Life is an illusion

 If you are in Bangalore for a long time, you are familiar with this phrase. When ever you hail an auto, the driver rudely, roughly said "one and a half kodbeku" which is translated as you have to pay one and half times the fare shown on the meter.  Many battles were fought and many were lost for this unfair fare. The drivers never budged. They would rather sit idle than agree to give you ride with the fare shown on their meter. Many many years later, today, they don't even switch on the meter. You tell them the destination and they say "two hundred, three hundred, five hundred" - depending on how gullible and desperate you look. And they believe that Bangalore women are gullible. Yes, mostly women hail these vehicles - men are always on their chariots - ratha - either two wheeled or four wheeled. If due to unforeseen circumstances, their darling vehicle is not available - they would rather walk to the destination or travel in a government bus. They decline to p

Gone are the days when I used to count the minutes and seconds to  6 o'clock so that I can get up and start my chores. Now I count the minutes and seconds to 5 o'clock. Talk about old people and their early mornings.  But the good part is, I don't fret much about awake-ness(not to confused with wokeness)  or I don't feel tired the next morning. So my body  is OK with early mornings.  I also don't worry about what to do- what to do in these hours, (unlike evenings) when the world is in great slumber and only very few unfortunate ones start their day. I take up my laptop and start some kind of creative work (read either coding - or proofreading my sites/blogs etc). Only on some days, I open  online shopping sites. Does not end well. After hours of browsing, I just close the window and realize that was a bad way of wasting time. Even worse than Netflix or even worse than youtube shorts.  Now I should talk about some kind of arthritis problem of mine - knee pain is qui

 There are many reasons why I don't prefer to read short story collections.  It requires lot of time and energy to enter into a new world - the imaginary but wonderful world with so many unique people, such unique environment. It needs time and energy to sink into the psyche of another person and feel what he/she is feeling and understand their emotions. And then TAK - that world is suddenly closed. You feel lost. All over again. Where as novels don't do that they take you on a long journey. With no sudden closures. You don't have to hop down from your bus and climb yet another strange bus all over again.  So when I selected 'Tenth December' by George Saunders as my next book, I was hesitant and wondered whether this will end up like 'Dubliners'. Dubliners is still in my list of currently reading because I am not certain whether I have read all the stories or not.  But the book is nice - each story dwelling on inner tumults of common man. 

 One more disadvantage of advancing age - many, very many books, and movies appear to be the ones one has already read/seen. And often they are. I got a good book suggestion (with difficulty) - Serious men by Manu Joseph. A satire about life in a large Indian metro. Had a serious theme of class struggle and caste discrimination too. And the style was quite good. I was feeling proud - aha, I am reading an Indian book - I am being a patriot!  But then there was a nagging feeling, I know this story from some where. Turned out I have already watched the film version of the book. (By the way, the Hindi movie is also called Serious men and is directed by Sudhir Mishra and stars Nawazuddin Siddique. It is good!) Sad, I would have liked the book. And I would have completed it. Then I picked up the sequel to 'Catch 22'  - Closing Time by Joseph Heller. Joseph Heller writes marvelous books. But as I am reading, I have the same feeling - I might know this story. I have already read the bo

 I usually don't like to watch dystopian Netflix shows, nor like to read such books. At least in these worlds we expect few chuckles, few guffaws and occasional smiles.  But when I do see/read such stories, I see some similarities in the general ambiences. In these stories the powerful people have no pity, empathy or goodwill towards others. They act as if the others are some how inferior to them and hence deserve nothing.  When there is some grave injustice or some cruel deed happens by the powerful, it will be whispered in hushed tones for a while. There will be no kind of resistance. Even if there is a resistance, it will be effectively silenced in a such manner to make others keep silent for ever and ever.  Even the rich and powerful live in constant fear. They know not when their privileges will be taken down and when they will be reduced to poor common people. Or worse. Because here, loyalty to the regime and leader is the most important and only criteria for becoming powerfu

 What's wrong with me? Starting the post with that sentence - that is what is wrong with me. Anyways, what is wrong with me? Tea has become more like a ritual to me. Not drinking tea, but making one. I make a cup of tea (a small cup) and bring it, keep it slightly farther away and sit on my computer. Why? Do I not relish the warm cup of tea and its bitterness? Bitterness - as spouse has diabetes, I was compelled to make sugarless tea for me (who even makes two half cups with different modes?). Then for awhile, I started adding artificial sweetener to his tea, but not mine. I didn't like its artificial taste. But some where in between I started disliking the sugared tea too. And I do not like the slightly bitter sugarless tea either. But I just about bear it - not fond of it. That's why I keep it away, occasionally glancing it with suspicious eyes and sipping it a little bit now and then and finally throwing the undrunk tea into the sink. I know as a home maker, I am not sup

There was a dead pigeon in my balcony. And it was hung.  Too harsh a punishment for defecating in public, don't you think? But it was not hung from the neck, so might not have been the capital punishment. It's wing was stuck in a wire.  But then how did it die? Bleed to death? But it did not appear so? Did the eagles attack it? May be. Did no one hear its heart wrenching cry? I did not. Apparently it was a death no one noticed and no one cared. Like what's happening quite often now a days.  In this area flooded with multi story buildings, each one taller than the other, pigeons are the only birds to be seen. Apparently they love tall, majestic buildings for their morning ablutions. Aha, such nice wash rooms, such well maintained! They tell one another. And some times there is food too! See, I don't have one ounce of sadness for its death. Instead I am trying to crack lame jokes. But do its friends and family say that I have lured the dear bird and then killed it. Will t

 It all started with simple innocent question. What happens when you call an undeclared function in C program - before its definition? Obviously you get a warning - a mild one - a reprimand actually. As long as the function returns an integer.  If not, you will get an error. But I tested the program and got an error. Not a warning. Does that mean I was wrong? How can I be wrong? I googled everywhere. Not happy with the result, I even tried downloading ANSI standard documents of C? But the site told you have to pay 79$ (or some such two digit number) to ANSI or ISO or something. Pay? 79? Dollars? Did you forget that I am an Indian? And I don't believe in paying? Unless it is less than 100! Rupees! So long story short, the compiler I have been using in my mac is giving error. Online compiler doesn't, nor does my compiler in Linux Mint system. Now what do I write as answer? When in doubt, delete! Changing the topic, I think, it all started with maggi noodles. Instant cooking. May

I was watching "Hitchhiker's guide to Galaxy". It is so much easier than reading the book by Douglas Adams.  But I don't think the movie is as funny as the book is. And not really easy too. The ugly monster like creatures from other planets are not very pleasant to the eyes. Now I remember I dislike scifi films and series.  But anyways, there are two things which were really interesting. There is a this robot Marvin who was designed to have emotions by its creators. And he is always mopey and sad and depressed. Like even if he/it looks at a beautiful rose, it will say "What is the point? In a few hours, it will just wither away". Always grumbling, always always. Like many of us. Glass half empty kind of attitude. And then there was some kind of fight going on. A huge army of Vogonites - people from planet Vogon - huge monster kind of creatures are attacking our hero and heroine and their friends. Suddenly this Marvin shoots a gun at them. Which beams a ray a