Super quotes

I happened to watch The Unforgiven for the second time on TV and the has some brilliant one-liners from Clint Eastwood as usual. They are definitely worth a mention here.

Gene Hackman: You sir, are a coward!! You just shot an unarmed man.
Clint: He should have been armed, if he’s gonna decorate his saloon with my friend’s dead body.

Gene Hackman: I didn’t deserve to die lie this. I was building a house.
Clint: Deserve has nothing to do with this.
Gene Hackman: See you in hell, Munny!!
Clint: Yeah!!!

The movie has given me enough enthusiasm to start watching spaghetti westerns again. Have to surely watch the dirty harry and the man with no name series of movies now.

Phone ettiquettes???

People in India are in dire need of some phone etiquettes driven into them. Take an example from this morning. I get a phone call. I pick up the phone and say the customary hello and then I hear a gruff tiger like voice on the other end saying “Hello, who is this?”. I was startled for a moment and thought, “Excuse me, wasn’t this supposed to be my line?” What an audacity this man had. He calls me up and then he asks me who I was. Startled and angry, I retorted back asking “Who are you?”. Actually, I wanted to say “who are the @$#@ are you?” but had to restrain myself, but the way I asked “who are you?” it definitely sounded like “who the @#$% are you?” and I hoped he got that. I think he did because he didn’t again ask me who I was. Instead, he asked me in a mellowed down voice if is this was phone no. XXXXXXXX. I said no, this is phone number, XXXXXXXY. Then the line went dead.

The point is, this is not the first time this has happened to me. This has happened twice before. I do happen to get pissed when unknown people call me up and ask me who I am.

On another occasion, I got 3 phone calls in 5 minutes asking me where Rajesh was? I had clearly told the guy at the other end that this was a wrong number. The fourth time I got a call asking for Rajesh, my straight reply was Rajesh left yesterday for New Delhi. He will be there on work for about 9 weeks. Peace ensured after this. No calls inquiring about Rajesh’s whereabouts were ever received in my house after that.

A quote I read somewhere recently goes something like this “I love dreaming, but reality continues to ruin my life”. Turns out, it’s absolutely true. And to all Pink Floyd fans out there, David Gilmour is out with his new album called On an island. The title track sounded real nice, which has some heavenly guitarring by Gilmour as usual. Have to check out the rest of the tracks. I sense my first attempt at writing an album review.

Vertical limit....

This is the title of a real life trek I undertook this weekend. While Chris O’donell was trying to scale Mount K2 in the fictional movie, here I was trying to trek 28 odd kms across a range of 9-10 hills from Mulayangiri to Bababudangiri. In short, this was an amazing trek, very beautiful and exciting and something I have been wanting to do for a long time. A few lessons were learnt on the trek though.

a) In a trek, you need to carry enough water to at least fill up a Sintex tank. 8 litres of water is apparently not enough for 3 people.
b) When travelling in a town bus, the safest part to sit it in is the top of the bus. Not to mention that it is also a very exciting way to travel.
c) When the locals tell you that the trek will take only an hour or so, rest assured that you are not going to reach your destination in less than 5 hours.
d) If a local tells you that you will get lots and lots of buses in lingadahalli, you will not see a bus for atleast the next 10 hours.
e) 4 rural kms are equal to 10 Bangalore kms.
f) You never will end up camping the day you carry a tent with you and vice versa.
g) The more unplanned and random the trek is, the better it is.
h) The local cuisine of Attigundi and Bababudangiri which my dear trekking companion wanted to sample is basically a bun and a cup of tea containing god know what.

Anyway, here are a few glimpses of this wonderful place.

And here is me, with my thinking cap on. I was reminded of Howard Roark here and the starting of “The Fountainhead” which went something like this if I remember rite: - “Howard Roark sat on the hill naked and pondering..” then it goes blah blah blah blah for the next 400 pages, never bothered to complete the last 100 pages. Please note that I am not endorsing the book here and I was completely clothed when I put my thinking cap on.

And in Kemmangundi, this is what you get when you order 3 cups of coffee, you get three different sizes of cups and three different quantities.

I FINALLY managed to tune my guitar all by myself. This is a momentous occasion for me and I shall celebrate this in a while with a hot cup of coffee. Lastly, thought for the week is “Hard work and sincerity has nothing to do with success. Its all about being in the right place at the right time”.