Premature Celebration

Just when I was gloating over the fact that our medicine cabinet was almost empty, it's brimming with bottles again. Half the people are down with fever and the rest are awaiting their turn.

New Destination

Spoke to L. Her life is all set to take yet another turn. When I think about it, our lives are so different and if I hadn't met her in college, I guess we would've never crossed paths, even if we lived within a mile of each other.

My promise to L of visiting her in Singapore has become all the more urgent now.

Fragrant Death

Standing in the Metro jammed between two heavily perfumed people is one hell of an experience.

Awake

Bangalore is not the city for someone in need of peaceful sleep. Crackers start bursting in the midnight, out of the blue, making you wonder if you missed a big event. They don't need one, actually.

Days and Nights

I make a list everyday and I break it too. It's a struggle to keep up with the schedule, every single day. I know quitting the job will make my life easier. But this job has been a convenient excuse for the many inadequacies of mine and I'm afraid that when I lose that excuse, I'll be forced to stare at all my flaws and I'll like myself even less.

Outbound

I'm glad we went to Shivanasamudra on Sunday. The weather looked ominous and forecast had rain but we took a chance. Mostly because of Rishi. He's been bitten by the travel bug now. Actually not so much of travel as of doing 'something' over every holiday. He even wanted to bunk Friday and see more places over the long weekend but we weren't prepared. The boy wrote a tough exam recently and did fairly well. It seems to have set him free. Augurs well.

Shivanasamudra falls were good. Kaveri is full and the water falls down in amazing quantity. But you can't go near the falls like before and there is total lack of any kind of facility to view them to your heart's content. It almost felt like our temples, where you jostle to get a short glimpse of God. There is so much of litter all around, you feel sorry for the beautiful nature. It's like the only beautiful places in Karnataka are the ones not visited by tourists.

Binge Season 2

Two season twos in three days. Sacred Games and Mindhunter. Actually I watched Mindhunter Season 1 only two days before. I don't think that's an influencer but it wins hands down. On the other hand, Sacred Games is a terrible letdown. The storyline is as nonsensical as it can be. Pankaj Tripathi is wasted and Nawaz doesn't seem like he knows what he's doing. And the first few episodes pack in so much of profanity that even I wanted to shout back some of them. What the hell! If not for the optimistic P, I wouldn't have completed the series.

I'm hooked to Mindhunter now. And I hate the thought that Season 2 will finish soon. 

Silent Truth

I don't know how a man can tell his wife, "All this arrogance of yours is only because you are earning your own money! ". I mean, what does it say about the man's arrogance, considering that he's the by-default earner?

The Weekend

We went for a magic show today and I can't say it was magical. Varying degrees of success, actually; P and Rishi liked it, I found it boring and Anu was upset that the magician didn't throw the chocolates to the balcony, where we sat. Our seating troubled her otherwise too; when he asked for volunteers, she wanted to go. I said he wanted only adults and she asked me to go. I disappointed her saying we were too far. Anyway. I don't think I'll try magic shows anymore. But yeah, we showed the kids what balcony seats meant.

Hopeless hope. 

Agonising

Few movies pack hope, triumph, agony and hopelessness in that order like Million Dollar Baby. All in quite equal measures. It feels like Maggie left so much unfinished, contrary to what she says.

But I thought Clint Eastwood was more compelling than Morgan Freeman in the moviemovie.

It's scary rain all over the place and Bangalore has been depressingly gloomy for a week or so, except for yesterday.  Worth doing a sun dance when he appears. 

New Season

The first Monsoon rain in our area today. It was beautiful and I got caught in it.

Ani and I have started on Italian too and it's messing up our Spanish scores. 

The Insufferables

Some people, just being the way they are, bring disproportionate goodwill to their peers. 

Hidden Figures

When an article says about 90% of a state's farming households have an average debt of about a lakh, it looks like a bleak picture. But I don't think all of these are distressed. It's quite routine for many to borrow at the beginning of the season. And it would've been interesting to know if these numbers have spiked in the last few years where there has been a slew of loan waivers. 

The Untouchables

Somebody told me,  quite proudly,  that her 7 year old daughter washed her hand when a Muslim woman touched it. It seems the kid just couldn't stand Muslims. It didn't matter what I said. I mean,  she got my point but it was of no use.

I hope the people who've sown these seeds know what they will reap. I'm unwilling to imagine. 

Hard Pressed

It feels like life has never been harder than now. But I have a feeling it'll only get harder.