A Song A Day

Does this one have a "full version"?

Heard it during the IPL commercial breaks

Post Reader Era

Google is shutting down Reader. That is already old news. Most readers have migrated to other sites providing similar service. I sit here and look at my blank Google Reader page and wonder. The list of blogs on the left - there are no new posts anymore. Do I belong to a bygone era? "Oh I used to blog", I say. I don't blog anymore - surprisingly, none of my limited reader base does either (except, well, you know who you are) Don't interesting things happen in our lives anymore? Have we lost the ability to compose? Are we more busy than we were?
Perhaps it was just a time - an era - of blogging that we were all part of at the same time. Like some rock n roll era - it was good while it lasted, but we can't have it back. We've moved on - like life does.
As I am forced to move from Reader, I wonder how many of the blog links I should carry over to whatever new service I get on to. Does it even make sense to do that? Will any of these blogs which have been silent - some for years now - ever see a new post grace its page again? Perhaps not. But what if it did? Would it bring the same joy it once brought me? Oh yes! And so I carry on hoping.

"I Saw The Real India!"

Dedicated to a friend, who insisted

Perhaps it is borne out of the need to see something very different from their own surroundings and the world they grew up in, but whatever the reason, many travellers use the word "real" to denote something negative - like poverty or corruption. Some travellers aren't satisfied that they have seen the "real" people until they have seen someone dying of hunger. Maybe I should not read too much into this, because when we say that we have seen the "real" face of a person, more often than not, it means we have seen their less than good side. But I still cannot shake off my belief that the word "real", in connection with travel, has been blatantly misused. Why should you go to a one room mud hut to meet a "real" person? What about the rest of the people? I concede that sometimes a tourist is so insulated by the machinations designed by the tourism industry for the comfort, and exploitation, of its guests, that they often come away with a very different perspective of the daily realities of the natives. But it has been my long standing view that true understanding of "real" can never be achieved without using true scales and measures whatever be the experiences you have - insulated or otherwise. I believe understanding comes from within. Here, allow me to quote The Doors, "People are strange when you're a stranger". As I'd mentioned before we will always judge others using our own standards not theirs. Wherever we go, our sense of reality is determined by the yardstick that we carry within ourselves at all times. "Real" is all around you - you just have to see it.
Oh, let me just come to the point. Don't come up to me and tell me that you want to see the real India unless you have a very good answer to, "Oh, so you think I am a fake Indian from fake India?"

All of economics boils down to how much money we have left to lend after we pay back whoever it is we borrowed from.

All Hail The Victorious!

Now that the dictators have been toppled all should be well.

What difference does it make to the dead, the orphans, and the homeless, whether the mad destruction is wrought under the name of totalitarianism or the holy name of liberty and democracy?
- Mahatma Gandhi

Breathe

Breathe (acoustic version) - David Gilmour

Because I Cannot Keep A Good Song To Myself

Flobots - Handlebars

5 Year Plan

Oh the pressures to blog! For some reason, after coming home my brain couldn't come up with spontaneously ingenious sharable thoughts. Guess I'll just have to stick to youtube links and posting all my songs here to keep going. Last I checked, my iTunes has 8.7 days worth of songs in the list - that's 3125 blog posts waiting to happen.

Or, like I was thinking the other day, I could draw up a five year plan - one of those long term goals which was all the rage in socialist India's beginnings. And then I'd know where I'll stand when I'm 30. 30!! I'll be 30 in five years!! I've always seen 30 year olds as wise, mature and sober family men who have left the follies of youth behind (and sport a thick beard and moustache) When I suddenly realised that I was just a little over a World Cup away from that reality, I panicked. I would have completely succumbed to that panic attack and would have been screaming and writhing on the floor if I hadn't been the cool dude that I am. I tried to rationalize. In the coming five years a lot many things would happen and it wouldn't seem so short. Plus there was a possibility that I might just retain some of the youthful spring in my step. But it became increasingly imperative that I plan on something to do to my life to help counter and balance what my life would do to me - like not being a student anymore; having to file tax returns and buy insurance; having to decide where to settle down; not having the luxury of being crazy or opinionated; of getting married; of putting yourself second to the greater good of mankind!

Suddenly the pressure of creating a 5 year plan started outweighing the pressure to blog, and here I am again to vent. Have you been here before? Advice! Advice!

On A Hot Summer Day

I've always wondered about the western fascination with summer and the wonderful sun. Maybe to appreciate it, I'll have to go live somewhere where they see the sun as a wonderful thing to behold and a harbinger of happiness. But seriously, what does some random Brit know about the sun? "I'll follow the sun", he says. Try it for an hour over here and you'll never sing that song again! Phrases like "going out in the sun", "getting a tan" are used in happy positive sentences. How weird!
In summers where I come from, get out any time between 8am and 8pm and you are bound to be greeted by the sun of your nightmares. The one that brings drought and famine across the land. The parched earth it produces is like those wrinkled old women who have forgotten about the youth that will never be theirs again.
We have ways to survive this annual phenomenon called summer. The vacations help us in avoiding quite a bit of it. The rest of the time, schools in many places open earlier so the kids don't get burned into ashes by the time they get to school for the morning assembly, which, in my school-going days was another battle against heatstroke. Though it wasn't "manly" to carry umbrellas in the sun, trying to walk in the almost pin-point shadows cast by thirsty trees was cleverness not cowardice.
Everyone is also concerned about turning into a darker shade of brown and people have devised many personalised ways of beating this. Covering yourself with cotton clothes from head to toe each time you step out, umbrellas, staying indoors...
So what is the best part about summer? The knowledge that the brilliant monsoon will come and wash away the weariness!

Happy Republic Day!

This day, 60 years ago, we adopted the Indian Constitution which was passed in November, 1949.

Our Preamble:

WE, THE PEOPLE OF INDIA, having solemnly resolved to constitute India into a SOVEREIGN SOCIALIST SECULAR DEMOCRATIC REPUBLIC and to secure to all its citizens:

JUSTICE, social, economic and political;

LIBERTY of thought, expression, belief, faith and worship;

EQUALITY of status and of opportunity;

and to promote among them all

FRATERNITY assuring the dignity of the individual and the unity and integrity of the Nation;

IN OUR CONSTITUENT ASSEMBLY this twenty-sixth day of November, 1949, do HERE BY ADOPT, ENACT AND GIVE TO OURSELVES THIS CONSTITUTION.

Thankyou!

I am extremely thankful to all those who have replied to my call for encouragement. The comments have filled me with new life [yes, they've been filling me up since August when the first of you commented and now it is over-flowing :)] Your support has also given me the strength to tackle afresh this task with determination and a renewed vigour, safe in the knowledge that all this thinking and formulation of words will not be a futile exercise.
I hope you continue to enjoy reading this blog as much as I enjoy reading all of your blogs.

太阳

A Day In A Train

Based on a true story. All rights reserved. Names of people and places modified for privacy.

He looked around. 2 hours gone, 13 to go. But he knew he was okay. This was what he was born for. Yes, he would make it. At least he hoped to.

Austin Stand was born on a lovely September morning in the year of the Ox in a place where no one had ever seen chopsticks. He didn't even know he was born an Ox until he came to the city of The Dam. Someone had told him that though the grass on the other side was the same, it was cheaper. Who wouldn't jump at that chance? He met a lot of people who did jump at that chance and in spite of his doubts on the greenness of the grass, he had a wonderful time chewing on it.

Though the events leading up to this sordid tale started taking shape on that fateful September day, I'll spare you the details and just let you know the essentials.

Austin had to go to Meijing. It was a matter of two young innocent lives flying in from the desert and he didn't want to make mistakes. At the advice of his roommate, the Great Guru, the radiant sun, Austin made sure he got his tickets early. Of course, His greatness, the brilliant sun, GG, was drawing on his own experience of two back-to-back overnight sitters courtesy of the New Year travel rush. But Austin had contacts no one else did and he got all his tickets in advance. Unfortunately, his contacts didn't contact each other and he soon found out that his train to Meijing got there a little while after his scheduled departure from Meijing. Seeing as how this might be a bit of a problem, Austin pulled out his trump card - the leader of the Loonhan underworld - who got him a super cheap ticket from Loonhan to Meijing. "The only problem is," said the Don,"there's only a coach number printed on the ticket. I don't see a seat number... maybe it's first come, first served?" Austin put his head in his hands and wept. He had just been condemned to a 15 hour Loonhan - Meijing standing ticket.

As D-day drew closer, Austin set out to meet his destiny. A blessing from GG did little to comfort his heart but at least it was something. What did comfort him was his trusty Showy Ellicksen phone and the 24hr internet access he enjoyed. "You are one showy little...", cursed GG under his breath, even as he was calling on all divine powers to bless the journey.

All the while he was enjoying his comfortable seat from Dam City to Loonhan, Austin was mentally preparing himself for the ordeal ahead. He scrutinised every standing passenger and made a note of each movement so he could learn from these survivors. He would have to really apply himself though; his was a 15 hour journey, not a 5 hour one.

R&R at one of the numerous universities in Loonhan and he was ready to face his biggest challenge. He strode boldly into the under-renovation railway station even as the little red signs flashed that the infernal machine had arrived. As the sluice gates opened, Chinese people of all shapes and sizes flooded across the platform and into the train. With just his small backpack to deal with, luggage was not one of his concerns; what was a matter of concern, was getting a decent place to stand. But as the cackling crowd surged in, he knew his situation was hopeless. He didn't even make it into the coach. As the train gathered speed, he found himself standing on the metal plates that join two coaches, wondering what went wrong.

Ask GG what went wrong. GG in his infinite wisdom would have deduced that Austin was racist and that's what went wrong. In a way it was true. Perhaps Austin had thought that someone might take pity on his different skin colour and offer him a seat. Maybe that's why he didn't bother buying one of those handy little stools which are in vogue every New Year at railway stations across the length and breadth of the country. We might never find the truth, but we do know what lesson it was that he learned - We live in a world where colour and race don't matter anymore. All that matters is a place to make your stand [or seat, which, is the more preferred position]

As station passed station, Austin shifted his weight from his right leg to his left leg, back to his right leg. That's when his butt started hurting. Now this was very curious since this specific malady is a common complaint of anyone who has been sitting for too long. Perhaps it just longed to rest? At this point, Austin started looking around for people to steal seats from.
Plonk! Actually it sounded more like pluush as the large black garbage bag came to rest beside Austin. But he didn't hear it as he had his headphones plugged in. He didn't even smell it because all the cigarette smoke had clouded up his nostrils. Out there between the coaches, it was like attending a convention of chain-smokers who wanted to give it one last go before they quit.

The food carts passing between the coaches gave him some respite, not just because he liked food, but, by the simple act of lifting one up and across the no-go zones created by the metal plates and dictated by the small wheel sizes, he felt a sense of meaning; that he was put there for something, a higher purpose - to be a helping hand.
He had to get his head down from the clouds when the food cart ripped through the garbage bag and started spreading out its contents like a tree sending out roots, only faster. This was the last straw. He had to get out!
His best bet was the food coach he had spotted as he was clambering in from the Loonhan station. It was 2 coaches down but standing between him and his goal were enough people to crowd a city the size of London. Each hour, more people were getting on the train than off it and each person was pushing Austin away from his goal.
In addition to a long seated lunch, he had another option of getting to sit. GG had suggested exchanging seats with a girl and letting her sit on his lap - a mutually beneficial proposition. But somehow Austin didn't think that was a feasible idea as none of the girls present seemed to fancy foreigners at that moment.

All this thinking made him hungry and he ordered for himself a meal of rice, cabbage, chicken, tou gan and an egg from one of the food cart pushers who, by now, already considered him a brother in arms. Usually, Austin eats with a concentration so singular in its single-mindedness that he fails to see or feel anything other than the food before him.  But on this occasion he was distracted by the animated gesticulation of a lady towards something. She and her little girl had found it prudent to invest in a stool as they were also travelling on a standing ticket all the way to Meijing and were offering the strange foreign person a seat so he could finish his late lunch. Unfortunately, he had to relinquish his minute long comfort as another station came by and forced him back to his old station.

Having finished his sumptuous meal, he stood there and once again noticed the attendants of each compartment at their work - sweeping, cleaning, talking and cheering people up. They had their own little cabin but he did not begrudge them this luxury because without them, he would still be standing in a pool of trash. They, in their infinite goodwill, also offered special places in their cabins to little kids who have been standing for too long. How Austin wished that he was a little child too and not some overgrown behemoth who looked twice his age!

As the day waned, he found that he wasn't growing any younger, but the train sure was getting lighter with more people getting off at each stop. Indeed, many people who were standing now had seats. At the next stop, Austin, being the gentleman he was, looked around to make sure all the women and children were comfortably seated before he sank gratefully into a newly vacated seat. He slowly took his mobile out of his pocket and messaged GG - "10hrs and 38min man. would have gone for all 15 if i had nothing to do tomorrow just for the fun of it". Yeah right buddy...

Mosquitoes Don't Have Souls

It was one of those nasty Delhi nights when you try to study but can't because for one, your brain seems to have shrunk to pre stone-age levels, and more importantly, some purely evil mosquito clan was plotting your demise with a mixture of malaria, dengue and chikungunya.

I've always found that though mosquito hordes are not exactly easy to get rid of, it's the solitary survivors that are the most annoying. To hover up to your ear, disappear, bite your arm, disappear, come back to attack your leg... and all this while it's like that darn mosquito has got hold of a built-to-size version of Harry Potter's invisibility cloak to wrap around itself... where ARE you!?!?!!!

Chasing one such monster that night, unsuccessfully I might add, I hit upon a brilliant idea. I would kill it with my brain-waves; as in waves that come out of my brain. Much has been said about the power of suggestion and how some people just drop dead because the medicine-man said so. I decided to concentrate on this particular mosquito with the thoughts - "Die!Die!Die!" (yes I repeated it in batches of three, in my mind of course) After a while, since it didn't seem to work, possibly because my brain wasn't trained enough in the art, I started chanting in a low voice. I was surprised when that didn't work especially since I've known it to work in humans. I've seen and heard of many people losing out, not because of lack of abilities, but because someone told them they were no good. If you tell someone long enough that they are no good, there is a high chance of them just folding up and giving in when all they needed was a little encouragement and support to get them through.
I ran to all nooks and corners of my vocabulary to find words of discouragement and hatred in hopes that the mosquito would drop dead, but it continued buzzing in my ears. Something was not right. It was then that I realised there was a fundamental difference between a man and a mosquito. The soul. The eternal engine that pumps life, once squashed, destroys a man, but a mosquito was immune because it had no soul we could speak to. There was nothing we could change with a word, no feelings to hurt, no heart to wound. In its own way, the mosquito was immune to so many things humans are susceptible to. As the futility of my quest dawned to me, I decided the best way forward was to cover myself with a sheet and go to bed.

"Mosquitoes have no souls, but humans do" - Anonymous

Acknowledgement

The author of this blog would like to express his sincere thanks to
his friend and long time blog reader, Oswin, for his continued support
and readership, as evidenced by the blog comments, even in this time
of adversity when the author deeply regrets that only two articles
have seen the light of day in a span of four months. As it becomes
increasingly clear that the blog coverage has dropped to one
(excluding the ones coerced into signing up for the email
subscriptions as a result of skillful maneuvering by the author), the
blog manager has come up with a new scheme for rewarding the support
(by means of gifts, letters of encouragement and blog comments - in
that order) received in this gruelling endeavour so as to maintain an
active partnership between writer and reader in the absence of much
writing, and consequently, of much reading. As a first step, the Board
of directors has decided to bestow upon Oswin, the title of 'La Grande
Supporteur'. The other details of the prize will be announced at a
later date by the executive committee.

You, yes you my friend reading this blog entry, you too can be
eligible for a wonderful, meaningful and thoughtful appreciation if
you just post a comment. Don't wait! Act now!

--
http://aranting.blogspot.com

And then I thought...

What use is sleep if you don't wake up after?

Quoatables

When you stop learning, you start dying

Song Of The Week X

An Evening in December is an awesome a cappella album. I had the audio cassette of this one but have never been able to find the CD. If you like Christmas songs or a capella, you should try this now! If you don't like either, try it and it shall convert you! In case you're still against it, I'll have to personally visit you and convince you, but I highly doubt that would be necessary.
This is the title song, the only one from the album I found online, and it's not even complete :( I wish I could find the "O Come Emmanuel" from this album. That one is simply... beautiful.

An Evening in December - Kelly Nelon with First Call



Heres the link to the full song performed tolerably well by a high school choir http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VNGxL5b9ZMg

Christmas Carolling

What is Christmas without carols? Bah humbug!
Unfortunately very few people here know what it's like to go carolling and to encourage a better understanding, we decided to do just that in the University. There were a few hiccups early on with getting permission. This had more to do with the spite of one person than the laws of the country. But thankfully, every mean man has a sensible person above him who can overrule senseless decisions. That meant, eventually, that we were okay to sing on the evening of the 23rd.
There were around 12 in total who were interested and we practiced a couple of times so that we didn't embarass ourselves in public. Some invitees couldn't make it because of reasons like a) it was too cold, b) they weren't feeling well, c) they couldn't refuse free university dinners, d) they lived too far away. Finally though, a bunch of us made it out in the cold night.
Alex was dressed up as Santa Claus, with an old red jacket and a Santa mask. We started at Xin yuan, our own dorm area, and with Oswin on the guitar, belted out some old classics. Unfortunately it was too cold for people to stay for long enough and notice. But we did get some of our friends to come down with us and there were 20 or so people altogether when we set out for Qin yuan.
To keep with the Christmas spirit, we greeted the people on the way and once we had worked out the best way to do it, people actually waved and wished us back rather than crossing to the other side of the road in fear.
Qin yuan was better because there were more people out on the square but the best was at SOGO where we thought we'd do a pre-dinner carol round by the big Christmas tree. Ending on a high note is always good and we gave them an encore of Jingle bells to thank them for their support.
Back at the dorm, we went to each floor of the boys hostel singing carols. Our success triggered a couple of rip-offs with other carol groups vying for attention, but hey, the original is always better!

Have Yourself A Merry Little Christmas

Last Saturday evening as I was listening to some music, I had the sudden urge to sing along with "Have Yourself..." As I was listening to the song, I took down the lyrics on a piece of paper and it's been in my head ever since. Oswin and I have officially declared it to be the theme song for this Christmas and we went out and got a star to "...hang a shining star upon the highest bough..."
Going along with the consumerist spirit, many Chinese shops have switched to Christmas colours with Santa hats and paper snow flakes on windows. After all, Christmas is just another commercial festival, right? The upside of this sad turn of events is that you can buy Christmas decoration in communist China. So getting a star at "Underground" was not a problem. [For the uninitiated, "Underground" is what we call the bunch of shops under the little park near the city centre]

In a sense, it's not a traditional christian christmas song - just a sad song from a musical [and the original doesn't even have the "shining star" line!] So it's the Frank Sinatra version I give to you here. [I was really tempted to put up the Twisted Sister version but didn't like the "hohoho here we go" line, maybe you could check it out on youtube]

Roommates

Oswins got chicken pox.

He was all set to accompny Joji's mum back to India when he found out that he had chicken pox. So he came back from Wuhan and I had him shift to Amjith's room, who already was in the middle of his personal battle with chicken pox. They are keeping each other company now in the Chicken Pox HQ.

I felt bad about losing my roommate though it was the right thing to do as it minimised the risk of spreading of the infection. But that doesn't mean I am alone in the room right now. At the end of the summer when we came back, we found out that there were quite a few new tenants in our room. In addition to the ants that had moved in last semester, this time, we were over-run with cockroaches. There are so many of them that you can be sure of stepping on at least one if you happened to walk around the room at night with the lights off.

Took this picture when one of our new roommates decided to drop in and finish off a cup of coffee.

If you look closely, you can almost see the roach making a "V" sign... with its antennae.