Switching channels after seeing Pakistan beat South Africa (not chokers anymore), I came to Star Movies. And it was playing “Waitress“.
And that cute looking actress (since identified as Keri Russell by IMDB) caught my eye. She was dressed in a Waitress’ garb and looking oh-so-sad like someone who’s just a few $ away from being really poor, and isnt in a very happy state vis-a-vis their life – crappy job, relationship etc.,

And so it was. The waitress is actually stuck in a loveless marriage, with a husband who doesnt care for her much, in a small town. There is one bright spot in her life though – pies. (Not the American Pie kind). She makes lovely pies, most of which she thinks up to represent some bits of her emotional state.
And then we see some of the best representation of humdrum life in a movie – her regular days at work, followed by ending the night with a self-absorbed and somewhat uncaring husband. The regular ills of a workplace – her boss who doesnt seem to be able to utter kind words besides “Get out of the kitchen” “There are customers waiting” and such, her colleagues who form a clique with her, and both of whom share a humdrum life as well.
Her customers, some idiosyncratic, some loving, some who really love her pies and her as well. There isnt too much outdoor shoots, not much snazzy outfits – not too much at all.  Its subtle – if any product wanted to be marketed as subtle, this would be the movie to do it.
I wouldnt go into the rest of the story as I’d fawn so much into it, but here’s something for subtlety – the husband finds spare cash hidden all around the house, and he asks her why (after wrecking a chair at the diner she works in) and she tells him its for the baby – even as he’s a bit taken aback, he gets up embraces her and says “For the baby!”. (Pictures work better)

If this review still hasnt convinced you, maybe I havent been as subtle and as real as the movie. Just go watch it. Its a masterpiece.  Sadly, the writer-director is no more.

Closing ceremonies are always a drag – *why* have them at all?

Writing seems like an easy job, until you try doing it everyday and try expanding every little thought you have into a paragraph. And the paragraphs into little essay pieces.

It is not just filling up words, but having them making sense together and for the whole to be bigger than just the sum of its parts. Your brain has to work at churning the thoughts out, making them fit together and make sense.
And its something I’ve noticed its that my brain comes up with very varied and newer thoughts when its tired. Its kinda like a double whammy – I’m just about to get to bed, if I expand on the thought then I’m waving my sleep bye-bye, if not, the thought just doesn’t have that elegance with it.
It seems like humour in most movies these days: forced.
Some days I let the thoughts take over, some days I just give in to tiredness, but the compromise rankles either way – on the one side I’m betraying my body, on the other side I’m betraying the betterment of my intellectual faculties.
Mind you, not that I’m writing a book – but blog-posts and writing these with clarity of thought and with the requisite sleep is proving a big stumbling block. Hope to have that resolved, soon!

There are sometimes in your life when you miss your ex the most.Something in a magazine, in a book, in a movie – a particular scene or the way a couple interact reminds you of them. For good or for bad. But remind it does, and the emotion it takes you to is the one of missing.
Like the “Kahin to” song playing in my head right now, which captures the longing, the melancholy with the right voice, tone and music. That reminder just takes you places, memories, stuff which you dont want to remember cos its over. Stuff you dont wanna remember cos its good and you dont have it anymore.or just stuff that hurts. And can only be replaced by new love.
Sometimes all we need is a good hug.

..you discover that some comments on your blog are really by the same person under different names?

Do you mark that person as spam, do you unapprove the comment and watch for the commenter again?

It’s rather tough to dismiss all the comments, cos after all, that person has taken time out to read your blog, maybe the comments there and posted their own.

Also, when your blog isnt kickin it at the top, the comments can indeed lure more viewers.

But, comments, and the posts – their authenticity, and uniqueness are what are best about a blog.

What to do then?

I just realised that I’ve not posted in a little over 3 months! Yikes! Where’s my creative juices, where have they been? What’s gotten into me?

well, for starters, it was the travel genie that bit me (more on it later). Then it was the flu virus, followed by lots of work – and then sickness of a dear one.

Whew! Now feeling slightly better – and hoping to post on all the above ones!

According to Security Evaluators, the Apple iPhone has the ridiculous vulnerability of every major application accessing system with “Root” privileges. And they have already found an exploit with Safari, which lets them take complete control of the phone!

Wired reports :

“As long as everything runs as root, there are going to be bugs and people are going to find them (to take over the device),” says Charlie Miller, principal security analyst for Independent Security Evaluators, who, with colleagues, discovered the first reported bug with the iPhone earlier this year.

Wired’s headline reads “IPhone’s Security Rivals Windows 95“

If that doesnt scare you shitless, and away from it, I am not sure what would. I am wondering if I should just stick to relatively “normal” phones and avoid smartphones in the near future.

I am only surprised that this wasnt caught out at the software design phase itself! Just speaks volumes about our developers.

Once in a while my metro/retro/uber sexual gene hidden somewhere within me wakes up and prods me to do something interesting – a polite way of saying, it makes me goof up, and then repent at leisure, while everyone has a good laugh at it.

This time, at the salon, I was getting my hair trimmed, and then, for the umpteenth time when I was asked what kinda of a look I wanted, my eyes lit up. My brain cells fused, and I said “Make it short, but I want it coloured!”
Right. Coloured. colou-RED. you get the idea. So first, the nice people that they are, at the salon, handed me a folder with different coloured hair strands on them. There were probably something like 100 shades there, with half being blonde the rest being brunette/red. The differences were so scarce on that artificial hair, that i doubted if more than 3-4 shades existed in the range.

Still, the braveheart that I was, I took an appointment. “I’d like to get my hair coloured by Mr H at 4pm. Btw where’s my discount for introducing so many people to this place?” “we’ll give it on the colouring, sir!. Smart people them.

Cometh the hour, cometh the man – slightly late though! So, he again showed me them shades. “Streaks or full colouring?” “Streaks!” “Which colour do you think contrasts well with black – only blonde seems okay here?” and so on the convo went. Finally, settled for blonddde (pronounced blond-deh). After tousling up my hair a bit, the man returns with a cap. Nice cap, it looked like, but why would he want to use it…? And then the explanation – the strands will be drawn thru holes in it.

PLUCK! OUCH! “Did you just pull my hair off?” “Oh not to worry sir, while i’m pullin it thru the openings in the cap, it’ll pain a bit”. A bit, yes. Somewhat akin to the pain one would feel if their was being uprooted, in clumps. With all the plucking done, and my hair still there – much to my surprise and relief.

Short lived relief.

Seen cactus/cacti with black leaves or thorns? No? Well, that was what my head looked like. One extra large cactus, with the thorns all black (sooon to be blonde!) Its one of those times when God tells you “u cant look good, unless u go thru the process of looking ugly!” sigh.

And then, he applied whipped cream onto my hair. Here n there, here n there. Aint it funny that hydrogen peroxide looks EXACTLY like whipped cream? watch what you get with ur CCD/Barista coffees….
More whipped cream, and I was ready to be served up as a dish. For that I had to wait. First was the hair dryer. Round n round it went. Then it was followed by yet another cap. Topi pe topi, seemed like! What followed was a round under some mysterious machine. Well, my head was stuffed into it, and it apparently tried to heat it up – this thing thankfully happened fast enough!!

And finally after another wash, I was blondde-d for a couple of months.

Of late, I have kinda realised (again) why people say travel broadens your horizons. Having been rather stuck in Bangalore for the past two years or so, somehow the experience of the couple of years before that seemed to have gone a bit wishy washy, and diluted by our dear friend – Time.

And then, luckily, after a lot of begging, cajoling pleading and stuff, I was finally off to Tokyo! And boy, was the ride to there interesting. A hell lotta people told me it was hell. That if you are a veggie, like yours truly, its the pit of the fire in hell.

Thai Airways certainly made me feel that way. If there wasn’t enough apprehension about FOOD, they made sure, they fed(pun intended) the thoughts of starvation very well. The Thai Experience begs for another post, suffice to say, that the in-flight magazine is called “Sawasdee” – Thai for Namaste/Welcome – and the air crew made me feel anything but welcome.

Having travelled Thai all the way through, Japan, on hindsight should have been expected as a terrifying destination – but with the excitement of finally having gotten FAR, FAR away from India*, I didnt approach it with apprehension – more curiosity, I think.

And Japan, was one huge experience. It was humbling. It was entertaining, flattering (to deceive, occasionally), interesting – even humiliating a couple of times. On the whole, it was one awesome trip! The details of course will come up later – this post is about learning!

One of the first experiences in Japan, was getting out of our service apartment and searching for a department store – they call the smaller shops as “convenience store” (and pronounce it as conBenience store – like ‘em Bongs)

So we stopped a guy – and, he didnt know English. We were soon to learn that most people dont understand a word in English, not even Yes/No sometimes. We tried communicating in various ways until he realised we wanted a conbenience store – and we realised it was a convenience store. So the guy tried to direct us, and having failed to communicate, walked us, ALL the way to the store – asked if it was what we wanted, and bowed and went on his merry way! (The store wasnt really far, but still, a huge gesture!)

That was our first really opening to the Japanese world. Be helpful and polite! Boy!

2 days later, we got lost on the way to office. And we sought the help of this lady who happened to walk past. She spent something like 15 minutes trying to help us out – that we were lost got communicated easily, but not the directions to our place! heh! Finally, I happened to dig out the card of our Japanese colleague – and the lady called him up, got him to speak to us, made sure everything was alright and we would be taken care of (the Japanese colleague was coming to pick us up) and finally left – even apologised for not knowing english well!

It just blew our minds. There we were, strangers in the land, speaking strange lingo, and to face such politeness and courtesy! Damn! Oh oops!

Was a great lesson to me in being humble and helpful!

EEEE! 535 words…. looong post. I shall post the next thing I learnt in Japan later.

* I REALLLY LOVE MY COUNTRY, BUT I REALLLY LOVE TO TRAVEL TOO!

So, what do you say to a pal when you tell him that you’re carefree and single – and have been for a couple of weeks – and he goes “WHY, man?” . A shrug, which prompted a bigger, louder “WHHYYY, maaan?”

You get the headline now?

Just too much oral sex dude. I needed another, you know? (no, didn’t say that.. wasn’t far off my thoughts though)

Something on the lines of maybe

“Oh pappe pyaar karke pachtaaaya” (he’s a tamilian. And might just not get it).

By the by, love the humour in the song. Boy, such wit.

Maybe drown into some sad poetry or shaayari – talk of broken hearts, mangled dreams, rusted emotions?

(the truth, as usual resides somewhere in between – like water somehow flows into, or hides even, in a crack eh?)

 

Ah bloody hell, why do people wanna know anyway? Its not like people ask you “WHY?” when you tell them you’re with someone (short of marriage anyways).

Its not like I am an open book – am a rather private person on certain things – and well relationships are as private as one can get. And questions are best avoided, especially when I haven’t opened up on the topic myself.

Kinda like the response of another pal way better – “yeno nindu golu?” (“why do you always land up in shit?” or “yeh tera kya jhamela hai yaar?”) – he also uses the same line when I get together with someone new too, though.

Some of my other friends seem to have the rather opposite problem – I kinda almost end up talking too much – they’d give their hands n legs to shut me up. and I’d gladly shut up if some of them wud do that.. heh – such good friends we are..

(sorry, kingfisher, Uppi saar. I’ll change that headline later, honest!)