Monday, July 16, 2007

52. Stuck on an Escalator

What can you possibly do if you are stuck on an escalator?

If you have better ideas than the folks in the following video clip, please send in your comments.



Sunday, July 08, 2007

50. To the Blogger in Me

It seems like only yesterday, but it's been ONE WHOLE YEAR since my psychiatrist told me, better leave, or I will shoot, right now, right here!

Thank you,
My dear young & bold readers.
Without your encouragement, I wouldn't have realized
a BLOGGER resides in me!

Hope, my blog postings in turn have
helped you fire your psychiatrist
and throw away your mask.

It's been a fun ride
to be a one year old again,
to be as I am,
not bothered about the whole wide world
which at times laughs with me
and at times, laughs at me!

May there be more1st B'days like t h e s e!
amen!


It's truly been a remarkable and adventurous ride, worthy of mentioning in, where else... a blog posting! I never thought I would get the fame and status just by writing a blog! Actually, I didn't even know that there was a Blogger inside me who was trying to come out!

When you live in a paradise, nobody wants to read your two-line story: "Once upon a time, there lived me! And I lived happily ever after!" Huh! So I started with writing on a few "mental" topics [1,2,5,6,8,14,15,19,21,22,23,25]. Only when I celebrated my 29th birthday [26-29] did I realize that my generic reader (that's majority amongst you), was not ready for them yet! (Not that I have totally stopped writing on these topics [32,43,47].)

In order to not lose your attention* by writing too abstract, I had to add some juicy stories, and anecdotes, thanks at large for inspirations from my interactions with Orkut pals [3,16], roomies [35,36], my manager [44], office colleagues [24,42], my dad [46], my masseuse [4], chat-room pals [34], professional debaters on the web [36,41], mischief mongers on the phone [30], the sexy belly dancer [50], and what else? Newspaper articles and events around the globe [12,13,48], TV shows [7,49], my travels [33,40] and ya, Gods and Gurus [9,10,11,17,18,20,31] too! I hope I have made you seriously interested in spirituality through my writings, which was my initial inspiration for writing this blog in the first place, no hiding that! [38,39,45]

Talking of fame, now I realize what it is like to be a celebrity and being followed by paparazzi! These days, when I am at the shopping mall or any other public place for that matter, scantily clad chicks, don't know from where they come, but they know where I am at all times, ask me to pose with them for photographs, videographs, and also request for my autograph on obscene body locations, like the backside of their necks! (Yes, I am decent, and hence call even that obscene!)

Even my colleagues at work have started bribing me to get their photos, their kids' photos, and their pet photos (which they proclaim as "cho-cute"; not that they have to be always right simply because they work in my office), their family album, all of those photos, everything, on my blog! Huh! Just tell me, had I acceded to such requests, would I be having a fan following which I am enjoying today? Tell me honestly.

A drawback of being a famous blogger is that people are cautious when they interact with you. I can see that happening already. So, once in a while when there is a dearth of real life incidents which are bloggable, I have to invent characters, like Aamir Bahaauddin Tyaagi and his many Arab wives [37] (I am not sure of their nationalities, but that's been my best guess so far), so as to keep you, my dear reader, entertained.

I hope you have enjoyed this journey as much as I have, if not more, and are eagerly waiting for my next blog posting. Please send me your comments and let me know which aspects of (or postings in) my blog you liked, or didn't like! As they say in any feedback form: 'Your feedback is important to us'! I don't know if they mean it, but I surely do!

Oh yeah! One more thing. I don't use smileys in my blog postings, but just for a couple of you who have brought it to my notice, here goes one --> ;)

Cheers! Enjoy some Belly Dance!




________________________
* Did you know that the attention span of an average internet surfer makes even a goldfish feel better? Ya, its true! That's why there have been so many e-newspapers lately! You start to read a news story on one news-site, lose interest, go to another news-site and finish your story there, unwittingly! Here's a challenge for those nay-sayers: Try to read this news article in its entirety and in one sitting!

Note: Even though Aamir is my creation, I have no right to choose his wives. I believe in Free-Will and, when it comes to marriage, the Law of Karma!

Saturday, July 07, 2007

49. A Movie Trivia Question...

Just in case you choose my blog as the subject for BBC's Mastermind India, I have to put up some trivia once in a while so that Quizmaster Siddhartha Basu has some good questions to test your memorizing skills! So here goes one:

Q. Which is the only movie (to date) I have watched in a movie theater unaccompanied by my relatives/friends?


48. In the Name of Thy God in Dog-Heaven...

Mumbai, it seems, has woken up to the stray dog menace. Bruhan-Mumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) Chief Jayraj Pathak has gone to the extent of saying, "Kill all stray dogs!"

BMC is now planning to appeal to the Supreme Court the right to "kill" this menace, which of course is opposed by dog lovers seated in lavish homes with 10 acres of backyard enclosed by 10 feet high compound walls and who have no one but their pomeranians to make them feel like the most important persons on this planet!

According to "unofficial" figures, there are about 2 lakh stray dogs in Mumbai alone! I think we should stop relying on 1990 census data (is someone maintaining this website?) and redo the counts this year. And this time, the survey questions should also include breed, creed, caste, race, religion by birth, religion by faith, religion by marriage, privileges enjoyed to-date based on minority quota, nationality (we don't want our tourism industry to lose their valued clients, do we?), educational qualification, bank balance and other assets, profession, value addition to the country, and so forth, barring gender (no gender bias, please!). That would help the BMC determine how many sterilization syringes to order, how many butchers to hire, and how many electrocution chairs to purchase; not to forget the imported vanilla coated dog biscuits for mutts with good Samaritan behavior, such as for this dog which saved a 7-year old boy named Dinakaran (that's the name of the boy, not the dog) when the Tsunami hit their town!

Meanwhile, I have just now received breaking news on my blueberry* from an unnamed source† in Mumbai: The dog lovers have sued BMC for calling them bitches! How insulting, imbecile, ironical!

___________
* I know you will say, "It's called blackberry, idiot!", but mind you, you haven't seen my berry yet!
His father forgot to give him a name.

Thursday, July 05, 2007

47. Behind Your Mask!

Lets listen to what Franco, the Clown, has to say in this less than 3 minutes long movie clip.





For some more interesting videos and other stuff from Nic Ascew, an English filmmaker, go to http://www.monday9am.tv/monday9amblog

Tuesday, July 03, 2007

46. The Morning Raga

Being the only child of my parents, sometimes I didn't find any other suitable candidate for my childhood pranks than, one of my parents! Luckily for them, I wasn't ordinarily mischievous. Extraordinarily mischievous? May be. You decide based on this prank.

It's early morning, around 6am. I am wide awake and go to the washbasin to brush my teeth. I am in my 4th or 5th Grade. My dad is yet to rise from bed.

Aha! An idea! Let's check out if my dad is able to notice a subtle change early in the morning.

Hmm!? Ya, my dad is to undergo a test now! All I do is swap the locations of two similar objects, which are placed in a tray in front of the washbasin mirror and in the brush holder. I now go about preparing for my ablutions waiting to hear from a surprised dad with mouth wide open, in just about 5 minutes.

As usual, my dad gets up after hearing me finish my washbasin formalities, eager to conquer the world, yet-another-day! He starts off the day with brushing his teeth.

I, fortunately or unfortunately, am not around at the time when the paste-laden toothbrush is inserted into the mouth, but I can very well imagine what would happen next.

Hey, why does this brush taste differently today? Such a thought arises in my dad's Cerebrum. Is it the brush, or the paste? Why so much froth?

With a feeling of getting up from the wrong side of the bed, my dad asks my mom, who is the earliest riser in the family, if she has changed anything. Without getting a satisfying answer from her, my dad again looks at the washbasin area, this time with eyes wide open and notices the subtle change!

'Yikes! I applied the shaving paste to my toothbrush! How the h**l did it get here?'

"R-A-J-E-N-D-R-A-A-A...!!!"

The siren! Yahoo! My test worked! My dad failed! Hip Hip Hurray!


Epilogue

As it was getting late for office, apart from uttering few felicitous vowel sounds in a loud and clear tone, my dad let me go. After that day this incident was never mentioned, not until now! My dad, who crossed 60 recently will have a pleasant surprise when he comes upon this web-page while browsing the net. Chances are, he will have a good laugh!