Jay Mody

“With Discrete Time Systems and Microwaves and Optic Fibre Communications playing hide-n-seek with my gray cells (few as they are), I think its time I undertook the much needed voyage to wage the battle and finish them off once and for all.

With this I proclaim:
Thou shalt not cease getting thy lazy bum to this blog. Thou shalt not cast this blog into oblivion.

And as Arnold Scwarzenegger would put it: “”Astalavista baby, and I’ll be back””.

All this said, I have one more announcement to make. In case you guys havent noticed, I have started a new forum which can be found by clicking here. This is a concept that I have been contemplating on for a long time. A central place for bloggers to interact. At times it becomes difficult to visit all the blogs and check out the best of them. Of course it does not mean NOT visiting the blogs. But much needed interaction is avoided due to inconvenience of visiting all the blogs. So heres the new forum which goes by the name of Blogger’s Park.

With this I shall leave you for about a month or so. I shall keep visiting my BlogJocks as and when time permits.

Regards,
A tormented soul in engineering,
with a gamut of tasks to perform.

”

It is said that local trains make up half of Mumbai Bombay.
And true to the saying, local trains run in the blood of every mumbaiite (so they do on the rails also..)

A typical scene during the go-fast-or-the-boss-will-fire-you hour:

Start:
Leave home late because you came in late last night or watched a late night movie on HBO.

Try in desperation to get share-a-rick, afterall you dont want to end-up spending more than your daily quota. Moreever it hurts the ego to be unable to get the usual find. You frantically look around, but cannot find any people. You realise that today you are really late. Swear at yourself and catch a rick.

Reach the station where you find people who are pretty much in the same position. You indulge in the usual push-shove-bump-swear routine.
Finally enter the station, when the railways rub it in. The usual train is today on some other platform. Drat!! You will have to climb the bridge.

The bridge climbed and a sigh of relief heaved you try and stand under the fan which consumes more electricity than it provides air.

In the distance you see the train coming in and position yourself in such a away that you’ll get in like a superman, in the moving train. But today not being your day, half the door is closed and you bang against it in a bid to get in the moving train. Awww..!! The elbow hurts.

Finally by hook or by crook, you manage to sneak in the fourth seat which allows you to rest half of your bum. Never mind!! Something is better than nothing.

Just as you pass the initial stations and the hooplah subsides a little, the sleep catches up with you. You feel drowsy and are about to doze off when suddenly an 80 decibel noise emanates from the gangway. Somone stepped on sombody’s toe and that somebody is now cursing that someone. This is when the typical Bombayite mentality comes into play. You get up to see whats going on, the curiosity getting the better of you, and so do some others. Now you cant resist anymore. You just have to join the others. Join them in cheering the fight. Adding some more fuel to the fire. Entertainment for free until either they or you alight.

All this said and done, or rather undergone, you reach office and carry on your usual chores, checking mails and reading/writing blogs. Come back home in the evening and promise yourself, about no more getting up late. Suddenly an old friend calls up and you make a plan/you make a plan for a movie/sit at home and watch a movie/go out for dinner with your family. Afterall you had a bad day and need to unwind. Enjoy and come home late.

Go To Start.

There is no place on this earth like home.

A charitable house always remains that way, unless it is either paid for or bought.

Well, in this case, neither was possible.

So here I am

Bought my own Webspace…now I can safely say, balls to Brinkster!!!!

No more downtimes now…..hopefully

Its a bond that sees no boundaries.
No haggling politicians nor bureaucratic adversaries.

An unmistakable and unspoken bond between the civilians and the military seeths through the streets of this patriotic country. For years the men patrolling the borders of this vulnerable country have provided a much needed buttress protecting billions of souls.

One the eve of Diwali, The Times of India carried a photograph of the jawans lighting candles on the Indo-Pak fence. That really got the train of thoughts going. The people who protect you night and day are the very people who you blame for a plethora of trinkets. That look of pining on their face, pining for festivals that are just carved in their memories and those they haven’t celebrated for eons long gone, is enough to invoke a patriotic feeling in anyone.

But still all that our so-called leaders care about is their own skin.

Lets hear it for our jawans, Jai Hind.

The changing face of Indian festivities often leaves me bemused. Especially that of the metropolitans. The gargantuan changes in lifestyles of people has literally dragged the festivals by the scruff of the neck and put ’em in a corner. Gone are those days when people used to celebrate with the pomp and splendor for generations to go by. Talking about Diwali, its just becoming apparent year after year. Living in a metro exhumes the sad truth that springs up in front of your eyes. One can just see the dwindling importance of the age-old festivals made known by some perspicacious old men.

Diwali has lost the charm. What used to be more of mithais and diyas, has now been replaced by chocolates, fire-crackers and fancy light-shades. At times the traditional values in a festival are more appealing and joyous than the contemporary ones. This year the Diwali has coincided with a weekend. Joy for work-a-holics. Sadness for a few. This maybe considered to be one of the several remaining nails of the coffin.

People living in Bombay would readily relate to this and realise that westernisation is seething in our veins. Stanch it.
Today we celebrate christmas with more enthusiasm than we do Diwali.

In yet another case, what used to be a festival of dry colors and plain water has turned into a one with synthetic chemicals, poisonous colors and inebriation.

Those of you who read The Times of India and its supplements would know about this one-panel-comic-strip called ‘Bottomline‘ by Morparia. It started out about a few years back and it has improved by leaps.

Covering sundry topics from Politics to Sports to Fashion to Bollywood, it has become the vox populi. Covered in subtle shades of laughter and sequestered characters it is totally in-your-face.
At times delicate issues are brought forth with such precision that no politician or public face could ever do.

It has truly evolved. Long live Morparia.

“One of the most compelling stories you come across as a voracious reader is “”The Grass is always greener“”. Written by Sir Jeffrey Archer, it is a part of the short stories collection called “”To cut a long story short“”.

I, probably, am not in a position to write a critique about this piece. But it is one story that has hit me the most. Curious as the human mind is, it would drive us to think. Think about one question. If everyone would live by this principle, wouldn’t hedonism become engraved?

Well, the story talks about a company and how people live in its milieu. Right from the beggar sitting on the brink of the dioramic glass doors, to the head-honcho sitting in a plush office on the top floor. It talks about how each one of them thinks how big his own problems are. As the story unravels itself, it brings out the beauty of the vain human thinking.

Live by this principle and life would be good.

At times pragmatism has to give way to dogmatism. But in their extreme forms both are as cruel as they can be.”

“Engineering has the knack of kicking the shit out of people, to a limit that inebriation becomes more of a ritual than a choice.

After a long and an agonizing wait the results were out yesterday. And I passed in the first class. Thank god for that!!

So then, it was an evening to freak out. inititally we were the three of us myself, Kaushal (we’ll call him Kush) and Satyen. The plan was Velocity. We had decided to hit a discotheque (we had free passes for it ). We drove over to Kush’s place and that was when he was in a juggernaut. There was some communication gap with his girl and he was stuck with two places to go at the same time. Obviously he had to go with his girl. So now it was down to the two of us. Me and Satyen. And we had decided to hit it tonite, whatever be the case.

So brains racked, phone calls made and Toto’s Garage Pub came up. Bandra was the place. I had heard that it was a good place, but when I saw it, I realised that it wasnt good. It was awesome!!!!

Hence started the evening. One beer to hit the liquor highway is always necessary. What followed in the background was something that I never imagined Bombay to have. A pub which plays rock music. I never knew there was one in Bombay.

# Pink Floyd – Comfortably Numb

The beer downed and the chicken tikka relished, I wasnt satisfied.
After all I live by my principle, “”Thou shalt drink, only if thou shalt drink to get drunk“”. So then it was a small Smirnoff with water.

# Metallica – Nothing Else Matters

# Creed – My Sacrifice

# Bryan Adams – Summer of 69

The alcohol seeping in the head coupled with mild head-banging is one of the best feelings that you can ever get. The Smirnoff was over in a flash. This was the point when Satyen backed out. He had to drive us back home. I was staying at his place. Couldn’t afford to go to my place cause my mom is too sharp and would notice that I am drunk.

# The Doors – Roadhouse Blues

I wanted more. A large Smirnoff would once again do the trick. This time it was vodka on the rocks. A little frivoulous small talk continued then about the personal lives of my gang and others.

# Deep Purple – Highway Star

# Santana – Black Magic Woman

Time: 12:30 am

I knew it was time for us to leave. The pub was about to close down. We started to pay te bill, but I couldn’t resist the temptation of buying one more for the road. I took one more Kingfisher to hit the road.

# Pink Floyd – Another Brick in the Wall

The drive was one of the best I have ever had. We had to stop once in the middle of the highway. I needed to relieve myself bigtime. We reached home at about 2:30 am. Hit the bed and the sleep that ensued was the best I have had in many years.”

“We were the reigning champions of every Treasure Hunt (TH) in our college….until today.

The four of us: Ankit, Kaushal, Akshay and of course me. We make our regular TH team.

Something about the driver. Kaushal is one of the best drivers I have seen in my lifetime. He can beat the shit out of a Merc when it comes to driving. Totally rash and totally controlled. Sounds weird but thats the way he drives. Totally safe, yet on the brink. He regularly hits speeds of 120 kmph something that is rarely achieved in this city of dreams.

We started off on a bad note and were stuck in the middle of nowhere not knowing where to go. We had to sacrifice with 25 points to get an extra clue. Once again our instincts were right and we already knew where to go. Yoko’s, Andheri, it was. The next clue we got was wayyy off to Bandra Reclamation. Once we reached there, we realised that the people at the previous place didnt give us the next clues and there were no clues at Reclamation .

At reclamation we were given a task to perform to gain 125 points. It was to remove the tyre and put it back. As everything was going against us, the jack in Kaushal’s car was not working. We couldnt complete the task, the next clue was somewhere down Pali Hill, Bandra. This was where the worst thing happened. The brakes failed. Nothing dramatic (read, bollywood ishtyle) happened. But we had to quit with the TH then and there only.

But what a place it was for the brakes to fail. The best place in Bombay. Close in vicinity were Onyx, Olive and Out of the Blue. We were so damned pissed and low that we decided to drown it all down with a few pints. Then came a few more sad things. The front left door of his car refused to open (or even budge). We went to Onyx and then were headed back to Out of the Blue when we saw a cow pissing litres and litres besides his car tyres. ….sheeeesh. Kaushal was reallly frustrated at this point of time.

Following is the conversation that ensued once we entered Out of the Blue (we had to cancel Onyx because some bigshot had come and there was a lot of commotion) :

Waiter: Sir, you’ll have to place straight orders, we are closing down.
Me: Closing down so early??

Waiter: Yes Sir.
Me:

Waiter: Sir, I mean the afternoon session is about to end, we’ll be re-opening in the evening.
Me: Uh, thats cool then.

We placed our orders for a few pints of beer and a sizzler and were waiting.

Kaushal is really emotionally attached with its car and he was talking to his car, “”I sweared at you just once and you lost conrol “”…

We were trying to cheer him up but to no avail. Finally the beer and the sizzlers arrived and slowly the alcohol, made him a little upbeat. Alcohol coupled with a few of our really sad and fucked up engineering PJs are enough for anyone to change his/her mood.

Finally after finishing in about an hour, we hobbled back to his car. Ankit had to get to the front seat from the rear seat, you see, the front door was jammed and he couldn’t get through the driver’s. We reached Vile Parle in about an hour, even though its only about 8-10 kms from Bandra. Quite unusually we went at a speed of 20-30 kmph (a few more jokes followed that, from a little inebriated minds of ours).

After we reached Kaushal’s home we heaved a sigh of relief and headed back to our homes after a little general conversation.

Overall it was a day with mixed emotions. A lot of lows and a few unpredictable highs.”