Hyperbole

This post much to mine and anyone bothering to read it's regret has nothing to do with body snatching. Though that term really fascinates me. I feel it's a profession (?) or a hobby which has been over hyped. Something like stamp collection. Yeah I know it's called philately, but the word philately itself makes it sound duller then it actually is. I worked tirelessly at it for maybe 5-7 years so I shouldn't be the one to crib. Philately, not body snatching. Anyway coming back to the topic I felt that cutting up corpses in human dissection in first year of dentistry was another mind numbingly boring job. So why would body snatching be any different?

Life at times is like an intoxicant. You are aware of your surroundings, you are lucid, but you are also comfortably numb. I have had this phrase with me since ages. Thats what you get when you hear Pink Floyd too early on in life. I knew the song since I was around 10, I guess. But the gist of the song came much later when I was in my mid 30s. My comfortably numb is a state of peace in a way and not a mildly disturbing song as sung by the Floyds. It's the closest I come to nirvana or tranquility. I like it because I don't do dumb or risky stuff in this state. Boredom is the state when I am the most dangerous surprisingly. Factors which help in my being comfortably numb is a stable job, standard routine, regular sleep pattern, no burning ambition to prove anything and the desire to lie low and hibernate, and lastly the feeling that you have been there, done that, many times over. I don't know for how long I will stay this way but I should make the most of it while it

Last night I dreamt of swimming in a kind of a small emerald green coloured water body or oasis arising from a spring. There was a group and the guide or some person was encouraging us to take a dip in the crystal clear water. No one seemed very keen to do so. I went ahead and just peeled off my T shirt and jeans, took a deep breath, and dived into the water. Due to the presence of a hot spring the water was warm, sweet and nice. I dove down and was amazed by it's glass like clarity. There were small fish swimmng all around of different shades. Sunrays being bounced around by the small ripples on top were dancing at the bottom which was light brown and wavy. It was just me in the water alongwith the fish and I felt as if I could stay down forever without ever needing to go up to breathe. I could feel the warm water gushing up from dark, large round vents at the bottom. The water was totally lighted up by the sunlight filtering through but the vents stood out with their dark blue

I don't write about pets as a rule, specially the younger one's as I feel that it puts some kind of a jinx on them. But with these two I am making an exception to the rule. These two as it is had an amazing journey in life so far. They were born to Furgie a couple of months back and were in a litter of four. Their mom made sure that they were delivered in an undisclosed location and I came to know only after she came back one day all slim 'n trim and ravenously hungry. She got them home when they were a month or so old and her daughter from the first litter, Soxie, joined hands (paws) with her to help raise the brood. So there were 6 cats in the house now. As cats move in mysterious ways, Furgie took her litter and disappeared one day with Soxie left high and dry. Soxie hung around the house for a few days and then went in search of them. Being familiar with the cat world she obviously tracked them down and got two kittens back. Pepper & Ginger. Soxie, after

For a person who loves his idleness and tries his best to be carefree I seem to be extremely busy all the time. How do people manage to run clinic, do volunteer/charity work or even read beats me. I am so sleepy by 10pm that someone would think that I had slaved in a stone quarry somewhere. Where do they get the time from? What do I do the whole day? Where does time go? Why don't I have enough of it? Just now the attendant in my department came and tied a rakhi to me! That was something I wasn't expecting and despite my general rapid response took me by surprise. Though I must say that she moved really fast and it was all done in 3 minutes flat. I am getting too soft. Damn it! There should be a SOP for such eventualities. I have to do something about the mental drifting. This year is taking way too long to get over. I feel as if I am slowly sliding done a mountain side, moving along with the slush and mud. It isn't harming me in any way and is all wet and gooey but nonet

I used to be a dog person. Had dogs throughout my life. Of all assorted sizes and breeds. But this blog is not about dogs. It is about cats and how they entered and influenced my life. We had a stray cat and kitten in Jammu who used to drop in now and then for scraps of food from the kitchen. They had this knack of appearing at lunch time and a cat with a pleading face is hard to resist. Even dogs do pleading expressions but the one a cat makes comes out of thousands of years of expertise. It is pretty hard to resist. At around the same time we got a german shepherd pup and though it played with the cats initially with time it grew big. A dog, even a huge full grown one imagines it to be still a puppy throughout it's life, and the cute games he used to play with them became almost like a game of death for the cats. So with that there came an end to the beautiful friendship much to the puzzlement of our dog, Carlo, and the cats disappeared. A few years back I started reading Mura

I have always struggled with the concept of god from a very early age. Surprisingly from what I recall I wasn't too god fearing as a kid. In fact I had more faith in science then I had in god. This must have been some where in 5th to 8th class and I distinctly remember telling my classmates in 6th or so that there is no god and one of them even complained to the class teacher! The little twerp. I remember it was in a hill station where we had a hut, Patni Top, that I got around to the existence of a supernatural benefactor. There was this small rectangular mound of stones with a mud thatch on top, around 4 feet high which I discovered in the coniferous forest by chance. Inside there was stone plaque with a 4 arms deity engraved. The face was disfigured or not carved too well so I couldn't make out whether it was a god or goddess. It was kind of my personal divine angel. It started in a relatively simple way, I asked for something trivial. it came true. So I presented a small

Silence is absolute Silence is omni present If there's death, there's life If there's life, there's hope If there's hope, there's survival If there's survival, there's birth If there's birth, there's a womb If there's womb, there's silence Inside Silence is absolute Silence is forgiving If there's darkness, there's light If there's light, there's day If there's day, there's night If there's night, there's loneliness If there's loneliness, there's sadness If there's sadness, there's silence Inside Silence is absolute Silence is punishing If there's peace, there's war If there's war, there's strife If there's strife, there's violence If there's violence, there's fatalities If there's fatalities, there's death If there's death, there's silence Inside Silence is absolute Silence is despair If there's meeting, there&

The other day on my way to the college I saw this middle aged couple walking up the rather steep incline of a fly over. Both of them were thin and a bit worn out by the daily struggle of survival that the poor have to go through in our country. The husband was walking ahead and the wife dutifully followed a few steps behind with her head and face covered with the palo of her saari. Though it was around 10am, but it was already pretty hot in the sun. Now the part which caught my attention was a dog. A thin brown, around 6 months old dog. The husband was walking briskly with the dog tucked up under his right arm. I didn't notice anything wrong with the mutt. Infact it was all grins, panting away nicely in the heat and seemed pretty happy with the arrangement. I used to assume that love for animals is a hobby of the rich and the poor have a rather practical, symbiotic relationship with the livestock they keep. But this man with his dog in his arms turned that theory around. To kee

This is all it takes to make me happy. A room with this kind of authentic, unique, and original light. It's there in my room in this hotel room in Kathmandu and I love it! So local, so rural, so different from the ubiquitous hotel rooms you see all over. Totally chillad, totally happy.

This is a kind of misleading title because it has got nothing much to do with the guru guy but because it ended with him that is what I remember most distinctly. The dream starts with me roaming around in Jammu on foot. I come across some police officials hanging around a parking lot chatting. There this one senior official, probably a DIG, is bitching about the new DGP, and how unreasonable he is to his junior colleagues. They get some message on the wireless and they all rush towards the police headquarters in a convoy of white ambassadors and gypsys.I for whatever reason follow them. How? I have no clue as from what I remember I had no transport or money and the place I have to go to is at the top of a hill with a very steep approach road. There a police annual day or fair kind of thing is going on with school kids performing, police march past and a 21 gun salute with some kind of mini canons. After the event gets over I am on my way out and meet the school kids psycho therapist

As Victor Hugo once said "To think of Shadow is a serious thing." What is a Shadow? Is it an extension of your soul? Is it the dark representation of your purer side? Or is it just a mirage, a fiction, a figment of your imagination? An illusion which you start believing in? Or is the Shadow, the one you take for granted till the time it's around. You see it next to you all the time, you are comforted by it's presence, it reassures you, it stands by you no matter what and yet at times due to it's intimate presence you even forget that it exists. If at a metaphorical level you imagine a day as a lifetime or a period in your life then your Shadow is there with you for the better part of the day, around you, with you, and constantly in touch. During noon time, which can be taken as your peak you lose sight of it and shine in the spot light, the glory of the overhead sun. The Shadow is at it's closest, just below you, but you are blinded by the sun and the brig

This post is a bit late. I have been meaning to write it ever since I visited the state but just didn't get about doing so. There is something about that state and it's people. From the minute you get on the train from Delhi the vibrancy, positivity and buoyancy of the co-passengers hits you. Specially when you compare it with the somewhat sullen and slightly malnourished variety you come across in trains traveling to the Hindi heartland. Or the serious, silent, subdued and very disciplined kind you come across down South. Even for a train starting at 11pm there was so much energy and positive vibrations that you can't help but get affected by it. Everyone is helping everyone and food is being passed all around, even if you have met for the first time. The degree of hospitality one comes across is pretty amazing specially when you have been an inspector/examiner since long, are pretty cynical and have been numbed by the usual pretense of welcome you see everywhere. How

Only once in your life, I truly believe, you find someone who can completely turn your world around. You tell them things that you’ve never shared with another soul and they absorb everything you say and actually want to hear more. You share hopes for the future, dreams that will never come true, goals that were never achieved and the many disappointments life has thrown at you. When something wonderful happens, you can’t wait to tell them about it, knowing they will share in your excitement. They are not embarrassed to cry with you when you are hurting or laugh with you when you make a fool of yourself. Never do they hurt your feelings or make you feel like you are not good enough, but rather they build you up and show you the things about yourself that make you special and even beautiful. There is never any pressure, jealousy or competition but only a quiet calmness when they are around. You can be yourself and not worry about what they will think of you because they love you for

One on the laptop and the other engrossed in a vernacular newspaper. Bengali couple with a 5 year old boy on the side berth. A guy working in DHL on the top berth and staying in Gomti Nagar like me. A lady two young boys on the other upper berth. Cross section of Indian middle class. I do have a lot of spare time at hand in this train journey. Now I am hungry. Oops! The pic is upside down.....

I need some sleep You can't go on like this I try counting sheep But there's one I always miss Everyone says, I am getting down to low Everyone says, you just gotta let it go... I need some sleep Time to put the old horse down I am in too deep And the wheels keep spinning round Everyone says, I am getting down to low Everyone says, you just gotta let it go...

I wonder how I am perceived as an external examiner. I feel that I am pretty relentless and go after the poor guys with a hammer amd tong. Today I wasn't even the senior most but I just took charge and went for it in IDS Bareilly. I am incisive, I am wicked and I am the worst when I start asking questions in hindi. You can really let it roll in that language. I don't believe in free lunches. If you are going to get your Masters you will have to earn it. A few tears and a certain amount of personal humiliation is the price is you gotta pay. I am mean!

The other day I was thinking about this city and one fact struck me, and that is till date I haven't come across anyone from Delhi Delhi. That means someone whose past generations have been in Delhi for forevet. I am not talking about going back to 6th BC or anything but even a century will suffice. Khushwant Singh's father must be the earliest settler I know. From what I remember he had some role in construction of Lutyen's Delhi. That must be somewhere in 1930s. All the people I know have come here from some where else. Punjabis forming a major chunk and almost everyone's forefathers were from Pakistan. The way they say it is as if it's some kind of an achievement or something to boast about. Trust a Delhite to turn the most inane of things into something to brag about. Seeing how many times the city has been pillaged, ransacked and it's whole male population decimated the chances are that the oldest specimen would be some poor muslim in the by lanes of O

Things I learnt on an auto ride in Delhi: - How to fleece the travelers and how much to charge from people at different times. And how to make all those passengers thank you for various reasons at the end of the ride. - How Railway stations are ruled by Taxi drivers and they lay down the rules. And how and where to get back at them - How foreigners used to be golden hens but now are sharper and savorier. So how to tackle them. Trick is to learn a few key words of english - How autos in Delhi have to be driven by the owners themselves. They used to be for 6.2 lakhs before! - How to smuggle auto chassis from NOIDA and sell it in black market in Delhi. An auto costs 1.6 lakhs plus 10 grands for interiors. - How to get humongous tips for getting passengers to the hotel of your choice - How to spot couples making out in autos and what advice to give them. - How to make special deliveries for romancing pairs where the guy will pay him in advance for dropping the girl home. - H

Traveling by train in India makes you realise how constant the landscape seems to be everywhere you go. Maybe around 80-90% seems to be the same. Whether it's near Hapur or Hubli. Kind of reassuring. Something homely, something familiar, something you have been seeing since forever. Like the moon. Sun changes it's characteristics with weather. Moon is moon, half quarter or full. Travelling by train is almost like a homecoming of sorts by now for me. I travel that much. Have to write something about this love of the railroads someday.

Spring in the plains are a short affair. Maybe a couple of weeks or 10 days max, before the full onslaught of harsh, cruel summers. This time for once we have prolonged spring after a phase of prolonged winters where temperatures touched an all time low. Creepers are bursting with flowers and you even have tiny yellow ones blooming in hordes on the road side. I had seen this sight only on the mountain roads before. Temperatures are down, the breeze is blowing, flowers are at their best and birds are chirping like never before. Aah! Spring....... P.S.: Have to get bird seeds for the sparrows today.

There's school right across the window of my chamber where they play this number almost every morning nowadays. And it usually it plays on "repeat" so it must be pretty popular with the kids. I was a bit mystified at first about the fact that who was playing this song on full blast on their speaker system. Then I spotted kids in full school uniform dancing on it in the school courtyard. Must be some kind of a new age exercise regime. Jo bhi hai, I love it! Nothing like a good Chinta ta ta Chita Chita to pep you up early in the morning :-D

So here I am walking Suzana outside just a few minutes back. And the two cats, Furgie and Soxie come along for company. As we reach our place there's this big white dog, around 3-4 years old, standing outside our gate. I shoo the dog, Suzana gives a mock charge, and then from nowhere there's a buzz of fur zips pass me and then Suzana......... It's not a plane, it's not a shooting star..................it's Furgie to the rescue! In one single motion she leaps on dog's back and bites it! I am stunned Suzana is zapped And the poor dog runs 100 meters at top pace yelping for it's life. So now I have a dog that only barks And a cat that just bites! "Killer Kombo"

Both deliver on the same day, i.e. today, 12th of March. Ven, her son, second child after a daughter. Van, twins, a son & daughter. Seemed like Dwd re-visited to me. Tamil eelam forever! Side by side it's also Afshan & Auntys b'day today. This should be taken as the biggest proof of how bogus astrology truly is. 12th of March. Huh! What a date.

It was a warm day, the first one after months of cold and a spell of rain. Sunny, bright and a bit dusty. 4th of March, Chotti's b'day. As I rode up to Shaheed path it was surprisingly empty. I was on Thunder Bird, oblivious to the events unfolding just minutes ahead. I reach the straight long stretch near Ansal's Golf City and there's just me on the road at that time of around 3:20. Far in the distance on my side of the road I see a white Tata Magic carrier standing on the side of the road at the left curb. A man is underneath it. I assume repairing some fault in the machine. As I move closer I see that both the doors of the carrier are open. By now I am pretty intrigued by the whole thing. A bit uneasy. A bit apprehensive. And then I get close to the Magic. I see a bicycle underneath it, right between the fron and back wheels. And then there is the poor guy. Old. Dark. In white. Dead... Lying all alone, the occupants of the Magic on a run and his blood jus

There are good days, bad days and days when time just comes down to a crawl. All those theories of time is relative anecdotes come to your mind at that instance. I think I need something to think about to make time pass. Not in the mood for anything bugging, just something pleasant to think about. Or I can just go home. I need a distraction, a diversion. something to chew upon in my head.

I am back on Blogger after ages. This time from a new place, a new tablet. Not one of the best days to write as my mood is really not in it. Just wanted to see if the blogging thing will work from this place. Spring is the season for rejuvenation so I should make use of it and get back to my writing. Lets see if this goes.