This is gonna hurt a little

Me: Hey Doc, my tooth’s been hurting. Can you take a look? Dentist: Sure. But first, let me take a tooth-pic *chuckles and takes X-ray* Dentist(looking at the x-ray) : Son, you seem to have grown too smart for your own good. We gotta dumb you down a bit and pull two of your wisdom teeth out *chuckles* Me (Terror in my eyes): Damn!

* After a week’s worth of mental preparation for some grueling dental work*

Me: Ok Doc. I’m ready, I think.

Dentist: OK. So here’s the deal. Your upper wisdom tooth is a piece of cake. I can pull it out in 10 minutes. *Superhero look on his face* But the lower wisdom tooth is acting smart. It is lying flat and completely lodged inside your gums. So we will have to cut open your gum, hack the tooth in half, then pull the other half out and then suture the gum back in. There will be a lot of grinding, drilling and bleeding inside your mouth. Just ignore them. But I can try to make it as painless as possible by sticking in a needle full of local anaesthesia in your mouth. We can go up to ten such shots. Any questions?

Me (looking like I just stared into the Eye of Sauron): This is Madness!

Dentist:

FM Radio

Ever since the launch of FM radio in India, circa 2002, I've come to have a love-hate relationship with it:

• When it first began in Mumbai I loved the fact that we had something as awesome and as powerful a media as FM radio which could connect with the people of the city, and hated the fact that I wasn't on my path to becoming the next cool and happening RJ in the city.
Once it became a part of my life, I absolutely loved the fact that most of the channels played amazing tracks most of the times, (with a weekend-bonus of great trance mixes) and the RJs were witty, smart and made sense, (Mumbaikars, remember #SaturdayJam with RJ Jose and Suresh Menon? They basically kicked ass). However, I hated the fact that songs were usually cut short to spare AIR time and that I couldn't listen to all the RJs all the time.
As FM radio became more popular I loved the fact that the city was embracing this new media, but hated the fact that the phone lines to my favourite RJs were now always busy.
When FM radio became as common as television I started loving the creative advertisements and jingles being aired on it, but started hating the dumb ones and the bad "seemingly-different-but-really-mainstream" music that was becoming increasingly popular on FM.
Today when FM radio has probably reached its peak in the country, across cities, I am reduced to love the few good things that I seldom hear on it: a handful good tracks that are still keeping the music alive on FM, some really smart advertisements that not only get the message across but also make you think, laugh and smile, and some interesting, witty RJ-speak that could probably still inspire someone to take up RJing as a career. And all of this happens when the precious AIR time is not frothing with the things I absolutely hate about present-day FM radio: unbelievably dumb advertisements that challenge the limits of human stupidity and make me want to rip off the speakers along with my hair, impossibly repetitive playlists filled with the terrible "mass-appeal" songs that are an insult to the word "Music" and, yet, are somehow popular among the people (yeah, I know, that's what mass-appeal means) and some RJs that are so cheesy and corny that listening to them can clog up your arteries and give you gas.

What happened to you #FMradio? You used to be well in-tune.

Shamanth Huddar.
29th May 2015.

Melancholy

Melancholic songs can touch the deepest parts of one's being. They are compositions that are hand-crafted with poignant poetry and soul-stirring music which beautifully capture emotions of pain, turmoil and longing. The notes, low and high, and their elegant transitions, evoke one of the most basic and gentlest of feelings in the mind of the listener : compassion. The listener begins to recognise and empathise, or, relate to the emotions at play. Moreover, a great vocalist that can depict the subtleties of such emotions through graceful nuances of his or her singing brings the listener much closer to the song. Mohammed Rafi was one such legendary singer that was not only talented and versatile, but was also well-acclaimed during his times and continues to be an inspiration for music lovers and singers in India, even decades after his untimely death.

Here are few such songs. Not necessarily sad, but beautiful.

Ehsaan tera hoga mujh par (Mohd. Rafi)

Humein tumse pyaar kitna (Female version, sung by Parveen Sultana)

Tere bina Zindagi se koi Shikwaa (Lata Mangeshkar and Kishore Kumar)

Harjaaiyaan (Nandini Srikar)

Nahi Saamne (Hariharan)

Jab chali thandi hawa (Asha Bhosle)

Guncha (Mohit Chauhan)

Dhak Dhuk (Amit Trivedi)

The Rain Song (Led Zeppelin)

You're lost little girl (The Doors)

Jo Bhi Main Kehna chanhun (Mohit Chauhan)

Dil Se (A. R. Rahman)

Yeh jo des hai tera (A.R. Rahman)

Breathless (Shankar Mahadevan)

Angel (Sarah McLachlan)

Bangalore

Bangalore. A city where, till less than four years ago, electric fans were redundant and thick blankets were comforting. Where the sun was never harsh and the brow never saw a drop of sweat. Where a ride on the motorbike was refreshingly cool at eleven in the morning and biting cold at eleven in the night. Where the wind never died. Where the trees were not only a hallmark of the city's heritage but also the sustainers of its lovely weather.

All that is slowly fading away in the wake of the inevitable industrialisation and the so-called modernisation. However, these factors are often blindly blamed without due consideration to the fact that it is poor planning that lies at the core of it. Generations of architects, engineers and entrepreneurs all over the world have worked on a single idea that man can co-exist with nature for the simple reason that he has no other choice. And yet, through generations, a lot more people have remained blissfully unaffected by the significance of such an idea. While many people have repeatedly shown utter disregard of nature through their actions, several others have joined them in thoughtlessly ignoring the consequences of following such a course and continue to do so.

However, in spite of all this, you catch glimpses of nature's stubborn old ways in the city: The wind refusing to die, temperatures fighting to drop and trees battling the polluted air.
This leaves me wondering about what is more amazing: How mankind managed to destroy so much of the Earth and its resources, that came into existence billions of years ago, in less than hundreds of thousands of years, or how the Earth managed to sustain itself and its resources through several thousands of years of endless consumption by mankind and continues to do so.

Shamanth Huddar.

- Typed on an electronic device, posted on a social media website and submitted from a building made of concrete and glass, where, once upon a time, there probably stood a tree.

Choose to choose

It's that time of life, again,
when I must - 
choose to shed fears
and wear confidence;
drop the sack of sadness
and go forth;
make a choice
and stand by it;
take a deep breath
and know that I can;
And as always,
Remember not to forget.

Shamanth,
12th July, 2014.

Naanu Kandante (As seen by me)

Movie: "Ulidavaru Kandante" (As seen by the rest)
Language: Kannada

First Things first:
1. Excellent treatment of the film - visually and musically.
Absofuckinglutely loved the Noir bits - left me begging for more. (Yes! It has Noir! I got goosebumps watching the trailer)
MacGuffin - (not) shown brilliantly.
Groovy background score and music. Some of my favourite tracks from the album:
"Ulidavaru Kandante Theme Music" - Great instrumental track.
"Kaakig Banna" - Surreal and haunting.
"Tiger Dance(Huli Vesha)" - authentic and trippy street music.

2. Strong characters and great performance.
"Richie" is an instant favourite and has a strong screen presence.
"Balu" is pivotal to the story and has been handled very well.
"Democracy" is a kid with loads of attitude.

3. Flawless editing.
The narrative switches seamlessly between different timelines. It keeps coming back to critical parts of the story while dealing with different characters' perspectives of the same sequence of events. This is the central theme of the movie and has been executed extremely well.

4. The Plot.
For any movie to be good, especially a crime-thriller, the plot needs to be strong - and I mean Ambuja Cement Strong.
The plot for this one starts out to be highly intriguing.
Then, it grows strong and advances at a good pace.
Then, it slows down at times - dangerously bordering on becoming boring.
Then again, the plot thickens - like well-cooked rabdi.
By now, you can't resist it so you eat a spoonful of it.
Finally, it ends - with a striking poetic (in)justice.
But somewhere along the way it misses the Ambuja Strong that it promised earlier.
That leaves you with a slight sense of dissatisfaction, but also with the confusion and curiosity of an open-ended narrative that the movie-makers intended.

At the end of it all the sweetness and thickness, however, don't leave you so easily.
So you can relish it in spite of its weakness.

A deserving 8 out of 10.

Shamanth,
3rd April, 2014.

Simple

Life was supposed to be simple. Just that: Simple.
Italics, Bold, Underline, Quotes: None of that jazz.
Turn to a friend for a laugh. Drink the music of life. Ride the waves of imagination. Foster a few dreams. Live the moment, literally.

Then, start working - to earn a living.

The fact is, however, that the simplicity never really goes away.
It's right there, always. Just sitting under a pile of several other things.

All we need to do to reach it is dig deep. And then a little.

Happy Digging.
(Please, not your nose though. Not in public. That's just disgusting.)

Shamanth.

case (perspective)

S: WooHoo! I automated a part of my job that would take an hour of manual work before, but now takes only a couple of commands and is done in a few minutes all by itself! WooHoo! I feel so good! Yeah! Technology is great! Achievement is great! I'm so awesome! WooHoo!

W:  Aww honey! I'm so proud of you! Does that mean you'll come home early tonight, huh? Tell me, tell me now, now, now.

B: Great Job! Appreciate it. Here, take more work.

Lord of The Springs

An early riser and a lover of mornings, you are ready at 7.30 am. You walk around the house with a spring in your step and an eager smile in your heart as you get ready to practice guitar lessons before setting off for the day's work.

A hater of mornings and of their lovers, the wife stirs in the bed.
You curl up next to her, kiss her good morning and see her smile in return.
"Beep beep beep", the dying cell phone cries in return.
"grrnnnhhhh", she grunts in return.
"Where's the charger?" you ask in honey-coated voice, "I was looking for it all over the place."

Not a big fan of mornings, the wife. Even less so of conversations or activities at the morn. Slowly, her hand rises and a finger points in an arbitrary direction. The spring in your step pushes the smile in your heart to your face and you out of the bed.

In a deep voice you start -
"Follow the finger ... to the endless recesses of the wretched wardrobe..."

The finger moves a little to the left.
"... to the unfathomable depths of the dark drawers...", you continue.

Down a little.
"... to the merciless chasms of the unholy shelves..."

"grrnnhh.. the plastic cover", says the groggy wife with great effort.
"... to the ever evasive grey plastic cover that is seen not by the mortal eye..."
"ggrrrnnnhhh"
"Ah, found it!"

The charger comes out of the bag and proceeds to revive the cellphone. Noises come out of the plastic rustling, charger clicking into the socket, a switch thrown on and the cellphone beeping in response and proceed to break the final thread of morning serenity for the wife. The rest was destroyed by your narration earlier.

"When will you be done with The Lord of The Rings?", she asks.
"Very soon my fair lady."
"hmm... may be you can read 'The Hobbit' after that."
"That you may be certain of", you reply.

makethreat

Perl Scripting -
  chdir '/usr/spool/news' or die "Can't cd to spool: $!\n"

Unix Command -
kill is a bash built in command: $ help kill
$ kill -0 $! && kill $!

Hardware Verification -
"Fatal error in Process determine_phase_shift at 7814"

Ever noticed how engineers, who build, communicate with others?

Shamanth,
13 September, 2012.

White Noise

I can keep rhythm with no metronome.
[The Flobots]

Simple, yet powerful -
" Focus on the goals, not on the obstacles."

In spite of having come across this several times, and being inspired by it, it wasn't until I thought of it myself, as if telling it to myself, in my own words, that I could grasp the full significance of what it means.

Focus on what you want - to achieve, accomplish, obtain, attain, (haasil - In hindi/urdu) - and take a vow - for yourself - to do everything it takes to get there, regardless of the difficulties you might have to face along the way. Do not be frightened by the myriad possibilities of failure, but focus instead on the single possibility of success and achievement.
Courage is not the absence of fear; it is acting in spite of it. [Mark Twain]

Focus on what you want - everything else is white noise.

Shamanth,
March 28, 2012.

Never forget

Never forget what is important.

It is easy to.

It is just as easy not to. May be, even easier? It is not so difficult to think of what is important and keep it in mind; not so difficult to recognise what is not and keep it out of the way; not when you do it from time to time.


Shamanth,
21st August, 2011.

Each time

Never stop;

especially when tempted to.

The joy it brings is one of pride, satisfaction and an immense sense of relief for having gone on, for not having given up.

Shamanth.

August 17th, 2011.

My Self

I am so awkward with people sometimes.

Well, it doesn't really matter.

What matters is what I tell myself - that I listen to myself; that I be myself.


Shamanth.
August 6th, 2011.

Growing up

Just like being lied to is a huge part of growing up, isn't lying a huge part of being a grown-up?

Shamanth,

10th August, 2011.

Stand

Dreams, Desires, Faith, Thought, Action, Perseverance, Hope, Resilience;

An entire artillery.

One tender heart.

Pretty Pink

Finish a good breakfast - ond upittu, ond coffee (strongu). Hurriedly, start for the bus stop.

Spot a newspaper stall amidst the morning rush.

Be reminded of the talk you have had with your father every other night of the last several weeks, and of your employment status - 'Recent Graduate (May 2009) actively seeking an Entry Level Position'.

The profile of a graduate unemployed for over eighteen months after finishing school is not recent enough for most companies to consider it suitable for an 'Entry Level' position. Nor does it qualify for a 'Senior' position for the lack of experience such a position demands.

May 2009 was over twelve months ago.

'Seeking an Entry Level Position' has been the status of your self since.

'Worried about him' has been the status of your father since.

Deliberate his suggestion one more time. Unlike you, he did not have the internet to search for vacancies when he was a 'Recent Graduate (May 1980) actively looking for an Entry Level Position'. With great reluctance, walk to the stall.

Ask for Employment News. It's your first time buying it. Curiously scan the items he has on display but fail to spot it. Watch him attend to others before he acknowledges your enquiry and disappears into the main shop behind the stall. A few moments later, watch him emerge with a thick bundle of papers, folded in his hands.

Ask him the price.

9 Rupees.

It is a weekly issue - priced almost twice as much as you expect a daily to be. Trade for it a ten-rupee note. Hold it outstretched, to take a look at the front page while waiting for him to return the change.

Gasp! before you are paralysed.

The blow, immense in power, is dealt at the centre of your guts.

A moment later, gather your shattered senses.

Close your eyes as you shake your head and scream out to the world -

Why. . .?

Why is it PINK?

The front page. . .

Why?

Just . . . why?

Only, no one hears you.

May be it is soft on the soul - the colour. Soothing, perhaps.

May be it is the government's way of pacifying its unemployed citizens - telling them not to worry. That it will be all right. That they will all find a job soon. That it will all be okay. Soon.

Pretty pink soon?

May be. Just. . . may be.

Pure Irony

Alone in the house, walk into a room,


a table with a writing pad on it; a pen lying across.


the clean, crisp page – untouched; blank and spotless – inviting.


the heart craves expression – pristine and unrestrained;


handicapped by form though, expression fails the heart upon a single touch.




Shamanth.

And they said. . .

Sometimes, words are just not enough. But for what they are worth, I'll always be grateful to them. And of course, to the people they belong to -

It is the natural progression of things. You are either happy with what you have or you strive for something more, better, and the key point is that you, living your life, happens somewhere in that striving. I mean it surely sucks in the present tense, but that's not a reason that your future tense should suck too. Because if you are not doing anything worthwhile in your present limited tick-tocking time then you definitely have a reason to mope around.

 - Rohit Tenpe

You're the only one who really cares.

- Chetan Kale

Never forget what you once believed in, even if you don't anymore - it is what helped you make your choices, when you did believe it.

- Adwait Paranjpe

A day when we wake up from our dreams, realizing that life has become an upside down tumbler with us trapped inside... we search for ways outside... a small crevice enough to gasp in a lungful of air, the primordial factor of sustenance...

- Pankaj Shivarama

Take care, stick around. The world is too full of mediocrity, and it takes a lot to keep going.

- Chinmayee Hiremath

There is always a point from where it begins but it is totally upon you when and where you'll end it. 'It' being everything.

- Diwakar Sinha

Enjoy while it lasts, and weep not when its gone.

- Mikimbizi

When we do what we love we don't even mind losing, just the satisfaction of being alive for a while is enough.

- Atrisa

No one has it all figured out. No one. If it seems like they do, they are doing a fantastic job of covering it all up. And you are doing a fantastic job of buying what they are selling.

- Tapan Hoskeri

Life is all about questions: why and why not?

 - Vaishnavi

Essence remains the same, expression varies.

- Meghana Naidu

For the love of it

I was so caught up with running towards something that I had forgotten how much I love running.

Running towards something means desperately racing against time, filling my head and chest with an increasingly throbbing pain; unlike the joy of running for the love of it which fills my heart with a strong, thumping energy that makes me want to go even faster with every push.

Shamanth,

26th March, 2010