What have I become?

Blog Spasm

There might be a few things which fascinate you in life and hence motivate you to wait for the next day before you sleep. Pray for it to come soon so that you can embark on another eventful day.

Would that be a complicated day ?
Does an eventful day have to be related to complications ?

As it is said people do want a simple life and want to live freely and in a land of peaceful bliss. But then what.
Consider you have all that you want. Lying near the beach just relaxing and knowing you have to do nothing to earn money or respect. You're full of it. You run out of challenges...then what?


- Random Thought after a long time

Had to post something to keep this blog alive.

The Last Snore Bender

There are times when life's decisions are to be made with pure impulse and instinct. When that gut feeling exudes from your solar plexus with the feeling of pure conviction. That split second thought in your head and your decisions are made. The right ones.
Then it happened.
The Last Airbender!

If anyone asked you to describe the experience of watching this movie you'd stammer your ass off since it is then that you realize you feel the complete lack of a knowledge of the sheer number of expletives you might need to verbalize your feelings. In a nutshell it's like being told by the oracle that you're the chosen one, and hence you're all happy and dandy walking down merry street. When suddenly she calls you up and adds an important fact that you're the chosen one to be taekwando flying kicked by 37 red assed baboons who are wearing spiked heels on their new shoes while kicking you in the balls. Oh, and plus you're naked. That's when you tell the oracle what to shove up where.
The only difference here is that there was no oracle. The kicks to balls were much of a surprise.

When last year the promos for the movie came out, I was in awe. I waited like a 16 year old twilight fan who waits for edward cullen to sneeze in her general direction just to share something 'personal and intimate'. That's when the posters and the trailer/teasers looked compelling.

Now how cool is that!

The story is based on a popular nickelodeon series named Avatar:The Last Airbender. Now since Mr.Night Shyamalan knew he'd be thrashed big time if he went head to butt with James Cameron for his monster 3-D epic, he removed the 'Avatar' from the title and thus saved himself from a T-1000 attack.

If it is any consolation to you, even jake sully found the movie repulsive.

Jake Sully's reaction on The Last Airbender

The story revolves around four nation Earth,Fire,Water and Air nations living in harmony till the...wait for it....THE FIRE NATION screwed things up. Some shit about the spirit world and this world and that world. I'm sorry but I couldn't make out from the people snoring in the theater. Hence people need the airbender called the avatar, who can bend all four elements. He is thawed out from a 100 year cryogenic slumber by a water chic who can 'bend' water and the comic(?) sidekick dude. Now the trio stir shit up freeing people from the enslaved fire colonies because they want to restore balance to the world, save the rainforest or some such shit.

[Interjecting comment:
Q. How did people know Katara(the water chic) was pregnant when she was bending water?
A. Her Water Broke!
]

Now the avatar kid hasn't done his training yet. So he needs to learn how to bend earth,fire and water too. The Fire nation don't like that so much. Coz that would lead them to this :



Fire, Air and Water...check. Guys I need some earth now please!

So the fire nation wants to stop the kid now and bag him so they figh. Blah Blah. The spirit is killed...love is sacrifice shit...i have no clue. I think they could've finished the movie a bit earlier by introducing captain planet fucking shit up and teaching you about proper garbage disposal and recycling.


The guy who made me was seriously color blind!

Still if you do plan to watch the movie I would suggest you watch the 'deadly tape' from The Ring. At least you get a 7 day notice. Hence that relatively would be a slower death than The Last Airbender.

I leave you with Haley Joel Osment's famous words on watching the Last Airbender:


I see dead people...but it's better than watching this movie!

20 seconds

When there’s a gun pointing to your head, you realize how meaning springs into your life. A sense of predefined purpose which was lost in all the cacophony of living the life “they” wanted you to live. Can you still comprehend what the true desire is? Would you know what you and only you wanted to do in this life. Do those things that come purely from your own desires, without any influence from an outside force. Can you feel the individuality of your purpose?
When there’s a gun pointing to your head, do you feel the insides crack? You feel your arachnophobia or the agoraphobia is now invalid. You are embroiled in the totality of fear, ready to defend your own self from any pinprick of unseen circumstances. Fears melt down to one single existence. The perceptions change from a person who took life for granted to a person who feels the extreme importance in those imperceptible things, the ones that do not come within your definition of life. The little things you tend to miss out while compressing your life in a few flashes before your eyes.
When there’s a gun pointing to your head, what difference does it make? Your hollowed existence sticks out to scream at the insufficiency that you led till now. You never tasted life. You kept it on the side so that you can build and keep building more structure to your life, so that at the end of it all when you feel you have earned it…that’s when you indulge. But why wait when the reward is right in front of you? Why toil to earn it? Do we need to be awarded tokens of acknowledgment from what others think of us? Are we that dependent on others in shaping ourselves? We fail at living. Coz we forgot what it means. It’s now a memory beyond recall. Maybe.
When there’s a gun pointing to your head, whom do you think about the most? Do you think about the love that filled your vacuous existence? Do you think about the ones who loved you? But then why would you think of anyone but yourself. Why think about those who are soon going to be memories? To cushion the oncoming blow by the memories that you thought were “unconditional” and “pure”? Is it that hard to not see yourself reflecting on each one of your actions? To verify how unconditional they were and measure the magnitude of purity that was so obvious. It withers away. It’s not the cynicism, but the harsh reality that you can only be the one person. The one and the individual! Only one.
When there’s a gun pointing to your head, how many questions tend to…
“Done thinking?” The gunman smiled.
“I don’t…I….Not quite.” I stutter.
He slowly moves his hand with gun in his firm grip. His hand slides to his left still in the air. His sleeves flay in the violent wind that lashes the empty landscape. His eye twitches and the right corner of his mouth goes up to take the form of a malicious yet benign smile.
“Do you think this was a joke?” He yells. His face calm.
“I didn’t get the time to think about that.” I regain my ability to speak.
He takes a few steps back. The left hand was still in the air, with the gun pointing west.
His index finger touches the trigger. Even though he was far I could sense the pressure that he applied on the trigger. I could feel it as if it was me doing it. The weight of the gun was in my hand. The bullet that was lodged inside the gun was waiting. The pressure builds up. The trigger was not light. He had to bend his hand to add slow pressure to the finger. My elbow twitched. The trigger was suppressed, but only half way through. It was on the threshold of release. A door was to be opened. Freedom.
He clamped his teeth together with a look of intensity. My jaw was taut. There was an instinctive propensity to release the gun, but my hand shivered. He pointed it at me now. My hand was hovering near my head. The threshold was here. He was not. I was.
The pull was not hard. The gun was a trigger now.
Click.
Silent and Black. No vision. No tunnel.
Just a distant hum escalating as it came nearer. The Doppler.
The upsurge. The crescendo. The climax!
I fell. But I felt it. I felt the ground. All was black, but I still felt the ground.
I fell…and my left leg was the only part that was on the bed.

The Mallu Interview : Part I

[Recent Interview that might not have happened.]

Interviewer : So then how does it feel being a fraud mallu?

Me : Well, feels nice and dandy. * gleaming smile*

Int. : Ummmm...I was expecting something more actually.

Me : Well to be frank it's an oddly mixed feeling of an outsider coupled with the superiority complex of the fact that I come from a land where the literacy rate is more than 90%. *smug smile*

Although the 'I come from a land...' storytelling startup line is highly irrelevant being born and brought up in the land of cotton/groundnut/'dry freakin state' called Gujarat. And as my only

links to the land of coconuts/backwaters/shakeela are my intermittent yearly commutes to meet my relatives down under. south.

But still, as Charles Unnigopalakrishnan Darwin once stated the famous adage, "Once a mallu, always a mallu!". And hence here I am feeling like a mixed bred, something like a Dachshund, except for

the fact that I don't look like a sausage. But then you arrive at the definition of what a quintessential mallu is like. Since the non mallu demographic would answer that with a mild ramble on the

stereotypical qualities such as a person who is dark,has weird springy hair,pronounces the word M as 'yem'...so on and so forth. But then I would warn people to not to fall into those misleading

and gross assumptions which are mainly targeted at various people for the functioning of this...

Int. : Thank you sir.

Me : But I was ...

Int : Moving on. Did you ever feel out of place living outside of Kerala?

Me : No. Nein. Nae. On the contrary, the instances where I have felt most out of place have been in Mallu land itself. But that is because of the fact that people expect me to be a true mallu over

there and hence that load of expectations makes me self conscious and ergo, makes me feel out of place. But to think of it, there have been times when the gujju populous had dumped me due to my

being from an other state. It might seem primitive, well yes...but this was way back when I was 8 and I was doing these convulsing retarded dance steps at a garba thingy. The mocking laughter that

my gujju compatriots were thoroughly involved in was met by my uttering the defeated war cry 'Amma!'. Talk about sticking out like a sore thumb. *laughs ostentatiously*.
But all in all, I couldn't think of a better place to be in. Except maybe the Bahamas...or Switzerland...or Paris...or Alaska...

Int. : Being a Malayalee yourself, do you tend to mingle more with other Malayalee's? How is the interaction like ?

Me : In a way I have never thought about this much. I never think, 'Hey this guy/girl seems to be a mallu, lets go talk to him/her loudly in Malayalam'. No. I don't do that...and most mallu's

don't. Fraud mallu's that is. Unlike Bongs and the Reddy's we(Fraud mallu's) don't seem to be all that comfortable with our own language that much. Not that it doesn't sound good and all. Ok maybe

it doesn't sound all that great. Not like it's french or something...but still fraud mallus have those parasitic qualities of blending with the host rather seamlessly.
Ok that was a bit of an exaggeration.
That language itself is pretty extensive and confusing. Hence people's 'Teach Me Malayalam like right now' requests are often met with teaching 'What's your name?' in malayalam and leaving it at

that or yelling, "IT HAS 53 LETTERS MAN! WHAT DO YOU EXPECT??".
But my observations have been that most Fraud mallu's turn out to be in those elite classes of people. People such as... *wink wink*

Int. : How was your childhood affected?

Me : Oh! I was slashed with whips everyday by non mallu people and then I was frequently thrown out of schools. I was going to be fed to the sharks at a point by my teachers...well in short, that

is one freakin dumb question!

Int. : A recent article states that Kerala scores the highest alcohol consumption among all other states in India, what are you thoughts on that?

Me : Oh damn! Seriously? Well being in a dry state this is something that...oh god...alcohol...consumption...ummm...do you by any chance happen to have some with you, like right now?

Int. : I beg your pardon?

Me : Ahhh! Nevermind. Well as such, alcohol is a really precious and rare commodity. It's a dry freakin' state man. Ok in some ways that is good. We don't have drunks lying around on the road at

like 7 in the evening. The womenfolk are safe to roam the roads. People here start and end a fight by just pointing fingers at each other. Ummm...well people might call it a sissy place, but hey

it's home right?

Int. : And what about the alcohol, sir?

Me : Appy fizz. Mind over matter. Hope you get it.

Int. : We'll take a short break then?

Me : Certainly!

Cure

There are days when things aren't going your way.
There have been such days.
Yesterday wasn't one. But that doesn't mean it doesn't matter.
Although yesterday was tiring. In what way?
Hmmm...well I have been pretty social, those are from my poor standards so that might not come up to the collective standards of social-'ness'.
But then I had to roam around pleasing people from every hang out invites. And hence the wandering nomad was 'busy'.
Felt drained at the end of the day. A bit strung out in a way.

I reach home.
Slouch on the big leather cushion that was my sofa.
Making random contemplative thoughts in my head in order to keep it busy from the withdrawal symptoms of being suddenly idle.
That sudden emptiness strikes you then.

The thing that happens at the end of a big event. Yes it is technically a withdrawal syndrome of a euphoria of a passing event.
Like goin on a trip with friends for the weekend and then suddenly getting back to work on a monday.
That feeling.

What could be the cure?
I am no Doctor Phil, but then a voice from a kitchen beckoned me.
An invitation to the dinner table.
And there it was. The cure, on the table.
No ayurveda. No homeopathy. No allopathy.
Three words: Mom made Spaghetti.

And that was it. The joy was back in my eyes.
(I think a tear rolled past my cheek).
And I was jumping like a six year old who got the remote controlled car he wished for.

Minutes later I was wiping the plate clean (which is considered pretty rude in China, or so I have read)...the foodie high was on.

-
Spaghetti Junkie

Shopping and the art of standing like a coat rack

So there I was, in the womens section for ethnic wear. Staring at all shapes and colors of cloth cutouts designed to look whatever their definition of "ethnic" was. My sister was in the trial room for what seemed like hours to me, or probably somewhere down the line my idleness was so causal that it tore through the fabric of space-time creating a localized worm hole thus trapping me in a time loop of painstaking idleness.

All my idleness didn't go in complete vain though. I was proud to learn a thing about myself - I have PATIENCE! Although I don't know the collective magnitude of what and how much of patience justifies the word to be written in caps...but hey, I do have it.

The thing is I had to play the role of the faithful driver for my sis who has a deadline for her shopping dates and items. I prefer chauffeur...no wait...I prefer being called the transporter. Gives me that Jason Statham-esque Mercedes driving image kicking some ass on the way.

Which is the exact opposite of what I'm doing right now.

Now one thing I noticed is how women shop. When when you see a woman shop...you realize that men don't actually shop. They pick up stuff. Shopping is this whole art consisting of various sub branches and psychological nuances and all sorts of meticulous data you can put in. And my sister is not a woman when it's shop time. She has the masculine ability of getting bored while shopping...and that too within the initial few minutes. Although this would go in the 'pros' list when it comes to me being the 'transporter'...her methodical perseverance and dedication is a total let down thats scrawled all over the 'cons' list.

The following observations are on the various women I have observed shopping while standing like a dork in the ladies section.

-Women come.

-Go through all the sections once.

-Think about all the sections.

-Think about what others would think about the clothes in those sections.

-Short list a few clothes in order to give some hope to the guy who works at the store.

-Shatter his hopes by rejecting all the clothes that the woman had just short listed in order to experiment on a fresh batch.

-Through this process the locations do change from one shop to another.

-There is no accurate finalization...only and approximation of what they think is close to perfection. This condition is highly dependent on whether they find the 'Ohthatdress!'.

(The 'Ohthatdress!' usually occurs when women spot some dress which is something that they were predetermined about since it would have been worn by someone else such as a friend or a celebrity...or some influential woman)

-After the process which spans a few hours that casualty report might consist of only a handful of or no particular clothing. (If the budget is not an issue the woman might come out with bags weighing more than the woman herself). [m_woman>m_{bags when tcurrent time>>tsaturation]}

[note:1. This is a vast field of study, my points are a crude generalization of my own observations.

2. These points are strictly limited to shopping of clothing, things like cosmetics and perfumes require yet another flow chart though the process remains somewhat the same.]

The pick it up men method :

-Go to shop.

-Go through all/most/very little of the stuff once.

-Decide on the basis of budget first, then liking.

-Pick it up.

Finish.

It may seem I'm being violently sexist here, but I condemn none of the methods. Both are equally bad in a way. One is too meticulous and the other has the complete lack of it.

There has to be some fine balance.

Hence my conclusion is if you go to shop...go with a gay dude. That's a balance.