Himesh, Himesh everywhere

Coming soon… Jai Mata Di! Let’s Rock! - The Himesh Reshammiya Tribute Album. A nod to the all-pervading presence and ubiquitousness of a man who seamlessly blends religion and rock-n-roll in a catchy all-exhorting slogan. And a way of us fans saying thanks to the man who gave such great classics like aashiq banaya aapne and made Tanushree sizzle to his beat. A fitting tribute to a man who made history by becoming the first music director ever to win the Filmfare Award for Best Playback Singer. By the way, if you haven’t picked up Aaapka suroor yet, what are you waiting for? Get it today. Ah! Yes, coming back….

A mammoth 2-CD pack, the Himesh Reshammiya Tribute Album will feature 4 great songs and 32 (yes, thirty two) great tracks. Total value for your money. Each great song will have eight versions – original edit, unplugged version, remix version, a mix of the remix, an instrumental version, an acapella version, a ringtone version and a dhoomph-dhoomph heavy bass play-it-loud-like-the-northies-when-cruising-down-brigade-road version.

Triskaidekophiliacs rejoice! Thanks for this cow. The album will also have a couple of Bonus Tracks – yet another version of the hit song - ‘Naam hai 13 13’ or for those who don’t think in Hindi ‘Naam hai tera tera’ and a new song ‘Cap ke neeche kya hai?” Look out for the music videos featuring Himesh Reshammiya on all music channels. News is that Emraan Hasmi has agreed to be in the video. So get ready for more Himesh Reshammiya. And rush to your nearest music store today and pick up Jai Mata Di! Let’s Rock! - The Himesh Reshammiya Tribute Album, and get a free Himesh Reshammiyya poster, Himesh Reshammiya T-shirt, a paste-on Himesh Reshammiya-style stubble. The whole Himesh Reshammiya kit. Cap not included.

And if you haven’t had enough of Himesh Reshammiya yet, here he is my favourite composer/singer/video star Himesh Reshammiya once more.

We wish you all the best sir. Jai Mata Di! Let’s Rock!

If you are of the kind that does not mind wasting your time in inconsequential causes, you might want to consider signing this.
Yours truly
Petitioner No. 49779

A continuum of absolutes

I am Shenoy. I am Shenoy’s son. I am Shenoy’s grandson. Shenoy was my great-grandfather. I will be Shenoy’s father. I am Shenoy. And I refuse to be the weak link.

And you thought human cultural existence is not a continuous nonspatial succession. It is…a continuum, but one in which the parts and portions are distinct and distinguishable from adjacent parts and portions. In their own time. We are the continuing. We shall be continued.

"...I’m coming home to my family
Where I can be strong
Be who I planned to be
Within me my ancestry
Givin’ me continuity........
......This is what my daddy told me
I wished he would hold me
A little more than he did
But he taught me my culture
And how to live positive
I never wanna shame
The blood in my veins and bring pain
to my sweet grandfather's face
in his resting place
I make haste to learn and not waste
everything my forefathers earned in tears
for my culture..."
from 1 Giant Leap's My Culture.

Makes you Think

Best American Weblog, Best Topical Weblog, Best Community Weblog, Best New Weblog AND Weblog of the Year : One blog won all this at this year's Weblog Awards: the 2006Bloggies. It's billed as an ongoing community art project where people mail in their secrets anonymously on one side of a homemade postcard, and it's called PostSecret. These secrets can be anything and you should see some of the secrets that people send in. Makes you think. Frank Warren has also seleceted some of the "best secrets" and published it (other people's secrets which they shared with him) in a book. Makes you think. So, what secrets do you want to get off your chest? Ah yes, the postcard shown above by the way, you won't find on the blog. It's now in an online gallery. Makes you think.

Hmmmm....a collection of words which are often omitted from dictionaries, and are in danger of being eliminated from the English language. What! You must be joking, i actually know a few people who use these, half their vocabulary seems to come from The Grandiloquent Dictionary

batmanjokeralienpredator

Some have said it's the best Batman movie ever made. Just a rider, these comments were made before Batman:Begins came out. The best Batman movie ever made. No not Burton. But Sandy Collora. Even though it was made in 2003 and events have gone futher, nothing can take away anything from Batman: Dead End, a fan film by Sandy Corrolla. Great feel. Truly batman-ish and so totally Gotham. And in just 8 minutes. Shot in four days on a $30,000 budget, B:DE packs in Batman (duh!), Joker, Alien (yes!) and Predator (yes! yes!). How will puritanical Batman fans take it? But ok. Let a man have his fun. And if Collora's words are to be believed (which we must) even Alex Ross said something to the effect of 'best batman movie'. After all, it's a fan making a movie. Not money milking movie studios. What you waiting for? Here it is. Watch it now! Just hit play below.

A Dic-K's tale

The DIC(K) is made up of what was once a part of CONgress. Then Grand Old Man decided to take castrate CONgress in God's Own Country and the DIC(K) came apart from the main body. A powerful organ was taken away from CONgress. CONgress thought, "I don't need DIC(K). I have had no balls anyway, that too for over 50 years. So what use is DIC(K)?". But...DICK(K) Head then realised that on it's own any DICK(K) can't do much, so started looking for friends. And as everybody knows, all DICK(K)s have close neighbours in the form of arseholes. So DICK(K) Head turned to areseholes. And two nuts, especially the left one. Also, DIC(K) started having performance problems. But then, soon, CONgress wanted DICK(K) back. CONgress and DIC(K) then flirted around. CONgress made statements like, "We are deliberating on what to do with DIC(K)." Then CONgress Owner, and Commander of the Ball-less Brigade, Red Sonja (Author of 'The Sari State of CONgress' and soon to be immortalised in SICKOphantic's book The fArt of Sacrifice) said she wants DIC(K). "Get me DIC(K)", she thunders. Hearing orders, CONgress starts sends feelers (many feeers) to DIC(K) Head. And DIC(K) likes being felt up. So many toddy kuppis and midnight masala sessions later, CONgress and DIC(K) decide to get together, with CONgress using DIC(K) to fuck more people. So that is how things stand. Or are erect. Await further developments. Till then, DIC(K) is safe in the hands of the CONgress.

Speaking of inners

Those who live in glasshouses should not change their clothes with their lights on. Unfortunately, the Congress Party, I mean, Sonia ‘NRI’ Gandhi seems not to have known about this. Which is why they’re in the state they’re in. At a time when parallels were being drawn with the Emergency Days, and left with no choice but to resign, she did what she had to resign. But still saying “sacrifice”. And the definitions of the word ‘martyr’ seem to be changing. Sonia, I mean the Congress Party, thinks us all a bunch of fools, which I guess we are. That’s it. For a nice take on Sonia, I mean, the Congress Party, no, I mean, Sonia, go to the communal cow as he goes about Deconstructing Sonia, with his trademark puns, neologism and spelling mistakes.

This is Inner Voice Ver2.0. Go, know more about the high falutin’ Inner Voice Ver1.0. And yes, NRI means Not Required Italian.

Mera Rang de Basanti…

During one of our many conversations, the Communal Cow made a very valid point. He is of the firm belief that all is lost on a generation that needs a popcorn entertainer to tell them about their heroes, their history and those who came before us. To paraphrase him, a generation that needs aids such as this to rekindle their pride is doomed and is useless. Which is why he has come up with his own version of Rang De Basanti’s byline, “A generation weakens” he says. I think I quite agree. But that’s not to take away anything from the movie and Mehra’s efforts. We do what we feel should be done. But at least the Communal Cow got the point that the movie was trying to make. Which brings us to the point of this post. And it’s not a review (there’s enough of them already), but merely an attempt to clarify certain aspects of the movie, considering how many people have fallen for the red herrings, so to speak. So let us try and clear the fog about this masaledaar hindi movie that has all of us talking.

Is RDB about crashing MIGs? Is it about our brave pilots who lay down their lives while piloting those flying coffins? Yes, some would say. “Did you not see the last slide that came on before the credits started rolling? It said that the movie is in honour of our brave pilots.” They will tell you. And it’s at this point that we need to understand that at the end of the day, RDB is a film, a movie. And all good movies have something that is known as a ‘plot device’ which is simply put, a thing/concept/person brought into the narrative to influence/ advance the plot of the movie. Now this MIG plot device (in the context of the movie) could have been anything else. It could have been a train accident, an innocent victim caught in a smuggling racket, a viruddh-type justice denied angle or even a clichéd gangster thingy. That’s the point. These are all clichés. And would these alternatives have grabbed your attention as much as the MIG angle did? Think not. Any film maker, even if it is Vikram Bhatt, will try to bring something new and unique into his movie, and with RDB the case would have been more so, and Mehra could not have chosen a better plot device. Also, by choosing this particular one, he has also managed to bring attention to the state of our air force’s planes and our pilots. But this specific thing is just peripheral to the point that RDB is trying to make. And yes, the last slide is just an afterthought (I think). Remember the rouble that RBD got into with the defence ministry? Most likely, it was just inserted there to calm the nerves of those in the ministry who (like the people who inspired this post) thought that Mehra is making fun of the Indian armed forces.

So getting back to our point, what this MIG plot device also helps do is take the story forward by linking the MIGs with the Defence Minister who is (quite intelligently) equated with Gen. Dyer. Now, here again many people think that this comparison calls for a total suspension of belief and is totally far fetched. Two things. Firstly, it’s not as farfetched as you would think. Instead of our enemies from outside, our enemies today are our own people. Think about it. And secondly, don’t forget that RDB is a masala movie, not a historical documentary. But it achieves more than a hundred other masala movies could.

Another objection that some people have raised is that through RDB, Mehra is telling us all to take up arms and go around killing politicians/other assorted termites in the system. No he’s not. But it wouldn’t be such a bad thing now, would it? Anyway, if you see the movie, and listen carefully, the answer is right there. Join the IAS. Get into politics. Join the police force. Change the system. Ho many people will you kill? Kill the fault in the system, not the propagators. Again here, it should be pointed out, the assassination of the minister is just another plot device, albeit a truly farfetched one practically. But like Bhagat Singh himself said, “Jo ooncha sunte hain, unko sirf dhamake ki awaaz sunayideti hai…” Close enough, I guess. And this is exactly what RDB tries to do. Be an explosion that opens the eyes of at least some people. But at the end of the day, let us not forget, it’s just another bollywood movie starring Aamir Khan, with music by A.R.Rahman, and that the MIGs and the ministers are just plot devices.

Hinglish? You said...

This post was actually sparked off by a comment in response to Jugular Bean’s comment on the FORK OFF! post. Thought it should be pursued further and here is the result in this format:
Film name
Hindi song
English translation

Rishtey
Apna banana hai…
This is our banana…

Suraj
Bahaaron phool barsaao, mera mehboob aaya hai…
O spring, shower flowers, my beloved is a nanny (aaya)…

Yaara Dildaara
Bin tere sanam…
These bins are yours, darling…

China Town
Baar baar dekho, hazaar baar dekho…
Look at bar bar, look at a thousand bars…

Ijazat
Mera kuch saamaan tumhare paas pada hai...
Some of my saamaan is still with you…

Tezaab
So gay yeh jahaan…
This world is so gay…

Teesri Ankh
Chugg de punjabi…
Give me a chugg, you punjabi...

Rock Dancer
You are my chicken fry, you are my fish fry...
You are my chicken fry, you are my fish fry...

Raju Chacha
Tune mujhe pehchaana nahin...
The tune did not recognise me...

Yeh Mohabbat Hai
Bechain mera yeh dil hai…
This heart of mine is without chains…

Well. Guess that's enough for now. Please add to the list. Uuse comments box. Smile.

1 of only 4

If someone wears this limited edition t-shirt, is he homophobic? or is it just nascent xenophobia? Ah! But how it pleases me.

Beauty? What beauty?

For years, beauty pageants, have been going on. And forever they have been mired in controversy. The women’s rights organisations blame beauty pageants for ‘exploiting women’. While others have gone on record saying that events such as Miss India are nothing but skin shows. To all of which assorted organisers have come back with the same reply, “…not an exploitation of women. Don’t call it a beauty pageant, because intelligence also plays a big role in a [half-naked] woman winning a title…” So on and so forth. And wonder of wonders! This time the organisers of the Ponds Femina Miss India contest have actually stayed true to their words. They have gone beyond mere anatomy, bikinis and good make-up. Just take a look at the winners. They definitely don’t look like the winners of a ‘beauty’ pageant. Far from it. And no amount of make-up can save them it seems. Also, looks like reality TV has also taken its toll, and the winners who got the maximum votes got them from the congenitally blind.

Finally ‘inner beauty’ has been rewarded over shallow, skin-deep Maybelline/L’Oreal-enhanced external beauty. Has to be. There’s not much that’s externally beautiful about this year’s Miss India winners. But they ‘look’ intelligent. And if you’re thinking that intelligent women have to be necessarily unattractive, think again. Take a look at yash birla. So, has a new age dawned? Can we expect an IQ round at next year’s pageant? Will Mensa be a proud sponsor? Shall we see dissertations being presented? It’s too soon to tell. But a fine start has been made. On an a side note, hopefully next year’s bunch of ‘intelligent women’ will a lot more pleasing on the eye. After all, it is us poor folk who will soon (very soon) have to watch these crusaders against poverty and champions of the underprivileged in a hot-n-steamy bollywood item number.

the next best buy

Tracking down movies by one's favourite parallell cinema director is difficult enough. And next to impossible if that director happens to be HE of the HS films fame (yes, our old friend). Will soon get hold of his next classic. But till i see it and put up a detailed review/analysis, a synopsis of the film from the UltraIndia website will do. Go here. Split your sides.

PS: And for those of you philistines who do not know HS, it's Harinam Singh.

blast of the past

shot this at the gallery of the Cellular Jail. And like they say, a picture's worth a thousand words... especially if it includes a wordy description.

They gaze down at me from their lofty heights. People my age and younger. People who did and died. They stare at me through images captured in time. They seem to be telling me, “We did as much as we could. Now it’s your turn.” I hear them. And I feel ashamed. But I try to be escapist about what I cannot do. Yet. “At least your enemy had a face. Mine doesn’t. You were fighting outsiders. I have to fight my own people, my brothers. You fought for a noble cause. What cause have I, except mine own?” They will not think bad of me if I continue this way. But I will. They’ll forgive my apathy and selfishness. But I cannot. There must a cause greater than yourself. And I think I know.

one billion Indians?

Who is an Indian? How does one become an Indian? And stay that way. Or is it a question of Indian-ness or rather India-ness. Who is an Indian? One who knows the culture, the history, the traditions of this land and respects it. Or one who knows many Indian languages. Or one who considers other Indians his brothers and sisters, his people? Is he an Indian who identifies himself with this land? Or does one become Indian by virtue of just having been born in this general geographical area designated ‘India’ on the world map? But then again, firangs born here are not considered Indians. So while people born to ‘Indians’ here in this land can still be considered Indians without even knowing our culture, no inkling of her history, and speaking no ‘Indian’ languages, why not call them Indians who know more about her language, culture and have assimilated ‘India’ into their life better than those Indians born here? Indian. Is it just a geographical tag? Or something more? Then where does the term 'Bharatiya' which is the normal accepted Hindi translation of Indian figure? How many shades of grey exist between being an Indian and not being an Indian, since by instinct we seem to (apparently) know. Which brings back the original question: Who is an Indian?

high on speed

If sixty is their starting speed (as is hinted at from their album cover), expect a lot more from Speedometer 60 in the days to come. Music has progressed, and more than ever bands are coming out with albums that just refuse to be pigeonholed into convenient niches or genres as they are called. This band takes it one step further, with even their individual songs on their self-titled debut album refusing to lend themselves easily to any particular tag. Blues, bluegrass, country, folk, David Bowie, metal, rock (in all its forms). All this and more in one album. Phew!

Speedometer 60. Just another bunch of 4 Liverpudlians who seems to be able to translate their seemingly disparate (and fiercely held) tastes – from comics and music to political leanings and favourite literature – into a seamless blend of great music. The album opens with Up the Ante, a post-punk kind of sound mixed with a smattering of Seattle strains of the Soundgarden variety. Throw in some rage against the machine and a garnish of Janis Joplin and you get the idea. And this is exactly why their songs are so tough to review and best heard yourself.

And there’s a bonus as well. Actually three of them. Awesome covers of Silverchair’s World upon your shoulders, Joan Baez’s Diamond and rust and Robert Johnson’s Me and the Devil blues.

So media-shy and publicity-shy that they refuse to even have a website, Speedometer 60 is by far the best buy in a long time. Total value for money. And then some because it happens to be a gift. Speedometer 60 is not just another blip on the radar, it’s a massive behemoth. One more thing, the musical adventures apart, the sheer inaccessibility of this album will definitely make some people look for it and own it, if only to say, “Have you heard Speedometer 60?”

time framed

Why the long gap between this post and the last? You asked. Here's why (in no particular order): The Andamans. The post-Andaman holiday hangover. Work. Warcraft III: Reign of Chaos – Expansion Pack: The Frozen Throne. Friends. Research. Relatives. Family. Solitude. More family. Return to Castle Wolfenstein. Comics. Music. Movies. Agonising. Prince of Persia: Warrior Within. Coffee House. Weekends. Life.

blogorrhoea spreads!!

Ad peddler, smoke freak, dreamer. That’s what he thinks the world thinks he is. A real thinker, he is. Think not? Think too! But at the end of the day, i think he’s just dear ol’ dinesh a.k.a. F1Speak. After having been progressively de-humanitised by the (w)art of copywriting for the last 12 years, he’s decided it’s time he got real. And Smoke Canopy, a real blog, is the result. Check it out. Don’t miss the part about his brain trembling with the orgasmic experience. Plus, there's almost 10 years' worth of his musings and miscellany on the way. the Bekku says "yay!"

Fork off!! – DOs and DON’Ts when eating from a banana leaf

So eating from a banana leaf is back in fashion, not that it ever went out of fashion in my village/home and million others like that in the south. Every traditional marriage ends with it, at least as far as the guests are concerned. We’ve all heard about the whole etiquette thing when it comes to eating off a plate – knife in the right hand, fork on the left (what about lefties?) – and such like. But what about the humble banana leaf? While a banana leaf is not conducive to a buffet system, it has a lot of advantages and some etiquette that goes with it. Here it is then, a quick (meaning not comprehensive) and interesting (meaning full of stories) guide to the banana leaf.

Eating off a banana leaf is not just convenient and time saving – no washing dishes and you can be sure that nobody has eaten from your leaf before. Eating form a banana leaf also adds to the taste and to the flavour of the food, no matter what cuisine you are having.

Firstly, the placing of the leaf. This is by far the most important. The tapering end of the leaf should always be to the left of the eater. This is the default position of the leaf, and the most ideal. Ask me not why this is, it just is.

An alternate way of placing the leaf would be in the vertical fashion, in which case the tapering end would be on the top and the widest portion nearest to you. But this is only in extreme cases.

Next is the serving. Very important: Rice should never, I repeat, never be served on an otherwise empty leaf. There’s a reason for this. During a death ceremony, or any funerary rite associated with the dead, it has been our custom to use pindas (balls made of rice) which represent the dead person and the two generations that came before him/her (and trust me, I know). And a banana leaf is used for this purpose, and the rice from which the pandas are to be made served on to it (an empty leaf). So unless you are performing a death ceremony, make sure that you never serve rice on am empty leaf. Even some sambar/ little bit of pickle should be on the leaf before serving rice.

On an interesting side note, the death ceremony also affects yet another aspect of eating from a banana leaf, namely the number of times you can put rice on the leaf during one serving. This number must never be three times. It can be one big portion served once, two smaller portions or four. If the person you are serving only says “enough” after the third portion of you have served, make sure you sprinkle some more rice so as to make it four times. So why not three? As you saw above, during the death ceremony, we make three pandas, and when putting rice on the leaf prior to making the pindas, it is always done three times (once for each panda). That’s why.

If you’ve eaten from a banana leaf at restaurants or at your house, you would’ve noticed that the playa, chutney, vegetables, etc. is always on the top half of the leaf, while the bottom half is reserved for rice and rasam, and this is how it should be. It not only makes for good common sense – eating your rice from the top half would be darned inconvenient as you would have to reach out more – it also has an interesting story behind it.

Once apparently, after Rama returned triumphant into Ayodha, a pooja was organised. Rama had to go away for a while, so he was missing when the food was being served. The people/guests waited for a while, and when Rama did not come back and hunger got the better of them, they started to have their food, leaving one leaf for Rama. All except Hanuman. Rama came back after a while and saw everybody was enjoying the food, all except Hanuman. Touched by his devotion, Rama invited Hanuman to at him, off his leaf. So Rama sat on one side of the leaf, while Hanuman sat on the opposite side. Now Hanuman, being a monkey, a vanara, had no use for such things as rice or roti. He wanted the fruits and the vegetables. So one side of the leaf had rice, while the other had the vegetables. And that’s how it’s been for ages.

Food tastes better when eaten with your own hands. So while cutlery is not a strict no-no, it should be avoided to the maximum extent possible. Cutlery could also tear the leaf, and you’ll have to eat off the floor. Also, eating using cutlery, especially when you’re sitting on the floor and eating from a banana leaf is difficult. Just you try!

Again, food should preferable only be eaten with your right hand, they say. This is not just because a overwhelming majority of the world’s population is right-handed, but also because we use our left hand to clean up after we’re done downloading. But if you’re comfortable, eating your food with the same hand you use to wash your arse, go right ahead.

Now that we’re done with the food and had a hearty meal, it’s time to leave. This where the question arises whether to fold the leaf or not. Take no risk. Leaf the leaf as it is. Some say that you should fold the leaf towards you to signify you like the food or to signify you would be coming back again. Conversely, folding the leaf away from you signifies you are not thoroughly satisfied with the food. But these are not universally accepted guidelines or etiquette, so you could just leave the leaf as it is, after you’re done eating.

That’s all folks! Out of time. But there it is – a handy guide to banana leaf etiquette. Bon appetite!

Have a drink with Hitler, Churchill, Lenin and Che

Get high on hitler. Yes, our dear fuehrer now has his own line of wine. And it’s brought to you by Lunardelli. And of course it’s banned in Germany. There’s also Himmler, Hess, Sepp Dietrich, Rommel and other luminaries to choose from. You can also get your own ‘seductive Eva’. The wine’s all the same, but the bottle is not.

Ok. So you have a thing against Hitler (oh-he-killed-jews). No bother! Choose from the other Axis figurehead – The Duce. They also offer you Napoleon, if you so wish. And for those with allied sympathies, you can get your own Churchill. Or maybe you prefer the communist spirit? Choose from Stalin, Lenin and Marx. For the revolutionarily spirited, we present Che. Drink to the revolution!!

music with teeth

It's got everything – nice guitar riffs and groovy bass lines, basically good use of instruments, nifty distortions in all the right places, intelligent arrangement and other such dhinchak that makes for a great song, nay great music, topped up as it is with the vocal virtuosity of Pankaj Awasthi. It's called Khuda ka Wasta. Oops! sorry. Yes! it is a hindi track. So those of you who are prejudiced against anything that has Hindi lyrics, stop reading, and get back to your Ironmaiden. But those of you who love music, read on.

Not wanting to spend the rest of his life staring down mouths of people, this dentist gave up dentistry and decided to get into music. And this is, i guess, the most significant landmark of his so far. This album called Nine. Even the fact that certain illiterate entities insist on erroneously calling it sufi music does not take away anything from this song. You might remember the song 'tera hi karam' from the John Abraham starrer Karam. The vocalist on that is not Kailash Kher as many think, but Pankaj Awasthi. Even if his vocals were underused, the potential just shone through and it culminates in this song called Khuda ka Wasta. So just right click on this, and do a 'save target as'. And once it's safely ensconced in your hardisk, listen at your leisure and for your pleasure. As Uppi saar would say, "yella wokay, aironmaydehn yaake?"

Every time I read the story, in my heart of hearts, I wish against hope, that it has a different ending. But it always ends the same way.

say miaow

Meet the official Bekku.
For now at least.
purrrrfect!

smoke more cigarettes!

And make sure they’re ITC’s brands. Because if they put even some of their money into great stuff like this, our cancer will be worth a little something.

Wish you all on the very happy occasion of a new (Gregorian) calendar year. Changing calendars, new calendars have always been a good excuse to celebrate and hang loose and go bankrupt. New year? Oh I get it. But no thanks, I’d rather keep to the new year as we poor “Indians” define it. At least it’s not as arbit as the ‘new year’ you celebrate.

loco about lomo

Him and his lomo cam. And this is a sneak peek:
Recognise some familiar faces? Familiar places? Go ahead and check out possiblymaybeprobablynot's lomo adventures here. And here to know more about Lomography. So who is possiblymaybeprobablynot is? That's for me to know and you to find out. I could tell you, but should i? Possiblymaybeprobablynot. Come over to coffee house.

Howard Phillips Lovecraft was a strange boy

scary isn't it?

Three prashanths, a karthik and a shenoy

Yup that was how it was. Old friends catching up. Three Prashanths – Eyyala, TKV and Soans – in pecos and a poor ol’ shenoy stuck in between. He was later tickled into changing his name to (yup! you guessed it) Prashanth. And by the way, shenoy is married now. He married an ex-colleague of his called Smita last year, and also has a cute 3 month old daughter called Anu.

The Karthik landed up later while Soans was doing Rob Roy at Tavern. Guruji was there too. So too was a certain Rajan. And it goes without saying that the furniture was all there. In its place. Blame it on the nostalgia, but even No Excuses was ignored, and sing-a-long happened only to James Blunt’s Beautiful. Legendary stories of legendary classmates were told and retold. Jokes were shared and people said they cared. And amidst all this, a lot of dirt was dug up on yours truly by his friends(?), and an old friendship renewed and reaffirmed.

Soon the gang split. Karthik went home. A raan, a full grilled chicken, chicken kabab and a curd rice later (all parcel), the two left-over prashanths (TKV having split earlier) and the shenoy headed off to my place. Old cupboards were broken open, secrets shared, old photos which had not seen the light for ages were gazed upon. Soon, it was almost dawn. And the Gadda-man split, not before we found a friend of his on the road when we were looking for an auto and also bumped into my first. Anyway. Dawn broke…and sleep came..and here I am typing it all out in the office. Bah!

Great evening. The only pissing off incident was when a certain somebody let some things slip. So to those out there, please start thinking for yourself. Or else keep that vohpinyon of yours with you, in a place where the sun don’t shine. Sieg heil!

Season’s greetings

Wishing all you followers of Mithraism out there, if there are any of you still left unconverted or not killed, a very happy Birthday of the Invincible Sun. I wish you all the happiness on the birthday of Mithra. Do celebrate on 25 December. You were there first in more ways than one, and you had a sound reason. And try not to let that irritating, and fat coca cola advertisement disturb you too much.