Random Musings

Let me know what you think of the new theme to my blog. Leave a comment.

Random

Yes, coming off the back of my previous post about the joys of the actual written word, this may seem contradictory, but what the heck!

I’ve been using computers since 1992. That’s fifteen years, for those of you who are counting. The early years did not consist of much typing, but what little there was was done on those old style mechanical keyboards. You know, the ones that weighed a ton, and made an almighty racket, but were lovely to type on..

Later on, when we bought our own computer, we started using the rubber-dome keyboards. These are the most commonly available keyboards, and while they work fine, and are cheap, they are rubbery, and squishy, and just do NOT feel nice. I used these keyboards from 1997 to 2003, when I bought another computer.. This time, I made sure I picked up a TVS Gold Keyboard. While it’s not as heavy as the old style ones (you could KILL someone with those), it’s reassuringly hefty, and the keys were works of art.

I use the past tense, because, after using this keyboard for four years, I managed to kill it while bringing it back from college. Moans, groans, and lamentations. Doom and GLOOM. Especially since the only backup keyboard I had was a P-O-Shit Samsung that my dog had peed on a while back!! Ewwww you say, and EWWW!! said I! Still, what was there to do, except grit my teeth, disinfect the keyboard, and use it. So I did, for the past three weeks.. till today!

Yes, kids, I have a TVS Gold again! And this time, it’s in black The keys caress my fingertips, whispering promises of “forever”.. I feel like writing the great Indian novel, figuring out the Theory of Everything, coming up with a scathing attack on organized religion, writing love letters and poems to the great unknown woman in my life..

With a shrug and a smile, I look at what I’ve written so far, say “The hell with it!”, and click on the publish button.

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Yes, I know, this is not something new. Lots of people have written about this, yes.

What with email, SMS, instant messages, the blogosphere, and what else, there seems to be a lack of people writing letters. When I was a kid, I used to write at least one letter a week. Kid here refers to the time between ages 8-16 or so. I used to write to my grandparents, I had a few pen-pals (remember that concept?), and so on. I had a file of stationery, with different sorts of envelopes, stamps, and paper. I had paper that was frivolous, paper that was more businesslike, even paper that I could never, ever use!

My granddad used to send me the stuff in bulk. Every few months, I’d receive a package full of more stationery. My letters were not epistles, just simple relations of what I was up to. Come to think of it, they were the precursors to this blog. Anyway, the act of sitting down at my desk on a hot afternoon, pulling out a blank sheet of paper, and writing the letter was a lot of fun.

The format was a simple one. I’d write the date in the top write, start with Dear xyz, and end with Lots of love, Adi. I’d sign too, at the bottom. I’d take care to spell correctly, and I’d look up words that I did not know in a dictionary.

Email just does not have the same feeling. I loved using a fountain pen, and watching the words flow, practically effortlessly. A bit of this has carried through to my use of email, SMS, and instant messaging as well. I simply cannot use “urs”, “l8r”, and the other common terms endemic to these media. I like to spell out my words, and use punctuation. Some people find that funny, and archaic. I suppose it is, after a fashion.

I was thinking about this today, and I realized that I don’t even have the mailing addresses of most of my friends. In fact, I don’t have the mailing address of ANY of them. That’s sad, isn’t it? Sure, I have their email addresses, but is xyz@something.com really a place where you hang your hat? I’ve been using email from 1997 on, and I’ve changed my email address four times. I went from Hotmail, to Yahoo, to Myrealbox, and finally, to Gmail. I’m hoping my Gmail address stays constant, but you never know, do you? I bought my own domain, so that at least adityanag.com stays with me.

With this journal/blog, I’m trying to build something that helps me keep in touch with myself, all through the years. I’ve tried the paper journals too, but something inevitably happens to them. They get lost, or I stop writing in them, or my handwriting is illegible, or what have you. Not to say that stuff like that can’t happen online. Regular readers will know that I lost a year’s worth of posts when I, in one of my smack-my-head moments, deleted the MySQL database that held them. Wiser after the fact, I’ve got a daily backup script running, that emails the database to an offsite email address.

The only problem is, due to the mostly public nature of this website, I cannot write what I really feel. Yes, sure, I can password protect the posts when needed, but that does not help to shake off the lingering feeling that if it’s out there, it can be read. I know it does not really matter, since no one cares. I’m just one of the millions and millions of blogs out there, and most of them are full of it. This one is too, I suppose.

So, yes, I’ve been toying with the idea of writing letters again. And then going and finding a post box, those red cylinders that once used to important, but now are largely ignored. Pasting a stamp on, dropping it in, and then waiting a week or so for a reply. The anticipation of a reply is half the fun. And then, when a letter arrives, for a few seconds you hold it in your hands, trying to tell by the heft of it whether it’s a five minute read, or a five hour one.

Sometimes, it’s just a one page reply, hastily penned in a few brief moments. Other times, a lot of thought has gone into it, hours, even days, perhaps. The evidence lies in the turns of phrase, the scratched out words, the well spaced paragraphs. A few are even all time classics.

That’s all for this time, I fear.

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So I finally changed the look of www.adityanag.com

I’d had the old site up for ages and since I had time on my hands, I thought of trying something new. I went with a simple theme, from www.freecsstemplates.org This is a pretty good site, with some nice templates. I’m not very good at designing, it’s not my thing, so I wanted something simple and nice. According to a friend, the look is feminine. I’m not sure that’s true, but if it is, so be it, I say. I’m not going to redo the whole damm thing. I may change the colours around, but that’s only if men start propositioning me!

In a few minutes, the UEFA Champions League final starts! AC Milan v Liverpool. This is going to be fun. In 2005, the same teams met, and AC Milan were leading 3-0 at half time.. and Liverpool won. So AC Milan wants BLOOD! BLOOD I SAY.

And Federer beat Nadal on clay. Armageddon is here. I wish it had been the French Open final, but we’ll take it nevertheless, thank you very much! This sets up the French Open just perfectly!

The teams enter the field. Gattuso is glaring as usual. Liverpool plays in home RED, AC Milan in away white..

OOOAAAA ooooAAA OOOOaaaa OOOOOO

Paolo Maldini oldest player, playing in a record equalling eight final.. Crouch out for Liverpool, Kuyt in.

Toss over, Liverpool loses. And now I take a break to watch.

It was a pretty even first half.. Decent performances from both sides. Gattuso gets a yellow card. And then, on the stroke of half time! Inzaghi scores. Pirlo takes a free kick from 22 yards out, curls it in, and the ball ricochets off Inzaghi’s upper arm. Now was that handball?? Difficult to tell. The rules say, “Deliberate handling of the ball.” It all happened very fast, but from where I sat, admittedly far away, it did not seem deliberate. Inzaghi was running forward, and the ball hit him on the arm, and that too on the upper arm, near his shoulder. He certainly did not lift his hand. He had his arm down, near his body, and the ball just swung into him. On balance, I’d agree with the goal.

But Liverpool has looked threatening, and they have had their chances. With Gattuso sitting on a yellow card, he can’t be as much of a defensive force as he is used to being. The second half begins now, so more after the match.

Ah well, so Liverpool lose. They had a few chances in the second half, but Inzaghi did it again, and 2-0 was too much. Kuyt’s late header was not enough, and the men in red went down 2-1 in the end.

Still, it was a fun match, and since I was relatively neutral, I enjoyed it.

Now I am wondering what to do next. Hmmm. Planning to go to Delhi for the weekend, but not sure about that. Let’s see how it all pans out.

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From exercises for my knee, to watching Nadal make it 81-0 on clay, to listening to the Killers, and eating bacon and eggs and wishing I was alright so I could go play tennis or football, or anything at all.

Another one of those three star days when you feel like sleeping all day. The difference is, I did sleep all day. So at night, when all is calm and quiet, and owls hoot outside, I sit here, in the not-phosphor light of my monitor, remembering reading about greenish display’s and late night hackathons.

There’s a spoon on my desk, with a wooden handle. I like cutlery with ivory handles, like ivory handled butter knives, that you can use to flick pats of butter at people. Not something I’ve ever done, of course. May 20, and I was supposed to start work from tomorrow, if it hadn’t been for the congruence of a football, a clod of earth, and my knee. I wonder if this is meant to be a sign from up above.

Home is home. There is nothing else to say. A place where I am. Awake, not on my airplane, but awake nevertheless. Letting my mind wander, watching random words appear on screen. Where bats fly and angels go spiralling up the moon beams, feeling the waves of tau ceti and dreams of valentines long remembered.

Saturday nights, full of fun. Bright light, pretty clothes, shoes that shine with spit and polish. A memory of Beau Geste, in a fort all alone, hearing the desert winds whistle around the walls.

The day passes, the next one arrives. Federer finally beats Nadal on clay, and ends the winning streak. A friend calls, and asks me to work hard. And yes, my fan’s making a racket.

That’s all, folks.

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Right, before anyone gets the wrong idea, I have NOT eloped..

With that out of the way, let’s begin.

I was in Delhi this past week, doing a whole lot of nothing at all. Just bumming around, reading tons, watching T.V, you know, the usual. The days passed slowly. I had made all sorts of weekend plans, so when I went to sleep on Friday night, I was rather looking forward to Saturday.

Saturday morning. 11 AM. The door to my room swings open violently, and rebounds off the wall. My brother and sis-in-law storm in. WAKE UP, they shout! I jump up, adrenalin pumping, convinced that the world is going to end, or my laptop broke, or some such catastrophe has happened.

“What?!!”

mumble mumble, unintelligible mumble.. Jaipur, marriage, tomorrow.. mumble!

“WHAT!”

So the scoop is, our dear friend Amit had called up in the morning from Jaipur and informed my brother that he was getting married. The NEXT day! Apparently the girl finally got sick of her parents telling her about what a nasty guy he was, said a big fat STICK IT to them, and came over to his house. Where she proceeded to inform him that they were getting married the next day.

Of course, faced with an ultimatum like that, a man has no choice at all. One hasty day of arranging things later, everything was fixed. We drove down from Delhi, and dressed up nicely, and went to the venue. That was easy, since the venue was right opposite our house. Heh

And then, it was like a fairytale wedding. The gods helped, by sending lots of clouds to cool down the May heat. The Priest was better than a stand up comic. He wisecracked his way through the ceremony, and we were in splits.. And the best of the best: The LOOK on Amit’s face..

HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA

He had NO clue what was happening. I mean, twenty four hours ago, he was happy thinking he’s going to get married in a month or two. And now, there he was, all dressed up, mouthing the vows, and feeding the holy flames. I would pay a pretty penny to know what was going through his head.

One hilarious ceremony later, we all clapped and threw flowers. And the heavens opened up, with lovely timing.. All of us ran for the house.

So this was the first elopement that I have been a witness too. I wish the happy couple all the joy in the world. I’ve know Amit for almost 16 years, and I know he’s a great guy. It’s a frabjuos day ladies and gentlemen, simply FRABJUOS.

O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!’
He chortled in his joy.

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The month of April was full of eventful events. It started off with me playing soccer, and managing to injure my knee. Not a simple injury, I had to go and tear my ACL, PCL, and get a grade two meniscus tear in the bargain. I need surgery to get this fixed, and of course the Doc is busy, and can’t operate before July.

So here I am, limping around, barely able to walk. I’d got a job in Bangalore, the one I had interviewed for, and I was looking forward to moving there, but apparently, fate has other plans for me, and means to keep me in Jaipur for a bit. I hope my employers don’t fire me!

April was also our last month in college. Now, when you have spent five years in one place, from the age of 19 to 24, it is a bit of a wrench to think that you will never come back there again, and that college days are over. All the late nights, sitting and talking in Tillu’s room, laughing at Mama’s antics, these are now only memories. I’m not very sentimental, but I must confess that when I looked at my empty room, where I’d spent four years of my life, I felt my eyes grow misty.

That room saw me through all sorts of good times, bad times, and medium times. It saw me start to write online, and make lots of money doing so; it saw me sit and stare blankly at the walls when it would seem like life is really not worth doing anything at all with; it saw all sorts of things.

Still, I’d always wanted to leave my room as if I had never lived there, and I think I managed that. No posters, no marks on the walls, no nothing. Just an empty room, with no trace of my presence.Does that seem weird? Maybe, I don’t know.

I didn’t have too great a time in college, for a variety of reasons. But I did make some very good friends, who got me through five years of law school with pretty decent grades. And I must say, that it was a fun time overall.

The last month was a blur of eating out all the time, going for Taj breakfasts at the drop of a hat, staying up all night ( well, that we did anyway), and of course, me being me, reading a lot of books.

I spoke to some people that I had never spoken to in five years, and found that they were quite nice. I think they were surprised by me too. I was extremely surprised and embarrassed to be voted a certain title, and all that.

Standard usual passing out of college tales I think. But yes, I will remember them. Especially looking at my room, and saying good bye on the station to Tillu, who was one member of the triumverate of Arun, me and him. We were the ones who always stayed up, and his room, with all the posters, and windchimes, and the fridge! was the scene of many a late night conversation. I’ll miss that, as I will miss hanging out with Arun and Tillu. And who can forget Ruthwik, dropping in for a chat. Here’s to all you guys! Addu, don’t get pissed, you’re here too.

Anyway, that’s done and over with. I am now home, and resting my leg as much as possible. I am confused again, cause my job now seems to have receded a few months, till I get my leg fixed. Ah well, such is life. I’m a little down and out too, for many reasons, but that is not something I am going to write about here.

I apologize for the post being just a wee bit maudlin, but hey, it’s my journal, and I write what I want

Cheerful stuff later.

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Read the first part below before you read this.

So then it’s five thirty, and the opening act comes on stage.. a band called F.T.N, the winners of something or the other. Now the interesting bit is, the lead singer was this absolute jackass that totally pissed off the crowd. I mean, we had been sweltering in the sun for two hours, and this pipsqueak comes and starts yelling at us to “SCREAM, BANGALORE”.. So we did. We screamed, “F$#@ YOU”, in chorus all through their act.

It was really rather funny. There these guys were, obviously nervous about opening for Maiden, and here we were, some twenty thousand of us, all yelling in unison. They tried valiantly, but when the guy in front of me hung himself with his belt, they got just a wee bit discouraged. Of course, the bottles that we were throwing at them might have had something to do with it. And they best part is, they weren’t THAT bad.. the lead singer just had too much attitude, of the wrong sorts.

They did do one good thing though. The crowd all bonded through calling them names, and suddenly, we were all best friends..

This debacle was followed by one of the truly great Indian rock acts.. Parikrama.

They showed the kids how it was done, and for one hour, they played an all-original, no-covers, set that had us screaming for more. They were fantastic. I mean, they were worth the price of the admission. They rocked us for an hour or so.

By now, the sun had set. It was dark, and we were waiting.. but NO! Lauren Harris came on stage. She’s the daughter of Steven Harris, the Iron Maiden bassist and founder. The crowd was kinder to her, cause she was a pretty girl, but not by much.. The expletives were in Hindi, Kannada and other Indian languages, so hopefully she did not understand too much. But she showed great perseverance, decided to ignore the crowd.. and sang her alloted six songs. And frankly, she’s not too bad. Might do well too.

Finally, at 7:30, she ran away, and we felt that our prayers had been answered.. and NOW Iron Maiden would come out. Well, they did, but only after one hour of more stage setup..

And at 8:30…

FINALLY

This Happens….

And then, for the next hour and a half, it was sheer madness. Yes, I know that I am not a Maiden fan like some people, at least not a rabid fan, but the sheer hysteria of the moment was contagious. I screamed and headbanged with the best of them. Frankly, I don’t have words to describe it all. For an hour and a half, twenty thousand of us screamed our lungs out. And when Bruce said, “SCREEEAM FOR ME, BANAGALORE”.. WE SCREAMED, AND SCREAMED, AND SCREAMED…..croak..

Alas, too soon, it was over, and we came out onto the road, hoarse, dusty, tired out, and very very happy

Of course, when twenty thousand exit at the same time, there are no auto’s to be found for love or money, and no water, and no nothing.. so we walked for two kilomenters.. Every step was sheer agony, but we had no choice. After paying three times the MRP for a bottle of water (supply and demand at it’s finest), we finally got an auto, paid him double the price, very very gladly, and arrived home.

…..

And that was Edd fest for you.

Next, I’ll tell you about Wi-fi hacking, how I got a job, and my last days in college, that involved lots of interesting things

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