There isn’t a darned thing I haven’t valiantly tried, to fend off such selfish attacks, whenever signals beeped the approach of yet another lovelorn one whose lamb-like eyes and gulab-like grin are a spectacle I’ve learnt to fear and loathe. I equate such people with those other villains who threaten peace on earth: managers, religious leaders, politicians, the bad ass in Gajini and those who read romantic fiction for pleasure.

To ward off such romantic attacks the oldie in me turns the TV on full volume these days. Or sometimes stares outside the window.  Or feigns deep interest in a print laser lying at a distance. Or dropping off into quiet slumber. And sometimes doing all of the above at once. Actually, I made all that up. But it is true that when one of the smitten kind looms over me, I feel stupid.

But for some strange reason every year during this time of the month I inspect myself, scalp to chin, in the mirror and say  “Iss saal koi toh phasegi”. And this is based on the following results. Uggh…Vaguely.

Hair? Still there, sort of. Forehead? A trifle corrugated, but nothing that a little Botox couldn’t take care of. Eyes? More or less in the right place, although inclined to roll skyward. Nose? Sahi hai. Mouth? Thick, possibly cruel. Jawline? Squarish, and surely intimidating to anyone with lovesick chitchat in mind.

Enough of verbal diarrhea now. I am back to work. I love the marathi daily here and Dare to Date on Channel V.  I love the sea food here. May be Rahul Gandhi has a solution to my problems. Sir?? Sirji??

In fact, I’d prefer a quaint little hut with a thatched roof. And bamboo briars in the backdrop. With dew drops streaming through its shoots. And accompanied by muted palm trees rising up over the yellow sun. And some dust. Dust that is more of an ornament to the bliss. And all this, over a mountain top overseeing a water body.

May be the right side of my brain is overworked. There’s some hard reasoning pinned over my scalp. Right side top. I need to get rid of those.

And i need an ENT. Or a poem. I need to cheat the head ache somehow.

Do you think you would be Okay with that. Me being Gulzar. English Gulzar. Or do you think you would want me to be a little more of what I am and therefore be a little lesser than what I am. Am I doodling or what? Do we really always have to end up the way we are or do we have a choice of ending up like something that we are not. English Gulzar in my case. Quite artistic I can be. Where were we? Doodling as an art form. It’s like clairvoyance as I look at it.

Got a question here now? Am I better at interpreting surreal art than others. Does surreal art purport to being understood or appreciated. Thinking Thinking. Thinking. Thought. Is appreciation an inverse function of understanding? My mind says, we all walk alone and yet we try to act like we have a group. That’s cheating. My mind says that the night is coming along every now and then to destroy whatever little sanity has been spared by constant interaction with reality. My mind says, “the more I see, the less I believe”.

Now I really need to talk some sanity. That’s another question? Is sanity the highest common factor of mediocre brains? And is it important to a person that doesn’t have it? Like me. Or things that don’t give a damn about sanity? Like money. Can money be more like sanity, where you don’t care about it if you dont have it? Infact, can a lot of other things be more like sanity…health, companionship, friends, looks…life?

Do I and you really care about sanity, or do I just want someone to listen Too much insanity for today. More later. You see I havent written in a while now. And in these posts I am not trying to join the dots. I am just loosening the lines on my forehead.

First things first. This aint copa cabana. Forget copa cabana, the entire beach seems like a huge kanjeevaram silk factory. And the preferred language is telugu of course. No hindi. Even the horses on the beach agree with that.

So what’s with hindi speakers and south Indians. I say lots. Don’t ever discuss the Aryan and the Dravidian thing. They don’t like it. English is fine as long as it has the telugu influence in it. And how do you get that?. Simply add “Ra” or “Aa” at the end of each word and you get your shot of glory.

Now the kocchana (Question with “Aa” ) series . If probed “How do you like Vizag?” say “Nice Ra”. So “Ra” is your trump card here. Mothera, Sistera, Fathera, Schoolaa, Collegaa, wifaa and ITra, H1Bra are the common words used while conversing in English.

The brotherhood between native speakers can put us northies (any one with a fairer skin tone and no coconut odour is a northie) to shame. No amount of loyalty can reserve a place for north-indians in the heart of a hardcore southie (all of them hardcore), but the language.

I met an extremely liberal telugu fella from the US (if it’s H1B and if it’s IT it’s gotta be a Rao or a Reddy or a Naidu or a Babu. Add any bhagwan ka naam as the first name and add the alphabet “A” in the end. Like Venkat will be “Venkata” and Arjun will be ‘Arjuna”. Get the drift?) here at the local eatery while sipping authentic south Indian kappi. Eventually we ended up discussing the language bit and how it works in this part of the country. This is what he had to say.

The more precise English you say, the worst it gets. Say broken English. Or say broken Hindi and they will pity you and eventually do your job. Nothing works if you act “Mr. Yo” or Mr. know-it-all. Acting stupid is the only way to get smart here”. I was like….yea…right but something similar happens in the north as well. Either you are with the culture and the dialect. There is no OR whatsover. Goras are an exception though.And it’s ubiquitous in India. Dollars speak louder than Rupees. Damn Indians are an opportunistic lot. No body waits for the traffic to clear-up. But every one wants to jump the divider and move against the oncoming traffic only to reach faster than the car’s behind. Damn.

After a few rounds of buzzing and shots we decided to nail the conversation before we broke the bottles on each others head. Just before my telugu fella left the place he said in Vizag people say “off the light”. I said in Mumbai people say “close the light”.

Good night ra. Gimme another round babu. (Babu is the best word here. People just love it when you address them as “Babu”. It’s the Mumbaiya equivalent of “Boss” or the Ahmedabad equivalent of “Seth”)

But like every one else I have been sold to this twitter hype. The kind of stuff where the noise to signal ratio is way too high when it comes to twittering. And the temptation to tweet for the sake of tweeting is even higher. Why do you Rakhi Sawant is on twitter? Call it a classic case of distraction disguised as an art form. Every second person that follows me and vice-versa is an SEO. Or a co-founder. Or a change-maker. Or an evengelist. Or a VC. Or a turn-around specialist. Or the next big thing. Think Jehangir Art Galaery if every painting in it had “picasso” or “dali” or “warhol” scribbled at the bottom right corner of the canvas. It’s the same on twiiter. Every one is a Scoble, a Kawasaki, a Rose. Some of most interesting people in the world I have followed on twitter write less. In fact they are not even on the radar. Iranian Protest on twitter however was one thing that I loved. Likewise the PR by Starbucks and the Mayo Clinic and others is something that I really admire. That’s the power of a communication tool. Efficient, handy and now.

The tweet on my radar says “going out with my son for shopping home-made chocolates”. Dang. People say a whole lot of personal things that they dare say in real life to you, me or any one. So what am I supposed to do? Follow them and stir their quasi-isolation. Arrgh…I cant call time-wasting a social idea. For me twitter will always be a handy business tool. Period.

So till the time I start exercising my personal choice, here’s a twiiter chronology of events from my perspective. Reading between the lines should do the trick.

meerasapra Abhishek ki to aish hai
zaibatsu Reading: The Top 10 sexual mistakes made by women http://bit.ly/4n91o
meerasapra Abhishek Bachchan praising Aishwarya and claiming she is a better actor than Priyanka Chopra #fail
Bhutanese women use condoms for facials http://bit.ly/ilAmc
zaibatsu 3somes, 4somes and moresomes within a marriage http://bit.ly/16dKqz
Keep the law outside the bedroom http://bit.ly/n50Fy
Jackson to be buried without brain: Report http://bit.ly/AdMfy

Monsoon. It’s a nostalgic season
Memories arrive slowly with tender rain drops, under the pregnant cloud and in the  solitude of night.
Bittersweet recollections of moments like cloud bursts from the times gone by, and realisations of things that could’ve been.
Little souvenirs frozen in time, wrapped in smiles, laughter, whispers, smelling like an old book and tasting like black coffee with honey. Monsoon is a real land of magic. It’s the moment behind closed eyes. Gulzar’s unwritten poem, like a full-blown rainbow. But as the cigarette ends, it’s just another butt in the ashtray. How random I can be? In advertising this is called freewriting.
Next.

Currently listening: Turn the page by Bob Seger.