This sunset is different from yesterday's...

I’m sad. No, scratch that… I’m nostalgic.

Jaspal Bhatti passed away today. By now I hope he’s making fun of the contractor responsible for the gates of Heaven and/or taking offence at the idea that no one takes offence at divine hypocrisy.

The man was, by himself, an idealistic eccentric who simply couldn’t take things the way they were. But at least as far as I’m concerned, he was also someone emblematic of a better time; a simpler time. A time that had Flop Show, Keshav Kalsi and that tune from the DD evening news that's kinda burnt itself into our collective subconscious as a people. A time where all that really mattered was you getting the window seat on the school bus and being deceptively mean to the person you liked.

So maybe it’s just me, but it seems another chapter in a very good story has ended. 

Now this isn’t your average story. It doesn’t have any of the usual melodrama, the usual action sequences and sadly enough, the usual bedroom sequences. In fact, the only distinctive thing about it is that it’s “our” story.

Like any obscure writer, I look around a lot (It’s what we do, we obscure writers).

And I see a lot I was always intent on missing before…

There are no new wrinkles on my grandparents’ cheeks. And yet I know they’re getting older.

These people have given me my parents. And the most horrible baths a kid can ever hope not to have. They’ve given me 10 bucks a day for everyday I’ve spent at their place, so that I could bake under the sun while waiting to play video games.

Not to mention the most effective dressing down ever for throwing about 24 eggs on the nearest wall after a singularly inspiring Tom and Jerry tape.

I guess right now I’m left wishing that life were somehow less complicated. And that I could again play cricket with everyone in the backyard. You know, God bless his heart, my Grandfather always used to let me have 7 balls in every over I played. : )

There are just so many people who never get to know what they’re loved the way they are. What is worse is that there are just so many people who can’t tell they love the way they do.

My academic life had me in the same place for five and a half years. And suffice to say, I hated every brick of it. Every vocal professor, every nonfunctional water heater… everything.

And today, even after graduating, each visit to the damn place reminds me that these things that have taken a new hue. One I wasn’t particularly convinced existed.

Imagine yourself glad to see people you couldn’t stand to see before just because you saw them every day. Or basking in the sweet aroma of the autoclave room just so that you don’t forget it. Eating food Hell itself declared unsafe just so that you can bitch about it… All of it, someday, years later... over a fireplace that has gone out, and people who’ve only just come in.

Life is a series of random occurrences. But then… so are me and you.

And there is no friggin’ reset button. 

P.s. My grandfather only took 5 balls in every over he played. : )
P.p.s I've been using Jaspal Bhatti's "Hit and Trial Hospital" joke as mine for 10 years now. 9/10 would do it again.

When geeks attack...

Women like it romantic and the like. Apparently it causes their amygdales and limbic systems to cook their frontal cortices in pungent hormonal soup. Simple enough. However, it seems that throughout the course of history I've had to explain the propositions to women after I've made the propositions to said women. True stories:

Scenario 1
She has a four letter name. I convert that to ASCII (the capital), I convert those 8 digits to Binary, I convert that Binary to a 'how many ones and zeroes' number. I further convert that number to hex. This leaves me with 9B7623BBA8F5733E. And a very befuddled young woman who didn't talk to me for the rest of class. The lilac smelling page I wrote this on notwithstanding.

Scenario 2
She likes Shakespeare. Cleopatra to be specific. Or so I can derive from her facebook profile. So I send this to her:
"Age cannot wither her, nor custom stale;
Her infinite variety, other women cloy.
-Signed, Salad Days."

And while I understand this sounds like a glorified 'Wanna make frandship?' request, why do people lie about liking Shakespeare?
She hasn't replied yet. But I assume that's due to the vernacular of having called her an old woman.

Scenario 3
I walk up to a girl in the library. Simple enough. Sample the following conversation.

Me: I know you don't like me. But do you like me?
She: Huh?
Me: Stop being dumb. You understand what I mean.
She: How am I supposed to like you? As a friend, or...
Me: You're such a tubelight.
She: (desperately) Do you like Mahatma Gandhi? Here's a nice autobiography.
Me: I get the point (wench).

Scenario 4
I'm proud of this one. Doesn't reek of dysfunction. So I says to her, "You're a vision in red. Poetry has been written for much less." "Really?" "Yes."
Cue burly boyfriend with huge mobile phone. Burly boyfriend says hi. I wish someone would let loose rabid attack dogs. I'd point out that his phone is using ye olde Android 1.6, but I stop... there are women present, after all.

Sigh. Where are the sexy cryptologists and single language experts in LBD's? Life's not fair.