lalbagh lacunae

after a saturday shopping spree to satisfy some of our budding neo-digital phallic urges, and satiated on rice, sambhar, RAM, external hard disks and the like, we stopped off at hyder ali's magnificent botanical adventure - lalbagh.



browne had the usual observations to make. about commonfolk making out on the rocks. in a near perfect bangalore sunset we settled down with butta into a 'curious lacunae of astounding ignorance.' little did we know a short while later my clutch cable would die on me, bang in the middle on the third tier of the diary circle flyover.

taupe, beige or crème?

when god made the rainbow, taupe, beige or crème weren't on the list. neither was white. but hey mr. painter was painting a wall as big as the sky and as far as he was concerned, wall colour comes in one size : blanc!

yellow hats inc.

"tweedledum and tweedledee
agreed to have a battle
for tweedledum said tweedledee
had spoiled his nice new rattle

just then flew down a monstrous crow
as black as a tar barrel
which frightened both the heroes so
they quite forgot their quarrel"

muh ladeez. giving away goodies to anyone who might remember where dum and dee are from.

oye shinde! happy budday!

and the galleries joined in a bawdy chorus.
oye shinde,
happy budday!

tower doves

tower power
shower cover

okiyo. i was a little off balance. both physically et mentally when i pressed the shutter on this one. ta dum lilies.

mumbai majhi ladki

above all mumbai is pavement town. if you're born on a pavement, grow up drinking desi daroo on the pavement, lose your leg in an accident a little off the pavement, sell drugs and sex on the pavement, get arrested on the pavement, return to the pavement, sell magazines this time around on the pavement, before you discover drugs and sex sell more on the pavement, marry on the pavement, make love on the pavement, build a home on the pavement, build a temple on the pavement, chew and spit paan on the pavement and then die on the pavement from too much paan chewing, then you can be sure you're a true blue mumbaikar. and i met such royalty. he said 'call me babu. yahan har tarah ke naazare dekne ko milte hain. kuch acche. kuch burre.'

For more random rantings and pics... click here.

hemlocked

"just drink it and walk around until your legs begin to feel heavy, then lie down. it will soon act." with that he offered socrates the cup.

today had to be the toughest day in my life.

jhatre janums

a near perfect night found us at bhoomi jhatre again. it's been a year and it refuses to sink in. there were familiar faces. some new kids and annoying ones at that. same old tree. similar commie ideals. gawd! i can't run away from it. life has pulled off one major u-turn on me. in one year flat. i'm not sure all of this qualifies as pleasant.
click here for more pics from the jhatre.

high is the court

liar rhymes with lawyer.
the serendipity of youth.

kitsch king

the first time i saw the word kitsch in the back pages of india today and alongside a woman in the briefest black number, i was struck by an odd moment of clarity. i knew there was a future to the word the very first time it plosived out of my mouth. kitsch.



today, call of duty found me stumbling into an old bangalore house somewhere in old bangalore. big airy windows. godrej steel cupboards. and the heady smell of old paper. 'vajreshwari combines' deal in kannada film stuff. somewhere midway to me exhausting my kannada, a plump cherubic woman plonked on a standard govt. issue metal and plywood table, an entire bundle of film posters of h.h.dr.annavaru raj kumar. with this gentleman, honorifics can never be too many.



so i now have my first genuine kitsch collection. only an amateur would dispose of these immediately as barter for a night's drinking. the true kitsch professional as most other collectors will hoard. until the moths dig in. and then sell it for 'liberia's deficit'. so they'll stay. because frankly i'm sick of playing amateur.

night comes, world jewelled...

"night comes, world jewelled,... the stars rush forth in myriads to wage war with the lines of darkness; and the moon, pale ghost of night, comes haunting the cold earth after the sun's red sea-death -- quietless."
Philip James Bailey

stalk the stalker

in all honesty the idea has been mooted, fondled, thrown up in the air, bounced off the wall and chewed on. and everybody seems to agree, it just cant go wrong. browne is bonafide nuts and as such excellent material for trp records and new york times bestseller lists. there's a crying need for a dedicated mobile tv studio. and a pulitzer winner author to document his life. no detail should be spared in the service of history and evolutionary study in general. there is money to be made at the robin browne show. so while everybody else takes their time jumping on to this golden goose, i've decided to stalk the stalker.
today between mouthfuls of corn (with masala as opposed to pepper, which is how he likes his corn), browne announced, "i hate dings."
amen.

matchless as far as motorbikes go...

lounging at browne's is always an exercise in serendipity. browne jr. dusted off a week's laundry to reveal this absolute masterpiece. the 1951 Matchless 350cc. jr. promises to get the bike up and chugging. we'll hang on, in hope that someday we're going to be able to palm off a ride.
sniff. sniff. something's burning.

helmet pehno

and then one day pearly j brought in a somewhat restored otherwise defunct army helmet and everybody wanted to be private ryan.

mistea magic

browne with visuals squeezing in and out of a widescreen theater somewhere deep in his head, led the charge up chembara. fortunately there were no spills, no major fires or any accidental groping of electric fences. what was a remarkably incident free trek had its moments. we didnt carry enough water. but browne made sure we had a fairy tale book on the peak. King Of The Mountain it was called.