The Art of Self Defense – Bruce Flee

Every living thing on the planet has some kind of defense to protect itself from danger. Why, to be plain, even nonliving things tend to have its defense, like Kaspersky Internet Security has a built-in option to protect itself from viruses and malware. Well, the point is that, self-defense, in any possible method is important.

This incident once happened in college during break time. My fellow nomads and I were having a pointless conversation. It was just like that, when I suddenly told about my newly learnt Karate moves from a Bruce Lee movie last night.

“Guys, check out the new moves that I learnt yesterday! Heeeyahh! Hoi! Hooo!” I said, though I looked like a worthless baboon while doing it.
“So?” the guys asked, trying to control their laughter, although two girls passing by did laugh.
“Self defense is one of the most important skill in the world. In fact, I’d say its mandatory”

Nodding their head and then ignoring the point, the topic shifted to something else though I can’t remember what.
Suddenly, a deep rumble was heard right next to me, like the whole earth was shaking. I spotted a huge boulder slowly making its way towards the group. It was as our good old Vijay. A nice guy, but the fattest of the group. We all love him and, make fun of him every moment we could salvage.

I couldn’t help saying, ”Hey Vijay, guess what, satellite imagery has improved. Better picture quality with finer detail. Now Google Earth has got a better picture of you! They can see even your beard and mush, I guess!”

I knew I had it! But some guy in the group HAD to remember about the self-defense part I was rambling about.

“Dey, Vibu, Show us some of your moves against Vijay da. Show us your skills in ‘the art of self-defense’!”
“Yeah yeah! I will. In fact, I’m about to demonstrate the most ancient form of Self-defense. And that is called…”, I replied.

The guys watched eagerly what I was going to do as I took up position.

“…..Indian Kung Fu!…”, and I fled… As fast as I could and as far as my legs could carry me to.

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Chaat House: From Corner to Conglomerate

Food is something a normal human being cannot resist when offered. Unless he/she just ate their tummy-full and just can’t stand the sight of food, or, is a 10th century ascetic. Otherwise, the very sight of food can make anyone’s mouth water.

Different kinds of food are famous during different times. For example, sweets, though an all time favorite, would flood markets and would have the highest buyers during festival times. Another example would be fast food- The world is progressing fast and so has food. It’s become fast. But these kinds of food have their peak time. It is sometimes age based, preference based, frequency based etc. Not many people enjoy fast food once they cross a certain age limit and the same case is with sweets, but that might be sometimes due to precautions.
One kind that has stood the test of time and is still growing is the food that is authentic to India, alone. Chaat. It has got nothing, yet it has got everything. The ingredients are simple, they are easy to make and obviously, they taste great! I have witnessed that chaat shop’s sales haven’t dropped, but is constantly increasing. As for their peak time, I haven’t found one yet. People of all ages (well, after a certain age limit) tend to enjoy it, no matter how often they have it.
I visit a chat corner near my house quite regularly. I have seen the store grow from serving a single or a couple of customers to mass producing bhel puris and masal puris. Now, recently, I had gone there and I didn’t have a place to sit! Soon, the chaat annas, as you call them to be, are setting up franchises all over the city! Yet, I have seen a lot of other restaurants opening up in quite a style and then ending up closed a few weeks or months later, either due to lack of chefs resulting in bad food or due to improper management. In contrast, chaat shops don’t have any formal training in cooking. All they do is add, mix, shake and then serve. The magic formula! Simple but effective. No classy decorations or waiters. The best ambience you can get (if you’re looking for one) is by staying in your car and enjoying a plate of your favorite chaat item (people do that, believe me).

One can assess the decline in a restaurant by observing the ambiance, if the restaurant did open with style. The passage of time leaves a stain on the walls. The edges of the furniture are chipped, the cushion covers are torn etc. You can predict the place to shut down soon, however cheap the food rates come down to. But these chat corners, well, don’t have an ambiance, to be frank! You can see a gutter that sometimes is full, sometimes dry (depends on the season) running nearby, not enough chairs to sit, the already provided chairs are half worn down and you can, at anytime, expect a bird spit to fall on your plate(which did happen to me once)! Still, I don’t see these people suffering any serious hit in business! Now Chaat stalls have become one of kind of places where money just flows in. It has become like a well established business.

Well, the question is, what really makes these stalls flourish? Is it their quality of food? The speed at which it’s served? The “unique” kind of ambiance? What!?

Would the answer be as plain as “to just keep it simple”? I don’t think so.
As for a proper answer, I’m still on the lookout for one. In the meantime, chaat? Anyone?

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The Phantom of the Soap Opera

We are familiar with how our parents feel about soaps and serials.

Soaps. The name in every household. The very meaning of entertainment for womenfolk (not generalizing, but, a lot of them actually). Soaps have become a routine for homemakers giving them “something” to watch from dawn to dusk. A lot of women, (il)literally, speak of nothing else but the happenings in these shows. I haven’t witnessed even stock markets being this speculated upon! What has really puzzled me is the audience’s ability to recall stories (if they are), though incomplete, that are stacked up in their memory. At least it might help to keep Alzheimer’s at bay [;)].Anyway I guess I’ll have the question answered soon.

One evening, a conversation that happened between my mum and me. I was just back from being a nomad because of the indefinite holidays, cursed.

Me: Hi ma, whats up?
Ma: sshhh…
Me: Alright!
Ma: SSHHHH…

I turn around to see what the idiot box was yapping. I’m not surprised to see a soap star on screen.

Me: Ma!! I think I’ve see that guy somewhere. I guess some other TV channel. Happened to catch a glimpse of him while switching channels.
Ma: illa da. That was the guy appearing in (*&^*&%) as a (&^$&*) (censored due to safety reasons)
Me: hmpf.. I’m lost. Save it. Why don’t you go outside? Get some fresh air!?
Ma: HEY!! I’m NOT like the majority of ‘em. A lot of people watch soaps starting from morning till evening not moving from their couch, not cooking, not socializing, not..
Me: …??

She stopped. It was a godsend. But why an abrupt stop? Then I realized that the conversation had happened during the break. Now the soap had started again. I hit the sack. That night, I had a dream. Some guy being ill for a myriad amount of time recovers from cancer, “miraculously”. The doctors called it a “Medical Marvel”. The next morning I got up thinking about the unusual dream finding it vaguely familiar yet difficult to fathom. That evening, I was back home after my routine role as a nomad and while parking my vehicle, I couldn’t help but over hear my neighbors, 2 ladies, discussing something about some guy recovering from cancer.

Lady 1: Hey, I was outside last evening. Had to go to some important meeting at my son’s school. They call it some “Parents and Teachers Association meeting”. (Indistinct chatter). What happened yesterday?
Lady 2: Well, Manoj recovered from cancer! The doctors called it a “miracle”!!

I was shocked yet elated. Have I just had a premonition the previous night?!? It was hard to believe. Yet it had happened .Ignoring the rest of the conversation I went upstairs.

Me: Hi ma! I’m home… after doin… nothin!
Ma: Hi. (and that’s it. She didn’t ask much about what I was doing the whole day. Not that I did something important like saving the world or anything of value. Still, I consider it an obligation to ask)

Intrigued, I speak out loud.

Me: What’s that!? What’s so important that it’s not to miss??

Break time.

Ma: Don’t mock me! Anyway, Manoj just recovered from cancer. That was what they have been showing since yesterday!

I was shocked. I had just guessed what was going to happen in a soap opera in my dream! Then it dawned on me. Soap operas don’t need any premonitions or divine interventions to guess what was going to happen. All you need is the brains of Homer Simpson. I had the dream because I was trying to figure out the meaning of these soaps last night that my brain had to perform an emergency de-fragmentation of my memory while I was asleep. As usual, I hit the sack.

Soap operas are MUNDANE, ordinary, dull, routine, boring, unexciting, dreary and monotonous.

The above sentence was written with the help of a thesaurus. Soap Operas DON’T keep Alzheimer’s at bay but probably provoke it. They promote obesity and brain degeneration transforming lively homemakers to friendly neighborhood zombies.

This post is quite long for a blog post… like a soap opera is for a human life cycle

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Adieu Amigo...

Well, i wrote this after i bid farewell to my friends who were one of the most integral part of my life. I don't know when i'll be meeting them again, but bidding farewell to them is one of the hardest things i had to do. I dedicate this to my friends. Love you forever, guys.

It's time to say goodbye,
We know not how time flies,
Now a journey's come to end
To part and tread our different ways.

I try hard not to cry,
Though a tear escapes my eye,
The feelings still remain,
And my heart is filled with pain.

Adieu amigo
I'll see you again.
Adieu amigo
Like the wind and the rain.

As my thoughts race back in time,
Its all a different rhyme,
And it leaves a happy note;
It leaves me satisfied.

But in a corner of my mind,
I know the days will not return.
The memories to be cherished,
And forever they will be.

Adieu amigo
I'll see you again.
Adieu amigo,
Like the wind and the rain.

Now a different day begins,
What new people I may meet.
As I walk the line of hope
That assures me certainty.

Adieu amigo
I'll see you again
Adieu amigo
Like the wind and the rain.

Adieu amigo
I'll see you again.
Like the rays of the sun and
The wind and the rain.

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Vendetta

From cradle to the grave

Should I ever be a slave?

I’ve never felt so brave

I just want to break away.

I have waited for too long.

Now I’m going to play my song.

For all what I’ve been through,

I’ve turned a nemesis.

Walking through the fire and haze,

I shall come to end your days.

When you hear the marauder’s call,

See your mighty kingdom fall.

The path that I may choose

Might be a dark and lonely road,

But I will get to you

And you’ll ever wonder how.

I shall set the world ablaze

That will burn your sins away.

Like a halo round the world,

That brightens up the universe.

I have nothing to lose.

I have no one to fear.

I shall have, for what I’ve come,

Make my crusade true for some.

All the evil that you’ve grown;

And the greed that you have shown;

And for all your naked lies,

I’ll claim them before your eyes.

When I feel my deed is done,

I’ll vanish into oblivion.

And when evil strikes again,

I shall make a new return.

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Blood on the World's Hands

The Golden Sun, His innocence,
His tears dry before they leave his eyes.
Looking at the plight of men,
And their evil shroud of certain doom.
They know not where their ways lead,
For their sins of evil, lust and greed.

The souls traverse the crimson sky,
Curse the reavers, pray no more may die.
The cathars and their undying will,
Fell a victim to a religious war.
As the untold stories go,
In the name of Lord a massacre.

Blood on the world’s hands,
The heroes rise and fall.
Blood on the world’s hands,
Evil takes it toll.

The Papacy of Innocent ,
To slaughter men a massive army sent.
The Fallen God, His dark mantle,
And His thirst for power insatiable.
Heretics and their beliefs,
The raging anger of the demon seed.

In the castle Montsegur,
Fighting fate and pure religious hate.
The Pope in his vicious tone,
“Kill them all – for God will know his own”.
And so were they all burnt down,
In the name of Lord a massacre.

Blood on the world’s hands,
The Heroes rise and fall.
Blood on the world’s hands,
Evil takes it toll.

For all the people damned to die.
The souls give a sad, demented cry.
God does watch, his ways unknown
To avenge those with a heart of stone.
And so has history shaped,
In the name of Lord a massacre…

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Dawn of Darkness

" for He will rise from the sea
creating armies on either shore
to turn man against his brother..."
- The Bible

The night is long; the men have their last meal.
And at dawn, history is going to be made.
There’s a war where soldiers fight till death,
and tomorrow, fate will seal their lives.

The grassy knoll looks so barren now,
And its splendour, none to admire it.
It looks as though, hell’s gates are now open,
to take the men without a second thought.

The price of land surpasses that of life,
There’s no Hero, the guns show no mercy.
The evil eye sneers down upon the men.
The soldiers fear and wear a pallid look.

The cannons set, to claim a thousand lives.
They crave for more, the hunger seldom calms.
The soldiers cry, for they know what lies beyond.
Their good prayers, the last and only hope.

These men are for God to save,
give them strength, the heart to be brave.
This land is not for yours to claim,
There’s blood being spilt and who’s to blame?

The angels cry, question the truth of life.
This one time chance, wasted in ruthless war.
The sound of sorrow, the pound of the dreaded death knell.
This well might be, the last day of their life.
They might not live on to tell the tale.

The war-cry goes, the soldiers let go of
their feelings of hatred, love and pain.
This war is on, they cannot turn back home,
The enemy lines, close to hell than earth.

This land is not for yours to claim,
Diablo waits to maim the men to fame.
This land is not for yours to claim,
The war has gone too far to tame.

The wounded greet death with open arms;
Let their light disappear into the night.
Their visions dim never to see the dawn,
they wake in hell for the sins that they had done.

The ground is smeared with the colour of blood lust
and the sky pours to wash the stain in vain.
Yet the men take faithful steps forward,
towards their end, they know it’s not for them
to make a choice, the time for them to go.

This land is not for yours to claim,
The darkness ravages the souls of the slain.
This land is for the Lord to save,
Let there be light and none to grieve.

They’re just puppets in the mighty hands of God,
He only knows what curse this war might bring.
Oh my Lord! Why this war on earth?
Can you heal the scar that’s left behind?

This land has been mauled to shame,
This realm has been burnt by the evil flame.

The war is won; the soldiers have scourged the land.
They rise to fame but the guilt will still remain.
They never learn, they go to war again,
And God will lose the hope to save mankind.

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The Mind of a Gemini

Hi. If you're here then you're reading my first post as a Blogger. I generally like to pen down my thoughts and opinions in some way that I can. Hence I resorted to blogging. I like humor, poetry, Heavy Metal. I'm Guitar crazy. Well, that's some info about me. Welcome to "The Gemini Mind".

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