Aug 29, 2009

The Online Detective

Rrrrnneeemm…my phone rang.
I saw on my mobile display a blinking ‘Ronnie Raj calling’. It is him. The upcoming music composer.
“Hello...” I said.
“Hi, buddy, it’s me, didn’t you understand me?”
“Yes, Ronnie, tell me...what’s the matter? I was just hearing your last composition. It’s an enigmatic kind of music. In some places, I doubt whether it reflects some Salil Chowdhury elements. But in overall appearance, it’s grand…and it’s…”
“Oh...stop it yar...”, I was interrupted. He continued, “…I called you not to talk these matters. Music…that’s my profession and passion as well. But now music is just a trivial thing as I am disturbed with some personal matters…”
“What kind of disturbances you face now…mental or physical?” I asked. Because, I did not get the seriousness of the problem that shakes him.
He said, “It is not physically. It’s mentally. I am so confused”
“Tell me in detail”, I demanded.
“Nothing yar…I think you remember the girl that I told you about. The one I met on Orkut”
“Which one? That college going engineering graduate? What happened to her? Is that the girl with whom you supposedly sharing some intimate personal bond? Did you open your heart at her?”
“Yeah, it’s the same girl. But, it has nothing to do with my heart opening or not opening. We already have revealed each other what was in other’s mind. But, I always was a little bit doubtful about her character. You know? I have a certain kind of intuition power. I mean the kind of revelation that I get through my dreams. In many dreams, what I saw were later happened in real life. I asked this girl about her friends and relationships. She was all the time having a kind of reserved nature at me. She never seemed as if having a pack of wild friends or as if having any extra-curricular activities. A simple girl concentrated only on her studies, just going college and returns home on time. That was the image she always had in my mind. But I was not convinced in her behavior, just because I knew the nature of the young generation. I doubt if I can find a single young one without at least a little of promiscuity either in behavior or in mind set. I am sure, I can’t find such a one, but you know? How much traditional and conservative is me in my mind. I think you know how much adherence I have towards the moral things and personal values….”
“I hope I know it” I replied.
“Now I am going to tell you about my dream. It happened in the same room of our friend Max, where all of us three spent time during the composition of my last score. Like we actually did in that occasion, in my dream we were sitting in his room discussing about our personal matters. Suddenly it was you, who warned me to be cautious about the character of this girl. You know? I always trust you and value your words even if it is in my dreams.”
“I think so far I kept your trust in me,” I said being apologetic and at the same time little bit proud.
“Well, let it be whatever. But after I woke up I decided to ask her about her character personally. I asked her in our next meeting, “Leena, I don’t blame you even if you presently have or had in the past any other relationships besides me. But I have to know, just want to know everything. I think that’s my right.” But whatever I asked or how many times I pressured, she replied only in the negative. She said, “No honey, I have no such relationships apart from you. I am just a girl interested only in my studies”. But I didn’t trust her. What made me so much dubious about her character was her reserved nature, which is usually uncommon as far as a rich Engineering college girl is concerned.”
Though I have some objective in his this opinion, I continued listening him.
“I doubted her reserved nature as a fine pretension in my presence only. I wanted to find its real hidden thing. And do you know, to find her actual nature what did I do?”
“What did you do?”
“Well, I just attempted to crack her E-mail. I already know her email ID as she was in my Orkut account and you know what I did to crack her password?”
“Tell me what you did?”
“Well…a common thing I observed among girls is that if they are having an affair, they usually put their lover’s name as the pass word in their mail accounts”
“Is that so?” I couldn’t believe what I heard.
“Yes, usually it is so”, he confirmed. “And in this case, I just typed ‘ronnieraj’ as her password. Though initially it didn’t work, a small variation of my name did the magic. And there was it, the magic box of all her personal secrets opened wide in front of my eyes.”
I was mute as words didn’t come out of my mouth; instead it produced a large gulping sound.
“And what did you read?” I asked him in panic.
“What I saw in her chat history was the sex chats she made with a boy. It was really heart breaking buddy. I can’t suffer it any more”
“And what did you do?’ I was interrogative.
He said, “And after this, I asked her again about her personal friends, she again repeated her old answer. Then I said her everything happened between me and her Email account. She became terrified. It was a startle, buddy, I watched her long coloration on her face. She then confessed that it was happened only once. A boy was keeping on asking her such explicit questions without any shame”
I asked him, “Tell me what exactly did you read in her chats?”
“It was so personal things; the boy was asking her very intimate questions, all regarding her personal body parts and so on”, he said.
“Wait...wait...did you say the boy was asking, not the girl was asking? And what was her reply?”
“She just kept silent all the time and was not at all talking anything”
“Well, it shows that her character is not so bad. How much time did they talk?” I asked.
“Hardly one minute”
“Oh k, then it might have happened accidentally. Only once they talked right? Whether there were any other such chats?’
“No…I could find only one”
“Perhaps, she might have deleted other chats with such promiscuous nature”
“I don’t think so”, he said, “and she apologized at me that she actually was not remembering a chat like this, when I asked her about her friends. The boy was asking her about her studies and things like that and it was so sudden, this boy changed the subject into a loose style. When she noticed that his questions were with such ignoble intentions, she suddenly stopped the conversation and even she cut him from her friend list. Then I too apologized for cracking her Email ID without her permission.”
“Ok…so what if any other boys will approach her via Orkut?” I asked him.
“There is little chance for it”
“Why?” I puzzled.
I heard my friends sigh over the phone, and with a change in his sound, he said, “Buddy, she already has deleted her Orkut account.”

(Disclaimer: This is an imaginary incident. The names are fake and if the characters bear any resemblence with any living or dead person, it is purely coincidental)
Photo Courtesy: Corbis

Aug 25, 2009

5 Proven Tips to Quit Smoking Cigarettes

A few posts ago I narrated a funny incident happened in my smoking life. I hope that you already are familiar with that moments of embarrassment and those who started reading my blog late can read it simply by scrawling down the page till your eyes get stuck on the bold letters with ‘Ma…Please Don’t Tell this to Papa’ is written or clicking on this hyper linked phrase here itself. Well…all over my pretty long smoking days I had used to dream about a single day without cigarettes and smoke. What gave me relief during those moments of desperation was only an old song taught by my aunt in my childhood days denoting hope and expectation starting with ‘we shall overcome someday’.

In this post I am going to give you a few tips on how to stop the habit of smoking. I believe whatever tips one may get; only one’s own determination rescues him/her. First of all everyone should take a deep-felt pledge in mind about stopping the dreaded habit. Then you may follow some of the tips those are given below.

Avoid the company of group of smokers
Well, I won’t say that you have to avoid all of your smoker friends. Avoiding your smoker friends doesn’t do you good; instead, it may become harmful to you. The friends whom you have to avoid are those who join together for the only purpose of smoking and are boastful about their smoking and drinking adventures. I had a friend, who still is my good old friend. After seeing me smoking, he too started to smoke and so soon had fell into the habit. I heard him cursing me several times blaming my bad influence upon him. Only after we became separated due to his job shift, he could escape from smoking. I won’t forget, it was him who gave me lessons on using alcoholic drinks in a courtly manner amidst the people of repute, though his drinking habit could impose little influence upon me.

Try to be close friends with non-smokers
I think, I don’t need to explain this tip as I have already given details in the first tip that are useful for this part also. Usually, it will be your heart mates directing you to smoking experiences. Likewise, the vice versa is also true.

Among a set of new friends create the image as a non-smoker
This will definitely help you in your fight against smoking. I tried this tip once when shifted to a new place where I was quite a stranger among the dwellers. I am sure if any of my roommates there read this blog would definitely cry at me asking, “really…do you smokeeee?"

Don’t dream to quit smoking completely from the next morning. Quit it gradually
I heard many boasting that even though they do smoke they are not addicted. I met a few who could quit the long-time-petted habit forever from a single day, though their claims are not verified by me. Well...if you are such a person with fantastic abilities, just ignore my tips. The best way to quit smoking is, I think, stopping it gradually. In my case, I decided to smoke this week one cigarette lesser than the number of cigarettes I smoked the last week. And in the next change (not necessarily in the next week), I cut down one more cigarette from my total number. Continuing in this way, I made it as only one in a day. And I did not impose any rules in my mind such as I wouldn’t smoke more than one, because I knew all those kinds of promises would not work. I was all the time free to smoke whatever I wanted and how many I liked (now too). Later I made it once in a week and quiet soon became an occasional smoker. The final journey from an occasional smoker to a non-smoker was an easy one.

Make a habit of attending some fitness centers regularly
It will definitely shift your focus from smoking towards something else, like getting a good body shape, getting more capacity to run, earning a beautiful six-pack, and things like that. I will attribute my successful prevention of smoking to daily gymnasium visits, though the goal of a six-pack remains still a mystery.

There are lot more guidelines that would help one in getting rid of such miserable habits. But these are my tips and I think majority of them are suggested for the first time by me. Anyway, my heartfelt thanks go to my friend who helped me to escape from smoking. Whenever we were together, she used to permit me to smoke once. When I lit up my cigarette and just about to take the first puff, she would scream, “look…there comes your sir.” Hurried, when I try to turn back and try to conceal my cigarette, the girl would snatch it from my hand and would make it a piece of paper covered in mud under her stamping foot. I used to stand speechless by her sudden actions and she would be facing me daringly with twinkling eyes and with a hidden smile on her lips indicating a ‘how is it?’ expression.

Photo Courtesy: Corbis

Aug 22, 2009

My Pedicab Practices

What fancied me most from the moment I stepped on the streets of New Delhi was the Cycle Rickshaws. As a person from Kerala, were auto-rickshaws are the most prominent taxi services; a man-ridden three-wheeler with pedals and a comfortable place for utmost three travellers at a time to sit was an alien thing to me. Let me say, it was my sort-of-ambition to travel on cycle rickshaw (pedicab) at least once before leaving North India.
As we both were traveling the whole Delhi on a car along with our driver, it was almost difficult for me to travel around on rickshaws. I said my fellow traveller - the camera man - to capture some shots of the cycle rickshaws, so that on return we would be able to compile the visuals into a single short video and thus to circulate it through our website. Well…that was our purpose of North India visit too. To collect camera visuals of North Indian monuments and destinations and to prepare detailed notes of what we shoot. It was my suggestion to shoot the cycle rickshaws, but I don’t know how much seriousness the cameraman gave it.
But after leaving Delhi, Agra and Abhaneri Kund in the order, we reached Jaipur and this time I made my long-desired wish a reality. While others were resting in the hotel room, I made a jaunt on a hired cycle rickshaw through the historic royal tracks of the city on the way back after browsing the Internet at a nearby café.
But my interesting experiences connected with cycle-rickshaws were yet to had came. After reaching Amritsar, we went to Jallianwala Bagh on foot, as it was only a walk away from our hotel. When stepped out to the pathways with a hurrying traffic, after collecting visuals of the famous spot of Indian freedom struggle martyrdom, we decided to hire a cycle rickshaw to our room. It was a turbaned and bearded Sardarji who responded to our call. Clad in a loose fitting dirty shirt and pants, he was an old man speaking only in Punjabi fluently.
I sat on the seat and the Sardarji looked at me with familiarity in his eyes. We smiled at each other and he just asked me a question in Punjabi. I think all of you know that Punjabi and Hindi are two different, yet look-alike languages. Though both are very much mutually intelligible, Punjabi is not a dialect of Hindi, it is a separate language. But, even in case of Hindi, I am a very poor person and I did not get what this Sardarji was talking about. I explained him in my poor Hindi about the train journey that I made from Kerala to reach Delhi as an answer to his some other question. I asked his name. He said something like ‘Diganthar Singh’. When I asked him his name again to confirm what I heard was correct; he just nodded approvingly, though I could catch something disapproving at his face. Anyway, I didn't attempt any further clarification. I handed my camera to our driver friend and gave him a signal to take the photograph of Sardarji with me on the cycle rickshaw. Sardarji was speaking eloquently about something and I showed my teeth in a colorful smiling manner pretending that I understand him very well. Then our driver clicked the camera and what I got was my all-time favorite photograph, which is given below. (Note that I am the handsome man sitting in the left and not the other one (:D)). One memorable comment i got for this photograph was from a Brazilian Orkut friend. She said this photograph has a typical 'Indianness' and reflects the true cultural spirit of India.


He pedaled with us heading to our hotel. When the cycle reached at an upward slope he just dismounted from the cycle and began to push it against the inclination. All of us three got out of the cycle and began to help him in the process of rescuing the cycle from that slight inclination by smiling at each other. When he dropped us comfortably at our hotel we bid farewell to him and to his cycle rickshaw. I was very happy when my fellow traveller gave the Sardarji more than what he asked.

Aug 15, 2009

The Michael Jackson Effect

Skinhead, dead head
Everybody gone bad
Situation, aggravation
Everybody allegation
In the suite, on the news
Everybody dog food
Bang bang! shot dead
Everybody's gone mad

All I wanna say is that
They don't really care about us!

When I heard this song being sung for the first time by a sort-of-brother, initially I was stuck by the zigzag rhythm pattern it follows. I went through the lyrics downloaded from the net, and I understood its social and historic significance. The liberty-craving minds of the blacks in the States and in the world across are well portrayed in this song. I also watched the video of a fair longhaired man inspiring the slum people of Rio de Janeiro by singing this song, stamping on the ground, making wild noises, wishing the wild gathering and stepping according to the beats. Though I had heard about him a lot, actually it was the exact moment I began to admire him, the King of Pop, Michael Jackson!

*************************************************************************************
June 25, 2009 – It was the day when the Law of Nature put a sparkling black curtain along a fifty years long life. Newspapers and channels broadcasted the news of Jackson’s death with huge prominence and I came to know the news only in the next morning. I was in the house where I stay along with some guys as paying guest. I heard everyone discussing about Michael Jackson and his living style, and everybody felt as if some thing big has lost to the music world. When I sat in the sit-out reading the Jackson news and hearing the people’s comments, I suddenly thought about the old song taught by my brother. I sang it without any introduction though my oral muscles are toned in quiet another way making it almost impossible for me to spell out the words in the Englishman’s style. But hearing me singing the ‘they don’t care about us’ song, my friends asked me to sing it again. Though embarrassed, I sang it again and when I added some of a few childhood-learned steps along with the flickering beats in addition to some ‘Jacksonian’ hand gestures and finger movements, my friends felt my version of his songs too has a little appeal.
The next day saw a huge rush in my room and everybody wanted me to repeat the song and they asked me to teach them the song. When some of them felt ‘they don’t care about us’ as a little bit difficult for them, I introduced the ‘Dangerous’ lyrics – that too copied from the net. In addition to teaching them the lyrics, I think, for not less than two to three weeks I also became the choreographer to them. Even that next-room-dweller, that idiotic blabbermouth guy, too has started to wish me with his husky version of ‘Dangerous’ in the mornings. In every room, in leisure times, in office cabins and in classrooms, Michael Jackson and his songs took reincarnation. His steps were imitated, his thrilling cap holding style too was tried successfully. That is the Michael Jackson magic! The Jackson Effect!
In his personal life, Michael Jackson might have sinned as per the religious notions, especially according to the Christian views. But I believe that his sins all were pardoned during his suffering times, especially after 2001. He was such a lonely man even amidst the huge fanfare. He suffered from several body ailments, from humiliation by the court and public and from his tormented childhood days. No worry, I believe definitely Michael Jackson will go heaven.

Photo: Michael Jackson in Bad Concert
Courtesy: Corbis
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