What can I say?

Rain is using the principle of "Preparation is half the battle won" today. The scarier version of the rains is so unlike the showers that make the trees, flowers and children smile. Too much rain is as much an unstoppable force of nature as an earthquake. Thunderstorms are like the sky's version of Joker. Alfred says about the Joker "Some men just like to watch the world burn" and Thunderstorms- means no harm, just likes to drench the world. But a city which has seen 26th July would'nt quite have the same opinion. Having concretised the city to the extreme (just 0.3 acres of open area per 1000 people in Mumbai. Even Delhi has 4.4 acres per 1000 people) we the people of Mumbai are not entirely blameless. So if the rains decide to jazz it up a little bit, thunder, lightning...you know, the works... we really have no option but to put our tail between our legs and scurry home right this moment, or atleast as fast as the delayed locals will take you.

And today its a whole lot of jazz. Sample:

At 3:30 I could read a book without the lights in my pretty shady room. Then Dad called.

Dad: How is outside?

Me (*Is that an ominous opening line or what?*): Fine..cloudy and cool. Why?

Dad: Here the streetlights are on, lights are on in shops and offices and everyone's driving with their headlights on. It's like 8'0 clock here.

Me (*uh oh..*): Better leave early.

This conversation may be repeated about a million times by everyone who works in the city, lives in the suburbs, and calls home. Thunderstorm fires the first salvo. Fear created in the mind about an unknown, powerful entity coming soon.

Over the next 1 and 1/2 hours the exact same thing happened right outside my house. The skies darkened slowly, as if the Rain... God? yes definately a God summoned his cloud minions to march forward in an unbreakable line of dark. With the winds driving them on, slamming every open door and rattling the windows... drawing people's attention to it. Every now and then there is a low rumble of thunder, like a war horn. We watch uneasily, yet mesmerized... thinking 'This is probably what is known as a Terrible Beauty...'. A run through of bad rain incidents starts in our mind, like an old slide film. Stage two accomplished by the rains. The very sight of the clouds and accompanying orchestra has scared us. Even before the battle, we have started imagining visions of defeat.

Then as if on cue, the lights go out. It's just 5:58 pm and its pitch dark outside. Not 8'0 clock this looks like midnight on a new moon's night. The cool winds which we would have loved not 20 days ago feels like the hand of a psycopathic stalker on your neck. Rain chooses its props well... just as we are adjusting to the darkness it sends out one gigantic flash of lighting. Lightning which shows you a teaser of a drooping black tree against a bleached sky. Our hearts are on the way to our throats when a huge crack of thunder wallops it right into our mouth. That's it.Now the slideshow starts running faster in our minds... you can see your face or the face of your loved ones wading through the water, hailing ricks on a road full of people hailing ricks, discovering the umbrella is *aarghhhh*, trapped in a train and the train going nowhere... complete frenzy begins. If you are at home you call up mom, dad, friend now. If you are outside home, you recieve a call from home at a freaking wrong time, like when you are readying yourself to jump into a running train entering the platform, standing in a bus that breaks every 5 seconds, trying to remove your windcheater as other passengers abuse you...so much for 'family's concern' :(.. Stage three reached. We are scrambling over one another in a frenzy to reach home or wherever.. to avoid an event that has not even happened yet.

And it didn't happen afterall. For all the drama, all we recieved was 10 minutes of medium rainfall. The lights came back on, the wind has rested its whip, the orchestra is taking a water break. Sitting at home it feels like much ado about nothing. The ones who come home may have a different answer, maybe there was utter chaos where there is no roof over the head.

But tomorrow is another day. And Thunderstorm like Joker is a mad genius... maybe its just waiting for the us to let our guard down.

TIGER: BEAUTY & BEAST

The first trip to see any predator in the wild is an unforgettable one. Actually every trip is. And why wouldn't it be? You know you are travelling through the very same lands where the animals roam free and hunt. We sit in tidy little jeeps and go all over the place looking for His Majesty. We tremble when he nonchalantly walks past the jeep to a water body. We either feel disappointed on not spotting him or feel satisfied seeing abundant wildlife in the form of birds and other mammals. There's a board at the exit gate of the park which depicts a tiger saying something along the lines of 'Even though you haven't seen me, don't feel bad because I have seen you.' Touche Tiger.

Night and Nature take over the forest when the sun sets. None of the tourists know exactly what happens after the park closes. They sleep in their hotel beds, shivering at the thought of a hunting tiger. But the ones living in the forest know. They dread an attack by the tiger on one of their people. The poor farmer living in the outskirts of the park knows. He fears a tiger may snatch away a calf from his cattle shed. He worries that Sambhar or Cheetal will eat his crop. The forest ranger knows that there may be human beings in the forest with no right to be there.

Most of all the tiger knows that there is something else lurking in the grass other than food. What it does not know is the trap of jagged iron laid out on the forest floor. That once trapped by it, his screams will only hasten the poacher to shove a spear into his throat to hack his vocal chords. That once muted, the poacher will proceed to electrocute him. His being the national animal of India matters very little to the poacher. His huge fangs hardly scare the poacher, trapped as he is. And the more he struggles, the more he is hurt. What matters is that a whole, undamaged skin fetches a larger sum of money. That the fangs, claws, bones and other organs will be hot property in the black market. The life of the tiger has no value. The animal does not even have an easy way to go like a bullet in the head. It's slow and painful electrocution. Why slow? Because by God, the poachers for all their brazen courage will run for cover every time the trapped animal struggles violently and snaps at them.

After my first visit, I promised myself I will go back to Bandhavgarh Hills in my lifetime and see the tigers again. The 'Save Tigers, only 1411 left' program couldn't have come at a better time. To me, 1411 no longer looks like just any number. 1411 is the legacy of our nation decimated so greatly it can be counted on fingers now.

Those of us who have never seen tiger land will probably never understand the magnetic attraction it holds for the people who have been there. But every one of us who has been to any national park and seen the beast in all its raw glory have a story to tell. A wish to make others see the magic they have seen. A desire to save it- so they themselves may see it once again and so that others may see it atleast once. That future generations see it. I am one of them. I say it out loud and clear:

"SAVE TIGERS! THEY ARE NATIONAL TREASURE. SAVE THEM BECAUSE
THEY ARE LIVING BEINGS. A TIGER SKIN CARPET ON YOUR FLOOR IS PROOF ONLY OF THE FACT THAT YOU ARE A GREEDY MURDERER. TIGER FANGS, CLAWS AND BONES HAVE NEVER CURED AILMENTS NOR GIVEN SPECIAL POWERS TO HUMANS. DON'T LET GREED WIPE OUT AN ENTIRE SPECIES.

As a common man far removed from the world of poachers and black markets, this is the least one can do. Spread the work, speak out against poaching, be informed about the status and the numbers of the animal, blog about it etc.

Greed is one part of the reason for such a demand of tiger products. In China, tiger bones, eyes and even penises are used in local medicine. On February 14 this year, the Chinese Year of the Tiger began. There are fears among conservationists that this may lead to an increased demand for tiger products. Many Indians too have a love for tiger skins.

The other part is need. Would not an utterly poor man, with no land ownership, hardly profitable crops and a large family to feed begin poaching which offers huge, lump sums of money?

To tackle poaching as a livelihood, WWF- India has begun courses which educate the childeren of a nomadic tribe called Pardhis in Madhya Pradesh. Pardhis are traditional hunters who make a living by killing wild animals. This is a firm step in reducing poaching and one that attacks a problem at the grass root level. Change through education is a superb idea and I fully support WWF- India's initiative.

http://www.wwfindia.org/?4301/Change-through-education

WWF- India also organized a marathon supporting conservation of tigers in Central India to create awareness and garner support on the issue. Such marathons should be held all over India. A 'Run for the Tigers' would be great.

http://www.wwfindia.org/news_facts/?3980/Run-for-the-tiger

Make a noise, roar for our tigers. Tiger Supporters pledge your support:

http://www.saveourtigers.com/JoinTheRoar.php

Women's Day indeed

It was nice recieving messages extolling the wondrous qualities of woman and how she's a mother,daughter, sister, guide,mentor blah blah blah....I was taken in by the happy atmosphere until I reached home and glanced at the newspaper and saw the latest on yahoo news..

Few things that caught my eye on 8th March 2010, 'Women's Day':

1. A 9 year old was raped and murdered. The body was left on top of the terrace of a police inspector's house. Suspected motive of the criminal is to spoil the credentials of the police community as a whole and the police inspector's as a person. (So a young girl, no a kid who just happened to be female as well, who was'nt connected to both these men even in any which way and who should have been playing with her toys at home was abused in the most brutal way imaginable and murdered and left as a gruesome show-piece on someone's terrace. She unfortunately became just a 'prop' in this ego-revenge drama.)

2. So called swamiji Anup Sahai kidnapped a young woman whom he had wanted to marry since he first set eyes on her. We will just ignore the fact that he has a wife and children. So when the woman, who is doing her PhD refused his proposal, he threatened to kidnap her and forcibly marry her. On 8th March, Women's Day, her family has reported her missing. And they have been recieveing phone calls from Sahai saying the woman is with him and he will marry her shortly.

3. Men on various networking sites wishing they could have a Men's Day on which they can watch TV, sit on the couch all day, watch porn and not bathe.

.

Well men, a day dedicated to women only makes you wish you had a Men's Day, does it? If that was meant to be light-hearted, I'm sorry to say there is no humor in that statement. And if you belong to the 'Everyday is a women's day' tribe, crimes on women happen almost 365 days of the year. Does anyone really believe their own voice when they say 'Everyday is a women's day?' Sure Women's Day is commercialized and largely considered to be a day of celebration. But I think every woman will be truly proud of the men in her life(father, boyfriend, husband, friend, brother) if they take this day to think, really think how they can make the world a little safer for women. A Women's Day, I suppose, is meant to inspire such thoughts and not thoughts about a day sans nagging.

Go ahead and make a change today or on any day...however small and however insignificant it may seem, be proud that whatever you've done will help a woman somehow, somewhere.

.

.

http://www.blanknoiseproject.blogspot.com/ :-----If you wish to make a difference, this would be a good place to start.

Sv.

First Date

30 October. 5:00pm.

She took a deep breath. Her heart was pounding so hard it felt as if it had jumped into her throat, forming a lump there. "Its ok...Calm down..", she thought to herself, willing herself to relax.

To the people on the street, she looked like just any pretty girl. A long flowy top that fitted her just right, hair clipped behind her ears and left to flow in soft cascades down her back, a bag slung over her shoulder. Someone with a keen eye might have noticed that she was looking at the signposts, trying to find her way in a strange place without asking anyone. And without giving away the fact that she was a stranger.

She walked on, observing the quaint little houses that had chickens roaming the verandah, small children playing hide-and-seek, the wine shops at almost every turn and an odd vada-pav seller here and there. A picture of him playing the guitar and headbanging right in the middle of this scene and scaring away the children and the chickens suddenly filled her mind. She smiled inspite of herself, remembering the long chats they had in chatrooms. "No wonder you love it here dude, this place seems to feed your rebelliousness regularly..."

Eventually she reached the place, because the many gullies seemed to lead to just one destination. A familiar flutterring sensation claimed her abdomen again and she felt the heat rise to her face. Finally! She was meeting him at last. So many invitations and coy rejections later. This time she had decided to take the first step. But was'nt it a little too late? She vehemently shook that last thought off. She was'nt about to let negativity get to her mere minutes before her first date. No way! Her first date! Excitement coursed through her veins, inexplicable emotions ran riot as she entered the place.

There were so many people there, it was impossible to spot him. She started walking slowly inorder to avoid stepping on anyone, all the while keeping her eyes peeled for him. But no matter where she looked, she could see no sign of him anywhere. A sense of great abandonment enveloped her, suddenly, completely. A sob broke out from her heart, so heavy with feeling she thought she won't be able to breathe anymore. Tears glazed her vision but she still kept looking. She had to see him, she could'nt go back without seeing him.

A man passing by saw the sobbing girl. "What is it, Miss? Looking for someone?", he asked gently, not a bit surprised by her tears. "Alex...Alexan-der", she answered through her sobs. "Come with me, he's there" the man replied, pointing far right. "Umm..I was just going to put this up", he murmured awkwardly and unnecessarily for the girl had eyes only for Alex. He led her to where Alexander was. And on her first date, she saw his eternal resting place, for he lay buried under a mound of fresh earth in a graveyard. She looked on as the man fixed a granite plaque above his grave. She read the words "In Loving Memory of Alexan..." and as the tears escaped in swift streams down her face, she could read no further.

You know you are losing it when...

Ever wondered why you are doing random weird things just like that? When you become so listless that you do something weird, wonder why you are doing it, then simply continue to do it! Oh, you did'nt come up with any answers for the 'why' question, by the way.

Well pals, it happens when life/work/studies/the dreaded D word (deadlines remember?) gets the better of you...it's time you realise you are very very close to the finishline of 'completely lost it'.

Just some random observations, again made at night. Apparently, late night is a very good time to participate in the 'completely lost it' race. I'm sure what I'm going through is not the first-of-its-kind. You sure would have gone through it too, if you have a very eloquent watchman that is!

1. WHEN YOU KNOW YOUR WATCHMAN'S SLEEP SCHEDULE BY HEART:

Not only do I know exactly when it is that he enters deep slumber (12:30 am- 1:00 am), but I also happen to know the time of his cigarette break (around 2:00 am, after Stud-Boy on noisy bike screams at him to open the gate, soundly abuses his mother and drives away) and his prefferred chioce of fags, judging from the smell (horrible bidis and ocassionally Gudang). I can also mimic (perfectly) the way he yawns. Ocassionally, I mimic him right after he yawns. And I'm pretty sure he can hear me since I live on the first floor. And then I think "Oh my God, I did not just do that!! Yeeks!". But nothing beats the feeling that there's someone alive very close at hand on those horrible nights with a deadline ahead. So what if he's asleep? I know those small insignificant quirky facts about him that will make us BFF, if ever I talked to him or even looked at his face. And that thought gives me the dry heaves......

2. MY COMPUTER TALKS TO ME:

The best thing about my laptop is her enduring nature (with some limits). She puts up with me punching on her belly every evening from 5:00 pm to 2:00 am. If she were a he, we would have been in love, cause I can stare his face continuously and never tire. You do know that looking deeply into your partner's eyes/face (within 0.5 feet, eyes/face/lips/forehead is all the same.) sends impulses to your brain that kickstarts lovey-dovey feelings right? But my love affair with my male laptop was prematurely terminated when I discovered her gender. When she started protesting that I'm cutting into her beauty rest that has to start at 2:00 am sharp I realised I'm dealing with a tough old bird here. If I don't toe the line and do exactly as she says, she spews thinly-veiled threats continuously (something sounding like "I.Will.Crash."). And I am her poor, long-suffering henpecked husband. She says to me, "(microsoft)Office work? It can wait until morning. Now switch off the lights its preventing me from sleeping. Remove your fingers from my belly, you know how that irritates me. And for God's sake, stop staring at my face and go to bed already!! What part of my instructions is too difficult for you to understand?"

Nighttime Observations

I'm going to go on record saying the only kind of oil(or any other kind of fuel used for lighting purposes) I burn is 'midnight'. And I love it. Especially because of the add-on destressers like free-to-browse-whenever-I'm-bored-internet, solitaire, a couple of ebooks..you name it.. Daytime is sooo not me..

So being awake till 3 every night for the past 2 weeks led to some stupid observations(which I'm typing out because I'm bored. Whatever)

1. MOSQUITOES GO TO SCHOOL:

there really is no other explanation for why they spare me the sensation of their proboscis drilling into my flesh...until exactly 2:00 am. At 2:00 am sharp they start chewing on my legs as if they have just been released from some sensory deprivation hell and all their sensors are pointed towards my feet. Attack,drill,feed. Attack,drill,feed.

2. HOW TO ABUSE A DOG:

The scene is: you are exhausted from staring at the screen and decide to go to bed only because you cant seem to get any work done. and you are pissed that your work is not getting done "aaj bhi nahi hua". And you berate yourself about wasting daylight hours, lying wide awake in bed. And after 20 minutes when you finally sleep without knowing you fell asleep....the dogs start barking. Dogs right outside my building converse with the dogs in rahul nagar- long distance, minus the phones. They may well be the political negotiators of the dog world discussing their territories and no-dogs-land because the depth and variety of their howls, yowls, whines and barks seems to convey just that. Cranky SV wakes up with a start and rolls over thinking how do you abuse a dog? Well, make him you brother-in-law. *sllepily whispered threat*" Saale Kutte.."

Stress reaction

very bad start of the week
monday n tuesday have been a complete waste-fest
n rudely woken up from procastination by a very worried call from totally stressed friend with news which equals a nuclear bomb that doesnt kill you but poisons you slowly till the end of your days...yep submission has been pushed up by a day! woo-hoo!
which means...I get to procastinate some more about why I wasted Monday AND tuesday!

So I'm getting to work immediately..
Work List:
1. Play Nayan tarse from DevD on repeat
2. Log onto orkut n fb simultaneosly...checking for messages/scraps just this one last time
3. My gunda name is Kaaliya..[I just love those quizzes on FB..Im addicted]
4. open my dissertation draft which needs editing n minimize it- so that I know the real reason why i swithched on my comp :D
5. forward heartfelt messages to old friends...its at times like these that I miss good old SIES
6. Oh SIES just reminded me of my old crushes...well I once famously said "Any girl who doesnt like Venky has something wrong with their hormones!". Apparently one of the most hilarious lines to be ever spoken in the hallowed corridors of 2nd floor...
7. Im wondering, will updating my daily routine on blog spur me into actually doing work??

Even though this page is ignored by the millions of people on the WWW, I still love the fact that I'm publised somewhere!
Love and Cheers, XOXO SV!
PS: I think I might have mentioned my humor starts working when I'm stressed...