So Vote?

I vehemently told everyone I wouldn't do it.
I will NOT vote, I proudly declared.

“Why?” They asked, with gaping faces.

Because I don't know who to vote for.
Because there is no option to vote for nobody or register a protest vote.
Because I really don't care about politics.
Because I already voted the last time as “my first time” and wasn’t as kicked about it as I hoped.

“But someone might go and vote on your name, doesn't that bother you?”
Umm, not really, given that I don't want to vote for anyone and this impersonator has at least decided who s/he wants to vote for...

But yesterday, I went and voted.

In fact it was the first thing I woke up and did. Before taking a dump even.

Don't get me wrong. It just so happened that just as soon as I woke up, mum and dad were going "to get it over with", so I decided I might as well do the same (since I was up anyway and probably wouldn't take the effort to go myself).

It took a long time to find our names on the list – they hadn’t sent out our voter slips this time (I remember that the last time they had). There’s also a new building that has come up in the neighbourhood and its name wasn’t even listed in the books. A few residents were quite pissed off.

Why can’t this process be more organized, digitized and fool proof? No wonder we have such a low voter turnout. I know plenty of colleagues who would have had to go back to their hometowns to vote and so they didn’t.

Anyway it was really funny sifting through the newspapers today and looking at everyone showing the world their middle fingers. In fact I wasn’t aware of the fact that the election commission had mandated it this year (a change from the usual forefinger). You can read more about that here: http://www.boingboing.net/2009/04/26/500-million-indians.html

The ink has really messed up my nail. It has seeped all around it, outlining my cuticle and a bit of the tip of my finger. I wonder how long it’ll stay like this. When first applied, it was indigo blue and then it turned brownish-black. In case you’re wondering what this ink is made of, there’s some interesting trivia about it. It is manufactured for the entire country at a 72-year old plant in Bangalore called Mysore Paints & Varnish Ltd (MVPL). Wondering what’s in this indelible ink? It’s a heady mix of chemicals, dyes, aromatic materials and silver nitrate – or so they say. You can read more about that here:
http://ibnlive.in.com/news/voters-ink-made-in-mysore-marked-across-india/87219-37.html


And if this was of any interest to you, or if you didn't vote, please take a moment to read my colleague Sampath's honest and intelligent reason for not voting here: http://www.dnaindia.com/blogs/post.php?postid=166) It certainly takes me back to my stance at the beginning of this piece.

ring a ding dong

down the rabbit hole

"i've been waiting so long...to be where i'm going in...in the sunshine of your loooooooveeee"

red hot chili peppers
(more red, less hot)

Damnit

Firstly, this is something I wanted to post on http://aprofessionalwhiner.blogspot.com/ but NEW blogger won't let me.
And I didn't choose to *upgrade* to new blogger, it forced me (although it says some lucky bloggers are getting it automatically)to upgrade. All bollocks.
It didn't give me a choice. Today when I signed in to old blogger, it just forced me to switch.

So, fellow whiners, if anyone has made it to this blog, this one's for you.

This city is seriously getting to me. First, they change its name from Bombay to Mumbai. Then, they go on a fucking stupid digging spree in order to exhaust their allocated financial budgets by the end of March. So obviously, the already fucked up roads get narrower, meaning that the already narrow one-and-a-half lane one way road will now be a two way street. And there isn’t just one of these. Traffic, exhaust fumes, honk, honk, honk, eeeeeks. Sounds like a permanent hangover sometimes.
Bear in mind that this is just the end of January, so they have all 28 days of Feb PLUS the 31 of march (days and nights, might I add). Digggggging in the nose.
Okay and then, these advertising motherfuckers splatter ridiculous uncopyedited ugly hoardings all over so you can’t see anything else, anywhere. Like on your drive back from work, instead of getting a glimpse of the sea, you are being stared in the face by a larger-than-life model of shah rukh khan sitting on his KBC seat…yeeesh…go away. And speaking of ad’s, let me not even get started on the lame new PONDS campaign. They’ve got a bunch of these slightly upmarketish women in their early 30s talking about how their husbands used to go to the sports bars with “his friends” and then all of a sudden, one day, he takes her out to HER favourite restaurant. And then she tries to UNCONVINCINGLY slip in this line. “I’m not sure but maybe it’s this age minimizing cream I’m using, it works like a magic wand.” And from then on, every evening is her restaurant every night or something…
Look, I don’t have an issue with them trying to sell you this age-minimising crap, because we all know, and I must quote Philip Chacko (one of my editors at work) when I say that “at the heart of every ad is a lie.”
What really gets my damn goat is that these women, who have been made to look like well-educated, swinging in the corporate zone types are expected to and probably will convince many other women about the fact that men will give up sports or a night out with the guys for a lesser-wrinkled wife. Ridiculous, demeaning and so PISSSSSSSSSING off.
And this is the crap that advertising professionals get paid for?
Ugh.

And by the way, new blogger really sucks. So if you guys are reading this, let me tell you that its sloooooooow and I miss my old dashboard.

Say what?

Uma Joshi
yay yay yay
My mother told me
Sixty years ago
There came a lady
Knocking on the door
With an ooh, aah,
I want some pie
The pie is sweet
I want some meat
The meat is rough
I want to go by bus
The bus is full
I want to go by bull
The bull is fat
I want my money back

Does anyone remember the rest of this? And who the hell was this Uma Joshi anyway?

For some reason looking at these flowers makes me want to write about how strange men and women are about letting other people into their worlds; the whole in the beginning-of-a-relationship-wondering-whether-or-not-to-label-it thing. Well actually that's what a friend of mine was agonising over a few minutes ago.
But come to think of it, human beings and their unnecessarily complex feelings about "love" are too trivial to spend precious blog space over.
So lets tell you about these pretty, pretty flowers.
They grow on a tree which is at the back of my building. When we were kids there would be lots of them strewn across the ground - and by ground, I mean actual-actual ground, not that fake fancy tiled ground we find everywhere.
And if you were lucky, you'd find some with little shivlings in the centre. Not that I was or am religious, but the shivlings were really pretty too.
And come to think of it, if I photoshop them a little, they'd look like sea anemones.Well, just flowers for now. 

Foot fetish

Left Foot. Right Foot.
Feet. Feet. Feet.
Oh, how many
feet you meet!