The Journey - 2: The Train, The TT & The Chutney

The Journey - Part 1 : Here

Clairvoyance...
Now whats so special about this station? The Idli-Wada here, more specifically the chutney is in the creme-de-la-creme range (Chutney-de-la-Chutney anyone???). You wont find a hotter/spicier chutney(good not good is a perception) in the big wide world . I had to act.

As it was not my usual train today, the idli shops were still open when the train reached here. And I was hungry too (Mr.Pinocchio, you had just gobbled down a plate full of Biryani 10 min back!You were not hungry!)Usually I am not good at prioritizing things, but with this heightened sense, your clarity of thought increases tenfold. The lost-ticket issue quickly got stored as meta-data in the brain,to be retrieved at a later time; all the brain cells focused on the job - the get-idly-chutney mission. The body then quickly responded, got down the train, got a pack of idli-wada and got back in the train with a sense of accomplishment . Done. More to exhibit some normal human behavior than any worry over the lost ticket, I reluctantly kept the pack aside and searched the bag for the ticket. Two whole minutes of searching proved futile. I opened the idli-wada pack and started savoring the yummy idli- chutney (Eat eat, you Bakasura!) . Mmmm...The taste hasn't changed even after 7-8 years. Few things just don't change :) .

So I waited and waited for the D-time (like D-day, you know)...... The guy never appeared. To keep my mind occupied, I went about the most logical thing to do - think about how to convert this into my next blog post, without actually knowing the ending. Its actually like yourself being in a suspense thriller! 9..10..10.30...10.45...10.50.... Then suddenly,as if to mock all my sense of caution and foreboding , simply out of thin air, appeared the TT -"Aapka ticket dikhaiye"... I gingerly produced my PAN Card "Sir, mera e-ticket ka print out kho gaya".... Without even speaking a word, he turned to the next guy and asked for his ticket and the person next, leaving me wondering .

Finally he came back to me."Sir, mere paas ID proof hain..." I showed my PAN card trying to twist my face to make it look like the one in the PAN card. He examined the PAN card for a few sceptical minutes, checked the list and repeated the same steps all over again .Then he promptly asked me to cough up Rs.50.Sigh!!!. He even gave me a receipt for the same. So it was once again Triumph of the Absent-minded. And, if I must add, the suspense thriller had turned out to be an anti-climax in the worst sense...

And then it struck me (Remember, all suspense thrillers have a flash back of shocking revelation at the end). The cyber cafe! I had taken a print-out of the ticket at the cyber cafe and kept them in the my back-pack.Then to make sure of the train time, I took the ticket out only to find out the time is not mentioned there. So I put down the print-out on the table (camera zooms on my hand..slow motion starts), check the timings in the website and walk out leaving the ticket BEHIND!!! Ahhh...(cut to the present) I am staring right into the face of the TT who has transformed into a hideous looking zombie with a scimitar in his hand....(Axe is passe) and I look around... the compartment is full of zombies... I scream ...and then....SLAAASSH....

(Don't bother guys, just another flash of my 'imaginary brilliance'....I mean...Ok just forget it...I reached Hyd next day morning 4.45 am,got down at the station,smiled & walked off into the mundane...)

The Journey - 1 : The Train,The Ticket & The Zombie

Even after 2 months, no one has still asked me why the blog is called 'Chaos is Forever'???( Do people know me so well? Or they just don't give a damn? My optimistic side surely its the former (My painfully practical side says surely people have much better things to do! :D)

08/12/2008. 4:00 PM .I got on the train from Bangalore to Hyderabad . Yes!yes!yes!I had booked the train tickets this time (Never mind I could not book tickets on time for the train which starts from Majestic station and for this train I had to go all the way to Y'pur!!! ). It was smooth journeying till 8 pm(reading His Dark Materials:The Amber Spyglass, listening to music). I had even got myself tuned to the incessant braying from the almost-berth-full college goers,supposedly on a trip. And at that point in time, as paradoxical as it may sound, came the expected twist in the tale. I opened my bag to check for my e-ticket print out. And what do I discover??? Bingo!!!

I was quite puzzled because for once I vividly remembered keeping the ticket in the bag. Well, I am quite at home during situations like these, so don't expect me to get all panicky and act hyper.I usually have a strategy during such situations: Ask yourself - What's the worst case scenario??? I had an ID proof and all but still had the least idea how the TT will react at the audacity. More often than not, you might expect another one from the get-rid-of-the-IT-people community to appear and growl "You e-ticket-losing morons, you Ipod-wielding dumbsh*ts,I guess I have been bestowed this opportunity to rid the world of your species.The world will be all the better with one less Software Engineer". The man gives a ferocious roar, lifts me up with two hands and hauls me out of the running train.I stumble and get on my feet to find myself in an eerily deserted station. I enter the eerily deserted town and find out its inhabited with zombies. I run back to the station only to find out what? There is no station!!! Thousands of zombies stagger towards me hungrily from all directions... (Yes,lot of time to kill when you are traveling alone) Presently, I came back to the real world with no zombies. I need to search the entire bag once, I thought.

Meanwhile, the train stopped. I absently asked a porter "Ee station babu?"( In telugu, every stranger's name is Babu) . The guy answered, "Dharmavaram Babu..." Instantly,I felt it. A heightened sense of things. The bigger picture. Clairvoyance...

(The Journey...Will continue)

Rab Ne Bana Di Jodi - Movie Review

Making the most of holidays, I went to see RNBDJ first day morning show. First the sad part - the storyline which has been doing rounds on the internet is almost correct. So no need to repeat the story line . Here's the review...

The movie starts out on a slow pace,introducing a simpleton SRK and his wife-by-accident, with bits of subtle humor thrown in. It picks pace once the other dashing,outrageously-over-the-top Punjabi Jat SRK enters(must say SRK looks old in this role too).For the first two hours movie goes on with a few funny & entertaining sequences, some good songs (a nice parody with special appearances from.. no prices for guessing :P) keeping the audience occupied. Then Mr.Director tells the characters in the movie there has to be some serious story also so that all kinds of audience are covered.(After all, this movie has been made to recover all the losses of Yash Raj productions in the last year or so :P). But there is only 45 minutes left of the movie.The characters now don't know what they are upto and get totally confused about their morality, their common sense etc & consequently the director loses track of his characters and the screenplay goes for a toss for that important half-hour or so. When there is 15 minutes to the movie, the director tells the characters "All of you are good Indian people.So be so. No justification required for anything". Finally everyone is good and the Rab Da Banaya hua Jodi live happily ever after...

Everyone knew it will be too much to expect Adi Chopra to revive the magic of DDLJ with this movie. Even Mohabbatein had some great sequences ( with SRK & the Big B) . But no magic to be seen here except for a couple of good sequences here and there(Esp check out the brilliant sequence just before the interval). Nothing much to remember the movie by. And even though I am an SRK fan, I can safely say this review is unbiased because the actor has done well to fit into the characters and play them as they are. But one sure misses the usual SRK with all his usual hamming,charisma & theatrics which we expect to see in this kind of a movie.Nothing special about the newcomer Anushka sharma.She just passes muse.

I will say go,watch the movie once and enjoy the good parts. The bad parts are not so bad,so they can be easily forgotten after the movie is over :)