Twenty Onwards Media

OSO

There was this day when I was home on medical leave. It's not a new phenomenon. The heat can do that to anyone - make a person feel really stretched, depressed and feverish, I mean.  I had run out of things to do and acting sane. I decided to watch a movie just to while away the time. i rummaged around for a good flick but either they were at my friends' place or films I had already run my eye thorough at least a couple of times. Then I saw a disc initialed OSO lying on the table. I picked it up, more out of curiosity than anything else. I inserted the disc in my laptop and HELP! it was OM SHANTI OM. I consoled myself with the thought that if the movie is a mega block-buster and the Indian audience has gone all ga-ga over it, I could atleast summon a bit of patience and courage  to sit through the movie. I gave it all I had, my very best,but I I just couldn't manage to see. I tried everything, from skipping forward to muting to sometimes just listening to the audio parts but they were all failed ventures. The sheer absurdity of the script, the over-acting of every actor, save Shreyas Talpade, had me almost puking. I invoked the name of every God to deliver me from this torture and never gain to commit myself to such foolish ventures. That's about it folks. If I go on, I just might throw up my lunch.

Alcoholic Anonymous.

You know you are having serious problem with alcohol when you start drinking in your dreams. The problem started at CP somewhere around noon on a sunday; we were walking around having a Carlsberg rolled inside the TV issue of our magazine discussing our chances of robbing a bank and starting our own magazine.

 Our beers were over by the time we reached the ICICI bank offices, but we weren't drunk enough to even attempt robbing it; infact we weren't even drunk enough to ogle at the girls with impunity. The bank was closed anyway.

 Throwing the bottles surreptitiously my friend started on one of the topics very close to his liver- the taste and effect of different brands of beer. In fact it was he who had insisted upon Carlsberg calling it a superlative beer. Superlative or not it had failed to have the desired effect of giving me the sexual confidence of a street dog. And any beer or alcohol that failed to achieve this was wasted on me and was as useful to me as the piss it would come out as in a few hours.

 I told him our editor has already written a blog on this useless topic, and that all beer taste like different version of dishwater and had the same effect on me.

 Accusing me of having a blunt palette he offered to sponsor an impromptu beer tasting session. The session lasted something like 5 hours and took place all over CP, with friends joining and leaving at different intervals. Each bringing their own brand of beer and point of view to the meeting. The session ended the way it began, with vague conclusions about various metaphysical questions, girls being top of the heap. The original topic of discussion which was lost hours ago in the melee of drunk burps, cigarette smoke and Van Morrison songs was replaced by the most instantaneously relevant one,  how to seat four guys on a single pulsar.

 After trying various combinations- the two thin guys in the middle, the thin guys at the back- and failing miserably at each one of them, we decided to leave the bike at the parking and take the metro to our respective places. Since the bike wasn't mine I agreed and since the bike owner was too drunk to protest or drive he acquiesced too.

Later that night I had two intensely booze colored dreams; the first was approximately an hour into sleep and the second immediately before I woke up.

 In the first I conned a fellow drunk into buying me a beer with the expert cunning of a veteran boozer, the ones you always meet outside wine and beer shops and the ones you are always scared of turning into.

The second took place in a pool side bar; with the drink menu in my hand I was about to order either kurt cobain or rattlesnake (two of the cheapest drinks on the menu) when somebody stole my wallet and I woke up.

After checking up on my wallet and looking up Freud's Interpretation of Dreams I decided to cut up on drinking.

Life@ a Call centre

Life@Call centre

 

 

“I thought call centres were all about call girls and I used to relate it to those husky seductive voices”, told my suave well-accented trainer. People used to have strange perceptions about call centres then. This is when in the wake of dearth of options I ended up working in a BPO( I prefer calling it a BPO as I have faced the ignominy of being in a call center). “Onna di kudi tan call centre wich lagi hoyi hai. Le call centre di wi koi naukri hundi  hai. Pata nai ki karde ne raat nu”. Nights have some satanic effects, I believe. All the bad deeds are done in night and so call centres too are bad because they run in night. That used to be the perception of my neighbourhood aunties. Though I never tried to justify myself or give any explanations, I used to boast of the fact that I have cleared some six nay seven rounds of interviews to reach where I am today. For six months, I lived a virtual life where the world wide web became my clock. Thanksgiving

and Christmas meant more than Diwali and Dusshera. Coffee became my petrol as my system would refuse to run without that indispensable kick. Life seemed to have come to a halt as it was all about customers and cases. Even when we were off-calling, the discussion would hover around the idiosyncracies of Americans and their issues. I have never had a chance of staying abroad, away from my nation, but I know how it feels to meet a desi among videshis as finding an Indian customer on call would conjure up similar feelings. In fact it used to be a respite as for that particular call you need not roll your R’s and touch your upper pallet to make that strange t sound for that fake American accent. I remember the best part of working with a BPO was shitter which used to be really clean and sparkling white. Well-illuminated, I would never spot dark circles on my face. I am not a cynic and I must confess though life at a call centre was monotonous, I learnt a lot from there and it always would be an interesting chapter of my life.

The Best a Man....err...a cat can have

http://www.deiman.nl/weird/images/gilette.jpg, its not the men only who can use it. others can go for it too. check it to believe it.

R4|\||)0mn3$$

The Title is just to piss Jatin off.

First A song by the Bollywood Brass Band from England,

Followed by your favorite game from childhood - uh ... I don't know what it's called but you have to join dots and make boxes

And for my final number, a funny comic.

Thank You For Tuning. This Is Your Friend Adhiraj, Wishing All Of You All A Good Night, Sweet Dreams.

Strange Things

I liked Lucky Ali songs once upon a time, one of the tracks being from the movie Bhopal Express. Although I haven’t seen the movie I know what the story is all about. I’ve lived in that city for three years and 3^rd December besides being an off in most schools and offices has something strange about it. Bhopal was never a place that made it to the news headlines, but then it happened. Most of what I know about it is not through wikipedia or textbooks, rather the first hand experiences of some of my relatives. I am clueless about the number of people who died that fateful night but I know the numbers are large. The incident however put the city on the world map; they even made a movie about it. 24 years later, it seems we have bigger issues on hand, for instance- North Indians in Mumbai or the health ministers crusade against a medical practitioner, a Dalit leaders efforts to defame another politician. It is strange to note the things/incidents that happen to put places, people on the world map.

Maha Shivaratri

Mysterious are the ways of the divine. I mean, its uncanny how religion and God and all the works actually play such a large role in your theater of life. One of the most profound and exhilarating experiences that I encountered was in a fit of religious fervor. Well, not exactly but I'll let you be the judge of that.

It was a warm and balmy evening and the air was rent with cries of devotion to the ganja soaked Hindu deity Shiv. It was Maha Shivratri! The one day of the year when Bhaang literally flows everywhere and even parents smile indulgently when their children avail themselves of the same. Temple bells were pealing everywhere and the roads were clogged with people in their haste to prostrate before the great God. I was about 14 at that time. Me and my friends, having quickly disposed off with the worshiping rites, now got ready for the main event - enjoying the fruits of worship, namely bhaang. It would be really futile to try and recall the amount of this intoxicant that we had. Suffice to say that we could have taken round the world trips by just closing our eyes (I have a faint recollection of going to the Andes in one of those trips). There we were, a group of 14 year olds stoned to their toes and talking and laughing about anything and everything.

There is only so much a body can take. Our saturation point also arrived. we somehow manged to walk, crawl, i.e. make mechanical movements that prompted us forward down the path. We were looking around for some means of transport when our eyes fell on a a lone auto parked on the roadside. And that's when all hell broke loose. We did not have much money between us and we were arguing about the possible fare when one of us wiseguys decided that we should drive it ourselves and the last one to get dropped at home should return the auto to the owner the next morning. There was a shout of assent and and a lot of back thumping for now we had the perfect solution to  our problems. To add to our great happiness the keys were still in the ignition and the driver was answering an emergency call of nature.

Now we had another perplexing situation: Who would drive the auto? We had another argument and ultimately i was designated the chauffeur as I had the most experience  in driving. The fact that this experience was limited to cars bothered none of us. Four of the guys crammed into the passenger compartment and two of them perched themselves on either side of me on the driver's seat. The engine sprang to life after a few pulls on the lever and then we were off.

If anyone asks me now whether driving an auto is easy I would earnestly ask that person to banish that thought. But on that night I was in a different astral plane, my senses dulled to every squeak and turn of the vehicle, as well as the vociferous navigational instruction s from my friends. We were heading towards our homes, or that's what we thought. Subsequent eye-witness reports state that were zig-zagging. The end came almost too soon. There was this nasty turn that I had to take, or I thought so, and I turned. The next thing  we all knew was that the auto was lying on one of it's side and we were all staring at ominous clouds darkening the sky. We were all still for a moment and then one of us started laughing and then we all joined in. How long we lay in that uncomfortable position we don't know but eventually we managed to get out of the wreck. By now it was very late at  night and we were all very sleepy and tired. We started walking, our laughter still rumbling on and uphead we saw some empty thelas. Without further ado we lowered ouselves onto those and fell asleep in an instant.

It seems I had hardly closed my eyes before a felt a hard prodding on my waist and voices raised in consternation. I fended off the stick, it was a stick, and mumbled to the voices to shut up. Then I felt a sharp pain on my elbow where the stick landed and my eyes opened an inch. Through bleary eyes I saw a couple of men in khaki uniform with their stick-laden hands raised to strike again. In an instant my sleep was gone and I was up and away from the thela as quickly as my state permitted. My friends, thankfully, had also woken up and gathered their wits. Then we were off running down the road with th cops hard on our heels. As we ran the skies opened up and the soothing rain caressed our bodies, replacing sweat and tiredness. It's cool caress and the bhaang spurred us on faster and faster.........

The Road

the road

alone he walks,
on the new road.
he swings his hand,
and taps himself.

dim-street lights,
the mosquitoes bite
and the barking dogs.

he is thinking
what the road can hold,
but the distance can't.....

Lipstick Vogue

After watching the amazing guy at Keventers, i go and sit opposite Wegner's, the pastry shop at CP. this has always been a favourite waiting spot for me at Connaught place, ever since i can remember.
sitting there, grading the girls on a scale of 10 and wishing to look like every guy standing there or passing by, all the while smoking inconspicously.

All the while people go inside the shop and come out with packages of all size. either they take it away or like most people eat it outside the shop while talking. I've never been inside the shop.

somewhere along the way i got the idea (either because of their clientele or maybe because of their packing bags) that i couldn't afford the things they sold. and if i could , they wouldn't allow me to enter the shop (why else  have a security guard in a pastry shop). and even if i managed past the security guard and the disapproving eyes of the other customers, the attendants have been appropriately trained to see through me or delay my order long enough for me to scoot off leaving behind sneering and disgusting looks.

I know its a silly and paranoid theory and my friend (the one i had been waiting for) agreed with me when i told him about it. But even at my drunken uninhibited best i've been unable to summon enough courage to enter the shop. my friend who was highly amused and just to prove me wrong offered to accompany me inside the shop.

After a few reluctant moments i allowed him to chaperone me to the shop, only to be told by the non smiling guard that its past closing time.

i gave my friend the told-you-so look without the shrug of the shoulders and offered to buy him a beer for his efforts.

Let your books be your mattress

Note: Please read it out loud in a fake British Accent

On principle I don’t shoplift anything but books. Rabindranath Tagore in one of  his god-awful English translation of one of his poems said that knowledge is free.I interpret it as a veiled endorsement of book stealing(why do u think he went around wearing one of those loose monk’s garment, and why do u think Einstein complaint to his mistress of having some of his papers missing after the bard paid him a visit to discuss the aesthetic aspects of time travel).

The problem with stealing books is that you are obliged to read them, and the problem with reading books is that it obliges you to think, and(this is the last and, and please bear with me)the problem with thinking is that you end up worrying about things that you could have very well lived without: what does Sartre mean when he says that he picked up a piece of paper and he became free; is Nick Hornby really serious when he propagates the incompatibility of having a serious record collection with a serious girlfriend; was Kafka really asleep when he wrote all those nightmarish novels, and woke up even before he finished them.
And the thinking would have been relatively easy had they taken place in a single language, but growing up in a Bihari household in a Bengali town, with a sizable Nepali population and reading in an English medium school, the thought patterns developed a language of its own that was acutely unique in its mongrelness, but certainly lacking the coherence of thinking in a single tongue.

The worrying about too would have been tolerable had they been pertinent and propitious to my present life in its present milieu. Would have thought nothing about writing volumes on the mating of honey bees if there was a date with a gorgeous chick at the end of it or a check of a substantial amount. That may sound superficial and facetious, but come to think of it would have given my left hand to be a great thinker or a bob Dylan had the rest of my body really felt the aspect of being a minor Bertrand russel or a singer songwriter right to the bones

We taught Michael

Remember Jackson dropping babies, this is where he picked it up:

And they called him crazy.

You can catch up on baby catching with this game .

I Should Probably Hold This One Hostage...

... maybe ask for a raise or something in exchange ... but I think I'm gonna post it anyway.

Faith Fighter!

That's Right! It's Just That Good!