How To: Deal with the Dowried Class

Have you met a rapist? I would think most probably not, they exist in the confines of your newspaper. How about a murderer? Quite scary to think that you might be friends with a murderer, but I’m pretty sure we can rule that one out. For probabilities sake.

But how about a man who asks for dowry? Yeah. You know them. You’ve seen them. A friend-of-friend you met at that party last Christmas? Or that colleague you actually respected? Or maybe some of your closest friends. The ones who’ve seen you in your worst moments – unwell, vomiting last night’s venomous fluids and crying in agony. And they’ve seen you in your best moments, giving you a pat on your back like any good friend would do.

But they’ll ask for dowry from their to-be-wives.

How do you rationally deal with such contradicting behaviour?

Skyfall: I Can’t Bond with 007 Anymore

Those shmucks.

You know those corporate shmucks, the ones that come and try to reboot a movie series so that they can milk more money out of that movie series that was doing quite fine without their intervention but still they go ahead with a new lead and try to eliminate, one by one, most of the characters that made the original movie series great? Yeah, them, they should just die.

Without further ads, I present:

The latest Bond film that spectacularly failed despite all the money, Daniel-Craig-ness and French heroines thrown at it.

Oh you don’t agree?

Are you one of the fancy shmancy reviewers on Rotten Tomatoes that lack the brain power to just, maybe, think for once that you’re reviewing a stupid movie? That you could have come up with a better catch-phrase than “putting the ‘intelligence’ back in MI6”?

(Seriously, man, that was a horrible catch-phrase!)

Even if you’re not, I’m going to give you a nice numbered list of failures, starting with:

Understanding the North-East Conflict [Interview]

Skimming through newspapers these days is an exercise in proving your moksha – ignore all the troubles of the world and continue living your life in bliss. Rapes, molestation? Nah, I’m more concerned about The Dark Knight Rises. Scams, corruption, inefficiencies? But wait – did you see Rahul’s latest pictures of his trip to Bhutan?

Today was a little different. Something cracked. I couldn’t continue. Headlines screamed that a massive exodus was taking place. Thousands of Indians from the North-Eastern region were travelling back to their hometown. Somewhere in between the milieu was the mention of a conflict, banned SMSes, even doctored tapes by Pakistan.

Why? It just didn’t make sense.

The Shed Outside

The day started slow and now, after lunch, it had almost come to a stop. The blistering heat had pushed everyone indoors, lulling the entire household to sleep. Except for Rahul, of course. He was sitting outside in the veranda. The garden seemed yellow, trees were shedding their leaves and the grass refused to grow anymore. Far off he could hear the ice cream vendor’s bell and some traffic. 

An ant walked up to his toe, prodded and eventually got bored. Rahul’s eyes followed those six legs awkwardly navigating large stones on the garden floor. He picked up a stone, squinted one eye to aim better, and flung it across. The stone just missed the ant but bounced and hit the shed door.

Oh, the shed!

Their shed was always locked up, opened only to move big furniture in or out. Sometimes his Mom would throw old toys in there. He still remembers his big yellow truck – the one that lifted soil off their garden – locked away in that shed. He didn’t realize it earlier but the door to the shed was ajar. Mom probably forgot to close it. This was it. His only chance.

Did Indus Creed have a ‘Rock On’ Moment?

If you grew up in India in the ‘90s there’s absolutely no way you didn’t hear Indus Creed. They were the defining rock band of that time. They moved away from doing covers of international bands and made their own sound. And their own music videos. And defined the word awesome.

So when you randomly arrive at a video of “Pretty Child” one random evening, you flashback to your teenage years. Your mind takes you through a nostalgia trip of Shenaz Treasurywala, Frooti, One Tight Slap, Roohafza, PVR Priya, the first McDonalds, cassettes, Hi-Fi stereo systems, G-Shock watches and Vengaboys.

And how you’re never going to Ibiza.

But Anyways

This post was supposed to be on how Indus Creed had a ‘Rock On’ moment. You see, that band of awesomeness has come back again, after 15 years, with a brand new album called “Evolve”.

FIFTEEN YEARS?

Yes, 15 years. Their last thingie together was way back in 1997, even before Napster really caught on. You know, when Yahoo! was your homepage.

In fact their last album before they went boom was titled, you guessed it, “Indus Creed”. Trapped in my baaddeehh, trapped in my soulll. They mixed tabla and sitar with drums and guitar, creating a sound like nothing around!

The League of the Extraordinarily Rich

Finally, Bangalore relents. A gust of wind channels down between two buildings and blows past my hair while I walk alone, on that street. There’s a slight chill in the air, a hint of rain perhaps.

I walked a few more steps, watching dry leaves fall on what remained of a sidewalk. The wind blew them farther away, almost to the end of the street. I ran to catch up – no one was watching anyway – but the wind took those leaves farther in the sky. Bah! How could I match that?

I stopped at the corner of the street, let down by some foul play. It really was a beautiful evening. A few beats passed, the music of the wind only got louder. A subtle deep hush kicked in. A base line. And it got louder, the reverberations bounced off the walls, and closer, and louder. I turned back. A sleek silver body knifed through the dusty leaves. It didn’t growl but it made its presence felt.

Those tear-dropped eyes stood out first. Beautiful, hypnotic. Followed by an unassuming grille, and a body draped in a skin that felt like soft subtle satin sheets.

I knew this, I had seen it before. The Aston Martin DB9.

It slowed down as it approached the corner. A smartly-dressed female at the drivers seat, with over-sized shades, looked left and right before turning the DB9 and accelerating away. A trail of leaves followed like hapless children running after their prize, drowning me in a blanket of dust.

I stood there, mesmerized.