The change

You may wonder why i now call this blog "Speaking the thousand words". It's because of my name. You see, my name - it means picture. And you know what a picture does!

And in answer to many of your questions, the old name - "Fading dreams grow cold as ice.." is a line from Elton John's "Return to Paradise":

It's paradise here where the sun meets the sea
There's nothing to fear and so much to be
But soon I must go, say goodbye to it all
That homeland of mine is beginning to call

Goodbye doesn't mean this has to be the end
Fading dreams grow cold as ice
And I got a feeling we will meet again
When we return to paradise

The wind in our hair and the sun in our eyes
There's no need for tears and no time for lies
So reach out your hand and I'll reach out my heart
Remember me while we are apart

Goodbye doesn't mean this has to be the end
Fading dreams grow cold as ice
And I got a feeling we will meet again
When we return to paradise

I'm heading homeward
Leaving sunshine and heading for rain
But we'll return to paradise again

Goodbye doesn't mean this has to be the end
Fading dreams grow cold as ice
And I got a feeling we will meet again
When we return to paradise

Hold that thought!

A friend of mine (who begged to remain anonymous) said to me "when I was in school I decided to take up science - because by doing science you actually contribute to the total amount of human knowledge. With humanities, you don't - maybe to the beauty of the world or whatever, but not to knowledge, and with management, you contribute absolutely nothing!"

So, all you geeks out there surviving on phdcomics, now you know..

:-)

Cowardly Cops

A friend and I were travelling by 23C recently on our was to Besant Nagar. As we got into the bus at the IIT stop, two(obviously drunk) guys sped past the bus on a bike yelling and screaming at the bus driver. The driver kept trying to lose them - by either going slower or faster but these guys kept up with the bus and kept screaming. Apparently, this has been going on from Saidapet. Finally, the driver stopped the bus at the Madya Kailash signal.

There were 3 cops at signal - it was sunday evening and they were doing what cops do best on sunday evening - torture inncoent college students regarding lack of various papers and so make huge sums of money in the process. The driver stoped right next to them and tried telling them about the two guys. One cop was on the phone and didn't realise that the driver was talking to him until he caught me waving frantically to him he trotted over to see what was going on and when he found out he came back to his original place, a completely bored expression on his face. The second cop - an old cop, listen to the driver and then walked away, and the third cop was in the corner 'potty kadai' smoking!!!!!

They were completely unconcerned. Why should they listen to what the driver has to say, was their attitude? After all, the driver has no money to hand over as a bribe.. he has no influence, he can't get them a promotion! And helping him, would probably mean, they'll catch a lesser number of students and lesser bribes!

Yuck!

Recently, a friend of mine was caught "speeding" (read: 40 km/hr) at 11 in the night. The cops caught him and because there was a girl(another friend o mine) with him, they started giving him ahard time and demanded he pay them 8000Rs. They kept at it until the girl remarked, "this is ridiculous, lets call your dad". Then they backed off, since the dad was a respectable gentleman who's sure to be influential.

And this other friend of mine, who's doing journalism, tells me that even if he's caught breaking traffic rules (going the wrong way in a one way lane, for example), the cops don't do anything further. They just let him go. Which, if you ask me, is as cowardly as they can get!

This city's policemen disgust me no end!

I wonder if there's something I can do about it - at least the Madya Kailash incident since I witnessed it first hand. If you guys can think of anything, let me know..