Our very own Grand Prix !

     Aah,it’s crazy how numbers just add up when I decide to blog! Today being the 8^th day, it did not come as a surprise to me that I had to work in office till 8 PM :-( What I dread about working till 8 is that I will have to board the 8 PM bus ! Nothing peculiar about our bus…What’s very peculiar is the driver who brings us home in the 8 PM bus…Oh boy! Let me begin his introduction with the fact that he is a big time fan of Rajanikanth (Which rascal is not a fan of Rajni, tell me?) , owns a mobile loaded with all of his songs and keeps playing ‘Kilimanjaro, Yaro,Yaro’ in a loop !  What’s even more endearing ( or is it endangering) is that our driver hums along and goes “Aha Aha” when the chorus of the song begins , making it sound like a horny grunt :-p  

     For the uninitiated, here’s a link to the video of the song! Hit here.

   Now considering my high tolerance limits for eccentricities, all this is "jujubi" ! :-p What is NOT jujubi though, is the driving skills of our dearest driver! He must have been a royal war charioteer is his previous birth. He is a Michael Schumacher’s elder brother in this life. He is the Father of Rash Indian Driving. He does not hit the speed breakers, he flies over them. Our mini-bus roars like a Ferrari in his hands. It’s no use sitting at the window seat when he is driving because you will not be treated to any enchanting visions of Bangalore’s nightlife. What you will see instead is a blurred boundary of objects that whizz past your window.       Now, had this guy been on the Buddh International Circuit, it would have been perfect. Unfortunately for us, we have to traverse the pot-hole infested roads of Bangalore to reach home from work. One hour in the 8 PM bus is equivalent to 2 hours at the gym. All parts of your body will vibrate in rhythm with the frequency of the potholes. The number of vibrations per second is directly proportional to the depth of the pothole which we land into. But the beauty of the whole thing is that before our poor brains can receive the signals for sensing a vibration in the body, our driver would have taken us out of one pothole and into the next. So to make a short story shorter, the whole 1 hour in the bus is like an intense session of Power Yoga, Pilates and Baba Ramdev Twistology put together!

     If our guy were to drive any faster, I have no doubt that our kidneys would detach themselves from the insides and launch into our mouths! :-p If you do not hold on to the seat handle, chances are, you will be given a free swimming lesson too…Just that you would be swimming on the waterless, hard floor of our mini-bus :-| Now, if you make the mistake of leaving the windows open, you will run a risk of having your eyeballs uprooted from your eyes, your hairline will recede into your collar and your teeth will be plastered into your throat. Such is the intensity of the wind that blows through the window when he zips past on the flyover ! I once had my glasses flung across the seat and onto the floor. Today, while I was sitting in the bus, I saw a lady settling down into the opposite seat, with a book in her hands, all set to READ :P Yeah rightttt! Sure, why not ! Once we had hit the main road,she realized she was in a freaking time machine, not a bus :-p And then she tried to fall asleep. Only to be rudely reminded of the fact that before she could catch two winks, her head would get legs of its own and go bang itself hard against the seat rod…Oh, I know EXACTLY where it hurts ! It’s all déjà vu for me :-D

      When I look at people like our driver and myself, I feel sad for Mother India. Such a waste of precious talent. Our man should have been a Formula One racer. And me ?  Oh, I should have been the Prime Minister of India,don’t you think ? :-D I would have upgraded all the Bangalore Roads to six lane expressways and converted the whole of India into one big Formula One circuit. Sadly for us, are our politicians are into this only For-Moolah :-| Anyway, moving on, if you missed being a part of the F1 tamaasha at Noida, let me know. I will reserve a seat for you in our 8 PM bus  :P For free….You know why ? YOU will pay me once you have enjoyed the ride….It’s THAT good ;)

Let me go rest my rattled body now. Good night ! :)

90 Seconds

       When the cab stopped at my gate this morning, I was all sulky. The thought of having to spend a beautiful Saturday at work did not appeal to me at all. As I got in, I rolled down the window and settled in my seat, determined to make the most of the morning drizzle! My mind immediately drifted off to think about how cozy and nice it would be to snuggle up under my giant comforter at home, with the windows open! Huh, that did not help my mood at ALL L it was just so unfair that I should be out and about on a weekend morning!

      We reached the main road. At 8 in the morning on a drizzly Saturday, the roads were a little less busy than on the normal days. The signal turned red ….my cab driver stopped and immediately got on his phone to let the transport guy at office know that we were on our way. A traffic policeman in his raincoat was muttering something under his breath. A transvestite, dressed in all her glory, complete in a red sari and chocolate brown lipstick, was moving from vehicle to vehicle, clapping her hands and demanding alms. A little street kid, lurking on the footpath, caught my attention. She was standing there, holding a loop, something that looked like a hoola-hoop. The minute all the vehicles had stopped at the signal, she put her loop on the pavement and moved a few feet away. She then did a somersault and landed INTO the loop on the ground. Within the next half minute or so, she twisted and turned her young body in a million ways, contorting herself into numerous shapes WITHIN the loop! It was still drizzling outside. But she went about her business, trying her best to entertain people stuck at the signal. And then she looked at the timer of the traffic signal. She still had another minute. Immediately, she ran from one vehicle to the other, collecting the coins that people gave her.

       The transvestite had completed her round by then and waited on the pavement watching the child collect her alms. My driver was getting impatient. The traffic policeman could not hold his mutter down anymore. He started raining curses on a biker who was trying to jump the signal. Within the next few seconds, all eyes were on the timer.

     The driver, wishing it would tick faster.

    The transvestite, wishing the vehicles would start moving slowly, so that she could collect her due from a newer batch of vehicles.

    The street child, wishing the signal would stay red a little longer so that she could collect coins from all the vehicles stuck at the signal.

    The traffic policeman, keeping a keen eye on the timer to ensure he gets his hand signals out at the right time.

    And I, indifferent to the changing colors of the traffic signal, completely lost in the beauty of this morning, watching the driver, the policeman, the transvestite and the child judging their next move based upon the changing traffic lights.

   The signal finally turned green, the drizzle was now increasing in intensity…the rain drops were getting bigger….the driver started the cab, the policeman blew his whistle and waved his hand, the transvestite was already walking towards the other side of the road…the side where the lights had now turned red. The little girl was holding on to her loop and running towards the red light lane, grinning as the rain drops lashed against her almost bare back.

    As my cab moved forward, I turned to my left to catch a last glimpse of the characters of my 90 seconds movie.

  The transvestite was  clapping her hands again. The child was getting ready to do a cart wheel. The policeman was screaming at yet another wayward driver……And my driver was turning the radio on…

It was no longer drizzling. It was raining. The policeman ran into his traffic island shelter, the transvestite put her sari over her head. The child….the child continued to twist herself into the metal loop. In the pouring rain…Grinning from ear to ear…While the rain lashed against her bare back.....

   My mind drifted off again to think about my warm bed and my cozy comforter….And I felt blessed! Working on a Saturday did not seem so bad at all…The 90 seconds movie had done it's job....I said a silent prayer and thanked Him for having given me a life that did not depend on the changing lights of a traffic signal….

Its strange where life’s lessons come from….

Is the world a stage, is our life a play ?

          I find it very difficult to accept or even assume that our lives are already charted out and pre-defined by a bigger force and that we are but actors on a stage, playing our roles and waiting for our exit some day. That kind of resignation takes away the very beauty of life...The thrill, the suspense, the wait, the hope and the dreams. If everything is already designed, defined and laid out in black and white, what are we expected to do? Where do we put to use, the spirit of being alive and human? We are capable of emotions, capable of thinking, judging, taking decisions and facing consequences. Wouldn’t the theory of pre-designed life kill the very purpose of our living?

          I believe that life is a series of decisions. At any point in time, we are offered choices. Each choice will have its own set of consequences.  We choose, we face the consequence. Along the way, we may stumble, make bad decisions, and make a few choices that may seem absolutely illogical and foolish in retrospection. However, at the end of it all, we know that what we are today is not a matter of just chance or luck, but the outcome of conscious decisions taken along the way.

          We spend sleepless nights, fervently praying and wishing for miracles, we seek answers and ask questions and have never-ending conversations with the higher power we believe in…..When things go our way, we celebrate. When things go out of hand, we sulk. We wonder what went wrong. We wonder if all the dreams and prayers were just a distraction meant to prepare us for what has already been planned.

            What we do not realize though, is the fact that, through each of these situations, the happy ones and the sad ones, without our conscious knowledge, we are growing in strength. Strength of character, of intelligence and fortitude. Preparing ourselves better by learning life’s ways of teaching lessons. Learning to take things in stride, learning to look for a silver lining and learning to stay positive through the toughest of times.

           We can choose to live out our time, smiling through the happiness, learning through the troubles and hoping through the uncertainties OR we can spend our time worrying if our happiness will end, if our troubles will increase and our uncertainties will continue to exist.The choice is again ours ! The beauty of it though, lies in the fact that though the choices are endless, the time is not! :)

           The way I see it, life is too good to be true. Too spontaneous to be pre-planned. Too alluring to be resigned to fate. . And too short to be wasted away in ignorance. Life is a realization. And the higher power we believe in? It’s like a lighthouse. Meant to guide us and help us choose the way. But the ultimate choice? Well, it is STILL ours :)

The Pup

        At the Shirdi Sai Baba temple today, some people were handing out photos of Shirdi Baba with some of his wise sayings printed alongside a picture of his statue. When I got back home, I sat on the couch with the prasadam and picked up a photo and started reading aloud the quote that was printed on it. Here it goes

“ Be compassionate towards others and never turn away anyone from your door, be it human or animal. Love your fellow man for it will teach you kindness and caring”.

       The minute I read this quote, the first thing that crossed my mind was the pup. I must tell you his story. This happened just few months back.

       One stormy night ( I am NOT making this up, it was indeed a stormy night :)), we stepped out after dinner to lock our front gate. Cuddled on a foot rug in the corner of our compound was a little pup. He had rolled himself into a ball to protect himself from the cold. My mother pulled out a gunny bag that was lying around and put it on the ground so that the pup could use it if he wanted to and we left in the safety of our covered compound.

       We found him there the next morning too. He was up and about, moving around the place and we noticed that he had a limp. He was an extremely shy pup and as soon as he saw us step out of the house, he slithered under the gate and ran out, limping.

       When I got back from work in the evening, I again found him resting on the foot rug and the moment he caught sight of me,he ran out again. This happened for two days or so. By then, the pup seemed to have understood he was in safe hands. He would see him walking into our compound,resting and wagging his tail when he saw us. We have no pets at home, but a little pup taking refuge in our compound did not bother us.

        Until we noticed his eating habits that is !! :)

        From day one, my mother would keep aside some food for the dog and leave it on a granite slab for him to eat. But for some strange reason, the dog was a very poor eater. He would take a bite or two and then leave it at that. At first, we thought he would slowly get used to eating normal home food. But he did not. He would starve for days at end and he could see that he was losing weight.

        One day we caught him digging through a dustbin at the corner of our street and eating unmentionable items from it ! He seemed to have acquired a taste for all the weird things in the dustbin….Crazy pup! That same night, he did not let any of us sleep. He was continuously barking away, howling and scratching on the metal surface of the gate. We even woke up at 2 in the night to check if he was doing ok. He looked all fine and would wag his tail when we saw him, but would get back to making noise within the next half hour.

He teamed up with the street dog community on our road and starting creating a ruckus every night. He would promptly pee on the foot rug, bite all our shoes, drag our bike’s leather mat to the floor, leave behind the food that we left out for him and make a mess of our compound and everything in our compound started smelling like the street pup :)

        We did not let this bother us. My mother would clean the mess and we would speak to the little guy whenever we saw him and would ask him to be a good boy , eat something and behave well. But he seemed to be in no mood to listen to us. One night, he stuck his head into the metal railings of our gate and had almost killed himself. My sister freed him up in time. He continued to eat the filth from the dustbin at the street’s end and refused to accept any food that we offered him.

Since he was feeding himself on scraps, my earlier worry of him starving to death, began to fade. However, it constantly became obvious that he would kill himself by getting stuck in the railings of our gate. We cannot afford to leave the gate open for security reasons. Hence, we had to take a tough decision of trying to block his entry through the gap in our gate.

       Since it was practically impossible to keep a watch on him throughout the day, we put up a wooden plank alongside the length of the gate to ensure that he does not try the stunt of squeezing in through the tiny gaps in the gate thereby strangling himself.

      He did try to knock off the plank with his head a few times, but he then seemed to have got the message. Next day, we saw him taking refuge in a cozy corner of a vacant site beside our home. We placed his gunny bag there. Over the next week, we left some food just outside his new home, but he still refused to eat. We finally gave up.

         He was around for a total of three weeks or so, starting from the first day we spotted him. His limp was gone within the first week. Over the next two weeks, he made a lot of new friends on the street and soon after he disappeared. We never caught sight of him again. I have a hunch that he must have moved to a new neighborhood in our area :)

         Reading the quote about not turning away any animal from your door, I could not help but think of the circumstances under which we had to turn this guy away.  Considering the fact that our lifestyles do not have enough space or time to accommodate a pet and the fact that the dog was all set to kill himself, we had no other choice....If only he could EAT!

The Blogless Slumber ends !

       I had almost planned a grand re-entry to blogging with a kickass,witty opening statement to let the world know that ‘The Crowded Head’ is going to be REALLY crowded again ! But then, if you know me, you will know that anything I plan goes out the window very promptly :P Hence, sans all the dramatic excuses and profuse apologies for not sticking around on my blog more often, I choose to just let you guys know that I am BACK !Up and awake from the blogless slumber !

       It’s 11:56 PM and  I had tucked myself into bed almost an hour back. But more often than not, it takes me about an hour to put my “head” to sleep before “I” drift away into the land of yawns and good sleep! If the fact that I named my blog after my head isnt clue enough, let me just tell you, that my head is quite phenomenal. For many reasons…Being house to my glorious brain is one of them. If you do not know me well enough, I must use this opportunity to remind you of the fact that I am the same person who thinks her hands are two different people and has conversations with them :P So no prizes for guessing that my head shares the prized distinction of being a person too ! If you are the kind of sorted-out person that meditates, thinks about the ‘bigger picture’, believes in “energies and vibrations” and other mentally delicious stuff, please run away NOW ! I am totally incapable of any of this and get through each day talking to my “head”…Did you just say ‘psycho’?  I agree !

       I was having a tough time this morning, with my head trying to think of a million different things at once, making it highly impossible to enjoy the cup of coffee that I was sipping ! So frustrated was I , with the one million threads running parallely in my head, that I looked up at my head and said “ What do I DO WITH YOU?!” ….Aloud….In a room full of people…who thankfully, were busy watching something REALLY interesting on TV ( Thank goodness!)  THAT WAS IT ! I HAD to get some of these wise thoughts out on the internet and ensure that I am not the lone recepient of the crappy ideas that my head throws up :D

      So yeah, I was in bed almost an hour back trying to switch my head off and was reminded of my other head…’The Crowded Head’...Well-meaning friends have been reminding me of it’s existence with empty emails with just a subject line that says “ Why isnt the head crowded anymore?”  These emails did serve their purpose and atleast once a day I logged in to check what’s happening on my blog. I noticed from the tracker that people who googled for Arvind Swamy and Monsoons and life ended up on my blog. (Wow, I feel sorry for the folks who googled ‘life’ and ended up on my blog :D…How disappointing that must have been ! ) A stray comment here and there kept my blog breathing. And now I have reached  a point where I terribly miss writing here ! Come on, that’s like my lifeline, my road to sanity and my outlet for emotions ( insert bollywood-style expressions here).  It only makes sense that I continue to write and give Google a better chance to share my wisdom with the world :D

  And so ladies and gentlemen, thanks to a nagging head who will just not go to sleep, I am up awake at this hour of the night, promising to come back to write on my blog everyday for the next one month! I need to put such stringent measures on myself….kyonki….kyonki….kyonki saas bhi kabhi bahu thi !! Arrghh, why THAT now ?! Kyonki, I perform better under pressure ( Damn, I am giving away secrets here !)… So with that self-imposed disciplinary action against myself, I must tell you that you will be treated to tiny doses of non-sense every single day for the next ONE month….Stick with me..This works like a vaccine you know..at the end of this, you will be “immune” to non-sense. I promise ! :P

Here’s to uncrowding my actual head ! Here’s to crowding the Crowded Head ! Amen ! :D

Unaccustomed Earth - My Review

"That's the thing about books. They let you travel without moving your feet."  - From ‘The Namesake’ 

     Truer words haven’t been spoken! And with that line, she had me! Jhumpa Lahiri belongs to that rare breed of Indian origin writers who did not vanish away as one-book wonders. Nor is she the kind who can churn out a book every year. But each of her books, irrespective of the time interval that passes between two consecutive ones, make for very good reads! Especially for someone like me, who steers clear of any book that wins an award( I did not enjoy reading many of the award winning books), Jhumpa Lahiri has the rare distinction of being an award winning writer who has managed to keep me hooked on to her books. This post is dedicated to her in general and her book ‘Unaccustomed Earth’ in particular :)

       Unaccustomed Earth is a collection of 8 brilliant short stories. If the length of my blog posts is anything to go by, I am sure some of you would know by now that I am not a big fan of keeping it short ;) The more the words, the better! So, that kind of explains my aversion for short stories. I like lengthy, thick novels that run into hundreds of pages. With short stories, everything ends sooner than I like and the characters generally lack the depth of description and somehow at the end of it, even when a short story is good, I am left asking for more! So when I picked up ‘Unaccustomed Earth’ in 2008, I was skeptical. Back then, I had just completed reading ‘The Namesake’ and had loved it! So I started reading ‘Unaccustomed Earth’ without any high expectation! One short story into the book and I knew I had been wrong. Wrong in not expecting something spectacularly brilliant out of a Jhumpa Lahiri book! Because that is what she does...Her writing is silent, poignant and intense. When it’s her, you don’t just read, you FEEL. And that is exactly what happened in each of the 8 short stories. I felt an instant connection with the characters, as far removed from my life as they were, thanks to Jhumpa’s unfailing knack of inducing the reader’s love and empathy for each of her disparate characters.

The title of the book was inspired by one of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s quote, which appears on the front page.

"Human nature will not flourish, any more than a potato, if it be planted and replanted, for too long a series of generations, in the same worn-out soil.  My children have had other birthplaces, and, so far as their fortunes may be within my control, shall strike their roots into unaccustomed earth." 

       Hawthorne opines that human nature will flourish when transplanted in foreign,unaccustomed land. In that context, the title of the book could not have been better chosen as all the eight stories, as expected, are about the lives of immigrant Indian parents and their subsequent generations in America, the land of opportunities. The theme of Indian immigrants is repetitive in all of Jhumpa’s works and comes out very strongly in ‘The Namesake’. One would wonder possibly how different could the stories be, if they all circled around one single theme? Jhumpa artistically builds her stories around this common theme, making them look very similar and surprisingly different, all at the same time! Contrary to Hawthorne’s opinion of lives flourishing on foreign land, Jhumpa’s stories bring to fore the struggle of the Bengali immigrant parents and their children as they struggle to build their lives on a foreign land, subtly hinting that lives may not always flourish!

Lahiri is richly gifted when it comes to examining the extremely beautiful bonds that exist in a family. Husband and wife, sister and brother, father and daughter, son and mother, she displays extreme maturity and sensitivity as she dwells on how each role is exquisite and unique in it’s own way! She then moves on to explore bigger bonds, this time, between cultures.  Globalization has made this world a small village. But the implications are many. The turmoil and confusion that one experiences growing up in a society that has a confused concoction of multiple cultures and what such clashing ideologies can do to individuals has been brilliantly portrayed.

      Unaccustomed Earth runs slow, drilling into the depths of human nature, culture and society. Jhumpa’s style of writing moves you as you read along, and compels you to pause and think, instead of just reading. And if a book can get you to think, it is worth every penny you paid for it.

With eight different stories, you would be bound to think that one story could be better than the other. But in this book, there is no way you could rank one above the other. Each story stands out in its own way, creating a world of its own, in spite of the recurring theme.

In the interest of the people who are yet to read this book, I will not dwell into the details of the stories or their characters. That is for you to read and find out :) Just know that this book worth buying and reading! :) It will not take you long to finish reading it, in spite of the stories being longer than usual. Though the reading will not take much of your time, the thinking will! At many points through the book, I paused to think about something that struck  me and when I got back to reading, I would find that Jhumpa had written down my EXACT thoughts in the next few lines...It was like reading my own mind a second time :) No bigger joy than reading the work of a writer you can connect to! I have read the entire book twice in the past two years…I rarely ever read a book twice ;) So that’s saying a lot about ‘Unaccustomed Earth’!

        When I wrote a review of the book Shantaram on my blog few months back ( Click here to read it), I intended to get at least two readers to buy the original book... That goal was fulfilled with four people mailing back to let me know they bought their own books :) Thank you! Following the trend, I request you to buy or borrow the original ‘Unaccustomed Earth’ from a book stall/library instead of downloading/buying a pirated copy :) And once you are done reading it, do let me know what you think! :)

          Ok, here are some lines from the book, just enough to get you started ;) Happy reading!

"He owned an expensive camera that required thought before you pressed the shutter, and I quickly became his favorite subject, round-faced, missing teeth, my thick bangs in need of a trim. They are still the pictures of myself I like best, for they convey that confidence of youth I no longer possess, especially in front of a camera." 

"And wasn't it terrible, how much he looked forward to those moments, so much so that sometimes even a ride by himself on the subway was the best part of the day? Wasn't it terrible that after all the work one put into finding a person to spend one's life with, after making a family with that person, even in spite of missing that person...that solitude was what one relished the most, the only thing that, even in fleeting, diminished doses, kept one sane?" 

"She supposed that all those years of loving a person who was dishonest had taught her a few things." 

"He did not want to be part of another family,part of the mess,the feuds,the demands,the energy of it."

He-He-He-He-mails

   I sit here yawning at the end of yet another weekend...This week did drag along, and I am glad that it’s over! But man, its December already! Has this year been flying or WHAT! :-| I don’t even remember living through all those months...If you ask me, I am kinda stuck somewhere between April and June. April , because a lot happened in that month this year...I hit 25, changed my job etc. Reminds of this bald astrologer who happened to look at the lines on my palm in a family gathering a decade back. He smiled, rubbed his chin and declared...” You have a government job waiting for you..You will get one at 25..Your second job”. I giggled as I pictured myself in the avatar of a loyal IAS officer, complete with a starched cotton sari etc...I giggle now, as I look at my present avatar, sitting cross legged on a chair and typing like a mad woman into the computer screen :D I give the astrologer half the brownie points though...at least he did foresee a job change at 25 ;) In his defence, I must say, his predictions were quite accurate...Especially the one where he said I was a budding genius, a prodigy, an enigma waiting to be cracked and a treasure of true talent waiting to be unearthed..LOL..Can we even question that NOW? ;)
    Astrologer aside, let’s talk about my job change. When I was switching companies in April, I intended to take a backup of all the blogs that I had written on my first company’s internal blog site. And since there is a lot of intellectual property blah blah, I just let it be and walked out of the campus without a backup of ANY kind. Not even my official mails. Can you imagine that? I can be quite a dumb blonde when I want to! I have no idea why I did that...I just forwarded few mails from my archives to my personal email id and left it at that. And to think I had created a zillion personal folders on outlook, carefully segregating mails into weird classifications! I don’t give a rat’s ass about ANY of those mails :D But, but, but, I swear at myself when I think what the hell was I doing when I missed taking a backup of the ‘FUNNY’ folder on my outlook. By ‘FUNNY’, I do not mean giggle-and-forget forwards..Nope..These were ‘actual’ official emails. ‘Real’ funny ones! Ones which were sent out or received during times of utter crisis, production go-lives etc. Ones which were not meant to be funny in ANY way, but turned out to be so, thanks to all the insanity induced by the nervous wrecks who were working on the god-damn ‘Priority-1’ issues.
   Without taking any names, I will treat you to some samples, some timeless gems that refuse to leave my mind even now.
   Sample this.
   The client worked with multiple vendors and my previous employer was one of them. Another software firm from India was also a vendor for the same client. We managed their sales software and the other firm managed the client’s database and servers.
   A P1 issue struck us on one fateful day and there was a long chain of back and forth emails being exchanged between us and the DBA from the other firm. And the whole world was copied in those mails, The ‘CC’ section looked like a novel :) It was ‘THAT’ big!
   We did some kinda fix at our end and wrote back to the DBA, asking for a server restart. The guy doesn’t respond for 20 minutes. Now, when you have people sitting on your neck, 20 minutes is a LOT of time! Finally, when my team mates and I were busy raining the choicest of cuss words on this guy, a mail pops up. He had written back. I quote him EXACTLY. This is what he wrote.
“Hi,
I am in the process of getting this done. This will take some time. Could you please bare with me for some time?
Thanks.
Mr.DBA”
    I have a keen eye for grammatical mistakes. Not that I don’t make any. But when there is one, I can sniff it from a mile. When I read this mail, I was guffawing like a mad cow, cackling like a hyena and thanks to all the jittery nerves, this mail seemed funnier that it actually was. The guy wanted us to “bare” with him while he got it done.
    Before we could even recover from this mail, another one came by. It was a jackass from the ‘CC’ list. He said one word. “Sure”. And that cracked us up too..The DBA and the CC guy “baring” was not a pretty picture! :D
    This mail chain went out for some more time and as long as it lasted, every reply that followed the DBA’s “bare with me” mail seemed funnier than the previous one in our gutter heads and helped in easing out the tension that was gripping us until then :)
    Ok, in the second sample, “I” am the jackass. I wrote this mail and sent it out to a senior client guy, whose experience in the industry was equal to my age. Thankfully for me, there was no one in ‘CC’ or ‘BCC’ and for all I know, if I don’t spill it out now, I can die with this secret..But, what’s the fun in NOT sharing a funny thing? We need to laugh at ourselves sometimes ;)
    Now the client guy was an old man, who was around when Mainframes were ‘THE’ thing and was around even when I started my first job. So you can imagine the kind of experience he comes with. This old man was no bossy fellow, but instead, was a very sweet guy. We hit it off really well and once we had that rapport between us, our mails were very casual, albeit official :)
    One evening, some user ran into some issue and immediately shot a mail asking for a quick resolution. Now that meant staying back and winding this up. I did that. Finally, at around 10-ish everything was back in place. All the while, there was a regular email chain happening between the old guy and me.Next morning, when I opened my mailbox, there is a chain mail happening between some colleagues, discussing how I owe them a treat for some reason and how I must keep aside 10K from my salary to treat these lazy bums to some awesome lunch. I giggle and was about to type a reply when the next mail arrives. From the old guy, the client. It said “Thanks for all the help. Everything works fine now. Can we have a call with the user at 11 AM your time?” I was relieved to see that everything was fine now and went back to my previous mail to type a reply to the chain mail.
    I sent a reply to the group of colleagues. And then started typing the reply to the client. ...
Wait. No. This is not happening. Dint I just reply to this mail? OMG. I then click on SENT ITEMS.
    I am done..totally! How do I recall this mail..frantic search for that option ensues. And before I could figure it out, I get a reply from the old guy.
“Oh! Is someone having a bad morning?”. I cringe.
    Guess what. Instead of replying to the chain mail, I had typed my reply on the client’s mail and sent it across to him! And it read “ In your dreams ! Not happening...No chance!”
    This certainly was meant for the “keeping aside 10K for the lunch treat” gig :-| And like my luck might have it, it sounded like a perfectly rude reply to the client’s email :P
    I dialled the client’s number frantically and spent the next five minutes explaining my situation, while he went ‘Ho Ho Ho Ho...Ha Ha Ha Ha” like Santa Claus at the other end of the line...Luckily for me, he was a jolly good fellow :D
    My “funny” folder in Outlook was home to some more of those “real” goofy emails, gathered during my three years at my first job :) Thankfully, I was the recipient of the rest of the emails and not the jackass who wrote it :P Out of the zillion mails, these deserved a place on my pendrive on the last day! I still wonder how I missed them out :)
    Dear Funny Folder, I miss you! In your loving memory , I am considering creating your sister folder on my present Outlook and hopefully I will never WRITE any email that will bring your sister to existence :P I just hope there are enough people out there who would be generous enough to contribute to make her a reality ;) :D
   

I love the Monsoons!

       Waking up in the mornings these days is tougher than it has ever been! When my alarm goes off and I realize its morning already, I see the glass window misty with all the dew and listen to sound of the rain drops from the night’s rain dripping down into a puddle from the trees in the empty site next to my bedroom window and the mental war begins. Curled up under my green wonder blanket, life seems perfect the way it is on early weekday mornings and I am tempted to keep it that way, without having to wake up and rush into the day against my will! But ho-hum, we all know how it is :( Bread and butter people! I better get my lazy ass off the bed and into the office bus. It’s not easy...not easy at all!

        And the bus ride to office in my cosy office bus takes this mental battle to the next level. We take a route that does not touch any of the main city roads. We take the highway! Not much traffic, very few traffic signals and a driver who seems to be a Schumacher incarnate, it can’t get any better. Bangalore is just stirring into action at that time of the morning, the school kids are waiting for their yellow bus to arrive, the smell of fresh jasmine flowers wafts in through the open windows at the traffic signal where the flower vendors try to sell a fresh garland of stringed jasmine flowers for decorating the Ganesha idol that sits demurely on the dashboard of our bus...The roadside dosa-cart is in full action already and the labourers are digging into their breakfast, a steaming hot dosa, before they rush off to the construction site on the other side of the road.

                                               

       A few kilometres on the highway, watching the city wake up to life and we reach the place where we take a right turn into heaven. Heaven it is! Every morning, we pass through the woods that are a part of the Bangalore University, lush green in all their glory and freshly washed from the night’s rain, sparkling in the early sunlight. It’s oooh-so-amazing! I try not to doze off on the 45-minute bus ride to office. I just do not want to miss this stretch of road that passes through the woods :) Once we reach office, the morning breakfast session on the 6th floor cafeteria, with an amazing view of the faraway hills around Bangalore is another part of my day that I would hate to miss! The rest of the morning passes away in work, conference calls and a million other chores at work. During the lunch break, we venture out to the food court outside our campus and usually find a seat at the edge of the building which looks out into an endless stretch of empty land, bare, except for the green bed of grass. Our lunch break is filled with lots of girly talk, giggling and laughing and discussing matters of “utmost importance” ;). And nowadays, at least for the past week, it has been raining during the lunch breaks and we totally love it! Rains during lunch breaks calls for something that is hot, spicy and tasty. What better than a plate of juicy chicken? ;) A stray black dog that lives on the campus wanders to the edge of the food court in the afternoons and we give him a treat of leftover bones, which he happily bites into, wagging his tail :)

                                  

        All through this weekend, it has either been cloudy, drizzling or pouring. And I am totally loving it ! Nothing is more blissful than a lazy weekend at home, sitting by the window with a coffee, reading a novel and breathing in the damp air, heavy with the moisture from the rains..Aaah, Heaven! :D I morph into a total couch potato during the Indian monsoons...But yeah, I have to admit, the monsoons here are not all about happiness..There are people who have to put up with leaking roofs, flooded streets, overflowing drains and what not! You would definitely want to curse the rains, if you were stuck outside in the streets, with the waters swirling around your knees. But when you are sitting cross legged on your favourite chair at home, typing away to glory, you have the licence to romanticise the Indian rains and wax eloquence about its beauty ;) The more I write about how much I enjoy the monsoons, the guiltier I feel about not going off on a vacation :( I would so love to trudge through the dense jungles of Karnataka right now. It is at times like these that I wish I had what it takes to be a vagabond....Truck loads of money and nothing better to do ;) :D But then, we all know how it is! What is this life if, full of care! Remember this poem from school? :)

What is this life if, full of care,

We have no time to stand and stare.

No time to stand beneath the boughs

And stare as long as sheep or cows.

No time to see, when woods we pass,

Where squirrels hide their nuts in grass.

No time to see, in broad daylight,

Streams full of stars, like skies at night.

No time to turn at Beauty's glance,

And watch her feet, how they can dance.

No time to wait till her mouth can

Enrich that smile her eyes began.

A poor life this is if, full of care,

We have no time to stand and stare.

Of Vacations and Hippies!

        It has been quite some time since I took off on an impromptu vacation. Last evening, when a friend mentioned it, I told him I was totally in the mood for a vacation, the only condition being that the crowd must consist of people who don’t get into ‘picnic’ mode. I don’t know how it works for you guys, but for me, it really does not work if the crowd travelling with me on the trip consists of people who get into “picnic” mode and start getting all hyper-excited about it. You know what I mean? There is always one guy in the group, who draws up a “strict” plan and crams the itinerary with a list of a dozen “must-visit” places. So basically, when the trip finally happens, it’s going to be a string of “go,see,click pics-run to the next spot” events. That’s so damn boring! And then there is the “hoarding of snacks” ritual. One person runs to the food market, packs up heaps and heaps of chips, cola, chocolates and other blah stuff. A little food is always good. But these guys go overboard and start piling the cart as if they are never ever going to see food ever again in their lives. And more than half the travelling time is spent in digging into the pile of snacks, pulling out a pack of chips and munching on it like noisy racoons :-|

         Another major turn off for me are these mindless, juvenile games that people come up with. The occasional fun game is ok. But if you have plans of spending the entire time on the road, playing “truth or dare”, “ antakshari” and similar kiddo stuff, no thanks, I would rather sleep through the entire journey than get myself into singing loud, throat-wrenching, blaring bollywood songs , which by the way, people never seem to run out of, thanks to the consistency with which our movie industry churns out the noisy crap. I mean seriously, who would want to croak and induce headaches, when you can actually spend the time sitting by the window, watching the little towns and villages pass by and enjoy being on the road? Call me boring if you will, but half the joy of going on a trip lies in the journey itself, and the other half is in the destination. And I like my journey to be a time meant for myself, to indulge and do things that I enjoy doing…An interesting conversation with a fellow traveler, a good book , lilting melodies from a flute and even doing absolutely nothing suits me just as fine. Anything…except noisy bollywood naach-gaana!

         The fondest memory I have of a vacation is of this trip to a beachfront, where we spent an entire night on the beach, in the pitch dark night, sitting around a campfire, the sea roaring away in a distance, the sound of the waves amplified by the stillness of the noise, half the people around the campfire were strangers who were hanging out at the nearby shack, eating their dinner and got lured to the warmth of the campfire :) It was an amazing night...full of stories from people we barely knew and people we would never even see again. Anonymity is such an aphrodisiac. Stories that would never be told in familiar company came out that night, with wicked details! It is just this kind of break that I yearn for. Where every conversation is a new discovery and every stranger is an acquaintance waiting to happen! Where you remember their faces only with the glow of the fire on it and where the night grows into dawn and yet there are stories waiting to be told.Where at five in the morning, everyone just get up and walk back into their shacks, feeling lighter in the heart and richer in experience!

         It is such breaks, free from the drone of the incessantly ringing mobile, the boring hours spent in conference calls at work and free from the lure of the social networking sites, that we need once in a while to recharge the life forces running through us..

        While I write about the amazing night, the image of the American hippie, who sat at a distance from the campfire, crosses my mind. The lady and her male companion were both drunk and high on weed and totally out of their senses. They hardly ever spoke, but sat through the entire night, staring at the group around the campfire through their glazed eyes. Once in a while, she got up and wandered around aimlessly for a minute or two and then went back to sit with her friend who was now lying down on the sand like the Vitruvian man. In the morning, when we were all walking back to the cottage, an Indian roadside Romeo, waiting for the crowd to leave, approached her and asked her name. “Nancy Drew” she said. I am not sure if that was her real name, but it cracked it me big time :D Sunday evening, when we were packing up to leave, Nancy Drew and the Vitruvian man were sitting in the front porch of their cottage, looking as normal as ever in all their hippie glory (tie dyed clothes and all)! We saw the Roadside Romeo talking to them in his broken English, grinning from ear to ear, while his group of friends, whom we fondly named The Hardy Boys, stood ogling at Nancy Drew. There is something incredibly alluring about hippies :D

       Bangalore has it’s share of hippie tourists and whenever I see one, I am reminded of Nancy Drew :D Thanks to her, all my childhood images of Nancy Drew, conjured in my mind while I read about her, are now heavily altered..LOL..Not that I mind it one bit ;) Nancy Drew just became cooler :D

       Talking about hippies, here’s a link to watch my favourite hippie songstress :D Enjoy!

                                             Phoebe you rock!!

God...From vacations to hippies...Am I on a roll or what!!

Here's to happy times people!! Cheers! :)

Man Vs Food Vs Me

        I woke up from a short nap this afternoon, to heavy rains lashing against the windows. I had half the mind to go back to sleep, but a hot coffee sounded like a better idea. It WAS a better idea! After an hour or so of doing nothing but sitting by the window and watching the rain, I decided to catch up on some TV. That was about an hour ago. I am now in front of my PC, craving for something to bite into.You know, a giant burger, a sinfully roasted chicken leg or a plateful of onion pakodas. Arrggh..It’s the rain and then the shows on Travel and Living! I mean seriously, these guys have to be sued. Almost all their shows are about food, more food and then some more food. Anthony Bourdain walks around like James Bond, making the whole deal of digging into delicious food look like some major spy game. Then there is this Bobby Chinn ( Oh btw, I love that guy ;)) who actually flirts with food, making his episodes look like some weird dating show. Then there is Anthony Zimmern, whose binge episodes keep playing in a loop all day ! And each time I watch any of these shows, I start craving for good, glorious food ! Even Samantha Brown walks into eating joints on her “Passport to Great Weekends”. Not helping !

        Then there is Man Vs Food. The portly Mr.Adam Richman plops himself around the United States, eating his way into a food coma and jumping into food challenges. I have seen him down a giant steak, a pizza that looked as big as a football stadium and a burger that looked like a 100 pillows piled up together. I find him capable of eating up a human being. And the noises he makes ( Tee hee hee ). I mean, the food on the table looks delicious alright , and yeah, I would happily take his job without thinking twice, but frankly, the way this guy pushes food down his throat, I wonder how painful his mornings are, if you know what I mean :P Wherever he goes, he has people nudging him on to finish his food challenges right upto the last morsel. He finishes the chicken to the bone,even when it’s coated with the hottest chilli in the world, the only thing left from his giant burgers are onion rings that fell off while he ate and sometimes he even licks his fingers off, just to make sure he has finished EVERYTHING on the table. Wonder what his digestive tract is lined with, to be able to resist such abuse! The mayo and mustard stream dripping down from his mouth apart, this guy is good fun, though I wish he would go easy on the expressions :P Makes him look like he is having a bad case of constipation( which is a possibility, considering the fact that our man is an eating machine :D) Check out his expressions! 

        Now thanks to all this food on TV, I am always craving for good food. Not good ! Not good at all!! And oh, I was hoping to continue this post to write about Nigella Lawson as well, but then, that woman is good enough to deserve a separate post. Plus, my coffee is getting cold. And the aroma from the steaming hot plate of pakodas is driving me crazy. Freshly delivered at my desk by Mommy the Great. Eat your way into happiness people! :) Happy Weekend!

The One-Upper Syndrome

     The moon rotates around the Earth and the Earth rotates around the Sun. That is the natural course of the Universe. If you have paid attention in your 6th grade geography class, the name Copernicus will ring a bell. This guy suggested a model of the Universe that was centred around the Sun. I kind of bought his story, until recently.

     Yeah. Nature has thrown me away from the natural course and put me in an orbit that runs around a certain person who is so full of herself, that 5 minutes with her and you will find yourself forcefully drawn into her world, which again, is full of herself. If you have had the good fortune ( use a pinch of sarcasm here) of bumping into someone who thinks the world about themselves and expects you to think so too, you will understand my plight by the time I end this post.

     Let us call her The Queen. Not because she is one, but because, if she ever stumbles across this mean blog, she will at least give me credit for giving her a fancy name :P Now Miss Queen is someone I HAVE to stumble into everyday. A typical conversation with her, as expected, begins with her and ends (if it ever does) with her.

    Even when we are stuck in a large group, she has what it takes to divert the conversation towards her. Sample this

Person 1: “ Bush kept talking about Osama bin Laden. And now all of a sudden, the guy is forgotten. No one talks about him anymore.Wonder what happened to that guy.”

     Before Person 2 can respond, Miss Queen almost gets hysterical trying to figure out what she can say to talk next without giving the other people a chance.There she goes!

Miss Queen : “ Oh Bin Laden. “I” hate that guy. “I” think he must have shaved his beard by now and wandered into the US again. Btw, you know what, “I” hate men with beards. Does’nt it itch ? Wonder how girls can stand them. “I” would dump a guy if he ever grew a beard.”
      And just like that Bin Laden vanishes into thin air and the conversation is lost in an overdose of HER opinion. Not that I would care. Because I generally turn a deaf ear to all that she says.But it does get to me sometimes. Especially when she gets into “one-upper” mode. If “one-upper” sounds new to you, here is how the urban dictionary describes it.

One-upper : An annoying person who responds to hearing someone else’s experience or problem by immediately telling a similar story about themselves with a much more fantastic (or terrible) outcome.

Picture this :

Girl 1 ( talking about her weekend getaway) : My husband and I drove down to County Resorts for the weekend. It’s such an amazing place. We had a great time there.

Miss Queen :  Oh County Resorts? My grand dad has a membership there. We get a free vacation there every 6 months. But we choose not to go. Such a cheap place.

      How mean is that? I have half the mind to punch her nasty nose and break it into two. If only I could get away with it!

     One week with that woman and I knew there was no stopping her. I did try to be politely tolerant of her antics. When that dint work, I resorted to plainly ignoring her. That’s the worst way to treat a person. Ignoring them. But such people just ask for it. And I give them what they ask for.

     Miss Queen is only a recent example. There are many such glowing examples of interesting one-upper personalities from the past who are freakshows of the first order ! The worst kind of one-uppers are the negative one-uppers. The ones who want to stand first. Even if it means standing first on the loser scale :p I mean seriously, what do you do with such people?

      If you tell them you got a cavity filled, they will jump and say that they got a root canal operation done. If you say your neighbour got a nose job, their neighbour would have got a nose job AND a boob job . If your friend downed 3 tequila shots at the party, their friend would have downed 6. And if you broke your ankle on your biking trip, they would have broken their ankle, their hip and their neck :-| There is simply no end to their bragging!
       How do you handle such jerks? Some of my friends try reverse-snobbing, which is aimed at making the one-upper feel guilty. If she brags about an expensive dinner, you talk about the hunger in Uganda. So basically you just burst her bubble right into her face. But again, that would mean stooping down to her level. And I am not too keen on doing that.

       But I must admit, it is quite challenging to just sit there and tolerate such freakshows. So on the most recent onset of her bragging session, I put a brake to her enthusiastic onslaught and told her I was having a bad headache. “Uh-ho” she said and stopped for a few seconds. I thought my trick had worked. Only until she blurted out “ I had a bad headache in the bus today. I felt like I would faint if it continued”. Inspite of it’s inappropriateness , I could not hide my grin. I simply picked my coffee up and walked away as I guffawed like a crazy cow. She is just beyond repair! So now instead of banging my head into the wall each time she does that, I simply try and find humour in her situation. I can choose to either get peeved or I can simply choose to chuckle over her mental illness. I choose to do the latter. And I see that I can stand her better now :P

       I am sure you would have come across one-uppers too. Trying to mend them or trying to beat them in their own game is an absolute waste of precious energy. It’s like rolling in the mud with a pig. Not only will you get dirty, the pig will actually enjoy doing it. Why give them the pleasure ;)

      Here’s a chuckle for you. And I take leave with that :)

There were three women sitting around the table, talking and bragging.

The first beautiful, dressed lady said "My husband bought me a new mink coat and a trip to Europe. "

“Oh !Thats nice!”.The second lady replied.

Trying to out do her and one up her , the third lady said "my husband bought me a 5 carat diamond AND that mansion up on the hill, Oh, and a Rolls".

" Oh !Thats nice!”. The second lady said again.

Noticing that the second lady was so quiet, the other two prodded her.

Finally she said, " My husband sent me to etiquette school" .

“Oh really? “ The other two women said. "What did they teach you there?"

"Well, instead of saying “f--- you”, they taught me to say “ Oh! That’s nice"

 The other two shut up :-D

Have a great week ahead ! :)

Dear Shampoo Girl

Dear Shampoo Girl,

       You are an enigma! In the true sense of the word. Ever since I was old enough to understand what you were doing on TV, I have been trying my best to understand what the hell is the secret of your happiness. For years now, I have seen you grinning from ear to ear, happily rubbing the lather into your scalp and I have begin to believe that you have just cracked the mystery of everlasting joy. You have the key to heaven’s door. And I think you are not human. You are definitely an angel with supernatural powers. How else can you explain keeping your eyes open while shampooing your hair? You don’t even squint ! And your face...Its perfect ! The lips are shiny alright and the makeup is intact. In fact your face is barely wet. How do you manage it? I swear, for us normal mortals, there is a lot of lather-flowing-down-your-face, eyes-burining-like-hell,face-wound-up-in-an-ugly-grimace when we shampoo. Yes, inspired by you, I did grin into the bathroom mirror. And yes, I did look very happy. But that was only until a stream of lather found it’s way into my open mouth. And it did not taste good at all. Not that I thought shampoo tastes good, but you know, with all the strawberry and grapefruit extract....I thought...err....never mind.

       Your boyfriend wore sunglasses to ward off the glare from your shining hair. And as you walked down the street, your hair swung from end to end, like a garden swing. And when the wind blew right into your face, you flashed your million dollar smile again and pushed a strand of your luxurious hair away from your face (without squinting). Why is it that when I walk down the street and the wind blows into my face, my hair blows out in all directions and I end up looking like I just got out of bed? Is it because I don’t smile enough in the shower? I surely do think so.

      

Thank you for enlightening me about the “extra bounce”,“deep moisturizing”,“intense conditioning”,“damage repair”,“hairfall control”, “anti-dandruff” variety of shampoos. I tried all of them one bottle after the other. The extra bounce shampoo bounced away from the bathroom shelf and ended up in the loo. The deep moisturizing shampoo leaked from the bottom and moisturized the bathroom towel. The damage repair shampoo damaged my hair and sent it out for repair. My neighbour used the hairfall control shampoo and his hair does not fall anymore (Let us forget the fact that he is bald now). He is now using the anti-dandruff shampoo to rub his pate into shining perfection. He has nothing to lose you see. Your shampoos sure do live up to their names ! And yes we are all happy people now. Thanks to the extended usage of your various varieties of shampoo, we have now learnt one of life’s most important lessons. That not matter what name you call a shampoo by, at the end of the day, all it does is to wash your hair! As good as a soap solution. Period.

        Being your loyal fan, I do wish that you continue to smile as you always do and may God bless you with many such happy moments under the shower. May your life be filled with sachets, tubes and bottles of the wondrous liquid. And may your boyfriend continue to wear his sunglasses.

        So yeah, the shampoo did not quite work out for me like it did for the Shampoo Girl.Sad and sullen by the anti-climax, I had almost given up, when I saw the detergent lady on TV,grinning ear to ear as she emptied a heaped spoon of detergent into her washing machine. Time for me to do the laundry! Maybe that is where I will find my nirvana. Amen.

       Detergent girl, here I come! Let’s wash away baby! :-|

Shantaram - My Review

      Being an obsessive, compulsive reader, I have spent a sizeable chunk of my life and a good part of my income buying books, reading and re-reading them. I hate buying books off second hand stores and I hate buying pirated versions. It has been my principle to buy original books. A book is more than just a product to be sold in the market. A lot of toil and soul goes into writing a book and I find it almost inhuman to even entertain the thought of depriving the writer a monetary gain that he/she so rightly deserves.

       I never pick my book based on popular opinion. I prefer taking my chance. If the book turns out to be boring, ah well, big deal. But on the other hand, if a book turns out to be a delightful read, it’s worth the investment of money and time. Right now, I have quite an impressive collection of books. I intend to hand them down as an heirloom :) In an age where even weddings happen online, I am not sure how much the future generation would appreciate a truckload of yellowed books, but I sure do intend to give it a try.

      I have been reading up English Classics of late and I am loving it. Today, having just read a very impressive page from one of the English Classics, I felt that the book actually struck a chord somewhere. Feeling weirdly emotional, I went back in time to dig out the last time when I felt so absolutely taken over by a book. And just then, a line crossed my mind.

               “Luck is what happens to you when fate gets tired of waiting.”

       That line, that simple yet profound line has stayed with me, even years after I read it in one of the books that has influenced my life in such a big way, that I cannot even begin to explain. I cannot point out a trait and say “ Look, this is what I learnt from that book”. But, many a decision and many a bitter moment in my life have been passed through just from the sheer strength that I derived from reading this masterpiece. This line is but one of the many treasures that lay hidden in one of best written books of the century, “Shantaram”.

       Shantaram is almost an epic. If you are the kind who looks for popcorn entertainment, twists and turns and happy endings and sugary romance, Shantaram is not for you. Shantaram is a journey, a timeless travel into life, full of learning , pain, love and a myriad other emotions. After having completed reading the book, I remember clutching it to my heart and kissing it. That is how much I love that book. I cannot assure that you will go through the same emotions after having read it. Experiences vary from person to person. But what I can assure you is that the book will not disappoint you. At any level !

      The title may lead you into thinking that the book is about an Indian man. Yes, the novel is set in India. But the main protagonist of the story is an Australian prisoner who escapes from his 19 years of sentence in an Australian prison and ends up in India on a fake passport. Destiny brings him to Bombay ( Mumbai) and he meets Prabhakar, his humble Indian taxi driver friend who gives him shelter in a filthy slum in Bombay, away from the eyes of the law. Lindsay the Australian, goes on to be Linbaba in the slum and later in life, he becomes “Shantaram” when Prabhakar’s mother calls him that during his stay at the tiny village tuck away in rural Maharashtra. “ Shantaram” transalates to mean “ The Peaceful man”. But the entire book revolves around pain, crime, disease, death, drugs and a very poignant, profound and alluring definition of love.

      I do not intend to dissect and explain the story. But just believe me when I say it, time will just flow by while you read the book. It makes you wonder, it makes you cry, it makes you smile with tears flowing down your cheeks, it makes you want to go hold Lindsay’s hand and live his wretched life in the slum, it makes you say prayers for him and it makes you want to take the next flight to Bombay. Inspite of being written quite some time back, the book is relevant to this day and each night I went to sleep after having read a part of Shantaram, in a very strange way, I felt as if the events in the book were happening during my lifetime, right now in Bombay. That is how livid and tangible the events are. You know a book is good when you begin to be a part of it.

       Lin is a struggler, trying to make through life by peddling drugs and getting involved in counterfeit and crime. And yet, you will love him. He is no hero. He is a normal human who succumbs to pressure, cries out in pain, yearns to be loved and has his own failures to deal with. He is an anti-hero. In spite of his unromantic, drab, glamour-deprived life, as he ploughs through his days in Bombay, finding himself involving with thugs and murderers, you will push aside all the negativity and turn the pages to move with him. Twined into the narration, is a wealth of wisdom, surreptitiously intertwined with the story that just hits you the first time you read it. There have been many moments in the book when I turned the pages backward and re-read sections that I absolutely loved.

      Linbaba, Prabhakar, Didier,Karla,Abdullah,Abdel Khader Khan and the other characters of the book will take you through a sojourn that is almost spiritually enlightening. And yet there is nothing religious or spiritual about the story. There are no Godmen who will tell you about life, but there are marvellous moments in the story that will simply explain life to you in terms that you will immediately grasp. And terms that will stay with you for a lifetime.

      Being an Indian, I know my country well. So when Linbaba stays at Prabhakar’s village, or when he talks about the slums in Bombay, the construction sites, the poverty, the foreigners who give up their lives in their own countries and settle down in Bombay, peddling drugs and becoming a part of the local crime gang, I can totally relate to what he says. Being used to viewing my country through my own eyes, when Shantaram, a foreigner describes it for me, the picture of my country in general and Bombay in particular comes out as clear as a painting. The streets and gullies of Bombay, The Haji Ali Mosque, the beaches of Bombay and the Leopold Cafe are all real life landmarks in the wonderful city. And as Shantaram brings them into his story, the Bombay I have known, was shown to me in newer light. There is a certain romantic inclination for ths city and its filth. Such is the essential involvement of Bombay in Shantaram that even after all these years, I still remember Bombay as the place where Lindsay the Australian became Shantaram.

       Through his epic book, Gregory David Roberts brings to life, many moments from his own life. After having googled him out and read about him, Shantaram almost sounded like Roberts’ own autobiography. Read about his life and you will know what I mean. I could not help but draw parallels between Roberts’ life and his alter-ego Shantaram’s. For one, Roberts’ was a prisoner in an Australian jail before he began writing Shantaram :)

       If you are in the mood for aching hands and sleepless nights, Shantaram is just the thing for you! The book runs into 900 + pages and all the ”flipping back to re-read” moments will further add to the time that you will take to finish it :) Nevertleless, it is worth every hour of sleep that you will lose over it. I highly recommend this book as a must read. Take my word. You will love it !

       I will leave you with some of my favourite lines from the book. This should do enough to get you into buying an original copy of the book. :) Read on...

“Men reveal what they think when they look away, and what they feel when they hesitate. With women, it’s the other way around.”

“Every virtuous act has some dark secret in its heart; every risk we take contains a mystery that can’t be solved.”

“At first, when we truly love someone, our greatest fear is that the loved one will stop loving us. What we should fear and dread instead is that we won’t stop loving them, even after they are dead and gone.”

“A dream is a place where a wish and a fear meet. When the wish and fear are exactly the same, we call the dream a nightmare.”

“The past reflects eternally between two mirrors -the bright mirror of words and deeds, and the dark one, full of things we didn't do or say.”

“It took me a long time and most of the world to learn what I know about love and fate and the choices we make, but the heart of it came to be in an instant, while I was chained to a wall and being tortured.”

“The tendency towards complexity has carried the universe from almost perfect simplicity to the kind of complexity that we see around us, everywhere we look. The universe is always doing this. It is always moving from the simple to the complex. “

“I dont know what frightens me more, the power that crushes us, or our endless ability to endure it”.

“Truth is a bully that we all pretend to like”.

If this review translates into 2 more Shantarams getting sold, my job is done :) Thanks for reading!