Number One Hundred

The ones which remained as 'drafts' ....

26 Jan '08
[a conversation with my friendly neighborhood uncle. felt like dad talking to me. i was touched]

Hello Uncle

Atish, I heard the sound of Guitar and was wondering how come you're home so early.

Didn't go to office today. Wasn't feeling well. So akele hoon to socha guitar baja loon thoda...

Oh! I was wondering ye ladke log itni jaldi kaise aa gae... So I decided to call you up. Such a nice way to connect.... music. Come over for a cup of tea. I just had mine but wouldn't mind having another cup. Come.

Ok uncle, I'll be there in 5 minutes.
.............................................................
Do cup chai aur kuch toast vagaira le aana....

Nahi uncle, bas chai... kaafi late lunch kara tha

Ok. So, how have you been. I'm sorry yaar I couldn't talk to you guys properly that day. I was so busy with all the guests.......

Arre it was absolutely fine uncle. The Biryani was so awesome, we didnt have anything else on our minds! The weather was fabulous, the music was just right and you couldnt have chosen a better place for the reception. So your son left.......

......achcha ye sab choro, you tell me how have you been. What happened to your plans for MBA?

Applying this year....

You know Atish, it's very easy to lose sight. I mean you remind me of my days back in the 70s when I had just joined Phillips and stayed with friends just like you do. Of course Bombay in those days was not like what it is today and with a princely salary of Rs 700 we couldn't lead the kind of life you guys are living. What I mean, Atish, is that, it's the 'good life' that you guys are leading. Weekends spent with friends, eating out. Then you have your music. You have a great degree... you can let things drift and then by the time you wake up, it might be a little too late..

27 Nov '07
[the few minutes in the mild Bangalore winter morning, sipping tea...meant a lot those days]

I stand on the balcony, the sun on my face. The music comes floating from the hall. It's a bright morning in Bangalore and there's a slight chill in the air. I have a cup of tea in my hand. It's the start of another day. At times I'm joined by my flatmate. If it's his playlist then it's on shuffle and anything from Kishore to Atif to Hootie & The Blowfish is equally likely to come up next. If it's mine, then it's following some pattern. Third Eye Blind one day, Scorpions the other, Scrubs soundtrack or Simon & Garfunkel. I like the way my day starts. Earlier I used to make tea for both of us. Now our cook does that. I think he's slightly better than me!

I had my first cup of tea when I was four. On the train while going to Puri. Kullhad vali chai. I never had milk in the morning after that. Cha, it was. In the evening when dad came back from work, I used to have my second cup. And did I tell u. I finished entire packets of biscuits in one go! Mom and dad talked about office and other 'grown up' stuff. I chipped in with anything remotely interesting at school. I always associated this evening tea with a very relaxed atmosphere.

In college, milk replaced the morning tea (whenever I had breakfast, that is) on most days. The 5 o' clock extra messing tea was more frequent though. The best, by a long distance was the one we drank at Sassi. Especially during the winters. Especially after bread omelet. I can't remember any occasion when somebody would refuse to go to Sassi for a cup of tea. It was almost a part of the curriculum.
Then there was the 'Dip Tea' near the Library, to be taken in between classes or during Music events at the Convo. On the rare occasion when I found myself in the institute at night doing something relate to academics, yet again this was the place to have tea and take a break.

21 Jul '07
[when i felt like writing about independence. especially financial]

Its been just over a year since I entered a new phase in my life. One typically characterized by more independence at all levels, particularly financial. And going with my ideology of 'kal ka kal dekhenge' I have made sure that my bank balance is never able to shoot up beyond a certain level. I also managed to convince my dad that all serious investments and future planning would only start a year or so later. So all of it basically meant I went ahead and bought whatever I felt like and I could. A bike, a laptop, a guitar. I'm absolutely loving it. Savoring this free existence along with the knowledge that I'm not doing anything wrong.

29 Mar '07
[my first and only attempt at fiction. i was downright pathetic and somehow always felt that i was copying both the form and content from somewhere.. old man and the sea? dont know. the idea, however came from this picture my dad had taken in Puri. of a man and his son, standing by the boat with the day's catch.]

He was about fourteen. Standing there with his back to the sea, his dark, wet skin glistening in the last rays of the sun, he was a picture of satisfaction. In front of him lay the day's catch, enough to ensure a week's supplies. His father tended to the boat looking for any cracks or damages while he played with the sand. Soon, both headed towards the wholesale market as the setting sun marked the end of yet another day. A day spent on a small boat in the middle of the sea. At the wholesale market, they would sell their catch to the local dealer who would in turn head to the man responsible for packaging, cold storage and transportation and a few days later, some Bengali in New Delhi's C R Park would eat the same fish for dinner, cooked deliciously in mustard oil by his wife, knowing little about the fourteen year old who formed the first link, in a series of many, between him and the fish on his plate.

Life was tough but not unfair in the little village in coastal Andhra. Most of the population earned their livelihood from the bounties of the sea. The sea which gave them their life. Shrinivas, or Shrini as he was called had gone along with his father in his fishing boat for as long as he could remember. He loved the sea and its sights and sounds. The sunrise which would see them push their tiny boat over the waves and head for calmer waters in the middle of the sea never failed to amaze him. The lazy afternoons which saw them taking a rest in the shadow of the boat's mast after having cast the net, waiting for the fish to come, soothed him. Wherever the eyes went, there was water, dotted with a few boats here and there, of fellow villagers and fishermen. There was no sound except that of the waves lapping the sides of the boat and the birds flying by. Shrini chatted with his father, learning new tricks everyday, hearing stories of the sea when his father was his age. That's the way it had always been. They were a generation of fisherman, each following the same method to learn the tricks of the trade. To them it was the only way to grow up, to lead a life.

25 Jan '07
[about friendship..]

They are the people you spend your entire day with. Once out of home, they are the ones that make you feel at home, become your family. Sure they were there even when you were a kid and had your ma and baba besides you. You had the "best friends" and the other friends, the ones you grew up playing cricket, badminton and a whole lot of on-the-road games. Then college happens and more importantly you get to know about a certain place called Hostel. Friendship takes on a completely different hue as you start to live day in day out with the same set of people who start exerting their influences on your life involuntarily. You pick up some of their styles. Be it the manner of speaking or their posture....

Emily Gould - Blogging At Its Extreme

I've been reading this : (it's Long, by the way!)

...they like the idea that there’s a place where a record of their existence is kept — a house with an always-open door where people who are looking for you can check on you, compare notes with you and tell you what they think of you. Sometimes that house is messy, sometimes horrifyingly so. In real life, we wouldn’t invite any passing stranger into these situations, but the remove of the Internet makes it seem O.K.

..The will to blog is a complicated thing, somewhere between inspiration and compulsion. It can feel almost like a biological impulse. You see something, or an idea occurs to you, and you have to share it with the Internet as soon as possible. What I didn’t realize was that those ideas and that urgency — and the sense of self-importance that made me think anyone would be interested in hearing what went on in my head — could just disappear.

And this is from another one of her blogs

When you write about things as they’re happening — which is what most people do on blogs — you lose perspective, or rather, your perspective shrinks, so that only a tiny slice of your reality gets recorded. The cumulative impact of several months’ worth of posts can lead to an entirely different conclusion than a few snippets taken out of context. This is the danger of blogging and also its seductive charm. It’s so easy and fun to report on your current state of mind and your opinions, especially when you have strong feelings, and strong feelings are also fun to read about.

2 Years

Lots of Music and a fair bit of Travel with a good measure of Books and the older, familiar stuff thrown in. Morning, Night, Rain and a few others making their first appearances. Double the number of posts and a few pictures here and there. And yes, the changed look. Much has been said. Much, still remains.

Going Back

You could call it an obsession with the self. You might even attribute it to the time I always seem to have to procrastinate, to ponder, to introspect. But I like to go back to my old posts and read them again. There's nothing special about today. And by special I solely meant occurrences like completion of a certain number of years or posts. I just feel like writing about my blog.

My main motivation behind it was to hold on. Hold on to memories and feelings. Hold on to people and events. The most amazing thing about going back is reading the comments. Realizing how you could relate to something that I experienced. How you could sympathize with me when I wrote about my failures. How you could feel nostalgic when I dreamed about my grandfather's place although yours could have been so different. How you would feel the same turmoil inside you, the same urge to break free and the same need to know the answers. And that's the reason this blog has become so much more than just a memoir. The songs I liked, the people I met, the books I loved and the places I visited. It sure started off as a means to capture moments from my life. But with time, it has become a part of what I am today.

And you know it makes my day when I see that comment on a post. I would be a fool to admit that I do not look forward to it. Everybody loves an ego boost, a compliment. And I am no exception. But knowing you, knowing that you meant what you said; that's what makes it so fulfilling.

A few days ago, I was wandering through my blog. Reading some posts, looking at the comments. Laughing to myself and remembering. And at times, there was something new to be found among the old posts. To the few who read this blog..... thank you. You make me want to write.

The Delhi Walla Blog

Thanks to Sammy, I got an opportunity to write for his cousin Mayank's blog about some of the hangouts around IIT. Here's the link. The original post was modified at places by Mayank and it looks much better now :)

2001xxx

Anonymous Coward and I just started this.
Still very much in its infancy and looking for contributors, ideas and suggestions regarding anything and everything. So go ahead and have a dekko!

The New Me

Not exactly ... I meant the blog...
After days of fiddling around with a lot of templates, I have finally found the one which is going to stay for quite sometime. A total lack of work and ideas for a new post were the primary reasons behind this change but in the end I love this one. Love it for the beautiful header image which a friend conceptualised and implemented and also for the colour combination. It looks classy yet simplistic to me. By the way had a lot of trouble making it work for Firefox and IE at the same time. The two colums wudnt just stay the same in both! So had to do a lot of trial and error and html, css shit before finally getting what I wanted but its totally worth the effort. So let the comments flow !

Dust In The Wind

Its been exactly a year since my first post on this blog. Back then I saw blogging just as a very cool concept; techy and literary at the same time. Letting the world know what you feel, creating your own space amongst millions. My inspiration was the blog of a friend who happened to be the only one I knew who had one. He wrote quite beautifully, about things which I could at once relate to. To add to it I was nearing the end of my stay in my college and felt like chronicling some experiences, some observations about life as an undergrad. Also I had loads of time to kill. I was done with CAT and I didn't have to go to classes. It's not that I bunked them. It's just that I didn't have any. So the time seemed pretty ripe to get into blogging.



The switch from the personal hand written diary, which I had been maintaining from the second semester in college, was slow and uncomfortable at times. I didn't have the guts to lay open every feeling I had and every thought that went through my mind, yet I wanted to write about my life and things that mattered to me. Not social or political issues, not movie reviews, (there were better people to do that) but things which concerned my existence, my take on life. Interestingly, someone once asked me if I wrote for myself or for others, was I honest enough when I wrote, why did I think that someone would be interested in reading about my life. I think I still blog for more or less the same reasons for which I started. Primarily it was and still is a means of holding on to all that has gone by, a collection of memories and events which I feel like expressing. I do not care whether people would read it or not but at the same time it makes my day when someone does take the time out to post a comment. I am honest. I write only about things which I have the guts to lay out in the open. So there's still a part of me that's mine.



I am generally very happy when I write. I take my own sweet time to compose my posts which on occasions have taken entire afternoons and nights. I do tend to write and rewrite stuff, do some editing and change phrases. Is it to make it a better read for others. To quite an extent yes but also to some extent, make it a better read for myself. A year and about 23 posts later, I feel though that I keep harping about the same things. I have become very monotonous, writing about the same dilemmas, changes and stuff. But the problem is I don't know what else to write about. I am not good at commenting or politics or social issues. I have lost interest in the state of Indian cricket, although if Ganguly manages to hit a ton in SA (OK, its very remotely possible but please don't laugh), you bet there will be a post; and I have not been doing too much traveling (about which I love to write and used to in my pre-blog days). So if anyone has some interesting suggestions, please let me know.



One major difference from my starting days as a blogger is that earlier I used to wait for things to happen. Now I manufacture them on my own. Take this post for example!!

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