Got me some free time on my hands...

I return after a year!

With the sudden amount of mind space I've freed up recently. I've wondered what I could do with my newfound free time. Learning French, Photoshop or Kickboxing were always the recent options. But for becoming a flip-kicking martial arts master, I would need to get in shape first. Whatever will I do...

I recently traveled to Cologne and Bonn city in Germany. This would be my first trip abroad. So yes, my international travel virginity has finally been lost at the tender age of 25. I would have expected my 1st foreign trip to be very exciting, but there was none. The four visits to the German consulate were enough to kill my enthusiasm. The (Indian) consul people really treat visa-seekers like trash. Are they Indian government officials in disguise meant to make us feel bad for leaving the country? Or are they just plain frustrated with their job? They rudely send you back, for even the slightest discrepancy. No quarter. So finally the frustrated folk gave us a 6-day visa to Germany - yipee? I think not...

Germany is a very beautiful place, (probably like every developed country). The streets and air is clean. The citizens have a good civic sense, no pot-holed roads, the advertising is very modest and constrained, there are no ugly political party banners 'welcoming' you to their turf and I hear corruption isn't a part of daily life there either. In my weeklong stay there I debated with myself whether I should make plans for working and living in a developed country. Surely they have none of the aforementioned crap that irritates me on a daily basis.

Alas the counter-argument shows up "Anywhere else, I would be an outsider". But should I be bound by such thoughts? As an individual shouldn't I be able to choose a place for myself to live? Why should I limit myself by man-made notions such as nationality? Of course, if I were to consult the ultimate truth of man's existence on Earth, such a debate would become a non-issue. We don't even know why we've been put on this planet in the first place. So why should we assert that only Point A on planet Earth is meant for us and none others?

Brownie the kitten

The helpless Brownie kitten mewed for her parents on the busy street. She mewed and mewed for hours, like a baby human who could do nothing else but cry to communicate his plight. There was no help at hand, mama was too busy getting high and papa was on the lookout for more pussy.
Things looked morose until all of a sudden, Brownie saw a giant figure clad in white trudge towards her. He clutched in his hand a bowl of milk - that ominous-looking figure was Gautam. The kitten chose to sit still and continued mewing, until the beast towered above her. With her innocent eyes, she paused to glance at his grinning face, she could not fathom the reason for his smile, was it benevolent or devious?
Gautam picked Brownie up by the scruff of her neck, like her mommy would. He carried her for a distance and dropped her in a garden leaving behind the bowl of milk. Brownie was delighted, she had found momentary happiness as she frolicked about in the garden - could this be heaven?

Ad mad

The most commonly used angles in ad films (at least in Indian ones) is the angle of using the opposite sex. The reasons for this, be they, their effectiveness or the film maker's banality is unknown to me. I see it in ads of toothpastes, cars, watches, cell phones and even sanitary pads! However one ad that I spotted a month ago deserves particular mention as it continues to baffle me. It's an ad by Hidesign designer bags which decides to display their bag atop a woman's breasts in her moment of intimacy with her lover. The blonde woman has this vacuous look on her face as she stares into the camera (probably wondering what the bag was doing there) while her lover who couldn't be bothered by the bag's presence is lustfully grabbing at her. You can find this ad on the back page of newspaper magazines. I get that this pink coloured bag is for women, but I don't understand what kind of message is being put across. I don't view it as arty either. I'd be glad, if anyone could explaid the concept to me.
I haven't done much reading on the subject of advertising per say. But, I certainly find ads to be an interesting medium of communication between the product and the consumer. Since they're so short in duration everything crammed into the ad is done for a purpose. The people portrayed, the dialogues, and the environment it was shot in... They're all employed for a reason. A point to note is the ad's treatment of characters which is done in accordance to their intended audience. While a motorcycle company like Bajaj Pulsar brings out ads that portray their male characters as masculinity personified, a soap brand such as Lux has their male character...Shah Rukh Khan gently caressing himself in a tub of roses boldly proclaiming his metrosexuality! Whatever the ad maybe or however it is shot, there is one basic underlying message. To put it forward crudely; "Buy our shit."

So I've begun blogging...

I really never thought that I'd ever blog. But, here I am. Blogging seems like a good avenue to exercise those literary muscles. Especially for those of us that depend on the pen...or keyboard for a living. I work in the print media. However, I haven't written doodly squat of late and that's something I want to change.
My earlier impressions of bloggers was not a very optimistic one. I thought blogging was for teenage girls. Girls, who use blogging as a medium for them to pour out every miniscule detail of their uneventful lives. Silly things like 'the cute boy in the neighbourhood' or why they think 'their parents are uncool'. Writing about routines is pretty pointless. Everybody has routines to follow. Unless there's something of value for others from your experience, you're just wasting bytes of server space. A blog is a place where you share your thoughts after all...