Sid-O-Scope

Have you ever been told to run towards the end of the cliff and trust a giant kite hold you high up against gravity? I was told this weekend. Sadly, the words look before you leap proved fatal, as the valley was over 4 feet deep. This weekend, our bikers group, decided to kick off the first ride of 2011 out of the world, just, we didn't realize it would be literally. We jumped from a mountain and hung in the middle of the air.... I meant para-gliding. I should be honest, I was dead scared, I mean scared more than I ever was. The thing is, I have survived into a lot, bike crashes  and even bomb blasts  but this, this was the scariest. In the crashes or the blast, I was not aware what would happen in next few minutes, but this was different. I had to run towards the end of the cliff, take a leap of faith and let God lift me up. The scary part was, I never believed in God, but in that one second, I just hoped I was wrong. In the beginning the glider refused to...

The oldest memory of Republic day I have is that of my parents watching the republic day parade. Obviously as a small child I was assumed of having no brain and choice and come what I may say, no one would agree tom and jerry is better than the parade. So profound effect it had on me, that last year, I decided to see the parade in the stands, which was a boring experience, should I add and a pickpocket decided to use his right to freedom and stole the five hundred rupees from my pocket. But then again, they say we should feel proud about the republic day parade and have a sense of patriotism on seeing the tricolor unfurl.  I never felt so. Obviously as a symbologist, I know that symbols have meaning and if conveyed properly they can move mountains (literally) or transform the thinking of a human being, but then also, if forced to believe in something symbols render no meaning at all. On the night of 14th August 1947 at the zero hour (00:00) the Union Ja...

"Did you follow me?" I asked walking to my desk. "What? You are just back from the washroom," he replied, "Why would I follow you there?" "No, not there..." I replied correcting him, "That would be so Gay, I meant follow me on twitter... http://twitter.com/sidoscope " "Why would I follow you on twitter?" he questioned. "So that you hear me speak..." I replied. "Why would I hear you speak? We share the cubicle together and we are together for eight hours a day," he asked. "Because I make witty remarks on everything on twitter..." I replied. "But you make witty remarks on everything you see, and I don't like it...." he resorted. "But my remarks are refined and subtle on twitter," I argued, "And I write them very carefully thinking about everything..." "Where you doing that in the meeting with your phone?" he questioned. "What?" "I...

When I was small people always used to tell me, you will get this when you grow up. Hey, Shaktimaan airs late night, can I watch it? No Beta, you can stay up late when you grow up. I don't want to go to school, I want to sleep late, No Beta, you can sleep late when you grow up. Or even, why can't I go to school on my cycle? Bus is so boring. Grow up, grow up grow up. To which I would finally say, ok, I want to grow up, grow up. Now, twenty five years on the planet and I ask myself is 'are we there yet?' is this what it is to be grown up? Oh well, it sucks. Now can I go back? Apparently I can't. Now, if you think about the average active partying life of adult male as fifty, after which you probably watch television late night on new years eve, you can say I am half way there. Now obviously, as I mentioned last year , twenty five is the time when your standing male life starts disintegrating. Twenty Five is the time where your parents want to see you get married ...

"Dude, its the end of the world," screamed my hysteric friend over phone, "After nineteen years I made 300 stable friends and its all over..." "Huh," I asked checking who was calling me, early in the morning, "What?" "Wake up Sid," he shouted, "Facebook has shut down...." The nerve cells in my spinal chord, which usually don't wake up till heavy dose of coffee, suddenly shot up high-sparks into my brain causing a heavy headache, "Dude, you kidding right?" "No man, no," he cried loudly like a big baby who lost his butterfly, "Dude, she had added me man...after so many years man, she found me on facebook man." He hung up, crying out loud. I immediately got down from my bed and crash landed on my android, 'Cannot fetch notifications now, please try later' the smart phone replied. Nails biting and nervous splitting, I did not know what to do, trying hard to remember what the officer ...

I am not a good person, no means I am not the villainous Amrish Puri type bad person (I do have a big laugh though, just like him) but I don’t exactly fit into the social structure of a good guy. I do not give alms to beggars (to each his own), I do not care about family members (well, I do care about them, but not to the extent of sacrificing myself for them), I drink a lot, I have no problem with smokers (I don’t even have problem with passive smoking, again too each his own) , I do not pray to God (Any God for that matter, I don’t discriminate against any God, I hate all of them equally), I support gay rights and marriages (its all about individualistic freedom) and I am completely open about my masculinity (Remember the old saying if you have it, you got to flaunt it right?) So you see I am bad, or people say I am bad but then I ask them, Define bad? Or worst, Define good. Sadly everyone has a different answer for it. My very good friend mentioned that she gives alms to a par...

When you are born in India, from the zero hour you have a deep long dept with your parents. You are literally born into it with no option or choice. Whenever you talk about living separate people look at you as if you are Osama Bin Ladens right hand man, as if it is a crime to hang until death. In olden days there was this feudal law that you had to have sex with any girl, your parents lay hand on. There has also been a tradition of sharing your wife with brothers, but that for another day. They left you with no choice and many crore worth of land deal used to be signed between parties. It was better in those days, atleast officially you could get lots of money. But then the brits landed on our land and got jealous of the richness and they stopped it. They said child marriage is a crime and the elders agreed, what they missed out was totally arrange marriage is a crime Isn't it?. Now the pseudo modern family of India do not force their kids to marry, they torment them...

When you wake up to a brand new year, you expect something different, something new and something fun and then suddenly the gong strikes and at around noon you wake up with a heavy hangover, a horrible headache and a trigger happy family who screams 'Happy New Year' at every second they get chance. If that is bearable, the phone rings every two minutes, spoiling the favorite ringtone which took you hours to finalize and crop in ringdroid (an Android App that lets you cut parts of any song and set as ringtone, oh and I got an Android wuu huu). So, you wake up late and you walk down to the local shop to get some jam, when you over hear this conversation. 'This time,' wise man number one speaks to wise man number two, 'I don't think I need any resolutions.' He orders a smoke from the local pan shop, and fires it up. 'Of-course,' says the second wise fat man, 'Who needs them anyways? Its a foreign imitation. We don't have to do everything t...