Songs of the not-so innocent

Dear reader, Words cannot do justice to how wonderful my sabbatical has been. There's serious privilege involved in leading a purposeless life; well, not completely purposeless since the whole idea of the break was to convalesce from the disillusionment and fatigue I experienced at my previous workplace. It took me a couple of weeks to move on from the idea of working and I honestly haven't a clue how time flew by for a bit. Don't get me wrong though. Just because I haven't written in 4 months doesn't mean nothing has happened. On the contrary, I've become circumspect about revealing too much on this blog. On the few occasions I started to write, the words, sentences and ideas came out jumbly and pointless. Reading this now isn't going to change your life either. I just wanted to wrap up 2021 neatly and 4 months to the day from my last post felt like the right moment to do so, since I'm heading back to Bombay at the start of the next year to begin a new ...

Let me get a quick word in. This isn't the Manchester United he left in 2008. This isn't the Ronaldo the club bid adieu to more than a decade ago either. Both have changed. Both are different. Ole is not Sir Alex. The club has struggled to repeat its glory years a la the 2000s. Ronaldo's aura is still bright but not as incandescent as before. He's in better shape at 36 than most of us will ever be in our lives and yet he's 12 years older. Okay, he scored a lot of goals at Juventus, but Ronaldo hasn't picked up major honours/titles since leaving Madrid. The Italian job wasn't as successful as he and the team would have wanted. (*Edit: I was wrong. See PPS) Heck, Dybala may just have heaved the biggest sigh of relief in Italy because Ronaldo has a tendency to eclipse everyone else in the team. Kind of like Messi, but not in the Argentine's cunningly understated manner. Ronaldo's voracious appetite for personal success is as subtle as an uppercut.    ...

I recently made a bizarre personal discovery. By which I mean that it's probably common knowledge for the rest of you but new news on Planet G.  Radios have gone completely missing from brick & mortar stores. Why in Beelzebub's name do you need one, you ask? The father is hankering for a radio. Not just any fiddly variety but one which has a clock feature as well. A decade ago, in one of his occasional Marie Kondo moments, our clock radio, in perfect working condition of course, was shown the exit. Now, father can't find the right one for love or money. A piece by Sony which came close is only available at a price that suggests it should be able to pick up radio stations on Jupiter. Now cease and desist with the "tch" and eye-rolling for a minute and hear me out. There are 6+ stations on the FM band in this city and many more across the country. Surely that's enough customers to keep manufacturing radios? On the other hand, an irritatingly learned friend i...

I started writing this on Friday, the 6th of August but couldn't find the clarity of thought or right words to communicate my feelings. Now, a week or so later, I'm giving it another go.  The Friday was the last day of my 2-year stint at yet another advertising agency. It was only the second time I was voluntarily walking away from a job and the previous incident took place 7 years ago with me very much on the right side of 30. Then, it was a case of choosing to live, eat and sleep normally after a horrible year of work. Earlier that year (2014) I'd actually pushed myself to take a pay cut and move into mainline advertising from healthcare. 11 months later, I didn't care if I ever worked in advertising again, so disheartened was I by the whole game. It took a 2.5 year stint with a good team and a great (eccentric) boss before it felt like I'd turned a corner. Yet, watching the clock tick over to 6:30 pm, I couldn't even fake a smidgen of regret about what was my...

I came across this picture on Twitter . It's an ad that ran in Target, a magazine published in the 80s. Being in the advertising racket, I couldn't help but notice the plainness of the text; a simple announcer for new packaging. Us copywriters are told to inspire readers with the communication like they used to before , though from the looks of it, direct, no-nonsense stuff was being published back in the 80s too. Plus ça change, plus c'est la même chose , and all that. While many facets of the picture triggered of a deluge of nostalgia amongst friends, it was seeing the second bar from the top that caused a familiar dull ache in my chest. Any time I see the old Amul Fruit & Nut pack, I'm instantly transported back to an extremely humble, 1-RK in Bombay. I am sitting on a pink, mosaic marble tiled floor, the kind that's sadly gone out of fashion now, impatiently waiting for my Pati to open the front door and welcome my Thatha back from one of his mysterious (to...

Last night, European football's domestic calendar culminated in an improbable, yet thoroughly deserved Champions League title for Chelsea. Improbable because the team and their manager Thomas Tuchel were up against a great Man City team coached by Pep Guardiola, one of the best in the modern game. Chelsea had already beaten City twice in the past 6 weeks. Yet, for Pep, third time lucky, it was still not to be.  Say what you want about his crazy intensity, the man's a serial winner, with his City teams closer to collecting a unique quadruple (CL, Premier League, FA Cup, Carabao Cup) than any other side. This year, they seemed destined to pull it off but came up against the razor-sharp tactics and expensively assembled Chelsea of Tuchel. Yes, him not Lampard whose (same) team were struggling in 9th place in the EPL when he was sacked. Frank could not have done in 2 years what Tuchel has pulled off in 5 months - winning the CL, losing the FA Cup finals and finishing 4th in the EPL...

I am thinking of samosas. Piping hot off the wok or fresh-from-the-fridge cold. Masaledaar (does the word even have an English equivalent? Can it?) and spicy. Lathered in cooling mint and tangy date chutney or dipped in ketchup. With green chillies fried in oil and sprinkled with salt, or pav if you're still brave enough for carbs. Leaving behind an after-taste (or pleasurable belch) of sauf. For a hungover "what's left" breakfast, as a small lunch starter (Shabari, Panchavati Gaurav, I miss your thaalis so!), accompanying a cup or more of late afternoon, hottish masala chai and when you have late night munchies.  Or, man, just whenever you feel the fuck like you want one . That last bit is what I miss. And I think when I bite into a sweetshop-bought samosa again, will it be like before ? Maybe one day. I'm thinking about sandy-brown, flaky-crusted samosas. It keeps me going. Song for the moment: The boy in the bubble - Paul Simon

Just wanted to get a few quick thoughts in about the shambles that was/is the European Super League (ESL). I won't get into the economic aspects because, frankly, this guy would do a fabulous job. However, I've lived for a fair bit in the U.S., a country that has influenced a number of aspects in this post and the situation in general and kind of understand what those jokers were thinking about. First, let's get this off the chest - UEFA, FIFA, FA, SKY and the rest are no innocent lambs . They are as power-hungry and manipulative as the cabal that dreamed up the ESL. Their smoke-n-mirrors way of working, devious & dubious television deals, invisible, unaccountable distribution and terrible ideas for the 'new' Champions League format (where imaginary coefficients give some teams an advantage) are the reason European football was thrown into a roiling shit-show for about 48 hours. And no one has been flushed out yet. Except this asshat .  Americans have been in...

In my heart of hearts, this post should be in Tamil. But I cannot write or read the language. Bitter is the taste of losing a link to my own mother-tongue and yet it is a flavour I have become accustomed to. There is no yearning for a culture from which I am largely alienated. Still, there are days, moments, when I wish the chasm was not so wide. Today is one of those. Recently, Krish Ashok made a point that I found interesting - our hankering to eat food made by our mothers and grandmothers effectively tied them to the kitchen. Now, while the mothership didn't let the kitchen define her, my Pati kind of did. And, with all due respect to Mr. Krish, I like to think that it was her realm, not her prison. Pati, the sweetest, most kindhearted person I knew, gave short shrift to those who wandered into her domain, wanting to "help". While this meant that what I ate was superlative, it also ensured that none of us could pay close attention to how she cooked. The end result is ...

Exactly a year ago today, I entered my office and found harried security guards handing out sanitiser and taking everyone's temperatures. Later that day, we were asked to pack up our stuff and work from home. Having arrived from Pune just that morning, my back was sore enough for a natural disinclination to return there immediately which, in hindsight, wasn't the smartest move. What happened on the following Saturday is covered here . So, what's a year of working from home been like? Different. Chunks of the day lived in a daze, efforts plateauing and feelings riding a pendulum from rage to surrender. At home, work having a compartmentalised existence is a luxury. It's like that old Smirnoff Ad line - Life is happening. Where are you? At my desk, flagellating myself for shekels of course. People walk in during meeting calls, errands that could wait till weekends now demand urgent action on weekdays, one is more aware of our elders ageing, and all too often, the questio...

As I write this, Munawar Faruqui has spent 3 weeks in jail for a joke he did not make. Meanwhile, Virat Kohli has spent 3 weeks at home, basking in the glow of a series of victories he wasn't part of. To me at least, there's something strangely tragic about the times we live in. Since I like my freedom, this is not a post about India's kangaroo courts. Instead it is about kangaroos who courted disaster by underestimating the character of this Indian cricket team. Can't blame the Aussies though, because many of us did too. As mentioned in the previous post, there is a traumatised section of the Indian population, roughly spanning the ages of 60 to 35, which still cannot fathom just WTF happened and HTF the Test team won at the Gabba on Tuesday. Like the delicious pain of a loose tooth, I revisit the first half of January 19 over and over in my mind and yet scarcely believe it happened. How fiercely my heart thumped when we were just 3 runs away. It was akin to the uncons...

As India prepare to take on Australia at the fearsome Gabba, you'd have to be a serial optimist bordering on delusional to believe the visitors have a koala in a wildfire's chance of winning the game and the series. It's one of today's best (not in terms of class, mind) Test teams versus a gutted out shell of an XI; a hodgepodge of the walking wounded who really ought to be led by Florence Nightingale rather than the eminently dignified Ajinkya Rahane. An Aussie pace attack to dream of in comparison to an Indian one suffering a collective nightmare. It'll take much more than what the team had in Sydney to come out of the last Test with a positive result and I don't know if we have any more to give.   And, speaking of which, what a Test that was! That we drew in Sydney, against tremendous odds and broken body parts, is a stellar achievement in itself; a draw that felt like a victory. The batting was ugly but hey, so was the behaviour of the Aussies. Fuck that lot...