Macro

OK, now you may have no clue what Seven Seas is all about – it is a Chinese Restaurant, which I have got quite additced to. I cannot recall the last time I have not had food from this restaurant at least once a week since months now!! Yes, that addicted I have become.

Today I ordered the usuals – Chicken Chilli extra spicy and Mixed Vegetable Saute extra spicy for a home delivery, as I usually do. As any other time, I enjoyed the meal thoroughly.

Though what made it worth blogging about was about a call that came from the restaurant one hour later. The manager called me up and checked on me – whether the food arrived on time – was it as I had ordered it – did I enjoy the meal and such. I was like – WOW – now thats some customer service! Seven Seas has found one loyal customer for this now – (as if I wasn’t already :P)

…And to think, Seven Seas is like any other chinese restaurant on a murky street, and a place, I would never want to set my foot inside (thats why I always order!), such service could be expected.

That’s how I would describe a group of Indians living abroad will end up doing in a party, especially after a few shots of Jack Daniels or couple of Millers. What begins as a simple discussion over any trivial issue happening in America quickly gets translated into “arre yaar, India mein tho ho nahi saktha” discussion – especially when people are about to get over the edge. Filmy discussions always lead to concerned references to growing nudity in Indian films – “Chee – aaj kal ke films man – they are getting worse – Indian culture ka tho khayal hi nahi hain!”.

Sample these discussions that I have been a part of, or at least mute spectator. And yes, they do humor me immensely.

“American football sucks man. I cant why the game stops like every 2 seconds!”
“Cricket sucks even more man. Its too boring. I can’t watch Cricket, but I can any day watch American Football”.

-Did anyone say anything about cricket? No.

“Man – traffic sucks these days man! I spend like 45 minutes on 495 to get to work. And if there is an accident then easily an hour!”
“But think man – India mein tho road hi nahi hain!! Its so much worse there man – pata nahi log how do they drive man?! Ek tho pollution upar se Ghaay Bhais, usse se tho acchcha hain!!”

• Umm… the point was about how American traffic sucked; No one spoke about affairs of road in India yet.

“The latest Harry Porter sucked big time!”
“Garam Masala sucked as well! – Bollywood is worse!”

• Hello?

“I got an interview tomorrow man!”
“Agar Desi hoga interview mein tho bahut maarega – be prepared!”
“Haan yaar, desi log hi desi ke lethe hain”!

-Presumptions of the highest order.

“That damned SSN office man – I had to take two tokens, and sit there waiting for like 3 hours before my turn came”
“But India mein tho isse worse hain man! You wont even be given a token and you would sit for 3 hours before you get a token!”

• Well, we don’t have a SSN concept. Yet.

“I got lost trying to find my way. I missed one turn and I was like roaming for 1 hour before I came to the road – why can’t they put a big sign board for smaller roads too!”
“Trust me man – India mein road ke naam hi nahi hain – tujhe chaar logo ko puchna padtha before you reached your destination!”

• Yes. So what’s the point.

“America Sucks big time man!”
“India sucks too!!”

-Sigh!

One thing I have learnt. When in a group of Desis, be ready for some needless, out of context and often senseless desh-bashing. Why are we like that? I really wonder. Why can’t I criticize something of another country without having another of my own countrymen pointing out deficiencies of my own country? Why do we desis always HAVE to compare and make judgments!

Another of my past writings – this is another of my favorites because of its nostalgia value.
Originally written August 2005

There comes a time in your life when you need to stop, take your time, look back and relive all your memories left behind. Its also a time when you realize some things remain the same, some things change, but most of all, bitter sweet memories of an era gone by remain with you forever.

Kevin Arnold and I share the same problem – the way we look at life and our incapacity to let go of some memories and the past. Kevin Arnold recalls his memories of childhood, twenty years hence they have happened, and immediately its clear to us that he has not left his past or memories back along. He is very much there, wanting and wishing he could go back in there and reset all things wrong and make all things just the way he wanted them to be; something everyone of us want to do – go back in time and reset events that shaped us, that made us into what we are today.

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This is the giddy limits!!! I am so damn obsessed about my weight loss that now I am feeling nauseatic! (there, I dont think I spelled it right either! Blame it on MS Word for spoiling my English!). What began as a good obsession is simply getting on my nerves these days.

But you have already lost a lot of weight you say – and I say yes, but thats not the problem! The problem is keeping it away which is making me sick, demented and obsessed!

I really miss my days when I was fat and happy; round and jolly; and I couldnt care less if I ate a classic bagel topped with three spoons of cheese or less; I couldnt care less if I had 3 slices of pizza for lunch and then a splendid meal of Rice, Chicken Schezwan and the likes at night – I could top it off with a milk shake too at night before sleeping. And I couldn’t care less which ice-cream I ate because I loved ice creams! Chocolates pretty much were always around; Bread and Pasta were my bread and butter (err, wrong analogy…) make that Rice and Pasta (still bad!).

But one fine day, my brain (or my body) decided – enough was enough – and it was time to stop carrying the weight around; so off I went on a weight loss drive, armed with enough information about diet and exercise off the web that I can now be a certified nutrionist if I want too. Through careful planning, exercise, diet control and so much more I lost so much weight; friends exclaimed, relatives were shocked, the world was seeing a different me, and after losing 50 poounds, I definitely like I won my own Biggest Loser challenge…

BUT

… Things took a nosedive from there; I have figured that losing weight is much simpler than actually maintaining it! Its an obsession – even a pound or two more makes me sick; I sometimes feel like cutting off my stomach and growing it back again – but I just don’t want any fat lingering around.

Result: I dont eat ice creams any more; chocolates are a strict no-no. Bread, Butter, Rice and Pasta along with Potatoes are out of the windows. I avoid high cholestrol foods, and generally dont eat anything too oily or too fatty (which kicks out pizza and the likes out!). So then how do you live??!! you ask.

And I say – well, thats the obsession! I am not sure what I want now; and frankly I dont even know whether I am happy having lost that much weight now!!! Sometimes I feel I was much happier carrying my weight around – atleast there was one less burden on my shoulders – keeping it off!

Its a highly ironic feeling that I have these days; I am supremely proud of my achievement – and yet I am absolutely pinned because I dont want to gain that weight again, but I also dont want to exercise and eat right!

Pah!! I would do anything in this world right now to maintain my weight except diet and exercise!

I admit the last few posts I have traversed through desipundit regarding various media publications plagiarizing content and even blog plagiarizing prompted me to write this piece. I really wonder if people are as serious about plagiarizing as they seem to be – plagiarizing, getting inspired, lifting off – whatever you call it, but think about this:

• Anu Malik has lifted innumerable tunes for his movies; so what did you do? Stop listening to his music altogether? Did you mail him and ask him to stop getting inspired? Because the music was plagiarized, did it stop you from buying the CD of Murder because you loved the song “Kaho Na Kaho” ?
• Most Bollywood movies are inspired by Hollywood. So if Munnabhai M.B.B.S was inspired Patch Adams, would it make Munnabhai a less enjoyable or a less better film? Once you discovered it was inspired, did you decide not to watch it at all? Did you Blog about it?
• You know all too well that you most Tommy Hilfigers you get in India are fake, didn’t you? Did it stop you from buying them? Did you mail the maker or the textile company about shamelessly copying Tommy’s designs?
• Most drugs and medicines in India are more or less variants of the drugs made after considerable research in United States – and that is why India is now having newer laws on drugs and medicines. So, what do you call Crocin or Anacin? An “inspired” drug? Will you stop having it if you are sick?
• Did you hear that Chinese versions of Energizer batteries work just as well and sell for three times cheaper. You wouldn’t buy it would you?

The point is this: Plagiarizing is frankly not that big an issue as it is made out to be through Blog journalism; one just needs to think a little bit beyond the obvious and see that originality as a concept itself is very rare; everything else is more or less plagiarized of one thing.

People mailing magazines like TOI or Cosmopolitan about plagiarizing frankly don’t see the point – what’s the big deal?! People complaining that Hindu’s reviews are plagiarized from NY Times – again, what’s the big deal about it anyways?! There are thousands of things that have been plagiarized right before your eyes, days in and out, and you didn’t do anything about it, but when it comes to media, you want it to be clean and dandy. And I think – why? Why can’t the media too plagiarize as they like?

If you want to expose something in the name of Blog Journalism, especially something like plagiarism, then stop, wait, look around you and think of everything that is around you and start by mentioning whatever is plagiarized. And yes, don’t just stop there:

If you think TOI and Cosmopolitan is plagiarizing content; don’t go and BUY TOI to find more such instance so that you can put it up on your blog. Instead don’t buy them.

If you think Gautam plagiarizes reviews on Hindu – stop reading his reviews; don’t instead go and buy Hindu – then read his reviews online and NYT and then exclaim with joy on our blog about how another 100 reviews of his are copied. That’s mere sensationalism and not Blog journalism.

Or simply – just chill; if you don’t like something – whether plagiarized or not – don’t waste your time on it. Its that simple.

This morning I was trying to run an application when it just decided to fold its hands and crash. And crash it did, so badly that it didnt want to restart at all. After numerous attempts at trying to restart the application, I traversed my way to the event log of the application. The one error that caut my eye was:

The application software could not recover your database; it seems your database is corrupted. Please call XXX company for further assitance.

So I thought, fine, I will call the tech support and see how it goes. The tech support turned out to be a really smart guy who knew just the answers a dumb guy like me would come to expect:

Support: Have you tried restarting the application?
Me: Yes – thrice.
Support: What happened?
Me: (If Knew, Would I call you and ask you?) – I dont know – I see this error message which says above.

To which the smart tech support replied:

“Sir what this basically means is that your application could not recover the database and your database is corrupted!”

I was like – Of course dumbass – thats what the error log already said! What are YOU going to do about it!

Tech support is fun!

BTW – that guy was a real smart guy though – he fixed the problem in a jiffy.

Originally Written, August 2003

After all, how many times are such brilliant masterpieces written?

As I pondered at the end of the book, there is this just one question. If this is what the author aimed, I bow to him for, I too have changed. Emptiness beyond the deepest well had overtaken me too at the end of this fascinating book. Beyond the waves, the rain, the silence, laid the emptiness of having accomplished something. I was almost there to witness the silence of the war, the thundering of clouds, the violence of rain, and the anger of waves upon the lands that fought the war in the name of Dharma. An empty feeling had over taken me as I reached the end of the book.

There in lies the beauty of the book. It captivates and holds you with such fervor that not for a moment do you think are in the present, but always a feeling that you are with them, seeing it, feeling it. Sheer Brilliance! It must be said, the masterful stroke of this book lies in the last 15 pages, describing events following the war. Every frame of the war between the Pandavas and Kauravas stay on in the mind long after you have read the book. Every incident, from Kunti’s monologue on the birth of Pandavas to the final walk led by Krishna to the Palace, each incident holds your breath, holds your mind and soul. Every single dialogue, be it a monologue, dialogue, introspection or plain description of events, each of them has been dealt with a hand of a genius.

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This happened months ago in January, though I wanted to keep it all at one place. So hear ye, all of it again!

(originally written, Jan 18, 2005)

2 days ago I and my friend decided to go to a mall, just to checkout the latest movies running in a theatre there, and to play some pool. Now this mall has a huge FYE (For Your Entertainment) store, with glass windows on all sides – so that anybody can see whats inside. Like boutiques, the glass windows also serve as mannequin board for them – advertizing latest games, dvds, music cd etc.

So this sunday, while we were passing by this shop – out of normal window shopping curiosity I looked at the cardboard mannequins on display. First came the lovable Shrek and his donkey. Then characters from XMen hogged some space. Xmen was followed by Neo and Morpheus. Lord of the Rings (Gandalf) and few more characters followed. There was a Elf cardboard next to Gandalf.

And next cardboard mannequin completely caught me unawares. There it was, smiling with a smile that suggested infinite idiocy, the grand, the missing link between humans and chimpanzee – DUBYA.

Needless to say I was hysterically laughing for the next 10 minutes.