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Dor.mp3

Pretty, no?

I am such a sucker for pastel buildings and cobbled streets.

Katti!

Wrinkled dreams

There is something incredibly beautiful about crooked, derelict buildings; criss-cross wrinkles running down their length, faded memories staining them in a patchwork of their once magnificent colour. They stand tall, held together only by the stories they’ve helped weave together over the sunburnt years.

If you drown out the self-absorbed din of today, you’ll hear yesterday come alive. Like a grandmother sitting in her favourite rocking chair, a fire by her side and the little ones around her, these old buildings will tell you fantastical stories of a time long gone by; of brutal wars and bright red romances; of wild drunken parties and night long wakes; of the dark bruises behind shut doors; of the warm glow of newly weds melting into one; of the sorrows of losing one of their own and the magic of meeting new faces.

The toothless windows nod in agreement, as do the balconies and street lamps; together they’ve seen fashion come and go and come back again; any clothes line here can dress you up for a big date, better then the best. Arthritis has set in. Some show signs of pneumonia, even tooth decay and kidney failure. But they refuse to give up. Unlike some others, they refuse to retire in the comfort of an old age home. They refuse to get any kind of a body job, proud of the shape they’ve turned into; proud of their cracks and their patches. The loose bricks smile proudly atop the strong, rigid frame.

The once chirpy terrace though has a bag of complaints. It remembers a time when its doors opened to young lovers, soaked in poetry on star-lit nights. Today it is a nest of creepy crawly wires, like thick aged blue-green veins, sticking out from beneath wilting skin. If you move them around, you might still spy a J heart M and an A heart G, dying under the heavy weight. Where bright flowers once stood, today antennas and a satellite dish stand; a sign of the changing times, I guess.

'Yes,' they all agree, wisps of their white hair making puffy clouds in the sky, ‘the times change; the characters change, but the stories, they remain the same. We just sit here on the kerb and watch them replay.’

Whoooohoooo!

Finally, something to cheer about!

At Home

He is sitting behind me with his bag on his lap. His hair is gelled and neatly parted in the middle. He wears a formal shirt and strange fitting, ugly pants. A black jacket and a pair of sports shoes complete him. He is looking for something in his much used blue handbag, intently shuffling through its contents. Where is it? His brows bunch up, and doubt begins to cloud his eyes, but his relentless hands keep searching. The group around him, his group, shift from one leg to the other, following his search with greedy eyes. They mummer to him, maybe words of encouragement, maybe rebuke, till he finally finds what he is looking for. He breaks into a crackling smile and pulls out a packet. A wave of cheer goes around the group. Riiiiiiiipp, opens the packet of shev bhujiya and instantly gets devoured. Kurumm-kurumm-kuruumm.

I don’t feel home sick anymore.

Thought for the day

There is no such thing as too much Coldplay*.

*replace with band of choice and current state of mood swing.

Me

Read my VisualDNA™ Get your own VisualDNA™

Save the earth! Now!

*Warning: petrifying post

Scary things are going on in Germany. With the weather all topsy-turvy, this year’s crop has been badly damaged, which in Germany means a horrendously poor potato crop, which means no potatoes, which means an extreme shortage of potato chips in the market!

And you thought global warming didn’t matter.

Plump no more

Here’s a word I’ve been meaning to share forever, and I have n to thank for this fabulous discovery …

Zaftig
Deliciously plump or carrying your extra weight very well.

From the urban dictionary* (which I think is brilliant, btw)

Not fat, or overweight … but Zaftig …

*http://www.urbandictionary.com/

Random

Today has been one of those vague days. I have a craving to write, but have nothing to write about, so I figured why not get a little random.

~

A report in the midday today says item girls across the city are a happy lot because Rakhi Sawant is locked up at Big Boss’s for three good months; giving them a chance to up their business considerably. The paper has also been very kind to list each girl’s price per show, just in case …

~

Promos of Himesh’s debut are out. He is now threatening the mortal world with a disaster called Aap kaa Surroor - The moviee, the real luv story. (Yes, movie is now moviee and love is now luv). The nasal menace claims this to be his very own tragic love story. My reaction, ye gods, he has a love story!

~

Going ahead with the filmi connection, Lindsay Lohan says she fears an end like Princess Di. ROFL. The poor delusional child. But then eating disorders do that to you right?

~

Dear old Ram Jethmalani says Jessica Lal was killed by a Sikh man ... no Mr Jethmalani, that was Indira Gandhi, remember?

~

Vilas Rao bravely fell asleep during a 'How to counter the terrorist threat' meet. Wonder if it was thinking about Money Money Money that put him to sleep ...

~

Shoaib Akhtar has done it again, at least allegedly. He is said to have slapped Bob Woolmer. Kind of got me thinking, whom would I slap if the opportunity presents itself? Let’s see I’d start with V.P. Singh (yes, I am political like that), Himesh (good old prejudice), Kashmera Shah (she’s annoying, yes yes, I watch Bigg Boss), Ektaa Kapoor (she still spells it like that, right?), RGV (Basanti, Nisha Kothari, please!) Beckham (just), that damn referee Poll (robbing Drogba of a goal like that, scum!) Bobby Jindal (such a fart), Alonso (just), Sonia Verma (she is on TV right now, she is so dead, it's irritating) … this is turning into a very long list, and I haven’t even started yet …

What was Mulayam Singh thinking?

Note: This question has at least 10001 variations, just substitute name of politicians to suit your argument.

The UP government, headed by the honourable Mulayam Singh Yadav, has issued cheques to distressed farmers across the region. This lion hearted drought relief measure ranges from an opulent Rs.10 to a generous Rs.2. Wonder how much the cheque itself costs, and the fare to the local bank?

Scary

These are bad time we live in. A time of remixes, remakes and super scary sequels. So while I cringe and squirm each time Shahrukh ‘Don’ Khan wriggles his bum to Khaike paan and Ash batters her fake eyelids to Rekha’s Umrao Jaan, I hear wicked words like Ramu’s Sholay and my newspaper spreads evil rumours of a Krrish sequel. Is there no hope?

Breaking NEWS

It’s 10:45 on a Sunday night. The whole day has been spent at work and all I ask for after such a day is some decent television programming to surf on. But no. What I get instead is 765 stupid news channels flashing brain dead breaking news in my face. Remember the old days? Breaking news meant election results, earthquakes, a tsunami or planes flying into buildings. On a good day it meant wow, we actually won a match. Today breaking news is a gutter filled with ridiculous marital spats, children eating chocolates in a pit, farty religious bigots displaying stunning levels of mental retardation and other such displays of general Indian stupidity. And this isn’t just one or two bad channels, every channel seems to be working hard to stoop lower then the rest. Example on screen right now, Sachin Tendulkar is saying, in Hindi mind you, that we need a balance while experimenting with the team. Stupid, daft reporter translates in his version of Hindi, Sachin ko nahi pasand team ke saath experiments, akhir bole little master. Huh? What? Where? On another channel the smart as a twit reporter is asking a singer about the pressures of singing for the new Umrao Jaan (warning: rant on remakes of classics soon to follow) and asks the singer to hum a few lines. Decent courtesy demands you at least shut the soundtrack, a song sung by another singer not in your studio, playing on your split screen, while the singer in your studio sings. But noooo, how could they figure out something as complex as this, after all this isn’t rocket science, is it? Btw, just incase you missed it, this was a segment of breaking news too, how exactly it qualifies, i don't know. Don't get me wrong here, not that watching the Mika-Rakhi war wasn’t interesting, much more intriguing then the Middle East conflict I’d say, but whatever happened to the news guys? And whatever happened to journalism?

Interrupted

It’s a glorious Saturday morning.

The sun is hiding behind fat white tufts of cloud. Last night’s rain has been soaked in by the cobbled pathways around. The trees are dancing in bright green outfits, with little clusters of colourful flowers as trimmings. The air is crispy and crunchy as it hits my face. Work is adjusted to interfere only on Monday morning. It’s the perfect day to grab a book and make place on the window sill. I take one last look at the world walking by before the words take me away. Aunties in bright pink saris make their way from the local grocer. There’s breakfast to be made and eager stomachs to be pleased. Old uncles walk by in white, smiling as they remember carefree stories from yesterday. A chirpy teenager chatters away excitedly into her phone, it’s just the kind of day when you want to fall in love. School is out and a bunch of kids are planning their next game. Who will bat, who will bowl, wait let me fix the stump. They scream and they fight. Holler at each other. Who will be in my team? I don’t want the fat boy, he can’t run. It’s my bat, I’ll start. Throw the ball, throw it here you fool! Little grudges accumulating for a final showdown.

My glorious Saturday morning is turning into a little riot.

If only I could slap the little hooligans, I’d be able to save the day and savour the words.

Tick tock tick tock

Mice don’t really like cheese.

Pluto isn’t a planet anymore.

Andre Agassi has grown old.

Michael Schumacher won’t race anymore.

My world is changing.

And how.

Courage will die

There is a man crying on TV right now. He says he knows he will be murdered soon. He knows the people who are going to kill him and he knows they will make his family suffer. He knows they will be brutal. He knows he can’t escape. He says he spends each day wondering when they will come for him. They are powerful. They have already threatened him. They even offered to buy my silence, he says. But I can’t sleep with the images they have planted in my head. I see the professor being killed every time I close my eyes. I want to sleep. I will testify. They will kill me for it. I too shall die.

Decisions

Ah to be in Michael Schumacher’s very expensive shoes right now. How does a man choose between more money and more money?

One miracle, two miracle, three…

Dear God,

Since you are in my part of the world right now, please do me a few favours. No point pretending you’re busy elsewhere because I know it’s you* and that you’re here.

See, if you were trying to keep a low profile, turning that nasty toxic dump into a sweet water delight was a big mistake. And then you went and drank litres of adulterated milk, sip by sip. Most of us can barely digest a spoonful, you’d have to be divine to polish it off. And if that wasn’t enough, you went and posed on a derelict building. Really God, if you were going for discretion there, I suggest you hire a really good PR firm, pronto. Anyway coming back to the point, all these miracles you’ve been up to, sweet as they are, can we have a few concrete, focused miracles now please? Here. I’ll give you a headstart and then you can take it from there.

Can we start with Karan? God, please take away all his money. Or make him sick. Or just let him have that man he is craving for. One more movie out of his closet and you’ll end up with mass dementia on your hands.

Potholes. Potholes are seriously dangerous God. Just the other day I lost a bit of my spine in one those holes and though I did find a new set in another hole, they really weren’t the right size. My only concern is that a spineless following might not be very good for your image, will it?

Breaking News. Watching Prince eating that bar of chocolate had me craving for the good old state regulated DD days. Honestly, I don’t know how you will tackle this pain, but you are God and I’m sure you’ll figure something out.

The Government. I don’t know if you caught the Laloo-Prabhunath Singh saga the other day. Or if you’ve been following Arjun Singh’s monologue. Or for that matter Vilasrao’s solo act. This nautanki has run its course God, it’s now time to draw the curtains.

Himesh. Oh God o God, please do something about this nasal menace. It is threatening to deliver this and the next year’s biggest hits, pitching this cacophonic situation into calamity mode. Today it’s just filmy hits. Tomorrow it could be your music. Think about it.

Right, this about covers the biggest threats to our daily lives. My work ends here and yours begins. Ciao then God almighty, I’ll let you get on with things.

lv,
neha

* going by the sab ka malik ek hai theory, i have used the word God as a singular representation of all the Gods around.

Do you believe in God?