I *heart* Bombay (and well..Boston)

I'm urban..in the way other people are mountain-people or tunafish junkies. I love city life...something about dreary concrete blocks and grumpy people totally gets my juices flowing. Ergo, this will be a blog about me, my two favourite cities (Bombay and Boston), my addiction to Vietnamese coffee and my views on Gregorian chant and it's efficacy in curing some types of tympannic membrane rupture. Enjoy!

Monday, October 29, 2007

Seen around Bangalore

So I have this annoying habit of using my cellphone to take pictures of bad English (sorta inspired by engrish.com) as seen on the streets of Bangalore..I also have an el crapioso phone that has images that would look better if I got a kid with a crayon to sketch them out - the perils of being poor and tech-UNsavvy.

I'm totally discounting the extra "h" I see on every name out here..but I feel that deserves a mention, doesn't it Satheesh and Geetha?

1. At a weighing machine thingie at Garuda Mall "Look Straight before inserting".

2. On a menu at Empire on Church Street "Brian Dry with Onions"

3. In a lift heading up my office building "If you are stuck-up in this lift, please dial Emergency"

4. On a signboard off Brigade Road "Caution: Dead Slow Hump Ahead"

5. At an Esprit sale at Lifestyle "Buy any two bottoms and get any top ABSOLUTELY FREE!"

6. At American Icecreams on Brigade road "Nigerlone (sic) flavour"

7. On M.G. Road, "Pick any top, yours for Rs. 100"

8. Also on M.G. Road "Cycle pushing NOT ALLOWED".

9. On a menu at a Shant(h)isagar on CMH road "Baby Masala Dosa"

10. Behind a rickshaw in Domlur "Ladies people are evils people"

11. HSBC bank, M.G. Road, memo "Entrance through backside"

12. In a lift (what is it about lifts and English issues?), "Electronic Hooters".

Saturday, October 20, 2007

A Friday night ritual

I like to have a martini,
Two at the very most.
After three I'm under the table,
After four I'm under my host.

- Dorothy Parker.

Saturday, October 06, 2007

The Talkathon continues..

So in my attempts to find friends and "more" in Bangalore, I've taken to the chat waves online. A busy life and a lack of social places to meet singles means I've gotta do most of my looking-for-friends-and-more online. Days of fine-tuning a profile so you sound somewhere between cocky (no pun intended) and needy...My Friendster, Orkut, MySpace and Facebook profiles are a great help here...that's where I can try out new things to say and have it critiqued by my friends who will jump to laugh at me if I make any extravagant claims (Yeah, that one about the 10" cock is not true...sorry!)..

Anyway, my forays into the online world of gay chatting have been a combo of interesting , fun, hysteria and hopelessness...sorta a milkshake if you must, of all those ingredients. (Take 3 scoops hopelessness and add to it 2 generous helpings of fun. Stir in a tablespoon of interest and sprinkle liberally with hysteria..). At this point, I have discovered I have certain things about this whole thing..They are - in no particular order -

1. A dislike for people who say Hai, Hiiiiiiiii!, Hallo Dear, Chao, A/S/L (That went out with IRC years ago people!) , T/B

2. India seems to be populated with versatile folk! Perhaps that's why we're so good at stealing everyone else's jobs....(blow or otherwise)

3. Being married clearly doesn't stop many people...

4. Being with another gay man in a "happy" relationship clearly also doesn't stop many people - "I'm here to make friends only as I'm happy with my current boy" - Doesn't explain why you're out looking for 1-on-1 sex and you have a picture of your arse on here!

5. You claim to love to read but can't name the last book you read..you claim to love to hike but can't name the last trail you went on..you claim to love fashion but you wear socks with your sandals...

6. Sometimes coffee means just that - coffee.... (A million points and a chance to buy me a coffee for ANYONE who's heard Eddie Izzard's riff on coffee and "coffee")

7. People who only say Hi. And then vanish. And then reappear a week later to say How are you. And then vanish. And then wake up 3 weeks later and say How's life. And then vani...Oh! You get the picture.

8. I think my favourite profiles are the guys who claim to be shy and introverted and not very social. And who then send you a picture of a cock. NOT the tandoori kind.

9. There will be the occasional gem in the coal mine. And then he'll vanish and you'll bump into him on the arms of the other gem in the coal mine. And then you'll drink a lot and over-tip the rickshaw driver. I'm just saying...

10. Being spotted outdoors by people who've only ever seen your profile is such fun. This last week I've had "Were you on Brigade Road with a green shirt on?", "I saw you at Infinitea wearing a black tee", "You're taller than you look in your pictures" and "You're uglier than you look in your pictures..stop fooling us!".

How much fun is this!