Friday, November 25, 2005

QOTD #4

I have just realised that, regardless of the fact I love my job or not, I would always love quitting it.

- Zero, as on Nov 21, 2005.

Cigarettes

The Prologue
Statutory Warning: Reading this post is injurious to health. Before you think I cracked an abysmally insipid joke, I suggest you to get going with the post and figure out at the end how much good sense this "statutory warning" makes in the larger context, apart from being a lame joke.

Chapter 1: Cigarettes
Here at 3 in the afternoon, with one of those weekly team meetings just over, I move back to my spot and stare blankly, for quite a while, at the monitor before deciding to write this piece.
Another guy whose participation in the meeting was as bland as mine - thus letting him be in the same empty state as me - doesn't do the same. He drags one of his chums off to the terrace, pulls a stick from his pocket and lights it up. He does it. So does every smoker, thus evading those empty moments, that arise after one laughs at his manager's jokes, by doing something; unconditionally. Habits, my dear reader, habits! Habits make a Man.
No emotions, no discussions, no contemplation; just a few fleeting moments of unreasonably (here some smokers may raise an objection; but that was a compliment) pleasing act, as perhaps Hitckcock would have put it.
Before the reader presses Alt-F4 irritated at getting to hear such a preposterous "reasoning" *for* smoking, I would like to emphasize that my reasoning in itself is senseless. But, that's exactly where I am hitting at. Without being senseless at times, life wouldn't be what it is.

The Epilogue
Some stare blank. Some smoke. Some write. Some read what others wrote.

Monday, November 21, 2005

Stupid QOTD #3

Its fine to have opinions on gobi manchurian; but not on people who have opinions on gobi manchurian; at least, not when it's to do with a 'gobi manchurian'. :)

Lovelution

How poetry ever got written -- that never struck me!
- Richard P. Feynman

The Prologue:
I agree to the above statement to various degrees at different times. But never did it strike as completely false to me. And in a peculiarly similary way, it applies for love too in my life.

The Post:
Recently, I read Bharath's write-up on this thing called love (though I felt it was more about loss of one's love), and started musing what it meant in my senselessly stupid life. I talking about love is like camels talking about bungee-jumping. Even as I type this, I realise that I have given a rather nice form to love (bungee-jumping), here. Sometimes, I end up comparing it to several unsavory things (toilets, for example).
Not that love was/is impossible for me. Its only that I don't seem to have actually felt considerable amount of love for anybody till now. If you want to get a fairly accurate depiction, think Rajesh from Gautam's Minnale (I don't quote examples from inane movies or those which I don't admire; but the characterization, with the right amount of ineptness, never got closer than this). Hold on. Before you think I was roaming around bullying people around wearing thick black jerkins and bunch of fancy chains around my neck, the comparison was strictly meant for the level of interaction with girls and the directions it took during the few times I did interact (which is mostly when we are pulling the legs of some poor guy linking him unsavourily to some quiet/enthusiastic girl in the class).
The general (and hence senseless too) perception is that, in the social setup in which I spent my time as a teenager, for a guy to fall in love with a girl (or at least run/crawl after skirts in general), he had to be this hip guy (another inept description; but the material seems to deserve it) or the mushy-mushy "you-are-what-I-live-for" love. Unfortunately, yours truly was neither and (hence?) belonged to the rest {a real fat percentage at that, who never actually fall in love until some day they get married} theorizing love among friends (not quite similar to Vivek in those several "college-romance" flicks, but in the same ballpark; note the innumerous inane references in Tamil films throughout in this post).
Honestly looking back (and pointlessly theorizing why I was the way I was), I never grew up from being the boy who fiercely competed with fellow female classmates in acads and local quizzes during my school life to become the prototype adolescent who flirts in a real dumb way with the fairer sex. By the time I grew up and started appreciating the finer aspects of the female species (like Psmith would have put it), I was far off from being the dude whom I would describe henceforth (for the sake of discussion) as the "I-need-girlfriends" type (another phrase conceived by Pa. Vijay for Boys; need I repeat that it is another reference to an inane movie?). I admit I had crushes; in fact, lots of them. But, none of them turned out to have even 1/10th of the mush quotient (no disrespect here; to reduce the mock-factor, let me make it 'emotional quotient') required to be actually called love or to deliberately introduce some familiarity with the girl concerned. The result was this total absence/stray occurrences of interaction with females. And like the true boy-next-door-in-a-town-in-Tamilnadu {unfairly neglected in the representation of youth in Kollywood cinema considering the sheer numbers in which they are bred in real life; except for those rare cases like Sethu}, I was better off being one who laughs his ass off when a guy mumbles/explains/cries about his true love for some femme fatale.
This post does ring a bell with my "love life".
Yes, I did sit in last bench for most part of college life. I use profanity of all kinds in all languages. I did sometimes think (perhaps, quite stupidly) my sense of humour (take it with a pinch of salt, now ;)) is alien/didn't match with many of the females I had known (at least from what I had heard about things they *choose* to giggle at). I yak a lot of bullshit in any topic but can't really say if I can/can't "start a topic with a member of the oppoisite sex", because I never deliberately did it (loads of ego, perhaps). I am not anywhere close to being a fan of rock music too (though my close friends worship it). Yes, all thru my college life, I belonged to this boys gang in which nobody had a girlfriend. {On the flip side, I hate Gaana songs and I really hate Deva. I am a guy with two left feet. I watch all kinds of movies. eat any food; somehow I maintain this vegetarian thing which might jolly well go for a toss any day.}
But the key difference is {I learn from here that it is called post hoc ergo propter hoc} that while that dude is explaining "why we never get them" (thus giving a cause-effect relationship), I never seemed to have even tried hard to get them (thus thinking of this as a correlation). To sum it up, I never indulged myself into love and took some immense stupid pride in it.
When in a relatively saner state, we (I and my friends) have tried to reason (for discussion's sake) why we are what we are, and came up with different reasons which ranged from frequency mismatch (assumption of intellect), too emotional for the pieces of wood that we are, multi-layered futility {which, I realise, is the most important factor - this observation updated much later; on Feb 6, 2:15 p.m.} etc. Sometimes we were even told that it will happen to us one day when we get "matured".
I don't question why things are the way they are. Well I do - actually way too often - but, only for the sake of a discussion. When it comes to deeds, I just float like a piece of wood (a rather dull description of a rather joie de vivre life ;)). Hence, as much as I don't question the existence of love, I also don't question the inevitability of a marriage (an arranged marriage at that). Interestingly(?), in Minnale, Rajesh eventually meets his kind of girl. Every man has an opinion of his kind of girl (even as I type this, I feel this definitive urge not to write it; call it a big fat ego not to reveal your need for something to anybody or plain shyness). Mine is some girl who is very similar to me - who can yak about bullshit (preferably with a vocabulary with rich profanity that challenges mine :); am not an expert, btw) for hours, which will make me feel at home. In short, she should be able to comprehend this senseless/worthless/stupid ramble and its undercurrents :).

Epilogue:
I guess, I kinda understand the need/desire for a female company in the life of any man. But I seem to ask, "well.. what's the hurry?". Yeah, I am like Jeff, the Dude, in Big Lebowski.

Tuesday, November 15, 2005

How not to have yourself arrested 101

The Prologue a.k.a The regular ramble
This blog that is half-dormant wakes up when I seriously try to reiterate the obvious; or quite unusually, when I really have something to say. Or do both these things mean the same? It certainly appears so.

The post
Another day. Another thing. Suhasini has joined hands with Kushboo after apologising to her on behalf of tamilians and has received brickbats from all quarters ranging from the Nadigar Sangam to what not (and a new case is also being filed). I don't feel the slightest of the responsibility to apologise on behalf of the rambunctious bunch who raised this as an issue at first place, though. Apparently, Suhasini did and is in the loop now.
More importantly, I wonder if a non-bailable warrant can be issued against somebody who didn't turn out to attend the court hearing on a case which is worth contending for the stupidest of the cases ever filed. Isn't there any validation before calling for a court session? Or, was that the Mettur Judge actually felt Kushboo did something which is worth a hearing?
One of my acquaintances pondered over this:- What would have been the reaction from this wild bunch (sorry, Peckinpah) if it was, umm, a man - and a born tamilian at that - said the same thing? Now, that reveals quite many dimensions of this issue. There are still people out there believing that they actually have let Kushboo live in T.N. and she better dance to their tunes (which apparently she did in the past :p).

The Epilogue
I believe staunchly that all living beings (and their beliefs) are equally stupid. And, time and again, there's somebody out there who comes dangerously close to dash this theory off.

Monday, November 07, 2005

If debugging is the process of removing bugs, isn't coding the process of introducing them?

Remembered reading this quote somewhere. Can apply this ditto to life!