गर गुमनामी का यूँ इश्तहार न देते हम, तुमसे रूबरू होने की हर गुंजाईश खो बैठते

“I feel Bangalore is a lot better than Chennai.” I wonder how many Bangaloreans I have fooled with this intelligent rhetoric. Listeners are instantly drawn to believe that I am one of the ‘rare ones’ who understands and stands for the South Indian ‘cause’. When I came to Bangalore three years back from Delhi, I was desperate and tired of Delhi’s overtly friendly neighborhoods, where folks used verbal abuse as a tactical means of endearment. Tactical because it is sometimes used for exactly what it was invented for…abuse people. Tricky affair if you can’t notice the difference. Unfortunately, my upbringing did not prepare me for such subtleties. Anyway, the moment I arrived here, I noticed the biases people have about people. Egos were at stake. It was the North Indian South Indian thing. I could notice it more because I am in a lot of ways ‘culture shock’ personified. Fellow Northis felt the “Aiyo Ramas” were too uncool. They ate tasteless, sour food and boasted of their culina...

Dodging sound waves from making sense to my ear drums and using opacity of objects to their best use…when around the TV, has sub-consciously been my routine all my life. To all and sundry, who might wonder what the MsWord abuser is up to now, let me reveal that small introspections are leading to self discovery…or lunacy. In either case, the abuse continues.  When I was watching a movie, with absolutely no horror scenes, no creepy reptiles or awkward love making scenes, I found myself hiding from seeing the main character getting a solid dosage of public humiliation in the movie. I even shut my ears to near permanent impairment to not be able to listen to the embarrassment the character faced. I missed out the whole movie eventually as, somehow; embarrassment was the central theme of the movie. I remember I did exactly this when unknown guests came to our house and I was warranted to meet n greet them. The restroom seemed safer than a BSF bunker then. I did it when a friend cho...