Thursday, October 30, 2008

Hair colouring on a Scooter


Now I know people try and do strange things just to get the "look" but this one was the strangest by far. Getting your hair coloured just outside somebody's front door. And that too sitting on the backseat of a Chetak ( refer : Bajaj's brand of scooters..used to see them when we were children ).

The other day when I was coming back from the bank and I entered my lane , a very strange scene met my eye. The housekeeper of a hostel in my lane was getting his hair dyed from the guard opposite to his house.
Preety neat, I would say. All that they were doing was concentrating on the "colouring" process and not what I or anybody else for that matter , was thinking . Well I just walked past them like I do everyday. Greeted them in the usual manner. And they reciprocated in their own way. Now I was particularly fascinated by what was happening there so I decided I would continue watching them for a while. The next 5 mins I stood at my balcony and looked at them utterly amazed at the simplicity and my thoughts ventured off towards "my India.." The things that happen here..

Makes me remember the fun people have getting their hair cut under a banyan tree. Where else in the world does stuff like this happen ? Even I happened to get it done once, when I was rather young. 

In the evening , they were at the same spot talking to possibly another client and I casually walked upto them and had this pleasant converstaion. (It has to be in Hindi to keep the meaning alive)

Me : Baal kaafi kaale lag rahe hai aapke ..kya baat hai ?
House keeper : Ab ye guard sahab dye itni badiya lagate hai ki puucho mat.
Me : Itne badiya to market me betha naai bhi nahi kar pata. 
Guard : Aapne bhi apne baal dye karvane ki koshish ki thi? 
Me : Arre nahi bhaiya ! Main kyo aisa karunga ? Main to bas generally keh raha tha. Aapke haatho ka me to jaadu hai.
Guard : Thank You ji. Aap buddhe ho jaoge to muje hi bula lia karna baal dye karvaane.
Me : Kyoo nahi !! Pakka. 

And we all laughed.. 

For all of you--->>> 
GO GET YOU HAIR COLOURED ON THE BACKSEAT OF A CHETAK. and you'll know.

Sunday, October 5, 2008

The Pony goes under the Axe.

My pony...oh my ponytail...why o why did it have to go??
I cannot see myself in the mirror anymore.Makes me break down.

I had made sure that I grew my hair for atleast 5-6 months ..My last haircut was in the first week of April before my submissions in the 4th sem and the next visit to the barber was scheduled to happen sometime this year but was definitely nowhere in sight..

There was no chance that my mom asked me for a haircut during my sem exams in April and May and so I managed the first 2 months. After that I managed to give my mother the lame excuse that there was no barber at the place I had gone to for my industrial internship during the summer vacations. And she fell for that. So another 2 months of long hair..

Joined back college and people started realising that my hair was terribly long...considering I had exposed them to too much of my crew cuts in the 1st year. I had good amount of hair in the 2nd year, but nothing compared to the present state of my head.

Now that mom was seeing me everyday...I knew the 'call of duty' was nearby. And so it came..the 1st one.I don't exactly remember the date though (..there are just too many to remember anyway !!) ..It must have been somewhere around the last week of July. It was rather mild.. this one.The next one came rather too soon. Got 2 'calls' in the 1st week of august. Tried appealing to Dad..he managed to get me some time. Approximately 2 weeks , during which all that mom did was to keep giving me a thousand mild reminders every other day.

Now August almost got over in these milder versions of the 'calls'. 
29th August 2008, and Rock On was released. Went and watched it First Day First Show. When I came back I demanded a head band a la Farhan Akhtar . I was so much into the movie that I didnot realise that I was asking for trouble. Well everybody at home just laughed it off as another of my frivolous demands. But September came and mummy dear started to realise that now I had hair long enough for a head band atleast. During the meantime my hair kept falling onto my face. Every day when I used to sit at the dining table , mom would be the first to notice my mane and try and extract out a date from me. A fateful date when I would make myself look more 'civilized' ( ...in her words..). She even insisted on calling a pandit for fixing up a 'shubh' muhurat for this immensely important activity.
The only time that there would be some peace at home would be when mom would see me coming out fresh from my bath, looking neat & tidy. September came and went away. Tests and fests kept me occupied the whole time and so I had little time to worry about my hair.

October 1st and 2nd. The only two days when I had a ponytail. Some of my friends who saw me with the pony were suprised at me being able to carry it off so well. They wanted me to keep it. I wanted to keep it too. But then when have things worked your way...Murphy's Law always beats me to it. "Whatever can go wrong will go wrong, and at the worst possible time in the worst possible way."

I never had a slice of bread
That did not fall upon the floor
and always on the buttered side.

--KS

2nd October, a Mahatma was born to liberate the people. Well, I got the ultimatum to get rid off my long hair. 
The date : 5th October,2008. The smile on the barber's face. The smile on my mother's face. And the expression on my face...they said it all. My 2-day old ponytail went under the axe, gracefully.
  RIP : Here lies a loved pony.

For those of you who never managed to see my pony...I'd say BAD LUCK.

Wednesday, October 1, 2008

Hägar - The Horrible





Now I have a lot of favourites when comics come into the picture, but Hagar deserves a special mention. This guy manages to make me go into convulsions .

The only place where I get to see him every morning is on page 4 of Delhi Times.
A word or two on this.Delhi Times isn't the supplement it used to be. I'd say it has lost the 'old world charm', the 'Midas Touch' . The articles lack quality and they just can't manage anybody other than Rakhi Sawant or Shilpa Shetty to pose for their shutterbugs. No more 'spice' left in the paper...its gone all 'thanda', overnight . The earlier junta of DT was much much better. Such immense efforts they put into the paper. They managed to get in such beautiful people into the pages when I wasn't even old enough to understand what beauty meant, leave alone being considered legal enough to have a glimpse of them alone. I used to love reading the paper then.

Anyway..getting back to where we started, this overweight Viking warrior (we were talking about Hagar..)  greets me every morning.

Hagar regularly goes off to invade Europe.The humor of this comic strip come from his interactions with his crew and his wife..Now Vikings are big muscled warriors..but contrary to those depictions, Hagar's first mate , Lucky Eddie is a short, naive fellow. When Hagar is not on voyage or in the tavern, he is at home with his wife Helga. 
Their son Hamlet is not usually seen in the strip, but his daughter Honi ( That name's funny..) and pet duck Kvack do try and make their place. There are a lot of other characters as well who keep zooming in and out..like Dr.Zook and Helga's pet dog...
Helga and Hagar do make a really lovable couple.

The original creator of Hagar, Dik Browne retired way back in '88 , but his son Chris has continued his legacy since then.
Ill post some of the strips for the benefit of those who haven't a friggin' clue about what this post is all about and for those souls who haven't had the opportunity of being touched by Hagar-The Horrible.





Thursday, September 25, 2008

Tata, Singur, Buddha & the Other woman

Ive been wanting to write for so long but I had to think of an apporopriate title for this one. Now that Tata has said "Ta-ta" I should get done with this post otherwise I'd probably postpone it till the time there's a sequel to it.. "Singur-Part Deux".

For those few of you ( like me ) who had no idea what and where Singur was..here's a brief introduction. 
Singur is a census town in Hooghly district in the Indian state of West Bengal. Singur railway station is 34 km from Howrah Station on theHowrah-Tarakeswar line.

In India , a Census town is one which has :
  1. A minimun population of 5,000 ;
  2. Atleast 75% of male working population engaged in non-agricultural pursuits ;
  3. and, A density of popualtion of atleast 400 persons per sq.km.
Something very inetersting that I came to know while finding out this little piece of information.. The demographics of the town suggest that Singur has an average literacy rate of 76%, higher than the national average of 59.5% with 81% male literacy and 71% female lietarcy. Mamta actually managed to fool such literate people. Some woman she is !! Makes me feel she could fool Obama, McCain & the people in the US elections.

The Deed's done.Tata's said its moving out.Its been saying that for the past 2 months.Buddha's been trying to make him stay just a lil longer to try and work out a compromise.But the "other woman" ( refer : Mamta Banerjee) just doesn't seem to budge. Beechari NANO ke peeche haath dho kar padi hai..

Now that makes me wonder..How did Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee manage to get Tata to Bengal? And how was Ratan Tata so easily seduced? Was Mamta Banerjee intentionally ignored?Left out of the deal?? She was definitely not paid her "dues" . Mamta was nowhere near to voicing her concerns for the farmers when the plant was being constructed.Only when the vendor park came to light did she finally wake up.

In Bengal, the scene was always a little different.Local politicains gained power by promising agricultural land to landless farmers , but given West Bengal's population density, the land holdings were small and the yeilds insufficient to sustain poor families. The shift from agricultural to industrial jobs provides an opportunity for earning a higher income.And industries create well paying jobs at a rate agriculture cannot match.

Most of the land acquired for the project was smooth and the land holders were satisfied with the compensation they received.A small number of absentee landlords, illiterate farmers and Trinamul Congress (... Mamta's party ) supporters refused to accept the compenstaion offered.Another point to bear in mind is that most of the land holders never bought the land in the first place.Agricultural land is doled out to party supporters by local hoodlums in the name of 'Land Reform'. 

Tata has learnt that messing with the 'other woman' can get pretty nasty, and I am sure he has...becuase it always does get nasty.
Hey and doesn't this sound all very similar to the plot of that movie we once saw..'Pati , Patni or Woh'... we know who the "Woh' was at Singur...but who was the Pati and who was the Patni...??..Ill need to figure that out too..pretty soon.


Monday, September 15, 2008

The Evening Jog.

Started following this schedule of going out for a jog every evening. I make it a point to leave my house by 6:10 no matter how busy I may be..or for the fact how many more "freakingly large" assignments I have to make,I try to stick to the schedule.
Needs a lot of will power believe me..

Now there is something I realised today..

It seldom matters how tired or fatigued my legs are, I still am able to run something like 10 more rounds if my mind is on a "High".
So I just added 2 and 2..( not that I am very good at math either.) and came out with this..

Physical fatigue is more of a misnomer.If I can simulate conditions in my mind which keep giving me a 'high' all the time I may never get tired at all. 
I definitely need to figure out some more of those conditions (..me being BONO is just getting too boring..).

Gotta go.My legs are creaking.I guess I ran too much today. 
More revelations later.

Friday, September 12, 2008

And here it goes.!

The start of my notoriously "big-mouthed" tendencies..
कुछ तो करना ही था !!