The Thesis Blog is up and running
http://the-thesis-blog.blogspot.com

Poster of 'Huballi'.. notice the larger than life worm's eye view

My funky green Goa shirt

Another movie poster.. notice Rajkumar on the top left hand corner "blessing" the movie.

Rickshaw driver's licence

The old, the new and the unchanged


Vijay Mallya's contribution to the world of architecture. Very art deco.. or a shrunken copy of Empire State building

Alien...

3 weeks in an alien land. Actually, three alien lands.

First, Bangalore/Bengalooru/I.T. City. Although my dad's from Karnataka, i
don't know one sentence of Kannada except saying 'Kannada Barudilla' and
counting upto ten, that one courtesy of some Kannada comedy seen on TV ten years ago. Made it interesting to talk to rickshaw drivers, especially when Abhimanyu pointed out road names on the Eicher map to a confused one. But by the end of the trip learnt one cool phrase thanks to N.C. Rao: Mella Yenta!!!! And some useful ones like Sullimagga.. used only for errant rickshaws.
The three-in-one city is damn weird. It supposedly runs on IT but shuts at 11 (even nightclubs!!!). Rickshaws have sexy electronic meters and highly visible driver's licences but charge at their drivers' whims. Lots of green spaces but 'Keep off the grass' signs. And a flyover with a traffic signal at the top (talk about mistakes...).
The identity crisis in the city (and the state is large) is apparent at every turn. Cox Town and Fraser Town are neighbours with Basavanagudi and Koramangalam. The lack of any famous home grown Kannada heroes and heroines leads to film stars (even minor ones) elevated to god-like status. And now Bangalore's identity crisis between Pensioners' Paradise, Kannada Pride and IT Hotspot will surely lead to name-changes, a lot like Mumbai's been facing over the last twenty years.
But i don't mean to bad mouth the city. It's nice and pretty and the weather's quite awesome. Policemen are nice, rickshaw drivers are chatty and people are generally not bothered with someone holding a video camera in their face. It's just that i feel Mumbai gets jealous when i start liking another city. hehe...
And i simply loved their movie posters! Unfortunately couldn't get the one i wanted to take home, almost ripped it off a wall once. The poster is for a movie called 'Hubballi' which is a small city in the north of Karnataka. Looks nothing like in the movie. Cool poster. Found the hero's restaurant while walking under the signal flyover. He's bought over the neighbouring two buildings also...

Next comes Goa. Wow! Never been there since i was ten, which i realise was not the correct age to go there. Don't need to say more. Spoke in Konkani confidently to lots of locals, especially after a couple of days there. Bought my first authentic festive shirt!!! Notice the 'Reebok' tag on the collar...
Surely won't be wearing it ever again though!

And my native place, the seemingly unpronounceable Bankikodla (try again if you didn't get it right the first time). Went there after 10 years. Didn't recognise most people, but remembered the crossroad near the house perfectly. Odd how one remembers spaces more clearly than people sometimes. Even within the house, i remembered the exact layout of the living room with the one glass pane on the roof while looking at a cousin like i've never seen him before.

And after all that, i realised that the things i miss the most while i'm away are the things i hate the most when i'm here.

And i may have a thesis blog... so check that out when i put up the link.

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Xtra Innings...

Today i saw an ad on tv with Mandira Bedi in her 'babe' persona saying 'Watching cricket with me is different..' (imagine attempts at sauciness oozing out of your screen). Very true. Apparently, more women are watching cricket than ever before. Which is strange considering the amount of hue and cry the spagetti top evoked. But the show is evil (to paraphrase Georgie boy) and Navjot Singh Sidhu makes it worse. The pro-India bent is embarassing. Discussing how India will fare in a match 2 weeks from now is bad, discussing the same 20 minutes before Australia play West Indies is worse. Even the numerologists and tarot card readers say 'Today I think I will support India' even before their cards or numbers have spoken (or do what they.. erm.. do). And Rohit Roy who considers himself an expert just cause he's played gulli cricket adds to the gallery of dumbfucks who host the show. The number of experts is always out numbered by the number of hosts. Everything smarter people say is drowned out by Sidhu's long distance call bellowing.
We are generally an intelligent cricket watching public and we deserve better. Otherwise any discussion on cricket is bound to be dominated by 'Did you see Mandira's sari today?'

Memories...

While sorting my cluttered and overloaded computer, i decided to organise my stuff which went the whole gamut from cad drawings to obscure sound clips from 6 years ago. And came across a whole set of pictures from 1st year. Now shamefully i have to say that once you join architecture, you have no life for 5 years. So the people in your class become your family. The same shiny, happy people in 1st year seem so different now. i saw a study trip picture of people working together on some slide or something for kids and it seemed like it happened yesterday. But out of the 4 people in the picture, i can't stand two and the other two aren't as close as we used to be. So what changed since yesterday? Any argument, any issue was sorted out in 30 mins flat. And now we can't even decide a date on which to leave for our last ever study trip.

Does getting older neccessarily mean i am getting wiser? Or just more smug about my own wisdom?