Contemplate

The sage atop a snowy peak freezes in the endorsement of enlightenment. He froze his blood blue and he froze his nose pink, his toes were black and ready to disembark on a journey detached from his transcendent thoughts. He froze time as well because time was cryogenically relative to civilization and the only wise words he heard was the bleating of a mountain goat.

The wind picked up speed which formed a low pressure in the atmosphere in which he was enclosed. His parched eyes were ready to pop out from his sockets, ready to fall in line with his toes. The incline would make them travel farther than his toes might drop off. Rolling down further down to the chasm, his eye-balls would serve a tempting ready-to-eat fast food snack for a hungry pack of wolves. The mountain goat was the main course.

His skin had leather like gleam and his mammary papilla was hard as a diamond cutters tools. He was not in one with nature though; he realized this as he could not hibernate. His stomach growled with hunger. It had already digested the butterflies he had nourished a few hours ago. His concentration strewn, he robotically reached in his bag, and as his elbows creaked, the punishing grinding of gears in his joints, his fingers sent vague signals to his numb yet semi-enlightened receptors in his brains.

“Are those my testicles?” he pondered. His body was numb, at certain places. He mustered enough courage to withdraw his hand, with the fruit on the tips of his fingers, as he finally he realized that his testicles could not have possibly walked to his satchel.

He opened his icicle infested eyes and as he lost his eye-lashes in the process he noticed he was holding a peach, frozen hard as a rock like those lay beside him. The dogs that now stopped growling started howling. And he knew his stomach was close to his balls and he could not afford to “release the hounds”.

He took one bite of the frozen delight and swallowed his teeth. He could feel the warmth of the blood inside his mouth. It is difficult to find an analogy to describe what he felt, but “parting is such sweet sorrow”.

With the dogs neutered, he sat there. He sat wondering. Why? Then it hit him. Like a clap of thunder that would make a cat jump. A single bolt of lightening strayed across the brazen sky and toasted him. He was done. He fell, buttered side down. His heart beat a faint beat like a slow ballad barren of love. He looked up to the heavens and raised his voice, with his fist wallowing, he shrieked “Aaaaargh! That hurt!” Looked left and right as if crossing the street, paused for applause and sat down cross legged.

With one eye in the sky and the other one waiting to fall off, he felt the warmth in his body. His body was a prison he felt. A prison for all his desires and he needed liberation or enlightenment, whichever came first. But he eventually decided he needed to urinate the little ice cubes that were forming in his bladder first. He passed the elephant through the needles eye and then there was a moment. A surreal moment of peace and tranquility surged through his body. He had done it, he thought. He was there. Atop a peak, one with nature, one with himself and life itself thereabouts round the corner.

It was a long and onerous journey uphill. He stomped and he grazed without a faintest idea that he may resemble a goat. His beard and long hair were his ever increasing constant companions. A flow, a pattern emerged. The pointed end of his beard resembled a compass which directed his senile pleas to march towards the opposite direction. He had left it all behind, people and their social ineptitude. He had met a donkey on the way to the stony pass which led to the foothills of the mountain. He had gazed into the stubborn eyes of the lazy beast. The sage said, in the most childlike eager tone, although laden with a bit of subtlety, “Hello”. The donkey mustered up its head, away from the desolate ground below, where it had its vision fixated in a magnifying point of deep thought. “Hrrrmph! Hee Haw!” it answered. As if to say, “Hee Haw”. They looked at each other like they were a separated military unit lost during the peak of a civil war, looking at each other in an untrustworthy manner, trying to figure who was the one who was brainwashed. Then the donkey, without any indication, turned his head away, like a scorned lover trying to hide its embarrassment.

Incomplete...

"Kzzht! I Am Dead! Over And Out!"

Your first day with a new game is like your first day of a new term at school. Everything seems new and fresh. The introductory lectures, the first few easy chapters – the training camp, an odd new face – characters, the books – the ammo, the teacher – the sensei, the strategies, the odd bullet in your head, losing your partners...wait it gets much worse...nonchalant team mates, incompetent tactics, connectivity issues and finally the complete and utter failure!

And none of it was your fault!

Angela’s Ashes: A Memoir

Angela’s Ashes is the 1997 Pulitzer Prize winning memoir of an Irish-Catholic childhood of the life of Frank McCourt. A recounting life of abject misery, poverty and torment which young Frank could only observe, borne by his mother Angela.

The book recounts surprising number of details through the eyes of a child born in America, the Land of the Free, but withheld by the depths of Depression, forcing the family in the plunge of Limerick, back home in Ireland. McCourt describes as to what he perceives the plight of his siblings on the steps of heaven, a constantly out-of-work over zealous patriotic inebriated father, apathetic kin, an indifferent town and the endurance of it all by one Angela, Frank’s mother.

The book is widely Frank McCourt’s memories in his early years and it not only reflects in his writings but also in a strong empathetic feeling generated as a reader towards his early days. Throughout the tragedy which can be called his life, his mind reflects, nay meanders, towards a silver lining. Be it in stealing apples or getting the proud satisfaction finding work in his adolescence.

Moreover, the grim tale encompasses definitions of what can bring the odd smile to the readers face. The book in all its subtlety is satirical at times. To think a boy in his youth can conjure why Jesus Christ was not born in damp Limerick, lest he died of the consumption, tells you why Frank McCourt can bring out the sun amongst the dark side that were his childhood years and more impudently it set about his literary skills to blossom.

The book was adapted as a movie in 1997 and although notable facets of his life are truncated, the core of this book has been captured and its essence flows in the dull and dreary scenes embossed forever on the readers mind. Read it and smile with an odd tear in your eye.

“My Phone…Rather Want An iPhone”

Cell phones have evolved to a vast array of services normally found in your Personal Computer. Samsung has found itself delved in this upcoming deluge in the world of upgraded communication devices.

The Samsung i710 is their attempt at just another SmartPhone. The handset looks, in the simplest of ways, smart. Its simplistic appearance makes it all the more appealing. It features, among others, a 2 Mega Pixel Camera powered by Windows Mobile 5.0 for Pocket PC.

The touchscreen is not at all bad and responds easily and without any feelings of constrictions due to its large 2.8 inch display. All applications seem to be well organized and permits customized menus and free allocation for its short cut keys. The camera also offers clean images of desired resolutions and minor editing options. Images captured in low light or in the night are surprisingly not a letdown considering there is no flash, something that should have enhanced its cumbersome capability. The sound quality is a bit to be desired, for you can only unleash its influence through the prescribed headphones.

The Microsoft Office feature spells out where the phone can be utilized at its best. Word and PowerPoint, although a bit basic, provide to be worthwhile on the move. Excel, on the other hand, lies on a similar page although using Excel may prove to be a bit of a handful as the display, although copious, does not seem to be large enough for this software. And disappointingly, Office only supports its 2003 cousin.

The handwriting recognition facet which can be used both for Office as well as basic SMS is tempting and lives up to its expectations and more importantly is fun to use. Other than this other basic features include MMS, Email, Bluetooth, Video and Audio for capturing and playback, a Memory slot and Java support.

Maybe asking for a Radio would have been a bit too much, but then again it also lacks WiFi which would have rendered the piece close to priceless. At least that is what I would like to believe. Moreover, the battery power is a bit weak and it may find time and again depleting itself to half its life with half the day gone, assuming you use most of the features it has to offer. Coming to its looks, the chrome plating on each of it sides, which gives a nice finish, comes off very easily taking most of the phones gloss away. But that may not be its worst attribute. Ever find yourself in an area with weak connectivity where other phones cling on to its last bar with its teeth. This doesn’t. This just gives up just before you reach such an area.

All in all, it has its fair share of frustration driving behavior which most of modern technology encompasses but then again there are others such as the HTC Touch which may offer the same as the i710 and just a bit more for just a bit less.

Life Goes On…

You are born; adolescence breeds indoctrination of social stigmas and those receptors you may or may not concur may lead you to a path of a content life or abject misery, or perhaps a permutation and combination of both.

What ends in a padded cell with a straight jacket is actually the beginning, of not an uncultured presence, but the transcendence of unadulterated thought. A thought devoid of infestation and subjugation, perhaps to democracy, a contest against ideologies, an antonym of measurement, a rebel of the rebellious, yet a non-conformist.

But, these are subverted by the very humanity that breeds it all. So don’t just free your mind…just loose the bloody thing!!!

Bite The Apple…Again!

“We are stuck with technology when what we really want is just stuff that works. How do you recognize something that is technology? A good clue is if it comes with a manual.” – Douglas Adams

The iPhone is here. But several philosophies propose that some unforeseen facets do not want it to stay. Launched at a time when inflation is trying to shoot the moon, political turmoil flipped like pancakes and exploding bombs playing hide and seek. All of this comes at a whopping cost of the middle class man’s monthly pay packet.

Critics and pundits and others who prey on this fabrication of capitalism have taken to this like vultures to an after-buffet dessert. It has a lot of features but they work in an undulated exasperating fashion. A Nokia 3500 Classic for instance is available at 1/5th the cost of the iPhone yet offers a lot more. The iPhone can play videos but can’t capture one, you can’t send an MMS unlike the 3500, and all you settle with is a pitiful and Spartan 2 mega-pixel camera, the same as in the 3500. The Bluetooth in the iPhone does not allow exchanging our precious illegal mp3’s either, again a service rendered by the 3500. The Bluetooth is only there for headset support. And both phones offer Email. And yes you may argue that the iPhone has 3G but it’s in a country without the appropriate network.

On Vodafone, the phone is expensive and the call charges are similar to what is offered in their standard tariffs and Airtel is unequivocally on the same page. It is turning out to be a classic case of duopoly. What it needs is a bit of competition in the market to get the prices down a bit. Then there is the 3G Network itself. The Department of Telecom has announced that it may hike the 3G spectrum usage charges to telcos making the road more knotty than it already is and couple that with the poor sales of the handset with both Vodafone and Bharti Airtel and you have a recipe of oversights. Vodafone introduced the 8GB and the 16GB versions for Rs. 31, 000 and Rs 36, 000 respectively. These were then slashed by Rs 1, 500 as Vodafone and Airtel together only managed to sell 1, 500 in the opening week. (Does this mean that they would slash prices down by Rs. 10,000 if they sell 10, 000 in a week?) Vodafone customer services are not surprised when asked whether the prices will come down further. The standard verbiage then follows, “I am sorry, I am not aware of that…”

Steve Jobs, the father of the iPhone, once got fired from his own company. He tried and succeeded and now earns more than you and me and the guy who fired him. The iPhone seems to be on a similar path.

In spite of all the above …the iPhone is truly a piece of art. It’s like the bastard love-child of Picasso and Michelangelo, smearing your ear with its tongue dipped in paint. It is a masterpiece, a looker. You have to be an ant to appreciate its grandeur, so you may walk around it and look up to it. It is a Pink Floyd concert, complete with strobe and pschydelia all on your fingertips. It is the Genesis of the very philosophy of l’art pour l’art. It is sleek, tender and seductive and it beckons to be used. The display looks clean and captivating while the interface is a crèche to use. Above all and aptly, it is an iPod you can talk from.

It’s like owning a 300kph Ferrari in Mumbai. Sure, people might say that it is impractical and that the roads are inadequate to unleash it, just like the iPhone 3G on a 2G network. But hey, at least you own a Ferrari. It works, and that is what matters. Forget logic; don’t reason; just indulge. Go buy it!

The Pole Missed The Pole

[15th March 2008]

Qualifying began at Albert Park, Melbourne for the Australian GP on Saturday 15th March 2008. Memories were still afresh of the three way title race of 2007 where Kimi Raikkonen pulled off a fascinating conclusion. A championship 21 years in the making since another three way battle between Nelson Piquet, Nigel Mansell and Alain Prost in 1986 with a similar outcome.

A few cars made its way onto the track and placed a bookmark as to which cars would lay down the rubber for the top end duopoly. The three teams to set interests on were, other than the ones at the top of course, on the basis of off season practice and testing were Red Bull and Toyota and also Force India for obvious reasons.

Over the course of the season, Red Bull, Toyota and Renault are expected to battle for mid-field supremacy, a place which proves consistently entertaining, when the Ferraris and McLarens abruptly decide to devise a perfect package which insipidly, at times, hog up uninterrupted race wins. Hopefully, without traction control this season, and consequently considering the numbers of cars which looked twitchy and gave armfuls of opposite locks during the entire Qualifying session, the season may prove to be a juggler’s delight.

Q1 saw Lewis Hamilton getting his McLaren twitching twice in a single lap, one occasion when held up behind a BMW. The BMWs did not particularly impress in the first session either with Nick Heidfeld locking up and Robert Kubica's run interrupted by Raikkonnen's inlap. Heidfeld eventually came good though but did not look strong enough. Hard compounds may be the attribute here. The Ferraris did not seem to be bothered as there was no reason to be. Felipe Massa finished 3rd and Raikkonen 5th. Hamilton finished 10th and Fernando Alonso 14th, another snobbish display of the guys on top. Nelsinho Piquet Jr and Sebastian Bourdais sadly did not make the cut and Giancarlo Fisichella disappointed a billion fans with no fault of his own. Kazuki Nakajima moved on to the next session though.

Q2 saw the potential birth of a possible inter-team rivalry, when Raikkonen could no longer take a part due to a fuel pressure failure. This leaves Massa a lot of freedom to concentrate for the rest of the session and perhaps for the race, and hopefully a thought that can fuel another Hamilton vs Alonso of 2007. The weather was hot and Kubica was drowsy as pictures were shown of him in a drink & drive state in his car. Mark Webber, married to a demonic wife called bad luck, had his brakes explode and crashed backwards into the barrier. Alonso was heard addressing about a lot of understeer and consequently with a subtle hint that he would not win the championship this year. Hamilton and Massa both looked fast but Hamilton’s lap was far from neat (read: aggressive). Ruebens Barrichello classified 11th and Honda were insane with subtle contentment. Toyota and Sebastian Vettel moved to the final session.

Q3 saw both the McLarens having a bit of an off track excursion which may have lost them a few hundredths of a second which can be accredited to a heavy fuel load added with an aggressive drive. Hamilton set a clean lap to get a pole. But the driver of the day was the sleepy Kubica, who even though went a bit off the track due to a very aggressive take of turn 12, managed to control the car well and settle for P2.

Move Over, The House Is Honking

There was a purpose of the Tata Nano, besides the obvious monetary gains. What was the first probable thought that crossed your mind when you heard of it? Ah, there’s a small little appliance which was needed in times of blind eyed dumbfounded pedestrians crossing, newly discovered craters and the odd excavations. Something that would free the air of congestion so you could probably smoke some more to that smog deprived lungs. A green car in maybe bright yellow, to cool the infernal summer days. What a pleasant little thought and small little prayer for the Tata’s. A small car with a halo. That was always the answer.

Now, in lieu of this new found enlightenment, the real question is, why on earth would you want a Toyota Innova? That is if you are not a Mr. Hilton or Mr. Marriot, of course, to ferry across truckloads of clients and customers. Otherwise I do not see the point of it.

If you are looking for a big car - and when I say big I imply that you are trying to say that you may be a geek with no resources or lateral thinking to work on it so you might as well meander in something really large to hide your inconspicuousness –then why won’t you go for the Lexus LX 40, Toyota Land Cruiser Prado or even an eye candy; the Range Rover, or even better maybe look up a car magazine. Why go around in an upgraded hearse? You are not doing really well to hide your ugliness you know.

7 Seats did I hear. Never, and I mean Never, have I seen this yatch-on-wheels at full capacity. This is even when it has a red ‘T’ within a circle branded on its rump. It has the turning radius of a planetary orbit. They say it is an MPV. I could find another use for it. Road blocks or maybe a speed bump for a Hummer. And please do not vouch for practicality. Because if you are practical, then please by all means by a Van. It can sardine more people in and they will also be place for a small rocket launcher, should you choose to start the Mumbai riots again. And if you are looking to curb your costs, maybe you should have stopped reading after the first paragraph.

Yes. I know that other cars do have imbecile drivers which may conjure up the similar results. But let me put it this way. In a Lexus LX40, with its high mounted drivers position, you look up to them, literally. You hit the road and think “Ah! It is a Lexus making a U-Turn” whereas the Innova “Uh! Are they setting up a road block? Is the city in any trouble?” I mean it is a 7 seater but there is only one inhabitant, the driver. That is a field day for an environmentalist. He might as well travel in a Vietnamese moped. Honest, how many times have you seen this at full capacity? And I mean all 7 seats.

Give yourself a week. Notice all the Innovas you do on the road. Check how many of them have disrupted your already miserable point A to B trip and for how many people was it worth in that piece of junk.

And what should do you do about it? Do what I do. Just loathe at the sight of it.

I Am On The Verge Of Death

It is mighty hard to summarize and quantify something that has been lost. It is like death, where your whole and content life passes in front of your eyes in a fleeting second. Except that these are not seconds but weeks or months. It is like the dawn of a new day, except that you had been up whole night lying in a dream only to realize that you have to close your eyes and face the ironical darkness of reality. You are therefore blind as the sun embarks on a journey showing the path to the other half of the planet.

You vouch just for a smile; actually a hint of one would suffice. That valorous turn of the head, eyes searching for your existence validating your existence. The touch that makes you feel a sense of reality that you are very close to the intangible.

It was not a dream but you are now very sleepy. And even if the next few hours may lie in the disdainful comfort of the mattress, with a promise of the same dose of reality during those lifeless and pitiless hours, it may be considered that have just woken up and have got to go to work.

This is not a Shakespearean propaganda of the ill fated, promised to meet his maker. This is not a discouraging discourse of a dissertation of a disappointment. This is not the mating call of a lost African mammal. I am therefore not a depressed homosexual Victorian poet high on cocaine. These are just words from corpse flying in the air with the flies that enjoy it.

A Contribution Of The Unemployed

There has been enough political banter over the rising cost of, I don’t know, everything. The economy is another keyhole for the peeping toms of politics and inflation is the naked wife in the bed of your worst enemy.

Don’t get me wrong, I have absolute faith in the resolve of the administrators of the country. There is the reformist Manmohan Singh, Mr. Finance P Chidambaram and the likes of I-most-definitely-have-a-plan-to-get-everything-right Montek Singh Ahluwalia, who in my book, are the right technocrats for the right country.

Over the last few years, or even the last few months, we have had a bullish trend in the stock market, a booming service sector and the richest men in the world trying to suck other nations dry in the name of globalization. They have laid some tracks for a runaway train. But the question is where is it heading?

I do not see any aim in the growth that we are insipidly coming across. Why? There are still farmers despondent and stuck in a tunnel with no signs of a low watt bulb. The evils of democracy do not measure that there are only pockets of development. What for an instance would curb consumption? Consumption is like the plague which consumes your precious and hard earned money into the capitalistic grinding machine. In the pre-liberalisation era income was low, so were savings and so were investments. Although most of the savings did not supply the banking system, but were mostly found in the digestive systems of the cupboard drawers.

Then there was education. Most of the population, 10-15 years back, between ages 18-25, were keeping themselves literate as a form of investment. Not only this investment has blossomed but also the same age group today has found itself employed. It’s of course not their fault that they had an opportunity, but is the same money they earn is spent on further economic investments you suppose? No.

Would it be largely possible, a neurotic brain that links liquor with urination, Nike with Michael Jordan’s leaps, utilizes them in a sport that involves two minutes for a delivery only to find the batsman timidly defending it, that he thinks that the money that he earns leads to a summarized decisions in the private sector. Honestly, the monetary and fiscal policies are not going to change this, just as the fattest democracy in the world has displayed all its shortcomings but for a strange and vivid reason, it has worked. The economy is not going to be in shambles for the next decade and we can be all fat, greasy and obese and obtuse in the head like how the Americans are. We have our DLF Premier League and we shall never lose our politics.

Those are my two paise. Hope it doesn’t contribute to the increasing money supply.

"How May I Help..."

A degenerative condition, the brain suffered and the thoughts faded. Words drooled off and the tongue had dried. The immortal was imprisoned in a never-ending loop of ironical pattern of words, words he liked, but not those in the prison. Impaled in a prison where he was greased up, ready for penetration. There was no hope or faith left, just the bicycle with its rusted spokes with a missing seat. “Up yours!” it beckoned, “right where the sun don’t shine”. Click! These were the sweet words which ended most of the conversations. Other synonymous and broadly consensual words followed. This was the most diplomatic it got with a thorough gentleman’s agreement in place.

It’s all over now. No sweet goodbyes.