MJ - RIP

D was telling me that the death of MJ is an event that can be compared with 9/11. Till your dying day, you will always remember what you were doing when you heard the news.

I was taking my early morning news fix at 7:30 AM yesterday while rubbing my sleep deprived eyes.

While I was a kid, Michael Jackson was the epitome of the American culture for me. We had this old "EC" - TV at home. It was black and white and had a manual channel change knob which I used to wrestle with everyday. It sometimes gave me electric shocks and the picture would erratically blank out leaving me with just the audio to make out what was going on.

It was on this television set that I discovered Michal Jackson. He had planned a concert in Mumbai (the first one which got called off) and Doordarshan used to air his music videos for a while. To my rock music deprived child-hood, this was manna from heaven. I never could make out the lyrics, at times could not see the dance moves but the music kept me up at nights.

My brother eventually recorded "Smooth Criminal" on our music system. I listened to it again and again at max volume with my ear stuck to the speaker (the music system was one of the quieter ones around). I sang the song at various times as "Everybody wants to..." or "Ubi-guchi wompchi" or something quite similar to keep track with the music. There was no internet then.

I came to college and while getting ragged I let fall that MJ was one of my favorties. The seniors quickly took me in hand, forbade me any more MJ and introduced me to G'nR, Aerosmith and Pink Floyd. It was apparently "pansy music" not suitable for Patelians.

I have since moved on to ACDC and Cold-play (and am discovering Airbourne). After the news broke, we played his songs on our laptops. It is nostalgic to listen to his songs and finally sing "Annie are you ok?", but I also realized that I have moved on and have a different musical taste now.

Michael Jackson brought a lot of joy to everyone. He tried in his own way to make things right with this world but got misunderstood and paid a heavy price. If you read his biography, you come away with the impression that he was a helpless and sad little kid till his dying day

May he finally get some rest and peace....

Why I (may) not convert to a 'twit'?

I love reading magazines. After me and D got bored of the Straitstimes drivel, we decided to curtails our newspaper subscription to just a weekend delivery and subscribed to the Time.

Its quite a nice change. The only fly in the ointment is....where is the time?
Weekdays go in work, weekends (should) go into house-cleaning, meeting up at Brewerkz, and catching up on my Equalizer project....

Just been reading this frontpage art-kill on twitter and got inspired to blog. No, I am not in any near future converting to a twit. Part of the reason is that I feel too old (my 28th birthday was last week) for these new-fangled ideas and the other part is that I do not want an insistent, "What are you doing now?" thingy beeping away my attention span.

Results also last week. Got an A- and a B+ :|.

Hain!!!!!

Someone please tell me how good songs and effective air-to-air missiles are related!
If you did not quite understand the logic of that sentence, you are in good company. I don't understand this myself!!!

Married....

A few interesting things that can happen at your wedding:
1. You try to pull a grave (I am now a responsible guy) face all through the ceremony. It comes out looking worried and scared. Your wife is all smiles of course which leads to questions later on about whether there was a "difference of opinion" the night before..
2. You cannot eat during either the reception and and the wedding. Weeks later, while looking at the photos of the food you feel hungry.
3. You put in North-Indian customs. The wife puts in the Kerala ones. The priest decides to add in a few Kannada ones also. Everyone comes back slightly confused as to how many times we got married...
4. You wait for guests in the reception hall before getting in. The guests wait for you before they get in. Everyone gets late...
5. You lose the "mangal-sutra" just before the wedding. Rather you lose the key that keeps it in safe custody in a suit-case. When all burglary attempts fail, the brother-in-law sets a speed record to the nearest jeweller and back so that he can become the brother-in-law.

Oh well, I am married now. And I love being so....
(Notwithstanding what you say "Crazy"....)

The lost art of blogging

Once in a while in the life of a blogger facing a mountainous writer's block, comes an existential question. 

Why do I blog?

That's the one facing me right now.  I am not a professional book reviewer. I do not watch many movies so I cannot fill my blog with reviews like I have been donig in the past. 

There's much I'd like to write about the burning issues of the day but I am neither in India nor am I a qualified observer therefore my take on situations is going to be biased and hopelessly out of context. Who cares anyway....

This blog started out as (if I may grandiosly call that) a celebration of life. Not the big things but the small ones. Smelling flowers, chasing butterflies, cracking jokes, keeping the tongue firmly in cheek.

I have not stopped seeing all that's funny in everyday life but I have stopped recalling them.

Lets hope I get my funny bone back soon.

Happy New year

Yeah yeah...

I have not been blogging. Too busy sorting out stuff and trying to put them into well organized dockets but it is difficult to do when your whole life is in the process of turning upside-down.

Last year I had wished everyone a nice, happy but slightly boring year. (The logic being that I had had much more excitement than I could handle and wished for some boredom for a change). This year let me wish everyone LOTS AND LOTS of work.

It would be better to be over-worked than to be idle this year I guess....

Tada!!!