Thursday, May 18, 2006

Announcement

Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to lead you to this new sun on the poetic horizon, this new talent that has been festering in sad (but necessary to creativity) oblivion till now but will soon be as popular as, say, a certain Capped Crusader whose immortal songs are on all our lips.

Ladies and gentlemen, I give to you Abiban and his epic song of love, desire and the pain of parting.

First, in flagrant defiance of accepted conventions, you are urged to read the footnote.

And here, then, is the inspired Creation.

All hail Abi!

Monday, May 08, 2006

Make friendsip wid me?

I was studiously ignoring the social networking website into which I had registered myself in a moment of blind insanity some time ago. I was even blithely deleting mails from people wishing to make themselves near and dear to me without even reading them. Till, that is, I realised how much pleasure they could give on a lazy afternoon when I, having just spent another manic Sunday writing a story, was taking some justified time off. Well, it's all too good not to be shared, and I'm not a big enough person to resist the temptation to, so here we go:

1. i m aman. i from bangalore. i want to be your friend. would you give this pleasure.

(Pithy, aren't we? Those short, crisp sentences. Reminds me of Hemingway. And pleasure, eh? Of course! I EXIST to bring a ray of sunshine (and pleasure) into lives such as yours.)

2. hi S,

This is RC (naming no names, you see. I have an angelic side too) from Bangalore.... Then hows life?? Im from Bangalore, a software engineer in a MNC... Where are u at present?? Im looking for a nice friend....
What else to pen in my start up mail??

(What else, indeed! And looking for a nice friend, you say? Did you try the nearest Westside?)

3. hi,
was looking for some friends... ping me sometime...
a.

(Which friends? How many? When did they disappear? How? PAN numbers, please.)

4. hi this is v and i want to friend ship with u

v

(speechless)

5. S king: would love to befriend thee.....

(Aha! Reading Shakespeare, are we?)

6. Sam urs: hello,
im from delhi, like to make new friends add me in ur list & see my photo gallery hope u all like the hot pics.
bye...........

(Oh yess yess, where where? Can't believe I LIVED till now without your hot pics to sustain and comfort me!)

7. SG: Hi
I would like to be ur friend. If interested u can add me as your friend.

byee

(I would like to be your friend too. Maybe when you've learnt to punctuate, spell and not use out-moded abbreviations, yes?)

8. (unlike all the other mails which had boring little subject lines with variations of the word 'Hi', this one's was a to-the-point 'friendship'. I like.)

MGK:

Hi,wss up just came across ur profile i have done my B.E in Bangalore Institute of Tech as of now working for e4e how abt a friendship i saw u in one of community and wee to have our bar and resturant which brand u like most to unwind on week ends cheers!mate

(Dear mate, please allow me to congratulate you on your innovative use of the English language. This particular use of the word 'wee', and that spelling of the word 'was', I think, has been unrecorded since the year 1227, and as for 'resturant', I mean, what inspired simplification! And abt that friendship, yes, why not? Maybe we could meet up in Australia?)

That was, I think, a Monday well-spent. What joy!

Wednesday, May 03, 2006

Going! Going! Gone!

Now that Kaavya Viswanathan's book has been withdrawn from bookstores, I foresee a mad scramble to find any copies that happen to be lying around. Usually happens, in such cases. You know, that whole demand-supply thing.

So the point is, I have a copy of the book with me, bought in the days before the scandal washed up in the fond hope that no matter how cliched the cover looked, it wouldn't quite be rehashed Princess Diaries. But now, I am glad I did, for I wish to make my fortune. So I hereby announce the intention of selling/renting/auctioning the book to the highest bidder.

You know where to get in touch. Ok, pip-pip.

Oh, and yes, will you please return said copy? I can already hear them beating a path to this door.