strawberries and limejuice

Lime juice

now i am a true fan of lime juice. i have had lime juice here and there. i present to you the personal lime juice ratings. the best nimboo pani there is in india.

1. the best dang nimboo pani i had was on the trel to ooty in tamilnadu. after climbing for 4 hrs and going up 8000ft, anythign mite taste good you might venture. well, this was the ultimate high(in more ways than one). this nm (nimboo pani) is made by the villagers in a village about 7000ft up. its a place you can only walk into. it was a mixture of salt and sugar and nimboo and pani. and it was just out of the world.

2. anyone living in bombay and using the train will staunchly stand by me when i say the nm at dadar station is par compare. not at all the places, but on platform 1. near the steps, is this shop, and it sells the very best nm money can buy. in fact, it is so good, that he is able to offer it at a premium or one rs. (thereby making it rs.5) and is able to get away with it.

3. here is where they all merge in now. nm at almost all other places are kinda similar.

10000. the nm at tegh bahadur station is the pits(ya, there is such a station in bombay!) there are better ways to die i am told than from intense anger and remorse after drinking that stuff.

you might question about the nm at home. i mean, mom does make it, rite?
welllll....see, that stuff is in such a league of its own. just dont put it on any top then shop then. it just dosent fit.

are you wondering about the strawberries?
i never bought them. though i was thinking that perhaps at some point i mite be able to. but the strawberry thing dident get off even the drawing board. too bad. but like forrest gump says, shit happens.

elvis
chek this site out. i think this is elvis' resting place. the site he has set up from hell. ( i am sure he is there!)

i am going to try and research him. maybe some of you will too.

republished

i did some changes to the blog and have tried to incorporate some of the things that i am. ofcourse, the whole thing is not quite like i have in my mind, but maybe with a little help from anand, i might by able to get it sorted out.
anand, i have already sent you the code, mate.
(i dont know where i am getting the aussi tinge and i dare say its not from watching any cricket, since i dont).

about the previous post in black, well, its one of those things. cause and effect. or maybe affect. however, i taught me a good lesson. ergo sum.
the trek to mahuli is something i really want to do. but lakc of company prevents. if there is someone in bombay who wants to chill out on a sunday, and who's idea of fun is climbing for 6 hrs, let me know here, and we can plan it out!

otherwise, i will have to go alone, with elvis and rush keeping me company. i dont mind that, but its safer with another person, and hell, its more fun.

when was the first time you did something for the last time?

yesterday

the bike by the road

i just saw a bike by the wall which had a no parking sign on it. the bike curiously was amixture of some 5 bikes. it had the engine of an enfield, the front of a yam, and the look of a harley. the best part is the way it was kept and the way it just leaned into the wall. almost like the rebel thing. nonchalant, waiting for you to tell me what to and i wont do that look. (i wanted to hypehnate the whole thing but just do it yourself ok).

i also finished reading a book after a long time. vernon little. there is something inbetween also, but hey, you get the idea rite. the book is irreverant, and the kind of reverse look at the life in the US. sometimes, there is so much contradiction in what different media say about how kids and people are in the US that you really dont know. in a way, this book was about a lot of things that we see to be bad about the US. the media, the government involvement, the run for the money so what if lots of people die, its all entertainment thing that just is so much there in the US.

sorry about the non hypehnated hypehnating sentences. its a take from the book. sometimes, its the best way to express something.

so life is going on
waiting for the next weekends morn
sometimes there isint anything to look forward to
but heck i got something to.
lets see where this goes
the pretty place that i mite go
is in my mind and waiting to show.
its them glasses that are scary
cause you never know when to be wary.

hey, wary rhymes with sari? does it?
dammittodoggonegod.
juskiddingthatsall.

the sion fire

i saw the after effects of the sion fire in the city. it was pretty devastating. the building which bore the brunt is actually a burnt out shell. some people were inside the burnt shops trying to make sense out of some papers and there was even one guy on a landline calling from inside the burnt black shop.

hell is a place on earth.
the place is here.
there, everywhere.
its just not something you want to be near.

no news from radhika?
maybe shes just not read
i dont understand some people
who could be frightened so
that there would be a new shell made

there is nothing worth commenting on the person. she is as anonymous to me as to you. maybe more

the WSF

it was where people from all over the world came. all the space on the walls, on the pipes inbetween dadar and borivali had been taken by the world social forum. it was also called the mumbai resistance, and beat globalization and so on.

i really wanted to hear joseph stigligz. plus, ofcourse, arundhati roy(who had come there i think), and just go there to see everything, feel the heat on globalisation.

but i dident. i dident have anybody to go with. i find it ironically funny that i did not have anybody to go with for a fight on glaobalisation. its more funny, since that just kind of proves that well, friendships and interests still havent been globalised. isint it almost perfect that i wouldnt have anybody to go with on a fight on globalisation. for if i had an entire army, then i would be, in a way, myself globalized. (please excuse the z's and the s' alternating in the big G spelling..its a globaliz(s)ation effect)

its even more funny that a friend of mine's friend are the ones who were organizing the whole razzmatazz. and i got to know that the day the whole thing got over.

one observation that a friend of mine made about this whole thing which stands out is

its funny that all these people who are fighting against globalization are coming from all over the world to do it. in a way, the entire group fighting is itself a globalized group. one which is against(if not for) a one particular cause. exactly the agenda of globalization. that, plus the fact that had it not been for globalization, these people could never have come together here.

what was dissapointing in the entire week that happened here, was that everybody was so busy protesting that nothing really got done. though i believe in protest, haveing an agenda less forum which addresses protest, but does not look at solutions, seemed to me like a huge waste of a lot ot time, effort and minds. perhaps the solutions will come out of the sustained protest.

whatever it was, i missed out on something for which i might just have to go to the other side of the world to see now. and that, is not a bad idea!

gprs(among other things)

my phone over here is trying very hard to get to the internet right here. i dont think it is going to be able to do it though. its still trying though. thats its job.

so i just got back from work. there is something very disconcerting about life in this city. somehow the good and the ugly are so close apart that it is uncomfortable. the biggest problem is that it is very difficult to realize what is ugly and what isint. you look straight ahead into the eyes of people and there is this defeatist look or this victorious look. both of which are just spiralling everybody down. sometimes, it all looks ugly. people taking advantage of other people. left right and centre.

all the ideas lost

through the day, there are so many ideas and thoughts which flow through and just whittle away. there is nothing that i am able to recollect by the end of the day. it seems like a big waste sometimes. some of the stuff is ofcourse, very visual dependant. but i dont carry my camera around. and the one on the phone isint helping since my computer is still a million miles away!

mumbai perhaps presents the best photo op there is in the world. just waiting, for the right angle and the right lens. i have many plans, none of which are working out. like take the 84 bus and go around the city, shooting snaps. or go to places just outside the city, and click away. or go to toto's or club9 or places like that, and do some of that disc photography. the expressions inside those places are probably one of the best. paradoxical expressions for a disc come up. guy and girl getting bored(with all that music), or the angry bartender(thats normal!). stuff. the lights. the mood. smoke. the 'i dont know what i am doing here' look. its all there. waiting for the right chemical.

but i dont do this. see, the sixth artist is right about some of the things. all the things i want to do, and just dont do.

latest book being read- the global soul(pico's)
the eastern stories- joseph conrad
52 weekend breaks from mumbai(!!)

latest chord learnt- G7 (i just know a few)

current music- a mix of rush, floyd and punjabi tadka on TV

another year bites the dust

somehow today, i am more beset with memories than with what lies ahead. the weather in mumbai is great today and there is this cool wind blowing. the world is a nice place today. people are happy and all that. as for me, i have started coping with my past much better than what i thought i would have been capable of. ofcourse, everything is there in front of my eyes like a film before the present, but the funny thing is, the film isint really blocking my view.

i am a 'move on' kind of person i think. i have always moved on. i dont really understand if that is the right thing to do or if that is a sustainable approach. but till now, it hasnt been so bad. or atleast, it is slowly easing off.

i am still not trekking, or listening to music enough. neither am i going around with any body. but there is a calm inside which is probably not going to stay on too long. i am going to start trekking again, and play my guitar more often. i am also going to see more movies, and listen to more music. in that entire space, i will continue to work jobs which make me feel like i am using my mind and seriously pushing it. that is something i like. solving problems. coolly, with death calm.

sang froid.

inconsistency

a blogger needs to have a sense of purpose on the blog. the uncanny look in his mind that allows him to focus on a particular object or discussion on the blog. so that it idnetifies with him.

what do you do however, when the person is not somebody you can identify? an entitiy uncertain of its being, unaware of purpose. infact, devoid of purpose. this person will be unable to relate and connect to a particualr topic for a long enough time since he himself is unable to sustain interest in things around him for long periods of time.

such a person is me. asif...

random thoughts pop into my head all the time. the location or the activity i am involved in do not affect these thoughts. sustenance of interest is another problem. it just dosent happen!
thats why, a lot of time, this place has become a hoopla of all kinds of stuff. moving here and there, but never really pointing anywhere.

i have started reading again. and the guitar sounds good in my headphones(thank god its only me who hears it!)

resolution

there is a theoretical construct for things slowing down at certain occasions. i believe that the brain's effective resolution goes up at times...it is able to see in higher detail. this results obviously in a drop in the effective frame rate. that would explain the slowness of movements sometimes.

comments to this post must be intelligently written.

there are moments when the mind is free.
but only moments yet.

the flow of things

the flow of things
is easy to understand
when the mind is like water
and moving like sand.

the horizon is moving
beneath my very feet
i hold out to stop myself
from falling into the deep.

open your eyes and see for yourself
how curious everybody is
they just want something different
it dosent really mean much.

going into my own vortex
i forget what is real(and not)
moving below or above
it all seems like being stuck.

wait up wait up
you went ahead too soon
its not even the second june
hell, what can i say
give it up and lets gets away

hanging out

i hung out of a train today. it wasnt bad. i was looking inside, so i really dident see how close the ground is to the feet when you have got one of them outside the train!
and i was in first class. so you can imagine how it must be in the other parts of the train. this whole train experience ofcourse pales in comparision to the movie on the left. i saw it on HBO. for all you chennai guys, i actually get to switch off a tv inspite of it showing HBO!

HA!

the heightened state of being
allows the mind to float
and find out what is the meaning
nice and slow.

i really like the song slow by kylie. i think it rocks.

getting low

every once in a while, the low thing hits everybody. for some reason, suddenly you cant put a finger on the reason for which you are going through life. this happens a lot when our lives are just going on, without any untoward incidents. normality is the biggest killer for a person. every once in a while, you need that burst of surprise. one which hits out of nowhere. to make you realise how delicate this normalcy is. but whenever it dosent, we go down to a low. from where getting out is difficult, and it requires will power, some event, to get you out of there.

i am not going through anything like this, but i got thinking about it. thats why i am writing all this. yeasterday, i was talking about the chaos theory and entrophy and how both these concepts form the basis for everything in this universe. just as god and love form the basis in somebody else's perception of the universe. not from the physics point of view, but from the conceptual point of view. its quite something. life.

another rambling post from a high point.

fireworks

we watched fireworks from a terrace. it was quite something actually.
we then went to club9 sometime around 2am for sometime. that was ok. atleast the music was different from what the dj usually plays.

we got back at 4, got up at 2, and then a and i went to buy second hand books from around churchgate. the amount of smut available over there is just unbelievable. i picked up a book on hawaiian guitar chords which was published in 1926!

quite something.
i also picked up an edition of loaded magazine. but only for the ads. i swear.

pls dont go to the site if you are a minor or are not interested in advertising. or not both. just dont go there, ok?!

happy birthday!

to the best brother there can ever be

hey bhai!
warm up the chai
drink it up
and do some gup-shup.
move around the world
and isint it just like how i told

have a great day
and make hay
as you lay.

TIME brother of the year BHAI but really yaar .....

oh-jee, kuch to bollo!

IRAN

the world has gone numb

about 15000 people died yesterday and nobody really cares. i had thought the papers would be all over the 15000 dead in iran, the tragedy in china and the plane crash over benin. the papers just mentioned it all. the bigger deal was sehwag swaggering.
the world has maybe become to political to just understand personal pain and do something about it. its about countries and matches between countries and how many US soldiers got killed today.

i hope someday in the future, people can focus on what happened yesterday and understand that it was such a bad day. for all its worth it, life is so precious.

to the ones who died
i hope they find peace somewhere
for the ones who live on
will forever be in hell within.

sleepless nights

i couldnt sleep last night. for an incredibly long time, i just kept tossing and trying to soothe my head which was aching like mad. it was no. 2 on the top 5 headaches of all time in my life. no. 1 was in guwahati a long time back when i passed out because of the pain. nos. 3-5 are those which dont deserve special mention.

after a point however, i couldnt take it any longer and watched tv instead. not the most ideal thing to do while you have a headache, but there wasnt anything else to do. either that, or all the demons and the good things from the past coming back to you. i prefer tv.
there were occasional shouts and random laughter from outside my room. some people were i guess very yuletidy. i remembered what i was doing last christmas.

there was a party downstairs and lots of girls and guys dancing. we had gone in and said hi and danced a bit and eaten the rum cake a bit and then got back. it dident seem like too much fun. comparitively!

dont ask me what i was doing for new year's last year. that one, is a killer.

i saw the bbc list of the top 100 books. i must have read about the same number that anita has. maybe all of us have read a similar number. makes you think dosent it?

till another day
when the air is clear
let me be by myself
while you are still dear.

the world goes on
but i am still here
it will take me time
but one day i will be the seer.

christmas
i guess almost the entire of the christian world must have used this word atleast once today. just imagine if this word had been the copyright of the vatican. we would have had a new richest guy of the world.
the pope.
i have thought often of some of the things which could have been a gold mine had they been patented and produced only by the inventors.
some obvious things:
toothbrush
toaster
shoelaces
toilet paper(for the developed world)

if you think these things arent patentable, then look at these:
carbonated water
yellow stickey paper

i cant think of a lot more, right now( because of the headache i think);)

oh, i saw(dident talk to him) piyush pandey the other day at a party we had gone to. he was having fun. i dont think i was having too much fun though. its not so great to be going to a place just for the heck of it right? the music if good though.very good.

2

advertising

there is this levi's ad up on the bus board which i really liked. its very clear, simple, and extremely slick looking. i have the picture of it, but i wont be able to upload it since i am not using a dedicated computer.

i have also been listening to zappa(finally!),and i think he is pretty experimental. i dont know if i will like this kind of music, but it depends on the mood, and how much i am willing to experiment. i also got an album of jimmy page, and he is pretty good. that is kind of a given though.

while inbetween trains, i sometimes wonder about a number of opportunites that present for short movies, plays, scenes on the trains. it is quite a lot of fun. infact, right now, i am actually enjoying all the pushing around and the general crowds at all the stations. its not bad at all. especially since i know that this is just a phase. thank god for that ( if there is any).

let god take care of you
if there is any.
let god love you a lot
if there is any.
let god look out for you
if there is any.
let god wait for you at night
if there is any.
'cause the devil's got me
and there isint any god there.