groovy, baby!

for the next few days i will not be able to shake your hand. neither will i be able to write properly and this post is being dictated to apple's dictation software. the reason for all this is screwdriverosis, the main and probably only symptom of victims of an IKEA trip. millions of carpenters all over the world are cursing ingvar kamprad for the DIY* madness that he has unleashed on the rest of the world while millions of hapless individuals happily succumb to this not so fatal disease in their hunt for bargains

we had a sofa set that had a black wooden frame and some sort of plastic intertwined over the frame forming holes of a multilateral shape. (btw we just stepped back about 20 years if those 2 'had's didnt give it away). we also had a dining table with a sun mica top made to look like wood. needless to say my family had no part in assembling either. when the plastic intertwinings gave way and started sagging after i had jumped on it a few hundred times, an intertwiner would be called up. he would take a seat in our hall and when plied with enough tea (and cash) restrung them to tensile strengths capable of bearing a jumping 8 year old. we later moved on, to a bigger flat and to a better sofa (ie one with no plastic). along the way we acquired a shoe rack that was so nicely crafted in expensive wood that it became a partial dresser and a solid but shoerack-like shoe rack that was wide enough for 4.67 shoes. both created under the influence of my mom's tea by a carpenter and his seemingly more talented apprentice. expert worksmen that they were, they even created a bookshelf with the remaining wood and added it to my room where it housed some computer books that i never read and a super-power memory book.

but none of these wooden marvels had ever had my fingers laid on them except after they were varnished and lacquered and in most cases also dried.

when i finally finished last night, the screw count was close to 2 scores. on the flip side my house is now home to pieces of furniture with exotic european names. in one corner vika curry and vika amon coupled to become the desk that holds my powerbook-monitor-keyboard-mouse-wires entity while flarke posed with grace befitting any tv stand, despite having to bear a non-lcd, non-hd, non-cabled TV. i've done what every budget-minded person does in these united states - put together a veritable menagerie of ikea furniture and have done so without making a single cup of tea. if i were more intelligent, i would start a deIKEAting institute where for a price, recent ikea victims can choose any piece of furniture and unscrew and dismantle to their heart's content. however no such thing exists. so, for a while, don't mind it if i refuse to shake hands next time we meet. it's nothing personal.

*DIY is short for Do It Yourself. in case you've always had others do your things for you or are living under a rock
^ IKEA stands for Ingvar Kamprad(the founder) Elmataryd(farm where he grew up) Agunnaryd (his home village)..or so says wikipedia..no wonder he shortened it, would've cost a lot of money for a super bowl commercial otherwise.
^ Here is an interesting quote from a woman who names the furniture:
"For bathrooms, it's Norwegian lakes. Kitchens are boys, and bedrooms are girls. For beds, it's Swedish cities. There's a lady who sits there and comes up with new names, making sure there isn't a name that means something really ugly in another language. But it doesn't always work. We gave a bed a name that means 'good lay' in German." if you have the time read the complete guardian article

what's up, doc?

after 16 years i realized that mahesh bhatt was an inspired man. dil hai ki manta nahin was not a movie i particularly enjoyed watching but watch i did, for whatever aamir khan touched those days was gold..actually it pretty much is today as well. i watched movies of his that no one else probably did - awwal number, love love love, daulat ki jung to name a few. and so it was that dil hai ki manta nahin was watched. i dont remember much of the movie..there is a watermelon song as my sister put it. and a kind of funny (then) hitchhiking scene where aamir tries and fails to stop a car while pooja succeeds with a display of her (shapely?) leg.

fast forward to a couple of nights back and i'm watching the exact scene unfold in black and white as claudette colbert stops a car while clark gable and his defeated thumb watch in amazement. this was in 'it happened one night'. the scene appears halfway..so,yes, it did not strike me till then that 'dil hai..; was a hindi speaking evil twin of 'it..'. i should've guessed as much. isnt he the same one who gave us criminal, which despite an alluring manisha, was still a straight lift from fugitive? someone please review his other movies and let me know where else i've been fooled.

a bit of trivia i gleaned from the wiki is that the hitchhiking scene, where gable chews a carrot while explaining the nuances of asking for a ride, is also one which inspired friz freleng to create a carrot chewing bunny named bugs...amazing , eh?, the amount of mutual inspiration film makers share.