Dinner Of The Absurd

 Uncategorized  46 Responses »
Aug 312006
 

And so, I am back. With plans — big ones — a Bangkok trav­el­ogue, sev­eral book reviews, the usual (at least a ) post a day promise, more Ileana pic­tures on the other blog, a short story, three nov­els and many, many such things I know you could care less about.

And so I am back, and what’s the first thing I read? Plans for a Sepia Mutiny meetup in Los Ange­les. A rare desi blog meet in this very coun­try, and where is it held? As far away from Florida as humanly pos­si­ble. Not a coin­ci­dence, I assure you: I know planned it that way.

In case you think I am over­re­act­ing, then how do you explain this: Peo­ple wait for me to leave Chen­nai, and the very next week, they hold some sort of Blog­Camp there. Clearly, it is part of a dis­trub­ing trend: Blog­gers just don’t want to meet me. I know my intel­lect can be a lit­tle off­putting to all you dum­b­asses, but still… You know what? Screw all you blog­gers. (Poor Manoj excepted, of course. The jerk meets me every­day so that he can have some­thing to laugh about with his new wife.) If you are a non blog­ger, the hot pic­tures are over on the other blog.

I’ve done it before, and I’ll do it again now: My own blog meet, right down the street from my own home. At my favorite cof­fee shop, run by dear old Mandy and her hus­band, who were nice enough to give us exclu­sive access to the place for the whole evening…

Here are snip­pets from the meet…

________

Blog­gera: Smells cof­fee. Then tastes it. “Wow, this is great cof­fee. Ummm… just awe­some. What would the world be with­out coffee?”

Fal­staff: “A World With­out Cof­fee. 1. It would be illu­mi­nat­ing to con­sider what the word world means in this con­text. The world…

Blog­gera: “Excuse me, but that was a purely rhetor­i­cal ques­tion. I don’t really want to know what the world would be with­out coffee.”

Fal­staff: “Oh, I see. But can I fin­ish off this speech though? I only have 37 more bul­let items to go through. And then, about 18 footnotes.”

Blog­gera: “Please, no. Let me drink my coffee.”

Megha: “This cof­fee is cho chweet. Gleat.”

Blog­gerc­thruz: “What a thought­ful sentence.”

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 Posted by Karthik at 2:24 pm  Tagged with:

Friends, Rolexes and Shirtless Men

    Life  5 Responses »
May 032006
 

Pic­ture Cour­tesy Wikipedia

Golden drag­ons sit atop the strik­ing green fa�ade, flanked by golden arches on the left and (over­priced) gold topped taxis beneath. A unsightly blue roof stretches along the entire street, designed to keep out the ele­ments and what­ever lit­tle charm the façade has to offer. “Jalan Petal­ing,” the mul­ti­lin­gual sign­board sus­pended from the low­est tier says. Petal­ing Street.

Petal­ing Street, a nar­row stretch of road in down­town Kuala Lumpur is the green dragon facaded, blue roofed home to a gigan­tic flea mar­ket sell­ing boot­leg mer­chan­dise. Fit­tingly, the mar­ket oper­ates from dawn to mid­night, draw­ing an enor­mous throng of bar­gain hunters look­ing for Rolexes and Patek Philippes; Guesses, Guc­cis, Givenchys and Louis Vit­tons; Star Wars and Flight Plan and Sims and Civ­i­liza­tion and food.

A row of stores on each side of the street, and down the mid­dle of the street a dou­ble row of stores with their backs to each other, split­ting the nar­row alley into two nar­rower alleys. Enter through the left, bar­gain your way up the street till the end, gawk at the ven­dors sell­ing fried fish, and kabab rolls and ice kacang, and a Rolex or two; turn around and hag­gle back down the other way. Along the way, a sen­sual treat: the bright flouroscent light­ing, the smell of sweaty bod­ies laden with faux Ital­ian fash­ion goods mixed in with the the smell of bar­be­cued fish, the sounds of hag­glers hag­gling and touts touting.

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 Posted by Karthik at 11:09 am  Tagged with:
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