I used to ride to school on my elephant

I just finished playing a marathon session of Civilization 4. I first started playing civ about nine years back. Civ 2 was what i stared with. Then went back to civ 1, and then moved to 3 and now 4. Now coming to what this is really about: In civs 1,2 and 3 the special unit for India was the elephant. The only thing those game designers knew about India was that we have elephants here. Also the Americans were what you called Industrious - enabling them to build roads etc much fastr.
Come civ 4, all that has changed. In civ 4 the American advantage is gone.
And surprise surprise - The Indian special unit is something called the Fast Worker. A worker who can mover faster and work faster than all the other normal worker units in the game. Now thats how far the BPO revolution has reached into the western psyche. I am sure all future science fiction movies will feature not only the customary hispanic, black, woman etc but also a back office operator who will book the tickets etc, process credit card transactions, maybe even a new super hero - BPO girl or Call centre Man..


Of course on a personal front the reason I have started posting again is kind of sad, but just for now its time for an Ode to Joy.

And Shine

I just wrote this long post and was almost done when this stupid machine in the Internet Cafe decided to restart it self.
Have 20 porn channels to choose from
I have a microsoft keyboard to prop up my mortal reamins
I have a strong urge to blog, but i have nothing to blog about

Well to explain things i just came to Sharjah. Landed in Duabi airport day before yesterday. Mainly came to meet up with one of my old friends, have some fun and maybe improve my personal/professional life.
So far have done 2 out of 4.
Gottto go now. Internect centre is charging in dirhams

And Shine

I just wrote this long post and was almost done when this stupid machine in the Internet Cafe decided to restart it self.
Have 20 porn channels to choose from
I have a microsoft keyboard to prop up my mortal reamins
I have a strong urge to blog, but i have nothing to blog about

Well to explain things i just came to Sharjah. Landed in Duabi airport day before yesterday. Mainly came to meet up with one of my old friends, have some fun and maybe improve my personal/professional life.
So far have done 2 out of 4.
Gottto go now. Internect centre is charging in dirhams

Starting New Blog

Chuchee and me are starting a new blog
This blog will of course continue to be updated by Phaedrus and me.
Am busy nowadays, so Phaedrus will blogging over the next few days.

Laughter the best medicine

I've been pretty busy the past few days, but can really blog what i've been upto. Instead just putting a link to some absolutely hilarious stuff i just came across. Its pretty old. So if you havent seen it before here you go
Hobbit Fancier's Diaries

Enjoii maadi.

Dreams, DDT and desperation

I wake up after a troubled nights sleep. Lots of things on my mind. Diversions to take my mid of Her. No chance. I dreamt of Her. This is the first time that I've actually dreamed about Her. It was'nt a Lucid dream. Or atleast this time I did'nt dresperately try to control the dream like i usually do. There was no pondy stuff. Just a group of us talking and she was there. I could'nt see her face, but i felt her presence. Then she was gone and the rest is hazy.
I walk up to the broken wash basin and try to wash away my drowsiness. The water smells of DDT. Everything stinks, everything is dead, and i can feel the posion getting inside me and destroying what's left of my innards. I wonder,.. if its just me or if the water is really got mixed in something.
My life seems to be like it's been sprayed with DDT.
But then again it could really be that evil dichloro-diphenyl-trichloroethane. Maybe some crazy guy thought he was doing everyone a favour by mixing DDT in the water supply so that people who did'nt buy odomos just have to sprinkle some water on them to stop the mosquitoes.
A song plays in the background
Nadiye Nadiye Kaadal Nadiye,....
Nadandaal AAru,..
Neerin Arumaiye Arivay...
Wonder how the poet would like it if i told him all his stupid water bodies were polluted with DDT, or maybe thats what he's trying to tell me.

"In animals, short-term exposure to large amounts of DDT in food affected the nervous system, while long-term exposure to smaller amounts affected the liver."
So its all the DDT you see. Not the booze!!!

But lost love to me is like DDT to a mosquito. What doesnt kill you only makes you stronger. I am still alive ergo I must be stronger. My biceps dont agree though.

The only thing more pathetic than a hopeless romantic chemical engineer is a hopeless romantic mba.
Me: Here's a SWOT analysis of you kid.
She: We'll always have Porter's framework, beedi.
No wonder she ended up with Victor.

And btw
Wiki Says : "DDT is a colourless crystalline substance which is practically insoluble in water but highly soluble in fats and most organic solvents."
So i guess its just me!!!

Karnataka Round Trip- Dhamasthala, Surathkal

Since I said goodbye to her I've been feeling a little lost. I switch on the tv, there's a song from Chandramuki running. Its about a tam guy falling for a beutiful gult girl. Bad Idea. Switch Channels. Animax. Nothing in Animax can remind me of her. Wrong again. Whats running looks just like the stuff she would have watched and liked. Not good. I switch off the tv and try to go to sleep. It's impossible. Finally I try a book. Vikram Seth's An Equal Music. Its nice, a love story but somehow gets my mind off her. Maybe because it reminds of other parts of my life. I decide to write about my Karnataka trip hoping that it will help. So here goes

After sunset at Agumbe we headed back to Sringeri using what is know asa cut service. Now in Chennai a cut service usually means it doesnt go the full distance. Example 1-Cut would end up at Adyar, instead of all the way to Thiruvanmayur. Thats a bad example but i havent been to chennai in a long time and have forgotten all the numbers. Anyway in South Canara and neighbouring places, a cut serivce would mean breaking up the journey into multiple legs. First leg was srigeri to some weird place where a brawl was about to happen. Unfortunately the local decent guys came and managed to stop the fight with one side agreeing to take up their issues with the police. From there a bus back to Sringeri. Uncle and I wanted to head back to the temple/mutt for the evening service, while the rest wanted dinner. So we split up. The temple was even better in the evening. Much quiter and fewer people. I sat down and just enjoyed the peace of the place. Uncle also did the same. After a while doing this, Uncle's stomach began to growl, so we had to leave. The mutt canteen(I am sure there's a better name for it) was closed so we had to hunt aroundd the town for a place to eat. Uncle found a slisha shady place, so i decided to pack the meal, and had the usual Marie biscuit, frooti dinner. Then the nightly UNO game, follwed by sleep.

Some things that people will never accept
1. That they are drunk
2. That they are nasty and aggressive and the most irritating
3. THAT THEY SNORE
Out of 6 guys in that room that night 3 were snoring. I found it a little difficult to sleep amidst all that racket, but after about half an hour the days activities caught up with me and i think i joined the other 3 in "sound" sleep.

Woke up the next morning feeling great. Had a quick bath and was ready for another day of fun. There's nothing more invigorating that a bath in cold water early in the morning. A quick breakfast and we were on the road. Cut service again, after a serious of Manjunatha, Hanuman, and such buses we ended up at Netravati, a place just outside Dharmasthala. This was supposed to be a good bathing spot, with an opportunity to bathe in the flowing river, Only there seem to be more used underwer floating in the water than anything else. Was this some new custom? Come to this place and donate your old underwear to recieve spiritual salvation. The river was supposed to be holy. Then i found the cause. The water was so dirty that the underwear covered the sruface and prevented you from realsing how diry the water was till you actually jumped in. No way I am bathing in that. Thank you.

The others have no such qualms. Theyo go on to bathe in the "river", and I am knighted Sir Beedi Gaurdian of Clothes and Hajmola. I take out a book about the Vijaynagar Empire and being reading it. It holds my attention till the guys come back all "bathed".
Time to go to Dharmasthala the temple of Manjunatheshwara. Its actually maintained by a Jain family. Talk about religious tolerance!!! By the time we got there, the sun was right above our heads and it was getting hot. After a long discussion, only uncle and I seemed to have the enthu to stand in the queue and get into the temple. The rest of the guys were more interested in peth pooja( I will be in gurgaon soon, so i am depserately trying to get my hindi upto speed). After a 2 hour long ordeal, involving a sries of queues and shoves we finall entered the inner reaches of the temple. It was well worth it. A must visit for the faithful. There are only three things that i look for in any temple. The architecture/sculpture and such stuuf, whether the temple gives me a feeling of peace, and the devotion that other people have. What truly amazed me at Dharmashtala was the innumberable number of people standing barefoot in the hot sun waiting to get in. They mallu style temple also looks awesome.
Once I came out of the temple, my feet began to hurt. I had been out in the sun barefoot and not felt much till i got in, but now that i was out i was begining to felt it bad. I looked down at the soles of my feet and they looked angrily back at me. I would'nt mind having pink feet but not like this. As i was carrying on a conversationg with my feet, Uncle had found out where the free food was and we hit it. Food was good( I was ravenous), served quick and efficiently and very much like one would expect at a free food place. Seemed a lot like some Langars I've been to except on a much bigger scale.
Then it was time to try and get to mangalore. We got one of those BMTC level buses, and had to travel in it for quite some time. As usual Bond was pissed of that i slept during the journey.
We arrived in Mangalore. On the way uncle told us that it had been about five years since he had been to mangalore. And for no reason he became a little nerovus evertime he saw a single mom with a young kid.
Uncle was desperate to leave the city and we boarded a reasonably comfortable bus to Surathkal.
Everyone had told me that Mangalore is the place for the best women/ice cream in India. In 30 minutes there I didnt have any ice cream, but based on my "dip stick" survey I am unable to reject the hypothesis that Mangalore women are more good looking than anywhere in India.
There are three hotels in Surathkal. So we took the third. Seemed decent. Changed to shorts and hit the beach. Surathkal has an awesome beach. We hit the water, had great fun dunking each other in the salty water. Uncle behaved his age and preferred to watch us kids playing. Then as the sun set the effect of the lighthouse kicked in. No light but from the lighthouse. No sound but the sound of waves. Good Stuff!! Good Stuff!!
Went back to hotel, bathed, cleaned sand out of every concievable place/ aticle of clothing, and headed to have dinner. As we ordered food we started talking.
Bond Said, "Beedi, you put max enthu at the temples, and max enthu at the beach as well, what's with you."
I replied, "I like temples, i enjoy them, i like beaches, i enjoy them too. I dont see any conflict, religion is also a nice way to have fun."
"You're wierd da beedi.". So what. I had my fun. Dinner was awesome and me and baada went for an after dinner walk. No one else seemed interested.

Good Bye

This is the customary psenti-i-am-leaving post.
I wonder why you even bother to read it. Surely you have graduated before. Surely you know what it is to move on in life, to leave behind old friends and strike out in the world hoping those you meet will be as good as those you have met.
Surely you have fallen in love knowing that it is hopeless. But even if it is hopeless you know how bad it feels to say good bye to the one you love, knowing that you may never see her again.

So i will have to say good bye to her today. I May never see her again. Maybe that's good in someways. It gives me a chance to move on. I dont really want that chance. I like it this way.

You're a big liar

I was just reading Wimpy's blog. Seems he crashed and burned last night. Well... since last night seems to have been a night for such things, I might as well take a break from the Karnataka Round trip to tell you about last night.

Sometime in the afternoon , Jakes came to my room to pick up his Asterix. We were generally talking and in the conversation I said, "No one takes me seriously on bracket". In his typical dry sarcastic style, Jakes retorted with, " You can leave out the On Bracket part of it". I suppose that was a portent of things to follow, but who is bothered with such things these days.

Then convo happened. Only good part was that i got my transcripts and my degree certificate. Got my diploma shook the guy's hand and slowly walked off stage.
And of course she was also there, dressed in a sari, looking like a statue from the Belur temple come to life. I don’t know why but i kind of ignored her.

I was somehow trying to get into that feeling of nostalgia etc etc which i should have, since i had just graduated and was going to leave the place in a couple of days. So after convo, dinner, and pretending to pack for a little while, i went over to chuchee's room to have one last(?) game of diablo.
That did'nt work either, so i decided to take a nap, only to be woken up by one of those classic L^2 numbers, and Sahu's voice.
"So its a free L^2?".
"Yeah!"
"Is the bar open?"
"Yeah i think so"
Talk about raising the bar, i have always been content with just hanging out near it.
I suppose you get the picture, I went down to the bar picked up some beers, went through a complicated procedure to cool them, and started what will almost surely be my final L^2.

She was there. She always is. Beautiful as ever.
Took a sad song of one sweet evening
I smiled and quickly turned away.
It’s not easy singing sad songs
But still the easiest way I have to say.

I am not as lucky as Ian Anderson so I'll just have to stick to broken English. Things were fine till about 4.00 AM. I suppose she was drunk by this time. I know I wasnt. I had had a couple of beers, but somehow just couldn’t get in with it. Was kind of feeling nothing at all. Then she came and sat next to me. We made small talk.

And the memory stays clear with the song that you hear.
If I can but make
the words awake the feeling.

Then she said it
"Beedi I've been reading your blog". Ok now I do want people to read my blog and .., but not anyone I'm close (want to get close) to.
"Which Post?", I asked, hoping she had just skimmed some of the titles.
"A couple", she continued, "The one about your trip and another one".
I figure, if this woman has read my blog and still sits next to me and talks to me, then....
"I am crazy about you”, I blurted out.
DJ to the rescue, suddenly music volume increases and drowns my pathetic line.
"What?", she screams, "What did you say?"
"I said, I AM CRAZY ABOUT YOU!!". No DJ can save me now.
"Beedi, you're a big liar. I know there's a woman. You said so yourself in your blog. 'There's a woman, there's always a woman'".
"Yes there's a woman", I replied , "it's you, and its always going to be you". Ok I didn’t say the last part about Always maybe I should have. But Always is a long time even for an old man like me.

I now expected some reaction. Anything. I mean I just virtually told her that i was in love with her. Then it came, my past caught up with me. All my humour. That not so witty repartee, the jokes, the posts on arbit.
She started laughing. Oh! That intoxicating laughter of hers. It used to be enough to get me high. But not this time. I just felt like i had been kicked in the balls.
"You can’t be serious" she said in between her giggles.

Jakes must be smiling down on me from wherever he is. I mean just occasionally, (at times like this), I would like people to take me seriously. But seems that’s not happening. I try again.
"I think you're awesome, and really care about you.", Much better. She's stopped laughing. At least now I know she takes me seriously.
"Beedi, I have a boyfriend".
"Yeah I know, he’s a nice guy. I am glad you two got together".
Ok now you're thinking is this guy just plain dumb. I mean on the one hand you tell her you're crazy about her, on the other you are telling her that she should stick with her current boyfriend. (Wow I just read the previous line, I should have become and economist, even though my grade card "begs" to differ).

Anyway back to the point, I am sitting here the next morning trying to rationalize what I did. I suppose its something to do with Oscar Wilde complex. It goes something like: I would never want to join any club that would accept me as a member. I suppose i could adapt it to: I would never want any girl i cared about to go out with a guy like me.So there you have it a logical explanation for my schizoid behaviour. Its a mental paradox. Nothing to do with MPD.


So here's hoping you've faith in impossible schemes,
that are born in the sigh of the wind blowing by
while the dimming light brings the end to a night of loving.