Yearly Archives: 2004

It was the year 2004.

This entry was posted in nostalgia personal on by

Was? Isn’t it 2004 right now, you would say. Well to clarify, I am just quoting a sentence from the past, which was actually based in the future at that point of time. oh well, let me not confuse anyone… this is one of the lines of a sci-fi story which was written god knows when, but was a part of the english text book in class 4th or 5th if I am not wrong. I remember being *really* intrigued with the very numeral 2004 as it striked me as so different from the 1980’s. In CBSE schools we used to have the ‘Gulmohar Reader’ for english then. The series used to start from class 1 and would continue till class 6th I think. I don’t think that they have it in the syllabus anymore.

There was this particular chapter which talked about the year 2004. It was really difficult for me to imagine at that point of time what the world would be like. The turn of the century and a new series was quite overwhelming for me. Add to it the fact that it seemed *so* far away since there was more than a decade to go. That was all I needed for my futuristic imagination to take off on a wild horse. I don’t remember much of the outline of that chapter but what stands out distinctly in my mind today is something about hi-tech homes. The kinds where you have the bathtub adjusting the water temperature when it senses that you are in the house and depending on the season or your body temperature whether you want a hot bath or a cold one. The kinds where your garage gate opens automatically, the car steers itself (you don’t need a driver), the house lights up itself, the door lets you in (by ascertaining you aren’t an intruder) and the automatic electric kettle whistles indicating some fresh tea/coffee brewing.

What strikes me as remarkable is the fact that inspite of it all being so unfathomable then, not only have we passed that fantasy of the author, but we have achieved more..maybe more than what the author was able to imagine in his apocalyptic view of 2004.

HG wells is considered as the man who invented tomorrow. The father of science fiction wrote of stuff that never existed in his time, but later we all saw the same stuff taking place in terms of advancement and technology (or deterioration) . Makes me think that a lot of hi-tech stuff does probably get inspired from fiction writers. I am actually expecting teleporting to be the in thing in a couple of years! Well this is just a ‘bhoomika’ for my next post.. an attempt at sci fi :P. I’ll be(am) back.

What’s love got to do with it?

This entry was posted in social on by

Do we really need a ‘Valentine day’ to express our love?

Anyhow, in keeping with the tradition I have these hearts floating on my blog now! Those who aren’t able to see it, please load the page in IE..
sorry couldn’t find a script which works in all browsers. This year being a leap year, girls get to propose! So love and let love …

It could be verse than this!

This entry was posted in creative writing humour poetry on by

Warning: 1. For 18 years and above.
2. Written in college with a fellow benchmate during a sleepy lecture, I dont even remember who it was. Both of us took alternate turns to add lines to the nonsense, the italicized ones being mine.



This is a story,
of a thin, young man.
So thin, he ought to have been fed,
quintals of horse gram.

A teacher by profession,
well, would just pass for one.
A thin creature by constitution,
he would often faint under the sun.

But the queer thing about him was,
he had no bulge out *there*.
And a very obvious part of it,
was a lot of hair.

What happened to his wife,
we all did wonder.
Everytime seeing that patch,
did nothing to make her feel fonder.

Alas! what a pity,
’cause his wife was pure gold.
And one fine day,
her macho neighbour was a bit too bold.

A week or two all was well,
but two months later it began to swell!
One night when it was coming too much in the way,
She cried, ‘Oh Hell!!’

Her shriek awoke her husband,
And he shrieked even louder.
Not having fathered any kids,
a STRONG baby made him prouder.

He looked between his legs,
and then he looked at the sky,
He put 2 & 2 together,
and then began to cry.

Having been burdened,
all his life by ill fate,
Seeing the baby’s bulge,
He forgave his mate.


Ek Hasina Thi – The PYT revenge

This entry was posted in movie/play/event/book review on by

After a long time I got to watch a movie in a hall. I went just because it was one of the much talked about Ramu movies, which are ‘zara hatke’ as the papers call them, but going by the way Ramu had disapointed me with ‘Bhoot’ I was a little apprehensive. (That’s another story altogether, but lemme mention that I laughed my way through ‘Bhoot’, and I wasn’t alone in doing that). I was already aware of the basic plot thanks to our papers and the hype, but I tried emptying my mind of all prejudices and watching this movie with a clean slate.

So as we all know Saif Ali Khan (SAK from now) is a smooooooth operator, charming his way into young nubile things…err their hearts too. His modus operandi involves shocking PYT’s by saying the actual thing he intends, feigning jest when it suits his convenience and teasing them with the real thing once in a while. He does the same with Urmila Matondkar (Ummmm.. ok Um from now). Um is supposed to be this PYT (pretty young thing, in case you were still trying all kinds of abbreviations) who seems to attract males like magnets. Ramu tries showing this by showing a forgettable character – a neighbour trying to be fresh with her, when his wife is away. He also shows that Um seems to be pretty adept at judging what the guy *actually* wants, but somehow this judgement or intuition of hers is very shortlived the moment SAK steps into her life. She shuts out all the little warning signals that her brain might have ever sent to her. It makes one think that Um is actually a dumb blonde in disguise. Anyhow, so SAK initially gets the same reactions as her neighbour, but does the smart thing of obliging Um by saving her handbag from a thief and now swishes into her life. Um is the typical bait for him, who thinks that SAK is gonna marry her sometime soon, even though he lives out of a suitcase, 3 days in delhi and 2 in bombay (she never bothers abt the weekends).

One fine day, SAK requests her to accomodate a (ghastly looking) friend for some hours before he hops in to a flight for HongKong or some place. She obliges. The guy turns out to be some slug from the underworld and he conveniently gets killed in an encounter, with the address of Um’s place in his pocket. Needless to say, Um is now under full suspicion. To top it all, she does nothing to defend herself, as she has been expertly brainwashed by her BF. During this sequence, Ramu uses the usual Bhoot ploys to create alarm in this situation, by throwing normal everyday sounds at the viewer suddenly in an attempt to scare him. Things like the doorbell ring, the phone toot, the pressure cooker whistle now seem to do be laden with a sinister air.

Um is taken into police custody and has some tough time being the ‘apsara talkies’ as she’s called by the jail goondi. Her cell mate tries to give her an intro to jail life and in doing so warns Um of a certain goondi who bites off ears. Very predictably, she herself turns out to be the ear biting menace, Ramu you are getting really predictable now. And as predictable as you are again, we are spared any ear biting scenes.. c’mon that mention is just so that the jelly baby that Um has become, quivers just a little more.

SAK, the smooth criminal that he is, in the meanwhile pretends that he’s trying to save Um somehow. At the same time, Um has been taken under the wing of the actual Ma of the jail, who’s respected not only by the prisoners, but even the police ‘Ji’ her. She’s the only one who tries to drill some sense into Um’s brain (realises that Um is a dumb blonde in disguise 🙂 ) and introduces her to the hard reality. After several such moves from SAK and Ma, Um finally realises the true character of SAK and now plots revenge. No, we are spared any durga avatars or the like thankfully, to synonymise with the change in character. The only thing that Ramu shows is Um cutting off her Rapunzel locks (wonder how they stayed as set and curly as ever, after staying in a prison with an ear eating monster for months) to around shoulder length. Wonder what she achieved with this.

With the help of Ma, Um manages to escape the jail and heads for Delhi where Ma has everything set for her. Loads of cash, gun lending goondas, a secluded place (read chandni chowk in delhi), swanky cars, they all are at her beck and call. Suddenly a lower middle class girl like her, who’s not even supposed to be able to afford a cell and a deo (that’s the reason the police gave for suspecting her) finds herself driving mean machines.

Now Um follows SAK as closely as possible (much like the pug puppy in the hutch roaming ad). She watches him rolling in cash and in bed with his new girl friend. She watches him dealing with the trigger happy underworld dadas. She follows him around in an unusually barren Connaught Place and on an empty Shanti Path. She follows him a lot around PVR Saket and watches over him at Buzz. Having meticulously planned his death, she waits for the opportune moment and strikes. SAK suddenly finds one of his loyal friends murdered but doesnt suspect anything. A little later he finds himself in a soup with the underworld. Again, he suspects someone from his own clan rather than the delicate Um. All this while, the police has been tracking Um’s moves and as is traditional, always misses her when she’s closest. Due to her pug puppy habits, they manage to uncan the gang of SAK’s underworld slugs. In the meantime, Um manages to suitably bump into SAK when he’s in the thick of things and offers him help, the selfless lover that she is. At one of the encounters that the police has with SAK, he is enlightened by them that it is Um who’s been plotting revenge all this while. SAK and Um have a confrontation where Um again feigns fear and agrees to do as he bids, but later turns the tables on him. She manages to take him to a secluded place somewhere in the hills in some godforsaken place, where no human ever turns up and executes the death sentence she’s planned.


All in all an eminently watchable movie.

The Delhi Blog Mob 3

This entry was posted in blogmeets blogs DBM's delhi social on by (updated 2801 days ago)

New Delhi, 13 Jan

Delhi experienced its first Blog Mob today at TGIF, Vasant Vihar at around and after 4pm. This mob, which went on the lines of the latest fad – flash mobs, had several ppl of the blogging community from Delhi meeting up at a designated place and time, but unlike flash mobs, this one didn’t dissipate as fast (this mob kept waiting to be kicked out). It was organised by a series of people having a fetish for the letter ‘S’, namely Sandhya, Simple Simon, Sw Ne, and also Sakhi. Bloggers started trickling in at the decided time and took full advantage of the Happy Hours. When our correspondent reached the venue, she was greeted by a lively mob of around 15, who all wanted to meet the person with ‘music on her blog’. There were a few ppl coochie cooing in a corner and taking advantage of the smoke screen enveloping around them (a creation of their own incessant smoking) to do unimaginable things. Sw Ne was seen getting bubbly as she took in a lot of the same, it explained her amorous advances towards Khotta. Beauty certainly lies in the eyes of the be(er)holder, Kyonki Khotta certainly is no Depp and he was painfully reminded the same by all.

Lone Cypress was not so lonely since she had a date for the eve (wonder how she landed up with a China Man to get rid of her lonelyness, unless he has *something* of Leviathan proportions). May be Shubir coined in a phrase like ‘Old Chinese Saying – Get in the company of a man with *something* of Leviathan proportions and you shall not want anything else in life’ to impress her.

Jill of all trades aka Newton’s apple seemed to be the youngest blogger around but was found to be not so. On being provoked somewhat, she vehemently claimed that she loved Delhi enough to spend an entire lifetime here. Senjam Raj sekhar was seen doing what he does best, improve his PR with the people around him. Soumya was seen quietly observing all around him and helping Lone Cypress and Shubir by creating enough smoke screens around them which gave competition to the next day’s fog that was to envelop Delhi.

Priya (yeah that’s her name, not Mansi, as she insists) was seen merrily sipping Bloody Mary from all the glasses which held her potion. The effect has been noticed in certain pictures that she took of the crowd. They have been censored to protect identities.

Ajay had to peer over the crowd since he was at a higher level than the rest, not intellectually but because of his height. Asterix the gaul, was seen downing a lot of potion (even oblix’s share). Arnav (he’s not anonymous any more) was seen chatting up all members of the fairer sex who were in his vicinity. He didn’t change his vicinity as often as Deepan who was observed giving a lot of competition to Sw Ne for her double meaning, suggestive comments aimed at Khotta (of course, they went over his head, since he was concentrating on his lips too much, hoping they would get lucky). Abhishek Saxena was heard humming all the songs that were dedicated to the bloggers.

Ranjan was seen to stride in quite late, and he seemed to be searching for someone. It was a general perception, that he’s searching for his soulmate and was expecting to find one at the blog mob. His face said it all when he DID spot someone familiar. He stared at Sanjem for around 5 minutes (boring a hole in his head with his stare) and then informed him that he’s Sanjem Raj Sekhar. They both looked at each other as if they would kill each other. According to records, they both were supposed to have met at a debate organised in guawhati.

Beautiful life was seen being shy and coy and she hurried out the earliest she could (maybe she had someone waiting with whom she’s not so shy). WonderBug was seen giggling with Priya, when the latter would start searching for her Bloody Mary and with Deepan who was observed to be nose diving in his drink. Jasprit was seen handling all the waiters as they got confused with the huge orders. Sanjay arrived quite late with a confused look, wondering whether he had landed at the right place, but after some time, his confused look was replaced by an interested one, which revealed that this sort of thing was new to him. Amit netahoy Agarwal was the last one to arrive, and was seen getting his dimpled profile clicked by the official photographers.

A couple of bloggers were found absconding and there were a lot of hushed murmurs in the crowd about their whereabouts. Somersault aka irony aka Oddity aka Fried green apple (whatever) was missing along with Heretic. Scout Finch was reportedly drowning in her work. Her boss was later found murdered in her office.

The organisers presented everyone with a CD that had been tediously compiled by them. The CD was played throughout the evening with one track dedicated to each blogger. A vote of thanks was given to the organisers by our correspondent.

But this leaves a lot of questions unanswered. Would Ranjan ever find his soulmate? Would Jill of all trades ever settle down in Delhi. Would Khotta’s lips ever get lucky? Would Lonely Cypress ever learn to cook chinese? Would Deepan perfect his aim of nosediving in his drinks? Yeh sab jaan-ne ke liye dekhte rahiye HUM (B)LOG!