“That” time of the year..

So, the year is officially winding and grrrrrinding to a halt. This is the time when you peep o’er your shoulder, and look at ‘the year that was’. (Yes, You may now take 10 minutes to review your year. Stare at this ->  |                                                | blank space as you do so.) Right, so moving on, as I officially review the months that go by, my interesting masaledar stories, which grips the interest of my general gossiping audience (My pleasure lies in serving you). The character assassination of the boys, the verdict always made – Not Guilty. The BIRTH of this blog. Creation of words which make no sense – mazingout + pzes. Countless pedicures. Big leaps made. City swapped. Hearts thumped. Yes, that sums up most of the year.

Its also ‘that’ time of the year, (at my workplace at least) where most people decide to save + do what they didn’t plan for the last one year. Suddenly, the workplace is a buzz of words like returns, deadline, proofs, fake yaar!!. So we, at my workplace, have a ‘Early bird gets the worm’ thing going on. We drop our IT proofs around this time, into that big box which goes and gets processed and you are taxed accordingly. Brows sweat despite the A/C, worry lines furrow some more, frantic calls are being made, with the following common utterances – “Damn! Why don’t I remember to plan my money better?! @*&$!( , (*&*))&^!”

Its that time of the year when the Adarsh Nagrik in me wakes up with a vengeance! I have a slight (its relative) problem with the manner in which I see people filing their taxes.  Its the second year in a row, that I see almost everyone around me faking documents – rent receipts and rental agreements, to be precise. Ok, this is something that could lead to a major argument. I’d like to tread on the knifes edge anyway. So I think its wrong. Being a citizen of a magnificent country, also means that we are honest, prompt and make sure that your side of the fence is clean, right? Does patriotism last only in August and January, when true love for the country starts thumping in your bloodstream? I’m disappointed, really. I confronted a couple of people, asking them how this was justified, and here’s what I was told – “where is all the money I pay as part of Income tax going anyway? Into a neta’s truly elastic pocket.”

There’s a saying, “Cleanliness begins at home”. True, very true. Clean Up your own act, first! I believe that anyone who resorts to measures like this, has truly lost the right to ever complain or crib about inefficiency of the government/ward/corporator. Aaaarrrgh! Its that time of the year! Am I right in thinking this way? I’d really like to hear what you think. Is it justified that you’re faking receipts of accommodation to save a couple of thousands? I’ll give you ideas to save taxes – PPF, LIC, Insurance, among others.

Now that I’m done ranting, I remember, that… Its that time of the year! When you want to shop till you drop, so you don’t miss out on the ‘festive’ discounts. So, here’s wishing you fond memories of the year that was, and even better one’s of the year that comes. (Psst… the DUMBest app on facebook predicts – You will marry the love of your life in 2011. Ohhhh the horror!)

Cheers,

Pzes (with the name that makes no sense)

The Compliment..

Compliments! A girl can’t stop smiling if she’s been given a compliment. The earlier in the day, the longer her happiness prolongs. I shouldn’t really restrict this post to girls, I believe that both men and women, are equal suckers for compliments. The more, the better. The ego massage and the impact it leaves on you is massive.

I love compliments, like any normal girl would. Its not unnatural, so I’m going to be quite open about it. So, the little story about a compliment/flirtatious line/whatever-you-call-it.

So, on another normal day, where normal things happen, I decided to be abnormal and set off on a shopping spree. Its these alone times that I really love, where I get to take all the time in the world, and pick the perfect object that I’m looking for. (now is a good time to mention, that I don’t normally know what I’m looking for – 9 out of 10 times). Well, so its on this particular expedition, that I ambled lazily into Lush. I love Lush, by the way. It calls to me, engulfing me in the mixture of smells that wafts out of the store. It reminds me of my broke days in college, where I’d amble into the store, look around and make up my mind to splurge when I could finally afford to. So, I loitered in today, and the sales girl with the warm smile showed me around. In the midst of a demo, I heard someone pass a comment. Well, I would consider it rude, normally. Today, I was ready to take things with a pinch of salt. (moody?) He told the sales girl, that she was trying to make a pretty girl, prettier than she already is!

Compliment bells rang! My ears cocked up, looking for the source of the compliment. Then I looked. Here’s what I saw -  A fan of the guy in the picture. He was ready to give Quick Gun Murugan a run for his money, with the cowboy hat, long hair and steel studded belt.

who would've thought!

Aaarrrrgh! Run. Escape. End of story.

You evil black film.

Yep, more Bangalore talk on the block. An ardent book lover would tell you to walk straight up to Blossom book house and pick a book. New, old, second hand, as good as new, as old as wine, everything you can think of. (Free marketing for Blossom) So, you pick this book and take it home with you, and start reading. It gets intense towards the middle, you’re mind is racing. You make a small little world of your own. You build mountains of gold, or rivers in pink. You eat chocolate frogs, or walk through the desert barefoot. You believe the guy you always dreamed of could never get better than the hero of the book (men ignore), or that the woman you created in your head was just everything that you ever needed (so the menfolk don’t feel left out).

Woah! You think, as you read the last page. I have this little quirk of my own. If I’ve really loved a book, I somehow end up hugging the book and let the feeling soak in. You live the book through those few seconds of quiet, and own the book! Another quirk is to smell books. I love the smell of paper and ink, and the mix of both alike. It makes me think about days when I used to read a book at lunch time, and my darling (the bestest) grand-dad made sure he stuffed food into my mouth, while I read. (Yes, spoiled brat).

Now, the wait begins. The movie honchos have been so  enthralled by the book that they decide to make it into a movie.You just can’t wait enough. You are dying to see what they’ve made of your favorite book. So, you decide to buy tickets and go watch the movie, whose lines you knew without any error. The movie starts, and what you see on the screen is so unlike how you imagined it to be. The talking trees are actually only a  skewed version. The alien had green blood, not the bright cobalt blue that you love! For me, undoubtedly, a reading of the book surpasses the experience of watching it on the big screen. A replication of a book tells you how one particular person had imagined it.

Another terrible thing I see is that, once you watch the adaptation, you will never ever read the book again and think about what you imagined initially. The characters now have a defined face, and will be henceforth, for generations to follow. For instance, Harry Potter will never be the boy I thought of when I first read the book. Harry is now Daniel Radcliffe. Robert Langdon is always going to be Tom Hanks. This breaks my heart, Edward Cullen will never be the vampire of my dreams. He will be a pale, dull eyed Robert Pattinson. Gollum will never be the same lovable creature I thought he was.

I refrain from watching adaptations, but sometimes you have no choice, when they bind you to the chair and start playing the movie, with nothing else but a long flight to keep you company. The movie kills my imagination. I wish fervently that they’d leave those books alone! We, Bollywood-ers also have the irresistable urge to make a copy of the adaptation. Very very smart Bollywood. Take a very successful Hollywood movie(already an adaptation), rip it off, make another movie which will be a scene-by-scene copy. Voila! There you have it, a bigger flop, but the producer need not worry now, does he? This black film is evil, evil I tell you! :)

Calling for instances where the movie surpassed the book. I don’t seem to have an example right now. Need some help!

A first of sorts

You’ve got to just love those rainy days in this city. Bangalore, my charming little (atleast, used to be one) city where you expect a tormenting cloud to hover about for hours and then not shower down upon you. The point I’m making is, clouds seem to think here. Uncanny as it may sound, the same cloud can give you a burst of rain and silently float away. Come and go without a bang, and the next minute, bright sunshine!

Ask any true Bangalorean (Bengaluru-ean/Benagloorite sounds rather depressing), they’d give you the most heart rendering reaction about Bangalore (again, I’m going to stick to the charming name it had). “Bangalore’s got charm”, which pretty much seeps into the people living here as well. Charming, quaint, practical and all those adjectives you’d choose to describe a really charming place.

Being away from here, home, was probably the hardest phase for me. They say, once a Bangalorean, always a Bangalorean. No other city can be called home after being here. After being dropped (like hot cake, at that) into a city (owning to my cribbing nature, I’d rather not name this city, just going to call it city), I felt alienated. Entering City was like entering an oven which your mother chose to pre-heat to bake some cake. City was not so kind to me either, since it had a brain of its own (generously lent to it by the residents). It chose to give me the worst summer, worst monsoon I’d ever faced.

Sooner than I expected, i got used to City, with its ways that connected to the roots of the Indian Culture. I saw it all around me, amidst all the hustle and bustle, the big waves, the loud gyrating music and dance, City never failed to impart little lessons. Lessons for me to look back at life, undo somethings, redo some others. The most important lesson, never (and i mean never) discard your old history text books. You’ll find the most amazing man-made structures in City and surrounding areas. Artistic temples, big sculptures and references in your old history books that you never thought you’d encounter.

City is certainly going to have many references in this thread and then the story of how Bangalore pulled me back in one line- Bangalore is home (and I came back humming Mama, I’m coming hooooomme) and will always be.