Prince Charming, where art thou?

Ideal Saturday morning. Woke up to some lovely weather - it drizzled a bit last night, and the air is cool and clean as a result. From my perch near the window, the trees are looking nice and green, birds are chirping somewhere, have a cup of coffee in my hands, my favourite music is playing on the laptop, have a couple of fantastic books to read over the weekend, and the world looks shiny-shiny, happy-happy. Am at peace with myself and the world. Bless the earth and all of mankind !

The monsoons are perhaps the only climatic condition that are allowed to have such a drastic effect on my moods - I find it almost impossible to be grumpy, angry, upset. It leaves me in a funny sorta mood - a mood best described by an ex-colleague 'when you feel like being in love'. Hmm. I definitely feel that way now. Prince Charming, where art thou?

Bonding over some Boney M

There's nothing quite like Boney M to get the whole family singing on a Sunday afternoon :-)

'There's a brown girl in the ring, tra-la-la-la-la (3)
She looks like a sugar in a plum, plum, plum'

Lol..

And of course everytime I listen to Boney M, I think of Bob Marley (and their collaboration - 'No woman no cry'). Reminds me of the time in college when I had subjected myself to a rather drastic haircut, and my stooopid college friends began comparing my mane to that of Marley. So everytime I walked into class, they'd burst out singing 'No woman no cry'. One of those embarassing things that you end up recalling with fondness a few years later.

Writer's block

It's one of those Saturday afternoons when you just want to switch the AC on and lose yourself in slumber-land. And I actually came pretty close to doing it - the AC's whirring away nicely, and I have already pulled out my favorite quilt for that cold-yet-cozy feeling.

But I've been trying to discipline myself - for long now, I have been meaning to put together a book, just a collection of short stories actually. And so far, I have made no progress on that front. It's not that I lack ideas- my mind is brimming with them; but I simply can't seem to reach that level of concentration and creativity that the task demands. So I started thinking about the recent bit of content-writing I did for my company's not-up-yet website. I had been hoping that the content would be written by a professional copy-writer, but my boss obviously thought otherwise. So, for over two days, I tried to produce witty, relevant content, and the effort left me mentally exhausted. For one, I wasn't feeling particularly witty, and plus, there was a bit of a complex playing on my mind. My boss had been showing me all these rather super-cool websites that had really, really witty content as a reference point for how the content on our own website should be shaping up.

Now, I write well. I have produced quite a bit of witty content in my life-time, stuff that has earned me appreciation from far-superior writers, so I know I can safely gloat about my own writing skills. But here’s the short-coming I willingly acknowledge: I haven’t really mastered the art of concise writing. A vast majority of my pieces have been looong affairs, with a fair sprinkling of un-necessary adjectives. This leaves me depressed, because I, personally, am a fan of the concise writer: the kind that manages to convey wit and humor in a few powerful lines, as opposed to lengthy passages that go on and on. And on.

My all-time favorite example of such witty writing is something I had read on the website of the company where I held my first job (http://lexsite.com/). Now, the website had, and still has, actually, a section where the general junta could contribute articles for publication on the site. In the introduction to that section, was mentioned: ‘All published material becomes the property of Lexsite.com, but we will of-course let you re-use the article, if you ask us nicely, that is.’ Or something to that effect (You need to be a registered member to access that page, so I can’t look it up now to check if it’s still there). But I remember I had a smile on my face long after I read that bit. But then, Vivek, the COO of that company and the guy who I rightly suspected of writing the piece, is brilliantly witty even otherwise: I remember one particular meeting, when all the content editors had assembled to assess their work and were discussing the grammar in a particularly convoluted sentence. Shaking his head to indicate his revulsion, Vivek quipped ‘There are so many ‘which’s in this sentence, I am reminded of Macbeth’. Hahahaha.

Then there are the bits of content I stumble across accidentally – the Webchutney website (www.webchutney.com) and their blog (www.webchutney.org); the careers page especially made for fun reading (and which was actually the sole reason I applied for a job with them). Then there are other websites related to the Webchutney family - just recently, I had been trying to get information on our parent company, Goosefish Media Ventures (www.gmv.in) to add to my own website piece. There’s not much content on it yet, so I didn’t leave much enlightened, but I thought the first blog post was interesting. It reads, ‘This is the Goosefish Media blog. And a responsible person shall write on it soon.’ Simple and classy. Just the way I like it. And then, on some page on the Alootechie site (www.alootechie.com), which I can’t locate now, I found something really witty: the site was operating in beta mode (have yet to figure out what that means.. I sooo hate tech-speak). So right above their logo, they have this bit in parentheses, ‘Beta! Beti! Whatever!)’ Lol! Right, whatever!

Then there were the quarter-page print ads for Matrix cards some time back. They were trying to advertise their UK calling cards and the fact that they helped save quite a bit on long-distance calls. That was a wonderful bit of copy - about eating out at Nobu’s and going shopping and stuff. Will try and put it up on the blog when I spot it next time. Then there’s the story my boss was telling me about AMD, a processor-maker and Intel’s biggest competitor. It seems they had this coffin right outside their corporate headquarters, that read, ‘Intel Inside.’ Hahaha. How brilliantly clever was that? Then, of course, there’s Mark, whose blog (www.markskingdom.spaces.com) is packed with wit. In real life, he’s a bit like Johnny Depp’s character, Jack Sparrow, in the movie ‘Pirates of the Caribbean’ and his blogs are almost always hysterically funny.

And to top it all off, here’s something I found in the most incongruous place of all: one of Mark’s friends had written him a testimonial for his Orkut page:

'To tell about mark i must first tell u about myself. Im awesome! Today i decided i was a Red indian pirate gypsy mermaid!! kickass no? Its always good to know about ur heritage. Oh Oh and im also the funniest person IN THE WHOLE WORLD! im nto even exaggerating..altho i could...cuz i am a drama queen. Anyway, what was i on about? Oh yeah mark...hes nice’

Lol!

Work(out) blues

For those who’ve not been keeping tabs on my brilliant career moves, here’s the latest update: I am now an analyst and a part of the social media team at Webchutney. I joined about two weeks back, so it’s still early days, but not too early for me to talk about this peculiar problem we face in the Mumbai offices of Webchutney. I’ve been in the system long enough (or short enough) to realize that 9.30am tends to be one of those quiet hours at the office – when people saunter in and set themselves up for another day at work (or, if you are like me, start the countdown to the weekend). Not so at our neighbors unfortunately – we share space with a fitness centre and every morning, I walk in to be greeted by ‘4-3-2-ha’, ‘4-3-2-ha’, ‘4-3-2-ha’ (the instructor isn’t very creative, is he?).

The fitness thing is a horror in itself: people like me, who’ve built up oodles of fat over the years through much effort and discipline, don’t like to walk into office elevators to see posters proclaiming ‘Burn the fat’ (and the accompanying image on those posters is even more scary, not to mention insensitive –a fat woman, in strange fluorescent green work-out clothes, hides behind a wall as a bunch of kids with Olympic-type torches in their hand, try and hunt her down – Burn the fat, get it?). But imagine being subjected to loud thumping music unfailingly every morning – and ‘music’ in this case would be extremely atrocious remixes of ‘Om Shanti Om’ (the original Rishi Kapoor version) and ‘Touch me, touch me, kiss me, kiss me’. If the DJ is really in the groove, we get to hear even more experimental stuff – ‘Kya kiya’ to the beats of ‘Are you ready?’, anyone?

My colleagues assure me that I will grow immune to the music over a period of time. And, truth be told, I think I’m even beginning to enjoy this stuff a little bit. Just the other day, my colleague accused me of the ultimate treachery – I was actually jiggling my shoulders in tune to the music. Well, yea, so I was. But, like I remarked rather smugly, ‘When you can’t beat ‘em, just join ‘em.’

PS: Totally forgot to mention about my favourite other observation: the elevators that lead up to our offices have this strange music everytime they are opened or shut. In fact, it's not 'music' as much as it is 'noise' - a stupid, whiny 'cree-cree-cree-cree'. Now that always reminds me of that famous shower scene from 'Pshyco' (Hitchcock's original version), when the woman gets murdered - there was a 'cree-cree-cree' background 'noise' that accompanies that scene, remember? That's my elevator music. I wouldn't be very surprised if one of these days I walk into the elevators to find a corpse. With the hideous DJ music and the sinister elevator noise to goad a person on , one can almost be forgiven for the violence.

People grow old

Am with my cuppa chai and the Sunday newspapers. Occasionally indulging in small talk with my Grandma, who's seated opposite, listening intently to Jim Morrison and the 'Roadhouse Blues' blasting away on my laptop. Her feet are tapping rhythmically on the floor, in response to the beats of the song, but other than that, there is very little to indicate she's aware of her surroundings, of me. Her eyes carry that far-away expression which I usually associate with her trips down memory lane, where childhood memories come to claim her with increasing frequency these days. Only, this time around, I know that the far-away look is not simply due to nostalgia. For some time now, everyone in my family has been noting with concern my grandma's failing vision. Most times, her eyes refuse to focus. They'd wander all around the room, unable to focus on one thing or person. She'd be talking to me, but looking elsewhere.

Grandma is old, very old. And old age has taken its toll. She can't walk too well now: a result of weak bones, and a fall that resulted in knee surgery. And now there's the eye problem. She looks frail. And lost.

Mom and Dad are also growing old. Mom's skin sags now, and there are fine lines around her eyes. She gets tired easily. Dad is struggling with retirement after a life of hectic activity. He confesses his memory isn't as sharp as it used to be. He declines tasks that require too much effort out of him. Mom and Dad had always been hyper-active; old age is slowing them down.

There has also been a role-reversal of sorts. Mom and Dad have both retired. Mom looks after the domestic chores, Dad looks after the small errands, and the laundry. My brother and I are the earning members now. And suddenly, I feel like the adult in the house. Mom, Dad and Grandma have become the kids who require constant supervision, and I, the harried adult who's juggling work and family. Its a strange feeling. And it scares me. But people grow old, I suppose.

But this is depressing. So I start playing Grandma's and my favourite 'together' song (the song that we most like listening to when we are together): 'No More I love You's' by Annie Lennox. Somehow, it comforts us both. Strange. But hey, its comforting.

Am back, again !

Ok, so now that I am a social media analyst, I think it is only fair that I start being active on social media again. Hence the return to blog-land, and my activity on twitter, plus Orkut. A lot of work there for me (somehow, I feel a little less Anonymous now.. ) but ironically, this stuff has become work. So here goes.

And I love the way I have so neatly tied up everything. My Orkut profile leads to this blog, and the blog leads to Twitter. There's simply no escaping me :-) Its like that Enrique Iglesias song (the only one I can listen without making pukey-type faces) 'You can run, you can hide, but you can't escape my thoughts (a bit of editing just happened there).'