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RSS FeedFebruary 13th, 2008
Idle Talk
Omar is a funny guy. First thing he said when he met Umesh was that he isn’t against idol worship. Pete and I were just heading out to Smitten and a discussion on religion wasn’t exactly on our mind. Besides we knew it would be continuing by the time and if we got back around 3 am.
We ran into these guys at Hobknob. God bless Eric@Hobknob who still recognizes us the patrons before the cover era. Pete was shocked the discussion on theology had taken so little time. He still hadn’t gotten lucky at all – night was not turning out to his expectations.
Umesh is the silent killer at times. When he was gone, what the rest of us needed and had time to do was to discuss theology at McDonalds. Pete was especially optimistic that he may still be able to get lucky when engaging in an obviously deep and intellectually stimulating activity in full public view.
The two women sitting next to us were either sisters or cousins on a trip to downtown, both or at least one of them married, and at least one of them from out of town. Mediocrity is beauty to Pete’s eyes, and they were ravishing by that definition. Pete was at his best instantly.
“Look, even in Pagan religions, idol isn’t considered the God itself, it is simply a focal area to collect and channel your thoughts. Sure, the idol can be broken or desecrated or destroyed, all that does is take away that particular point of focus.”
My mind was still in Smitten, Omar was getting pretty excited, the two female focal points of Pete’s attention had slithered away and the McDonalds was getting pretty busy with Sunday 3 am crowd.
February 11th, 2008
Katrina
I had never visited Nashville before, so when Jake said that he had to drive to Nashville for a funeral, I could not resist. God bless his mother who pressed that he not drive alone. So, we drove from GW to Tennessee. I love saying “GW to Tennessee”. It feels like breaking a rule. I could easily have said “East coast to Trevecca Nazarene University”, and have just as much fun. Drown the listener in vagueness on one end and specificity on the other. Leave no chance for criticism.
An uneventful 12 hr travel later, we met Dr. Campbell, Jake’s uncle, an MD by profession who played sombre music on the home piano. Being the deceased person’s grandson’s friend, I had no real role to play in the visitation, except just give out my condolences to a few people. Then I slipped out and went downtown. It was a lovely September day, the person who had died was not an acquaintance of mine, and had lived a long, fruitful life, and just as importantly, I had never been to Nashville before. It was a lovely Saturday evening.
There is a certain air to Nashville downtown – it is full of clubs and bars, and also has a lot of “outdoors” feel to it. Now I just had to sit down and send the vibe.
***
Katrina’s point of view on the crisis in Serbia was quickly out. She is Macedonian, and much more knowledgeable on this topic, and much more opinionated. What her point of view was, I can’t remember, just as I can’t remember why my mention of The Grateful Dead had to show that I don’t give a damn about the world. Their lead guy had just died, or survived an OD or something like that. Anyhow, a discord isn’t the worst thing if it helps you make a new friend. The bar stools in the lounge had just become a bit more comfortable, and the city a bit more fragrant. The city had also become a bit cooler, but that was probably a routine occurrence for it every morning at 3:30 am whether or not a certain smell of Dolce Vita was enveloping its prey and whether or not the story of a certain city of Veles where every car was also a TV was being regaled to disarm an already surrendered soldier.
January 29th, 2008
Jake and Abraham
Jake just likes to sit with Mr. Lincoln. He thinks it is cute. I have a weird feeling he actually goes there to overhear high school kids. Every year thousands of high school kids visit DC to see Mr. Lincoln and Mr. Jefferson. They apparently have lots of fun. They sit on the steps of these monuments and have candy floss. Then they walk around, some of them sneak to the back sides of these monuments and smoke cigarettes. They are clearly the tourists. From Texas, Kentucky, Tennessee, Michigan, Montana, 45 other states, and a few from abroad. They are like the free spirits. Sure, they have secrets, but they can also discuss them as soon as they find a place that has less than 20 people. Jake sits in such places. He pretends to read. Then he listens. He listens and he scribbles. Wacko.
January 28th, 2008
Jake, the player
Any 6’2 good looking guy can be called that without having any idea about the guy’s personality. But Pete started calling Jake a player only after he had a rather candid conversation with Pooja. She is a sweet, sweet girl. If you ever see her walking around the campus, say hi for me. Give her a peck. She knows I like her.
So what did she tell Pete? Simply that she’s got the hots for Jake. I knew that before she knew that. To be precise, I knew that in 88, about 7 years before she (we) met Jake. It has got something to do with the fact that we went to same middle school and same high school and she knew a tall guy back then. So, she has got the hots for good looking tall guys. I never said she is utterly creative, did I? I said sweet. Sweet sweet girl. Give her a peck for me.
(Umm, yeah, we are related too, but don’t tell anyone.)
January 27th, 2008
Napping Before The Night Out
One thing that the self-confessed party animal Pete would swear by is the nap before the night out. In his so many words, “we must nap before the night out”. There was a slight problem with his nap theory. He would often wake up at 3 AM after starting his nap at 5 PM. Sometimes around at that time, if we were coming back and Jake saw him up and brushing his teeth, he would ask “Had a nice nap and ready for the kill, mate?”. If Pete saw us first, he would ask “Had a good time boys?”. I usually said nothing, since I still had that dreamy look in my eyes and the smell of perfume around me. I wanted to be around people at that time, and still not have to talk. Jake and Pete were perfect for that matter. They could talk and talk. Umesh was not good for that matter. He could talk and talk, but he also wanted responses. Its not that I would be totally silent or speaking just in monosyllables, but I usually did not want to discuss the night out.
October 5th, 2007
The day Whyn showed up at work
The first thing I noticed about Whyn was that he kinda took mental notes every time he met someone. You could see him adlibbing your name 3-4 times when you introduced yourself. My name isn’t all that easy, so the guy actually took notes, writing my name on the back side of *my* business card again. Writing does it to some people. He never forgot my name after that.
While he never confessed, I think he was (and is) some kind of sociopath. He would sit on his corner seat and listen to Vietnamese music all day long. The music was horrible to begin with, and would come out so loud from the head phones and fill the entire lab office with the unbearable screeching noise of some female cacophony. At least he didn’t stink, like Matt before him. And he would shower every day, or perhaps it was just the fact that he was not Matt.
In at 8, out at 5 – Live life like the motto. He would literally get up and leave even if he is in the middle of writing a Java keyword. Such discipline is to be commended.
That summer of 2000 as I ground out with other java developers in a start up, life had been fun, until Matt was hired. Then he was fired, and it was fun again. Then Whyn was hired. Then it was ok.
The terrible, excruciating existence of office life had begin to sink in. The pattern had been established and set in a stone. My developer years would oscillate between happy and sad not based on the projects or the salaries, but based on the hygiene and music choices of my coworkers.
September 3rd, 2007
The Bread wala bhai
When I was younger, like seven or eight, we used to be visited by the “The Bread wala bhai”. He would go house by house, with a large green box fitted on the pillion seat of his bicycle. He would stop gently near our house, and as he dismounted from the bike, he would make sure his leg go over the front handle bar of the bicycle. Mom would always buy a bread, sometimes smaller, sometimes larger bread. On some days she would buy eggs as well as some rusks, on other days, just the bread.
Me and my sister had a simple arrangement with him – we could buy a bun, and we wouldn’t have to pay anything. He would simply note it down, and get paid at the end of the month for everything we bought from him. It was a tacit understanding that we would only buy at most one bun a day. We could buy a 25 paisa bun, a 50 paisa bun, 1 Re bun (and later a 2 Re bun), but I can not remember, ever buying two. Mom would not pay for her purchases on a daily basis either. It was just too inconvenient with small change on a daily basis. End of the month was the way.
He would always come around dusk, when the children had, or were about to quit playing. We would be hungry, but still sweaty and tired, and not ready for supper. We would buy the bun and still run around eating it. I am sure he went through many houses and many streets, but the timing that he would hit at our house was very much the best. I think it also served him to be at the same place consistently as people would expect him. Though he had a very distinct air horn on his bike that he would press and play as he went around the street, still it might not have been well heard by us at times other than dusk.
He would pick up the goods at the local bakery, and deliver them from house to house at a small profit. We were never taught any compassion or pity towards him, nor were we taught that he is an overcharging monster. We never felt any pity or any negativity towards him. To us, he was just the bread wala bhai.
—–
For better or for worse, the bread guy had no name for us. He was significantly older than us – the name would do us no good. The choice of the address was between “bread wala bhai” and “bread wale uncle”. The latter would undoubtedly be reflective of a higher respect, and a higher social stature. However, he was stuck with the former for good. I don’t think we meant any disrespect, but we also did not think he was in the social equivalent league of our neighbors.
So many concepts that people study in business schools, I am sure the bread wala bhai had to just learn in life. Profitability, cash flow positiveness, those were all the concepts he was familiar with. He knew he would give out goods, not just to one family but to everyone for the entire month, and only then get paid. The last day of the month was likely, but not guaranteed to be the pay day for him. If we were going to be traveling, then he would get paid later. If it ever happened that mom did not have money that particular day, he would get paid next day. In all likelihood, he got paid around the last day, and likely never after the 5th of the following month.
And yet, he was more thankful for our business, than we were for the buns.
—————
Then, at some point of time, he stopped appearing. I am not sure how he fared. It is possible he moved up the chain and bought his own bakery, and didn’t have to go street by street on his bicycle. It is also possible he simply became ill and couldn’t do the rounds anymore. If indeed he did become ill, how would he get his money back, and what else could he really do?
As children, we did not think about these things, nor did we feel pity. Perhaps, this agreed with his entrepreneurial spirit – we were lovable little children, but customers first. Perhaps, our respect to him as a seller was all he needed to go on with his rounds.