Car-nage

In my experiences in the city (read Bangalore) I have seen many small cars with dents and other signs of damage like big gashes on the side, missing head/tail lights, cracked windshields and the like. But the thing is most of these cars are Altos.

Why the Alto you ask? I will tell you with a nice comparison with other cars.

1) Why the Alto and not the Zen - this is because the Zen is old and not in production anymore. What satisfaction would anyone get, especially a sadistic bus driver (nasty mofos), from making an old car look older ? I'll tell you...NONE. You tell me. When you're pissed off out of your mind, screaming for vengeance, do you go trash your grandfather's clock. No ? Good.

2) Why the Alto and not the Swift - the Swift is newer, more expensive. Besides that it's a nice fast car and regardless of the driver, it will avoid the damn buses. Unless it's parked. But that's no worry since buses don't 'regularly' crash into parked cars. They just do it once in a while. Either way, chances are that there's an Alto close by, sheepishly inviting trouble.

3) Why the Alto and not the 800 - if the Zen is old, the 800 is ancient...go figure.

4) Why the Alto and not the i20 - the i20 is so beautiful, no sane person or crack one for that matter, would want to damage something so beautiful. Besides the Alto looks quite similar to the i20 so it's almost like you're hitting an i20 wihout actually damaging that beautiful piece of machinery. Two birds with one stone or rather a KSRTC vehicle.

5) Why the Alto and not the i10 - the i10 is smaller and more difficult to hit and since the Alto is a bit longer, it presents as a more visually appealing target.

6) Why the Alto and not a mid size car - more expensive than the others and if it's a mid size car, someone with too much testosterone and nothing to do with it is driving, or a woman with a husband with same qualities as described previously is driving it and you don't really want to take chances cause those things are so low, they might just go right under the bus or help in flipping it over.

BACK TO SMALL CARS-

7) Why the Alto and not the WagonR, the Spark,the Estillo or the Fusion - hitting any of these cars or even contact with any of them is an insult to even the oldest and most beaten up bus, ksrtc, bmtc or otherwise.

And of course,

8) Why the Alto and not the Reva - bachche ko maaroge kya ? Going at a minimum speed of 20kmph you risk sending the car on a flight. No seriously. Don't do it.

The Last Drag

The rain pours
On a cold night,
In the welcome dark
Is an orange light.

The fiery heat on
Parted lips is felt,
In forgiving silence
Heart-break is dealt.

'Six Swiss ships
Swiftly shift'
Does that a corner
Of the mouth lift ?

The ash is flicked,
The stub is out.
Nicotine erases
All trace of doubt.

Me and My Computer

Let me tell you a story to chill the bone
About a thing that I saw...

"Oh my respite from the occasional mundaneness of an ordinary life, my outlet of human (and not so human) emotions, my companion in sickness and in health, my beloved box of infinite entertainment, you break my heart. Why art thou so agonisingly stubborn, wasting mine counted hours on earth in service of thine fickle ways, waiting upon thee like one doth on royalty. Why oh why art thou so frustratingly slow ?

Have I told you how you make me feel ? Sitting before your doomsday glare is reminiscent of listening to a really boring lecture when I have a severe lack of attendance. All I can do is wait in agony and whine, curse and sulk at my bad luck."

One fine Saturday evening, while I was catering to my childlike addiction to cartoons (RESPECT MY AUTHORITY - Eric Cartman), my beloved computer crashed. Or rather the hard disk failed, mechanically and otherwise. There was a mind numbing blank in my 20 Gb memory as a cruel fizzle of wires effectively got rid of all my music and movies. "My life is over !", I cried as I frantically pushed buttons, as we naive humans do when the deities of Teknolozhiq turn their metal enforced backs on us. But to no avail. Everything. Was. Gone.

Mournfully I trudged ankle deep through the cold and sticky goo we call mud spewed relentlessly across my path by the rain, my heavy bundle weighing me down and yet held close like a precious pet. Gently I laid it down on the counter before the big man with the easy smile, so contrary to my 'child with broken toy' expression. "It crashed" I croaked, "can you fix it ?"*doe eyed expression*

"No problemo" he said, with a reassuring smile. I should've known better.

A new hard disk was put into my boxy companion of 5 years. But oh rotten luck ! The 'old is gold' theory failed to rescue me. I get the impression that the wily old CPU cannot handle the robust hard disk because of which every application on the computer is utterly slow.

My old hag of a computer has brought me down to the extent of wanting to trade it off for this.

I tell you why :
- my eyes water watching its bright and beautiful face for hours on end
- my index finger can bend over backwards (not cool) because the distal joint has outworked its range from hitting ENTER roughly 1472944 times a day
- all this waiting makes me hungry
- cup o noodles takes 3 minutes to make
- that's shorter than the amount of time the computer takes to boot
- cup o noodles makes me happy

Aren't those reasons enough ?

The way our world is criminalizing these days, the CIA and other intelligence (??) agencies will have to come up with innovative and exotic ways of torturing those who've learnt to withstand the standard methods. Methinks my computer should be enrolled in a top secret project, whereby tough criminals should be allowed to access the web.Things load agonizingly slowly and then when most of the site has loaded..........crashes very unceremoniously, which would lead to something like this.

I can only imagine what would become of the true devotees of the deities of Teknolozhiq if they had to undergo such torture. Maybe

The world as we know it runs on speed. This, however, is an immensely expensive affair, especially if you are caught running on it. I was impatient even before the world ran on speed but luckily my impatience has been tempered. Otherwise the computer might have been in quite a few pieces. Actually, a lot of pieces.

To all my friends out there, this is my humble plea. Pray to the Lord to speed up my computer. or better still, send me money so I can buy this

Thank you. *bows*

Being Broke

It's a lovely Sunday morning but I don't feel it. The whole concept of Sunday MORNING is novel to me - waking up after 12 noon is a ritual really.

11:45 am - Roll on the bed, precariously tipping off the edge.

11:46 am - My warm blanket has broken my fall to the cold floor, by the carcass of a dead moth.

11:47 am - I lay contemplating the moth, glad that I didn't kill it, glad that I'm not it when harsh reality hits me in the face like a 3-point rebound - no money.

Yes, I have been poor. I have avoided a sizzler to settle for a sandwich instead, I have bunked class to go for the first show which'll cost me 70 bucks (not like class was too alluring an option), I have bargained for a pair of chappals from 100 to 65. But broke ! No, never, not happening, na-ah...until now.

My friend says, "Pft, you have been broke before." Indeed not ! I reply vehemently. You see, I explain, there's a world of difference between being broke and being poor, in terms of being a college student, of course. Poor is when an alarm goes off in your over-worked mind that your bank balance is dangerously low - this usually happens when I'm on my last 1k. All plans of buying get postponed for the week after the next deposit and a diet of pizza and lasagne gives way to Maggi noodles and Knorr soup. Books come from the library instead of being bought and the liquor tap is closed.

Being broke, now, that's a nightmare. I've been broke for exactly 2 days and man, it's horrible. I am not one for restraint but I'm literally on house (make that room) arrest. My your-on-your-last-1k alarm failed to go off, quite like my how-much-will-you-eat conscience. Not that I'm a glutton, I just love my food (high BMR kicks ass!). Of course, being broke means I have to stick to mess food, unappetising and barely nutritious at it's best. I've always wondered why they call it 'the mess' - is it an homage to the appearance of what is served ?

You know what's worse than being broke ? Being broke on a weekend. And just when you think it can't get worse than that, you go broke on the weekend after an exam. Excrutiating agony. Just when you think it's time to unwind and treat yourself, a severe lack of balance threatens your hold on sanity. For a lack of things to do is more frustrating to me than doing something wrong.

So I've put my thinkng cap on. Now it is imperative I do this because my thoughts fly in a million directions at once (if you refute my statement with physics, screw you, thinking is a continuous function). This particular cap has been highly effective in channelising the incessant cerebration that occupies the greater part of my day. Let's bring home some happiness. You see, for all my ingenious, innovative, elaborate and quite frankly, immpossible ideas of budgetting, nothing ever actually works. I'm like those circus people, when I have money, I spend it. So since saving isn't my cup of tea, I'll have to think of some other things to do in times of being broke :

1. Read a book - now this is something I love to do. But the problem lies in exactly that - because I love to read I can't make a chore of it. It has to be done because I want to do it, not because I have nothing else to do.

2. Go craft - seems like a plan, but I have no material. And I always leave my projects half done. I do believe I need some help.

3. Clean your room - indeed I shall, later.

4. Go to the beach - oh how I'd love to ! The beach is like my haven. The feeling of the sand between my toes and the salty breeze on my skin beats any fancy mani-pedi hands down. A quick check around the floor (sans my cap - it's a funny little number really) reveals an utter lack of humanity - no company, CAUSE NO ONE ELSE IS BROKE.

5. Wallow in self pity - there's a time and place for things like that, but really depression will lead to self evaluation which will lead to plans of self improvement which will lead to improving self which will lead to realising 'I can't really change who I am' which just makes this an exercise in futility.

6. Watch something - and now I realise I need to get some shows and movies, but there's no one around to give me that is there ?

7. Sleep - hmmmm. *after 10 minutes of lying down, which is twice the normal fall-asleep time* NEXT !

8. Eat something - I know this seems like a recipe for obesity, so I'd like to explain my concept of BMR (I conceptualise a lot) (I also love making new words) I eat throughout the day, but I don't eat a lot every meal. So my body's constantly metabolising all the food, releasing dangerous amounts of free energy, which leads me to have to always do something. You might say, stop eating, you won't have so much crazy energy to release, but my friend, a lack of food makes one hungry, and I ain't pretty when I'm hungry. But why bother, last week was exam week, which implies that the stock is empty.

9. Go online - I do that every day. I haven't yet understood what people do staying online hours on end. I get bored in less than an hour. I am starting to believe my boredom is an illness.

At this point in time I take off my cap to look for an expiry date. Why is everything giving haath at a crisis situation like this ? I don't have the money to replace things ! I put it back on and silently will it to work. This is based on my theory of 'making things work when they act like a bitch' - you switch it off/take it off/close it down, wait for a few seconds (highly variable, often depends on the item being a bitch) and switch it on/put it on/open it up again. Silently will it to work and Voila ! There it does. Atleast for me it does. Usually.

Like now.

10. Post it.

So the energy has fizzled to a tameable amount, I do believe I'm content. I have found something to do at no cost and I love it.

Being broke teaches you a lot of things. When you find them, let me know.