The Sentimental Idiot !

Let's start with a question. How long do you think  can you can manage without a watch? A few hours ? A few days ? How about three months and 4 days ? Thats how long i have survived without a watch in this crazy world that often finds 24 hours to be too short for a whole days work. Its not a fact i am very proud of, and thank God for keeping me from losing my job,but it surely is an achievement of some sort. The reason for the radial white patch on my left wrist instead of a titan quartz watch was that my regular watch repair guy was out of station for a very long time, three months and 4 days to be precise. "You could have gone somewhere else genius", You may wish to tell me, but wait till you finish reading this story.  A few weeks ago i had written a post about Nadeem, a tyre repair specialist who deeply impressed me by his commitment and work ethic. This post is about another expert, the best at the craft of watch repair. ...

The Orion Mall In Bangalore There are many things I like about the Orion mall in Bangalore, first of all its one of the few places close to home where I can hang out, second-most of my friends live nearby so nearly all of our reunions are 'Orion based’, third-the food is great, and finally I love the way the parking staff greet me every time I drive into the basement of the mall, it makes up for all the annoying security checks they put me through. I watched ‘The Phantom Menace’ in the galaxy theatre at MG road in 1999, the theatre has been closed for a long time now, but the memories of watching the movie there are still fresh in my mind, I still recall the pod race scene in the film, the sound system was spectacular and when Anakin Skywalker wins the race I yelled out loud in the theatre full of people, fortunately for me I wasn’t the only one doing so. Go Anakin Go!!! I never intended for this blog to be about writing film reviews but since movies form a big...

I have often wondered how great it would be if life remained static. A life where friends stayed friends, where parents never grew old & where love lasted for a lifetime, I have found it annoying and unfair how life changes every minute, the most dynamic process existent in the world is probably life itself. Does life ever wait, does time ever stand still?  Is there a pause button on the remote control of life? It’s funny how we find answers to some of life’s most complicated questions in the simplest, most basic scenarios from our day to day routines. I spent a good portion of my morning today at the Jalahalli branch of the State bank of India, this is one of the busiest branches of the bank in the whole city. They have close to a million registered accounts and irrespective of what day of the month it is, or what time of the day you happen to come here, it is perennially busy. On most days the token allotted to you will be at least a hundred numbers away ...

Love is a very complicated emotion. It’s very powerful, almost consuming. Love reaches into the inner most spaces of our being and pulls on the strings of our souls, the tune thus produced may be one of joyful singing or a palpably sad dirge. Have you seen a man in love? Trust me, Nothing can match the confidence in his actions or the spring in his step. On the flipside, have you ever seen a woman with a broken heart? Can anything compare to the sorrow in her eyes? That’s what love does to you; it can make you feel like a king one day and a complete nobody the very next. What I realized lately is that most of the people around us, no matter how happy they may seem suffer from a very weird but real form of loneliness. They may seem to have it all, but like everyone else at the end of the day we all wish we had someone to hold, someone to cherish, someone set apart from the rest-just for us. Then why is that in a population that exceeds 1,241,000,000 ...

Do you remember the first time someone handed you an autograph book and asked you to write something in it? If you do, I am also sure that no matter how hard you resisted reading other peoples entries, you did actually read them. My first autograph book was that of my chubby friend Sonia whom I had met in math tuition, she was leaving the city and wanted to do so with the best wishes of her close friends. The book was full of excellent autographs. While most of her friends were after tickling her funny bone; a few others had put in some very touching entries. Among the funny ones, one of her friends had pasted a stamp of Gandhiji instead of his picture, to the question What was your first crush? The same guy had written ‘I crushed my classmates foot while I was in first grade’ By far, the funniest autograph in her book was from a friend who said- “Keep in touch, but don’t keep touching”!!! So, What exactly does it mean to keep in touch with someone? The wa...

I was about 10 years old when my father took me to an amusement park near JC nagar in Bangalore. Right at the entrance stood the tallest man I have ever seen. Till that point in time I was absolutely sure that nobody in the world was taller or stronger than my father but then there was this man. Slightly startled and intimidated by his demeanor I stood at a distance. He beckoned to me but I ran away. At the end of a thrilling day at the park I made my way to the entrance once again, the tallest man in the world was still there, it was December and the air was biting cold, he just stood there like a tree unhindered by the weather. Father insisted that I shake hands with the man and he escorted me to him, I held up my shaky hands, he slowly stooped down, patted me on the back and gave me one of the warmest handshakes I have ever had in my life. My tryst with tall people wasn’t over yet. The next giant I met was my classmate and long time buddy Shashank Ballur, In spite o...

I love my bike, I really do. Among all of my materialistic possessions in the world my 110 c.c Honda CB Twister is number one.  Together we have travelled close to 10,000 kms in the last couple of years and I have enjoyed almost every single moment I have spent with it, the reason I say almost is because every now and then my bike and I have a fall out. Sometimes I forget to give it a proper wash and it retaliates by refusing to start when I am in the middle of traffic. Occasionally I park it in the blazing sun and the gear system responds by getting jammed as I am going uphill. Seldom does the bickering go to extreme lengths…. Seldom. I knew forcing my bike to carry a weight one and half times the recommended maximum load would provoke an intense reaction, my rear tyre let out a high pitched scream before flattening out as my brother and I left from the hospital to home. We stared at the now completely deflated back tyre in dumb disbelief; this was the worse ...