February 27, 2008

Dial 101

The kitchen of the Andhra restaurant across the road has caught on fire and the whole area smells like a huge havan-kund. The smoke is sneaking in through the cracks, and everyone is coughing in office. Hopefully nobody was hurt. The restaurant has already been responsible for many casualties due to insufferably long waiting times, and we don’t want any more trouble.
Shops around the establishment are conducting business as usual, traffic if plying normally, and people are crowded around the restaurant. It takes more than a fire to stop the mad scramble that is Namma Bengalooru…

February 24, 2008

Jodhaa Akbar

How can I resist writing about the movie which I’ve been so eagerly waiting for?? So I finally managed to catch Jodhaa Akbar, and three and a half hours later, I have just one question: what made me not leave or atleast wiggle restlessly in my seat?? There is barely any story, nothing EVER happens, wild horses (or elephants) cannot drag me into Aishwariya fanhood, Hrithik’s overbuilt torso is dis-gus-ting, the song choreography reminds me of Sports Day at school, and the supporting cast is just about ok.

I am guessing I am a woman after all, and can gape in wonderment at jewellery and gota-patti ghagra cholis for three and a half hours. That and Hrithik’s acting. The booming sasurji in the background has good reason to worry about bahuraani if that boy looks at her like that!

And the scenes with all the food right before intermission: was THAT a deal between Gowariker and the popcorn wallahs? Talking of food, here’s Mr and Mrs Inkspill’s version of “Kehne ko jashn-e-bahaara hai”:

Kehna ko baingan baghara hai
Taste kuchh aur hi aa raa hai
Lauki sa koi milaa milaa hai baingan mein
Kaddu bhi koi gir hi padaa hai bartan mein
Saare log to khaa rey hain
Hum to sochtey jaa rey hain
Baingan aise thode hi banaatey hain……

Don’t ask why.

February 13, 2008

Do you want a partner oh partner?

If you scratch your head long enough, you’ll surely remember your time in school. Where you sat on an uncomfortable wooden bench, next to a creature assigned by the Higher Powers to be your: partner. Benchmate is a better word, but naah, when you’re stuck with someone six hours a day in such close proximity in an unventilated room full of respiratory infections, lice, and the fog of fear emanating from bagfuls of unfinished homework, you call the other person a partner!

The partner system works well as a support group (Can I lend(sic) your rubber(sic)), or a vigilance mechanism (Miss! She is eating her tiffin under the table), depending on the equation between partners. There are those who help you answer tests, and there are those who are eating YOUR tiffin under the table while you asking to lend their rubbers! There are those who weep inconsolably when your seats are changed, and there are those who draw impermeable Indo-Pak borders with a compass to demarcate your area of the table and theirs… And there are always those who have been too busy for weeks to have a bath, which is the reason your mom talks in serious and low tones to your teachers at the PTA, even though you have topped the bleddy class!

The partner assignation processed can be classified into three kinds: Simple, Arbitrary, and Rocket Science. Simple is when the teacher lets you sit next to whom you please, which results in Ekta Kapoor ke soap-like politics among people, and location-wise as well, there will be some prime seats that everyone wants. Also, the people who nobody wants to sit with get emotional scars for life, which is very helpful if they’re gonna grow up to be artists, but very bad if they’re gonna become prime ministers, and since you never know, the simple system should just be considered unsustainable.

The arbitrary system is when the harried lady who steps into a 10feet-by-10feet room consisting of 60 kids, their unwashed aromas and their lunch smells has to, without fainting, assign people seats. Based on an assessment of their characters and natures made during the 40 minute class, where she glances at them once in a while, she decides who sits where. The smart teachers make the tallest girls sit at the back, and the rowdies sit next to the nerds, and thereby all human curtains for mischief are gone! And the nerds never really benefit from being with the rowdies, they just bury their noses into Moral Science books as the rowdies make fun of them TO THEIR FACE!

The rocket science system was tried once or twice in my school with moderate success. It works like this: each row of twin seats has a left side and a right side, right? So all the people on the left stay static in their seats, and all the ones on the right move one seat ahead every week, and the frontbencher moves back to the last seat, like a conveyor belt. So you have a new partner every week, which in the adult week is called being a jerk or being a player, but in school world is called social adjustment 101. When you sit with so many different people, you no longer care who your partner is, you don’t know who has your rubber or whose tiffin you just ate under the table. You learn to go about doing your own thing, and grumbling each time you are forced to accept change JUST when you got used to the previous idiot, and this sort of prepares you for adult life more than the stuff in the books!

Ok. I have spoken enough. In fact, I had spoken enough 100 sentence ago. Now if you please, leave a comment about your most memorable “partner”.

Kallumall ke jalwe!

Ok, so you've probably had a fancy cellphone for years and my raving and gushing seems stoopid, but hey! Be a sport da!

So the new phone allows me to play nice music on it, and if I switch out of the music player mode, it shows the song name on the home page, just above the location. So it's "Just the way you are Bannerghatta Road" and "Shaam dhale gagan taley J P Nagar". Not bad, right?

I've put the "Rock" equalizer on, because that's the only way I can hear anything above the traffic sounds... so Umrao Jaan is now rocking on the phone, but what the heck? Zindagi jab bhi teri bazm mein BTM Layout!

And the next thing is setting personalized ringtones and photuss for regular callers. So I set "Pal Pal hai bhaari jo bipdaa hai aayi" for my boss, and told him as much. He even posed for a cute Ravan-like photu to go with it!

I got the internet to work on it today, and it's amazing how legible everything is on the kutty screen! I heart kallumal!! Ok enough!

February 10, 2008

Introducing Kallumal!



Got an early Valentine's Day gift (yeah yeah!) My first music phone! My first 2 megapixel camera phone! My first fancy phone! Heck, my first real Valentine's Day gift!



Feel like singing (both to the phone and to the dude who gave it me)

Meri zindagi mein aaye ho, aur aise aaye ho tum
Jo ghul gaya hai saanson mein woh geet laaye ho tum
Tum hi kaho
Tum hi kaho
Dil jo aise gaaye
Koi kyun na gungunaaye?

(Kallumal is black, so nazar nahin lagni chahiye! :) Touch wood!)