Operation Ponytail

I did it, atlast. Combed my hair back, held them tight and fastened them with a band. Yoohoo!!! I am living my dreams. I have a ponytail. Well, not exactly a pony’s tail... May be a pony-ka-bachcha’s tail. Or, may be a pony that has just stepped out of a saloon after a tidy haircut. Some hair in the front couldn’t reach the band. They hang loose. The tail is so small that it looks more like a pigtail than a ponytail.

My head is now in the shape of an egg. A giant egg. If someday the elephants decide to lay eggs, they will look exactly like my head. By the way, these Dutch people call Elephant as Olyfont (oly as in holy) and they are crazy about elephants. Watch out for Zoop in India. They have even tried to recreate Bollywoodwala Jadoo. Hilarious attempt! Check out the popularity of Jadoo among the dutch kids.

Let me come back to our topic. The first day I wore ponytail to office, the response was rather confused.

Colleague: You metamorphosing into a Dutch or what?

Manager 1: Ennada aachu? Ponnu madhiri irukke... (What happened? You look like a girl).
I was in the state of shock for the rest of the day. Not that I have anything against women . It is just that I am used to being a male.

Manager 2: Hey Indra, look at you. You look good.
Me (selfconsciously): Hehe… Thanks.
Manager 2 (to Manager 1): Isn’t Indra’s hairstyle good?
Manager 1: No. I hate it.
Manager 2: Hmmm... I too don’t like it.
I was in the state of shock for the rest of that day too.

I didn’t shave for some days after that.
Manager 1: Ennada? Dhaadiya vettaliya? (What happened? You didn’t shave?)
Me: Girls don’t have beard. Even if they have, they don’t roam around without shaving.
For once the voice-inside-my-head appreciated me.

I know that the ponytailed me can’t look worser than how I normally look like. These days my hairline recedes alarmingly. I even doubt that my hairline is re-drawn every single day. A bit higher everyday. People say that growing long hair triggers hair fall. I don’t believe it. If it is true, most of the girls should be bald. They grow long hair. Well, I don’t know. i am not an expert. May be they are right. May be I will end up like Larry Finkelstein of Dharma and Greg by the time I grow a proper ponytail. But, that is not going to scare me out of my Operation Ponytail. If I become bald, I can always get a wig. I will buy myself a wig with ponytail.

PS: 'Kaike Paan Banaraswala', I am going to watch Don during the weekend. Mujhe Don dekhne se rokna mushkil hi nahin... Naamumkin bhi hai. HAHAHAHAHA (Aren’t Dons supposed to have a menacing laugh?).

Nightingale born in Bombay

Do you think ‘Bombay’ Jayashree sounds serenely mature? Well, I do. I think her voice is more of sensibility than sensuality. I would call hers a no-nonsense voice. She has been a force to be reckoned with in the Carnatic arena for quite long. Then she decided to step into film music. And the rest, as they say, is history.

When I first noticed her voice in Narumugaye, I mistook it for Harini’s. Check out how close Madhubala (Madhoo) resembles Vyjayanthimala Bali. By the way, it was Aishwarya Rai’s debut movie.

Then came Vaseegara (Zara Zara in Hindi). This song was the rage of its time. Can songs alone carry a moderate movie to the super-hit state? Yes. Harris Jayaraj’s tunes did it for Minnale. And Vaseegara was in the driver’s seat. ‘Bombay’ Jayashree became an instant superstar.

Suttum Vizhi Sudare is a treat to watch and hear. Watch out for Surya’s (Sanjay Ramasamy!) red pants from 1:45 minutes. Hilarious! And then his T-Shirts! Seems he has been working out a bit. And I guess he didn’t want to conceal that fact.

‘Bombay’ Jayashree’s latest in her illustrious list of hits is Partha Mudha Naale. Kamalini Mukerjee! Isn’t she cute??!!

Maine Phir Dance Kiya – Saturday night

We were at this party organized by and for the (South) Indians in Holland on the Diwali day. I don’t remember going to family functions/gatherings along with my parents. The few functions that I have managed to attend are predominantly my friends’ marriages. I stick to the tested format in those gatherings - go to the function, find your friends, stick to them, spend some time and bugger off. This way I can avoid situations where I have to attempt small talks with strangers. I hate small talks because I know very well that I am totally hopeless when it comes to socializing. After attending this party, I realized that I should stick to my old ways and refrain from experiments.

The pictionary they played sucked big time. I don’t understand why they play lotto in all their festival get-togethers. In between the events, a dude started explaining his school-day experiences. What he said was extremely shocking.

He said that he was not a bright student at schools and hence he used a pack of playing cards to remember lessons.
* Yeah. I heard it correct. A deck of playing cards. *
As he was fiddling with playing cards during classes, the teachers were very upset with him.
* Well, Naturally. The credibility of the teachers would be doubted if they are not upset by card-fiddling students. *
The school demanded him an explanation for his strange behaviour.
* Show me one school that demands an explanation from a primary school student for his lunatic behaviour. *
He called for a panel of mathematics teacher, geography teacher and a priest to present his explanation.
* Priest? Why on earth a priest?? *
The school accepted.
* Now, show me one school that agrees to form a panel of maths teacher, geography teacher and above all a priest just because a potential freak asked for it *
During the meeting with the panel, he demonstrated the Mathematics teacher how he used the deck of playing cards to study multiplication tables. He demonstrated the same to us.
* That was a crappy trick. It was like taking your hand around your head in order to touch your nose and ending up touching your eye. *
He demonstrated the Geography teacher how he used the numbered cards to remember Geography. 1 – One world, 2 – Two poles of earth. 3 – Three states of matter (What? Is that geography??) and so on.
* Oh my God! *
He then demonstrated the priest how he used the same cards to remember spirituality. 1 – One God, 2 – Dualism (Good and Evil), 3 – Trinity (the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit) and so on.
* Oh my holy son God!! *
The school was happy with his explanations and allowed him to use his cards in the classes.
* What the heck. Was the school happy with such moronic explanations? I want their license to be cancelled. *

That story could have easily found its way to Amar Chitra Katha or Pogo TV. But he said that it happened in his life. He should have spent his childhood watching too many B-grade children’s movies or reading too many children’s magazines or both. Some in the gathering even said that his experience was informative. I don’t know if they really meant it or said so just for the sake of courtesy. Informative? I certainly didn’t think so. I thought that he was either a greater freak than me or an ultra intellectual out of the scope of my feeble mind.

Soon most of the males in the group got drunk. I don’t know if they had actually planned to get drunk or if listening to the great card-story compelled them to get themselves drunk silly. They then did what drunken men generally do – dance. Tragically, they compelled us and made us dance with them. The kids danced along with their drunken dads. The wives sat there wondering if they have to drive their families back home after the party.

When it became dark, we had some fireworks. Just the sparklers. Not the noisy fire-crackers. We didn’t want to visit the jails of Holland by bursting fire-crackers. The highlight of the evening was the dinner. There were plenty of south Indian dishes to gobble upon. I had good Idlies after ages.

As in other gatherings, here too I faced the downside of remaining a bachelor. The sparklers were handed over to the kids. Their parents and grand parents held the sparklers. Women held the sparklers. Their husbands held the sparklers. But, nobody seemed to realize that the bachelors too would like to hold the sparklers. Very sad. These married people can be really insensitive at times. And then there were the usual comments:
“Come on bachelors. Dance”.
“Oh the bachelors. They shall take away the remaining food. Anyway we were going to throw them away...”.

Maine Dance Kiya – Friday night

Company had organized a party on the night before Diwali. Met my old buddy, Sun in the party. He scared the hell out of me when he said that I have grown shorter. Grown shorter!!?? Now, how could one grow shorter? I was wondering what to say. The voice-inside-my-head suggested a few replies.
“Yeah. I forgot to wear my heels”.
“Damn. It is the Earth’s gravity. Gravity is scheming against me. It works on me so much that I have shrunk a bit”.
“Haha… Visual illusion, buddy. As I have gained quite some breadth and width, I look a bit shorter. Wait a few more years. I’ll look spherical”.

I pretended that I didn’t hear the voice-inside-my-head and stood there with a broad sheepish smile. I am already finding it tough to digest that my average Indian height is well below the average European height and here comes Sun saying that I have grown shorter. Oh my God!

I hate parties for one reason. It is in parties that I am forced to dance inspite of admitting that I have got two left legs. I guess people have fun watching me move clumsily around the dance floor. There were people who danced as bad as I did, if not more. But, they were drunk up to their nose. They had no idea what a visual pollution they were making. The RJ played some cool songs. One of the event assistants danced to the songs. Wow! She can dance. Though she was an European, she danced amazingly to Indian music. Sandy-boy was undoubtedly the best dancer in the group and the girl preferred dancing with him. I-24 made a valiant attempt to dance with her, but she didn’t even acknowledge his existence. Poor I-24.

We teased Sandy-boy that we would show his wife the pictures of him dancing with the girl. He ended up confessing to his wife about everything that happened at the party the moment he reached home.

Festival of Lights

God said, “Let there be light”, on the first day of Creation. Understandable. It is tought to work in darkness. People wanted the same when Ram killed Ravan, his ten heads and ten pair of hands (man, that would have been an extremely tiring task). From then onwards, we have had our Diwalis.

My experiences with the Diwali days is sort of bittersweet. Sweet because Diwali meant new dresses and sweets. Bitter because Diwali is also synonymous to unbearable noise and my tolerance level to noise is pathetically low. There was a time when I believed that if I ever had a nervous breakdown, it would be on a Diwali day. I no more think the same way now. Not because my tolerance of noise has improved, but because nowadays I think that I can have a nervous breakdown anytime, no matter whether the surrounding is noisy or calm. And, Himesh Reshammiya is certainly not helping things. He continues to sing in that nasal tone of his.

I preferred the fire-works like flower-pots, chakkars, and its kind to the noisy crackers. And yeah, I loved my pistols with roll-crackers. After a certain age, my dad stopped adding pistols to our Diwali purchase lists. He never bothered to know if I wanted them or not. Very sad...

I generally gain a few kilos during Diwalis. Too much of delicious stuffs to gobble and too many stupid special programs to watch on TV. This is the second Diwali at a stretch, that I am away from home. Do I miss Diwali? Mmm... May be at bit. I may miss the festive atmosphere, but certainly not the noise.

This is something I wrote a few years ago to greet my friends on Diwali. Ha.. ha.. Not much improvement in my writing style. It had been amaturish and it still is.

Diwali comes just once in a year!!!

Burn crackers, tear a few eardrums,
Take your neighbors on a free trip to the hell.
‘cos, Diwali comes just once in a year,
and you have the rest of the year to express your goodwill.

Let the Calorie-meter scream at your fodder,
Add on a few more kgs.
‘cos, Diwali comes just once in a year,
and you have the rest of the year to lose the extra baggage.

Burn your paycheck along with the cracker,
Knock a few thousands off your wallet.
‘cos, Diwali comes just once in a year,
and you have the rest of the year to earn them back.

Don’t allow grief to come near,
Wear the mask of glee.
‘cos, Diwali comes just once in a year,
and you have the rest of the year to be dreary.

Happy Diwali!!!

Munbe Vaa

I think Shreya Ghoshal is a Godess. Why am I still not able to get over her Munbe Vaa? The hangover this song gave me is pretty long and it still continues. I don’t know what makes the song so very soulful – Rahman’s composition or Shreya’s rendition. Anyway, I am sure they are not complaining about the outcome. Neither am I, for having such an extended hangover.

The song has a touch of Kerala flavour and is incredibly beautiful. I felt Naresh Iyer started his part of the song a bit shaky. But he catched up pretty well. I love listnening to the song in Sahana much more than watching it.

The same album of Sillunu Oru Kadal also has NewYork Nagarm. Woh! Rahman is evolving pretty well as a singer too.

Did I tell you that I think that Shreya is a Godess?

It’s raining water...

It was a pleasant evening outside the office - chill, breezy, murky and drizzling. It was the perfect set up to test my latest brilliant theory – “You can walk through the rain, in between the rain drops, without getting wet, if you walk at the right pace”. I walked at different speeds to find the correct speed to win over the rain. But the drizzle seemed to get heavier when I made faster strides and lighter when I paced down. I stepped up and down my pace a few times. Everytime the drizzle seemed to respond accordingly by getting heavier and lighter. Was the nature playing some spooky game with me? Nature must be too jealous to let my brilliant theory to be successful. Damn.

I reached the bus stop just in time to see my bus leaving. Waiting time in between the buses was a quarter of an hour, the drizzle was at the brink of becoming rain and it was one of the few roofless bus stops in The Hague. That was enough to drag me into my favourite thought-topic – Is my life a consolidated version of all the Murphy’s laws? I was not able to conclude which one would make me less wet - Standing in the open which would allow more rain drops to fall on me, or standing under the tree which would mean that I become the target of lesser but larger water drops. I ended up doing what I always do when I am unable to pick a choice – grab a bit of all the options available. I walked back and forth between open and under the tree till my bus arrived five minutes late. The guy-at-the-bus-stop (who was aptly dressed for the occasion with long coat and cap) was staring at me all the time with a quizzical look.

Inside the bus, when I checked if the stuffs inside my bag had got wet, I found out that I had an umbrella. Damn. Do I have anything called memory? I hastily hid the umbrella so that the guy-at-the-bus-stop (who had boarded the bus with me) wouldn’t see it. I don’t fancy random guys jumping into conclusion that I am a freak. But, I couldn’t prevent the voice-inside-my-head from mocking at me, “What a loser”.

I got down at my stop and waited for the bus (and the guy-at-the-bus-stop, who was in the bus) to move away. After the bus went out of sight, I opened my umbrella and started walking towards the tram stop. The wind was so heavy that i found it tough to hold on to the umbrella. I was getting wet in spite of the umbrella. Walking towards the tram stop, I saw a tram halting at the stop. A man and a woman ran from opposite directions towards the tram stop. They were at the wrong side of the tram. The woman reached the tram stop first and waited for the man. When the man joined her, they both ran around the tram towards its entrances by crossing the tram line at points where they are not supposed to. Moments before they could reach the entrance, the doors closed and the tram left. I couldn’t help chuckling at the thought that if the woman had gone around the tram by the time she was waiting for the man and had kept the doors open, they could have taken that tram. Hahaha... Poor choice always yeilds poor result.

And then suddenly the truth dawned upon me. The tram that had just left was the one I was supposed to take. I was so engrossed by the man and the woman that I didn’t realize that it was my tram that they and eventually I missed. If I hadn’t bothered to open the umbrella, I wouldn’t have been struggling to keep my umbrella from flying away, and I could have easily reached the tram stop by the time the tram was there. Hmmm… Poor choice always yeilds poor result.

I reached the tram stop. The voice-inside-my-head was laughing at me so loudly that I was afraid that the others would hear it. The man and the woman who had missed the tram were in a giggling fit. They then went on a smooching spree. Damn. Why do people always get hyper romantic when they are around me? I stood there next to the smooching couple, embarrassed and shy, staring at my shoes. I thought that if that scene had been in an Indian movie, it would have been invariably followed by a song. My thought chain was broken by the peroxide blonde who was busy blowing rings of cigarette smoke at my direction. I couldn’t move away as it was raining. I sent a brief threat to the God that I would denounce Him if He dares to bless me with a Smokin’ Joe as my wife.

The next tram arrived after twenty minutes and I reached my flat tired, hungry, cold and drenched. Rainy days are back.

Faceless voices

I grew up listening to the booming voice of Saroj Narayan Swamy via Aakash-Vaani. She used to tell the innocent me about what happens in the world. One moment she would scare the crap out of me by telling me that the world is a hell full of devils and scumbags. The next moment she would make me smile by saying that the world also has shades of the heaven and is populated by a few angels. I grew up amused, bemused and confused by listening to the things she said. Her’s is an amazing voice. It is a voice of awesome clarity. When she said something, you believed her every word. Such was the conviction in her voice. Hers is a genderless voice. Play her voice to anybody without revealing her name and the listener would be left wondering if the voice belongs to a male or female.

Another RJ I adore is Mirchi Suchi. At the stroke of 7 AM she starts with her trade mark ‘Helllllo Chennai’ and goes on to talk about anything and everything in the universe and beyond till 11 AM. Almost half the male population of Chennai has a crush on her and religiously listens to her every word. Unlike Saroj Narayan Swamy, Suchi’s face is pretty popular. Credit should go to her multi-talented personality. She is an award winning writer. And, she can sing. When she sung the peerless ‘Omahazeeyavaahiyaala vaahiyaala zeeyamehazaya’ in ‘Uyirin Uyire’, the whole Tamil Nadu went about its daily routines chanting those divine words. Aliens would have been happy to see humans talking their language. And then Tamil Nadu went on to sway to the tune of Suchi’s May Masam 98'il.

I wonder what the lady looks like, who tells me
1. to bugger off as all telephone lines in the route are busy,
2. that I have correctly dialed the wrong number,
3. that my friend has duped me by giving some random non-existing number,
4. about how late the train would reach the railway station.

I wonder what the people look like, who take the pain to call me to say
1. that his bank is hell-bent to give me a personal loan and I should happily accept it,
2. that I have made a grave mistake while choosing the telephone service provider and hence I should switch to his telecom service provider,
3. that they can help me to make calls to India at the rate of 9 cents per minute and I should avail their service even though I already call India at 5 cents per minute,
4. that there is an excellent opening in a multi-national company’s Bangalore office, which would make me richer,
5. that I should not think twice about getting the credit card that his bank offers me, even if it means that I have to buy a handbag just to carry my credit cards, as my purse could burst anytime.

I wonder what the girls look like, who dub for actresses like Simran, Asin, Jyothika, etc. The voices seem prettier than the pretty actresses.

There was this actor Mohan in Kollywood (I guess he is still around). He was fondly known as ‘Mike Mohan’ (not the Mac ‘Arre O Samba’ Mohan of Bollywood). Mohan became Mike Mohan because he held a mike and sung to it in every single movie of his. There are numerous beautiful memorable tamil movie songs filmed on him. I buy albums of A. R. Rahman and Harris Jayaray even without listening to the songs because of my confidence over those composers. Similarly, people used to buy albums of Mohan starrers. Call it destiny or mere coincidence, Ilaiyaraaja saved his best compositions for Mohan’s movies. Mohan’s voice in movies is equally popular. But, the irony is that nobody knows what Mohan’s real voice sounds like. What people heard as Mohan’s voice in movies was dubbed by a singer called Surender. If Ilaiyaraaja was the backbone of Mohan’s career, Surender was his vocal cord.

I would also like to give a face to the voice that often shouts in my head declaring that I am a total loser and I have no hope whatsoever. Though logic would support giving my face to the voice in my head, I would rather prefer to give it the face of Mogambo or Gabbar Singh.

Mission Triceps

It had been there for many months. It is one of the many things in my room, which I have no idea why I have with me. I stumble upon it during my weekend vacuuming sessions, I dust it, put it back in its place and forget about it. I had comfortably restrained myself from looking at what is in it. But, last weekend I finally looked into its content.

It is a workout guide. It had illustrations of workouts to tone different parts of body. A particular workout caught my attention. It is the exercise to build triceps. I had always been fascinated by the words – biceps and triceps. They sound too cool to be body parts. They sound more like some tool like ‘forceps’ than a body part. I made a thorough search behind my upper arm only find that I have no triceps. That was a great disappointment. Sometimes disappointment can become a huge motivating factor. I said to myself, “If I don’t have them, no problem, I will develop them”. I thought that triceps would do a lot to enhance my gangster looks. I named my resolution as ‘Mission Triceps’.

With Mission Triceps in mind, I frantically worked-out as illustrated in the guide. Result – my arms are now 60% - 70% dysfunctional. Now I do even the simplest of actions like scratching my forehead with utmost difficulty. I feel like carrying heavy logs instead of hands. My arms remind me of their presence all the time with extreme pain. I say ‘Hi’ and ‘Bye’ with no arm movement. I try to avoid handshakes as much as possible. Despite all my precautions, I had to shakehands with this hyper enthusiastic guy. Boy, that was painful. I was really glad to see that my right hand was still in its place after that handshake. The tragic part was that I had to smile after that torturous handshake as I didn’t want to scare the crap out of that guy. Woah! I can act bigtime. I think I should nominate myself for Oscar in the Best Actor category.

I prefer fully functional arms to prominent triceps. That was more than enough to terminate my Mission Triceps.