Cartoon: RK
Also visit the Cartoon page on RwB.
Archive for the 'Musings' Category
Blog Cartoon – 58
October 8, 2008Blog Cartoon – 48
September 22, 2008
Cartoon: RK
No Animals Were Harmed In The Making Of This Blog Cartoon.
Also visit the Cartoon page on RwB.
Life and Death
August 29, 2008A coffin left the gate in the morning. A cradle entered in in the evening.
It was a dozen years ago when I first met the elderly man who came to stay in our apartments along with his wife. He was very soft spoken and smiled at me when ever he went for a walk. For the past two years, he rarely came out of the house and used to watch life from his second floor balcony, atop mine. He became very reclusive off late and hardly spoke to anyone. On Tuesday evening, he came from the balcony to the ‘living room’, rubbed Vicks on his chest, and sat in front of the TV. He slowly collapsed on the sofa, and died in the ‘living room’. The sun set in his life literally at sunset time.
He left for his last journey yesterday morning, and a young one started on life’s adventurous journey in the evening. The lady opposite our flat entered the apartment complex with a young bundle of joy.
Rare to see life and death at such close quarters on the same day!
A Tamil word:_U_E_L – Who am I?
August 23, 2008Rich man keeps me in the pocket.
Poor man throws me away.
Kids eat me. Its a Tamil word.
Clue: The word is _U_E_L.
Who am I?
Central Tiffin Room and Vidyarthi Bhavan trivia
July 15, 2008• Early today morning, visited Vidyarthi Bhavan for the first time after it got renovated.
• Got to know from the cashier that it can hold 15 seats more than earlier.
• Looks more spacious, and lot more light
• Time taken for renovation – 25 days
• Cost: shhhhh!
• Kesaribhaath taste has gone down drastically (tasted like some Rave paste). And at Seven in the morning, Idly-Sambhar already had a somewhat sour feel to it.
• That was when I cancelled my Masale Dose order. I was sure it can NEVER EVER BEAT CTR.
• Not at all surprised that the Malleswaram joint stood first in a contest conducted by The Times of India as the ‘King of all Dose outlets in Bangalore’. (actually, it can compete with any Dose outlet in the Chaturdashabhuvanas).
• Last Sunday saw a great rush at CTR (after many got to know of its existence through TOI). The Hippies to the Heppies were all there from early in the morning till noon ordering BMDs (Benne/Butter Masale Dose).
• The toothless old man, a regular at CTR for years, wearing Panche, white shirt and having the traditional white-red-white lines on his forhead, was shocked to see half naked girls hogging “Butter Masala Dosa” seated behind him! And one of them was exclaiming – “Oh my….Thizzz heaven, isn’t it?” for which our good old man smiled to himself, sipping his cup of hot filter Coffee, and thought – Lady, CTR is the HQ of the heavenly abode called Malleswaram.
Related posts:
C for Chidambaram, Chocolates and Chips
February 29, 2008
BIG-FM of a different kind!
Most of you must be following the Budget today, the seventh by Finance Minister P Chidambaram. And I’m sure you want to take a break from those figures. So here’s a link giving some unknown facts about PC:
Jingle all the way
October 31, 2007Lifebuoy, Amul – Taste of India, Rasna, Hamara Bajaj, NECC, Nirma, Vicco Vajradanthi, Boroline, Liril, Lux (featuring Sonali Bendre), Cadburys, Nescafe, Siyaram, Golden Silks & Saris, Kailash Wet Grinder, Dhaara, Mahila Griha Udyog, Cema bulbs… (I can go on and on)
One thing the above brands have in common (apart from the fact that they all gave hit ads in the ’80s) is some memorable ad jingles. Ever since my teens, I have loved the ad jingles and used to hum them any time of the day. Now after working in ad agencies, I have got to know how much effort goes into the making of an ad, and how much survey and audience research is done before one sees an ad on newspaper/ TV or hears an ad jingle on the radio.
Some ad jingles have a very long life span. They get registered in our minds and refuse to go away. They start controlling our minds without our knowledge. With the amount of research and rigorous tests that goes into the making of some ads, no wonder some jingles/ punchlines encompass our lives.
Would really love to know your favourite ad jingle/ punchline.
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Related links:
15 August, 2007 was a lovely day
August 16, 2007
(The guy is telling to his friend: I see ‘60′ all over the town)
The fantastic sunrise woke me up to a wonderful morning. I could not wait to read the special editions* of all my favourite newspapers at home. After scanning a few pages, I went to the nearby newspaper shop and bought a copy of some other newspapers. On my way home, bought a packet of milk and excitedly sat in the balcony to read the special articles. I had just finished reading the article by Manmohan Singh and Amartya Sen in The Hindu when my son woke up. After the morning duties, my wife dressed him up and fed him breakfast. He is used to seeing me with a couple of newspapers everyday. But today he saw me flooded with papers all over. I showed him a few pictures of our national flag. And that was when I got the idea of taking him to my school (KV Malleswaram) to show him some real flags and children celebrating Independence Day.
On the way, I showed him a few autos which had tied the flag to one side and had loud music playing inside. But he was concentrating more on the stray dog which was waiting to cross the street!
Entering the school, we saw an ocean of kids holding plastic flags while the hoisted one kept flying high. (I got vivid memories of the time when I was studying in this school and the many Independence Days that I took part in.) My son was really happy to see a boy playing drums on the stage for the song ‘Vishwa Vinuthana Vidya Chethana’. We saw a couple of other cultural programmes and went to the front portion of the school where we saw a fountain and an aquarium. My son loved those colourful fishes.
From there, we went to a park that my son visits every evening. The main reason why he loves going to the park, although there are swings, see-saws and slides, is because there is a cow shed opposite the park. And next to it, a railway track. On some days, he not only gets to see the cows, but also a train. Yesterday was one such day.
While he was playing in the park, there was an Indira Gandhi speech that was being played by a patriot Indian. She said: “Nearly half of India’s people have been born free and have no personal memory of the colonial days. We are engaged in building the nation, in giving political freedom its full economic and social content….”
More than my son, I was really having a wonderful time playing in the park. He kept humming a few songs and rhymes while playing. In between he asked me to sing his favourite songs. The sun kept beating down and I asked him if he wanted to play or go home. He told ‘Manege’ (home). As we left the park, I saw an old lady carrying a heavy load of vegetables on her head. And Indira’s words continued to be heard (and faded away): “We women have for years played a prominent role in the freedom struggle, in politics and in public life. We have women engineers, women governors, women ambassadors, women judges, women diplomats and administrators….”
And I heard the old lady shout, “Tarkari, Soppu”…
* Will take me a few days to finish reading yesterday’s newspapers.
***
RwB celebrates India at 60:
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India at Sixty by TS Srinivasa Murthy
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Tricolour Marble Cake and Eggless Tea Cake: Recipe by Bridget White Kumar
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Sare Jahan se Accha, Hindustan Hamara by BR Usha
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Rangoli-16 by Srilakshmi Suresh
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Independence Day by Cuckoo
Why Himesh Reshammiya sings ‘OOoooooo…’
August 10, 2007Just have a look at the above link which is simply hilarious to the core. Hats off to Kedar Joshi for the concept and Deven for the animated stuff!!
Don’t miss: At my wits’ end. by Shruthi, and as she says in the update, don’t miss the comments on this one!!
Lock Mess Monster
August 2, 2007I have never been asked to write a post for someone’s else’s blog, so this is definitely a first. There is also a neat bit of life symmetry at play here, because RK, the art director who produces the blog you’re reading now, hails from Bangalore, the city where my mother was born.
As a sports writer covering cricket and tennis for the weekly magazine Sportsworld, I was privileged to visit Bangalore several times. I was in my early twenties at the time and could not believe that I actually got paid to travel to all the sporting meccas I had dreamt about as a child. The other thing I found really intriguing in my rookie years was that I sat in the same media centre (okay, so they were called press boxes back then!) with all the people whose bylines I had read so avidly in my school and university years.
At Lord’s on one occasion, I remarked to David Frith, then the editor of Wisden Cricket Monthly, that it seemed strange to be rubbing shoulders with John Woodcock and John Thicknesse, whose work I had admired for years. David reply was warm and succinct. “You’re here on your own merits. You’re here because you’ve earned the right to be here.’’
It was great advice for a wide-eyed kid learning the ropes. When I travelled, I travelled quick and I travelled light. On one trip to England in pre-laptop days, I invested in a terrific gadget, a Canon Typestar 5. It was, I guess, the precursor to laptops in that it had one line of built-in memory, so you could actually edit what you wrote before printing it on the thermal paper rolled into the slim, hi-tech machine. It also had a little rectangular screen where you could review what you had typed. You could run the Typestar off mains power, or on a battery pack – and this was critical for me. It meant that I could work while I travelled. And because the Typestar was such a novelty, I often got asked on flights and at airport lounges what sort of gizmo it was.
It was so slim and so compact that it fitted easily into the side pocket of the burgundy Samsonite shoulder bag that I took with me on every flight. Both bag and Typestar would have clocked up at least 100,000 miles of air travel – and I still have them both, for purely sentimental reasons.
But on one trip to Bangalore, I had to carry a Samsonite suitcase for someone else. Unaccustomed to travelling with check-in baggage, I had to keep reminding myself not to a) leave the suitcase at home, b) not to leave it in the cab on the way to the airport, c) not to forget to take it with me to the check-in counter and d) not to walk away and leave it, circling endlessly, on the baggage carousel at Bangalore airport.
I am proud to say I remembered the suitcase at every juncture. But I left the keys behind, 1500 kilometres away. Any other suitcase would have probably snapped open if I used the point of a compass or divider on the lock. But nope, not a Samsonite. I had no option but to take the locked suitcase on a borrowed scooter to a pavement locksmith. He asked me no questions, took out a piece of wire, sized up the supposedly impregnable Samsonite lock and took up the challenge.
In less than two seconds, the lock sprang open.
So if you were on Bangalore’s streets that day, wondering who on earth this idiot was, riding a Lambretta while balancing a full-size suitcase near my feet, I’ll ‘fess up.
If you’ll forgive the mangled grammar, it was me.
(David Mcmahon is a Melbourne-based journalist and internationally-published photographer. He served as managing editor (production) of `The Age’ in Melbourne, one of the world’s best broadsheets.
His first novel, `Vegemite Vindaloo’, was published in April 2006 by Penguin Books India and has been on the bestseller lists since July 2006. He was born and educated in India, where he finished high school at St Joseph’s College, North Point, Darjeeling and university at St Xavier’s College, Calcutta. He has lived in Australia for 19 years.)
