Brake Point

Saturday, December 5, 2009


♫ "Already Home" (feat. Kid Cudi) - Jay-Z on the music system

Season review time. If you are indeed an F1 fan, I don't expect you to be reading this. Go read the season reviews written by James Allen or Peter Windsor or just listen to Sir Jackie Stewart in his tweed coat banging on about what he feels about the way things panned out.

I just felt weird when the lighting systems at the Abu Dhabi circuit died out and left behind a stark darkness as opposed to the brilliantly illuminated giant jellyfish skin they had swathed the entire main grandstand complex with. Jenson Button and Brawn were already champions and they didn’t really have to…

No. I didn’t feel weird. I felt disgusted at that moment because my brain stopped being absorbed in the race and I gradually felt my olfactory senses pick up the most revolting stench that I’d been oblivious to thus far - I'd been too busy drinking in the visuals.

What else do you expect from a room that has no air-conditioning, no proper ventilation, unwashed and un-disinfected ancient carpets, and is generally occupied by those hordes from that state between Tamil Nadu and the pointless Orissa? Oh, and the monkeys occasionally pop in for a dump. And then leave.

I mean, this season shook it all up for the sport. Or the entertainment show(as the honourable Government of India likes to see it). Ferrari and McLaren, the ‘big boys’ could only whimper with their tails ‘twixt their legs while Brawn and later Red Bull brawn-ed and bull-ed their way to an eventual contest between each other for the titles. I’m sure all the Ferrari and McLaren haters(there seem to be some) were overjoyed that this year had been a nice little kick up their backsides. Truth be told, yes, it was really good to see someone else do the winning for a while.

But the novelty factor soon wore off, because Brawn had been blitzing everyone else for the first one-third of the season. Yes, the double diffuser thing helped, but Williams and Toyota had it too – that didn’t make them that awesome. So, we should give credit where it’s due. Ross Brawn, Nick Fry to a certain extent and the exiting Honda management to a small yet no less significant extent.

And of course, the new Brit hero, Jenson Button. Finally. After that promising start to his career with Benetton and Williams, nobody had bet against him not winning a championship before he turned 29. And yet, that’s what happened with him languishing at the luckless Honda pitwall for over 6 years. If people say he doesn’t deserve the championship, well, they should just shut up. There have been a few such champions in the past, and there will be such champions in the future – a champion is a champion is a champion. And Button deserves it, as much as anyone of his other challengers did. After all these years of frustration and anger, it almost seems poetically apt that Button won the title he so badly wanted in this dramatic fashion. Senna had once appropriately remarked, “Every year, there is a winner of the World Championship, but not necessarily a champion.” However, the record books think otherwise and so we should just shut our mouths and move on.


I was totally crushed for Sebastian Vettel. I’ve been looking out for him ever since he set those blinding times during the free practice for the 2006 Italian GP, and 2009 was the year he should have won that title. I won’t go on and on about how some errors, from himself and from Red Bull, and plain old bad luck conspired to deny him what would have been a stupendous achievement. And he just goes hard at it all the time – he can’t just think of getting the car home and bagging a few points. That’s not his style. And I love his attitude. He wasn’t like, “I’ll be stronger because I have learned to lose” or “Losing is part of the game” or “I have grown as an individual” or any of that regular drivel all these smooth-talkers say when they lose. Instead, he said:

“I wish I didn’t have to say it, but I hate losing. I think I knew it all along, but now I am definitely sure. But somehow that doesn’t only go for racing - I’m afraid I hate losing in anything I am doing - whether it is playing a silly game, or football, I obviously simply hate to lose.”


That’s definitely the guy I see as one whose side I am on. Ah, you’re wondering why? Who’s that dude I worship?

And who is that person we are not talking about? Yes, mister, you. You should stop saying “I have never accepted that I wasn’t as good as Michael.” About time.

Oh, and watch out for yet another young German in the immediate future, Nico Hulkenberg. He will probably turn out to be as good as Vettel. Yes.

Anyway, I’m mega-pissed at Ferrari for letting Kimi Vodkanen go, by terminating his contract that would have expired in 2010, all because President Montezemolo wanted Fernando Teflonso in the team. And that’s the reason I am going to be a Mercedes supporter in case, IN CASE Schumi decides to haul his ass into their racecar for the next season. Ferrari and Schumacher fans shouldn’t see him as a traitor who’s ‘forsaken his loyalty to the team with which he’s spent the golden years of his illustrious career’. If Ferrari can hire Alonso, then without an iota of doubt, Michael occupies a higher moral ground if he decides to get himself released from the ‘Consultant’ position at Maranello and drive for the German company who funded his rise through the junior classes and the DTM. So the Ferraristi in Michael’s camp, shut your miserable whining traps and scream for the Silver Arrows henceforth. My reverence for Ferrari the Manufacturer remains undiminished, but Ferrari the Formula 1 Team? They’d have to do something special to win me back. Hah. Like they need to, or like they ever will. They’ll just ask me to go f**k myself.

So, as a pre-emptive measure, I shall hit ‘Publish’, re-enable μ Torrent, rise from this chair I’m sitting on…

…and do just that.

See you later, infected crimson pustules.

Scaredy Crap

Sunday, October 11, 2009


Jump back, what's that rumbling sound?
You avoid an enraged colugo that's just come down
Perspiring glassy beads, your skin's goose-pimpling,
You feel a frantic fear, and you just can't stop its incessant gaveling
Instantaneously, you scamper and quicken your pace up
Could also be the Fizestra behind you, it wants to cut you up

Now, you should have fallen down and splintered a bone
You should've been writhing in pain, your shrieks would bother them none
And then it would come oh-so-close to you and smell you out
You'd know it's gonna be over, there ain't a shadow of a doubt
You grab a fallen branch, turn and swing it around right then
Of course there's nothing right there, its just the hallucinogens
You're confounded and dazed again, you're brain-fucked again

Daft doorknob, they're using you - you're just an experiment
They're killing you no more than they're feeding infants wet cement
Shut the fuck up now and get ready, there's another test
Chew up this Peruvian Torch, so what if your mouth's abscessed?
Lesions and contusions? Just this one, we'll see what they crack
And after stitching you up, you'll land slap-bang in rehab

And is there any other place you'd rather be?
Yes, the pain's there and yeah, you do bleed
But this acid trip is all you're ever going to need


It's 4:45 in the morning. And I am generally irritated. This was written in 15 minutes flat. I have scaled new heights of horrible-ness. It's quite pathetic, but let me tell you something. 50 Cent could do with a wack songwriter. He needs one.

Sigh. It has come to this.

It's all askew

Tuesday, October 6, 2009

Hey, randomly shitting on blogspot is good fun. That too without having my blog URL and title in capitals on my gmail status message, mind you.

So, let's nuke it:

Sittin' on a boulder, little Burt wonders, 'What do I do?'
'Should I point my pencil at my eye and drive it straight through?'
'Or should I be still and watch the bird crapping on Roxy's statue?'

Now he's at home with his Math homework, he's got a lot to do
'What's the interest on this instalment, what does it accrue to?'
Mathematics tortures him, and it all seems scarier than voodoo

Cold fusion is idle speculation, a theory they all eschewed
While he whiled away his time, an intense battle brewed
He'd neglected the murderous Macbeth - a huge assignment was due

Enough - he locked himself in the bathroom - a self imposed curfew
Reached into the toilet tank and fished out the bottle of Quaaludes
He swallowed them all, and then lived out a million bedazzling hues

It's 3 AM in the morning... Really.

Laz-Y-Boy Bloggerturd

Friday, October 2, 2009

I would have been writing about a lot of things if they had been slightly different. Like if Schumi had made that sensationalunbelievableoutoftheworldheroic comeback. Like if Britney Spears had taken the stage at a sold-out concert and exploded. Like if India would have actually justified it's obsession with the retarded game of cricket. Like if I would have grown a third head when there had never been a second.


All of that didn't happen. What did happen was that we had to write a 'walking poem'(yes, this is yet another gandu doing what everyone else has done) and I wrote a poem which doesn't deserve to be called a poem because I can't write poems and if I can't write poems this can't possibly be a poem. But write I did. And though I agree that one of the justifications for shutting down all the blogging sites would be the leeway that poop-spewers like me get when it comes to putting up any and everything we think of on our blogs when none of it deserves to be even on the back of a shopping list, I'm not going to let that shame me into not posting it.

Yes, there is a serious lack of content here and to keep this blog alive, I have to flog it to within an inch of its life.

Prepare to be 'Oww'-ed:

As I amble along this forest path
A light breeze swirls around the leaves
The slanting afternoon sun breaks through the foliage
Its rays tinted all purple and orange

A gnarled, rotting trunk lies on the forest floor
In a pitiable state of decay
The living trees around it seem dark and almost mournful
Melancholic and sorrowful at this untimely demise

I walk on slightly despondent, but little do I know
On that very trunk, a little Peepul plant grows
Maggots and earthworms scuttle around in its rotting innards
And a clump of tumbleweeds bloom in all their unwanted glory

The rotting, visibly lifeless trunk
Once supple, mirthful and erect
No, it isn’t dying.
In these numerous, unwitting beneficiaries

It lives on.

And so do I. I live, despite writing this. Life's fair. Sort of.

Don't do it

Saturday, September 26, 2009

My tonsils have decided to act funny once again. As a result, I've been coughing like an old, beaten-up Chevy's starter on a sub-zero morning. Each time I cough my cough, every muscle in my body feels like it's compressing into a bolus, and then exploding before coming together again and repeating the cycle. The back of my head especially feels like it's going to come apart at the sutures.


Enter Roxid. I finally gave in(after consulting Dad, OBVIOUSLY), because Wikoryl didn't work, and Crocin was useless - the bodyache was killing me. So, last night I gulped down my first Roxid and for the aches, a Nimesulide tab went down with it.

And today, thanks to Mamu, I had a Combiflam tab a while back. And as I am now on antibiotics, having(or not having) cold stuff to drink makes not a jot of a difference. So, in the past 4-5 hours or so, I've slammed down a glass of chilled orange juice, 2 cans of Diet Coke, a giant glass of self-made cold coffee, and several glasses of chilled water. All this despite my rebellious and sorely sore throat.

So what if you've fallen ill? Just do it.

And stop reading this asinine blog.

What if...

Saturday, September 12, 2009


This is going to be a very short post. I am mega-pissed off that the USTA is doing this to Rafael Nadal Parera. Or it's just the Fates who probably think it's some kind of joke. He now has to play 4 consecutive days of tennis at the US Open, and all this after having to play the last night matches in the previous rounds. After the match against Gael Monfils, I think both of them left the court at 1:20 AM NY time. I shall not talk about his strained abdominal muscles because the man himself doesn't want to. It seems as if the stars are all aligned against him and are doing everything they can to prevent him from holding aloft the trophy in the Arthur Ashe Stadium.

However, having said all that, I also know that if anyone can tide over these obstacles and still do it, it's that man Rafa. And what shall be even more satisfying is that we fans can shout, "Up yours, USTA, the Weather Gods, and whoever else wants him to give up!".

It is a very tall order and his championship hopes might even be snuffed out by Gonzalez tonight itself. But what if he does it? I know it's a bit like speculating on the taste of the omelette even as it is still a zygote within the hen, but hey, can you stop me from enjoying the hypothetical occurrence of this happy possibility?

But what are you going to do if this slight possibility becomes a reality?

-----

From an AFP newscast:

"Nadal hopes to complete a career Grand Slam with a US Open title and such a run would continue a tradition of historic crowns won in rain-hit years.
Don Budge completed the first calendar-year Grand Slam in 1938 after a hurricane halted play for a record six days. Rod Laver finished off the second men's Slam with a Monday win in 1962 and his second Slam in 1969 on a Monday."

Is my evil, shrieking laughter making your ears bleed?

RIP Lusk, Surtees, and all the others who've left us. And SHUT UP, YOU HEALTH AND SAFETY RETARDS.

Thursday, August 13, 2009


It’s been a tough year for motorsport – chiefly because of the high-profile deaths that have brought back into sharp focus the proximity to death these superstars face every time they put their machines into gear and gun their engines.

Chief among the casualties have been Jeremy Lusk - Metal Mulisha rider, Freestyle Motocross superstar and Henry Surtees – F2 driver, son of the legendary John Surtees. Another recent headline-grabbing incident was Felipe Massa’s crash during the qualifying session of the Hungarian Grand Prix. And there must be several others I've missed.

These superstars who straddle the worlds of adventure sport and motorsport have come on board and given the best years of their lives to their chosen sport, knowing full well that their next stunt or race could turn out to be their last.

Which is why this stupid furore that’s been raised by these armchair ‘experts’ over the safety protocols existing in these sporting disciplines and whether they are enough to ensure the absolute safety of the people involved in it, right from the drivers and riders to the girls serving beer in the hospitality areas is totally infuriating. However, not for a moment am I suggesting that a Robbie Maddison should wear a fluffy magenta tutu while performing his backflip.

All I am saying is, ‘LEAVE THESE PEOPLE ALONE’. What more can the FIA do? Limit speeds in Formula One to 2.2287 km/h? Make the X-Games a video-game contest? Mistakes are made. Shit just happens. There is no way one can protect himself against the fickle ways of chance. Each of the people involved in these high-risk sporting events are the best out there. And they are certainly not irrational or stupid or unreasonable. If they think about doing something, it’s because they think and, more importantly they know they can. Whether they will, or whether they go out in a fireball of metal and glory is something they just have to check out for themselves. And they also have to perform the onerous task of filling out gazillons of health and safety forms.

An accident is something that is always waiting to pounce on even the most benign of human endeavours. You can slip in your bathroom while taking a bath and singing ‘Start me up’, bang your head on the faucet and be as dead as a doornail instantly. If you want to protect yourself against this eventuality, don’t take a bath. Ever. But in that case you will end up choking people around you to their deaths, your body is going to be infested with all micro-organisms known to man and you’ll die a slow, painful and, worst of all, malodorous death. And nobody will be applauding you as you go out with a whimper.

Take the bathroom option instead.
In the tribute show put together by ESPN for Lusk, a segment talked about the kind of injuries these athletes have had to endure during the course of their career, and some of the responses were – “I had the entire left side of my torso ripped off”, “The handlebar went through my gut”, “I lost my kidney”, “One of my testicles was ripped off”.

So why do they still do it? These guys also have families – Jeremy is survived by his wife, Lauren. Is it worth risking it all when you can lose the people you love the most?


Of course it effing is. These people risk it because they don't know how to do anything else. They tread the fine line between daredevilry and lunacy day in and day out because they have to. And they aren’t endorphin-addled teenagers going mental with all the horsepower under their right foot or wrist. They are supremely skilled, extremely meticulous in their preparation, and they have a support team that does everything to ensure their safety. But they can’t accident-proof themselves. And I also think they don’t mind dying while doing something they love doing. It’s all worth it.

So, the next time you hear of such a death due to a horrific accident, feel a little sad for the dude who screwed up, and all the people who were behind him. But don’t, for a moment insult his memory by thinking he’d been stupid. He was being perfectly rational. It’s not like he had a choice. I’m sure he wouldn’t want to change anything he’s done in his life, if he were given a chance.

RIP Lusk, Surtees and everyone else who’s no longer with us. We’ll miss you guys. The loss is ours, and only ours.




-----


While I'm eagerly waiting for 'Relapse 2' and 'Detox', I'm listening to 'The Marshall Mathers LP' and 'The Chronic'. Fall Out Boy is also good fun to listen to. All this peppered with the occasional Aerosmith, U2, Springsteen, Sting, Rolling Stones, Pearl Jam song.

Sheer Uselessness

Monday, August 10, 2009

Again, this is one of those intelligent Facebook-Notes enterprises, which I shall use to fill my blog up. I suck. Big time.

There are a lot of artists I’d have wanted to select for this. But I realized I had no other alternative. His music occupies the rarefied zone of my subconscious. No, I'm not 'putting pseud' here, but this is something I just can't put a finger on. For me, Slim Shady is the first and last option, despite the fact that choosing The Rolling Stones, Bruce Springsteen, The Police, U2, Aerosmith or some other such band would have been a lot more conventional(and the answers would have come more easily) and I like those bands just as much.

But when has a Shady fan ever done ‘sensible’?

Anyway, here we go:


Pick Your Artist:

Eminem (Marshall Bruce Mathers III)


Are you a male or female?
Superman

Describe yourself:
Soldier

How do you feel:
Hellbound

Describe where you currently live:
Amityville

If you could go anywhere, where would you go?
Underground

Your favourite form of transportation:

Under The Influence

Your best friend is:
The Flyest Material

Your favourite colour is:
The Sauce(That's the closest to red I got)

What's the weather like:
Beautiful

Favourite time of day:
3 AM

If your life was a TV show, what would it be called:
No Apologies

What is life to you:
Same Song and Dance

Your current relationship:
Crazy In Love

Breaking up:
My Fault

Looking for:
Medicine Ball

Wouldn’t mind:
Bagpipes from Baghdad

Your fear:
When the Music Stops

What is the best advice you have to give:
Stay Wide Awake

If you could change your name, you would change it to:
Jimmy Crack Corn

Thought for the Day:
Just Lose It

How I would like to die:
Like Toy Soldiers

My motto:
Run Rabbit Run




Well, that's done. So you can do something useful. Chew on these lines from 'Till I Collapse':

Till the roof comes off, till the lights go out
Till my legs give out, can’t shut my mouth.
Till the smoke clears out - am I high? Perhaps
I'ma rip this shit till my bone collapse.
Till the roof comes off, till the lights go out
Till my legs give out, can’t shut my mouth.
Till the smoke clears out and my high burn out
I'ma rip this shit till my bone collapse.

Totally, Em! We'll be screaming for you till the very end.

Random 1

Tuesday, August 4, 2009

Malvika Singh in The Telegraph(Calcutta) today, in her column, writes:

The strange reality in India is that whenever an individual performs, delivers or acts outside the borders of status quo politics, the rest in the larger ‘club’, who have not made it, pounce on the person, usually surreptitiously, in a desperate effort to destroy the credibility and dignity of that individual. This happens in politics, in business, in the service sector, everywhere. If you are under attack and being abused, accused and more, it means you have arrived. That is the insane way in which India celebrates its best and its brightest. Examples from the realm of politics are Manmohan Singh, who was deemed ‘weak and malleable’, Sonia Gandhi, who was damned by the Opposition for decades, and Rahul Gandhi, who was pooh-poohed as an incompetent ‘heir’. When the trajectory changes, critics become sycophants.

I have to say I agree.

And I shoved down two slices of bread smeared with a combination of barbecue sauce, mustard sauce and a little bit of salsa.

You haven't ever done this?

But then, have you ever thought of cutting off your left arm and then beating yourself to death with it?

For old times' sake

Saturday, August 1, 2009

‘And this time, it's going to be brilliant’, were my thoughts when I disembarked from the train and was mighty chuffed to find everything so ‘in-sync’(for want of a better expression) – that car, that front seat, that stereo playing the same old CD, passing that Green-and-Yellow gate on GT road, that Kolkata Knight Riders’ Billboard(:o), etc.

And yet there was this voice at the back of my head which said, ‘Stop it – this rummy feeling isn’t going to last for long. Before you know it, it’s gonna be gone’. Understandably, I scoffed at even the slightest thought of the hols ending. Three months is a long, long time yaar. Now I have to go and vote as well, first thing in the morning. Will it be the Reds or will it be a Trinamool whitewash (err, greenwash)? Why am I thinking of all that bilge? And so I filed away that unsavoury thought somewhere far, where it wouldn’t be able to needle me.

It’s surprising how easily one can get back into that old way of doing things. It’s no point living in the past – I know someone who’d sneer and say these exact words. Well, it doesn’t matter. You don’t have to live in the past. The past lives on… in you. And you don’t take a couple of days to ‘acclimatise’ to the change. You know how to deal with it. I trudge into the dining hall first thing in the morning, which has the TV no. 2 tuned to Times Now/NDTV 24x7/BBC World and that familiar genial man sitting in front of it, sipping his morning tea, and then downing whatever he can find in the fridge or in the loft. The lady in the kitchen reacts testily –‘Your cholesterol levels are going to get you!’, to which all he offers is a sheepish grin. A 13 year-old bloke emerges from the bathroom in a towel and yells – he’s getting late for school.

And I’m back there. In the afternoon at 2, I go to school to pick the brother up. Familiar faces smile and wave – the juniors, the teachers, the guards at the gate (Traffic duty, boss :D) and the usual question ‘Kemon aachish/Kemon aacho/How are you?’.

In the evening, I make a couple of phone calls, zip down to Polo Ground/Apcar Gardens/Burnpur Club/somebody’s house(whichever is convenient) and kickstart those adda sessions which seem neverending, until there’s a missed call from mum at, say, 10:30 pm at the earliest.


I come back home, shove dinner down my throat and then flounce off into the study. I switch on the PC, resume the inactive torrents and transfer the completed ones onto my laptop for viewing later on. Then I watch some TV, after which I switch on the AC in the bedroom and read whatever it is I’m reading at that point in time.


And then drift off to sleep until next morning, for which I can’t wait. That’s because I’m going to take out my two-wheeler at 5 am and go someplace with my bros. Or do something our group feels like doing, like having a gang over at our place to watch some movies or duel it out in Gran Turismo on the Playstation or indulge in the usual guy-talk (cars/sports/films/THAT girl).

These are my life’s little pleasures.

It’s been rightly said (here I go again, cockface) that people seem to get nostalgic about a lot of things they weren't so crazy about the first time around. How effing true is that!


That’s why I’m typing this out, while sipping Diet Coke, biting into the last pieces of that chocolate cake Mama made, and listening to ‘City of Blinding Lights’, which I feel is weirdly suited to the tone of the sentimental hogwash that you’re reading right now.

He didn't have to

Thursday, July 23, 2009

I watched Double Indemnity the day before yesterday and now these lines from the film are, inexplicably, spinning around in my head:

Phyllis Dietrichson: I wonder if I know what you mean.
Walter Neff: I wonder if you wonder.

and

Walter Neff: It's just like the first time I came here, isn't it? We were talking about automobile insurance, only you were thinking about murder. And I was thinking about that anklet.


I didn't quite like the way the film ended. I wanted Walter Neff to let Nino be falsely implicated in the murder of Mr. Dietrichson alongwith Phyllis, and wash his hands of the whole thing. But unsurprisingly, he has a change of heart when he realizes Phyllis was playing Nino along as well. Benevolence and kindness sweeps over him, and he wants Nino and Lola to be together. So he does the noble thing, and turns himself in.

The general consensus, most certainly, is that he did the right thing.

And that, exactly, is what put me off.

He didn't have to.



----

It's such a pity I hadn't been a regular listener of The Rolling Stones a lot earlier. However, I am one now, and so 'Street Fighting Man' is now on repeat on me laptop.

They are bwwiillliant. :D

Could be worse

Tuesday, July 14, 2009

He looks up at the brilliant blue sky
and then at the parched earth 'neath his feet
the relief of rain is, yet, all but a wistful dream

Undeterred, he puts his next foot forward and soldiers on
and in his quest for the ever-elusive water,
he marches into the wasteland further deep

Not even once does the poor soul rage or curse
for, he knows full well
It could have been a lot worse.

Medley I

Friday, June 26, 2009

Aaiye dukaan kholta hoon:

1. Re-vive: Coming along pretty nicely. I’ve now sort of realized what I had been missing for quite some time. The ubiquitous adda session that happens every day from sunset till 11 o’ clock has become very, very essential to my daily existence. Pausing to think, I also realize that earlier, we never ever had to call each other to a specific place just so we can have this – we had the tuitions which served the purpose. Commendably. And Mukherjee hasn’t changed. Not. One. Bit. And that keeps things jazzed up all the time, although we sometimes go a little overboard! The Polo Ground is perfect for this kind of timepass. Made my second trip to school with Babai, Souvik and Roy. And we ended up singing a plaintive - and pathetic - rendition of ‘Winds of Change’(Or...did we?). School school naa raha(sob). Siddhant ‘Choos-Lee’ Bhartia came down all the way from Calcutta to meet up with us. We appreciate it, Sidd – it’s a pity our plans to get smashed together in Bangalore never really materialized, and now you're no longer in Bangalore. Now it’s Calcutta for the next 3 years, pucca. Right then. We’ll get smashed in Calcutta one of these days :D
And I still can't decide whether I want to go for that reunion party in school. Most of us are undecided - we're unsure of the crowd... what if the grand old men of SPS Alumni take centrestage and we newbies are summarily ignored? Wisely, the organisers are dangling the bait of having ex-students from AG Church and Loreto on board for the '3 day extravaganza' :D We shall see!


2. Brit GP, Silverstone: So the Brawns finally came unstuck. Low temperatures weren’t letting their tyres warm up properly, and Button was undone (*smirks*) and Barrichello wasn’t exactly giving a great account of himself (Massa and Rosberg almost jumped him). But I’m dribbling on about a mere bagatelle. Why don’t we sidestep this issue and yell ‘SEBASTIAN!!’ - What a performance. What a thundering performance. Granted that the Red Bull car was flattered a little by the nature of the circuit and the air and track temperatures, but you simply can’t gloss over the fact that Vettel, on a heavier fuel load, first put in a stonker of a qualifying lap to take pole, and then pulled away from the two old goats on the grid at over a second a lap consistently during the first stint of the race. That was the day he did a Schumacher. Fab job!

3. Wimbledon: It’s no secret which camp I belong to. And yes, Wimbledon without its defending champion feels a bit like showing up for a college prom night and having to dance with Bablu the channawallah. OK, that was monumentally asinine of me, but you shall, at this juncture, have mercy on this mentally challenged individual and get the drift. And, much as I don’t mind Roger Effing Federer and really, really respect him, the Savile-Row bedecked tennis-racket swinging Rolex commercial really gets on my nerves. The other one with footage from his matches is OK – I mean, Rolex has being doing that sort of ads for years, but this one is, well, phhbbbt.

4. Shantaram(the book): I won't say anything except describing it in one word : 'staggering'.

More later. Run along.

Oh, Roger!

Sunday, June 7, 2009

Roger fans (I'm half a fan myself :-)), savour your moment under the sun :-).

What's with the excessive smileys I'm dishing out?

He is the greatest now. Now even critics who held his inability to win the French Open as a trump card have to shut their fucking traps up. Hats off, man. He and his camp have every right to be extremely chuffed about this victory. They badly needed this one. We always knew he had the game to triumph at Roland Garros, and it would only be a matter of time before he'd hold aloft the Coupe des Mousquetaires on Court Philippe Chatrier. There was only one thing he needed. Badly.

The absence of a certain Rafael Nadal Parera on the other side of the net.

Inexplicably, Nadal caved in against Robin Soderling, after decimating Lleyton Hewitt in the previous round. The only saving grace is that Soderling reached the final. Nadal summed it up himself - 'His game didn’t surprise me; I was more surprised by mine.'

And Bjorn Borg's gesture of sending Soderling a congratulatory SMS wasn't offensive at all. Its content was. Apparently, what he said to Soderling is that he was happy his record at Roland Garros remained intact. I've lost some respect for Mr. Borg. Great champions never think on those lines. Sad.

It looks like Federer's luck has also endured at this year's French Open. Nadal had been eliminated. Then, he narrowly managed to scrape through against Acasuso, Haas and Del Potro. Once he was in the final, there was absolutely no stopping him. Soderling didn't know what hit him.


----

Federer and his worshippers have more reasons to rejoice. Nadal' s pulled out of the Queen's tournament, and his entry in Wimbledon 09 is also in doubt. We all know why. But if you are a berk, here's why:


So King Federer says in an interview:

"I was surprised to see him pull out of Queen's, and now the debate that he might pull out of Wimbledon is quite frightening. I don't like to see it, because you want the best to be playing in the biggest events."

I think not ;-)

Anyway, Nadal has no intention of disappointing Roger Kumar:

"I am going to give 200 percent to be ready for the most important tournament in the world, the tournament that I always dream about,” Nadal said. But he also added that he would not play if he wasn't 100 percent ready.

Fingers crossed. Until the day they announce the draw at SW 19.

------

I wasn't aware of this - When Nadal burst on to the scene, he wasn't welcome at all. Frankly speaking, I myself hated him initially.

He had to face a lot of hostility from fans in Paris. Guy Forget, commentator on France 2 detested him(still does, obviously) and said, "We don't need construction worker arms in tennis." After the 2006 Roland Garros final against Federer, Nadal started by praising Federer in his speech. The translator mistranslated the speech, leading the public to think he was praising himself. Nadal was thus booed and whistled at throughout the speech.

Beautiful. These people have had to eat their own words. Repeatedly. And hopefully they'll have to do so for some more years.

Nonsense II

Thursday, June 4, 2009

Look beyond the road
It's a sensation overload
Does it leave you irked?
Does it leave you bored?
Or are you sweaty n' uneasy,
And squirmin' like a toad?

Not a pretty picture
"NOOOOO", they shriek
"Look at him, that guy's a goddamn freak!"
Hacking, quartering
Sawing, strangling
It's all a part of your daily effing fixture

You look into her eyes, your own bein' bloodshot
You're just playing your part in the grisly plot
She screamed, she cried, she ended up begging
No let-up from you, your anger it wasn't ebbing

You cut open her bust
Blood spilled her guts
Yeah, now you're feelin' the rush
Nothing beats this endorphin buzz

You aren't a poet, obviously. Not even remotely. A tatty Audrey Hepburn impersonator over the vehicle's sat-nav issues instructions: "Range to next fill-up : 178 kms.... Weather conditions : Partly cloudy, with minimal chance of rainfall. 40 kms to destination..."

You assimilate the shit she said, and swerve to avoid a loon with too much hair product in his...well, hair and too much power under the bonnet. You wonder how it would feel to behead these philistines. You think of all the enjoyable things you would do to them after they had breathed their last.

The next thing you heard from the lady on the sat-nav - "Shoot yourself in the nuts, sir. And then do the same to your head."

Your car was found the next morning smashed up against an elm tree that had no business being where it was. It had taken a substantial portion of the armco barrier with it. The forensics team couldn't unearth anything exciting. The police said nobody in the car would have or could have survived the impact, but how does it matter to you? It's not as if you were exactly alive the instant you rammed into the armco.

Now that it's all over, I feel a sense of sadness.

You were driving a Dacia Sandero.

Word-ling

Tuesday, June 2, 2009


This was the wordle result for my blog.
Hardly a surprise, eh?

Had to post this one

Wednesday, May 27, 2009

I don't know why, but I just had to put this one up - this one's probably the greatest quote I've come across.


"The loveliest of faces are to be seen by moonlight, when one sees half with the eye and half with the fancy." - Persian Proverb


(sigh)

On Dr. Dre's latest prescription drug

Thursday, May 21, 2009


I haven’t done any album/movie reviews here because (a) nobody cares what a random blogger thinks and (b) why else are popular publications like Rolling Stone etc in business? They are the ones whose reviews shape the general reception of any movie or album that finds its way into theatres or stores. If you want to know whether you want to buy it or whether it’s worth a dekko, you’ll be better off reading what they think of it.

Anyway, the album is question is Eminem’s Relapse. It’s been four years since an Em record went on the shelf, and it’s most obviously an extremely important album for his biggest fans as well as people who hate him the most. The former group wants to know whether that magic and madness in his rhymes is still alive and kicking. The latter want to have another shot at belittling him. And truth be told, I myself wasn’t too optimistic when I listened to the first two singles from Relapse to have been released – 'Crack a Bottle’ and ‘We Made You’.

That skepticism changed for good once I listened to the rest of the album (‘Never has there been so much finesse and nostalgia’, as Em asserts in ‘We Made You’). For me, the first two singles were the weakest in the album – ‘Crack A Bottle’ with 50 Cent and Dr. Dre sure became the most downloaded song of all time, but didn’t exactly set my trousers on fire – it was nothing special. And as far as ‘We Made You’ is concerned, it’s a pale shadow of probably the best parody-rap song of all time, ‘The Real Slim Shady’. This one doesn’t even come close. The beats and chorus are okay, but Em’s accent in the song is annoying and the rhymes jar at places. The video was a good laugh, though.

But the rest of the album is at least as good as Encore, if not better. It’s vintage Eminem all over again. With ‘Dr. West’, there is a sinister (and homophobic, as the critics would spit) tone set for the album which is taken to an even scarier and gorier level with ‘3 AM’, whose music video was banned from being aired on TV, because it was deemed ‘unfit for TV audiences’. The TV regulatory bodies could have given themselves a break. Who cares these days when you have Youtube?

‘My Mom’ sees Em take the road he’s travelled so many times – he trains his hellfire on his mother, blaming her for what he is today (That's why I'm on, what I'm on, 'cause I'm My Mom!). ‘Insane’ is one of the best – and the probably the most cringe-inducing song in the album. He talks about his childhood experiences with his stepfather, which were anything but pleasant, and his mother’s constant indifference to the same (If you could count the skeletons in my closet/Under my bed and up under my faucet/Then you would know I've completely lost it/Is he nuts? No, he’s insane). ‘Bagpipes from Baghdad’ has been in the news to the barbs Em’s directed at Mariah Carey and her husband Nick Cannon, but it’s much better than a page three story, the Arabic Rhythm surprisingly works with the Dre beats and of course, Em’s rhymes.

‘Hello’ makes you smile at the start (Hello.../Allow me to introduce myself.../My name is, Shady/It's so nice to meet you/It's been a long time/Sorry I've been away so long/My name is, Shady/I never meant to leave you). The song is decent enough as well. In ‘Same Song and Dance’, he realizes how oft-repeated and flogged the jokes and disses about the current music scene generally are. ‘Medicine Ball’ has the references to Christopher Reeve, and has come in for a lot of flak, but towards the fag end of the track, Reeve has his own back – “Eminem, I'm coming to kill you, always hated you and I still do /You'll never fill my shoes, my Superman costume/Doesn't even fit you, they don't feel you/You're taking this shit too far, who do you think you are?”. This track is also among the better ones. ‘Stay Wide Awake’ also has an extremely dark, murder-ly and manslaughter-ly theme to it. Works. ‘Old Times’ Sake’ is a sort of nostalgic trip, and Em along with Dre really rocks this number (So one more time for old time's sake/Dre drop that beat and scratch that break). Dr. Dre’s beats and Em’s rhymes come together perfectly in this track.

‘Must be the Ganja’ revisits the drug theme, and by this time, Em has already introduced zillions of drugs, almost as if he is reading off the inventory list of a pharmaceutical corporation(Valium, Zantac, Nyquill, Vicodin, Klonopin, Hydrocodone, Ambien, Xanax, Formula 44d, Percodan, Lunesta, they’re all here). ‘Mr. Mathers’ has medics tending to a passed-out Eminem, and the next track ‘Déjà vu’ talks about him falling ‘deeper into a manic state’. ‘Beautiful’ is a surprisingly pleasing track, with a mellow chorus, and Em’s voice is used for proper singing in the chorus lines. Here he’s on about how difficult it was for him to get out of the drug problems and the extreme depression that had encumbered him in the recent past. It was extremely tough, but like he says, ‘But I need that spark to get psyched back up, in order for me to pick the mic back up’. Em’s pen still hasn’t lost any of its ability to stir the emotions. Some of my favourite lines are from this song:

"In my shoes, just to see, what it's like to be me
I'll be you, let's trade shoes, just to see what it'd be like to
Feel your pain, you feel mine, go inside each other’s minds
Just to see, what we find, look at shit through each other’s eyes
But don't let them say you ain't beautiful
They can all get fucked, just stay true to you
Don't let them say you ain't beautiful
They can all get fucked, just stay true to you"

His long-time antagonist Steve Berman makes a comeback in the nineteenth track of the album, and this time, he sums things up as far as Em’s critics are concerned: “Let me guess, another album about poor me, I'm so famous that it's ruined my rich little life, and I'm such a tortured artist. Let me make music about it and my tragic love life, am I on to something here? … Big selfish superstar (Steve, I had a drug problem) Oh poor me, I had a drug problem. Who hasn't had a drug problem in this town?” The twentieth track on the album is ‘Underground’, which draws the curtains on a worthy comeback by Slim Shady – Obviously, like all Shady albums, this one’s also a love-it or hate-it compilation. If you hate it, you obviously shouldn’t have listened to it in the first place. People who are quick to dismiss this as a rehash of his previous work, think again. This is what he does best, and in Relapse he takes off where Encore left. Nobody does this better, and in most of the songs, the target is Eminem himself. His pen’s acerbic and biting wit is still there, and the rhymes still pack more than a punch. It’s that time again, as Em says in ‘Medicine Ball’:

“I said I guess it's time for you to hate me again
Let's begin, now hand me the pen
How should I begin it, and where does it all end
My medicine ball, you're in my medicine ball friends”

The lines that usually announce Shady’s comebacks are conspicuous by their absence in Relapse, and so I absolutely had to end this with those very lines.

“Guess who’s back, back again?
Shady’s back, tell a friend.”

He’s back. And how! Good to see you back at it, Em! And here's hoping the next album is an even bigger step up.

The Mallorcan Marauder. And why he rules.

Sunday, May 17, 2009


My apologies to – well, I don’t know who I should apologize to, but they have been long overdue. I was supposed to write this in the first week of February, but other unnecessary work kept me occupied – stuff like the quizzes and the endsems, the like.

A muscly, fist pumping, grunting and grinding Spaniard won the 2005 French Open at a time when the world, me included, just couldn’t have enough of the Swissmaster Roger Federer. No matter how much, too much was never enough. He was magical, he was sublime, he was winning everything and then some more. He was perfect – there weren’t any real weaknesses in his game, and over and above anything else, he never looked like he had to make himself the finest, and the best in the business or had to become the best the world has ever seen – he was born to be just that. And that’s what made him so special. If ‘poetry in motion’ is a term that could ever be applied to someone who wasn’t a Russian Ballerina, Roger on a tennis court was the perfect example.

When Rafa won his first French Open title against another lefty Mariano Puerta, the majority of us didn’t so much as bat an eyelid. My immediate reaction was, ‘Well, these clay-courters come and go. This guy might be good, but he’ll probably be unable to do much on the rest of the courts. He might fade away into sporting oblivion, for all I care’. I remember telling Puspen and the rest that.

I was justified in thinking thus. I remember so many random players who came good on clay, won the French Open (or at least came close to winning it) – Gaston Gaudio, Guillermo Coria, Albert Costa, Marcelo Rios, Juan Carlos Ferrero, Martin Verkerk, Alex Corretja, Thomas Muster etc etc. And then? Look at what these players achieved after that. They have all frittered away and, to the best of my knowledge, have chucked their rackets or are languishing at the bottom of the ATP Rankings. Why should I have thought any differently in Rafa’s case?

Come to think of it, I was furious, extremely so, when Nadal ousted Federer in the semi-finals of that tournament. I went mad; thinking that here was yet another pretender who has stopped the potential G.O.A.T. from adding the Coupe des Mousquetaires (that’s what the trophy’s called. Eek.) to his mantelpiece. Stupid Spaniard. I hated him. It wasn’t that I loved Roger too much. I just hated Nadal a little more. Anyway, better late than never. Roger would most certainly win the French Open. It was just a matter of time. His mastery would be complete.

Cut to the present day. ‘It was just a matter of time’. Heh. I’d never imagined it would take this long, and with it see the supplanting of the Fedex at the top of the rankings as well as the Wimbledon trophy being bitten on Centre Court by the same ‘stupid Spaniard’. The Aussie Open was conquered too. All this while dominating on the clay courts like none before him. Sheesh. And along the way, he’s also made me a huge fan. I’m sold.

His detractors say his game is too physical and too demanding. That his body will crumble due to the extraordinary demands he puts on it every time he goes out to play. That he is not quite the purist’s chosen one, for his game breaks a lot of established conventions. They don’t find it ‘aesthetically pleasing’ and that it is never a joy to watch him play – that is the exclusive preserve of the ‘artist’ and ‘magician’ Federer.

All this might be true, but why else do you think he’s succeeded time and again against Federer? It is precisely because of this ‘unconventional’ and ‘unaesthetic’ manner of his tennis. Nadal’s genius is just as great as Federer’s, albeit of a different sort. Nobody can beat the Fedex at his own game – that is the reason he so effortlessly dominated men’s tennis for such a long period. That is why opponents like Roddick and Hewitt get routinely thumped by him. Even though they’d been around before him and have played him so many times. It’s not as if they haven’t tried their best. They just CAN’T.

And don’t you lie saying you don’t enjoy watching Nadal on a tennis court. You may hate him all you like, but calling his game unexciting is like saying LK Advani is an eloquent and new-gen, charismatic leader who is fit to be the face of India on the world stage.

What is entertaining about watching him play?

Well, what isn’t? The lightning speed with which he darts about on the court, his dogged pursuit - and return - of every single ball the opponent sends to his half of the court, his lunging and scrabbling all the time, never giving up, that whiplashing top-spin loaded forehand, the way he wields his Babolat like a cutlass, the way he exults and fist-pumps after hitting yet another impossible winner or the way he passes the sternest of tests with the belligerence of a battle-hardened, uncompromising buccaneer, what? (OK, the repeated yanking at his shorts is). If there is one word to describe him on a tennis court, it is 'indefatigable'.

His bellicose, some would even say violent playing style is something Federer hasn’t come to terms with. Yet. This is testimony to his class and his resilience – he has steadily improved since that first French Open title, adapted himself fantastically to the other surfaces (something which so many people doubted he could do). He is probably the greatest counter-puncher the game has seen – whatever anyone throws at him, he’ll invariably find a way to send it back. Another striking facet of his game is that he doesn’t allow himself much of a margin for error. As last nights’ semi-final of the Madrid Masters against Djokovic showed, he is capable of winning matches against the best in the business even when he’s not playing at his best, his footwork is not quite up there, the timing is not coming to him or the shots look a little feeble. That, in my opinion, is what his opponents, most of all Federer, have to worry about. And speaking of his rivalry with Federer – it’s the best thing to have happened to men’s tennis since the days of Sampras-Agassi and Sampras-Rafter. Nadal always finds an extra gear, a way to raise his game several notches against him, and has prevailed with an alarming regularity. The current head-to-head is 13-6, in Rafa’s favour.

His domination over Federer came full circle in the Wimbledon Championships, 2008, where he outlasted Federer in that epic final, finally ending Federer’s 5 year reign at SW19. And his nature off the court is in direct contrast to the raging bull that we see grunting and snorting on court. It’s almost as if there is a switch that alternates him between ‘On-Court Mauler’ and ‘Off Court Captain Courteous’ modes. Despite humbling Federer on surfaces other than clay regularly, he’s always maintained that Federer is the best in history, and it is an honour for him to have been such a worthy opponent. It’s not that I like him for the depressingly kind words he has for the man who finally broke down (Aus Open ‘09) after losing yet another grand slam final to his greatest rival. I say all this because you might start liking him for these reasons!

Sure, he says all that and sincerely means everything he says. But he probably doesn’t realize he himself might be well on the way to becoming the most successful of all time. He is improving with every tournament; he’s giving absolutely nothing away to his competitors and he’s staying fit. Making such a prediction as this might be taking it a little too far, but (a Hammond-esque BUT) you never know, do you? And it’s not just about the idle speculations – he may not actually achieve the calendar Grand Slam, or win the most titles, or stay No. 1 longer than Federer, but that is not the point. The fact that he is forcing us to confront that possibility is.

I’m willing to lay any wager that if he can keep playing at the level he is now for another 4-5 years, he might become the one who replaces every other name in the record books.

If and when he does that, you can count on me rooting for him.

And so it happened

Wednesday, May 13, 2009

The club has hit me in the gut, the truck has mowed me down and my carcass is being ripped apart, shred by shred, by the overanxious vultures, even as I use Blogger's 'Psychic Live Writer' to upload this post which I'm only thinking about.

With time and with experience, people expect a step up - even if they haven't done much to deserve it. And truth be told, I was expecting that too. But, as someone has famously and appropriately said, 'Shit Happens'. And so it has, big time. I am too loathe and too...indifferent(?) to do something about this. So, without giving it much thought, I have come back to watching Jack Bauer take out yet another rogue-organisation-with-WMDs-threatening-the-national-security-of-the-US and laughing my head off watching Jezza, Captain Slow and The Hamster falling over and cocking about amidst the usual orgy of speed and heavy metal (the real things - not six-strings with cocaine addicts holding them iffily and eliciting strange noises from them).

My death won't be a hero's one. That's hardly a surprise. Not even the vultures like the taste of me. One of them is undergoing convulsions- looks like it's going to keel over rather soon - and the others, taking the cue, are flying away. In search of better and more delectable meat.

In search of... you.

The edge of tolerance

Sunday, May 10, 2009


The obvious place to start would be !@#$?@#$ !

I mean, what can you say about things that look like they have completely spiraled out of control for a team that is supposed to be representative of the greatest, most enigmatic and undoubtedly the most evocative name in automotive history?

Imagine how fucking frustrating it must be for their army of fans around the world. The Tifosi. Me. Us. Probably you. And this is before we get to the predicament of their two drivers - Mr. rapid-yet-unlucky Massa and Mr. chocobar-ze-vodka Raikkonen. How bad can things get before they start to get better?

They started out with a car that wasn’t exactly at the forefront of innovation and development. We can understand that. Seeing McLaren in the same situation, it is obvious that these 2 powerhouses who were rabidly dueling for the 2008 world championship had to let some slack as far as the development of their ‘09 machines was concerned. Their drivers, as a direct consequence have had to endure a hellish time on track trying to battle erstwhile midfield no-hopers who have ultimately ended up in front of them.

Moreover, it is really, I mean, really tough to make up lost ground in the course of a single season. Even with the mega resource strength of Ferrari (and McLaren and Renault and BMW), it will be a Herculean task for them to outperform Brawn and Red Bull, because every team on the grid is in a constant state of evolution - everybody is taking steps forward all the time. So, for every one step that the teams in front take, Ferrari and the others will have to take two steps, even three, because what they are doing has to be cumulatively greater than the developmental steps taken by the teams in front if they have to gain on them. That's difficult. Very difficult.

The sad part is, they somehow managed to make that big step forward - as was evident on the eve of the Spanish Grand Prix. They had the pace to at least stay with the front runners, if not slay them. That was a start! And then Ferrari's mechanical gremlins and slapdash errors that the crew have repeatedly been making took over. It's not just bad luck any more. It is sheer madness, and dare I say, indifference. They probably have made more tactical mistakes in the first quarter of this season than they have made in all of the last decade - the overconfident and irrational decision to keep their driver back in the pits in order to 'preserve the car and its tyres for the future runs in Q2 and Q3’ (for which they eventually failed to make the cut). Twice! It happened to Massa earlier and it happened to Kimi today. And poor Felipe didn't have enough gas to even get him to the Parc Ferme! In all probablility, the Fezza's crew has become the laughing stock of the F1 paddock. And I haven't even started talking about the mechanical failures that have now become as much a part of Ferrari as their infallible reliability once used to be.

The KERS. Again one question. Why? The teams who invested heavily in this ‘curse’ are the worst off - cases in point Ferrari, McLaren, Renault and BMW. Does the handicap of the extra weight of the system outweigh its benefits of a 90HP boost for a fixed duration of the lap? Oh yes it does. BMW and Renault decided to junk it for this particular race, because quite frankly, with the staggering performance of the KERS-free teams in the front of the pack, these four factory-backed biggies were starting to look a bit like dorks. In modern F1, I guess, the best way to find a gain in performance is to give a lot of importance to aero-development. Credit here has to go to Adrian Newey of Red Bull Racing – they still don’t have that naff double-decked diffuser, and yet they are snapping at Brawn’s heels. Plus, theirs is the only car than looks exquisite, if you exclude the snowplough in front and the scaffolding at the back. Poor Sebastian Vettel – he’d probably have challenged for the victory had Massa not held him up for almost the entire duration of the race. Thoo.

So, what’s it going to be? Ferrari seem to have found some pace, but without reliability and shabby crew-work, it doesn’t look like it’s going to improve a great deal this season.

Clearly, the Schumacher-Todt-Brawn-Byrne combine is being missed. Badly so.

Strange Meeting

Saturday, May 9, 2009

After a very long and arduous journey, I can finally sing, 'Main yahaan hoon, yahaan hoon yahaan hoon, yahaan'. With the kind of finality that comes only when one is a Kolkata Knight Riders' well-wisher. You know the team HAS to lose. There are no two ways about it. What’s more, the weather here was just perfect. The skies were cloudy, there were brisk winds all round and there was a light drizzle in the air. Pleasant-ness. Felt good. The car in the parking lot looked like it was my getaway vehicle from some crime scene. I realized I was thinking of nothing else at that instant. HOME. After a period of over three months.

There are a lot of reasons for my calling this post ‘Strange Meeting’, after the poem of the same name by Wilfred Owen(one of the best ever, according to me). Strangely, happy was the last word I was thinking of. I’d put most of that to the monumentally boring, slow, eventless and annoying journey that I had to face first up. A raucous trio of Biharis who just couldn't stop gushing about their laptops, their mobile phones, their choice of music and about how retarded their maternal uncle was, for he was travelling with his family, and had made the catastrophic error of choosing to travel in the general compartment - and was stingy about paying the TTE and getting a seat in the A/C compartment. Bleh. In the next compartment was a family which didn’t seem to have the faintest clue that making an unearthly racket all the time can be annoying to fellow passengers. God, that kid, Pranshu was his name - may all the bloodthirsty hordes from hell descend on him and silence him for good. Now I’m positive I hate children – especially those of the peskier variety. Like a great man said, “Parents, beat the muthafuckas!”

How do I feel? Hanging out with my homies – that bit sure feels awesome. But when I am at home or I am alone, I’m not so sure. I feel _____. My room still has those scary looking books – IIT Physics, JPNP; Fundamentals of Chemistry, Mathematics for IIT JEE – Tata McGraw Hill, Organic Chemistry - Morrison and Boyd… and so it goes on.

All I can do now is point and laugh at all that shit! I’ll let it out here too – Hahahhaha.

There, I already feel better. But the rest of it is so same, yet so different. Spending the evenings out of home, coming back to food – lots of it (if you have ever met my mother, you sure know what I am saying – why else do you think I have the impressive physique that men and women lust after?) and holding up a book in front of my face whilst lying on the couch with the A/C set to 16 degrees C. Feels OK, yet feels _____.

Starting up my ride by thumbing the red switch, it again feels _____. The instant I got my arse onto the rather stiff seat, I realised that my fingers on the handlebars also have that bizarre sensation. Now, I had the temerity of calling my ride a ‘ride’ – it is anything but. I hope it was the Yamaha FZ-15, I dream it was the Ducati 1098, but I know it is only a Bajaj Kristal (cue for cracking all the gay and effeminate jokes). It’s got DTSi. Even the Duke doesn’t have that!

Anyway, the brakes are wound up a lot tighter and the thing is pulling cleanly and effortlessly – a sure sign that it had gone for a service in the recent past. I made some errors while riding in front of the Rabindra Bhavan. Braked too early a couple of times and almost caused a collision with a Tata pick-up that thought the view of the Kristal’s arse was most certainly an automotive aphrodisiac. Yuck. _____.

The ideal word in those blank spaces has to be ‘weird’. Ah, that does it.

Beast of Burden

Wednesday, April 29, 2009

1.IF SOMEONE SAYS 'ARE YOU OKAY?' YOU SAY :-
I'd Die for You (Bon Jovi - Slippery When Wet)

2.HOW WOULD YOU DESCRIBE YOURSELF?
Stiff Upper Lip (AC/DC - Stiff Upper Lip)

3.WHAT DO YOU LIKE IN A GUY/GIRL?
Dear Prudence (The Beatles - The White Album)

4.HOW DO YOU FEEL ?
Up the Downstair (Porcupine Tree - Coma Divine)

5.WHAT IS YOUR LIFE'S PURPOSE?
The Real Me (The Who - Quadrophenia)

6.WHAT'S YOUR MOTTO?
Dream On (Aerosmith - Aerosmith)

8.WHAT DO YOUR FRIENDS THINK OF YOU?
Every Little Thing (The Beatles - Beatles for Sale)

9.WHAT DO YOUR PARENTS THINK OF YOU?
Sometimes I Feel like Screaming (Deep Purple - Purpendicular)

10.WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT VERY OFTEN?
Disappear (Dream Theater - Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence)

11.WHAT IS 2+2 ?
Zero the Hero (Black Sabbath - Born Again)

12.WHAT DO YOU THINK OF YOUR BEST FRIEND?
Badlands (Bruce Springsteen - Born in the USA)

13.WHAT IS YOUR LIFE STORY?
I am the Highway (Audioslave - Audioslave)

14.WHAT DO YOU WANT TO DO WHEN YOU GROW UP?
The Kiss - Skit (Eminem - The Eminem Show)

15.WHAT DO YOU THINK WHEN YOU SEE THE PERSON YOU LIKE?
The Song Remains the Same (Led Zeppelin - Houses of the Holy)

16.WHAT WILL YOU DANCE TO AT YOUR WEDDING?
Shedding Skin (Pantera - Far Beyond Driven)

17.WHAT WILL THEY PLAY AT YOUR FUNERAL?
You're Crazy (Guns N' Roses - Appetite for Destruction)

18.WHAT IS YOUR HOBBY/INTEREST?
One Wild Night (Bon Jovi - Crush)

19.WHAT WILL YOU PUBLISH THIS AS?
Beast of Burden (Rolling Stones - The Best of the Rolling Stones)

You know that this is something that's doing the rounds on the 'Notes' application of people's Facebook profiles these days. You also know that only retarded, jobless and hopeless people do this, for their life is so, so very meaningless.

But I know that this is the next thing you'll be doing.

So, this is what they ask you to do:

1. Put your iTunes, Windows Media Player, etc. on shuffle.
2. For each question, press the next button to get your answer.
3. YOU MUST WRITE THAT SONG NAME DOWN NO MATTER HOW SILLY IT MAY SOUND.
4. Tag your friends
5. Everyone tagged has to do the same thing.
6. Enjoy

The last three steps are irrelevant if, like me, you do not have the testicular fortitude(or whatever it is that makes you courageous) to post this as a note on Facebook.

I also know whoever is reading this is going, "Et tu, Raunaq!!"

Yes. This is what happens when you run a huge, HUGE risk of cocking up the exam that's on the next day. Throw in an alarming lack of creativity as well.

So be it.



PS: Now you also know why this post's titled 'Beast of Burden'.