Rants due to the distresses of a vacation

Catching up with friends of the yonder has become a tedious job now. Suddenly I have to put up with monosyllabic replies from those who used to talk loquaciously (at least not the extreme of being monosyllabic).
What is it that has changed?

1. Is it me?
   
2. Is it my attitude?
3. Is it the whole deal?

This is the conversation that typically happens -
Me/Them - How are you?
Them/Me
(If the reply is "hmmm ... fine", there it goes for a toss and forget catching up)
This is a typical defensive reply implying "I am okay and do not wish to divulge/share the details of my own life".
This reply can be delayed by deliberate additions of "Who are you", "What are you doing here", "Long time yaar" etc etc.
Me/Them - How is work?
(Again if the reply is "hmmm .. fine", it means that yet another thread for opening a conversation is lost. I don't try and neither do they)

Lessons learnt -

1. Catching up means like a cultivation. Without the regular watering and tilling, the soil won't produce cauliflowers (a flower, still)
2. If you have not caught up, try as soon as possible. But in my case, my conversations have dried up and I have not picked up the skills of how to keep a conversation fertile.
   
3. I have lost and have stopped catching up. I always see the same question in my mind - "On what pretext should I talk? What do I speak with them?"
4. Friendship is an effort and distance not only separates them but also their lives, from me. There is always an implicit need to keep that connection with their lives. Once the connection is lost, all such conversations become superficial and baseless without the "masala" that I used to share.
   
5. Friendship can become a chore more often than not it can become a useless chore.

All throughout I just remember one song that has pestered me long enough. Verbatim copy of lyrics, now make much more sense now.

Champagne Supernova / Oasis

How many special people change
How many lives are living strange
Where were you when we were getting high?
Slowly walking down the hall
Faster than a cannon ball
Where were you while we were getting high?

Some day you will find me
Caught beneath the landslide
In a champagne supernova in the sky
Some day you will find me
Caught beneath the landslide
In a champagne supernova
A champagne supernova in the sky

Wake up the dawn and ask her why
A dreamer dreams she never dies
Wipe that tear away now from your eye
Slowly walking down the hall
Faster than a cannon ball
Where were you when we were getting high?

Some day you will find me
Caught beneath the landslide
In a champagne supernova in the sky
Some day you will find me
Caught beneath the landslide
In a champagne supernova
A champagne supernova in the sky

Cos people believe that they're
Gonna get away for the summer
But you and I, we live and die
The world's still spinning round
We don't know why
Why, why, why, why

How many special people change
How many lives are living strange
Where were you when we were getting high?
Slowly walking down the hall
Faster than a cannon ball
Where were you while we were getting high?

Some day you will find me
Caught beneath the landslide
In a champagne supernova in the sky
Some day you will find me
Caught beneath the landslide
In a champagne supernova
A champagne supernova in the sky

Cos people believe that they're
Gonna get away for the summer
But you and I, we live and die
The world's still spinning round
We don't know why
Why, why, why, why

How many special people change
How many lives are living strange
Where were you when we were getting high?
We were getting high
We were getting high
We were getting high
We were getting high

Rants of the misguided nature

Days before the election day in Bangalore a billboard on the road exclaims -
"YOU are the reason why we are ashamed of ourselves. Change that and don't forget to vote this time"

Excuse me, I am the reason why some crapbag is ashamed of himself. Much fun came along. Perhaps they meant that we should be ashamed of ourselves for constituting such a lackadaisical political setup. That is why we should go ahead and vote and constitute an incrementally better setup this time.

But am I offended, yes. Everytime I see this billboard. Gosh my english sucks.

Fights of logic in a vacation

Scene - 1
Vacationing in Sringeri (a Jyotirmath) and on a dip in the nearby river of Tunga.
Scene - 2
Perfectly undressed (with the undergarments on, I mean) man jumps for the water with shampoo on his hands, waiting to be applied on his head.
Scene - 3
Lets call the man, TM (troublemaker). TM's wife (TMW) calls out loud in an endearing tone (for her husband) which more than reveals a fear inside (of the guard sitting beside) and says

TMW - TMji don't use shampoo or soap, otherwise the guard will do some galatta (create a scene)
TM - No it does not matter (and rinses his hair and his action is perfectly coordinated with the movement of the guard's neck away from the river)

Me - Sir, please don't do that. Like you there are zillions, like me, who like to and love to take a holy dip in these waters (and do their pujas etc).
TM - How much difference (damage he should have said) can the amount of shampoo, on my head, can make?
Me - (Boom, baah, bust) I mumble. Can I say that the 8 grams of shampoo on your head causes a damage of Rs. 1000 worth of aquatic life.

Lessons learnt -

1. Economics - Had it worked?
   
2. People - Only driven by fear, ruckus and not logic.
   
3. Education - My education is not helping me and most importantly his education is not making him aware as well.
   

What the heck?

Linguistic overtures ...

Quirky, related? Yes the words in English !!!
Gateway = Getaway

On a completely unrelated note, a quote that I coined yesterday which had been on my mind for long. I can't prove but an empirical study on me reveals so -
"Success of any education is a direct measure of confusion that it creates."
So long as I did not know why did I pay so much for a popcorn in a multiplex, I paid. But now I know it is due to couple of factors -
1. Simple economics - demand and supply - Inelastic demand. (Is it right? I doubt)
2. Marketing - Discriminatory pricing, fleecing the customer.

A good education just widens the ways and angles in which your mind can roam. It gives structure but it also gives you so many roads and alleyways which you can now roam. Earlier there would have been the way, only one way or you thought there existed only one way which was the right one.

Sometimes...

Sometimes its just the music in your head that you don't need anything to sway.
Sometimes you can just float in the crescendo inside that takes your breath away.

Sometimes its not the lights and the water that tell.
Sometimes its just the reflection beneath that come alive and your eyes are swell.

Sometimes its not the outside that tears you apart.
Its just the inside which holds you apart.

Sometimes its just ....
you are good, you are bad.

Sometimes its just ....
you are ugly, you are beautiful.

But still its just ....
you want to be with a feeling of someone
who feels that the sunshine still comes up your arse :-)

Sometimes
Its just
plain
and
its just
you.

And before this moment of light dies,
I want to be my own sunshine, not someone else's.

The inspiration -

Talking about "IT", getting miffed and finally pissed!!!!

Apparently "Crossword" does not have a tab for searching books and I was miffed. When I tried to Landmark this is what I got -


I am pissed. The website was devoid of any eye-sore but this is not even an eye-sore. IT miffed and pissed. This is what I was searching for -Nytimes recommends it here.
Amitava Kumar recommends it here.
Marginal Revolution's post here.
Finally TED's post here.

All this while my bated breath dies out looking at the alien oriental font tracked from Landmark to Sify. Phew !!! I wait to pounce on it.

Movie today !!

There are some feelings that rush up inside you when specific things happen. Today, while opening the first pages of "On Beauty" by Zadie Smith, some thing happened. I guess it is the bliss of first few pages of a book, when you are off reading for eons. Worded descriptions became beautiful visual treats and at once I felt I was back, in my elements, enjoying the word-play of the author and revelling in it, yes that's the right word "revel".

The movie ended, and "the bluest eyes in Texas" is still roaming somewhere in my damn head playing on and on. The effect is the total incapability of emotions that strike you after a "breaking" experience, that sometimes, movies can be. Emoting is taken for granted, well I felt today, no you can lose that, ineffable, that's the right word. The lump in your throat lingers on and on and on, and refuses to let go.

Now showing - Never see, but once seen you will never forget!!!!
With "Bluest eyes in Texas - By Nina Person/ Nathan Larson

Movie today !!

Not a movie by any stretch. A ride in damned hell for sure. See it for yourself and see if you can pass the night sleeping. I don't care to say no more.

Now showing -

Linguistic Overtures

English language quirks, mathematically speaking.
Intim"id"ate - Intimate = " ID ", coincidence or Freud coined these words.

Movie today !!

Self referential dialogues, add to that a father who defends cigarettes and tries to be the "role-model" for his son, phew!!! I would say tough job and definitely principled negotiation turned on its head!!! Let me make my point on self-referential dialogues - clear (like GNU!!!).

Nick Naylor (NN): What about lobbyists? (in a lecture to 3rd graders)
Kids: What do you talk about?
NN:I speak on behalf of cigarettes.
Kid:My mom used to smoke, she says cigarettes kill!!!
NN goes on to refute the kid's argument by saying that her mom is not an expert, then he says -
NN:There will always be people trying to tell you "what to do" and "what to think". I am here to say that when someone tries to act like some sort of an expert, you can respond "who says".

Now this response undermines the authority and hence the dialogue. But imagine if these kids respond "who says" and that's where GNU comes in, for information GNU is self referential - GNU Not Unix. Anyway I am high on gas, enjoy this piece of great film making.

Now showing

Movie today !!

Style, independent film, perfect cast and direction they say. I say stylish, dunno much about direction, positional bargaining (eeks!!!) and "Either its my way or the highway". Now do I need to say more?

Now showing -

Movie today !!

Well, strange homecoming, with all those "i-had-left-them" friends who keep waiting for you and ever be the faithful one. Add to that lingering tracks - sample them
1. In the waiting line - Zero7
2. Don't Panic - Coldplay
3.Love will come through - Travis

Well, nostalgia for out-boarders, reminiscent and reminded me of home, friends and forgetting and remembering that I have forgotten.

Now showing -

Movie today !!

One day down from ++2007 and a tepid movie with some real mind-bending soundtracks like Alanis Morissette, Sarah McLachlan. Glittering eyes, Ernest Hemingway, some real nice dialogues, but forget the movie listen to the following -
1. Angel - Sarah McLachlan
2. Iris - Goo Goo Dolls
3. If god will send his angels - U2
4. Uninvited - Alanis Morissette

Now showing -

Movie today !!

Exams screwing around and new year that just meant, in programming terminology, ++year. To add to that all and sundry sending mail and for-what-I do-not-know wishing everyone. Anyways movies and romantic it is.
A Good Year - bond yields, overworked MBA life's post-cursor and a cute french femme to top it all. See once - forget later.
Now showing -

Movie today !!

He wants to die and you wonder, why does suicide need more than a person, other than the self-perpetrator. The movie is a story of a Sisyphus, the mythical man who does his job only to lose it all at the top and start all over again. By the end it is the viewer has the responsibility to decide whether Mr. Badii is a sisyphus or not.
Mr. Badii sits in a mountain-esque setting, all alone, with sounds of excavators and dumpings all around. Just him and these sounds, a very profound scene, if you can figure it.

Now showing - My first Iranian movie - Thanks Saurabh.

Movie today !!

The man, the voice, the void and the end!!! His profligacy and his popularity were of the extremes. The problem with not liking this movie is many fold. After all the more uncertain the character is the more certain is his demise. All great things come in small quanta. In retrospect I wonder whether had he been alive, would it have made the difference. Try to prove it, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, Kurt have one thing in common. The number 27, go figure.

Expressions like demi-god seem like compromise. He talks of limitlessness and freedom yet the next moment he seeks a hand. He talks of Oedipus, 1984 seems to be written for this song. I am losing myself in “the end” and so whatever may everyone say, The Doors is good, sad, limitless yet constrained by the rule of 27.

“I am the poet and you are my muse” lying in Pere-Lachaise.

Now showing

Movie today !!

A meditative study on individual / group behaviour, negotiation schemes, personality types, and the definition of reasonable doubt.
Now showing

Movie today !!

Bang!! Bang!! Bang!! ... "Ha Ha Ha Ha" - Li'l Dice after his first kill and a fatal grin!! Reminded me of that "ultra violence" and "clockwork orange". After seeing so many "bloody" movies even I have been normalised by violence. Showing violence does not seem to offer that "tense" moments that reveal the vulnerability of the character, to me. So I search for the subplots and the context, and damn the same old zero-sum game, the same vicious circle is what I see.

Damn the normalcy of violence. Some days before I met an ACP here, she also seems "normalised" by violence. "Abhi ek threat aaya", she said with a grin on her face, and her eyebrows in constricted "tension".

Now showing - real story of the favelas, Li'l Dice nee Li'l Z and Buscape, por favore !!!

Movie today !!

"I think dad is having me in my dreams" - A daughter
Disturbing, yet evoking no comments as revealed in a "Festen". Thanks Saurabh !!!

Now Showing Dogme95 style

Movie today !!

Who watches those who are watching and those are who are watching know that they are being watched? Surveillance is a zero sum game by above and our innate scepticism.
-- "The Departed".

Now showing -