Murphy, I stand corrected.
A couple of weeks ago I blamed Murphy for my delinquent Net connection. I had switched from cable internet to Broadband, expecting salvation to follow. But three excruciating weeks later, I was still beset with the same woes. I’d log on for a couple of hours and suddenly find myself bereft. From gnashing of teeth and wringing of hands, I graduated to choice cuss words. The carefully cultivated composure would evaporate every time I found the cable operator’s phone switched off. Finally, one morning, I got him on the phone…
He hurried over to my house before I could chew off his other ear. He set off tinkering with the wires while I scorched his back with the ferocity of my gaze. He examined the cables studiously before turning to face me and stammered, “I go check cable box outside."
I waited. The eyebrow stayed arched, the foot continued tapping. He came back, looking like he’d been in a scuffle. “Well,” I asked icily, “did you fix the faulty cables?”
“Medem, wire was ok. But pigeons had put off switch.”
I snarled.
He took a step backward and continued, “Pigeon make nest in cable box. They was putting on-off switch. But now I take out them and lock the box.”
He picked out feather bits from his shirt cuffs and then pointed to the screen, “Net bees working now.”
I stared at the screen dumbfounded and deflated. A conspiracy by pigeons!
And I thought the worst they could do was aim their droppings at you…
Tuesday, September 28, 2004
Monday, September 27, 2004
I am an idiot
Blistering Blue Barnacles! All of yesterday, I thought it was the 25th when it was actually the 26th. AND NG's birthday was yesterday and not today. Sometime around noon, he called and disowned me. Completely!
I apologised profusely and agreed to absolve my guilt by taking NG for a five-course dinner at the Taj Westend. We had planned on "Paradise Island" but seeing the crowd there, we took an about turn and went to Atria instead. The food was surprisingly good. Had shrimps in Thai sauce (penang, I think), stir-fried broccoli and baby corn, steamed rice and lychees and icecream. The shrimps were a masterpiece. Melting-in-your-mouth but not over-done and it was evident that the sauce was not a pre-prepared one.
Returned home and crashed and was lost in dreamland until 8:15 am! Woke up late, rushed through a shower and ran all the way to work. I left my pins behind at home, so will keep my hair down all day! What an idiot I can be! I surprise myself at times with my absent-mindedness. Sometimes my heart goes cold because I fear, I may be suffering from a mutant form of Alzheimer's that attacks 26 year-olds.
I skipped breakfast and now am hungry, hungry, hungry. To make matters worse, one of my colleagues (who I truly detest) is chomping and crunching on potato wafers. The smell has me craving like a 8-month pregnant woman, for potato wafers and rice crisps. Am going to go on a prowl to see what I can dig up from the other people, MS should have gum atleast!
I apologised profusely and agreed to absolve my guilt by taking NG for a five-course dinner at the Taj Westend. We had planned on "Paradise Island" but seeing the crowd there, we took an about turn and went to Atria instead. The food was surprisingly good. Had shrimps in Thai sauce (penang, I think), stir-fried broccoli and baby corn, steamed rice and lychees and icecream. The shrimps were a masterpiece. Melting-in-your-mouth but not over-done and it was evident that the sauce was not a pre-prepared one.
Returned home and crashed and was lost in dreamland until 8:15 am! Woke up late, rushed through a shower and ran all the way to work. I left my pins behind at home, so will keep my hair down all day! What an idiot I can be! I surprise myself at times with my absent-mindedness. Sometimes my heart goes cold because I fear, I may be suffering from a mutant form of Alzheimer's that attacks 26 year-olds.
I skipped breakfast and now am hungry, hungry, hungry. To make matters worse, one of my colleagues (who I truly detest) is chomping and crunching on potato wafers. The smell has me craving like a 8-month pregnant woman, for potato wafers and rice crisps. Am going to go on a prowl to see what I can dig up from the other people, MS should have gum atleast!
Saturday, September 25, 2004
Bliss!
I had to practically drag myself back from the week long vacation at Ladakh. Magical! Not just the place but also the experience. I've never felt to completely cut off from the world and happy to be so in any holiday ever...
There's so much to write about the place and so many images you wish to forever retain at the back of your mind, that I don't even know where to start.
Just couldn't believe the barrenness of the land — the miles stretching in front of my eyes, interrupted only by rocks or a patch of green or a lonely little white house with red wood-worked windows.
And the sound of silence, when you switched the jeep's engine off and just sat on the bend of a road, without talking, watching a gorge that fell where you dared not look.
Where else but in Ladakh would you drive through a rocky, deserted landscape that seems to have been torn off from some other planet and landed there. On our way to Hemis Monastery, we passed one such. A stark, boulder-laden expanse that seemed tailor-made for Clint Eastwood and his horse and of course Gabbar Singh. :)
The drive to Hemis is a wonderful one. You pass bends, loops and turns and suddenly discover that there’s a huge monastery hidden from view, tucked away in the mountains somewhere. This is where a festival is held every year and as a chatty young monk we met told us, the surrounding hills serve as seating area!
The warmth of the local people was touching, especially at the monasteries and at the Stok Palace, which incidentally is next to a Prasar Bharti transmitter! Stok Palace has a small museum set up by the king. The caretaker was so thrilled he could communicate with people who understood his broken Hindi and English (foreigner kya bur bur karta samajh nahi aata) that he took an old rusty key and opened countless drawers to show us eye popping lapis lazuli and other such precious stones.
There was more eye popping to come when we landed up in Pangong Lake on the fourth day. What made the journey special was a fresh snowfall the night before, that turned Chang La, the 17000-something ft pass you have to cross to get to Pangong, into a magical, white blanket. The other heartstopping site was Durbuk, which was a pastureland taken out of a picture book — wild horses grazing along a mountain stream, green patches...you get the picture.
Pangong was breathtaking. Not just because the oxygen level is bottom rate there. The water played with the sun and shade and chaged from sky blue to aqua to turqoise green...I could live there for years looking at it. (Well at least I think I could)Pangong Lake or Tso is like those 'sceneries' you paint as a kid: Blue sky, white floaty clouds, blue lake, brown mountains. The perfect world. With prayer flags fluttering in a corner adding extra colour. We drove up another five kilometres along the lake, oohing and aahing all the way; came back and found that we had got lucky. We were the only tourists there at that hour and the wonderful army chaps had agreed to take us on a boatride (after I dropped my fathers name).
The drive the day after to the world's highest motorable road Khardung La at 18000-something feet was easier than the Pangong one had been. We took the mandatory show-off pictures at Khardung La, standing next to a board that proclaims 'World's Highest Motorable Road' and started the journey towards Nubra, which is the green bowl of Ladakh.
That night at the camp was a special one, thanks to Alberto and his happily high friends, who sang beautifully in languages we didn't understand. The next morning, as we sat huddled having our early morning coffee, A and I discovered Alberto looked even better than he sang. And guess what he turned out to be? A gondolier from Venice! If this was Ally Mcbeal, our tongues would've been dancing on the floor :)
We stayed at Sumur in the Nubra Valley and walked up to the gompa. A silent one, with plush rooms reserved for the Dalai Lama's special visit, said (yet another) young monk who showed us around. He turned out to be a Ladakhi born and brought up in Canada. A professor of philosophy, he joined the monastery to teach and give back something to his village, Tigger, which was nearby. Whoever said, a journey is all about the encounter was so right.
There were some interesting encounters en route to Nubra. The road to Khardung La was for some reason biker-infested! We met everyone from backpacking Israelis on Enfields to a Bengali couple.
"We are doing this the second time in two years," the Bengali couple, he a bank employee and she a government school teacher in Calcutta, told us. Somewhere in my mind, they broke a barrier, about people who travel, not because they can afford to but because they need their adventure.
There's so much to write about the place and so many images you wish to forever retain at the back of your mind, that I don't even know where to start.
Just couldn't believe the barrenness of the land — the miles stretching in front of my eyes, interrupted only by rocks or a patch of green or a lonely little white house with red wood-worked windows.
And the sound of silence, when you switched the jeep's engine off and just sat on the bend of a road, without talking, watching a gorge that fell where you dared not look.
Where else but in Ladakh would you drive through a rocky, deserted landscape that seems to have been torn off from some other planet and landed there. On our way to Hemis Monastery, we passed one such. A stark, boulder-laden expanse that seemed tailor-made for Clint Eastwood and his horse and of course Gabbar Singh. :)
The drive to Hemis is a wonderful one. You pass bends, loops and turns and suddenly discover that there’s a huge monastery hidden from view, tucked away in the mountains somewhere. This is where a festival is held every year and as a chatty young monk we met told us, the surrounding hills serve as seating area!
The warmth of the local people was touching, especially at the monasteries and at the Stok Palace, which incidentally is next to a Prasar Bharti transmitter! Stok Palace has a small museum set up by the king. The caretaker was so thrilled he could communicate with people who understood his broken Hindi and English (foreigner kya bur bur karta samajh nahi aata) that he took an old rusty key and opened countless drawers to show us eye popping lapis lazuli and other such precious stones.
There was more eye popping to come when we landed up in Pangong Lake on the fourth day. What made the journey special was a fresh snowfall the night before, that turned Chang La, the 17000-something ft pass you have to cross to get to Pangong, into a magical, white blanket. The other heartstopping site was Durbuk, which was a pastureland taken out of a picture book — wild horses grazing along a mountain stream, green patches...you get the picture.
Pangong was breathtaking. Not just because the oxygen level is bottom rate there. The water played with the sun and shade and chaged from sky blue to aqua to turqoise green...I could live there for years looking at it. (Well at least I think I could)Pangong Lake or Tso is like those 'sceneries' you paint as a kid: Blue sky, white floaty clouds, blue lake, brown mountains. The perfect world. With prayer flags fluttering in a corner adding extra colour. We drove up another five kilometres along the lake, oohing and aahing all the way; came back and found that we had got lucky. We were the only tourists there at that hour and the wonderful army chaps had agreed to take us on a boatride (after I dropped my fathers name).
The drive the day after to the world's highest motorable road Khardung La at 18000-something feet was easier than the Pangong one had been. We took the mandatory show-off pictures at Khardung La, standing next to a board that proclaims 'World's Highest Motorable Road' and started the journey towards Nubra, which is the green bowl of Ladakh.
That night at the camp was a special one, thanks to Alberto and his happily high friends, who sang beautifully in languages we didn't understand. The next morning, as we sat huddled having our early morning coffee, A and I discovered Alberto looked even better than he sang. And guess what he turned out to be? A gondolier from Venice! If this was Ally Mcbeal, our tongues would've been dancing on the floor :)
We stayed at Sumur in the Nubra Valley and walked up to the gompa. A silent one, with plush rooms reserved for the Dalai Lama's special visit, said (yet another) young monk who showed us around. He turned out to be a Ladakhi born and brought up in Canada. A professor of philosophy, he joined the monastery to teach and give back something to his village, Tigger, which was nearby. Whoever said, a journey is all about the encounter was so right.
There were some interesting encounters en route to Nubra. The road to Khardung La was for some reason biker-infested! We met everyone from backpacking Israelis on Enfields to a Bengali couple.
"We are doing this the second time in two years," the Bengali couple, he a bank employee and she a government school teacher in Calcutta, told us. Somewhere in my mind, they broke a barrier, about people who travel, not because they can afford to but because they need their adventure.
Monday, September 06, 2004
Just... Do it! (Nike)
"Twenty years from now you will be more disappointed by the things that you didn't do than by the ones you did do. So throw off the bowlines. Sail away from the safe harbor. Catch the trade winds in your sails. EXPLORE. DREAM. DISCOVER." (Mark Twain)
Yes I think its always a good idea to seize life by the horns, look it in the eye and take it where you want to go and not be led by it. Otherwise it ceases to be a wonderful journey. And turns into just another dull, humdrum cyclical routine of following more routines.... and before I know it, my life will be over and I would have done nothing, gone nowhere, been nobody! Just another speck of dirt who led a pointless existence.
They say "If I want to go nowhere, I can be sure of reaching my destination" So I want to challenge myself and get out of my comfort zone.. and explore, dream and discover.
I have decided to seize life by the horns and am going on the most exciting exploration of my life. Back-packing in Leh Ladakh. Wish me luck and fun!
Yes I think its always a good idea to seize life by the horns, look it in the eye and take it where you want to go and not be led by it. Otherwise it ceases to be a wonderful journey. And turns into just another dull, humdrum cyclical routine of following more routines.... and before I know it, my life will be over and I would have done nothing, gone nowhere, been nobody! Just another speck of dirt who led a pointless existence.
They say "If I want to go nowhere, I can be sure of reaching my destination" So I want to challenge myself and get out of my comfort zone.. and explore, dream and discover.
I have decided to seize life by the horns and am going on the most exciting exploration of my life. Back-packing in Leh Ladakh. Wish me luck and fun!
Sunday, September 05, 2004
Gifts are forever!
At school, in class eight, a whopping 30 marks of internal evaluation hinged on weekly tests. Ms. Rita Fernandes was our class teacher. (Happy Teachers Day, Ms Fernandes!) She was also the apple of our eyes; we Hero(ian) worshipped her with all the loyalty that ferments in fiery, adolescent hearts .
"Miss" had one constant crib against us: why didn't we spare ourselves, and her, of the pre-test fish market that we created every week, why didn't we just relax before a test?
As it turned out, we did oblige, we did behave ourselves, even if it was just for once. And on the day we did, Ms Fernandes quietly penned this in half an hour and stuck it to the class notice board:
To My Girls 11th Jan '90
Thursday dawned fair and bright
Yes, it was the day of the "Test"
I dreaded entering my class
For fear of encountering
Commotion, confusionand last minute revision!
I tip-toed into the class
Ready to shield myself from the onslaught.
Nearing, I felt something amiss
Was I in the right room?
Was this reality?
For,
As I entered
All my little darlings
Joined their hands to wish me
The prayers were said calmly
The answer sheets were ready
The pens, full of ink, by their side
Then, what was missing?
Why,
The commotion
The confusion
The last-minute revision
And the "Miss - please wait!"
I'm now probably as old as "Miss" was back then. I've lost all connection with the other fish mongers (as miss called us!) but Ms. Fernandes comes back whenever I chance on a yellow, frayed sheet of paper - the poem in original, in her own hand! (Umm... I had quietly plucked the sheet from the notice board when no one was looking! ) And then it dawns that, indeed, the best things in life are "free".
When Anne Frank's family were in hiding from the Nazis, birthday gifts tended to be simple: a jar of yogurt, a hand-made brooch or a poem from Dad to Anne, written when turbulent storms brewed in and around the teenager.
My Dad too had written a lullaby for me. And as daddy grows old and all the gifts that my parents have showered me with keep getting lost in wardrobes or tumble into junkyards, I realise that this one's special - my song, solely for me, written at a time when I used to clench my little fists into resolute cotton balls!
Watched "Kabhie Kabhie"? One of my most beautiful moments from the movie is the song that Amitabh writes for his new-born daughter - "Mere ghar aayee ek nanhee pari" It makes a little pink bundle a queen for life!
Check out Paul Simon's "Father and Daughter". You'll find the mp3 here, but what did me in was the heartbreaking lyrics.
"Miss" had one constant crib against us: why didn't we spare ourselves, and her, of the pre-test fish market that we created every week, why didn't we just relax before a test?
As it turned out, we did oblige, we did behave ourselves, even if it was just for once. And on the day we did, Ms Fernandes quietly penned this in half an hour and stuck it to the class notice board:
To My Girls 11th Jan '90
Thursday dawned fair and bright
Yes, it was the day of the "Test"
I dreaded entering my class
For fear of encountering
Commotion, confusionand last minute revision!
I tip-toed into the class
Ready to shield myself from the onslaught.
Nearing, I felt something amiss
Was I in the right room?
Was this reality?
For,
As I entered
All my little darlings
Joined their hands to wish me
The prayers were said calmly
The answer sheets were ready
The pens, full of ink, by their side
Then, what was missing?
Why,
The commotion
The confusion
The last-minute revision
And the "Miss - please wait!"
I'm now probably as old as "Miss" was back then. I've lost all connection with the other fish mongers (as miss called us!) but Ms. Fernandes comes back whenever I chance on a yellow, frayed sheet of paper - the poem in original, in her own hand! (Umm... I had quietly plucked the sheet from the notice board when no one was looking! ) And then it dawns that, indeed, the best things in life are "free".
When Anne Frank's family were in hiding from the Nazis, birthday gifts tended to be simple: a jar of yogurt, a hand-made brooch or a poem from Dad to Anne, written when turbulent storms brewed in and around the teenager.
My Dad too had written a lullaby for me. And as daddy grows old and all the gifts that my parents have showered me with keep getting lost in wardrobes or tumble into junkyards, I realise that this one's special - my song, solely for me, written at a time when I used to clench my little fists into resolute cotton balls!
Watched "Kabhie Kabhie"? One of my most beautiful moments from the movie is the song that Amitabh writes for his new-born daughter - "Mere ghar aayee ek nanhee pari" It makes a little pink bundle a queen for life!
Check out Paul Simon's "Father and Daughter". You'll find the mp3 here, but what did me in was the heartbreaking lyrics.
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