Another day in paradise

Recently had a pretty rotten 'Murphy and his laws wreak havoc on me' kind of day. Yes, again! No kidding, convinced i have a stalker on my hands. Mucked up pretty much everything there was to, in the 12 hours I spent in office - sense prevailed and decided to leg it home before I inadvertently did an rm *.* on one of the boxes (that's a recurring dream, wonder what Freud would have to say to that). Rains, no umbrella. Aah well, surprise me. Flag down a rick. The conv goes: Me - Mulund? Rick driver - Andheri. Me - Kanjur? Rick driver - IIT. Me - Chalo. Maybe, I ought to be on hostage negotation calls.

As we near Hiranandani, the rick driver gets a call on his cell. I wait patiently while he enquires after his wife, chotu, bittu, bhaiyaji - Oh all right, better switch to another rick before he runs through the state of affairs of every home in his hamlet. Walk down to Galleria and board another rick. This one reaches the Hiranandani hospital gates and stops dead. "Madam, out of gas".

By now, am tired, got mason drumming away inside my head and am trying my best not to lose my temper at ricks in general and MH03-2403 in particular. Remember reading somewhere that counting from 1 to 10 generally controls the temper bit. Hmmm... well 10 is way too less, so count upto 25, take a deep breath and begin the trudge to the nearest bus stop.

20 mins later and at the count of 410, my bus ambles along. Once in, fish around the bag for change, dig out a 500 rupee note. The conductor grimaces - change please, poore bus ka ticket lena hain kya. Try explaining to him that good ol' Murphy is responsible for emptying my bag of change. He says - Ma'am, yeda samjha kya, I did see change in your purse. I go - my dear chappie, that's uk currency, pounds u see, I have to return the whole lot to the Finance dept. else I get no salary this month. He condescends to dole out the change muttering 'Aajkal ki ladkiyan'. Should I sue him for gender bias. Naah, risky, the odds (and ends) are stacked heavily against me.

Count is at 449…450… this too shall pass. Get a call from x saying he's arranging a call to sort out some issue and could I please attend - tell him it's past my bedtime, he can chair the call and attend it himself, stopped short of telling him that he could go jump off the roof and take his precious interface doc with him for company. Yeah apologies and all that jazz, but connect now didn't figure in my scheme of things at 11.00 IST.

575…576. Home finally, reach for the newspaper - the guy had delivered a Gujarati edition. Why am I not surprised? Skip dinner and decide to settle for a cup of hot coffee to kill the buzz in my head. Admiring the moon slipping in and out of the cloud canopy when I hear a mild sizzling sound. The milk has boiled over, spend the next 10 mins cleaning up. The count is now 650. Sip black coffee and spend the rest of the night wondering how to source horseshoes, maybe peacock feathers, and for good measure, a water fountain and a small bamboo plant - stretching things a bit too far all right, but there's no such thing as excessive good luck - and one of the above mentioned bloody charms better work.

Oh, if you haven't noticed yet, the title has no relevance whatsoever to the article which followed. Just happens to be my anthem for the day.

On Silence

Too many women in too many countries speak the same language, the language of silence - Dasgupta

Silence - Anon
She sits alone amongst the ruins
Ruins of a dream they once nurtured
Vacant eyes stare into the vast emptiness
Eating away at her very soul

The terrifying silence screams
as raw pain washes over her
The evening shadows close in
Enveloping the remains of yesterday

Silence - Anon
Silence is the best speaker
Hear the sound by heart.

Read 'On the Blue Shore of Silence' - Pablo Neruda

To be or not to be

To die: to sleep;
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache, and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to, 'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep;
To sleep: perchance to dream: aye, there's the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come...

Mock Turtle

Reading a book where the principal characters are discussing a book titled 'Mock Turtle'. The basic outline of the book is decidedly hilarious - how long before an author comes up with a book based on it.

It is about a swimming instructor at a watering place, who had contracted such an unfortunate anti-nudity complex through watching so many bathing beauties that it completely inhibited all his natural emotions. So he got a job on a whaler and fell in love at first sight with an Eskimo, because she was such a beautiful bundle of garments. So he married her and brought her back to live in a suburb, where she fell in love with a vegetarian nudist. So then the husband went slightly mad and contracted a complex about giant turtles, and spent all his spare time staring into the turtle-tank at the Acquarium, and watching the strange, slow monsters swimming significantly round in their encashing shells.

Altogether, significant.

To dos

bike ride to Leh/Ladakh,
feel snowflakes, build a snowman,
laze on a beach the whole day - Ibiza?
stand on the edge of a cliff and feel the wind on my face - Irish coast,
catch the northern lights,
drive a bike at top speed on the highways of Germany,
travel the length of New Zealand and not meet a living soul (cows don't count :-)) - just nature ,
travel on a Concorde (erm, not possible now),
stay in the Ritz,
catch a show of Mousetrap,
learn to enjoy life,
learn French and Spanish,
visit Paris, go to the Louvre,
have coffee at a roadside cafe and spend 3 hours over the coffee,
lookup all the great paintings,
walk barefoot on grass covered with dew,
try bungee jumping and/or para gliding,
write a book,
play the violin,
attend a concert in Austria,
learn to trust,
take a one month leave and only watch movies and read books,
gorge on Swiss and Belgian chocolates,
have a pet dog and go for long walks,
let my hair down for a day,
try snorkelling,
learn to love myself,
watch a Fed match live on centre court, wimbledon and he better win it,
watch a football match - Man U / Chelsea,
build a new product,
adopt a child,
one life :-)

Why

Saw this piece in the TOI and liked it.

Why don't all Indians have one common prayer?
Why is school admission more painful than child birth?
Why do we find more animals on our roads than in our zoos than in our forests?
Why does a rapist only get 7 years imprisonment and the victim, a life-term?
Why do we take tuitions from the same teacher who teaches us in school?
Why do we see music more than we hear it?
Why can't our rivers be clean enough to swim in?
Why do you have to die to be praised?
Why do we have to be married to live together?
Why isn't there a compulsory politeness course for all Delhiites?
What about downsizing the parliament?
Why don't we ban ragging?
Why are our beautiful outdoors treated as one big giant toilet?
Why can't there be capital punishment for makers of spurious drugs?
Why are massive shopping malls being built with micro parking lots?
Why are we wearing mental corsets?
Why does it take Madonna to make yoga popular?
Why don't politicians have a retirement age?
Why can't we learn how to stand in a queue?
Why are TV promos more exciting than the actual film?
Why are schools allowed to function without a playground?
Why do all government offices look like government offices?
Why do we take ourselves so seriously?
Why are we more concerned about building temples than schools?
Why do we have statues only of politicians?

Truth

Came across this line recently - The notion of the truth as an idea that exists in the singular is being hollowed out. Truth is now very clearly an account delivered from a vantage point. The opposite of the truth is not a lie but another wannabe truth.