Eye exam

The letters were big. They grew smaller, until his eyes were begging for mercy.

Then the lenses come on. "Does 1 look better than 2?" Change lens. "Now?". Change lens again. "Now?" "2 or 3?" .

Enough already. How bad was it? Couldn't they just give him the verdict so he'd be on his way?

That's it. His eyes were shot.  All those days of feeling too tired after work must have been because of this. Anyway, he was almost hitting the big 3-0. Time to add some geekiness to the visage?

As he sat there, he idly wondered what kind of frames he'd go for. Did he want thin wire frames, or even rimless glasses? A couple of his friends wore these and they didn't look half-bad. Or maybe he could try the really big, thick-framed glasses - the ones with horn rims like Ira Glass or that guy from Death Cab from Cutie. He wondered about the pain and overhead of wearing glasses - he was pretty lousy even with his sunglasses, forgetting them at various places only to scramble back to pick them up. Maybe contacts was a better way to go? But the idea of inserting plastic into his eyes made him shudder.

This time the doctor came in. The tests (which were first conducted by the assistant) continued. The letters went from readable to barely legible. 2 bled into Z and D into O into 0. It was a game of "fit the right lens", and he was losing. Badly.

"1". "No, 2 is clearer." "Can we try that again? I'm not quite sure." "I can't make out a single letter."

"Try. Give it your best shot."

*sigh* "..." <insert wild guess here>

"Very good."

?! Hm.

The exam comes to an end.

Doc: "It's like your eyes are refusing the glasses. Your eyesight is fine. You even managed to read some of the letters from the 20/15 test!"

All that speculation for nothing. He was slightly relieved - a drastic change to look and lifestyle averted.  

Bhat...seriously?

I've heard from more than one source that I sound a lot more serious in print than in person. When I write on my blog, write email and so on, I tend to come across as being quite serious. There have been rumblings from some quarters that I sound like a preppy upstart. DQ remarked on my seriousness once, and I've had other friends say the same.

The musings on this blog tend to be introspective, well-thought-out and so on. I can punctuate my writings with :), LOLs and :p, but what the heck, my blog was meant to challenge my writing style and not my texting vocabulary (which is fine, thx! ). If trying to be articulate and very precise with my vocabulary in speech and in writing is a crime, guilty as charged.

However, all this seriousness isn't because I don't have a sense of humor. It's just that my sense of humor is not very bloggable. I find humor in stuff I talk about, observe (especially personality traits, attitudes etc) and not in things I write about. It's also that I'm never satisfied with the attempts at 'humor' I make and they never end up on my blog for the same reason. Being a medicore humor-attempter is fodder for a Seinfeld 2.0 episode.

Elaine: "He writes lame jokes on his blog."

Seinfeld: "He's a pseudo-humorist!"

Elaine:"OMG, I just met a pseudo-humorist! Is it infectious?!"

This leads to a weird dichotomy: a somber persona online combined with a dry, sardonic tongue-in-cheek flesh-and-blood personality. The twain do meet, in the form of this person, who long ago learned that caring too deeply about what people think about you tends to over-analysis of your own behavior, which is never fun. As coeus would say "Doosron ke bare mein soch ke kiska bhala hua hai."

*The title of this post is pure genius, which is not me. Hat-tip to elder Bhratashree. It's also to avoid actually saying "Why so serious?!" - the dialog cliche of the year.

I heard it on Guitar Hero

Guitar Hero and Rockband seem to have created a completely new breed of music listeners. My music instructor tells me that school kids learning music now are more dexterous because they are used to playing on Guitar Hero and the like.

Of course, now there's a whole generation of people whose musical tastes are informed by tracks available on Guitar Hero.

Last week I was cycling through radio stations on the dial. Within a span of 30 minutes, I heard three songs that have been made famous by these games - Carry on wayward son by Kansas, Killing in the Name by Rage Against the Machine and Orange Crush by REM.

No, this wasn't a 'songs made famous by wannabe shredders too lazy to really learn a musical instrument' special. These songs played on three different stations playing different styles (classic rock, rock and alternative respectively)

And I don't know if I'm the one paying excessive attention, but Carry on... seems to play on radio way more than is good for a single song to be heard. It's in danger of becoming like Hotel California for me - a perfectly likeable song that I can't stand anymore, simply because of the number of times rock radio has made me listen to it.

In other news, Rage Against the Machine becomes the ultimate sell-out - part of the same 'evil capitalist system' they once railed against. Welcome to the machine.

xkcd like many other times has the last word.

Shine on, future supernova

He came out unexpectedly and was suddenly everywhere. Glancing off the windshield of the car parked in the lot outside my window. Jumping off the whitewashed wall opposite my apartment. Making his way jumping off particles of dust thrown up in the air as a truck made its way through the alley.

It was a fine sight, one not seen for months (or so it seemed. It had been so long since we last saw the sun). All around the world seemed to have burst forth with joy. Suddenly, smiles on faces lingered longer. The 'Thank You' from the grocery clerk seemed cheerier. The temperature seemed to have gone up a few degrees just in deference to the brightness. Even the news reporters on TV seemed to make note of it. It was almost like the solution to world peace and hunger (at least to general gloominess).

Viva La Cartoon

As funny as Dilbert is, I find it sad at times. Especially because it seems to resonate so much. Do workplaces really become like that? Even companies that place their engineers (their Dilberts, so to speak) before the PHBs? Heck, the PHBs are all Dilberts who moved up the ranks. 

However, in the geek comic echelons, one comic that still cracks me up unconditionally has to be xkcd. A fine purveyor of geek culture, it yet retains perspective - on geeks having a life outside tech and yet geeking out, on being well-rounded individuals, having a love life (gasp!) et al.

Stand back, I know regular expressions

Stopping Time (isn't that sweet?)

And yes, obligatory Serenity reference: River Tam!

Sox-y Adventures

I'm not given to Seinfeld-esque observations because I'm simply not as funny as the man. However, there are quirky everyday mysteries that make you really wonder about the laws of physics and suchlike phenomenon.

One of them involves my laundry.

I saw this advertisement within my office building for an internal company campaign of some sort. It shows a washing machine and a single sock. The theme of the advertisement was: "Some things will always remain a mystery."

Tell me about it. One of the most mysterious (and infuriating) things about doing your laundry is sorting all your clothes once you are done. If you have clothes in the load which are prone to attracting static, heaven help you. By the time the dryer's done, many of your static-y clothes are filled with enough electricity to power a small bulb (I'm sure Mohan Bhargava could have put this idea to some use) and they are all sticking to each other. The worst culprits, of course are the socks. Invariably, one sock (or three, or five. It has to be an odd number) will go missing. After sorting all your laundry, you are left with that mysterious odd one out.

More than once in the past few months, I've had this wonderful mystery. All my laundry's put away, making for a successful weekend (or rather, a peaceful week ahead) and the next thing I know, there's a single sock left. It sits there, in the corner of my bedroom, in silent admonishment of a job badly done. I look at it before I go to sleep most nights, wondering if I should get up and turn my wardrobe upside down to search for it. Invariably, sleep is too tempting.

I dread the day when I'll wear a sweatshirt to work, and some pretty girl (the kind I absolutely don't want to be embarrassed in front of) will say "What's that sticking out of your sweatshirt"? and it'll turn out to be that pesky sock stuck to the inside of my fleecewear.

Driving with Elan(tra)

While watching the Super Series, I learnt that the ICC Player of the Year was to get a Hyundai Elantra. I remember as a child the wonder that we all had, when Ravi Shastri won an Audi for becoming the Champion of Champions at the World Series in 1985.

Seeing an Audi on the street (a rare sight in India then, and even now, I'm sure), we'd go "Ooo, Ravi Shastri won an Audi". Things sure have come a long way since then

Audi -> Hyundai. hmm.. I'm not sure I like this journey.

Hyundai of course is big in India now - a huge seller of cars with SRK endorsing them. I'm sure they must have gotten a lot of leverage out of this. Boatloads of money made by the ICC?

The big question is, are either Kallis or Flintoff going to hold on to theirs? Their endorsement money will surely buy them fancier Italian or German models. Will the car have enough sentimental value for them to keep it, maybe for the missus to go down to the grocery store in? She could surely try the Quattroporte. Lots of trunk space in that, I hear.

I sure hope they do (hang on to their cars). Then there'll be only one degree of separation betwixt yours truly and Freddie and Jacques. You see, I drive an Elantra too. Oh, the horror.

What, only 55?

The best tag I've seen going through the blog-world. No one's tagged me, but I'm reading a lot of tagged people. A challenge, it is. hmm...


Here goes nothing:

Springfield Blues

Was he a loser? He had a job, a great wife, and three kids. A house in middle-class America.

He wasn't so sure. He seemed to be lazy and not really rising at his job. His daughter made him feel dumb. His son was a brat. Yikes.

"Homer, the game's on TV".

"D'oh. I forgot."

Master Chief

He was in trouble. He was out of ammo.

He ran helter-skelter, avoiding open spaces. They'd be on to him - vultures, preying on his weakness. He was never the soldier, preferring the company of his books and music.

Bang! It was over.

He put his controller away. "Damn, you are good with that shotgun".

Embrace Her

The reports were here.

He wasn't giving up. Money was no object. He was a fighter, and fighter hamesha jeet ta hai. On the way back from the doctor, he stopped at the pharmacy. He saw her then. Black hair, sparkling lined eyes, the ankh. The ankh. He sagged. "It's time, isn't it?" She nodded.


Some extremely good ones:

Ramanand

Dushyant

Sumeet


* The last one's my favorite, but a bit obscure...this link may help.

On names and smelly roses

So, theres this guy on my floor in office whose last name is Gay. I am sure his family took on that name in more innocent and, dare I say it, 'happier' times. It isn't a bad last name to have in the PC world of office and adult conversations. However, imagine having that last name in the cruel world of high school or college. I mean, the South Park crowd use that as a bad word, right next to "weak" and "f*#!ed up".

Having the last name I do did not, thankfully make me the butt of many jokes (pun intended). But, but, but after reading Haroun and The Sea Of Stories, with a pesky bus driver and a robotic hoopoe with the same name, my flat-mates found moi name ripe for harvesting. Being called "The Shah of Blah" on my birthday wasn't too bad - I was a tad too talkative, and they never could keep up. But being a butt of jokes was. I've heard other worse jokes ("Bhat Seriously?").

I am still grateful. If I was from Pakistan or Kashmir, there was a likelihood of my last name being spelled as...you, guessed it, Butt. Imagine what Salman Butt must have been through at high school, especially if he went to one of the fancier "English Medium" schools.

The US does not keep much store by last names. In informal settings, you call people old enough to be your grandfather, and senior enough to be the vice-president by their first names. Imagine meeting the world's richest man on the Microsoft campus someday and saying "Hey Bill". Well, it is possible. It seems to be something that has invaded Indian corporate culture as well. Infoscions I know talk of 'Nandan' . As in Nilekani. CEO. Most of the rest of India, however, still goes by last name.

Nightmare Conversation in college: "Bhat, Why weren't you in class yesterday?" "Um, didnt my friend mark my attendance?" However, I was very low profile in college. I doubt if anyone knew my name. Which was horrendous when it came to getting recommendation letters for grad school. I did have my Andy Warhol minutes, which both helped and hindered.

The transition to first name in the US was hardly smooth. Ajay (as in "a jay jay-walked across the street") is now pronounced Aa-jay. Which is better than AJ. AJ isn't too bad (it's a moniker I used on SMS in India). Only that it's the name of a Backstreet Boys band member (yikes). And it sounds like someone's initials. And it makes my name sound non-Indian. My name is two syllables. How hard can it be?

A rose by any other name would smell as sweet?. Not.