My grandma once handed me a glass of Whiskey and said, “you shouldn’t take life too seriously. If you do, it will consume you.” She then passed out. I gave it a lot of thought. After pouring the whisky back into its bottle, I realized how wise she was. I was 10 at the time.
humour
Museum of metal wonders
I went to an Archiological Museum. Did I spell that right? Archeology-cal? Archaeoloji. Ar…Ar… Anglican. Anyway… this museum had some unusual stuff in it. I reached the museum quite late. It was about to close. So, a security guard was assigned to guide/nag me through the entire museum. As you all know, I take my museum visits very seriously. So I explicitly stated that the guard maintain a distance of exactly three metres away from me at all times. Why ‘three’ you ask? Well, that’s none of your business. As soon as the receptionist understood that I had difficulty speaking Bengali, she began to shoot questions in English. “Are you South Indian? Where do you stay here? What did you have for dinner yesterday? What’s your blood type?”. You know…the usual stuff. I mean, she was very attractive. That’s probably why I panicked. After a short, uncomfortable conversation, I began the tour with my personal bodyguard.
There were extremely old paintings and pottery(7-14 century). Just as I was about to finish viewing the ground floor, motherfucker(guard) started to blow a damn whistle(probably to ask me to leave). Another guard heard this whistle and started to blow his own whistle. Within a few seconds, the whole fucking museum was whistling. I could see birds fly away from the roof. Motherfuckers were disturbing the wildlife.
As soon I got to the first floor, I knew it was a different scene. You see, there were these sculptures made of metal, kept in glass housings. They were sculpted in the 9th century. I hadn’t seen anything like it before. Figures sculpted with unimaginable level of detail and yet so tiny and realistic. That was not the impressive part. The figures were not of people or animals, rather it looked like something that was taken straight out of a Stephen King movie. There was a figure with an elephant’s head and a slim guy’s body(It had nothing to do with religion). It was holding a walking stick. It had a hunchback. It looked like it was dying. Then there were snakes, dragons and warriors that looked like trees, stuff that I have never seen or could have imagined. I was awestruck.
How could somebody think of that? How wild does ones imagination have to be to make something like that? Where did he get the idea from? Did an alien put it in his mind? Did he dream of it in his sleep? Did his day-to-day life affect the design of the sculpture in any way? Did his family approve of him spending so much time making figures that made no sense to common people? What was going on in his mind when he made it? How was he able to put an ‘idea’ into a sculpture? Does the sculpture mean something? So many questions.
I don’t have any pictures of the metal wonders because pictures were prohibited inside the museum. And I can respect that. All I have is a picture of a tree, from the museum’s garden.
The metal wonders will always live inside my head. I do not need pictures of them.
On an unrelated note, I got a keyboard. Today is Day 4 with new keyboard.
Side note: I do not know how to play the keyboard.
Facing challenges
On April 28th, 2014, I fell in the toilet. At the time, I was living in a shared accommodation, while studying for my Masters. My roommates were quite the exciting bunch. There was a strange guy from Greece who was in his 40’s. He taught economics to PhD students. Then there was the guitar-player/loner from the U.K. who studied film and media. Lastly, there was a petroleum engineering student from China. Dude was from Shanghai and he had the best stories. The only time we would all hang out together was when there were meetings to discuss maintenance of the flat. For example, who was going to clean the toilet next. I made it a point to skip these meetings because as you all know, I belong to the upper class (sarcasm guys, sarcasm). However, one time, an emergency meeting was called because the shower drain got clogged with pubic hair. The economics guy was furious. He wanted to get to the bottom of this. I suggested DNA testing, to which the loner said “oh you’re definitely going to find my DNA in there. But its not the hair”. As we desperately tried to erase that picture from our heads I came to the realization that all of them were quite angry with me already for not taking the turn to clean the bathroom.
At times, life poses great challenges, guys. It is our job to scrape up the dog shit and fling it back at life’s face. So I finally decided to step up and be a man. I grabbed some tissues and floor cleaner, prayed to Isaac Newton and just went for it. After I had finished, I was in the mood for some fun. So I locked the bathroom door, whipped out my… phone and proceeded to play Temple run. A while later, I heard a knock on the door. It was the engineer. He said,” while you are at it, can you also get the cobwebs on the ceiling?”. Remember guys, I was determined to fling dog shit at life’s face. So I stood up on the toilet and started to clean the ceiling. But to my dismay, I slipped and…you can guess the rest of it.
Pool games
Back in the day, my friends and I used to play this game called ‘watch hunt’, where we would set up a watch to chime once every minute and then drop it into the swimming pool. Whoever found the watch first, won the ultimate prize, which was, a chance to walk back home, safely, without getting beaten up. It was kind of a deep pool. So it was not that easy to win. It was so much fun! Except for this one time, when six of us went down the pool and only five came back up.
It’s just jokes you guys! Don’t be weirded out. All six of us came back up. It’s just that… one of us wasn’t breathing.
For more childhood horror stories, please visit some other blog. Feel free to share some of your own horror stories. Comment below!
Never grow up
My granddad once ate the confetti that was thrown at him during a wedding ceremony. He said it was one of his greatest childhood dreams. I miss the dude.
Visit to the eye doctor
Had to go see the eye doctor today because I sprayed lead in my eye. Life is a mystery, guys. It just keeps getting stranger and stranger. Incase you didn’t know, I am a total social recluse who is working on improving myself. So every opportunity I get to socialise, I force myself to go for it. So I did the most logical thing and hit on two junior doctors at the hospital. Lets just say I got ‘special’ attention because of that. The doctor was really nice. After staring into my soul for a few minutes, she concluded that I had an infection.
Now that I have disgraced myself, lets move on to the fun part of the story, the part where I make friends. After seeing the doctor I decided to explore that part of the city(this whole incident took place at Salt Lake, Kolkata). Now, I don’t often make friends during my travels because, you know, people are terrifying. But this time, I met some jovial characters that I couldn’t resist making friends with. They were so chill that they didn’t mind me taking pictures of them. In fact, they were happy to hear that I would be writing about them on my blog. Without further ado, here they are.
The “whoa there slow down” lion
The Grasshoppers
The “whoa there slow down” lion is the golden guardian of the roads. He is a funny guy who shouts funny things like, “If you are in a hurry, drive slower”, “your children would rather see you come home late than see you arrive in a casket”, “sex can wait, spinal cord surgeries cannot”. He was sad to say that out of all the defaulters, Lions club members were the worst. We took a selfie too but I can’t show that here due to legal reasons. Onto the next gang, the merry Grasshoppers. The Grasshoppers are a funk/jazz fusion band. They were on tour. It surprised me to see that they didn’t have a drummer. No offence, they sounded great without one. They explained how the drummer had problems with drug abuse. They said he was particularly fond of something called “grass”, which was pretty ironic because all of them seemed to be made out of … you know… grass.
I need help.
Never give up
I once had a dream that I was in the back of a pickup truck with my parents and sister, driving through what seemed like a desert. The truck hit a speed bump and I rolled out the back. My family probably noticed it but they kept going and never came back. Meanwhile, in a nearby workshop, Ronald McDonald was having an argument with a biker gang for pulling his wig. One of the bikers came frighteningly up close and proceeded to insert skittles into his pocket. He then whispered into Ronald’s ear, “who’s that Pokémon?” He then crushed the skittles wrapper and left. A depressed Ronald found me lying on the road. He took me in. We setup a kickstarter to fund our new restaurant idea. It was a success, largely funded by religious extremists. As soon as we opened the restaurant we got sued by a damn fast food chain called McDonald’s. Luckily we had little money leftover which we used to buy Bitcoin.
Presenting The Everyday Recluse series
I am excited to start this new series of posts. Here, I will be posting completely random shit. Shit that I, as a successful full-on recluse, do to keep myself going. Now, some of the stuff I say here might not be, you know(how do I make this less disgusting?), ‘socially acceptable’. So(as a great scientist once said) hold on to your butts.
I was walking back from work today when I overheard a random dude speaking to (what looked like) his colleagues on the sidewalk. He was making a speech and the only part I heard was,”…It makes perfect sense. Especially because we have the majority market share…”. For some reason I felt a sudden urge to go upto him and yell, “are you sure about that?”.
Now, this is corporate India we’re talking about. If some random guy approaches you in the middle of the road and questions your accountability, you don’t just question back, you roll with it. So he started laying down statistics and company policies while the colleagues had a good laugh. Made my day.
In other random news, (this is for the Indian folk) did you know Bajaj sells auto rickshaws in Egypt? Bet you didn’t know that. Bet you didn’t want to know that. Bet you’re a little pissed off right now. But is this post the only reason for your discomfort? Or did something bad happen to you today? Maybe at work? Think about it.
Now, I don’t have an issue with people commenting on this post(trust me, none does), but if your comment mentions anything remotely similar to ‘erectile dysfunction’ or ‘hair donation’ or some shit like that, I swear to god man. I will find you. The next time you walk up to your car and drop your keys, guess who will be standing right behind you when you get back up?
How real is real?
I was talking to my grandma the other day when I got an email saying my booking for a one-on-one ‘intimate’ experience has been confirmed. So I took a moment and thought to myself, “it doesn’t get much worse than this. On second thought, at least its not a mail from work”. So my natural reaction was to hit the spam button before reading it just like how I deal with all the other problems in my life. But it also had an attachment with a name that I usually use as my username. This creeped me out a little. So I opened the mail. It said, with my ticket, I would be able to watch a concert on my phone, live, in VR. I confirmed it was spam but it got me thinking. How real is real? How much ‘immersiveness’ do we really need to be able to say, “wow! that really felt like real life”? I mean, TV is getting real, movies are getting real, reality TV is…wait that piece of shit is still garbage. People like it when actors show a little humour even during the sad scenes. This, I think is a step closer to reality. Same goes with virtual reality. A ‘true’ virtual reality experience however, would take a few more years of development. There is however, a problem with this whole thing. This tech is tailored to satisfy the average customer and will keep on adapting with that motive. I am not saying that all immersive tech is evolving this way. I am only talking about those used in the entertainment industry. Let me explain.
There was a study done in the field of psycho-acoustics where people were made to listen to recorded sounds of a forest they hadn’t been to. The test was conducted in a controlled environment using high quality speakers. The aim of the experiment was to identify the type of surround-sound tech that people liked the most. So the sounds were played back a number of times, each time using different surround sound technologies. They were also made to listen to a version where the played back audio was perceived to be closest to the actual environment (with minimum special effects). It was found that people preferred the slightly exaggerated version over the close-to-original version. This is what I am slightly concerned about. Despite having the tech capable of replicating the actual experience, we still prefer to go for the artificially modified versions of it. Does this imply that you need to make the reality ‘realer’ to make it feel real? Or do people prefer distorted realities over actual ones? I can imagine a future(not that far from now) where people would be exposed to these ‘fake’ realities even before experiencing the real thing. For example, an AR experience of a jungle where you can go on a trek, run around, scare birds, eat a snake, you know, all that good stuff. I am interested to know how the future generation would react when they experience the real thing for the first time in real life. Pretty sure there will be quite a lot of disappointment because they couldn’t do it while sitting on their couch, eating leftover pizza(like me).
Not quite, but almost there
People at the cinema
I cannot explain in words my excitement at finding out that form now on, I would be getting paid to watch movies and review cinemas (dream didn’t last long). But nonetheless, it was a glorious few weeks. I saw everything. I mean everything. From tiny, luxurious, 40-seater, rich-people-type cinemas to gigantic, ‘where the fuck is the exit?’-type 600-seaters. I had specific reasons to go visit so many cinemas but that’s all technical stuff. What interested me was the type of people who came to the theatre. Here are the types:
- Average movie goer with popcorn and drink in hand. Sole purpose of being there: Enjoy the ‘experience’ as opposed to only the movie. This includes the mall, the air-conditioning, the seats, the sound, the movie. That’s about it.
- Perfectionist: Probably has the priciest food in hand. Takes into consideration: Ride to the theatre, reception, easiness to get into the theatre, 3D glasses with sharp edges is a big no no, air-conditioning, quality of projection, door guy’s relationship with his mother, immersiveness of the audio, positioning of the seats (will fight for hand-rest area. looks at you like ‘I own this place’), will carefully ration the drink so that it only finishes at the end of the movie(will make all kinds of annoying straw-related-noises), will give a standing ovation if and only if the movie deserves it, will ask people to shut up without any hesitation, you get the idea.
- I’m here with my girlfriend, I am so happy type person: The most annoying kind. Won’t shut the fuck up, wont stop lighting up the whole theatre with their damn phones, within two hours, would have managed to go outside and come back in 10 times. I don’t know how that’s possible but dudes do it.
- The movie enthusiast: Will shut the fuck up, will thoroughly enjoy the movie, slightest distractions(like the type 3 douche above) will throw them off track, will not buy any food from the theatre, will clap the fuck out if the movie is good enough, will tear up, I repeat, will tear up, usually turns up late.
- Trouble maker: on the lookout for trouble, will spill drinks and food, will try his best shot at your girl, will lean back as much as his spine goes, will put feet up, will offer support to type 2 people in shutting down talkative folks, will take a few moments to give way to others to pass through, will let out loud sighs, sounds of anger disgust and laughter, usually turns up drunk. Funny thing is, dude will tear up during the sad scenes but will hide it and yell out curse words.
- Happy, single old folk: will offer help to anyone in need, will kindly ask you to look after their belongings while they use the restroom, will thoroughly enjoy the movie, will make a phone call as soon as the movie ends. The call may be to the uber driver, maybe a grandchild, maybe a dead husband.
- Lovers: Sole purpose: make out, very quiet, in and out like mice. Type 5 usually has an eye on this couple.
- The eaters: Its like they rented out a space just to eat. And wow! do they eat like kings! I’m talkin large popcorn, giant Pepsi, nachos, depression, and spring rolls.
Random Thought Beam 