Not knowing what to do, I had previously linked my domain name to my blog, which most often than not received random traffic from search engines due to reasons I’d rather not be too proud about, for now.

I was additionally maintaining a livejournal wherein I had initially started putting in any arbit rambling that I wanted to pen down and preserve, and this sounding board then turned out to be the one that I used with greater frequency compared to my blog, which I was afraid I was going to abandon.

In the midst of maintaining a blog and a livejournal, I chanced upon a few blogs that were hosted on their own server spaces and had exclusive URLs, and this, combined with the need to customize what I spew out in writing prompted me to purchase server space and host this website on wordpress, which is what you are seeing right now. In this regard, I have to thank Aadisht and SKimpy, for their random tech support level assistance on gtalk as well as for having guided me to Madhu Menon, who provided me with the necessary server space, and deserves to be thanked as well.

Thanks also to Monkee, the cheap guy that he is, for having been the first person to subscribe to the RSS feeds of my new website, much before I could do so myself, and for some invaluable inputs and constructive criticisms that prevented me from doing some things that I realized in retrospect were stupid.

Shrenik Sadalgi, friend, colleague and photographer extraordinaire provided me with his old camera – a Canon powershot A620, which is super enough for my face, to shoot the pics that you can see in the header. Refreshing or clicking on other links will switch the header image, thanks to a php script written by Matt Mullenweg.

The wordpress forums are stud level so far as resolving issues related to everything under the sun is concerned, and it is a result of their assistance that I’ve been able to put my site in the current shape that it is in.

Clicking on the bars on top will take you to the different categories under which I’ve posted, and I will update and add new stuff to it. Currently, if your office’s internet proxy isn’t benevolent enough, you will not be able to see any media under the music category.

The primary intent of the blog is to fan my already bloated ego, and also to serve as a means of providing me with more freelance writing opportunities, the likes of which I have engaged in for a few print as well as online publications. I have managed to import and include most of my blog and LJ entries into this site, but I haven’t been able to tag and categorize all 400 (approx) of them for now, which means that you will still see that ‘uncategorized’ label on the top bar until I’ve had enough time, patience and enthusiasm to remedy it.

Feedback is most welcome, just leave a comment, and do subscribe to the RSS feeds of my site. This new blogging journey will be awesome!

I wholeheartedly intend to Rock you like a Haricane.

Dorky Guffaw had been to Mumbai in the last week of November 2007. This was when his famous brush with death took place while he was ejected out of a moving local train at Dadar station, over the heads of all the passengers standing at the doorway, by an irate mob that didn’t like the way he looked. His parents wish they could do the same, but they’d have society to answer to.

During that same Mumbai trip, when he’d been hanging out with his friend, who has, incidentally been mentioned enough number of times to give one the impression that Dorky’s being paid by said friend to advertise his blog, an incident took place that cemented Dorky’s reputation as being the God of Chick Flicks.

Dorky’s DVD collection included Wild Things and Cruel Intentions, because he adored and worshipped Denise Richards, Neve Campbell, Selma Blair (yeah yeah) and was just struck by the idea of prep schools so much, having studied in a school with an apparently funny name, that he permanently borrowed the DVD from a friend of his.

In addition to the two movies mentioned, the DVD also contained this movie titled How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days, the starting credits of which Dorky was able to identify with consummate ease, since this was the first movie in the DVD set, and the stupid pirated DVD did not have the initial screens which would lead one to the menu to choose one among the listed movies.

Hence, every single time Dorky had to watch any of the other movies on the disc, he’d have to see the starting credits of aforesaid movie before he was allowed to proceed. Having done this on a few occasions, it was but natural for him to be able to recognize the movie based on its starting credits, just the same way as anyone who’s seen enough movies can recognize the 20th Century Fox music, having seen it umpteen times before the start of so many movies.

One of the few movies that Dorky actually knew well enough was Forrest Gump, which he’d seen so many times that he’d be able to mouth the dialogues of the movie in his sleep, for even his subconscious knew the entire movie end to end. Come to think of it, Forrest was a Dorky as well, except for that he was additionally multi-talented and made lots of money, aspects that Dorky is woefully unaware of.

In the last week of November 2007, Dorky had visited Monkee to hang out with him. During this trip, Monkee was holed up in some posh dwellings in Mumbai, courtesy of his esteemed employers who took great care of him and Dorky had planned to crash there during his trip that lasted two days and one night.

Dorky chanced upon some CDs in an unused compartment of the closet in Monkee’s room where Dorky was intending to keep his backpack, rather than leave it on the floor. Finding two CDs with potentially questionable content led both of them to play the guessing game, something Dorky does out of habit before he is able to see the contents of a package or something similar.

Monkee, in his trademark manner said that it probably contained some pirated visual studio installer left there by some retarded techie. His vitriol against most IT firms, especially the ‘SWITCH’ companies (Satyam | Wipro | Infosys | TCS | Cognizant | HCL) will invariably result in his being abducted by those companies, who, for a change will outsource that task to some organization like the Taliban or the LeT those people who are in the free pool (a.k.a bench) in those respective companies.

On the other hand, Dorky said that it contained some gruesome video of how someone who’d previously occupied the room had been murdered, and that they’d die once they saw it as well. I guess he was inspired by the plot of ‘The Ring’.

In any case, the minute they put the disc into the computer, and the familiar opening credits that he had seen on so many occasions were splashed on screen, like the fraud quizzer he is, Dorky shouted out the answer even though no question was asked, which resulted in his being labelled the God of Chick Flicks.

The belated birthday present he received, as a result, has been Samantha Cook’s ‘Rough Guide to Chick Flicks’, which contains enough information and trivia for Dorky to make himself at home in any gathering of women who’re interested in movies that strike a chord with them. However, he plans to do no such thing, and would rather let his hidden knowledge serve him on occasions where it matters the most.

What occasion(s) may come, only Dorky knows, I suspect.

In lieu of that, I have decided to create a Technorati Profile that allows me to get more traffic redirected onto mine site.

More power to blogoutsourcing! Technorati is awesome!! (like me.)

I have noticed that blogging is a cool thing among people like me who suck at sports, at basic social skills and at pretty much everything they do, with a few not-so-noteworthy exceptions that don’t require much detailing.

However, being an active member of the blogsphere has literally transformed my world. Now, there’s a few people who subscribe to my blog and livejournal RSS feeds on google reader and bloglines (thanks to you, you know who you are. I only wish you guys weren’t in jail), and some people who identify me because of my online footprints.

Those that DO identify me through my online footprints are individuals who have way too much time on their hands, are thus able to zero in on another kindred spirit.

While in conversation (and by conversation, I mean gtalk, for I don’t talk with said person even though we sit barely a few tens of metres away in our office space) with a friend of mine from the office, I stumbled upon a brilliant idea, that might provide me with a self-fulfilling and unparalleled raison d’être.

Curious to know more? Read on. This post, for a change, concerns YOU more than it would concern me.

I know I am not a stud blogger, on the lines of Sidin Vadukut, Madman Aadisht, Skimpy and the likes. Not being a celeb blogger is something I can live with, and it causes me no trepidation. On the contrary, with what I am about to propose being in mind, this would work to my advantage.

You, dear Blog reader, might be someone who is all that I am not – cool, smart, funny with social skills that exceed expectations, non-skinny and with lots of money, but the one element that will make you completely and undeniably supercool and will catapult your levels of ‘coolness’ to vertiginous stratospheric heights might be absent.

Yes, you might not have a blog or a livejournal. Though the absence of an online space does showcase your lack of social ineptitude (double negative – ’tis a compliment), it would still be necessary under some circumstances for you to be able to hit on that cute chick who likes books so much that she’s in love with Holden Caulfield or Dean Moriarty, and would think no end of you if you were to have a blog peppered with profound esoteric witticisms.

You’d rock even further if you had a dot com to your name, but that might also make you übergeeky, and might just scare away those that would like a dash of the nerdy, but within limits.

The same would be applicable to women as well, but rather than give out a blog URL, or any other associated links to your online spaces, all women would have to do would be to bat their eyelids and smile charmingly and the guy would fall hook, line and sinker, more often than not.

The other advantages of having a blog would be to add an extra bullet point to your resume, so as to project you as being someone who has strong opinions about issues and wants to put it out there for people to know, so as to engage them in active and socially useful productive work type discussions. More often than not, it might just be a load of crap (like what you’re reading right now), but unless the interviewer actually checks out the blog, you’re in the clear.

My role, a not-so-insignificant one, comes to the fore when you realize that you’d like to take the plunge towards getting that much needed online space. I could help you there by blogging on your behalf, and making you sound interesting, funny and cool online, for I will be writing on your behalf. Just think of me as the Mystique of the blogsphere.

Being a non-celeb blogger, I can still retain my anonymity, and you will not be embarassed about someone else making you look cool. You’d be the Backstreet Boys / Pussycat Dolls of the blog world! They don’t write their own songs, or make their own dance moves, book their own tickets or clear the table after eating food, but you still see how cool they are, right?

All that I want in the bargain is cold, hard cash. I want to invest money in certain preoccupations of mine, including buying server space for my website, getting a new bass guitar, saving up to buy a Bose home theatre system, getting a house to house the Bose home theatre system in and so on and so forth.

I might even write a paper once I am in this business, about how I started the new trend of blogoutsourcing, and you name would be featured in papers presented in some really top flight academic institutions, and your names shall reverberate through time and space as you join me in this new revolution that will change the way you see the world, and the way it sees you in return. Its mostly the latter, but we’ll look into it when we get there.

We can discuss terms and conditions later, and loyalty programs, discount offers and such shall be employed to make this investment worth your while, while also giving you a super blog in return.

Leave me a comment, and let us take this forward. Remember, if you want to play a good game, you need me in it!

PS – As a special offer, if you sign up, I am going to increase your AQ by a few points. This is the first of many rewards for joining this noble venture.

Having unleashed the power of Meh, after having been introduced to this concept by quite a few people during my travels beyond a few oceans and quite a large number of seas and other assorted water bodies, I now present to you the AQ – Awesomeness Quotient, something that is guaranteed to change your life for the better, should you embrace this concept of mine with an open mind.

Sure, you’d have probably heard of the AQ before, but no Alexander Graham Bell shall upstage this Elisha Gray, and you shall be initiated into the wonderful ways of the AQ by the sentient one that propounded the concept, rather than someone who’d give you an ersatz, less awesome version of the facts.

The operative word for this entire post, as you might have guessed is ‘awesome‘, along with all its derivatives in adverb and adjective forms. If you thought it was quotient go to the * (starred) segment directly, and skip reading through the rest of this post.

A person’s AQ, as you can guess, is a relative term used to refer to how awesome a particular person is vis-à-vis someone else. Obviously, not everybody can be of the same levels of awesomeness. Then the world would be a boring place to live in. Imagine a world filled with CEOs. Not that CEOs are awesome by any stretch of anyone’s imagination except for their own, but this is just an example to illustrate my point of view. Awesome example, eh? I know!

Most of these tests that determine a person’s quotient would tend to put a person through a particular standardized test and then allocate them a number which would then be used to judge them in relation to others that have taken the test.

Awesomeness is not something that can be measured – its a vibe that can be felt within a short span of time and AQs are consequently awarded thereafter.

Let us all now be aware of the ground rules for AQs and their subsequent allocation to everyone on the planet.

1) The owner of this blog has an AQ of 300. That is the second-highest AQ for anyone in the universe. The only person to top his AQ is unaware of having done so, but said AQ topping was quite a landmark event nevertheless.

2) AQs can be allocated by me to people whose AQ is perceptibly lower than mine. Note that ‘perceptibly’ was just a place holder I put in to showcase how awesome my polysyllabic vocabulary is. You can get the entire meaning of that sentence by remaining oblivious to the use of that particular word.

3) So far as others are concerned, AQs can be awarded once they have received their AQs from me. It is to be noted that if I have allocated you an AQ, and you would in turn allocate someone else with an AQ, it has to be lower than yours. For instance, I give you an AQ of 280. You can then give someone else an AQ of 279 or less.

4) You CANNOT give anyone an AQ higher than yours. The only exception to this rule has been carried out once, before the entire rule system was put into place and awesomeness hadn’t yet been reined in, and was running amok in all the parallel universes in creation. However, if you do end up having a brain fart, you will lose your AQ and will be relegated to being a Roadie.

5) *(For those that thought the operative word for this post was ‘quotient’. Also for those that thought they could get toocleverbyhaf and give someone a higher AQ) Just like Lucifer fell from Grace and let Will take over instead to redefine television in a yucky way, your transgressions, if any will make you lose your AQ and you will end up being a Roadie.

Then you’d have to appear in TV shows, have the whole world make fun of you, fall off bikes, have two sex change operations in a row, use more curse words in two minutes than there were in all of ‘Scarface’ prior to its editing, and render yourself incapable of any logical activities, all in the name of the ‘Roadies Spirit’. Needless to say, you will be stripped of all your other attributes such as IQ and EQ.

(Ok, I admit to being jealous of Roadies. Seriously. Wouldn’t you be too? Hence the vitriol. They rock! Facetiousness has a new name.)

That takes care of the ground rules for AQs. There will be a small update on AQ usage in a day or two, once the author of this post can do an impact assessment to see how the world has changed upon his having unleashed said concept.

Until then, stay awesome…like me!!!

This whole hoopla leads me to think how simple it was not so long ago, when there was tremendous hype about the release of particular movies only in select circles or in movie magazines such as ‘Filmfare’, ‘Cineblitz’ or ‘Screen’ which I would invariably end up reading from cover to cover while waiting for my turn to have a haircut at the barbershop that I have been visiting ever since I learnt from my class teacher in school that a haircut was the only way I wouldn’t end up having to sit with the stupid girls in class, a school of thought that prevailed in a 10 year old version of me, but something that has been thankfully remedied since. Now a grown-up, enlightened version of me prefers the company of women, but that has already been posted about in my livejournal.

These magazines would result in me knowing which movie Salman Khan would be acting in next, or about a certain rising star named ‘Divya Bharathi’, who died on my 10th birthday in 1993, much to the disappointment of many people who really thought she was cutemax, and about how a certain Tamil music director named A.R. Rahman was creating waves in Bollywood with the release of ‘Rangeela’.

However, it was never the case that one had too much information at one’s hands about a particular movie, and the cinemas retained a certain sense of exclusivity, a particular charm or a mystic allure to their being that somehow could be experienced only through visiting a movie theatre. The alternative was to rent a VCP (not a VCR) from the video circulating library along with a few tapes and then sit and watch them at home together.

It is time for an interesting (?) digression in the insipid narrative here to highlight the fact that though our household was open to books, magazines and printed material of pretty much any kind in much the same way as the Playboy mansion is to promiscuous women, the same openness was not extended towards the movies, and we’d end up watching movies mostly whenever the almighty DoorDarshan deigned to telecast them, invariably with breaks in between for the evening news and other such interruptions. This was one of the reasons why bringing home a VCP to watch movies, which happened about three times in my entire childhood was such a big deal, and we watched movies such as ‘Mr.India’, ‘Dances with Wolves’, ‘Where Eagles Dare’ and ‘The Sound of Music’ during those ventures, which to my delight, have added to my collection of treasured childhood memories.

Going to the theatres and watching movies was a big deal, and it was a ritual that required extensive planning and a substantial amount of time invested in choosing what snacks to buy and which day to watch the movie on, which city bus route to take to get to the theatre and so on. The first couple of movies I saw with a good friend of mine from school were the result of these extensively planned outings, and I remember the movies we watched were James Cameron’s ‘True Lies’, dubbed in Hindi and Mani Ratnam’s ‘Bombay’, in Tamil, which was incidentally when I, as a precocious 12 year old boy just out of class seven fell in love with Manisha Koirala and realized subconsciously that a feeling of vulnerability combined, paradoxically, with a fierce streak of independence in women is indeed a highly attractive trait.

As we hapless consumers, post liberalization of our economy in 1992 gladly bore the brunt of the onslaught of satellite and cable television programs all through the 90′s, it was becoming more and more evident with each passing year that it would be hardly a matter of time before the interlinking of all forms of media would take place, much the same way as physicists such as Planck were intent on propounding a Unified Field Theory for all the various types of forces whose existence was known to man.

This unification meant that the movies would not remain exclusive to those that were actual die hard fans of celluloid, but would turn out to be open access for anyone with a television. The effort one had to put in, or the entry barrier that one had to cross in order to gain access to the magical world of movies had suddenly been reduced to nothingness, as convenience and sloth brought in a new wave of on demand movies, and movie channels of all sorts showing movies so many times that it would have been practically impossible to miss out on watching a movie like, say, Titanic, even if one were to try very hard to miss it on TV.

This next level of dilution of a movie lover’s standing was atleast something that he/she could put up with, because it also resulted in providing one with greater access and exposure to hitherto unknown or unheard of cinema, including the different forms of parallel cinema and indie movies that most people that want to break the mould or want to be cool so fervently swear by, in present times.

However, as one turns on the television today to watch some random program, and all one can see are promos of movies such as ‘U me aur hum’ (whose title could be a dedication to the shorthand using generation that I wish to distance myself from) and ‘Tashan’ (how I hate that word!), which are screened pretty much on the same lines as advertisements, with the producers having purchased time slots on channels, and one wonders why it is that these movies have to hardsell themselves so much if they are good movies that people would be falling over each other to watch. How did movies such as ‘Sholay’, ‘Jurrasic Park’, ‘Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge’ and others gain so much popularity without having to resort to a media blitzkrieg?

I am taking an educated guess here to make an assumption that the contractual agreement that most actors would sign as part of their being cast in a particular film would require their services much more beyond the requisite time they spend on the set shooting for a given movie. Once the movie has been shot, and has undergone post production, they would still have to appear for media interviews, shoot promos which are, one tends to notice, mutually exclusive to the content or plot related to the movie, and that would also contain copious references either directly or through the placement of logos to media houses, fashion houses, restaurants, banks or other commercial establishments that are piggybacking on the movie’s gravy train to further their own causes.

Gone are those days, when most people made movies solely for entertainment, or as a mode of self expression or to portray a certain message that one strongly believed in. I would like to fervently believe that it is only a certian section of movie makers that have sold out, and that most of those who haven’t will remain true to their cause.

However, it is quite unlikely that the magic of movies would vanish just because of a new avatar that they have assumed. Any air-headed romantic person would still believe without a shade of doubt that the best movie moments are those that one experiences in real life, rather than in the theatres.

Call it a strong inclination to not write in a hitherto observed manner, call it an overdose of Asterix comics featuring Julius Ceasar where the subject in question also refers to himself in the third person, name and all, call it the blog owner’s need to satiate the reader’s need for reading the same garbage over and over again, albeit packaged differently each time or call it Ishmael, your call.

The blog owner, who will henceforth be referred to in the third person singular pronoun (he / him – in lowercase ONLY) turns 25 tomorrow. Yeah, its time for you, dear reader, to acknowledge that and wish him, should you choose to. The thing is, he’s not really too keen on your wishes, and this post is being written for posterity simply because its nice to reflect on one’s thoughts a few years down the line.

He thinks his archived posts are really fun to read, narcissistic or egotistic though it might sound. He wants this post also to fall under the aforementioned category.

Now, he’s not particularly excited about turning 25. On being asked to make a statement to the general public regarding this supposedly monumentous occasion, he had this to say – umm…ahh…ah ha! Meh.

Maybe he also said it because its an intensely private emotion that he’d like to keep to himself and celebrate and enjoy it with those close around him rather than get screen printed t-shirts about it each time he finishes another complete revolution around the sun or go engage in something other than acts of random kindness, it is something for you to figure out, but he’s sure its futile to write beyond this paragraph because he thinks he’s lost your attention already.

Turning 25 is not a big deal. Turning 18 is. Then one can sing that Bryan Adams song ’18 till I die’ and mean it. Its eligible to be sung only by those above 18. If you’re a 15 year old singing ’18 till I die’ like you mean it, you have acromegaly, and it is imperative that you get a medical check up. Go on, the rest of the blog is for adults only, anyway. 18 also gives you the right to vote, the right to drive a geared motor vehicle of any sort, and to watch adult movies, though it has been proven statistically that more sub-18s watch stuff meant for the above 18 year olds.

Turning 21 is a big deal. Now you can sing ’1921′ by The Who, because even though the song title is misleading, the song is all about how Pete Townshend feels that ’21 is a good year, and by the principles of self-interpretation of any situation to suit your convenience, one could also assume that this is a song for a 21 year old. In addition, if you are a guy, you can get married and if you are a girl, you could be having your third child post matrimony (in theory), should your need to have great-great-great grandkids and SEE them while you’re still alive is so very strong. Also, one can elope in a manner similar to a Hindi movie starring Aamir Khan and Juhi Chawla, and then commit harakiri simply because the script demanded so.

Turning 25, however, awards you no such privileges. No dramatic deaths, no extra incentives, no confetti parades (thankfully) and no pay hikes. It earmarks what the Times of India or the Bangalore Mirror calls a quarter-life crisis, especially for those like him, who’ve been trying to find themselves for so long, with varying degrees of success.

When asked about how he is going to deal with the possible onset of a quarter life crisis, he had this to say – ‘Meh‘.

He is alarmed about the possible onset of relatives who would now be hounding him as a last resort to get some poor unsuspecting girl married off to him, after every other guy who is more eligible than him has rejected the said person on various grounds.

It is widely claimed and acknowledged among those of his community that despite his apparent reputation of being a ‘software engineer’, that he associates himself with ‘musician types’ and other such riff-raff and is ‘anti-social’ and is consequently probably going to turn up as a match only if one were to try and scrape the bottom of the barrel one last time, and the upturn it, give it a vigorous shake, to see what might’ve been stuck there.

The other alarming prospect that fills each of his two hundred and six bones with dread is dealing with birthday wishes which are invariably followed by the statement – ‘Where is the treat?’. He understands perfectly the sentiment behind the wish, and can acknowledge it gratefully with extreme courtesy, politeness, a brilliant 28-teeth Pepsodent smile, but the request that follows it is baffling.

He is of the opinion that this is similar to a guy speaking to a girl and exchanging perfunctory greetings with her on a few occasions, and then randomly saying – ‘You’re beautiful, will you marry me?’. Its almost as if the guy expects the girl to marry him simply because he said she was beautiful.

If you want a treat, it should be accompanied by a present. Or else you should not ask for one. That is a sure-fire way of making him treat you, because he’s a big fan of this whole reverse-psychology thing. Plus he’s already got a treat white list, and these special people will be treated no matter what. Its his way of being able to spend time with them when he can if he can.

The whole 25 thing is not bothering him one bit. He’s sure that the next 25 years will be as eventful if not more, if he has any say in how circumstances will transpire.

To quote Longfellow from ‘A Psalm of Life’:

I love you. From the bottom of my heart. I love you like I have loved no other blog in my entire life. You are the only blog I will ever have. However, I also have a live journal that I have been updating much more regularly than I have been writing in you.

At the outset, let me clarify that the relationship I share with you is not one which requires me to be monogamous, despite the fact that I am a huge fan of the same. I somehow don’t think I am off my rocker enough (yet) to correlate the concepts of monogamy and blogging in the same breath without wondering whether I’ve finally reached the tipping point that will have me institutionalized.

I like writing, its just that I think of you as an exclusive space where I write things that really make other people laugh or react in ways that would make them think I write better than the average Idiot who talks about his foreign trips and about the food he ate there and the basketball games he saw, the concerts he had been to and all that nonsense.

You are not a random sounding board for me, just so you know.

There are about six posts that I began writing to you, all of which I thought had significant enough content to be rendered publishworthy in your hallowed online space, but a multitude of factors conspired against my being able to do so, including the fact that I was getting paid to write stuff in a couple of online publications as well as in a print magazine, and having felt the urge to let the necessary evil of Mammon, the God of Wealth, into my life if ever so shortly, I had expended all my creative energies and my valuable time reserved for you in that pursuit.

I shall try and see that such things don’t happen in the future. But circumstances might dictate otherwise, as a disclaimer.

However, this open letter to you is just to let you know that my love for writing started with you, and unless the blogger server conks out or we are ACTUALLY living in the matrix and some machine is making me do this until my purpose is served and I am then converted into some gross protein shake for the next set of code monkey babies to be ‘born’ into this world, I shall always keep updating you whenever I am able to.

I apologise for not having written to you earlier this year, but to make up for it in my own little way, I will be putting up another post in a day or two. How does that sound?

love,
Hari

The tremors vibrating through his entire body became more and more evident the closer he came to his final destination. It had been a whopping four hundred and eighty one days since his last visit, and he was well aware of the fact that the day of reckoning had finally arrived.

An arbit converation on gtalk, a split second decision and barely twenty minutes later, he had borrowed the keys to his sister’s Honda Activa and was well on his way to get the job done. Although he did have his moments of reservation towards doing the act that he was about to undertake, the cumulative good that arose out of the act was, he was hoping, something that would provide him with greater long-term pleasure and satisfaction vis-à-vis the ephemeral accolades and not so unwanted or unwarranted attention that he received for his present condition.

His constant companion for all seasons was playing music in his ears, as he donned the helmet and began the eight kilometer journey, the melodious strains of classic rock of the yesteryears giving him apt company on his ride.

After a couple of near death experiences on the road in Mysore while on his way, he was about half a kilometer from where he was headed out for. Shaking his head with a disdainful sigh and feeling much older than his current 24+ years, he lamented to himself about the state of affairs in his city, with the pathetic road manners of Bangaloreans being transfused into the veins of Mysore motorists, as a result of which he had to endure the aforesaid near-misses in his own backyard.

His morose plight was remedied to a substantial extent by B J Thomas’ ‘raindrops keep falling on my head’, and his lugubrious state of mind was replaced by one of mild terror, as he stopped the vehicle, turned off the ignition and removed his helmet.

The name of the place had changed from ‘New Elite Hair Dressers’ to simply ‘Elite Hair Dressers’ in the 18 months since he had been there last, and he then started wondering what else it was that had changed with time, since he last had a haircut.

Had they started using garden shears now? Did they use talcum powder that he was allergic to, that would cause him to have sneezing fits for the next one week? Did they have hot lady barbers who would provide him with a massage if he asked for one? (oil massage for the head, you perverted cretin!) Did this place also sell out like some other barber shops that he had been to, by shaving armpits of some customers that wanted the said service rendered unto them?

As his mind was overflowing to the brim with these thoughts, he had parked the vehicle and was striding purposefully towards the saloon, his long hair curled up and bouncing off his shoulders for the very last time in a long time to come, as he removed the black hairband (he’d flicked it from a good friend of his who was going to receive a whole lotta good Karma for her generous gesture) that tied them together in a neat ponytail and shook the locks loose in a manner not unlike he’d seen Perizaad Zorabian, Andie McDowell, Jennifer Connelly and Robert Plant do, either in advertisements or in movies or music videos where they were required to seduce someone.

He was sad at the thought of crossing over from their territory into one that was ruled by the likes of Pritish Nandy, the late Amrish Puri, Samuel L Jackson, Sinead O’Connor, Uma Bharathi and a whole host of liberated bra-burning crazy ass feminists (who wanted to be Amazons but were too chicken to mutilate their bosoms) but he hoped fervently that the crossover would augur well with the side he no longer played for (not Robert Plant and such, but more along the lines of Perizaad and the rest!).

With his unshaven look, and his hair, it wasn’t high time before someone mistook him for Himmesh and hounded him for autographs, which was why he hadn’t been wearing protective headgear even in an oppressive winter, the cold adding to his list of near-death experiences every time he ventured out from an enclosed building, and this was another situation that needed to be remedied at the earliest possible.

Just at that very moment, when he was five metres from the door of the saloon he was so purposefully striding towards, a strong gust of wind blew in the air, and for the very last time, yet again, he managed to shake his head and prevent the offending strands of hair that had grown so long near his forehead from curling up and poking him in the eyes from along the corners of the spectacles that he was wearing. His hair, like the answer, was blowing in the wind for the very last time.

“To hell with New Year’s resolutions”, he thought, and after having had a haircut on 31st August 2006 at the hands of an obliging friend at the basement of a service apartment block in Oslo, he finally entered the hallowed grounds of a barbershop.

As soon as he got in, the four barbers and their four customers stopped for a minute and glanced towards him, shocked at what they saw. It was a rare opportunity for the barbers to have had a Rip Van Winkle moment, and even rarer for the customers to do so themselves, and hence they savoured it and milked it for as long as it could last.

What followed next is a conversation that is best described as some sort of a dialogue between the protagonist of this piece and the people at the saloon.

Barber: Yes, what you are wanting here?

Him: Haircut, sir.

B: Oh okay. You don’t come here for so long and now you want us to cut your hair, eh?

H: (feeling very much like an errant pupil being admonished by the school headmaster) Sorry, I forgot.

B: Forgot?? Forgot?? Did you forget to brush your teeth? Did you forget to take a dump? Did you forget to pay your credit card bill?? Did you forget all the good times you had at the Miami beach party during Spring break 2004 with CJ??

H: Spring Break? I’m an engineer from Mysore who works in an IT firm in Bangalore. I don’t know what that means. But I do know who CJ is, I see Baywatch!

B: Idiot! Don’t change subject! Be glad that we’re cutting your hair, after all that you’ve done!

H: Please give me a haircut, I am sorry.

B: (mellowing down considerably after receiving the apology) Ok ok, come and sit in the chair. I will now proceed to cut your hair. Don’t give me that contumelious stare, or I will tear up the clothes that you wear.

The barber then turned the chair around, whipped out his camera phone, and with considerable fanfare, invited the boy from the neighbouring tea stall to take a picture of all the barbers with the protagonist sitting in the chair. After the obligatory photo-op, he proceeded with his business of cutting hair, and after a span of twenty minutes, he’d finished his job, and our protagonist’s head was feeling considerably lighter, literally and not from having any substances infused within his blood stream.

B: (smiling indulgently) Will you ever make the mistake of not coming here regularly?

H: (with tears of gratitude streaming down his bespectaled eyes) I am sorry for my mistake, I promise never to have hair longer than twelve centimeters on my head, unless I want my pseudo-rockstar junkie look ever again!

B: (having tears in his eyes as well) I am glad you have seen the error of your ways. (pointing to a pile of hair on the floor) See! All this hair is from your head. It is more sizeable than the amount of hair cut from all our customers all of this week!

The barber then motioned to the tea stall boy again, and as the protagonist had an overwhelming sense of déjà vu encompass him all over again, the staff of the barbershop stood around his chair for an ‘after’ shot.
The prodigal customer then bade the barbers of the ‘Elite Hair Dressers Saloon’ goodbye and went home to shock the living daylights out of his family.

Now being the Bangalore Correspondent for one of the country’s most famous music magazines does have its plus points, the main one being the fact that flashing a press card can do wonders in situations where the Common Man has to pay cash to gain access into. Dorky has heard that it can even work with traffic cops and the like, but he hasn’t yet ventured out to make use of that opportunity and prays that he never will have to be in a sticky situation which will warrant that.

One such situation where Dorky used the power of the fourth estate to the max was when he had to go for the Scorpions concert that was held on Sunday 16th December 2007 at the Palace Grounds in Bangalore.

At the outset, print / television media is allowed two representatives into a concert of this type unless they are exclusive media partners, in which case they can even walk on stage when the artists are performing, lift up drum kit equipment to look for missing plectrums and nobody would have the authority to question them.

Dorky’s magazine wasn’t a media partner for this event, and as a consequence, he had to endure janta journalist treatment, which translated into a free entry into the expensive section with no access backstage or no opportunity to meet the Scorpions. Nevertheless, he was glad for the opportunity to write about the gig, while also exhibiting some class A level Kiasu, something he has been an expert at practising for quite some time now.

That trait incidentally is something that exists in the memetic make up of his entire country and as a consequence, he was an adept practitioner of the same.

He was accompanied by a friend who also wanted to put Kiasu level entry into the concert, and as a result had even brought a 7 MP digicam to masquerade as the photographer. However, Dorky had decided in a fit of selfishness that it would be he who would go into the Press Pit (which is the space between the crowd and the playing area), while his friend had to make himself happy with a bitti (free) entry.

Entering the concert venue with his friend (who had been nice enough to bring a car), Dorky proceeded to flash the press card around gleefully, almost as if he were a proud member of the FBI who had come to a crime scene investigation and was required to be given all access. His friend was amazed at the power of the press as Dorky managed to get his friend a parking place in the backstage space, reserved for VIPs and for the guests who had paid 7.5K to sit in the lounge.

Striding purposefully towards the media desk, much to the envy of the huge line of people standing both in line to get tickets as well as in line to get entry into the venue, Dorky managed to get two tags which said “MEDIA”, though he’d have preferred something that said “AAA” (Access All Areas).

After bumping into an entire motley crew of people that formed present and former friends and acquaintances, some of them rabid Nazi-loving ganja-smoking acid-popping fans, some rabid Nazi-loving ganja smoking acid popping non-fans, some non-rabid Nazi-loving ganja-smoking acid-popping fans and some others that subscribed subsets of the above traits and exchanging notes on life, the universe and everything within as much time as it took to shake hands and mumble perfunctory greetings, he then proceeded to cut the queue as the plebians watched with envy. Dorky and his friend even escaped the frisking that one is subject to while entering a concert venue!

Dorky was on the lookout for some people he wanted to avoid, and he was thankful that he managed to do so without much effort on his part. It seems as though the other concerned party shared his sentiments and probably did as much if not more to avoid bumping into him, and this non-meeting was, presumably for the greater good of mankind in general and for Dorky in particular.

Once the concert began with the usual irritating ads, Dorky went into the press pit, armed with his friend’s friend’s 7 MP digicam which was tiny in comparison to the hugeass SLRs that the other professional photographers were carrying. However the thrill of being in the pit for the first ever time in his life mitigated the other feelings he felt, of being out of place among all stud photographers with a 7 MP digicam.

The previous concerts he had attended, he had come real close to the press pit, but never enough to actually be there. In 2001, the Bryan Adams concert saw Dorky splattered against the railing, with the surging crowds crushing his guts against the metal barricade. However, he was one of the sixty-odd people at the concert who had the distinction of having Bryan Adams spit on them as he sang ‘Back thooo You’. That date was more memorable for other reasons, which would be a worthy digression, but would merit being in its own post altogether, should the author feel the need to, in the distant future.

Continuing our efforts to charter Dorky’s concert experiences, he then saw Shankar Dayal Sharma give a speech in some medical college inaugural function, saw Roger Waters in the flesh, saw Deep Purple, Iron Maiden, Aerosmith and enough Indian bands in miscellaneous shows to ensure monthly visits to the ENT specialist. The fact that he loves his ipod didn’t make life easier for him either.

The Scorpions came the first time around to Bangalore during the Accoustica 2001 tour of theirs, as Dorky was pretending to study for his engineering exams while actually trying out all the clothes he had amassed in his wardrobe in sequence, and being the pedantic parsimonious person that he was back then, the exam overruled attending the concert. Dorky was thinking of how he had been given an opportunity to redeem himself as he stepped into the press pit, after being ushered in by the cop who gazed respectfully at his ‘MEDIA’ badge.

The press pit was cooler than he thought, and as he walked all across from one end of the pit to the other and back, the crowd was gazing at him in different shades of green. He managed to see the various setup sections for each of the band members, and saw how the tech guys for each member were laying their guitars in sequence.

For a substantial time, Dorky engaged in the fine art of schadenfreude, as he went about stretching his arms and yawning in the press pit while the poor sods were cramped around the front side, gasping for breath while being in a catch 22 situation. Set yourself free for arm space and lose the coveted position or stay there and be cramped like brown people attending a rock concert in Bangalore. Quite dicey if you ask me, and as someone mentioned to him later, Dorky was being an über “schadist”.

As Nietzsche once said, “humour is just schadenfreude with a clear conscience”, and Dorky went about doing with gay abandon what he had seen others do unto him and other multitudes of people that had attended concerts for times immemorial, knowing fully well that this was not part of a vicious Karmic circle, but was more like ragging in college where the baton was passed on to the next set of unfortunates, instead of being thrown back to the persons who committed the peccadilo(s) in the first place.

The opening act finished, two arbit VJs from some arbit channel walked and said something that reeked of ersatz, practised wit and then finally, with a resounding noise, the Scorpions descended on the spartan stage and began their performance for the evening.

Dorky thought to himself that there are pros and cons of being in every location, and in the press pit, even though he could see the Scorpions perform much closer-up than anyone else could afford to, the compromise was made on the sound quality which mattered more to him.

Members of the press were summarily ejected by the same PRs who were nice to them just a couple of hours ago, and Dorky left, with tears of joy streaming down his eyes (exaggeration included only for effect) at his accomplishments of having been in the pit. He rejoined the crowd and had a gala time, saying “Courteney Cox” when the crowd was screaming “We want more” as part of the encore act.

For the full fledged review on the show from a strictly musical perspective, please pick up a copy of the magazine that Dorky writes for. I guarantee you that you will not be disappointed.