Hiya there...

AWOL again! Really, I feared that my blog site might well have been disabled. This is what comes of not having your own computer + Internet connection at home...and my beloved CP [Compaq Presario, for the uninitiated] languishes in Kolkata...sigh :-(
Lots of things happening in my life, in which nothing is happening at all. Confused? Don't be. What I mean is: there are lots of things happening in & around my life that I could well do without, whereas things that I'd love to happen to me are just nowhere on the horizon. What, however, keeps me going is the thought that I'm not in a position to stop [I was about to provide here a rather lengthy example involving sharks & Mumbaikars, but then deleted it], coupled with the maxim that "the only sure thing about luck is that it will change" – which is the tagline of the forthcoming Hindi film Luck.
The last couple of months were exciting, to say the least. First came in the beginning of May my week-long trip to home in Kolkata. Planning another visit in September [that reminds me...I've yet to get my leave application approved]. Then at the end of the month, my Dad & my sis came to my Mumbai home for a day en route to Pune. Visited Pune after 22 months & stayed with...who else, Rahil :-) Not much has changed, very little, in fact.
Then in June, a fire broke out in our new apartment, my wife went down with malaria for the 2nd time in 11 months & went to her aunt's place for a week to recuperate, after spending 3 days in the hospital. Then came what is potentially the biggest media event of 2009 – The Death Of MICHAEL JACKSON!!! Yes, the King of Pop, who later morphed into Wacko Jacko, is no more. In the history of Pop/Rock-N-Roll music, this event can be rivalled by only one other event – the demise of the King of Rock-N-Roll Elvis 'The King' Presley 32 years ago.
While Jackson, who died of a cardiac arrest brought on by a drug overdose [so what's new?], was 2 months shy of completing 51 at the time of his death, his father-in-law Elvis [yes, Jackson's 1st wife Lisa-Marie Presley was Elvis's daughter] was barely 42 when he died of – hold on – drug overdose!
Among all the media attention that MJ's death was subjected to, one thing that no one seemed to notice, but which I kept thinking of, was—what was Lisa-Marie thinking? Her father & her husband were undoubtedly the two biggest figures in the history of Pop & Rock-N-Roll, both were unbelievably talented, both [esp. Elvis] suffered from not doing full justice to their talents, and both died of drug overdose—while Elvis was found dead lying in his own vomit, MJ died with nothing but half-digested pills in his stomach, a bald, emaciated, barely-51-kilos shadow of his twinkle-toed public self, a tortured soul haunted by the childhood abuses heaped on him by a brutish father and the taunting, all-pervasive glare of the unforgiving, twin-headed monster that the media & the public parented. What was it to be positioned between two supremely talented men who both died rather ignominious deaths?
Meanwhile, finished some more Dean Koontzs...slowly turning my focus [tho' not fully] towards some good pieces of Indian fiction in English...have more or less got my hands full till mid-Sept. Hopefully my next posting won't be that long in coming :-)
Until then, ciao :-)

Life's Like That (Part-II)...

Huh! Talk about being AWOL! Had promised to keep posting on a regular basis, at least one per fortnight/month. & this one is only my second article in '09!
Anyway ['anyways' is INCORRECT ENGLISH, even if Hrithik Roshan says it oh-so-stylishly...wish people would stop saying that, it bugs me like hell!], here I am, with a lot to write about, but no clue as to how I should go about doing it. Wish it was not so pathologically difficult for me to express my innermost feelings. But then, my 'feelings' generally tend to be too scandalous for the general goody-two-shoes public :-) [wink wink]...
First of all, the abiding love of my life – movies. Haven't watched too many of 'em since November...only about half a dozen, including 'Ghajini' & '13B' [twice each]. Liked what I saw...both had interesting plot premises, as did the new 'Raaz'. Emraan Hashmi has a screen presence of his own, & Kangna Ranaut is not merely another pretty face, but a fantastic actress as well.
Read a couple of books by the author Dean Koontz – 'Life Expectancy' & 'Forever Odd'. His books are what one might rather simplistically label 'paranormal thrillers'. The writing, however, is multi-hued, with richly-layered sub-texts. Add to that a wry, but highly intelligent, humour, & u have a really good writer.
Got myself a huge stack of books which should last me till April-end at least. Will keep u all posted :-)

Life's Like That...

Hello.

Nearly 5 months have elapsed since my last post. Apart from work pressure, which was at its killing peak during the last quarter of the year gone by, my inherent laziness was another prime reason for this inordinate delay. Add to that my wife not allowing me [yet] to get Internet connection installed at home [she fears I'll get hooked to Savita Bhabhi on the net], & u know why I was away for so long.

Anyway, here's a brief of what happened in my life in these last few months. Work-wise, AT&T's over [the project, that is] after more than a year of driving us crazy. However, the truth is that we in the Beta team enjoyed greatly despite the mad schedules. Am hoping for another such project to come my way soon.

On the personal front, my wife & I moved in to our new home during the last week of November, when Mumbai was being attacked by a group of terrorists sent over by our old friend Pakistan. Some people just never give up.

Also finished reading the entire Ian Fleming collection in the last 2 months. What a writer! In my books, he is right up there with Alistair MacLean & Jack Higgins [wonder how I overlooked mentioning him in my post on Matthew Reilly]. While on Fleming, the new James Bond film 'Quantum Of Solace' & the new Bond novel 'Devil May Care' [penned by Sebastian Faulkes] are rather below par...& I'm being mild!

[To be continued...]