Thursday, April 22, 2010

"The BREAK-UP"

["You may love your girlfriend very deeply, but you CANNOT express it deeper than six or seven inches".
NOTE :- Above line has no relevance whatsoever to this post. However this is the best SMS that I have received in last five days.]


DISCLAIMER : Though the story below is inspired by some true events(thankfully not mine) I would still prefer to call it a work of fiction. That being said, I really do not know why people even bother to give disclaimers. They are worthless because your opinions, just like underwears, cannot be taken away or changed without your own free will.



This is the sixteenth consecutive day that they have been fighting over everything. And Nothing. It's not that they have not fought before. But this time it is like they are fighting to set a fighting record of some sort. Of their fights. This time it is also different because the silence between two sessions of arguments is not disturbed by the thought of what went wrong or she is right. He is standing there, in front of the big window, watching the world below. World that is moving so fast and its speed is only matched by his thoughts, though they are moving in the opposite direction. Towards his past.



He thinks about the time when he had met her for the first time and a smile crossed his face, quickly replaced by the sadness in his eyes. He thinks about the day they had expressed their love for each other. The first "I love you". First kiss, first hug, first movie, first ride on his bike with her, first evening spent together, first bench, first birthdays celebrated together, first anniversary, first ring, first fight, first tears. Thinking about all these firsts, his being, without even looking back, becomes aware of all the packed stuff. Her stuff. Five years packed in three suitcases.

Here comes the headache and he close his eyes.........




She come out of her office and wave at a cab. She looks out of her cab's window and watch the world rushing by her so swiftly. The speed with which the world is rushing by her is only matched by her thoughts. About her future. She thinks of all that she had dreamed of. Their marriage, their house, their family, their first kid, her name. How can she plan anything with a guy who is so insensitive about sensitiveness. A million things, unanswered questions revolving around her, so alive that she can actually see them written there like neon lights.

Here comes the headache and she close her eyes.........




He watch as the cab arrive below. She looks up from her cab and see him watching her from their apartment's window. Two people, once joined together by so many dreams of love, look at each other from their own side of the glass. Their windows literally separating their worlds now. She come out but the taxi doesn't leave. She open the door using her own key. There he is. Still standing at the window, arms crossed at his chest, his face turned away from her. She pick up her stuff and starts moving towards the door. Each step slower than the last one, still looking at the back of his head, her heart begging him to turn around and beg her to stay. He is aware of her moving towards the door, praying that he hear her say something before he hear the closing door. Just once.



The door shuts and so does his eyes. A tear escapes and rolls down on his face. She is carrying luggage but the weight of her thoughts is too much to carry. The cab driver see her coming down and jump out of his cab. He quickly take all the suitcases and put them in the trunk. He hear the cab's ignition and open his eyes. He watch her getting into the cab. He watch the driver getting into the driver's seat. All that is left there is some smoke now which fades away.



Their story have a perfect fairy tale ending. Because even if they are not together still they live happily ever after.



Just like we all do...............................

Thursday, April 15, 2010

"The GARBAGE and THE GARBAGE COLLECTOR"

I was standing in my balcony when I saw him. Wearing an over-sized black shirt which was less darker and muddier than his face, he carried a waste bag on his shoulder. His waste bag was taller and may be three times wider than him. He was wearing a trouser, again over-sized and tied around his waist with the help of a red colored ribbon. Maybe someone was kind enough to throw a ribbon that we use to decorate our Diwali and Christmas gifts with. And maybe he was lucky enough to pick it up well before another under-nourished kid in over-sized pants came along. He was bare-foot. I do not know what it feels like to walk with naked feet on a hot-summer road. His hairs were all ruffled up and muddy, with the lack of proper bath I guess. People pay to get that kind of hairdo these days.


With the serious expression usually associated to a bread-earner's face, he was walking very slowly, intently looking at the sides of the road. Whenever he found something interesting, he'd pick it up and put it in his bag. By interesting I mean, empty bottles or pieces of newspaper or plastic bags or cardboard, you get the picture right??.

The reason why I was standing there in my balcony was that after two day long convention at my place, I had to dispose off all that had accumulated at my place. I was waiting for the MCD van to pick things up and make my place ready for the next intellectual meet. And that's the reason I noticed the garbage collector. Just when he reached in front of a shop, he stopped. I could not see what he was staring at, at first.

If you too live in a colony where shops are an extension of one's residence then you might have noticed this. A shopkeeper orders so many things every day and they all come in card-board boxes. Boxes of 2 litre cold-drinks, packets of chips, maggi, whatever whatever. He was staring at those card-board boxes. A strange thought came to me then. May be I was looking at those cardboard boxes but he was looking at his lunch. Lunch that he will get after selling those empty boxes.Anyways, he tried to take one step towards those card-boards when the sixty year old shopkeeper moved like a bolt. I know the shopkeeper. He is always complaining about how bad his knees are and how old he has become. So old that his throat hurts if he tries to speak normally. That's when I heard him shout at the kid "Oye, chal yahan se!!". I was standing in my balcony on the first floor and my house is 5 houses away from his shop. But I heard him alright. I guess some situations in life call for desperate measures. Saving precious empty card-board boxes from a 11 year old garbage collector is one such situation. And the old man rose to the situation gloriously.

The boy moved on without even looking back at the shopkeeper. Stray dogs also ignore you like that. They will walk towards something lying out side your place, trying to sniff around and when you take a single step toward them, they move one. Because stray dogs, like that kid, know how people like us react. That's why they ignore you. Maybe because both are more concerned about the question of survival than reacting. So they do not waste time by protesting to a 60 year old man. They move on.


I don't know why but that's when I called out his name. I said "Oye". [Oye : Expression used by millions in India especially for calling people beneath them. You do not have to bother yourself about the name of any kid serving you at a dhaba or the puncture waala or rickshaw-puller. All you have to say is "Oye"]. I said "Oye". But he was busy. So this time I called out a bit louder. "Oye Ladke". He detached his eyes from the road for the first time. And looked up. With my hand I gestured him to come up. I called him inside, took him to the balcony and filled his bag with all the leftovers. Empty bottles of alcohol, empty pizza boxes and all the empty junk that you can imagine after an intellectual party. His bag was filled up to the brim.

I asked his name. He simply looked at me. As if the concept of name has not yet reached the place where he lived. I looked at him and his look said - He do not understand my world just as much as I do not understand his. I have been igonored many times in life and I know it hurts when somebody do that to you. But to be absolutly ignored as a fellow human-being. That I had never experienced. So I asked his name again. He mumbled "Hari". That's what he said and that's ALL he said. I asked him if he'll be able to pick up the bag. He didn't reply. Just picked the bag, turned around and was gone.


I came back inside and thought I did some good. I was happy that I had filled his bag with all the garbage that I can, so no shopkeeper will shout at him now. But then I realized, he never had any issues with somebody shouting at him. I did what I did because I wanted to feel like I have done something good. I thought he would be happy to get the bag and will remember me for the generosity that I had shown him. I rushed to the balcony thinking that he might look up and will give me a smile before he go. I saw him on the road, looking at the road again. Though this time ie was walking swiftly towards the direction he had come. Hari was not effected by my intentions. He probably was running towards his workplace to unload the bag and go out again.




That's when I realized that for me, Hari was a garbage collector who I thought I had helped by giving out all the garbage and he was a source of I-did-some-good but for him all I am was a bag full of garbage..........................

Friday, April 9, 2010

"BLACK and WHITE

Black has been my favorite color god knows since when. As a child I always liked to paint and that I did with wax crayons, pencils colors, water, poster, oils, just plain pencil sketchings et cetra et cetra. One thing that has always drawn me is the contrast between black and white color and I always wondered while looking at a chessboard how amazing would it be just to paint things using these two. Based on this concept of the contrast between black and white, I have started painting recently.

Further I have painted in two-column, three column, diagonal-divide and random division. I have included some examples of all four below

  2-Column

                                                                          3-column


                                                                  Diagonal-divide


                                                                    Random-division



I have also painted some samples with four columns and some other patterns. But I am still waiting to upload them. It would take some time before they really start rolling out. Do tell me how the concept is looking in the begginning. I was also thinking of actually making more complex pictures using just these two colors. Or would you say "Simple" is the word...huh??


P.S : For some more you can also click on the "ME WITH BRUSH" tab

Tuesday, April 6, 2010

'LOVE, SEX and DHOKHA" : A nation of Voyeurism

{DISCLAIMER : Author believes most of you have grown up in last few months to a certain level and will now have some broader sense of the world around you.}


Tell me honestly how many of you had guessed that there will be a post with this title on my blog???. People you must be thinking if I am going to write about "LOVE, SEX and DHOKHA" and I know it was never a matter of "IF" I am going to write about it. It was "WHEN" I am going to write about it. A mean a guy like me(you can stop smiling now) will not miss on a chance like this. With all my heart I had wanted to prove you all wrong this time by not writing about it. About the deadly trilogy of Love and sex and dokha. No, really I wanted to prove you all wrong. And it has been two weeks since this movie got released, watched, criticized, reviewed, re-reviewed by who-ever-who is really into movies or do not have a cellphone capable of playing mms-es(can anybody tell me the plural for MMS??) in 3gp format. Or if they have a cell-phone with this function they do not have right opportunities to indulge in this kind'ov entertainment.[Sigh]








I am not gonna bore you by ranting on like its another movie review and I vow not to take out the frustration on you. The frustration of spending 150 bucks on a movie, a movie which by the way had less sex than an average bollywood flick starring Mallika Sherawat[Honestly, they should have named it "DHOKHA" only]




To cut short on a long story let me tell you what this movie is about. The concept is known as VOYEURISM. The Dictionary meaning of the word is given below :



Voyeurism
voy·eur (voi-yûr)
n.
1. A person who derives sexual gratification from observing the naked bodies or sexual acts of others, especially from a secret vantage point.
2. An obsessive observer of sordid or sensational subjects.



Most of us can do the mistake of confusing PORN with VOYEURISM. But the main difference between the two is while in PORN the people involved have the exact idea of them being filmed by a camera, in VOYEURISM they don't. [Its like confusing Rajnikant with Mithun]




Earlier, I mean before the advent of cellphones and than later on with the addition of so called mega-pixels, this concept of voyeurism existed in a very simple form which even if not all of you but many of you know by the term : WINDOW-WATCHING.



For the benefit of those who do not know what window watching is, let me explain. A testosterone-driven-male who happens to chance upon some girl's affection will invite his friends to watch him go down with her, without her knowledge. This was done just to prove that he is ACTUALLY going around with that girl, and, and that he is capable of doing what he say he can.




[Note : Watching Surj### while he brushes his teeth in the washroom does not count as window-watching]






And so my dear friends, this little tool that we carry in our pockets[I am talking about the cell phone here] is the reason for taking something which was once a local thing to the level of an international brand[latest being Katrina Kaif's sister Isabella].




"MMS"



Now I am sure that all of you, like me, have watched almost all the MMS-es(see?? I really need the plural here.) that are doing the rounds from so many years(I was in 11th std when 'DPS Kaand' became public news) and I am not sure what you have done with them but here I would like to have a talk with the ladies.



What have you done about it????


hmmmmm.............



hmmmmm........


hmmmmmm.......



Exactly!!!! NOTHING.




So, again I rephrase the question and ask this : What CAN you do??



See, I have a point here that I want to make. The whole point why these mms(AAAAHHHH the plural. Guys do with the singular term here and think its plural) work is based on one simple fact. Its shows a girl and the face of the the guy is almost always not shown.

Now think logicaly. WHY??. Why do these guys do not show their faces while making those MMS[I have given up. I really wanted to use a plural here]. You know why??. Because realise this. In this world a guy stands to loose as much as you, if his face comes in that mms!!!



So here are some pointers which I think you can use


1] When you are going around with a guy, take his pictures while he is doing something like brushing his teeth, taking bath. Without his knowledge off course. You'll be amazed to see how playful guys can become in the lonliness of their washrooms. You make a video and release it on youtube.



2] Make a profile of him on Orkut, with all these photos, declare him a homosexual who is looking for others of his kind. Don't forget to mention his current phone number with a little discription in 'About me' that might go like : I like riding wild horses[Wink, Wink]


3] You can distribute his number among your friends and start making him run from one place to another. At first he won't mind but even a dog chases the car upto a certain point and then gives up.


This might not change anything at first but if you take an initiative, start collecting those emberrasing moments of guys on your cellphones, start releasing them on youtube, it might, it just might scare millions of other budding directors and actors who are sporting a cell phone and taking your girl out for dinner.




To the most important part :

You all must be wondering why I have put the photos of Namtiha(she is a south indian actress). Well to display a simple fact that 99% guys read this post just to find exactly what I have written about this girl and 100% girls read it to find out what I have written about this girl!!!!

And for the samples of what I am talking about, I am adding two more pics below. I am not sure how many guys out there can afford their video on the you tube while they are taking a bath, but it must have got you thinking ................right???