So, I return

After three failed attempts, a few unkept promises, a few bloglinks and a dropping technorati ranking, I am back. Where I started.

It's almost a year since the blog really started. I was lying ill in my room in Bombay thinking about life and friends and others, when I thought I should start blogging. Attend to the whimper that had escaped in October and really give birth to what had been conceived.

Life turns full circle. I'm lying ill in my room again. And the mind foments. Here goes... Top 10 reasons why Dhoomk2 disappeared for two months and didn't even bother to write a little letter:
1) He was praying for Messiah's reappearance on the scene and had committed that there will be no more musings from 22nd floor till we are delivered to salvation. Incidentally, how does 9, 8, 1, 10, 9, 17, 65, 8, 18, 11 compared to 4, 18, 51, 2*, 26, 5, 20, 19, 2, 31?

2) Not much happened in India that needed clarity, yes, besides the Press giving itself the right to decide Ram Jethmalani's career moves and Abhishek Bachchan's marriage, further moves by Arjun Singh and Greg Chappel to destabilise the nation (especially when the Parliament spends as much time debating Chappel as education) and the idea that Deepak Parashar and Deepak Tijori can be captivating when put in a room with Roopali Ganguly and Ragini someone.

3) He was flighting a copyright violation case against the worst film of the year.

Please, instead of deciding who to feel sorry for in case they marry and cooking up survey figures, the Press should insist that Abhishek Bachchan should act (instead of scowling through the entire film) and that Aishwarya Rai shouldn't be given dialogues, especially lengthy opening ones. Ever since Hema Malini made a career out of highlighting every alternate syllable and thus, turning normal dialogues into songs in Iambic Pentameter, nobody had come close to destroying his or her credibility like the way Sunahri did with cricket commentary in Dhoom2.
Talking of Aishwarya, she does look fetching in corsets, but so does Tom Cruise.

4) He wasn't taking many flights, though he must mention that Kingfisher's the loveliest lady in town and he will not mind putting his coat over a puddle where the lady lands. Dhoomk2 actually turned up at the airport seven minutes before the Kingfisher flight took off and managed to find his way to the flight. For he had a personal emergency and they relented and provided him support. This, even when, he didn't mention that he was The Dhoomk2 himself. Now, if only they would play Friends instead of Hutch Great Indian Laughter Champions Challenge Dwitiya.*

5) He didn't have much to link to, besides an old favourite of Doordarshan, and a reason for a new interest in Maths. When'll IIT do something similar like the fine friends in the latter link and really uplift my mood, instead of holding Pan-IIT meets to save the nation? (Hat-tip: Helmet)

6) He didn't check the incoming links too often and failed to notice this gem. Apparently, planes in India have turned into trains. And no, this is not about being snooty and questioning the rights of the great unwashed to travel in planes (though Dhoomk2 does have some opinions about people with nary a clue about where the loos are trying to queue up next to the emergency doors to do their thing).

All he is saying is that the great Indian tradition of families coming to see off the kids has reached the planes. What would 'seeing off' be, without the obligatory tiffin carrier of aloo poori, luchi aloor dom, taiyyar saadam or thepla and the newspaper/ magazine bought at A.H. Wheelers? More importantly, what would 'seeing off' be, unless the whole family descends on a single seat, blocks the way for other passengers and makes small talk like, "Onno station-e naambina kintu. Train chere dile mushkil" (Don't get off on other stations. If the train starts moving, it'll be difficult) while waiting for the train to move, when millions of them will get off in hordes, thus miraculously leaving behind vacuum, palpable excitement and fresh air.

As you can see, Indian mothers and aunts are best at sermonising on trifles while living on the edge themselves. However, no mother or aunt has ever come close to her. The mother who came to see-off her boy.

“Seat belt mat kholna, samjhe (Don’t take off your set belt, understand)”, or some such thing the middle-aged lady said, finger lifted, to the boy, between five and eight years, in the plane. When the air-hostesses confronted her — as she had stood up while the plane was about to move — she told them she was there to say bye to her son. “I’m a parent, and you should know how to talk to a parent,” she told them in Hindi, little realising that she had achieved what any militant would be proud of.

7) He was waiting till the sitemeter touched 0 and decided to give up the moment the daily count touched single digits instead.

8) He was busy on Orkut, copying all his friends's details (social, professional and personal) to paper. Then he went to each of his friend's friend's list and copied all the names on to a few sheets of foolscap paper. Then he couldn't stop and copied all the friend's friend's details on to a few pieces of paper as well. In all, he ended up with 23,483 pieces of foolscap paper, but it was worth it.
Everybody on Orkut, two degrees removed from him is on those papers. The records are safe and Dhoomk2 feels safely interconnected. Now, if only someone puts an alert system which will enable users to know when this network increases. For otherwise, Dhoomk2 will need to traverse 300 friends and average 150 friends each for each of his friends to find new additions. This is clearly inefficient. And takes away time from blogging. However, Mr. Patil forces Dhoomk2 to do this.

9) He thought it will be cool to replicate last year which proves that life goes around in circles. It had been almost a year since the blog really started. He was lying ill in his room in Bombay in December 2005 thinking about life and friends and others, when he thought he should start blogging. Attend to the whimper that had escaped in October and really give birth to what had been conceived. Thus, in 2006, he stopped in October... with a whimper. The content and the size of the post pretty much similar to the one 53 weeks back. And now he starts again.

10) He was dying at work. What else? He'll still die for a few more days, but let this be a tribute to one of the best trailers he ever saw. The name is k2, Dhoomk2.

* On a related note, he hates Jet. They didn't even wait for two minutes past the half-hour prior to boarding the flight mark, before allocating the ticket to some heathen who was on the waitlist. Joey and Friends notwithstanding, you suck.