Men are from Mars, Kids are from Ceres

Popularity comes with a price tag, and an increasingly hefty one at that, a fact you'd be aware of if you have been following the meteoric rise in the prices of action figures since the days when we went, ‘Wow, GI Joe!’ every time the Real American Hero was on air (Coming to think of it, I still go, ‘Wow, GI Joe!’ every time he’s on TV but that’s a different story altogether) While I do enjoy giving myself a mental pat-on-the-back every time one of the twenty billion progeny of my ten billion cousins insists on singing Glory Glory Man United even during the Euro 2008 or throws up a fuss about combing his/her hair, my huge kindergarten fan base coerces me into doing many things I’d rather not- like attend their birthday parties.

One of my favourite videos of my extensively photographed childhood is that of Bird Brain’s tenth birthday. The spoilt son that I was, not getting the first slice of the cake and being allowed as much camera-time as my grandmother weren’t situations I faced every other day. Exasperated, ‘I hate all birthdays,’ I exclaimed, adding, ‘except for my own’, almost as an afterthought. Fifteen years hence, there is just one aspect of birthdays that I find just as abhorrent as I did then- gifts.

The days of waking up at six in the morning and ripping open the twenty odd boxes on the coffee table seem as distant a memory as my diapers. The other side of the transaction, sadly, isn’t one bit as much fun. I never have a problem with girls – the simple creatures that they are, Barbie and Candy will be the most happening things in their world even ten generations down the line. Buying gifts for boys is quite another thing though. What do boys play with these days? Are Hot Wheels still as popular as they were in our time? Are Batman figurines still in production?

The fact that my favourite nephew’s big night was merely an hour away didn’t help either. Nor did the fact that I had to turn up in a costume.

45 minutes. Putting off Kaley Cuoco and the rest of the story on Nerdmabelia Scattering for later in the evening, I made my way to Landmark, unsure and annoyed. I was back in the car-park five minutes later, poorer by a grand but armed with the most powerful man in the universe (and, more importantly, the cheapest superhero figure in the store- Spidey cost a whopping 1500 bucks.)

I reached ten minutes late, but I was left hoping I’d taken longer. ‘Musical Chairs’ was followed by ‘What’s the good word?” (which I won, by the way) and the latter by an absurd spoon-game with an equally absurd name. As the evening drew to a long awaited climax, Birthday Boy was curious to know what his beloved Uncle Dela had got him. “I’ve brought you the most powerful man in the universe,” I announced, in the most dramatic baritone I could manage. His eyes lit up instantly. “Superman?” he enquired. "Try again", I replied reassuringly. “Wolverine?” he tried, half hopefully. “Wrong again, this is HE-MAN”, I declared at a pitch that made the hall shudder and the entire audience gape with what I believed was a stunned silence. It wasn’t, as I would realize a couple of minutes later. “Who the heck is this guy?” enquired Birthday Boy.

Is DC Comics’ marketing division listening?

The clock ticks life away..

75 minutes to go...

Wikipedia tells me that I'll now be in the exalted company of Ana Ivanovic, Nicklas Bendtner, Anderson, Aaron Carter and Bow Wow, to name a few. The list goes on to list a thousand other names ranging from the strangely familiar (Michael Cera, Cybil..) to the completely unknown (Begüm Dalgalar?). As I went through it, I found myself wondering, not for the first time, whether I even deserved to be in that list, albeit with a million other losers for company. At times I wonder, is it just me or do all twenty-year olds love watching Tom and Jerry? Does Bendtner still wear a helmet and pretend to be Darth Vader? Does Anderson still spend hours playing with his Hot Wheels collection, painstakingly collected over 17 years of haggles and bargains? Life has been a blur. Age has come about far sooner than I would have liked it to, and sadly, maturity seems to taking its own jolly time to set in, leaving me stuck between a world where I don't belong and another where I shouldn't.

My melancholic reverie, sadly, was cut dismally short by the Envious Samaritan's remark, made more than half seriously, that I'm fast turning into a far gloomier version of the Decayed Canine. Scary thought that.

P.S: Contrary to what the title might suggest, I still loathe Linkin Park.

Footnote (courtesy Lefty): In a curious coincidence, HHH turned 18 this 18th, I turn 20 this 20th and Lefty 21 on the 21st.

Kaka, unfortunately, doesn't turn 24 this Thursday.

Five and out

Most forms of art have always been well beyond my modest comprehension capacity. The Guernica, to me, is no more than a bouillabaisse of weird shapes and even weirder-looking people. To the best of my sensibilities, the melting clocks in The Persistence of Memory are as profound as a Britney Spears solo. I firmly believe that, given the chance, my brother could easily better van Gogh’s wilting Sunflowers. The only strokes I found even remotely artistic are those off the willow of Sachin Tendulkar. There isn’t a masterpiece more beautiful than the one-handed backhand that won Federer the second set against the consistently erratic Safin. Maradona’s sixty yard run in that historic World Cup semifinal that led to Argentina’s second goal is more graceful than even the most stunning of ballet renditions. My indisposition towards all forms of art and dance notwithstanding, my loyalties in all sports have tilted towards the more artistic and graceful (with the notable exception of F1 where I have suffered from an inexplicable and often unreasonable predilection for McLaren right from the days when the penultimate page of The Khaleej Times was my sole link with the world of Ecclestones, Hakkinens and Schumachers).

The sad thing about sport, though, is that there is a lot more to it than mere grace. Resilience, strength and some luck is often all it takes to excel. Then again, success is one thing and greatness quite another. For all their talent, Johan Cryuff and his legendary Clockwork Oranje never won a major tournament. Despite being the more elegant and technically sound of the two, Mark Waugh could not compeer his prolific twin. More recently, Chelsea were inches away from lifting the Champions League earlier this summer. Indeed, a certain Geenius and a Kangaroo Cub would even argue, not entirely without reason, that they were the more deserving of the two sides. Yet, even if John Terry not succumbed to that historic (and hilarious) slip, a United fan would still have gone home proud of the many moments of genius displayed by his side. I could spend all day describing Scholes’ thunderbolt at Camp Nou. I could write pages and pages on Rooney’s inch-perfect thirty yard pass that nearly led to United’s second goal at Moscow. What memories would have Chelsea carried home from the tournament? Those of the two million own goals that the opposition defenders chose to score for them, realizing that such feats were well beyond the modest capabilities of Drogba and Sheva? Or those of the three million deflections that led to the few goals that Chelsea players scored for themselves?

Though it did in Moscow, fortune doesn’t always favour the worthy. Case in point: the Wimbledon finals. Though out-of-sorts initially, Federer’s game was as imperial as ever by the third set. He seemed to have clawed his way back into the game from two sets down, and with the third set in a row entering tie-breakers, I had a hunch that Federer was well on course to breaking Borg’s record. History, sadly, chose to repeat itself, with Rafa replacing McEnroe in the encore. To his credit, Rafa has come a long way from the brash teenager whose resilience was his sole weapon who made it to the finals two years ago. And yet, even the most loyal of the Spaniard’s supporters wouldn’t declare him a better player than the Swiss Master.

Claude Makelele can get away with a thousand more fouls and he can still not hope to equal Zidane even in his wildest dreams. MS Dhoni can endorse a zillion more products and he still won’t get any closer to the iconic status enjoyed by Sachin. Rafa’s energy and baseliners may win him ten more Wimbledon titles in the years to come, and yet, he’ll still be second best to Federer.

A year ago, 2008 seemed to be year that would be remembered in the history books as the one when Federer scaled Mount Sampras and Mount Borg. Sadly, nothing has gone his way and his grand slam tally has all but stagnated at 12. Mount Sampras seems to be slipping away with each passing tournament and Mount Borg now an impossibility. And yet, despite the prospects of retirement looming large at the mature age of 26, Federer can still walk into the sunset with his chest held high. "I'm happy the way I fought", said the great man after the epic battle, "that's all I could really do."

Burgundy Alert

For a good part of my childhood, I believed that the world was entirely black and white until a few decades ago, with seas devoid of their azure and meadows of their verdure. Colour, like TV, chocolates, Hot Wheels and most other wonderful things in the world must be one of mankind’s brainchildren (sic), I thought, deceived by the movies of that era. Realization dawned upon me soon enough, though, to this day, I often wonder if my apocryphal world would have a better place to live in. It would have been far simpler, if nothing else.

“It’s on the third row in the basement, a turquoise WagonR,” said my uncle, relenting to my innumerable requests for a drive. Now that I had his permission, I had a completely different obstacle to contend with. Not for the first time, the mention of a colour left me in a daze. Five minutes later, having tried the keys on every WagonR in sight, I learnt that turquoise is some weird shade of bluish-green.

I read a book by Sigmund Freud five years ago and decided to major in psychology, if only to prove him wrong. True to the middle-class values I was raised in, though, I took the road most travelled and ended up in R-land. I am as close to proving Freud wrong as Karan Johar is to making an intelligent movie, and the fact that psychology, philosophy and most other good electives have been done away with hardly helps my cause (Natural Disasters and Seismological Balances, anyone?) One of the few things I do know about human psychology is that we are all born with a voice within us that keeps telling us that there are millions out there superior in brain and brawn. Our entire life is spent fighting that voice. For some, this is all about leaving those around flipping through the dictionary at the slightest of opportunities (The Decayed Canine and his blog come to mind).

Having a good vocabulary is one thing. Dishing out ridiculously fancy terms like turquoise and burgundy like every other guy on the street knew them is quite another. What do you lose by calling burgundy dark-red? Or turquoise bluish-green? So the next time we converse, please bear in mind the fact that my vocabulary isn’t the best in the world, especially when it comes to colours (chromatically challenged, if you like). To the best of my knowledge, peach is a fruit. So is apricot. And I have no idea what mauve is.

Close Encounters of the Third Kind

I was reading Bachi Karkaria’s article on ‘Les Folies de Marrakech’- the Islam-compatible cabaret minus the usual g-strings, low-waists et al. Think about it, a cabaret without flesh is like chocolate without sin. If you feel virtuous about it, you are taking away its essential allure. This applies even to inseperable pairs without an element of forbidden salaciousness. Imagine Sholay without Gabbar or Mourinho without the loose-talk. They just feel strangely incomplete.

 

I have enjoyed pulling people’s legs ever since the day I was born.  Perhaps a harbinger of the onset of maturity, I have mellowed down considerably over the last two years. Nevertheless, over my long career, my casualties have all been of two knds: those who hide their displeasure at being teased and those who don’t. Three years ago, though, I met a person who fell into neither of the aforementioned categories. The guy had an ego the size of my toe-nail. I could have teased him for the rest of his life and he still wouldn’t have cared. Worse, the entire leg-pulling ritual seemed to provide him as much pleasure as it provided me. Ridiculing him was like, in many ways, the Islam-compatible cabaret – it just wasn’t fun anymore.

 

The eighteen years of my existence prior to my arrival in R-Land took me to 3 different cities and 5 different schools. More out of nostalgia than anything else, I make it a point to visit them whenever I get the time. Friends had Central Perk. HIMYM has McLaren’s. Seinfeld had Monk’s Café. R-Land has Alpahar and Nesci. And PSBB had AB. I don’t even remember what the A stood for any more, but one thing I do remember is that I loved the Bhel Puri there. It neither tasted nor looked like the eponymous Chaat dish we have all grown to love but in its own way, it was delicious.  As the final year of my schooling dawned, I returned to PSBB (and to AB) one last time. The price of the Bhel Puri had increased by a buck since my last visit. The quantity seemed to have shrunk too. AB had also adopted a flashier new board in my year-long absence. One thing that hadn’t changed, thankfully, was the taste of the Bhel Puri, which was just as heavenly as it was a year ago. Mmmm…

 

While I made love to my Bhel Puri an over-sized fellow customer had his eyes fixed upon me. Worse, he was smiling at me. There was nothing to be done but return the smile. And yet, I didn’t. Two minutes later, a historic conversation began.

 

Unknown Fat Guy: "Hi. Do you study in PSBB?"

Me: "No, but I used to until a year ago."

UFG: "Oh, when did you pass out? (which, by the way, is a phrase that annoys me. ‘To pass out’, as far as I’m concerned, is to faint.)

Me: "Yesterday, when van Nistelrooy missed the penalty against Arsenal."

UFG: "What?"

Me: "Never mind. Which class are you in?"

UFG: "I’ll be going to the 12^th this year."

Me: "Oh nice. I was your batch-mate until a year ago."

UFG: "Wow, then do you know *some random name*?"

Me: "No."

UFG: "You must be knowing *some other random name*?"

Me: "No, I don’t."

50 random names later, he still wouldn’t give up. Eventually, I decided the only way I could end this conversation was by humouring the bonehead. I went on to claim to know a dozen people I hadn’t even heard of. On that happy note, I thought the conversation would be wrapped up. I couldn’t  have been more mistaken.

UFG: "You know so many people I know. I know so many people you know. Yet I don’t know you and you don’t know me. Isn’t that amazing?"

Me: "You know what else is amazing? That you’re still alive."

UFG: "Haha. You’re funny."

Me: "Haha. You’re not."

UFG: "Hahaha. Anyway, I’m waiting for a friend of mine. Wonder why he isn’t here yet."

Me: "I’m not surprised."

UFG: "Why?"

Me: "It’s just that you’re really Boring. With a capital B."

UFG: "Hahaha."

Me: "How is that funny?"

UFG: "My friends call me the Big B. You said I was Boring with a Big B. Pun, see?"

Me: (stunned silence)

I had given up by now. The only way this conversation could be concluded was by landing a tight slap right across his face, I decided. While I prepared for the inevitable, he went on, blissfully unaware of what lay in store for him…

UFG: "So where do you study now?"

Me: "DAV Boys’, Lloyds Road."

UFG: "Why did you join a boys’ school?"

Me: "I realized I was gay a couple of years ago."

UFG: "Err… umm… it’s getting late. I think I should leave. Bye."

Me: (to myself) "Wow, it's the third time that has worked."

 

…. and Dela lived happily ever after.  

Fate, luck and all that jazz

You are what you read, someone once told me. Should this be true of the newspapers in India, our fellow countrymen fall into two main categories: the Leftists and the voyeurs (the third major daily has been omitted owing to the fact that it is read by no one apart from PeeTeeVee and Lefty.) This being the case, the ones like yours truly who are a bit of both (or neither) are left with no choice but to buy both newspapers (or neither).  Throughout my first year, the paper-wala, at my behest, dutifully dropped both The Hindu and The Times of India at my doorstep well before I woke up. Once I did, I’d ‘see’ the Times and then go on to read the Hindu. The shortcomings were many. WHile one had a bikini-clad Eva Langoria sitting right in the middle of an article on the Chennai Super Kings' recent drubbing, the other is as interesting as Morrison and Boyd. Then again, it is, as PeeTeeVee puts it, a question of alternatives.

 

My roomie, on the other hand swore by the Times. Not that he ever read it though, apart from the early morning five minute ‘flip-through’ ritual every Sunday. After the routine comments on Sachin’s form, Icevarya’s weight and Klodia Seefar’s looks, he would proceed to the sports column. Not that he followed any sport. What drew his attention was the astrology column on the left corner of the page by a certain Bejan Daruwala, which he recommended to every third person he met.  Worse, he’d lock himself indoors if Mr. Daruwala warned him of a physical injury. ‘He even predicted my grades accurately’, he claimed, while conveniently ignoring  Daruwala's prophecies on his love life, knowing that they’d never come true. Not in R-land anyway.

 

Han Solo is byfar my all-time favourite fictional character, followed by Aragorn and Tyler Durden. Perhaps as a consequence of this, I find the entire concept of 'destiny' phoney. Soothsaying even more so.  The very existence of a predetermined course of events, never mind its correlation with stars, palms and whatnot, seems outlandish. Should ‘destiny’ exist, why would I feel a need to do anything at all? Would I rather not sit back with a bag of pop-corn and watch history take its course?

 

As much as I love dismissing fate as zilch, there are times when even I cannot help but feel an external hand manipulating our actions and their outcomes. On the 21^st of May, Ronaldo missed a penalty for Manchester United in the Champions League final at Moscow. John Terry and Chelsea were one kick away from lifting their maiden European trophy. Just when all seemed lost, Terry slipped as he took his shot, and sent the ball dismally wide. Two shots later, Edwin van der Sar saved Nicolas Anelka’s shot and sealed United’s third European Cup and the first since the turn of the millennium.

 

Sir Alex Ferguson called it ‘fate’. Maybe it was. Maybe it wasn’t. But one fact that even I can’t belie is that a force well beyond my comprehension was at work that night at Moscow. At any rate, the trophy is ours. Glory, glory….

 

The Other Side

“You know the day destroys the night
Night divides the day
Tried to run
Tried to hide
Break on through to the other side.”

In the words of a great soul, “The oddest thing about life is that when you finally get something you hoped and prayed for, you realize that it wasn’t worth the effort in the first place.” These 27 words practically sum up everything that I’ve been through over the last fortnight. Oh, and just for the record, the aforementioned ‘great soul’ is none other than *wait for it* yours truly.

Unending syllabi, lousy vivas and lousier examinations notwithstanding, there is no fortnight more eventful than the one preceding the end-sems. It always begins with detailed study-schedules to make up for the mistakes and ‘C+’s of the past and spend days on end with those lovely red-bound manuscripts that lay forgotten under the bed ever since the start of the sem. Plans make way for hopes and dreams of an unusually simple paper or of getting a physics-defying view of the answer script of the 9 pointer two seats beside you. As D-day approaches, the too fade away, to be replaced by prayers and eventually by just an urge to get the whole thing over and done with.

My fifteen days of ‘preparation’ have all gone the same way. I woke up cursing my annoyingly loud alarm and reached the mess in a record-breaking three minutes and forty seconds, well in time for the first meal of the day- lunch. This was followed by a five minute long walk to the library, a twenty minute long search for some book that sounded at least remotely familiar, and a forty minute search for a seat with a perfect view of the hot fourth year girl two floors below. Once seated, I laboriously placed the two-pound book in front of me and studied. And studied. And studied. And studied. And studied. And studied. Or so it would have seemed to a naïve onlooker. I’ve scaled the Everest, scored goals at the Old Trafford, dated Cobie Smulders and won a Nobel Prize- all while staring blankly at those two thousand yellow-tinted sheets of paper.

Eventually, the shortcomings of my preparation came to light, shattering all my hopes of improving on the slew of C+s and Bs that stood beside my name last semester. All that remained was an eagerness to end up on the other side of the end sems- three months in a world without alarm clocks and lecture notes. Three months of unlimited sleep, food, movies and TV. Three months with Robin Scherbatsky, Frederic Barbarossa and Shannon Rutherford.

Nothing, though, is as beautiful as it is in your dreams. Now that I am on the other side, life seems just as boring. Only more so. HIMYM has nothing going for it apart from the fact that Cobie Smulders is the most beautiful woman alive. Lost is as interesting as a game of chess and the only movies on our LAN that I haven’t seen half a dozen times are the uber-lame romantic comedies that I wouldn’t watch unless my life depended on it.

And talking of being on the ‘other side’, now that I have completed my second year here (or so I hope), I am now on the wrong side of ‘the wall between the young and the young-at-heart, as Lefty fondly refers to it. Five hundred more morons will call me ‘sir’ and idolize me when I return to R-Land after the summer break. Oh crap, I’m dreaming again.