Joy of the Shuffle

I'm finishing off some old posts that have perpetually been in the Draft section. Geez these things were meant to be published months ago

A little self-indulgence isn't that bad when the holidays haven't exactly been joyous and merry. So to cheer things up, I picked up an 1st Gen iPod Shuffle a couple of days ago. Not that I'm an Apple fanboy or anything but that it was the best option available for a shoestring budget. The Shuffle is pretty bare-bones and sparse on features.

The best part is that this little device is a psychic. It can really your mind. The device almost always starts with a Steely Dan or Bob Dylan number. After a serving of "Peg" and more of Dan's gems, it invariably plays a song from "Blonde on Blonde" or "Blood on the Tracks". A few songs later, Moby and Paul Simon vie for a play.

The songs maybe different but the order of the artists is always the same. Weird.

My guess is that the random play alogrithm is tweaked to be more favorable to songs with high play counts or better ratings. You see, iTunes dilligently counts the number of times you've listened to a song. It is also possible to rate songs based on your taste. A qucik scan of my playlist revealed that most Steely Dan songs had a play count of well over 50. Same for Dylan and Paul Simon.

I cannot help but marvel at the ingenuity of the engineers in Cupertino. The Shuffle is deficient on features - no LCD screen to list navigate, no FM tuner, averagish battery life - but it really knows my personal taste. I don't really miss the LCD screen, I trust the Shuffle to belt out my favourite tunes. Thats the beauty of Apple, they make products that lack features miost of us take for granted (video recording in a camera phone anyone?) but they get one big thing right. that makes the device so personal.

The hip sheep

Harmlessly passing your time in the grassland away;Only dimly aware of a certain unease in the air.

Or so sang Roger Waters roughly two decades ago.


The above picture is no dandy image I made with Paintbrush but a visualization in RealOne player. RealOne is a slow and ponderous media player but has one redeeming feature - the Sheep.She goes by the name of Annabelle.


She was a hippie once.



Then she got into discos in the Seventies.


She quickly discarded discos when the fires of punk raged high in the late Seventies.

Note the two sheep cavorting in the background. Let’s call them Nikki and Paris. They have a particular affinity for Steely Dan.




Annabelle has other friends too. My favourite one is is a bird, which I believe is the pikka bird.



You may find space oddities like UFOs and floating spectrum bars. Annabelle is blissfully unaware of them though.



Zen and the Sheep

I feel there is a deep and profound philosophical implication in this seemingly silly visualization. She dances to any music you throw at her – rock, hip-hop, metal, Bollywood numbers and she even gyrated to a depressing monologue by Samuel Beckett. Annabelle embraces everything – like the whore with lime panties in Catch 22 – alike without any discrimination. She is oblivious of the world around her and is content with boogying to music besides the fence. Music is an abstraction of the human mind and probably the most primordial human instinct is to dance to music – it is somehow wired into our brains. So, she tirelessly dances day and night in celebration of music. Santana may well spend the rest of his life trying to make the ultimate world music – the fusion of all music styles – but Annabelle has a revelation for all of us. The world music, if any, lies within us – it is up to us whether to listen to it or not. We need more Annabelles in today’s jaded world.

On a side note, boredom does amazing things to you.

EDIT : God bless Imageshack. May that generous enterprise grow stronger and host more images.

Rudie can't fail

As I had mentioned in an old post, the Delhi public - in general - is ultra rude. Having lived in this city for almost a month, I have more or less grown used to the boorish behavior.

Last Sunday, I decided to buy some hankies, as most of my old ones have a deep brown shade thesedays. Heres the (short) conservation I had with the a rudie :

Yours truly (YT): Boss, hankies milenge kya?

(Rudie looks dazed)

YT: Arre boss, handkerchiefs?

Rudie (R): Oh haan, saabji (then extolls the virtues of the hankies)

YT: Kitne ka hai?

R: Sirji, bees rupaiya.

At this point I decided to make a wisecrack.

YT: Arre boss, ek dozen nahin chahiye bas ek chahiye.

My chest swelled with (shortlived) glee - this was one of those rare occasions wherein I made a quick repartee.

R: Bhai, aajkal Times of India poora color main aata hai. Kaat ke pasina poch lena.

I had no answer to that.

Smartass: Or how I blew my big chance and learnt the importance of timing

As any rabid cricket fan would say, timing is very important. Especially of a wisecrack when dealing with a vain and bird-brained females. I learnt this in my usual way - the hard one.

We had this seminar by the library people to accquaint us with their wares/books/services. I was conned (by my scheming guide) into attending one of those lame sessions. So, I reach there on time and head straight to the last row ot get some sleep. As the minutes rolled by, the room was filled by enthusiastic trainees who looked happy as Ned Flanders in a Sunday sermon. Ennui creeped in and I began doodling. I made a couple of Pink Floyd album art and some cartoons.

And then all of a sudden a pretty girl came and sat next to me. She apparently was familiar with the song "No education" (as she said). I refrained from pointing out that the correct song name is "Another Brick in the Wall III" as it she didn't seem to give a damn anyways. I introduced myself and learned that she was a engineering student too from DCE.

The lights dimmed and the librarian started his presentation. He walked us through the e-library and journals with excrutiating details. Even the always-collate-multiple-printouts rule wasn't spared. Later he moved into googling for information. The lady next to me felt it necessary to make her presence felt now. She chirped "How about a session on advanced searching? Google shows a lot of results everytime I search." The librarian seemed to like her idea. I then cut in and happily announced "Whaaaaaat? Why don't you google for advanced google search tips?!!" Some got my (poor) joke and laughed a bit. that was enough to offend her. She glowered at me and looked away hurt.

We never talked again.

Walking in the rain and the (futile) quest for momos

I went to the famed India Gate yesterday. I didn't visit the oversized gazebo on the left though. It serves no known purpose. Luckily for me, it was Sunday and the buses were relatively empty. So, here I was - standing in front of this monolith, often read in Social Sciences textbooks. The surrounding looked like a Sunday picnic in some public park. Emaciated hawkers were peddling their wares (surprisingly all were hawking gadgets that radiated an alien blue glow), ice-cream wallahs lined up along the roads and of course the ubiquitous chanawallas.

Then it started raining. And when it rains it pours in Delhi.

Walking in the rain is fun if you have company, especially of dusky dames. I had none. Zero.Zot. Not by a long shot. Seeing the (wet) couples canoodling was no encouraging sight either. So, I paid my "homage to India's amar jawans" and left off as fast as my legs would carry me. A certain song by The Police came to my mind as I was getting drenched in the rain.

Later , I began hunting for the elusive momos. Don't ask me what momos are , I have no clue. A travel site described them as "dumplings of sheer joy". After fourty five minutes of loitering around the "institutional area" and numerous blank stares, I gave up. And I returned with a heavy heart.The quest for momos shall continue on another fine day.

The URL of this blog sucks (too)

http://mysmalluniverse.blogspot.com
Sounds like the name of a pre-pubescent girl's diary. I don't know why I come up with such stuff.

Why Delhi sucks {so much} - Part I

I am a true blue Mumbaiyaa … to the core. IM(H)O, it is the best place to stay in India – the great weather (ok, the rainy season is a bit of a problem), a pulsating nightlife ( I barely qualify here but going by Bombay Times you will agree with my point), excellent public transport , chic restaurants ( I strongly urge you good people to try out Malwani cuisine), a decent public, and above all the reliable power supply. I may wax eloquent over the last point, but you have to stay in Delhi to appreciate the 24X7 electric supply in Bombay. Sample his, the average Delhite (what a sucky name!) goes without electricity for three to four hours everyday. And that too in May. I shudder to think about the state of affairs in June. The temperature averages around 44° C.


The public transport here comprises of rundown buses, autos, taxis and the repulsive rickshaw- wallahs (those dudes still around?). My daily trips to the India Habitat Center starts with a rickshaw ride from Mandaoli to Shekharpur “Red Light Area” ( I can hear ya giggling under your breath. There ain’t no brothel. Apparently the “Red Light Area” gets its name from the traffic signal. See, Delhi logic at its best). Then , I board a bus to Lodhi Road ( a tony locality with horribly over-priced restaurants). A word about Delhi’s local buses. Picture an aging BEST bus. Ok, now drape the exterior with peeling green paint (with dirty graffiti thrown in for good measure). These buses have two conductors (on either of the doors) as ravaging Delhites don’t have the common civic sense to enter from the rear door and alight from the front one. Most of the buses are private and obviously the overriding interest is profiteering from the hapless passengers. There is no uniform rate-card (so common in Bombay’s buses and autos and taxis) so on one occasion I pay seven bucks (probably the right fare) and on the other I get charged ten rupees. Arguing with the uncouth conductors is an exemplary lesson in public humiliation. I had steeled myself to Hindi invectives during my stay in the IIT. In fact, many unprintable words had creeped into the common vocabulary there. But, in the public usage of them was a strict no-no. Delhi is a different animal though. Here you have to append bhenchod to every sentence to make your point across. Anyway back to the issue at hand – the bustling buses. Now, I’ve had my share of peak hour Mumbai traffic. But, I can assure you nothing can prepare you for Delhi’s buses. Tempers flare, sweaty (mostly of the co-passengers smeared onto you) clothes, lewd comments, wisecracks from the conductors, weirdos ogling at females and you precariously hanging onto the handle bars (praying fervently that the driver doesn’t brake hard again). And I have seen drivers drinking and driving. The fact autos don’t have any semblance of a meter so the fare depends on your bargaining power and your skin [the thicker the better].

The restaurants are a big disappointment (mebbe I need to go out of Lodhi Road and Mandaoli). The good ones have rates that don’t make sense and the seedy ones serve inedible food. The restaurants at India Habitat Center (Delhi O’ Delhi, the American Diner which also serves Indian food, Oriental Octopus (!) and Eatopia which is more of a dystopia ) are all ultra expensive. Take Eatopia for example, it serves two baturas and bland chole for eighty rupees. So, I undertake a long sojourn every noon to find a decent place to eat in. I miss SP and Food Court. Mandaoli is another issue. I fear eating there lest I come down with jaundice or other water/food communicable diseases.

I want to keep ranting more, as there is so much to rant about – the power outages, Saharan temperatures and more. But that's for another posting.

yet another year...

apparently, I and Urmila share the same birthdate. A bit of googling
threw up some interesting names:

1. Sam Chandan - An UoPenn prof whos shares my name as well as my b'date!
2. Alice Cooper - the rock star ( legend has it that he took this name
while playing the ouija board. It's the name of some medeival period
witch)
3. Rosa Parks - ( for the uninitiated, she's the mamma of the Civil
Rights movement)
4. Ludwig Bach - the composer
5. Natalie Imbruglia - the austrailian celeb ( she sings too!)
6. Charles Lindenbergh - the aviator
7. Yahya khan - the paki prez
8. Noodles - the guitarist of The Offspring.
9. Duncan Coutts- Bassist of "Our Lady Peace". I strongly urge you good
people to listen to this band - it's alt rock at its best. My picks -
"Superman's Dead," a song about being alone in a world without relying on
a hero, and "If I could be like that" a nice mellow song about angst and
repressed desperation.
10 . And our own ex- prez, the Late KR Narayan

So, this list gives me immense pleasure that I am in good company and
there's hope for me yet.

PS: I don't know why i made up this list