The Show

I was talking to a friend a few hours ago; as we talked we traversed the long winding roads of relationships and theories about life.

Relationship theories cannot be complete without ample references to Seinfeld, and certainly not without due credit given to George. My friend brought up the Show Theory propounded by Costanza in The Visa;

George: Ya gotta put on a show, ya always gotta give them a big show. You always have to be 'on' otherwise why would they like me? They'd just go for a better looking guy with more money.

From the male POV, naturally it's quite upsetting - having to put on a show all the time can be tiring, especially when the chick walks out midway. This makes women sound materialistic and opportunistic. (No one likes sounding materialistic and opportunistic, even if they are.)

This is our take though:

See, we generally don't attend these shows based on newspaper reviews. If you're that frickin' good, you're probably sold out months before the show. Hence, we're genuinely taking a chance, its really more like a very iffy blind date than anything else. I might have been expecting a fine Shakespearean tragedy and I walk in to see an S. Vee. Shekhar play. The latter is great if you enjoy that sort of thing but when you're in the mood for The Bard you genuinely don't want to see anything else. We put the quick exit stage left.

I'll even give that you're putting up an excellent violin recital, when what I was expecting to hear was the sax. You've got our attention, and we're forgetting about the sax we were originally going out to listen to - and then you stop playing, or take a break. Now we're not entirely hooked by your violin recital enough to have forgotten about the saxophone, so can you really blame us if during the long intermission we realize we've somewhere else to go?

To clear this patent mismatch of ideas out, I suggest you stack out descriptions and genres quite clearly outside your hall. Make a little flyer.
"Jazz Only. Tickets to all other concerts must be left at the counter. Fair Software Engineer 24y preferred."


PS:
Tip - Open bar always draws in crowds. Women like their booze and they love it when it's free. Good luck at your next performance.

Harjot

I have a new neighbor.

It's a Surd kid in a little pink turban called Harjot.

All the other kids in my apartment building are badly behaved Tam kids who play cricket and football and break windows and charge into your apartment if your door is left open and break anything within reach on the pretext of finding their greasy ball.

I mentioned Tam kids; so you must understand that there is a lot of coarse swearing in Tam. The new Kids on the Block start off saying idiot and fool and descend within two days to muttal, shaniyan, bemari, somari and within a week, to thevadiya, all lead by a prepubescent but precocious 10-year old named Jagat, (Jaggu).

There are really no other racial, ethnic or linguistic groups apart from these Tam families, not accounting for the odd Marwadi businessman family or Northie DINK couples who come to rent in one of these buildings and soon move away unable to take the accusing stares of the parents of the abovementioned Tam kids (How dare they breathe the same air we do? Bloody philistine foreigners.)

Notwithstanding the fairly multicultural exposure at school, these kids are born xenophobes (as all kids must be, except these are armed to the teeth with expletives and cricket bats and eons of cultural egocentrism running through their veins). So when little Harjot came to play, they did not take to him as friendly little children do. He got called a lot of names (Popular Choice: Urulakazhangu-thalaya or Potato-Head). They grudgingly let him play though.

Jaggu soon came around after his tuitions and Harjot was umpiring. You've got to realize that this is Jaggu's birthright; no one else umpires while Jaggu's around. Unsaid apartment rules. Jaggu started off with some comments which ran on these lines (in tam, of course):

Enna da? Who is this towelhead? He can't be umpire. I'll hit him.

The bullying started all over again, with various kids backing Jaggu up and threatening to beat Harjot up to pulp. This little kid in a pink turban staunchly stood his ground; without saying a word or understanding a word that was said.

Finally, when Jaggu moved in for the kill, Harjot shot out a brilliant left hook contemporaneous with a kick to the shin that took all the wind out of the chubby and overfed Jaggu. He crumpled like a paper doll and subsequently ran off to his mom. The rest of the kids stood, shocked and awed.


Harjot resumed umpiring, and the children quietly took their places.


Languages are merely theoretical boundaries. Who needs words with a left hook like that?

Engineers

There are a huge number of engineers all over the world. This number is made more significant by their importance to the community they live in.

Not looking to give any merit whatsoever to sitcoms or dramas, or make them a barometer of the importance of people, but I'll definitely credit them with being a barometer of the public interest.

There are sitcoms about every possible profession. The law, medicine, nurses, detectives, vampires, PI's, etc. alright, dramatic, interesting.
Also about private practitioners, expats, hotel management, hotels not so well managed (Hotel Erotica, WHAT?) actors, managers, script-writers, teachers, school kids, book-keepers, drug-dealers, deadbeats, car mechanics.. er. not so dramatic now.

In short, about every single profession apart from that of an Engineer.


Not blaming them. Sigh. Who wants to watch a guy in glasses in oversized clothes and a stutter fabricate an IC? Or a boring short woman in badly matched clothes design tray towers?

Face it. We're boring people with boring jobs that no one (including us) are interested in knowing about.


ps: The Big Bang Theory is _not_ about Engineers. The show would fall flat if there were only Wolowitz and similar Wolowitz-like creatures in it.

Things that have irked me in the last few weeks

I spent three weeks at home in Chennai post-endsems and pre-internship, preparing for a farcical GRE, and the trials and tribulations I underwent here due to heat and boredom were severely compounded by the following phenomenons, which when named, must be preceded by a string of the choicest invectives in all possible languages.


In no particular order, they were:
1. Times of India ; Chennai Edition
This lousy paper took over thus far staunchly The Hindu households (not the religious affiliation here.) due to their marketing policy that appealed to the cheapskate preeminent in all Tam-Brahms. At the niggardly sum of Rs. 260 or so, you could subscribe to this paper and get the lousy rag throughout the year, and they threw in a diary and a couple of travel bags for free. I think we paid for the diary and the travel bags though, for who could charge anything for such trash as the TOI paper? I come home from Surathkal, aching for the crossie and the Editorial, and find this vile joke of a newspaper basking in the seat previously occupied by honorables such as The Hindu and The Economic Times. Oh, sin!
Typos are the order of the day; maintaining consistency in article genre clearly means squat to the bunch of juveniles staffing the TOI office. A pathetic attempt at imitating BT Page 3 has often ugly and terribly dressed men and women posing for a cameraman who if he had any self-respect would kill either his subjects or himself. A Tween-times of sorts is clearly a forgery of Young World, and a terrible one at that. Severely demoralizing to see this paper every morning, leading to harsh words exchanged between mother and self lead to the eventual scrapping of this (i don't want to call it newspaper).

My sister claims people in the US refer to TOI more familiarly as the Toilet paper Of India. Well done, I thought.

2. Shobha De

Excuse me while I control my urge to retch and tear my hair out.

She wrote this book called 'Superstar India: From Incredible to Unstoppable' which was reviewed relentlessly by the media.

I quote, from the book ;

-- Your screen cannot display the content here on account of its atrociously inane nature --

In my opinion, Shobha De should be bludgeoned to bloody death by a rumpus of bibulous baseball-bat bearing baboons. The bitch.


3. Women with discount coupons:

I was recently in line at a supermarket behind a woman dressed to utterly blind, where she had about three cartloads of groceries she wanted to bill. The woman at the counter wearily lifted the last box of tissues (There were five, I think. Apparently a woman prone to much sweat.) People were waiting in line behind her, tapping their feet, clicking their tongues, making noises, whatever it is that people do to signify their irritation. This woman calmly, so calmly, takes out her Sodexho coupons and starts counting them. They're marked in denominators of Rs 5, and she has a bill of approximately 3k. I have a vague suspicion of having died and been reborn in the time she took to count to 300 or whatever.


I had a bunch more I wanted to write about, but it's already taken me three weeks or so to come up with this post I first started writing about way back in May, and it's June now.

Cars and Babies

I wrote this awhile ago. And wanted to post after an age. It's been so long.

I think one of the most depressing things in the world is the dust dripping off a car in the rain. It forms layers and streaks across the car, forming strange patterns in the coat of dust, revealing patches of white that haven’t been seen in ages.

If it’s not enough that the owner didn’t care to clean his car, it worse that he chose to let the rain do its inefficient job for him. He should have atleast had the consideration to not take the car out in the rain.

It’s heart-breaking, really. To see half the layers gone. To see the dust all collected at the bottom of the fender or door. To see patches that were less fortunate than their neighbors. And to see people sitting inside their car listening to music when there’s dirt dripping off their side. I mean, how more icky can that get?

I love when a plump kid trips and falls. Not that I want it to get hurt or bruised or anything. I just love the way the fall sounds. And the way the stout little kid will sit up, completely bewildered. It’s even better when a concerned mother is around (preferably stout too). She’ll come running from wherever she was, and exclaim at the child. As far as I have observed, that exclamation frightens the child into tears more than the physical abrasions. Oh my god, she’s screaming at me for something, I must be hurt. Let’s scream before she starts yelling again, if only to shut her up. Scene ends in stout feller and stouter mother outdoing each other at screaming.

Keys

I don't get it when locks aren't numbered in order. People like to number their locks according to their keys, with little itty bits of paper stuck underneath the keyhole to indicate the number of the key. All this is very well, when you're taking the pain to stick paper at the keyhole you might as well stick paper on the key to give them uniform numbers.

I mean, ten locks in a row of cupboards(which are, by the way, built specifically with 3-feet tall people in mind and to give anyone over five feet acute lumbar spondylosis). It would be nice if you had one, two, three... ten. Drawer one, key one, lock one. Drawer two, key two, lock two. Nice and orderly and symmetrical. Common sense. But no, drawer one has key AB9980, and lock 437. Drawer two has key UN8894, and lock 789. No method in the madness whatsoever.

So when you're searching for a key, you're kneeling by the drawer, squinting at the miniscule numbers printed in bad handwriting on the lock.

Damn, I think this is 843. Does anyone have key number 843?

Random moron in the vicinity: That's the lock number. What's the key number? Look up the corresponding key number on the chart.

(I struggle up, find chart, match 843 to key number.)

Does someone have key number AB6682?

Random moron 2: Nope, I have GR9983.

Moron 3: GH1121 here.

Gah.

(I kneel again, to squint at the number correctly)

Crap. It's 834, not 843. Fuck this shit, man.

Absolutely random moron that should be burnt and killed: I think AB6682 is for the next drawer, check the lock number???

(I lean all the way to the next drawer to see the lock there, getting dangerously off-balance and fall midway)

(after brushing dirt off) Lock number 325.

Same dipshit: No, I don't think it's right. You'll have to check with the chart.


SOME common sense, you silly dipshits. I mean, what's the idea? 325, 834, 879, 526, 429? And don't even get me started on the key numbers. I mean, you do want people to find the keys and use the damn shelves right? or have you got potfuls of gold inside?

top ten reasons people do what they do

10. It's part of an endless chain of action and reaction.
09. They acknowledge their actions are a miniscule part of the larger balance of a greater karma.
.
.
.
.
.
02. They're hungry.
01. Arbit.

that's enough!!

How continuously thoughts run through the mind....

Like you're standing inside a room and you're continuously being pelted by these small elf-like things with balloons filled with coloured water and each time one hits you you're suffused with a different hue and sometimes multiple ballons strike you simultaneously and if you're lucky the colour's good but sometimes you land up looking like a moron... absolutely confused... stop, halt.. goddamn you, STOP throwing those balloons at me I have enough to deal with here you! I said stop it! Dammit... you thing, you... you, stop throwing thoughts at me! I don't want to THINK!!!!

a little too ironic

Its like rain on your wedding day
Like a free ride when you've already paid
The good advice you just didnt take...
Who would have thought... it figures....

Isn't it ironic... don't you think...

Oh, I do think.

Come back home after four months.. (I know I came back twice in the middle, but for inconsequential periods of time)... eight days gone past.. and the only thing I can say I've done worth its while is is visit the doctor...

How come it happens this way each time... you plan and plan and fervently hope your plan works out next week, or next month... time crawls by unendurably...then somehow, bam! you're in the next month, and... excuse me, isn't something missing...?? Your plan? Shot to pieces!

Male 1(18) and I had big plans of hanging out in December, watching movies, shopping, walking the streets, eating out, spending hours at Besant Nagar beach, catching up on four months... M1(18) catches a flu, and now won't return any phone calls. A flu one week ago and the guy can't return frickin' phone calls?

Female 1(18) and yours truly have been planning sleepovers in December since what seems like eternity. So much information (Read gossip) to exchange. Especially since this particular woman is the person I've been relating practically everything going on in my life to since... seventh grade?? F1(18) is still at college... and after a brief stopover of three days at home where she will have multiple things to do, she departs to some obscure bullshit place for a family vacation. *teeth grinding* Have fun.

Male 2(17) and I kept in amazing touch while at college. Quite surprising, considering the circumstances and level of communication between us before leaving to college. I think we both naturally assumed we'd talk a lot more once back in town. And meet often. And yet, this strange constraint of a self-built wall. Aah.. yeah.. lunch... sometime next week... umm... I guess...

~
Meet the man of your dreams
then meet his beautiful wife...
~

A little too ironic, I think.

Automatic Dislike.

Ever met someone you couldn't stand the sight of- the instant you saw them? For some inexplicable reason you take a dislike to them... the way he/she moves, talks, looks, smiles... everything the guy/girl does is criminal in your eyes.

Automatic Dislike.

I've been trying to find out from people where these sudden hate springs up from. One explanation could be: Like fingerprints, people radiate these waves that are unique to you. It's possible. Some people could be low frequency, high frequency, etc. [Let's not go into the unlikely nature of a non-dynamic-electromagnetic-field-producing body producing these waves.] And of course, we can go back to interference etc...

Can't say I agree. I'd be disliking a lot of people then. Again, I do, but not many people know that. Aw shush. We're not talking about me here. A lot of people who are generally amiable can't stand this particular chap they meet- or just see in the bus waiting at the signal to go in the opposite direction at a four-cross... You just know that if he/she actually met you, you'd want to sock them. That colour of the dress, that lousy perfume or the odoriferous lack of it, the garish shoe that went of vogue about forty years ago, that snobbish look on that spotty face, and oh! the goddamn worst of it all... appidiye Chicago la porandhu London la valandhu oru pitchakara accent la peysuvaangale... just hearing them on their cellular phones can send my blood temperature up into the high forties...

Forgive my becoming bilingual but I think that couldn't have been expressed as well in English.
I have my own theory. I think everyone is simply evil. It's just latent, waiting to spring out. And when you meet someone that brings that out in you... well... that's just your evil pardner, mon, you an' this guy, you destined for each otha', mon.