Did you ever have the urge to do something so badly, that you endangered a lot of comfort zones and even ventured into the dreaded realm of unemployment, to do it?

I watched a movie and was moved to tears. The movie had no typical father son scenes that are typical nor any mother and son parodies, that are so over-hyped everywhere.

August Rush is an unapolegetic movie. A movie that recommends and advocates optimism and regards setbacks as delays. It is seemingly an impossibly sweet and perfect do-gooder movie, but it is much more than that. The music gave me hope.

The hope that there is good in the world, the hope that we Indians remain proud of being Indians and not become whores to the country that bids the highest.This movie lit inside me a fire, one that promised motivation and sustained belief. A fire of satisfaction and one of shame. Shame , that I let my friends and relatives deceive themselves, shame that I thought I could alter the thinking of ppl who cant see beyond their own beards.

The movie reinforces the perennial and proprietary Indian thought of "perform against all odds".

Lets hope love can cross all boundaries, even of religion, if not who cares!

Obituary

I have not thought about you in a long time. I havent cared about what you were doing and what you allegedly did. I really didnt care, or so I thought. I was born with 'Thriller' , grew up with 'Bad' & 'Dangerous' , freaked out with 'Scream', fell in love with 'Earth song' , hoped with 'Heal the world' and yearnt for my love with ' You are not alone' . I realise now how much my life has been interwined with your magnificient creations. I didnt care when you were alive but sick. Why now does a tear trickle down my cheek when I see you on tv? Why does a pain gnaw away at my gut when I realise you wont be around to make magic again. I thought I didnt care Michael but I guess you had touched my heart everytime I hummed along with your songs.

I am unable to put words together to express what I feel so am borrowing some from W.H. Auden :-

Stop all the clocks, cut off the telephone,
Prevent the dog from barking with a juicy bone,
Silence the pianos and with muffled drum
Bring out the coffin, let the mourners come.
Let aeroplanes circle moaning overhead
Scribbling on the sky the message He Is Dead,
Put crêpe bows round the white necks of the public doves,
Let the traffic policemen wear black cotton gloves.
He was my North, my South, my East and West,
My working week and my Sunday rest,
My noon, my midnight, my talk, my song;
I thought that love would last for ever: I was wrong.
The stars are not wanted now: put out every one;
Pack up the moon and dismantle the sun;
Pour away the ocean and sweep up the wood.
For nothing now can ever come to any good.

Rest in peace Michael , for rest was what you never had when you were here weaving magic and exuding hope. May your music live forever.

Drool factor!

Just like every kid I love my parents cooking. K let me cut the bullshit and say , I love my mother's cooking. I called her a lot to consult , to cook like her and to enjoy the dinner like I used to when I was 17 and ravenous. Life it seems, wanted to laugh at me in my face. I tried every single cooking secret and grandma's recipe but sorry to say it all tasted like bullshit. I yearn for the weird but wonderfully peculiar stuff that only my mom can cook. The mishmash of various greens and a dry dish made of various types of beans, the wonderful different types of rasam and the amazing makeshift gravies. My mouth waters and my eyes tear up.

Let this not sound like a mommy suck up attempt. It just, is the simple desire of the salivating child of a loving mom to taste the food that one has grown up with. Never mind if the child is 29 , drooling and desperate.

Cooking has rubbed off on me but am no bourdain , I would rather be a kwong trying to discover ones roots. The core truth is that u may cook like angel but any guy would still love and prefer his mom's cooking to ur mess. Lv u mom.

Blood lust.

Its funny that i havent written for a long time. Funny because so much has happened and I have somehow managed to drown myself in my own self deprecating logic and lethargy and have remained mum. I travelled through the highest road in the world, tasted the salty waters of the pang-gong, drove through zoji-la, tasted then-thuk and pee-shee and lived and never wrote abt it till now. Oh yes by the way I also shot some stupid guy burning a mini-bus.

Not bad eh! Enough action I would say to generate adrenaline by the gallons and also enough conscience to drain every ounce of motivation and satisfaction. If I didnt know better I would definitely say " Dementors at work".

It pinches and pricks when every ray of sunshine and every drop of rain seem to taunt and remind me of the blood I have spilled. Maybe its the guilt I feel or the cold feet I have developed, it frightens me. I never thought I could hurt somebody like that. Not in ignorance and not in haste but in pure fervour and earnest. I enjoyed the pain and the groans. When I realised and awoke from the battle inflated blood lust, I wept. I wept for the life I had taken, I wept for the tears of a mother. I thumped my hollow chest and proclaimed my mowing down of an anti-national and I cried because I had become an anti-human.

Strange thoughts to engulf one who kills by profession is nt it? The fact is we have all forgotten that killing is always by profession and not by choice and we dont enjoy it. All that I fear is that, I may be in a position again to kill and lose the nerve to let loose the ammo. I hope I can go on with my job and I fervently hope the pride and the honour swamps the guilt and the remorse.

I pray for the pride to swell my chest and press the trigger often to do what I know is necessary. I pray for the souls I injure and my own. I pray for the fortitude to do this again and again and again. I pray for the day when remorse is but a word that I hear and not an emotion I combat.

A honest wish

Our forefathers did without sugar until the 13th century; without coal-fires until the 14th century; without buttered bread until the 15th century; without potato until the 16th century; without coffee, tea, soup until the 17th century; without tomatoes till the 18th century; without gas, matches and electricity until the 19th century; without canned goods until the 20th century. What the fuck are we complaining about?

'The world is just awesome' . This is the tag line of 2009 Discovery channel promotion. Simple words , heart-gladdening video but evokes emotions, positive ones, ones that have been dormant for a long while. Life is just too good to hate, whatever the situation maybe. I just got back from work , the time is 0136 hrs, its snowing outside but you know what: I love my life , I dont yet have a wife, And I wish u a life thats as good as mine at the very least. Have a wonderful year ahead.

A craving of sorts.

The one passion that has always remained unattainable is the wild hedonistic pursuit of heavy metal music. To the uninitiated, heavy metal or rock music is more noise than music. To those who like it , it is the source of the highest high one can ever get. The unexplainable excitement in the base of the stomach, the rapid almost frantic beat of the over-excited heart just before Ironmaiden comes on stage, the gnawing emptiness when the concert is over is a testimony to the potency of this form of music.

I dream of a life in which I can be free to do the things I want. To grow my hair long, to do nothing but ride all over the country to wherever the next concert is going to be staged. To spend my life in a perpetual high I get from knowing am doing what I like the best. I would love to get tattoed all over, to get pierced as many times as I want to, to add to the four I already have. All the typical things that a Maiden fan is expected to have but viewed at with disgust by everyone other than a Maiden or Rammstein fan. Of course this is all just a dream or rather a craving, one that I know has no chance of ever happening.

We do give up many things we love for the sake of responsibilities. As a recent insurance ad on tv depicts, a man indulges in a small joy only when he is old. what a pathetic ad? I for one hate it, not because its quality is bad or that the concept is wrong but because it is so 'in your face' true that it punches me in my guts everytime I see it. I think off all that I have wanted to do but have been unable to due to various reasons. Everyone one of us would have , am sure of it, a long list of things that we wanted to do but couldnt. Maybe things, that are as small as a weekend getaway or as big as a career choice.

I am going to try beat that ad in my own way. I am going to do something , even something as small as buying that archery kit I have always wanted, something. Something.