the vagabond

why is water cheaper than diamond, asked a friend.here is my reply.

 

1)Economist- the price of a good is inversly proportional to the availability.

2) Marketer- diamond is an aspirational good whereas water is an utilitarian good. consumer's willingness to pay is always higher for an aspirational good.

3) Psychologist- Maslowe's heirarchy of needs has 5 levels. i put water at 1st level. Diamond may be at 4th and possibly at 5th for practioners of paranatural sciences.

5) Philisopher- the more rigor is put during the formation, the more precious something becomes.

6) Sensualist-because water doesnt have cleavage.

7) PoliticalSociologist- it is the usper ordinate goal of a welfare state to provide water to the public at affordable prices.

8) Futurist- its not long before the situation reverses. with global warming and depleting fresh water resources (the prophecy made by coleridge in 'water water everywhere, not a drop to drink') 4th world war,if we last tht long, will b over water.

A terrified parrot,pursued bya hunter flew into a sage's abode. kind hearted as sages are, he decided to something to eradicate the fear amongst the whole parrot clan. he decided to teach them to be smart, to evade the traps laid by the hunter. in a few days time, the parrot learned the lines "hunter comes and spreads his net. we must be wary and shall not get caught in his net."

 

as marketing guys know, word of mouth effect (WOME) is a powerful tool, so soon all the parrots knew this punchline. The sage was very happy, for he thought, with a master stroke, he has become the messiah.

 

however, his happiness didnt last long. one fine morning while going to the river to take bath, he noticed dozens of parrots, caught in the net flung over the hunter's shoulder, chanting  like a 78 rpm long playing vinly record,"hunter comes and spreads his net. we must be wary and shall not get caught in his net."

 

I am the sage, the parrot and the hunter.

at the lunch table some two months back, the gang was boisterously indulged into a nearly free association conversation.

A particularly touchy lady remarked testily,"tch! what senseless things to talk about! rubbish!"

 

the vagabond cocked his head and with smile on his lips replied,"my dear lady, we are talking senseless stuffbecause we don't want to leave you out of conversation. we start talking sensibly, you will feel isolated.

 

that was the last time we lunched together

it was a particularly irksome day, having to attend classes from 8 AM TO 1.30 PM during september 2004 at IIML. walking back from Bodhigrih, the academimc block to the mess, akshay pant and i started to hum 'Yesterday' by the beatles. i heard a female voice from behind.

she: arey, You know english songs also?

Me( not in mood for replying): yeah, i kinda know one or two songs.

 

We continued humming, inadvertently skipping the lines 'i am not half the man i used to be, just a shadow hanging over me..'

 

She: you didn't sing the line 'i am not half the man i used to be, just a shadow hanging over me..'

 

Me (already too vexed, buttrying to keep calm): because there is nothing like it

 

she (with triumph on her face):oh, does that mean you are not even half the man?

 

Me: come baby, lets try it out some day, then you will know.

 

no wonder she ran away in fury. but for next 16 months, i was left in  peace

 

Leeches are annelids comprising the subclass Hirudinea. There are freshwater, terrestrial and marine leeches.All leech species are carnivorous. Some are predatory, feeding on a variety of invertebrates such as worms, snails, insect larvae, crustaceans, while a very few are haemophagic parasitic blood-sucking leeches.Haemophagic leeches attach to their hosts and remain there until they become full, at which point they fall off to digest.

There is not much that can be done to prevent leech bites in the outdoors. There is little evidence in favour of any leech-repellant. The most effective step is not to expose bare skin, preferably by wearing leech socks.Leech socks are calico oversocks worn outside the trousers which provide a degree of protection, since they prevent leech entry at ankle level.

 

if not exposing bare skin is effective solution, it didnt work for me. one leech found my wrist to b a good eatery, another found its way to my midriff and yet another was found at a place which is,ahem, least exposed.

 

leeches are uncanny at releasing local anesthetics and anti coagulants which mean they can feast on my body to there hearts' delight. no entry charge, no cover charge, no problem of stag entry.

 

if u go to bed while bleeding of leechbite, the white bedsheet gets mosaic with blood which may lead to wrong conclusions drawn in the morning.

 

 9 pm. me waiting for my friend to join me for Pirates of the carrabean.

 

Stranger: do they book advance tickets for the weekdays too?

Me: i dunno

(5 mins later)

 Stranger: WHen did u graduate frm IIM Lucknow (oh! i was wearing a sweatshirt with IIML written on it)

Me: march 2006

Stranger: my best freind graduated frm IIM ahmedabad in march 2006. he works with Covansys.

Me: thts nice.

Stranger: Are you married?

Me: not yet

Stranger: I am married. i am waiting for my wife to join me for the movie.

Me:OK

Stranger: I belong to calcutta.

Me:i have been there for 3-4 days

Stranger: My name is samarjit

Me: the name sounds punjabi

Samarjit: yeahit is. my father had some fascination for punjab. my younger brothers name is amarjit.

 

 

 

year 1689. 100 years to go before the french revolution wud happen. a cold autumn evening in central london.

it had been a tiring day for the Roller at the oft frequented weed den, rolling hundreds of joints. rolling itself was not much of a trouble, but the cleaning process was. separating the seeds, cutting to small pieces the opium paste soaked  weed pods- it sapped the energy out of the Roller and sprouted blisters on his hands.

 

He devised the Weed Grinder. easy to use, efficient. not only did it reduce the manual labor but also increased the production by enabling mass production. slowly the demand for Grinders grew, for which grinder production factories were set up.

 

As more workers moved in to the Grinder factory, ancillary units were set up. a conglomorate thus developed- huge industrial complex to achieve external econmies of scale.

 

raw material started to fall short, pushing the Throne to look for cheap sources of  raw material. imperialism got impetus and the Empire became one whr the sun never set.

 

in one of the colonies, the farmers were forced to grow weed, which led to shortage of food grains. a guy came along and rallied around these farmers. later he became very famous.

 

back at the Throne, Mercantilists and Recardians were fighting. mercantilists said,"export all the joints we produce and get gold." recardians said," lets produce grinders, let them produce Joints. thts comparative advantage."

 

at the mainland, resentment grew amongst the proletariat. one fashionable lady commented," if they dont have weed, why dont they take coke?" needless to say, she was gullotined.

 

 

bolivar

after a long sabbatical which threatened to be a permanent retirement, i am back again like a comet, for how long though, is unclear.the beauty of uncertainty i which i revel doesnt allow me to define the course this blog might take.

there are so many comets in the universe, some are gypsies-they keep coming back to our solar system at regular intervals, some are tramps-they appear at random and yet some other are Springs of the bygone years-they arrived only once, never to be seen again.

they are the true vagabonds of the cosmos, barely fettered to any moorings, collecting dust and heat and ice and cold from different stars and galaxies; the real been-there-done-that folks. without any false pretences, without the inflated pride of possessions, nor maudlin at the loss of all the baggage collected over multidues of years.

 

the vagabond

 

i agree with somerset maugham when he write," beauty is like a mountain peak.you reach there, and thts it." notwithstanding keats.

 

the beauty of writing a blog seems to have petered out after writing just three entries.right now, several thoughts whirl around, competing to be typed by the unforgiving keyboard. thoughts ranging from my recent trip to Sanchi to next six months at IIM Lucknow to Jawa Perak bikes.

By a deft manipulation of my both index fingers and middle fingers, at least three of these thoughts have found their way to the suprelemy unexpressive way of the post-modernist world of anonimity. She-Lucifer would be delighted to feel the potency.

 

Lamps do tend to ink the fog with a flame.

bruce dickinson was very near to the truth wen he sang "i have this contant phobia someone's always there."

 

examinations, yeah!! Outside world is baffled and so are we with the tidal consistency of arrival of exams. here i am, with two exams due today yet writing the blog. The course material is a mind boggling number of 1000 slides.

 

A friend comented that a blog shouldn't look like a diary page. I contend that it can never look like a diary page, unless the writer is a schumuck. i hardly know anybody who likes to bare all in public. Writing the truth and only truth being  fully aware of the unforgiving eyes who will feast on the truh requires a mighty detachment of spirit which few could muster. Only time the truth gets written is under the assumption that no one, not even the write will read it at any future date. If that is not the assumption, it becomes a poor case of either exhibitionism or Narcissism.

As a result, what gets written is a reader friendly adaptation of the truth which makes an entry as different from a diary page as chalk is from cheese.

 

Reminds me of Yudhisithir," Ashwathama is dead;who knows man or animal."

 

the wait was worth it. it sounds goofy, for this move 'Requiem for a Dream' had resided on my machine for a year now, along with 40 other movies waiting to b watched. a zillion tme we have decided to watch it. yesterday was The Day when fnally we put it on. its difficult to say wht gets on to nerves, whether its coke, or the music, but it hits like a crashing fist to the jaw.

 

yer blues are likely to get a deeper shade. its better then trainspotting, though i cant compare it with Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas for the simple reason tht i havent yet watched it.

' Kis Kis ki fiqar kijiye, kis kis ko roiye

 Aram badi cheeze hai, muhn dhak ker soiye'

 

Not often does it happen that i go to bed earlier than 2 AM. yesterday was one of such rare occassions. In doing so, it seems i discounted dear old Murphy.

  

First it was butalia, who KNOCKED to ask what happened to Requiem for a Dream which we were to watch. but as the movie needs some 'preparation' on the part of the watcher, and i was too groggy, we postponed it to some unspecified later date.

 

Next it was some unknown garden angel, who thought it prudent to knock and make himself scarce before i could open the door. Probalby in his altruistic senses, he came down to invte me for the party.

 

If i thought it was all, i thought too soon. Presently i heard the phone ringing. I find it a crime against humanity not to answer the fone. When i finished talking, it said 'last call 34:17 minutes'. the time was 02.15 A.M. But i don't complain-talking to Sarna is very well worth it.

 

Wen it rains, it pours.