Friday, July 31, 2009

Drowning in Absolut!

Four shots of absolut,
Burn down into insides,
In timed intervals downed,
Then the fire hits the gut,
Rising to the brain,
Fuzzing thought and action,
Now the world unchanged,
Not a blur not a buzz,
Nothing beyond a slowness,
Just something different,
Neither high nor low,
A nice change though,
From a high of water,
Or of air, just life maybe,
I wait for a day for it to hit,
The right spots and bring,
The right pain or joy,
To a soul enriched,
Not by alcohol or elixir,
But by a sheer existence.

Midnight Snacking

I love doing what I am told specifically not to do. I have to; it’s common this feeling, but I am sure it is not this strongly hewn into anyone’s nature. I was rebellious and I had no clue of what being obedient meant. I just went on doing my thing my way. Always.

Last night I was up till late finishing up some urgent work. Till about two in the morning that is. I had finished my yoga class and I got back home early for once, and in a bout of hunger I finished my dinner at seven. I had fruit, bread and eggs and some totally WOW chocolate pastry. After which I went out with mommy and returned by around ten. Now the night stretching before me with so much work to do, was not the best of feeling.

My mother dearest is a health freak, a lot more than I am. She hates the common bakery breads because they are all wheat flour or ‘maida’. My granny on the contrary loves them. So she had a loaf of white bread sitting in the kitchen. I made my way to it at one in the morning, took four slices and two huge pots of mayonnaise and peanut butter. I sat down on the floor in front of the idiot box and had a literal spread. My weird hour snack to quench a weird hour hunger, which made me brush again, after I had nicely wound up for the day. But a nice midnight snack anyway.

A trip in solitude

I wanted to go away from all the chaos and people. My mind commanded that I go away by myself on a holiday and I had to execute to the command immediately. There was work, there was college looming in the distance, there were wedding plans forming and everything was happening all at once. I had to break away.

I did just that. I booked a home stay at Chikmaglur, booked tickets and just took off. I went with a couple of backpacks, for my camera and laptop. The idea was to spend as much time possible with my new camera, to try and play with light and effects and use the features. I left on Wednesday afternoon and after a nice drive across fields and hills and village scenes unfolding as the bus rolled past.

I reached at around nine in the evening and my host was waiting with his car, the home stay was eight kilometers away from the town. It was pouring with rain and the whole earth was bathed in a dark green. As we neared the estate, the roads became hairpin bends and the coffee and pepper plantations beckoned.

The home stay was lovely. There was the main house where my hosts stayed and then there was the outhouse with the rooms where I was to stay. The rooms were very comfortable, simple and cozy. On the outside there was a huge lawn and the estate to the back, lovely flower gardens and even a barn up front. There were cypress trees and passion fruit creepers.

The folks were just so amazingly friendly and walking into their home just felt like I was visiting family. The dinner was out of this world and I pigged out enough to add a couple of inches overnight to my waist. I had the best veg biriyani ever and baingan ka bharta and there were also eggs, fresh cucumber from the garden and lots of homemade dahi. After which there was fruit salad and custard for dessert. I was a happy woman. I went off to sleep in my huge four poster bed wrapped in blankets, listening to the raindrops and crickets.

The plan was that I will wake up and finish my breakfast and leave for the tour of some peaks in the Kudremukh range. Breakfast was again a great spread with fresh passion fruit juice, bread and eggs and homemade marmalade with orange rind, there was also upma which was very well made. So, after tucking in well, I started for Mullengiri, the tallest peak in the range. I set off in a maroon indica, with a very cordial driver. We drove through amazing hairpin bends and the views were just absolutely stupendous. As we climbed higher, the mist engulfed us and we could just see a few feet ahead of us.

It was pouring as we climbed higher and the clouds were in my hair, little drops of water clinging onto the strands. There was a quaint little temple on the way back that was deserted and I stepped in, it was again covered in a mist, the whole feeling of being alone in a mist covered temple was just beyond words. The mist has an amazing quality to it, it feels like something with a life to it, its mysterious and the feeling of being enveloped in a mist is like being wrapped up in its finger touches.

We stopped at Kavikal Gandi and went on to see a few waterfalls and then went to another waterfall which had Suji Kal Neeru which means the water stems from a rock. The waterfall was nice and powerful but there were clothes strewn all over the place, which was because of a local belief that if you bathed in the falls and left behind a piece of your clothing, you’d be purged of all your sins.

The rolling hills, the green meadows interspersed with dense forests and of course the estates, all misty and lakes shimmering in the distance and reflecting the sun rays that filtered through the dense clouds. It was one of the best drives that I had ever had. Gaali Kere which translates to windy lake was the next stop and I had no idea what I was in store for. It was a huge lake on a peak, a mountain lake. The lake was huge and so entirely misted up, I could not see the other ends of it all. The surface of the lake was all soft and misty and had a strangely mysterious aura to it; the clouds were so dense that I could not see beyond a few feet. The pictures I got here were splendid.

After lunching alone in the town, I went back home and lazed; I finished a couple of books and even managed to do some writing. I had an evening snack and sat with the kids at my host’s house and helped them with their homework. We then went onto play and I was everything from a tree to a slide for them, they were six and two year old girls and by night they got so attached to me, I had to feed them dinner and coax the older one to sleep at her place and not tag along with me into the home stay.

After another sumptuous dinner and an equally nice breakfast the next day which was bright and sunny, I took off again and this time around it was to the temples of Badami, Belur and Halebidu. The first temple was a five hundred year old temple and was simple yet beautiful. Then there was the Veera Narayana temple at Badami which was nine hundred years old and also had the Yoga Narasimha and Krishna deities. The sculptures were so intricate and beautiful and the temple had the cool feeling of the stone structure it was. The feeling of wandering along the passages was just mind blowing.

Then there was Halebidu and Belur, which was again awe inspiring, the temples, the grounds, the sculpting the pillars, the light filtering into the dark passages inside the temples, the idols and the stories that the walls unfolded of years and years of life and people that had crossed these paths. The carvings and gentle and delicate, yet so powerful in effect.

Drunk in all the ardor of the temples, I returned after a quick lunch, alone again to the home stay. Then, with the whole family I went to Gandhi Park where the kids and i had the greatest time, chasing the rain, laughing and feeding fishes, all the tiny joys of life, relived. Then back home to another amazing dinner and a journey back to Bangalore, I felt like I had regained a few years that I had thought I had lost in the many pages of my life.

Here is the link to some of the pictures i clicked.

Thursday, July 16, 2009

A walk in the breeze

Today is such a beautiful day. I can see the rain beating down in sheets and filling the air with her scent. I walked in the breeze today. Not on the road, not in the city, but I walked in the breeze. I took off for some work a little far away from the office and I finished it quickly, when I started walking back, there was a breeze blowing into me, something that was beyond explanation, it filled me with an elation that was so completely divine, I felt like I was a new thing in this world like I had transformed into something beyond myself.

I went in a trance in this state of mind to Corner House; bought myself hot chocolate fudge and I came back into the wind, into the breeze, I walked in a cloud like world, with nothing else but the breeze talking and whispering in my ears, the whole being rejuvenated, the soul refreshed… I walked in the breeze…

Monday, July 13, 2009

Lazy Butt = Unattended Phone Trouble!

I have an entirely screwed up phone, much like me I must say. Random craziness, its so pissing off at times, and then when I am just half a centimeter from losing it, I laugh out hysterically, it helps you know.

My phone has a weird problem; it does not switch on or switch off with the designated button. If by chance it drains battery and dies, which happens at least once in a week thanks to my excessive use, I have to wait. The phone has an alarm that rings even when the phone is switched off, which is something about this phone I discovered recently. So, every morning at 6 the alarm goes off even if the phone is switched off.

If the phone is dead, I charge it al night and then I wait for the alarm to ring and for the phone to ask me, if I want to switch it on. Now why all this circus I ask myself, then I realize, I’m one heck of a bloody lazy butt, I don’t want to go sit in a queue at the nokia service center and then get it fixed, I had much rather sleep the night out and wait till the alarm chooses to ring. Works just as well you see…

Instant Gratification of Chocolate Desire!

The feeling is out of this world. It is like a release of joy from the heavens themselves. The first mouthful is the best, and then it grows on you, slowly and as you reach the end, the last mouthful gives you such high; it is like you are reeling in the exhilaration of the texture and the taste and the senses lighten to a state of suspended reality.

The eyes close involuntarily, the tongue rolls over the lips and you just revel in the feeling. The chocolate drips down the throat and you can feel it travel into your gut. Then, there is a physical shot of joy that travels to your ears and your neck lifts up with the fantastic ecstasy that then moves into the brain, giving you the slow buzz that spreads all the way to the toes, gently yet strongly pulling you into the mood of the moment.

You can revel in this feeling long after the chocolate has been imbibed and you can remember the high of the chocolate orgasm as clearly as if it were right in front of you. I just indulged in a brownie fudge sundae and in a Mississippi mud pie last week and in a dark temptation two weeks ago, I am still radiating the afterglow...

This that and a week...

The last week has been supremely interesting. Muay Thai classes have restarted. If I have to write about the whole madness of class, I’ll need a post entirely dedicated to it. The derby prelude shows were on last week and they were fun. All the night club and party action after a long time, I thoroughly enjoyed it.

Wednesday the stint was at Downtown, which now feels like a rundown shack of sorts, there the crowd was lackluster and not the best of responses. But Friday we hit the Sports bar, where they had a Karaoke night going and what an overwhelming response, everyone placed bets and bids and left their tables to stand around the screen, cheering their favourite horses that were running the virtual race. Cirrus was crowded to the maximum on Saturday, the party was pretty good and the crowd was great too. Overall a nice set of shows. The clips were on NDTV too, which I totally missed out on watching.

Sunday was the day. Like the perfect example of testing patience. My middle name is restless impatience and I do not have the time to tolerate anything. I was stuck cleaning, I started after class at around 9 in the morning, lost all my sleep, then went onto clean till 2 30 in the afternoon.

I learnt a few lessons; I learnt that you should not ever buy nice soft, silky, satiny feel kind of clothes, because folded in the cupboard; they are the first ones to slip and mess the rest of the pattern up. I learnt that you should not be possessed by an obsessive compulsive disorder, if you are then, you are history, the cleaning will have to be meticulous to perfection and then you spend twice the time fixing everything to your satisfaction.

I sorted the clothes by colour and style and based on where I wear them to and then put everything in the order of convenience. At the end of this herculean exercise, I was cursing the stores I picked stuff up from, my cupboard is over flowing with clothes and there is no space left even for another piece of a garment. These store guys should give you free cupboard or other storage space to put all the stuff you buy. It is getting impossible to fit it all in my cupboard.

After the cupboard cleaning I had to focus on scrubbing the bathroom clean, at the end of it I was wheezing and I had enough of it all. We were already late for the derby and I was hungry and waiting to go away from home and the thought of cleaning.

We got to the Derby late, just saw Aboline win, and got no space to park the car, so rushed back and left. Then dance happened, now that was nice, uncomplicated. Came back home by 9 or so and then had a nice dinner as fruits of labour savoured and then waited up watching Goblet of fire, for my aunt Pras mem to touch down from Singapore. Fell asleep at 2 am, and now I have started yet another week being sleep lagged and craving for the bed. Overall, a mixed week of sorts.

Wednesday, July 8, 2009

Phah to wet bathrooms, the root cause of all my misery!!

I hate wet bathrooms. I just can’t stand them, the very thought of stepping into one makes me sick, really badly sick. I hate it. The water is all over the place, the sink counter is wet and the toilet seat is wet and the floor is all drippy and the mess is so bad, I had rather live in a land where I can magically clean a bathroom before I even see it. Like close my eyes and wah la, I have a nice dry tiled bathroom that is clean and neat and suits my style.

I hate it if the shampoo bottles are leaky or have dried shampoo on the edges, I don’t like loofahs on the counter, and they should hang down from hooks so they can drip dry. The soap dish should be one which does not leak out soap or water; the excess water should soak up right away. I can’t handle it if the toothpaste tube is squeezed out from the middle; it has to be bottom to top, upwards only. All shampoo and body wash and other bottles should be dry and not dripping with water or shampoo.

The counter has to be dry and clean and with no speck of dust or powders on it. The floor has to be clean and should not have foot prints on it at all. The bathing section has to be either closed off or the floor has to be mopped after a shower.

The whole darned place should smell of nice things like menthol, fruit, woody smells and all the good fragrances in life that are worth living for.

I am soooooo impressed whenever I see a clean bathroom, immensely overjoyed actually. My judgments of people are way off normalcy; I will just love you if you have a clean bathroom. I am currently displaced from mine and I am hating that it is no more under my control and no matter how many times I clean it, until I become the sole owner again, its gonna get all messed up. Sigh! Oh how I wish I was a witch, I’d be the cleanest one around! A witch with an OCD. ;)

Tuesday, July 7, 2009

Bluetooth for the next gen!

I am not technology dependent. It was forced on me, by this crazy world that believes that technology is everything. I think it’s all a load of crap.

A camera ten years ago needed film and what not processing, today I have a Canon D 1000, which is a graduation from my Samsung digital camera. I had a 1100 four years ago and I have a 3600 slide after a series of phone changes and losses. I have a Sony television which is a huge upgrade after my 20 year old BPL that had no remote even. So I lived a life without latest technology upgrades for a long time.

Why I wonder should I want a 31 lakh worth camera when I have one worth half a lakh that works really well for me anyways. Then I think that the prices are bound to fall in future and I will pick it up eventually so I will use the technology that is slightly behind times but exciting none the less.

This technology upgrade is crazy, next there will be Bluetooth stench bombs, if you want to bother your manager when he is in an important meeting, send him an anonymous Bluetooth stench bomb. If the girl you have a crush on is sitting with another guy, send him one, so you do something here and the stench is transferred by Bluetooth.
Bluetooth babies will be the next big thing. If your boyfriend or husband is away and you want to or have to have a baby, then insemination through Bluetooth will happen and instead of a test tube baby, it will be a Bluetooth baby. If people are doing it virtually and online, this is the obvious graduation. ;)

Wow, the scope is endless, I can think of so much more, but I have to put my energies to some usful work. Sigh!

Perceptions and Identities

There are various things I have been told over the years, some funny, some intense, some annoyingly flirtatious, some just plain stupid. Every event I have anchored I have had an addition to my fan club. I thought I will list out the nicest and weirdest things I have been told.

I was told that my style of driving is very sexy and that the way I handle the clutch and accelerator is very slick, the way I move my feet is interesting apparently.

I have been called a walking talking advertisement for amaron batteries. ;)
I have been told that my smile is enticing and endearing, my hair is sexy and sensual, and my eyes are lovely and my figure is perfect, I move like a dream and dance like a water nymph and all that blah. But the one thing I remember very clearly is what I was told about my beauty, he said “every eye blink is a blot on your beauty”. And I was told that my beauty comes from so deep inside that I have an aura around me that makes people around me happy and makes them smile with my exuberance.

I was told that I should not attempt to change perfection or even wish for it.  Now that is totally stretching it, but I will accept it graciously.

They say that I sound so good all the time that I actually enthrall all audiences on the phone, on radio, on the mike or even otherwise.

I have been told that I am like a bubble, vivacious and like lightning mercury, sparking and sparkling like fizz and wild like Gaea. I think I am blessed to be told these things.

I was once told that I am the missing link between apes and humans and every time I think of that I laugh my guts out. :D

Mom tells me that I walk like a guy, I look like a school kid, I look messy and bad, I think she is my biggest critic, in everything I do.

One of the ardent fans told me that my mind and the way i wrote and pictured things in my head and the way i believed in what was true and pure and the way i spoke is what is the most beautifully unique thing about me and it is so easy for anyone to fall in love with someone like me, now that was something really nice.

I have also been called arrogant, obstinate, intense, impulsive, crazy, insane, abnormal, short tempered, moody, loud, roguish, boisterous, naughty, evil, imposing, over confident, bossy, and various other not so pleasant things. Things I am not so proud of.

I am not so comfortable with compliments or flattery, but I seem to get more then my desired share of it.

Of the names I have been called, I think I like Shrevil the best, thanks to Sandy. Hot 20 sensation, now that was in college, cultural sexy when I was the cultural secretary, bubbly, sodma, soda, quicksilver, the list is endless.

Picnic in the woods!

Today is so beautiful; it is the perfect day for a lazy start and then a bike ride into the woods for a picnic lunch and then a lazy read lying in the grass munching on an apple. The weather is perfect; there can be nothing better than a grey sky full of nimbus clouds, with rain just waiting to descend down from the heavens, the smell of rain in the offing, the breeze swishing in the trees, blowing into the leaves and woo shooing making them whisper in loud voices overhead.

With the rains, the sky becomes over cast and darkens and the birds all confused, start twittering around and fly back home, thinking it’s a weirdly early end to the day. Then the raindrops in sheets of a drizzle begin their swaying dance and the wind plays into the rhythm, the sound of loud gusts in the ears, the feeling of the raindrops dancing on your body and the skin tingling in response.

The idea of being sprawled on a mat lying amidst the grass and staring at the sky or reading lazily and just letting your thoughts flow, unending never interrupted, just you and your thoughts, what a feeling! I wish I could just get out of this chair, rush out of office and ride or drive off, far away into the rain and blend in with the breeze and soak in the fragrance of Gaea.

Monday, July 6, 2009

I crave for myself

I am up to my neck in a mess. I am not just busy yet bored, i am pathetically hurting, not just body aches and back aches, i am pissed off with the city and traffic, with work and people, with my family and my car, with the fact that i can't even keep a dog if i want to.

I want to live by myself, come home to the peace of just me and my dog, when i can have one, I can deal with work if i don't have to use my energy dealing with the madness at home. I can sleep anytime i want, walk in anytime i want to, eat what i choose to, live on my own rules. I need not constantly worry about what to do whom to talk to what to say, what to deal with. I can blissfully lead an existence with myself, and strangely, i know i wont be lonely. I will love it. If i am lonely when i am surrounded by people all the time i am sure it will work better when i am by myself.

I don't want anything to remind me of the things i want to forget about. I had much rather live alone than be with people i have to handle in whatever way. I am not scared of the dark or ghosts, i am not the kinds who needs body warmth to fall asleep, i never slept by my mom or ever put my head in her lap for comfort. I will still manage to meet whoever i want to when i feel like and get my rationed hugs, especially from mom for the new year, her birthday and mine and for mothers day.

I think i would any day prefer to be alone rather than with someone who will fight and want things from me and vice versa. I can't stand the idea. I really don't know when i will get a break from all this bull crap. Somehow, i feel i never will be rid of it anyway. Baggage, that's what it is and it has been following me around since i was a toddler.

Run away!

I want to run away, from fake laughter, from anger, from pain, from people, from nagging, from disgust, from bullshit and bitches, from losers and jack assess, because they don't deserve me. I am beyond everyone and everything. This bunch of horrid people can go screw themselves over. I am not running away from trouble, i would never think of it, this trouble only seems so annoying yet trivial, i don't think i need to deal with it or them.

Greed, my sin today!

I have three trophies on my desk and a medal. I have a huge fruit and nut bar in the fridge at home and a Parker pen. I have vouchers for 3 thousand and i am unhappy. Unhappy because i came second in a stupid quiz. I hate losing, i hate coming even second! GRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRR! I want to win, even if its stupid!

Thursday, July 2, 2009

PQ - A party version of DQ

I haven’t partied in ages! I am dying to get back to the dance floor and dance till my feet ache and hurt. The last party I was at was f bar in Delhi, what a party! And the nicest parts about these out of Bangalore parties are that they go on all night long!

I am a weird kind of part lover, I have to be the anchor at a party or I find it really difficult to feel at home, I have to be at the console with the DJ giving him or her gyaan on what to play and generally running the party, holding the reigns. I need to be the center of attention, and I admit it, I love it!

It has been ages since I hosted or anchored one, and I miss all the fun. I remember once at the New Year’s Party I was anchoring for at Fusion Lounge, there was so much chaos and the floor was so packed and I had bouncers around me just to keep the crazy louts away, we had a ball that night, it was so much fun, the dancing and the music and all the ruckus of new years.

The thing about being behind the console and on the mike is that you are in the lime light and every single guy believes he has a birth right over you and can ask you for a dance or can buy you a drink and get you drunk. But that is a part of the anchoring profession, the dirty flip side to it; men think they own you for the time you are on the stage and sometimes even after that.

But coming back to party madness, from Sutra to Athena, from Nyx to Hint, Opus to Mixx I am sure there is not a single pub, lounge or nightclub in Bangalore I haven’t been to, or anchored at. I have even been to the ones that are supposedly the gay bars as well, at some point in time or the other. But I like the new rule of no smoking inside pubs, my hair remains fresh smelling and I don’t feel like I walked out of a coal bin.

Crazy things parties, I should dedicate an entire post to some exclusive ones I have been part of. Raves and Farmhouses and crazy house parties. Each an enriching experience on its own.

Why I started this was to say that I miss them, but I am going to one after a really long time this Sunday, with my constant party companion, so he seems to have become from Urbanpind and f bar in Delhi all the way to Fuga here, Sandy boy, time to put on the party shoes and do the jiggy wiggy!

She hath the falling sickness!

"He hath the falling sickness", Julius Ceaser did. This was epilepsy and Brutus and Cassius talk about it. But in my case, it is different, its not epilepsy, it is just a falling sickness, absurd but true!

The bigger they are the harder they fall, or so I am told. I am exception to this rule as well. Like for very many other rules as well. This is interesting; you would think someone my size who maintained a very low profiled weight of 45 kilograms since 9th grade that is 1999 to 2007, who is now just about 52 kilograms has probably fallen a lot more than anyone else you have ever known.

I should have made ‘falling down’ my profession long ago, if it paid well, I’d be a stinking rich millionaire by now. Sigh, if only the world worked on your whims and fancies. I am a total blunder buss, top to toe. I don’t know if I should attribute this to my amazingly horrible myopia vision enhanced with astigmatism eyesight, or to the fact that most of the time I am lost in my own worlds and I am stuck in reveries all the time. Maybe it is a combination of both.

I spill, I mess up, I fall and then I fall some more. I am so good at multi tasking, I am a perfectionist at times and I handle an OCD along with this mess of a life I lead. I am clean, but I spill, I clean up and I spill again. So, my life is a full circle that begins with cleaning, then spilling then cleaning again.

My mom is the authority on me; everything related to my existence, she is the person to be consulted. She has taught me one thing all along and she has never given up on telling me to be aware of my surroundings. She says that gravity usually works on heavy objects and it beats her how I manage to fall and hurt myself as much as I do, apparently gravity loves me.

My colleagues decided to try painting an 'X' with white paint on every spot I ever managed to take a fall, just at the office premises, then gave up the idea, because they thought the flooring from a pretty blue would have to be changed entirely to white and CoreObjects, would become XObjects with all the X’s lining the walls and the floors.

I can beat any record for tripping up with flat shoes on a flat floor. The day I was interviewed at Core, I was dressed for an event something to do with Durga Puja, so I was in a skirt and then I very nicely finished the interview and started my descent down the stairs, after a couple of steps, I missed and slid the rest of the way down, onto the landing. I assumed no one saw the fall and so I picked myself up and left. But there were eyes that saw and later recognized as well. So, to this day I am teased about it and I know I will be for a long long time to come.

I also suffer from a problem, I fall and then even if I am hurt, I laugh through the tears of pain and I laugh till I forget the whole thing. I don’t stop there either, I laugh even when someone else falls, as long as they aren’t cut or bleeding or seriously I hurt, I laugh till I manage to hurt their feelings. I wish this uncontrollable laughter had a cure or a stopper. But I guess I will fall and laugh and laugh some more, because this does not qualify as a disease with a cure or a problem with a solution.

I am told that I will be told by my children to watch out ad not trip or fall! Goodness gracious me! Gravity, please be kind!

Wednesday, July 1, 2009

I'm SICK of them!

I am sick of weddings and wedding talk and wedding plans and wedding and marriage and the whole nine yards of it.
If i have to dress up to attend one more wedding, i will disfigure myself or something.
If i get another wedding invitation, it will go straight to the bloody shredder.
If i have to eat at another wedding, i will throw up, i haven't decided where, too many options!
If i have to tolerate the waste of resources at one more wedding i will leave for the himalayas or to a land where weddings are banned!
I am sick and tired of the mess of weddings and attending them and looking for parking and wondering if you are the most under dressed person and watching all the ugly gold jewelery on even uglier aunties and the crying babies and the cameras and the yellow dirty lights and people and more people eating like they have never seen food before and then throwing away half the stuff on their plates because their greed wants them to try everything possible. It is just bloody uncouth and disgusting.
I could do with a few funerals now, for a change of scene, where everything is quiet and everyone is in black and i am not under pressure to smile and be told that i am next.
So, i am sick of weddings so what if i wish for a funeral. I just need a darned break.