Guitarist

                     There has never been a day I haven't thought about my guitar. It lies in the corner next to the bathroom door. I always see it lying there on my way to bathroom. Only attention it normally gets is when our cleaning lady finds it necessary to clear the dust accumulated under it.

Today on the way I stopped by and picked it up, dusted the junk accumulated on the cover over the years, opened it to find my guitar broken.

Later on a phone call while I was narrating the incident to a friend I found it hard to express. Not that it was emotional. I didn't know which part of it was broken. Though I was familiar with the general anatomy how it look and all that I had no clue what any of those parts were called.  The one we are talking about, I later learned, is called a table.

Now thinking back, considering my knowledge and interest, I wonder how I ended up buying a guitar. It was on the spur of the moment I assume. But certainly it has a lot to do with Surya the train and a beautiful Sameera Reddy.  I had not come across many guitarists in my younger days. So as a kid I was never really drawn towards it. And I never visualized myself playing guitar trying to woo someone. I think such dreams might have stemmed after watching that movie.  Playing guitar and singing En iniya pon nilave became something you ought to do to charm a girl. For someone who is not willing to put in any real effort, but still never shies away in being jealous seeing someone playing guitar really well, normally that dream whenever it comes forth,  has a short span.  And when time goes on it will subside to a murmur  "wish I knew" (so feeble that even you won't hear it yourself )

One such day I accidentally said it aloud and heard my roommate Rohan echoing the same. 

He went a step ahead.  "Lets buy a guitar."

This is how he planted the idea in my head. He should have patented it.  Nolan later made a movie on the same concept and called it Inception.

"How will we learn it?" I asked him.  I had stressed on we, I remember.

We will join guitar classes. He said

He said we, and I liked it. Company is always good, especially for laid-back people. If we don't get time and that doesn't work out we can learn online. He added.

When I was a kid, I have had this experience learning tabla. My dad, one day, watched Zakir Hussain's performance on TV, needless to say, was mesmerised by it, thought I could replicate it somehow. Why not I thought. Though I had not heard (wah) Ustad (wah) back then and had no idea who he was, I didn't object. I joined tabla classes. Went for three months,  discontinued citing shoulder pain.

My previous experience being this, I had high hopes with guitar lessons. I was picturing myself putting my own guitar cover versions of popular hits on Youtube.

Things, at times, most of the time, don't  go as planned.

Many a months went by. Years went by.

Apart from the few occasions when Dheeraj and Vishnu, my college-mates and guitarists visit our place, when once me and Rohan were under the impression that we were composing music, and  recently when a friend took it for a wedding or family gathering or something of that kind, my guitar's acquaintance with music has been stingy.

That's my story with the guitar so far.  Jokes apart, it's never too late to learn something ... may be.. who knows. 

Now I am thinking about learning Violin. won't be a bad idea right?

An uninvited guest

 

However sweet your ringtone is, however lovely you think it is, you will have a moment of quiet introspection when your mobile starts ringing while you are having a nice sleep.

Now I certainly do.

"Hey, you there??"

"Yea.. ah," I replied, not having fully recovered from sleep.

"What were you doing? I have been trying your number for a while."

"Sleeping," I said sheepishly.

"What? It is just 8, man!!!"

"Oh.."

Pause.. I checked my watch, it was just 8.

"I fell asleep."

"OK. I will be there in ten, fifteen minutes.. Don't go anywhere."

"OK.."

I put the phone down and tried to sleep. Sleeping further was pointless. He would be here any moment to wake me up again.

I got up, put on my slippers, and went outside. It had rained while I slept. The air was still cool. I felt a gush of refreshing cold breeze on my face and a chill running through my spine. But it wasn't just the cold breeze. The origin was somewhere else, under my feet if I am not mistaken, giving a tickling sensation now and then.

When you touch a burning object or get pricked by a sharp substance, you make an involuntary movement. That is ‘response to stimuli', I remember my biology teacher trying to teach us in high school. Know it or not, without it, lazy, sluggish people like me would end up dead more than once on a daily basis.

Response to tickling it was. Somehow I got my feet detached from the slippers and, with it, a small reptile, black with prominent white bands all over its body, took its leave. It wasn't hard to recognize: Velli kattan, shankhu varayan, or ettadi veeran. You might know it as the common krait (a member of the "big four", including cobra and two types of viper—species inflicting the most snakebites in India).

My body had made its maximum reflex possible and was reluctant to make any move. I was transfixed. But my uninvited guest had realized he was unwelcome, made no fuss, and took his leave.

"Why are you standing there like that???"

I could lift my head and make a feeble sound. "Snake."

"What??? Where?"

"It left the way you came in."

He started jumping around like Tigger from Winnie the Pooh.

"Why didn't you kill it??"

He was already on top of one of the chairs.

I didn't say anything.

"Where did you find it?"

"Under my feet.. over my slippers.."

"What the... and did it bite you???"

That was when it struck me. Did it bite me?? Does the bite leave marks? I went back to my room, sat on my bed, decided a bite should leave some marks, and started checking my feet.

After several minutes of inspection, I shortlisted several probable bite marks which had an appeal. Moreover, I started having pain from more than one of those.

My friend was still on top of the chair.

"Did you find any?? Hey, don't panic. If it had bitten, you would have been long gone by now."

I didn't say anything. I was trying to see if I could find more bite marks.

"And common krait is a decent snake."

He had opted for science in his plus two.

"It doesn't bite much unless provoked."

Does standing on top of it meet that criteria? Who knows.. I didn't ask.

"Even if it does, death is less violent as compared to a viper bite. Their venom is neurotoxin. It causes paralysis. You know, if it bites you in your sleep, you will die peacefully in your sleep and you won't even know."

He then went on giving lectures till midnight about several ‘to-know' things about snakes, several folklore stories from his village, and more. Whether it was paralysis seeping in or just fear, I didn't have any energy left to pay much attention to his lecture. I slept at some point.

In the morning, I checked the mirror, just to be sure I hadn't turned blue like someone from Avatar.

Ten kms ten kilos and ten K

 Ten kms  ten kilos and ten K - the 3 K's


"Ten kilometers  is not such a big deal, not hard at all. People run that all the time."
 

"Maybe not for marathon runners. For me it is.  I am not an athlete."
 

"You used to say you were a cricketer once. " 
 

"Did I ?" 
 

"You know what your problem is? You give up quite easily and you are dead lazy." 
 

"Certainly not. This is a boring bet to begin with."
 

"Not my problem anymore, bro."
 

This conversation happened a month after the bet was made. So a month had passed since this conversation (or was it two?).  

I don’t quite remember how I got into this one. I was slowly walked into this trap, I assume. Silly me. And even sillier me !! I got myself into not one, but two such bets.

Inherent human nature. Possibly.

"I will try my luck one more time. I can make up for my loss and if it goes well I can make some profit as well, who knows ". This could be the thought that cross the mind of people who gamble a lot. The advice I can give in retrospect, don't mind the loss; just walk away when you have time before you go knee-deep into it. Well I dint know it then, I learned it the hard way. Experience teaches you a lot of things.

My friend Nikhil was back in Bangalore. I had reached a month back and was enjoying the cool metro life, mostly the cool climate, until he showed up. He was having a realization that the B-school life and the post training period had taken a toll on him. Life was demanding, work pressure was immense. Like the Kung Fu Panda he was stressed eating. Moreover food was tasty and in abundance. He had put on some extra kilos. 

 

He was committed to getting back to where he actually was a couple of years back. All that we heard during his first few days in Bangalore was ‘calories’. The rest of the time was spent in several bicycle shops across Bangalore, studying international bicycle models and their features. He didn’t go alone, dragged us, me and Ojas, our friend with him. We went bicycle hunting in a couple of shops in Madivala, where we stayed, then to Decathlon. If you haven’t already heard, Decathlon is a major French sporting goods chain store, with stores located throughout the world. They got a couple of stores in Bangalore as well. I must say it was an amazing experience, everyone must go there once. We had spent a whole evening there.

This is how it started: we were coming back from Decathlon; I told him that he would stop cycling within a month. He took it as a call for a bet.

I didn’t see that coming, should have.

 This is where it ended: If he sheds 10 kilos in 5 months, I should pay him 10K else he would pay me the same.  And the second bet? What can I say, totally my foolishness, nothing else.  Like I said earlier it is an inherent human nature to overdo, or is certainly mine. I tried to compensate for my loss and ended up in other. New bet: Within the next five months I have to run 10kms at a stretch. If successful, I can buy books  worth 10k and he will pay for it or else I will have to do the same for him. Oja, the self-appointed bet commissioner, sealed the deal.

You never challenge a guy who is seriously determined to do something, say to lose weight. My roommate Chathan comes up with such declarations every now and then. Rigorously follows  it for a week or so, lose couple of kilos in the process (mostly due to loose motion over eating on a cheat day). Claims he can shed weight whenever and however he wants, then goes back to his eating spree. Prior experience being this, I didn’t take Nikhil very seriously and inadvertently gave him motivation to do it. These management guys you know, when they see a window of opportunity they grab it and try to do it at someone else's expense. He takes Joker’s ‘when you are good at something never do it for free’ theory quite seriously and was experimenting it on me.  

 There are two ways to go about this.

For the love of books I can try running.  Or I can tempt him to eat more.  Couple of months have gone by.  I am yet to run 10 meters.  And about plan B,  I tried buying him fat filled commodities. But he didn't fall for my trick.  

There is even a plan C.  Stop talking about it altogether. Be indifferent to his calorie theories and behave as if you don’t care. He may lose the motivation or even forget about the bet. 

Who knows?

P.S. Nothing happened, mutual understanding it was. We don't talk about it anymore. The bet commissioner, now and then, laments about wasting a golden opportunity. He says he had a gut feeling that both of us wouldn't complete our respective bets. He should have had made a bet, he feels.

World Without C

I never thought there will be a day where I would write an article on C. But now that a situation has arisen on itself, I need to have you guys alerted how unnerving the world can be without C. 


Every now and then a key gets jammed in my ASUS laptop. It's  -see-'s turn now and  seems like it is going to stay put. So henceforth I will use 'see' instead of  'C'. Make a mental note to read -see- as C when you see a 'see'. I've to tap the letter 'C' so hard(as I did right now) to make it appear that my father appears from the other room to check what I am doing. I guess he is getting more and more skeptikal towards what I am doing these days. Resently he asked me if I needed a new typewriter instead of the one that I am using right now.



When -see- gets jammed and doesn't work, take my word for it, you will find your world turned upside down. For programmers it won't get any worse than this. I didn’t realize that life -see-an get this bad without a letter, that too with -see-. You learn -see-ertain things the hard way.  



First and foremost problem is that you -see-an't  -see-opy your way out  of a programming dilemma. Things get real -see-umbersome when you are into software development or any kind of programming where google is first and foremost provider of every bit of -see-ode you add or -see-hange you make.  Many, eh most, of the -see-odes are the -see-ontributed by Google search results which are duly modified to suit the requirements. Without Google we literally are like a fish out of water.


Put this in a loop you will get the pi-see-ture. 


(tap tap tap)


  a search string or an error. 

  ctrl+c  ctrl+ v 

  search find (you might get new string to search and the pro-see-ess is repeated from step one)

  ctrl+c and ctrl+v. 


tap .. tap .. tap



Ctrl C, Ctrl V is the heart of the process and without -see- everything is topsy-turvy.




Like sign language there is a chat language. World is getting smaller and smaller, so are the words. Managing multiple -see-hat windows at the same time needs to have an uncanny kna-see-k of typing messages in the shortest possible way. Today's world talk more or less in LOLs, B4N, BRB, CU, Cu2 Cul8r (tap tap tap tap tap, father came and asked if I had any typewriter in my room. yeah yeah I got your point). In a sense I have traveled ba-see-k and is  -see-aught up with the old ways of -see-hatting. While I am duelling with my keyboard trying to send paragraphs after paragraphs, the person in the other window will have started LOL ing with someone else.  So for the time being, leave the idea of handling multiple -see-hat sessions at the same time. I have.



At times you forget it was jammed. You try to type check and they read heck(I don't have a theory of when -c- shows up and when it doesn't). Anyways you may end up having to justify yourself to people. And there are normal times and there are normal days where my 'c' suddenly starts working as if there was no problem at all.  And when I start thinking nothing is wrong, it -see-omes back as if to say you can't get rid of me that easily.



Positive side is that you learn new things. Being little philosophi-k-al, even the simplest of the things has its value. So savour it. 


Or you can simply buy a new keyboard and start using it..

Nomad, the scribbler

Back to Square One.

I got bored being in square one for a while and since there has been no activity in my blog for a long time, I'm changing the blog address.  

Nomad the scribbler

Being an escapist, the blogger in me comes out when there are so many other things to do. 

So looking forward to be busy :P

Timewarp

 The Trailer.




Note : Trailer or Accidents. It took me a while to pick a title for this post. I have met with many accidents, minor and semi major, but nothing  gave me nightmares like this one in particular. I never had a near death experience prior to this, nothing that I am aware of.

Interestingly I started having nightmares after I picked Interpretation of Dreams to read. But that is as far as the connections go.

Me and my roommate Rohan were heading back to our place from office. The night was young, the city and its inhabitants were slowly going to their sleep. Streets were almost deserted apart from  the few night vendors here and there. It was a perfect time for a night ride.

When we reached the pipeline junction, the signal was red. Though the roads were empty and there weren't any vehicles crossing the junction that moment, we waited there before the signal. It was a needless act I must say. We started moving when we got green.We had hardly crossed the center when I felt its presence. Everything around me started moving in slow motion. Time got warped, felt a gush of cold air on my face and an equally cold chauffeur with his sixteen wheeler stared at me from a close proximity. The expression on his face, if there was any, was sheer indifference. I couldn't read his eyes. I was hoping he would apply the brakes any moment. But by each passing moment I was getting aware that even if he intends to make any such effort it wouldn't do us any good that to crush us  slowly under its giant wheels. Since we stopped earlier we hadn't gained enough speed so weren't confident about covering the distance.

Rohan later told me he felt  he could manage to take the front side of his en-field from the impact but not the back side. I felt too happy to have got a friend who is concerned about my safety. But he was worried about bikes hind quarters( it was fresh out after several alterations). To my luck both of us, hind part of the bullet and me, were the same at that moment. The Trailer missed us by a whisker and sped away without even bothering to stop.

I don't know what change an accident brings to people apart from those who watched Final destination and take it seriously. We laughed a lot after this incident. Everything else became less significant. or we weren't bothered about anything else. We were immensely happy. Not just because we survived life seemed really valuable. Thoughts were crystal clear. But the moment passes.

I am strongly advised not to go anywhere near motor bikes. My parents, in fact the whole family, despise it and are afraid of them. So I am not sure whether I am supposed to be following that strictly and keep a distance from bikes. But many of the time you can't help it. You travel and you prefer traveling on bikes. Had a bike trip from Bangalore to Goa, met with few other accidents. Though it many of them could have gone wrong nothing had an impact on me like the trailer incident.

To this day sight of sixteen wheelers give me nightmares. 

A Toshiba A dealer and a few months wait

Humiliation frustration and a few more things to go with it. Well that's it for the title.

I was rich, was called a banker by a few ( hate those filthy people). They had pointed out that a banker of my reputation ought to have a laptop and not having one is unthinkable for a person of my stature. I was fool enough to fall for it.

Please don't ask me why I had placed an order and left a considerable amount of money with a total stranger to buy a laptop. I don't have a sensible answer for that. People do make mistakes and discount was far too luring to ignore. Now it doesn't seem so good a reason though. I'm more than sure that the model's price has come down, just not sure if it is more than the discount that I was offered. That will be far too disheartening to hear. So I've closed all my senses to ads from Toshiba.

And I've learned a new lesson.

When your parents ask questions like these.

"When are you coming home?? ".

Deal it with simple replies like "I will come next week" or even a vague  "at the earliest"

Never overdo like what I did.

"I've ordered a laptop. It will reach here soon. Then I can work from home for a few days."

It sounded really great then, had a ring to it.

They might have been getting bored with regular questions, these days the conversation starts with "did you get your laptop???".  Now I'm getting bored with 'Shipment delays' and moreover they aren't buying it anymore. They feel I am giving an excuse not to go home.

I seriously doubt that I've accidentally placed an order for a gold plated laptop. Just now checked with my dealer. Though he is normally not sure about anything much, he assured me that I didn't make such a mistake and just in-case I want to put such an order I should let him know immediately. At least something went right out of  the whole deal.

P.S. ithuvare laptop kittiyitilla.. Aarum chodichu budhimuttenda. kittiya ellarem vivaram ariyichekkam.