Spare some time, spoil your parents!

I was given everything I ever needed by my parents. Education( never mind that it was the worst school in the town; they had no clue either), clothes, all the food I can eat, all the movies I wanted to watch, all those things that make our life worth living. And most importantly they gave me my freedom and space. In short they spoiled me (My English was spoilt by the aforementioned school though)

So now that I have grown up (physically at least) its time for me to repay my parents. I can give them whatever money I make, I can get them the new generation luxuries. Send them on a holiday trip to wherever they fancy. I have instead decided to just spoil them. That's what they would like more(and at this point that's all I can afford) There is a huge age gap between me and my parents because they had a late marriage. And I guess my father and mother took it seriously when Nehru said that our country is going to progress with the five year plans. There is exactly 5 years of gap between the 3 of us siblings. So I was born late as well. It doesn't matter now. I am a big boy now (more so on the waist)


All I want to do for them is what they did for me. It's a little too late to put them to the same school as mine (wish I could; then they will know why I hate my school life) but I can do all the other things they did for me. I want to drive them wherever they want to go. Wait for them outside when they have parties at their friends place and dad can't drive (and I can't drink). Take my mom shopping whenever she feels like. Make sure they don't have to travel by bus or walk at any time. Make them eat their medicines, make them meet the doctor. Make sure they sleep properly. Take them to the movies and buy them popcorn. Have a sumptuous dinner at a nice restaurant. Go out with them to the beach and watch my mom holding on to my hands when the wave comes up, just like I held on to hers some 20 years back. It feels good.


At a point of your life, your relationship with your parents goes into a reverse mode. You start taking care of them. You get worried when they are late in reaching home. You get worried when they are not feeling well. You become the caretaker and them the carefree children.

So what made me write all these goody stuff (other than to make me look good). A few days back I was teaching my mom how to use the mobile and internet. I was irritated at times when she could not understand simple things. I lost patience, raised my voice and my face looked like I lost hope. She never complained. She just smiled and said it takes time. She wrote down all that I told her. Next day, I got an SMS on my phone. "Hi how are you?" it was from my mom's number. She learned how to use it. She went a step further and started using my computer, connect to internet, find the railways website and checked the PNR status of her ticket. The pride she had in her face when she told me she did it alone. And I could not believe it. I know a lot of people do that. But for some one at her age who has never used a computer I thought that was one hell of an achievement. She was happy and that's all she wants. And i wonder how long she spent explaining the thousands of things that was new to me. Answering my never ending queries and doubts. And I couldnt do that properly even once. Well I will.

So I am going to go ahead and spoil them. Let my dad eat some oily food without worrying about his cholesterol level .Let my mom have her peanut candy without me reminding her about the sugar level. Let them live for themselves and have a great time. That's the least I could do for them. Cheers!!!

The Richest

An 'India Rising' moment, if there ever was one.

In the the news, Mukesh Ambani edges out Carlos Slim and Bill Gates to become the world's richest man. This comes as a result of the extended price rally in the Indian stock market, with the index touching 20,000 today.

The five richest, with their net worth

1. Mukesh Ambani ($63.2 billion)

2. Carlos Slim Helu ($62.2993 billion)

3. William (Bill) Gates ($62.29 billion)

4. Warren Buffett ($55.9 billion)

5. Lakshmi Mittal ($50.9 billion)

Also, the Ambanis are now the wealthiest family, well above the legendary Walton family (Wal*Mart)

It will be interesting to see how long Ambani stays at the top. A correction in share prices is now overdue, and is just waiting for the right trigger... a political crisis, perhaps? Maybe a fall in oil prices..

Silly Games

Teenage girls have a propensity to attempt an unfolding of the mysteries of their future; often slipping into reveries about that all important person – The Husband – how he is going to be, his eyes, hair, hands, mouth; the males of the species are rather on the fortunate side, they do not burden themselves with such exotic fancies, restricting their flights of fancy to just a three-letter word. Correct me if I am wrong.

We used to amuse ourselves with a silly game the text of which someone had secretly smuggled in; bored 14 year olds trying to while away time in slightly more useful pursuits than listening to the droning monotone of a History teacher. The theme was an all-time favourite – Love, of course. It was simple, more of an amusement than a game, requiring pretty simple arsenal – a pen and paper. It hinged on the basic premise that every human being would be curious about what the object of one’s affection thought about oneself. One had to think of a boy whom one was very fond of and make a series of short strokes on the paper. Three such rows had to be made. Then groups of three were cut off, so in every row there would be either 0, 1 or 2 strokes left. The score of this very interesting exercise was calculated thus: if the first row had 2 strokes left, the second none and the third had 1 stroke, the score would read as 201.

This would then be compared against the Result Sheet. Each score signified something. We had copied those in the last leaf of our notebooks. It read something like this:

000 – I love you.
001 – I am thinking of you.
010 – Don’t waste my time.
011 – I will marry you.
……
222

And of course the results of each one’s ardent enterprise to pry into the mind of that-cute-boy-across-the-road would be greeted by giggles and blushes and howls of laughter. It didn’t matter that every time the scores turned out to be different; of course his thoughts and feelings for you were bound to change over a period of time. We never doubted or questioned the wisdom of our Bible.

It would have been very unwise indeed, if I had attributed this unrelenting thirst to drink the subconscious of another soul, to the precincts of just a bunch of bored schoolgirls. But as I was to find out, the wider world was no different, in fact I discovered further possibilities in this realm.

When I went to the city to do my pre-degree, I had to stay in a hostel. Now, hostel-life is something one must experience in one’s life-time. It’s like no other; there is so much to be learnt from a hostel. Like how to get ragged and rag (I never did), how to have midnight binges with the little potato chips or cornflakes that we had, how to beg, borrow or steal food, most importantly how to put a face to Mr. Right, the ones we all saw as a vague shadow, a misty silhouette in the mind’s eye.

The technique again was very simple. One had to get a small sprig of a wild creeper that grew lush, flowering in profusion over the hostel fence. After dinner, at about 9 o’ clock in the night, we would all quietly go to the fence in search of the perfect sprig; a shock of bright pink flowers, a hint of green and a coiling brown tendril. Once the booty was in one’s hand the person had to keep quiet till the next dawn. She was not supposed to open her mouth; instead she had to concentrate on the face of Prince Charming, pray for him to grace her dreams. With a small bunch of weed in our hands we would walk back quietly, the chatter abruptly cut short, like an old procession of druids who carried sprigs of herbs with them.

The holy weed(ha!) would then be placed beneath the pillow to forcefully attract the image of his divine face in one’s dream that night. And it worked.

But only when we left the hostel did we come to know that this very secret ritual was revealed to us by the hostel warden herself who always complained about the loudness of the girls’ chatter, especially in the night. Oh well!

Little Flower Seller

Dear me!!! those two little eyes,

fumbling balls of petrified innocence.

How do i forget you my angel face,

even if am deprived of thine rosy glance.

Amidst the lifeless vagabondage in hell,

A fugitive here, folding my enormous wings in pain.

stalking around the obscurity, i met her,

that little archangel.

She, a primrose, bounded by blood roses,

as they wait for the lovers.

Stretching a bud, fresh with sweet odor,

she baffled thus, for my hand took the

bloom carefully.

Undecided, for whom this blot of love rests,

yet i held it over my bashful heart dreamily;

A loner from the black and white,

my bosom never suits this herring.

Death, her focus on my angel's gift,

and my palm felt a petal trembling;

Even as the scarlet face beamed proud,

unaware of its ephemeral moments.

I lend the flower to a souring heart,

it killed his misery and won a hand;

How glad am to tell this to my sprite,

for i marched with an overwhelming mind.

The streets looked in absolute endurance,

except for the primrose, that's vanished;

A chill slit my toneless face,

as i saw the bloodspurted petals amidst

that dull crowd.

They closed her eyes for the last sleep,

wrapped in a cheap cotton, there lies my

little seraph, her face still, yet gleaming.

Snatched away by a raging city,

her soul ambled over someone's weep.

What an irony and fate i hold here,

for my heart is still not crying.

Literature Nobel 2007

The Nobel prize in Literature for this year is to be announced tomorrow. If tradition is anything to go by, the political leanings of the winner will be as important as talent. The front runners for this year, as per bloomberg, seem to be Philip Roth, Ko Un, Ali Ahmad Said Asbar and Les Murray . Ladbrokes , the online betting agency which got it right last year, has this list of odds. Philip Roth is at the top (7/2), followed closely by Haruki Murakami (5/1), Amos Oz and Claudio Magris . The collective wisdom of the betting crowd is most often right. But then, the odds show JK Rowling at par with Salman Rushdie and John Banville ! Maybe this doesnt matter since they are at the bottom of the list anyway (100/1) .. I think Rushdie is gonna win the prize in a few years. I haven't read any of his works, but I feel his politics and life story is just right for Nobel winner.





Btw, I would place my bet on Amos Oz for this year's prize.

Update:The prize, as you might know, went to Doris Lessing . So much for ' the collective wisdom' (my bet was wide off too). From what I have read up on Doris Lessing, it seems to be a wise and well received choice. But, I am happy because she writes science fiction too, and Doris Lessing's win is in a way, recognition for the genre. I doubt if this will make the mainstream critics take SF more seriously, but it will be harder to dismiss it as just escapist fare.

Doris Lessing began writing SF only towards the later part of her career. She is best known for her early work, especially books such as The Golden Notebook, The Grass is Singing and The Fifth Child.

The Nobel committee in its citation describes her as,"that epicist of the female experience, who with scepticism, fire and visionary power has subjected a divided civilisation to scrutiny".

My High Art

An obvious depiction of global warming along with the genocide in Darfur ?
Not so fast, look deeper.... See??




The French critics have called this work 'merde sans signification' .



uh, still deeper...