Milk of --------

Road signals are a good place to see what is around one. One is suddenly surrounded by bored expressions, bad music, beautiful people. There is a hidden tension in this inactivity. But there are oasis's of tranquil unawareness, people not engrossed in the everyday hurly-burly.

This is what I saw - a man with a shiny rag over his head feeding a pup milk from a plastic bowl. The biscuit in front of him suggests that he tried to feed the pup with it but the pup was not interested.

Was his world the plastic bag beside him or the little pup that he is feeding?

The old man

Today, I was once again in the passenger seat of a car waiting for the light to turn green.

I saw this old man staring far into the beyond, the partially open gate and the old man sitting was for some reason interesting.

It was almost like as if there had been an effort to open the gate and then he just got tired and sat down.

Another thing was that he looked like an Orangutan.

Photos From A Car

This photo was taken from a car, the effect of the windscreen wiper is seen just below.

This was taken on MG Road in Bangalore. I was in the passenger seat in a traffic jam. So I began to click picutures. Through the water and vehicles I noticed this cyclist manuevering with an umbrella in one hand. I tried capturing him but my screen always filled up with an inquisitive rickshaw drivers face.

I am such a sweet guy !

Okay what was said was that I am a ‘lovely person’ and that may be true, but the context was that this person had just finished saying that she was not interested in me. So the compliment turned out to be a ‘little hut’ when compared to the ‘castle’ I was building.

Over the years I have become a collector of such vague terms and the manner in which it has been collected has been the same (says a lot about my consistency). If anyone needs to know what to say after ‘NOT INTERESTED’ please do come to me, I have an enviable repository.

I have been told that the aim of life is to attain (seek, if one is less than perfect) perfection, to become known for some skill. From the emerging pattern it seems that I have chosen to provide people (read women) an opportunity to exercise their option. And it seems that I am getting better at it.

And how do I know that? You may ask. Well none of the other women have ever used the above mentioned term with me. They usually stick to something desultory like ‘nice’ and similes thereof.

Therefore it wouldn’t be an exaggeration to say that over time and through the various ‘nay sayers’ I have been able to draw out the best in them. So what if it is only with their vocabularies. The conclusion one can draw from all this is that I am improving and am well on my way to attain perfection.

But with my steady progress towards perfection am I doing anything about the otherside of the coin – getting known for a particular skill? I would give a confident yes, what with 6 degrees of separation, almost all the women being in the same city and the paucity of watering holes. This leads to another question – whether there is a particular type of woman that is interested in ‘word skills’. I don’t think so, my school of thought ensures that I be very eclectic. So do people (read women) flock to me to improve their vocabulary? The answer is no, maybe it’s because I am not famous enough (but by the way things are going I know it’s not too far away).

I realise that there is every chance that vocabulary levels may not always be on an upward gradient, which could jeopardise the completion of my vocation. This is an unfortunate debility of my chosen path. However I see a way out, next time round I am going to have handy Rogets Thesaurus and a list of words that have been used. After the solemn ‘NOT INTERESTED’ invocation I shall present the list of words that have already been used along with a Rogets Thesaurus, this will undoubtedly ensure that not only the quality of my list improves but also the lady in question updates her arsenal.

Life In A Metro

I saw this movie twice – the second time was a mistake - A BIG ONE.

There are many things that one learnt. The main ones deal with sex.

But first congratulations to Dharmendra and Nafisa – they are the oldest couple in Indian filmdom who have an on screen smoochero. Which leads me to the next point – it seems that they do not know how to.

So the first thing that comes across is that – OLD PEOPLE DO NOT KNOW HOW TO KISS.

The second is that sex is bad for health - after a night of gentle love making Nafisa konks off next morning. Maybe it was the thought of making tea for Dharmendra.

While on the very same subject it seems that one has to be unscrupulous if one has to have sex. However there is no doubt that the “give and take” in sex is very well depicted.

On the positive side the only way one can get lucky is by being immoral. And if one is moral then you end up “playing your flute” or “mowing your lawn”.

Which comes to Konkona – no I am not stalking her. But considering her choice of men (check out Pg 3 and this movie) she seems to veer to the unattainable. In both movies she opens the bedroom door to find her beau with, no not another woman, but with another man.

Cant wait to see what she opens the next door to.

On a conveyor

Who would have thought that Henry Fords creating the Production Line would one day become a metaphor of how we live.

Today, living switches between being on a conveyor belt or in watching conveyor belts around us (and I am not talking about the airport).

There is not much difference between us and the empty bottles, the skeleton of a car that trundles along a belt finding something new being attached every few minutes. Maybe we don’t need it but that is not important what is- is the end, the full bottle of saccharin soft drink, the car on the road taking a happy family somewhere.

Play school, school, college, work, it’s a production line.

Being part of a conveyor belt gives a straight-forward purpose to life- it’s easier than being emotional maggots that live off sentiment. There is a steady pace, direction and mechanical continuity that has a mind of its own.

But there is another side to the conveyor belt. The assumed ability of picking and choosing – its like the belt in the airport. There is a sense of confidence and relief as one identifies ones luggage. It is empowering to see something familiar trundle up to you – something like the ‘little bo peep’ phenomenon.

If one place can be described to be ‘for the conveyor and by the conveyor’ then it is the supermarket. The precision of multiple wrappings, the structured way things are stacked in these brightly lit places points to a mechanical birth in a theatre of orderliness and sterile functionality.

Opinion and choice are deftly catered to with colours, blurbs and prices, all found in a few square inches. Choice gently propels the shopper through the aisles and past the ‘pay-here’ counter.

The helplessness felt on the conveyor is lethargically empowering. One does not have to do much; one gets attached to what comes ones way, it takes one on a tour (guided or otherwise), passing souvenir shops that hand out collectibles, never stopping anywhere, always suggesting that there is something better.

Reporting now gives death many faces!

Dying is nothing new nor is the quantum of people dying. But what has changed over the years has been how the dead are identified. This change in how deaths are reported could be one reason why we as a race are becoming desensitised.

Take for example the recent news about a group of people being killed in the North Eastern State of Assam. It was reported as ‘Hindi Speaking’ people were killed.

The story behind this term is - the language of the state is not Hindi and that people who are not from this state were killed by Assamese. Extending it further one understands that there are some Assamese who are xenophobic and have taken it open themselves to scare away if not kill the people who do not belong to Assam.

Now this term may have been used to conform to norms of brevity. However what it does is provide a reason as to why these people were killed, it paints a picture that there these xenophobes have a reason to kill.

The fact of the matter is that people were killed in cold blood. They belonging to a particular linguist denomination takes away from the ghastliness of the crime.

Reporting that Sunnis and Shias are killing each other in Iraq only explains why they are killing each other. It reduces the gravity of such dastardly acts. It suggests a history, a reason for the madness, forgetting that in the end it is parents, children human beings that are being killed in cold blood.

By giving such a face to those killed and those who do the killing the media is taking away from the tragedy while also at the same time adding fuel to the fire.