Saturday, May 30, 2009

yunhi chala chal

i just realized how my life in new york posts have upstaged my life in dubai posts. and i just realized technically its been 9 years since i first came to US as an undergrad. ok i haven't been here for all of those 9 years, minus two years, if i really had to be precise. 7 years, still a long time. somehow it still doesn't feel like home. it just feels like i'm waiting for my next move, which i honestly don't know where it will be. perhaps san francisco, perhaps sydney, perhaps frankfurt, perhaps mumbai.

despite all that, i think perhaps ill still find my way back to dubai. something in me tells me that. only i just don't want it to be right now, coz i feel that would be my last destination. and i would be completely relunctant to move. perhaps i feel like this here since i don't stay in a city for too long, moving for undergrad, grad, work. i might end up the longest in new york but it still doesn't feel like home home. speaking to some relatives who will be naturalized in a year or so, i asked would you surrender your indian passport? without a moment's hesitation they wer elike yes, and hadn't even given any thought to it before i brought it up. i guess i envy them in a way since they have decided for themselves what is home.

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Thursday, May 28, 2009

ooh i want you, i dont know if i need you, but id die to find out.

there is something
something about songs
of the 90s.
those that you've heard growing up
lyrics you never understood
but sang anyway
and till date remember.

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Wednesday, May 27, 2009

two years and still counting.

sometimes the reason
for working hard
is not because you love it
and can't wait to finish the work
but simply coz you can't
stand it.

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Tuesday, May 26, 2009

are you jimmy ray? who wants to know?

small shallow lies to
save yourself
ends up engulfing
you deeper and
deeper

you try to get out
of the hole
but you find the door shut
only you have the key

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Monday, May 25, 2009

yei rishta kya kehla tha hai


we drift slowly
away
only to meet
on the other
side.


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just another manic monday


feels like a sunday
smells like a sunday.
but, its a monday.
all hail long weekends
at least we skipped the
monday blues.

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Saturday, May 23, 2009

kaata rehai mera dil. tu hi meri manzil.


someone once told me
the judge of a restaurant
lies in its soup
i think its in its biryani.


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round the bend.



i see you from my window
you are unaware
you stoop down to
pat a puppy
and you
look up.
i look away.

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devil wears prada


clothing sales make me happy
competing with determined women
not so much.

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khaike paan banaras wala.


getting to know you
is interesting.
now what?

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Friday, May 22, 2009

umeed par duniya qayyam hai

the only thing
bearable
about studying.
is the exhiliration that one feels
after a test
well written.
fingers crossed.

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Thursday, May 21, 2009

the moment long gone.


i say
i think i know you.
you disagree.

you say
you know me
i don't know how to
agree.

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Wednesday, May 20, 2009

won't have to travel too far. cross the border and into the city.


i think of you.
everyday.
i try to remember.
but my memory fails me.
i find your letter.
preserved for me.
and i wonder
if you were here
would i be
so lost.


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Tuesday, May 19, 2009

inspector saab, kya aap waqi sanjeeda hai?

so in the middle of my studying, i take these short perfectly timed youtube 10 minute breaks. i am currently hooked on watching this classic pakistani serial called ankahi. its quite entertaining and i wanted to watch it since it has shahnaz shaikh in it. tanhaiyaan is one of my absolute favourites. She and marina khan totally rock.

so anyway, on one of those episodes, i don't understand some stuff (yea im quite unzaheen - wot to say) so i scroll down to see if people have left comments, explaining what has happened in that episode. and sure enough, there are pple who have and then there are some who leave random comments, like i love shahnaiz shaikh - (their phone number).

err...ok dude. im sure shes going to call you.

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Monday, May 18, 2009

sea of change?

Date: four days ago
Time: 2:00 am
Venue: 24 hour deli at the corner of my house
Reason: craving for starbucks icecream.

at the deli

radio playing in the background - speaker with a slight desi accent.
curiosity killed me (not the cat) and i ask the chinese cashier.

me: what station are you listening to
cc (chinese cashier): bbc
me: (hesitant) ok
cc: they are talking about indian elections. i think congress will win and rahul gandhi will be PM
me:(zapped that people other than indians care and know about india elections - smilingly): we'll see what happens.

i think everyone in politics has their own agenda. some driven by money, fame, power god knows what else.

on talking about the fate of nuclear energy. dead since lack of fuel, technology and investments

rahul gandhi : i am very proud to say that our prime minister Shri Manmohan Singh ji has recognized both the problem and a potential solution.

*applause*

rahul gandhi: But it would be unfair of me not to accept that Shri Vajpayee, also saw the problem and also in his time worked on the solution

*silence*

some random guy in the background: (taali tau maro)

rahul gandhi: iskiliyei tau mar dijie

people yelling in the background, maachi market style

there maybe good individuals who want to run for office but unless you are running as an independant, its hard to actually make a difference. political parties have their own agenda. like cc, i dont doubt that one day rahul gandhi will be pm of india.

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Sunday, May 17, 2009

paper, paper, paper.

so last week, i went to this "debate" hosted by a news channel. there is top security in entering and leaving the building. you get badged before and after you leave. The speakers were all affiliated with some hedge funds, universities (ie professors of finance at prestigious universities) and had some book deals going on ecetra ecetra ecetra. the moderator himself was one of the channe'ls top gun.

i really thought it was going to be like the vice presidential debate. i think it was american reality tv at its best. the topic of discussion the current crisis.

it was not. it was quite dry as you would expect as any mathematicians lecture to be. a personality hazard, if i may so myself. me included. the moderator was great and tried to move it along. letting each speaker his 5 mins, ok scratch that, 15 mins of speech. and literally two of them did that, not stopping for a breather. imagine talking 15 mins nonstop, with not a single pause.

i zoned out after 5. my friend sitting next to me fell asleep and the lady sitting next ot me started filing her nails (i think she was a journalist meant to be covering the event). the only excitement in the debate was when people started asking questions. the first question was are the banks now trustworthy? do we trust the banks? followed by more evasive answering. bottom line no, but we can't say. where will everyone put their money then. second question, this was met with pin drop silence. who are hedge fund investors? for a moment all speakers were zapped. the guy asking the question takes a moment to clarify, i dont mean names, in general. basic question: were hedge funds responsible for the crisis? basic answer: god knows.

all in all an interesting debate of unanswered questions. brings me back to what i have been saying all along. no one and i mean no one knows what the hell is going on. and if you wait long enough the efficient market hypothesis will hold. and markets will move back to where they should be.

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Tuesday, May 12, 2009

its a small crime, and i have got no excuse.

tonight while studying at the heavily medical students populated starbucks, an elderly man comes in looks around and yells:

"starbucks is an effing library" and then he leaves.

while, me and a med student on the neighboring table grin at each other.

it really is. just much better.

its a library where you can drink, eat, talk on the phone, download music, play board games and give dirty looks to people who sit around talking loudly to their group of friends while drinking coffee.

yes. we make the rules.

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Thursday, May 07, 2009

let me think. in my box.

people say that you can tell a lot about someone just by looking at their desks. i think this is true. my desk is messy, ok fine extremely messy, but its organized chaos, at least most of the time. i know where my things are. maybe not in those high stress situations, where i have to get one piece of paper that i can never find when i need it. only then. otherwise, i am ok with piling copies of the local newspaper - which i usually skim on the train, sometimes i dont even read it since its so crowded and i really dont want a lawsuit involving me and a paper cut in the eye. watever. so these papers usually are highlighting some embarassing scandal, and that is usually the part that is strewn on my table. so sue me.

anyway, i keep telling myself i will bring in pictures of my family. you know just in case i dont forget about them, excetra excetra. the only thing is - they wont let me, i get on average 5 calls a day from my family and friends. i enjoy the gossip, like any normal person would. but sometimes i enjoy it better, when i can say what i want, without having the whole floor hear it too. so back to what i was saying, i guess i dont always get why pple bring in pictures. i mean i understand bringing your kid's picture and strewing it all over your cube. ok wait no i dont get that. doesnt it make you miss your kid more and bring you to the edge of a nervous breakdown for leaving your kid. beats me. but moreso, i can never understand how pple put up the pictures of their boy/girl-friends. what if you break up? then everyone including the cleaning lady at work knows. and everyone and their mom wants to know the details. and i dont know if i want to put my parents picture up either, coz it will just make me miss home infinite times more.

ok moving on from photographs, i have a steel spoon (no idea how it got onto my table), couple of hand creams/sanitizers which i mostly forget to apply but suspiciously it seems to be getting used up. packetful of gum - politely offered to whomsoever my nose recommends me to. sometimes me included. then there are loads and loads of folders. i cant imagine i have accumulated so much paper in 2 years. just for fun, i want to try to build a little cube of folders in my cube. symbolic and all. i wonder if anyone will get it. they probably wont.

but speaking of desks, apparently when i landed my desk i was like crap im sitting next to boss, that sucks. proximity to boss is directly related to productivity and inversely related to surfing the web. but what i failed to see then was the silver lining, if you may, and which i now see clearly.drumroll...... i sit right next to a window! woohoo! a window, usally given to those high up on the ladder. the window gives me light, the priviledge to be the first one to say "hell its snowing", the possibility to make hand signals to people in the high-rises directly across, and of course my personal favourite allowing me to daydream.

yea ok, i need a window to daydream.

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Wednesday, May 06, 2009

kisie da kisie da yaar na pardes jaawe...saanu ek pal chain na aave, sajna tere bina

its raining, pouring really, outside and its 2 am and i have zilch food in the house only my botel of water and volumes of books to keep me company. and while i study i listen to this beautiful song by nusrat fateh ali khan who i believe was a good human being and i know this just listening to his voice. i first heard his "mustt mustt" today evening at a local starbucks of all places, that too when they were closing and luckily for me they had their tv screens playing the 'song you are listening to' so i didnt have to remember they lyrics. apparently its on sarah mclachlan's playlist too. cool, no? and seemingly all desis think alike coz at that moment another desi guy sitting in starbucks went up to ask the starbucks employees about the song. and i assume he downloaded it there and then on his phone and walked out in the rain listening to the perfect rain song.

i wonder when golu grows up what her favourite rain song will be?

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Tuesday, May 05, 2009

and we rise and fall to only rise again

"i find dubai revolting" - some character in todays episode of 90210.

ok yes - the show isnt something to quote, and i really watch it coz im the equivalent to those who get hooked on the saans bahu serials and despite their inane storylines cant let go. anyway a year ago, dubai was the "it" place and characters in popular shows were mentioning dubai in reference to the fact that it was THE popular destination last year and the fact that being global was in. but as everything tanks and correlations are at their all time high, global is now equivalent to local. and something tells me this new found love is just temporal.

jiska koi nahin hai, wuska pi hai. i still laove you my beloved, dubai.

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Sunday, May 03, 2009

“I had this guy leave me a voice mail at work, so I called him at home, and then he emailed me to my BlackBerry, and so I texted to his cell, and now you just have to go around checking all these different portals just to get rejected by seven different technologies. It’s exhausting.”- He's just not that into you.

i first learnt about this book two years ago, when i was visiting new york during my grad school years and me and my friends were sitting in the barnes and nobles starbucks. and a friend of mine was going through a breakup and actually reading the pocketbook outloud in the coffeeshop regardless of people staring at us. the movie unlike the book doesn't answer the questions and even after reading the book you are like ok this is a whole lot of fluff.. and after you're done reading the book you're like 'come on' that's not true and isn't everyone's story unique and supposedly ''magical" in its own quirky way.

so a friend, goes through this whole 'will he-wont he' phase, where the guy agrees to go for dinner and then in the follow up dinner cancels saying he's too tired and doesn't schedule another date.

right, doesn't sound too good.

i try to be diplomatic since my friend thinks he's really shy so i say maybe he'll call later give it a week. but another friend quotes from the above movie - and point blank says seriously he's just not that into you. but then i dont know if its because of actually feeling a connection in the first meeting (i honestly think theres no such thing) or because there's this insatiable need to know - the need to know why someone would turn you down- so i dont know if its eithe rof these two that my friend texts him again- and then he texts back - and now they continue texting short notes to each other - no one taking the first step - no one willing to jump head on and just ask outright - no one does that ever- coz no one wants a bruised ego - or coz no one wants to admit that they are just not THAT into you.

in one of the therapy sessions, that only good friends will do (ie yours truly) me and my friend were sitting next to this couple, who ironically were on their first date. ok and sure we were eavesdropping, i mean there has to be some advantage that space in new york is scarce. so the guy asks the girl after an awkward pause - so umm do you like brad pitt? - soooo lame, im sorry but it is. and then at the end of the meal, the restaurant that only accepts amex denies to take his visa card and sadly he's out of cash. needless to say the date doesn't goes well.

so this is the american dating ritual. so, changing tracks, even the desi ritual is not much better. you reject people after looking at their pictures. just their pictures. everyone is guilty of that. and its ok if both of you dont like each other. its end of story. but if one does, yes albeit shallowly, it gets complicated. so rather than directly saying anything, you ignore the person and hope they get the message. brutal, yes. but is there any other way that we can weasel our way out of it?

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