“We are all in a post-hypnotic trance induced in early infancy” ~ R. D. Laing

I'm not sure who I like better " Paul Van Dyk " or " Armand van helden ", amazing DJ's. But today I'm hooked on to this trance track "GODD" .You can download it here but I must warn you , it is not for those with sensitive ears :) hehe...uahahahhhahhahahaaa Check out the lyrics ;) Do you believe in a god that satisfies? Do you believe in a god that opens eyes? Do you believe in a god that tells you lies? Or do you believe in me? Do you believe in a god that brings you down? Do you believe in a god that wears a crown? Do you believe in a god that makes you bow? Or do you believe in me?

"The church is near, but the road is icy. The bar is far, but we will walk carefully." — Russian Proverb.

I was planning on watching a film last weekend .My choices ranged from The Vc code , the weird yet cool X-men (no women) , the bubbly blind Kajol looking gorgeous in white, Scrat and the Mammoth in Ice Age 2 and lastly a local kannada movie (recommended by Sajjan). Uff too many choices and I didn’t watch any of the above :( I ended up enjoying Finding Nemo (again) and Malamaal Weekly (a Hindi film which was supposed to be funny). Why Finding Nemo : Well I had 2 hours to kill before going to the airport to pick up my BIL and so I asked my cousin for a timepass movie and she gave me Finding Nemo. I did get to see a gorgeous airhostess at the airport,even my cousin sis was staring at her. I had to politely point out that she was married and was here to pick up her husband. These aunties be na.. uff. I'm sure everyone has watched this film ...NO ? thu thu..go go watch it... Simple things which made the film enjoyable : The single-minded sea gulls that squawk "Mine!" "Mine!" "Mine!" at every potential food source.hehe The baby turtle and its attitude.The words " Dude" and " Totally" ( Man that was one cool turtle) and the baby octopus that "inks" himself whenever he gets scared uhahahaaa. Dory forgetting Nemo's name and ended up calling him Fabio, Elmo, Bingo, Chico, and Harpo... ttwwwoooooo tthhuummmbbsss uuppp (I speak Whale!) Dory: Have you seen a clown fish swim by? Crab: Yeah, but I'm not telling you Bluey, and there's nothing you can do about it! [Dory holds Crab out of water for the seagulls to see] Seagulls: Mine! Mine! Mine! Crab: Okay! Okay! I'll talk! I'll talk! The next day I borrowed “MALAMAAL WEEKLY” from Anand, hoping that it would be funny. One of the review's: “The story of MALAMAAL WEEKLY can be described in one simple line: The entire village greeding for the Malamaal lottery bumper prize and what ensues is a roller coaster ride of hilarious circumstances and funny situations that entertain you to no limits but also make you get introduced to the desolation and melancholy of the rural community.” Eeeeeew so not true. Boring Movie !! :( The only thing that was better than the cast was the elephant Mohan. Yep it stood still, shaking its tail. Its not even near my all time favorites:” Tango Charlie”, “Family“ or the Shadowless Sword !

Epitaph on a gravestone:

Here lies the body of colour blind Fred , Thought the lights were green when they were red. Wonder what they'll write on my gravestone :)

Shadowless Sword

Last Saturday , I picked up a DVD titled “Shadowless Sword”. I read the review on the cover and was highly impressed. I thought it would be in the same class as the other Chinese movies “ Hero”, Kung fu Hustle” and the “House of flying daggers”. This turned out to be (cough cough) a South Korean Movie. I was excited with the prospect of watching a cool action film with lots of sword play.The film starts of with 2 arrows zipping past zzzzzzzuuuuuuuk and I smiled..hehe..and then the smile turned into a frown, the #@#$ movie was in Korean. I was left with 2 choices I could either watch the action or read the subtitles. The subtitles, I’m sure was written by someone like me. Here’s an example Hero and the beautiful heroine (haiii) are being pursued by the deadly black assassins and there are black arrows flying all around, zzzzzzzzuuuuuuuuuuk, and the swords have this melodious sound…ting Hero (who badly needs a haircut): Stop me pulling Heroine(Keeps looking back): I must kill you Highness, assassins come Hero: No Come Heroine: Please your highness we must reach the village Hero: No Come The hero is then dragged to the river by the beautiful heroine (haiii) The heroine my friend, is a female warrior, Soha (haiii). Saw the film or should I say tried to decipher the storyline from the subtitles, for 30 minutes and hit the sack. 3 days later, I continued with the other half of this film, when my mom asked for the remote. I told her that this was a cool flick and even she should watch it (Please do not try this with your mom). So the action continues and in one scene the “pair” are running over land and puff..they then start running over a lake and puff now they are running over trees ( Please note not Climbing or Flying but running ). Mom gave me one of her looks and I passed the remote and tried to enjoy the *#$**$ soaps. I never could comprehend why the film was titled “Shadowless Sword” These foreign movies are weird. Maybe I should Fedex it to Sajjan.(uahhahahaha)

Loved the Font not to mention the Snarl

Creative dudes...

You're beautiful. You're beautiful. You're beautiful, it's true. I saw your face in a crowded place, And I don't know what to do, 'Cause I'll never be with you. La la la la la la la la la You're beautiful. You're beautiful. You're beautiful, it's true. There must be an angel with a smile on her face, When she thought up that I should be with you. But it's time to face the truth, I will never be with you.~ James Blunt

For the second last time...

"When we remember we are all mad, the mysteries disappear and life stands explained.” ~ Mark Twain

“Give it to me “she said without remorse. Don wasn’t going to give up without a fight.”You cannot do this. I will not let you do this. Please think of the consequences”. He shook his head. It was like being in a nightmare. The light from the candles flickered , creating an unearthly atmosphere. Rose whispered “I know what I am doing. I …“she took a deep breathe, closed her eyes “We are going to change History,no one is going to stop us”. Don could see the determination in her eyes as she held the scissors and took the stance of the dragon hunter, it was too late. Don gave up reluctantly and whistled to summon his pink poodle History.

"koi Ganapathi ko bulaaao, I am hungry"

So where was I ? aaah we were all set to jump into the “coracle “ and row to a nearby island. Let me take a moment here and give you a brief description of our thoughts just before we started our journey to the island. Rowing is damn easy, why because we had seen Ganapathi paddle and he made it look so simple and of course everyone remembers the famous song “Oh Maaji re…apna kinara nadiya ki dhara hai’ , in which the fisherman effortlessly rows the boat. So we assumed that rowing was like eating a piece of black forest cake. Ganapathi called out “Please form a single file semi circle “.He then went on to explain how to row and stabilize a coracle (A small rounded boat made of waterproof material stretched over a wicker or wooden frame). He warned us, “If you guys don’t make it to the island before dark, you will have to row back and camp on the mainland”. Let me try to put those “frightful yet amusing and agonizing 30 min boat ride” into a few sentences. 5 of us got into a coracle with me sitting in the middle (Can a circumference have a “middle spot?).I was the one balancing the boat . Frightful: Yes I was afraid, no not because of the erratic way in which my boat mates were rowing, but because they were splashing me with *#&^ water and you guys know how I hate getting wet. And at one point I asked them to switch seats and the coracle almost toppled, whew that was frightening. (I’m still not sure why we were afraid of getting toppled , just 2 hours earlier we had swam approx 1km and on top of that we still had our life saving jackets, then why were we afraid?.The mind, my dear, plays weird tricks .sigh*). The distance to the camping island was something like 1.5km but because of the “down wind” we had to take a circuitous route and ended up paddling some 3kms. Amusing: It was really funny, because the non-paddlers would shout out instructions to the paddlers and they would get confused and they in turn would yell at us. Agonizing: When I say agonizing I think of the pain and effort it took to paddle. If you were on the right hand side of the boat, your left hand would take the burden ,as it was in the case of Gopi. I was sitting opposite to him and I don’t think I can still lift my right hand above a certain point eeeeeeeeeeew .NO MORE EXPERIMENTS. After 15 mins of shouting and swearing the paddlers got their act together and paddled in synchronization and we made steady but slow progress. When we reached the island it was dark and heavy clouds were looming in the sky. My weather sensitive nose started twitching. Madhu acted as our guide for this camping trip and Ganapathi stayed back on the mainland promising to catch up later(dinner time). Madhu asked us to pick up the camping equipment and follow him. He informed us that the “camping spot” was just a 10 min hike.(Yeah right).He carried a steel pot of water on his shoulders and with a torch lead the way. We were too tired to make conversation so we followed him in silence, stumbling, staggering one foot then the other ,unmindful of the precarious man- made path to the summit. One of the questions we asked Madhu was about the wild animals on the island. His answer “A few wild porcupines and you guys”. We dumped our luggage which consisted of tents, mats and water bottles at the camping spot. Madhu called Anand aside and asked him to form a small group and bring in firewood for the campfire. Anand looked lost, poor guy he was too tired as he had to paddle a lot that day. We somehow organized a team and set out deep into the forest.Agreed it was not the Amazon forest, but when u have a small torch and can’t see a *&$% thing in front of you ,even your bedroom would look like the dark Amazon jungle. Hold on its “ Daddy, what do you do at work” day in my office , some #$**$ manager named me the official photographer and I am being whisked off . Abhishek take your hands off Aishwarya, Sanjana stop pulling my nose,Rahul that is a laptop OMG Aditya that is an artificial plant, stop watering it !!. With the help of Ranjith and my nose we found lots of rotten wood and Madhu gave us an A for our effort. The camp fire was a huge success and we sat around it singing multilingual songs. Out of the blue Sandhya exclaimed “ Look Look ” pointing to the sky. The clouds were clearing and the full moon greeted us. The obvious thing to do on the 13th of any month, when you are stranded on an island and watching the full moon is to ??? yep howl like werewolves wooww bowwwwwwwwwwwwwww. We definitely scared a couple of porcupines not to mention our guide Madhu.(uahhahahaa) There are 2 types of pain, the first one is when you are hurt and you scream “Amaaaaaaa” it really hurts and is usually this pain is caused by someone other than you .The second type of pain is the by product of some activity in which you had lots of fun. You know the consequences and were ready to bear it. Here you scream out ”Aaaaaaaah “ and sort of have this funny grin. We were now enjoying our pain. Here’s some of the things that I remember happening that night as we slept under the stars, looking at the %$#* full moon.( Sorry it was just too bright) *Anand twirling his “green colored torch” very similar to the Jedi in Star Wars. *Anand spraying everyone with MOVE *Sandhya shouting out “ koi Ganapathi ko bulaaao, I am hungry” ( She really gets irritated if she’s not fed on time). *Ravi and Rakesh singing a lot of “dard bari” geeth and continuously feeding the campfire with wood. *The song “Re mama Re mama re“ no one knew beyond those 5 words. *Sandhya’s conversation with Ganapathi on the non-availability of buttermilk and his tongue in the cheek reply “ my buffalo ran off ,so no buttermilk”. *The sumptuous dinner around the campfire. *Gopi and Preethi volunteering to go with Ganapathi to get more drinking water. *Rakesh,Ravi and me going out to investigate the strange sounds coming from the bushes. *Everyone asking Rakesh to SHUT up and so that they could sleep. *Rakesh, Gopi and Preethi playing cards at 1 am, in the moonlight . *Ramki taking some weird pics of the campfire. The next morning we woke up to hear someone screaming “Areh koi Ganapathi ko bulaaaao, I want Coffee”, yeah who else but Sandhya. We packed our bags and mentally prepared ourselves for the ride back to the mainland. This time our coracle had some very interesting characters.Apart from the ever reliable Gopi and yours truly the vonti goobe, it was occupied by Anand and his bro, the ever detached Preethi and the “not so thin” Sandhya. Initially the task of paddling went to Gopi and Sandhya and as I had already traveled with Gopi, I knew he was good with the paddle .Anand thought otherwise and started giving suggestions left ,left ,right no left, paddle harder. I had to calm him down. We(Anand and I) then took turns paddling , unfortunately I was sitting on the left hand side of the coracle and my right hand again did all the work and sort of ..is still is…”out of action”. No fast bowling for a couple of weeks. With Gopi’s expert maneuverability skills and Sandhya’s raw power ( and of course her hunger pangs) helped us reach the mainland in less than 20 minutes. We then rushed to the Circle aka the food court., where we were served some hot breakfast. Ganapathi then asked us to get ready for some “boating”, this time it was a small boat made for 2 people. We really enjoyed this event because it was not so taxing on our already tiring bodies. Some of us went diving while the notorious Anand was busy toppling people from their boats. After a hearty lunch, it was time to make yet another climb to our rooms, thankfully it was for the last time. We packed our bags thanked Ganapathi and Madhu, and promised them that we would be back next year. After the Sumo ride to Thalaguppa, a short bus journey to Sagar and another 70 kms in a private bus, we reached Shimoga Railway station. We didn’t want to take the slow 2 bogie train on our return journey to the railway station as it was unpredictable and we had a 10pm connecting train to catch.

Our return Train(Shimoga express) journey was peaceful, apart from the tongue lashing that we received from the Police Inspector.That was because we were ( wink wink) creating a nuisance and disturbing other passengers. After everyone was tucked in for the night, the TC came on his rounds and I had to deal with him as I had the tickets. Surprisingly the TC came in three times to check on number 9, I have no idea why, but the end result was that i was really irritated.The TC would just barge in , switch on the lights and shake the person who was sleeping on berth number 9, and ask for the tickets. I would then reluctantly make my way to the TC and show the tickets and he would make a tick mark against number 9 (in the end that ticket had 4 tick marks). The rest of the journey was peaceful and we reached Bangalore safely. Thus ended our little trip to Honnemardu.

“A place where time stood still”

"A place where time stood still” Sharavathi backwaters,Honnemardu ( Shimoga Taluk) Our journey to Honnemardu started off with the 11pm train from Bangalore to Shimoga aka Shimoga express. Not much happened in the train journey ,everyone was sleepy and tired except a few who were busy playing cards. At around 1 am, the guys completed their game of poker and started talking vociferously. The ticket collector, who was sleeping in the next cabin, rushed in and shouted at them for disturbing the other passengers and ( the other reason) for not letting him sleep. “Blink Blink” 2 seconds later, the lights were turned off and I could hear a whisper “psst where do I sleep “? 2 bogie train aka Rail bus We reached our first destination “Shimoga” at 6.25am, and barely had time to run and catch the connecting train to Thalguppa. Unfortunately we got separated into 2 separate groups but as all of us got seats to sit on, we enjoyed the 98km, 3hour journey. Now when I say “ train” , you would imagine a huge engine pulling a line of bogies, erase that thought, this “train” had a small diesel engine and 2 small bogies. According to the notice found inside the bogie, the train could ferry a total of 60 people. The cost of each ticket was Rs 19. We were irritated when we found that the train made frequent stops, it was more like a bus journey than a train journey. Here’s a few interesting facts about the train. 1. The train, according to the driver, gives a mileage of 30km/litre. 2. Apart from the driver and the TC, the train had an in-house gate keeper. What’s that you ask? When the train approached a railway crossing, the train would stop, the gate keeper would jump from the train and close the gate and stop the vehicles with his red flag(bus,car..). He would then give the all clear signal by waving his green flag. The train would pass and then stop after the crossing. The gate keeper would now open the gate and run to catch the train. Simple right, yep it was fun at first, but overall it made 32 stops and that got on our nerves. 3. The train, as Anand rightly pointed out, passes through remote villages and according to him, at a certain steep curve, the train just refuses to move and the passengers get down and push the train for a few 100meters.Fortunately we didn’t have to undergo that "part of the journey" and we reached our destination without any mishaps. 4. At one particular village we saw around 20 villagers waiting for the train and we thought the train would now be over crowded. To our surprise only 2 people got in and the rest of them stayed back. Wow it was like the whole village had come to bid them goodbye. You don’t see that sight everyday. 5. As we passed through numerous stations, the train started getting overcrowded and we being “gentlemen” gave away our seats to the villagers and some even let small children sit on their laps. This reminded me of a scene for Swades. 6. I almost forgot to mention that Anand was earnestly asking a few questions to the conductor and the next thing you know the conductor came and sat next to him and started telling him about the train, its problems and its history. Anand was shaking his head up and down, like a cow, well very similar to the one we see in Happydent advertisement. 7. I really envied one Mr Shyam who slept like an angel, one hand on his chin., the modern day thinker…. We reached the last stop, a small village called Thalguppa at around 10 am. After a quick tea and coffee session at the local hotel, we set off on the last leg of our journey (16kms). Please don’t ask me how 23 people(including the cab drivers) squeezed into 2 vehicles ( a Tata Sumo and a Trax).They initially quoted Rs500 for the one way trip but after a bit of bargaining came down to Rs 200. At around 11 am, we reached our destination the backwaters of Shravathi,Honnemardu. We were greeted by our guide and caretaker “Ganapathi” who immediately said:“ Please form a single file semicircle” and gave us a welcome speech and introduced himself and his assistant “Madhu”. (Please note : no welcome drinks, no jasmine garlands and definitely no belly dancers) He then chalked out the days’ activities and gave us a brief overview of the ground rules and showed us the circle (the food court, where we were supposed to have all our meals), the well (where we were supposed to wash our plates) and the “rooms” (where we were supposed to dump our luggage). Backbreaking trip to the hilltop Madhu then took us to our “rooms”, he said it was a simple 5 min hike. The 5 min walk turned out to be a 15 min back breaking , huffing and puffing trek to the top of the hill, It was up up and more up. When we reached the” rooms” we found that they were just a couple of old dusty rooms. We looked around for “ Anand” to complain and of course kick him. He confessed that although he knew that the rooms were on a hilltop, it was his first time via the treacherous back breaking route,.We forgave him because he was in a bad shape just like the rest of us. We then did the next best thing.. Cursed Ganapathi and the organizers in 4 different languages. All things said, the view from the hilltop was spectacular and maybe that’s why they wanted us to climb the hill. Everything has a reason….. After changing into our swimming gear we went down and met Ganapathi who gave us a lecture on safety and how to use the life jacket. He asked us to jump into the water and swim to the nearby island. Not all knew how to swim, so Ganapathi literally had to teach them how to stay afloat, use their hands to move forward in the water. Surprisingly none of us were bothered about the dept of the water. Everyone was busying practicing their strokes when I heard “Madhu”( the other guide) shout out to Ganapathi ..the translated conversation went something like this … Madhu : Ganapathi Ganapathi: (ignores the Madhu) Madhu : how many were in this team ? (desperation in his voice) Ganapathi : ( busy teaching kulli Deepa how to stay afloat ) 21 Madhu: (standing on a tree stump, busy counting) Oye I can see only 20 heads. Are you sure its 21? Ganapathi: Count again Madhu: (counting again and almost panicking)Are you sure its 21 ? Ganapathi : ( thinking for a second) Oh.. I almost forgot one of the girls didn’t want to get into the water. Madhu: (lets out a sigh of relief).sigh* We then started swimming towards the island. That was the most amazing part of the whole trip, ”reach the island ”. We sort of made our own "small groups of 3 and 4" and headed off towards the shell shaped island. Each individual had a different experience trying to reach that island. Many didn’t even pass the safety of the tree stumps, most had to return back because of leg cramps. What each underwent in that 500mts cannot be expressed in words. Out of the initial 20 only 10 made it to that island. The ones who made it stood at the pinnacle and then it hit us , we had done it. We were overjoyed at accomplishing such a big feat, we congratulated each other and then suddenly we realized that Ganapathi didn’t tell us what to do once we reached the island. It was the second time in a span of 2 hours that we cursed Ganapathi, in 4 different languages. We soon realized that we were stranded on that small island (click on the pic) and the only way back to the mainland was to swim back. Alas we didn’t have the energy to swim back. Luckily a few of them were struggling in the middle of the lake and Ganapathi was paddling the “coracle “and bringing them to safety. We hitched a ride and when we were near the shore I saw him with this weird expression, like a naughty kid getting ready to throw the cell phone into a glass of Horlicks. Suddenly Ganapathi titled the coracle in such a way that a couple of them (11 ppl were hanging on to their lives) went overboard and the boat started taking in water. He started yelling “ get out , get out its sinking”, most of them were too shocked to react and so he started pushing everyone overboard. I looked at him and smiled before jumping back into the water. I later learnt that he wanted us to swim to the shore hence the sudden diversion. Most of them were badly shaken by the episode. We were exhausted after the swim and had a satisfying lunch. Ganapathi then told us to change into dry clothes and to get our blankets from the “ room” .He informed us that we were to camp overnight on one of the numerous islands. The very thought of climbing the hill to get our blankets was upsetting, but eventually we made it.

To be continued after the break... (Nirma Nirma Washing powder Nirma)

A trip to Honemardu

Mathematically Challenged Street Lights.

A pic of MG road. Can you see the 2's formed by the street lights ? Somehow our devils are never quite what we expect when we meet them face to face. ~Nelson DeMille So true.. mine had red lipstick and on top of that she had her belly button pierced.

We could never have loved the earth so well if we had had no childhood in it. ~George Eliot, The Mill on the Floss, 1860

Adventures of "Sid" my 25 day old nephew... My sis says: He keeps staring at the tubelight. I wonder why ? Me:That's because he's a Jedi and the tube light reminds him of the Light saber (wrooooom wrooooom). He keeps moving his tiny arms up and down and keeps muttering something very similar to Sanskrit chants ? Duh!! He’s a Harry Potter fan and he's learning magic...ssssh he's practicing Accio (a charm used to summon an object, usually the cookie jar). But why does he keep kicking and punching with his fingers ? OMG that's the "One-Finger Zen" formation, soon he'll be practicing the most difficult Kung Fu move “Chop Suey Special”, which will inflict six points of damage. It's the most difficult move to pull off because it only works 1 in 6 times. So watch out sis.... He prefers the thick blanket over the “Mickey Mouse” blanket? Uff, because it’s cold. These aunties are so..... I wonder if he plays chess…..

Forget not that the earth delights to feel your bare feet and the winds long to play with your hair. ~Kahlil Gibran

My parents met Sachin Tendulkar at Kukke Subramanya (A beautiful and well known temple near Mangalore). My Mom was really excited and according to her, Sachin and his wife fell at their feet .I mean the priest’s feet.

Anyway for the past month all I have been doing is posting snaps instead of writing something meaningful (that is so not the right word ).So here goes nothing… It’s been a long time since I saw a really funny movie ,the last one was “Kung fu Hustle“ aaaaaaah Hai..Yu Hack Hook Pattar …and then yeterday I saw “ ICE AGE 2 : The Meltdown” If I was on the Oscar Board,“ Scrat the saber-toothed squirrel” would have received an Oscar for "never giving up". His fights with the glacier, vultures and the Piranah is just too funny.And when he does a " Tom Cruise style" hanging on the cliff with its tongue.. uff.. too good.

If you have the original Ice Age DVD ( most of mine are P*rated) you have this special segment on Scrat , in which the squirrel finds itself marooned on an island . Imagine its reaction when it finds a Coconut…a huge NUT . Ice Age 2 is one hell of a film and I would recommend it highly. No reviews required just go enjoy …. Simple things that made me go “hehe” · Dee’s friend “the cat” thinks I am funnier than Dee.. uahhahaha Dee is still green with envy. ( Vc grins) · You know how kk keeps saying that I have bad taste in music and I pick the worst films to watch.Guess which film she watched last weekend “ 36 China Town” uahahahhaaaaaaa · Anand was disappointed when he found that his latest Jackie Chan DVD collection, didn’t have subtitles. Imagine his reaction, when I pointed out that the actors were talking in English. · Nowadays the chat with my sis is more “Sid “ oriented,yep it’s all about her 20 day old son. It seems this tiny toddler, already has an ear for music. When he throws a tantrum, my BIL puts on some music and Sid raises one eyebrow and gives this weird expression, which my sis interprets to be “ Where is that music coming from ?” In reality the kid is thinking “ Duh!! My parents are so weird, Vivaldi and Bach.. eew..I want Himesh Reshammiya’s -Naam hai Tera Teraaa , Daddy Yankee’s Gasolina and Shakira’s - Hips Don’t Lie .”

An office party at the PINXX ....yep weird name...and lets not even talk about the desserts...

A collage of pics : The Leela Aunty....

Do you know whose portrait that is ?? :)