A long time ago...

Thirty six years ago to be precise, an abomination on the face of this earth was created. This useless weight on this earth has trundled around and stumbled along in life, starting from becoming a boy, then a man, then a father and finally an annoyance to everyone who knows him.

And yet, today, so many of these people stood up and wished him a happy birthday and completely overwhelmed him. He was touched by a few thoughtful acts by people, kind and considerate statements from quite a few and mainly, warm wishes from so many people who accepted the abomination and learnt to live with it.

I thank you all for making my scourge-of-a-birthday a lot more tolerable.

Songs have such acute memory recall

I was driving home last night and, as usual, the music was playing out loud in the car.

What was different this time was that every time a song would come on, my mind was going back to a time when I either heard the song for the first time or something special was happening with the song playing in the background.

I floated from the pages of a book, to a dance show, to a stage performance, to a bus ride, to a restaurant. And just like that, I was home…floating on a cloud of memories, all of them triggered by as simple a thing as a song coming on.

I've had the same experience with perfumes, but this was far wilder. And there were so many memories that crowded my car as I drove home.

And I realized that I enjoy these songs, the ones which have a memory hard coded in their MP3 tag, a lot more than most. Must be something that makes them sweeter.

More than a 1000 people have something to talk about

So I might as well scream from the mountain tops.

I LOVE MY NEW SHOES!

This might make me sound gay (and as Seinfeld rightly pointed out…Not that there's anything wrong with it), but I just have to tell you guys about the shoes I have. They're called the Vibram (pronounced wii-br-um) Five Fingers and they are the closest I have felt to barefoot while still wearing shoes. You have to check these out.

I got these shoes two weeks ago and ever since I have put them on, I have not wanted to put any other shoe on…and if I have to, I do so grudgingly.

Now these shoes don't exactly look like the shoes you are used to. These are distinctly different and actually have a pocket for each toe, hence the name Five Fingers. They look a bit different and so get used to people staring at you. If I'm in the elevator, the whole elevator stares. If I'm in the bus at the airport taking me to the airplane, the entire bus stares. If I'm in the office, the entire office has asked.

Since the time I have gotten these shoes, there must be at least a thousand Tamilians with a new story to talk about. And at least 200 Bangaloreans. Which should tell you how much time I have been spending in Chennai for the last few weeks.

Long story short, the shoes attract attention…and usually the wrong sort of attention with people sniggering or smiling or just shaking their head at the contraption I am wearing on my foot. And most of your friends will try to make your life a living hell over the shoes. Only 2 out of those >1000 people have looked at them and said "They look really comfy. I wanna get them."

Luckily for me, I really don't care about what anyone has to say. And at the end of the day, my feet thank me. And that's what matters to me.

Thank you Vibram for creating this fantastic product and I am proud to be an exponent of this fantastic piece of footwear.

My feet are sooooo much happier these days!

Another reason to hate the IPL

Now I'm a long time cricket basher, so this should not come as a
surprise. But this tops everything.

I thought it had begun well. I was checking into the Park Sheraton in
Chennai and was told that the arrival of the Mumbai Indians was
imminent.

And just like that, I saw God that day. Walking calmly and smiling at
everyone. What a man, that Sachin Tendulkar!

The next day, I realized that despite me telling the hotel I was
staying the entire week, there was a goof-up in my reservation which
had me checking out on Tuesday. That was compounded by the fact that
the IPL teams were staying there and the security teams had taken up
additional rooms on short notice. Suddenly, the hotel was chocker
block full and not a single room available. Guess who was on the
receiving end of this charade?

So I had to check out, go to a hotel called Savera (which by the way
used to be a hotel beyond my grade when I worked for Digital and which
has now sunk to a pathetic hotel with poor lighting in the room, bad
bathrooms and an AC that barely works...not to mention poor Internet
availability in the rooms), stay for one night and then check back in
to the Park.

Just because of these IPL fools, I could not send the couple of mails
that had to be sent last night and had to spend my night in a hole.

I hate the IPL and cricket in general.

Blogged from my iPhone

This nightmare should tell you a lot

I had a great round of golf yesterday. Played with my buddies at KGA,
didn't start very well, but finished strongly to come home with an 8
over for the round which had three birdies and could have had 2 more.

But that is not the point of this post.

It's about this dream - actually it qualifies more as a nightmare -
last night.

I had a flight to catch in the morning and had a fairly disturbed
sleep, waking up every half an hour or so to check if it was time. And
somewhere during that patchy sleep, I remember this...

I was standing - in my dream - on the tee box with mu buddies and it
was my turn to tee off. And tee off I did, the ball soaring off on the
perfect trajectory ...only to see the ball flying back at me and
landing back at my feet.

I woke up with a start.

I read into the dream. What does it tell you?

Blogged from my iPhone

DC sucks!

I'm out having a drink with my friend Aarti and her husband Debashish
Chakrabarti (DC for short). We're having the drink at the Jaymahal
Palace and they are showing the IPL matches here and guess
what...today the match is between Mumbai Indians and Deccan Chargers.

MI just thumped DC...and as the match drew to a close, another patron
walked by saying "DC sucks!"

You should have seen Dc's expressions as he heard this statement! "You
have no idea how much that cuts into my heart" his words verbatim!

And now he's arguing with me about the bill..which I am sitting
on...physically :-)

I agree with the other patron...DC sucks! Hahahaha....sorry DC! he he.