Songs of the not-so innocent

I've heard it said that one should appreciate the small comforts of life & not worry about the big stuff. The antithesis of this of course is being lulled or softened by the small comforts, not realising that some amount of wrenching could make life a little better, albeit after some sacrifices. The regular reader is surely in no doubt about my abject view of the current workplace. It is an indolent existence; I get decent internet, the colleagues are blasé, the tasks are far & few and I very rarely have to stay back after 6 pm. If this sounds too good to be true, it isn't. If it also sounds like a retirement home labour racket or life at Blandings without the humour, then yes, perhaps that comes closest to the general state of affairs. In less than a week it will have been 1 year since I came to Bombay, eager to start anew in the Maximum city, wondering whether I'd be able to handle the hurly-burly speed of life and having nightmares about finding myself in Dombivi...

The year was 1998. We were one of the first houses to have the internet in all its 14.4 kbps (but actually approximately the sq. root of 2 kbps), dial-up modem glory. Of course, it's one thing to have the internet & completely another to actually be allowed to use it. See, the pater was (and still is in many ways) what could be described diplomatically as conservative. Heaven knows what cerebral Armageddon had taken place to even allow for the idea of the net, never mind him actually getting it, but that isn't pertinent to this story. What is, was his stone-cold conviction that the internet was evil, dangerous and would quite likely flummox vital State secrets right out of the heads of his gullible brood. So yes, malignant tools like chatting on the net & email did not stand a chance. Even 2 years later, when he'd thawed a bit, using ICQ was frowned upon & I spent many an evening chatting in an atmosphere more suited to a spy thriller. However, something inexpli...

Cricket is not the subject of this post, but I have to get in my 2 rupees' worth. When the Green gang play test cricket, it's heart-stopping, thrill a minute stuff. For all the wrong reasons. Whatever else is tooted down under today, I think ' stunning ' is too much of a superlative for the result. Sure, the Yellow-bellies bowled extremely well. Hussey's timely century gave them a shot at this win. Actually, nix that. Kamran Akmal's awesome attempts at what he thinks constitutes wicket-keeping, gave the Aussies a shot at this win. The only person remotely stunned might be the Pakistan coach (whoever he may be) at the sheer WTFness of the batting. At the end of the day though, I suspect everyone and his aunty knew that the Pakistanis would collapse. Like I said before, if their captain had the option of batting alone, he'd have taken it. My only amusing though this morning was that I did not fancy supporting either bunch playing & hoped that a draw might ...

The discerning reader may have noticed that I'm not much for trumpeting about sport on this blog. Yes, every now and then, a post on my enduring love of test cricket will sneak through. Going-ons at Manchester United will rouse me into thrashing out an indignant paragraph. The retirement of sportsmen I thoroughly admire (and they are far & few) will elicit a nostalgic post doused in thanksgiving. But, I can never get myself to slip over the edge of fanaticism. As this post is typing itself, Pakistan, after having wrestled Australia to the mat by the force of Darth Asif, promptly tripped over their own feet & now lie sprawled on the metaphorical pitch themselves. Mohd. Yousuf, their short-suffering captain (no one is captain long enough to be long-suffering in that country) may just decide to bat alone for the rest of the series, since the rest of that lot don't feel inclined to hang around. They probably think grafting is something to do with tree-cutting or making mone...