As the year comes to an end...

...it is time to tally all your assets and liabilities.

Assets.

My Voice.

I have often had people ask me if I work in the 0-900 speciality service industry. Unfortunately the sex-talk industry has never considered outsourcing to India so that is one job offer that is not likely to come to me.

People living in the building would however attest to the fact that when I do loose my cool over the phone the volume goes higher and the language goes way south (actually isn't that EXACTLY what the guys want?).

Radio - That's where I should have been. I am actually not quite sure if all the people who have recommended that as a job option were complimenting me on my voice that could shatter fine crystal or politely telling me that my visuals could smash toughened Television picture tubes.


My People Skills.

Stop sniggering you bitches, I do have people skills. Name me even one person who has met me and can not instantly recollect me even five years after the first meeting. And yes so what if most of the impressions are negative. Hey how many of you can ever make such a claim.

Nerd, Asshole, Pompous, Aloof, Crazy Asshole, Snob, Duh, Asshole, Weird, Freak, Fu#$^g Asshole, Naradmuni, Bitch, Crazy Fu#$^g Asshole.

Is there anyone who can lay claim to even half those attributes. And I have not even started on the wonderful terms that they use to describe me when they talk in Hindi.

The best that most of you guys could probably get is "NICE" Bland, boring, boy next door kind of "Nice". Why would anybody in their right mind ever want to be called that when there are so many better terms out there.


My Amazing Body Structure.

Yeah you heard that right! My body is an exquisite cocktail of the best that Hollywood and Bollywood have to offer.

I have the height of Danny deVito.
I have chest that Pamella and Sush paid good money to buy for themselves
I have the hairline of an adolescent Yul Bryner.
I have the waistline of the later day Marlon Brano
I have the dress sense of Aishwarya in Cannes.
I have the fluid dance floor rhythm of Borat

Yeah Baby, I've got it all.


On the Debit Side lets see...,

Right on top of that list would have to be my friends. Shit these guys are the pits. And if you do not believe me just take a look at the comments on the previous post. All those nasty rude comments are from regular readers.

Seriously were it not for the kindness of strangers I would be an abused wreck. (I would also be largely celibate but let us not even go there).

That being said, would I have it any other way (and we are not talking kinky sex here okay). I guess not. If I were to loose all of my assets (the above listed only only, Gawd does everything have to be about sex to you) I could live with that.

The Debit side. That is precious. No one touches that!

Why I cant not write the good writing

Sat through a rehersal of Snow White yesterday evening.

With the show scheduled for Friday and since I am helping out with the slides and stuff there was no way I could get out of this one.

Of course the elves (ranging from 7 - 10 years) looked absolutely adorable. But the scene stealer in the whole play had to be the evil Step-mother Queen.

All of eleven or twelve she carried herself with an attitude that came on stage a couple of minutes before she did and lingered on well after she had left the scene.

Couldn't help thinking "Badi hoke Bitch Banegee"

Also made me wonder why in most fiction the Role of the Bad guy is always far better moulded and certainly a lot more powerful than that of the nice guy.

Joan Collins in Dynasty, Gabbar Singh in Sholay, A in Dhoom 2, Shylock in the Merchant of Venice.

Makes you wonder - Are all successful script writers members of the Original "D" Gang out to promote the whole concept of "Bad is Coool"

Also made me realise why all my attempts to write fiction never quite worked out. The purity of my soul and my good nature made me unfit for the role of a writer of Good drama.

Sometimes I think I am too good for my own good.

Still Life?

On a day when the market seems to be killing a lot of people a short note about Death, and a pet fetish of mine - The paintings of the Original Dr Death.

Actually have been wanting to write about Dr. Kevorkian ever since I heard about the fact that he was due for parole some time soon. Never got around to it so rather than waste my time trying to make sense of where this correction will end here I am - Finally.

Assisted suicide has always been something that I felt very strongly about and I always felt that while sentencing Dr K for taking the lives of his patients may have been valid in Law, I often wonder if Justice was served by that ruling.

New to the Net at that time I had altavista'd (google was still a faint gleam in its developers eyes at that time) Kevorkian and come across a very unusual facet of his life.

His paintings!

The one that absolutely held my attention was one titled Very Still Life.

An absolutely amazing painting, it works at so many levels.

Does it represent a unconventional but Traditional Still Life painting where the human skull and bones replace the more mundane vase and fruit bowl.

Or is the message far deeper with the solitary flower representing life that still springs forth from a Dead and inanimate set of human life leftovers.

I have always seen this as a very positive image despite its initial weirdness, to the point where I had used this image as the background screen on my cell phone (much to the annoyance of my mom who thought it was absolutely nauseating).

The only time that she ever objected more stridently to my crazy ideas was when she realised that I had used this image as an e-card for New Year (Y2K).

I am not too fond of art, but if ever I did decide to get me a painting for my house it would have to be this one (Hint Hint My Birthday comes up in May there is still time for you guys to go out and bid and buy the painting for me).

Here is a link to some more of his stuff

When I fall in love..

Very early this morning I received this SMS.

"After criticising the ipod conceptually n calling it an elitist toy for the suburban brand whores ! Viraf has finally bought one!"

OK a bit of it is true.

True the original ipods were definitely the status symbols of the Brand whores (my term I admit) of Bandra (I refuse to tar all suburbanites with the same brush).

And I did have very valid reasons for that.

It was

Too Bulky,

had that Stupid little Dial in front,

Impractical to use in the gym

and a screen that was too small for video and irrelevant for audio.

And oh yes you HAD to use the clunky old i-tunes interface.

So for a very long time I stood valiantly against the tide and used a host of other MP3 players (the last two being integrated into my phone. (Sony Ericsson's and NOT a junk Nokia).

Then I saw the first images of the new shuffle.

And I fell in love.

Smaller than a matchbox, simple to operate, sensible storage space (I refuse to believe that you EVER need to carry 20 GB of music for your personal use.

In the interim I had also managed to find a decent site that allowed me download legal music for 9 cents irrespective of where in the world I live (something that Apple still does not do)

The new shuffle still had some serious competition from the new Sony Walkman. Exercise meter, calorie counter jerk advance mechanism a whole lot of little bits and bobs that made it the ideal accessory for use in the gym (which is the only place that I do use the thing).

The problem was that when I got to Heera Panna yesterday they had the Sony Cigar only in Sindhi Shiny Silver. Instant elimination!

The other reason for selecting the new shuffle was the clear realisation that no Brand Slave Bandraite would ever be seen dead in something so inconspicuous (and dull grey) which is "so badly designed "that when you clip it on the LOGO gets HIDDEN!" (How stupid is that!!)

So as of yesterday evening I carry about 200 randomly selected songs from my computer library and regale all the guys at the gym with a stunning rendition of stuff like "Let me entertain you" (the Softcell version), "White Wedding", selections from Rent and the original version of "Let's Dance" (NOT the crappy remix from Page 3).

Performances start at 7 pm on weekdays at the Inch by Inch gym (those guys should pay me for the publicity) with a special matinee on Sundays at 10 in the morning.

Who knows, if I really see that you are interested in exploring my talent I may even invite you for a command private performance in the sauna later.