2077 : Another poster child

I had another long conversation with someone about the importance of choosing the right school.

This person was telling me that he "wants his son to be tough and have the ability to inure competition" and hence a regular school is the best.

Look, if you want your son to be this maggot infested junkie who works as a clerk at the bank(no disrespect at all to that job, my dad was a clerk....its just illustrative of what is an industrial dumbed down job), and has road rage, and whistles at PYTs....of course make him tough. I suggest make him tougher, send him to Gold Gym as well....with a set of rage induced adrenaline junkies who pump iron and say "duh" when they have a "question mark".

Absolutely, you have made the right choice, if this is the reality you choose.

On the other hand, if you want your child to be a good beautiful human, the kind of PYT who gets whistled at - then I suggest you choose the Valley School, the TISB, the alternatives.

Give your child a real CHOICE. Allow her to live life as if it were her life, and not some mucked phooked school run by a weird control freak of a principal.....get the drift.....?

The extra money this will cost shall be the best thing you shall ever give your kid. He does not need you to bank roll a Stanford (though that shall also help) - just make him a lively young adult - the rest he shall figure out for himself.

Give him the gift of his CHILDHOOD.

2076 : Let her make the choice

Bullshit !!

Let me explain that.

Its truly a ball of jack bunny phucking shit, when some parent tells you "my daughter is a US citizen, we have now got her to Mumbai...let her decide when she is old enough whether she wants to go back" or when folks say "my daughter does not speak Hindi. Let her grow up and decide if she wants to speak Hindi." or better still folks say "I dont eat chilli and garlic, and neither does she....let her grow up and decide if she wants to".

My point - just stop mucking around. Buddy, you have already made the choice for her, and dont cloak it under the illusion that she can always revoke your choice.

We live by our choices, and our choices are our children's choices. They dont have a different choice.

These the same nut cracking parents, who shall oppose the boyfriend she eventually chooses, because "he looks like a hippie".....well she CHOSE a hippie, respect her choice.

Choice, as they ball and nut parents put it, is not a choice, its a cloak to force feed.

2075 : Of Moms and Sons

It is a heart warming sight to see a young adult (say around 8), being dropped off in a cab to potentially what looks like the airport.
The way the kid and mom hug and kiss is endearing and brings a smile to my mind.

Its difficult to explain why moms get along great with their sons....but maybe a picture postcard like this can explain.

2074 : The angled tear

He remembered the night he had trudged back home with the trophy. He had won more than a mere contest, he had triumphed over his own personal devil.

As he neared the door, it occurred to him that unless he gave context, no one (at home), would ever understand why this contorted piece of dangled mild steel meant anything at all to him.

As he waited with the gleaming shiny chrome, on the outside, his hands aching to ring the door bell, the adrenaline of the early evening was draining out of him faster than air out of a leaky hot balloon.

His world outside was a carefully angled piece of steel, and inside it was a rambling chaos which had strangely begun to resemble the outside, but in a very disconcerting sort of way.

He walked two flights down....sat down against the first step, flicked open his bag and opened his box of mild cuts. As he lighted the first one - he stared vacuously through the patterns the smoke drew in front of him. The white blur wobbled its way, kissing the chrome in his right hand, and flying away, almost mocking him - saying, "I don't need any context"...."I am flying away as fast as the air can take me away from your next puff"...."because your next puff is going to be just as lazy as this one".....steel skeletons notwithstanding.

He smoked 4 more lights after this one. The whole meditation lasted twenty odd minutes. He then opened his backpack, put the chrome thingy in, pulled the house keys out....walked up the floors again....and this time went straight in, without the warning doorbell.

As he dropped the bag onto his bed, in a flash it came to him, - the irony that this trophy had now meant that there were two very unhappy souls hunting in a pack today.

2073 : I am regressing

Continuing from my previous post, I am definitely falling in love with old Hindi songs, from way before my generation. I was till this point completely ambivalent on them....but there is something haunting about some of these classics.

Hope to learn more in this space.

What next  ? KL Saigal ?

2072 : Kohra - Yeh Nayan Dare Dare

I heard this song after a long time, and I have to tell you - its the most charming number.
Makes your believe that life at some point was truly magical :-), and I mean to compare to this urban drain.

Hemant Kumar is sheer magic, and the song has a love and longing that Batameez Dil can never match ever. (I know folks will tell me - that this comparison is unwarranted, but in my head.....there is something magical about Hemant Kumar that a Benny something can never achieve. I can bet that I am dying, this song shall still be around, and Benny will be another wannabe :-)

My sis and my mother both definitely love this song.

...and Waheedaji is just plain simple gorgeous :-)

Catch the song here. 

2071 : Breakfast at Chemboore :-)

I had breakfast with my sis this week. Putta and Kadla Curry were heavenly. This is the food that gives me immense comfort. I can eat this every morning till I die :-), especially the way she had made it.
Its soul food for the chicken (or something wtf) :-)
This is why Bombay is a good city to live in.

2070 : Oh oh...this is not a happy ending :-)

The new radio ad for Chandan Mukhwas says that "finish your meal with a happy ending". This is an ad in English language.
What can I say :-) Copywriter - load him into a canon and fire.

2069 : The girl who saw tomorrow

Picture this.

I am waiting at Bangalore airport for a delayed flight (not bloody again!!), and I see this nice smart young girl walk past a few times. I notice her like I notice a 100 other people in this blackberry induced daze....

Probably an hour later, I see her again. This time she is sitting in the bay next to me, with 3 elderly folks (possibly her dad and his brothers...maybe), and this time she looks dead.

I see these three men, try and talk to her, they try and give her a few gulps of the fizzy drink. She is awake, eyes open, she is staring wide eyed, but is totally inert. Not responding to any conversation or voice at all.

And her eyes, I detect tears....

Now from the whole scene it almost looked to me as if, she was in a shock, maybe she just heard of a death of a beloved one, or the loss of a love....something she probably just heard of.

I am intrigued by these 3 men fighting to get her back into mainstream. A lady sitting next to me, goes up and tries to talk to this girl. No reaction. The girl is staring into infinity. No words, no response to visual or tactile stimuli.

At this point, someone calls the airport doc. The docs then debrief loudly.....in summary, looks like there was nothing untoward that she had heard or seen....she had just slipped into this complete inertness suddenly....and she seemed to have temporarily (?) misplaced her memory as well.

They then carry her off in a wheel chair.

Story ends. This has a profound effect on me. How does anyone enter this intert Alzheimer kind of state, without any external trigger?

Could it happen to me...now...tomorrow...day after....10 years later? If this is not reversible, is this like a early death.

(My guess is the final diagnosis, would have detected a minor stroke or something to this girl, but really the whole story is a little disturbing!!)