Songs of the not-so innocent

Once in a while, you experience this. A special intersection of having drunk a bit of good liquor, smoked a bit of something smooth and eaten enough to feel pleasantly full. It's just past midnight and the free-flowing, lighthearted conversations have trickled down to soft murmurs. Pieces of wood crackle in the fire while ashes drift away slowly into the night sky. Everyone is yearning to get home but no one wants to shatter the delicate reverie and leave. Eventually you do. After navigating a few gentle, not unexpected barbs about still using the bike, you watch cars drive away, wheels gently crunching stray pebbles. You then get the helmet on and ride. At a steady 40 kmph, the breeze is brisk and refreshing. With no traffic on the road the ride is meditative, streetlights rhythmically letting you move between light and shadow. You feel a twinge... pleasure, nostalgia or perhaps a bit of both. A week's worth of doing nothing much in particular - you could get used t...

About a month ago, I landed at Hartsfield-Jackson International Airport in Atlanta, cleared immigration and found my checked-in luggage. It took half an hour, mostly because the airport had diverted the passenger flow via a longer route towards the exit. My final destination, a friend's place in the suburbs, was approximately 40 kms away. I entered a free airport shuttle bus and was deposited at the domestic terminal 10 mins later. A short amble, an automated train ticket and an escalator brought me to the MARTA platform where a train awaited. 50 minutes later, I was at a dining table, exchanging stories with a grin, over a glass (and more) of whisky. Public transport journeys don't get any smoother. About a week ago, I landed at CSI Airport in Mumbai, cleared immigration and found my luggage. It took about an hour, most of which was spent waiting for my bags to arrive. My final destination, home, was approximately 13 kms by road. I opened up the OLA app which claimed a taxi...

Charles Bukowski said numerous things, most of which can safely be bundled into the misanthropy box. One of his less acerbic observations was on the passage of time; as we grow older, things or patterns start to repeat themselves. It made sense to me this September, both from a professional and a personal viewpoint. After 2.5 years, I have changed agencies again. The now previous workplace had a soothing everyday cadence that's hard to come by in this day and age of cutthroat competition and digital marketing mass hypnosis. I came to know a lot of people there and was friendly with quite a few of them. Be it the admin staff, canteen chaps, colleagues or general hangers-on, I could and did walk in every day meeting, greeting and occasionally smiling. It is a rather addictive, pleasant pattern of life. Yet, the work I did was more than boring, frustrated at every stage by the convoluted thoughts, selfish agendas and downright egotistical pigheadedness of clients. My colleagues a...

To the world, yesterday may have been one of the best sporting days ever. Personally, it was one of the saddest. Willing Roger Federer on during matches is no longer about me being a fan of his tennis skills or amiable personality, both of which he seems to still possess in spades. No, the experience of Fed has become a selfish, bizarre quest for validation. Meandering aimlessly rather than marching purposefully through my mid-30s, it's 'oh-so-sweet' to see a man in my age bracket - Fed turns 38 soon - continue to kick ass across various surfaces, ruthlessly dispatching a stream of younger, fitter but clearly not better players, to the locker room, chastised. Fed winning is a victory twice over. Firstly, served with a healthy dollop of Schadenfreude on the side as he rules the roost over young whippersnappers. And secondly, an "I'll have what s/he's having" a la When Harry met Sally while Fed quietens the mob that's constantly going on about getti...

I've never believed in that nonsense about the universe conspiring to make good things happen to/for me. Say that it's probably cooking up ghastly stuff against me and I'll wholeheartedly subscribe to that idea. Maybe I was wrong. I was inveigled into an early morning work meeting today. Trouble was that I was out of town over the weekend. However, I manfully attempted to make it for this jolly coven by taking a 6 am bus back into the city. Around 8:30 am, the bus shudders to a halt on the highway. Some convoluted mechanical issue meant that we'd have to be shipped off in other buses, depending on how many seats were available. In these situations, I can't help but admire the combative nature of old biddies and geezers. One minute, they'll be ensconced in their seats with the fixed resignation of old vegetables in the back of the fridge. The next, they'll be hotfooting it for spare buses like Spartans at the Battle of Thermopylae. I waited by the side...

As I type this, Irony is calmly slitting its wrists. Because it already knows what I'm about to say. So, let's help Irony along and carry on. I am a big fan of privacy on the internet. Yes, this is being hosted on Blogger. Send some nice flowers to the funeral. Magnolias perhaps. Anyway, I work in an advertising firm so I know about some of the shenanigans tech firms, ad firms and media behemoths are pulling when it comes to recording things people do online. In a way, they might as well, since humanity seems to be doing precious little offline. In a whole different way, I don't get it. And, I shall attempt to explain with an example. Earlier this evening, I realised something had to be whipped up for tomorrow's lunch. I like cooking but making food on Sunday evening has a different appeal. It gives me an excuse to mix myself a drink or two, fire up the Bluetooth speaker and trawl through my music collection to provide a background score to my vegetable massacre. T...

Once upon a time there existed a peaceful neighbourhood in Pune called Aundh. Perhaps the almost magical somnolence was related to being far from the maddening crowd. Kids cycled to schools, adults sauntered along the kadappa -paved footpaths to shops and, true story, cows could spend afternoons patiently browsing at one corner of Parihar Chowk. The police workshop was a buzzing hive of activity during the day but the massive tree and creeper cover provided plenty of shade for sparrows, owls, squirrels, mongooses and cuckoos. The city fathers, operating on the principle that all good things must come to an end, eventually turned their beady eyes towards this slumbering haven and dealt the coup de grace in a jolly roundabout maneuver popularly known as Hinjewadi Infotech Park. Cut to more recent times, where the same neighbourhood is now a chaotic hellhole choc-a-bloc with traffic, all of which seems to be headed to a plague spot called the Westend Mall. While assholes parade up and...

This is a journal-ish post, cobbling together various floating topics under one hat. On cooking I've been pottering around kitchens on a regular basis since 2006. In all that time, pasta has never once been on the menu. The reason is trauma. You see, over 17 years ago when a Masterchef was someone you'd only meet in high-end hotels and the only famous Oliver I knew was the Twist fellow... let me get to the point; videos of cooking instructions did not feature in my life and recipe books were my mother's domain. Yet, I seem to have found some reason to crave Mac-n-Cheese. It must have been damned compelling because I can't for the life of me remember. In any case, macaroni was procured from the local grocers, cheese was shredded or cubed (I forget) and, watched by a highly amused & bemused mater, I tossed the macaroni into boiling water. Half an hour later, the two of us peered into the pot, at each other and quietly agreed that we had two years' supply of gl...

There's a theory that ideas are just tiny particles in space zooming towards Earth and striking the surface any old how. The secret to figuring out cold fusion, for example, may have already arrived. Only, it may have struck a bedbug which, as you read this, may be waving out desperately for some pen and ink. I was in Bangalore last week and have spent a considerable amount of time trying to find words to describe it. The particle just hit me. Juxtaposition Cool nights. Hot days. Drizzles. Dryness. Dosa breakfasts. Burger dinners.  Neighbourhoods of calm. City of chaos. Quiet bookshops. Traffic snarls. Good beer. Bars without je ne sais quoi. A wedding. An ending. I always find something to love about Bangalore. And, a lot to hate. Song for the moment: Never tear us apart - INXS  

Overheard in the wind... Once upon a time, there was a little girl who was curious about everything. Her parents were smart and often knew the answers to her questions. When they didn't, the internet did. So, between the husband, wife and WiFi, the girl's inquiries were ruthlessly dispatched. Until one day... It was the summer holidays and the girl had spent many blazing hot afternoons reading books. Now, books are actually trees in disguise (why do you think they have leaves?) and try to plant ideas in our heads, so you shouldn't be surprised to know what happened next. As the family sat down to dinner one evening, she asked what magic was and whether it was real. The parents did not quite know what to say. On one hand, they could dismiss the idea of magic as irrational nonsense and introduce her to the 'magic' of science and math. The father was itching to tell her all about the Golden Ratio and the Fibonacci Series, as a matter of fact. A look from the mothe...

United played Liverpool this weekend. Even going by the thumb rule that it never is just a game when these two teams meet, the occasion was pregnant with a full litter of meaning. Liverpool made United turn a corner this season. The result at Anfield got JM sacked, opening the door for history to eerily repeat itself. An under-performing team, some years past its glory days, hires a youngish manager with a reasonably successful record in another league. SAF took a few years to get things going, rope almost no EPL manager will be given these days. But he immediately addressed the dressing room culture issue, just like OGS did. And, remember that SAF inherited just the nucleus of a great side, building it with some excellent buys and bringing it to life with the Class of '92, a batch of gifted home-grown players; the coming together of a set of people and circumstances that probably will never be repeated. What was OGS looking at? A side with a core of undeniably gifted young i...