Broadly speaking
Yesterday was quite a successful day. Consider the following:

1. India did not lose a test match.
2. Ganguly did not get out playing a horrible shot after having scored 2 runs.
3. I found a parking slot at office.
4. I did not drive over a canine carcass on Hosur Road.
5. Nobody tried to sell me a lifetime credit card or a home loan.
6. My house was not burgled.
7. I heard, for the first time, the gult version of Pyaar Bina Chain Kahaan Re sung by SPB.
8. I received another priceless Mallu contribution - an ex colleague of one person. Please read on:
Apart from work it is only the kalari thing happening in life ... My guru is priceless ... he comes out with these gems in a complete malayalaee accent (or should I say 'cumbleat'!!) ... "Raagesh", he INSISTS on calling me that, "You're horse is note jembing (translate: the movement for the horse is all wrong!). and yet, three times a week I faithfully emulate the wild-boar, elephant, lion, snake, cat, cock, peacock and the non-jembing horse!

What more can one ask for?
- posted by Rallix @ 8:01 PM 2 comments

 
"We just wanted to give the band a little more thrust than most other bands."
- Donald Fagen's explanation on why they named themselves Steely Dan!
Fantastic stuff on wikipedia...

The song Black Friday (1975) contains one of their most fascinating 'namechecks', a surprising reference to the town of Muswellbrook in northern New South Wales, Australia:
"When Black Friday comes
I'll fly down to Muswellbrook ...
This reference has startled and amused many Australian fans, but is believed that Becker and Fagen in fact selected the name from an atlas, primarily because it worked effectively with the next rhyme:
"I'm gonna strike all the big red words
from my little black book ...
and also because it allowed them to create the amusing couplets in the next stanza:
"I'm gonna do just what I please,
Gonna wear no socks and shoes,
With nothin' to do
But feed all the kangaroos."
It is typical of their wry sense of humour that the reference to kangaroos makes no particular sense unless one knows that Muswellbrook is located in Australia.
- posted by Rallix @ 12:22 AM 4 comments

 
Coconut Fish Massage Water Lots of Water Vacation Communism...
Forgive me for the stereotyping. But all of the above unite in Kerala and make for an amazing group of people. On top of that, some of them can actually be quite bright.

My good friend, Vishnu, is one of them. Sample the following piece. In Vishnu's words, "Took out my frustrations of travelling in Mumbai into a thousand odd words.... " If you thought Mumbai was packed 5 years back, think again.

Smile Please, The Joke Is On Us
They talk of the light at the end of the tunnel. They talk of how you should, in your deepest hours, stuck in your darkest tunnels, seek out the light and find solace in it. For me there is nothing at the end of the tunnel. I see only a traffic signal post somewhere out at the horizon, beyond wave after wave of three, four and six wheeled automobile animals. I have glimpsed heaven thrice as it shone green. Each time the auto rickshaw crawled ten meters ahead. Each time the BEST bus by the left of the auto blew a fresh burst of warm, noxious fumes as it attempted to bring itself into motion. I am still waiting. At this rate I should get to the light in another fifteen minutes and twenty odd rupees.

By my right is a Merc E Class. Inside I find a prosperous looking gentleman talking on the phone. I give him my best smile of sadistic complicity. It says, “You might have a thirty lakh car. You might earn twenty times as much as I do. Counts for zilch. You are in the same shit as I am.” I sit back in the auto and smile.

Mumbai is perhaps the world’s only communist city.

Here, unless you stay at Seawind and commute by a helicopter to the Dhirubhai Ambani Knowledge center or you stay on the footpath in a makeshift tin cupboard, you are just about the same as everybody else. You stay in similar houses, drink the same sewage, eat similar food and spend one quarter of your existence traveling. And you never arrive.

You start off your life in a two bedroom apartment. As you move up in life, you move south in life. But almost always the cosmic space allotted to you stays 2BHK. Some of the ones who really make it in life jump three suburban stations southwards in five years. Some others get to see the sea. Once you reach the absolute cream of your profession you jump the three or four stations and get to face the sea.

At that point feeling good about yourself you wake up to catch the first rays of light and the early morning sea breeze. A cup of coffee in hand you open your windows to the let the first wind of the day blow against your face, when you realize that what you have bargained for is a ringside ticket to the biggest excreta circus in the world. All those early mornings, the late night excel sheets over cups of machine coffee, the throbbing pain in your fingers, the Microsoft bags under your eyes; after all that, the first wind of your day does not have the smell of distant waters and far off shores. It has intestinal origins. It stinks.

They say Australia has thirty million people. If they call Australia a continent, Mumbai, with seventeen million, should at least be a country. I have a national sport to suggest. It can be called The Locomotive Marathon. Or better still, The Suburban Steeple Chase. The laws are simple. Fifty thousand people can play it at one time. The game starts when a suburban train crosses the first brick of the platform at an originating station. The first person to get onto the train gets forty nine thousand points. The next one gets one point lesser and so on. For every person you hold off with your shoulders you get a thousand points. An elbow poke into the advancing stomach behind will earn you five thousand bonus points. If you can do both the above, get a seat and then turn back and smile at the standing guy and ask him to please switch on the fan for you, you get a full ten thousand point bonus. Inter line playoffs can feed into a Mumbai level finals and the winner in the final round should be made the ring master of the earlier mentioned circus.

Another sport I would like to propose can be called the Andherian Screwall. Though named after Andheri, that sweetest bitch of all Mumbai suburbs, it can be played anywhere in the city the only condition being that you should follow strict timelines. The game is played in two halves. In the first half, played between 8:30 and 10:00 in the morning, the action occurs in the direction of South Mumbai and in the second half, played between 6:30 and 8:30 in the evening, the reverse holds true. Every player has to buy a three wheeler for himself, with both passenger and goods versions being permissible. During the above mentioned times you need to drive against the traffic on any arterial road and poke the front wheel into the traffic that is trying to move ahead. The points you win are calculated based on the following formula:

Tp = ∑ (Pn/ 10,000) for all non-monsoon months

=∑ (2*Pn/ 10,000) For monsoon months

Where Tp – Total points earned in one attempt
Pn – Purchase price of the nth vehicle caught in the jam for all n in the range 0 (l.t.) n (l.t.) infinity

All figures will be translated into INR and for imported vehicles the relevant import duties will also be applicable. After all, we are not a communist city for nothing. Any player who manages to trap a ten-ton hauler truck on a pleasure drive in the city will be awarded a flat 1000 point bonus. The winner in this game gets one gas mask and a government job as the traffic policeman at the junction where he crafted his victory.

They say London has a seamlessly integrated transport system. The train and bus timings are coordinated so that you can switch between the two modes to travel to any corner of the city. I’ll say we have gone one level better. You want to go to Marol and you are in a train passing Vile Parle. All you have to do is stand up and the crowd pushes you on and on, incessantly, towards the exit even as the train is moving. Soon, with zero effort on your part you are deposited on the Andheri platform. And Lo! You have already joined the queue for the bus to Marol. They have a seamless system? Big deal. We have a cloth-less one.

The car ahead moves half a foot towards the light and a space the size of half a coconut opens up. Every hole in the road attracts a wheel. And then I am reminded of the professionalism in Mumbai. Yes, I feel like congratulating the gentleman on the scooter who has moved the front wheel into this hole on the latest conquest in his life. Keep it up. May this be the precursor to many more such victories in life. I wonder; if only Mumbaikars had it a bit easier in getting to office where would they use all their professionalism and competitiveness. For now I give the guy on the scooter a Thumbs-Up. He is surprised but accepts the greeting in all grace. As he moves ahead I read the caption on his spare tyre cover. “Amchi Mumbai!”

More of the above available at http://stonecutter.rediffblogs.com/

- posted by Rallix @ 8:29 PM 1 comments

 
David Livingstone, I presume?
"I think he's trying to communicate" - Jim Carrey, The Mask.

Of late, one (Mr.? Ms.?) Anonymous has been appearing on the website. An anonymous who hates posting, but finds it irresistible to provide insights.
So who is this anonymous person, anyway?
I turn to, who else, but google to answer this intriguing question, and find an even more intriguing answer: 46 million hits and numerous anonymouses.

Dear Anonymous, thou who haunteth this page, pray, identify thyself.

Alcoholics Anonymous
Narcotics Anonymous
Gamblers Anonymous
Nicotine Anonymous
Marijuana Anonymous
Overeaters Anonymous
Alcoholics Anonymous
Debtors Anonymous
Families Anonymous

Emotions Anonymous
SCA - Sexual Compulsives Anonymous
Recovering Couples Anonymous
Roleplayers Anonymous
Parents Anonymous
Lip Balm Anonymous
Messies Anonymous
Co-Dependents Anonymous
masked and anonymous
Dual Recovery Anonymous Fellowship
Gamblers Anonymous in the UK
Crystal Meth Anonymous
group hug anonymous
Survivors of Incest Anonymous
Garbo Anonymous
Anonymous Lawyer
Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous
Food Addicts
Homosexuals Anonymous
Trauma Anonymous
Depressed Anonymous
GreySheeters Anonymous
Riot Anonymous
Remailer Clutterers Anonymous
Consumers Anonymous
Atheists Anonymous
Clotheshorse Anonymous
Cocaine Anonymous

"Are you one of them?" - The Beatles, Within You Without You.

- posted by Rallix @ 8:49 PM 3 comments