Wednesday, November 29, 2006

My Old School Prayer

Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high;
Where knowledge is free;
Where the world has not been broken up by narrow walls;
Where words come out from the depth of truth;
Where tireless striving stretches its arms towards perfection;
Where the clear stream of reason has not lost its way in the dreary desert sand of dead habit;
Where the mind is led forward by thee into ever-widening thought and action
Into that heaven of freedom, my Father, let my country awake.


Rabindranath Tagore.
(For some reason this has been making rounds on the internet with the wrong words...)

Tuesday, November 14, 2006

The World’s Worst Job

Playing an unnamed goon in a John Woo Hong Kong action flick has to be the worst job in the world. You have to wear a suit to work, the pay is terrible, no health benefits, and no pension plan - otherwise, I Bankers would be running to John Woo for a job, those blood suckers will do anything for a quick buck (and a chance to wear a suit). And things are not made any easier when Chow Yun-Fat never has to reload his gun and can use a 12 guage shotgun with surgical precision. I guess the only upside is that laundry costs are not too high since goons die off one shot to any part of the body.
Sometimes I wonder what would happen if Rajnikanth, Chuck Norris, and Chow Yun-Fat faced off – end of the world? Do goons have nightmares about these people? Do they check for Van Damme under the bed when they go to bed at night? Questions such as these have kept me up since I watched The Killer, Hard Boiled, God of Gamblers, and the A Better Tomorrow trilogies.
Moreover, how does one become a goon? Do you just walk into a Triad office and hand in your resume? Do you need job experience or a degree from MSG [1]? After all for most of these goons, it looks like this is the first time they have held a gun/driven a motorbike/car/helicopter/tricycle/auto etc. Seriously, I cannot think of anything worse than being a goon in a John Woo movie, except for maybe lawyers (no offence Nisha).
[1] MSG: Ming School of Goons, Hong Kong – the main bad guys usually graduates of this place.

Friday, November 10, 2006

Sweet?

It is funny how people in London are used to spending two thirds of their day in super-congested compartments that they called ‘The Tube’. Cases of people falling ill during their ride on the train are not rare in existence. Some common explanations are the lack of ventilation and/or the person being sick before entering the train. Data and almost every single passenger would choose the former. After a long day of learning about countries from all around the globe at the World Travel Market organized in ExCel London (eastern end of London), I was heading back taking the usual, the Tube. Tiredness was what I could see in other passengers’ faces. All of them looked dead. The only means of entertainment were the sight of people making futile attempts to stay awake and the banging of the heads on the side glass by the seats. My journey was supposed to last for approximately 2 hours. Peak hour exacerbated this journey of mine by allowing a dozen 6.5 feet tall guys in the already full compartment in which I was struggling for some fresh oxygen. I was pushed to the side and could barely move. Few more people got on at the next station, among which there were two girls (17/18 yrs, normal looking, probably college girls). One of them was pushed to the pole I was hanging on to. After about a couple of minutes, I realized that her body was pressing against my hand. I felt awkward but couldn’t do much due to congestion. She was also holding on to the same pole. Soon after that, I felt someone trying to play with my fingers. It was her. I felt very uneasy and quickly withdrew my hand into my pocket. I was confused about how I should react. She then looked at me, smiled and then ended it with a polite ‘sorry’. No reaction from me again. The only thing that came into my mind was ‘Wow! That was unexpected’. Then things went back to the way it was supposed to be in a train chamber. I got lost thinking about nothing, looking outside the window. Slowly, the share of oxygen per passenger in each chamber started going up, after halts at several stations. More and more people started getting off the train. I was still standing by the door. Then it reached the station before the one I was supposed to get off at. The doors opened. Suddenly, I felt something warm on my chest. I quickly came back to senses to realize that it was somebody’s hand. It was the same girl. She looked at me, gave the same smile, said, ‘You are too sweet!’ and walked out. No reaction from me this time as well. To make the matter a little bit more interesting, I had my cousin sister sitting not very far away from me on the train witness the whole scene and later interrogate me about my intentions and thoughts. Again, no reaction from me.


I guess interesting things can happen in some of the most boring places as well.



If you were me, tell me how you would have reacted.

Wednesday, November 01, 2006

My Motto



White Socks

I hate it when trains are late. It is universal. All over the world, trains are always late. I do not like trains, but I like train stations. There is something surreal about train stations – a microcosm of modern society if you will. I enjoy sitting on a platform bench observing the world go past, entranced by the multitude of cacophonous sounds that echo around the high ceilings. Yes, I like train stations; trains are a different matter altogether.
The train I was on was scheduled to leave Napoli half an hour ago but it was still gleefully idling at the station like a fat boy in a Mark Twain novel. I was not pleased. I was stuck in a small compartment with Hann for company and the air conditioner was not running. I tried to make small talk with Hann but he seemed engrossed in the colorful complimentary magazines in the seat pocket. I don’t know what he was reading – it was in Italian, and neither of us spoke the language. I looked outside the graffiti stained window to wile my time and a glum silence filled the compartment…
Leaning my head against the wall, I was about to fall asleep when the sliding compartment door was violently pushed apart and a dirty little man with a large mustache and a navy blue knapsack walked in. He looked at us with leery eyes and snorted, and with a magical sleight of hand produced two packets and tossed one to each one of us. I caught the packet on my lap. It was a set of white socks. Bewildered, I looked up and caught Hann’s equally confused eyes looking at me. People usually don’t hand out sets of white socks.
“Socks.” The man said as if he had answered the question to life, universe, and everything else. We looked up at him.
He scratched his rough chin and sighed. “Ummm… twenty Euros.”
I look at Hann and he's busy inspecting the goods. I look down at my packet, not sure what to do, so I look at the stubby Italian expecting some sort of an explanation...

"For you only twenty Euros..."
I look at Hann. His ears were turning red. Suddenly Hann throws the packet of socks at the Italian and with a Fonz expression says, "Aieaaa, these are made in China man, my family probably made them, and you're trying to sell it to me?..."

The stubby Italian snatched the packet out of my hand and walked out with a solemn face. Once again the compartment lapsed into silence. I resumed my vigil on the platform, waiting to get to Rome.