Infinity

My very own first riddle:
I met a cat, grinning having eaten a canary
Followed by another, scowling for being hungry
But the first one is not the same as the bird
So the second one grumbled
Are the two related in their felinity?

I bow in deference
To self-reference!




















****************

"Hi there, welcome to the parlour"















"What may I offer you?"
"Some decency, less B***s***, less betrayal, more honesty. Could you gift-wrap that for me, please?"
"Oh, I'm sorry....."

City of Blinding Lights - Me Mumbaikar

Mumbai
Million others and me
26th July, 2005
94.5 cms of rainfall in less than 24 hours
Took 22hours 45 mins to reach home

I learnt the following:
Honda makes the greatest cars in the world
The Honda City spent nearly 10 hours in water that was on an average waist-deep, most of the time stand-still or travelling at 1 kmh. Debris, garbage etc. kept bumping into the vehicle and a Tavera would accidentally kiss the rear on several occasions. The car made home unscathed. I shall be eternally grateful to Honda.

Radio is par-none as a channel for entertainment and communication
Losing sanity was very easy. If it weren't for continuous music and encouraging RJs, I might have gone berserk. Must make special mention of Go 92.5 FM.

Being locked up can be spiritually rewarding
On every occasion that I felt claustrophohic, I would step out and be rinsed by the rain. Felt like being born-again; never before have I yawned and stretched in soaking rain in the middle of a crowded road before.

Mumbai has soul!
.... Did not see incidents of vandalism, rioting, looting or arson. This was remarkable in light of a meagre presence of police, municipal workers, special reserve forces etc.
.... Heard about stray incidents of people stoning abandoned cars out of frustration and of shopkeepers charging twice the price for a pair of batteries.
.... All I could see was local residents providing food and water, shelter and personally guiding traffic; very often, each resident would personally guide 2 - 3 vehicles for ten minutes.
.... I had no idea whether to be embarrassed or blessed that a pre-teen using a garbage bag as a rain-coat walked upto my car and said, "uncle...parle-g biscuits, bananas, water?" All I did was politely say no, but beam my best smile.
.... Another car that cut me off on a turn would have ordinarily faced my wrath, but not this time. The driver stopped the car, leaned outside, grinned and offered biscuits and water.
.... People have perished in tragic circumstances. This will stain our collective souls
.... This city might suffer from organized mafia, highest cost of living in the country, little infrastructure, little protection from disasters and over 16 million people, but it has soul ..... and Balls of Steel!

Johnny Walker sees the world

Unterhalt auf dem Gehen Subsistencia en caminar Subsistance sur la marche Conservazione sul camminare Sustento em andar 歩くことのたくわえ걷기에 보유保留在行走

Upside Down

Saturday night and in office!






Hmmm....another one for the road; what my life is like






*****

Finally, after months of self-imposed abstinence




Oh, the familiar banging in my brain - like Tchaikovsky has met 50-cent. Thank God I'm off meats and smoking, else Black Sabbath would have joined the party! Sunday morning is not a good time for a conversation with Ozzy.

However, one thing is true....wine does improve ardour. The more you drink, the 'ardour' it gets.
Good Lord, the juvenile in me shall never die.

*****

So I don't have anything to say; sue me

Crossword for a Mumbai Monsoon

*******
Ah! A pleasure to master the art of disguising work through recreational activity (and yet insist on a salary).

Today's recreational activity is to surf through various tests available on www.emode.com. Hmmm.... came across an old test that tested my ESP skills and informed me that I possessed the power of precognition - the uncanny ability to see into the future.

I always knew I'd get discovered.

*******
Economists though, are what I refer to as "Inverse Psychics". They have the uncanny ability to predict the past. It's the future they have difficulties with.

*******
However, it's my IQ test that has me livid. Even when I cheat, I don't break into the "genius club".

I intensely dislike any game which offers little scope for cheating or sledging; however, please note I am not a 24 / 7 sledger. I choose the occasion wisely.

Like when am about to be check-mated in chess (yes, sledging in chess can be fun) by someone who is not physically daunting, I describe his sister in apt detail. After that, a fight breaks out, and the game loses importance. If the opponent is physically daunting, I ask about his gym routine. Same result.

Same with poker / "teen patti" ... you can bluff your way with impunity if you know what the other guy doesn't want you to do. Doesn't work with blackjack though.

*******
My favourite sledge in any game is - rough translation in English - "Hey pretty boy. You'd look good in a skirt. Send your mama next time". In exchange, I'd be called a "pretty girl". Fine art, this.

It gets more graphic during a fit of road-rage.

What's yours?

*******
Man, compared to what my job responsibilities are and what I end up doing, I don't think this country has a bright future!

*******
NO! Say it isn't so!

Just when I was happy that I had some surplus money after a long time, I've been informed that the tax-man cometh! Apparently, there is an unpaid income-tax liability that I need to pay up, with so many zeros that I need to throw up. Just when I was thinking of that O2 XDA-II and a vacation.

Why is the Art of Living more like the Art of Compromise? Everytime you think you've taken a step forward, you realize the compass is a bit crooked and you've actually taken a step side-ways.

Tax is the "vile"-est form of scum. When I think of the taxes I've paid for the year gone by, and the state of disarray this nation is in, I feel like throwing in the towel.

There is but one solution, I shall henceforth be paid in cash. If you can't lick 'em....

*******
Am bleeding to death and taxes
Am drowning my sorrow in poetry
Am reading "Highwayman" by Alfred Noyes
Personally, I wouldn't hire the Highwayman for a corporate job
He missed important deadlines
Sorry ... am in that sort of mood

Anagram today - A Adamant Gyro

Jar in Arid Rashness
Filthier bed I sow
Gaily Spin
A Graham Twins
Evil one hosts...
(Intrusions of Pong
I, rearragement servant!)

... and I'll buy dinner at Hilton or Wasabi

******
Another pointless quiz

Green You are a very calm and contemplative person. Others are drawn to your peaceful, nurturing nature. Find out your color at Quiz Me!

Industrial Disease

Warning lights are flashing down at quality control
Somebody threw a spanner and they threw him in the hole
There’s rumors in the loading bay and anger in the town
Somebody blew the whistle and the walls came down
There’s a meeting in the boardroom they’re trying to trace the smell
There’s leaking in the washroom there’s a sneak in personnel
Somewhere in the corridors someone was heard to sneeze
’goodness me could this be industrial disease?

The caretaker was crucified for sleeping at his post
They’re refusing to be pacified it’s him they blame the most
The watchdog’s got rabies the foreman’s got fleas
And everyone’s concerned about industrial disease
here’s panic on the switchboard tongues are ties in knots
Some come out in sympathy some come out in spots
Some blame the management some the employees
And everybody knows it’s the industrial disease

The work force is disgusted downs tools and walks
Innocence is injured experience just talks
Everyone seeks damages and everyone agrees
That these are ’classic symptoms of a monetary squeeze
’On itv and bbc they talk about the curse
Philosophy is useless theology is worse
History boils over there’s an economics freeze
Sociologists invent words that mean ’industrial disease’

Doctor parkinson declared ’I’m not surprised to see you here
You’ve got smokers cough from smoking, brewer’s droop from drinking beer
I don’t know how you came to get the betty davis knees
But worst of all young man you’ve got industrial disease’
He wrote me a prescription he said ’you are depressed
But I’m glad you came to see me to get this off your chest
Come back and see me later - next patient please
Send in another victim of industrial disease’

I go down to speaker’s corner I’m thunderstruck
They got free speech, tourists, police in trucks
Two men say they’re jesus one of them must be wrong
There’s a protest singer singing a protest song -
he says’
they wanna have a war to keep us on our knees
They wanna have a war to keep their factories
They wanna have a war to stop us buying japanese
They wanna have a war to stop industrial disease
They’re pointing out the enemy to keep you deaf and blind
They wanna sap your energy incarcerate your mind
They give you rule brittania, gassy beer, page three
Two weeks in espana and sunday striptease’
Meanwhile the first jesus says ’I’d cure it soon
Abolish monday mornings and friday afternoons’
The other one’s on a hunger strike he’s dying by degrees
How come jesus gets industrial disease

Love Over Gold,
Dire Straits

C'est la magnifique!

I think I died yesterday and other Randomness

I think I died yesterday....
Out of curiosity, do you remember your past?
Somehow I can't.
I remember an avatar of myself experiencing conversations, hikes, intimacy, mistakes and trying to learn from them.
I just can't remember me, as is me today, doing any of those.
I don't think I could do it again.
Ever.

I think I was reborn today....

What drives people?
Is having a mission important?
I took a quiz on "How ambitious are you?" I flunked.
I took a quiz on "Are you millionaire material?" I flunked.
I'm nearing thirty and am already contemplating retirement.

I can die tomorrow....

I've got stocks, bonds, real estate, mutual funds, life and non-life insurance, pension.
Now I've got wine.
I'm still broke.
But I've got laid.
Better laid than never.

The shape of my nose is weird....

I have a nice house of my own, but I don't feel like buying a car.
Almost everyone I know is the other way around.
Somehow, right now I can't buy a depreciating-value asset.
As an asset class, cars are pointless.
Unless it's a BMW.

There is no tomorrow....

Who on earth devised the calendar?
What if there was no calendar?
What would you do differently?

There is no Hell....

Hmmm....I prefer to travel by local trains.
Others hate the local trains.
Someone once said that to solve a new problem, you must change the plane of thinking.
Now, doing that is Hell!

There are no soulmates....
Why should there be?
You're participating in a learning process.
I'm in school.
Front-bencher.
Where are you?

There Is....

"Why, what's wrong?"

A lot of people I know –friends and family alike – tend to ask me this question. Some people have observed, “You don’t seem too happy these days. Why don’t you talk about it?”

The truth is, I see no issue in 'talking about it' – I do have my fair share of issues and I’m not too proud to make a mention of them. What I fear most is that I may receive advice, or help, even before I’m through mentioning what ails me. Or I may be told in return,"Grow up. That's hardly what I call a problem."

I spend a lot of time talking about music, philosophy, alcohol and women. I rarely, if ever, talk about what concerns me the most. Perhaps I’m being unreasonable in expecting people to be active, but silent, listeners.

In the Star Trek series, Captain Kirk has a policy – to investigate and learn from other species, but not interfere with them. Often I smile to myself, thinking that it is advice we ought pay heed to.

Are we bad people in offering advice?
No.
Are we somehow unconsciously atoning fears for our karma?
I wonder.
Have we been taught to feel good about helping?
I don’t think we know the limits of being un-helpful and over-helpful.

Therefore, some of my best friends are those who listen to me rant and rave for a couple of hours, and then pour me another drink without offering me advice, unless I ask for it. And they don't pass judgement. I think that is a sign of extreme maturity.

I try and be the same, except somehow fewer people seem to be willing to talk to me about their problems these days! I've been told that I'm too selfish a person to talk to. This always causes me to smile to myself ... luckily, those who matter most to me think otherwise. Those who listen to my rantings also pick up the phone at any time of the day and pour their cup of woes. And I don't respond apart from an occasional, "Carry on. What happened next?"

Someday, I might let people on about what’s ticking in the time-bomb in my head. Until then, I’ll most likely have a drink at the local inn. Or chat up with my two-month old niece. Her most sagacious response is often to pee in my arms and stick her tongue out. I stick my tongue out right back. Noone messes around with me!

Retirement

Friday afternoon, and I dream of things I look forward to when I retire.

While I'm to touch 30 next year, I can't help wonder what retirement will be like. There are so many things to look forward to:

1. Breakfast on sunshine
2. Go for my morning swim ... at 10 AM
3. Shall return to my hobby ... punting / investing in my favourite markets ... stock, real estate and wine
4. My friends and I will actually start that investment fund we've been meaning to for a year now. Interestingly, after last night's dinner, we're closer than we thought. Any suckers around?
5. Fill all the empty moments with books, music, scotch whiskey
6. I shall dream of Beyonce Knowles or Sushmita Sen (or their equivalents in the next generation) ... not of the next day's work
7. No Powerpoint presentations
8. Meals shall be varying combinations of rice, beer and goan prawn curry
   
9. No mobile phones ... they will be banned. Currently, I have two cell phones, and both shall be flushed down the toilet
10. Not worrying about annual bonuses, increments etc. Of course, there will be no salary, so I shall live well within my means
11. In the afternoon, teach under-graduate maths / english for an income, while I take my fill of fine-lookin' pretty young things
12. No getting yelled at, or fearing politics and dirty games
13. No human interaction. I like people ... really do ... but from a distance
14. My best friend and companion will be this monster of an alsatian
15. Live in this 1 BHK Beach cottage
16. More sex than am getting currently ... hopefully, not with the alsatian
    
17. Evenings, drive in an open jeep .... the bigger and nastier the vehicle the better. I shall run over all the punks on two-wheelers
18. Take up golf ... have passed up too many invitations to join golf clubs (primarily because I can't afford them now)
19. I can tell people, "I don't want to talk right now because I don't like you"
20. Spend more time on a vineyard I expect to buy anytime now (been "anytime now" for a year)

New member of the Hazy Family

NB: Have identified some stuff that didn't belong here and shifted them to a newly created blog - Hazycrystal.blogspot.com

Please do be looking at the fledgeling.

If it's Tuesday, it must be Belgium

What if ...
... we were all communists and there was no Government
... there was not going to be any more "golden years", and you'd have to work forever
... we didn't own anything, we only acted as custodians for a brief interval of time
... there was no marriage, only relationships
... there was no speech, only thought and music
... there was no weather that we didn't want
... there were nano-robots that built things on the fly, like roads in mid-air, and then destroy them when not used, so mother earth reaps maximum benefits
... there were mobile-phones with 3-dimensional holograms which acted on touch so we would never feel the confines of space
... there were no organized religions
... there were no nations and there was no home
... you are measured by how much you give out, and not how much you made
... we were all socialists and there still was no Government
... there were no independent units called families and it really took a village to raise a child
... there was no destiny, and there were only choices
... there were as many philosophies as there were people
... one day, the earth is going to explode, and we need to vacate and migrate elsewhere
... we were all capitalists and there still was no Government
... we are all prostitutes - seeking intimacy and yet prefer being strangers
... it was Tuesday and it really was Belgium?

Damn...I am a hippy in a corporate suit. Or, if Quizzila is to be believed, a dragon.

What I'm not

You know, having pored over all my posts, I've realized something....I have absolutely no direction! I'm merely describing what I'm seeing. The words are all over the place, and it makes one wonder whether a mistake is being made in liking the writing rather than the written.

Or is the ability to use the written word exaggerated? I mean, can one describe a 9 x 7 by Jimmy Page or a 7 x 3 drum roll by John Bonham, or a canon in D minor by Bach using the written word? Isn't language as a means of reaching understanding faulty and over-used? Is one guilty of mortgaging thought and understanding to the scribble? Don't we speak and write because we aren't telepathic?

Anyways, that digression apart, I guess people with direction have a pretty good clue about who they are and what they are on about. I need to work backwards, by first figuring out what I'm not.

My list on what I'm not thus commences...
1 poet
2 saint
3 athlete
4 rich
5 poor
6 angry
7 depressed
8 happy
9 discontent
10 enlightened
11 ignorant
12 smart
13 dumb
14 well-read
15 illiterate
16 been-there-done-that
17 been-where-done-what
18 crass
19 well-mannered
20 chew with my mouth open
21 chew 32 times before swallowing
22 judgmental
23 keep my own counsel
24 satan
25 ugly as sin
26 Omar Sharief
27 Spiteful
28 Forgiving
29 Forgetful

Guess then that leaves one to oscillate in the vacuum between Truth and Illusion

Then again....one watches the Live8 concert, and a little voice goes off in the back of the head, "Get a life. Get moving! Music will achieve more for your human race than all yer f*****g contemplation and written words"

Salvation for Nine-Ninety Nine; service tax extra

I love Tuesdays, they are closer to Fridays than Mondays; I hate Sundays, they are farthest from the next drinking binge….unless Monday is declared a holiday. Either way, you hate drinking alone; I’d much rather be just alone rather than drunk and alone.

When you're alone, then you think of conquest.

If you were to mount a conquest on a defiant nation, how would you do it? Let’s say that you had all the arms at your disposal, and you had the power of an army that was ten times larger than the small nation’s army? Would you conquer through war? That’s the easy way out. Let’s make it even easier – the small army is filled with monks with visions of an ancestor who tasted nirvana and would aid them in salvation. Salvation would be achieved through sticks and stones against tanks and guns – bloody quick way to achieve salvation, if you ask me.

So you take to war – and win, and grab land.

But supposing you were confronted with a bunch of people who believed that their ancestor would eventually aid them in their salvation? Minor point, isn’t it? That you win land but can’t enslave the people because of their beliefs in a long-dead folk-hero?

What would you do next? You’d buy them out, of course.

But you couldn’t win over these senior members of the society. So why not wait for their extinction? You could propagate your values through school….powerful way out.

But then, all that would happen is that kids would grow up hating you because they are still poor. So you can give out alms; that would make life easier for one and all. Perhaps you could raise alms through taxes. So now you have poor, drunk folks – who think their folks were crazy to believe in a folk-hero; how backward. How perfect for the conqueror. But that’s the funny part; who is the conqueror? By the time the kids grow up and figure out that they hate the “old ways”, the original conqueror is long gone.

Who were we fighting against? Who are we fighting now?

On Monday Mornings

Monday morning conversation
Senior management calls me (not my boss) to get some work done. Such relationships are called dotted-line reporting.
“Good morning, it’s me!”

Wonderful, should I inform my folks so that we can participate in a gypsy dance around a fire?

“Good morning.”

Liar, Liar! You are about to be seduced in doing work, because
a) You’re about to be outranked
b) You’re worthlessness is confirmed by way of your salary, which could afford your folks to do the gypsy-dance around the fire
c) It’s Monday morning, you’re in office, and it’s a time-honoured tradition to work on Monday Mornings, unlike other traditions, like folks hand-in-hand dancing around a fire. Who invented this calendar anyways?

“Can I talk to you?”

Not particularly, because you are paid a humongous salary to stay out of harms way, which was confirmed after a psychometric test which confirmed that you couldn’t ape a monkey, but yet you’re in control

“Of course, how can I help you?”

Liar, Liar! You are about to be seduced in doing work, because….oh, to hell with that one!
“See, I need a presentation…”
choose a better wardrobe
“….that would show that we’ve made money in the eastern region”

fire the western region, claim cost reduction on account of the decision made by the eastern region, reorganize into north-eastern textile and eastern tanning regions to wipe out trends arising out of historical data that would prove the eastern region was a bigger disaster than the movie “Titanic”, and stay out of harm’s way

“No problem! Should I display productivity analysis or capacity utilization?”
Which essentially are two sides of the same coin, but only the monkey has passed the psychometric test to answer that one, remember? But the monkey doesn’t have time; he’s on National Geographic, while I’m in office.

“Show both”
Wonderful
“But…uh…..aren’t they both essentially the same?”
“You tell me!”
“Uh..I think so!”
“But what if you end up getting criticized of inadequate analysis!”
“But, who’ll sign-off on the presentation?”
“I will…how much time will it take?”
“Hmmm…about 5 hours”
“Great…it’s 9:00 AM now….send it before 2:00”
“Could I take a little more time…I’m into something right now”
“What?”
Your wife
“The latest analysis on our achievements for the previous month, and comparing the same against the previous quarter, same time last year and ytd”
Your wife
“See…if you can’t deliver, just say so, and I’ll inform accordingly”
Why bother? I’ll inform, and we both can get sacked, and cost reductions will take place, and the decision would be the eastern regions, and they’d make more money
“No, no…..what I mean is…”
“2:00 then!”
“Definitely!”

You see, salaries are about budgeting, cost-benefit analysis, deciding on effective planning and control measures on the shop-floor, presentations, and discussing the rising operational costs and negative cash flows arising from higher wages, sub-contracting, and deciding on how much of the shop-floor wages to disappear, and how many to hire to decide on how much to fire.