Ramblings of a delusional dumbass

  ಜಾಗವೇ ಒಂದು ನಟರಂಗ, ನಾವೆಲ್ಲ ಅದರಲ್ಲಿ ನಟರು, ಅಂತ ಶೇಕ್ಸ್ಪೀಯರ್ ಯಾವಾಗ್ಲೋ ಹೇಳಿದ್ದ. ಹೇಳಿ ಸತ್ತೋದ, 400+ ವರ್ಷಗಳ ಕೆಳಗೆ, ತಲೆಗೆ ಈ ಹುಳ ಬಿಟ್ಟು.  ಇಷ್ಟ ಇದಿಯೊ ಇಲ್ವೋ, ಬೇಡವಾದ ಮುಖವಾಡ ಧರಿಸಿ ನಟಿಸಬೇಕು. ಬೇಕಾಗೋ ಹಾಗೆ ಜೀವನ ಕಟ್ಟಿಕೊಳ್ಳೋಕ್ಕೆ; ಅಥವಾ ಬೇರೆಯವರ ಬೇಕು-ಬೇಡಗಳ ತಾಳೆಯ- ತಾಳಕ್ಕೆ ತಕ್ಕಂತೆ ಬದುಕಕ್ಕೆ. ಅಂತಹ ಬಂಡ ಬದುಕು ಕಟ್ಟಿಕೊಳ್ಳೋ ತವಕದಲ್ಲಿ ಮನಸ್ಸಿಗೆ ಒಲ್ಲದ ಪಾತ್ರ ಧರಿಸಬೇಕು. ಪಾತ್ರಕ್ಕೆ ತಕ್ಕಂತೆ ನಟಿಸಬೇಕು. ನಟನೆಗೆ ತಕ್ಕಂತ ಇನಾಮು ಅಪೇಕ್ಷಿಸ್ಬೇಕು. ಸಿಗದಿದ್ದಲ್ಲಿ ಶಲಿಮಾರ್ ಬಾರ್ ಗೆ ಹೋಗಿ, ಕ್ವಾರ್ಟರ್ ವಿಸ್ಕೀ ಹೀರುತ್ತಾ, ಅದರ ಮತ್ತಲ್ಲಿ ತೇಲುತ್ತಾ ನಮ್ಮ ಜೀವನದ ವ್ಯಥೆ-ಕಥೆಯ ಶಪಿಸುತ್ತ "ಡಿಂಗ್" ಆಗಬೇಕು. "Yes, certainly."  "Am I audible?" "You definitely should!" "OMG, that's what I was thinking!!!" ಇವೆಲ್ಲದರ ಹಿಂದೆ, "ನನಿಗ್ ಯಾಕ್ ಇವೆಲ್ಲ?" ಅನ್ನೋ ಪ್ರಶ್ನೆಯ ಗುಂಜು.  ಕೆಲಸ. ಸಂಸಾರ. ಸಮಾಜ. ವಿಶ್ವ ಯುದ್ಧ V3.0. ಟ್ರಂಪ್. ಕುಸಿಯುತ್ತಿರುವ ಸ್ಟಾಕ್ ಮಾರ್ಕೆಟ್. ಏರುತ್ತಿರುವ ಚಿನ್ನದ ಬೆಲೆ. ಮಟನ್ ಈಗ ರೂ.800+ ದಾಟಿದೆ. ದುಬಾರಿ ಜೀವನ.  ಜಗತ್ತು ಮುಳುಗ್ತಾದೆ. ಈ ಬೋಳಿ ಮಕ್ಕಳಿಗೆ ROAS ಚಿಂತೆ. ಎಲ್ಲ ಕೆಲ್ಸ AI ಮಾಡುತ್ತಂತೆ.  ಒಲ್ಲದ ಹುಡುಗಿಗೆ ಪ್ರೇಮ ಪಾತ್ರಗಳನ್ನು ಬರೆಯು...

  I’ve always said (mostly to myself) that there are three key steps to leading a peaceful life: 1.        Define your relationships clearly 2.        Have rock bottom expectations so that your chances of being disappointed are slim (but not lost) 3.        Make Fuck-You money Let’s touch base in reverse order for posterity’s sake. Fuck-You money is a myth. You can make enough money to fuck around with on a month-on-month basis. It is as easy as selling your soul to corporate. Which isn’t nearly as bad as selling your soul to the Devil, but just as effective; sometimes even better depending on the market. But you might not be able to make enough to show the proverbial and actual middle finger to the society and fuck off into the void. Not at your job, which makes you feel like a prince(ss) in the first week and a pauper in the last. Making a lot of -like fuck-you grade- money is...

  The act of smoking (or smoking up) is a sacred ritual. Dating back to ye ‘ol times of yore, it involved an old man, probably senile, and definitely hairy on the wrong side of the head, transforming crushed dried leaves and herbs into a portable-apparition device by the simple act of lighting it up and inhaling the white fumes. Puff-puff-pass was probably a thing back then too, definitely. Air, fire and earth – the holy trinity of existential liberation in just the right proportion seems to free your mind and soul [1] . When in actuality, it chokes your lungs and wreaks havoc on… well, pretty much every other part of your body. But goddamn does it feel so good to breathe in that toxic smoke. Maybe that’s why the first drag of the dirty nicotine stick every morning feels so special. That DNA-altering carcinogenic smoke tickles something so primordial, it wakes up the dormant gene that once resided in the (organic) tar-filled lungs of your great 250 -grandfather [2] . Like a nea...

    It’s a 11 pm on 11/11. I am supposed to be writing something important. To try and convince a client why the use of AI is okay for the brand. Instead, I’m penning my second blog post for the day. Probably my shadow self (Jung dodappa FTW) making up for all the othla times I’ve manifested this year. Anyway, back to the point. Or straying away from it further. Wheeee…   Peter Pan Syndrome.   According to ChatGPT, Dr. Dan Kiley, who popularized the term in his 1983 book The Peter Pan Syndrome: Men Who Have Never Grown Up, defined it as a condition where adults exhibit emotional immaturity and avoid typical adult roles such as career, financial management, and stable relationships.   Well, nigga, does it feel good to hop jobs every 18 months with a matcha (or whatever fruity fucking drink is in vogue that season) in hand ignoring the double text from your situationship?   I honestly threw up a little writing that sentence. It was proba...

  “There’s a point at 7,000 rpm, where everything fades. The machine becomes weightless. Just disappears. All that’s left is a body, moving through space and time.” - Ford v. Ferrari (2019) Lowda. At 7k rmp, in second gear on a 250cc mill, doing some 70 kmph, when the rev-limiter is crying its tits off, you’re effectively doing an Italian tune-up-pro-max on the go like a bloody moron. And when the brake pads are 70% shot, “like a bloody fuckin moron”. Definitely not safe. Especially on one of the “few” goddamn, pothole-free roads in the bloody city of Bangalore (thanks daddy Kempe Gowda).   There comes a point in every man’s life when he chooses between protecting his sanity or letting it all go and embracing the chaos of life. When he stops making sense of what’s happening around him and instead contribute to the entropy. Anarchist’s cookbook ftw! Maybe this is how mid-life crisis looks like. Or meant to look like. A desire to break free from the shackles of… wel...

  Set against the backdrop of a caste-ridden society, Bharatipura delves into the idealism of Jagannatha, a man whose philosophy is as well-intentioned as it is misguided. Having recently returned from England, he attempts to apply Western models of social justice to his village's deeply entrenched caste system. He is aware of the struggles of communities like the Black population in the West and wants to initiate similar change for the Holeyaru, the community of manual scavengers. Jagannatha's efforts are futile because he fails to grasp how social movements gain momentum. While he aims to lead a strong agitation, he discovers he is a lone crusader. The novel expertly highlights how the injustice of the caste system has been internalized by both the upper castes and the Dalits, with neither group showing a true willingness to change. His well-intentioned initiatives fail because the very people he seeks to uplift are not prepared to embrace his cause. This resistance is rooted...

If you are in any managerial position (thanks to promotions) and this is the first time you’re hearing of the Peter Principle, then you are already a lost cause.  Close this tab and go back to scrolling Instagram reels. Bye-bye. According to Wikipedia (remember that old relic, before ChatGPT became the de facto encyclopedia? Remember encyclopedia? Never mind). According to Wikipedia, the Peter Principle “observes that people in a hierarchy tend to rise to 'a level of respective incompetence’”, which means your promotions are based on how good you are at your current role. You continue to rise the rungs of corporate till you reach a position where you, and you will, suck at your job. At some point in your career, you will end up rotting away at a level you are least competent at; some place where you barely scrape by, unsure of where you’re faltering because the barometer for quality is hidden behind a thick veil of your own incompetence. Hence, the burnout.  And the desperate ...

A favourite childhood memory of mine is me coming home from school to a mound of steaming rice topped with a ladle of thick pappu (boiled mashed green gram) and a generous helping of homemade ghee surrounded by a moat of tangy chinta charu (tamarind rasam).  It was my first tryst with nostalgia. The first bite would transport me back to simpler times when the school days and my trousers were both half in measure. I’ve always maintained that my ammi, my late grandmother, invented the dish. One of the most unfortunate outcomes of her passing was the loss of the recipe. You might think I’m being inconsiderate, but the dish is to die for. And my mother’s version just doesn’t taste like what ammi used to make. I’d been on the hunt for this elusive dish for years. I’ve scrounged around the annals of the internet long enough to know that it isn’t familiar, let alone popular. So, I took it upon myself to recreate the dish, from memory.  It took me years to perfect it. The pappu was ea...

The journey to brighten the lives of girl students began in 2014, but that would be too far back, so let's just start from last weekend.  7 of us left from Majestic on Sunday evening and after a shaky ride, arrive at Athani in the morning. The good folks from Aviratha who travelled with us landed in an IB and we set up shop at a friend-of-a-friend’s place. Mr. Udaya Kumar Gunda was a great host and his family welcomed us warmly into their house and their dining tables. After quickly washing off the soreness of travel and a fantastic breakfast at their house, we headed towards JA College auditorium, where we were to felicitate the beneficiaries of the proceedings from Keli Katheya - the Kannada audio book. The 16 girl students who has scored 125/125 in Kannada at their SSLC exams were yet to arrive and we got to work setting up the auditorium.  The college staff were very accommodating and went out of their way to ensure that our event was successful. From helping us change the...

If you feel an odd sense of deja vu while reading this piece, then you've spent too much time switching between Facebook and Clubhouse. Unless you've been living underground or in a home with ACT broadband, you know what Clubhouse is - it is where many people can have their Mann ki Baat at once. And Facebook has turned into a platform to critique, analyse and make fun of discussions that happen on Clubouse. Congrats Clubhouse, you just replaced the Indian Government, at least as far as Facebook discourses go. Clubhouse is more or less an impulsive, live podcast session - an open space where everyone is made to feel like Joe Rogan. But no one talks about DMT or shaved gorillas or MMA or shaved gorillas doing MMA while on DMT. But it always does sound like everyone is on something stronger than the devil's lettuce. Maybe you need that to hear your own thoughts over the din of uncomprehensive ramblings and mouth-breathing noises. Speaking of noises, Saudi Arabia restricted the...

OTT has redefined the way we enjoy 3-star movies. Movies that aren't worth the hassle of a big-screen viewing, yet not so bad that you miss it entirely.  Bonus points if it has some terrific performances. It's as exciting as riding a small displacement motorcycle fast on ORR. Hella fun. They are the kind of movies that find permanent housing on your watchlist but are always given a pass in favour of something more exciting. Something more fun.  And when you do want to watch it, it's like bathing in cold water - you just have to brush aside good judgment and jump in headfirst. You enter a world where the action isn't exciting enough, the drama isn't convincing enough and the comedy evokes a toothy smile at most. Movies that are worth your time, if time isn't worth that much really. It's sad to see such movies getting pulled into dark alleys of intellectualism and beaten up by the critic mafia with batons of tasteful art.  The barometer to judge these movies i...

The greatest trick sweet makes pulled off was convincing the entire world that making Mysore Pak was tough. It isn't. Sure, it's quite labour intensive, but a little exercise never killed anybody. Consider it the calories you burn off before piling it all up with the sweet concoction you are about to make. The problem with making Mysore Pak is not how much elbow grease you put into it, it is how precise you are with the timing. Keeping a watch on milk from boiling over is child's play compared to this. You let that golden yellow bubbly sweet mess on the stove for 1/16th of a second longer, and you end up with a piece of metamorphic rock. While eating Mysore Pak is an otherworldly experience in itself, making it is quite magical in its own way. Because you can use a small amount of ingredients and still end up with a fuck ton of it. I learnt that trick accidentally. So don't use a big cup for the measurements, and use the same cup for all measurements. Measure t...

Travel has never been my forte. Especially on a motorcycle. I’d been on sub-100 km rides on my little 110cc steed back when I was young and stupid. Almost every one of them to my grandmother’s place 40 km away from home. The machine was underpowered, the seat was uncomfortable, and my hands and feet would ring like a tuning fork at the end of every ride. Not a very pleasant experience. Neither have birthdays been big. A few unsavoury experiences that coincided with my birthday have made me believe that my birthday is jinxed, leaving me with a bad aftertaste at the mere thought of it. I’ve always taken both travel and birthdays with a grain of salt – unless prodded and pleaded by my friends, I try not to engage in either. So, this year, I decided to ride to Hampi for my birthday. The Journey Hampi has always been on my mind for quite a while now. Memories of the boulders and ruins kept coming back to me like flashes from a past life. I’d been to Hampi on a family trip long ago –...

Peanuts. The poor man’s badam and the bored man’s entertainment. This quick and easy to make snack is the perfect antidote for your mid-morning munchies. You know, when it’s too late for a second breakfast and too early to cook a real meal. Get some Haldiram’s salted peanuts. Or masala peanuts. Or grab a handful of peanuts, roast them on a pan over medium heat. If you go the roast-my-own-peanuts way, make sure to remove the skin. Finely chop one small cucumber, one small onion, one small tomato. Be careful not to chop off one small finger. That would be painful and unnecessarily messy. Add a few drops of lemon juice. Add a two-finger pinch of chat masala. About a pinch of black salt/ table salt. Add the peanuts and mix them all nicely – but gently. If you’re feeling fancy, add some chopped coriander as well. Goes well with a stiff drink. Or so I’m told. Enjoy.

Would you call a pualo a pulao if there’s no vegetables in it? I would. Not. This isn’t exactly a pulao. This is like a weird kushka, masala bath type rice dish. The name doesn’t matter. It’s just really tasty and you should try it. Bathe a cup of rice in cool and clear spring water flowing in the direction of the wind. If you don’t have a stream handy, regular tap water will do. Soak this rice in clean water. Then you go gather some stuff lying around in your kitchen. A cardamom pod, some cloves, an inch of cinnamon stick, jeera, fennel seeds, pepper, bay leaf. Yeah that should do. It’s okay if you can’t find all of these, but you should have at least some of these things. One medium size onions, handful of mint and corriander leaves, 2-3 green chillies, garlic-ginger paste. Chop them and grind them to a fine paste. You’re going to grind them anyway so don’t worry about them being finely chopped. Just run your knife through it roughly and that should be good enough. As lo...

I’ve read several reviews of the latest (?) Darshan starrer Yajamana, but none of them got the point of the movie. I think this is the first movie to have suffered such an ill fate solely based on the collective inability of the reviewers to grasp the crux of the film. It is an intelligent movie. Probably the most intelligent one since A, or Upendra. I guess people just brushed this movie off as a shallow, no brains mass entertainer based on the cast and crew.   It’s as if a small group of people managed to change the perception of a movie among the larger masses with their power of social influence.   It’s like watching a Nolan movie in real time. Yes, on a surface level, the movie ticks all the tropes in an average Darshan movie. Where Darshan rides a Bullet, low angle shots of him make him look like a bull (in a good way, don’t lynch me), there are two heroines- a mod one and a gowramma one. There’s a “special song” with the modern female lead. And the act...

Some people call this tomato bath. The same people also call tomato chitranna as tomato bath. Well, which is it? Make up yer goddamn mind! But what are names anyway? Just meaningless sounds associated with meaningful gizantropitals. See, that’s a name I just made up. It means nothing.   But I digress.   Wash and soak a cup of rice in water for about 20 minutes. You can go all fancy and soak basmati rice. Or you can soak whatever is lying around the house as long as it is rice. In a pressure cooker, dribble a table spoon of oil and same quantity of ghee. Fry some whole spices till they are fragrant.  Cardamon pods, cinnamon sticks, peppercorn, fennel, whatever. Add 3-4 split green chilles, two thinly sliced onions, a couple of pods of chopped garlic and a table spoon of ginger garlic paste. This is also a good time to add a handful of mint leaves and coriander. Fry till the onions are translucent/ golden brown/ until you are happy. Then add 3-4 ch...

A post Matrix, post Children of Men, and pre John Wick movie that combines the best of all three worlds to give you a heady concoction style, glamour, action, and boobies. Roger Ebert gave this movie 3.5/ 4. “There once was a woman who was quite begat.   She had three babies named Nat, Pat, and Tat.   She said it was fun in the breeding,  but found it was hell in the feeding   when she saw there was no tit for Tat.”   Shoot ‘Em Up is not for the purists- either of cinema or of action. It’s pure madness on celluloid in its truest form. It doesn’t have the emotional anchor of John Wick. It tries to, it really does, but it fails short because we just don’t really give a fuck about the protagonist. Not even when we learn why he turned into a brooding, man of serious demeanour (?)- supposedly supposed to make us care for his sad past. Then there’s the style of the Matrix. It’s been done to death, especially in the time when...

Today, I sat down to write, with a cup full of coffee by my side Irish But the words wouldn't flow So I began wondering how wonderful it would be, If one could buy words for a pirce like the cheap liquor I buy at the cheap bar where the bartender tenders my poison in a glass bottle wrapped in a dark cover in exchange for some rupees without an extra word uttered between us. I return to my damp, dreary room crack open the bottle, pour out three fingers of dark liquid into my favorite coffee cup and top it off with freshly brewed coffee. On the table, it's set, next to last night's incomplete work. Knuckles cracked, nib licked. And as I ponder, the words begin to fill up the pages, as effortlessly as the warm liquid filling up my belly. So I write some more I drink some more merrily, until the words begin to choke again

Idi Katha Kaadu begins quite unassumingly with Suhasini (Jayasudha), a recently divorced single mother embarking on a train journey from Bombay to Madras with her baby son. Seated next to her is a “normal” family who have no qualms pulling each other’s leg, where the daughter is in love with a guy, and the parents know of it and have asked them to get married once their education is done but the girl is unable to clear her exams because she’s always too excited about getting married. In sharp contrast to them, is Suhasini. A Suhasini who isn’t interested in talking to the motormouthed lady sitting next to her. A Suhasini who doesn’t even bother react when the train she’s travelling in comes to a sudden halt- even when she learns that it was the suicide of a young girl under the train tracks. And when they say it was a suspected case of love failure, she only throws a courtesy smile, void of any real emotions. What we are introduced to is a woman who has developed a general apathy t...