Thursday, July 27, 2006

IN THE NICK OF TIME

Where have you been? What have you been up to? Did you hear about that chick sir paul dated? What did you think about the man in spandex? The pirates are back!!! And the black eyed peas aint coming!

Hello to all those people who check in to this backyard of ours. Some of you all I don’t even have a clue where you guys live. M. Night shyamalan would have me believe that some of you probably live in a swimming pool. Did anyone get to see that movie yet? I hear conflicting reviews. But I guess I should refrain from comments till I see it. Though his last movie did leave my jaw hanging. For the sheer audacity of it’s complete lack of plot. Cheap thrills caught in good ceinematography. We will see.

Which reminds me of an incident that happened in the office a few weeks back. A summer trainee interning in my group had done an ad basically with the intent of sending it to compete in awards. Now some of the ads done for awards have a certain eclectic angle to it. This lad calls me to take a look at it and give my opinion. I take a look at it. It completely beats me as to how he connected a line to use condoms to a black hole and a milky way. So I told him , “ my boy I don’t get it.” And he tells me ,’oh! But the rest of them did.” So I called the “ rest of them”, to find out what I had missed. Was I growing senile? Now after a run through with the “ rest of them” I discovered that none of them got it. People who claimed they did all got it in completely different ways. But none of them had the self assurance to come out and say, “I didn’t get it.” This is in no way referring to their lack of ability to appreciate something good. It was a nice layout. Simple, almost Spartan. With a message that has become a rally cry. Cool. Looks good. But there is no message. Have people forgot to become opinionated? No. I don’t think so. But quality opinions made with a good measure of assurance is missing. From life. But opinions thrive. Hell, blogs are about opinions. :)

It’s been busy at work. Of course that seems to have become my rally cry. Hahah. But its been good fun at work. With as much BP fluctuations as well. I need to find some time to take a few days off. Recharge and update. What one misses out when pursuing a carrer that you followed simply cause you fell in love with it is that like relationships that love has to be kindled, introspections done so that a suffusing sense of that romance to come back so that every cell in your body is crying out, let me loose!!! Lemme love!!! Let me serenade her now!!!! You need the time to dream. To get stoned and do charcoal sketches on reams and reams of paper. To watch movies back to back. To go for long walks. To sit on a mountain top from noon till dusk and watch the sun go down. To spend hours listening to jazz, not just a quick listen to on your drive from office to the client. To look at things through a lil childs mesmerizing perspective.

Time. That elusive elusive commodity that we spend a lot of time inventing faster and better transport and technology to give us even more time to spare is simply working the otherway. You are already a slave to technology. We all know that. And the most valued thing they have taken away from us is simply, time.

Life here in bangalore is still the same. And bomb blasts and killings in certain other parts of the country isn’t helping things at all. The cut off time for clubs is still 11.30. So by the time you get off work there is simply nowhere you can go to unwind, have a drink, shake a leg. The whole vibrancy of this city is gone. The trees are gone, the parks are gone, the coffee shops are gone, the clubs are gone and so fashion has nowhere to go in the night. Kind of all different from all the reasons I moved to bangalore.

We were looking forward to the black eyed peas concert, but now that’s gone bust. They have postponed their dates apparently. Obviously its due to the series of bomb blasts that happened in Bombay. That city has taken quite a beating in the last couple of decades. But it still gets back on its feet. This time according to friends I spoke to in Bombay, the word “bounced back” would not be appropriate here.

I get to see sanne tonight at dinner after two days!!! Hahhahaha…. Seriously!!! The last 48 hours I have seen her for a few hours. Sleeping. :)
Someone is playing purple rain in the office. Lovely song. Phenomenal artist. Prince. Haven’t heard much from him in a while.
I am reading trainspotting now. Irving welsh. A lot of you may have seen the movie. The book is yummy as well. Dark. Tight. Startling.

Hmmmmm. I just reread what I had written. Sounds a bit depressing!!! Hahhahahha. That was not the intent. I think it’s time I went and watched jack sparrow and his men take on pirates from the otherworld. After all all the men here were always boys and which boy didn’t ever want to be a pirate!!!

Sails away matey!!!! time to dream!!

Monday, July 24, 2006

Maandagmorgen

Hoi hoi,

Nou... de blog doet het weer. Wat was er namelijk aan de hand? Na de aanslagen (neem aan dat iedereen dat wel mee heeft gekregen) heeft de errug slimme regering hier bedacht dat blogs een bron van terrorisme zijn. Of in ieder geval, dat ze opgeheven moesten worden. Dus konden wij hier vanuit India niet meer op onze blog komen. In de krant was al aangegeven dat dit kon gebeuren, maar alleen als je bv een politieke blog had of zo. Die van ons is niet echt politiek, maar er was ook een opheffing voor blogs "met een band met andere landen". Misschien dat dat het was? Gelukkig doettie het nu weer.

Afgelopen weekend was wel relaxed. Zaterdag lekker wezen shoppen met een collegaatje, Manisha. Die weet echt alles hier in de stad en kan afdingen, niet normaal meer!!! Als de verkoper 450 vraagt gaat ze de winkel niet uit voor ze het voor 300 heeft. En het lukt haar elke keer! Heb nieuwe schoenen gekocht, armbanden, een truitje, mahendi (waarmee je je handen kunt versieren), een kurta (soort blouse/t-shirt) en een paar lappen stof waarvan ik een pak laat maken, een Indiaas salwaaz pak wel te verstaan. En hoeveel kostte dit shopping avontuur mij? Inclusief een milkshake en de riksjaw heen en terug? Omgerekend zo'n 14 euro :-). Lang leve India.

Die avond wilden we uit, maar ja... alles sluit hier nog steeds om 11.30. Om een lang verhaal kort te maken: het omkleden, optutten en indrinken duurde zo lang dat alles al ging sluiten voordat wij goed en wel in de stad waren. Hebben toen maar wat te eten gehaald en weer naar huis gegaan. Arme wij!

Zondag lekker niks gedaan, beetje rummicubben, tv kijken... heerlijk. Nou weer op het werk, nog steeds erg naar mn zin!

Fijne week iedereen en tot snel weer!

xxx

Friday, July 21, 2006

BLOGS BLOCKED IN INDIA!



Blogs blocked
Nilanjana S Roy / New Delhi July 19, 2006
INTERNET: Blog censorship, as the government is trying, is a lousy idea.

It started on Friday, when some Indian bloggers discovered that we couldn’t access blogs on the popular Blogspot domain.

Along with Rediff blogs, Blogspot is a key hosting site for Indian and international bloggers. At last count, more than 40,000 bloggers who identified themselves as Indian were hosted on Blogspot.

Initially, the block was limited to a few Indian ISPs, but it spread. Readers couldn’t access any blogs on Blogspot — Indian, American or, come to that, Ukrainian.

more- http://www.business-standard.com/common/storypage.php?autono=98680&leftnm=8&subLeft=0&chkFlg=

Saturday, July 15, 2006

We leven nog!

Voor iedereen die zich zorgen maakt, we leven nog :-).

Geen tijd vrij gemaakt om de site bij te werken wat erg jammer is want er gebeurt nog steeds wel van alles.

De kinderen zijn 2 weken bij ons geweest, ik ben naar Nederland geweest voor mijn visa, ben nu officieel geregistreerd in Bangalore, Arun was jarig (35 alweer, jaja) en het regenseizoen is begonnen.

Zal proberen de komende tijd wat vaker te schrijven!