Bachelor, Baby!

Can any guy *not* relate with these?

Free time.

I’ve decided to stop complaining.
(Yes, you heard it right.)
(Oh, shut up.)

Don’t get me wrong; I’m not giving up cribbing because I’ve finally had a change of heart (missing a crucial part there), or I’ve decided that the world is a great place after all (Pshaw. Don’t you watch TV?), or because my glass is half-full, or because I feel that I am lucky to have the little I do because there are *so many* out there who don’t have even half (puh-lease. What about the tons who have it better? Hell, I know enough of them!).

It’s just that, there comes a time in every man’s life when he realizes that there is only so much he can fight and complain about. After a point, you realize your complaining has only made things worse (inevitably because one of those sympathetic ears had a loud mouth), that you haven’t won any battles (no matter how tiny) in recent memory, and that if you are forced to deal with it, you can.

Ergo (don’t you just love that word? It sounds so intelligent, and yet so peppy!), give up, man, give up. Nothing can swim against a raging river and win; well, except for salmon, and that’s only because they’re headed to an orgy of Caligula-esque proportions (I swear, if there was a way to bottle up the energy men expend in order to get some, we’d never need fossil fuels again. God, I sound like such a woman. I need more male company.).

Unfortunately, this leaves me with a lot of free time on my hands.
…
*sigh*
This would have *so* been the ideal time to complain.

Oh well. So it goes.

…

I recently saw Fiddler on the Roof for the first time.
(Well, most of it, at least. I dozed off for the last half-hour, dang it. Now I’ll have to wait another 3 months before it repeats.)

And while the movie is pretty dull (really. Big, fat, hairy men singing and dancing is only *so* entertaining.), I loved that Topol guy! Hilarious!! I could watch him jiggle and wiggle to “If I Was A Rich Man” forever! And how can you not like a song where the chorus is primarily made up of “Yaba dibi dibi dibi dibi dibi dibi dum”?!

(Yes, I counted.)
(What? Did you not read the bit up there about free time?)

Everybody, now: “If I was a rich man… Yaba dibi dibi dibi dibi dibi dibi dum!” *jiggle jiggle*

Simple sighs, mon.

I love finding something new to like in an old(ish) song.

Listening to Kaiser Chiefs’ Ruby for the umpteenth time on the way to work (not particularly by choice; my shuffled play-list seems to favour it quite a bit), these lyrics leaped out at me:

Due to lack of interest, tomorrow is canceled.
Let the clocks be reset and the pendulums held.

I think that might be the highlight of my day.

(I’m simple that way.)

*sighs contentedly*

…

Edit:

Why it makes sense to have commitment issues:

*sigh*

I enjoy having reasons to be an ass.

Holy Holi, Batman!

Ah, Holi.

Where people of all ages decide to attack random people with water balloons and colourful filth. What can only be described as a weekend of terror. My office lies pink in it’s wake. My drycleaning bill is huge. My clothes are mothered. My only pair of comfortable (i.e. they still fit. The other one is too tight. (Yes, I have put on weight. I’m starting to look like a giant pin-cushion, with my needle-like arms and legs.)) black trousers are purple. Hell, even my undies have a pinkish tinge to it. My nice little Dharamshala beads now glow with a white light (I had to wash them in detergent to get the green stain off of them. Now they have a faded plastic-ky feel. Not good.), bringing to an end roughly 4 years of wearing them (*sigh* ’tis the end of my youth). I hate fat Punjabi people. You would think someone with so much area to clean would not want to get dirty, but noooooo; we *must* indulge our childhood again, mustn’t we?!! B@$tards.

The world around me was like a bad day at the hostel loo (with psychedelic colours, no less). Random urchins paint it black, giving a whole new meaning to the term “grease monkey” while drawing visual analogies to half-naked guerrilla-fighting VietCong.

Holi should be spent with boring friends in a quiet room, with a *lot* of intoxicants and a little token colour. Not with a few intoxicants *anywhere* and with enough colour to affect general visibility.

…

Thank God it’s over.

The times, they are tho changing.

My God. What have they done?!

Poor Dylan. I wonder if he knows what our ad-world is doing to his classic?

The latest Reliance ad features the tune of a song that’s so familiar, it infuriates you that you can’t get it. Maybe it’s the just the terribly boring singing, I don’t know. The lyrics have, of course, been suitably changed to tell some story (ridiculously relevant to the product, I’m sure), but it’s the final line that’s the absolute clincher!

“The times, they are *tho* changing!”

Dear God. Is nothing sacred anymore?! Why would they do that? Why would they take a classic like that, and butcher it mercilessly? Why? Why?!

And it wasn’t even nicely done! I mean, the vocals are so dull - were they trying to mock Dylan? Was it supposed to convey their attempt to stay true to the song? I have no clue. I don’t even know how effective it’d be, really. No one’s going to pay attention to the lyrics, the visuals don’t particularly stand out, and really, I think the whole point of the ad was to just convey the line. Pathetic.

But you know, that’s what sucks about advertising nowadays. Almost everything you see has been done before, or is just not… um… well… nice! I mean, they don’t really speak to *me*. Does it really help develop the brand’s image to be associated with some crappy communication? Yeesh.

Have you seen the equally-if-not-more-so stupid rediffmail ad? The one that seems to say “Spam is good!” and “Please send more pointless chain letters, because they *do* make a difference to that kid in the Andes with a so-rare-it’s-never-been-heard-of disease”? Now, this one I paid attention to (as opposed to spending twenty seconds going, “Aw, no, come on!!!”) so I can give you a quick synopsis: Man tries to protect lady from eve-teasers, gets butt kicked, and then decides to send some crazy forward to the entire community saying “Stop the eve-teasers” and the entire society comes out to the street to kick eve-teasing butt. The final VO even says something about “Send a rediffmail and see what happens!”

Yeah, like, that’s accurately depicted.

Who thinks up these things? Does anyone *actually* believe that you can make a huge difference by just sending a mail? And even if you can believe that (I assume that the world isn’t full of cynical b*stards like me), how the heck does this make any sort of impact for Rediffmail? I know I wouldn’t use their mail service because of “the power of a Rediff-mail”; would any of you?

But, to be fair, I’m sure there are tons of people out there who would. I don’t know this for a fact, but I’ll be optimistic, and assume that there is some kind of rational thinking that goes behind all these bad ads on Indian TV, and that’s really the only rational explanation I can come up with to explain it.

Although, I have to admit that I’ve liked at least one of the ads I saw today on TV. The mentos ad. Although it’s a rip-off (they’ve practically lifted the *entire* concept from the Fatboy Slim Right Here, Right Now video), I still thought it was done decently enough. And, above all else, it at least was in-sync with their tagline. Story’s simple enough: You have a lazy ass being drawn along by a monkey. The ass takes a nap, the monkey has a mentos, evolves into man, who then makes the ass draw him along. The evolution-animation was done pretty decently too, if you ask me. Gives it a nice, unique feel.

And they didn’t ruin the original song.

…

(Edit: Turns out, this isn’t the first time The Times, they are A-changing has been used in a jingle; it was used in the ’90s for a Canadian bank - or so wikipedia tells me. (Ah, wikipedia.) But I’m sure they’d have done a better job!)
(Yeah, okay, so I’m biased.)

A Beautiful Day.

I had my first cold shower of the year today. I also spent the day wandering around Saket in just a T-shirt and cargoes. Absolutely fantastic!

I’ve always been a winter person - especially the Delhi winter! I think it has something to do with my desert upbringing (Although no one would call Dubai a “desert” anymore, it definitely was when I was growing up! If you didn’t put on the air-conditioner, you’d fast need a mop.); I’m just not used to almost-freezing temperatures - at least, not without an air-conditioner. It’s just so fantastic to wake up in the morning, know you shouldn’t get out of your warm quilt because it’s freezing, get up anyway, go outside and look at the mist rolling by. It’s awesome!

But something about this time of the year brings me immense happiness. The sun pops out of the clouds and shines down, bathing everything around in a nice, warm glow, contrasted beautifully by a nice, nippy breeze. For the first time in days (and I *do* mean “days”!) I decided to get out of the house and away from my one true love (the TV), avoid the mistress (the Internet), and dash out the door.

Unfortunately, I didn’t have a damn thing to do.

(See, that’s the problem with being unemployed - you inevitably have *nothing* to do. Everything you “need” to do would probably involve a trip to the store below, or maybe, at most, paying bills; there’s very little else that might spring up besides these two.)

But I didn’t let a tiny thing like ‘lack of purpose’ stop me - I plugged in my earphones, switched on my music, and walked out into the well-known, utterly undaunted.

(That’s the beauty of listening to music when you’re out walking; it’s like traveling with your own background score! Plus, if you’re like me, it’ll help feed the illusion that your life is really just a weird episode of a TV show (think The Truman Show), which I personally find very entertaining!)

And, by a wonderful twist of fate (how on earth did that phrase originate, I wonder? It always gives me the image of some omnipotent entity gently twisting something hard and surprisingly blunt into the small of my back; then again, I am a cynical bitter bastard.)… But coming back to my wonderful fate-twisting, the first few songs on my shuffled play-list turned out to be Israel “IZ” Kamakawiwo’ole’s beautiful rendition of Somewhere Over The Rainbow/What A Wonderful World, Colbie Caillat’s Bubbly, Feist’s Mushaboom and Razorlight’s America - and let me just say, that’s a *fantastic* way to start a walk on a great day!

*sigh*

I’d describe it more, but there really wasn’t much else to it. It was just… well… *really* nice. You should have been there.

…

Don’t you just love old people in malls? Especially old women; they tackle escalators like knights of yore, attacking dragons - with a resigned sense of duty and an impending sense of doom. This one sweet old grandma was trying to get down from the first floor today, with the aid of her husband and grand-daughter who couldn’t have been more than 10 years old. She (the 10-year old) obviously had no difficulty - she looked like she’d been doing this all her life (and for all I knew, she probably had; kids today don’t have much else in the way of entertainment). She bounded down the escalator two steps at a time, with nary a care in the world. Gramps proceeded to try and guide his petrified wife down along with him, and, with a little countdown, took the big step.

Unfortunately, he underestimated her resolve to stay put (or perhaps, he over-estimated her vow to have and hold till death parts them *snicker*), and left her standing there, screaming bloody murder for being abandoned there all alone. The kid, observing the drama from the ground floor, raced up the Up escalator to Grandma’s aid. Grandma, once again, proved to be a worthy adversary, and was, once again, left standing there, screaming bloody murder (and you scoffed when they said history repeats itself! (Yes, I know that’s not *exactly* what they say; just roll with it.)) Now it was Gramps’ turn to go up again, and give it (or rather, her) a go… and once again, he failed (although, to give him credit, he only let her slip out of his grasp when it looked like she was going to fall - man, she must have sprouted roots or something!). *Again*, the kid proceeded to run up to Grandma’s aid.

Unfortunately, I had to bid them adieu before I could see how this tale ended. For all I know, they’re probably still there, with Grandma screaming like a banshee.

(Good thing it was a slow day at the mall! )

Too funny!

Someone sent me this on Facebook! It’s bloody hilarious!

…

(Man, one thing you have to say about us Indians - we can definitely laugh at ourselves! *giggle*)

 (Edit: Am I the only one who sees nothing? If I’m not, and you can’t see anything either, and you are curious to know what I’m talking about, go to http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HXEvwLAykbk)

:-)

It starts in my toes
And I crinkle my nose
Where ever it goes
I always know
That you make me smile
Please stay for a while now
Just take your time
Where ever you go 

 Did you know that there’s a crater on Mars (the planet, not the Roman God of War - though it would probably be cooler if it *was* the God of War. Hm. I wonder what that would have been like? Would have been pretty hard if he went to an all-boys school, I can tell you. Kids are mean. He’d probably have been called crater-face till he had grandkids) But anyway, Mars, the planet, has a crater - the Galle crater (named after the astronomer, um, Dr. Galle (?)) - that resembles a giant Smiley?

(If you’re wondering, the correct reaction *here* would be: “No, seriously?!”)

See?

Personally, I think this could raise a lot of questions: Does this imply that life as we know it has been designed by some greater power? No, I’m not talking about “God”. Well, okay, maybe I am, in a way. Maybe we started out as some weird alien geek’s science project, and everything around us has been designed to fit his strange vision of utopia? Huh? Huh? And, maybe, the knowledge of this is buried deep in our sub-conscious, which is why pop culture can turn so many silly things into icons that affect our lives so immensely a la the Smiley? Maybe only certain creative people who use too much of the ‘other’ side of their brains can process that information, and churn it out in various forms, like Douglas Adams’s Hitch-hiker’s Guide to the Galaxy (Yes, I’m thinking of Slartibartfast (for those who didn’t know, he designed Norway.) Maybe he never truly realised how right he was about our world? Or maybe he *did* realise it, but understood that it wouldn’t be taken seriously? Maybe our entire life has been a myth, a dream, a strange fantasy cooked up by strange machines who were just bored, and created our universe - in order to give themselves something to entertain themselves with? Huh??! Let’s just say, dear reader, that there are probably a lot of things out there that we are yet to discover - a lot of clues that show us that everything we have, everything we live for, everything that we hold valuable, is only considered so because we have been programmed to respect the symbolism of the culture that created us.

…

There. That’s off my chest.
Now, you can’t say you weren’t warned when “He” decides to empty the petri dish containing our universe into the lab washroom.
Let’s just say, you ought to be prepared for *the flood*.

(Didn’t God say something like that unto Noah in the Bible too?)

(Has anyone else noticed how many times God speaks ‘unto’ people? Why couldn’t he just talk ‘to’ people, like regular folk? You know, this is probably why we have such difficulty communicating with him - we just don’t speak the same language anymore!)

…

(Yeah, I’m going to Hell.)

Chasing cars.

I went to the Auto Expo here in Delhi on Sunday. A few friends were going to go, and well, since I do nothing nowadays, I figured I might as well tag along - even though my interest in cars has dwindled considerably over the years (to what can now only be described as the “Ooo! So *shiny*!” state). No matter how bad it might be, I needed to work the old legs before they just fell off from lack of use.

But surprisingly enough, it was a blast. Loooong as *hell* (man, that’s one big expo, that is! I had forgotten how big Pragati Maidan was!), but despite the insane crowds, the smelly, sweaty (yes, it’s winter here, and it was about 13deg in the sun that day, but still - put enough people together in a warm room, and you’d be amazed at how *funky* the place can get) Delhi populace, and my general lack of understanding of all things mechanical and fuel-propelled (No, no, I’m definitely straight, I swear), it was definitely worth the effort!

The day started off ordinarily enough - I overslept, and delayed the plan by a good three hours. This would ordinarily have been a problem, but because of my sloth (you know, no matter how many times I use that, I *always* worry that whoever’s reading/listening will imagine that I have one as a pet…), another friend was able to join in on the plan, which made everyone that much happier (or so I like to believe). We then trudged from stall to stall, stopping in between to stock up on Coke, and appreciating all the pretty shiny cars.

What was surprising, though, was that of all the “kiosks”, Maruti’s was probably one of the best - it was actually planned out well enough to give everyone a chance to see the cars, peek into the interiors, fiddle around with the sun-roofs, and actually had people standing around describing the features and modifications made on the car. Even their concept cars were interesting. Tata had a huge stall, showing off the Nano, the world’s cheapest car…

(Digression: I recently read an article somewhere on the net, not sure where now, which, for a change, did *not* hail the car as one of the biggest innovations to come out of India in recent times. In fact, it actually made a very interesting point of how the Nano could possibly be the worst thing possible for India. By making the car so incredibly affordable, it said, it actually might result in a massive boom in the number of cars on the road today, with every Average Joe owning one. Considering that the Indian infrastructure can barely accommodate the number of cars we have now, with increasingly burgeoning numbers, we could possibly be looking at never-ending traffic jams, making it harder for people to well, get *anywhere*, not to mention the potential increase in pollution levels. The article also said something about how we need to *not* ape the West and look at getting everybody to a car - since they at least had a better road-system in place before the boom - but try and leap ahead, and figure out a way to make a vehicle that not only reduces pollution (possibly a CNG Nano, like a friend suggested), but also one that will not tax our already over-populated roads. Seemed like an interesting viewpoint; will post the link here if I can find it again.

But coming back to the Nano at the Expo - I didn’t like it. Very subjective opinion, obviously, but it struck me as being a woman’s car (excuse the sexism). Small, dainty, almost mouse-like, it looked more like a fancy auto-rickshaw, with an extra wheel and a window, but I suppose it is the best you can expect for Rs. 1.2 lakh (US $2500). A little disappointing, considering the photos you see splashed all over the place online made it look pretty damn sexy!

The Vintage cars stall was incredible, though! Incredible classic Jags, a beaut of a Rolls, and very cool Triumphs make you wish you were a rich Sardar (as most of the owners were). However, be warned - it’s very easy to lose your friends in the crowd; I learnt this the hard way, having had a very long conversation about how great the stall is and how funky some of the cars were with what turned out to be a strange 10-year old girl. Needless to say, neither of us was very happy when I suddenly turned around and went “WHa..!??! *hands flailed out*”. Ah, but you live, you learn.

(Yes, Alanis Morissette did say it first.)

Another stall which definitely bears mentioning was the Honda stall - not for the cars on display (which were very nice, I’m sure), but for the ridiculous way they’ve used models to promote them! It was hilarious!! A whole slew of funnily-made up women trying to look sexy and made to stand like teapots completely stole the show! They had obviously been told to try and make the car look sexy (a completely useless task, since the cars were pretty sexy all by themselves) and ended up merely looking like ridiculous teapots (I can’t stress that enough! They had one hand on their hip - or rather, *almost* on their hip, and the other bent up at the elbow, with the open palm up, pointing, for some strange reason, *away* from the car! Why would you do that?!) trying to look “steamy”. One woman even made it a point to walk around the car and pose in front of every camera she could find - she refused to move till the photo was clicked, and would even pucker up or sprawl out on the car, in what can only be assumed was an *effort* to entice. You half expected her to pull out a pole, and start a little strip-tease; a bad one, but a strip-tease, nonetheless.

(To any women I have offended: I’m sure they were lovely people, who had fascinating personalities, and probably have hearts of gold, and were made to perform in that insane fashion under duress! )

But kudos to Hyundai, for what was, by far, the stud-liest concept car. The QamaQ (I think it was called that) was incredible!! I mean, the four of us spent about 15mins standing around going “Woooaaahhhhh…”.

(And it was so *shiny* too! :-D)

Coming soon.

Seriously.