...and I have moved

...to Wordpress.

They let me justify my text (no pun intended).

Update link if you care

I am not dead, yet

Just moved to Bombay! :-)

Bangalore Shivers

Take a girl out of a sweaty, sand filled place with a couple of nice beaches thrown in and put her in a place where the biggest water body around happens to be called Ulsoor LAKE.

Now mix in a hundred even days dry as tinder, a fifty or so emptying the heavens and an odd eleven with temperatures of fifteen on an average.

The resultant is me shivering in my bathroom after dunking myself with water at sub zero temperature. It is a vicious cycle with a deep dark conspiracy thrown in. The thought process goes something like this, depending on the outside temperature...

Hmmmm, a nip in the wind... should I switch on the geyser? Hmmmm... yeah that should be about right...let me try anyway...(a mug of hitherto unknown, but very soon to be discovered cold water is on its way to my toes, which are about the only parts I can feel after the water flows down)...holy %^$@....the geyser is a good thing after all! (opens the hot water faucet)... ah! all that steam makes me feel that much better! Wait a minute now we would not want the water getting too hot ha ha I am not going to fall for that and scald myself let me see how hot.....aaaaaaaarrgh! !@#!^% &^%$%^!(*, bloody hell!

Lesson learnt: One can be scalded in one way too many, for example, by the water on its way into the bucket from the faucet which coincidentally might also result in a long long burn on your forearm.

If it only all ended there! But no, finally after one manages to collect enough water to take a bath, the first mug is warm enough not to scald you but cold enough to continue giving you goosebumps from the cold. Then the wiser-after-getting-burnt you decides to use all that calculus and begins to add hot water in delta amounts. And you wait, and you wait and you wait some more, while you freeze some more and the water, miraculously is nowhere close to that Utopian temperature. So you decide to defy all logic and add a heuristically appropriate amount of hot water now and get ready to soak in bliss when again, you cannot feel anything but your toes, this time for the rest of you is busy being burnt.

It is approximately around here that lesser mortals would just give it all up, drench yourself in freezing water and stumble out, grateful to have your skin still on.

As for me, I head to work and bully them into parceling me to warmer climes called Bombay

Long loops and noodle sticks

I generally love my hair and on most normal days it loves me back. So logically, Sunday must have been anything but normal. For one, it ended up in a lot of my hair lying on the floor without me attached at the right end.

It is not like I have a bad hair-cut history though. Hair cuts from age 4 (that is as far back as I can remember)to age 15 involved one-stool-with-white-sheet affairs. No fancy parlors with big shiny mirrors for me. No sir! Daddy used to lug me and sister to the local mustache trimmer and ask him to chop it all off as closely as possible (yes, you are absolutely right, there were lots of times when we were mistaken for a pair of particularly cute looking boys, specially given my mom's penchant for dressing us in corduroys).

But all this stopped when I decided to boycott hair cuts all together at the ripe age of 16. So it grew on and on till age 20 when once again I decided to shear it. Off went my knee length hair, to the background of my mother's tears and my glee and separated me from the oily plait for ever.

It was all bouncy curls, long loops, etc etc until last Sunday when I decided to see what noodle sticks would look like. After much youtubeing and googling for technique, there I was with a new pink Philips hair dryer in my right and a just-off-the-rack round brush in the left, newly acquired full length mirror in front and hope in my heart.

The first few seconds were fine. Round brush through wet hair, pink dryer on medium heat. Except, the brush decided it liked my hair a bit too much for my own good and curled up snug against my ear. One gentle tug, a couple more stronger ones and countless panicky pulls, twists and groans later, I recognized the inevitable - it was more tangled in my hair than a kitten gone berserk.

I hemmed an I hawed and finally had to lop it off with a pair of scissors. I finally did have my noodle sticks, except they where confined to a thankfully small portion behind my ear and horribly short compared to the rest of my hair. Horrible to the extend of almost 12 inches!

So if you now think I look like a wet puppy in profile it might be unwise to wonder what happened and possibly even fatal to ask me next becuase, pssssst... they are still looking for the last one who did exactly that.

I do! I do!

I enter.I walk.I pull.I sit.I stare.I read.I pretend.I think.I dream.I type.I stare some more.I call.I despair.I shake my head.I try not to.I fail.I weep.I talk.I walk.I eat.I call.I book.I smile and I am happy again!

A wee free read

Precocious kids bursting with all kinds of talents and waiting to become the next big promised thing has mostly always been a hallmark of fantasy and Pratchett is not to be left too far behind.

Enter Miss Tiffany Aching, 'hag' and 'spawn of Granny Aching', all of 9 years old and her adventures with The Wee Free Men. Little Miss Aching, dairymaid par excellence, 'jiggit grandchild' is tickling trout by the river when she first meets the only little men who pull of being cute and blue at the same time (and are not Smurfs too!)

Then, her teeny brother is whisked away by the Queen of Fairies (remember Lords and Ladies?) and our tweeny heroine sets out to get him back home, armed with First Sight, Second Thoughts and a sturdy frying pan made of iron and aided by wee Scotsmen in kilts. The rest of the novel is classic Pratchett and his raucous take on Snow Queen, Narnia, Peter Pan and most things Celtic with even the odd Moby Dick thrown in.

Though the book doesn't exactly leave you aching for more, it was an entertaining read in the usual Pratchett manner of being an exaggerated parody of real life "and it didn't stop being magic just because you found out how it was done..."

Lady, where are you from?

I know, I know. Even my computer seemed a little flabbergasted when I clicked the "new post" button. Not that I did not have a post until now. Just that computer technology thing hasn't evolved enough to keep up with me.

I think not in words, sentences or even exclamations. I think in paragraphs. Multiples of them too. So by the time I am done thinking, it seems degrading to actually write them down; on old fashioned paper or new-fangled TFT screens (mine is working no more by the way. If anybody wants to help me buy a new one, please speak up).

Hence, until brainwaves can be transferred to blogs automatically, well, the world will have to miss a lot of what I think.

Writer'sBlock - SPF 25

In lotion, cream or even goo form. Applies itself liberally and completely, preventing any kind of ideas leaking in and tarnishing that brilliant white text box.

The Basket Case

A couple of days ago, I added two essential things to my shiny red bike - a Hero wire basket and a Shimano battery light.

So now, I can cart around all that grocery without feeling like a certain quadruped and also not keep tumbling into all those potholes BBMP has strewn around like candy. Thinking about it, it is mostly potholes with bits and pieces of roads in them anyway.

And it is gone!

Looks like I was in the right. The saddle-raising exercise did banish that pain in the knee. Now my joints feel creaky, that's all. No pain at least.

Maybe I shall get the saddle raised by another quarter of an inch and then no more creaky joints too (one hopes).

From a heart-broken biker in Bengaluru

Guys,

I lost my trek 4300 from the garage outside my house on 7 Sep. I usually keep it indoors, but this bloody day there was mud on the front wheel after a late night ride and i decided to keep it outside itself. Unfortunately the gate was not locked that night and someone took it away possibly between 2:30 AM and 6 AM. My house is in 6th block Jayanagar.

People, this was a planned robbery, someone had a constant eye on my cycle for atleast a week time , as i had not kept it outside for atleast that long. Gave police complaint , but was nearly at tears , when i saw one policeman taking my purchase bill from BOTS and was running around and showing it to others as though the price was a biggest joke he heard this year. Bangalore police SUCKS.

I know it was my own mistake to leave the cycle outside, but guys, i had dreamed a long time for my cycle, painfully saved up the money for this. I bought it home on March 2008 and it not been even 6 months now.

Its really terrible to be this way, i request every fellow pal here to put up a bit of an effort to keep an eye on the below points when you next see a trek 4300 in Bangalore.

1. The frame serial number is WTU270C2496C.
2. There is a noticable shreaking sound from the front wheel brakes.
3. There are white reflective stickers on the frame. Check the link
above for a pic of my cycle.
4. Its an 19.5 inch, orange/silver and almost brand new. well
maintained parts, just oiled a week back before this mishap.
5. It has half of my broken heart with it.

Call me at 9886237395 , if you have any clue.

Friends, take care of your cycles.

Syam KS

So people, please keep an eye out for an orange Trek

The longer left

Since I have started biking, I noticed the gradual sneaking in of a sharp pain in my left knee. It was just at the knee. It made my knee feel like a creaky, un-oiled, rusty joint. It hurts when I put any load on it. Specially killing when you have to start your bike on an uphill. A few turns of the pedal-crank, and it gets better. Even stairs became difficult.

Got the saddle raised by a fraction today. It already feels better. Shall have to wait for a week though to see if it has made any difference.

Is my left leg longer than my right or what?

Wooooooooooo hooooooooooooooo!

I know this is juvenile but woooo hoooooooooooo! Yet another RBI top man from my wonderful state, Andhra Pradesh.

I am not racist/regionalist/sexist or most other ists (feminist doesn't count). When I was a child, I used to listen to all those adults go on and on and on about 'Swarna Andhra Pradesh', a certain Mr. N T Rama Rao, etc etc. 'What dwarps!' was my reaction and I solemnly swore to myself in my heart to never be like them.

After three years outside my beautiful, tiny city called Visakhapatnam, it only looked even tinier (though admittedly, more beautiful than the last time).

So how do I explain this feeling in my heart as it does somersaults yelling yippeeeeeeeeeeee that two successive top men at RBI are fellow Telugus?

Brains in size zero or less

I understand obsessions. After all, an obsession is just the next level in passion and what is life without passions? So if you set out to taste every flavor Baskin Robbins has ever come up with, or read every book ever written by Robert Heinlein or even re-read 'Gone with the Wind' every second day, I would say, good luck fella and move along.

But this, I fail to understand. So Kate Moss in gold now. But why in this entire galactic system and all the other galactic systems would anybody want to do that?

The only bright side is Kate Moss and her size zero came to be useful for once. Imagine the amount of aurum that would have been used up if she were to be even a size zero point zero zero one.

I am in love (yet again)! Sigh!

If you miss somebody so much that you wish you could rewind the day and change it so that you could be together again, does it mean that you are in love?

It has to be so. I decided not to bike to work today (the rain last night must have washed the road away, it is blazing today, blah blah) and hopped a ride with my flat-mate. It was alright for an hour. Then I started to squirm. After all, did that weak front tyre actually warrant that I leave the darling behind?

Another couple go by and I am actually obsessing. Sitting in front of my comp, all I can think is what a dratted fool I was not to bring it today. A heavy lunch with AR later, I know I would rot in calorie hell ( You would roast very nicely too, my my, all that fat!, a little red man seems to whisper in my head) as a reminder the next time I get such obscene impulses.

The priceless 'office day' ends, and I think I am going to die, finding an auto, telling him where I need to go to, that look on his face as he gives me the 'and you actually thought I would go there?' , my cursing and finally relenting and being robbed of my hard earned hardly any money.

I think I am going to fit an auto response device on my bike so that one press of a tiny button on a remote and my shiny red bike comes wizzing to my rescue a.k.a Bat Mobile.

PS: I think my bike would make the whistling noise that those bombs made as they were being dropped during the WW II from a B-52 (maybe? one hopes...) as it comes to my rescue.

The 'chai' in Tchaikovsky

Beautiful things must be come across in a beautiful way to be truly appreciated, or so I thought until I was made to eat my words.

Quite literally too. My mother was making jantukulu and a seven year old me had snuck up into the kitchen when she wasn't looking and had managed to spell my name out with the dough in , what at that time, seemed to me like a display of amazing dexterity. Only, when my mother came back and saw the mess her precious kitchen was in, she was ummm, mad, to put it very lightly.

As, a punishment, I was made to eat the fried version of it as owing to the amount of dough in it, it was bound to come out of the oil, all soggy and messy (I agree, my mother never could think of suitable punishments. That was when she used to spank me).

Anyway, so there was me eating it all up and pretending to be feeling bad too when all of a sudden this beautiful sound filled the room. I watched, riveted, as Jerry, after finding himself on a table filled with food set out for a very formal dinner, gorges on it and then proceeds to dance with a little show-piece maiden.

And that was my introduction to Tchaikovsky.

Nobody in my family was the least bit musical types. True, there was the stack of cassettes of Boney M, Tina Turner, Asha Bhonsle and other assorted odd singers belonging to my Dad but that was that. Then me grew up, and also grew up with me, my tastes in music, ranging from ABBA's Dancing Queen to Metallica's Am I Evil? ( All, I have to admit, fallen in love with haphazardly, some heard in Hollywood movies and some at homes of my Dad's Russian and French colleagues).

But all that was more of rebellion than anything until that fateful day when ironically, Tom & Jerry was to give me my first peek into the bewitching sounds of a true maestro. It was years later when I was being tutored in Carnatic Music like most good South Indian Girls (SIGs), that I discovered who the maestro was. My music teacher had a showcase full of 'weird English music' and one slow day, when I randomly inserted a cassette in to the player and pressed the 'PLAY' button, there he was, finally proclaimed in his full Russian glory. Of course it took me another 10 years to get the name and the spelling right!

After that, I started my inroads into Western Classical music and discovered the beauty of Mozart, the structure of Beethoven and the melancholy tunes of Chopin ( the No.6 Prelude) but Tchaikovsky returned to haunt me again and again. So much that there finally came a time when the only way I could fall asleep in strange new hostel life during my post-graduate days, was while listening to Dance of the Sugar-Plum Fairy, The Chinese Dance, The Waltz of the Flowers and the Arabian Dance (I have to profess my obsession for The Nutcracker here).

It became my comforter (I used to play it on my machine at Cognizant at an ultra low volume when the others around me used to complain about the noise and then immediately play jarring Bollywood numbers on their phones), my means of getting over emotional turmoils (the best way to getting over a fight with your boyfriend is to imagine glaring at him with the First movement of Symphony No.5 by Beethoven playing in the background), and generally getting lost in myself.

True, I did not know a thing about Classical Music. True I could not distinguish the Baroque from the Classical and again, the Romantic. I could not play the Piano and not even knew of anybody who could. But that did not deter me. I did occasionally come across "Oh Western Classical? Thank goodness, my mother had cultivated in me the art of appreciating it from a very early age", "Western Classical? What a snob", "Like fine wine, like a good scotch" and even " Bah! All that humbug. Too complicated" but I refused to let go.

As for me, I rallied on, perfectly happy with Tchaikovsky in the background, a good book in front and a cup of chai in hand content in soaking in the beauty first heard on Cartoon Network by a seven year old.

Weight(y) issues

If you thought you were too fat, think again.

How does this sound: You kill a child 'accidentally' and then not get indicted as you are too fat and instead, your sister gets the rap as she shouldn't have left the kid with you in the first place.

And if you think I am making all of this up, go check this out

Pop goes the weasel

My bike passed air for the first time yesterday.

It happened while I was nearing the Cauvery Junction signal on MG Road. One moment I was weaving through the traffic and the next there was a loud 'pop' and my front wheel tire deflated instantly.

Since it happened when I was very close to my workplace, I walked the bike to workplace. No such luck while going back. Had to walk it 6 km back home.

Briefly contemplated loading it into an auto but considering the fact that I don't get an auto to oblige me on normal days, decided to ditch the idea on a strike day.

An hour to walk some 6 and odd km and I was home. The bike-repair guy showed me a hole in the tire the size of the back of the barrel of a ball point pen.

Mud trails and muddy weekends

Sunday was spent in slush. Not the kinds that give you brain-freeze but the kinds that give you muscle-freeze!

It all started with a motley crew of tough bikers from Bengaluru deciding that getting muddy would be fun. So they thought up a bike-race where you got to see a lot (a real lot) of mud. People were told, registration forms made on Google docs and the trail was marked.Since the race-place was a good way off from where I stay and I had nice obliging friends who were fond of putting me up for the night (they must be, else, how come they do it all the time despite by really sound snores?), I had decided to camp out at Parul's along with my bike (Saturday night with bike and me is another story all together. Lesson learnt: Bike+Beer=Bad Combination)and started for race-place bright and early from Koramangala. Joined a couple of dudes with bikes which looked like machines (cmon, they had gears man!) unlike a certain red shiny bike which well, looked like a bike. That should have warned me, but no, me was the type that assumed the converse of "no risk, no reward" would also be true.After biking for what seemed a long long way (it was 8 Km actually), we finally arrived at race-place and were greeted by bananas, salted peanuts and what at that seemed like a stony path leading to somewhere pretty. Waited the other brave-hearts out and finally this was (a part of) the group that was flagged off


What happened next, I am yet to take in; all I can say is that it involved arrows, exclamations (marking where you had to jump over a ditch 3ft deep-probably in reference to the "Holy Shit!" that you tend to say after you jump), recalcitrant cows, local kids jumping out at you, getting lost for a while, and acres and acres of glorious slush and other riders passing me by on my first lap and their second.
Did I say "my first" by the way? Ha! Ha! I was lying. That was my only one! 13 Km on a red shiny bike without gears and minus suspension and my lumbar support balked and refused to support me further. So it was the support station and blanching at the grin on other riders' faces each time they finished yet another lap (there were 4 in total)for me after that.

After men and their machines finally decided that they had fun, bikes were hosed, men were hosed, stories swapped, falls compared and finally people departed (few braves ones decided to bike back too; and it included me).Reached home in a huff (quite literally) and first thing polished off food enough to feed a small Amazonian hamlet which was followed by calling up everybody and crowing about my 30 Km bike riding weekend.

Oh, btw, I was not the last to complete (or not complete) the race after all, thanks to this big guy



All in all, yet another wonderful nick in the wall of accomplishments!

Death of a post-girl (?)

I have not posted now on my blog in like a gazillion years. Why?

1. My boss probably noticed how happy I was. Decided to rectify matters at the speed of light

2. The death of my laptop (to be more precise, the death of the screen of my laptop)

3. Weekends being spent in actually doing something as opposed to generally doing nothing

4. Here is where I run out of excuses, but shall try to pass this off as yet an other one

5. Oh wait, I do have yet another one - ennui