museman

Do I sound desperate? Hmm

Current Mood: Cheerful
Current Music: dheeme dheeme(1947)

Old habits die hard. I slept at 6:30 am today. A hangover of engineering days. Nights spent as days and days as nights. That was the summary of those four years. This Saturday night, again, with the comfort that a Sunday provides, I decided to relive old memories.

The night started with me watching Miss India. Disappointment. I was routing for Tanya. And the most unlikely winner propped up. We will skip the matter here. Let

Current Mood: Bored
Current Music: mar gayee mein

The world was changing fast around me. Aishwarya ceased to be beautiful. I mean, she was beautiful alright but she was not the most beautiful girl around. Gayatri was all around. Bollywood movies, the same ones that I had ripped apart in the past, started sounding sensible. Love was in the air, and yes, Valentines Day has long since gone.

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I waited for the mobile to ring. I waited for the call from Gayatri. I was irritated when anybody else called. I was not interested in any ones business anymore. My life had taken a different route. Single point agenda. Persue Gayatri.

 

The sense that had prevailed in me, for some days, realizing that I was not supposed to think too much about a girl with whom I had barely an acquaintance with, was conspicuous by its absence. I was not walking on the ground anymore.

 

One fine day, I got the call.  From 9987012345. I jumped. The timing was almost exquisite. If I had jumped any higher, my head would have been sliced by the ceiling fan. I took the call.

 

Hai Gayatri. How are you? I

Current Mood: Cheerful
Current Music: aazmaale-9211

< ?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />Second part of 'Have fun'. You can read the first part beneath. Needless to say, its a fiction piece.

 

It was the voice which haunted me first. After that last conversation with Ramesh, it was the memories which haunted me. Repentance for all the lost opportunities of foregone years.  I was restless. A lost case so to speak. It was difficult to get her out of my mind. It was strange how the mind was able up to conjure up an image of her even after so many years. And then immediately, her marriage would come flashing to mind. It was tormenting.

 

Then after some days, like every time, sense prevailed. It all looked silly now, thinking so much about a girl that I was barely acquainted with, some 8 years back. After all, she was just a classmate of mine. Just another friend.

 

I decided to speak to her once. No matter how many friends you make in life, school mates are always special. I think no matter how hard you try, you will never make so close or innocent friends again. Probably because your school mates would have seen you at your best and at your worst.  Probably they carry an image of yours which has you sneezing uncontrollably with a running nose, the shirt sleeve sufficing for a hanky.

 

I waited for the next Sunday to call her up. Didn

Current Mood: Amazed
Current Music: taxi no 9211

The mobile rang. It was a new number. Read 9987012345. I dread the number. It is the customer care number of Telnet, my service provider. I mean, I have no complaints about the company maintaining its customer relationships. Just that I would rather be left alone in my private times than be drawn into a questionnaire with the oh-so-polite agents.

I took the call reluctantly.

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Hello.

 

Hello, good evening sir. Am I speaking to Mi-ste-r. Raghav?

 

Yes.  This is Raghav speaking.

 

We are calling from Telnet. I hope I am not disturbing you sir.

 

(In the usual scenario, I would have replied in the affirmative and cut the call. But there was something unusual about this voice. I don

Current Mood: Happy Indeed!
Current Music: the last laugh(mark knopfler)

Museman is on a major reuse drive. :-) His last post was his first(and last till date)poem and the current one is his first foray into fiction writing. I had to fight hard to resist a strong itching to edit it. Read further to get double struck.

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It was the 24th of May.  I had gone to Kacheguda station to bid farewell to a dear friend of mine.  And I think I had Rs140 with me.  And the reason why I am telling you about my financial status of that moment would soon be justified.

 

By the time I came to Koti bus stop it was around 10:40.  And there were a group of people huddled around.  And a man was busy with his tricks and was the centre of attraction.  They were playing the game of 'double struck'.  I don

Current Mood: Happy
Current Music: Tere Bina(fuzon)

The final nail being bored on to the coffin . . .
The coffin lays buried deep down the ground.
No regrets,
No remorse.

Only that the 'buried' seems to be a stranger.
Strange it is....
because the stranger was once a beautiful friendship.

And the pangs of separation strike
when the realization dawns...
The being of the coffin is
an indispensable part,
to be found again.

And the self will have his remorse.
Until the dawn of the day....
Until the memories of the cemetery wade.

Tailpiece: Friendships break. The best of friends become the perfect of strangers. Its a comman happening. All thru the world.
This titleless poem happens to be the only poetry that i ever wrote. And i am sure i will never get back to it. I seldom understand poetry. And i understand i must never venture into writing one!

Current Mood: Thoughtful
Current Music: none

Some one seems to be in love with me. Writers block. :- (.  It has come and decided to stay. And I am sure it wants to stay long term.< ?xml:namespace prefix = o ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" />

Gives me reason enough to write a small piece that I have been wanting to write for a long long time.

 

I just wanted to list down all the books that I have been reading off late. I am not sure if this problem is unique to me or pertains to others too. I start off reading a book, it is interesting but when I chance upon a new book, I stop reading this interesting book and jump on to the new one, only to leave it in between for a another book. So, simultaneously, I would be reading half-a-dozen books which are at various stages of reading.

 

 

The great Indian novel-Shashi Tharoor

 If you like reading humor, you must must MUST get hold of this book.  It is by far the most unrestrained comic piece that I have read. Let me give away the storyline a little. As the title suggests, it is a not-so-subtle spoof of the great indian epic, Mahabharata.

What makes it interesting is that mahabharata is rewritten mapping characters from the epic to the real life characters of our indian freedom struggle. Bhishma, whose original name is Gangaputra, is transformed into Gangaji, an obvious reference to M.K.Gandhi. Dhruthrashtra, who yeilds power under the guidance of Bhishma, becomes Nehru. And then its fun. What makes it all the more interesting is the guessing game that becomes a part of the reading experience as you try and map the characters from the epic to real life people. Karna becomes Mohammed Ali Karna. Now, I wont give any more story line. Do read it. I give it a five star rating.

A small excerpt (rewritten though):Gangaji tells dhrurashtra at the time of marriage. "I have chosen for you one of the most beautiful girls from Afganistan. Her face is that of an angel.  Not that it matters to you but still......"  I have read three fourths of the book as of now and it is thoroughly enjoyable.

 

 

Freedom at midnight: Dominique lappiere and Larry Collins

 A little biased and patronizing towards Lord Mountbatten but a worthwhile read nevertheless. The duo is a combination of good historians and taut fiction writers. So, they pack in a punch to our freedom struggle. The book is half the size of 'A suitable Boy'. Needless to say, you need patience to read it. I have read one-fourths fo the book.

 

Five dollar smile-Shashi Tharoor

A collection of short stories of the early career of my new favourite author. Not a must read. Especially the play(which takes half the size of the book) is not too interesting. Some of the story lines are amusing though. For instance, the title story is that of a boy who is featured in the poster of WHO as the face of famine and how his life changes because of the campaign. Almost done with reading this book.

 

 

A piece of cake- Swathi kaushal

Hmm..about a 29 year old single girl. Fast paced. FPS fast forwarded ten years with a female protagonist. Thoroughly enjoyable. I give it a four star out of five. I can't give you the story line though. Just started reading the book.

 

Burial at Sea- Kushwant Singh.

Another favourite author. Not one of his best pieces. Falls just short of being called crap. The lead character is an interpretation of Jawaharlal Nehru and his vision of < ?xml:namespace prefix = st1 ns = "urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:smarttags" />India. Fast paced but not too much of wit or sensuality that you expect of the surd.

 

Fountainhead-Ayn Rand

Phew....I've been reading this book for almost four years now. Came untill the 200th page with great difficulty. Will never get back to it. I don't subscribe to any of the views of the author. I found it an agonizing affair to read the book. Fictionwise it is kind of ok. But otherwise, it is complete crap. Of course, each one has his own view and no doubt there are hundreds of Ayn Rand fans all over. What put me off the author was the first three or four pages of another book called Anthem. Lets  leave it at it that I couldn't read any further.

 

Tailpiece: Its not like I don't complete reading books. I do complete them. Just that I read too many books at the same time. Guess I will have a fresh stock of 5-6 books by the end of this month and hopefully the currents ones would be read to completion by then.

Current Mood: Feeling Better
Current Music: RuBaRu

Don't get carried away by the title. This post of mine is not about how one feels when he is experiencing a writer's block(although, on second thoughts i realise that it is an excellent topic to write on, when you are just not able to write anything at all! Let me do that now.)

This post is just to inform the readers that museman is currently inflicted with a deadly disease called writer's block. He has been adviced by well wishers to stay away from the wordpad.

But the itch is too much to resist and here is museman typing along with a mind as blank as his answer sheets were, 8 months back.

Now that i have broached the subject of writer's block, let us mull over it for sometime before proceeding.
What are the symptoms of writer's block? In olden days, writers used to write on papers and then grunt,crumple the paper and put it into the dustbin beneath the desk. The dustbin would eventually(and quickly)overflow. In present times, people write on screen, bang the mouse/keyboard,click on the cross button and then select 'NO' when they are prompted to save the document. And so they wait, for inspiration to strike before they could write again.

Tailpiece: Hmm, no use going any further. Museman will hopefully come out with the third and concluding part of Godly Gestures sometime next week. You may read the first two pieces in the December archieves. Do read the comments for GG-1 before proceeding to read the second part. In the mean time, museman waits for his muse. :- (


Current Mood: Heartbroken
Current Music: none

One of the sad things about living in an alien land is that each day somehow transforms into an endeavor to find a restaurant which serves good food. I have already penned a blog on my travails. Although, I am not a gluttonous foodie, I have grown a lot fonder of good food, now that it is scaresely available.

So, we grow a little shameless and ask any one and everyone about good restaurants. I remember accosting someone before Andhra Bank ATM centre to ask for directions to a good restaurant. What prompted me was that he spoke in telugu with some person over phone. I thought it was acquaintance enough! ( museman currently lives in the east of India)

A few days back, after shopping in a mall, we went to the salesman in the store to ask him if he knew any good dhaba around. Even as we were asking him, a man in a turban came up to us and said:

What do you have in mind?

Uhh

Current Mood: Feeling Better
Current Music: frank sinatra-something stupid

Valentine's day is round the corner. Museman has stayed away from writing about or broaching the subject of love. Seminal pieces have already been written. Devilsown beauty, shawshank and donnie come instantaneously to mind. Another reason is that museman is currently suffering from writer's block. What follows is an account of my life at CBIT. Sadly or gladly, Fortunately or unfortunately, CBIT has been my only reciprocated love interest for the last four years.CBIT has been very kind to me. Loved me as much as i loved her.(By the way, is college feminine of masculine?)

Current Mood: Gloomy
Current Music: Zinda hun(strings)

I get nightmares. Although, strangely enough, I don

Current Mood: Amazed
Current Music: 18 till i die(Bryan is back)

I have moved. From Brooksides musings to fishermans cove that is. I somehow thought a little more color would do good to my blogpage. More than anything else, a change is always good to see. Guess after a few months, when i get bored of fishermans cove, i will get back to brooksides musings.

It is only coincidental that my template had the word 'musings' in it. Probably time for me to discuss the genesis of my blog name. I call them 'musings of a desultrous mind'. MODMs for short. 

Somehow, i fancied the word 'desultory' which means QUOTE Marked by lack of definite plan or regularity or purpose; jumping from one thing to another UNQUOTE. That is how most of my thoughts usually are. jumping from one place to another. I thought it would be an apt title. Calling it Musings of a desultory mind didn't look nice(read rythmic). So, i modified desultory to desultrous although no such word exists. Now you know why i call this blog 'musings of a desultrous mind'!

Tailpiece: Although i had thought  that museman was a term that i coined, google informed me that museman means a 'thinking man'. Oxford pocket dictionary, tells me that the nearest word to museman is 'muser' meaning-A reflective thinker characterized by quiet contemplation.  Hardly true. I seldom think.

Current Mood: Thoughtful
Current Music: Tu Bin bataye(RDB)

Thanks for voting! Vote as many times you want for your fav Indian idol contestant. Watch the results episode on Tuesday, 8:30 pm only on SET!

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I am sure the above sentence would have sounded familiar. I have given in to the temptation at last. Voted for Karunya and Monali in Indian idol. Until Abijit Sawant. started showing up on all the music channels with his music album, I never knew that such a contest as Indian Idol existed. Things are changing fast. There are certain things that you can

Current Mood: Bored
Current Music: none

Question: What is the worst thing that could happen on a monday morning when you want to rush to the office asap?

Answer: While trying to spread 5 ml of oil on the pan to make dosa, you spill 250 ml on the kitchen floor. :-(

 

Current Mood: Gloomy
Current Music: none