I like to observe ordinary strangers through their windows. Peering into some stranger’s window is not only extremely rude and intrusive, it is an uncannily fulfilling exercise.

When I glance into a stranger’s window and see a pretty girl curled up on a couch reading Elliots’s Middlemarch, I try to imagine what kind of a person she is and what her life is like. Is she a purist like Dorothea or an idealist like Tertius — or maybe she is both.

Or when I see an old man, deeply engrossed in his cigarette, I try to imagine what he is thinking about and how old he is and almost instantly — how long he has been smoking (for most smokers or ex-smokers, an old man holding a cigarette instantly evokes their long buried hope that one can continue smoking and live to be old)

A window offers the owner and an observer many insights. To an owner, it offers a view of the world outside and all the hues and depths it has to offer. To an observer, it offers the opportunity to judge — without fear of rebuke.

For an instant, the observer and the subject (through the window) are connected by some invisible karmic bond. The subject is, of course, unaware of this intrusion of privacy while the observer’s mind gleefully soaks in details –  constructs hypothetical structures around the subject. This “spell” is broken, if the observer loses perspective or if the subject realizes that he or she is being observed.

Such “intellectual” eavesdropping is generally different from “recreational” eavesdropping. However, that does not make it any less intrusive. Or rude.

I originally posted this weblog on July 29, 2006.  On July 11, that year, militants, in an attempt to spread fear and destruction, exploded seven synchronised bombs within 11 minutes on the trains running on the Western Lines of Suburban Mumbai. 209 people lost their lives. 700 were grievously injured.

I remember, people were really scared, in the days that followed. That, in itself, was a great achievement for these terrorists. Bombay is seldom affected by anything. We, Mumbaikars, are one solid bunch. It takes a lot of terror to terrorize the people of Mumbai.

 Apparently, the success of the July 11 bomb blasts — the perfect synchronicity of the explosions, the flawless execution of this intelligently planned terror attack, the scale of destruction & loss of life, the utter failure of government machinery in preventing these attacks, was our threshold. We caved in. Widespread paranoia ensued.

 Eventually, life did snap back into shape. And as these things go, most people forgot. Others, the friends & relatives of those unfortunate men, women and children, who perished or were irreversibly disabled, do not have that luxury.

It was under these painful circumstances, that, with a mix of fear, revulsion and a strange sense of love & tenderness for my great city, I wrote these words.

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Oh hell yes. I’m spent. Spent and lent. I’m not going to make you roll in agony. with my sad prose. My lack of comic timing. My timid hellos and mighty(wannabe) goodbyes. I will not let you tell me that the sun’s still shining. no-permission-no. no permit granted-thank you -Govt. of Maharashtra. jai Bheem, jai Shivaji. jai Maharashtra. My Bombay, but a whore, will look at you and will sleep with you and make ugly babies with you. You yellow-livered-nilly-hearted-fcuk-wasted young-mistress-of-green-paper. I will damn you to hell. never-ever-heal. I will cry foul. I will give you away.

O Apollo-Bundered-Marine-Drived,Mumbadevid-Malabar Hilld-Chowpatty-breasted Bombay. Squatting-potty-clutching-The.Times.of.India(Mumbai Edition). With a Wills Classic Milds in the dark slit between your lips. The bum-bum-Bholenath. The Tadi-Madi-Vikri-Kendras. The Babloo-Da-Dhabas. With it’s Salted-Kebabed Lamb-Balls and Bombay-Ducked Masalla. Critter Fritters. Angry mobs of facist Sainiks-Communist Maharashtrians. Religious Fanatics-the Muslims. The angry fangry. The lolitta-I-fcuked-your-daughter thrice. The Maratha-Proud-Bhenchods. The Musllman-Minority-Madarchods.

The Racist regime. The fcuk-chut-Kamathi-randi-Pura whores. The Bhandup-Sonapur hijras. The Night-Lovers-Mulund-Checknaka. The Fcuk-me-while-you-cans. The Chicks-In-Hot-Panties. The Nirmal-Life-R-Malis of Gutter Gardens. The Kentucky-Fried-McDonalded invisible poor. The shit laden slaughter houses. The Hijra-Bazaars. The general hostility against Muslims. My brothers. My brahmin father. My whoring myself to the world. Accepting the ways of Hindu India-Muslim India-Christian India-Sikh India. Fcuk you, you religio-casto mongrels. You cocker-spaniel-disguised-strays. You St. Bernard-wannabes. You saffron-robed-religious-disinfectants. You green-loving-five-times-namazee-terrorists. You sister-fcuking-tonga-riding demi celebrities. You know what you’re doing to the world????

You half-livered-one-testicled monsters. You religious fanatics. You Hindu-Muslim-Sikh-Christian-Dalit-Agri-Junglee-Jhopadpatti-hating sea-faced-building-walas. O, my Bombay bleeds. My Bombay hurts. You bomb-exploding after-life-harem-seekers. And you, the ones with the smirk on your faces - the saffron-clad-masjid-burning-religious-cleansers. You modern-day-21st-century-many-headed-Hitlers. How many lives will your prejudice claim? Did your father fart you out of his ass that you behave so badly?

You Hindus haters. And, you Muslim despisers. You have done us in.

O joy.

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Originally Posted here.

Over the last couple of years I have made(for no apparent reasons), deliberate attempts to distance myself from Web 2.0, RSS, WordPress etc. I just had too much going on in my life — transition from student life to professional life, coping with lifestyle related health issues(hypertension, tachydermia etc), health related paranoia, a search for directions in personal and professional life, change of my geographical location and a mental struggle to quit smoking.

 I’m happy to reflect that I did stay on the positive side of most of these issues (and FYI, I did manage to quit smoking — I’ve been smoke-free for over one year now). However, all of these issues kept me away from something I devoted most of my serious student life to — recreational technology and the Internet. Not entirely, however — I did make feeble attempts to keep the fire burning through my much neglected blog at http://www.xanga.com/Too_Brown and I have been avidly reading a number of weblogs and technical forums. 

So, not surprisingly, I had a hard time setting up this website. Most of the issues were caused due to my haste. I initially signed up at blogger(also known as blogspot — a Google service) and signed up for toobrown.com from Google Apps. Google actually uses GoDaddy as the domain registrar. Very soon, I realized that blogger was not what I wanted. I wanted something I had a greater level of control over. Like the ability to SSH into my server and install applications. And use FTP.

 I signed up for these services at HostMonster. However, my domain was (and is) still hosted by GoDaddy. I managed to integrate these by changing the Nameserver DNS hosts over at GoDaddy to those served by HostMonster. However, the change is still propogating to all the DNS systems across the Internet. One peculiar issue I noticed is, while I can access my new HostMonster hosted blog through toobrown.com from here in Florida, an individual sitting in Utah or Arizona still hits my old pages hosted by GoDaddy. I did some research and apparently, it takes a while for all the DNS systems on the Internet to recognize the change.

 Finally, WordPress — I cant really say I had any real difficulties setting it up. I installed the latest version 2.3.1 with reasonable ease on my Linux server and also uploaded some layouts and common plugins. I’m really impressed by the manner in which WordPress has been designed. The design is clean and the implementation is near-flawless, to say the very least.