Accidentally on Purpose !!!!

Of sugar and spice and everything nice

2008-04-23T06:55:00.000-07:00

why is it that things have become so hard for me.
why are my efforts not yielding desired results
why this string of failures
its been a long time since something really nice happened
i have been patient all this while
and now i'm starting to lose patience
i never knew i would reach this stage
its taken its toll
a heavy one that too
i was thinking that it would end
but no
lets add one more to this endless saga
i want it to end
desperately
and today i made a last ditch effort at it too
didnt work
life is so shitty and unfair
when will i start getting things that i so desperately want
and when will things start falling into place
do i once again leave it to the fourth dimension - seek refuge of that temporal beast
the gita has this terse saying abt karma
but i'm human
i have a right to expect returns when i know i deserve them
and when i dont get them, it hurts
more so because everytime something nice turns up i expect it to break the chain
and then at the last point, the last hurdle, it just adds on to the list
the list is long and was 8 member strong till yesterday
and the 9th member just joined

the last few months have been really hard
i've held my chin up despite numerous setbacks
my only consolation is that i have hit such a depth that there's only one way to go from here - Up
and i will never let anything bog me down
but it does discourage you
i have only become stronger with all this
one day, dont know when, all this will change
and i shall never stop trying
i am no quitter

Abrupt. Abrasive.

2008-03-20T04:56:00.000-07:00

This is the start. Abrupt.

I hate you

1) for having made me go through so much pain
2) for having made me realise how selfish and uncaring i was. for that matter, so are you. you were right after all, we do have a lot in common.
3) for having made me imagine myself in your place. and all the insensitivity that i've shown to those who, like me, could never muster the courage to say those three begotten words
4) for reminding me of all the hurt, unknowingly, that i may have caused to so many people.
5) for being the inconsiderate, horrible, i-me-myself prick that you came across as
6) for making me wallow in self-pity for so long
7) for making me fall again in this ever churning muse(yes, thats what i call it), and getting hurt again
8) for making me wish for things prematurely, while all along i felt that its best for things to take their course and time
9) for making me dream wonderful moments with you. hallucinations. delusions.
10) for the incessant desire and longing for you that went on for days on end.
11) for never did it hurt so bad. and for so long
12) for that ever-gnawing feeling that shows no sign of abating.
13) for all those moments when i shunned all company and sat alone, thinking over and over again.
14) for all the ifs and buts that i couldn't shut my mind to
15) for making me think of you when all i wanted was to never think of you again. ever. failed miserably. too many times.
16) for invading my thoughts when someone else deserved that time and space.
17) for squeezing out everybody else and for chances spurned and purposely overlooked. for you.
18) for drawing me to you
19) for having made me shuffle my priorities in life. for you.
20) for leaving me dazed and confused. about everything
21) for making me feel lonely and desirous of solitude when what i needed was a patient ear

happy 21st.

for all this and much more, S, i hate you.
and despite all this, i still don't know why i like you. maybe because it was an epiphany, waiting to happen. but i don't expect you to understand. not one bit. no.

This is the end. Abrasive.

9 months, pregnant and still awaiting delivery

2008-03-11T04:20:00.000-07:00

9 months, I complete today in the industry. A massive learning experience.

9 months and one of my colleagues who joined with me has already grown a pot belly. A wig, some lipstick, a nice shave and there you have a pregnant lady. Thankfully, I'm still my scrawny self.

9 months and for all of us, our expectations are really low as to what this other guy's going to bear in the coming future, seeing his really low (read 0) productivity in the last 9 months. Yet to deliver. And a healthy 9 pound lump of shit it's gonna be.

9 months - Baptism by fire !! An apt description.

And I apologise once again for the misleading title :)

~anirudh

Brilliant ads

2008-03-07T03:58:00.000-08:00

Don't we always hit the remote between commercial breaks ?
Do we feel ads are a waste of time, poorly made, immature and sometimes sickening ?

Think again. At least some of them have more content than most channels that we switch between. For the first time I compulsively sat down in front of the idiot box with a No Interruptive Soaps Only Commercials frame of mind and also for the first time, the trend of switching channels was reversed.

I had to watch countless commercial breaks to catch the full 1 minute version of ads of which I had seen just brief glimpses of before. Some of them were just brilliant and amazing and some truly woeful. But I think, overall, it was worth the effort.

Here are some of my favourite ads on Indian television. If there are any great ads that I've missed, do tell me.

1) The sheer brilliance and the fantastic way that it has been put across says it all. My favourites in this ad are the "say something say nothing", "confess, "speak out" and the "be heard" parts.

2) Another beautiful ad from Airtel. Inspiring, motivating and moving, all at the same time. Brilliant. Awe-inspiring. A R Rehman has done a fantastic job with the background music. It no more is a jingle. It's the Airtel Anthem.

3) A beautiful construction of the theme behind the line. Just one word comes to mind - Motivating. Intelligent, magnificient use of words.

4) I love this ad. Truly entertaining, splendid jingle, beautiful babe, and the look that she gives. Something to die for. Appreciable too, the look that the old man gives the protagonist.
Hutch jingles are always melodious. Remember the "you and i in this beautiful world" jingle??

5) Had to break a thousand company rules to get this video. Saved the best for the last. Great storytelling. See it for yourself :)

Honorary Mention : The new Coca-Cola. I don't know why I like this ad. Maybe for the slick Antonio-Banderas-Desperado look that Hrithik Roshan sports, or the carefree i-dont-give-a-shit attitude with which the song is sung, or the overall presentation. Its a nice feel-good ad.

A changed stance

2008-03-06T02:29:00.000-08:00

Disclaimer: This post is pretty bizarre. It wasn't supposed to be this way. I am re-writing it from an entirely new perspective. The change is necessary because of unexpected turn of events yesterday. To the curious ones whom I'll be meeting this Holi, another 15 days.

Has it ever happened with you that what you might have read in the past, without paying any due attention to detail and the thought that has gone into it, you have dismissed it as another one of those hypothetical situations that you may never go through in your life, albeit without denying their credibility at any point of time. What I mean to say is that you don't deny that they have ever happened to anybody. In fact, you acknowledge its omnipresence, as a part of the innumerable everyday happenings in this world. Its just like any other event, an experience that people go through and emerge out just as sublimely and as they fell into it. Not that anybody has ever been able to control their fall into it. (Believe me, you'll never know when and what hit you. Bliss ?? Yes, for sure, for as long as its good. When it isn't, self-inflicted misery. The worst of all sufferings.)

To all this, you confess and concede, without fuss or even the slightest notion of doubt. Even after all these admittances, you vehemently deny to yourself the very possibility of its occurrence in your own life.

All well and good, except that you are wrong on the last count. Your virginal beliefs turn out to be anything but enduring, like a tree in a storm. One moment its there - tall and straight and strong and fiercely unshakable - and the next, broken into two by the unrelenting gusts of wind, kicking up in intensity and with every passing moment. Too fancy. But you get the drift, I hope.

And one fine day it might just come back to bite you in the ass(arse or arss :), for those choosy few. Take your pick). Does it mean that your beliefs haven't been able to stand the test of time ? Definitely not. Just a change in stance was necessary. The rest is all fine.

For the unabridged version of this post, you haven't died an untimely death. You will probably see the light of another day.

The Right Place

2008-03-04T02:58:00.000-08:00

I had been to Bombay this weekend. A memorable trip, in more ways than one. The most pleasing aspect of the entire trip was meeting somebody who I had longed to meet for so many many years. An amazing trip, peppered generously with spicy anecdotes, luxurious aesthetic pamperings, beautiful memories and some extravagant promises, which i do plan to keep :) .

There were innumerable facets to this city. In between all the work that I had, I could explore just a few. Time and the the bumper to bumper traffic (blame the big fat CM's son's wedding), playing spoilsports.

I visited a famous eatery and a very curious incident occurred that reminded me of the hypocritical factor in the never equitable, inexplicable weight vs figure equation of women. The equation is truly complex. Puts the D-L system to shame.

I seem to have run out of time. Will continue this ....

Red Light District

2008-02-21T04:34:00.000-08:00

This has taken a long time coming, but I hope - at least for me - that its worth the wait. The delay cannot be put down to sloth or laziness on my part, as all things usually are by some people. Quite the opposite actually. I used to write, when in college. I had written on quite a few subjects, trivial as well as consequential. Their not reaching the print is, however, another story. They resided silently and uncomplainingly on my com.

I wish "All things bright and beautiful" could go on for eternity. Though there wouldn't be any charm left then. One fine day (a very beautiful cloudy day it was), disaster struck !!! My hard disk, though being detected by my ever-hard-working com, suddenly refused to load the OS. I thought it was just another instance of XP going berserk and a few boots(literally !!) and a few pushes to the slightly battered restart button would do the trick. But when a couple of pushes didn't quite do the "trick", I surmised that it required an expert's hand. Now, Arora was as usual busy and so was IV (busy doing nothing, really). And it was an uncirculated rumour(wonder how) that G-Man was something of a virtuoso in hard-disk-crashes-recovery. I think desperation leads one to follow his most banal instincts. As they say, Hope, along with a number of other things, is the opium of life. Not that the blog address has much to do with this. But I've digressed. To cut a long story short, I petitioned to G-Man's benevolent instincts and he agreed to look at it, though with much reluctance. He worked on it for a week and eventually told me to go buy a new one. Curse him, calling himself an expert, rather a virtuoso. Anyway, it wasn't the hard disk that I was concerned about. My ramblings were the only things that mattered.

G-Man disappointed me and I turned to my last resort. And what a blind fool I was. Of all the sane people in the campus, I went to - guess who - the server room idiots. Promises to do to the best of capabilities followed soon after and I went back to my room, contented to see a faint glimmer of hope. A day later(he was prompt, I 'll have to give him that), he told me that he couldn't do anything much with it. What a lie !!! Actually he had done more than my very imagination, on its wildest voyage, could have ever conspired to do. I should have known that he knew as much about HDs as much as I knew about rocket science. It was a moment of helplessness that compelled me to take drastic measures. How was I to know that this would result in the sad, painful demise of my HD. And all that resided on it.

Poor HD, which,at least, was being detected, decided to spurn all advances. The famed Red light district of OBH-1 had lost its resplendence. To top it all, G-Man comes to me, after the cows have grazed and dropped dung all over the place, to tell me that he can recover the data. I almost strangled him to death.

Corporate life sucked out all my motivation to write. Reminds me of the "MTV-It Sucks" ad. But, I've found it again. A lot has happened in the last few weeks, good as well as bad. Plan to learn from the bad ones and cherish the good ones. And I think I'll do all those things that I wouldn't/couldn't/didn't/haven't done in these past few months.

And I'm sorry if the title of the blog has been a little misleading :)

~anirudh