.. and they lived happily ever after

This happened about 25 years ago, on one rainy evening, which pretty much changed my life. I was over at Amit's for a party. I have never been a party person. I dislike crowds and detest loud music. But I was still there, to greet Amit on his 25th birthday. I had had my Chevas Regal, a peg too many and I was out in the balcony to get that "fresh air" in. Parties can be claustrophobic, or that was the explanation I gave to get some space. I just wanted to be away from the crowd, especially with that extra drink.


Its funny how life changing events occur in one’s life mostly when one has had that extra drink. I was looking at the street below, the to and fro motion of cars' lights in the rain which was kinda psychedelic in itself and I was lost in transportation I think when I heard a female voice, that sweet voice that I have never been able to forget till date. I fell in love with Deepti at that instant and it has never changed ever since.

My life changed after that evening. Not just mine, ours. Deepti and me have been together ever since. We had decided to get married, but we faced the usual issues. First it was my mom, who thought living together before marriage was outrageous. Once she was convinced that there was a wedding on the cards, it was her Chennai bred tam bram dad who disapproved me because of my caste. But as time passed we stopped caring for others and slowly everyone started caring less. That’s the best thing about time. As it passes, people get busy and start caring less. And we never really got married per say, but as romantics would put it, we were married in our hearts.

Life has been wonderful ever since that rainy evening tho. Every day, I come back from work to find Deepti waiting for me with a bright smile on her face, irrespective of the time I walk in. I give her a gist of whatever happened in office and she has the patience to listen to anything I have to tell her. It doesn’t matter if I am talking about office politics and how that ridiculous Mr.Khanna became the Vice President ahead of me, or if I talk about the reason for profit in our company is directly dependent on the labor laws in the US.

Sundays are the best. I make it a point to wake up early on Sundays to cook breakfast. Once I am done, I bring out the morning news paper, and over a cup of coffee, I read it out to Deepti, carefully avoiding the crime and accident sections. She never reads the news paper herself, and I suspect that she does that because she hates hearing about accidents or crime. When my mom visits, she says I need to have a more social life, but I am mighty content with the life I have with Deepti.

Deepti died in a car crash about a year after I met her. All that is left of her is that beautiful photograph on the wall, always smiling. But then, I don’t miss her, because she is always there for me. Always there, to greet me with a smile everyday I come back home.

Keeper in the park!

My devotion seems to be falling apart these days. I've hardly seen a 50 over cricket match live in ages. Life seems to be taking away too much of my time to give me my spiritual space. Hardly seen a live match, not even on TV. And they say Cricket is a religion and all here...

Yesterday, I happened to reach home right on time for a one day international. Pakistan v/s West Indies, Second innings, last few overs to be completed. The match was evenly poised. Pak needed some 90 odd of some 70 odd balls, 7 Wickets in hand. Khurram Manzoor and Salman Butt had given them a fair start. And for a change, I could see myself supporting Pakistan. After all they are neighbors, all the communalism apart.

Just as a thought, how can anyone be named butt? That too with the second T. Fuckin funny! School and college life would have been a torture for someone named Butt! Thank god our Butt knows to play cricket. :) Lucky basturd. I pity his brothers tho. Butt... with a double T. LOL.

The West Indies score card was a strange one too. Not just because of the funny names. Just that almost everyone is new in the team. Last I remember seeing them play cricket was the T20 world cup I guess. Damn! Life has taken over too much time! And I think I also saw a white West Indian too. Brendan Nash. I can’t believe that they have started making white people in West Indies. Wow! Thats something Ii didnt know! Other than the Taylor and the Baker, there is also this Sewnarine Chattergoon in their team. Chatter - Goon! What the fuck! Why would anyone do that to their son. Chatter - GOON! Dictionary.com has a stupid, foolish, or awkward person as an entry for Goon. A goon who chatters!! Why would anyone do that to their son?

Anyway, Pakistan happen to win the match. But I must add, WI stole defeat from the hands of the Pakis. Last over, 18 runs required to win and 2 wickets in hand. Kamaran Akmal played a gem. 2 6's and a four to finish off the game. A couple of wides which goes without saying, considering a WI bowler :P.

England series coming up :). Sidebottom will be on the score cards. :) Its happy days ahead :)

D, Have I told you I love you? D

One of those "pissed at work and got home early" nights. I was watching this movie called "An indecent proposal". Nice movie (read hot chick with hot scenes). Simple bollywood masala style movie. Architect guy with a hot wife. Rich romeo finds her hot and there is this "Indecent proposal". They have sex. She feels bad and comes back. Am sure my friend Mr.Karan will find it interesting. Kabhi tho kuch karenge kushimain... Its all about loving your money.. or something like that

So, this architect guy, David something is pretty passionate about work when he gets time off from keeping off Demi Moore’s body. That’s the only other angle to his character. Architecture! So in one of his scenes where he is not having sex, he is teaching some kids about architecture. So he picks up a brick and asks "What is this?". "A brick" comes the first reply. "A weapon" says this chinese looking guy(violent basturds I say!). So this David guy says...

"A Brick Wants to be something"... (You must be wondering what he meant. Actually, everyone in the class is also wondering. That’s when he says, "Every brick wants to be something" and shows photographs of the Taj Mahal and the Great Wall of China and the Pyramids and the like.

I began to wonder when Ill start getting as passionate about my job. And if I become as passionate as David is towards architecture, I probably will have to say "Every if-else condition wants to be something"

Oh we are mighty sad people - us software engineers. For us, everything eventually fits into a if-else condition or a for-loop or a while-loop or some shit like that. Everything. Even life.

Eg,

if(day == friday || day == saturday)
{
    drink till your balls pop out of your mouth
}

else()
{
    eat like a pig and sleep like a dog
}
or something like that. Very simple

As I was saying, if I were to be as passionate about work, ill probabally have to wonder what SOMETHING has become of my if-else conditions. May be its on the Yahoo messenger, or may be in the latest Windows vista, or may be on the client you are using to read this crap!

But I know for a fact that today, one of the if-else condition I created is pretty fucked. Production problem. Null pointer in my if condition they say.

Software job, Have I told you I love you??

No??

Cos I dont!!

Monday! Green!

Tuesday Morning. I am late. Again! With the arrival of winter, my days have begun to start a little later than usual. It’s like my biological clock has undergone an "automatic day light savings" like in the US. But they haven’t changed the time here have they? So I am late again. It’s not like I SHOULD NOT be late. No one cares when I come in to work. I guess. I hope at least. But then we have this application running in office which kinda logs the in and out times of the day. And this stupid application puts in a "Late mark" smiley next to the date next to your name if you come in after 11. It’s not a big deal I suppose. But it’s something on the lines of, in school, if your shoes weren’t polished, you would be thrown out of the line. It’s not like they would do anything about it. But still, it’s a black mark... you become a dark sheep if you kinda repeat it. Its like that... So I have late marks for 5 continuous days in a row!

I am late today cos yesterday was a fuckall day! A terrible day at work! I hate Mondays. Really really hate.! Of all the mornings I have had to face in life, Monday mornings have been the worst. I've hated Mondays in school, in college and now in my so called professional life. I am yet to come to terms with this concept of 7 day weeks. What kind of a number is Seven! Seven days make one week! My ass

If it were left to me, I would have had 5 day weeks. A 5 day week with two weekends sounds so perfect. Over all I agree that the average number of productive hours in a year would reduce with this system. But now, no one works on Fridays do they? Hardly! So that would probably average out. And 5 is such a nicer number. It’s a round figure. I agree 10 is a rounder figure. But 10 day weeks would be fuckall! And another interesting thing is 365 is perfectly divisible by 5. So 5 day week actually makes so much more sense. No leap year confusions also. (For the mathematically disabled, test of divisibility by 5 is that the number has to end with either 0 or 5)


Anyhoo... he he he... that’s a funny thing to say. Anyhoo.. ANYHOOOO... I kinda picked this up from a blog I hit upon recently. I have been blog hopping these days, and in a process of continuous self improvement, I am trying to pick up interesting things from all the interesting things I get to read. I must say, there are gizillons of people out there with profound creativity and internet at their finger tips. Its crazy the kind of shit one gets to read in the blog space. One bunch of insane psychotic bloggers out there!

Anyhoo, yesterday, ie, the Monday before today... I had a bad baad day at work. I have been sitting on this bug for 3 days now. And this fuckin bug is screwing my behind all the 3 days now. I HATE my job. I HATE being a software engineer. It’s not usual for me to have a bad day at work. I don’t usually have one. Thats cos I am fuckin smart! [And people talk about modesty and all. My ass! (lol.. I picked this "my ass" also from the same blog I mentioned. The same Anyhoo shit..)]. Anyhoo, bad day at work yesterday. Bug fucking me front and back. Who better to show frustration than the boss! I need a pseudo name for the boss. (pseudo name concept again borrowed from the same blog)... Motherfucker!*

I think all bosses, irrespective of the field of work, fit very well into the definition of Motherfucker! *. Any job, if you are the boss to someone, you surely are a Motherfucker! It’s sad I agree. But that’s life. Face it… Someone out there right now, sitting in a bar would probably going “That Mother Fucker is one son of a bitch I tell you!” and he is talking about YOU.

Fuck! I hate my job. And I hate that Motherfucker* at work! Only thing that is keeping me from suicide right now is this mathematically challenged friend of mine. I want to give her a pseudo name too. Something nice. I like her. For now, let’s call her "Best Friend"* for now. Ill think of something NICE as later.

Anyhoo, like I was saying, the only thing that’s keeping me from suicide is this "bestfriend"* person and one more thing. It would be fuckin insane to die after all the dreams I have had about life. In my dream I am always the HERO. A total studd boy! And its a wonderful dream my dream! I definitely don’t want to die. Not suicide at least. But why I talk about suicide you must be wondering. I heard of a friends friend who committed the sin when I was having a "post dinner drink" with the former (the one who told me the story). The later, (friends’ friend.) popped some sleeping pills and hung himself to the ceiling fan at home. Fuckin looser!! Love case it seems. Love case! My ass!

I agree relationships and love and career and jobs and parents and all that jazz are funny and depressing most times! But whatever is the case... Suicide is a farce! It doesn’t matter if it’s your drunk husband beating the shit out of you, or if your girlfriend ditched you for the looser that you are, or your gay teacher feels your willy every day during recess... or its that Motherfucker at work getting on your nerves. Relax! Its not the end of the world!

But bottom-line! I HATE my job.! Especially Mondays. They should fuckin have 5 day weeks!

Psycho - A review

Watching a movie on Friday evenings is the best way to kick start a week end. It just about puts a perfect end to the week and a makes the week end a more convincing one to spend. It’s like, in cricket, hitting a six of the first ball faced. This week it was Devadatta’s Psycho, a movie I had been waiting to watch for a loooong time.



The songs of Psycho I heard / have been listening to for over a year now. Raghu Dixit, who, I have been following since spotting him first singing a song about a girl from Mysore in Alliance Francis and at the Fire Flies Music festival of 2007 and I have become a fan of, has rendered the background score and the music for the movie. This is his debut in films. So I was already a fan of the movie which already made it one of the most awaited movies EVER. Having said that, I also hoped and prayed that the movie is not SO bad as to letting down the songs. Prayers seems to have been answered.



Devadatta had not revealed either the cast of the movie, the shooting of which started in the May of 2007. All that was revealed till the movie finally released for the “Rajyaotsava” of 2008 were the songs and a couple of trailers of UTube. The release itself was different, in the sense that I got to know about the release on the Friday, about 8 hours before I was in the theater watching the First Show!



The story is about Pavana (played by Anitha a newcomer), who is trying to fix her career as a TV anchor. Psycho (played by another newcomer, Dhanush), as the name suggests is a psychotic lover. He is obsessed with Anitha and stalks her and such. Most of the scenes are very naturally played and the excellent camera work, both in the songs as well as the movie makes simple scenes look very intense. Dhanush has done an excellent work playing a loner in love with Pavana. I personally liked the scene in which he picks up the flowers that fall off Pavana's locks and how he shivers when he picks it up. The setting of the movie is also excellent. The house of pyscho has been meticulously planned with lots of importance given to details. The background score needs more than a mention to the success of the movie. The best part is that the songs have been shot very well, not letting down Raghu's music.



Although Devadatta claims this is an original story, I feel that the characterization of Psycho is subtly based on Norman Bates in Alfred Hitchcock’s original with the same name. Similarity, in the lines of his split personality, and the reason for this disorder in him. But the nice part is that, that’s where the similarity ends. Just one scene, almost at the end of the movie where "Psycho" wears a sari and calls his lover out maps very well to the original.



I felt that the screen play and the dialogues could have been worked on a little bit more. Some of the dialogues are very very flat, sometimes bringing about unintended humor which spoilt the seriousness of the film. I also felt sometimes that some scenes are very long, hence felt the urge to either check my cell phone or pass a comment. But, overall, the subject matter has been dealt with amazingly well, that too for a Kannada film.



All in all, easily a 4 and a half out of 5 for Devadatta's Psycho with special mentions to Raghu Dixit for the music and Sandeep Kumar, the man behind the camera. This movie is definitely hitting my DVD collection. Now that I think about it, there aint much of a collection I have. So Psycho probably marks the beginning of my DVD collection. Pirated or otherwise!. But its a definite watch in theater. More than once for the music at least. If you need company, book a ticket for me and I’ll be there