Baths, Advertisements, Broomsticks and Roadtrips

Thus conscience does make cowards of us all;
And thus the native hue of resolution
Is sicklied o'er with the pale cast of thought;
And enterprises of great pith and moment,
With this regard, their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action.

Hamlet in 'Hamlet'- Shakespeare

Well he was one confused dude, he was. Hamlet, I mean, not the good ol' Speare Shaker. It gives me a lot of solace reading Hamlet. And that said , let us begin.

I have been rather lax in updating my blog and the masses were clamoring for more outside my door and refusing to accept my excuse that I was suffering from a serious case of 'writers block'. No, that has nothing to do with irregular bowel movements, or anything that can be cured with a good laxative. More of a 'mental' thing. Having thus established my credentials as a 'writer' in a fatuous manner, I shall proceed.

There's only one person I know who's more confused than Hamlet. Thats moi, yes, me. I wait for you to recover from the shock of being told that someone of my bearing can actually get confused. That is but natural. Let me explain. Whether it is because of my 'brought up' (thats Tamil for 'bringing up' in English, usually pronounced 'braat uppei'), being a standard 1974 model of Tambram stock, or some congenital reason, I get confused rather easily. Take baths for example. I don't mean your taking a bath will make this easier to understand, let me hasten to add. What I'm saying is that even taking a bath can get confusing. Ever been to a hotel that has a bath tub? They usually have around thirty different knobs and levers, combinations of which make the water flow from various places. To my luck I've never been able to figure them out. I always end up standing in the tub and twisting knobs to get the batch tub filled up with hot water, and the next thing I know I have an icy cold shower of water running down from the shower. It always happens. Always. Its a very enriching experience, let me tell you, when you have ice cold water pouring on your head, when you least expect it. Makes you recall all those swear words you thought you forgot, in languages you never knew you could speak. They even have phone extensions in the bathrooms in some of these places. I can't for the life of me, understand why. To answer nature's call presumably?

To compound things, my flat here in Bangalore also has bathrooms of the same type. The knobs for the hot and cold showers turn in different directions. I always get confused about which one turns which way, resulting in either a scalding hot or ice cold shower. Suffice to say that the neighbour's kids are learning a lot of new words every time I go take a bath. I just hope their parents don't realize where they're picking it up from. I can't run tuition classes for adults who want to learn more expletives. I'd rather reserve the curses for the bathing expedition.

To Mrudula's everlasting irritation, I can't make up my mind on which channel to watch on the telly. A typical evening of confused TV watching usually goes like this:

'flip'

Motorcycle Ad: Dude dressed in black leather and helmet drives out of a thirteenth floor window. Why? Was he in an IT company, on the bench for too long? Did he listen to too much of Himesh Reshammiya? I can't figure it out. More importantly how did he manage to take the bike up to the thirteenth floor, into some office? I could use that kind of knowledge. Every time I want to go up, all the six lifts in my office are already on their way up, on a floor above mine. Anyways, dude survives miraculously. Goes to the edge of the cliff, pivots on a wheel over the edge and drives off. Presumably, his daily routine before going home and eating curd rice. Who knows? Next scene: A doctor types is asking him "Do you think you are ready for your next mission?" Motorcycle moron replies "Thinking, is such a waste of time". Yeah right, genius. And this is supposed to tempt me into buying this brand of motorcycles? I'm confused.

'flip'

Another motorcycle Ad: Dude is riding one of the 'new generation' bikes. He suddenly becomes the 'superhuman amoeba biker man'. He splits himself effortlessly into five of himself and they all race each other. 'These stunts are performed by experts' the subtitle very kindly says.'Viewers are advised not to imitate'. Yes, that should be easy. When you're stuck in the Bangalore Traffic, all viewers will be really tempted to try and split into two. A very calming mental excercise, obviously. And who are these experts who can split themselves into replicas, so easily? Anyways all five Amoeba men merge back into one, and then a copy of the bike suddenly emerges from a lake nearby and takes off into the sky. Is it just me or was the director of this ad on hallucinogenics, wasted beyond all scope? I'm confused.

'flip'

Holiday package Ad: A couple and their two children arrive at the holiday spot. The irritatingly cheerful backgound song goes 'You arrive, you happy, You messy, you happy'. Is that bad grammar or are they using Jamaican Patois? Search me. The family keeps smiling. Obviously these guys have never been on a real holiday. The people who made the ad, I mean. Fifteen minutes into the holiday, the brats should have started screaming and whining, and the couple should have started fighting. Welcome to the real world dude. The family is finally closeted in a small tent, I wouldn't put my dog in. Its raining like mad, and their lunch is delivered there by another cheerful guy with an umbrella. The amount of cheerfulness makes me puke. You no play ad please, We very very happy? I'm confused.

'flip'

Another Harry Potter News Flash: Aaaaaaarghhhhhh!!! A lady reporter in one of those wizard hats and robes is reporting on the forthcoming book. Well, either the poor deluded woman thinks its the high point of fashion, or she's being paid extremely well, or she just plain belongs to the loony bin. I wouldn't be caught dead in a ditch, wearing that outfit. Actually there's a lot about Harry Potter that also confuses me. What kind of a person would whiz around at speeds of mach one with a stick between his legs?? If you ask me, thats a definite no no. I mean, I get uncomfortable on a flight in fifteen minutes. The only kind of person who would try to fly that way would have to be really into pain or just absolutely dumb (the type who wouldn't recognize smart if it came up behind him and bit him in the butt). Or maybe he just couldn't pay for his family planning operation, and took this way out? I'm confused.

Actually there are two guys I know, who can rival me when it comes to getting confused, especially in terms of directions - Adi and Sandy. I remember when we took our road trip in Sandy's car driving all around South India. Half the time we didn't know whether we were coming or going. Bangalore was the crowning glory in this trip. What with directions all being 'Straaightu to dead endu and leftu' and us being sozzled half the time, we ended up seeing the city in greater detail than any human being would want to. We tried all remedies. We figured out that all the people were wantonly misguiding us and took the exact opposite directions. We thought about which was our left and which the 'dead endu and leftu' dude's left (We were high and this line of thought led to considerable disagreement betwixt us). We assumed very correctly that all roads in Bangalore should lead to M.G Road and ten minutes of driving any which way should bring us there anyway. But none of it worked. We finally resorted to asking for directions every hundred yards or so, which didn't make us very popular with the other commuters. Then we ended up asking the same auto driver thrice for directions at various points, in a span of half a kilometre (by mistake, we caught up with him and it being dark we didn't realize it was the same person). He expressed very concisely, his doubts about the legitimacy of our conceptions, and those of three generations before us, not mention his opinion of our IQ levels. We stopped asking for directions after that.

This however had its own downsides. We arrived in front of Forum (a huge mall, the landmark we remembered) to visit Sandy's property where there was building going on. To our shock and dismay, it was no longer there(the property, not the mall). We first argued amongst ourselves on the landmarks which had been there earlier, which now seemed to have disappeared. But then we realized that not only the landmarks but the streets and the street names had also changed. We were stunned by the pace of development in Bangalore. To take down a building is one thing, but to transplant a whole area! We considered suing the government for loss of property. The least they could have done was to inform poor Sandy. We commiserated with him. Some more beer was called for and consumed. Then we undertook our own jihad, we would find Sandy's property no matter what, whether it existed or not. After another twenty minutes of inspired searching and badgering poor pedestrians into admitting that this was a different area, we gave up. Thats when it dawned on us that we should be looking at the rear entrance side of the mall, on the parallel road. We were on the wrong side. What can I say? We were confused.