Hiddentruth's Blog

August 17th - I've joined Ninestars Info as a media monitor (English specialist). They handle around 40-50 Canadian radio stations.

October 31st - My colleagues are great people to work with, although the Management sucks big time. The job's not onerous.I now finish my work in around 4-5 hours, almost like a part-time job. And, for the first time in my life I'm working the graveyard shift, and enjoying it. There's only us guys. Nobody telling us how to work or when or questioning us about anything. It's almost like a dream job. Except for the pay, that is. I expected much more. Still, this job is perfect in other ways.

Got the results for the Commonwealth Short Story Competition...I didn't make the grade. I guess sombre and dark stories are what they need going by the winning entries, not light-hearted funny ones. Thank you, anyway, Rebs.

Reminds me of that episode on Friends where everybody except Chandler loves their job.

It's been 5 days since I joined the new company. Position - Editor...Junior Editor actually although I'm called a QA, a quality analyst.The work part of myjob is interesting. It's the other part that sickens me.

The rotating shifts, day, afternoon, and night...rotating every month. Of course, I've only been in the morning shift (and you know what I wrote about Morning Persons).

Should I quit? - that's the question occupying my mind for the past 72 hours.

Let's see what tomorrow brings...Monday, I mean.

I was about 4 when I got my first comic. In those days my father used to buy comics published by Amar Chitra Katha publications which were generally about stories from the Indian mythologies. I got my first taste of internationallyrenowned heroes like Mandrake the Magician, The Phantom, and Flash Gordonwhen I visited my maternal uncle (at age 8, if I'm not mistaken) who had been collecting Indrajal Comics since they'd begun publishing back in 1964. Then came Spiderman at around that timefollowed byHe-Man and Superman. These last 3 wereanimated superheroes and wereslightly better than cartoon strips.

Then, somewhere around age 13, I became seriously enamoured of The Phantom aka The Ghost Who Walks aka The Man who never dies...the Gray Ghost of Bangalla, Africa. I was fascinated. So much so that I began a serious search for a skull ring...a search that lasted almost 5 years! I finally seemed to have outgrown him. I had already started onpictureless novels by age 12-13 and for a while the Superhero craze was forgotten amidst the endless Wodehouses, Mark Twains, and others of the ilkwhom I still avidly read.

It was in 2000, the year Manoj Night Shyamalan released Unbreakable, that my craze for Superheroes seemed to come back with a vengeance, especially for a particularordinary individual whodevotes all hisenergy and inherited millionsin devising ways and means of preventing and fighting crime, acaped crusader and vigilante known as Batman.

When I watched the first Batman movie starring Michael Keaton in the lead, I wasimpressed. The Gothic atmosphere, the changes in his voice when he became his alter ego at nights, the equipments that he used...they were much more than what I'd expected.Only afew months have passed since therelease ofThe DarkKnight andI must say that the movies only keepgetting better and better. The character has gonethrough a lotof changes but still seems to maintain his hold in the minds of eventhe original fans of the comic strip. I must say here that I think Christian Bale looks like the ultimate Batman thus far, better than Keaton, Kilmer, and Clooney.

When the first Spider-Man movie was released I was fascinated. The in-depth study of character was something I'd never seen before. TheSuperhero actually had feelings!Now I've seenseveral Superhero movies, including Daredevil, The Shadow,Hulk etc.One thing seems to becommon to most of them.They all have to give up their loved ones to be ofuse to Mankind. Even Superman, the most powerful of them all feelslonely at times. But Batman seems to revel in his loneliness and being alone only makes him stronger and more invincible. There is somethingencouraging (not to mention a little scary) about a man,almost a ghost,whouses the object of his childhoodnightmares to instill fear into the hearts of wrongdoers. No wonder then that among all the Superheroes, Batman stays my favourite, closely followed by the blind lawyer from Hell's Kitchens, Daredevil, the man without fear.

Like the man in the movie says, "These are mediocre times, Mrs. Dunn. People are starting to lose hope." Well they are. And in spite of knowing that these are justfigments of imaginationand not for real there is a part of methat wishes some of these were true, especially the one with the bat.

Hi Folks,

It has been a long time since I put my fingers on the kbd to compose a blog. For those not in the know, I've recently joined a martial arts class that provides close-combat training. It utilizes the natural defensive and offensive techniques of an ordinary person and converts it into something downright dangerous (to the other person, of course). Along with the numerous locks and attacks it is one of the best street fighting technique ever designed. I'm talking about Krav Maga.

The style is supposed to have originated some time in the 1930s in Czechoslovakia. The founder, Imi Lichtenfeld, moved to Israel to help the...but, you can look up all of that on Google.

Anyway, I've been building up my stamina like never before. And, of course, suffering the odd aches and pains all over my body, which the trainer assures me is normal for beginners. I definitely am using long-atrophied muscles that I've never used before, that I didn't even know existed. (Even a long career in medical transcription cannot teach one everything about anatomy.)

Still, there it is. Ladies and Gentleman. A new Hero is emerging. He's fast. He's powerful. He's deadly. He's also lazy and ugly. Think Hancock without the ability to fly, the strength, and the handsome profile and what have you got? Me!!!

LOL. Got carried away there a little bit. Well, all right, a lot.

The beginning of this year marked another milestone in my life. Our cook has quit as she is moving along with her family to another part of Chennai. Hence, out of necessity, I have had to take over the reins from her. And the surprising thing is I'm getting fairly good at it. I mean, most anything I try turns out well. At leastthat's what thosewho have partaken of my cooking feel that. Except for my roommate, who generally has something to say, like, "That's not how my mom used to make it." I guess it's the low-salt, low-sugar, low-fat meals that bum him out.

Still, no complaints. My pants fit better, I don't have to breathe through my mouth after running up one flight of steps, and I can watch action movies and actually try out some of those moves without much damage to myself or my surroundings. Now, if only I could get my company to pay me more...

Oh well, 3 out of 4 is not so bad.

It's the fourth week of July. The heat is off, so much so that I've begun going on evening walks again. And Starr, I can too feel the numbing, stinging effect of cold...when I hold 3-4 cubes of ice in my hands for some time :)) But, I would prefer the real thing to the ice cubes any day. Well, maybe not as cold as you describe it, but at least cold enough to allow me a quick jog in the mornings to work up a sweat. Like I might have mentioned before, I'm more able to withstand cold than heat.

Anyway, I was wondering what I should write about today and it struck me, yet again, that I don't blog about anything worthwhile anyway. I could make this interesting a la Bridget Jones' Diary, but I don't think I am as funny as all that. Besides, what I do in a day on average would fill about 2 lines. Saving grace - don't smoke and don't drink.

Living in a metro, breathing the smoky, dusty air, all I can think about is pollution and the effect it's going to have on my health and, of course, the health of the future generations. I also worry about acid rain sometimes. And global warming. And another tsunami. Morbid stuff!

But then I take out my collection of "Friends" and I begin to feel better immediately after hearing Chandler's first joke.