The Road to Punya

So.Much.Maggi.

2012-01-21T15:50:00.001+05:30

Years of experience with Bombay locals have taught me that everyjourney is a battle, to be handled with fortitude, confidence and absolutedisregard for peoples toes. Your elbows are your best friends and yourtrailing dupatta your worst enemy.

Today my usual train arrived just as I ran breathlessly onto the platform. Equipped with knowledge garnered after 6 years of traintravel, I took careful aim and rapidly catapulted myself into a compartmentbefore the train could stop fully and twirled gracefully to execute a perfectlanding near the opposite door, where I leaned comfortably, turning to face everyoneelse. In my head, I gave a little curtsy to what I was sure was my dumbstruckaudience, which would largely consist of ladies scrambling frantically to get in.

The compartment had 4 ladies in it. 3 more got on after me. 6 eyebrows raised themselves at me. That was my cue to sit in a corner next to one lightly snoring girl and sink deepinto my oversize sweater.

Yesterday I saw a very paavam looking 3 legged dog. It seemed sad. I bought some biscuits and gave it two. It ate gratefully and looked at me. I gave it some more. It came up to me, licked my leg, let me pat its head and went back to eating. It was like a thank-you. Heart broke only.

I want a dog. Gimme.

For the past few days I've been waking up thinking I'm still in hostel. Biting winters, drafty corridors, all that maggi. The different songs playing in each room all mingling to form a pleasant white noise. The unbelievably shrill laughter from a room down the hall. 5 girls in a messy room, talking about giraffes.

This is my happy place.

Because even the Terminator wala Arnold fellow was once called Chotu. Maybe.

2012-01-19T11:49:00.006+05:30

My office has finally gotten around to giving me a 2012 calendar. I have proudly kept it next to my computer and circled this month’s holidays on it. The January page happens to inform me in squiggly blue and grey letters that "Well arranged time is the surest mark of a well arranged mind."

With cunningly cunning foresight, I had already thought of this way before my calendar took the liberty of telling me. *drumroll* I had bought a yearly planner. Such grand plans I had. I will make to do lists, I will arrange my appointments properly, I will get so much done! Productivity FTW and all that. I started by noting down some birthdays that I can afford to forget only if I want a month long guilt trip. With this preliminary prep done, I got down to "planning".

Unfortunately, all this comprises of is noting down what to google for and download after I get home. The only indication that this arranging time business is working is that every morning, when I reach work, I dutifully set aside a few minutes to cancel what I was supposed to do the previous day from that page and add it to todays page.

From February onwards, I shall work on “taking charge of my attitude” because the squiggly letters command me not to let someone else choose it for me.

A few days ago I showed my parents the Benny Lava video. My mother was the epitome of :|. My dad laughed so hard I thought he would cry.

Then again, my dad watches nothing on TV but the news and Mr. Bean. Because he’s awesome.

My baby turtles are full comedy. The one I named Bazooka is an introvert and tries his best to hide under a giant rock at the first sign of movement. The one I named Nano because he was so minuscule when I got him is slowly turning into a tank. He tries to eat everything he can see, which includes air bubbles, the filter in the tank, my fingers and Bazooka.

One never stops panicking and one is a turtle shaped vacuum cleaner.

May the four be with you.

2011-11-15T10:05:00.002+05:30

I wish I knew graphics and animation, for the sole reason that I could actually make whatever my thrift shop of an imagination throws at me.

Yesterday I was staring at the number 4000 in a contract. In my head, the background turned white with swirls of black. The horizontal line of the number 4 curled into a finger, beckoning those zeroes to come to it. In a trance, they obliged. Poor silly blockheaded zeroes. One by one (zero by zero?) they approached the 4 and the intersection between the horizontal and vertical line turned into a mouth which devoured the zeroes, one (zero?) at a time. And then, there was 4.

See. Wouldn't that make a great 10 second Youtube clip?

Booyah.

Ba-dam-bam Bombay.

2011-10-24T21:59:00.012+05:30

Imagine if Bombay were a person. She'd be a girl. A very whimsical, musical, charming, unhealthy, chain-smoking girl.

The highways are her arteries, the bylanes her capillaries. The traffic flowing endlessly over the roads are like the blood flowing through her. And every traffic jam is a blood clot.

Bombay needs serious amounts of heparin, yo.

***

Parle G is just a cheap biscuit to most of India. But for people who travel regularly on the Western line of the Bombay locals, it's much more. Just after Andheri, the pervasive smell of Parle G wafts over the tracks and makes all those people who were too busy to have breakfast extremely hungry. People don't need the train announcement, they always know when Parle station is coming up just by the smell.

I wish the smell was sold as a deodorant. Or an air freshener. I'd totally buy it and spray it in the compartment at random intervals and confuse everybody as to where exactly they were.

***

After the recent auto strike, getting an auto has turned into stressful task #1 in this place. But I'm seeing an interesting side effect. People are nicer than ever before. People look around and offer to share autos with whoever needs it, without being asked. People have become shameless in asking to be dropped off to places on the way. Absolute strangers, brought together by faulty meters. I invariably end up sharing autos with sweet old uncles resembling my dad who never let me pay the fare.

I foresee a Bollywood movie where the lead pair meet like this. Auto-matic pyaar ho jayega.

***

Recently at work, I've had to face my biggest fear on a regular basis. Microsoft Excel. *shudder*

The following comic demonstrates my feelings on the topic. Since my caricatures look like insects and my stick figures look as though my characters have been hacked at by chainsaws, the famous chuck_gopal has provided his excellent illustrations. Click to enlarge. Enjoy.

Cheese.

2011-10-01T11:53:00.002+05:30

I've developed the endearing habit of staring into space and dreaming up grisly situations wherever I am. In my own head, I am the Akshay Kumar of all things unexpected. A sudden durghatna. Shock. Horror. Need for quick thinking and quicker action. I so cool. So brave. So awesome.

It's a slight downer to realise that I shall never have the guts to do anything but scream loudly and flap my arms about if anything actually happens.

My time nowadays is divided between monotony, gruesome daydreams, castles in the air and grilled cheese sandwiches. The castles in the air are all different. Some have flags that wave gaily in the air. Some are actually situated on islands in the air by means of cool new technology, Firefly style.

All of them have sandwich makers.

Anything can be made into a slow motion short film

2011-08-25T11:28:00.006+05:30

(Happiness)

Last night, I was presented a freshly made sandwich.

"Mmm", I thought, "What a delight. Let me bite into this with great pomp and splendour."

And I did just that.

(Drama)

Just then, a hot tomato peel unwound itself from a tomato slice and landed squarely on my bottom lip. It was very very hot. Jump up and down and shake head to dislodge it kind of hot.

(Suspense)

But, unknown to me, this tomato peel was from a tomato slice that was from a tomato that was from a tomato plant that had grown from a tomato seed that had been sat on by a leech just after being sown. This soon became increasingly apparent since the tomato peel was exhibiting astonishingly leech-like abilities.

(Tragedy)

After all these shenanigans, my lip was purple and swollen

(Bittersweet ending)

It is a day later and my lip has now healed. It is now, however, unnaturally flat.

(Conclusion)

I should get around to writing my acceptance speech for the award for Most Ridiculous Accident Ever.

Washing powder Nirma

2011-08-15T19:30:00.008+05:30

Have you ever tried remaining in one bedroom for one solid month with one solitary special joy trip to the living room? Have you? No, not in the fun way.

It is not nice.

There is a jhinchaak orange and blue colour bedsheet on my bed with over-happy flowers on it. Very nice and jarring. But I might have cabin fever. So everything is appearing a dull uniform shade of beige. The flowers are turning into little squiggles and intermingling. Sexual reproduction of flowers, who'd have thunk it?

No one is understanding this dulling of colour business. It's as though I am in a Rin safedi ad and I'm the idiot who doesn't use Rin soap.

Rin soap should be made a metaphor. When life is dull, whatever brightens your day is your Rin soap. Love life lacklustre, dorling? Have no fear, I shall be your Rin soap.

Everyone's Prince Charming and Knight in Shining Armour has his undies washed with Rin soap.

I am not being paid by Rin for writing this post. Too bad too.

How YOU doin?

2011-08-14T11:17:00.004+05:30

So I've been away a while. And I've faced an onslaught of complaints. People grumble about why I haven't been blogging. They beg me to write. They express their sorrow at the lack of Google Reader updates. Very soon, I foresee a crowd gathering underneath my window with placards and candles, in an attempt to appeal to my sensitive side, just so I write something. I'm here only because I want to save the paper that would have gone into making those placards.

Alright so two people asked me why I haven't been blogging when I have all this free time.

I had a small accident and have been deemed out of commission for a few months. I had to lie in bed with a 3kg weight hanging from my leg for a month. As a direct result there is now a giant Punvati shaped dent in my bed.

Another direct result is that my parents are utterly freaked and are fussing over me like no one has ever fussed before. I implore you not to envy me. This just means I am on a 3 month chicken hiatus since the parentals disapprove of my animal consumption habit. That hurts more than my leg does.

I bought a Nook and am currently in lust with it. I'm reading like a woman possessed, apart from the times my family takes it from me and keeps it just out of my reach so that the invalid me can't get at it. I have a funfun family, yes?

I have started reading the Marvel X men comics. Last night I dreamt I was making out with Cyclops on Magneto's asteroid. This dream was the highlight of my week.

The maid we've hired to help my mom lug me from bed to dining table likes watching Hindi soaps. I'm totally digging why the evil mother in law with all that kajal is yelling at her sniveling bahu about making them lose the grand saas-bahu cookoff challenge. This is the shit.

I <3 him. I do. Go read his blog and tell him you <3 him too.

There's a heaven above you baby.

2011-05-08T02:40:00.003+05:30

I’ve spent 5 years in college. It feels like a lifetime.

When I first came here, I hated it with an unhealthy passion. And then I discovered the people. Some I always disliked. Some I should have avoided to begin with. Some I got to know and like as late as the last month of college. Some, though now estranged, taught me what love and unconditional friendship were really like. And some have been my family and support group and, at times, the only reason I had to wake up every day.

College has been a place in which I could be sad with other people or sad all by myself with an option to step out and be offered a hug, a pep talk, a ridiculous dance or a joint to cheer me up. Where being different was not punished. Where I reached more new highs and lows than I thought were possible. One large comical community that gave me sympathy, understanding, arrogance, unnecessary lip and puppies in equal proportions.

My batch of 80 odd people graduated 2 days ago. Most people are staying back for a few extra days, a little more time to hold on to this dream life we've been living here. Where rules really are meant to be broken on a daily basis, where independence is abused and where relationships with people are overtly and fiercely intense.

A few people leave each day, and it feels like one large dysfunctional sugar cube immersed into a glass of water. People are going away, the real world must be returned to. After growing up and learning and loving and discovering oneself in this little bubble, it’s going to be strange.

As a good friend recently said, I will just have to take the crazy and spread it wherever I go.

Good luck to everyone.

The food court is my Mecca

2011-03-23T19:32:00.005+05:30

As an intern I silently sit, staying late and working hard, hoping to answer all questions put before me, to submit said answers in record time, to find every possible authority needed to answer said questions. My googling skills are relied on and stretched to scary limits. Staggeringly heavy books from the library are pored over. Documents are typed fast, proofread, neatly spaced and justified.

Sitting in one chair for hours on end awakes in me a feeling that I have often felt over the past few years of college. That feeling of wanting to take flight and traveling to places far away, to see great and majestic things, to lose oneself in the jubilant freedom of it all.

That, I feel today as a lowly intern.

I believe the term for this is wanderlust.

Everyday, I will my seniors to require something to be printed and then graciously offer to get it from the printer. I consume copious cups of coffee because of the ten second walk to the pantry, where the coffee machine is located. The loo, of course, is a favourite destination. One need never explain why it is frequented so often.

So for those who want to dive into waterfalls, who want to bungee jump off cliffs into the breathtaking void below, who want to sing with all the voices of the mountain and paint with all the colours of the wind, this is for you.

I feel you man.

Peek hour

2011-03-18T19:13:00.002+05:30

It is only when you see someone's expression go from a "what the fuck are you looking at?" to a wide grin, that you realise what a clumsy transition it actually is.

First there's subdued indifference, perhaps even a little hostility. The glazed stare turns into flickering comprehension. Sudden surprise, eyes widen. And then, an actual smile. All in under a second.

Randomly smiling at mildly disgruntled strangers on the train leads to fascinating and completely useless observations.

This is home.

2011-03-14T21:44:00.003+05:30

I've becomes so used to jaded old Hallmark holidays. One usually expects rants about the pointlessness of it all and countless bad jokes on Twitter. Then there was this Women's Day, just last week. I heard about men in offices practicing and putting on skits for the ladies. About giving them spa certificates and letting women go home early in a upscale law firms. About Rajasthan Roadways letting all women travel for free on Women's day. I can't help but be utterly and completely surprised. And amused. So cute.

There's nothing quite like the cool wind blowing against you as you hang out of a train at the end of a long day to make you just that much less tired, just that much less cranky, to make you look forward to the next day. Or perhaps, dread it a bit less.

I saw a tree. It was stripped bare. Not a single leaf on it. It would have looked dead and might have made an artsy subject for many an emo amateur photographer (like self, I disparage you not) who might then experiment with fun effects like monochrome and high contrast and make a twisted dark image out of it and put it up on Flickr, but for one little thing. This tree was covered with the daintiest pretty pink flowers. The tree seemed to look more surprised at this fact than anyone else.

It takes just the sight of a clumsy little puppy to make you completely delighted and wistful. It takes just a momentary glimpse into the face of that someone, complete with goofy grin and glasses and that wonderful expression on their face that tells you that they would not want be anywhere else, to make you feel like existing is all the more worthwhile and make you feel warm and peaceful and happy and make you want to curl up there in that very position and sleep and preserve it forever. That is home.

Free

2011-02-13T14:49:00.004+05:30

The roads were terrible. It was a bumpy ride. The first thing she saw when she woke up were her hands. She had almost forgotten she was wearing these. So pretty. Framing her delicate wrists and matching her platinum wedding band perfectly. She smiled, thinking of the man she had just married. Their 2 year courtship. The actual wedding, only last week.

Aman was perfect. Always so caring, so attentive. Putting up with her family when they opposed the engagement. Finally convincing them to accept him, as she knew he would. He was a charmer, that one. After being the rule abiding daughter to her parents all her life, Aman made her feel like she had finally exhaled after 26 years of holding her breath.

She felt groggy. She wondered when they would get there. She hated long car drives. Just like Aman.

They had had a typical Tamil wedding, because her parents had been adamant. A brief honeymoon in Kerala. All that trekking, the photography, the shopping. It was perfect. She had always wanted to have sex on a houseboat.

The streetlight glinted off her ring and momentarily blinded her. She had a feeling she was forgetting something important.

She had really enjoyed that Ayurvedic massage Aman had insisted she take. He had been right, it was blissful. It didn't take as long as she thought it would. Feeling relaxed and mildly turned on, she went back to their room, hoping Aman would be there. He was. With the attractive French woman who had offered to take a picture of them the previous day.

The car drove over a pothole, making her feel slightly sick. She glanced down at her wrists again. It occurred to her that this would make a brilliant photo. The dim light, the handcuffs and her bloodstained hands with her wedding ring. "I wish I had my camera."

Velvet

2011-01-11T10:48:00.004+05:30

I see a tall slender woman with long black hair, wearing a scarlet dress. Her back is to me, and by the way she's standing, I can see she's tense. She hears a noise and whips her head around, her hair flying around her lovely face in slow motion. What she sees terrifies her, I can see it in her eyes. She turns back around and begins to run, still in slow motion. The screen pauses. It turns into monochrome. Camera pans out on the image and a voice over says, "A mystery no one can solve. A memory you know you will never forget."

Some words have a tendency to form images in your head, irrespective of their meaning. All this, just because I thought of the word velvet.

This is like that annoying new Dark Fantasy ad, only much much better.

Where I devise a new method to get free food from people.

2010-11-10T01:49:00.005+05:30

My dreams always have erred a little on the cuckoo side. The world ups and swallows itself, people morph into other people and things, people pray to the God of unsweetened black coffee, people suddenly turn into Charlie's Angels and the laws of probability, physics and dairy products are repeatedly destroyed. Keeps life interesting.

However, the dreams I've been having for the past week have been the most disturbing of the lot. All of them consist of simple conversations with people I know and talk to on a regular basis. No fuss, no action. Just talking. About perfectly believable things at that, and in perfectly plausible settings.

Now when I wake up, I have no way of telling what people have actually told me, and what I dreamt they told me. You know something's wrong when you keep referring to conversations that never happened, to have people look at you in bewilderment. This has happened way too many times in the past few days. Now I hesitate before referring to anything at all. Highly inconvenient, this.

If I come up to you and start yakking about the latest insight you shared with me about the childhood crush you never had, don't mind me. Just hand me a cookie and send me away.

Yet another predictable Diwali post.

2010-11-05T21:15:00.004+05:30

It's Diwali. And I don't really care. I've never been a festival person. I'm not one to either attend or enjoy pujas. I don't burst crackers. I only wear the perfunctory new item of clothing because it makes my mom happy.

I step out into the corridor of my hostel. It's dark because everyone's left. Gone to burst crackers, have fancy dinners, compare pretty shimmery Indian outfits. A very tiny diya burns all alone outside my neighbour's room. It's pretty. Makes me smile.

I go for my evening run and come back after an hour. The hostel lights are all off. The only light comes from the lit diyas now adorning the entrance of the hostel. And the little candles on each step right up to the second floor. And the small lamps on the corridor, now outside every other door.

I don't like crackers, they make me cough. I don't like the pujas, I think they're pointless. I don't like the glaring lights hung up everywhere, they blind me. The way this festival makes a silent empty building glow oh-so-prettily is Diwali for me. As it turns, out I do care.

Happy Diwali everyone.

... and Tim Burton scoffs.

2010-11-03T12:31:00.007+05:30

There is a fence, a good distance away. A picket fence, but not painted white, not a Wisteria Lane fence, not a fence that belongs to a house which has investment banker dads and mothers who make cupcakes and kids who eat said cupcakes and roll off to school in the family SUV. This fence is brown, weathered, beaten.

You stand there and watch. Watch that fence in the desolate greyness of the drizzle that shows no sign of abating.

Slowly, the top of these cracked pieces of wood turns into dozens and dozens of grubby little fingers, all atop the fence. They beckon urgently, haphazardly. It's difficult not to panic, watching as those disembodied fingers draw you closer and closer. Just as you open your mouth to scream, you find yourself stifled by the feeling of damp earth stuffed down your throat.

Darkness.

So, boys and girls, the lesson here is: Do not fall asleep right after you watch Gossip Girl. It messes with your head.

Fever when you hold me tight.

2010-10-27T13:33:00.006+05:30

Life has become one large Monty Python sketch.

I'm lying in bed, down with the cold of the century, and I imagine a 21 gun salute. The guns are loaded. They go off and kill a bunch of ducks flying in formation overhead. The ducks fall into a strategically placed cauldron. A trumpet plays an upbeat tune.

I want soup.

Life is a faulty cooler.

2010-10-20T01:56:00.005+05:30

Nobody can guarantee you a place in the universe.

Here, I suppose we assume that The Universe is a fancy new uber cool restaurant that all the glitterati hang out at whilst they air-kiss.

Or not. That line just kept resounding in my head today at 6 am when the alarm was blaring in my ear, as I struggled desperately to not wake up. At the time, I thought it was a profound reflection on life.

The latest one is the title of this post.

My little 8x10 room in the middle of dessert is sweltering hot. Unless the cooler works. Which, for the last several months, was not the case. Now, if I open the cooler up, give the fan of the cooler a good heave-ho and then turn it on, tadaa. It works.

For a minute there I thought it could be a metaphor for life.

No?

No.

Ok.

Bye.

Alert the Pentagons.

2010-10-07T02:57:00.002+05:30

The misadventures of Sly Sylvia Silver.

2010-09-18T16:39:00.002+05:30

The woman in black paused. She glanced behind quickly to make sure she was not being tailed. This was not right, she never usually had such doubts. At one time, she was the best in the business. She was the best spy anyone had seen in a very long time. They called her Silver, after the beautiful silvery-white colour her hair had changed into, after an unfortunate incident involving a magnetic field generator and a sandwich wrapped in faulty tin-foil, that she happened to get in the way of. But she didn't mind, the name suited her just fine. Quick Silver, they said. You never know where she's going to go next. You can never see her coming. Which, for any lover of hers, was rather unfortunate.

Silver kept her back to the wall as she scanned the premises. As her very last mission, she had agreed to take on the jewelery counterfeiting case. It wasn't as glamorous as taking out an underground drug ring, but there were less chances of being killed, and Silver hoped to be able to enjoy a peaceful retirement.

As she rounded the corner, she saw something out of the corner of her eye. Too late. A black figure came flying at her and pushed her off the ledge. As she was falling to the workshop floor far below, she saw she was headed for a large vat being used to melt large quantities of a metal. She shrugged. If there was any way to go, why not this.

She fell and as she landed, she smiled. And why not? She was in her element.

Dark side of the dune.

2010-08-15T00:12:00.013+05:30

The Pharaoh dined alone that morning. The slave who cleared the table had never seen him this restless. His foot was tapping a mile a minute and he seemed to be in serious need of a pair of boxing gloves and a speedball. If the slave had been so bold, he would have suggested a goblet of wine to take the edge off.

The Pharaoh met with his Chief Advisor. The first item on the agenda for the day was to discuss a suitable punishment for the new Chief Engineer's screw up with his first Royal Commission, the very first pair of royal tombs. The Advisor was of the opinion that anyone who refused to follow instructions and instead chose to get baked and listen to Pink Floyd all day long while delegating work to the slaves was in need of a severe reprimanding at the very least.

"I don't know", the Pharaoh frowned. "I sort of like the new triangular shape that this chappie has come up with. A set of these right next to each other would look mighty fine in an aerial view. Tell him to proceed."

The Chief Advisor was puzzled. Given the Pharaoh's unusually foul mood, he had expected a death sentence for the talented, yet scatterbrained architect for his unfortunate mistake. "Your Highness, not to sound too crass, but don't you think that an aerial view would make the two tombs resemble... er..."

"Say no more. Am I right in assuming that you are thinking of certain garments of a rather delicate nature of a female entertainer named Madonna that are conical in shape? You emphatic attempts at driving your chin ornament into your chest confirm my suspicions. Would you mind if I shared something with you? It's a tad TMI, but eh what the heck. "

"Er. No your Majesty. Go right ahead. You are assured my discretion."

"You see, the Queen and I have been having some problems of late. In the bedroom department, if you know what I mean. It's quite maddening to say the least, and it reached its peak last night."

"Oh?"

"Yes. You see, I know she technically becomes famous later because of her bust and all, but honestly, that shrew. Her name should be legally changed to Never-titty."

And now for something completely different

2010-08-14T02:16:00.007+05:30

Under the apple tree

He pulled her close

Raindrops falling onto them from the storm just past.

He gazed at her with love in his eyes.

"Before they see us, tell me now.

Will you come with me?

To the edge of the universe

Where time stands still.

Just you and me, forevermore"

She looked at him, puzzled. Poor chap.

So earnest, so verbose.

Why wasn't he just saying "Wanna fuck?" like everyone else?

I miss Suppandi, in the Tinkle of yore.

2010-08-03T01:13:00.005+05:30

If Clark Kent were to work in a soup kitchen for the homeless, he would be SouperMan.

If he had to go home for a formal dinner with relatives, he would be SupperMan.

If he were to become a hitman for the Indian Mafia, he would be SupariMan.

If he joined the military, he would be TrooperMan.

If he were to be the spokesperson for a breakfast cereal, he would be FruitlooperMan.

If he absolutely loved the movie Raavan, he would change his name to SuperManiRatnam.

Main hamesha tumhare dil mein rahoongi Raj.

2010-08-02T01:06:00.002+05:30

Dear readers,

I imagine this post being read out to you in a voiceover, just like in all those movies where the male lead gets a senti letter from the female lead in which she tells him how much she loves him and how sad she is that she will never see him again.

Only, it might be slightly creepy because if you are listening to music, the music would have to unexpectedly stop when the voiceover begins or else it would be utter cacophony. If not, a sudden disembodied voice coming from nowhere might startle some of you. But not all of you. I’m sure a few of you are used to hearing disembodied voices. It’s like talking to yourself, only different.

Another problem I can foresee is that some of you might not know what my voice sounds like. For those who don’t, let me assure you I sound incredibly sexy.

Also,just for the sake of this voice emanating out of nowhere business: Lawnmower. Protractor. Valedictorian. Nihilist. Slartibartfast. Los Alamos. Fun words to hear randomly, yes?

Goodnight.

I imagine

2010-07-27T17:16:00.009+05:30

... that the Earth is a ball on a pool table. Our entire existence, leading up to the time that the earth will be destroyed, is just a break taken between shots to get another beer.

Soon, we will go spinning into the black hole that is the left corner pocket.

Queen is a funny word. Kween. Kh-u-ween. See?

2010-07-18T23:30:00.010+05:30

Thunderbolt and lightning, very very frightening me.
Bohemian rhapsody has been stuck in my head for the past week.

Rhapsody is such a brilliant word to say. And an even better word to imagine. When I say the word rhapsody I imagine beautiful firecrackers going off in formation over the Sydney Opera House at midnight.

Too firang for you? Sorry. Rockets phootoing over Machhar towers in Sardarpura, Jodhpur. Because yes, there is a Macchar towers here. It contains a shop that sells kids clothes. I'm not sure why that's relevant here.

Scaramouch, Scaramouch, will you do the Fandango?
Fandango, I presume, is some sort of dance.
I imagine a dog eating a mango.
Seated at a table, with a napkin in its lap. Holding a little fruit knife.
Whatay etiket.

Galileo, Galileo, Galileo Figaro
This song is so insanely trippy.

Placement fever is going on in my college. And there is a new Octopus Paul application on Facebook. Paul is currently informing me that my friends’ prospects of getting jobs range from "Houston, we have a problem" to "Fo shizzle ma nizzle!"

If I had an octopus, I'd name him Leonard. How brilliantly he would romance his octopus girlfriend. When going to meet her, he would hide five of his tentacles behind his back, like in those cheesy movies in which the guy holds a heart shaped box of chocolates behind his back for the loue of his life while the girl carefully pretends not to see it. Leonard would have flowers in one tentacle and a book in the other (yes, my octopus is quite literary. Why does that sound perverted?). Also, a pair of sunglasses (in case his date's eyes are sensitive to light), a laptop charger (in case they decide to stay home and watch a movie and her charger is conked) and a hip flask (for Dutch courage). Leonard is always prepared. He is a maverick. A romantic. The perfect person to sign an armistice.

Also, Old Spice is hot. It just is. What can I say?

Rise of the Auto-man empire.

2010-06-30T12:40:00.005+05:30

"Armed and dangerous" jokes have been made about my new template. Largely by me. But let us not take away from the brilliance nonetheless.

It rains in Bombay. Pours madly down on those hapless souls who clutch their umbrellas despite already being drenched. The very umbrellas then then go careening away. Makes a lot more sense, that. Unless, of course, you make the fatal mistake of wearing a white formal shirt to work. There was almost a vairy filmy Limca ad in the making on the way to work today.

I hate the new auto rates. Also, the autowalas seem to have this new sense of superiority about them nowadays. "We win, you lose, sucker" type expressions. I might be a bit paranoid. There is a distinct possibility of that, yes. They have definitely started acting more pricey than normal though. Noticed the pun on the word pricey? Notice it now then. Hah.

I encountered an interesting auto chap yesterday who agreed to take me to the station after half a dozen others flatly refused to, because it was too short a ride. After seeing me fume, he graciously told me he would take me to the station and then commenced ranting about his colleagues. He informed me that autowalas are not allowed to refuse anybody, and violation of this rule was subject to a fine of Rs. 1200. He didn't actually use those words, of course. I am a textbook case of "you know you've been in law school too long when..." - syndrome.

Anyway. "What right do we have to refuse anyone?" the autowala grandiosely proclaimed. He then took it upon himself to provide me with sneaky little tips and tricks on how to ensure that no auto would ever refuse to take me anywhere I wanted. "If you want to go to Andheri, say you want to go to Dahisar. If you want to go to Goregaon Station, tell him you want to go to Malad. Just get down mid way. You can never fail!" he said.

With the useful and amusing pontification continuing in the background, I was duly dropped off at the station. As I was hunting for change, a harried looking man in a crumpled shirt ran up to my auto and stated his destination. To which the autowala made a face and rudely refused. As he turned to take the change, he conveniently ignores my raised eyebrow and gives me the Hindi version of "Capiche?"

Whatay awesomeness.

Re-Vamp!

2010-06-11T21:34:00.006+05:30

I'll start off with- Look at my template! Look at it! Isn't it awesome!?

Ahem. Commence formal explanation.

People keep saying I am the global repository of the worst jokes ever. I snigger when I hear jokes that make people cringe. I get worked up and excited when I think of my next terrible joke. I'll leave the description to my loving friends, they will be more than delighted to provide crude and cruel imitations of me itching to share my latest bad pun.

So anyhoodle. Due credits for this BRILLIANT new template go to two people. Firstly, her, for coming up with the whole idea. She is also gradually progressing towards utter destitution in the humour department. For example, she recently said the following:

Bananas are ugly. Like pigeons.
I feel like I'm in a coffin. Only its *slightly* disturbing having you next to me.
I feel like a heater. I should be kept in somebody's room.
His name was... Something, something else. You know, like a name and a surname.
I feel so dry. It's like you can pickle me and put me in a jar.

In short, thank you Sindhu.

Secondly, props to him. The last proper template I had prompted him to say that it gave him the impression of a Hawaaian trying to go goth. So, out of the kindness of his heart and after a lot of nagging, he made me this template. Which kicks ass, to say the least. This man is brilliant. He is talented. He works (for me) for free. Somebody please give him a glamorous job and lots of money so he can stop cribbing about how he spent so much time on my template and didn't get any benefit from it. Cash or kind. So this is me being his official pimp. Give him work and/or give him some action. He is very much awesome. (At the designing bit, the rest I cannot vouch for.) Much love, Suk. I owe you a beer. Or three.

Whee!

The one in which I see little birds flying around my head, like in those Tom and Jerry cartoons

2010-06-08T16:06:00.006+05:30

The strangest accidents happen to me when I intern.

Today a box file landed squarely on my head. Where it came from, I have not the faintest idea. It was followed in quick pursuit by an extremely apologetic fellow intern. Which is not to say the intern landed on my head as well.

The file was around a foot thick. It was held together by some sort of twine. Which gave way due to the impact and gracefully spewed hundreds of sheets of green legal paper all over me. Of course, the partner happened to be passing by at that very moment and found me looking very dazed, attempting to gather several handfuls of paper without letting them, or myself, fall down, and failing miserably. I had quite a vivid mental image of Uncle Scrooge swimming in a huge pile of money at that point.

My head hurts.

At least I gave the boss a good laugh. Along with the rest of the office.

Let's hope I get paid now.

Berry much sadness.

2010-05-29T21:37:00.008+05:30

The last time I blogged, it was about a Blackberry. That very evening, I lost my own Blackberry. I was utterly irresponsible and am having severe withdrawal symptoms from the same. I suck. But not as much as the bastard who found it and decided to (presumably) sell it. He who kept cutting all my frantic calls and ultimately switched it off to avoid me. Hah. Hopefully, he got woken up the next morning at 5:45 am by my loud annoying incessant alarm which rings even when the darn phone is turned off, that I had kept with the vain hope that I would get my ass out of bed and into the gym. (Note: Not happening, rapid bloating is currently taking place). Some tiny floating-in-a-corner-somewhere shred of sadistic satisfaction. Sigh.

On a completely unrelated note, I would like to mention that there are few things as absolutely peaceful as hanging out of an uncrowded compartment of a fast train at night, with the wind blowing through your hair, watching the lights of the city streak past you in a blur. Joy.

Speaking of peace, I had a conversation today with JD about peace in places of worship. No disrespect meant whatsoever to anyone or anything, so please, control. Churches are not peaceful. Churches are quiet. Too quiet. The silence is so loud you can practically hear it. It's an overbearing, overpowering silence that makes you (me) restless. It's like it's building up to a crescendo that will never actually be reached. Kind of like the remixes they make of Akon songs, where they repeat the last line of a stanza again and again and again in higher and higher pitches till you (I) just hold my head and wait desperately for the chorus to begin.

I had a dream yesterday. There is an empty airport. More specifically, the baggage claim area of the airport. There is a stationary conveyor belt. The part in the middle of the conveyor belt is stacked with hundreds of small glass bottles of glycerine. Soon, they neatly arrange themselves into two rows and move onto the conveyor belt, which then starts moving. The rest of the dream is just the rotating conveyor belt with two rows of glycerine bottles on it, with not a soul to claim them. Deep, what?

I leave you now with a quote from a friend: "We need to go out and buy fruits. And tights. Which, if you think about it, sounds like the name of a gay bar."

I want Superman chaddis

2010-05-27T15:06:00.007+05:30

My boss has a hot Blackberry. Sleek and thin and unbelievably black. What is axshully very fabulous about it, and him, is its ringtone. Which is a extremely-familiar-but-I-can’t-quite-place-it-right-now cartoon type music. It's the kind of music I would imagine playing when Superman whizzes into his little telephone booth to remove his magic disguise glasses and slip his extra chaddis on over his pants. So every time the boss person's phone rings I feel full affection towards him. Like, aww. Till I remember I haven't finished his work yet. Then, The Great Switcheroo of pheelings.

Also, the cell phone of the adjacent canteen keeps ringing every 15 seconds. If I hear bachna ae haseeno once more I shall start a food fight in said canteen, and run around in circles pulling my own hair and reciting The Walrus and the Carpenter. Or burrow deeper into my seat, hum unintelligibly and grumble to myself. One of the above. Definitely.

(Update: I just found out that the phone extension of said canteen is 666. Tres apropos, I think)

No wisecracks about the title. I really do want it. And by it, of course, I mean with one the logo on the front. Tch. Must I explain everything?

Old School

2010-05-23T21:49:00.003+05:30

I used to be in day care when I was a lot younger. I was in a girls school then, so the very first boys I ever talked to, I met there. There was one particularly nice boy there, Bharat, possibly my first crush ever. He was really nice to me unlike the other brats who pulled my hair and then made fun of me when I cut it really short. He taught me how to do "fugdi" (I still kick ass at it :D) and taught me how to make roses out of ribbons. I completely hero worshipped him.

When I was in the first standard, he was in the third and I remember waiting impatiently till I became two years older so I could "catch up" (?) to his age and be in the same class as him. I'm not sure what exactly I thought that would achieve but well, I was 6. First standard done, I entered the second and experienced a rude shock when I found he had graduated to the fourth. Yes, I know, like duh.

So, when I was 6, I wanted to be older for some strange reason pertaining to the first guy I ever liked, presently unbeknownst to me. Later, I wanted to be older so I could be allowed to go out alone, stay out later, start dating, start drinking, start having my own opinions, start taking control of my own life. And now I have all that. And now, that's quite enough, methinks. This getting older business is overrated.

Damn you, Bharat.

Stay young, stay selfish.

2010-05-10T12:27:00.000+05:30

It takes you more than enough effort to keep yourself happy. Or in any case, not actually unhappy.

Don't even try bothering about anyone else's happiness.

As I am, as I was.

2010-04-24T15:41:00.003+05:30

When I actually get enthusiastic about something, I go all out doing it. I also end up being good at it. Really quite good at it. Unfortunately, things that get me that excited are so few and far apart that they really seem like a novelty when they crop up. But then it dies out. Fizzle, crash, boom. Add general laziness and you just have a bunch of half finished projects that are really nicely done but well, could have been eons better.

Consistency is needed. Also, interest. Also, less thought and less sleep. Less chocolate. More drive. More dreams. More action. And definitely a lot more money.

Somebody, get me a job.

Why manicure sets are useful after all.

2010-03-17T15:29:00.003+05:30

Hostel life. So much more educational than one would imagine.

This, I realised this afternoon when I had to change my cooler pump and the college electrician drunkenly informed me he would "be right there madam-ji", thereby letting me know that I needn't wait up.

Which led to Wonder Girl and I deciding we had to take matters into our own hands. Electrical work commenced and my cooler was restored to perfect working condition. All with a pair of dainty manicure scissors and magically procured electrical tape.

And of course, typical to the boy species, just after we were done performing electrical wonders, a guy friend calls to ask what I'm up to. When I tell him, I get this response. "Two girls changing a cooler pump? That's hot."

Sigh.

Run

2010-03-05T20:48:00.000+05:30

You hear nothing but the sound of your feet thudding away on the uneven grass. Dodge to avoid the odd shrub or raised patch of earth that comes in your way, leap over the raised water pipe that is a permanent fixture on the football field. It's nothing but a glorious obstacle course. The wind blows through your short hair as you adjust your earphones and are greeted by The Killers. Think nothing, feel nothing. Except the delightful twinge of pain in your calves as you near your penultimate stretch. Any minute now...

An upbeat song comes up and you make an effort not to sprint. Must conserve energy. The last half-lap comes up and you can't take it any more. You pull out your earphones so they don't fall out and hinder you, and you take off. Fast. Faster. Faster than all those painful, miserable thoughts. The need to feel good about yourself. The need to feel wanted, the need to feel loved. The need to feel attractive, to feel worthy. Of yourself, of those who love you. Of anyone's attention, of any love or affection that you already have.

You hear and feel nothing except your breath coming in heavy pants as you tear across the field. You reach the end and almost collapse. Who knew exhaustion could be so pleasant.

And as you gather yourself, gulp cold water and head back, you reflect on what a good friend told you and feel a faint sardonic smile creep across your face.

"He can only be your walking stick. He cannot be your rock."

Happy Halloween.

2010-03-01T17:50:00.010+05:30

Yeah, so I went to Jaisalmer over the weekend. Good stuff. Sand dunes, camels, shopping, all that. Interesting places to see, whacked out people to meet. Stoned foreigners wearing tiger masks, vendors who tell you to add them on facebook, and shy old auto-walas who hand out posh visiting cards, all in equal proportion. On second thought maybe not so many tiger masks. I saw several Mickey Mouse ones as well. It's a quaint little place, nice enough. The following, however, just made my trip several times over, clicked by either this woman or this one. (Click on photos to enlarge)

Wattay marketing.

Wattay brand.

Ah wattay character.

Ok then. Till the next post. Till then, as the Dalai Lama would say to all you lovely people out there...

On the menu of a restaurant called Little Tibet.

P.S.- Mucho thanks to this man for help with the pumpkin heads.

Saga of The Permanent Chaddi

2010-02-18T19:43:00.002+05:30

So I live in a girl’s hostel. My guy friends outside the university seem to have an unduly glamorous picture of this place. They imagine us girls walking around in sexy little numbers, taking our clothes off all the time, and having regular pillow fights and oil massages. Little do they know what actually transpires here. The wonder that is the “dad's tshirt” and loose pyjamas, which is what most people wear here. Except for the occasional odd character who, just for the fun of it, will wear a cocktail dress, heels and makeup and strut her stuff in the corridor. (You know who you are.) But that's not the point of this blog post.

In our lovely graffiti-ed bathroom, there is of course, graffiti. There are also a couple of post-its stuck on the loo doors, reminding people to please take their underwear with them when they leave the place. Someone clearly disregarded this piece of advice. Around 3 weeks ago, someone left their undies hanging in one of the stalls. No one knows who it belongs to, and obviously no one wants to touch it. The owner flat out refuses to claim it, clearly. So it just remains there balefully, abandoned, outcast, labeled "The Permanent Chaddi". It’s even become a landmark of sorts. When someone had to leave me their keys while going out of town, she left me a message that she would leave it hanging next to The Permanent Chaddi. Someone else suggested immortalising it by making a paper mache cast of it.

Ah, the joys of hostel life.

Hey guys... Sexy, ain’t it?

What would MacGyver do?

2010-02-11T01:12:00.007+05:30

Today morning, I had a test. Hence, I thought I would get up early and study. I dutifully set an alarm for 6 am on my cellphone and fell asleep.

6 am and my alarm rings. Snooze. Rings again. Snooze.

In the depths of my barely-there consciousness, I convinced myself that there were mysterious happenings underfoot. Why else would Shipping up to Boston be played right at me very loudly every 5 minutes? Adopting a proper MacGyver style, I made it my mission to hit the snooze button as soon as the alarm rang, so as to thwart The Enemy's plan of destroying the world, which my timely action would definitely resolve. Every time I jabbed that button, I felt a sense of accomplishment. Of getting the best of someone who was trying to bring me down. I single-mindedly focused on my Very Important Mission which would serve humankind. They would thank me later for my heroic deed. Or I would die a heroes death, unlamented. Unacclaimed. Sigh...

Needless to say, my test sucked.

The really sad part? I'm not exaggerating in the least about any of this.

I need help.

Hello boys

2010-02-05T12:52:00.003+05:30

How times have changed. I've reached a point in life where I'm confident of myself, I'm trying new things, discovering I'm quite good at them to boot, my ego is nice and happy having been treated to a spa weekend, and I'm actually considering taking first steps, something I never thought I would do. No one could be more surprised that I am.

On the other hand, people think I'm a boy. Just so we're all clear, I'm not. A boy. To be precise. Three times this past month I have been told I look like a guy. A hot athletic guy. But a guy, nonetheless.

Gah. If actual straight (added for all you wise asses out there) bona fide boys did not attempt to hit on me from time to time, I might get some odd sort of complex.

To cock a snook. Or three.

2010-01-13T17:52:00.001+05:30

Recently, my hostel room got called an industrial godown. It has in it, among other things, a black plastic mask with golden trim hung on top of the mirror, with a yellow headband perched on one side and a black headband with two red horns sprouting from it on the other, the type which flashes red when you turn a knob. It's as though the mask has an angel on one shoulder and a devil on the other, just as they show in all those cartoons. Do it, it will make you feel so much better. Revenge is sweet and has an excellent consistently, with a delightful aftertaste of Irish cream, which makes you crave just one more bite or seven. Thus spake the horny headband. No no, do the right thing and you will get a 5 years supply of Hershey’s Kisses, said the yellow headband in parley. Tough call, this one.

Ok, moving on. In my room, there is also my guitar in its case, and propped up casually against it, a long wooden bow. Oh and on the windowsill, two wooden arrows, prettily painted, with sharp metal tips and peahen feathers at the end, propped up nonchalantly against my beautiful retro green and red truck horn. A dozen posters, including those of George Harrison, a girl on a Vespa and a fat man drinking beer. Also, a statuette of a skinny girl in skinny jeans and a corset holding a wineglass (The girl happens to be a full grown female skeleton, by the way. Who somehow has a huge pair of knockers. Go figure.) White fluffy earmuffs hung on a nail in the wall. A beer mug with a green planet motif painted on it and the words “Don’t Panic” written under that in large friendly letters. A stuffed white and yellow cockatoo on my bed (I've named him Cockathree). A huge garish sticker of a cartoon penguin. A duck keychain stuck on my cupboard that quacks thrice when its tummy is squeezed. A bumper sticker on my cupboard that says “Warning. Chocolate can make your clothes shrink.” A reserved sign on my table, flicked from Cafe Leopold. Among other things.

Industrial godown my foot and three fourth. To borrow a phrase.

Ye olde curiosity shoppe is more like it, to borrow yet another phrase.

Sigh. Joy. Give me more crazily awesome, potentially useless junk, I'll be ecstatic. Or an empty wine bottle. I've scoured the liquor shops in the area asking for one. I'm always asked to come back. Or to buy a full bottle of wine and empty it. Sadness. More so for the liquor shop people who I annoy incessantly for the same. Ok maybe not incessantly. I think I'll go now.

Burn. Destroy. Make an omelette.

2009-12-20T23:11:00.008+05:30

I like burning things. Actually, I like watching things smoulder quietly. And I don’t just mean things like Gael García Bernal, though that in itself is quite ogle worthy. A piece of paper, set on fire which has been stomped out, though not completely, which has a tiny orange hypnotic bead of fire still inside, running through it quietly and stealthily, making that piece of paper curl and blacken and disintegrate. Destroying from within, without an actual external manifestation of a flame. Neat.

When I lived near the sea, a window overlooked the beach and an old distant lighthouse. Whenever I was down I would go stare out that window into the darkness. This is not to say that I was only down when the sun went down. Pliss to understand. On staring into the distant darkness I would see a faraway pinprick of red coming from the lighthouse. It would disappear. And reappear. 4 seconds later. Counting those 4 seconds again and again till that red dot appeared again was peace.

Now, when I’m down, I find a friend online who realises the importance of finding a random word and brutally assassinating it. The word of the day was egg. What followed was an eggsagerated eggstreme discussion on the eggsistential nature of the eggsplanation of the eggsplicit nature of the egg. Said egg is huge, laminated, has graffiti painted on it and is rolled menacingly at people we don’t like to scare them away. Also, it is called Hugo the Angry. I just heard the oh-so-distinctive sound of all eggs in the near vicinity giving up and dying of eggsasperation. I feel so much better now. My friends are awesome. Also very kooky. Kooky is good. It's a funny word. Kooky. Kooky. Ok then. Bye.

Divya versus Divya

2009-12-17T17:06:00.003+05:30

Without further ado. Divya versus Divya.

Act I:
Dibba: This is my cat. Shrimati Jane Iyengar. She began life as Jane Eyre. Then I Tamilicised her.
Me: You should have named her Iyer na then.
Dibba: Wtf. I’m Iyengar. *pride*
Me: Bloody caste obsessed. You changed the cats caste!
Dibba: Iyers are our sworn emenies...enemies...emenemies...whatever. They secretly practice witchcraft. And do black magic.
Me: Yes I love you too emenemie o’ mine.
Dibba: You're Iyer eh? Er… when I say witchcraft, I mean, of course, the HAWT kind. And er… black magic is in fashion also. Also, I love black. Black is good. And magic is always hawt. (Reminder to self - must stop nervous chatter) Er… I LOVE YOU DIVI!
Me: Sigh.. You just say that because you don't want me to turn you into a newt.

Act II:
Dibba: Oh no. Everyone thinks I am a social mongoose :( Er... or mole. Mole, yes. Mole. Not mongoose.
Me: No I like mongoose better. Social mongoose... Sounds so cute. Like a mongoose taking a day off from killing snakes and going for a party and meeting all its groupies. “Ooh you kill snakes... Dangerous… What a turn on… Your hole in the wall or mine?”
Dibba: But mongoose is not technically correct. Mole is the dude that digs and is mole-like...
Me: Correct shorrect. I like mongoose better.
Dibba: Social mongoose just sounds 'cute'. Cute' is not HOT. Would you stop trying to take away from my great and steamy sex appeal? As, er… a mole? (Shit that didn’t work).
Me: Fine... You want to be an unsightly black mark on someone’s body, suit yerself. YOU could be having hot mongoose sex right now but nooo…
Dibba: My dear zoologically challenged woman... I was picturing the hawt black-as-midnight, velvet skinned. silent-as-death antisocial animal, and you HAD to pick the grandiose freckly things.

The end. For now.

I don't even like cricket.

2009-12-16T11:37:00.005+05:30

"Ooh aah I want my bra, I don’t know where my undies are."
No, this is not my life’s anthem. This is apparently an ad for a lingerie store. Sounds like the transcript of a Lady Gaga video to me. Props to that woman. She wears no clothes, still manages to cover up the important bits and gets away with lines like “I wanna take a ride on your disco stick”. Oh, what an image. It’s like those morbidly fascinating things which you MUST stare at. Like a gory car accident. Or the sight one of my wannabe-alpha-male friends hitting on women way out of their league. Only, in the latter case, you point and laugh. If you try that with the car accident, some people just might resent it. Unless you happen to be in the accident. In which case people will just be very worried.

Yesterday I heard the best slang term I’ve heard, ever. T20 khelna. Meaning, having a fling. What a brilliant term, boss. Hats off. Umpire wala, even. So much potential with this one.
“I’m playing the field. The pitch if you will.”
“I’m looking for a player who really knows how to handle his bat.”
“What’s needed is a man with a lot of experience with the balls.”
“A maiden over would be appreciated.”

The one type of cricket that sounds like fun, apart from India-Pakistan matches.

Ah the joy of being ridiculous. Unmatched. Un-‘match’ed. Ok, never mind.

Sometimes, you just want to communicate and let the world know you still exist. Feel like blogging with nothing to say, feel like tweeting with not even 140 characters to share. In such cases, what works best is getting slammed and communicating so much that the next day you never want to speak another word ever again.

You know what sucks? Yes? Do tell, I don’t feel like typing it out.

Yes, no?

2009-12-03T12:54:00.000+05:30

In chemistry we used to keep learning about some reaction called attack of the nucleophiles. Not only did I fail to understand the concept, but I always invariably conjured up War of the Worlds images whenever I heard about it. Just look at the phrase “attack of the nucleophiles” and tell me you don’t imagine vile green creatures in phallic spaceships attacking the empire state building with laser weapons. If you don't, I'd advise you to do so. Keeps life interesting. Wouldn't go so far as to say it kept chemistry class interesting but I did get encouraged to refrain from jumping up and jamming my blue ball point pen up the teachers nose. No offense to the teacher. Or blue ball point pens.

A few weeks ago, I opened my umbrella and held it up against the sun. It tilted, just a little bit. I paid no heed to it. It squeaked softly. I twirled it merrily and continued on my way. I paused to talk to someone, holding it in front of me, to shade us both. It creaked. And then it cracked. It suddenly broke into two and fell down. Then I was left holding a broken metal stick with a plastic handle and a red and white candy striped umbrella head with a three inch handle and looking absolutely stunned. In such circumstances, you improvise. You stick the striped umbrella part outside your door to provide an amusing, yet aesthetic showpiece. You propose making it into a hat. You make unsuspecting passers-by dance with it. The perks of being slightly less than sensible.

The first time I saw Robert Sean Leonard on screen, he was the super cute guy in Dead Poet’s society who killed himself because he was adamant on not going to medical school. Now, he’s acting in House. Still looks the same, very cute albeit perpetually a tad sheepish. He’s playing a dedicated oncologist. Irony. Delightful.

Yesterday I saw a Youtube clip of some band who said that they are inspired by shiny things. Whether or not I like their music, I profess undying love for them just for saying that. Speaking of shiny things, I saw an ad for a bling argyle dress yesterday. Extreme hotness. I have an unhealthy fascination for argyle. Anyone who gives me a bling argyle dress shall be duly rewarded. That also goes for anyone who rescues me from the horror of working an eight hours shift for six days a week. SIX! Weekends, be mine once again! I shall honour and cherish you forevermore, I promise.

Those who ought to have remembered my 21st birthday and didn't wish me, may there be flustered pigeons flapping around your head wherever you go. Bye then.

Nonsense-aaya namaha

2009-11-25T13:03:00.006+05:30

Once upon a time, when I was very small, very round, and very naïve (now I am not small, in any sense of the word. Therein lies the difference), I used to often go with my mom to her colleagues house. The grown ups would sit and discuss work, places they bought their saris from and fancy recipes, while the kids would be packed off to play together. One particular colleague had a son who I played cricket with on a regular basis. After having been to that boys house many many times and after one particularly good game of cricket, I was jubilant. On the way home, I asked my mom in a very matter-of-fact way and with full confidence: “Mom, when I grow up, I’m going to marry Nikhil na?” A highly flustered mom hummed and hawed for a while, gave me a hasty “Let’s see, let’s see, now come on hurry up” and frisked me away.

Circa 2009. Mom sees a gold bracelet she likes and asks me if I’d like something like that for myself. When I politely decline, she goes ahead anyway and says I can have it for my wedding. Ditto for any grossly expensive and blingy jewellery set or sari or pretty much anything she likes and wishes upon me. Now I humm and haw and mutter an infuriated “Be happy if I even get married” under my breath. When my mom starts off about her future son-in-law who she insists must be TamBrahm, Iyer, vegetarian, etc. etc, I give her a “Be happy if I end up with a guy instead of a girl.” That succeeds in ending the discussion right there, thankfully. Ah, how times change.

:D

Dust bunnies will take over the world one day

2009-11-20T11:40:00.005+05:30

During my exams I was overcome with boredom for whatever subject it was I was supposed to be studying. Also, my room was an utter and total mess. It looked like my cupboard had exploded, my bookshelf had emptied itself over that, a paper shredder had done its business over THAT and a sandstorm had passed through and left me in its wake. It wasn’t pretty. If you think I’m so bored and I feel the need to revive the blog so much that I’m going to describe how I cleaned my room... you would be absolutely right. Moving on...

I find it impossible to actually sit and fold clothes and put them away unless I summon a hapless hostel friend, perch her on one end of the bed and have her talk while I pick up clothes by the armful from the bed, hang them up or put them away. Till then they stay in a steadily growing pile on my bed and serve as an elevation for my feet whenever I sleep. For the first few exams, I thus had a multi-hued foot cushion, a pile of books, notes and loose papers on the side of the bed next to the wall, and my stuffed football perched neatly on top. All in all I might have had around 2x3 feet of actual empty space on my bed and it was getting too cold to sleep on the floor. Needless to say, something had to be done. When I started cleaning, a neighbour was present and talking me through it. She left, another one walked in. Then she left too. Bloody dedicated people. In the midst of the session of the third good samaritan (who was more than willing to talk because she did not want to start studying) was my bed actually free of excess clothing. Phew.

Then I tackled my desk. Now that was a whole new matter altogether. While my bed was, on the whole, clean with all my crumpled washed laid out in a heap on it, my desk was the curiosity shoppe from hell. I used to have to nudge several items aside and stop everything from toppling over everyday to fit my laptop onto the desk so that I could plug my internet wire into it. While cleaning it, apart from several generations of dust bunnies that had gone forth and procreated over the semester, I found 4 pairs of earrings, 3 of which did not belong to me (their owners were mighty pleased to have them back), transparent bra straps- 3 in number, several chits I had passed back and forth with people in class, the brand tags of clothes, most of which I did not own, 2 pairs of scissors, 7 novels, one music CD, 100 bucks in cash, a pair of headphones, 2 Ipods (both mine), an Ipod charger (not mine), 12 multicoloured bangles of the same set scattered delicately in different corners, 3 pens in usable and several in unusable condition, and my guitar capo which I had given up as MIA ages ago, among a lot of other junk. And scrap paper and string that invariably follows me wherever I go, of course. Wow. It took a while before I could let my laptop sit there in all its glory. (It’s purple. Regal. You get it. Or not. Bah.)

Hence I was done with procrastinating. For then. You know how it goes.

Intensive rescue moisture locking lotion.

2009-11-03T23:34:00.004+05:30

The moisturiser in front of me says it is hypoallergenic. Someone wandered by and asked me the meaning of anthropogenic.

One comment is waiting in limbo from back in the day when I used to have comment moderation and is feebly asking me to accept or reject it. I've been being staunchly cruel for over a year now. Not all those who wander are lost, Tolkien said. It shall serve some purpose, I'm sure.

My exams are almost here. Which means I should get all tense and start studying frantically. No, really, I should. And become the irritable impatient bitch of yore who would snap at simply everyone during exam time and freak them out. Rush into the mess, grab a packet of biscuits, rush out, growl at someone who dares to bang into me and grab my books again. I can't believe I miss that person.

Labouring over labour law. Wanting to do so many things which I do not have the time for. Castles in the air that are helium light which speed away before one can dwell on them. Blog template is boring. Must spruce it up. Am full inspired by this chick who really does not need any more traffic that she's already got, but I'm linking her anyway.

Gallons of coffee are whispering out to me tantalisingly. I give in and go over to the dark side. Really, very dark with lots of sugar. Nothing else keeps me up.

Just don't ask me why.

2009-10-31T01:04:00.004+05:30

I’ve done several stupid things in life, of course. Beginning to list them would just be idiocy. But one of them stands out with a bright pink ribbon on as being absolutely ridiculous, for me atleast.

Once, around three years ago, I was addicted to codeine. I was a hardcore insomniac and would literally spend weeks of sleepless nights, just tossing feverishly. It helped me sleep, it helped me function throughout the day. And then it helped me sleep again. Back then, nothing could beat that simple bliss of simply being able to sleep in peace. And then somehow, when I got a tad too attached to it, I stopped it, withdrawal symptoms and all. That's another story though.

Early this year, I was depressed. Several horrible things had happened and I just couldn’t be more torn or trapped in my own head than I already was. And unfortunately, possessing the brilliant habit of overthinking things and turning them over and over in my head, on one particular evening I could simply not take it anymore. Just being conscious was driving me crazy. That, and my tendency to sleep whenever I’m depressed joined forces and told me to have some codeine again so I could sleep and escape the madness that was my very being. Half a bottle worth, to boot. And then I slept. And slept. And fell upwards in my sleep. And gibbered. And spun. And tossed. And cried. And flailed. And had the most miserable, trippy, crazy, depressing 15 hours of sleep ever. And woke up the next day, still depressed, but determined NEVER to do that again. Insanity. Not only was everything I was obsessing about magnified, but twisted and vibrant and mashed up in my head at the time. If that makes any sense at all. There was one very glaringly obvious lesson learnt.

Now, it’s just reserved for when the weather changes and I get one my famous colds that insist on lasting for a month at a time.

(Now pay heed to the title people. It's there for a reason.)

Horn OK pretty please

2009-10-15T13:52:00.013+05:30

I love my room back home. It has one and a half bright green walls, is cool and airy, has a ginormous wardrobe and a huge bed. And it is just not me at all. Also, since I’m out of the house for 9 months a year, it has turned into a store room of sorts, accumulating random unwanted clutter that floats around my house and finally ends up in my room, like the proverbial watery grave. Random files, paper (oh so much paper), unattractive showpieces that were gifted to us, clothes that are not old or tattered enough to be properly thrown away, which languish in there with some valiant hope that they will be worn someday, like when the mood strikes someone to wear those sky blue silky bell bottoms bought in 2002 again (what WAS my mom thinking when she got me those things?) or clothes that people (read me) hope to be able to fit into again someday. Sigh.

Because I can, I’ve gone all out in my room in hostel. I’ve painted one wall, printed out a dozen carefully picked posters and put them up, put up some quirky paintings, hung up a beautiful mask I got as a birthday gift, stuck pretty postcards above my mirror. But if I could, I would go nuts in my room back home.

One wall of dark red/purple/maroon, retro pop art decorating the walls, vintage posters, psychedelic sheets, a red Lazyboy couch, a massive wooden bookshelf, wooden floors, a bamboo swing in the balcony, a flower in a mottled green wine bottle on the windowsill and my pièce de résistance that I bought only a couple of days ago, an ancient looking truck horn with a gorgeous metallic green curved body and a bright red ball-like thing you can honk on that makes the most hilarious sound ever and makes everyone who sees it laugh in incredulousness as to why I would buy such a thing, up on one wall. You MUST know what I’m talking about. It makes you want to write a song titled “Horny OK Please” as soon as you look at it.

And oh, before any of this, I would rush to remove the two lurid scary blue tubelights that my mom got installed because she thought that it would give the room a “cooling effect”. What it really does is make my room look like something out of the twilight zone or a creepy testing lab floodlit with UV light where some alien baby is being spawned. *Shudder*

Ah the urge to decorate prevails. My tiny 8x10 hostel room has no space for me to do anything more. Must restrain self. Yes mom, this is a hint. :D

Dance with me, sway with me.

2009-10-05T15:40:00.010+05:30

So there was this Music Festival here. And it was absolutely fantabulous. It, being the second concert (perhaps third) ever of my life, it far exceeded any expectations that one might have entertained.

Yours truly being a person of the shy reticent and vanilla kind when it comes to people she cannot go and break down uncontrollably to, bouncing up and being one of the first people to start dancing in front of a thousand people because the group playing on stage was just so fabulous, now that is a feat. Going up and telling the brilliant yet shy Marwari folk artists how great they were (while everyone concentrated on the cute UK guy) and watching them get overwhelmed, jump up while dancing and giving a lead vocalist a high five, telling him you lust after his bright gold shoes with electric pink laces, dancing with a gorgeous Rajasthani eunuch with (alas) a better figure than yours, watching stoned hippies dance gracefully in a trance, laughing with unknown foreigners at the sheer beauty of it all, dancing till I was tired enough to collapse, losing any and all inhibitions. This was a whole new world.

Held at the so-gorgeous-it-hurts, beautifully mood-lit Mehrangarh fort, and lasting till 2 in the morning, these dazzling couple of days spent at the festival seem to have just made me utterly and completely depressed. On one hand, you forget all your work for just a little bit and live in this dream land of lights, architectural wonder, rhythm, harmonies, fusion, dreamy musicians and one perpetual high. And then one is forced to come down to reality again and despair that one will never get a job.

Life should be one eternal music festival. I have missed out on so much by not doing this earlier.

Feeling Bookish

2009-09-29T16:17:00.007+05:30

As I post this, I realise it's been such a long time since I've sat and properly read a book for hours on end like I just did. For someone who used to skip meals on a regular basis so as to continue reading, quite shameful. The internet always beckoned, Gtalk was my guilty pleasure and if nothing else, random browsing and tagline-reading took up most of my time, these past three years.

For the past week I've switched on my laptop only when I absolutely had to, instead of having it on all the time, running in the background, when a faint ping would send me scurrying back to see who had buzzed me with the new all important piece of trivial gossip or which new (usually) inconsequential person had deigned to ask me "wassup" with my life. Now I am internet free, to some extent. Sure I still google everything around me. I still want to occasionally chat online with my friend in the US and keep in touch. (How else can I ensure he gets me the requisite amount of gifts when he comes back to visit?). I still depend on group emails to inform me there is a test tomorrow and I must stop emulating the great Rip Van Winkle and do something about it. But no more does the little (steadily growing) number in brackets next to the word "Inbox" freak me out. No longer do I have the urge to read taglines, or even have one for that matter. Well not as much. The 5 step program to dealing with your internet addiction continues.

Similarly, I have not been separated from my cell phone for more than 20 minutes since I was 17. Recently, I was forced to go a whole 5 hours without it. LIBERATION. I now know what those anti social philistines keep harping about. No random messages from Reliance informing me I have missed calls and how about I try their super cool money saving offer which was tailor made for me. No one to be accountable to as to where you are and when you're coming back from wherever you are. Having the ability to go out and just get lost when you want to, and stay that way till you feel like having any sort of company again. The bliss, of course, lasts till the time you're forced to get back and having to reply to those 9 messages and 8 missed calls that flooded that darn electronic box when you were away.

This is how Buddha attained enlightenment, aint it? Renouncing material pleasures and all that. And I did it without a big holy tree. I should start a religion. Everyone worships me anyway. ;) Ahem. Alright. Bye then.

Fish of the hip-hop variety

2009-09-12T21:02:00.011+05:30

Restless.
Same old routine, same old meals.
Same classes, same people in said annoying classes.

"The time has come", the Walrus said, "to talk of many things".
Talk is all well and good, but nothing's happening wise guy. What good did talking do anyway? It sure has a lot of entertainment value, to say the least (just see my previous post) but what good did it do, really, if nothing happens?

A friend of mine, when she gets into a rut, tends to destroy everything around her. I do the opposite. I go out and do new things with a vengeance. I got my hair streaked. Then I got another ear piercing. Then I got a tattoo. Now I've gotten a new haircut. But that's not enough. Something must be done. Now. Running out of things to do here people. Aarghh.

Anyhoo, vanilla people are the most interesting of the lot because they do things you would never expect them to. The wild lot that goes around acting all cool and supercilious, those are actually the most boring of the lot. They just do the same old things. Or new wild things that arise out of them doing the same old things. Namely pot. I might be a tad biased here. Or not. Will I get angry pothead trolls commenting on this post? Time shall tell.

A couple of friends just spent the last 8 hours tracing the genealogy of the pre Tudors and making an elaborate-as-hell family tree and being very earnest about it. Which is totally great. Another friend gave her impersonation of the family tree enthusiasts by pouring out a stream of words that sounded vaguely like "Oh my god we forgot the first Duke of Nottingham who was also the sixteenth duke of Worcestershire who sired the Duchess who was the sister of the illegitimate whore of Piccadilly!" Which makes it even better, as we all can see.

I wonder why boys are so uptight about homosexuality. I have never met a single guy till date who has been fully comfortable discussing the topic without fidgeting in their seat uncomfortably, proclaiming that it is odd and weird and can-we-change-the-subject-please. By homosexuality, of course, I mean the male sort. The same between girls is of course a fine, elegant and popular topic of discussion. But that apart, more boys than girls=homophobes, why? Does it stem from the simple fact of life that girls are more affectionate than boys and have no qualms going and hugging their female friends whether they are depressed/excited/nervous/overjoyed/high whereas guys prefer the stoic and ultra sophisticated high five/chest bump? Leave a comment, enlighten me. Or alternatively, vent your indignance at above paragraph.

I am currently sitting on the strawberry swing. And imagining Humpty Dumpty doing the same thing. Egg splattered all over the children's park. Oh dear. Thomas Friedman would be having the time of his life. And getting severe cholesterol. Oh dear indeed.

Stream of consciousness petering out into a tiny little pool, filled with tiny fish that protest being subjected to the stereotype of having a bad memory. Also, they are wearing little bling caps. Ooh gangsta fish. Ok then. Ta.

I get high with a little help from my friends.

2009-09-07T02:43:00.012+05:30

Things friends say when high on life or other contraband substances:

1. Due to unforeseen teeth, I could not bellydance.

2. We should make a movie about our lives in hostel. It shall be funny, nonsensical, touching, sweet and reflect every girls trauma with their real selves and what they think of feminism and life. It will be very well accepted everywhere. It will be a whatever.

3. The end of the world will come when cymbals clang and there shall be a "Pshhffgtgttt" sound as though the Earth is being sucked into a shower drain and everyone will think happy thoughts. So essentially everyone will die happy.

4. (In response to above theory) You already made the sound! Now you've ruined the end of the world for me!

5. (In response to above response) So the most important part of the end of the world for you is the suspense, is it?

6. Cars are hot. Bikes are not too bad themselves. Bikes are like anorexic cars.

7. The Scream is like a zoozoo finding out it hasn't taken its books to class.

8. We suck like imported vacuum cleaners. Vacuum cleaners can atleast claim it is their job.

9. I would be honoured if I were asked to star in an Usbekistani porn movie.

10. I think I shall lie down and give up on this world. But first, I shall make some Tang.

11. Every man is an island, Huxley said, as also Simon and Garf uncle. So if people try to invade your island with their silly criticism, you put on your big girl hula skirt and sink their boats. By throwing half-coconuts at them. Which will be easy to get because that's what their bras are made of.

Props to Indiegurl, Ramsub, Revelsign and Hoverer. Now just try and guess who said what. :D

Imagine all the people...

2009-08-30T20:29:00.015+05:30

... living life in spazzed-out mode due to the liberal quantities of acid they have ingested. No? Anyway...

I, my friends, have an overactive visual imagination. Tell me anything and it will play out in my head. But no, not in the normal way- I'm sure that's quite a common phenomenon- else this would be a pretty darn boring blog post. The images in my head are like something right out of the delusions of above mentioned spazzed out people. Tell me a Hindi word I don't know and I will imagine it to be something that I reckon it sounds like and will confidently continue the conversation until someone stops me and points out that I'm making no sense whatsoever and am using a word that means something like audacity to mean lawnmower. But what can I say, it just sounds right in my head.

The first time someone told me I "had the floor" while speaking, I imagined myself in a large amphitheatre surrounded by people with me speaking into a microphone, and when I was done, I gently levitated off the ground so as to signify that it was the other persons turn to talk.

The first time I ever read a P.G. Wodehouse, I saw the name Bertram Wooster and promptly imagined a rooster. Common, you say, Jeeves my man? Well this rooster was a very haughty looking impatient one that was wearing a brown waistcoat and after every minute or so it would pull a large gold pocket watch attached by a chain out of its pocket, flip it open and peer at it in annoyance, tucking it away carefully after it was done.

The first time I heard of the author Thomas Friedman, I immediately pictured a hot road in a desolate desert town. The atmosphere is tense, restless and very sepia. A man with a cowboy hat strides up, reaches into his pocket and menacingly pulls out an egg. He cracks it gently onto the ground where it beautifully gets cooked into eggs sunny-side-up, which he transfers to a plate and jauntily swaggers away with.

I love my imagination. Except for the times my loving friends try to make me cringe in disgust by going on to describe certain unattractive specimens of the opposite sex in extra tiny pieces of clothing. Ugh. The horror... Sigh... Pros and cons...

P.S.- Is this even common? What's the craziest thing you've imagined?

I hear thunder...

2009-08-28T18:49:00.007+05:30

I live in Jodhpur. I hate the weather in the summers with a vengeance.

But just for the unexpectedness of sudden heavy rain falling in huge hard bullets, cloudy skies, sandstorms, brilliant forks of lightning and crazy tempestuous wind after 3 weeks of unrelenting blistering heat and sun, I love this city.

That, and the cute camels that always seem to be secretly amused at the person that is making them pull the heavy carts on the roads. And the fact that we get fabulous discounts absolutely everywhere simply because we study where we do, from waiters who know us too well for us to need to actually ask for them.

I think my point is made. Ok then.

Sexed out

2009-08-15T12:23:00.011+05:30

Recently, all of us girls ended up discussing how we got our respective sex education, or as we call it, "The Talk". One of us got sat down at 13 by her mom and got the birds and bees talk freely as though the weather was being discussed, one got gifted a book so that the parents wouldn't actually have to talk about the embarrassing subject, and a few, like me, just learnt about it from various extraneous sources.

I had heard the word sex several times of course; I just never knew what it meant. Soon, I figured that it was the process by which babies were formed, but didn't know the actual method people went about it. The phrase "having sex" sounded too much to me like "having dinner" or "having a glass of milk" for my imagination to run wild. However, when I was in the 8th grade, I just figured in out in my head after reading too many novels and watching too many sitcoms that this might be what people do, and then dismissed it because it seemed way too implausible and just plain weird. Imagine my surprise a year later when I read the same thing I had thought of in my biology book. I was extremely impressed with myself for figuring it out and way grossed out by the actual process.

I was never one of those kids who thought that girls became pregnant when they got kissed by boys, like so many did, including some of my friends. I'm not sure how I thought they came into existence in the first place; I just always assumed I'd find out later. In this regard, I was once reading a book when I was around 12 (hence without having even an inkling as to what sex was) in which a couple was having a baby without being married. To my innocent institutionialised self, something seemed terribly wrong. I went to my mom and told her about the situation, after which I asked her how this was possible and whether people could even have babies without being married. My mom made it a point to hurriedly reassure me that it was not possible and only after marriage could babies be born and there was something obviously wrong with the book I was reading, making a mental note to carefully monitor which books I was allowed to read from now on. But I was not to be placated. How, I demanded to know, could the body know if a person was married? How would it know that a paper had been signed and a chain been put around the girls neck for a baby to suddenly sprout inside of her? My poor mom had to bear the brunt of my uber curious self for quite a bit until she managed to extricate herself from the situation by vanishing into the kitchen.

I admit though, I was quite a late bloomer in so many respects when it came to these things. Till my 6th grade I thought the word sexy was an expletive. Till I was in my 9th grade, I had only a faint idea what sex was. Till my 10th grade, I had no idea what a condom was. Only when I was 16 did I find out what the work f*ck meant. (Till then I had always thought it's a word like b*stard which was, to me, just a random expression that all South Indian drivers used with great cheer and enthusiasm whenever they got cut off at a signal.) On hearing all of this, my worldly wise friends can only shake their heads in amused bewilderment and wonder if I was in fact living under a rock for the entirety of my adolescent life. What can I say? :P

The one with pudding porn and wannabe Greek statues.

2009-08-06T14:03:00.013+05:30

Go to the gym everyday. Then take a week off. Then go back and work your heart out. Get a solid high on endorphins that makes you spend the next four hours excitedly jumping around, singing, dancing and making a pest of yourself to your already preoccupied friends. Powerful stuff, endorphins. Someone should bottle and sell it. Would give a kick stronger than alcohol but without the hangovers and other side effects. I am a genius. And right now, I'm also reminding myself rather disturbingly of Jeff from Coupling, who suggested that they bottle the jelly from women's jelly wrestling matches and sell it as pudding porn. Ah well.

I painted my room last week. It looks fabulous, but that apart, the whole process was a hoot. Painful hoot, but nonetheless, it was that sound which the nocturnal bird made famous by the creative J.K. Rowling is supposed to produce. For this, I had to scrape the wall of all the whitewash. Ah pain... I was assisted by a friend and whilst in the process, I looked like a fashionable member of the Taliban while she resembled a very cheap impersonator of Davy Jones with odd pieces of cloth tied across our faces and heads. I kid you not. Not to mention by the time we were done, you could have cut our appendages off and displayed us in the Louvre to give that other famous lady some company. Why? Observe:

Mommy dearest expressed shock and horror at the fact that I actually went to so much effort and made me promise not to perform such antics again to which I obediently agreed to, since it's not really too likely that I'm going to paint my hostel room wall again in the two remaining years that I'm going to be here anyway.

I've been oversleeping for the past few days. Everyday, I dutifully set two alarms for 7am, wake up, switch both of them off, and lie back down and have a deep existential debate with myself as to whether it actually was 7am or just a perception of 7am or whether I had just imagined it to be 7am because my conscience wanted it to be. Then having decided that it actually was 7am in reality, I affably nod to myself, pleased at having reached a conclusion. But then of course I wake up with a start, discover it's now 9am and rush off to class. Yes, I'm a rather odd person. No, I don't apologise for it.

And now, my bed, next to my gorgeous painted wall beckons. I give in to temptation. Ta then.

This post has nothing to do with "Lucy in the sky with diamonds"

2009-07-22T20:12:00.006+05:30

When you just wake up at 8pm after a helluva long nap and the computer is just twinkling there in a surreal way in its on mode and sitting there next to you and it's all dark and you can see nothing else until you turn on the light but till then the screensaver is a big bunch of large bubbles floating away on a background of a huge yellow poster of the number forty-two and then you feel you're floating in space somewhere but of course what sort of space has bubbles in it oh perhaps its underwater but underwater wouldn't be yellow silly, and then you turn on the light and the harsh white light jars your sight for a minute, the muted yellowness of the computer lit room disappears and you realise you fell asleep in jeans and a full sleeved tshirt in this bloomin' hot weather, is that asininine or what, oh dear I just misspelt asinine in the most juvenile way possible, and you also realise that the line "picture yourself on a boat on a river with tangerine trees and marmalade skies" is stuck in your head and for some reason you can only think of purple marmalade and wonder what that would be.. perhaps grape marmalade.. but with grape skin in it, that just sounds weird but that's maybe because you hate it when grape skin gets into freshly made grape juice, fresh grape juice dries out my mouth anyway, and maybe orange is the best kind of marmalade to have after all, and then after analysing marmalade in your head you gaze at your screen with limp arms and heavy eyes which are protesting at being subjected to too much light and thinking you must go drink water before you collapse of dehydration (note to self: stop exaggerating) where seeming nonsense has been typed out not very consciously and think that this post seems even more disoriented than this morning when you spilt scalding tea on someone and then your breakfast on someone else because you were walking around with your head in god-knows-which continent while your feet carried you somewhere else, thankfully not into a wall face-first because that might have been slightly less pleasant.

Oh the pictures have all been washed in black

2009-07-14T18:32:00.007+05:30

On paper, I probably sound like an ultra goth chick who wears black leather, has matted dreadlocks and spends her time lounging in biker bars. Or so a friend of mine proclaimed. I don't even know if such people exist in India really. Why though? I have 5 piercings and a recently acquired tattoo. Go on, tell me you didn't all just draw a collective gasp. Ok, now that everyone has formed a nice scary image of me in the minds due to the help provided above, let me assure you that I am a relatively normal vanilla looking person. Really. Chocolate, if you want to take into account my darkish skin. OHKAY anyway...

The news of my tattoo has been floating on the college grapevine and causing no dearth of excitement, since it's not really very common here, as has the news of a tattoo which another boy in my college has got. Now the existence of this boy in my college was revealed to me only when I overheard the news of his tattoo, and it was probably vice versa for him. A guy friend of mine graciously let me know that he had informed his entire hostel about the fact that I had got a tattoo and now all the boys there now worshipped me and thought I was a smoking hot goddess, but I was second in line to previously-referred-to other boy. Guys are weird.. Go figure :P

Since me and other tattooed boy have had zilch interaction before, I didn't think I could very well march up to him and ask him to pull up his sleeve and show me his tattoo, me being so curious and all. And I really didn't think I could make an exchange offer out of it either because.. well just because... use your imaginations. (Not too much mind you. Yes, I think that's more than sufficient. You can stop now :P) So yesterday, the uber curious and currently tattoo-obsessed me was delighted to see that he was wearing a sleeveless tee in the mess, albeit facing away from me so I could see nothing more than a couple of black squiggles on his arm. So I went over to the other direction and pretended to intently study the mess menu board while all the while trying to peek at his arm. While staunchly ignoring the prices of jeera aloo and handi chicken, I noticed that he had now conveniently turned and was facing the direction I had come from. So I retraced my steps and made a huge show of peering into the dining hall to find an imaginary friend I just HAD to talk to. But by this time, said tattooed boy was shooting me strange why-are-you-acting-so-deranged-you-crazy-woman looks, so I quickly beat a hasty retreat without having satisfied my curiosity after all.

Oh dear, now I sound like a crazy leather wearing gothic stalker lady. Eh it's still my blog. Eat my shorts, all ye judgmentals :D

Post #148

2009-07-07T14:50:00.006+05:30

No I can't think of a nice title for the post. So sue me. Anyway...

I am sitting on the bed and listening to "Where is my mind" by the Pixies and the BRILLIANT lead guitar is stuck firmly in my head, mingled with the sound of a cigarette lighter clicking on and off continuously in a rhythm and it's forming one weird as hell remix in my head.

A song stuck in your head is apparently called an earworm. Now to my super visual imagination, I can picture a babel fish-like creature which thrives off the brainwaves containing the strains of the song and grows fatter and fatter till it dies of overkill and it eventually replaced by another baby earworm which then suffers the same fate since a song in my head can get unstuck only by inducing another one to get stuck there instead.

I'm back to college after the vacations and I was really looking forward to it. All my juniors looked at me in horror when I said I was waiting to come back and they did their whole "Naheee.. home is the bestest place in the entire world and college is an infliction upon us that 5 years of purgatory will cure." I was that way too once upon a time. Things just happen in college all the time. There are simply so many things to do. After a month of sitting on one's steadily bloating ass and staring gloomily at the television/computer/wall because all your friends are working/studying for exams/attending college instead of meeting you (which is one of the main attractions of coming home in the first place), you just want to DO something. And there's no shortage of that in college. It even gets a bit much sometimes. Also, there's always full on drama all the time. People around you behave as though they are in one big soap opera which is too juicy to not observe. If people are not hooking up, they are breaking up. If they are not breaking up, they are cheating on each other. Ex boyfriend slaps new boyfriend while girlfriend unhappily intervenes. 10 girls gang up on one and yell at her for offending one of their friends. Kleptomaniacs are caught, juniors are ragged, games are played around you and with you. When you're involved, it's not always fun. But it might just be better than mind numbing boredom that arises out of continuous nothingness. Ok it's not. But it's something to do nonetheless.

A friend who is famous for saying the most fantastically insane things without meaning to has already made me rejoice to be back in college and it's been just two days. When she was recounting a story about how some crows were fighting in mid air and she threw a biscuit at them, she popped out this little gem: "Dude the crows just pounced on the biscuit in mid air. It was like Tom Cruise, only it was a crow!" Another time, she remarked on the women who used to keep a maun vrath in the olden days: "If women kept maun vrath, people poured water on their heads. So not only must one be completely silent, one must be silent while water is copiously being poured on their heads. Raw deal man.. what nonsense." On commenting on how boys seem to take pride in giving their girlfriends hickeys, she says "What our necks are Taj Mahals or what that any boy can come and write his love story there?" While bemoaning the lack of any decent guys in college capable of giving us any sort of action she came up with "We might just have to turn lesbians out of necessity. And then we can tell all the guys out there who want us 'IN YOUR FACE... only.. we're NOT!'" And she tops this all off by saying "I am in your room. That means your room is now filled with awesomeness. Consider yourself blessed. I really must sleep, mustn't I?"Ah Dibba, (Divya Srikanth, just for Google's sake) keep it up. We shall keep chronicling this in the name of public interest. Yes, you're most welcome. :D

All hail college life. Now let's hope we get out alive.

I am Jack's fractured sense of being

2009-06-15T18:24:00.007+05:30

She sat on the couch and stared blankly at the TV. It wasn't fully in focus but she didn't really care. It crossed her mind that she should probably get a move on and start working, but she wasn't too inclined to do so. A thought tentatively made its way up to her and timidly suggested that perhaps she might want to sit up straight and take some care of herself, perhaps tidy herself up a bit, but again, she told it to take a hike. (The thought crept away in defeat and ended up with a woman who got a mega makeover and landed the guy of her dreams so perhaps the girl might have felt bitter about dismissing the thought had she known, but she didn't. It was her loss nonetheless.)

She wasn't really interested what was playing on television, she wasn't watching it with too much involvement anyway. A movie was on. A happy ending came up. She got a bit teary eyed at the ending, as she always did, whatever be the movie. She started crying. But then, unlike normal circumstances, she kept going, on and on, breaking down completely and going at it again with renewed vigour just when it seemed she was calming down a bit, not knowing why, but being sure that the happy reunion of the long lost lovers on screen was not the reason for her waterworks. She just need an excuse to get hysterical.

"Ach, this was bound to happen", she sighed, after she was too spent to cry anymore, "This is probably what happens when you feel like you're a couple dozen punches, a lot of blood and some kick ass dialogues away from turning into Tyler Durden."

Spooked

2009-06-11T19:25:00.006+05:30

I've said it before. Talking nonsense is one of the most glorious things a person can do. With a person who understands that it's utter nonsense and participates fully with that spirit, of course. But of course, once in a while, we encounter some brilliant people who think all of it is beneath them and seek to enlighten us about the same.

A classic example is seen when I was having a conversation with A , regarding our friendly hostel ghost that us girls summoned when bored to tears during a blackout. A seance was duly conducted, makeshift ouija board made, mood lighting given with candle stumps and viola!

His name is Rameshwar. Affectionately called Ramu. He was habituated to living in an empty room on the ground floor of the hostel but when someone moved into that room, he was in a quandry.

Now me and A were sitting and discussing the particular predicament. We wondered if Ramu visited the girl who occupied his old room and whether she enjoyed his company. Whether she even knew if Ramu visited his old room from time to time and what those two were upto when she mysteriously disappeared into her room at odd times. About where he would now live. We concluded that he had now shifted to the empty room containing the communal fridge. We congratulated ourselves on single (double?) handedly solving the mystery of the missing chocolates from said fridge.

We were in the throes of discussing whether Ramu actually ate the chocolates or gave them to visiting spooks when a voice piped up. It was self assured. It was overconfident. It spoke with an air of pitying us fools to whom such obvious wisdom had to be imparted. It said, "Uhh guys... You know... There's no such thing as ghosts."

Sigh.

It's people like this we should stay far far away from.

Much laughings, yes.

2009-06-01T12:24:00.004+05:30

I am currently reading A Suitable Boy by Vikram Seth. Apart from the fact that it is like a long 1500 page version of a typical masala Bollywood movie, and I can just imagine all the characters upping themselves and shimmying together to Shava shava a-la Kareena Kapoor, I always think of one thing when I pick it up. This is all hearsay, mind you.

When the book was just released, I was around 3 years old or so, thinking of course that I was the next best thing to Nutties in butterscotch ice cream (What? It's the height of brilliance I tell you.) One day, probably when I was out foraging for Nutties, I overheard my dad mention the name of the book. It was then I promptly marched up to him and very authoritatively demanded "I want A Suit of a Boy too!"

Yes, I am still teased by my parents for the most incongruous of things. Like the time I trapped a kitten in my carry bag. But that's another story. Sigh, the injustices of life.

You can well imagine that my first full English sentence ever spoken was "I school go", no?

The TV Guide to the Galaxy

2009-05-26T12:02:00.006+05:30

When life is boring, we want excitement. When we get excitement, we want some more. When excitement turns into drama, life turns into a soap opera. Now no one wants that. It just seems a lot cooler to be living in a soap opera. Before you're amidst all the thundering background music, big bindis, crying heroines and bitchy vamps of course. Only then we tadpo to have the boring old reality show back.

Now I would like to be living in a perpetual episode of Full House. Everyone is always all happy happy. Or maybe Small Wonder. Then I would have all the cool robotic abilities.

Pah. I know. Life should be one big chapter of Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy. There's space, depressed robots, planets being destroyed and annoying talking computers. Who's with me?
Disclaimer: Tea does not exist in such a life. Now choose wisely.

Think Pink

2009-05-23T23:00:00.012+05:30

Sights and sounds seen around the beautiful city of Bombay... Well, whatever complaints people may have about this place, be it about the traffic, the humidity, the innumerable eunuchs, no one can say this Bombay is not supremely entertaining. The things are enough to make one laugh out loud, and then some. And one needn't even keep one's eyes peeled for the same. Here are two doozies I happened to witness in the last few days. God bless camera phones.

Exhibit A

Lady, did a drunk pack of candyfloss throw up all over you? Or are you simply campaign manager for "Barbie for President"?Or perhaps it's to perpetuate the Bubblegum look. Whatever it is, thank you! You made a dreary Monday morning on the way to work a whole lot more fun. :D

Exhibit B

It looks like Axe is launching a new range of car perfumes. Move over AmbiPure Car... Now not only do people want their car smelling fresh and floral, they now want it to be a babe magnet. Looks like this car was on the way back from filming the commercial. Ok but jokes apart, though it kills me to say that, WHY would someone do this to their vehicle? Anyone?

Selfishly exhausted by the green canoodling bubbles.

2009-05-18T21:27:00.006+05:30

We must exist for ourselves and ourselves alone. People and things exist just to make us happy. Us, and us alone. If they don't, hey be selfish, out they go. When you feel happy because of something you have done, nothing can be better than that. Better than anyone doing something for you, which is unlikely in the first place. Others are selfish. Live with that belief and not only will you be content, you're likely to be greatly surprised several times in life.

The pleasure of exhaustion is sweet. Masochistic as that sounds, the feeling of being dead beat voluntarily, of feeling absolutely worn out physically can give one a real high.

The word bubble is one of THE cutest words in the English Language. Say it with me and you'll see it. Bubble. Bub-ble. BUBB-LE. Those who saw the inherent cuteness, you're my kinda folk. Mosey on over to the comments section and give me a big ol’ high-five! :D

The colour green is quite soothing. Even dhinchaak fluorescent green that initially makes you feel like a plant when you're surrounded by the colour. Like hotels always say location, location, location; with colours, it's all about lighting, lighting, lighting. Yes. That, my friend was pointless. You did not miss some deeper meaning that was supposedly intended.

The word canoodle is another fascinatingly cute word. I can't help but picture two giant strands of spaghetti making out with each other whenever I hear the word. And I adore using it in sentences. Even when absolutely not required.

Recently, a Gilmore Girls fan told me that the series insists that the cutest sentence in the world is "Oye with the poodles". Hey, who am I to dispute the veracity of Gilmore Girls. Me and said GG fan came up with the new and improved cutest sentence in the world. Behold- "Oye with the poodles canoodling in the bubble". It rock-eth! :D

Blogging when you’re bouncing off the bright green walls for no apparent reason leads to a stream of consciousness that looks something like the above. For purposes of study alone, it shall not be deleted but exposed to the public for the forthcoming important observations.

Panic.. please!

2009-05-11T22:10:00.003+05:30

Recently, I was given a birthday gift in the shape of a beer mug with a green planet sticking its toungue out at me painted on it, with the words "Don't Panic" written beneath it in big friendly letters. The timing wished it, and the person who gave it to wished it even more. Hence, I used the mug to drink coffee. Gallons and gallons of eyeball-poppingly strong black coffee everyday durng my exams, to help me stay up and study. Seems I took the big friendly letters to heart.

Never before have I been so relaxed while studying. And it wasn't a good way, mind you. The end of every semester usually sees me fervently poring over my books, snapping at people who disturb me, wandering around muttering under my breath and basically managing to look utterly and completely deranged. Yes, I panic. But this time, noo... I was lounging in my room as though giving the paper the next day was an option that was left to my fabulous self to decide. Studying the material as though it was some light reading that I was perusing to fill the time in between photo shoots. I had myself pausing in between mugs of coffee to wonder- "Hmm.. I'm not that worried.. should I worry about THAT?" Damn you, pretty beer mug.

Another thing that was new in the whole latest exam experience. Hallucinations Inc. Now daydreaming during exams is something every normal person does. So is briefly napping in between answers. But a girl who has had 4 hours of sleep in the last 48 hours, sleeping whilst in the middle of a sentence and writing gibberish until she wakes up and realises she's written "The whole human genome is expressed because dah-ling, that's not a very common occurrence, you see", not that normal. Mildly worrying in fact. Canceling aforementioned sentence after looking at in in bemusement for 3 minutes, then proceeding to hallucinate fictional characters spouting super witty monologues while wishing they would speak slower so she could note it down yet regretfully realising that she can't do so anyway because she's supposed to be writing her exam- no, definitely not normal. Very worrying. Needless to say, the exam was a disaster of Vesuvian proportions.

Don't Panic indeed. Hmph.

Where knowledge is wealth.

2009-04-19T10:22:00.006+05:30

5K is one who spouts more useless knowledge than anyone I have ever known. Fondly called arbit gyaan, it comes at any given time, especially when you least expect it. While sleeping in class one shall be woken up to be told the different types of whiskey and how much alcohol exactly is in each one of them and how each one is made. While trying not to spill dal on oneself in the crowded mess, one shall be treated to the mesmerising details of the specifications of super-complex razors. When moaning over the huge syllabus of an impending test, one is cheered up by having recited to them details of all the different dialects of Punjabi. Is it any wonder then that he is fondly called the "back of a Navneet notebook" (Just by me actually. It never caught on. Wonder why.)

The other day, when I was being treated to a random discourse on the specifications of ASCII values of keyboards for encryption, I was overcome with admiration for and gratitude for all the knowledge I had gained simply by his companionship. For the next two minutes, he couldn't get a word in between what I was saying (rare, for this one). My monologue went something like this:

"I art eternally grateful to thee for all the knowledge conferred upon me, an undeserving soul who hast been blessed with thy words. Thou art the god of arbit gyaan and thou must be honoured. A shrine shall be erected in thy name and followers shall flock from ever corner to bathe in the holy presence that it shalt exude. The aura of knowledge that shalt pervade the shrine shalt be soaked up by one and all and all thine followers shalt bring other people, to make them believe. We shalt go forth and propagate the wonder that is thy arbit gyaan and spread thy word far and wide. Every week an offering of chicken tikka shalt be made to your shrine which thou shalt grace and bless so that thy followers may eat and prosper."

Needless to say, he was amused. And not happy that he wouldn't a weekly dose of free chicken tikka at his own shrine.

Boys. Sheesh. Never satisfied.

And yes, Navneet's tagline IS "Where knowledge is wealth."

The why and how of things

2009-04-11T11:04:00.004+05:30

Why are some people eternally in quest for the truth? To discover where we have come from, where we are going... In order to find that point which determined that we shall be the way we are. It is because these people are troubled? Is it because they were born to uncover the mysteries that plague civilisation? Or is it because they crave an unending puzzle; something that will keep them occupied with no near hope of getting a solution, so that they can ignore their own demons and try to crack the rhetorical questions that other people utter on pretentious first dates without a care in the world? Are they the kind of people who, after solving such a mystery, would take up another practically un-doable task? Or is it because it's abysmally early on a should-have-been-lazy Saturday morning and lack of food has made them believe that their extreme hunger is caused due to the eternal unanswered questions lurking in the shadows of humankind?

Bet you didn't see that coming.

Platform 9 and three-quarters of an emotional breakdown.

2009-04-02T11:23:00.006+05:30

It takes a while coming and it seems like eternity till it does. Just like the train that you need to board, which has halted at a signal just out of reach of the platform. Annoyingly close yet so far. That impatience builds up inside of you and then when it finally chugs slowly to you, you exhale gratefully and clamber on.

I refer to a thought, a mindset that had to come sometime, which you just wished would hurry up. The notion that people, or a person, does not matter. That you would be a whole lot better off without them in your life. That you would be a better person without them holding you back. Without them triggering neuroses you never knew you had. Never knew you could have. Without making you blame yourself for simply everything that was not flowers-and-sunshine that happened, to yourself or to them. Without making you seem, even to yourself, to be mildly masochistic because of your tendency to go and hurt yourself again and again and again, and happily so (?) at that. Without them picking away at your fears and threatening to expose the wound beneath the scab. Without making you constantly fear that you are doing something wrong which will ruin everything while you don't even fully know that there remained nothing to ruin. Without making you feel like your own worst enemy.

People are impermanent. They come, they go away. They do not matter. Especially if they make you feel like shit. In which case, they matter less.

All aboard.

Happy Birthday Ramsub

2009-03-27T00:00:00.005+05:30

It's Ramsub's birthday today (Soumya Ramasubramaniam, just for Google). And I wondered what to give her as a birthday gift. I remarked idly to Dibba dear that it was so darn easy for some people to give nice thoughtful personalised gifts; they can just paint something super-fab and very relevant and tadaa! Done and done. Then I was told to do something that I was good at. Which according to Dibba was to crack one enormous sasta in Ramsub's honour. Thank you, thank you. Now noone can complain that my sad jokes are not simply delightful because apparently people now want them made to order on their birthdays. But I digress... Hence this post is dedicated to Ramsub and some of her quirks, with a few sastas thrown in for good measure, being aided by Dibba and with a sparkly header made by Sindhu. Stingy gift? Maybe. But I didn't feel like doing the whole pretty top and earrings thing. (And for those who do not understand the inside jokes, well maybe that's why they are called inside jokes.)

Ramsub. The should-be poster girl for Johnny Walker. The girl that converted our hallowed hallways from the generation of the walk-man to that of the run-woman. The girl who has probably made most use of her Ipod than all of us put together. The one who will stare at you sinisterly before running at you full speed and scaring the living daylights out of you if it's your first time witnessing this (We call this the EYE-Pod phenomenon). The one who charges, staring wildly, at full pelt in your direction when you're only out for your innocent 2am pee (we call this the EYE-almost-peed-right-there phenomenon).The one who's usually deaf to her surroundings and who you MUST gesticulate at wildly for two minutes to catch her attention and then leap awkwardly aside while she ignores you and stampedes away to glory. The one because of whom, our corridor has developed its own unique traffic system, complete with smooth lane changes and all. The one because of whom all of us firmly believe that no corridor is worth its salt (or floor-tiles?) unless there's a crazy wide-eyed woman running up and down it while swearing to herself and occasionally shouting death threats to the walls or to innocent bystanders.

The tamilian whose name gives the impression that she knows more Tamil than she actually does. The one with the regular influx of oh-so-yummy curd rice and avakai pickle. The one who gets overjoyed when she finds someone who matches her fantabulous stats. ;) The one who seems to know everything without actually studying for she's always always striding in the corridor with blasting music while we're cramming away a day before any exam. The one who's considered hot property among the PG's. The one who will say something super-intelligent and then follow that up with a duh moment to top all duh moments. The one who can wear a solid inch of kajal on each eye and look pretty without looking like a startled raccoon. The one who we worry about because of her uncontrollable coke addiction. (Before anyone calls rehab, it can also be called a pepsi addiction so just call the dentist.) The one who probably doesn't know how much she intimidates a lot of people. The one who should have started blogging a very long time ago. And of course, the one I should have interacted with more a long time ago.

So Ramsub, may you fall into the hairy arms of your favourite dimpled Deol and blow glass with him. May you end up in a super-cool profession like being an art critic.(No? You tell me then.) May lizards run from your demented stare and pigeons flee as you race toward them (hopefully out the door and not right into the ceiling fan). May you end up with a hairstyle that you're finally content with. May your life be one perpetual sugar high. May you go through life not spending the most in a group of people you're with. May you, one day, understand perverted jokes in their true sense and be as amused at them as you are with the G rated ones you infer (Dibba's dad's name=MC^2, remember?). May your blog prosper and have many more posts, snarky or not, and comments of course from the innumerable anonymous admirers. May you one day have that perfect acerbic conversation with your dhobi that you so want.

Oh... And have a brilliant day :) Happy birthday.

The Inside of my Head...

2009-03-22T18:21:00.005+05:30

... is the house of horrors. Too much cacophony in here. Mostly all white noise. And songs that were never written, yet sung out loud.

People are not welcome inside, including myself.

If only I could padlock myself out, permanently...

I hate it in here.

(Inspired by this with many thanks)

I insist...

2009-03-17T01:23:00.004+05:30

I'm the sort who has extremely random cravings. (Yes Dibba, random, so there). Sitting in the middle of a boring class on administrative law, I'll turn to the person sitting next to me and say, with an earnest yet deadpan look on my face, something like "I want spaghetti in arabietta sauce with jalapenos, olives and sun-dried tomatoes, sprinkled liberally with parmesan, and I want it NOW". It's not like I do this just for the reactions I get from people, though it is a pretty good incentive. For people who don't know me too well, the reaction is one of incredulousness. For the regulars, they know what to do. They say "Yes yes... tomorrow for sure" and carry on with what they're doing. So now, instead of studying for an extremely annoying mid-term, I want:

My very own miniature Captain Jack Sparrow on a hamster exercise wheel, for the oh-so-adorable way he runs.
My own Faraway Tree.
To be transplanted into Dilbert-land
To resurrect Douglas Adams from his grave and brainstorm about pigeons and Bombay local trains with him and have him incorporate the sheer nonsense of said topics into his books.
To be able to read at the speed Viki does (cute robot from Small Wonder, remember?). This, only because I have said shitty exam tomorrow for which I am stubbornly refusing to study.
French toast.

I really must not blog when I'm bored.

Just give us our cheese.

2009-02-25T21:15:00.002+05:30

Our pristine little residential college set a convenient 10 km or more away from the main city is a wonder. It's an isolated sociological experiment in itself with us as little lab rats running around sniffing curiously and running in and out of tunnels.

Rules of the outside world are obsolete in our new and improved civilisation. Relationships run into the extreme, be it of any sort. Friendship is a whole new ball game. You spend 24 hours with your friends (14 if you're of different sexes), talk in a different way you would otherwise, talk more than you would otherwise in a shorter span of time. You’re more affectionate than you would normally be, trust faster than you normally would, change friends more rapidly before you find those you’re most comfortable with. Romantic relationships are even more interesting to observe. One is with one's respective better half all the time, on the phone or chatting if not together, talking too much, and going out too much. And then more likely than not, it ends. And then the drama that follows is again, a sight to see. Theatrics are common in such situations anywhere, but being in such close proximity with one's now-worse half (there are only 500 people in the place, it's kinda hard to avoid people in here) is probably more traumatising than in other places when what they usually show in the movies consists of people storming out with tears and smudged make-up and swearing to stay as far away as humanly possible. But here, see the other everyday, probably even see them coochie-cooing with girlfriend or boyfriend #2 or more. All wreaking havoc with our delicate bewildered minds.

We get a taste of what normal life and civilisation is like when we are released from this place briefly every vacation. But that's almost cruelty, a test to see how we manage to survive in that world after the soap-opera-ish magnification of this one; for it is magnified- emotions, feelings, outbursts, thoughts, experiences, affection, all of it. And then we're taken back into the safe environment that we have grown so used to. One wonders then what will happen at the end of college life when we will never come back like we always do now. How will we survive out there after most have experienced most new things back in college for the first time? Most people have their first relationship in college, for example. How is one to behave outside, when you're not perpetually with the person, when a date does not qualify as leaving each other for half an hour to change clothes and then going out?

They're watching us, I tell you. Nurturing us, to see us die a slow death when they're ready to let us go.

Say goodbye, don't follow

2009-02-23T19:18:00.003+05:30

1) Thou shalt not do anything thou wouldn’t want another to do. (You then lose the right to complain, and we all know how important that is.)

2) Thou shalt learn to live in the inside of thy head. (It might be the house of horrors in there but it’s the safest you’ll ever be. I think.)

3) Thou shalt grin and bear it. (Take acting classes if you have to but do NOT screw this one up.)

4) Breathe. (Important, this.)

5) Thou shalt not succumb to the powers of thinking too much. (Somehow, this and point 2 can coexist. Make it work.)

6) Thou shalt lie and thou shalt lie well.

7) Thou shalt not be clichéd. (It’s been done.)

Something's in the air for sure... nitrous oxide would be my guess

2009-02-20T17:36:00.003+05:30

Getting an anonymous rose from some obviously anonymous individual.

Nice.

Getting a box of Godiva assorted chocolates hand-delivered all the way from Miami, just for you.

Nicer.

A guy giving you a rose at a Valentine’s day party and you thinking it’s so nice of him that you take off your stilettos so that you’re not towering over him, enabling him to dance with you without you inadvertently making him acquire some sort of complex.

Priceless.

When the moon hits your eye like a big pizza pie...

2009-02-15T20:21:00.003+05:30

The beat of dozens of speakers blasting music in the distant background. The strains of a didgeridoo adding its nasal twang, creating a heady mixture of sounds. Neon lights all around, constantly changing in different patterns. A full moon in a clear starry sky.

You’re strapped into a metal ball attached to a giant rubber band. You await the moment with trepidation, staring up at the moon and then concentrating on one lone star in the sky. And then out of the blue, you’re on your way towards that star. At like a million miles an hour, you shoot up into the air, stop abruptly, turn round and round crazily. The moon spins around you like a crazed fly and all the neon lights reflected in the water of the river next to you create a dizzying effect. And then you stop… at 200 feet in the air and descend slooowly, checking out the sights on the way…

Reverse bungee jumping at 1 in the morning… A truly psychedelic experience.

Epiphany

2009-01-19T16:20:00.005+05:30

Whenever you think that someone close to you might not want to talk about something, you don't ever mention it. Ever. Hence they think you never want to talk about it, and keep mum as well.

Who knew all you had to do was ask and you shall receive unembarrassed honesty...

So, how was your day?

2008-12-09T18:58:00.007+05:30

I always have been known for being exceptionally clumsy. For instance, while climbing up the stairs, I have a propensity for placing only one-third of my actual foot on the stair, so that more likely than not, I tip backwards with my arms flailing in the air, while the person behind me steadies me with great amusement. (Luckily, there's always been someone behind me for me to amuse). Also, I am the only one I know of who is capable of falling up the stairs on a regular basis. Yes, I said up the stairs. Every time this happens, I'm left incredulous as to how exactly I managed this feat yet again...

But this is too much.

I've not done anything funny for quite a while now, so fate decides to go ahead and help things along. So here I am, busily sitting at work with my ass firmly planted in a chair (you know, the rotating swiveling kinds) and I lean back to relax, when my chair decides to have a nervous breakdown. Seriously... it had a breakdown and I sure was nervous when it happened... With a series of groaning noises, it disintegrated in a matter of 4 seconds, broke into 3 pieces, all the while swiveling and rotating, and the next thing I know I find myself in a heap on the floor, to the delight of the whole office and the concern of my fellow intern. As I'm helped up, the office assistant wanders by and comments that we interns always read together, work together, so might we by any chance be sitting on the same chair at the same time? And the guy obviously thinks he's a hoot, since he runs all around the office and repeats the wondrous comment to one and all. Rubbing it in, I must say...

Taggit

2008-12-08T01:50:00.004+05:30

For once I do a tag without actually being tagged... Here ya go :D

RULE #1 People who have been tagged must write their answers on their blogs and replace any question that they dislike with a new question formulated by themselves.

RULE #2 Tag 5 people to do this quiz and those who are tagged cannot refuse. These people must state who they were tagged by and cannot tag the person whom they were tagged by. Continue this game by sending it to other people.

1. If your lover betrayed you what would your reaction be?
Eat a lot of chocolate. Burst out crying occasionally. Give him quite an earful. Sleep an awful lot. Worry the people who care about me to death and in time, tell him to go stick his head in a pizza oven.

2. Whose butt would you like to kick?
Crazy-ass terrorists, religious fanatics and people who call me by sappy nicknames when they hardly know me.

3. What would you do with a billion dollars?
Hide it away so noone knows about it. Then find a nice guy who has not a clue about it and marry him. Then of course, nice house, big pool, 3 dogs, a sexy bike. Oh and before all that, invest a chunk of it, start a band, travel the world, all that jazz; stuff I’ve always wanted to do…

4. Will you fall in love with your best friend?
At the moment, my answer would be never, though the prospect sounds lovely.

5. Which is more blessed: loving someone or being loved by someone?
Being loved. It gives you the security that you will not stumble, and if you do, someone will try to break your fall. Makes you feel that you’re not alone and you never will be. Makes you feel good about yourself in a way you never thought you would. And a lot more senti clichéd stuff… Hey loving has a helluva lot of perks too though..

6. How long would you wait for someone you love?
Not a crazily long period of time like in Veer Zaara or anything. I’m romantic and all but I'm the most impatient person I’ve ever seen… I’d whine a lot and throw tantrums but probably jump off the wagon in a few years tops, but no way more than that. I guess. How would I know?

7. If the person you like is secretly attached, what would you do?
I’d secretly get over it.

8. What takes you down the fastest?
Thinking and going over things again and again and again.. Unfortunately it’s one of the things I do best and very often...

9. Where do you see yourself in 10 years' time?
Hopefully with a big lovable Labrador of my own. Oh and I’ll be writing, still blogging, in touch with all my friends and having lost some weight… Sigh…

10. What's your fear?
Being alone. No, not literally.

11. Would you rather be single and rich or married and poor?
Married and poor. Absence of something to share everything with would make life a little hollow and boring, would be my guess.

12. If you fall in love with two people simultaneously who would you pick?
Once would be a huge ordeal. A double dose would most probably kill me.

13. Would you give all in a relationship?
Not “all”. But quite a bit, depending on the kind of relationship..

14. What's eating you now?
People that are not supposed to matter but do, irritation at having to get up early, worry about grades (yeah yeah…) and the fact that I have not enough time to do all the things I want to.

15. Tag 5 people...
Another Brick in the Wall (who I don’t think has ever done a tag)

Sindhu (who usually doesn’t even need an excuse to blog :P )

Indiegurl (who is sure to do something funny even in such an unfunny tag)

Adhirath (to kick him awake)

AB (to wake her up as well)

Make me proud :P

Ati Sundar

2008-12-07T12:38:00.002+05:30

A new character to add to the nonsense that is my life.. Here's introducing S!

Me: Why the long hair? Don’t you think it looks very hippie-ish?

S: That’s the whole point...

Me: So u want to look like a person who drinks a lot and dances naked around fires...?

S: I want to be that person... Unfortunately can't do that .. so the least I can do is look like one.

Me: Why cant you do that? Don’t let society stop you man.. You dance as much as you want… You already drink a lot anyway…

S: When I dance naked, people throw stones…

Me: If you keep doing it, they might get used to it and throw a few coins at you instead… Alternative income even... See, shyness is never the answer.

S: I’m not shy ... Just don’t want my boys to get hurt by the stone throwing.

Me: Never heard of dodge ball? Thats training given during school days for wannabe hippies like you… Helps protect the boys as you say.

S: Didn’t play it. Was always lazy. Used to drink milkshake and sleep then. Drink beer and sleep now.

Me: Well mankind is better off without a naked you... all for the best then.

Things change

2008-11-14T10:36:00.004+05:30

There was a point of time during which several people thought that I was the most mushy person in existence. And hey, I agreed… I would be nostalgic to the point of swooning, romantic to the point of being slapped by people, and verbose to the extent of getting a parched throat.

There was a point of time, during which K was the most wooden person in existence. He would cough at any sign of affection. He would mock any fragment of sentimentality. He would laugh at my romanticism and as for nostalgia... Well let’s say he has a memory that would put a goldfish to shame, so that’s out of the question for sure…

And now?

K is so mushy, he’s trying to perfect the art of being a modern day Shakespeare. He spouts such sweet mushy stuff that I hold my head and try to comprehend it without falling off my chair. He talks in such an abstract manner that I get an aneurism from attempting to comprehend it all. He is so quixotic that one hopes that his girl is from the Victorian era, so that she may reply in tandem with him. His chats are so prosaic that I stare at the screen for 6 minutes and blink rapidly till I can reply.

And as for me… I am anti-mush and to the point. I want to get rid of nostalgia, me and my freakishly good memory for the mundane. Non sentimentality is my goal and needless to say, I’m not prosaic anymore.

Things change huh...

Really?

2008-09-11T20:03:00.010+05:30

Shapes and colours

Music and lights

Swinging around

Floating about

Dancing and laughing

We all played.

"We tried it" they said,

Laughing out loud

Surprising us all.

"That's something new...

Hey, let's try it too!"

So off we went in a haze

And then it began

Though it wasn't really part of the plan.

Pitch black it was

It started off small

Went on and on

Bigger than before

Stumbling and falling

We did not stop.

To new heights it went

But then we said

"Let's quit now while we're ahead."

Then we sat, overwhelmed by it all

"That was interesting and sure was a ball."

Don't cry now, you're not undone

Was some experience,

Now let us keep mum.

You are what you eat

2008-09-10T16:15:00.004+05:30

You probably hear that all the time and go "Blech... what nonsense." Admittedly, so do I. But hey what the hell... here's something to prove it.

I like my food with loads of spice, enough to leave me gasping for breath and downing a litre of water at a go, and still continuing to eat after that.

I love chocolate. I love sweets. All to the point that at times I can think I can survive on that alone and nothing else. So much so that I can eat 4 full size bars a day, everyday.

Analogy time.. Here I go...

I think in extremes. If I'm happy, I'm on top of the world, so much so that I make people tease me for being so overjoyed.

If I'm sad, I pretty much couldn't get more depressed, so much so that I worry a lot of people around me.

Q.E.D. (?)

Waaaaa!

2008-08-27T17:22:00.005+05:30

(Noun) Whine- A complaint uttered in a plaintive way.

(Verb) Whine- To complain or protest in a childish manner or about trivial things

Life without whining is slightly less fun than it would be otherwise. Even when there is nothing particular to whine about, some good natured cribbing always helps any situation and adds some spice to it. Life is good when you can whine without thinking twice. And.... you know someone is close when you can whine and crib without any qualms whatsoever. After all, it's not like you're yelling at them, or scolding them for your problems. You just need a ear, as someone very aptly put it once. You're just letting off some steam and exhibiting human nature- Will make self heard, even though it's really not required.

So... when you have to veeery carefully filter your thoughts and words so that not even a morsel of whining slips out to those who were once and are still supposed to be your ear/shoulder/head/knee, you know life's being a bitch.

You know your day’s going to go well...

2008-08-20T16:24:00.004+05:30

..... when some of the first things you see in the morning are:

A pigeon struggling to keep its balance on a wire that’s being crazily buffeted by the wind and then falling off spectacularly while managing a couple of somersaults in the air before resignedly flying away. And...

A camel running behind a cart and picking up a spare used tyre lying on it with its teeth and chomping away, then making sure to drop it back on the cart after it’s tired of it, actually running after the cart to make sure it lands there.

Advance Nostalgia

2008-08-09T08:49:00.003+05:30

The projects, moots, assignments, tests and the other hellish work we have here always has me tearing my hair out quite often. But it's certain incidents that make it all worthwhile... which I will miss like hell when I leave this place.

The entire student body of the college coming together. Standing outside the office of the Vice Chancellor and protesting, insisting that the Dean of Law be thrown out. Having a joint meeting with him in which we royally bitch about the Dean. Propaganda. Writing 250 applications demanding the same thing. Group encouragement. Rallying.

Sitting on green grass under the cloudy sky in twilight and writing dialogues for a skit on very very short notice. People acting out all possible roles, causing others to double up laughing. Seeing a pretty petite female Gabbar and a bigger male Kaalia. Learning I must have a mustache and big sidelocks drawn on me today (My last name is Ramesh . My role is Ramesh babu from Om Shanti Om. Go figure.) Gathering people you don’t often talk to and rehearsing , while still having a blast. Planning wacky costumes. Convincing a girl to participate by telling her that Angelina Jolie unfortunately wasn’t available and she would hence have to save the day by filling in.

Making rice and calling all the girls in the hostel to get their respective powders, pastes and sauces and hogging, making a mess and cleaning up together. Having what we call a podi party (powder party).

Beginning guitar classes from a friend. Discovering you’re a really fast learner. Jamming with the regulars and getting happy that you’re actually producing anti cacophony.

Sitting on the ground outside the mess in everyone’s way and playing cards in a large group, creating a huge racket, of course. Bluff, Rummy, Blackjack never seemed like so much fun.

Playing hopscotch for hours outside the hostel with the lines drawn with Laxmanrekha (cockroach medicine). Amusing several senior students and a warden or two. Having the campus electrician standing there as referee/umpire/cheerleader.

Buying outrageous birthday gifts for friends. A bowl of fishes for one girl. Lingerie for another girl. Lingerie for one guy. A bottle of vodka for another guy. Throwing surprise birthday parties for someone who got so happy with the surprise that he declared all food and drink to be on the house and ended up shelling out 8 grand while remaining overjoyed.

Wading in knee high water and walking kilometers in incessant pouring rain. Being shocked because, after all, it’s Jodhpur! Getting soaked and filthy that day and enjoying every bit of it. Deciding to waste that whole day and going eating, shopping, for a movie and just roaming around because we refused to go back to college.

Singing LOUDLY in a group in each and every auto journey.

Teasing new couples and old and watching them blush.

Little things and massive things. So many that I can’t even remember half to mention.

I love college.

(The non academic part :S)

Think

2008-07-24T13:22:00.004+05:30

There was a time
When the thoughts would not stop;
Tormenting body, mind and soul.
People wished it wasn't so.

Now things have changed
And peace prevails.
Then why do they wish
For it to return?

Down in a hole. Feeling so small.

2008-07-23T15:26:00.003+05:30

Uneasiness, restlessness, aversion and confusion, all rolled into one.

Disliking yourself is the worst, most uncomfortable feeling one can ever experience.

Almost.

Pharmacy. Open 24 x 7.

2008-07-01T22:30:00.007+05:30

Sleep is the best medicine. Especially if you are experiencing a deficiency of laughter in the first place. You escape the world, with all its unpleasant realities and all your demons wandering about joblessly taking pleasure in treating you as their dartboard till you feel deflated. So you sleep. Tell the demons to take a hike for a few hours. That’s what I do. Am depressed, will sleep. Excessively. Dangerously in some cases. Dangerous in the sense that I really should not be sleeping so much as say, studying for the next days exam.

I used to be one hell of an insomniac. I would toss and turn till dawn without a wink of sleep, for nights on end. And that would not exactly help situations. So, one irritable night, I took to codeine. Worked like a charm. Black magic actually. Slept like a baby, whenever I wanted to. Whenever I needed to. The magic continued for a few months. Then I got a little apprehensive and tried sleeping without it. Impossible. Take the tossing and turning, add a pinch of desperate restlessness to it and two cups of burning anxiety, and that’s what I ended up with. Not pleasant to say the least. Tossing and turning feverishly, hearing a rooster across the street start crowing from 2 am onwards and thinking “They need to get that bird fixed… the sun is nowhere close to up…” That scared me. Took me a while to discard all those extra condiments. I was then left with plain old same-as-ever insomnia. But I needn’t have worried. Very soon after that I was packed off to college where I had to work so hard that I was out like a light while my head was still en route to the pillow. And the present status is: Sleep your worries away. It will save you your sanity, at least for those blissful few (?) hours.

A better medicine which I discovered but can't use all the time... Writing. I am not verbally brilliant. I can perform decently in debates, but when it comes to discussing my feelings and emotions, I’m reduced (enhanced?) to a stammering nervous totem pole. I’d much rather discuss serious issues with people through email, sms or IM. Then I become so much more eloquent, more composed, more rational. In person, I stammer, I forget, I say the opposite of what I mean. So I usually don’t say at all. And then I get more jittery by the minute. I snap. I shout. Then I apologise. And then I sleep. And the cycle goes on. So I write. For people, for myself, or for everyone who cares to read, on the blog. And then I can dance a little jig and mean it too.

2 a.m. and I'm still awake, writing a song
If I get it all down on paper, its no longer
inside of me, threatening the life it belongs to.

-- Breathe, Ana Nalick

So many medicines… literal and figurative…

Livin’ it up at the Hotel California

2008-06-30T13:56:00.006+05:30

K is the manager of a hotel in California. If it's the very reputation of the hotel or K’s sheer fine luck I know not, but this hotel seems to attract customers of the hilarious kind. Since K refuses to start his own blog and hinted that he wants this up here, here you go, out of the kindness of my heart. For your reading pleasure, this episode is about the adventures of Lord Krishna and Mrs. S. Think it sounds like a new cartoon appearing on our Hindi-cized version of Cartoon Network? You’re not much off the mark about the cartoon part.

Act 1:

Enter Mrs. S from London, a regressive healing expert with clients in California, looking for a hotel room. Our very own K graciously shows her to one. Mrs. S is overjoyed.

“The energy in this room is very positive, Krishna Krishna…”

“What perfect vaastu, Krishna Krishna…”

“Can I have some toast and a pot of tea sent up here please, Krishna Krishna…”

Exit a satisfied Mrs. S, leaving behind an amused hotel.

Act 2:

Enter K, acting very managerial, at his desk. Phone rings.

“Hello. Hotel California. How may I help you?”

“This is Mrs. S. I would like to book a room for Saturday please.”

I’m sorry Mrs. S, we have no rooms available on Saturday”

“Krishna Krishna, Now what do I do!?”

Exit an apologetic amused K.

Act 3:

Enter K and Mrs S. Luckily, there is vacancy today.

Mrs. S: “Can I have the same room I had last time?”

K: I’m sorry Mrs S., but that room is occupied.

Mrs. S: “Krishna Krishna…”

K: “But we do have Room 101 for you. It has a king bed, very comfortable. I’m sure you will like it.”

Mrs. S: “Oh no... Krishna does not like the ground floor…”

K: “…………… (Stifled laughter) We do have rooms on the second floor. How about this twin bedroom?”

Mrs. S: “What will I do with two beds Krishna.....?”

K: “The only free single rooms we have are on the ground floor actually….”

Mrs. S: “Oh… Krishna… Show me another room then…”

K: “Here you go. Another twin bedroom.”

Mrs. S: “Oh this room is good. Krishna will like it very much. But I only need one bed. The other one I leave to Krishna.”

K: (Under his breath) Krishna help me…..

Exit K, leaving Mrs. S who is rearranging the angle of the mirror and humming something that sounds suspiciously like Teri aankhein bhool bhulaiyya.

THE END

Ego

2008-06-29T17:10:00.005+05:30

Our best friend. Our worst enemy.

Gives us our individuality. Can alienate us.

Gives us our dignity. Yet, can make us lose our dignity instantly.

Makes us stand up for what we think is right. But then again, who the hell says we actually are right?

Can make us an individual to be admired. Can make us an individual to be ridiculed and ignored.

Helps you stick to your beliefs. Can make you stick to your beliefs too rigidly.

Gives us success. Gives us heartache.

Life is too complicated for one enjoy it properly. Bah.

Isn't ego a man made thing anyway? We discovered it. Gave it a name. Psychoanalysed it. Nurtured it. If we hadn't done all that, life would be blissfully less perplexing. Great going...

You don’t understand.

2008-06-25T21:51:00.008+05:30

Really. You don’t.

Most people will listen to you. They will nod sympathetically. And then they will say those two comforting heartfelt words: “I understand”. Bullshit.

Don’t get me wrong… I’m actually very grateful that you listened patiently, grateful for your sympathy, grateful that you simply didn't run away while pulling your hair out after I narrated my dukh bhari daastan… But you don’t understand. Everyone says it of course, including me, and I’m sure I’ll continue to do so. But you simply do NOT understand.

It may be your best friend; it may be your sibling; it may be your mom. But they will not understand unless they are in exactly the same situation you are in. Placing yourself in someone else’s shoes does not work. You have to have a pair of that exact same broken in and worn out shoes of your very own. Sometimes even an absolute stranger or an enemy may understand better than your loved ones.

It’s simple. Suppose I have a problem. Let’s hypothetically say that my problem is that of a horrifying landlady who is making my life hell and not giving me any peace of mind, so much so that I have to resort to blah-ing to my friends about her and ranting about her on my blog. Now you can’t always seethe about her to someone who has an amazing motherly landlady who knits them sweaters and bakes cakes for them just because she felt like. Because that person will not really understand. They might sympathise, sure. But they will be thinking “My situation is so different. Man I’m lucky to have such a sweet landlady.” (Sympathetic nod and pat on shoulder) “How can she be feeling this way? Maybe she just doesn’t appreciate her landlady’s feelings” (Aww you poor thing... She did that??? Tsk tsk…) “Hmmm…I wonder what landlady darling has cooked for me today…..”

Lame example but you get the picture. And there’s nothing wrong with it as such. It’s human nature. But find another with the same problem as you have and there you have a kindred spirit and there you have a person you can REALLY talk to. You can narrate and discuss and bitch freely without bothering that the other person will be horrified at what you say. Without wondering if you are the one in the wrong. Only here can you truly let your feelings out. Even if it’s an absolute stranger you’re talking to. And if this person happens to be your best friend/close confidante, so much the better for you. Not that I would wish all my problems on my best friend of course…

It’s happened to me. Having a friend you can talk to about anything and everything in the world except for a couple of topics which I could produce a tirade on for hours. And it was infuriating, having to hold that stuff in. I’ve found an outlet. Phew.

Tag! You're it!

2008-06-18T21:38:00.011+05:30

Highly interesting tag. A tad long. My apologies. Oh hell it’s my blog… Apologies duly retracted.

Ten random things about myself:

I have negligible patience. And that’s putting it mildly. No instant reply to an SMS and I fret. I have to wait for someone I’m supposed to be meeting, I pace, I fidget, I fume. Is that because of my inane tendency to turn up before the decided time you ask? Let’s not change the subject here…
Although I do think the best plans are the spontaneous ones, I have a paranoia for advance planning. I will be satisfied when tickets for a movie are booked 2 days in advance. If the hotel room is booked a week before a road trip to another city with friends. Add the zero patience, and I snap when people refuse to help in planning at all. And woe betide someone if the plan is called off due to the lack of planning….
I can survive solely on pizzas and chocolate. I love food more than I love my little toes on both feet. Ehh they're too chubby anyway.
I read insanely fast. In school, often we used to share a book between 2 people while reading, between classes. People fought not to read with me because by the time they had finished reading 2 paragraphs, I would have finished both pages and would be turning to the next page gingerly trying to read whatever I could see of the next page (Refer for point 1 for explanation for behaviour).
I want to try everything. And anything. I want to experience absolutely everything that life has to offer, thrice over, excluding experiences of the narcotic and tobacco kind. And I want to have done it 5 minutes ago.
I crack some of the worst jokes known to mankind. And laugh myself silly at them as well as the groans of the victims who have to suffer them. And I’m offended if they don’t. Groan at them, that is.
Once I start laughing in earnest, it’s next to impossible to get me to stop. And it has its benefits too. People act concerned and very sympathetic like they’re talking to a nutcase after I haven’t paused once in two full minutes. Once, I startled a friend so much he offered to buy me anything in Shopper’s Stop that I wanted if that would make me pause and assure him I was fine.( I still kick myself for having politely and breathlessly declined that offer). The longest I’ve lasted to my recollection is 2 hours 15 minutes. All right… Pick up those jaws now… Where’s your courtesy?
I would sell my soul to have a puppy of my very own.
I cry. Way too often. Ok maybe not fultoo cry…. When Sirius died, yes. When Dumbledore died, yes. When Gandalf died, yes. That’s ok, right? Now… When the 3 men and 1 woman live happily ever after with the baby (3 men and a baby, don’t make me kill you), I got emotional. When Manny saved Ellie and declared his love for her, I got teary eyed (Ice Age 2 for the ones scratching their heads/beards). When Opal Mehta finally got kissed, got wild, got a life and got into Harvard after all the nonsense that preceded it, I thought a sentimental “good-for-her”. When Sam, Annie and Jonah walk away hand in hand after all the insomnia in Seattle, I had to blink my eyes rapidly. You get the picture. Yeah I know… My trip is waiting, wide open... it’s yours for the taking…
Start talking about astrology, horoscopes, kundalis, palmistry, karmic and cosmic connections, and what the stars have in store for me, in front of me, and I will crack up. I don’t mean to offend you so I give you an advance warning. And when I crack up, watch out… (Refer to point 7)

Nine things I wish I wasn’t/didn’t:

I find it excruciatingly difficult to discuss my problems with others. Very often I don’t. If I do, it’s limited to around 2 people whom I confide in. Wish I was more open.
I’m way too shy. Hence I can’t talk to new people instantly. So often it’s happened that a friend and I are introduced to someone new and while the friend goes on to become best pals with the stranger in a few minutes, I come across and disinterested and unwilling to speak for quite a while. Keep at it and then I mellow down and refuse to shut up :)
I think enough for the whole US army put together. Yeah, it’s a tad unnecessary. Once, a guy who was (unsuccessfully) trying to hit on me wanted to read my palm (yes, I did crack up very soon). Taking my hands into his own (ahem), the first thing he said was all the excessive lines on my palm said that I thought way too much… So it’s apparent even to observers…. Damn…
Because of above unwanted habit, I get worried very easily and very often. I think of all possible scary scenarios to a situation and fret about each and every one of them.
I use the adjective cute way too much. I really need to cut down.
I forgive. I don’t often forget.
Am too self conscious.
I am lazy. I procrastinate.
My mood is often decided by what other people do or say. And I hate that.

Eight things I’m wondering right now:

Why does this tag seem a little tough?
Why did I skip the gym today???
Will Sunday’s trek actually happen?
Why are the only messages I get nowadays from Reliance?
To how many people will the stuff I say here be a surprise?
Sigh… Will I ever reach my dream weight?
Why were cockroaches and pigeons put on this earth when they serve no purpose but to annoy?
When oh when will I understand what I actually want from life?

Seven things that cross my mind a lot:

Where is “this” going? Should "it" be going at all?
I hope there’s no hullabaloo created when I get married.
I hope things are different when I have kids.
I wonder if I'll have any "friends forever".
I always seem to be reaching out for something different than what I should be…
Sometimes I seem to strive to be unhappy but obviously hate it when I am… why the hell?
I should really stop being so lazy…

Six things I’d like to do before I die:

Bake an edible cake. Every attempt so far has resulted in something resembling a different planet each time.
Be a famous columnist.
Have sex. See what the fuss is all about.
Bungee jump.
Have a dog which dotes on me.
Maintain this blog till the very end. Far fetched, yes. But possible.

Five turn ons:

The ability to talk mind boggling nonsense effortlessly
A French beard.
A guitar. Take a half decent looking guy and a guitar and put them together and you have a very weak-kneed me. I kid you not.
The ability to handle my moodiness. A rarity, this one.
Ability to make me want to talk endlessly.

Four Turn offs:

Be good to the people lesser than you. Act unnecessarily mean to a little beggar and put an empty chocolate wrapper in her begging bowl and face my wrath.
Male chauvinism. Blech. It’s everywhere.
Refusing to accept one’s own mistakes.
Over-nosiness

Three ways to win my heart:

Play the guitar for me.
Go to great lengths just to elicit a simple smile from me.
Talk to me. Give me something new to think about. Tell me about yourself without overdoing it. Have a genuine desire to know about me, and not just the pretty bits. Don’t force your opinion on me. Discuss. Compromise. And keep at it.

Two smileys that describe me:

:P - Teasing people
:D - Laughing!

One confession

My first crush was Captain Planet. Yes, the cartoon. Doesn’t fictional animated character sound so much better?

This was tougher than I thought. And took longer than I thought it would. But fun. Anyone who wants, take a shot at it. Enjoy :)

What's in a number...?

2008-06-17T19:22:00.003+05:30

Of all the friends I have, quite a few are quite a bit older than I am. Presently, they are 24, 25, 27, 29... You get the picture… I first started interacting with them when I was 16 or so. At that time, these people were in the age group of 21-27 years. What stunned me was that I got along so smashingly with them. I could talk to them freely on subjects ranging from the mundane to the significant; from the general to the personal. And never once did they let the age gap interfere. In the beginning I expected teasing remarks calling me a kid, and the like, since I had seen it so many times with other people. But no, none of that… to my astonishment. Now that I think about it, if I had been in their place, maybe I would not have interacted and connected so much with one so much younger… Perhaps… And nothing can describe how glad I am that this was not the case with them. No talking down to me, no filtering or censoring conversations, no snide remarks. All I ever got was a surprised “Hey, I just realized... you’re the only undergrad friend I have!” from K and a comic “Guess I’m too old for you, huh?” from D.

People were surprised at the number of older friends I had, and continue to be. But I’m glad I have them in my life. I would have missed out on way too much had they ever let the age gap make any sort of difference at all.

So here’s to all the sense, nonsense, inspiration, endless messages, long conversations, “paid-for” lunches, bike rides, career counseling, mental therapy, trips “into orbit”, shopping sprees, tattoo tips, timepass flirting and loads more. Love you guys :)

Here today, gone tomorrow.

2008-06-15T20:33:00.006+05:30

So often it happens we take solace in something temporary rather than something permanent.

Some people are closer to their friends than to their family. Friends are, strictly speaking, temporary. You never know when you will lose them. They might get married and go away; they might shift residence and move away; they might just lose touch over the years, finding no time for you… Yet these relationships are at times more relied upon, from the mental point of view. That momentary wisp of friendship, that sudden moment of understanding, that spark of connection or that steady trust that that develops with those people you call your friends, that can make you open up eons more than the steadfastness, the sturdiness, the permanence of family. You can discuss freely, without any inhibition, without fearing disapproval, rejection or repulsion. Discover yourself without worrying if what you discern might be wrong in their eyes, without fearing that you might be thinking, speaking or doing something which would bring forth disapproval. Without the fear that you might have to repent severely what you did and make amends. Because if these happen, damage control is easier. If not possible, you can always find more friends, if it comes to that. You cannot find another family.

Consider it in another sense of the word. This is purely from a personal point of view. If I have a secret or problem I cannot divulge freely, but need to talk about, what do I do? I talk about it freely, openly. But to someone who has no clue about the repercussions it would cause if spoken to people closer to home. People who are permanently there, for the present at least; those are whom I can’t talk to. There the fear of people’s judgment and trustworthiness comes in. Problem college, discuss thoroughly with friends back home. And the other way round. No danger of leaks, no consequences you might regret, no mental trauma.

Psychologically, I depend on impermanence more. What about you? And what would you rather be?

Silly Spice- The newest member.

2008-06-08T22:59:00.007+05:30

I had heard a lot about the movie "Mistress of Spices". I had heard it was highly acclaimed. Hence I planned to catch it on TV today. I ended up seeing only the last ten minutes of the movie and though it may actually be very good, creative, moving, etc etc, this is what I inferred from it, from only the last ten minutes I might add. So if you loved the movie and cannot bear to see its reputation be blanded down, hold your spicy tongues till the end of the post.

Aishwaria Rai who is the female lead is called Tilo. She is the "Mistress of Spices”, which is a fancy name for a spice seller abroad some place. She keeps talking to her spices as though they are her "Dear Diary" cum shooting-star cum puppy-who-fawns-over-you cum passionate-lover. Dialogues are thrown in like “I know love is right but I shall live only for you, my dear spices.” “Cinnamon, you have helped me through this rough patch in my life.” Ok that is weird and I’m pretty sure that’s not just me. Spice Girl is confused about love life with Mr. Cute Firang, helps everyone else by being superwoman, but has no time to fulfill her desires, as she bemoans to her beloved elaichi. So one day, she dolls up with home remedies made from her spices, wears a sexy red sari, spends a passionate night with Cute Firang and then (I think) attempts to commit suicide by fire, surrounded by red chillies, in her shop, after burying herself in them. She fails at this and Cute Firang finds her amidst loads of rubble with not a scratch, burn or tear on her or any of her clothes, with hair and makeup perfectly intact and with strange accent firmly in place. She then realizes her mistake and emotionally blackmails Cute Firang into rebuilding her shop.

I won’t comment on the story, really. I don’t even know it. But I will say this… Her name is Tilo. This might have specifically been chosen because throughout at least the last ten minutes, she kept gathering til in her hands and letting it flow down like it was water. You see the connection? Even her parents while naming her had a foresight that she would be a Spice Girl.

Another coincidence... Why was Ash picked to star in this movie? Because of her I’m-an Indian-but-I’m-not-accent? Because she’s pretty? Because she acts well? (That last one is definitely not it.) Give up? It’s because of the spice connection. Aishwaria RAI… could it get any more obvious? It was fate. It was a recipe gone terribly wrong...

Now that I’ve nicely butchered this movie for those who loved it, I now (Spice) jet off before I’m slaughtered. Bring on the skewers.

Curiosity thrills :D

2008-06-08T20:59:00.004+05:30

A (to M1): I'm curious... Can you have sex underwater?

M1: How would I know? Not like I’ve tried you know…

A (to M2): Hmmphhh... Fine… You tell me… Can you have sex underwater?

M2: (Indignation personified) How would I know????

A: Oh god… Fine… I’ll rephrase that... Can one have sex underwater?

M2: Nope. Can’t be done. At least two are needed.

A: ………………………………….