Archive for the 'Just Rambling' Category

Nationalist Robots and Proud Hypocrites

Published on October 4, 2010 in Just Rambling and Think about it. 11 Comments

It is an anomaly that probably doesn’t occur anywhere else in the world. The driest day in Kerala occurs not in summer, but actually during the retreating monsoon. October 2nd to be exact. The day is an especially sad day for Malayalees, because it is a dry day – the one day they can’t buy alcohol anywhere in India.

This October 2nd was, however, different because there were two other anomalies which were unusual.

  • Anomaly #1: Rajnikanth hogged all the attention away from Gandhiji
  • Anomaly #2: The same people who were ashamed that India was hosting CWG suddenly became proud after seeing a grand opening ceremony

Oct 2nd is supposed to be a national holiday, being the birthday of a certain someone called Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, or Mahatma Gandhi. But for the majority of the youngsters, it is one of the once-in-a-blue-moon days when they feel “proud to be Indian” in Facebook/Twitter (The others being the release of movies like “Rang De Basanti” and reading some news articles/stories about Captain Vikram Batra or Major Sandeep Unnikrishnan) This time even that traffic was down because people had time only to talk about a movie called Endhiran (Robot). I’m not complaining here. I’m just observing that if the people who usually “respect” Gandhiji on Oct 2nd didn’t feel so this year, this smells of something fundamentally wrong with their pride/patriotism and such other words they attribute to themselves.

Lets start by analyzing if the nationalist feeling of people is actually real. (I don’t mean to see if they are faking. I mean to see if they realize what nationalism really means) A nationalist is someone who loves and defends his country with unwavering faith. Not someone who criticizes that “CWG brings national shame to India”, and on the very next week comments “Proud to be an Indian” on Oct 2nd. People think that to be patriotic is to be proud about the good things and to criticize the bad things! Or in other words, show the world that you care. I digress on this matter. According to my opinion, one has to be a good citizen first. A good citizen who not only acknowledges the shortcomings in India, but also does something to remove those shortcomings, without expecting an immediate change. A good citizen who follows the grass root level rules – obey traffic rules, respect other people, be courteous, resist vices like giving/taking bribe. Who does that? If you don’t, you don’t deserve to be proud, because there is nothing for you to be proud. Lesson #1 for everyone is be patriotic to your own conscience, and not your Facebook friends.

The movie called “Lage Raho Munnabhai” reintroduced Indians to a concept called Gandhigiri. Lots of people apparently adopted Gandhigiri in real life, and even blogged about it. I don’t see any one talking about Gandhigiri these days. What happened? People just got bored of Gandhigiri, because it is a tough path to take? Ask yourself, what are the good things you are taking for yourself from these? What is the point in being proud of India if you can’t make India proud?

My Failow Indians..do whatever you want, criticize India, make jokes about corrupt politicians, but don’t make a joke of yourself by saying you are proud because CWG opening ceremony was grand, if you had no part to play in that. You are just being a hypocrite.

I like Facebook because a few people in Facebook are intellectuals and have an opinion on almost anything. But for the last couple of days I hated Facebook because the majority of the people were just robots who really don’t have a strong opinion for themselves. Well, at least Facebook provides a “Hide” feature which lets me remain oblivious to such bullshit.

Update: Patriotism and Nationalism are not exactly the same, as pointed out by Lakshmi. My bad… made necessary changes.

This is not a tag, and I’m not an ignoramus

Published on September 25, 2010 in Humor, Just Rambling and Life etc.. 0 Comments

For those of you who still are fooling around, this blog is still alive. The quiescent melancholy may make it seem otherwise, rendering it almost worthless, perhaps even depressing to those who love my blog (That would be just me, I guess!), but it is breathing nonetheless. And it will stay alive. But the only way I see to get my mojo back, is to hunt down whoever is running the new-age idiot boxes called Facebook and Twitter and kick their ass into oblivion. FB and Twitter have essentially killed the little skill I had in writing and confined me to one-liners and wordplays. To top it all, I tend to go overboard with wordplay that I make the world pay!

The safe (and usual) way when one can’t think about anything to blog, is to dust off some old tag and take it up with some utterly useless facts. A generally futile attempt at a comeback, it at least gives a signal that the blog is not abandoned. For example, “25 things I have done which made me look like an idiot” or “What am I doing right now”. I always wished to say “I’m giving a flying fart” to the latter one. It is fun to see disgusted looks in the faces of people. I get it.. but that’s indeed what I’ll be doing because if I don’t reply to that tag, that means I don’t give a flying fart about the tag.

Anyway, getting back to tagging, I feel it is the most unimaginative form of blogging. I’ve done it several times. That was because I was not being real. To quote a certain buji (Short for “Buddhi Jeevi” or intellectual(duh!) ) from NITC, I was playing around with equations in the realm of complex numbers.

So I am not going to take up a tag here. I won’t, until I start behaving like an imbecile and go against my words. So let me think about what I can write here ……………………………………………………………………..Nothing! I can think of nothing! It is a well known fact that I’m a literary ignoramus (Some people even say I’m just an ignoramus, literary or not, but that is debatable!). I have forgotten almost all the 3500 tough words in English from Barron’s which I mugged for my GRE. Hmm.. wait. I just figured that I remember “imbecile” and “ignoramus”, as is evident from the last couple of sentences.

So, since I can’t think of anything else, I’ll say something about what is going on in my life. It is boring, and it stinks, because I’m in deep shit right now. I don’t have a job (Heyy! Wait a minute! It is not because I’m an ignoramus. It is because the economy is fucked up!), I don’t have a life.. I don’t know what is happening to me.

What I have are an amazing family, and some amazing friends, that I forget all my woes. Little nuggets which don’t seemingly do anything useful – the incessant rain in Kerala… my mom trying to run when she passes by a nagging neighbor’s house… my dad trying to outsmart my mom during their morning walk… my brother’s silly complaints about his life in Bangalore… his switch from Telugu to Mandarin… my uncle annoying me and my aunt by showing the big sign in “The Hyatt Place” which is black or white depending of the time of the day, every single time we pass by that road… teaching my cousin how to make dal, when I myself don’t know how… gossips about V6… coming up with new nicknames for V6… gossips about me… some people saying they will commit suicide if a deserving guy like me don’t get a job… missing 1729D, Poker, Bamboo Garden, Pan-fried Paneer, Sammy’s Tap and Grill, and inane discussions with V6, the technically challenged girl (TCG) and the Green Dutch.

These little nothings in fact do much more than the somethings. What is life without real people in it, right? People who never fail to bring a smile to your face. Many of my friends too are going through tough phases in their life. Hope is all that is keeping us alive. The hope that good things will happen to good people eventually. That, and being there for each other!

Who am I?

Published on July 8, 2010 in Just Rambling and Wacky Humor. 2 Comments

I am always torn between choices whether to seek the light or sink into the darkness. I tend to swim in different directions.
Being well liked for my kind and sympathetic nature, my charm of manner and carefree nature has impressed many. I am compassionate, and unless pushed to the wall, will rarely hurt anyone. I will rarely hurt anyone even when pushed to the wall, because I’m not exactly the kind with big muscles. I apparently am very caustic, but the sarcasm is not always direct, so it generally goes unnoticed. However, it lands me in a spot every once in a while.

I find it difficult to conform and follow rules or to cope with discipline. When the going gets really tough, I don’t get going. Instead I may try to flee down river and hide amongst the vast schools of fish swimming lazily around. However I’m not weak-willed enough to indulge in alcohol and drugs to escape. Alternatively, I pour out my emotions in creative arts. I put my emotions in music, short stories, idiotic writeups, or ridiculous ramblings, but never poetry, because I can’t write poetry if you hang me upside down over a lake full of crocodiles.

I seldom open up to those around me on a personal basis. Although I might be impractical and somewhat uneasy with the real world, I’m brave and prefer a lot of independence. I like to delve in spiritual matters and I’m fascinated by the occult, especially the connections it has with Quantum concepts like entanglement and teleportation. I tend to think that I’m psychic, because my dreams can be strange and portentous. I always remember one thing even if I get amnesia and forget everything else: I am the culmination of all that has gone before, I’m the symbol of death and eternity, I am the distillation of all the other signs. I am the best there is, the best there was, and the best there ever will be. Yet I’m not Bret “The Hitman” Hart.

I nicked it from Astroyogi and added liberal amounts of masala to it.

Of eagles and men

Published on July 6, 2010 in Just Rambling. 4 Comments

Why does the eagle like being up in the sky all alone? How does he manage to cope with the loneliness? And how come humans don’t really embrace or even tolerate solitude?

I think the worst kind of loneliness that a person can feel is not having someone to ask you how your day went.
But wait for it.. it is a little more complicated than that. There may be people who will ask just for the sake of asking, and just when I stumble in front of them just by chance… They don’t count, as I really don’t wanna tell them how my day went, because I don’t care if they care.
You just cannot be friends with a person just because that person thinks highly of you.. the respect should be mutual. As Aristotle once said, “We should behave to friends as we would wish friends to behave to us.” Doesn’t always work; lemme tell you that!

The question is… do I deserve to suffer in this purdah, this state of forlorn desolation, because I am biased? I am selective in that there are only a handful of people who I consider my real friends, i.e. with whom I would share thoughts which I wouldn’t otherwise. And despite whatever they say… I keep wondering what they think of me. I mean I’m not sure if I’m expecting something from them which they cannot offer. As far as I can figure out, I demand only one thing from them.. talking to me. And they are not giving me the chance. This is not something I want in the friendship, but it is something I need.

They only thing I need to be considered worthy of.. is being worthy of talking to. I hope the people, whom this is meant for, understand what I’m trying to convey. Because they are not giving me a chance to convey this to them directly.

I hate being an eagle! I just want genuine people around me!

Like it… and not

Published on August 11, 2009 in Just Rambling and Life etc.. 5 Comments

I like…

  1. cracking really good (or bad?) PJs (poor jokes a.k.a. pun)
  2. people who really make some impact in the world whether in a large scale, or in grassroot level
  3. talking to people
  4. listening to people who talk and are ready to listen back
  5. the fact that I never hold grudges
  6. when I always give people a second chance to be good
  7. people who are open to the possibility that their religious principles may be imperfect and needs constant tuning
  8. smell of fresh rain
  9. free hugs (or “Jadoo Ki Chappi”)
  10. to wear seatbelts
  11. to drive fast and safe
  12. cryptic crosswords
  13. Jennifer Aniston
  14. anything made of potatoes
  15. spirituality
  16. knowing more about cultures around the world
  17. movies
  18. the sheer beauty of life

I hate…

  1. when someone asks, “So why don’t you tell me a PJ?” PJs have to come spontaneously
  2. candlelight protests which don’t seem to convey anything useful to anyone
  3. introverts who don’t open up even after I try hard to include them in a conversation
  4. people who boast
  5. when I have sudden bursts of anger
  6. when people don’t give me a second chance to show that the angry me is not the real me
  7. people who are narrow-minded with respect to religion
  8. smell of Chinese soy sauce
  9. any kind of formality at my home
  10. when people break traffic rules
  11. sitting on the other front seat when someone else is driving
  12. riddles
  13. Aiswarya Rai
  14. anything with Coriander/Cilantro added in it
  15. materialism
  16. when people have a very cliched view of my culture
  17. killing sentient animals for food, sport and vanity
  18. Cricket
  19. people who don’t know how to value life

This list will keep growing.

An overtly self-indulgent 100th post

Published on February 21, 2009 in General and Just Rambling. 9 Comments

Well. I didn’t even realise that I was at 99 posts before I was casually checking my WordPress Dashboard. So folks, this is officially my 100th post as a blogger.

*****Warning – Cliches ahead*****
It seems just like yesterday that I started blogging.

Looking back, I never thought I would write this much. Honestly, I discovered my writing skills only in the year 2000. Not that I have literary skills, but I hope I can make people laugh (or at least raise some eyebrows! Come on people! Give me a sign of life. Don’t desert me on this) through my writing.

I’m feeling really nostalgic about my blog, which is now something really close to my heart. So this post is just about that – nostalgia and retrospection. It will also serve as a compendium of my best posts till now, for those who came in late.

Genesis

I stumbled upon the phenomenon called blogging quite by accident. I created an account in Blogger.com in September 2004, which was my first blog. I believe the first name I gave it was “Deepak’s Pensieve”. The description or “tagline” was a rather lengthy and stupid one which I really don’t remember. All I remember were the last lines which went something like “I’m gonna take you on a rollercoaster”. Yeah right! As if a childish blog which would evoke only one reaction from readers – “Ewww!” – would earn you a free ticket to Six Flags. Likewise, many of my initial posts were borderlining on stupidity, because I honestly had no idea what blogging really was.

I was in training at Infosys, Pune during that time. My friend Harini (We call each other PCP – for “PC Partner”, because we had to share a PC during training.) had a better and more mature blog, and that’s where I learnt what to write in a blog and what not! Anyway, I got an idea, but I didn’t develop that there, because I didn’t have a PC at home, and I didn’t want to spend time blogging when I was at work. So my blog remained dormant till early next year. Well.. Not really, because I used to write something stupid every 2 months or so.

The Rise

My blog really gained momentum when I was on bench for a month after I put down my papers in Infosys in 2005.  I had to come to office, but I really had nothing to do. So I started blogging again. I realised that my writing skills were improving with each post; that was a motivation to go ahead. Somewhere along the line, I changed the name to “The Pensieve”. I also experimented with modifying the looks of my blog a lot, and my experiments later led to a more successful, but really shortlived technical blog called Blogger Hacked.

Once I was back in Bangalore, I bought a computer, so I could blog from the comfort of home, because I still didn’t want to blog from office. It has been a dream run since then. I never could believe that I could write this much. A huge increase in my readership came after I wrote this rather wacky Ghost Story.

As time passed, I thought I needed more control over the look of my blog. The answer for that was WordPress. I had earned enough money through Google Adsense too (from my other blog) So I decided to buy a personal domain, and migrate my blog to WordPress. So Pensieve 2.0 was born. I messed up the supposedly grand opening of my blog on New Year by changing the name and getting confused, but readers stood by the original name “The Pensieve”, so I made it “Pensieve 2.0″. After the initial hiccup, everything went fine. The credit for the tagline goes to KP, who has been my rival in studies and friend in everything else since 1996. Also I deleted some really old posts which are so stupid that I feel like pulling my tongue. Wait a minute! My tongue is already long as it is! I talk too much and I can touch my nose with my tongue. (Gross, you may think, but I bet that not many of you can do that.) So statement taken back; I don’t want to stretch it further by pulling it.

100 and still young

I have mostly stuck to humor and dreaming in my posts, with occassional ramblings of seriousness, but the general verdict has been that I’m not capable of profound thoughts. I have a lot of “lurkers” among my friends – those who haven’t commented even once, because they are intimidated by the literary genius of my posts, but have pleasantly surprised me when they talk about it to me in person. I urge you to comment. It might be a bit overwhelming because it’s me, but don’t worry… I’ll go easy on you. Besides, there’s no fun for me in it without knowing your reactions.

My blogging frequency has decreased a bit, and so has the humor in it, I suspect. That is simply because I barely get time to wander through the dreamlands that create my stories. But I already have a very tight bond with my blog, and I will not let go.

Thank you, my dear readers. You ROCK!!

I will now list some of my post which I think were my best. Please read them if you haven’t.

Fiction

  1. Achluophobia – Two stories among a trilogy of Ghost stories. The one which made me a teensy bit famous.
  2. Banaras – A story of 4 students and their misadventures. Adapted from real life incidents of my uncle when he was studying in BHU.
  3. Executed – The one which I consider my best till date. Satire about the mosquitoes of Cochin.
  4. Aldous Who? – A slightly modified version of the story which confirmed that my winning Creative Writing in Debutante 2000 was not a mistake. I won this in some other Culfest, I guess.

Life etc.

  1. I live… – I consider this as my first humorous post.
  2. The Weirdest Nightmare – This singular dream shattered all my myths about my own weirdness. Can’t put it inside fiction, because I really dreamed even the tiniest detail of what’s written in this.
  3. American Goofups and Woes Reloaded – “Wherever you are, I am there”, trouble keeps telling me this.
  4. Delusions of Grandeur – Something serious.

Memoirs

  1. The best days of my life – Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4 – A four part series, about my first year in NIT Calicut.
  2. Chronicles of two pranksters – My and my brother’s childhood, told from a third person perspective.
  3. One evening in Pune – Funny account of first day in Pune with Naru.
  4. Risible antics of the First – One thing I’m good at – making fun of myself.

A tag to end it

  1. Weird things about weirdness – Random weird facts about me.

V Day or I Day?

Published on February 14, 2009 in I miss India, Just Rambling and Life etc.. 4 Comments

Feb 14th.

No chocolate for guessing what is so significant about this date.

But I bet you would have guessed it wrong about the significance of today w.r.t. me (with respect to. Anyone remember calculus?)

Instead of getting a date, I got a phone call… from my parents. And they wished me Happy Birthday! A birthday that even I came to know of, only after the call. Before you get all confused, today is my birthday according to Indian Calendar. And because I don’t have an Indian Calendar here in US, I didn’t know earlier. Oh, I just love being Indian. You can have two birthdays per year!

Anyway, it came as a pleasant surprise, because I had absolutely no plans for today. Now I can celebrate, and not look like an ass slacking on Valentine’s day.

Also, I called my brother, and I talked to him like I talk to my mom – for 45 minutes. The only difference was that we talked about some subjects, which I never dare talk to my mom. It spanned topics like my theory about his craze for Telugu movies (His secret Telugu Girlfriend! Not so secret any more!), about our parents’ trip to Mettupalayam today, how to survive in the cutthroat world of office, my plans for Valentine’s day, his plans, and of course, Ram Sene.

  1. My brother didn’t know that my parents were going to Mettupalayam today. When he asked me why, I said in my usual fashion, that they were going to Black Thunder themepark to rediscover their childhood. He replied back with an impromptu punchline, “Paada Parambil keri Golf kalikkalle Mone Dineshaa” (Don’t play Golf in barren land. To understand what he meant, read this post, section 6.1)
  2. I told him how to proactively cut the throat of those who are planning to cut your throat. You can even mention that during your appraisal, as an example of how proactive you are.
  3. My plans for V-Day – Eat, study, sleep.
  4. His plans for V-Day – Eat, work, sleep when the manager is not around.
  5. My brother told me about Ram Sene’s threat that they will forcibly marry off any couple they see on roads. He was talking about how the mob was a bunch of sexually frustrated losers who wanted an excuse to grope girls. I couldn’t help but crack this joke that there may be gays in Ram Sene, so boys are not safe either. (I am sorry if this is insensitive, but this is how I will show my protest, because I can’t do anything about it from US)

So, because today is my birthday, I’m gonna celebrate it by ordering a pizza and the delicious Chocolate Breadsticks from Pizza Hut.

PS: I generally don’t talk about my Indian birthday outside, because it is strictly for family. But today was too much of a coincidence!

PPS: On an entirely different note, an important event occured yesterday, which will never occur again. At 6:31pm, the UNIX timestamp struck the value of 1234567890. But the trouble-seeker that I am, I accidentally slept across the iconic moment, and incurred the wrath of all UNIX enthusiasts.

Tidbits from the wee hours of 2009

Published on January 1, 2009 in Just Rambling and Life etc.. 6 Comments

Snippets of the last two weeks in Roseville, CA!

  • Heard the same old repetitive jokes from my uncle. Plus a few PJs too.
  • Made my aunt the scapegoat for most of my jokes. I still haven’t stopped joking about her driving. Curiously, she was silent whenever I made fun of her.
  • Apart from that, I was subject to the usual blah-blah of my aunt almost every day.
  • Managed to embarrass myself when asked to crack a PJ. Neeraja and Arun came for dinner, and my cousin told them that I say worse PJs than my uncle (which is not actually correct). Then Neeraja asked me to crack a PJ, and I completely chickened out when I was put in the spotlight. PJs are meant to come out spontaneously and naturally. Neeraja called me “Dubakoor” (which only Tamilians will understand), and I grinned sheepishly.
  • Missed Teena and Sathiq again. I was planning to take a train to Santa Clara and meet them. But they have gone to India.
  • Drove through the Sierra Nevada, and saw real snow on the ground. It was unbelievably bright.. almost blinding. And I had forgotten to take my sunglasses. We had to turn back because my cousin started feeling altitude sickness. I was more than happy, nevertheless, because all I wanted was to see snow.
  • Learned to play Golf finally. But I think I’m not that good in Golf. Anyway, I’m gonna practise once I reach university.
  • 2 lunches, 1 dinner. Got to meet a lot of new people.
  • I got confirmation that I’m bloody brilliant. I won’t tell you the context. It would be showing off.
  • My habit of having new hobbies and getting bored of them easily continued. I got bored of changing my blog theme, and created a half-boiled one.
  • Saw “Slumdog Millionaire” twice (once in a theater). It is an awesome movie (Except for a scene which was gross).

Light and Sound

Published on October 29, 2008 in I miss India and Just Rambling. 13 Comments

This Diwali was very different for me. This was the first Diwali in my life where I haven’t burst crackers or lighted sparklers. Heck, I didn’t even see any fireworks anywhere.

These are the few things you miss when you are away from your country. All the festivities, all the fun. Sure there are special days here, but I just can’t connect with those. To me, Halloween is always associated with Harry Potter. I didn’t even know what “Trick or Treat” meant till a year back.

Makes me miss India much much more. I just hope I finish my studies as soon as I can and return India.

So, my Diwali was spent in calling all close friends and relatives and wishing them. I miss those fireworks. Unlike most others, I just used to love the noise and din early in the morning. I remember showing off different dangerous tricks with the firecrackers. I used to light them up in hand and throw them just in time to burst them in air. My brother used to be awed at this stunt as a kid. My mom always tried to stop me from doing that; even my dad used to try and dissuade me. But I would sneak out and do it nevertheless.

I used to think that my dad himself was afraid of crackers. I prefer using an agarbathi to light those. My dad used to roll a newspaper into a footlong roll and light the crackers using it from a safe distance. I realised that the elders are wiser rather than cowardly, from a really nasty incident. I was, as usual, trying to show off to my brother and his friends by throwing a cracker. Unfortunately for me, it lit up really fast, faster than my reflex. It burst in my hands. This was when I was in 9th standard. My entire left palm got burnt. Thankfully they were only minor burns. My mom didn’t let me go near any fireworks for an entire year

Another great delight were the diyas. Watching all those vivid designs in each house was a real treat. I miss those moments of sheer joy.

Some of the people raise concern over the air and sound pollution caused by all the firework. All I can say is that I am (and everyone else) entitled to one day of pure, unadulterated disregard of peace and quiet per year. I’m sure I more than make up for the rest of the year.

In other news, Raleigh is getting colder by the day. I have to wear thermals and a jacket whenever I step out, because I’m not at all used to this cold weather. Heck, even my face turns numb after sometime. Luckily, I’m so much of a chatterbox that I exercise my lips and mouth constantly and prevent them from getting numb. Plus, I wrote this post in 15 minutes, so please excuse any crude language.

Oh.. And Happy Diwali and Happy Halloween to all of you.

An Air of Niceness

Published on May 1, 2008 in Just Rambling. 5 Comments

I was wondering how niceness is so similar to air.

21% of the people are not nice.
Similarly, 21% of air is Oxygen, which is not very pleasant to breathe in it’s pure form.
78% of the people fake niceness.
78% of air is Nitrogen. Nitrous Oxide, which contains Nitrogen, makes you look like you are laughing, but you are not actually laughing.
0.3% of the people are real vermin trying to poison your mind.
Just like the 0.3% of Carbon Dioxide in air, which is actually poisonous if taken in high quantity.
The rest are the truly nice people.
Like the trace gases. They are not very easy to find.

We need all these kinds of people in the right proportion to survive.