Date with Work

After a long, hard days work, when every muscle in your body aches, all you want to do is get to the cozy comforts of your home. Have a hot shower, listen to some good music, make some coffee and sit in the balcony and light a smoke. Ahhh. Bliss…

But this bliss is short lived. You receive a call from a client, who wants something urgently, and you being the nice, sweet agency guy that you are, tell the client that it will be done and mailed to her first thing in the morning. You need to make a choice now and you are left with two options. You either go home and indulge in all the above mentioned things and do the work in the morning or stop your bike and step into the next coffee shop you come across and get cracking. Either way the possibility of getting back to work is ruled out.

So, you start riding your bike slowly and after a while spot a coffee day, Your more a barista person than a café coffee day person, but you need caffeine real bad and you dont care a damn. Thats the first mistake for the evening!

You park your bike and after walking past a lot of rich, spoilt school kids and the heavy trail of strawberry hookah smoke, you find a corner table and leave your stuff and settle down. You look at the watch and it shows 8:30. You think to yourself, ok another one hour, a couple of cappuccinos and then youre through from that place. You look around you and see a couple not bothered about the place and having a cozy making out session. You smile and think to yourself, search the keys to your house from your jean pocket and are really tempted to offer them the key and politely tell them to get a house instead of a room. But you shrug your shoulders and dig your scribble pad from the bag instead. Just when you are about to write a line of thought, a deep voice disturbs you and waits for your order. You dont raise your head, but order a cappuccino and also ask him to get you a cold glass of water. The strawberry hookah is now beginning to give you a headache. You start working. Ask questions to yourself about the product, the client, their service (thats how you work and crack concepts). You have a whole barrage of questions before you and you start answering one after the other. Suddenly there is a loud shriek of a microphone. Your ears become sour. You immediately cover your ears and spit some water out. You look up to see a guy with thick glasses and an even thicker moustache standing at a corner of the coffee shop with a microphone in his hands and a headphone on his ears. He has a laptop on a table in front of him. There are bunch of people around him and also a really beautiful young woman, making circles with her hair. You see relief. But you’re still not sure as to whats going on.

The man introduces himself to the crowd sitting in the coffee shop and tells everyone there is going to be a karaoke session that is Instore for everyone. You love music and you dont think your a bad singer at all, so you thought this could be a slight relief from the concept that you were working on. You keep the pen down and close the scribbling pad. The young woman starts off with -Hips dont lie, You thought the song made a lot of sense. Youre not really a fan of shakira, but you are of her hips. The young woman sings really well and you were thinking to yourself this is going to be fun. And as always bliss is short lived. The man with the microphone starts singing after the shakira song gets over. Your reaction, you feel like strangling him and putting a bullet through your head- thrice. It is terrible, it is hilarious. And strangely this does not bother the man at all and he is having a blast. Screaming, shouting, oh am sorry he is supposed to be singing. You become happy about one thing though; his singing makes the school kids smoking the hookah, stand up, laugh and leave. The air smells divine with only cigarette smoke. But what do you do with the screaming man? He then calls a few people from the audience to come and sing. You start praying, somebody please go on and grab that mike before he starts singing again. There are a few guys who are keen and you applaud them to the stage where people have to sing. This is the second mistake of the evening. The brave ones who actually come in have no idea about the song that they choose and make up their own lyrics and it gets pathetic.

For the next one hour that youre there, you cant work, you cant drink water, you cant sip your coffee, and well you just cant handle it anymore. Until the man walks up to you and asks if you would like to sing for the crowd. In the bottom of your heart you know that you are a much better singer than all the other blokes who have sung so far, but then you really dont want to push it. So you just smile and tell him that youre really a bathroom singer. The girl, who is sitting beside you in the next table, feels disappointed. You think maybe she wanted you to sing. The cycle continues and more people step on the stage and sing some more songs, there is vande mataram – a song only Rahman can sing better, there is Who lamhe one of your favourite songs, but well its just not your day.

You ask for the bill and decide to move out, when the girl walks upto you and looks you right in the eye and says, I thought you would sing something for me. Mistake number three that seals the day!!!

Iyer is back

This is an ode to a gorgeous woman who has been in my thoughts the last few days. An ode to the mystery woman who keeps showing up in my dreams. I think I take my job way too seriously. Been working on this concept for a write up for a campaign, about a woman, a woman of substance, a woman who everyone wants to fall in love with, a woman who is there to make you happy, to make you smile and to smile with you and fill your senses and along with it, your life.

For me, she is no woman. she is just a beautiful thought. A thought that can come in your mind before you say Czechoslovakia. A thought that lingers over your system for a really long time. She is full of life, she is full of zest for life. She is life.

Ive got friends and family who read the crap I churn out from time to time. Friends, who message me or call me and ask me why I have been silent for a while, Friends who dont think twice before calling me at two in the morning and ask me,what color is my creative juice. Yes, I do have strange friends. But it feels nice, it feels great to have people like them in my life. I strongly believe that it is people like them, who help me come out of crazy screw ups I end up in, and holes that I dig myself. I dont generally feel upset bout things in life, but there sure have been instances where I had to go through a lot. Thats history now and there is a really cool and amazing future to look forward to.


My career is on an all time high, and with each passing day, am only being happy. Doing new things, learning tricks of the trade, meeting interesting people and not to forget being sold to three women for 50 rupees one night in a pub.

On the one hand everything seems to be happening, but on the other, I see that I have begun to stray away from friends. I havent been spending too much time with a few people and it feels sad when I know they mean a lot to me. A trip to Mumbai has been on the cards for a really long time and I just dont seem to be able to do that. Looks straight In the eye, I shall be there soon, real soon.

I need to go to goa. I sure do. And I have already got the design for the second tattoo that I want to get. The sun, the sand and the beaches, not to forget the liquid diet that I would be surviving on, once I get there. There is magic in the air when I just take the name of Goa. Am pretty certain thats the same with a lot of you guys who are reading this post this very moment. I also do sometimes feel that the place is highly over rated, but who the fuck cares, I need to go there and I need to go there fast. So who ever wants to come with moi can please send me a line and after the initial rounds are cleared there shall be an interview in a coffee shop or a pub and based on your taste of music and coffee and the capacity to which you can drink, I shall sign the papers and take you on board. Entry open. Drop in your lines.


P:S She is Black, She is Sexy, She is Gorgeous, and She is Maya!!

Ladies and Worms, I introduce Maya to all of you!! My only possession. My new BIKE.

Eternal Sunshine with the Coffee Shop woman

As I stood there gazing at those eyes
A cold rush flowed through my body
Abstract images kept flooding my mind

Nailed to the surface beneath my feet
Inches, she moved, she swayed
The hair brushing against the softness of her skin added to the mystery

Her scent was overpowering
heightened with her smile
I thought her fingers were trying to tell me something

A sign, to maybe move closer
To feel the warmth of her breath
Gentle drizzles filled the air

This was the moment
And she was ready
One latte and quick, she said

The waiter am sure didnt hear a word
He was mesmerized as well
words kept flowing, but I could only see her lips move

A glance around her,
Maybe she was expecting someone
Or maybe she didnt want anyone with her

As she stretched her arms
She should have felt so relaxed
Her body slid back into her chair

And then something happened
She knew someone was looking
She knew it was I

An attempt to adjust herself
She was clumsy this time
She is human afterall,I thought

Her cheeks turned red
She realized wat happened
I smiled, She did too

maybe there is something in the air
Maybe there is more to her
She was a beatiful thought !!!

Entangled

Why do you seek meaning

When Reason is right in front of you?



Why do you seek Truth

When Trust is behind you all the time?



Why does being away from you

Feels like total relief to others?



Why does the concept of you not being mine

refuses to dawn on others?



Why do I detest you so much

that it kills me from the inside?



Your a dream and am out of your mind

Your a haze and I want you out of mine



Your just a dream, You always will be

You have lost out on life, you have lost me forever!!!!

Psychology of the Mind

There have been times when I have sat and wondered what it would be like to be inside the minds of people. Is it a healthy affair? Or would it be an affair to remember? Whatever it is, it sure would be an affair that has the ability to leave you spell bound and speechless and would definitely leave a lasting impression. The mind sure plays a lot of games with the self and also with everyone around us. It is the essence of any person. It has the power to imagine, it has the power to think and it has the power of reasoning. Or wait a minute is it the brain which does all that and not the mind?
Is the mind different from the brain? Or are they the same? In the time of the great Rishis and the Munis people had the power to sit in one place and enter the minds of people. The bodies of other people and enter the body of their previous birth and live the life, live their life. Isn’t that a little too hard to handle? Would I have the strength to do something like that if I had the power to do that? The movie HOLLOW MAN got me thinking. Though it was a crappy movie, the concept of being invisible fascinated me. Am sure it is every guy’s fantasy to be invisible, at least for a day to be able to fulfill all their dreams. The most common being step into the ladies change room. (How clichéd does that sound) What would I do if I had the power to be invisible? Ok, am going way off target here. Coming back to the mind here. Focus Iyer, Focus.

I love psychology and I love everything that has to do with psychology. I think in life, everything revolves around people, the mind, the thoughts, the way people react to things and it is psychology all the way. A write up or a proposal that I read from a friend of mine got me thinking. She plans to do an entire photo feature on people and their psychology and relate that with advertising. Interesting. But needs more clarity for sure. She wanted to discuss the whole thing with me and this post is a direct result of the write up from her. Maybe I could answer her queries with this, maybe I could answer myself with this or maybe this could just be something that I wrote sitting in a coffee shop waiting for a radio jingle to be produced.

Photography, advertising, and psychology. Three different topics, interlinked to create a desired effect, food for thought? I wanted to study psychology when I was just about to finish my school life. Spoke to a few psychology students and ‘Elders’ from the family, the result am in advertising now, not a software engineer, not a doctor or a lawyer, but an advertising dude with long hair and weird eating and sleeping habits. It’s fun how my eagerness to do psychology quickly faded away, but the passion, the fire for the subject still is engraved in my system. Fortunately I got to do psychology in the course I did for my under graduation and my post graduation. And I loved every bit of reading about Freud and Lacan and the various other twisted, perverted and repulsively real psychologists this world has been subject to. Freud particularly caught my attention. The man was a genius. But unbelievably twisted in his brain. He has come up with startling reports about the human mind, hard to digest for a lot of people and more so for a few of my girl colleagues in college. They used to twitch and turn every time we had a discussion in class. They just wouldn’t take the ‘S’ word of the ‘G’ word. How funny is that? The oedipal journey and the electral complex, psychology students would understand what am referring to here, for the others, there is always Google and Wikipedia.

The world of still photographs- images is absolutely mind blowing. How the concept of capturing a moment of time between four frames came into life. How the photograph has a life of its own, not that of the person or the image in question, but on its own. More than abstract images captured, or more than the sunsets and the sunrise. The empty roads and the tall buidings, the distant mountains and the horizon. The beach and the boat. Its people that is more interesting. Human life forms are interesting subjects for photography. The contours of the face, the depth in the wrinkles, the smile, the eyes. It’s poetry. Real, true, breathtaking poetry. I have been working a lot with video, that I have lost out on the joy of still photographs. The way light can change the mood of a picture, the color can add beauty to the subject. I need to get back to photography. (takes the scribble pad and makes notes to self).

How can you bring in photography to describe psychology? How can you just use subjects, normal people, in normal setting, to project normal or abnormal behavior. How would a certain someone react when he is subject to different environment, under different circumstances? Would he be the same? Or would there be a drastic change in his behavioral pattern? This is Iyer the psychologist speaking here. Is it possible to perfectly blend the two – photography and psychology? If yes, then how? A silent photo feature about the activities of just one individual? His day to day activities? The people around him, what he likes, what he doesn’t, what he believes in and what he doesn’t. How do I juxtapose all this?

Maybe when I start off with something, or someone, I might be able to get answers to a lot of things, and maybe others who are put in similar situations would also get the feel of what it is like to be in their shoes. Would I react the same way as the subject? IS my life different from that of the other person in question? Clarity my friend is what is needed here. Shit loads of clarity.
I could get under the skin of people by doing this. I could understand what it feels like to be in another persons shoes. Maybe this is what the Rishis or the Munis did without the help of a Nikon Fm10. So getting into someone’s mind is not that difficult after all. We all do that in one form or the other and there is just no way of stopping us. Some do it cautiously and some without an idea.

Does that contradict everything that was spoken earlier? Does that contradict everything that psychologists have taken years to analyze, study and project? Is getting into the minds of people that easy? In a way it is like the Truman show. I know you more than you know yourself. But still knowing oneself is a whole different perspective. That is a spiritual journey. That is the search for peace, that is the search for truth and that is what we all know as Soul Searching.

Silent Zone

The mind is abuzz with loads of things
A lone man stands tall
Braving distractions, or he thinks

Time plays havoc, plays games
A game not very enjoyable
Helpless, he looks around

Only to have cold faces around
A chill down the spine, he sure has one
What ever happened, he wonders

Puzzled, perplexed and pissed
Yea, whatever, I write what I feel
If am pissed, I am PISSED

Puzzled, Perplexed and Pissed
He enters the dark depths of the silent zone
Nothing really happens here on the surface

Everything happens beneath layers
Beneath layers of Trust, Integrity
Beneath layers of Love and Friendship

Its been a week now
Since I entered the Zone
My feeling – I want to break free.

P.S When am screwed in the head, I feel like writing.

Haiku Highway

Scorchin Summer Light

Moist Pebble on the Sand

Expectin waves of Mist



Trudging along the wide Horizon

A Broken Edge

Wilderness in not Far Off



Entrapped between Love and Lust

Lost between Hope and Despair

A young voice Screaming to be heard



A Soft Touch

A Deathly Kiss

And She thinks its Love



A Hard Thrust

Scratches all Over

And He thinks He's MAN enough