'Black'berry

My Blackberry beeps. 

Groaning, i pull the device out of my pocket, and look at it. In the darkness, its whitish LED glow sends ripples of pain through my eyes before i can focus on the words in front of me. 10:38 PM, the small digital clock on the screen reads. Small notices, of new mails in my inbox, flash in the corner of the screen. Someone has left me a voice message as well. My to do list flashes brightly, with several 'incompletes', like a glowing testament of my inefficiency. My calender subtly reminds me that i am supposed to be in a conference call at the very moment.  

Damn it! I had totally blacked out. For nearly an hour... 

Somehow, I cannot bring myself to finding out what the mail was about or who was trying to reach me. The very thought, suffocates me. I close my eyes for a moment. Visions of hoardes of phone touting executives flash through my head. They are droning on and on about something and they are all approaching me, arms outstretched,  as if to strangle me. My breathing becomes visibly heavy and i realise a growing panic. I move the device away from me, almost as if being exposed to its rays can cause me severe brain damage. 

It feels good but for just a moment before the blackberry goes "beep!"

I begin to feel my hands start to shiver a bit and i drop the device onto the seat beside me. Beads of sweat begin to trickle over my forehead and neck and i struggle to breathe. "Beep", the blackberry goes again and i am now fighting for my breath. I gasp loudly. Loud enough for the driver to turn and look at me in concern. 

"Sir, are you all right?"

"Yes", I answer, not very convincingly. The driver turns away, not convinced of my answer. But he doesnt care. No one does, really.

The car continues to plough through the empty freeway. I look out through the tinted windows at far away lights inside homes. Probably, a family was having dinner. I feel alone. I am not really alone, am I. Alone is the state where you have only your thoughts to focus on. But i had more than just my thoughts. 

I consider the silent device lying face down on the seat near me and suddenly feel very silly.

What the hell was I doing? It was just a piece of silicon, plastic and metal that someone, a low wage worker leading a brutal existance, built, in some factory in China. How did it assume such a big personality that 30 years of my existance cant dominate it? I can choose how i use it, cant I?. What the hell was i now getting paranoid about, anyway. I ponder on this for a while and reach no real conclusions.

I pick up the blackberry as it beeps yet again. Another mail in. The little black devil vibrates in my hand as if it is mouthing an evil curse in morse code. I feel infected. A strange uneasy sensation passes through me accompanied by glimpses for my to dos and conference calls. I begin to shiver and drop the phone in the process. The chunky device thuds onto the soft carpeted floor of the car and rolls beneath my seat. I sit there feeling the futility of it all. Eventually the device would be the victor. As if to underline my point, the driver turns and announces "Sir, we are here"

Time to leave. And time to pick up the phone. 

I reach down, my fingers feeling the soft floor, trying to grab my phone; except i cannot find it! Seeing my plight, the driver switches on the light filling the inside of the car with an ugly yellow glow. I look around for the phone in vain. My hands reach under the dark depths of the seat, shivering with tension, as my fingers fail to close in on the cold lifeless form i was expecting. Flustered, i begin to rummage on the floor and under the seat. Not a trace. More confused than frustrated, i check my pockets again. No device. Finally, after nearly 15 minutes looking in vain, i give up. I instruct my driver to hand the device over when he finds it and walk back. 

I feel free. Liberated. The air around me richer. As i walk to my home, i realise that the streets are wet. It had been raining. There is a pleasant smell in the air. 

"Sir!", i halt. My heart sinking fast, i turn around. The driver is running toward me. His fists balled up, holding something. I know what it is. As he comes closer, the device gleams under the streetlamps. Its grinning its evil grin. 

"Found it!", the driver says, panting, happy as he hands it over gingerly, almost with reverence. He knows. He knows who his boss is. It isnt me; he knows. The Blackberry. He knows. 

But it was time. Time to show him who the boss was. 

I look at the blackberry; my mind conjures a million ways to establish my dominance right there. I could throw it way like an outfielder on a cricket ground. I could stamp on it like those over sized wrestlers. I could dissect it part by part, with the fiendish glee of hannibal lecter, and savour every moment of its distruction. I had to think fast. The driver has to see me do it. 

The phone rings; My client. Status update on the upcoming workshop? Urgent meeting? Query on the deliverable? 

May be i should just take this one final call.  It could be important. I can choose when i want to destroy the device. The driver is walking back now. I feel like a man who was on the cusp of getting out a deep dark precipice slipping back into it. My fingers arent holding any longer and i slip back into the abyss.

I press the green answer button on the phone, "Hello?"

A movie made in hell

Aditya chopra went on a hiatus for 8 years. Perhaps, during this time, he sold his soul to the devil and has come back to carry on satan's evil work; to unleash upon this world; a pain so massive; a cruelty so gruesome; a movie so boring that he can be called a facist. The problem with 'Rab ne bana di jodi' ( i am already beginning to snooze before i can type out the entire name) is not that it is bad, it is so bad that i might be looking at some serious therapy time. I did contemplate on whether i should spend my time writing about this dredge, but decided that a post on this - in its own small way - is a social service to humanity and a serious boost to my social guilt conscience (which takes a serious blow everytime i bribe a cop). 

Rab ne starts off as a slow, acceptable mediocrity devolves into silly tripe and becomes the cess pit of wasted screen time and tortured audiences. Perhaps, just perhaps, if despite the pathetic screenplay, everything else had been good, it would have been watchable (barely). But when there is only one real actor in the movie - even he, at times, takes a dip to the realms of dramatized 'overacting' (perhaps all the talk about how great an actor he is is getting to his head) - backed with average music, cliched dialogues and utterly silly base off which the entire movie is built there is only one way the movie is going to take you - downhill into hell. 

Rab ne will easily rank among the worst movies i have ever seen in my life. Coming from someone, who has had his diet of Vijay movies in tamil, it is a serious allegation. Even in some of the crappiest movies there have been some rare moments when i have marvelled at a little technical artistry with the camera or a piece of awesome soundtrack or even some interesting exchange of dialouges. But i am at a loss to recall any single 5 minute stretch when i was engrossed in this movie at all. Horrible screenplay, monotonous dialogues, meandering story with no real purpose (at least to me), worst female actress i have seen (she just looks like a well dressed barbie in most of the scenes) and just a hollow nothingness that stretches for nearly 3 hours and make you want to drink your way to sanity in the end!!

Dont even make your worst enemy watch this.... 

Things i want to do in 2009...

Places to see...

On a serious note...

Things to do...

Thing to learn...

Thing to give up...

Not sticking to plans like these

and finally, Things to specialise on...

Wish me luck folks, with all your heart and none of the aforementioned sarcasm....

Bernie plans to make Formula1 Car-less...

Bernie Ecclestone floated a new plan today that he believes will revive formula 1 and help the game survive the current economic conditions. His plan is quite simple. "I will make F1 car-less", he said, his eyes glinting in excitement. He then stared at his feet for the next 10 minutes before someone near him reminded that he was in the middle of making an announcement, he proceeded to explain. "If you look at the cost of operations of F1 teams and really break it down, it all boils down to the cars. Remove that from the equation and the operation becomes a profit making machine", he announced, his voice going up an octave in self-admiration. "I have discussed this with all the teams and they are very receptive of the idea", Bernie continued. 

According to Bernie's new plan, teams will field 2 'runners' who will basically lap the track just like they used to do with a car. Bernie plans to mandate that these runners make suitable whining and grunting noises to imitate the sound of an engine and also expects that they maintain a 'racing line' around the track. Bridgestone will now supply the shoes to the runners in 3 standard variants: hard, medium and soft compounds. 

"This is really a big change for us", said the president of the bridgestone formula 1 division. We have never made shoes before but thankfully nike has offered to team up with us. So hopefully with their support we will be able to provide reliable rubber to these runners"

Ferrari's chairman Luca Motezemolo welcomed the move saying that it will bridge the divide between the big and the small teams but warned his team that the emphasis on the pit crew has grown even further. "Our pit crew cannot goof up like we did in the last season. You cant make mistakes while inserting liquid food hose. There is a real danger you might end up hurting or worse, killing our runner"

Max Mosely felt that it was a paradigm shift for the sport and compared it to the time when Nazi's won the world war. When reminded that the Nazi's lost it, he had asked, "Are you sure?" and winked at the blushing female reporter. 

Following the announcement, the aerodynamic engineers have started an intense crash course of human physiology hoping to turn themselves into health and physical training experts. "We think we can add a lot of value as aerodynamic engineers by being able to reduce some fat here and add some fat there.", said an anonymous source as his team runner's eyes widened. "The human body is not that different from a car", he concluded with a gruesome finality.

Lewis hamilton thinks that the new rule is good for the sport before quipping, "of course, nothing is going to change. As you all know, I am the best". He then proceeded to scream "drrrrrrr" before running like a maniac out of the room, yelling as he left, "You see?"

Mclaren did not have comment to give as yet. In the words of Fernando Alonso, "they will be busy trying to get ferrari's designs". When asked what designs are needed now that there are no longer any cars, Fernando's reply had become incomprehensible and distorted and his eyes had shot up in the sockets and a wierd electronic hum began to rise from inside his head. Falvio quickly guided a smoking alonso out of the room saying, "Excuse us, he is a little out of shape today"

Lost in all this was the lone dissenting voice of the formula1 fans. When asked about the rule, the fan had asked, "Isnt running already a sport?" Bernie has reponded to this by claiming that Formula 1 will take the International Assosiation of Athletic Federations to court for conducting "runner" based sports without paying royalties to the FIA.

 

Why choose? If all evil alternatives are the same...

So, I finally manage to get hold of the 'The man in the high castle' and complete it. It is frustrating when people borrow your books and dont return it. It is even more frustrating when you forget who that person is. But what caps it all is when people borrow a book when you are in the process of reading it, not bother to tell you and let you assume that you have lost it. I can be easily excused for using a few choice words to express my sincere opinions towards the person.

But this post is not about that. Its about a few passages that come right at the end of the book, that resonate very well with what happened in Mumbai a few days back. They are not spoilers of any kind so dont be afraid in case you plan to read the book in the future. Here goes...

"...The terrible dilemma of our lives. Whatever happens, it is evil beyond compare.  Why struggle, then? Why choose? If all evil alternatives are the same . . .

  Evidently we go on, as we always have. From day to day. At this moment we work against operation Dandelion. Later on, at another moment, we work to defeat the police. But we cannot do it all at once; it is a sequence. An unfolding process. We can only control the end by making a choice at each step. 

  

  He thought, We can only hope. And try.

  

  On some other world, possibly it is different. Better. There are clear good and evil alternatives. Not these obscure admixtures, these blends, with no proper tool by which to untangle the components.

  We do not have the ideal world, such as we would like, where morality is easy because cognition is easy. Where one can do right with no effort because he can detect the obvious......"