to feel better is park myself somewhere on the train. But nope! Its some fancy morcha happening in Dadar and the world and it's brother are travelling with me. Place to sit ? Eh, it's a party even if I get a place to stand on my toes and not breathe into underarms that are in the pits!
- The ticket line at Lower Parel station is always the shortest and after a long day at work I'm never in a hurry. It’s a stroll and amble that I pace myself with. But that was the day I had a date lined up and was super late. The scene at Lower Parel station - the coupon validating machine is not working, somebody's flicked the purple ink stamp-pad, only one window's functional, the guy at the window is super-old and super-slow and there is an ess line multiplied by two outside the ticket counter!
- Couple of other times when Lord Murphy never fails to surprise me - my iron doesn’t work the day everything including my face is all wrinkled and crumpled, for years the water pipes have dried dry on Holi afternoons, my phone battery dies when I'm waiting for that one phone call...
Sometimes I think I'm the chosen one and then sometimes I think - it can happen to anyone of us, may be I'm just the chosen one.
Instances that reaffirm my faith in Lord Murphy and his Law:
- The lights seldom go off in my society. It's one of those swanky places that make it to the headlines even if there's a micro-mini load shed of 5 seconds. I recently had a show down with the landlord and was moving out with bags and lots of baggage. While shifting, first the lights called it time-out for three whole hours and then the lift decided to call it a day-off. So what if I was shifting out of the 7th floor. Its Murphy man, Murphy!!
- Every noon, the Western line trains are astonishingly empty. Here's a day when I'm wincing with pain due to a bad cheese pizza I devoured the night before. The least I can do to feel better is park myself somewhere on the train. But nope! Its some fancy morcha happening in Dadar and the world and it's brother are travelling with me. Place to sit ? Eh, it's a party even if I get a place to stand on my toes and not breathe into underarms that are in the pits!
- The ticket line at Lower Parel station is always the shortest and after a long day at work I'm never in a hurry. It’s a stroll and amble that I pace myself with. But that was the day I had a date lined up and was super late. The scene at Lower Parel station - the coupon validating machine is not working, somebody's flicked the purple ink stamp-pad, only one window's functional, the guy at the window is super-old and super-slow and there is an ess line multiplied by two outside the ticket counter!
- Couple of other times when Lord Murphy never fails to surprise me - my iron doesn’t work the day everything including my face is all wrinkled and crumpled, for years the water pipes have dried dry on Holi afternoons, my phone battery dies when I'm waiting for that one phone call...
Sometimes I think I'm the chosen one and then sometimes I think - it can happen to anyone of us, may be I'm just the chosen one.
Wednesday, 12 March 2008
Pineapple pastries - if you please
Some wise old hag once commented on why she'd matched wavelengths with a radio station and decided to paint her face with the voice rather than putting her money where the face was! I couldn't be in her boots better.
It's IN THE FACE! I've been conned in to a 'cake making' session that changed the way the world would see me. Ironically, the world would see me after I joined a 'radio station' (for the record - we're not yet talking visual radio in India)
Plot: Its a photoshoot for the radio station website. I've been summoned 3 hours before the 1st click. They'd want to paint me, I know. The make-up man put stuff on my face and sat their cramming it up with the brushes of the world, for two whole hours. The one line brief given to them, which they seemed to have sworn to follow down to the T was - 'make these nuts look gorgeous'. After the million powder puffing and packing, they said they'd 'touch-me-up' (yew!) just before the final click. In all this play, I wasn't shown the mirror even once! Its the mirror-might-crack story they belted out.
Excerpt of a conversation between the Hair Stylist (HS) and the Make-Up Man (MUM) with my brain-bouncing thoughts in brackets -
MUM: Haay, I'm toh loving her eyes. Bouu fine aankh chhe taro baby (What's with this baby-ing me man?! But keep the faith Meera. These guys know best - so you'd have to bloody believe. )
HS: Hmm... what should I do with her hair (Bol tere saath kya suluk kiya jaye! My hair, for a change wanna ask me?)
MUM: Nothing, Bas straighten kari nak (Just straighten the hair? But isn't it super straight anyway? Okay, whatever you say. So what if its MY hair!)
MUM: Accha look at her eyes. I'm giving her the look that Bips had in 'No Entry'. Ene suit karse na?(!#$%^&*?!?!?!)
HS: Go for it! (!#$%^&*!!!)
I could tell you more of the conversation that scarred my memory forever. My face under scrutiny and cross examination (just a reminder, I work for a radio station!)
Lights camera and shoot! They shot me and how I wish I could shoot them back, in the true sense of the word! Well, the pictures were promptly delivered the next day on a CD. 'The Pineapple Pastry' shot from various angles. We've got Royal icing on the cheeks and a cherry on the nose.
Seeing is believing. Take a dekko and pour in condolences. Its a face-off between me and me. Sigh.
Make-up is so rightly called make up.
They literally 'made me' up!
It's IN THE FACE! I've been conned in to a 'cake making' session that changed the way the world would see me. Ironically, the world would see me after I joined a 'radio station' (for the record - we're not yet talking visual radio in India)
Plot: Its a photoshoot for the radio station website. I've been summoned 3 hours before the 1st click. They'd want to paint me, I know. The make-up man put stuff on my face and sat their cramming it up with the brushes of the world, for two whole hours. The one line brief given to them, which they seemed to have sworn to follow down to the T was - 'make these nuts look gorgeous'. After the million powder puffing and packing, they said they'd 'touch-me-up' (yew!) just before the final click. In all this play, I wasn't shown the mirror even once! Its the mirror-might-crack story they belted out.
Excerpt of a conversation between the Hair Stylist (HS) and the Make-Up Man (MUM) with my brain-bouncing thoughts in brackets -
MUM: Haay, I'm toh loving her eyes. Bouu fine aankh chhe taro baby (What's with this baby-ing me man?! But keep the faith Meera. These guys know best - so you'd have to bloody believe. )
HS: Hmm... what should I do with her hair (Bol tere saath kya suluk kiya jaye! My hair, for a change wanna ask me?)
MUM: Nothing, Bas straighten kari nak (Just straighten the hair? But isn't it super straight anyway? Okay, whatever you say. So what if its MY hair!)
MUM: Accha look at her eyes. I'm giving her the look that Bips had in 'No Entry'. Ene suit karse na?(!#$%^&*?!?!?!)
HS: Go for it! (!#$%^&*!!!)
I could tell you more of the conversation that scarred my memory forever. My face under scrutiny and cross examination (just a reminder, I work for a radio station!)
Lights camera and shoot! They shot me and how I wish I could shoot them back, in the true sense of the word! Well, the pictures were promptly delivered the next day on a CD. 'The Pineapple Pastry' shot from various angles. We've got Royal icing on the cheeks and a cherry on the nose.
Seeing is believing. Take a dekko and pour in condolences. Its a face-off between me and me. Sigh.
Make-up is so rightly called make up.
They literally 'made me' up!
Friday, 29 February 2008
Striking Tapes And Chaar Paanch-oing At PAPAs
I'm whiling away time, it's Wednesday night 10pm. It's a long day tomorrow but I decided to get online. Whoa Rujuta's online too. She had to do someone a favour with a ton of work and I had to do her a favour by giving her company - We're each others favour-ites, you see. In that not too flavoury an atmosphere, we set out to USL. We handed over tapes to the 'concerned person' who without any concern said, "chaar paanch ghante baad aao". Not to forget, we climbed the 4 floors to USL and could barely hear each other as we whispered - Sudhir Mishra was shooting for a film near the lift and hey it was 'sync sound'. So...!
We decided to spend the 'chaar paanch ghante' at Papa Pancho. Midnight or may be even 1:00 A M, but we want paani purees if you pleeease. After much pleeease-ing and a lil more he decided to do us the 'favour' - pretty much the order of the day. Meanwhile we got a serviette and started making a list of 'People I Really Hate', 'People I Kind ov Hate But Not That Much..', 'People Who Have Given A Whole New Meaning to Otherwise Ordinary Events in My Life' - like Aditya did to Birthdays :D
We decided to spend the 'chaar paanch ghante' at Papa Pancho. Midnight or may be even 1:00 A M, but we want paani purees if you pleeease. After much pleeease-ing and a lil more he decided to do us the 'favour' - pretty much the order of the day. Meanwhile we got a serviette and started making a list of 'People I Really Hate', 'People I Kind ov Hate But Not That Much..', 'People Who Have Given A Whole New Meaning to Otherwise Ordinary Events in My Life' - like Aditya did to Birthdays :D
Yay!
After the chaar paanch ghante (which seemed like K Jo's next blockbuster) saath saath aanth minute (thankyou to the serviette and the people we know in our lives) we showed up like losers, collected the tapes and insisted on using the lift this time (yes, Mr. Sudhir Mishra, you had people terrified, petrified and pakao-fied with you that evening. You even made the receptionist keep the phone off the hook. Not like she complained though!!)
We burnt the brunt with a tobacco stick and happily went back to our respective homes - to get back to each other the next morning and say 'hey, yesterday was fun huh!'. And I took it a step further. Here it is :)
They Don't Make Cute Guys Any More (a 15 minute story)
Like rain has it's way always and mumbai taxi fellas add their bit, its 8:30 pouring pm and we can't find a cab to VT. Stick your left hand out, then your right hand out, damn the boogie woogie, there's no luck. We crib and then we crib and then a yellow-black stops for us. When we're in and all settling down in to self-irrigating puddles, a guy with a bag on his back says "Excuse me, if you're going towards Churchgate, can I hop in?". Sounds Grrrrrreat, hop in! Rujuta didnt have wipers on her glasses and I'd like to believe I had kajal smeared on my lenses. Though we drove with him till Churchgate, we were too busy talking about the rain and oh mi god, the rain...! At Churchgate, the cab loosens and he hops out. "Uuummm excuse me, I don't have change... Should I like ummmm pay..?" We SAW him this time! Suddenly Rujuta blurts out "Nay, its okay. We're fine. Carry on. And you're not even all that cute, else we'd have asked you to pay in kind." Whaaaaaaat??!! Was fun!
We've forgotten his face.
He sure remembers more than just our faces.
Coming soon - 'Please take something from my cupboard. Please... Okay here, atleast keep my phone!!!'
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