I get a new dress yet again

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She did it!! I told you she would do it! I knew she dint like my pink dress at all. She was just waiting for an opportunity to change it. Now I have a nice shade of pristine white. I like it but I hate it that she decides everything! She took this new fashionable look of mine from Gecko & Fly. Its called the K2 blogger template . Its nice in a minimalistic sort of way and I do so like the links on top instead of all of them on my side bar. Now I can stretch my arms and fly :). It also has a wordpressy feel about it. And looks a little organised and less cluttered. Now I can eat my food for thought in suave peace.

Psst Siri also wants to thank the Gecko & Fly team immensely.
She is working on making links meaningful and VISIBLE. So please bear with the slow-poke. If in the process she discovers that she is a dud at it then she might change my dress again. Sigh!

Alisha Wonderland

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If there is only one person who entertains on the Indian Idol show it is....No not Anu Malik but the bimbette judge. Let the original baby doll please stand up. Presenting to you single reader Alisha in wonderland Chinai. The super duper blooper of the show. I am not sure she understands what exactly is required of an Indian Idol singer. For that matter neither do I and another few thousands of viewers. Is it the singing talent that is being showcased or their tingling performance? Am not sure. I as a viewer am left thoroughly confused because of the judges' comments as well. When a song falls flat on a normal listener's ears it receives a tremendous thumbs up from the connoisseurs on the jury. When a singer gets a popular response from the studio crowd, the judges feel that it was a bummer. But all the seriousness aside, I watch this show only for one reason - the stupefied face of Alisha Wonderland. Her face inadvertently mirrors her feelings, or does it? Everytime she listens to someone singing very well she has this constipated look on her face, I cant fathom why. Jealousy maybe? Everytime a particularly guy (who proposed on this show to another competitor) sings a deep chink appears on her cheeks as she blushes away her overwhelming sighs and presents her verdict. Its fun to watch I tell you. The gamut of emotional juggernauts that she presents is unique. It lighs up the otherwise dull show. She could even put a bulb above her Marge Simpsonique hairdo which could light up the entire set! I wonder how many hair extensions she needs to remove before going to bed every night. So yesterday, on the show, the lady was extremely happy with some performances and she obviously wanted to express herself and these were the two masterpieces :
You blew it!
You smoked it!
I can imagine the poor old thing’s fiery distress when someone eventually points it out

All I want to say is that, they don't really care about us!

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Have you heard anything which sounds like a cross between a train whistle and a crying dog? No? Listen to Himesh Reshammiya's Mehbooba song from his movie Aap Ka Surroor (Not even surrre how many Rs are in there). One guarantees that it will jolt you out of constipation. What he has decided to do with this song is abysmmal. There is a recital (yes!) of the lyrics by a rather sad and tired sounding Asha Bhonsle interlaced with this crying sound (when did HR practice with the canine populace I wonder) and yet there was enough scope to add in a sub plot into the song with a gruffy voice putting in his two cents rapper style. Punk! Sheesh! What amazes me is the frequency at which this song is aired on the radio channels here. I hear it in the mornings while going to work and on the way back. Plus there is this other song which eats my brains out. This is the title track of the movie Jhoom Barabar Jhoom. The title looks like it was plagiarised from Bobby Deol's barber. This song (like the other songs) in this movie are full of words from a language a regular person wouldnt know in Bangalore. Know your audience radio people! You are airing it in Bangalore, South India. Here the max people can manage to learn and understand is Hindi. How on earth would we know what a "guthiyan" or what a "lad gaye penche" refers to. I had to go to a lyrics site and then copy paste the words here else I was thinking the first line was something like "aaja rabba ishq di golguthiyan"! You getting the drift? I dont even know where I am heading to with this post. Sorry, I just needed a rant. I do enjoy other songs which are half punjabi but which makes for an enjoyable listening experience like the ones from RDB. I cant take it with all. I think radio channels need a reality check on what we want to listen to. Maybe a poll would be a good idea. I cannot go through another bout of hysteria listening to all crappy songs . Set a limit as to how many times a bad (deemed bad by poll) track needs to be aired irrespective of the listener requests. Puhleese there are so many of us who can do without these to spoil our moods.

Clamor to Fame

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You know about all those doey eyed dreams about publishing one's piece in a newspaper? Most of the kids (in my school days there was no blog) who were anywhere close to atleast a plagiarist aspired to become famous through the only means known to kid-kind - the newspaper's children section. I used to read a paper called the Deccan Herald during school days and every sunday there used to be a children's special aptly titled "Open Sesame". I used to pore over all the things other kids would write in it and secretely felt sorry for myself that I could never publish any article. Publicly it was a different story in which I always claimed that I could write better than all those stupid kids who wrote about bread and jam as their claim to fame. I, on the other hand wrote about more mature stuff like life and skies. Why I could never publish was not because I was not good (oh yeah I was the best) but because of lack of guts. I always feared rejection. Add to this some gossip one would hear about how an aunt's neighbour's cousin had become a regular article writer, and one's stomach would churn with jealousy and heart would mourn the lack of courage. At long last I made an attempt of crossing that line which separates the have-trieds and never-have-trieds and sent a poem I had written to Times of India newspaper.
What? You still expect me to continue and write the whole sob story? For the curious ones I still have the copy of the mail I sent to Times of India and the mail of rejection I recieved from them. Oh wait I never got a response from them even! How cheap I say! They dint realise that they thwarted an ambitious writer entirely. They not only snuffed out the flame burning within the heart of a great poet-to-be but also removed the wick!
I did not stop writing. I wrote but with a lot of bitterness. Those were the dark ages of my writings. Blah blah and blah later I started writing online. I created my own web page on Geocities (accessing that now will give one a message stating "Sorry, the page you requested was not found.") . I uploaded all my articles on that and continued to create new ones there. But there was not many people reading it. I can safely count on one hand, the people who used to read it. I discovered blogging quite by accident. But once I was aware I was hooked to it. I wrote and wrote (ok am exaggerating a bit) and did not care if I saw a pathetic "0 comments" at the tail end of every post. I strived, I persevered and finally I got some good souls visiting my blog and some even better souls leaving their comments for my posts. At long last (actually day before yesterday) I got a mail from a person with the Bangalore Mirror newspaper asking if I would mind one of my post's being published in his newspaper. I nearly fell off the seat when I saw the mail. I quickly sent back a reply affirming my "No Problem", the quickness of which he was good enough to notice ;). And lo behold yesterday's Bangalore Mirror's Blog Talk had MY post in it! Mine!! Yeah all mine!!
While I gloat some more at not being a Loser after all you take a look at the pciture version of that article. Ofcourse you cant read it from the picture but you can read the post here

Now is it a coincidence that Bangalore Mirror is a daily publication belonging to Times of India? Hee haw haw haw haw

Y camera phone?

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I just realised why I wanted a camera phone so badly! I wanted to be able to quickly take pictures of all the dishes I make! Dont believe me? Take a look at my food blog

Dog Person

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Yesterday something very strange happened when I was walking back home. Its become my practice of late to listen to radio on my mobile phone on my way back home. I keep it on even after getting off fom my office van and while I walk a short distance home. Yesterday it so happened that the van driver had also tuned into one of the radio channels (which was not what I was listening to) and he had put it on very loud volume. I, not having the inclination to argue with him, simply increased the volume of my phone. So there I was walking down the road with music literally pouring out of my ears and into those of startled passers-by. Suddenly I felt a brush against my left leg. I thought it might have been my dupatta moving to the wind. I felt the brush again and this time I literally jumped because it was a dog and he/she (I cant tell so easily) was very close to me! Literally walking in my shadow. I tried to move away but the dog stuck to me. It would brush against me or get in the way of my legs. If I stopped walking the dog would also stop and pretend as if it was looking for something on the road. As soon as I move there it was, my loyal shadow. I am usually not scared of our layout stray dogs because they are not only friendly towards us but also guard our layout against any intruder. This particular dog did not seem friendly but it seemed scared to me. I thought of all the incidents involving stray dogs mauling kids in Bangalore and decided not to take chances. I stood rooted to my spot quite in the middle of the road and did not move for two full minutes. The dog waited for me on the side and it got restless. Now it so happened that there was another girl walking in front of me so the dog just latched on to her shadow. I started walking again and started wondering why. That was when I noticed 3 more dogs walking quietly behind me. But these were not interested in me. They were stalking the other dog. It struck me at that moment that the lone dog was an intruder, a stranger who was trying to get into our layout community. He was keeping close to the humans walking maybe for two reasons 1) he thought the dogs wont smell him out (comeon I dont really stink that much dude!) 2) he thought walking with humans would give him a "pet" status. Whatever it was it dint work because in the next minute as the other girl stood confused and scared the layout dogs started barking and rushing towards the lone dog. We all got out of the way for the pack which dint rest till they chased the intruder out! Dogs do have brains people. Remember those labradors? They know their lost puppy dog look will get us to do anything for them.

(I took the pic from a Hindu Newspaper)

Intuition

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It is not very often that T and me feel the urge to visit God's house. So whenever we do feel it, we keep everything else on the back burner and go there for who knows why God called us. Who knows what goodies are in store for us? I do believe greed and selfishness are two of the reasons (if not main) that make people visit him. So it was that on the cloudy Saturday evening both of us decided to go to a temple near our house. This temple is like a mini mall for gods as is the fashion these days. Its basically a Shani (this God is a paradox, his bad influence is supposed to bring bad times to one but he is also the God who cures people of all problems in life) temple but he shares centre stage also with Ganesha (God with elephant face who is supposed to make any new venture in life go smooth) and Subramanya (my family diety). There is also a special enclave which houses Hanuman (God with the monkey face who is supposed to rid one of fear), Gayathri (the God of the powerful Mantra) and Navagraha (the planets along with the Sun and Moon are also worshipped in Hindu culture because they all are supposed to have a unique influence on one's life). I believe in God and then I believe in Intuition. I get them quite often. And that day was no exception. Take for example the fact that when we both were about to leave our uncle came to visit us. We had to stay for sometime to exchange pleasantries with him. I thought maybe we could go to the temple the next day. But our uncle urged us to carry on. That’s when we discovered that it was raining heavily outside. On hindsight I feel this was an omen. But we decided not to heed it and we started to the temple as soon as the rain slowed to a slight drizzle. When we reached the temple I gasped at the crowd that had gathered there. Saturday being an auspicious day to worship Shani the temple was thronged with devotees. I told T that maybe we should come back the next day since it was so crowded. But he just scoffed at my timidness and we made our way in. Intuition?
There is a light pole in the temple compound which had become the centre of a huge circle of footwear. (One cannot enter a Hindu temple with footwear). We also left our footwear albeit at the periphery of the circle. As I was getting my sandals off I noticed two guys sitting in the shadows near this pole. What I noticed about them was the fact that they were trying very hard to look disinterested. I felt a pang of doubt going through me. Was it intuition? I distinctly felt that they were upto no good. At this point T suggested that maybe we should have a quick darshan of the main God and leave since it was so crowded. But I being the scared-of-offending-God kind felt that I had to say hello to all the Gods before we can leave. T’s intuition. So we first entered the outer enclave with Hanuman etc and took around 5-7 minutes to finish our prayers there. I went to the main temple and stood there searching for T through the crowd. I saw him walking up five minutes later and announcing what the intuitions of the whole evening were leading upto – our sandals were gone. Stolen! The thieves had taken both pairs gone! We went back to the circle (and by this time it had started raining hard) and searched through the umpteen pairs but to no avail. Our Reebok and Woodlands sandals were gone. By then the ringing bells had reached a crescendo implying that the evening puja was coming to an end and the whole thing had a dizzying effect on me. I did not have interest in God anymore. I was standing waiting for the holy water and all I could think of was the lost sandals! God called us for this? He wanted to us to get rid of our very nice sandals? It dint make any sense to me. Once we were out of the temple I felt a little silly at our situation. Both of us barefoot walking in the parking lot and T had to ride his bike barefoot. We decided not to embarrass ourselves by telling folks at home that we lost our footwear in a temple of all places. But as we neared home I felt the need to share this with someone (apart from a victim). We burst into the house and burst out with the story to T’s mother and grandmother. We got the expected reaction. They laughed out loud. They sobered up on hearing the total cost of the sandals though. We lost footwear worth Rs.2500 in one shot! My m-i-l told us not to worry about what we lost. Her reasoning was “Peede hoyithu”( Evil eye has gone). Instead of losing something bigger we lost something small and that’s how God has compensated in his balance sheets. Now everything fell into place and I again started believing in that rare urge that we get to pay a visit to God! Was it an intuition that made me tell my m-i-l? Now I don’t feel so bad any more except like our grandma said "Peede eno hoyithu ashtu costly chapli hogodha?" (The evil eye is gone but should it have taken such expensive footwear?)