Tuesday, September 27, 2005

Durrty Baayz II

“As I already told you,…” started Mrs. M, our history teacher. Nothing wrong with the opening line, except that it was a little confusing when she said it the first thing on the first day of classes. The frontbenchers were in a frenzy – what did she just say that we missed? Maybe it’ll appear on the test, maybe I’ll fail, my family is sure to disown me, I’ll end up being a mechanic, oh my god, I can hear Ahmed screaming at me “aye chotu, navva-dassa spanner la re”
The balcony seat occupants were seen scratching their heads – man, this high school stuff flies right past you. Couldn’t register a word of what she said. Maybe I should just quit all this and be a cool mechanic. Wonder if chicks dig mechanics...
Math followed history, and Mrs. KV did a splendid job of restoring faith in the frontbenchers, and reinforcing the mechanic idea in the balcony seats. Mrs. KV was an awesome teacher, and usually had people come up (in the order that they were seated) to the blackboard and work out math problems. Shyama was busy counting heads to see when it would be his turn so that he could fall sick and take the day off, while R planned a covert relocation operation to join those who had already passed through the pearly gates. Shetty was giving a crash course to those around him, and R's long-range vision scanned the girl’s notebooks for solutions. When the bell finally rang, it was drowned by the sound of our collective exhalation.

Break!! Time to have fun, and get durrty!

Kulla, now unshackled, ran in the hallways like a bull on steroids – goring juniors, breaking switchboards, bulbs, holders…singing “tan ki shakti, mann ki shakti, Bournvita!” Now, if only the building maintenance would've made the connection, they’d have saved thousands of rupees by advising his folks to go easy on the Bournvita dosage!

Whenever A stepped out of the classroom, the durrty baayz worked with S.W.A.T. efficiency. Every worldly possession of A's that he dared to bring to school would vanish in seconds -his lunch box in someone else's bag, his book bag on a bungee cord outside the window- genius!! Another durrty baayz original, along with the case of the missing attendance register – you’ve got to hear this:
What do the durrty baayz do when they run out of headache, fever, cold, cough excuses? You just can’t afford to miss cricket matches, can you? OK, here goes plan A: Jump the wall guarded by Bahadur, who should actually be head of security, Tihar Jail. Man, he had the eyes of a thousand hawks. He could pick out the fly that crossed the wall from a lineup. No, not gonna take that route.
Plan B: Proxy? Wouldn’t work. Our teachers knew our voices, our siblings, our parents, our addresses, our neighbors, our pets…hmmm, not gonna fly!
Plan C: Idea! How about just missing classes and taking care of the attendance register later on? Hehehe, brilliant! Cruel grins on the durrty devils. Nobody will know, NOBODY!!!
Of course, they won’t stupid, we’re gonna just fling it outside the window and the elements will degrade it as seems fit. All nasty things must come to an end, right?? Maybe!
If only we knew about projectile paths, factored in drag, expected drastic changes in the path due to the pages flipping, terminal velocity…the task would’ve been, er...dropped. Too late now! The durrty baayz watched in horror as the evidence did its victory flips, laughed mockingly at the dozen big round eyes peering out of the 4th floor window…and landed on the neighboring roof, which as luck would have it, was a slanting asbestos roof. Yes, Murphy’s peg broke its fall and there it was for the whole school to see - the register in a hammock, sipping expensive champagne in its own private island.

Nobody will know, NOBODY!!!

Coming soon: Durrty Baayz III

Monday, September 19, 2005

Durrty Baayz - I

This one’s dedicated to ‘The Durrty Baayz’ - my best buds from school, so christened by our physical education teacher a.k.a ‘Peetla’.

This one goes back a long way…to the times when Bangalore had 6-digit telephone numbers, Shankarnag’s Chitramandira was Symphony theatre, J.C. road had 2-way traffic, RX 100s ruled the roads, and Banashankari III stage was sooo far away!!...with sites owned by people other than Deve Gowda.

“Oye durrty baayz, do not open yuvar durrrrty mouths I say!” bellowed Peetla from his pedestal just before the daily school assembly/prayer. A bull of a man, he towered over us – a sea of puny little men/big boys in our white & maroon school uniforms. When you heard that bellow, you stood at attention, tucked in your shirt, checked your badge, belt, shoes, nails etc and put on your ‘It wasn’t me, sir’ face. Unfortunately, ‘Kariya’ (blacky) and ‘Kulla’ (shorty) – my buds with unpolitically correct nicknames, were in an engrossing conversation about ‘Benne’(butter), the fair-skinned babe they ogled everyday after school. Meanwhile, Peetla was making his way towards them... and the maroon sea parted to let him and his swirling cane proceed on the seek & destroy mission. When the boys felt Peetla’s hot breath and his ominous presence, they froze. Too late to put on the face, now it was time to employ the second line of defense as the cane came swishing at their butts– the escape dance!! Bend, twist, arch, lift, step to the left, right, jump and repeat! If that didn’t work, you took one courtesy hit and then faked the subsequent ‘hits’ by rubbing hard and howling with pain – “sir, sir, sir…ayyyoo, ayayo, amma, appa!!”

“Durrty bayzzzzz!!!” resonated...only until we polluted the air with our two standard and one special prayer (which btw was about non-violence, truth and other alien concepts) - all rendered with the competitive vigor of adolescent boys dropping their voice an octave, breaking up midway, and waiting for testosterone to kick the bass up a notch. Great times!

After the vocal festivities, we filed back to the classrooms with Kulla leading the way with great energetic strides, followed by A ( the scapegoat, who’d challenge anything that moved to a race…but  let us down in an inter-school 4x100 relay where he did a slo-mo run to showcase his moves for the benefit of the camera-less audience.) The rest of us tried to catch up – classy KK trying to balance his badge on his shirt pocket (didn’t want to pin it and spoil his shirt you see); Leader Shetty taking care not to ruin the polish on his shoes, thereby his candidacy for school captain; DP surging ahead flashing his mischievous smile that left you guessing when he’d strike; Shyama in his ‘balloon baggies’ in a serious conversation with R about a new strategy to copy in exams; SJ worrying about the Hindi homework…until we heard the familiar “yewww!!!” from juniors following us on the stairs. Kulla had struck again!!! An unsuspecting victim on the stairs was hit by the saliva missile!! For years our man had tirelessly practised the 'Generate, Release and Run' technique. Never missed, never caught!

Now that you have a taste of things to come, I'll give you more on the classroom action in my next blog. Now it’s time for a few gems of the durrty baayz:

Shetty to a salesman in a garment store pointing at the trousers rack: “Are these readymade or stitched already?”
Salesman, in all honesty: “Readymade sir”

R to a different salesman in a denim store checking out some white denims (?!!): “Will this fade?”
Unsuspecting salesman: “No sir, guaranteed not to fade”

Y, explaining a complex difference: “Eradu bere bere, andre onde thara, same thara!”
(translated: Both are different, they're like one, essentially the same)

R in one of his deep philosophical moods: “What’s gone…I haven't got!”

Coming soon: Durrty Baayz II

Thursday, September 08, 2005

Mystic Lilt

Strange tongue, your call so soft and tender
Is it a love song, a lullaby, or a lament? – I wonder
Angelic chimes, I hear droplets of bliss drip as you sing
Breathe into my fantasy, drown me in a new awakening
Pamper me, wrap me in your melody, kiss me as we drift away
Touch me with your fragrance, feel me with your eyes, I pray
Love beyond language, passion beyond words, worship beyond prayer
Feeling beyond touch, melody beyond music – will you sing forever?

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Monday, September 05, 2005

Cookie Wisdom

In the past few weeks, I’ve been frequenting Chinese buffets more than I’d like to, thanks to my gluttonous colleagues. Surprisingly, in our immediate landscape, Chinese restaurants outnumber McDonalds – the mighty Mickey D weed that has been fuelling this morbidly obese superpower nation to fill up the generous seats of their monstrous SUVs and trucks. Anyway, coming back to the proliferation of Chinese restaurants, how did this happen? McD’s is known to use business mapping to choose its locations according to this excerpt:

“McDonald's is renowned for making smart decisions about the location of its restaurants. Ever wondered why the Golden Arches can be seen in all the busiest and best locations? It’s because McDonald's uses census data and MapInfo to help choose new sites.”

While McD’s is busy mapping stuff, our Chinese buddies Skee Ming and Boo Fay Chow are making their move. Under the shadow of the monstrous golden arches, Ming and Chow quietly move in with their woks and setup ‘Royal Imperial Buffet’ and ‘China Dragon’. For the price of a super-sized McD’s meal, our friends from China open up lanes of soups, thin and thick noodles, fried rice, steamed rice, dumplings, stir-fried veggies, eggrolls, springrolls, meat cooked in every possible fashion you can imagine, fruits (more melons than you can name), jelly (red, yellow, green and more), cookies, cakes, ice-cream, sushi, shrimp, boiled eggs… stuffed yet? Alright, here’s some friendly advice: leave while you can still move, leave while you can walk with your belt loosened, pants unbuttoned and dignity intact. But hang on, don’t forget to take your fortune cookie. Yes, how about some Confucius and some lucky numbers? Sounds good, the fun never ends! Flip it over and learn a chinese word too. Now, that’s value-addition and culture promotion in a neat little package! Recently I got this message in a cookie: “ Exchanging compliments is intellectual back scratching”. Boy, I can imagine Chow and Ming scratching the hell out of each other’s backs while folks at the golden arches scratch their heads.

Sunday, September 04, 2005

A Life's Residuum

A Sharp pointed fence between my mind and the world
-an unused life for sale...one, two, three, sold!
Fleeting glimpses of the past flow between
streaks of pleasure and pain umpteen.
Love drains, exposing an excruciating void
reduced I stand gathering my pieces, adios meteoroid!
Haply, leaving a macula where promises dwelt,
each wave of contemplation a new end meant
to the odyssey sprinkled with pandemic guilt,
a palpable stream gone - just ruins, silt.
Waiting for another crossroad to turn wrong
Praying for providence, this is getting too long.
Scavenging winds separate me shred by painful shred
I laugh at the absurdity, my heart is all lead
I cry at the obscurity, my heart is broken
the whole was silent, the pieces have spoken.
Don't miss tonight's show at the odeum
Silk Farm Symphony performs 'A Life's Residuum'