Zor Lagake...Haiya!

Just met a guy today who is an amateur/professional photographer. 

Met his lovely wife too. Only problem: She talks too much. 

Now this guy loves shooting nudes. His wife doubles up as a model sometimes.

Now don't blame it on the slowdown. Please no.

But even this is not the story!

The story: One day, this guy buys a Barbie doll. Obviously, for a nude photoshoot silly.

He spends around 550 bucks!

Then he comes home and takes off her clothes. And discovers a polka dotted panty.

And then no matter how hard he tries to take it off, he fails eventually.

He curses himself, swears on the Barbie, but still the panty wouldn't come off.

Now, this makes me wonder...why doesn't Barbie's panty come off?

Any answers?

P.S. WARNING! Just read that Aishwarya Rai is set to become the Indian face of Barbie.

Tell me

The value of gold is judged by its purity. The value of a diamond is judged by its carats. The value of an employee is judged by his contribution to an organisation. The value of a son in law is locked in his capability to keep his would-be wife happy.

But can anyone tell me how the value of human being is calculated?

I would love to know since I see so many of these guys being ignored. Some are ignored as managers, some as husbands, some as lovers, and some simply as men on the street…

All of us live each day. But how many of us actually “live” each moment?

If I talk freely now, I would perhaps decimate many a peaceful thought process.

But then, what’s the point? The destination is the same.

In between, it’s the warmth of the fire that matters.

Or so, I would love to believe.

Otherwise, it’s just a case of parasites taking over the world.

Now, why don’t you like being called a parasite?

Until we ride again

Pics: Enroute to Leh, Aug, 2007
Someone sees a deep meaning in a quote. Someone writes with a golden nib. Some even go further and attack a country. It's a little difficult getting used to the moods of time.
But I can't think of a better moment to look deep inside.
I feel like riding. Riding a motorcycle on an open highway answers a lot of difficult questions. Talking about highways, I just remembered something.
A good friend and fellow rider, Trishikh, is leaving for Kolkata as mentioned in the post below. He has been with me through almost 75% of my trials and tribulations here. I haven't got used to the feeling of him not being around.
He is leaving in a few days. He is a character and has character. Nicknamed Whisky he loves to get high. And one day, almost as if to prove it, he rode up to the second highest pass in the world on a puny 150cc bike.
Reed thin, erratic, and stable headed, most of the time he loves talking about rides. "Whatever I lack in size, I try to make up through my actions," he says. Put another way: Taking punishment is his way of fighting away identity blues.
Perhaps for the same reason he keeps a beard sometimes.
Together we have done Jaipur, Ranthambore, Chomu, Leh and a few other hot destinations.
Life is strange. But it will be stranger without Trishikh here in the City of the Mughals, as both Dalrymple and Dheeraj would have put it.
Here's wishing Dark Rider, as he calls himself, Godspeed.

Boulevard of Broken Dreams

Pic: Moscow, April 2008

First Anand left. Then Arindam lost his job. Arindam tried or perhaps didn’t, for sometime. After four months, he too left. Trishikh was under too much pressure. From his mom, who started staying here with him, and his job, which started getting too hectic. CASA, Planman, and then something else. He did it all. And then finally he broke down, deciding to leave.

All these guys other than Anand were in the Capital for more than five years. Even Saurabh lost his job, though he wouldn’t admit. Anyways, that’s what the guys at office say. Final conclusion: Everything changed, in front of my eyes, very fast.

I write a lot of things for the newspaper for which I work. I use words such as, slowdown and recession in my articles. But if, someone asks me, what slowdown means to me personally, I would say — it’s something I can’t explain, but it’s something that I can feel and see in front of eyes. It’s happening like some eerie Shyamalan flick.  

Leaving out Saurabh, all the other guys have or are leaving for Calcutta. Dreams that were so real a year back are now mangled corpses that float on a soggy sea. Replacement seems to be more important than cure. It’s easy, isn’t it?

Colleagues are wary. Everyone is evaluating — situations, people and chances. I am not sure whether a financial crisis should change the way people think. A change in mindset is not the solution for a problem, which is so technical. Salaries haven’t come down for a major chunk of the working population in the country. True, some people have lost their jobs. But what percentage are they of the total Indian working population?  

People who are unaffected have stopped spending. Shopkeepers are not selling therefore. Advertisers aren’t getting any orders since companies have clamped down costs. Everyone is getting affected because some dude somewhere said that times are bad, and it caused a kneejerk reaction. So, just imagine what would have happened if you had bought that expensive white shirt at the shop window?

I just wish I had.