harsh in kinesphere

Experiences maketh the man.. ohh wait, that’s ‘clothes maketh the man’, clearly I have unaddressed issues.

But recently I had an experience that makes a man.

I met the devil’s real world identity- the dentist.

There’s an ongoing war between the almighty and Satan. So when Satan created the dentist, god created the anesthetic but then Satan created injections got the lead.

I am not a needle friendly person; I get panicky whenever there’s a syringe in the same room as I am. And the dentist was getting a kick out of all this, I’m pretty sure I caught him smiling when he saw my expression as he wielded that syringe. I knew I had a chance to escape as the door was unlocked but I was frozen in fear. As he was in his act, the calm expression gave no indication of his barbarous intention; he managed to keep his cool when I was a step closer to cry like a little girl.

I lay in the chair and I realized how bad I had been when looking into the bright light became difficult. Maybe that’s why I was in the chair. Take the position in the chair and you’re a sitting duck. You allow some guy to put pointy things in your mouth. At that point you’d even give your soul if he’d just ask. That’s why I’d be logical to send criminals to the clinic instead of the lock-up /*now that’s an idea!*/.

The doc has concluded that the acidic nature of my saliva is to be blamed /*what??*/.

What do they do if they have some dental problems??I’ll try to make him laugh or shout so that I can get a good look at his teeth. And what do you do when your girlfriend is also your dentist; nobody would want to say no to her!

I know that it’s been a long time since I posted something but no one's reading this anyways!

So the aussies are coming here for a cricket tournament and this implies that cricket won’t be the only thing that we’ll be talking about for the many months to come.

Is it just me or has cricket has stopped being cricket? What I mean to say is that the sledging, link-ups and publicity stunts associated with cricket get more attention than the actual game.

No one cares about the game now; everybody is more interested in all the action off the field. And there’s plenty of it- Deepika’s with Dhoni then with Yuvraj and ultimately with Ranbir /*don’t remember him?? He’s the superstar of the century who’s acted in 2 films- a flop and a below average flick, who ‘happens’ to be a kapoor */, Sreesanth gets slapped by Harbhajan, Harbhajan calls Symmonds ‘monkey’ when he actually wanted to say ‘maa ki’. Believe it or not, all this is in the name of cricket. The phenomenon isn’t restricted to the sports section anymore, EVERYONE associated with cricket gets featured on some random article when they not launching a product or participating/ judging reality shows. Many people cried foul when Sachin Tendulkar advertised for everything from toothpaste to credit cards, but now no one seems to notice the current trend where even a one time wonder advertises about the newest insurance policy ironically tag lined –‘inspiring trust’. with over to almost all the pages of a newspaper daily. And what’s with this Twenty-20 circus??

I am not one of those obsessed crackpots who don’t have their meal if India loses or uncontrollably start swearing if their favorite player screws up, but hey cricket deserves a lot more respect.

Once upon a time, there lived a little boy in a Mumbai suburb. Contrary to the misconception, this boy was special. He could remember minute details from school and the most trivial promises that his parents broke at bed time. So one night, it was around 10.30pm, way past his bed time.

“Our craft teacher has told us to make a Greeting card tomorrow” he said.

His mother thought he was talking in his sleep, that’s what she wanted to believe. But she knew her son too well; this had happened so many times that now she’d stopped freaking-out. She looked towards her husband who was hiding his head under the blanket by now.

The mother son duo headed to the hall, she fetched everything she needed for this undertaking from a shelf that resembled a mini stationery shop.

“So what kind of greeting card is it?” she asked the boy who was sleepier than before.

“Our teacher said something about Indian integration” he murmured.

“Fine, I’ll come up with something, go to sleep. I’ll be there in a while” she said as her brain went in overdrive.

I’m not totally against craft, infact I love origami they taught us during that class. I love drawing a pond with little fish that my paper crane will eat for food, but telling a 10 year old to make a collage with newspapers is being a little kooky. Most of the craft periods in my school would have competitions like ‘Rakhi making’, ‘greeting card making’ and we’d also make different type of boxes. On one such ‘rakhi making competition’ one of my friends thought that it would be very cool if he used an Éclair /*chocolate*/ as his rakhi centerpiece. The competition results were declared and the rakhis were returned, that friend of mine was surprised to find centerpiece on his rakhi missing. “competition ka jaane de re, par chocolate kyo liya?” were his exact words.

Craft teachers go over the top and come up with innovative reasons for parents to curse them, from collage to pop sickle stick houses; no one can guess what they’ll ask for, and all such projects come bundled with the misleading line ‘Use ordinary household waste’ /*hey I didn’t know we had 100 something plastic spoons or a bag full of pencil shavings just lying around*/. I remember a Work Experience project when we had to use grains and pulses as colors. As I didn’t want to bother my parents, I generously sprinkled tur daal and chaaval I found by myself but to my mother’s horror I had knocked Dal tadka and Kashmiri Pulav off the menu /* in my defense, like a true artist I used the best I materials could find*/.

Mother hasn’t been supportive of my projects ever since.

According to Educationalists, Craft and Work Experience are meant for the overall development of the pupil as he/she has the opportunity to think creatively beyond the curriculum and observe the world we live in, but I’m sure parents have a slightly different opinion. How does the administration come up with such stuff?? For instance, my niece had to make a rainy season wear thing on chart paper. I was making rubber cutting that somewhat resembled gum-boots and my Sis-in-law was drawing clouds on crepe paper, all the while my niece jumped around singing “Ringa rainga roses, pocket full of…..” . Indeed that was a big learning experience for her/*insert sarcasm here*/.

Many people make a fortune by displaying their craft project rejects as ‘art’ and the subject is meant to improve hand eye coordination and I feel that it should be primarily be focused on class work rather than making the parents go through the ordeal. But by the time that happens, go nuts!

Love thy donkey work

“They expect us to become engineers through clerical work”.

-An ideal engineer

/*who happens to be my friend*/

Just like a good movie that has a climax at the end, each semester has the dreaded submissions /*No, it’s not kinky, it’s brutal*/, and just like the climax, submissions decide your fate for the semester. Collectively a month of each year is spent writing innumerable assignments, photocopying notes and question papers, memorizing the trivialities encountered during the practicals –all in the name of submissions. Oral exams are added like the cherry on top of a sundae /*to give it ‘the’ effect*/. All this gets translated to term work /* its professor’s assessment of the student’s performance throughout the semester, marks are given out of 25 for each subject +25 marks for orals*/.

The concept of term work and orals is mainly based on karma, and the professors love playing god. You don’t want to catch their eye, you don’t want to stand out of the crowd, you’ll make a point not to wear T-shirts that have one liners or anything that resemble alphabets that the professors just love to read.

They are Santas for the day, so when they ask,” How have you been this semester?” your poker face only succeeds in making them go ”Ho ho ho ho” with laughter.

Teacher’s pets enjoy immunity at this time of the year. During the oral exams for a subject say, Computer organization and Architecture they’ll be asked idiotic questions like “what does ‘PC’ stand for?” while the notorious ones are bombarded with questions viz,” what does ‘Pentium’ mean?, Describe the Unix architecture or Please explain Booting of the computer”. Open your mouth to answer and get jabbed with comments like,” Did you expect standard questions during Orals?” ……and you are one step closer to a nervous breakdown, in front the professors.

Those who can’t do, teach. Not these guys, they want to teach. They give 15 to 20 page assignments even when they know that the result will only be 60 /*that’s the class strength*/ identical copies of the assignment. The assignments are duplicated to such an extent that leaving the variations in ink color and handwriting, any word will be found on the same page, on the same line and on the same place in any of the 60 assignments. Made to scribble that doesn’t remotely contain anything that you’ll be studying for the actual exam. The hand keeps writing till the wee hours of the night, rewriting things that have been heard throughout the semester, without knowing, without caring, without living. As the days pass, the files keep getting fatter and heavier, but as Miley Cyrus put it-This is the life! The files get submitted and it’s the face value that counts.

/*ehem! */As the rumor goes, the assignments /*or the answer papers for that matter*/ aren’t read, they are skimmed at roll-your-eyeball speeds, so if you manage to write lyrics of your favorite song and add some relevant terms in between, it may even be considered as a model answer paper!

If you can’t beat em, join em, thereby everything gets decorated with clean legible handwriting, neat borders and diagrams. It’s for your own good and that’s the only reason to comply.

Look around you, each individual carries a gaping void within yet can rejoice when our cricket team wins against Bangladesh/Kenya/U.A.E. Everybody is a center of their own universe and yet a death counts don’t matter. Things of utmost importance to the students hardly matter for the ones in charge.

Hindi songs being quoted during the parliament sessions, full time politicians aspiring to be stand up comedians, part time ‘actors’ /*I am guilty of labeling the GREAT Govinda */ being part time politicians and pseudo intellectual Bollywood directors giving their opinions on every damn thing. Crores being spent for protection of a convicted terrorist, but its not enough.

Apparently a medical student rightfully protesting against reservations is intolerable while minorities setting cars and buses ablaze for reservation is righteous. Thanks to some demented people saying “she’s a bomb” isn’t an expression anymore, it’s a possibility.

It’s just a matter of days when a bomb gets reported and the siren blaring police vehicles scat in the opposite direction. This isn’t a dance of democracy, it’s a striptease.

Muhahahahahahahaha!!!!!!!! Thank you yahoo messenger for teaching me this expression, as I don’t care anymore.

Spoiler- this is not a movie review, I just thought that this was the best way of confessing something and not letting anyone know.

Yes I admit that I get scared watching horror movies/serials, but only if they are outstanding. But that wasn’t the case some years back when I’d be petrified even after watching ‘Aahat’. Nothing of that sort could prepare me for the real thing.

It’s been almost 4 /*read terrifying*/ years since I watched ‘the Ring’ /*the Japanese and the English version*/ and the movie still manages to bring chills down my spine. The timing couldn’t be more wrong, though I watched the flick in the afternoon, a couple of days later my parents went out of station. Nights had never been so scary. To top it all, I tried sleeping in front of the television. In case you haven’t seen the movie, Samara (the ghost) crawls out of the television set. I practically tried to claw my way out the theater as couple of my friends pulled me by my legs to watch its dreaded sequel . Also when ‘the Grudge’ was touted as being scarier than the ring itself, I convinced myself that I’d watch it even if that meant weeks of sleepless nights. But, to my relief, people who’d die after watching the movie would be scarier and the sequel was a laugh riot, without a script, chills and amateur Fx. Another movie that seemed scary sans the spirits/ ghosts/supernatural was ‘The happening’ but watching people commit suicide tends to get boring. ‘Exorcism of Emily Rose’ is a good one too; it was so good that it has kept me from watching ‘The Exorcist’.

I don’t have any hard feelings towards Ramsay and co. but their version of ghosts has always made me……lol! Maybe because their face resembles dip covered chips/* Ummmm... drool goes here*/. I believe there hasn’t been a good horror-thriller movie post ‘Bhoot’, that’s because no one has made a documentary on current affairs or parliamentary proceedings yet. Now that’ll be a sure shot winner.

There are numerous reasons as to why people smoke or start to smoke, it ranges from- ‘everybody else was doing it’, ‘its cool’, ‘wanted to try new things in life /* why not castration or bungee jumping then??*/ ’, some victimized answers like ‘I was very sad after she left me’, ‘there was no other option’, my personal favorite ‘I didn’t have a habit of sitting in one place for long periods of time, so how can a person deal with stress?’/* sigh!, tears in my eyes, I could wail at your sad puppy story!*/ and there are even some vague answers like ‘just like that’, or some reverse psychology answers ‘why do you eat?’ /*except that from eating, you don’t risk KILLING someone or yourself*/.

Fine I don’t have a problem with human chimneys, but actually I do. I am the guy walking you’ll when you are indulging yourself. Do know that you STINK after you go and relive yourself; it gives people 1 more reason to hate you. The only fag-gang member that drew amazement was a 30 something lady /* a woman empowered specimen*/ who held a cigarette between her lips and signaled her colleague to light it as both of them exited the office building, while my friend whispered “call center!”

Something even more mysterious than ‘the force’ exists between them /*the fag-gang*/. The fact that they have nothing in common except smoking doesn’t matter or maybe it’s all that matters. They’ll relate to SRK and roadside bidi smoking sweeper, at the same time. Its more than a conversation piece, they practically have a club. All Sanjay Gupta movies are hit and ‘No Smoking’ deserves no less than an Oscar. It’s surprising how many people from different backgrounds you’ll know if you fag, and the numbers keep going up. They share their misadventures of the ciggy kind, like how a guy rubbed his hand in his arm-pit to get rid of the stench /*yes, I know they are gifted*/.

Hookahs are a different story all together. Those who indulge will explain you in detail the entire process to conclude that it is like breathing chocolate/strawberry/godknowswhat flavored air. For an hour they’ll feel like the nizam of Hyderabad to top it all, a single hookah is shared between 3-5 guys /*which qualifies as group kissing*/. This stuff isn’t cheap either.

Consider this simple math/*the amount is much higher if it’s an expensive cigarette brand or the no of fags per day is more*/, let’s say that a guy smokes 4 cigarettes a day each of Rs. 2.50.

Meaning everyday he spends Rs.10 killing himself, a bit.

365 days in a year, that is Rs. 3650 up in smoke, literally! And that not even charity!