Want to watch a chip?

'Films' were called films as the medium on which they were captured was a physical strip of photosensitive material. So you could watch a 'film' at the local theatre.

With the advent of digital technology and movies being recorded on re-writable electronic memory, the 'film' is almost obsolete.

Does this mean the local theatre now features the latest 'chip'? The 'chip' that I saw yesterday was very good. The 'chip' critic gave a thumbs down to the latest 'chip'. I went to the theatre to watch a 'chip' and ate chips and coke for a snack...and the list goes on.

Time to rethink?

Go figure.

Chapter 11- Laptop Blues

My laptop seems to be on its last lap. Its memory is failing and it keeps losing its keys, on the keyboard that is. Viral infections have taken a toll on its system and it suffers from a bad case of the COLD (Completely Outdated Laptop Device). The software is hard to use and the hardware is overused. To get it fixed I have called in the handy-dandy service professional but from day one it seemed like I was talking to an Alien from outer space.

He tried to switch on my computer and could not get it to turn on. That’s when he mentioned that I had a boot-sector virus. I was a little embarrassed. I am not sure how he figured it out but I did have a little fungal infection between my toes. He must have smelled my shoes while entering the door. Embarrassed, I told him I would get it checked by my podiatrist soon. He also requested that I backup my hard drive frequently. So I have taken to driving my car in reverse in front of my house everyday. I dont understand how this helps my computer but who can keep up with technology these days?

The other day he came to fix some problem with the computer and nearly gave me a heart attack! He mentioned that I had low Level-2 Cache. How did he know that my bank account was short of funds? In fact I was so strapped for cash that I was not sure I could pay him for his services! Somewhere along the way he also mentioned that my chipset was old and needed to be replaced. The guy had some gall! Not only had he raided the snacks in my kitchen without my knowledge but he was complaining about the expiry date on the packet of chips. He finished his work and mentioned he would be back the next week. I quickly hid my boots as he left, for fear of another nasty comment from him.

He returned the next week and he mentioned that he had a new Motherboard with him. I could make neither head nor tail of this. Was his mother living with him now? Or was it someone elses mother? Maybe a stepmother? Why did he mention it now? Maybe he knew I could not pay and was looking to have his mother stay with me for a while! As he messed around in the computer he made another funny statement. He mentioned that he was going to rearrange the BUS to increase speed. Was he using public transport to move around? I could see his car standing outside so that did not make sense. Maybe there was a lot of traffic on the road and he thought public transport would be faster. Who knew? I let it go but I thought to myself that these geeks were a weird bunch!

Just as he left he mentioned that he was going to replace Windows the next time he came. That’s it! I finally figured it out. This guy was some sort of crook who under the pretext of being a technician scoped out houses, ate their chips without permission, used public transport to avoid detection and involved his mother to blackmail financially-stressed people like me. And now he was telling me he was going to replace the windows in my house, which he would then break into at some later date! Nice try pal! I am not falling for that one.

I let go of his services and junked my laptop. I had the last laugh too. I used the money to put up a new security system on all my windows. After all, he’s not the only one who can install a Windows Security update!

Chapter 4

Everything is so close to my house that I can actually walk there, including the dry cleaners!
(Trichy-1, Tampa-0)

The dry cleaner in Trichy destroyed my brand new shirt!!
(Trichy- negative 5, Tampa 1)

Anyway, I did deposit my first paycheck into my bank account so that just about evens out everything. OK. Last time around I did mention smells. Now this is a pet subject of mine. Now as some of you may have noticed, my blog has a profile picture of me and its caption is, “The Nose”, for obvious reasons. Now, I must say that other than for being a conduit for all the nasty stuff my sinus keeps throwing its way, my nose, or rather my sense of smell, is quite keen. I usually happen to remember the smell of a place (memory for smells, any budding psychologists out there with an analysis?). And India is a veritable treasure chest. With so much pollution in most of the Metro cities you have to come to one of these tier B cities to realize what you miss. The smell of jasmine flowers sold by the roadside vendor wafting over you like a cool breeze, despite the late evening traffic. The smell of tea from the “tea kadai” early in the morning, making your stomach growl with anticipatory pleasure. The coffee “podi” shop, grinding freshly roasted beans, driving coffee-holics insane with its heady smell. Fruits by the roadside, incense and camphor from the local temple, the open gutter, sweat from the auto driver, chilli bajji’s, the salt in the air (if ur near the sea) and more recently the American sweet corn vendor with a distinct smell of its own (I have never seen these in America btw). There’s also the slightly antiseptic smell of the clinic as you walk past its open door, the rancid-sweet-dungy smell of the cow as its ambles past you swishing its tail and of-course, always the not so far away distinctly harsh smell of a “beedi”. And all this walking down one street. Many more to explore. Many more to be smelt! All of America would not have the smells of even one of these streets. All the cities there have the same smell. The sterile smell of nothing. I have begun to enjoy my walks. As life slows down you pick up details you otherwise miss while fighting traffic. Its worth it. A good break from life in the fast lane.

I can hear the local gurkha banging his stick and blowing his whistle (ha ha…that sounds like a b-grade film) as he patrols the streets below. And its only 9pm!!! These people need to get a life.

Alrighty then, more the next time. The last two posts have been more descriptive than humorous. On purpose. There is only so much humor one can muster up in a day and I ran through my quota early in the evening to keep myself from kicking the dry-cleaning lady. But hey, as the saying goes, “If the dry cleaner aint good, wash your own clothes fool!”

Comment and let me know if there are any smells you like, on the streets.

Hasta La Vista.

Chapter 3

I got mobbed by a bunch of women today! They were all going crazy around me! They just couldn’t get enough! Ahem…not of me that is…but of “Thalaivar” or as he is better known, “Captain”. A huge political do put together by this new political party, which shall remain unnamed, brought forth a sea of humanity to the area where I live. The crowd covered every available bit of space in an obnoxious mélange of feet, hands, slippers, plastic water packets, beetle-nut stained spittle, trucks, flags, banners, body odors (more on that later) and a cloud of dust, kicked up by the afore mentioned pack of women, as they swarmed their way around me towards the direction of the rally. I survived. Barely. One women accidentally speared my foot with the stick she was using for support. While I was magnanimous with my own unnecessary apology she took it literally and abused me for not watching where I was going and actually insinuated that I was merely a roadside romeo trying to “cop a feel”!! A 60 year old lady. With a walking stick. She’s got hopes !!! I retreated quietly just happy she did not attempt to blunt the point of the stick in my guts!

The sea of yellow and red and white continue to swarm around on the roads as I write this and the sounds of crackers bursting and musical horns and engines at full tilt still echo around the corner to my room. The whole situation was summarized neatly by my friend. As we walked back home from the bus stop, he looked around, sighed and said, “So many people in this world with so little to do and here we are working 12 hours a day!” Amen brother!

I did mention odors. I’ll dedicate the next chapter to this topic. And I have not forgotten the push cart kalyana sapaadu. All in the next chapter. Be there or be square.

Chapter 2

Lots of stuff to write about. Where to begin. How about a positive note. The thing I have begun to look forward to everyday. A hot tea at 7:15 in the morning at the road side “tea-kaddai”, while waiting for my bus to come pick me up. In one week its become so much of a routine that the ‘kaddai’ owner knows to have it ready as soon as he sees me. I don’t have to ask. That really gives me a kick. Oh! That’s only 3 ruppees for a delectable “chaya” first thing in the morning shared in the company of auto drivers and miscellaneous wayfarers, pretending to read the tamil paper while they are actually ogling at the pictures of the actresses on the last page. Share damn it! This alone, I feel, is worth the move back from Tampa.

And yes, I did mention a bus. A company bus that takes me to and from work everyday. Tuesdays to Saturdays full day. Sunday half day. Monday off. Déjà vu. I did this for 4 years going to engineering college. Is that why it feels so comfortable? I’m surprised that it feels so comfortable. And of course, at work, the hot coffee at 9:00am brought by the office boy (office thatha?). Tea if you like. All thick. All sweet. Just the way I like it. We do have to pay for it. 2 ruppees and 50 paisa. One in the morning and one in the afternoon to dust away those looming cobwebs of post lunch miasma. Don’t forget the snacks boy who comes around at 4:00pm on the dot. One egg puff for 4 ruppees. Yummy. As long as I’m on food might as well mention breakfast, lunch and dinner. Breakfast and lunch in the canteen at work. A humongous hall filled with about 500 people. Eating. Noisy. Background music of some movie song remixed using classical carnatic instruments. Ten ruppees. Three idli’s and one vadai. One dosai if available. Lunch 17 ruppees. Meals. Two vegetables and okra (ladies finger) sambhar, with pappad, oily and half done. Yummy! And lest I forget, we clean our own plates, using dollops of dish washing powder using just our hands. No sponge. Nothing. Just heap a handful on to the plate, rinse it out and your done. For the sake of sanity you don’t imagine the thousand other people who have done the same thing with that same plate. Dinner is at any restaurant near my house (mansion!) Nothing really to write home about. Or blog about. But yes, food does play an important role not only in my life, but in every Tom, Dick and Hari’s who works in the plant. Strange but true. The plant might be going down the drain but goddamn it my tea better be hot!

Anyway…so much for food. It will pop its beautiful head up from time to time in further blogs. Will cover other stuff in the future. Keep loggin in. If not you’ll never know about the story of me and the push cart ‘kalyana sapaadu’. Aha! Intrigued! Same channel. Same webpage. Till next time. Vanakkam.

Chapter 1

So here I am. The next chapter. Crossroads reached. Decisions taken. Crossroads crossed. Entrain. Detrain. Tiruchirapalli. Rock Fort City. City of temples! Travelled many time zones to get here but Trichy itself seems to be stuck in a time zone of its own!! (copyright soumya srinivasan!!) Call it what you want, it is still middle of nowhere to me! One week gone and I am settling in. I live in a so called mansion, which, for those familiar with irony in the “In-glish” language, will recognize as being far from its namesake. Like “Bombay duck” is a fish. Like the “Rockfort Express” stops at every goddamn station. Like “ladies-finger” means that the lady was an ugly mutant from Venus. Its home for now and there is not much to complain about except for the compulsory cold water bath early in the morning (NO hot water). Upside is its supposed to be good for health, if you are an Emperor Penguin living in Antartica. The 9 by 16 feet of space (I measured!) I call home includes an attached bathroom. The room is meant to be “double occupancy” but an extra person will mean enough space for only one toothbrush between the two of us. There is just no way I’m sharing mine with a stranger! Two metal beds on either side of the room. One covered with the quilt is my bed and the other covered with my junk is storage area. Two metal tables cum filing cabinets arranged in a neat little square in the middle of the room (pushed up against the long wall) is workspace. Clean. No-nonsense. Utilitarian. Not a domicile meant for prolonged habitation. I hope.

So this is the beginning. I will try and blog a post everyday. Incidences, Co-incidences and other general happenings, occurrences and activities will be covered. I consider it an adventure. You might consider it mundane......who cares what you think! For all its worth, please leave a comment if you think of something.

Time for dinner. Logging of.

Heads or tails?

We are all either victims or victors of Probability. Belonging to the latter category means you end up with a large shiny Mercedes parked on the driveway of your million dollar house. Belonging to the former means you still have the Mercedes, but it probably has a broken transmission, a leaky radiator, and the brakes work whenever they feel like it. Oh! And not to forget, your two million dollar house sits in an earthquake zone!

Probability has this nasty habit of jumping up and biting you in the rear when you least expect it. Like the time you got caught in a thunderstorm and you commended yourself on being prescient enough to have picked up an umbrella while rushing out of the house. That elation does a quick left exit as you realize that of the six umbrellas in the closet you picked the one that had been chewed up by the dog!

What about the time you decided that the itch in your crotch was irritating enough for you to invest a few seconds from your life scratching it. Like your other investment in an Ice Cream chain in Alaska, this one also took a turn for the worst, when your female co-worker caught you in the act. Of the one thousand nine hundred and twenty two people who work for the company, of the four buildings the company has and a cumulative sixty floors of office space, probability picked HER to walk into YOUR office at the exact time of your indiscretion. There is a saying out there that goes something like this: “The probability of being watched is directly proportional to the stupidity of the act”. Most of us are not stupid. We know when we are doing something wrong. It makes more sense to say: “The probability of indulging in a stupid act is directly proportional to the fear of being watched!”

Probability is like that big bully in your high school. It has a cruel sense of humor and has no qualms against humiliating you in public, repeatedly. Like the time you were marching at “Eyes right” in your school parade and the elastic on your shorts chose that exact moment to snap. One hand up in a salute and the other holding your shorts up is not exactly the way your PT teacher taught you to do “Eyes right”. Your entire life flashes in front of your eyes and you wonder if you could rewind back to that exact point in time when you decided that today was the day you would not wear a belt. It’s also at this very point in time, you imagine, that the big bully Probability calls all his friends into the room, chuckles and says, “Hey guys, watch this!”

There are people who will argue that events in our life are dictated by choices we make. To those people I say phooey! In this vast playground we call life, choices are just that, choices. You can go this way or that way and the ultimate consequence is unpredictable. All you can do is gear up; wear that helmet, put on those pads, don those gloves, grab that bat, look up as you walk out onto the field and say a quick prayer. You can also hope that the big bully is having a good day and has found someone else to bowl bouncers at.

As for me, having given up the game of one up-man-ship with Probability, I hurt retire; hang up my gloves and walk slowly back to the locker rooms. In this moment of surrender I ask you to please excuse me. I need to go fix the brakes on my Mercedes.

Neighborhood watch

Ever wonder why man decided that living with other humans in a social community was a good idea? Because he took this decision when technology was not advanced enough to allow his noisy neighbors to play techno music at 3 in the morning!

When your friendly neighborhood Neanderthal decided that having his best bud share a cave next to his sounded like a good idea he failed to fully and completely comprehend the repercussions of his actions. Yes, they could now go dinosaur hunting whenever they wanted, or just chill out by the swamp at any time, and there was always someone to come over and play “Whack your wife on the head with this club”, but not in his wildest dreams (and they were pretty WILD back then …remember…we were still quite low on the food chain!) could he predict the outcome of his actions.

Ten thousand years down the line man has built skyscrapers that sore into the smog filled skies, converted alligator infested swamp land into sprawling gated communities (with a few gators still hanging around for aesthetic purposes! Getting your leg bitten-off is a selling point for apartment complexes nowadays!), and has even figured ways to make $600,000 for 1000sqft sound reasonable. Yet, the one thing he hangs his head in shame and cries quietly about at night, away from the pointing fingers and mocking laughter of society, is a way to get his neighbor to turn the volume DOWN on his stereo system to a level where a lobotomy without anesthesia causes less pain. Thumping bass from a stereo system and a good night’s sleep were never meant to exist in the same universe! The laws of physics need to be re-written and Einstein discredited for his theories before we can start to make sense of this equation. If the entire hullabaloo behind parallel universes is true then somebody got it all wrong when they relegated these two to the same one.

For millennia, humankind has trudged across barren, inhospitable land, journeyed across mind numbingly vast oceans, endured the searing heat of the deserts and the bone-chilling cold of the poles, cowered under the constant fear of death at the hands of strange tribal headhunters (looking to add to their collection), suffered from diseases that debilitated the strongest humans and left them at the mercy of the elements, ate the grass on the ground, drank water from stagnant pools, bit and crawled and scratched and clawed their way across innumerable odds, all in search of new, un- chartered territory, providing un-seen vistas and spectacular sceneries, to see the world as god meant it to be seen; in all its splendor and glory!.

Wrong!!

All he was looking for was about 100sqft of land where his annoying neighbor would not drop in un-announced on a so-far wonderful Sunday morning and start to bring him up-to-date on the problems he has with his bowel movements (with sound effects too…oh! how difficult it would be for you to imagine his pain without the sound effects! God forbid that he be so rude as to make you stretch your imagination that much!). No wonder explorers like Christopher Columbus, Ferdinand Magellan and Neil Armstrong decided that decades at sea, away from loved ones and life as they knew it, or risking life and limb riding in a giant bomb transporting you across the infinite expanse of space, were far better than enduring another story involving the neighbor’s travails in the bathroom!!! I am also quite sure that most major discoveries of the past millennia were instigated by an annoying neighbor who drove someone to such desperation that cooped up in a dark, dank and sunless lab for months at an end, trying to determine the size of an atom using nothing more than a broken magnifying glass and imagination, was far less painful than having to put up with the idiot next door!

But wait a minute, it almost seems like there is a positive side to the existence of neighbors! Do we dare say that the life we lead today, filled with the technology, gadgets and modern conveniences, from microwave ovens to hot tubs, computers to digital camera’s, electronic alarm systems (which, by the way does not keep any of your neighbors out!) to electron microscopes, have come about by this deep seated need in an individual to hide his mortal soul from a fate worse than death we call neighbors! This thought almost blows me away. Repugnant as it may seem, maybe those nasty creatures actually do serve a purpose! Could it be true that every living being that the good Lord placed on this earth (including that freak-show-reject neighbor of mine), has a significant part to play on this planet? The months I spent justifying my neighbor’s existence as the price I pay for the sins of mankind, were they all in vain? Am I wrong, so completely wrong?

Hold on…hold on…wait…yeah…I take it all back…no doubts, no second guessing, no uncertainty there…I was right…I was right all along…

Its 3 in the morning and my neighbor just turned the music on again

The American way

I have spent roughly four years in America and have learnt a lot of things (besides how to ‘economically’ use toilet paper, how to drive on the ‘wrong side’ of the road and how to survive on top ramen noodles for breakfast, lunch and dinner!). I have also learnt that though very convenient and tasty taco bell food causes problems the next morning, that clothes can be worn again and again even after a sweaty day spent waiting for the shuttle outside the engineering building in the sun. Empty half a bottle of deodorant on them! Consequently I also learnt that the mixture of sweat and deodorant causes dogs in the colony to look at you with this strange look in their eye, you know, the confused look where they don’t know whether to bite you or be afraid of getting some deadly disease from you!

I also learnt how to stop the smoke alarm in my house from going off when I’m cooking. I stopped cooking! Seriously though, I don’t think anybody took Indian cooking into account when they designed the smoke alarm. We generate so much noise and smoke that the nearby steel mill complained to the Pollution Control Board!

I also learnt that ‘funding’ and ‘assistantship’ are as elusive as Osama-Bin-Laden! Its easier to get Saddam Hussein to hand over his ‘weapons of mass destruction’ than to get one of the prof’s to give you an assistantship!

Here are some other things I have noticed;
-The sprinklers are always left on, even when there is a thunderstorm in progress!
-Half a liter of water costs as much as 4 liters of gasoline!
-You can buy fruits and vegetables only by the pound and milk only by the gallons! Also notice the size of the vegetables and fruits. Each potato is enough to feed a small family of five. Cut into an onion and you’ll cry like you just lost a best friend.
-All clothes are extra large, extra-extra large or just plain old gigantic! I have to shop in the kid’s section to get clothes my size!
-I bought a milkshake the other day and donated it to the ‘feed the poor’ program. A third world country is still surviving on that one milkshake!

I also learnt that you should never leave cooked food out in the open for too long unless you want to start your own biological experiment in the kitchen. I saw pink fungus for the first time the other day! Who said Biology was boring? I also learnt that the smell of spoilt food is the only thing that can mask the smell of my dirty socks!

I also learnt the words of wisdom. Two powerful words, innocuous yet omnipotent. Two words that have held me in good stead over the past year. Words capable of bringing people from different races, ages, colors and nations together and unite them as one under its common banner.
“Waz’ up!”
Use these two words to travel the length and breadth of America. Forget the local customs and language. These two words can loosen the most closed-mouthed Xenophobic local’s lips!

Above all I learnt the importance of one’s family. All the small things that you took for granted back home take on a whole new dimension of importance. The way your father coughed, your mother doing her puja early in the morning, your brother waking you early in the morning by bouncing the tennis ball on the wall. Your sister singing along with a popular film song, totally out of tune. The small things over which you fought over seem so trivial now. Brother’s, sisters, mother’s and father’s left behind at home,17000 miles away, bring back bitter sweet memories. What you would give to have hot, home cooked food ready on the table. Clean clothes whenever you need them. Somebody to fuss over you. I learnt that every moment you spend on this earth is precious. Cherish it. Don’t worry about tomorrow. Make the most of today.