A Life Less Ordinary

Goodbye Livejournal, Hello Website!

Tue, 30 Sep 2008 18:27:18 GMT

This is my last post on this live journal.

My LJ has moved. I've finally got out of my prolonged spells of ennui and sloth to buy server space and sync it up with my two year old domain name, to have a brand new website.

The new address where I have moved is http://www.harishenoy.com . All my entries will be posted here henceforth.

I've long since tried to figure out why I had maintained a blog and a live journal, but never found an answer that I could convince myself with.

All my old entries have been imported onto my site, comments and all, in case you want to find them there. I am going to miss LJ for the friends' only posts, the moods and current music fields, as well as the other features that made me like it as much as, if not more than blogger.

For those few limited bunch of people who have linked me (for which you deserve many thanks, in the very least), I'd appreciate it if you were to update your link to reflect my new site.

Onward to Rock you like a 'Hari'cane for awesomeness unleashed!!!

So long, and thanks for all the hits!

Music by Arth

Thu, 18 Sep 2008 23:48:44 GMT

Ramzan and the Call Center Employee

Fri, 12 Sep 2008 04:19:17 GMT

A few people I know - colleagues, friends, colleagues AND friends are fasting through the month of Ramzan as is expected by their religious credo and have hence experienced a shift in their eating habits by gorging food like crazy if they can during the time between sun-down and sun-rise and not having any grub at other times.

This is one of the gazillions of reasons I am glad I am Hindu, because not being able to eat with the kind of BMR I possess would result in certain death.

However, in a discussion with a friend, we came to the grand conclusion that Ramzan is the time when Muslim call center employees end up having a gala time since they can sleep fitfully during the day when the sun is up (depending on their shift timings) and then wake up later on and chomp on food like nobody's business all through their working day.

This raises one question about how the devout ones adjust their need to pray five times a day with a disrupted circadian cycle. I don't want the answer if I have to hunt too much for it, needless to say it is somebody else's problem.

In other not-so-unrelated news, sometime last week, I heard a Muezzin's voice break during the time he was on the microphone, rendering his prayer call.

Voice breaking during high pitch singing is quite embarassing for whoever is in front of the mic and quite funny for the spectators, regardless of circumstance.

Cubicle Neighbours

Thu, 11 Sep 2008 07:21:06 GMT

As cubicle neighbours come, this one is as peculiar as they get.

There is someone who sits in my proximity at the office who has a dialogue from a Gult (Telugu, for those woefully uninitiated) movie as his cell phone ringtone, complete with background music and all. The ring tone begins with some female talking in a flirtatious voice, followed by some randomly absurd piece of synthesizer music followed by a male voice, which I haven't heard most of the time since the said person mercifully picks up the phone by then.

This morning, I've been hearing him speak non-stop Gult for almost two hours, with the only discernible parts of his speech being 'Hi how are you?' (repeated about seventeen times already before I got bored and lost count and had to do my own work) and something about 'cute cute puppies' and something else about 'Korean lovely ladies' thereafter (unless there is some expression in Gult which sounds like that, which I've buffalaxed into English).

I've ever so rarely heard said person speak to anyone in his vicinity, but I guess his is the only loud cell phone ringtone that I could possibly tolerate, simply because of its extreme absurdity.

Adviteeya

Thu, 11 Sep 2008 07:03:34 GMT

Sometimes, when you discover new music in a collection that you've already had, its sort of like unearthing buried treasure. The thrill of stumbling upon a brilliant piece of music and listening to it ad infinitum has very few parallels that I'm aware of.

One such instance of discovering new music and getting mesmerized had taken place around May 2007 when my ex-flatmate Kutty had given me a CD titled Adviteeya by a certain friend of his, named Kuldeep M Pai.

The CD is a unique effort, as Kuldeep, a native of Cochin, not only renders the vocals, but also plays the Kanjira, the Mridangam, the Ghatam, the Veena and the Violin among other instruments. Multi-track recording had rendered it possible for Kuldeep to come out with a CD that contains six pieces, for which he's supplied the complete music as well as the vocals.

I am not trained in classical music per se, with my only first-hand exposure to the same resulting from having been one of the few guys in our class in school to have been selected to attend the music class during SUPW, more as a luck of the draw thing rather than as a conscious choice.

Most of the girls in school opted for music and dance, while guys were also inadvertently bundled in along with them. This provided the girls with a much needed opportunity to make fun of us guys, and was one of the prime causes for most of us indulging in the first of many instances of truant behaviour.

My memories of the music room include that of smelly socks and dilapidated instruments that were placed within showcases safely out of harm's way, with our music teacher using a tambourine to keep time. Somehow the only two mental images I have of people playing tambourines are those of my music teacher in school playing it and seeing a video of 'Stairway to Heaven' when Robert Plant plays it as well.

It would be fun for them to switch spaces, but you'd have to be there, I guess.

In any case, I did not learn any Raagas and only learnt a few Taalas that I've promptly forgotten in the absence of practise. However, I think I can spot good music when I listen to it, and Adviteeya is certainly good music to listen to.

I'd given the CD to my landlord to check out sometime last year, and it was quite recently that I decided to ask him for it again, and my mornings now begin with Mr.Pai's rendition of Mahaganapatim, and I must confess that it sets the mood for the rest of the day. Thank God for the music!

PS - This does not mean I endorse those who sing about Dwarapalakas in open forums. (Inside joke. Once again, you'd have to be there, I guess.)

Notes about Nothing - Work Anniversaries

Mon, 01 Sep 2008 12:08:40 GMT

Its official now, I've spent more time outside college than I did within it. Not that I attended too many classes and all that, but I guess I've been a Corporate Ho longer than I was an undergrad student. Four years have passed since I graduated from being a dorky engineering graduate to a dorky engineer who had to earn his living.

This officially earmarks the longest voluntary relationship I have ever had in my life. Either party could've broken up at will, but both of us have weathered many storms together and have stuck on, for some reasons best known only to the both of us, while most other reasons for aforesaid situation remain significantly inexplicable.

This NaN is going to focus on the memories I have had of September 1st over the past five years, and for sure, it has been quite interesting in more ways than I could have previously imagined.

2004: First day of work. I was unwell, and I had worn a light green full sleeve shirt my sister had got me as a present. She had overestimated my shoulder width, my height and my girth and in the process purchased a shirt that was two sizes too big for me. I wore it nevertheless, because I thought it was important. My cousin, who's house I was at on the first day I was in Bangalore, dropped me to the office and I walked in through the doors into the room where we had our induction at 0859, one minute before proceedings began.

For the first ever time in my life, I fell asleep in something akin to a class, because the person who was giving us the corporate presentation could as well have been spraying valium through an atomizer four inches away from my nostrils. In addition to my acute somnolence, I had also been, as I had mentioned previously, unwell, and the medicine that I'd been prescribed had given me a light tremor in my right hand, and for one of the first ever times in my life, I was scared as hell about whether I'd ever be normal again.

The doctor's reassurance about it being a reaction to some expectorant tablet did nothing to remedy the situation, and it was only after I got better and I was able to write properly did I heave a huge sigh of relief.

I had been to the office a fortnight prior to my joining date, on 18th August to hunt for accommodation that was close to where I had to work. Seeing the amount of dirt, dust, traffic and the accompanying madness and mayhem was too much of a shock for me, given that Mysore was diametrically opposite insofar as the state of affairs on the roads were concerned.

Three days after the entire rigmarole began, I had called my Mum up and told her that I wanted to quit and open a grocery store in Mysore, or teach in my college and I've had constantly recurring thoughts of quitting work ever since, but the idea has been mulled over so much that its now relegated to that part of me that tends to over-romanticize trivial situations and circumstances.

Its been four years, and, as is quite evident, I still haven't quit.

2005: I was not doing too well at work, being torn apart between travelling to Mysore on weekends and attempting to work away on the weekdays, while trying to see if I could get a life outside of work, but failing to do so miserably. Whatever remenants of quizzing I had once thrived on in college had now been reduced to nothing, and things didn't seem to be going well.

Music, which was such an important part of my life, had also been relegated to oblivion.

In the last week of August 2005, I contracted bronchopneumonia, and as a consequence spent the first anniversary of my starting life as a working professional in bed with a fever of 104 F, getting more pale and gaunt by the minute, but sleeping like a baby and feeling happy about not having to work during that time.

Not the best of times, but not the worst of times either.

2006: Oslo. My second visit there in three months. Awesome place, awesomer experiences overall, and with a trip to Copenhagen under my belt, I was having all the fun I could in the available time. Work was also fun because it was challenging and hectic, and I didn't really bother much about anything else apart from calling family on occasion and telling them how I was having a blast all over the place.

On the morning of September 1st, I saw two mails - one of them said I had my august salary credited to my account, and another one congratulated me for two years of work in my company. I said Meh to both, as I had said to some other formerly important stuff at the very start of the trip and continued to work, without those two mails bothering me much until a few days ago when I took a lazy stroll down memory lane.

In retrospect, that second trip changed my life for the better in more ways than I'd have imagined it would.

2007: It was three years of loyal service to le company, and for some strange reason, it was supposed to be a monumental occasion, given the attrition rates in the industry. I had put NED by that time to want to stay and celebrate at the office, so I instead took a few days off and chilled out at home instead, growing my beard, combing my hair, trying to figure out the best way to remove knots and having my respect for women go up tenfold because of how they were able to manage their long hair all their lives without wanting to stick their heads in a lawn-mower and be rid of it all.

Nevertheless, this was quite a tame and incredibly lazy time for me, and this anniversary passed on without much ado either.

2008: So far, I've put one post up on my LJ abusing badly behaved kids, been working away as usual, had a good lunch and am about to go watch Rock On with the band. Nothing out of the blue, just another day at work with the usual stuff taking precedence over anniversaries that don't really amount to much.

Even if I end up going home after work and just crashing after watching some arbit stuff on TV, I know that I'll have had fun simlpy because I've reached a stage where I don't give a damn about too many things, and am in a controlled free-fall mode.

I still get goosebumps when I recall Jeff Daniels' voice in the last episode of The Wonder Years - growing up does happen in a heartbeat, but sometimes, that ain't such a bad thing either. The important thing is ~~to protect one's balls~~ to make the most of what you can when you can.

Child Free Zones

Mon, 01 Sep 2008 06:22:09 GMT

There are many things that I see and hear that irk me no end, and being the non-confrontational skinny guy that I am, I choose to rant about it by posting it on LJ.

Plus I'd rather not get my "Meh" t-shirt or my "Security" t-shirt torn in any fracas that ensues from a retaliation to my righteous moral indignation.

I've ranted about virtually everything I can survey, including announcements at the airport loud enough to wake the dead, about cell phones and people who stand way too close to you when you are in a que.

This recent TOI article which put Madman on the front page has sought opinions from a bunch of people who've been strongly vocal about being all for child free zones in the country, and are willing to cough up some money to ensure some peace of mind. This particular set of posts makes for interesting reading, if this topic has caught your fancy.

I want to go watch Wall-E in the theatres shortly, but I am scared of going because of the noisy irritating kids, their noisier and more irritating parents, that will kill the movie for me. Sundays, in particular, are a bad time to hang out at a mall, which, by itself is a bad place to hang out in, in the first place.

Also, the presence of pesky badly behaved children on flights is is probably a reason why all international flights serve free alcohol, so that people that want to can drink up and crash. (Funny how using the word crash on a plane makes people cringe. It is one of the best ways of unfriending the person(s) sitting next to you.) In the absence of said free alcohol, twelve hour flights would be agonizingly painful, since the presence of kids guarantees a lack of absolute silence at all times, except during turbulence (which is quite fun to experience in retrospect).

An interesting incident that took place yesterday further fuelled me to write this post. I had been to Big Bazaar to buy chocolates to satiate my urge to gorge on sweets, which has lasted for more than a fortnight now, and alarmingly so. The chocolates counter was closed as a result of which, I picked up the next best thing, Hide and Seek Milano biscuits, and was standing in queue patiently, when some random kid who must've been four or five years old just walked past me, walked back towards me when she spotted the biscuit packet in my hand, and held into it and tugged it.

The shop was closing, and I had been sleeping all day and needed my sugar fix, and there was no way I was going to let a badly behaved kid snatch the pack from me. I did what I thought Wolverine would do in such a situation, I bared my teeth and growled at her in a menacing way, and since I hadn't combed my hair after having woken up and was dressed in my favourite pair of horribly torn jeans, I could've passed off as a junkie who's food shouldn't be messed with.

The growl made the kid run for cover, and she hid behind her Mum and was taking a peek at me occasionally when she thought I wasn't looking. The guy standing behind me in queue, who was standing too close initially saw the incident from up close, and then respectfully stepped back some distance when I went ahead to the check-out counter.

Growling and baring one's teeth works. I'm sure if I had been even remotely badly behaved like said kid, my Dad would've given me a roundhouse kick. Thankfully, such instances were few and far between.

BTW, I vote in favour of child-free zones.

Notes about Nothing - Seattle Diary

Wed, 27 Aug 2008 09:20:24 GMT

Its been five months since I returned from Seattle, but somehow something or the other happens that invariably takes my mind back to my trip there. This is a post about some of those memory refreshing incidents that have happened since I got back.

Grey's Anatomy:
My sister follows the serial, although I haven't seen more than ten minutes of it, not counting the constant promos on Star World interspersed with a song by 'The Fray'. Everytime I end up going home, she's called dibs on the remote whenever the damn serial is on air. The rest of the family sulks in other rooms until such time that the serial is finally over.

However, some evening, I was too lazy to go do something else and I ended up watching the first few minutes of the serial, only to see helicopter shots of the Space Needle, the Seattle Center and 3rd Avenue, after which my sister told me that the serial was based in Seattle. It was kinda cool to see an overhead view of the city and visualize myself having walked along those streets for the various arbit activities I'd undertaken.

A Guy Thing:
Having seen Julia Stiles in 'The Bourne Supremacy' and 'The Bourne Ultimatum' as well as in '10 things I hate about you' (whose DVD is now selling like hotcakes since it starred Heath Ledger), I thought she was a real cutie, and since I was in the mood for a romantic comedy last evening, I picked up A Guy Thing from my friendly neighbourhood DVD store, only to find out that the entire frigging movie was based in Seattle.

Familiar streets, some shops I've walked past, references to Broadway and more shots of the over-rated Space Needle were enough to bring about feelings of nostalgia. The movie itself is something people can watch when they're feeling brain-dead, and still enjoy it all.

The Hungry Tide:
The Hungry Tide, a book by Amitav Ghosh, and the second book by him that I've received as a birthday present after having been given The Glass Palace as a birthday gift a long time ago has one of its major characters based in Seattle. She's a marine biologist who's here on some research work, and during moments of reflection has her thoughts drift towards the city she's grown to call her own.

I've gone through only about a hundred pages of that book, given my currently pathetic reading speeds, but so far its not been a bad read.

Gimme S'More:
I'd got enough chocolates from my trip to last me all of five months. I've been on a recent sweet consuming binge which has resulted in me eating ice creams, chocolates, sweets of all kinds and drinking unmeasurable quantities of Tropicana Twister, ensuring that my blood sugar levels have reached all-time highs. It was during one of these instances when I was gorging on a Hershey's Milk Chocolate bar that I was reminded of a S'more.

On my last evening in the city, I had been to a birthday party thrown by some of my 'native' friends (I used to refer to American citizens as natives) and while sitting out in someone's backyard surrounding a fire, sipping slowly on one beer for four hours to as to maintain levels of sobriety necessary to ensure I was at the airport on time the next morning, I was introduced to a S'more, and I can't honestly think of something else I've eaten that's so brilliantly sweet and tasty at the same time. I gave it my own name at that time, I called it a Hershmellow, because I guess I didn't think too much of the Graham cracker that was also part of the S'more.

Never pass upon a S'more if given a chance to consume one. In fact, ask for more.

Starbucks, endless solo walks along all the streets, hanging out at the CHAC enough to be a regular there, working decently hard on weekdays and being unerringly slothful during the evenings and weekends, phone calls to India, fond memories of my entire trip and the good times I had have remained, and will be counted as one of the nicest travel experiences I've had.

The times they are a-changin, but the memories remain.

Social Experiments on Techies

Tue, 26 Aug 2008 08:00:09 GMT

Having seen the Dark Knight for the second time with Kodhi at PVR, I was thinking about the concept of social experimenting on techies to see how many of them get off their high horses if they're given enough incentive to do the same.

I am targetting techies because I like making fun of myself.

There, I just absolved myself from all vitriol that I might receive from anyone at all.

**here be Dark Knight spoiler**
Moving on, I was thinking of how the Joker effectively manages to make people think along the lines of killing another bunch in order for their own survival, thereby ensuring that all societal norms and regulations go for a toss.
**end of Dark Knight spoiler**

Now I'm not as evil as the Joker is, and I wouldn't dream of killing people and all that, but it would nevertheless be fun to see how people would react under different situations, and provide the rest of us with some quality entertainment.

For instance, techies use lifts to go from one floor to another, and the lunch time rush is when the lifts experience peak traffic. Junta are usually orderly, except for in some cases when they crowd onto it like people would into a BMTC bus*. Breaking wind at such times would make for some classic candid camera moments.

What if someone were to sponsor lunch to the person who got on to the lift first, before everyone else who was also waiting in line did? Would a techie succumb to the prospect of having free lunch over the need to maintain discipline and decorum? I don't know, you tell me.

Cubicles are closed spaces, and sitting in close proximity with people should provide people with some sense to not wear strong odour perfumes. What if someone were to not have a bath to counter this assault on one's olfactory senses?

What if one were to immerse into a glass of water, any cell phone that rang during a meeting DESPITE having insisted on putting cellphones on silent mode at the start of the meeting?

These are questions whose answers I don't want to find, I just want such situations to be created in the tech environs to shake things up a little.

* Notice I said BMTC bus and not Mumbai local train.

PS - I honestly don't see the need to have put in a spoiler alert, considering even Monkee has seen the movie. That makes him the last person on the planet to do so, and Christopher Nolan has promised to insert an Easter Egg dedication to said person for having seen the movie finally. Watch this space.

Notes about Nothing - 26/08/2008

Tue, 26 Aug 2008 07:29:03 GMT

Yeah, I decided to take a page out of the livejournal owned by purely_narcotic and let my meandering thoughts be compressed such that different ones could fit into the same post. The only difference is that, my posts, pretty much like all episodes in all seasons of Seinfeld are about nothing.

Journalistic Forays:
Citizen Matters, I discovered, has its own page for contributing writers and here is mine. The awesome thing is that the 'about me' section can be modified by people that own the page, and unlike in the two social networking sites that I have content on, this 'about me' might actually be read by some people.

As an aside, my piece on the lack of public space for Sunday Jams is on the front page of the newsletter.

Two Hit Wonder??:
Just this morning, I saw the video of 'Love is Noise' by The Verve on VH1 as I was cleaning up all the nose hair I had trimmed with a jumbo sized vacuum cleaner, and I could think just one more video of theirs that came to mind that everyone has seen and heard of. However, I could think of one other song of theirs that I have heard on the radio - 'lucky man' and I was wondering why VH1 was airing 'Rockstar' by Nickelback about eight hundred times a day and not putting any other videos. Usher's latest song, that I switch off as soon as I see his face, also features on that list.

Peter has no Principle:
Yes. Woe is me. I am within a ten metre radius of an anomaly that has defied the Peter Princple and risen above to seemingly vertiginous heights and I have no clue why!!! Further elaboration (read whining / bitching) on said matter will be done verbally to people who will ask - 'How's life?'.

Breakfast at Tifanny's:
I now plan on growing a handlebar mustache and wearing a leather jacket that has a skull and crossbones on it. Additionally, I also plan to cut queues and eyeball everyone in sight. Maybe that will compensate for having received the Rough Guide to Chick Flicks as a birthday present in jest from a certain Simian, although said person will deny the jest bit in no uncertain terms.

To compound my misery further, I rented 'Breakfast at Tifanny's' because I heard Audrey Hepburn was such a babe, and ended up watching it. I think I should not trim my nose hair for all of next year, to compensate. Edit: I must admit, Audrey Hepburn is a real cutie.

This pretty much concludes the first of my many "Notes about Nothing", although there's few other regular lengthy posts that I do plan on writing once the mood does happen. Maybe NaN will be a one time only venture as well, only time will tell.

They Fart

Fri, 22 Aug 2008 20:59:21 GMT

Yes, I am now the proud owner of theyfart at gmail dot com. Don't ask me why I bothered to get this ID.

It just seemed like a good idea at that time.

(The above statement has been used by many people throughout history, including those that committed the defenestrations of Prague that led to the 30-years war, those that used brandy in thermometers before switching to mercury, by Indira Gandhi during the 1975 emergency, by Abhinav Bindra's dad after he narrated the incident of young AB shooting the balloon off the maid's head and so on and so forth).

It is certainly not as cool as owning a domain name, and if emailed at that address, I promise to reply. Just for kicks.

Introducing The 'Cook Buddy' Concept

Fri, 22 Aug 2008 19:58:53 GMT

I love to cook. Of course, I love to eat much more than I love to cook, but one look at me and you'd hardly ever think that I'd win a burger-eating contest. Of course, there's this other matter of how most food-eating contests are biased against people who eat slowly and are invariably centered around who consumes the most food in a stipulated period of time.

If contests were reformatted to be about who consumes N items of food, regardless of time, I would stand a fighting chance. But that is beside the point.

Like I mentioned before, I love to cook, but it isn't something I have been doing too much off-late. My culinary skills came to the fore under circumstances of extreme duress. In August 2005, after having nearly experienced death (another expansion of NED) due to a severe case of bronchopneumonia that resulted in me being holed up in bed for ten days during the festival season, I developed a strong aversion towards outside food of any kind. Although the condition that affected was more towards the pulmonary region rather than the gastric region, I was nevertheless unable to eat properly for almost ten straight days and lost a whole lot of weight.

Being skinny and underweight ever since I was about four, before which I was as fat as a miniature version of Jabba the Hut, when I say I lost a whole lot of weight, I do mean it. My cheeks were hollow and for the first time after the end of engineering college, I could once again see all my ribs.

This aversion towards eating outside food regardless of its price / quality spurred me on to learn cooking and avoid outside food altogether. The slight problem of not having a kitchen until May 2006 when I moved into an apartment with a few friends kept me from having a go with the cooking utensils, but even fate could not delay the inevitable.

My three subsequent trips abroad also honed my culinary skills to a point where I could confidently claim to all and sundry that I could cook, without cooking being considered as the ability to make maggi noodles or tea. I could cook to save my life (as I have done so on a few occasions) and I guess it was one of those things people tend to add on their 'life resume' and would, more often than not make a rather desired bullet-point on it.

I currently stay alone in a house that has a kitchen in it, but I haven't cooked food in a really long time. I would attribute my lack of enthusiasm towards cooking to two factors - I haven't had a significant gastronomic accident that has resulted in unpleasantness and aversion towards outside food to that great an extent (touchwood) and I spend way too much time in cooking for myself.

The second factor in question is a result of the fact that I view cooking as a labour of love, and I spend time in cutting vegetables correctly so that they are of even size and are uniform, garnishing the food and generally working on making it look good before I dig in mercilessly and clean up the entire plate.

When I do end up cooking, the quantity I prepare sometimes exceeds the amount I could eat in one sitting as a result of which I spend about two hours polishing off what I've made. Add that to about an hour / hour and a half spent in making the food and what I now have is the clock striking 2300 hours by the time I am done eating, assuming I started preparation at 2000 hours.

Also, there's vessels to be washed and the kitchen to be cleaned thereafter, which I end up doing myself because I am too lazy to hire a maid who'd show up and would require me to be home in the evening or be awake in the morning at a certain time, and I see myself as being above such encumbrances. I'm also too lazy to hire a cook for the same reasons. I might also be cheap, but that has been a congenital condition of mine which, somehow has nothing to do with anything concerning food.

But my craving for home cooked food has only increased over the years, and in order to cater to my needs, I have come up with the idea of cook buddy (or cook buddies, rather).

If there is a family that lives within walking distance of my house and would be willing to host me on two days of the week for having dinner at their place, I'd be willing to pay good money for it. This is in line with my being too lazy to cook unless ample motivation is provided, and would sort out considerations of proximity to my residence as well as provide me with good food in return.

I don't ask that the family in question serve me food that is gourmet-level. I merely ask that on two days in a week, the said family or bunch of people that live together make an extra portion of whatever they're cooking and have me over to consume it. If the food is simple, vegetarian and is home-prepared, it would fit the bill appropriately.

In return, I would be willing to be a temporary member of the family until such time that the food gets over and then leave and go home until the next time that I was scheduled to visit them. This would mean that I would be courteous, polite, I'd pass the salt when asked for and refrain from breaking wind at the table and not make unsolicited comments about anything that is wrong with them, if at all.

There are plenty of people out there who want to cook but have the disinclination to do so due to a multitude of factors. Their living situation also prevents them from eating home cooked food every single day at their place of residence as a result of which they end up eating random food outside, which is cooked without the most important ingredient that goes into making good food - love.

At the risk of sounding immodest like I always do, I would also consider myself as interesting enough company for the family to look forward to having me over on the stipulated days. They'd of course be given the opportunity to interview me and meet me before zeroing in on a prospective match for their cutlery and their dining table, but I'd be ok for that as well, as would hundreds of other people in my predicament.

I believe that the west has a similar concept in place for fulfilling the carnal needs of a person, and that rhymes with cook buddy. We are, as a society not as immoral or polygamous and hence we'd rather keep things G-rated and just proceed onward with the search for the right cook-buddy.

An off-shoot of said idea would be to invite people over to one's place after having cooked for them, but I'd rather not propose it because I don't like too many people coming over to my house. The ones who are welcomed with open arms at any time know who they are.

Schadenfraude towards Rule-Breakers

Wed, 20 Aug 2008 13:51:18 GMT

While it is ingrained within our moral fibre to play the role of the good samaritan in case one notices people in distress, especially when they have been part of a grevious accident and require emergency medical treatment, I am facing a serious moral dilemma with regard to how one should approach the situation when rule-breakers are subject to such mishaps.

Let me illustrate this with a particular example that I was witness to the other day. This took place on a weekday morning at a busy traffic intersection on the ring road in Bangalore, when some buffoon chose to use his helmet to protect his left elbow instead of protecting his head.

Combined with the almost-reverential protection given to his elbow was the fact that he didn't know enough math to discern that he was speeding at a place where he should've ideally breaked and waited for the red light to turn green.

Hence our man, let's call him Raju, was guilty of two offences - jumping a red light and protecting his left elbow instead of his head with a helmet. What happened when he chose to move instead of wait is something that was predictable. He rammed into someone who was travelling in the purpendicular direction and hurt his hand, because the helmet got in the way.

I saw the whole thing happen, and I couldn't help but grin at the fact that Raju was being a dumbass who deserved what he got. I don't think it is bad Karma to laugh at someone who is being an idiot and breaking the rules. I'd consider it to be priceless entertainment instead and I must say that I look forward to many such instances in the future.

The same applies for all the morons who travel the wrong way in a one way to save a few paise, instead of going further ahead along the road and taking a U-turn to get to their destination. Skimpy and I once had a discussion and he ~~pointed out the following logic to me~~ made a pertinent observation, which I wish was something that people could come up with intuitively instead of putting themselves through such peril.

Assume that you save 10 paise petrol while going the wrong way, and that you face a 1% risk of injuring yourself. Consequently, the value of your life is INR 10. If these people have such a small value for their life, should those that don't break the rules bother much about them?

The traffic rule breakers in Bangalore should have their own section in the Darwin Awards, so that they can go ahead, and literally knock themselves out. For good.

Dirty Linen Washing

Wed, 20 Aug 2008 13:32:22 GMT

With reference to the below post on Independence Rock, which is seeing its 23rd year is something else that has had people watch with mouths agape.

Things like these usually happen only on reality TV shows, with an element of stage-managing, but in this case people are washing their dirty linen in public and making a big deal about it, while the rest of the world watches in glee not so much at the fact that its two heavy-weights that are slugging it out in a verbal battle, but more so because it provides a temporary distraction from the things that otherwise occupy top priority in mind.

While I don't want to name names, I have no qualms in providing link to aforesaid verbal battle. Needless to say, it is between one of the most recognized Indian bands south of the Vindhyas, having had the distinction of opening for Megadeth and Machine Head this year and the founding father of the annual Independence Rock festival.

Of course, this 'fight' has taken place across various social networking platforms, but no place like the RSJ forums to put it all together. For further drama, click here.

Avial at Independence Rock

Mon, 18 Aug 2008 10:57:34 GMT

Avial is a band whose music I have recently fallen in love with, despite not understanding their lyrics. I wish I knew enough Malayalam to comprehend what Anand Raj Benjamin Paul is singing, but regretfully, I have to be content with listening to his amazing voice belt out songs such as 'Nada Nada', 'Karakura' and 'Njaan Aara' (which I know means 'Who Am I' and is probably a song about existential dilemmas, but sounds cooler because its in a different language).

I am currently listening to 'Ettam Pattu' which has a distinctive RHCP-ish feel to it, but then gets transformed into something else altogether as the song progresses.

I heard from my friend Prasad just a while ago that Anand Raj is not in the country, and hence their DJ / turntable Tony John will be at the helm of the vocals instead. Their myspace page also doesn't mention Anand in it. Funny.

Edit: Turns out, Benjamin has left the band. So much for being up to date on the music scene. I think I should retire.

Well, nevertheless, Avial will be performing live at the Palace Grounds in Bangalore on 24th August 2008 as part of the Independence Rock's Bangalore finale. I hope to be there, time and circumstances permitting.

If you think they're your cup of tea (stew, rather), check them out. For more information, visit - http://www.independencerock.in

PS - Yours truly is in the process of writing a review for Avial's music on Gigpad. Links will be provided, watch this space.

Work Life Balance

Mon, 18 Aug 2008 10:28:11 GMT

Whoever invented the term work-life balance sure spared no expense in trying to highlight how the two are different. While it has been something I've heard off and on during four years of work (yes, its been that long, although - you can take harithekid out of college, but you can't take the college out of harithekid unless you want to perform some surgery and dig into the contents of his stomach), it really hasn't been one of my favourite expressions.

Its true that being in the IT industry for so long ensures that one embraces jargon or learns to abhor it from the very core of her / his existence, and falling in the latter category, I am no exception either. This subject is definitely material for another post, in due time.

Nevertheless, work-life balance is something some of my BSchool buddies have also used in order to convey the balance between academics and extra curricular activities.

Now, the very essence of the term and its subsequent usage denotes that it is an oxymoron, which thus implies that work and life are two different mutually exclusive entities. Hence, applying the regular tenets of logic would lead one to conclude that if you have a life, you can't work and vice versa, which is why both of them need to be balanced out.

The implications are that work is not a part of your life, and this in turn makes even those who are 'meh' about their work to end up despising it merely because they now see it as something necessary but invasive.

I think the Indian IT industry is seeing a trend where the new poster boys are those that are able to juggle multiple things aside from work in their daily lives. It is a far cry from the times of old when the guy who'd spend ages in front of his comp working away was considered as a model employee.

Personally, I think the entire hoopla around the said term is stupid. If you can't make time for something, it isn't important enough.

Chase Away the Travel Blues

Mon, 18 Aug 2008 06:57:30 GMT

Until recently, short travel (a distance which would at most be equal to the approximate diameter of Bangalore city), if done on a continuous basis was quite a pain, especially due to traffic as well as due to the fact that if the same route was travelled upon repeatedly, there was no novelty associated with that particular route.

This was particularly more so on the office bus commute, where one is unable to read books or newspapers because trying to do so will definitely damage one's eyesight (since the jerky movements on the bus would require the eyes to continuously keep changing focus), and listening to music is the only option given the fact that the outside 'scenery' is something that one has been privy to ad nauseum.

However, I have recently come up with a new way of kicking commute's butt and this method has two possible outcomes, both of which are win-win, should you choose to take it up. Of course, this method assumes that you are not the one in the driver's seat, in which case, such a move is ill-advised.

On the bus, close your eyes and visualise the entire route as you keep travelling along it and get acquainted with the noises, the wait times at traffic signals as well as the bumps and miscellaneous intentional and unintentional speed breakers so that when you do end up opening your eyes and finding yourself at a place that you'd expected, you will laud yourself at having been able to discern correctly your location based on movement rather than on sight.

The other thing that might happen to you is that you end up falling asleep in the process, which is also not such a bad thing. The important thing is to keep your eyes closed, in order for this to take effect.

Sure, your prediction skills don't really amount to much on a city bus where the bus conductor keeps shouting out the name of the next stop that the bus is approaching, but in the circumstances that you would manage to make it work, it is a really super way of killing time.

Why Spoons?

Thu, 14 Aug 2008 12:32:19 GMT

I have recently switched over to eating idly and vada with hands instead of with a spoon. This has been done for some general cheap thrills, until and unless there are extreme case scenarios where I am unable to wash my hands, which case spoon usage is the only way out.

But whenever I see people eat idli-vada, I notice that they always use spoons without exception, and in most cases it is two spoons, in a manner similar to how people use forks and knives to eat food in the west. I am sure that idly and vada dishes have existed since a long time, which means that it is a recent change that has prompted people to use spoons to cut, dip and eat the idlis and the vadas in the slightly clumsy manner in which they do.

Dosas, which are also staple fare, despite also being served with sambhar and chutney are not eaten using spoons. Its probably because its not convenient for them to be consumed that way, although I have seen peculiar characters who do manage to use knives and forks to eat dosas.

As a teenager, I used to eat with a spoon all the time, and I guess my sister picked up from me as well. I did manage to get myself ridiculed for this habit of mine, but I managed to up the ante thereafter when I mastered the fine art of eating with chopsticks.

I'd start eating lunch with chopsticks and since lunch consisted mainly of rice and some sambhar or dal to go along with it, and some curry, by the time I finished eating my lunch, dinner would be served. Despite eating all that I could, my weight still remains what it was when I was 4 years of age. My width has decreased to give way to an increase in height.

Evolution has resulted in me coming back to square one and eating with my hands again. Somehow, I guess, instinctive behaviour is always the right one.

Also, next time you are at a darshini, do pay attention to the way people eat with two spoons. Just makes you feel more superior when you gorge on food with your hands.

Telephone Terrorism

Tue, 12 Aug 2008 11:14:30 GMT

Live Blogging:

This is happening as I type. Our workplace, which is a set of cubicles on our floor with each cubicle having a telephone extension, is under seige. Literally!

Each and every telephone in my vicinity has started ringing in synchronicity at the same time, since most of them have consecutive numbers, and this time, it is not the usual suspects in the form of credit card / personal loan salespersons who are causing megadeath (sic) level pains.

Everytime one chooses to pick up a phone, an automated message is being played with some subscription offer for something that I haven't had the patience to listen to. What I can say with absolute certainty is that this telephone ringing menace is getting on my nerves much more than I thought it would.

If I find out who was responsible for having come up with the first automatic telephone call and consequently appearing automatic telephone message, I would, if said person is not already dead, wring his neck with my bare hands and make him pay for all my phone bills until such time that I croak.

As I have been typing this post, all the phones seem to have fallen silent. However, it is not without a sense of foreboding that I am awaiting the next wave of the attack of the killer telephones.

I wish the phones, if rung simultaneously, could simulate different sounds of music so that it would atleast seem like some instruments were being played. Of course, to keep everyone at the office happy, it would have to be muzak, the likes of which even the most rabid music hater would be able to withstand.

Once again, death to those telephone terrorists.

Night Club for Moonlighters

Fri, 08 Aug 2008 15:23:11 GMT

Yet another brilliant idea from the stables of harithekid. I'm surprised at how awesome I am!

Anyway, to move on to describing the idea, I was thinking of how we should start a 'night club' which will be a bar / discotheque / lounge and everything else for all those people who work at night and sleep during the day.

The most obvious target segment for this venture is the BPO crowd which has money to burn and would be game to spend it drinking and dancing away at the end of their shift before they head back home.

The night club will open at 0530 or 0600 hours, just around the time the milkman and the newspaper delivery boys start functioning and can go on till the regulation time during which the bar has to be closed, depending on which city it can be opened in.

Artificial lighting will ensure that the people who visit the bars early in the morning don't realize that the sun has risen, and proceed to get drunk instead. Once the job is done, they will not have problems going back home as transport will be abundantly available in the form of buses | taxis | auto rickshaws.

For those who want to drink compulsively regardless of the time of day, my venture will meet their requirements appropriately. Cops cannot have a problem since my business is being conducted during broad daylight, starting from sunrise.

If addressed the right way, I could try to have many chains of this concept night club opened up all over the place in Bangalore and in different cities thereafter and then laugh all the way to the bank.

Puppet President

Fri, 08 Aug 2008 15:14:33 GMT

While watching the awesome and visually splendid Olympics opening cermony, as the Indian contingent of athletes passed by, my sister casually remarked that it was ironic that on the day of the Olympics, the President of the country was at the convocation ceremony in IIT Bombay, whilst the President of the ruling coalition government was instead sent to the Olympics among the VIPs for standing and waving at the cameras as our athletes passed by.

Quite an apt reflection of the importance of the President in our country. Not that gracing an important occasion as the convocation of a major university is 'meh', but it just might be when you compare it to the Olympics opening ceremony.

She's not the Tennis Player

Fri, 08 Aug 2008 15:11:15 GMT

Another random facebook search for kicks threw funny results, just like the time when I had searched for Elisha Cuthbert and instead got all the members of the SGPC (Shiromani Gurudwara Prabhandak Committee) listed.

This time I searched for Sania Mirza, just to see if she might actually be on facebook and one quite funny profile I chanced upon was that of someone who's got a picture which says I'm NOT Sania Mirza, the Tennis player.

Link is here.

Praise or Abuse?

Wed, 06 Aug 2008 13:27:51 GMT

Its been four months since my last birthday today, and I was just remembering the day and what transpired a couple of days before and after that.

One thing that stands out in my mind is worth documenting here, for posterity. Our office has a splendid intranet portal which has all sorts of things to keep oneself preoccupied should blogging / LJing / trolling on flickr /wikipedia and engaging in other trivial pursuits not suit one's fancy.

It is on this very page that there is a link which redirects you to a page which shows the birthdays for the day, and it is only on one day of each year that I click onto the page, see my pale, gaunt face (I was ill on my first day of work due to some side effects to an antibiotic that I had taken for a chest infection, which resulted in my hands being shaky - I thought I had Parkinson's and wanted to email Michael J Fox and all that. Thankfully that did not happen.) on the birthday page and close the window.

On the day of my birthday, I invariably end up getting arbit happy birthday mails with flowers, birds and some gooey sappy messages from unknown people and it is at this point in time that I don't know whether to praise or abuse them, simply because I am not sure whether to appreciate the fact that they're trying to wish some rank stranger or that they are so jobless that they are in a position to gladly do so.

A Restaurant With Defined Entry and Exit Weight Criteria

Tue, 05 Aug 2008 12:27:09 GMT

New York City restaurants have recently become health conscious and have begun listing calories of each food item along with its price in the menu. This is to make people think twice before they chow down grub to their hearts' contents.

This is also an attempt to prevent people from over-eating and also to ensure that the overall health of the community goes up. Here is further reading on the topic for those not interested in my awesome idea, which is to follow in the next paragraph.

Restaurants that are really bothered about the health of their patrons more than the profits they make (and if one such exists, I'd be quite surprised, to put it mildly) should introduce a mechanism at their entry gate which prevents people of a certain weight or above from proceeding into the restaurant.

Of course, keeping in mind the fact that skinny tall people might weigh as much as short, fat people in some cases, the entry of the patrons in the restaurant should be made based on how disproportionate they are height-weight wise. Basically, keeping in mind the height of a particular person, they shouldn't exceed a certain weight and if they do, they should wait outside (or return home) while the rest of their family would eat good food within the restaurant.

The advantages of this are that people will become conscious of waiting outside restaurants because they are too fat, and instead sit and work out to get into shape so that they can pig out at said places. The overall health of the community will see an improvement.

As I was writing this post, I also realized that this concept in turn would show me as a narrow minded person who's angered the fat-camp. So, I figured I'll balance it out by stating that the restaurants should also have an exit criterion, which states that a person who conforms to a particular height + weight combination can leave the place ONLY if they've crossed a certain weight limit, and that too only after ensuring that they've ingested the food properly (so as not to throw it up later on).

This will ensure that dumbass anorexic models will start looking normal and human, like the rest of us if they eat at the said awesome restaurant. I don't know how much this has angered the thin-camp, but I hope it has had its desired effect.

The restaurant, will, obviously, reserve the right of service only to select patrons, and as a result of wanting to keep everyone out will attract more people and will become a flourishing business in itself.

Any takers for the idea?

Blood Donation Fundaes

Mon, 04 Aug 2008 11:00:58 GMT

I have donated blood thrice over the past three years, for very specific reasons. Although I am not someone who personally endorses Corporate Social Responsibility fulfilling drives for various social causes, simply because the only intent with which most companies indulge in CSR activities is to get more media mileage and appeal to the sentimental side of shareholders, there are some circumstances where the ends would justify the means.

Should most people adopt that approach which would give heed to the ends, the channel through which said activities are performed would not matter much. This is one of the reasons why I had been donating blood for the past three years.

Blood donation is fun. Especially if it is at the office. You get to take time off work, and sleep while blood which you can spare is emptied from your veins and you let a part of yourself go for a good cause, and get something new in return. Well, the sleeping part is the most vital there.

This year, I thought would be no different fromt the rest, and I sauntered across to the makeshift blood donation camp at our office, only to discover after having had my blood grouping done that my donation had been deferred this time around due to the fact that I use the salbutamol inhaler as a remedy for my wheezing problems yesterday. The doctor refused very bluntly, and I figured that if they didn't want my blood, it was not my problem!

So much for wanting to donate blood and fall asleep. The inhaler rocks and does wonders to your breathing if you've inhaled too much particulate matter, though.