Someday, today will be nostalgia

The Oxford dictionary’s definition of friendship reads like this - a person with whom one has a bond of mutual affection, typically one exclusive of sexual or family relations. Of course, one may safely presume this was before the advent of facebook and orkut. Scour your friend's list and you chance upon everyone from bosses, exes, current squeezes, colleagues, siblings, parents and grandparents. While social networking has played a part in redefining friendship, it does pose problems from time to time. In one single move, facebook offered parents what they were seeking all their lives - being friends with their children. Remember how corny it sounded when someone went around parroting ‘my dad’s like my friend’? How their premonition has come true. It  sometimes  also  turns friendships into an ego battle. You talk, you chat, you gossip, but wait for each other to send a friend request. And those guys who tell you to add them on facebook. Do I look bereft of all co...

Some 20 years back, I returned home to find thermocol strewn all over the living room. Unbeknownst to me, a new way of life was in the offing, one that had more than 2 channels and where lifeguards with red swimsuits saved the day. To relive that feeling, think back to a time when you scurried back from school to catch Small Wonder and Wonder Years and a little later, Home improvement and It’s a man’s world. And you wondered how children in America were kissing mouth to mouth with such aplomb. Before we were enslaved by social networking, television time was not easy to come by. In my case, it was simply the case of too many people vying for one solitary device. Grandma never veered off from sun tv. My sister never veered off from bold and the beautiful and santa barbara. In between all of this, I was supposed to find space, even though I didn’t understand what the heck I was supposed to be watching. And then Baywatch washed everything over. Of course you’ve been there. Of...

Over the years, the tam brahm has been stereotyped in more ways than one. Most of the stereotypes are true and nothing to be ashamed of. If we were all alike, there would be nothing to write, nothing to gossip about, nothing that will make us stand apart from each other. Here are a few observations about the state of marriage for a tam brahm. First, in a tam brahm wedding, very few people are actually interested in the wedding. What they are really interested in is who is going to get married next. If you are single and in your twenties, you are doomed. Inevitably, you will find these maamis , who act as scouts and whose lifetime goals consist in finding out the following: a) What’s your age? b) When do you plan to get married? c) Are you going to the USA? d) Are you traditional? e) Are you dating? Somehow, they will find out. And before you know it, a suitable suitor will be flashed in front of you. Your time starts.... now. Second, if you are a boy, ...

This must surely go down in the country as one of the most unproductive weeks. In the sub-continent, where cricket is akin to a blood group, every match is analysed to oblivion. Step into the chai shop and they are talking of whether it should be Nehra or Ashwin. Step into the swankiest restaurant and see the well-heeled people acting like their true selves. Go to the saloon and you would think the barber could stand for chairman of selectors. And this is not even on match day. So when the Indo-Pak clash became imminent, everyone went agog.  Agog over where to watch the match. It isn’t about cricket anymore. It’s about the booze and the food and the venue and the crowd and the bets.  As the match winded down, an inexplicable sadness descended upon us. The match everybody was waiting for was over. Never mind that India won. Who knows when this moment will appear in our lives again, throwing us into a collective tailspin? When offices declared a half day. When people stoo...

Our roads aren’t complete with the numerous morons that dot them and ensure early onset heart disease and shorter life spans. So here are the nominations for the Indian road moron hall of fame: 1. Yo man dude: Yo dude is of the belief that he is god’s gift to women. Never mind that she is seated in a BMW, he believes that he can sweep her off the uber comfy seats and ride away with her into the smog filled sunset. Hence he accelerates and tries to catch her attention. Hence he goes from 0 - 60 in 15 seconds, only to come to a screeching halt at the next signal. Moreover, yo man dude doesn’t find it stupid to attempt a wheelie in the middle of a busy road, jeopardizing the lives of others. May he find an attractive nurse to wrap bandages on him when he ends up strapped to a hospital bed. In the same vein, we don’t wish him a speedy recovery. 2. The wanker honker: You cannot escape this species, however hard you try. It is their second nature to have their hand on the horn, ev...

--> One of cricket’s finest ODI innings ever played was one every Indian fan wishes was never played in the first place. For on March 23, 2003, a certain Ricky Ponting took it upon himself to single-handedly annihilate a billion Indian dreams. For solace, we keep returning to Sachin’s masterclass from the same tournament where he greeted Shoaib with a six and treated the rest with disdain. To me, the 2003 world cup ended there. I want to blank out that final. All thanks, again, to a certain Ricky Ponting. To an Indian supporter, praising Ricky Ponting is akin to siding with Pakistan in an Indo- Pak encounter. But Ricky Ponting could have all too easily been a fallen hero, someone who burned out far ahead of his time. Cricket is littered with such tales of supreme talents that placed mammon and the bottle before the game, when all they while it should have been the other way round. The fearsome Andrew Symonds comes to mind,  his career having derailed over the ...

Plagiarism. It’s all around us. Business wars worth millions are fought between two sides claiming originality. A pretty young author sees her new found fame evaporate just as fast as it came. If one were to really reach deep into the recesses of one’s mind, one would chance upon various instances of plagiarism in our otherwise uneventful lives. It all begins innocently. A chance glance at your neighbor’s answer sheet and you discover something amiss in your answer paper. Hastily corrected, you forgive yourself for this one time faux pas. The next exam, the glance ceases to be just a glance. You exercise your neck muscle a little more. Only to realize that students all around you seem to have something in their papers that mysteriously isn’t present in yours. And thus you begin a journey of ingenuity, lateral thinking and saving your face. At the risk of not returning answer sheets the way you received them, copying is by far one of the greatest tools devised by mankind. Th...