My Publicized Life

The following blog post is written as part of Indiblogger’s ‘WeChat’ contest, which is a promotion for the WeChat mobile messaging app. To learn more about WeChat, check their youtube channel at http://www.youtube.com/user/WeChatIndia?feature=chclk The idea of a common platform where anybody could connect – past, present or future, alive or dead, real or fictional – is, I think, brilliant, both as a brand promotion and a general concept. What messages would you leave to your as yet unborn children or grandchildren? Would Gandhi have been able to influence the views of Adolf Hitler? What musical masterpieces would have emerged had A.R. Rahman collaborated with Kishore Kumar, Lata Mangeshkar & Mohd. Rafi at the peak of their prowess? How many more Meiyappans & Vindoo Dara Singhs would Sherlock Holmes have unearthed, had he been part of the investigations in the sordid IPL scandal? The possibilities are endless. My own personal ensemble cast is an eclectic mishmash o...

Who among us has not had the odd flight of fancy, yearning to get past our daily lives and be transported to mysterious, faraway lands? Go tumbling down the rabbit hole, perhaps, like Alice into Wonderland, or walk the lands of middle earth with Frodo. Who among us has not had a lump in our throat as we watched intrepid explorers scale jagged peaks, or traverse the long grass of the Savannah? The quest for travel, exploration & nature is one of the more enduring legacies of Man, one that’s buried deep within all of us. My own secret destination, closer to home perhaps than the Shire, but none the less alluring for it, has always been Ladakh. I was hooked when I chanced upon photos of a seemingly magical land – towering mountains, pristine lakes and surreal landscapes. A place so unlike anything I’d ever seen before that it was hard to believe it existed on the same planet, leave alone the same country. But exist it does. In a little corner of Kashmir bordering China & ...

Riding is one of those things that I find naturally, instinctively appealing. It’s not so much something that defines you, but something that lives within you. The characteristics that define me as a biker are there, have always been there, I think, in me. The physical act is just something that opens the door to those parts of me. It lets me do what I want to do and be who I want to be. And yet, when in conversation someone refers to me as “a biker”, I find it vaguely distasteful. It immediately serves to brand me with a certain stereotype. A rebel perhaps, or a braggart, or a wannabe cool dude, and more often than not something of an oddity. None of which is true. Biking is no more an unnatural act than, for instance, gardening, and is no more rebellious than watching a play is rebellious. It’s not all about high-brow philosophy and Pirsiguesque thoughts, of course. I love all of the little things, starting from the envious little sideward glances I get from fellow commuters as the...

I had the opportunity to listen to a music CD of 'The Laya Project' a few weeks ago. I had never heard of it before, but was in the mood to try something different and this was highly recommended by a friend. No sooner than I heard the music I knew I HAD to watch the film, and no sooner than the first few reels were down, I knew I HAD to attempt a review :) So here goes! Its hard to pin the Laya project down to a stereotype. Its an unconventional film, much more than a music video and not quite a regular documentary. For a film marketed as being shot on the shores of six nations affected by the tsunami, the approach it takes is surprisingly different. You naturally expect it to highlight the grim realities of life...scenes of devastation, gritty tales of hardships and survival against the odds. But what you get instead is the raw beauty of nature. Gorgeous landscapes, glorious sunsets, rolling mists and brilliantly hued skies. And music. Melodious, haunting and earthy, it seems...

There are those refreshingly eye-opening pieces of writing that you chance upon from time to time. Pieces that, by dint of their sheer persuasion and clarity awaken you to points of view that you didn't know existed. That make you sit up and go "Oh! Why didn't I think of that myself" The piece that I'm referring to is not one of those ;-) The article in question is the latest by my old friend and all-round excellent individual Pushkar . One of those chaps who, apart from having humongous brains that spill out on the sidewalk each time he shakes his head, is blessed with a gifted sense of humour, and whose penchant for translating his numerous movie experiences into highly entertaining (and usually fairly accurate) blog posts is only exceeded by his newfound penchant for fatherhood. Which is why I was shocked to read his rather lukewarm take on some of the movies that I personally consider to be the Reel God's Greatest Gift To Humanity. So for the first time in...

Ok, so lets first get the obvious out of the way. The blog has died. Not a pleasant state of affairs, I know. But then there are few things unpleasanter than a chance glance upon a once closely-clasped-to-your-bosom thingy revealing the last entry dated December 25, 2008. An accurate description of the state of affairs would be, I believe, forlorn and woebegone. So here then, is an attempt at resurrection. No clue, really, if it will work. Sometime in the past 373.25 days, I think I managed to lose the writing habit entirely. And in a little corner of my head lurks the fear that these things, once lost, don't really return. But I guess that's a matter beyond me. I'll do what I have to, and leave the rest in the capable hands of the Woman Upstairs. (been trying shed the male chauvinist part of the MCP image for some time now) One of the things I've been thinking about off late, is the meetings with the DAV gang. Going into flashback mode, I was one of those kids that com...

Necessary disclaimer: I have absolutely no first-hand experience in crime. Excluding, that is, my solitary attempt at stealing a fork from a restaurant. Things were going well until I surreptitiously slipped the fork into my front jeans pocket and then sat down...but that's a different story. All of what follows is an innocent man's take on what he perceives is the murky world of crime, based purely on the written word. Ever hear the phrase "Crime doesn't pay"? Well, it does, apparently, and it does so well that it's serious business. Heck, I think it could fall right into mainstream commerce, except for the fact that you're doing something that's banned by the law. But its more than just commerce...it’s a lifestyle. It's deeply entrenched in your thoughts, your beliefs, your entire value system. And yes, criminals do have a value system...and a complex one at that. Both these aspects - the commerce and the lifestyle - are highlighted individually...

For those few hours, I found myself trapped, both mentally and physically. The chair I was seated on, although comfortable enough, was not conducive to easy escape. The demi-darkness served to further alienate me…making the combined assault on my senses all the more unbearable. I was in a living hell. The only small comfort…I wasn’t alone in this nightmare. All around me, I perceived a struggling, squirming mass of humanity, all part of this confusion, all similarly trapped. Ahead of us, covering a significant portion of a vast 70mm screen, lay the culprit - an image of a face, magnified so as to be larger than life, frighteningly close-up, each bristle of facial hair standing out in utmost clarity. And then came the real terror…the sound. From the Dolby Surround Sound speakers came forth a somewhat baritone, mostly nasal and completely tuneless voice, shouting out the lyrics of a song with unbridled gusto…and the image in the screen zoomed back to show a shortish heavyset man, guitar ...