Category: Life Ordinary

  • Leaving on a jetplane

    Son: I’ll be leaving soon
    Dad: Where? Why?
    S: I’ve figured out my career plans
    D: thats good news, so i guess you must’ve chosen your college
    S: Yes
    D: you almost scared me, hope you have chosen someplace nearby, so you can come home often
    S: thats what i wanted to speak to you about, i want to go abroad
    D: abroad!! i think i know where… but why? you have the best places to study here.
    S: maybe, but it helps to have a global perspective.
    D: but what about your culture, religion.. you are at an age when you can be easily influenced by their thoughts, customs
    S: that could happen here too, and i guess, it already is..
    D: yes, but there you hardly have any relatives, there’s no one to watch out for you
    S: thats how we learn, dad!! besides what about all those cousins of mine, i thought you were quite proud of them, the way you used to go on with ‘how well that boy is doing now..” besides thats the most happening market now.
    D: its all just a phase, a fantasy waiting to be shattered and what if you end up like one of your illustrious cousins, marrying one of them?! your mom would die of a broken heart!!
    S: Dad, you are just letting your imagination run wild. as for the shattering,they have been saying that for decades now!!
    D: maybe, but i dont think the locals take kindly to us going there and taking away their jobs.
    S: its just survival , dad.. whoever gets it done cheaper!! and look at the scene here, unemployment is rampant!!
    D: but we are improving, nowadays they say that cutting edge tech work gets done here…
    S: no, dad, thats what everyone thinks, but the real action gets done there.. its certainly our guys, but despite whatever we claim, we still only have a miniscule share of the software pie!! and who knows, maybe i’ll come back here and work..
    D: thats what they all say, but they end up settling there… they even have a term for it – brain drain!!
    S: the job is a decision i shall take later, but i have decided, i am going to India!!

    a conversation i hope will happen in the US,a few decades from now!

    until next time, remember that a broad isnt everything!!

  • Losing the marbles

    “You didnt reply to my letter”,said the younger one, A.
    “which one?”, the elder, M, responded.
    A: the one in which i questioned some decisions taken at the sports club’s last meeting on the marbles.
    M: i had asked the club secretary to respond. as president, i dont have time to reply to all the letters that come to me. and if you wanted to tell me something, you could have spoken, instead of sending a letter.
    A: maybe, but a letter from the vice president of the club is not exactly any letter,specially when the subject is the last meeting and the decisions taken then. and more so, if the decision has to do with the marbles, our principal assets.
    M: i was only putting the rights i already had, on paper.
    A: thats arguable.
    M: Dad had always said that the elder son, thats me, would be in control, though the ownership is for both of us. ask ma.
    (Ma: dont involve me. your dad started the club and ran it. i have no idea about its activities.)
    A: which means i’ll have no say in any decision on the marbles.
    M: not so, just that i will be taking the final decison
    A: but many of the marbles are doing well now because of my efforts.
    M: maybe, but they wouldnt be anything now without the entire set. stand alone, their value would crash in a jiffy.
    A: your itch isnt about the sports club at all, is it? its about me standing for the school election and getting elected.
    M: i dont even want to talk about it. you didnt even ask me for an opinion. and if you were so interested in the club activities and playing with marbles, you wouldnt be in school politics. i bet that silly girlfriend of your must be the brain behind it,since she’s into the cultural scene herself.
    A: my intention was only to get more support for the club activities at the school. and ifyou were so interested in my life and activities at the club, you would have ventured an opinion without me asking for it. and i dont think you need to bring my girlfriend into this. in any case, yours was also very much into dance till recently!!
    M: whats the point discussing all this now? what do you want from me?
    A: either more powers as VP of the club or independent control of the marbles whose reputation i built.
    M: the board will have to decide that.
    A: whats the use, since dad’s death, you have been playing around, garnering votes. now, many of the old guys have left, and the rest are your puppets.
    M: thats an unjust accusation.
    A: i think i will have to move in other ways to get whats rightfully mine.
    M: thats your wish.
    The vultures were waiting and this was when they decided to come to the party. As one onlooker put it, after the founding father’s death, it was only a matter of time before the sons lost their marbles, literally!!
    until next time, keep playing games…

  • The calling…

    thats a good band, but this post aint about them, its about us..
    virtual acquaintances- to each other, thats mostly what we are..
    my tryst with yahoo messenger began during my post grad days, i think it was the place where ‘manuscrypts’ as a term originated… all my yahoo friends were people who were known to me ‘really’.. so there was no question of ‘virtual personalities’..it’s only blogging where most of the people i know are ‘virtual personalities’.. to a certain extent, they are only as virtual as their photos online.. but then again,i think i’ve seen only simon’s, pradeep’s and wings’. to be fair, images helped me find a cousin who blogs, but that, i think, was only an aberration…i have never been too fond of blogmeets, simply because i love the anonymity and the’someone, somewhere’ feeling (no, not the ‘made for you’ one, a little more ordinary)..
    more importantly, to maintain a forum where judgements are made only based on thoughts and words, not the physical manifestations… to put it a lil more bluntly acne, dandruff, body odour etc dont matter on the net.. at a similarly superficial level, nor do complexion, looks etc… personalities are what they write…but, increasingly, i find that more friends are being made on blogs than in real life,maybe because, there is no compulsion, i can read someone’s writings, if i like what i read, i’ll be back, else i wont.. simple, and no baggage.. and people take hints much better online..hehe..
    maybe its easier to reach a comfort level this way, without the regular constraints… the next step in evolution, is to find out whether once the comfort level is achieved, can it be scaled upto the real friends level? times have changed, havent they? from building friendships in the real world and facing the challenge of maintaining them online to building friendships online and facing the challenge of maintaining them in the real world?
    someone in the list is coming to bangalore, so here’s calling all creatures of the web, what about a meet over coffee??
    until next time, virtually yours…

  • Home run

    both posts this week on home, but this week being the way it is, i shall stay with the spirit of things and write a ‘homely’ post…
    all things arranged exactly the way i want it.. and changeable whenever i feel like it… always there whenever i decide to be there… a safe haven, a place where friends come to visit me, a place where i could spend hours on end, a place for which i could spend endless hours shopping..where every little thing is a manifestation of my self in some way or other… a place which could even reflect my changing mood if i so wish…few places could be so comfortable, this place that has been made according tomy specifications and for me…thats what is home.. amazing, home can also be spelled ‘blog’, and the feeling still remains the same.. maybe they did think about it when they coined ‘homepage’….but a question lurks – is it comfort or control that makes home ‘home’?
    menawhile, here’s a good dee for the day… will leave you with some lines from my fave band…
    ” A long time ago came a man on a track
    Walking thirty miles with a pack on his back
    And he put down his load where he thought it was the best
    Made a home in the wilderness
    He built a cabin and a winter store
    And he ploughed up the ground by the cold lake shore
    And the other travellers came riding down the track
    And they never went further, no, they never went back….“
    until next time, enjoy your home…

  • Small Town blues

    No, its not about SwB..hehe.. its about guys like me, who have migrated to a bigger city,managed to find a particular groove here, and are comfortable the way they are.. except for the moments when the ‘small town blues’ hit them…
    i have always said that you are lucky if you are born in a big city, no, not because of the neon lights, but because you can choose to spend your entire life in a city you were born in.. of course, all of us do have that choice, but the small town guys make most of their judgements with a lot of constraints’ baggage, the biggest these days being job availability…
    there is a certan joy of travelling on the same roads, watching things change, going by yourold school, seeing familiar faces, walking in the parks that you played in as a child, feeling the sea wind on your face and watching different ships on the same port, feeling safe, speaking in a language you have been speaking forever, hanging out in places that you know inside out, seeing the night lights – forever growing brighter…
    of course floyd has a different version in ‘time’ –
    “kicking around on a piece of ground in your hometown,
    waiting for someone or something to show you the way.
    tired of lying in the sunshine staying home to watch the rain,
    you are young and life is long and there is time to kill today,
    and then one day you find ten years have got behind you,
    no one told you when to run, you missed the starting gun.”……..
    (speaking of floyd, please check this out)
    but i’d still say that for people born in a big city, there are memories of a time that once was,for us, there are memories of a time and place, that once were…. “but i guess thats why they call it the blues”
    until next time, blue is my favourite color