Three & counting...

The way it’s going, in exactly ninety seven days I’ll be able to write a first-hand original book – ‘A Hundred Bad Mornings’! The head-line drafts for the first three have been lived already:

1. Three people on a bed for two – the story of a sprained neck.
2. The ‘Mumbai Local’ does it again!
3. Account debited, ticket not issued – Netbanking, boon or bane?!

(Not So) Well done, The Fourth Attempt!

My brother was in town recently. We traveled across the city in a broken auto-rickshaw to reach 5 Spice for a late lunch but the damned place was closed. And as if that wasn’t enough, he held my hand on that crossing that nearly killed me, and casually remarked, “bahut hi bekaar blog hai..!” I pretended not to have heard. My mind was racing back to trace where the comment may have come from. An earlier conversation? An invitation to the fool to read my blog? Any context whatsoever? Nothing!

Younger brothers have a way to break things to you, not very different from the shameless way in which they break their twenty-third promise of getting you the famous rakhi gift or the mannerless way in which they abruptly say ‘Okay now Bye!’ when their more expensive phone gives a call waiting alert or the absolutely heartless way in which they fondly call you ‘Moti!’.

You fool, I wish you had stayed over for the weekend! Miss you!

Aaj pehli taareekh hai!

So, ladies and gentlemen, great minds and bright sparks, men and women who were going to change the world – yes, you – how long do you think you can come to work and sit still? No, of course, taking rounds of the lobby, the occasional chatter with the lovely floor officer, two trips an hour to the pantry and a long walk after lunch are allowed. I mean intellectually still. Worse, simply mentally still, save for those games of the mind to which I have dedicated a post already. So, yeah, how long? A week? Two weeks? I take it that by the 28th of the month, you too will raise both arms and say this is it. Only if there was one more week between the 28th and the last day of the month, you and I would have really changed the world. Sad, what money does to the best in us.

Go Away, please.

It has taken three drafts to disguise your identity. You, who inspire this post. You surprise me because, on a daily basis, you suppress the best in people. You discourage excellence. You murder ambition. You see in bright people a broken dream, a personal broken dream. You work passionately to make mirrors in the eyes you see. Your shallowness makes me go to sleep. You are that boring. Why do I find you everywhere I go?

Too Hot To Handle

Many things can make you want to go back in time to change that one moment, just that one horrible moment that left you, depending on your stars, scarred, burnt, broken, beaten, cheated... The list is long; but I say scald burns top it.

Getting Started

I think this is where my last two blogs failed me. The wrong first note. One was about real people. Think about it, you wouldn't like it yourself to know how much I laughed in my mind at that thing you said on the phone. The other was about me. No chance in hell! Third one, as it turns out, is somebody else's already. So now this fourth is going to be great - No names. No hints, either. Only stories.