There goes 2006

Maintaining a blog for over two years let me look back into where I stood at the end of the years... last year I had this blinding realisation about the mountain of past being an excellent teacher and a year before that I was indecesive about whether or not to cheat. This year, to be honest, I am restless and slightly disgusted. Restless because I want to be more occupied... most of this year I could not blog because I was too busy, and blogging was almost always close to my top priority.


Was like looking up 2007 in wikipedia... interesting things all set to happen.. a ban on smoking in England for instance... went ahead to 2008... then 20 2085... kept going past the 4th, 5th, 6th and 10th milleniums all the way to the eleventh millenium and beyond...

Threshold

You dilate
For the sights
They dilate
For their curiosity
They fight
For their rights
You fight
For their egos
You replicate
For the dead author
They reproduce
For the dead idea
They think
For their role
You think
To sort out the jigsaw
They stress
For their conformity
You stress
For THEIR individuality
They play
For their education
You play
For yours
They laugh
For the joke
You laugh
When you don't get it
You smoke
For the smoke strings in the rain
They smoke
To Cloak the halitosis
You Globalize
For the fetishism
They Globalize
For the cancer
They end up with
Mankind
You end up with
Helpless expression

Headbanging

speech?

There is this theory we learnt last sem in the media course, which suggested that an author might be dead because his work got interpreted in a hundred different ways. This would also mean that the author dies in a hundred different ways... unless you stop being so cynical and think what if the author lives in a hundred different ways.

Marquee

When we matter most is when we choose that particular bliss that slowly poisons us, or we consume that passion that is at least temporarily gratifying... nothing really to write about, long time since I blogged... was too busy editing... will be back soon, more photoshopping on my hands, and just started off with fruity loops so...

In front of FTII masks

2 more weird dreas

Today is the first time I've woken up at two in the morning after a good night's sleep... seriously... funnily enough, I went to sleep at around seven... anyway, two more weird dreams yesterday and today... one an old man in a lungi is holding a dog's dick and making it urinate in the same way that a cow is milked with small splashes on his face... a small tapori boy, a little mischievious, shows him a glass of my urine, which the old man looks at, and concludes that I got drunk at Pune. Then a white horse driven carriage and a black horse driven carriage entera strange tunnel on tracks.... have to draw that out, looks like some classical painting.

And just now, dreamt that I was hiding from this jaguar I killed, and the moment I killed it, it turned out to be my mom. The jaguar was stalking me for some time before I killed it with a gun.

Twiddle your thumbs

Have you noticed that you can twiddle ONLY your thumbs? That's a point against thumbs actually, not for it, for the simple reason that every single other finger has a use... A friend and I were twiddling our thumbs when the conversation came up... we noticed that the index finger is used to point at things and remove things stuck in various body orifices (other's body orifices in some seriously nonfeminist films), You contemplate the uses of the middle finger, and you will probably get one, the ring finger... well, is for the ring... and it might seem stupid and insignificant, but what the hell, the ring signifies the most important thing in most people's lives, so... I came up with the little finger, and was pretty sure it was as useless as the thumb, but my friend rattles of a list making it THE MOST USEFUL FINGER OF ALL... to say katti, to seal the most solemn swear, to seal a bet, to show that you have to urinate without words, AND to pick things out from smaller body orifices.


That leaves the thumb, in his words "bura lagega karke twiddling ka kaam diya"... nice myth about the opposable thumb being the most useful finger of all and crap like that, I am not even using it to type.



The deeper insight about the whole thing is however, the ring finger again... think what the ring finger represents ok... now, it is between the middle finger and the little finger, and think what THEY represent in turn right? - now comes the really cool part, the ring finger is the weakest - because it shares a flexor muscle with the middle finger and the little finger. Now thats a laugh.

Hey Freud: Interpret this

There are mountains beyond a field and the field is not easily traversable because of thorny bushes and anthills. There is something black moving so fast on the mountain, that it looks like a part of the mountain is collapsing. On closer observation, it turns out to be a horde… a horde of panthers – panthers with tusks, mouth wide open in an everlasting growl, dangerous teeth bared and bloodwashed faces. I am at the foot of the mountain, and the horde is running in my direction, which I notice when six cattle tied to each other (the first two brown and white, left brown, right white, if that matters) rushes past me. Then, ONE panther from the horde rushes after the cattle, passes me by, turns around to look at me, checks me out, turns around, and goes on to attack the cattle. It scares two elephants, who run the other way, towards me, and one jumps over me and goes away, another tries to stamp me, but misses, so it starts stamping and coming towards me knowing it will get me this time around when I wake up. A highly detailed dream I for which I have woken up with a headache. A sever migraine. Oh yeah one more thing, I stay in the same place, that is I never run, although I have an impulse to.



For some weird reason, the whole night was full of such nightmares… don’t know what is wrong with me… the worst one was probably one where I bump into an old crush… from a long time ago, at a medical shop, turns out that her uncle had made her ditch her boyfriend in preference for me, but I start going to college right then and forget about her.



Just got up, leaving for college in another half an hour or so...

Filthy Rich

The media’s side of the story: A bunch of teenagers partied into the night and were driving home drunk when the guy at the wheel lost control of his car and rammed into the footpath killing 7 construction workers from Andhra Pradesh taking a nap.



The other side of the media story: A bunch of teenagers partied well into the night, they didn’t have time for a drink, so they drove home while drinking, the guy at the wheel lost control of the car and it rammed into the footpath leaving 5 injured, 7 killed and 3 critically wounded.




The driver’s side of the story: A bunch of his friends partied into the night, were drinking on the way home, the axel broke and the car smashed into the sidewalk, killing 7 people. Some of his friends ran away home before the police caught them. Many people drink and drive, and he was unlucky enough to be caught, which happened only because of the car malfunctioning.




A friend’s side of the story: These kids are really rich and have been partying hard for a long time, one of the guys had got a stripper home for his sixteenth birthday.




A journalist’s side of the story (not shown up in the newspapers): The driver’s father walks into the station, half drunk, I ask him for his comments, and he says he has none and “I am fed up.”




Funnily enough, the people in the car have Orkut Profiles, which allows one to come across things like:




You have a debt to repay to society... a nice lesson imo as far as responsibility goes for somenoe who it appears from the papers is spoilt and had too much money and not enough sense to know what to do with it.




And




when you read this i hope you are ashamed.. and i hope that you regret what you've done.. cos nobody is oing to forgive.. your frends might tell you.. to chill and relax.. but i hope they read the bigger picture and they see the kind of magnitude at which the damage has been caused..
im soo angry.. i wish i could meet this ass.. i hateto take his name .. the fucker who was driving the car.. he should not live.. and i hope .. being the rich snob that he s.. that when he gets bail and he's out and you talk on the phone.. do let him know what i wrote to you.. and that how people are angry and ashamed and furious at the irresponsible behaviour of the 6 of you..
murderers!




Sentiments probably echoed everywhere… there is a lot to be ashamed of here, for the entire society. While pretty unpardonable, the carter road area is utterly devoid of speed breakers, and I have also speeded around in there, it is pretty dangerous with or without alcohol. These six rich young people involved in such an incident is compared, even by the media to the similar Salman Khan incident some time ago, and has more or less the same newsworthiness, and this is exactly what we need to be ashamed of.




The whole story is about the people in the car, not those who are dead. Some insensitive people claim that it was illegal for those people to be sleeping there in the first place, and so its no body’s fault that they ended up dead. That’s like the railway worker who was not compensated when he died by falling off a train he should not have been traveling in because he should have been working. Another bunch of people rally around the dead claiming the sever damage these people do to the society… that is also bollocks because… well, no body wants to know about the dead. There is some sadistic pleasure in seeing the rich bastards in some kind of trouble they cannot escape from. The whole thing has to do more with the richness of the kids and their lifestyle than the actual tragedy that happened.




This makes me think that many of us are socialists at heart, at least the majority of the middle class…. Or only the rich are capitalists. If this is true, then it is even more shameful that the rich are actually ruling the world through supposedly equalizing ideologies.




About the incident itself, I know this man, who got hit by a maruti and he fainted. He regained consciousness in the police station where there was a report of his drunken driving in front of him. He had never touched a bottle of alcohol in his life. Not saying those guys were not drunk, but the police and the media is both fucked up, AND a friend has a shirt that says “The first to vomit, drives” .




Cheers




Various Contradictory press reports for your consideration:




"The driver and two other occupants of the car appeared drunk. We are carrying out their medical tests,"




Police arrested all the six persons in the car, including Aliston Pareira (21) who allegedly was in the driver's seat.




The angel of death visited the shanties on Carter Road on Saturday. And it came in the form of a drunk Alistair Perreira (20), at the wheel of a black Toyota Corolla.




The Navy Blue Corolla, mowed down 7 construction workers sleeping on the footpath at Carter Road.




By the time he brought the car to a screeching halt amid shanties reduced to rubble, six people had died and nine were critically injured.




Three alcohol bottles were found inside the car.







A bottle of whiskey was also recovered from the car

Not really THERE yet

Results tomorrow but its funny that everyone already has the news and there is no point in the whole affair but the paperwork. What is funny is however that every step you take is haunted by the ghosts of everyday politics, and circumstance manages to outsmart you, petty passions dog you, and outrageous sensations have the knack of seeking you out for their own sake... and the only shield you have from all the bullshit is your own nearsightedness which just buffers the blow and screens you from the complete extent of the damage. You try to make sense of it all by placing yourself in all the mess… and therefore it is also funny that you are neither the spectator nor victim in this particular bloodsport, you are nothing less than a full fleged participant, and because of the youth, just learning the rules of the game in the dog eat dog world. It might boil down to some phantom gene dance progressing in the bloodlines where procreation and maximizing your contribution to the gene pool is the only ultimate aim in your life, but some aesthetic if not metaphysical aspect of yourself, that shrad of your brain called the soul asks for nothing but simplicity in this weird world… killing, eating and fucking would have been a better life than the psychological trauma that mankind puts itself through… abusing the one thing unique in our species. Irrespective of a God above who is supposed to even things out or everything written in our fate or destiny or whatever, we are all blessed with powers and all our energies are usually diverted to things we’d rather not do. For example, make sense of it all… there is a certain relief in letting it all go, in celebrating the nearsightedness, in feigning innocence, in pretending to rise about the supposedly petty brainfuckedness that everyone is put through… maybe age hardens you against them, but I’d rather enjoy my cutting chai without a care in the world rather than even begin to make sense of it. Making sense of it, is I guess, simply not my cup of tea.

Why you shouldn't propose on top of the Eiffel Tower

two friends of mine were sitting in French class, and as a part of an exercise, they had to write how five objects should be used... now these five objects were a bottle opener, a door (I think) and some other things, but more importantly, the last "Object" was the Eiffel Tower... NOW someone just passes a comment that it looks phallic... one thing leads to another, and finally, the conclusion that they reach is that you should never say yes to a man who proposes to you on the top of the Eiffel Tower... because he means to always have sex with you (where the FUCK did that come from?)

NOW, imagine some poor chap actually going through the trouble of arranging for a proposal on the top of the Eiffel Tower...

The story apparently did not end there… because then I asked her as to what places were OK for a marriage proposal… and as things turned out, anywhere in France was disqualified without it really being needed to be said, then the Taj Mahal was out because the story was tragic, the great wall of China was out because of the population thingy, the Niagra falls was out because it made you wet AND you had to wear those stupiud blue raincoats. Now there were very few options left, and anything above ground like the CN tower, the leaning tower of Pisa and the Qutub Minar were ruled out immediately… and then anything below the ground was ruled out too… like the grand canyon… which left us with: Beaches. That was probably a post Goa hangover, but beaches are apparently an ideal place, so are grasslands and deserts.



I wanted to contribute and come up with an original OK place, and I started with the surface of the moon or some weird planet outside Cygnus.



Disqualified because I needed a rocket to get there.

Jessica Lal

I dont know much about the whole issue, I just understand that justice is being served finally after a long time, but to keep it short - I just think that dedicating so much media coverage to ONE case of the law taking the right course is just a great shame to the nation.

The secret

A loud cheer went around the gathering on the beach, and I looked up to wonder why… the sun had apparently set, the night was about to dawn, reason enough for the type of people gathered here to cheer. I was busy trying to build a tower of beer and breezer bottles, but gave it up, and decided to go on a walk. At the end of the beach, there were miniature rock formation, steps, and swirls and other shapes as interpretable as clouds. I imagined myself as some large mythological giant rumbling through the desolate lands of an alien continent. The ambience was perfect for that, and the newborn twilight shone on as a perfect backdrop. I jumped across the sea, a small portion of it not bridged by rocks anyway, and walked around till I spotted a path into the hills. I climbed, obviously, laboriously at first, for the slope was steep, and then the going got easier. Bumped into some violet bushes on the way, stuck one above my ear, removed my shirt, tied it around my waist and walked on. The breeze was cool now, enough relief from the scrambling, but I also had a bottle of breezer in one hand, and a stick of Gudang Garam in another, a cigarette with a lot of cloves and a lot of tar, which leaves a sweet taste behind if you lick your lips after you are done with a fag. I walked on, enjoying the mere fact that I was present here, alone, and up ahead, I saw a grave. It was a white marble thing, the cross jutting out well into the sky, and I wish I had more than my mobile camera to photograph this with, because the horizon was still burdened with a fiery orange flash and streaks of red.


I climbed on, came across a plateau, a field of grass, and a lone man sitting at the edge of the cliff, overlooking the beach and the sea, probably meditating, and I had half an impulse to share the rest of the breezer with him, but I walked on, in fact ran through the grass, barefooted, the violet fell out of what I thought was a safe keep, onto the rocks of the top of the hill, where wild thorns tore at my feet, but up there was a rock jutting out, right into the open air, right above the beach and the sea and the grass plateau below, and right where I was running to in a frenzy ignoring everything else.



I was breathless, not because of the view, but because of the exertion. The view was stolen away from me by a swarm of swallows, silently swirling around me… I don’t know what they were upto, but they were circling me… I smoked my cigarette till the filter, the heavy breathing letting me draw in more of the poison, and calmly sipped on my drink while I wondered about the whole exercise.



I do not know what I thought… it would be a lie to claim enlightenment, it would be a lie to claim inner peace, I was frankly in a lot of turmoil, I never wanted to leave that place… it was a sort of exhilaration I guess, godlike, above the rest of the world I could see, having no power to influence it in anyway, but gaining immense pleasure from just watching it for the beauty of it. I stayed there, waiting till the reds and oranges faded to dull pinks and browns through many tiny wings. And then a large bird, I could not identify it, probably an eagle, soared silently through the swarm. It ignored everything around it, and went on purposefully past. Right then, I wondered if evolution had made the right choice for us. Here we were, with brains that can communicate such rich experiences as this through such a diverse a media as only we create… and yet, the bird that went past enjoyed a better view than I could. I wondered what it would be like to be able to fly my way down. Para gliders. Shit.
Anyway, I turn my back to the scene, and walk down… across the field, picking my way slowly, into some private property, down a steep slope of steps, into the kitchen, and out into the pub and then the beach… I rejoin my friends a litter more blessed, and sit down and resume work on my tower, in high spirits and an empty bottle in my hand.


The last vestiges of that day trickle through the bottles as the sky turns dark… there are fire dancers and jugglers on the beach, and the location is a secret I want to keep.



PS: I have pictures! upload them later

Ja Bhadve Ja

Two drunk men are standing talking about nothing in particular, when one of them is bothered by a handcart… he glares at the guy behind the hand cart, and the other man consoles him, thus preventing a fight. The other man draws him aside, the hand cart moves ahead, maneuvering around a Qualis that honks impatiently at the other drunk man, who glares at the Qualis driver, and who is consoled by the guy who glared at the hand cart, thus preventing a fight. The hand carts winds its own way through the crowded streets, as does the Qualis, only in the other direction. In the background is a veritable moving palace, drawn by twenty bulls with red circles painted around their eyes. Inside sits the Ganpati idol belonging to the richest Mandal in Pune, the seventh richest religious establishment in the world, including the temple at Kanyakumari and the Vatican City. The crowds throng around the Ganpati, ears, tusks and crown glittering with gold and jewels, but there is a lot of movement of people into a side street, their backs to the glimmering electrical chariot, away from the processions, which is pretty strange. The Ganpati is supposed to fulfill wishes, where could this steady stream of people possible be headed? Obviously, the chronicler investigates.

Cigarette shops and bars litter the area, but that is not the major concern here. There are dead looking empty black buildings, where people are sleeping drunk, vomit leaking out of their mouths, and while others sit and smoke or sleep for the night to pass, since the next morning, the procession begins again. There are men dressed in white handing out back and leg massages – malish as they call it… the price is pretty cheap, two bucks – two bucks for some unit of massage known only to the massager. The crowd meanders through, all of this, and suddenly, there is light. Cigarette shops and bars litter the area, but they are all more lively. There are yellow buildings, with clothes out to hang. Young girls chatter away and look mischievously at the crowd. Boisterous men gesture enthusiastically as they wave around their cigarettes, bleary eyed men walk out of the bars, consoling each other from fighting over trivial issues, and strangely enough, there are a lot of young men around, walking slowly, with tired but satisfied smiles – no – grins on their faces.

I walk around with a smirk on my face, and look around. From the window on the third floor, a woman dressed in a perfect oriental costume – straight from the sets of Memoirs of a Geisha stares right back. I wonder if it is a part of some old tradition of this place to dress up women in exotic costumes. The women here are all, in fact, dressed up in various ways… it is like a fashion show, Arabic, Assamese, Victorian, and Punjabi seem to be the most popular trends going around, but nothing can beat the western look – or at least the look attributed to the west in the 80s bollywood movies. Knee length skirts, a blouse, and a garish red lipstick… most of these skirts move up the thighs for a while before dropping down, something the men find very entertaining.

I was fascinated… Bhudvarpet in Pune was a sight… mostly because it was so lively, unlike the shabby and demented look of Mumbai’s kamatipura.

Personally, I was beyond excitement or disgust, it was fascinating, and yes, I admit, oddly uplifting, to walk around in an environment where the very atmosphere was charged with some sort of taboo gratification… because here it was not just a fuck and pay thing… there was an aura around the entire transaction, there was some wooing, some selection, even some romance involved in the entire affair.

There were famous windows, from where the most renowned (the words used to describe was “the best of the lot”, but I guess, I am being more fair here) prostitutes used to peek out and there were crowds below waiting for that one glimpse of her. She, would earn a lot irrespective of her looks and abilities only because of her reputation, and some weird kind of arousal generated because of the prospects of fucking someone who showed just a glimpse of herself to a hungry audience every now and then.

The middle aged whores dressed in exotic ways, and it is funny to see an Egyptian goddess sitting most invitingly at the door or a Mallika Sheravat look-alike in a sarong and a top smiling and waving at the passing crowd. There were the demure girls, probably newbies, or trained to act innocent, I could not make out which, staring shyly at passersby with dilated pupils. The most popular activity, was however, the group flirting, where a bunch of prostitutes were surrounded by an even bigger bunch of men, with some bargaining and negotiations known only to them going on.

Up ahead, after another turn, the army and the police were struggling to keep a large crowd waiting for a glimpse of the Ganesha under control, and we were walking towards it. The microcosmos around me was fading, but before it left its hold over me, managed to cheer me up with the most pleasant parting gift of laughter. You see, some over forthright man tried to grope a girl, and she publicly insulted him, making everyone else laugh. What interested me really was, that even for a whore, calling someone a “pimp” is a really really bad insult.

Insects at Khardi

All are caps from my videocam... so imagine all this in motion ok, I've got dragonflies in extreme close up taking off and landing... pretty cool... the first three are all pics of dragonflies... will later vlog a few clips, also of one totally insane guy putting a live dragonfly in his mouth...








That's a water beetle... static camera, them flitting around a lot, this is the clearest frame I could cap... would make a nice background for the credits of some movie







This is a photo of three insects. Yes three, look carefully man...







There is a grey one camouflaged behind the rock, there is the red one which flies like a helicopter, and then there is the crab like spider...

morekut

Orkut cute is a nice program to change the color, and do other things like scrap a lot of people at once, reply in communities and suchlike, highly customizable, orkut only browser, is a stand alone application, but is difficult to use. Scrapboy is also good, but unfortunately it throws up the scraps of everyone in your friendlist by default, turning them off is a hassle, so the best way out is to combine an orkut toolbar with greasemonkey. Greasemonkey is a really cool plugin for firefox and opera that allows you to execute javascripts on webpages... pretty nice and universal... should try it out. Ap exploring firefox plugins now, will blog about them.

Psychadelicia - camera tossing variants

Ok original pictures taken on mobile camera, no photoshop retouching, although most of these effects can be created in photoshop, still make itneresting pictures. Pressed the joystick while vigourously shaking the cameraphone instead of setting a timer and tossing it. If you want to try this out too, put it in night mode, that's the equivalent of setting a long exposure on a mobile camera... this way, you get a lot more control over your images... streaks, circles, long streaks and sudden curves... whatever... really cool way.

















Headed out to Khardi for a two day vacation... will blog all about it when I come back. Till then, Sayonara... oh, btw, today, bunch of us had some beer, sent a friend off, waited at the airport for a couple of hours for another friend (atrocious parking rates, we did not park at all), Saw Sushmita Sen from like six feet away, (damn tall she is), came back home late, now leaving at three in the morning to send that friend off THEN headed to Khardi by a seven fifteen train... so sayonara now... will play unreal all night long

more photoshop experiments

Photos are of a friend named Sandeep

more photoshop experiments

Photos are of a friend named Sandeep

Star Wars: The attack of the terribly bored photoeditor

Come on you half mechanized heartless tinman with a fucked up family... lesse what you got





I have a message for Obi Wan... tell him that his padwan has gone from killing children to destroying planets





Most feared Dark Lord ever my ass... Sauron can kick your butt - and that with ONE eye





Watch and Learn Guys





Wipeee! Hyperspace! There goes everything Einstein said...





No matter how much ILM tries, they cannot beat Leia in the golden bikini, and Jabba's having all the fun... we need to go there






Hey nice infrastructure to design your hairdo princess!





A big bad beast is going to eat up all those people there... shouldn't we be going to watch?





the chosen one and you didnt even ask Lucas to give you a cool lighstabre?





Hmmm... how does a knight move on a circular chess boad?





Kabab mein haddi





Weren't you the one who fooled around with the Mona Lisa?

I donno

Exams over. Three sems down - half way through journalism. I am now HALF A JOURNALIST. Yeah right. I am also half an advertiser.... going to be two thirds of it before I become a complete journalist. Arty party farty blog tomorrow no photoshopping today.

for what its worth - more photoshopping