Saving earth...

A friend sent this across...interesting one...
http://www.morganstanley.com/about/community/littlegreenebook/

"Where there's a will, there's a way"....I willed myself to sleep in the bus today :)

Writers block!

I have never been an avid writer, but have been trying to blog regularly...and I got my first dose of Writers Block, when I had to write captions for Parkes n Meetus snaps...it was as though all my sarcasm had disappeared into a chasm (:)). When I tried to write words abandoned me and thoughts stagnated.
Thankfully a couple of days break was all that was needed, am back :)

Innocence...

The other day my 4 year old nephew Harsh picked up a coconut that had fallen onto our terrace from the neighbours tree and delightedly handed it over to Mom. When Mom tried to explain to him that "It is not ours, we should return it", the only answer he could give is, "but it was on our terrace, I found it", not with nonchalence, but with a sweet innocence, the kind that only kids are capable of.
Brings a smile on your face, when you see this kind of an innocence, not governed by societal norms of good and bad, unspoilt by the the ways of the world that we live in and the complex values that we are led to believe in. Such a simple life :)

Rains...

Just read an article in the July edition of RD on how people in the South prepare for the monsoons. And realized that while we all squirm at the thought of a rainy day throwing our mechanical lives off gear, there is something inherent that makes us look forward to the rains, and remain edgy when it doesnt rain...Is it the:
1. fresh smell, not only of the wet sand, but of the greenery all around?
2. green green green that you see all around?
3. right to remain lazily in bed a while longer?
4. pitter-patter of the rain drops on windows?
5. respite that it brings from the sweltering heat?
6. hot ginger tea that we can enjoy on a rainy afternoon?
7. hope that suddenly springs into your heart?

Love the rains...their child-like innocence...the joy they bring... :)

Two fares?

Not sure if it was the media religiously preaching the effects of global warming or the fact that we, at Infy are constantly reminded to "Keep Doors closed" and "Use natural resources judiciously" or the madness of hosur road traffic on a Friday evening or just temporary insanity...I decided to take public transport (BMTC's regular blue buses, in this case Bus route 410) from Silk Board to BTM Layout (Udupi Garden)...
The conductor who had generously smiled at me and asked me to board the bus, quickly pocketed the 3/- that I paid for the ticket. After about a minute, when no ticket was forthcoming, I demanded one...
To my surprise, Mr Conductor gave me the same benevolent smile (though it looked shady this time around) but still the ticket remained strangely elusive.
On my insistence a second time, he told me matter-of-factly, "Saar, ticket 5 rupayee aaguthe"...stunned, but not revealing it, I handed him another 2 bucks (surprised that he dint deny any knowledge of me having given him 3 rs earlier), collected my ticket and watched out of the window in feigned indifference....

Crosswords...

It was one tiring day...at the bus terminus, I noticed a couple of people clutching what looked like a small news paper...
Din't give it much thought, but when the scene kept repeating itself for another day or two...I stood up and noticed (not literally of course!)...some guys were distributing the "news paper" for free...
as as with all things free, it did pique my curiosity.
The news paper in question was a perfect tabloid.
The headlines were sensational...
one day it was how cops in the city jail kept a round the clock vigilance over a prisoner...in the process violating his right of privacy (since they kept a watch over him when he went to the loo as well)
the other day it was about how cops watched a porn movie and then raided the movie hall and hauled the owner for obscenity...
Of course the death of a legislators better half and the murder of a teen in Delhi got their fair share.

"Moose and Molly" and "Calvin and Hobbes" were a huge draw too...but for a person who has grown with them...and I guess I have read most of the C&H strips, this is hardly an incentive.

But the crosswords are something else...and given the fact that there are two of them...the classic one and the bollywood one, din't take long for me to get addicted to the news paper...the fact that it is discounted for us (the free days are long gone), was just another excuse...

End up besting the Classic crossword on most days...the bollywood one though, is a nasty one...try as I might have not been able to crack more than half of it..but then, as they say, I'm getting there :)

Tennis

There was once a time when January's were all about getting up early (as early as 5 am), just to catch a couple of matches at the Australian Open before being packed off to school...September's were all about staying up late (sometimes as late as 2 am) to catch up on the last Grand Slam of the year...
It wasn't just about watching Andre Agassi/Jim Courier/Pete Sampras or Steffi Graf/Monica Seles/Martina Navratilova...it was just about tennis :)

And then seasons changed...and suddenly I had grown out of the habit of watching tennis...lost touch...

But then, seasons changed yet again and here I am watching the Federed and Nadal battle it out for at the most coveted of all grand slam titles, the all-white Wimbledon... :)

My bus travelogue - I

When you spend close to 14 hours a week on a bus, in the company of bored looking strangers, the only passion you share being the dispassion with which you go to work...you tend to indulge yourself into new hobbies (habits?) or re-discover the long lost ones....
Well...with this background I rediscovered the simple joys of reading and indulge myself into radio...
More about reading books later...but for now the radio...
Started off with Radio City (91.1)...they used to play all the good songs and the RJ's were tolerable...
Then overnight (in true filmi style)..they got a new RJ....changed the slogan to "Sikkapatte Kannada, Solpa Hindi, total Bengaluru"...the songs stopped grabbing my attention....and I had to move on....exploring the hitherto unexplored territory of other radio stations...and finally zeroed in on Radio One (94.3)...
Everything about Radio One bugged me...the non-stop-nonsense RJ Prithvi, with all his tring-tring, fill-in-the-blanks, birthday bakra...Chamrajpet Charles with his corny jokes...Prof Ulfat Sultan with his "Sultan School of Speech"...RJ Pallavi (or was it RJ Pavitra) with her 2-English-words 2-Hindi-words 2-Kannada-words sentences...
The only saving grace were the songs...all the new ones...all the good ones...even the not-so-nice ones that you start liking after a couple of times...

Its amazing how the very inane RJ and his jokes take the blues out of your Monday morning...you actually look forward to laughing with Chamrajpet Charles when he talks about the Magic Box umpteen times within an hour...learn the same english words n times from Prof Sultan and inadvertently smile every time he says THE sentence...and of course RJ Shilpa with the usual "darling....", "sweetie"....
The piece of cake, of course is:
In the background, a sexy voice: "Solpa time helthira?"
RJ Shilpa: "Solpa yaake purti ne heltheeni..."...corny, but nonetheless something I look forward to every evening at 6:30... :D

Lifes like that...