Who watches the Watchmen?

Shakespeare was a genius. To be or not to be …that is definitely the question.

Earlier I used to think that he was just a 16^th century play writer who had a long sight to write screenplays for some of the current bollywood movies.

Not anymore. He captured the human dilemma in just one simple sentence.

The sudden reason for my epiphany about Shakespeare is a book called Watchmen which I finished recently (Finished reading. Not finished making airplanes out of its pages or drawing moustaches to characters which is what I usually do with books). The book is old. But since I have taken extraordinary efforts to distance myself from the serious literature, it’s new to me. And this book is a serious material though I was somewhat deceived by the fact that it’s a comic. Besides being a serious book, it’s also a very disturbing book. The only book which disturbed me more than this was a book on “puberty issues”. Given to me in my late teen years. The person was a few years too late in giving me that book and I never went beyond first few pages. But whatever I read made me feel as if I was going through that phase again. It was horrible.

Watchmen is disturbing because it makes us ask questions of which answers we already know but don’t want to acknowledge that we know and ignore them. See what I mean? It made me write a completely incomprehensible sentence just for the heck of it.

It makes you ask things like what is right and what is wrong? Who is right and who is wrong? Who decides that? Is everything worth in the end? More importantly it forces you to make a choice in the end.

Personally I don’t like to choose. I can’t even choose between ice cream and chocolate. I prefer my ice cream topped with chocolate rather than choosing any one of it. That’s why all that Shakespeare quote and dilemma thing up there. And I am not good at asking questions. Come to think of it I am not very good at giving answers either.

The book deals with superheroes and their mentality and psychology behind their masks. I mean what sane person would wear his underwear over his tights? Why would he wear tights in public in the first place?

There are many books out there which deal with similar storyline. But its approach and the fact that it’s a comic book – a graphic novel if you will – is what makes Watchmen different. You don’t expect comics to behave in such a way. You don’t want comics to behave in such a way. Being a comic lets it not only tell but show you things that are very real. Or could be real.

There a reason why this book is the only comic to win a Hugo Award and to be listed in the Time magazine’s all time 100 greatest English novels.

“You introduced me to Harry Potter, I give you Watchmen”. My cousin told me solemnly while handing me the book. His entire demeanor was that of king presenting someone the knighthood.

Harry Potter’s is a world where we don’t live in but want to. At least I do. And Watchman’s is a world where we live in but don’t want to.

One thing I can say without dilemma is that this maybe the first Alan Moore book that I have read but it definitely isn’t the last.

Orkut and Associated Craziness

Orkut is a strange place. Addictive and ridiculous. Addictive because so many crazy profiles. Ridiculous because so many crazy profiles.
Sarcastic profiles are a fun to read. But serious, sincere, love-sick and so called Gothic and dark brooding profiles are even funnier.
I am going to write about the funnier stuff.
My hands are itching to copy-paste the links here. But you must have seen your share too. (If you are not on Orkut or haven't heard about it then you are either a new born or have visited the Planet Earth recently.)

The fun begins with the first section : About Me (Now it has moved to second place. Relationship status is the first section now I believe).

I am a fun loving guy/gal who loves to live life to the fullest. (Yeah and I just cannot wait to give up my life in half so that I can begin my journey towards the afterlife).
I hate people who lie.(Include yourself in that list too then. In the history mankind their are only 3 people who have never lied in their whole life. George Bush Jr., Dick Cheney and Tony Blair.) (When I started blog I promised myself never to express my political opinions. To stay clear of that path. But now I just couldn't help myself. See. I kinda lied to myself too. Hate me.)
I am a shy person. (If you are shy then what on earth are you doing on a social networking site.)
And there are those who write essays in this section. Some very very wordy lines, mostly taken from elsewhere. What they hate and love about themselves, life and universe in general. Value of friends in their life. Kinda like Ms. Universe speech.

The next funny part is the personal section. I don't even want to talk about ideal match.
Let's move on to Ideal First Date:
HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA
Candle light dinner on a quiet evening. With Frank Sinatra singing in the background. Cupid practicing his archery on us. Then a nice stroll on a beach. And all is fine with the world. (Reality bites girls. No guy in his right mind would ever spend so much money on a first date. Unless he is insanely in love. Get ready for a movie and if lucky then dinner. According to me the ideal first date is the one that ends with a promise of a second date. What more could one want? By the way, about that stroll on the beach. It is high time you give a visit to Dadar chowpatty. This is the perfect season.)

Let's get to the last part. The Photos.
I can put up with people posting the pics of their dogs and cats with captions like cho chweeeeettt.....or isnt that the cutest little thing ever? I can even tolerate people posting foto of some random baby on internet with same captions used for pets. Like above for example.
But not those who use some strange dark themed pics. With captions like fallen angel, bleeding phoenix, tears of world or any crap like that. These captions can also be their display names.

I can easily write many articles on these topics. In fact when I thought about writing it, I thought of much more. But it's slipping out of my mind now.

I have the right to write all about it because none of above is true in my case. You can check my profile on Orkut. In fact I haven't changed anything in my profile in over a year. After all fallen angels always have same things to tell.

Irony of Blogging

I spent around 2 weeks creating a blog. I changed the template at least 6 times. I like to blog. At least I would like to think so. It's really ironic that after all this I can't think of anything to write. And I am reduced to writing such utter rubbish. Sheeesh

Falling Hard

Last week I had my first accident at gym. It was due.
Clumsiness is my middle name along with laziness, obnoxiousness, and many more.
And many times there wasn't even my fault.
This time it wasn't any different either. Here's what happened.
I was standing by the weight rack thinking about what weight to pick up. There was this guy doing dumbbell lunges behind me with his side at me. He stretched a bit too much I guess, but he lost his balance and fell on me. I stumbled forward and hit my left knee on the rack. And I shouted out loud. As if that was not enough he got up by putting all his weight on me. Though I realized that much later as I was more or less baffled at that moment.
I am just great full though for two things.
He was not a heavy weight material. At least not by my standards. And thank god for reflexive actions. He dropped the dumbbells before falling all over me.
Needless to say it provided a little amusement to people around. I did not feel embarrassed though. I quit being embarrassed for such things a long time back. It's a part of my life.
I have been clumsy for as long as I remember.
There is a temple at Khar that we used to visit when I was a kid till one was built in Vile Parle itself. One day we were at that temple at evening. I saw a huge bed sheet or something like that hanging in the backyard. As a kid who had nothing better to do, I decided to run past it (Run past it or through it or whatever). What I failed to see that the bottom ends of that sheet were also tied. Basically it was a vertical trampoline. I ran towards it, bumped against it, was thrown back and don't remember what happened next. I wonder why.....

Just a couple of months back when I was returning home with a friend, I just stumbled and nearly landed on my face. At the last moment I managed to somehow avoid that. It was too not my fault entirely. A pitcher of beer was partially responsible for that.

I used to go to the New English School at Bandra till 5th standard. That time the school hired the infamous Lele's bus service. Man was that dude huge or what. Put 2 to 3 contestants from the Biggest Loser together. Make him wear a white shirt with upper buttons open and a golden chain. Add an admirable amount of arrogance, carelessness and voila!
In those days there were innumerable amount of jokes were born at his expense.
His bus service was as bad as him. If not worse.
If I describe the conditions inside the buses in the monsoon season you won't travel by any bus for days. So I'll pass.
This happened when I was in KG or 1st standard. I am not sure. As greedy as he was, Lele had a very limited number of buses. As a result the buses used to be packed like local trains at peak hours. Once I was standing in the queue to get off the bus as the my stop was nearing. As the driver put break everybody in the queue collapsed on me. And my nose started bleeding. When I finally got off the bus, my aunt who was there to pick up me and my cousin asked about this. I told her everything. Next day she went to Lele and for the first time I saw him nervous. Immediately more buses were added to the service. I literally had to spill my blood for the betterment of the student community. Moral - Not my fault.

Chronicles of Weekend 2

Last few days were really gloomy. Don't remember much except for work. Even last weekend was blur. I expected this weekend to be the same too. But it was different.

It started Friday evening. I got to annoy the HR. And suddenly everything was great with the world. We all had a gala of time pissing him off. For an HR he is not dumber. Just dumb(Dev my man, if you are reading this please understand that I respect you. But don't expect me to give it to you. You will always be my verbal punching bag).

In the evening while I was waiting for my friend to pick me up, I heard this AIDS awareness ad. Jawan hoon, nadaan nahi. Targeting the youth. This ad campaign usually ends telling that 33% of AIDS affects are youth. That's why this ad is targeted towards the young. Now I have a question. What about the rest 57%? (It's 57 right? or 87? or 39? Being weak in maths is hereditary) Why target the 33%? What about the not-young-but-still-have-AIDS people? A campaign should run targeting them too. Budha hoon aur nadaan bhi hoon.

Afterwards me and friend went to Kobe's and emptied their kitchen. Then we just hanged out till the time when we had no choice but to return to home. Meanwhile I called up my Mom and convinced her that I was working late and will grab a bite on my way back.

Saturday I had to attend a 50th wedding anniversary function. Two of my grand dads were married on the same day. A small recreation took place. One of the "grooms" cracked some inappropriate jokes in a way only he can. Inappropriate but funny as hell. At dinner time I had to curb my vicious natural tendencies and restrict myself to only one scoop of ice cream. That was not funny. Not funny at all.

Sunday's highlight was my yet another futile attempt to find a converter for PS2. I am this close(put your index finger and thumb so close that only a thread can pass) to permanently damage my TV so that Dad will have to get a new one which can support NTSC. But I fear that he will see through my plan and the consequences will be rather unpleasant for me. In the evening there was another function at my uncle's place. But being a health conscious person I did not eat anything.

As a result I was awarded with a reduction of 2 kilos this morning.

One can also say that I eat 2 kilos worth of food at one go.

P.S. This is something I forgot to add before. At the anniversary function there was a photo of all the then kids including me. I must have been a 10 year old. I showed that pic to my sister and told her that my teeth don't look too big and out of the place now as they used to all those years back. Her response was that in all those year I have taken efforts to make my body size match my teeth. That's why they don't look out of the place now.
After she gets married I'm going to use her cupboard to store all my stinking socks and wet towels as a revenge.

Things That Should Not Be Given As Gifts

I buy the worst gifts in the world. Well...not in the world but among all the people I know, have heard or seen in my life. And actually I am the second in the line of buying the worst gifts. Want to know who's number one? Read on.

For years I have bought same thing for my sister. I always gifted her nail-paint. That too in shade of red. Always. Whenever I used to go shopping for her birthday, I somehow always used to end up picking red nail-paint. Now I am wiser. I don't gift her anything anymore.

Once I gifted my cousin a mouth organ. What the hell was I thinking? He couldn't even whistle. I don't think he can whistle now either. But a mouth organ? I just went into a shop. Mouth organ was the first thing I saw. Bought it. Gift wrapped it. Presented it.

One of the most recent incident was really embarrassing. It was Diwali. And Bhau-beej. Someone had this great idea about family get-together. Now the Pangaonkar clan is beyond counting, but even our small close family gathering could mean dozens and dozens of people. It was a special occasion. So it was pretty overwhelming. I counted and as it turned out that there were going to be some 12-13 sisters expecting gifts from us(That means me and other unfortunate brothers). Personally I think that Raksha Bandhan and Bhau-Beej are both some kind of conspiracies. It's a bloody extortion. And we have to feel happy about it.
Now I was broke and low on budget as always. Besides it's girls we are talking about. I had to buy same thing for everyone. I finally found some real nice turkish hankies packed in an even nicer plastic bags, which by the way I suspect cost more than the hankies itself. It took me nearly 3-4 hours to gift wrap all of them. Because the process of gift wrapping has many sub processes like buying a wrapping paper, cutting the paper, wrapping the gift, finding that the paper size was small and you had to use lot of tape to hold it together, unwrapping the gift, cutting the paper again in right size, then again wrapping the gift, running out of wrapping paper, running to store to buy more paper and just because I am going then buying 1 kilo of potato and onion and other things, then finally having the finished product. Anyways. Then the big day arrived. As I was handing out the gifts, I could see the excitement on their faces. After opening the gifts, excitement was replaced by disappointment. But I chose not to see that. Now one really cute cousin of mine exclaimed that I gave her socks as a gift. She did not stop at that though. She went on telling everybody present there that I was giving socks as present. By the way has anyone noticed that cuter the kid, the more devil he/she is? She even nicknamed me as socks bhaiyya. That's probably the worst nickname I ever had. And I have had some nasty nicknames. Next time I visit her, I am buying her a dozen pairs of different kinds of socks and then explain to her the difference between a hankie and a sock.

I am always at the giving end of the bad gifts. To be on the receiving end is no less embarrassing. It was few years back. My college friends gave me some gifts for my birthday. A useless movie audio cassette that I never listened. A greeting card which was surprisingly good and I really liked it. I had it with me for many years. The last gift was a pack of condoms. Now why would they give me condoms? I kept thinking for a minute. Was there some kind of hidden meaning to it? Some kind of metaphorical gesture? Then I thought nah. These are MY friends. A complete absence of deep thinking and an awesome amount of shallow behavior was the basis of our friendship. A friendship that is still going strong thanks to that solid foundation which till date is intact. They just gave me that as a prank. Now they were expecting party from me. I opened the pack and handed them one condom each. When I ran out of stock, I went to nearby medical shop and bought more for remaining friends. As it turned out my dear friends had bought my gift from the same shop. A medical shop with large stock of condoms near a college. Now that's a gesture. After giving them the return gifts, I told them to do something which I can not write here. I bested my friends. I emerged victorious. But my happiness lasted for only one year.

On my next birthday, they gifted me a diaphragm.

Minting Money?

Is making money really this easy these days?
I would have answered negative, but with emergence of Google AdSense and other likewise thingies, it at least seems so. Of course for AdSense to work, one has to have those many hits on the site. And to have hits, the site should contain actual useful material rather than some random guy talking about his strange life stories(I think I know that guy).

Now the times have changed. Enter SMS advertising. Get ads on your mobile, read them and get paid. Check this out.

People have claimed that they actually have stated making money. But does it really happen?

Success is Sweet

Yesterday was a joyous day. A very special occasion. After the gym, I measured my weight again. I had lost over 1 kilo. In just one week. I was so happy that my friend was sure that I gained all that I had lost. One week of workout finally paid off. One week of control over eating habits. Tongue celibacy if you will. This part was more difficult than the workout itself. I don’t eat much junk food, but whatever I consume at home is sufficient to make up for it.

When I told mom about my achievement, she replied with a cynical tone “Darya mein khaskhas”. Any other day this comment would have doused my spirit. But no sir, not yesterday. The last time I lost weight when I was in 9^th grade. Because of jaundice. It was always ladder up after that. From what I heard people become half their size in jaundice. I had merely lost 2 kilos. And I was strictly eating only boiled vegetables and other all oil-free tasteless stuff. When my tuition class sir heard about this, he said that Bhushan was not suffering from jaundice but jaundice was suffering from Bhushan. In Marathi, his actual words were Kaavil la Bhushan jhala hota.

So you can probably imagine my happiness over losing my weight. It was time for celebration. And I celebrated it by eating nearly half of the fresh homemade mango ice-cream.

Tiger Story

This is something that I heard from a friend this morning. Thought you should hear it too. It's about four friends and a tiger.
These four friends went for a camping trip in jungle. As they were setting up the tents, suddenly a tiger appeared out of nowhere. Friends started running for their dear life. With tiger after them, they didn't have much time to think. Suddenly they came across a square in the middle of the jungle. Friend number 1 took the left side road while number 4 went for the right road. Number 2 and number 3 went straight forward. Now tiger was smart. He could count. Two is better than one. So he too took the straight road and went after number 2 and 3. Seeing this both of them started sweating profusely. Number 2 could climb trees so he climbed the nearest tree. Now tiger could climb trees too but this tree was coconut tree. So he continued chasing number 3. Poor number 3. Now he was sure that he was going to be the snack of the king of the beasts. But suddenly he came across a diversion in road. A road going straight and one going left. He had an idea. He signaled the tiger by lifting his left hand showing that he was turning left but went on running straight. Tiger took the left hand side road and went there. Happy with his fast thinking number 3 kept on going. Incidentally four friends reunited in the next square, where number 3 boasted of his feat. As he finished his tale the tiger appeared there too. Now mad with anger for being fooled by these two-legged creatures. He had lost respect in his community and other creatures were soon going to hear about this incident. It was now matter of pride. With renewed vigor he started chasing those four. Again our protagonists started running. As luck would have it they again came across a square. This time number 1 took the road on the right side. Number 3 took the left side while number 2 and 4 went straight. Number 2 again climbed on the nearest coconut tree and tiger went after number 4. Number 4 now on the verge of wetting his pants -totally lucky- came across a diversion in the road. One going straight and one going left. Remembering what number 3 had told earlier, he too signaled with his left hand and went straight. But he under estimated the intelligence of the tiger. A fast leaner as he was, our chief antagonist was not fooled the second time and he too went straight. Seeing this number 4 just crossed the verge and wet his pants but kept on running. But again he came across a diversion. One straight and one going right. He took his chance and signaled the tiger with right hand and went on straight. Tiger fell for this one and took the road on the right side. Number 4 would have stopped to thank the heavens but fearing that if the tiger came back he would have to go to the heavens personally to thank, he kept on going.
Again those friends met on the next road crossing. There number 4 shared his experience. As he finished narrating, they all heard a deadly roar behind them. The return of the king. The tiger was now seething with fury. Enraged for being fooled two times in a row he was now determined to have at least one of those four for lunch.
As you can imagine, those four again started running. Again they came across a square. This time number 4 took the left road and number 3 went right. While number 2 and number 1 went straight. Number 2 again climbed the nearest coconut tree and the tiger went after number 1. Number 1 too came across a diversion with left side road. He tried the trick of number 3 but the tiger was not fooled. Afterwards he came to a diversion with a right hand road and a straight one. Hoping to repeat what number 4 did, he signaled with his right hand and went straight. But the tiger was not fooled this time either. In fact he became angrier(if that was possible) because number 1 thought that he was stupid and would fell for the same tricks second time. He roared and increased his speed. Now number 1 having lost all hope, did not have much strength left to run any more. To his dismay the road came to an abrupt end with cliff at the end. What was he going to do?
He decided to take his one last chance. He moved to the left side of the road and slowed his speed. And then signaled the tiger with overtake/go ahead sign. The tiger went running straight ahead, fell down and made his species even more endangered.

Moral of the Story. It doesn't matter if you are as stupid as number 2 to take same road again and again knowing the dangers, as long as you have a unique talent which can save your skin. Sometime three times in a row.

Alternate Moral of the Story. Be smart like number 2 and and always take the sure road when in the time of emergency. You may not be lucky like number 1, 2 and 3 who kept on experimenting and nearly lost their life. And every time your enemy may not be stupid like that tiger.

Another Alternate Moral of the Story. There is no moral you punk. All those management moral stories flying over the Internet and emails have made us think that everything in life teaches us something. But since you have taken the efforts to read through all this crap, I'll not disappoint you. Here's your lesson. When at the end of the road, slow down. Somethings in life are to be done just for fun. Raise your glasses of frosty beer and say cheers. Just like those friends did when they planned their next camping trip at a luxurious resort.

Me - A Comic Relief

Usually in many serious movies there is a character which provides comic relief with his antics and stupidity. I am beginning to feel that I am one.
A public clown.

I provide lot of amusement to all the gymmers(is there such a word? It better be because I am going to use it). Especially my trainer. Begin your day with a laugh. I make everybody's day. When trainer arrives, he is usually is a serious mood. By the time my session is complete, he is in a very jovial and happy mood. Not just him but literally everyone in gym. Laughter is supposed to be the best medicine. I make people healthy. I should be the trainer at the gym.

Now the other gymmers are nice. So they don't stare at me and and laugh out loud. They just keep on doing their own stuff. But that does not mean that they don't look at me. Corner of their eyes are always towards me. And a stifled laugh. When I look at them, suddenly that laugh turns into a warm smile. Nice people. It won't be long before more and more people turn in for morning exercise and a good piece of entertainment.

Cardio exercises are no problem as long as machines are manually programmed except for ellipticals. Those are pain in thighs.

But the real fun is with the weight training and other stuff. For some strange reasons the dumbbells get heavier with every passing moment. "Come on..that's just eight. Give me seven more". Be happy with what you got moron. Eight should be enough. Why do you want more? Didn't your mama teach you not to be greedy? I think that he gets a real kick out of it.

But compared to what he makes me do next, dumbbells feel like wooden stick.
Back extensions!!!!
See that pic(That's not me!! Just a pic from the net). I am supposed to bend completely from my waist so that I can see my toes. Why would I want to see my toes? I don't come to the gym to see my own toes. I can see my toes anytime I want to see my toes. I just have to bend a little forward "while standing" and there they are. Just that my stupid tummy comes in the way. Otherwise I wouldn't even have to bend.
I have to bend completely anyway. No problem. And then I have to come up. With hands crossed over my chest. Now that's a problem. Again the dumbbell conversation is repeated. For even stranger reasons I seem to be stuck on number eight. This too I can do only for eight times before I bend down and stay in that position until I use my hands or someone pulls me up.

I also managed to pull off some antics while I was stretching on a sadistic looking machine. How did I do that is impossible to tell. Maybe you can stop by my gym sometime and see for yourself and you too can have a good laugh.