Confoundedness...along the Long Widening Road.

2009-09-08T12:27:00.003-07:00

"To what a ludicrous state we are brought!
If a Bhangi comes to anybody as a Bhangi, he would be shunned as the plague;
but no sooner does he get a cup full of water poured upon his head with some mutterings of prayer by a Padri, and get a coat on his back, no matter how thread-bare, and come into the room of the most orthodox Hindu-I dont see the Man who then dare refuse him a chair and a hearty shake of the hands!!
Irony can go no farther.
And come and see what they, the Padris, are doing here in the South. They are convering the lower classes by lakhs; and in Travancore, the most priest-ridden country in India-where every bit of land is owned by the Brahmins-Nearly one-fourth has become Christians!
And I cannot blame them; what part have they in David and what in Jesse?
When, when O'Lord, shall Man be brother to Man?"

-Swami Vivekananda,
The Complete Works of Swami Vivekananda

Gimme some more heat,da

2009-05-24T00:10:00.007-07:00

"Anna (not Scott, Yairpot, -malai, University, teakadai, barber-shaap, -aachi moar kudunnga)"
"Black Ambassador"
"Home"
"Mylapore"
"Amma-Appa"
"In-laws"
"Relatives"
"Kosu" (mosquito)
"Love"
"Too much lovvu"
"Jetlag"
"How is the Jetlag" (like it were the weather or something)
"Aavin paal"
"Kaapi"
"Digaakshun"
"Patti"
"Bhakshanam"
"Thatha"
"AashirvAdam (with specific things in mind)
"Veyil" (heat)
"Yebba"
"Record-breaking veyil (like every single year of the century)
"The (H)indu" paeper
"Anti-Hindu paper"
"AC"
"Cooling"
"More cooling"
"Dei, antha AC high-la podu pa" (Turn the AC on high)
"Sniff"
"Sniff-sniff"
"Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaachooo"
"Flu"
"Kashaayam."
"Vandi" ( vehicle/first love)
"Broken Helmet" (broken heart)
"Keep Left"
"Saavu kraaki" (For the Tamil-illeterate, go and ask your literate friends)
"Elections"
"Vote"
"Middle finger"
"Sonia Gandhi"
"Kalignar"
"Amma" (the bigger one)
"Bussu"
"21G"
"Aaato"
"Recession"
"Nooru-ruba potu kudunga Saaar" (Please give us a hundred-rupees more because we are coldblooded rowdies and like to bully the public, and also...its recession time)
"LTTE"
"Prabhakaran"
"Innum saagala" (Not yet dead)
"Sathyam"
"City Centre"
"Spencers"
"Beach"
"Masala kadalai"
"Cirikett"
"IPL"
"Dhoni"
Sooopar da"
"Poda"
"Pattu podavai" (Silk-sarees)
"Paatu" (Moosic)
"Kucheri"
"Kovil" (Temple..how I hate translating into Tamil when almost everyone I know speaks Tamil)
"Mylapore"
"(haiyo) Narayana"

Welcome to Chennai, m'dear Lady...

The city has indeed missed you.
:D

2009-03-28T16:50:00.001-07:00

Trust me, its not because I'm busy.

The Devil wears Skis

2009-01-11T18:58:00.017-07:00

I had never been SO excited about doing anything in my life. Not even sneaking out of Analog Communication class to watch Manmadhan ( I had officially bunked class to watch a lousy Tamil movie ..but oh what the heck)

I was going to to ski...!! Really ski..!! I mean on real snow!

God, this was a tough one to pass. I mean, think about it...could I even think about doing this in Madras? Even in Winter? Please, the place is so hot that ice melts even inside the refrigerator (but I love the place, so beat it!)

So NOW I knew why God wanted me here despite all my squirming. He wanted me to ..ski!

The Gods wanted me..to skiiiii!

Well, the Husband and I had a few concerns on whether we'd be able to do it, ski that is, considering this was our first attempt. So what was the big deal anyways? I mean, we'd have a an instructor who'd brief us on how to NOT break our vital parts, plus we'd be given helmets to protect our heads. Besides, I knew how to ice-skate decently as I'd done a considerable amount of it in 8th grade (courtesy Girl Scouts) so...it was just the Husband who had to balance on ice for the first time, technically.

Man, this was gonna be cool.

So, a couple of friends decide to come along with us on our skiing escapade on this bright Saturday morning. Hema and Vish (names not changed to protect identity 'cos they really don't care) were as excited as were were and what was skiing if you didn't do it with company?

So we reached Hunter Mountain which is in Upstate New York, filled up the forms and rented the skis and helmets. We looked like super Heroes on a roll. Or dorks, depending on who you were looking at.

On our way out to the snow-mountains, we were divided into groups where the Husband was put into the group that headed out first while I was put in another with the rest of our clan. No biggy, just that we started off almost an hour later.

The first group had a Chinese instructor who (later I'm told) apparently 'forgot' to teach his group how to 'stop' their skis from crashing into a wall while rushing down a hill uncontrollably. I thought these lessons were ALL about knowing how to stop the goddamn skis. Bah!

We, however, had problems of our own. An enormously fat lady as our instructor who made it difficult for us to concentrate while we were busy making cartoony pictures with our heads of her rolling off her ski's and into a wall, was a challenge on its own. But we were soon to discover that excepting for us 3 doofuses (thats a word 'cos this is my blog), the rest of the group comprised of skillful 'pros' who were born naturals from the moment they put their skis on. Actually they were all just kids half my age but deep down, I was willing to bet that they had skied to glory in their previous lives as well. It didn't take too long before it was evident that we stood out quite distinctly from the group, for all the wrong reasons.

As our fat lady started to ~~sing~~ instruct, the 3 of us tried to pay very special attention to what was our skiing lesson. I'd however take an extra minute longer in translating the American-accented instructions to the Indian ones in my brain ~~'cos I'm from the villages and I think white skin is so cool.~~

From what was being our first instruction that required me to put my skis on, I was the group's clumsy goofball. I'd feel as though I was falling off a hill, all this on a flat surface! As the instructions began to pour in one by one, I'd find myself accelerating uncontrollably down a slope each time I tried to follow the new instruction or a new move. It was crazy I tell you! I mean, all I'd intend to do is ski down a ramp for about 8 feet and then make a slight 'turn' towards the right or the left in order to stop the motion down hill ...but oh no, my skis would be on a jolly trip to the walls some 100 feet away and I'd have no other choice BUT to forcefully 'make' myself fall (if I were that lucky) as that would be the only way to impede a crash into the gated-walls. Charming, I tell you.

An hour later, our Instructor decides to free the class, a good 30 minutes before schedule. Why this early? To quote the fat lady 'This group barring a very few (which meant just me..grr) doesn't need any help..you are all born naturals'. Hema had given-up a good forty-five minutes before, and Vish...well, I don't know what happened to him...I couldn't even find him. So I was out there on my own, trying to have my skis on and not go tumbling down the mountain at the same time. Fun eh?

For those of you who may implicate that I didn't 'try' or put any effort to sustain on that battlefield, in my defence let me just say that I must have spent at least 50 minutes trying to master the 'wedge' (Plus I'd given up trying to locate the Husband and clan)

I should have packed my skis while I had the chance, but I'd decide to give another whack at it. And, try I did! The wedge, might I add, is an up-side down 'V' shape you form with your legs in a desperate attempt to stop moving at 500 miles/hr. Its supposed to work like a charm, and stop your skiis instantly however fast you may be skiing down. This trick, however didn't work with me (why aren't we surprised). Infact it would do quite the opposite in effect and I'd end up accelerating my way down a 100 feet slope in some 800 miles/hr on my way to Crashsville. All that snow. Christ, were was the sun when you needed it.

If you're still thinking why I didn't stop and give-up, well sorry to burst your bubble, but I quite did.

At around 4 pm I decided to call it a day and broadcast the fact that I proposed to officially quit my long and successful stint in skiing. The Husband, quite apparently had a jolly good time skiing his butt off and refused to come out till the authorities switched the lights off.

I on the other hand, had a couple of things I could use from this escapade...a ton of loony photos which me look like ludicrous astronaut, a couple of broken bones around my neck (from the thousands of times I came tumbling down, who'd think?), and a twisted tale to inspire fellow ambitious Desis.

Goooooooooooooooooooooooo ski ! :D

The Year of the Firsts or Happy New Year Folks

2008-12-31T13:42:00.008-07:00

Every time the new year comes by, I think to myself however stupendously refreshing the following year may be, it can never outdo the previous one... in the good way or the bad way. See, I don't handle change very well so much so that I have this ridiculous inertia to write the year's number correctly for like the first 4 months of the new year!!
So, like every year, I warn myself of change that is inevitable and also assuage myself that it wouldn't be as bad (or as good) as the previous one. So its always best to start off with zilch expectation, you'll see how far that takes you. Having said, one other thing every new year brings me, is its innumerable Firsts, be it nice-firsts or horrible-firsts. Its always worth remembering my Firsts and I'm sure its the case with you too.

'08 gave me my
My first tryst with Snow...
My first 9-gajam saree...
My first online fraternity (whom all I love a tad too much)
My first Hindustani concert in the 8th row of Music Academy..
My first Embedded systems job (that didnt last for more than 4 months)..
My first wedding (and the last one mind you..) ...
My first long stay away from my parents..
My first scooty accident which wasn't my fault..
My first concert...
My first Tam-Bram thaligai..
My first kamalAmba navAvarnam...
My first fight over Gmail..
My first Amma/Appa-I-miss-you mail..
My first sip of Margareta (read sip. And let that be the last one thank you very much)..
My first Album..
My first parasailing..
My first Chinese food (Yuck.Period.)
My first sister-in-law...
My first flu..
My first Elizabeth Arden..
My first Deepavali with a new family..

Try this too, in your head if you want, what your Firsts were. I'm sure you'll have some you could talk about. Its fun and worthwhile.

Wishing you all a fabulous year ahead,
Confounded-Lady :)

The Great Indian NRI

2008-12-21T13:18:00.001-07:00

More than just its indigenous people, whats kept me intrigued all these years over America, is the Indians there.
*Disclaimer : At bottom of post
I've grown up all my life watching fellow Indian families yearning to become Americans like it were the sole purpose of their existence on Earth . No matter how frightful a disposition it were, this always made me wonder what it was about the Wild-West that was so bewitching.
I mean, there certainly were better places to live in. This I always knew and was sure of.
I thus commence ~~without further evading my obligation as the babblefest queen of this blog.~~
The 80's and the early 90's ** were times of opportunity where opportunity meant just one thing -America.

If you were a dreamer, it meant that you dreamed of settling down in America. If you were smart, that meant you got to study in America . If you were ambitious, you were trying to get a job in any company as long as it was in America. If you were opportunistic, you were venturing out new arenas in America. If you were successful, that meant you had a house, a wife(who miraculously transformed from that shabby runny-nosed tramp near Sharada Vidhyalaya to a high society woman who drank 'occasionally' during all social occasions), kids with American accents (I mean what are kids without American accents, huh?) and of course not to mention, the most coveted of all, that Green colour card.

If you were just plain lucky, you somehow did finally manage to bring that ass of yours to America however undeserving you were, but then again you were having the last laugh.
The pressures of the 80's, as my Appa always says, is something we'll never understand.

The Gulf (excepting for Saudi which was/is, with no due respect, a concentration camp in its own right) was a happy place those days ** - albeit the wars 'n all- and was a prospective place for Indians dying to settle anywhere else other than India. I mean, eat this: you had to pay zilch tax, the Dinar was always stronger than the Dollar, fuel was cheap (these guys made oil...who're we trying to kid?), the roads were clean, no one spat on the roads, Local Sheikhs were fat, cute friendly people who couldn't tell a stock market from a flee market.

The Indian thrived here (more so the Mallu but I'm not going there) and couldnt have asked for more.

The Appa-of-the-Family however, wouldn't be satisfied with his job until he had a better one he could flaunt in front of his Indian relatives. This could only mean one place- even if it meant accepting a job profile he didn't quite fancy.

So, the Appa-of-the-Family would constantly apply day in and day out to companies all over America until he got the letter asking him to join as soon as possible, and if he didn't bag the prize, the consolation prize (Canada) would suit him very well, and one fine morning his kids would stop coming to school and their houses would be bolted, and before you could say OsamaBinLaden, he'd have migrated to Canada with his family and a secret wish never ever to return.

This was the most frequent scenario in the Gulf, more so in our compound. We'd always have new kids coming to play with us beside the pool, and after a short while had passed, they'd mysteriously just not turn up. When we'd go over to their place to check if they were alright, all we would see are white sheets over furniture and some boxes of clothes that looked familiar.

This was almost a routine for quite sometime, you know, not having constant friends because their Appas were 'ambitious'. I was ok with it I mean, as long as there was a constant flow of kids in the compound to play with. However, when I turned 11, my best friend Aditi was to leave to the US and thats when I was shattered. I hated her parents for having to leave such a beautiful community we were all a part of and I just couldn't forgive them. I swore to write to her everyday but I didn't have an address I could write to, not until they settled down in this unknown land where everyone I knew was headed to.

All this reinforced the fact that everyone, absolutely everyone wanted to move to America for some reason I and most certainly ,the Appa-of-my-Family didn't understand.

(To be Contd...

or do you really care?)

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

*Disclaimer from top of post:The Blogger is blogging after a long, very long time and this is a long post (2 clauses have absolutely no relation what so ever but hear her out) If you're expecting a short and crisp post, shoo away.

**At the risk of sounding ancient

2008-10-26T20:22:00.002-07:00

Well, it doesn't exactly feel like Diwali right now. I'd blame it on my whereabouts you see. I've not been taking too kindly with the way Indians celebrate Diwali in the US, but I could crib and complain all my way to Jersey Downtown and no one would bother.
Thats life you see. Sigh.

I'm kidding, I'm not really as miserable as I sound. This place is..n-n-n-ice.
(Fine I admit it!)

But for what its worth, Happy Deepavali O Confounded-Souls! Burst them all and...drink lots of water.

Love.

Lessons my Elders (didn't) teach me

2008-10-13T09:36:00.011-07:00

Flushed with the success of conducting a grand TamBram wedding (if I may), all my parents have to now do is sit back and watch discerningly as to how their li'l girl survives her new life.

No, I don't really mean to make it sound like boarding school or rehabilitation, but marriage (or post-marriage to be more specific) is indeed a big deal for any Indian parent and an even bigger deal for any Indian parent's child. So, I am work in progress, every single minute of the day.
The thing with marriage *I go on to say in wisdomous tone, lowering spectacles so that it rests firmly on nose to give intellectual look* is that there are very many loopholes and..I'm afraid that there are somethings only experience can teach you.

For instance, they say that you ought to shed your ego, every ounce of it, when you're starting off a new relationship with your spouse. Heck every relationship can do well with little or no ego, but I'm restricting my insightful thoughts to marriage as for now, cos...everything now is about what I think about marriage isn't it?

Yes it is. That was just a rhetorical question.

So.
As I was saying, amongst all the precious pieces of advice the Elders from back home had given me, like smile, be nice, be friendly, be neat, be less finicky, don't frown, don't use chilly powder as weapon, don't be yourself, shop at Debenhams (just kidding), yada-yada-yada blah-blah, the most common words of wisdom I'd received was to shed my ego ( I travel with excess baggage, that's sometimes so not very nice) and be truthful if I didn't know something.

That is sane advice, yes I know. So before I leave to my husband's place, I resolutely practice my lines in front of the mirror, "Sorry, I don't know how to do that", "Sorry, I'm new at this, can you teach me?" or "No I've never made tea all my life..can you make your own tea for the first 10 years of our married life?"
See, that wasn't so difficult. Everything just needs a little practice. Even the non-ego part like the Elders said, can be conquered with just a little determination. Yay for me.
Or so I'd think.

But its not as easy as I thought it would be you know, this no-ego thing.

You see, humans have this inherent tendency to say 'I do' without even the slightest hesitation (if you're Ross Gellar, you're a pro and I'm not even talking about you).
Its not just the weddings, its everything else in normal life..in dealing with people, things, situations, especially when they're new... I've learnt that it takes a lot of courage and strong-will to say 'Nope, sorry, I really don't know how to'.

So the other day when V asked me if I know how to iron shirts, I say 'yes' so matter-of-factly like I was asked if I knew how to eat thayir-sadum.
I surprise me.
I mean, how good was I at ironing anyway?
Lets see..All my life my mom ironed my school-uniforms.
I'd ironed my Salwars to college, but that was just because I loved ironing over large flat surfaces, it made me feel nice. I never really cared how it looked even if it looked far more wrinklier after I was done with the iron-box.
Then there was always the ironing my clothes before packing, so that they'd fit perfectly into my suitcase. It was clearly another case of ironing out of desperation, so it didn't really matter whether they looked nice or not..as long as they fit neatly in a row.
Wait, there must be more.
Oh yes, I remember ironing my Appa's shirts before he'd leave for work.
I am now beginning to realise that he wore the shirts which I ironed to work without much of a grumble JUST to not hurt my feelings. No wonder he never removed his suit at work.... he'd get sacked if anyone saw how an Investment Banker dressed to work at this Bank!

So! Not even bothering to consider my promising past with the iron-box, I daintily trot to the iron-stand and pick up one of V's shirts that need ironing on my way.

I JUST then realise that I don't know where to start. I iron over the flat surfaces (and enjoy the good feeling like the 'ol salwar days), and stop at the sleeves. I really don't know where the crease ought to be. I mean, in a proper shirt where you go to work not expecting to get sacked the very next day for looking like rubbish.
Same with his trousers, where is the goddamn crease??? At the sides or at the front?

After ironing all the flat parts (something I can do as professionally now), I go up to V and tell him that my father was a good man for wearing what I ironed for him all these years.
V gets the picture, he's a fast learner.
I give my sheepish grin (another thing I can do quite professionally).
V irons his clothes to work for now..and makes his tea (for now). I love his tea.
I take care of the cooking, and the fire-alarms that go off during the process.

I'm yet to go up to him and ask him where the crease falls.

The After-math, the Cook-book and Me

2008-09-21T21:40:00.009-07:00

Retrospection on a profound level leads me to the conclusion that I was never really a home-girl.
I've always deplored the word house-wife, even the very way the term was coined 'h-o-u-s-e' 'w-i-f-e'. I mean, lets face it...what in heavens name did you wish you convey by the word house-wife? That you were a wife at home? Weren't you his wife outside the house? Eew.

Yeneways, kutti digress there.
As a kid who was perpetually hyper and restless (excepting for the times when I was asleep where I'd look like a mad- driver-woman on Prozac). I always had something to do solely because the very thought of being bored scared me out of my wits as I always associated 'boredom' to 'loneliness'. So, despite being the only kid to my parents which always saddened me..(still does to a certain extent which is why I resolve to get busy in the near future in order to prevent history from repeating itself :D) I made sure that I never banked on my house or my parents for solace...I'd explore the neighbouring streets on my bicycle, go out on walks on my own, make friends with the watchmen and gardeners in our locality.. whatever it took to get me out of the house, even if it meant knocking on random people's doors and asking them, ingratiatingly, if I could play with their kids if they had any.
It was sad you know, that parents sent their 6 year olds to Hindi tuition. I think I learned more Hindi chatting with the watchmen and gardeners.

With such a manipulated state of mind that made me believe that one had a life only if it were outside the house, I grew up sympathizing all women who were house-wives, including my very dear granny and Mom. I'd ask my Mom time and again in the kitchen how they did it... How could one not go out, know places, meet people, get paid, get bankrupt, get into fights, get out of fights (the last two clauses were offered in copious amounts in our house..living with me is no joke mind you) how could you just be busy at home?'
I mean...with with due respect to what all the woman folk go through to keep a family running hale and healthy, how could you work, at home?? Wouldn't these 4 walls drive you plain mad?'

My Mom would just smile and ask me to switch on the exhaust fan on my way out.

A home-maker's job is no joke, I'm told, although I never try to understand the gravity of that statement more so because I know that the home-maker is never really..'me'.
I cant disagree with the fact that all of us are here, healthy and successful (to a certain extent at least) only because some woman/women in the house chose to care and see if we had food on the table and in our boxes everyday.

So as I pack my suitcases to a whole new world at the other side of the globe with a chunk of my stuff comprising of shiny non-stick vessels and brand new cook-books (the cook-book saga..ah! This surely deserves a post dedicated to itself), I still wonder to myself if I can map a vessel to its utility or turn the pages of Tarla Dalal's Continental Food Book without falling asleep looking at the picture on the front cover itself.

My colleagues from work will surely have fun reading this. They know.

2008-09-09T09:52:00.000-07:00

Two weeks notice

2008-08-27T07:32:00.010-07:00

I've never actually been 2 weeks away from my wedding because...well, I've never really been married before. No one always gets to be 2 weeks away from one's wedding until he's actually... two weeks away from his wedding, so it isnt a very common feeling, this two weeks notice thing.
Cha, this isnt exactly the dream start for this post, but just to show you how I blog when I'm not very high on editing. I promise I'm going somewhere with this one though.*

The amount of activity that takes place during the last 2 weeks before a wedding makes me wonder if there WERE any weeks before the 2 weeks before the wedding. You know in an Indian Wedding its like, the whole world earnestly works towards making the wedding a grand success like they were producing a movie, but its just during these last 2 weeks that all of the action takes place.
I have a feeling I havent made an iota of sense till now but hear me out when I say that I am simply amazed at the speed at which things unravel during this period...its like all the work that had to be done gradually before a wedding, suddenly gets done in such an unimaginable pace during this period.

Picture this.
All my saree-blouses suddenly get stitched and come back home from the tailors who had them for like...forever, just because I say there are only 'two weeks left'.
My house maid has been working like an ox (I dont know if that simile conveyed what it had to...I never trust my self-made similies) cos its apparently crucial time now. Heck, she's started coming regularly...thats a miracle by itself.
Our Iyengar samayakaar-maami (cook) feeds me like a baby with all the possible greens, yellows, oranges, pinks (didnt think I'd list colours without a pink did you?) in the world 'cos I'll be leaving home soon.
My neighbors *actually* smile at me when they spot me in the elevator. (Wow)
Appa is extra jovial. (Now that I'm not particularly comfortable with. The folks are already relieved I'm leaving.. And I havent even left yet. hmph!_max)
Everyone on the never-ending list's finally been invited and I'm mentally tired of revising the list to make sure I haven't left anyone out. I sent out the last batch of invitations today. Amen to that. And I thought this day would never come.
The most common words uttered by every random woman who enters my house is 'Rendu vaaram thaan iriku baaki la? :O ' (For the uninitiated in Tamil, "Just two weeks left no 'Colon-wo'?" )

I'm very evidently getting psyched now. You can tell from the sense I've made so far (or the lack of it). Actually, I dont think you'd know the difference if you know me by now.

But do you blame me?
I'm getting married....in two weeks!
:O

*Or then again maybe not.

2008-07-27T21:27:00.002-07:00

A for Ahemedabad

B for Bangalore

C for China?!

See, thats why I wish Chennai were just Madras. Would buy us some time no?

To us

2008-07-26T05:27:00.003-07:00

I don't know how many of you are aware of the fact that Randy Pausch died.
Actually, I'm not really sure how many of you are aware of Dr.Randy Pausch in the first place 'cos I wasn't, till last night.

I really didn't care that some arbit person passed away miles and miles away from where I am sitting, but its surprising how much I do, now. It really is.

Watch this now, you will too.You'll thank me...just like I thank the person who sent me the link.
Watch it, watch it WATCH IT... please watch it if you haven't.

The 'Headfake learning', the 'Brickwall' lesson.... these are lessons that will stay with you forever. Send me your comments if you did watch it.

Be happy.
Always.

Mic please..

2008-07-23T19:18:00.007-07:00

So I've tried and tried AND tried to put something up here for quite a while but in vain and all I can boast of, as for now, is a big fat drafts-section in which I can proudly proclaim that I've probably exhausted all the possible 'n+23' ways to start a fresh post. Its taken me THIS long to come back here and I don't quite intend on making this an I've-Not-Been-Blogging-oflate-Because.. post , considering that disappearing and re-disappearing is so much a part of Confounded-Lady's life.
Syaad I know.

Yenihoo, I finally post. Not that its post-worthy material, its a post.

So now that we're convinced that this IS a post and I can assume that you'd accept whatever I write here, I don't think I have to bother with the minute details of the various frivolities of life.

Like say, you wouldn't be interested in Confounded-Lady's daily confrontation with a 60 year old driving instructor who screams for his dear life when she crosses 25km/hr...would you?

Or perhaps...the humour she's s attempted to locate in sharing a house with a 16 year-old teenage NRI kid who's fashion sense would give Paris Hilton a run for her money (or another run to jail :P ) or even better, make Confounded-'ol-Lady look like an archaic work of art from the Medieval ages.
(I love you Divya/Dipsu-kutti anyways)...

.....Or how about being terrified of the newly hired servant-maid who constantly yells at CL for changing the place of the broomstick from behind the kitchen to..well, somewhere behind the kitchen where Maidy-dear couldn't bother to look till Confounded Lady saves the day...

I still think that watching 16 year old Dipsu-kutti get her hair coloured dark-red at Maha's is worth a separate post, 'cos I'm yet to get over the fact that my family heirloom does comprise of some twisted fashion-sense-DNAs after all and not just the traditional 9-gajam way of thinking. Goooooo Dipsu!

Ok..yayy, you've got me all excited. :D
So where do I start?

2008-07-04T11:30:00.000-07:00

Hi

:D

Who will cry when you cry

2008-06-03T15:44:00.002-07:00

Have you ever thought and thought over something so much, that it hurt?
So much so ,that it leaves you staring at the ceiling wondering if you're on the verge of going insane.

Sometimes all you see is all pervading madness around you, even though its ironically just
confined to the realms of your head. You've tried looking at things with an open-mind so much so that you feel that your head's almost falling apart from all that open-ness.

You feel like you're losing it and are dying for some perspective.
Any perspective, as long as its not yours b'cos you've had too much of that and it kills you.
You start to act all clandestine hoping that someone picks up signals and listens to what you're not saying.
Sometimes that doesn't really work, so you try to reach out to you're friends and talk to them, ask them if you are losing it after all, without having them be all judgmental and think that you're on a one way trip to banana-land.

But it isn't all that easy finding a listener, is it?
Who do you confide in? Not all you're million friends are listeners. The difference between the both hits you like a bus on the road now. Problems in life aren't rare, so everyone may not be particularly generous in sympathizing with you. You don't blame them though- after all, to each his problem. You therefore start convincing yourself into not making a big deal out of this and just wait patiently till your head stops spinning. Which it doesn't.
So you just wait, for nothing actually.

Yet amidst all this, someone finds you- a friend, a not-so friend, a random guy who sat beside you on the white bench at the park, someone on your friend's list you haven't struck a conversation with, someone you don't know. Someone you have absolutely no pretensions with, someone who makes you just split wide open, someone you can just talk to- without the slightest iota fear or shame, someone who breaks the dam, someone who thinks and puts your perspective in place. Someone who's like a ray of light in that tunnel. Someone who listens.

Things that scared you all this while now start to make some sense, if not all, with a lil bit of help from someone. Any someone.
The clarity you missed all this while brings a smile to your face. You feel like its rained on your garden after years. You know that it is possible to share some things with some people and not end up feeling like a fool at the end of it.

And suddenly life doesn't seem all that bad. Life isnt really all that bad come to think of it.
Its all about finding someone though.

2008-05-28T14:01:00.003-07:00

I am not facing a Writer's Block.

I am not.
I am not.
I am not.

2008-05-18T14:34:00.004-07:00

Friggin Insomnia.
Cha.

Mom, don't click that.

2008-05-16T10:18:00.017-07:00

I've always been weary of my mom knowing her way around the Internet. Not that I had any problems with her snooping around my desktop or my folders which are an in-house for all those love-letters I got during my school and college days*, its just that I've always thought that the Internet was a pretty un-safe place for the likes of my mom who is perpetually intrigued by its nuances and hops from one site to another on a continual basis.

We've come a long way, my mom's love for the Internet and I. She was a fast learner right from the beginning, as in right from the day I taught her how to hold the mouse and convinced her that she wasn't going to get anywhere useful unless she looked at the monitor and not at her right hand on the mouse. Did I mention fast learner? Funny.
But yes she's evolved enormously. She now chats with my chithis and perimas using smileys 'n all with such enviable ease :O (albeit the typos *straight-face*)
Now that's my mom! You go gurl!! :D

However, whats irked me of late is a new friendship request she accepted, unintentionally. His name is Aneesh Gopee and I haven't the faintest idea how he chanced upon my Mom's Yahoo! ID that too when herYahoo! ID is predominantly known to maamis only, with an average age 56.5 (there you go, clean stats). I don't think I can fetch the right words to describe her contacts amongst the maami circle. The popular joke at home is 'Are you maami? Mylapore a?? Srinivasar Kovil a? Besh..Thats nice. What did you say your email ID was ?' :P

So coming back to the anonymous franseep request, considering that Aneesh is not maami and neither is he 55, I was starting to get really disturbed to see his ID in my mom's friend's list. When I asked my mom what on earth she was thinking when she accepted his request, I get a classic 'Therila di.....I was trying to close the window and get it done with, so I kept clicking on finish'.
Classic reply indeed :P

He's apparently seen my mom online today and asked her her age and whether she was a doctor or something. Talk about class pickup lines :P I was there with my mom when that message popped up.I don't remember the conversation following that cos I was extremely busy rolling over the floor laughing, but my mom happened to very neatly convince him that she was a doctor. She stopped typing after he started asking questions of course, but I've had my laughter quotient for today.
For this week actually.

I cant wait till she goes online tomorrow...or I could perhaps fill in for her?
Now there's a thought.

I don't know...Life's been the least bit boring of late.

* Last I heard that my mom visits this blog regularly. I was just kidding about the love-letters ma, you didn't have to faint for that. Please get up now... you still have to teach me how to make malai-kofta *colon-pipe*

Days of our Lives

2008-05-13T23:59:00.000-07:00

Much against popular assumption of the masses that yours truly is no where to be seen in the eyes of the public because she is insanely busy shopping her guts out for the 'impending Big event*' (iBE) , I would like to strongly refute by saying that shopping is least of the things I'm doing in this godforsaken fAreen country.

Well.. Ok, if you do take into account the tonnes of Twix bars I've devoured, some 9 tops, cargos, and that $40 pair of jeans I've bought from Debenhams , yes I have been doing a some amount of justice to the feminine side of me, but thats nothing in the eyes of my friends and relatives in India who think that I've come to this country 'wonly' to shop for the 'iBE*', when the truthful purpose behind my visit here is to just spend time with my dad and mom. It doesn't make a difference where I am you know, I'll shop till I drop where ever I am. Hmph.

So what exactly am doing if I'm not robbing all ye shops of your riches :O?
See we're just an Aapee family spending all the time we can get indoors watching SunTv and AsiaNet while I twiddle my thumbs and wait for my most favouritest show on SunTV and AsiaNet(where there is incidentally no such thing) to be telecast. In other words, I have no purpose sitting in front of the Telly too, so it all comes down to just sitting in the living room and watching crap on TV, but enjoying it just the same 'cos we're all watching it 'together', which is a rarety in the very thought. See, that why I love this trip despite the all pervading nothingness. I think.
This joy of sitting in a full house, however, is shortlived as I fear that my Visa expires in a few weeks time and I'll have to go back to an incomplete home. I'll try not to forget to blog on my sorrow then. You just try not to forget to read it. :D

*Sigh*...I missed this space, the yellowness, the orange-ness, the whiteness, the confounded-ness.

Oh well, life is a lot more peaceful at the moment and that sadly gives me less reason to crib and even more sadly, lesser reason to blog. Peace.
Reminds me of a quote from the Holy Bhagavad Githa...

'Always be grateful for your cookies for tomorrow the cookie monster
might take 'em away'

Ok I think I overdid the Bhagavad Githa bit trying to sound all maha intellectual 'n all, so sue me. Nevertheless, I SO think the above line would have sound groovy in Latin or in Sanskrit. What do you think?

*iBE: Think of the biggest event in an Indian family's life. Now double it. Yes, thats the impending Big Event

Be afraid...very afraid.

2008-04-30T14:31:00.006-07:00

On May Day today, Confounded-Lady turns one.
The last one year has been a whole lot of fun
But there's a LOT more where this came from (Mayday indeed :P )
Dum-di-dum dum, Dum-di-dum dum.

My Not-so-secret affair with Typos

2008-04-26T14:17:00.017-07:00

Geek and I recently came to a conclusion that there are 3 types of typos in this world.

1. The Typo-typo (TT)
2. The Word-typo (WT)
3. The Smiley-typo (ST)

I would have stopped with this customarily (yeah right) but since you're still in this page reading this...this.......and oh yes, this too............. I will elaborate with a few FAQs.

I) Typo-typo
1) err... sorry, but what is a Typo-typo?
Oh, simple. This one is the spelling typo, the quintessential typo everyone commits. The 'o' instead of the 'i', the 'e' instead of an 'r'... they're very very common in IM especially if you type sooper fast like me.

2) Ok...So?
So...your chat transcript would look like this:

Friend1: So how are you feeling these days? Recovering from that nasty allergy?
Me: No. I'm feeling very colon-pope these days
Friend1: (silent)
Me: Chs....I meant colon-pipe
(Silence....A few seconds later)
Me: Cha...I meant cha
(A moment later)
Friend1: Are you done? *straight face*

3) So how should I feel after committing a typo-typo?
Relax...its not like you've killed the US president (if you did, can we hire you?)
If I were you, I'd just ignore this typo and pretend like it never happened. No need to cover up with the 'cha', 'oops', '* 'n all.
Its a waste of time.

4) So what do I do, really?
Nothing, don't bother with anything. Your partner/friend/girlfriend/not-so-girlfriend/foe/boss(ouch) is going to figure out what you were trying to say anyway.
So chill.

5) Peace. Can we go ahead with the next typo then?
Yes we can.

II) Word-Typo (WT)
1) Word-typo va? What the hell is that?
This one is the most abominable of all typos.
Its when you type the wrong word instead of the one you were planning on typing. Its a very painful typo to endure..particularly when you're the one committing it. A few of these in your IM transcript, you can be instantly declared as the I'm-trying-to talk-Englees-but-its-blowing-up-royally-on-my-face king of the community.

2) Come on...how on earth would you type the wrong word while IM'ing?
Sometimes when you think really fast and your fingers try to compete with the speed of your thought process, you end up typing words that 'sound' like the ones that actually ought to be there. And as Murphy would have it (in some way or the other), the word you've put down will have absolutely no relation whatsoever with the one you intended on putting down.

3) Eh? Double Eh??
For instance you'd end up typing an 'after' instead of a 'have to' because these two happen to sound quite similar.

So instead of typing I 'have to' stop at Mylapore on my way there,
You'd end up typing I 'after' stop at Mylapore on my way there

Not very enjoyable I tell you.

3) Christ! Do people actually commit such typos? Do you ?
Do I?
God, that is all I do on IM these days.
I don't know how or why but of late my chat transcripts are full of WTs...is it probably because I'm thinking faster these days than usual?

See, this is one of the reasons why I'd rather not IM someone I wish to keep in good spirits. I prefer the telephone if I'm yet to impress you.

4) God! :O This sounds like a malicious typo. How does it feel?
If you instantly identify your WT, you'd sometimes not even feel like going back and correcting it for fear of answering the embarrassing question 'Huh...how on earth did you put that word there?'
However, its a totally different story if you don't identify the WT at all.
I'm at total shame when I think of the WTs I've committed and NOT identified till very recently..because of which I hesitate to go back and read some old enjoyable transcripts with some good friends.

This following instance is the most nefarious of the lot.
Note: The word 'you' is a WT instead of the word 'to'

KindFriend: We have these wonderful music sessions every weekend. You could join us if you want to :-)
Me: Oh wow...I'd love you
(few seconds pause)
KindFriend(terribly confused) : err..sure..whatever.

Not a pretty scene no?

5) Ouch, yes. I see what you mean, So what do I do to obviate such WTs? I'd like to keep my friends you know :P
Yes, yes, I understand perfectly... the only way out, is reading what you've typed and THEN pushing the Enter button.
I won't be doing that though. Too much of a waste of time. :P

6) Ok, and the last typo?

III) The Smiley-typo
1) Let me guess...its by putting the wrong smiley?
Well yes, you got it.
But its not too harmful or anything to your reputation. So you can just put the right smiley following the wrong one.

2) You *actually* make smiley-typos 'n all? Christ!
Its not my fault. *all defensive now*
Sometimes different IM clients use different character combinations for their smileys.
For instance, :-x is the angry smiley in Orkut.
While :-x is the 'falling in love smiley' in Yahoo!

3) *yawn*...so?
So, I wouldn't exactly be conveying what I wanted to in Yahoo! if I said:

Me: God, you're so infuriating I could throw my bookshelf on you
":-x"

4) Ah, I get the picture. So what do I do to not make a Smiley-typo?
Just remember which client your using. Simple.

5) Ok, thank you. That was indeed very enlightening. You're the best blogger in the world and I love you. Are you done?
Yes. I am done, thank you very much.
But sometimes its really worth committing a typo you know. Any typo.
Geek and I have laughed our guts out for hours looking at the typos we make.

Try it yourself.
The more preposterous the typo, the harder you laugh ~~and the harder you fall off your chair~~

Happy typ(o)ing.
Till then, its Confoundud-baby saying 'wood-dye' to all of 'yoi'. :-x
:D

...Oh, here comes another one (with that Rachel Green accent)

2008-04-22T12:22:00.009-07:00

Wolfkid and Preets had tagged me like a gazillion years ago.
I think I slept through all that time..and its just dawned on me that these tag posts seem to be so so 'in' these days...and that I'd better be 'it' before I'm 'out'.
You didnt get 'that' did you?
No probs, neither did I.

I am now konjum romba senti today as I've been listening to Pibarae rAma rasam in rAg Ahir Bhairavi the whole day. This song has it in it to make you all silent, reminiscent, mushy..and perhaps bit more 'blue' if you miss someone you really..well, miss.
Its really a must listen.
If you're (still) interested in listening to this song after the 'yellow' description I've given you, don't hesitate to dial toll free: I-WANT-TO-BE-BLUE(er)-AND-MISS-MY-GIRLFRIEND
Kidding, mail me..I'll send it to you with pleasure. (This should be interesting)

OK- you might want to give it a try even though you pretend you don't miss xg.

Enough awready. Tag. Yes.

1. Last movie you saw in a theater?
...Laga Chunari Mein Daag.
And I liked it. hmph.

2. What book are you reading?
The Mahabharatha by Rajaji. Started it at least 5 times within these 3 years.
I'm finishing it else I'm...well, I'm finishing it.

3. Favorite board game?
Scrabble. I used to make words up and try and win when I was a kid. No its not cheating *straight face*
'Zittle' was the adjective used for small/baby animals according to Yours Pretentiously when she was 7 years old :P

4. Favorite magazine?
India Today.

5. Favorite smells?
SambarANi on washed hair :)

6. Favorite sounds?
My mom yelling my name :D

7. Worst feeling in the world?
Regret having said something..or even worse, having not said something to someone.

8. What is the first thing you think of when you wake up?
Christ..have I overslept.

9. Favorite fast food place?
TCS Chaat counter, Velacheri Madras. But not without the gang. *sigh!*

10. Future child’s name?
I am so not telling you. Don't want anyone to steal my lil Emma :D

11. Finish this statement. “If I had lot of money I’d….?"
I'd spend it all on charity and World Peace.
Crown please?

12. Do you drive fast?
Depends on what fast is for you. No, really.

13. Do you sleep with a stuffed animal?
Nope. Simple.

14. Storms - cool or scary?
Sexy

15. What was your first car?
Car a? Naana? Yeah right.

16. Favorite drink?
Orange Juice

17. Finish this statement, “If I had the time I would….”?
..become a doctor.
Confounded, yeah yeah,

18. Do you eat the stems on broccoli?
I don't eat broccoli.

19. If you could dye your hair any color, what would be your choice?
I'm fine with the way it is thank you very much.

20. Name all the different cities/towns you’ve lived in?
Madras and Bahrain.

21. Favorite sports to watch?
I cannot watch cricket even if it were the last thing to be screened before the end of the world. I'm fine with anything else.

22. One nice thing about the person who sent this to you?
Preets-I've known her ever since I was old enough to say Peepee and Dolly. She's family. I love family.
Wolfkid- Hey, thambee. You're okay kid :)

23. What’s under your bed?
A lot of ..space..? :-/

24. Would you like to be born as yourself again?
Tosh! I'm not being born again in this pot-hole....I'm getting moksha. Oh yeah!

25. Morning person, or night owl?
Depends :D

26. Over easy, or sunny side up?
What was that again please...?

27. Favorite place to relax?
Home and 'Home' :D

28. Favorite pie?
Apple from McDonalds.

29. Favorite ice cream flavor?
Pista.

30. Of all the people you tagged this to, who’s most likely to respond:
I think I'm the last one to do this tag in my circuit. That should answer your koshchin.

I dedicate the space occupied by this post along with all the mirth I was most likely to have experienced doing this, to the taggers. BEE happy, always.
And the rest of you non-taggers....well, you BEE happy too, with a lot of yellow and orange (and a bit of black too) in your lives.

Till then, let the all pervading confoundedness lead your way from darkness to light.
Om Shanthi Shanthi Shanthi:

CL

2008-04-16T02:35:00.010-07:00

Ok, lets see..

1. Got up quite early this morning -before my dad actually (which is inhumanly early) and almost killed him with the heart-attack he got, on seeing me roam about the house in the wee hours of the morning.
*2 Aapee points (I think)

2.Told amma I'll take care of 'all' the cooking 'today' while she can rest for the whole day.
She wasn't particularly amused.
See thats why Ekadasis are extra special.
*1 Aapee point (*smug look*)

3. Banged my toe against the same door I banged it against the day before.
"Ooooowwwwch" doesn't seem to be strong enough a word.
*2 Not-so-Aapee points

4. Made call to India and spoke to friend for 30 minutes. Me the happy. >:D<
*2 Aapee points

5. Realised that I do have some matter to blog on after all, but am too lazy to blog.
Shame shame Confounded-Dame.
*3 Not-so-Aapee points

6. Learnt a new song in rAgam ShadvidamArgini. She has such a beautiful scale..and *such* a beautiful name.
Me the sooper happy.
*3 Aapee points

7. Almost deleted mail from Mr.Fiance thinking it was spam :O
Note to self: Must get used to important mails in mailbox for a change
*5 Not-so-Aapee points

So that leaves me with.... Net 2 Not-so-Aapee points today :O

*colon-pipe*

Think I should blog more often and not bang my toe against the door over two days consecutively.
Or..perhaps make more ISD calls to buds in India and petrify my dad more frequently in the mornings? :-/

I don't know. You do the math.
I'll do the honours.

:D

That post without a Title

2008-04-07T11:46:00.016-07:00

Confounded-lady is back!!
Thunder, lightening, creepy-music and 'bwahahahaha'.

(That was evil-laughter just in case you bothered to read that)

Not that anyone missed me (if you did, for the record, I love you), but contrary to the normal alibis I see these days for not being able to blog; say for instance, lack of time (which is not even remotely my problem these days. grr), not getting the right flow of thought (whatever thats supposed to mean) and the like, I actually did have plenty of intellectually stimulating topics I wanted enlighten my readers on but was in a dilemma as to which one to discuss. No, really..

*straight face*

Ok, I hear you. You can stop laughing now lest you fall of your chair. I'm already being accused of trying to impair every one's vision with the bright shades of my blog. I don't wish to do you any (more) harm.
So enough already.

I thus commence .
I've been tagged by fellow bloggers Busy-writer and Preets.
According to OK's Law of Crapping, Engineers cut to the chace without much useless banter. Under normal circumstances this would be konjum kashtam given the very purpose of this blog, but I seriously do wish to abide by this rule considering that this may tragically be the only testimony to me having endured 4 educative years of Engineering.
The question for us engineers is after all, to BE or not to BE, no?

No??

hmph. I'll just shut-up and get along with the Tag then. :P

Some 10 random points about me which no one knows. I doubt if there are that many actually, so I'll do 6. Peace.

1. :-)
I'd like to think that my obsession over smileys is unparalleled. I very rarely type stuff on the Internet without a smiley at the end. Smileys make me happy. Well, so does chocolate but you don't care do you.
Yahoo! is a beautiful experience altogether. I'm forever in love with Colon-dee, the way it blinks its eyes. :D :P >:D< ;;) these are my favourite smileys, in the same order.

2. My Impeccable Memory
My memory can be bench-marked with Gajini (of Gajjini fame) and you'll find that I indeed am endowed with depressingly pathetic memory skills. I forget names. I forget birthdays. I forget rAgas. I sometimes forget what I was going to enter next while chatting (someone might know what I mean :D )
I personally think its because I think a lot, rapidly. My thought process is very fast and I end up thinking a trillion things within a short span, so there is perhaps just too many to recollect.
Every cloud has a silver lining.
Is there anything healthy about a bad memory?

3. Growing up and being paranoid
I just refuse to accept that I'm growing up. I find it terribly agonizing you know. I'd like to stay young forever, 22 would be ideal. These days I find a lot of people calling me akka. Kids in the tempe call me aunty. grr_max. Everyone grows ~~old~~ up, I know.. but I still yearn for for Neverland. :

4. I was called Swetha once upon a time.
Actually, I was called 'sweater' in school. Not that I minded much.
Mommy-dearest gets a brainwave one fine morning in 1990 and decides that I should be called 'Jennifer Lopez' from then on (name changed to protect identity). The rest like they say, is mystery.

5. I leave the house with the I-don't-give-a-damn look.
It really pains my mother so to say. And offlate my 15 year old fashion-queen cousin who happens to live in the same building as me. Divya (name NOT changed to protect identity) was visibly appalled by the orange butterfly clip I wore to her party at Caesar's'. Poor thing. I don't blame her though. I too sometimes think that orange and black just don't go together. :P

6. I am that Bulb-Goddess you always feared .
I don't think this will be a major surprise to people who know me well. I just don't get things instantly-whether they're jokes, witty comments whatever. Even a fast conversation leaves me twiddling my thumb.
Once when I was on a bulbing-high, someone asked if I was feighning my confused state. :P
I said yes and changed the topic. That still cracks me up. :P
I am konjum slow and trust me, I'm not at all proud of it. :

7. I am skeptical of the Internet. Period.
When it comes to making friends or developing a good relationship, I am wary of the Internet. I think the Internet is the most precarious medium and cannot/should not be banked upon. There have been quite a few exceptions off late, but I think they are too good to be true.
The probability of a misunderstanding or baseless assumption is maximum on communication over the Internet. I will perhaps blog more on this. Or maybe, I won't.

There. I could rattle my head and come up with a few more..but I have a feeling I might have lost you somewhere in point#4 itself. So this should very well do for now.

Hope I'd done you girls proud. This space is dedicated to you .
I tag anyone who's facing a writer's block currently.

Take care, and say hi to your mom for me :D

Yours confoun'deadly',
Me.

2008-03-30T22:17:00.010-07:00

Geographic coordinates: 26 00 N, 50 33 E

Location: Middle East, archipelago in the Persian Gulf, east of Saudi Arabia

Climate: arid; mild, pleasant winters; very hot, humid summers

This place used to be Home for me. It still is..in some sense.

Ah, it feels great to be back Home. It certainly does.

Yet...I have a feeling that I still miss 'Home'.

I miss 'Home'.

Do you like...get me?

..And then there were None.

2008-03-14T11:39:00.021-07:00

Author's Note:
This post is long. Quite long. But please don't stop reading in the middle .
And oh yes, any resemblance to real life characters is merely purely PURELY coincidental. Really.

*****************************************

She wasn't late for work. She never was.

But that never stopped her from speeding down Kasthoori Ranga road which was her favourite road in Madras solely because of the speed at which she could drive her Blue-Scooty. The luscious greenery on both sides, the conspicuous absence of gargantuan lorries and the tireless stretch of smooth cement for as far as the eye can see, was more than just an enticing reason to adopt that route to work. Driving and speeding had never been this peaceful before.

She knew the route to work like the back of her hand. Well everybody who took the same route to work did, but she'd known the nature and the soul of that area so well that she subconsciously knew all the spots at which she had to slow down or speed. And it worked each 'n everytime, everyday. She was the master of that route, she knew.

Her mind was the busiest during this time. She would hum a different tune every 30 seconds, try an aalaap for an exotic rAga for the next 120 seconds, think of a friend she'd recently gotten to know and like, reminisce over good times with old friends, try memorizing a DIshitr krithi, wonder what her dad would be doing at this time at home- such a multifaceted array of thoughts, however, never once concentrating on the road and its traffic.
She prided herself for that, for being able to maneuver her vehicle down even the toughest roads of Madras, with such admirable ease and agilance.
That too inspite of her her rash driving.

'Touch wood' is what she'd smile and say when people gasped at her abominable speed on the roads, and she'd immediately lift her right hand and touch her head.

Today was no different. The rAga on her lips today, was vArAmu. Such an enchanting rAgA would have customarily made her close her eyes and surrender but she was after all, driving. She sang, neverthelss, as loud as possible, knowing that at 07:30 AM there would be no one on the roads to turn around and give her the 'huh-what-the..' look.

Half way through Kasthoori Ranga road now, there was still a long way to go. She brought herself to see the road in front of her and register . But for a sinfully beautiful Black Skoda far in front of her Blue Scooty, it was just her vehicle on the road. Just as always.
Lovely.

But all of a sudden the Black Skoda in front of her, came to a halt. A sudden stop.

Ok, this was too sudden. Too unexpected.
Why did the car stop?? Why did it friggin stop??
There wasn't any signal in front..not for miles, and there wasn't any vehicle in front of it either... and what were the chances of an old blind-deaf-dumb lady crossing a usually-desolated road at 7:30 AM in the morning??? Zilch??

Crap..She now had to stop her Scooty. And fast. And how!
Thoughts rushed through her mind as she quickly scrambled for the brakes.

As she was fast approaching it, she had a look at the Car. It was far too shiny and far too beautiful be crashed against. She tried to maneuver her vehicle to the right without skidding and managed to pull the brakes in time, probably saving her from being thrown head over the Skoda-however not without a significant crash at the Car's posterior and a terrible fall.

The next few minutes were a dream. She lay there on the road, with the Blue-Scooty on top of her. Motionless....

(To be continued..)

...And then there were None- II

2008-03-14T10:00:00.005-07:00

(...contd.)

Startled by the sudden jolt at the back, 3 men came out of their Car.

She waited for help as she lay sprawled on the ground with the Scooty's weight on top of her, but the 3 men just stood still. She knew better than to ask for help, so she pulled out her left arm from somewhere underneath and pushed the Scooty's weight off her body and got up on her own.
She felt thorroughly numb.

The three men stood majectically staring at her. She took a look at the men with the very little strength she had. One of them was in his early thirties -perhaps a newly wed? Like she cared anyway. The second one was not more than 22. Smart. He looked like one of those college studs who'd bunk class to get his hair bleached or his butt tattooed.
The third fella was the Car's driver clad in white. One happy family. How nice, she thought sarcastically.
"Well?" said the mid-thirties gentleman. " Now that you're up and running, lets see what you've done to my car".

She suddenly felt dizzy.

She was now visibly petrified, as she watched the man move to the back of the car..fervently hunting for a dent or a scratch, while the other Young-Lad stood there staring at her- from head to toe. She immediately felt a wave of nausea run through her. She'd have normally stared back at him with her award-winning mean eyes, but she was far too much in a state of shock now.
She just stood still, waiting for someone or something to rescue her.

There was nothing there, at the back of the car. Nothing. No scar. Not even a mark. No wonder these cars were bloody expensive, she thought. Despite having a Two-wheeler crash against it, there was absolutely sign of damage on that automobile. Neat, she thought. She thanked her stars silently and felt like crying immediately.

The man lifted is head and spoke.

"I think you've escaped this time. You're a lucky girl", he said nonchalantly. "For the money I've paid, this Car is starting to make me feel good afterall".
He laughed out loud at his own joke.

She stood still. Speechless. She still couldn't imagine how 3 fully grown men could be so callous and indifferent towards a lady who's just survived a fatal fall. That too when the Car had got away scot-free. She suddenly wished that the Car has been smashed to smithereens. But this itself was getting her into hot water. Boiling hot water that too.

Just when she was starting to feel relieved she heard a second voice.
"Wait, not so fast "
It was the College-guy this time. "Let me have a proper look, Kiran. I'm sure there's a dent-somewhere. We heard the crash na? " and he went about his turn, hunting fervently for signs of damage.

She gazed at the all pervading apathy the prevailed there. Signs of petrification vanished. She was now starting to feel the indignation brewing inside her. But she stood still and said nothing.

"Ah, there..see? I told you, Kiran. There's a scratch. Here" said College-Boy pointing at something that couldn't even be seen by the naked-eye.

Kiran came running down to see the scratch he'd failed to see earlier. Both of them took their time analysing a frailfully grey mark that looked like a strand from granny's head.
The driver meanwhile, came up to her and asked her if she was alright and got her Scooty up from the ground. She thanked him with a half-wide smile.

"But that scratch was there from before no, Nikhil?" said Kiran, sounding a bit confused.
" No no no....now only. This female has crashed against your Car and caused this scratch. Ok, so how do we settle this now?"
It was clearly evident. Nikhil was pure evil.

"Nikhil, I don't think we should complicate things. Police, insurance... no yaar. Its just a scratch yaar. Leave it"
That was Kiran. God bless the very Devil, she thought.

"Arrey...what are you saying? You payed 13 lakhs to get your Car damaged by some crazy female? Well, I'm not gonna let you"

This was the last straw. And she now spoke.

" Excuse me Mister", she said politely. She instantly regretted addressing the vagabond as 'Mister'. Probably nitwit would have sufficed.
"There is 'absolutely' no damage on your Car from this accident, except for the scars all over my body. Your Car is just the way is was before my Scooty crashed against it. There. Your brother Kiran said so himself. Have a proper look again if you want. Your Car is fine. Really."

Kiran stood silent.

" Shut up female. I wasn't even f***ing talking to you", snorted Nikhil.

Ok, this was too much. If there was one thing she couldn't stand, it was foul language. That too thrown at her. She now began to scream like a mad woman.

" Mister, mind your language. Don't you DARE use that tone with me. Do you understand? Don't you DARE!"
She was now yelling at the top of her voice. And trembling.

"Oh yeah? Well, I WILL. What will you f***ing do about it?" Nikhil had a cynnical smile on his face. Yes, he was the Devil himself.

She looked at the Kiran and the driver with sheer disgust. They were both very clearly ashamed of the young-lad's behaviour. But both stood motionless. Cowards. She stood there for a while. And then spoke.

" I'll tell you what I'll do about it" she said, suddenly.

And saying thus, she swiftly walked towards her Scooty, kick-started it, and within a 6 seconds time-span , off she sped, away in the direction of Kasthoori Ranga Road leading to Cathedral Main Road, leaving the 3 mean gaping from behind.

She sped like crazy for the next 10 minutes, with a smile on her face. She was right.
There was absolutely NOTHING they could do about it.

2008-03-12T10:45:00.012-07:00

That post did help a lot.
More than I expected.

Thanks for answering my calls guys.

:D

Talk to me no?

2008-03-03T10:50:00.010-07:00

Rite, so whats up?
Nothing??

I'll tell you whats up. Off late, a lot of my friends from the Not-so-Fairer sex (pun intended like never before) have mysteriously disappeared and stopped talking to me. See, this is unfair. I'm just engaged you know. Not like I've been accused of murder or am down with small-pox or something. I can talk. Yes, to you. Very much.
So talk to me no?

Guys suddenly get this thing with committed ladies, I notice. They think they're infringing upon public property if they're still talking to an engaged/married girl. Sad na? Tsk-tsk.
Yes, I know, its every Reggie Mantle 's worst nightmare to get beaten up by Moose when all he's doing is having a friendly banter with Midge.... but seriously, Moose isn't so Moosey you know. So , whats with the disappearing act?
Talk to me no?

My girlfriends. I shouldn't go ahead with this post without their mention.
They have been extra sweet 'n all with me by still generously calling me up time and again to ask me if I'm making the whole thing up just to attract attention. See, that's what best friends are for. What would I do without you gurls? :P
There's another set of girlfriends that's not been talking to me off late as they feel that they'd be 'wasting my time' -as they put it- at this point.
"Huh" you say? Yeah, I say that too.
How would my gurlfriends be wasting my.... (sniff).. Oh crap, You've got me all teary now.
Screw you. I'm going shopping now. :P
But seriously, talk to me no?

See, if you'd just talk to me, I'd talk to you, and I could tell you how ~~boring~~ interesting my life is and you can tell me how interesting yours is. Exciting no? Just imagine all the fun we're depriving ourselves just because you're not talking to me.
Talk to me no?

Listen, I'm not as desperate as I sound.

No, really.

Ok, maybe a bit.

Actually a bit more...

Wait..can you repeat the question ?

Shady, Very Shady

2008-02-21T11:49:00.007-07:00

Ok..so how different is my life now anyway?
Not very, really.
Except for the 'Neeya??!!? Kalyanam aa?? Bwahahahahaha ' reaction I seem to be receiving from my friends time and again (@friends :P), everything is peach normal.

Lets see now. Recent excitement contributed by mad mad shop-hopping which has made me all the more gleeful and happy. Nothing like seeing money float in the air (a bit creepy when its your money though). But you know, I never thought that shopping could leave me so pooped at the end of the day that I was too tired to even life my feet off the ground….To lie down of course (what were you thinking?)

A few interesting lessons shopping with family has taught me.

1. Enlightenment #1.
Sarees look gorgeous in shops. Gorgeous with a capital Gee. They're meant to.
But it's a different thing 'looking' gorgeous in them. When you're 153 centimetres ~~short~~ tall, a saree around you sometimes looks like a quilt wrapped around a pencil, or an eraser for that matter. Sad I know. But my family members are always supportive and diplomatic. And I go ahead with buying the most gorgeous ones in the shop anyway without the slightest bit of remorse.

2. Enlightenment #2.
My addiction to pink is a potential embarrassment to family. Being lured towards all the pinks in the saree section, ok understandable. But constantly groping the pink shirts in the men's section??
You think I have a problem??
Yeah, join the club. I need help. And how!
Ideas perhaps, anyone?

3. Enlightenment #3
Must confront conflicting choices regarding breathtaking colours in saree shop.
Not a wise move to ask person-at-saree-section 'Inda saree nannarikuma, ilati iduva?'
(Translate: This one will look nice..or this one?)
He will say, 'Rendumae edthukonga, wonga colour-ku wo-ho-nnum irikum'
(Translate: Take both ma, they both suit your complextion'
Yeah right, like we're gonna fall for that one. Ha! *conceited smirk*
I'm sure we can choose between Jyothika-Pinks and MS (MSubhalakshmi)- Blues on our own thank you very much.

Right, so where does all this leave me now?
Well, I'm still tired. And hungry. And yes, a bit tired too (wait did I mention that already?)
Ok, before you think I'm drunk too, I'm gonna make a dignified exit, lift my legs with both my hands, lie down on bed and crash.

I do, after all, deserve tonight's sleep don't I?

:D

Yours shopping-ly,

Confounded-Lady

Foot-note: Oh btw, we ended up taking both the above mentioned colours at the end of the day. Yes, these shop-keepers are a nasty influence on us gullible juntha. But what to do? Both colours were stunning. So much for complexion, flattery and all that jazz.

:D

2008-02-15T09:53:00.002-07:00

Looks like I won't be needing that cat after all.

2008-02-09T21:24:00.000-07:00

I hear Valentine's Day is round the corner.

Think I should buy myself a cat.

(Sigh)

The Girl and her Make-over

2008-02-05T09:01:00.000-07:00

There was once a girl I knew
Whose need for a make-over wantonly grew,
Till one day she thought,
A parlour, why not?
A few hundreds would help her look anew.

So off she skipped to the place,
On fixing an appointment just in case.
It felt rather strange,
That she needed a change
From the old look she strived to erase.

Slowly as the hours passed,
She waited anxiously to compare and contrast.
But to her utmost dismay,
The makeover they'd conveyed,
Seemed to be horribly-terribly miscast.

Despite all the flattery there,
She said to them fare and square.
That the work they'd done,
Looked like a prank for fun!
And that it would invite nothing but an embarassing glare.

Having said, she went back home,
Feeling so forlorn, enraged and glum.
Because the makeover she tried to see
Was just not meant to be,
But, she still wasn't rid of the syndrome.

A sudden idea by which she was inspired,
Gave her that makeover for which she'd perspired.
She spent all the time she could get,
After logging into the Internet,
To achieve what she really desired.

The Blog she'd treasured for long,
Looked like it could do with a new song.
So she removed all the green,
Threw in some yellow, black and some *bees,
After which her blog just seemed to look strong.

This was the Makeover she wanted all along!
And all of a sudden, nothing seemed so wrong.

So, here's to my make-over. The makeover of some sort.

So long! :)

*Bees doesn't rhyme with green the way Limericks would customarily be structured...but what the heck, sue me.

To the Unsung, with Love

2008-01-28T06:37:00.000-07:00

* Please see End-of-Post for Disclaimer

Its the moral duty of every Indian in this country to ~~suddenly~~ have an overwhelming sense of patriotism and pride when Independence Day or Republic Day is round the corner. Wouldn't you agree ? Can't really blame him though. After all, it isn't Independence Day everyday,is it?

I, just like the rest of the faithful population of this country, have never failed to feel specially patriotic on these two days. Suddenly thinking of our country's reach heritage, discussing topics of national importance in the living room while parents glare incredulously, watching Mera-BhArat-mahAn- movies on the telly and clapping at the end-scene, sporting the tri-colour flag on self (and fervently searching for it the very evening) ......yep, thats (y)our typical day of national pride.
Typical for me, till Republic Day this year.

This 26th, it dawned on me that patriotism in our country was just a farce. It was merely another reason to celebrate, to commemorate, to felicitate. At the end of the day, National-Day for the mass juntha and mass media was just celebration of the popular, commemoration of the powerful and felicitation of the glamorous.

National Awards, Felicitations, Indian-of-the-Year titles...all of them. I'm not condemning them(like someone would care a hoot if I did). Its just the spirit with which they're conducted, the people, the frivolity, the unserisouness.

A few points that really disturbed me the more I thought about them.

1. The Indian-of-the-Year Award given away by a popular-news-channel sounded like a major deal to me. You were after all, the 'Indian-of-the-year' if you were awarded this big chunk of metal and you probably did deserve it if you were chosen amongst thousands of people who have put the nation ahead of their personal lives and contributed to this country's well-being unconditionally. You were our example and we, the youth would look up to you.

But no. It wasn't about all that. Its never about all that.

What I don't understand is why every important political/national function in our country is made to look like a Cultural (read Filmfare) festival. Tell me, amidst dignitaries like Manmohan Singh and Dr. A P J Abdul Khalam (whom I think is God's gift to a country that doesn't appreciate a blessing when it sees one) , do we really need a Shilpa Shetty, a mother of Shilpa Shetty and a Karan Johar in the same hall ? When there are men/gods like Ratan Tata whose keep a promise of delivering the 1 lakh-rupee car only because a promise is a promise, do we need a Shah Rukh Khan or a Rajnikanth to bag an Indian-of-the-year award for some insignificant category?

Why is everything in our country about movies? Cant we honour our country and its men even once without the presence of the movie folks? Do they always have to be the star of the show? Cant we do without frivolity at least once?

Tragic.

2. Captain Harshan like the rest of our brave soldiers receives the Param Vir Chakra award this year. After he'd dead.

Call me dumb, but what was the point again? Who are we honouring by the way? Dead people? Dead soldiers? While actors and actresses get Padma-Shrees one after the other by singing tra-la-la, louder with each time, the country hesitates so much in honouring our soldiers while they live. Am I the only one failing to see some sense in this? If soldiers are appreciated for their heroism and bravery after they die, I'm sure the same rule can hold good for the rest of our country's population whom they guard and protect till their very last breadth. Lets all get awards after we die. Sounds like fun na?

Tragic. Very.

Right. I really don't think I have the right to say anything more considering that I'm a part of the majority of this nation that just criticizes but doesn't do anything about it. Criticize I shall 'cos I do have a point ~~and this is my blog~~ but I don't disagree that I'm culpable in some way or the other. Sometimes you have the urge to to something for the country, and that burning desire dies down without a trace the next second you confront your daily-problems.

But I'm sure all of us do ask ourselves the same question sometimes if not all the time. What can we really do for this nation?

What, pray, what?

************************************************************************************
*DISCLAIMER: The contents of this blog are purely my personal views. I don't impose my thoughts on anyone. Please don't scold me. :D

Janma sAbalyam

2008-01-27T04:15:00.000-07:00

26.01.2008

Befuddled and Not-so-Bemused.

2008-01-22T06:52:00.000-07:00

Excepting for senti-dialogues thrown at me unexpectedly and my mom's impeccable timing for an argument, there are a very few things in this planet that leave me flustered or make me succumb to inarticulate-fumblings during a conversation.

However, much to my dismay, I've recently come to realise that Yours Loquaciously isn't invincible after all (sob!) and is astonishingly incapable of handling certain critical questions posed at her wherein which she is forced to go parch on words.

Questions that leave me frightfully befuddled:

1. "Whats up? "

The worst one of them all. This one leaves me super-stumped without fail.
Try as I might, I just cannot think of a suitable reply for this question. Period.

All of its amusing varieties- the rhetoric version of 'whats up' or the cool-slurry 'ssup girlie', leave me equally tongue tied, wondering whether to give my cliched 'Oh..err..nothing really' reply or just a sheepish grin. Or do I really tell them whats up? Do they really want to know?
I don't know.
I really don't know.
*****************************************

2. "So...what else? "

Kitchens run out of butter, houses run out of soap (pardon my ingenious exmaples that scream pathetic all over). If a conversation runs out of topics to sustain its existence, its only decent to bail out.
'So..what else?' is NOT the ideal way to protract this conversation. Not with me.
This one SO puts me off that I just want to flee at that very instant, let alone rattle my head for a witty comeback.

*****************************************

3. "What plans for future?"

Invasion of Cambodia. Thats my future plan. Interested any further?

*****************************************
4. " So, (sly grin) when are you getting married?"

Now really, does it honestly matter to you when I'm getting married? Actually, do you really think I wouldn't let you know if and when I knew?

I mean, for the eternal loud-mouth I am, I'd probably be screaming at the top of my lungs from roof tops once I was getting hitched. Trust me, I'm no Saif Ali Khan on this one. So, why don't we just save me from becoming all squeamish when we're were doing just fine so far?

***************************************************

There!
Except for the above mentioned, I really am delightful company if I do say so myself and you may very well invite me for high-tea whenever you want, and I shall gladly do the honours of indulging in professional small-talk. Not to mention, the weather and everybody's health. (Courtesy: Henry Higgins)

I really do have problems, don't I?

Its a CAT's Life

2008-01-08T10:58:00.000-07:00

Tell me you didn't know that the CAT results are out and I will look at you like you were the scum of the Earth. Not that I care a tad about CAT results (never cared for 'em even when I wrote them but wait, I didn't have to tell you that did I? ) ...its just that its 'implications' are so remarkably relevant.

You see, Oh-Patient-Reader-of-Blog, its a highly title based society we live in.
This ideal society is so full of camouflaged pretence that would even make British High Society look humble.
No really, I'm not being cynical about this, really, I've observed with due course of time, what examination-results do in this painstakingly pretentious society of ours.

One admit into the 'reputed institutes' and your image in society undergoes a total makeover. So, all of a sudden that weird freak you'd never noticed in college or that reserved teammate at work who'd never turn up for social gatherings, is now our long-lost hero, that close friend we never 'had the opportunity' to talk to but now desperately crave to socialise with.

hmm...am I making sense? Or is it just my head?
Never mind, lets just not answer that thank you very much.

You know, there was a time when I thought of doing a decent MBA, you know, accomplish something in life, make daddy proud of his li'l girl 'n all that jazz. Of course, that thought dissipated into thin air before I could even say Eye-Eye-Yum-Ay.

So now what am I doing ?
Well what do all Once-Upon-A-Time-CAT-Aspirants do best?
Tell our comrades to work hard the next time. Give CAT gyaan over GTALK and be their source of motivation. Tell them that if they can't do it, no one can and that you need to see that IIM glory you never saw, through them.
So, you see, when they actually do go somewhere and you...well..don't, you can at least tap their shoulders and say 'See, I told you. Now where's my candy?'

After all, like I always say, ' If you cant beat them... kick 'em.'

Here endeth thy lesson. Now, let the games begin.

PS: I'm just kidding Sahil/Bhaumik. I really do hope that you guys get into that insti in Ahemadabad.

:D

Come and Gone...Just like that...

2007-12-31T00:08:00.000-07:00

Dear Diary,

I'd promised to fill your pages up religiously as a part of last year's resolution, but since even the most serious of resolutions blew up royally on my face, I don't think I even owe you an explanation for this one. Nevertheless, I'm coming back to do the honours for the grand finale this year and today being the last day of the last month n all I'm certainly not giving you any promises on any regular entries for 08.
've been there. Done that.

I thought that my journey down friendship-lane would be over once I was out of college and that I'd have to confront things far more serious and significant than friends and frolic. But '07 proved to be just the opposite. It introduced to the craziest set of ppl at work and outside of it who made work worthwhile. For some reason I never thought I'd even smile after college, but I eventually ended up laughing my guts out everyday at work because of these people. I'm grateful, for Satsang.

I joined my first company and I quit it too. A lot to handle in one year huh?
'07 taught me that it was ok to accept defeat and ask for help shamelessly. Work does do things to your self-esteem especially when you're in the learning stage, but I learnt that it was ok to give in and ask for help. Especially when we accidentally screw up the Client's Mainframes.
For the far more interesting (and equally humiliating:P) details, contact Ravi.
I have grown a lot and I'm grateful. For maturity.

I realised that I was passionate about something so much, so badly that I was willing to quit the job I started to like. '07 taught me that life's not about taking the right decisions; its about being confident whatever your decision may be. I just hope '08 will help reinforce that point into my system. Its an inspiring thought but its a tough one to percolate. I'm grateful nevertheless. For hope and ambition.

My preconceived notions on Madras being the be-all and end all place was shattered when I went to Bombay and realised that there were after all, other places I had to see...had to visit and had to experience. I was wrong about Madras being the best place in the world. But I still want to live and die here for this is my home. Period. I'm grateful, for home.

I discovered a part of me that could write. I wont claim that I write sense... but yes, I do write. It really isnt much, but for the numerous blogs and fabulous bloggers it has introduced me to, I'm grateful.

I've always had more reasons than I should to NOT keep in touch with some friends I'd met over the year. I suck at keeping in touch with my loved ones, unfortunately. The lazy bum I am, I'm surprised people still talk to me these days without any resentment. But '07 introduced me to people who don't necessarily expect a call to call you back and talk to you. Its been a year and we're surprisingly still going strong - despite being scattered ALL over the country and despite my crappy disposition. I just hope they don't give up on me one fine day.
For them, I'm grateful.

Its a long post. For those of you who are still reading, I'm all the more grateful. :D

I'm just thinking now.. '07 was nothing, absolutely nothing I'd expected it to be and I just hope '08 is a far more splendrous one. I know it will be.

I wish all my readers a fabulous year ahead. This blog is nothing without them all (the very limited readers this blog entices but still :D). I wish them nothing less than the best....along with World-Peace and Social-Harmony of course.......*controlling tears of joy*
(Can I have that diamond-studded crown now please?)

:D

Listening to this for the zillionth time and feeling optimistic all over. Songs, I tell you. :P

Happy New Year folks!

Confounded-Lady

Shameless use of Blogging space..

2007-12-26T08:05:00.000-07:00

..I know...

Nevertheless, I had to post this to share the mirth.

I died laughing till the sides of my mouth hurt...

An Arranged Wa(ge)r..?

2007-12-19T22:44:00.000-07:00

Coming from the family I come from, I grew up all this time without any disillusions of my marriage. I knew that mine would be the quintessential arranged marriage where my choice would predominantly be limited to the colour of my muhoortham-Saree's and designs on the front cover of my invitation card, and I've had absolutely no reservations whatsoever. My parents trust(ed) me for that, and I did too, more than them.

Of late however, I'm beginning to find the very institution of arranged marriages rather questionable. Despite growing up with the sense of security that parents do only whats 'best', I've suddenly started to wonder if thats just a chancy promise they 'hope' to live up to. After all, there are myriad things that are just not under their control.

Tell me, of all the dubious assumptions one makes during the entire process of an arranged marriage, can one afford to 'assume' the temprement or the sanity of the boy/girl? How can one afford to take that for granted?

There was this friend's friend of mine whom I knew...knew as in just plain acquaintances- as she was this major diva in our common circles, very popular, daring and talented while I was..well, lets just say that I was not your typical Hanna Montanah;)
She passed out of a ranking university and got into a top notch company. Last I heard is that she gets beaten up like crazy by her husband for no reason at all. Her's was an arranged marriage.

Case of assumed-stable temperments eh?

Its one thing to fall in love, get married, and then regret it. But its a totally different thing to marry the person your folks tell you to, and then regret it and feel trapped for the rest of your life. The thing is, you cant really blame yourself here, unlike the former case, or blame your parents as that would be truly unfair... So what do you blame? Who do you blame? What is the solution to incompatibility? Compromise?

Let me tell you, I'm not playing sides here with the trite love-marriage-aa-arranged-marriage-aa discussion. I'm beyond all that. Its just that for a person who'd had unadulterated faith in the system of arranged marriages, I'm rather disappointed that I have to start reconsidering its credibility.

Also, I've been thinking, did Adi Shankara really know what he was talking about when he quoted :

निजगृहात्तूर्णं विनिर्गम्यताम्

(Walk out of your home soon )

You know what? I'm thinking too much... God, where's that can of Ice-cream?

2007-12-15T23:35:00.000-07:00

Beautiful

Something I'll remember when I get into those major 'cribbing' syndromes.

ZtheZ - Zapping the Zit

2007-12-13T10:10:00.000-07:00

Zit-zit go away,

Come again another day...
...Confounded Lady wants to play,
So scoot from the top of my forehead you mean thingamabop.

Ok, that didn't quite rhyme, so lets try this one more time shall we.

Zit-zit go away
Dont come again another day
This isnt the place for you to stay,
SO just quit my forehead, okay..?

There is something about female hormones that makes them do unkind things to us dainty creatures especially when least anticipate them. I'm sure I'd have the entire female fraternity agreeing with me when I say that the cruelest curse bestowed upon women (after the monthly bleeding we endure of course) is the 'Curse of the Zit'

To the particularly naive or inexperienced (read horribly-lucky souls), the 'zit' is a bright-pink ugly blob that sprouts up out of nowhere one fine day, on the most strategic spot of your face.
Be it on top of your nose which makes you look like Rudolph with measles or on your left cheek which over shadows that cute dimple, the zit can more than just ruin your face, it can very well ruin your day. Red, after all, looks great on women, but certainly not on their faces.

Its more than just that for me.
This coldblooded contrivance is so craftily schemed by my body in such a way that my hormones run their wildest especially when I'm all pepped up for an incredibly important occasion where I'd be expected to look my very best. I've noticed the pattern all these years now.... be it my class photo in class XII, my college farewel, my cousin's engagement, my best friend's wedding, or the most-recent-testimony-to-theory my cousin's Grihapravesham, there is one common factor in all these special occasions in my life - The Zit on my face.

Having my skin crystal clear throughout the month and having a spherical blob the size of Bulgaria pop up exactly 20 hours before a public event, is nothing I'm unaccustomed to. But this time for my cousin's Grihapravesham, I refused to give in. I was determined NOT be seen with that bright red blob in all the pics that were to be taken.
So what did Yours Truly end up doing?
Zap it. Thats right.
Zap the Zit.

Let me just tell you that its a world acknowledged fact to leave your zits untouched tell they disappear on their own..and 'Zapping the zit' (ZtheZ) is not exactly wisest thing to do to yourself.
I'm not gonna go into all the messy details of what I went through after that painful ordeal of ZtheZ.
I'll let the scar it left on my face do the talking.

(sob!)

So dark the con of woman I say.
So dark the con of woman.

December. Madras. Mylapore.

2007-12-06T11:41:00.000-07:00

Music is in the air.
Everywhere...

The Middle-Name Tag or What's my Middle-name Ma?

2007-11-29T09:44:00.000-07:00

I'm beginning to like these tags; not because they call for a lot of introspection, retrospection or maybe even fill up the otherwise-empty space in my blog.
No wait, those actually are the reasons. :D
Face it, they're fun. Especially when these topics are as absurd as the one I'm doing right now thanks to fellow-blogger Lavs. Check her blog out, she'll make you laugh to splits. :D

The rules of the tag are:
1. The rules must be mentioned in the beginning of the tag.
2. You must list one fact that is somehow relevant to your life for each letter of your middle name. If you don’t have a middle name, use the middle name you would have liked to have had.
3. At the end of your blog post, you need to choose one person for each letter of your middle name to tag. Don’t forget to leave them a comment telling them they’re tagged, and to read your blog.

Awritey then.
For starters, I've never actually known what my middle name is. In fact, I never even knew I had one of the sort.
We the people ofTamil Nadu don't have a middle-name or a family name making us pretty much unlike the rest of the nation and we take ultimate pride in doing everything differently (read ostracizing ourselves from the rest of the nation for political reasons I do not wish to get into lest some MLA clad in white from a popular kakshee (read party) happens to bump into my blog and vanquish my family, but wait am I digressing? )

Right...middle-name-tag. I hear you. :D
I just discovered this morning from my mom that my middle name is 'Rukmini'.

Yeah yeah, you can laugh it out while I take a long walk around my house.

Done?

Right.Its my grandmother's name and I'm eternally grateful to my folks for not deciding to christen me by that name (I'm having enough trouble with my first name itself thank you very much)
Reminds me of a conversation between a pair from the-popular-sitcom where they discuss what to name their yet-to-be-born baby girl:

Ross: I like Ruth. What about Ruth?
Rachel: Oh, I'm sorry, are we having an 89-year-old? How about Dayton?

:)

R- for Red.
Dark red. I just love that shade. Thats what most of my wardrobe comprises of. Well, next to pink actually (please don't judge me :D) I've read that red as a colour for your clothes is rather provocative. Bull. I've been to places wearing red and even my mother wouldn't notice me. :P
So much for colour-psychology.

U- for Unique.
Thats what my 'first' name is. Rhymes with Rukmini. Hell lot more complicated than the same. There used to be a time when I'd curse my name for the complexities I had to endure because of it but now, I love it 'coz here is no other like it. No chance of having 2 me's in the same class, in the same college, or for that matter, in the same state itself. (;-P) .
I think this should say more.

K- for Karnatic Music.
My heart. My soul. I wish to do it proud, some day.

M- for Madras.
A place I spend half my time cursing and yet, defending till I run out of breath. A lot of my friends AND a lot of my relatives find some sense of queer pride in chiding this conservative metro for its weather, its people (whom I'm told are very 'unkind'. Yeah, I'll show you unkind ;-P), its narrow-outlook towards contemporary ways of life (read rock-concerts, pubs and discotheques or the lack of them) and most importantly, its haughty auto-men.
(Well with regard to the last point, I sort of agree that our auto-kaarans are a special species altogether and deserve special mention in a separate post itself).

But what about Madras, the cultural-haven?
The place where you can be confident that you're children would have gotten their share of both worlds if not just the ultra-traditional one. The proud host of December Music Season..
The home of India's much prided dance Bharathnatyam...The place where people are simple and don't judge you for not dressing up like Rani Mukherjee just to shop at a vegetable store nearby..

I often do run out of arguments to defend this place for what it is and isnt and sometimes all I'm capable of doing is just being silent. Anyway, its just one less person to tolerate in this city :D

I- for Intolerance.
Thats what I have for people who kill the English language with absolutely no concern for its grammar or pronunciation. Yes, no one's infallible I agree. But to those who refuse to correct 'cannot be able to' or 'please say me how to' despite repeated correction. I'm not playing Shakespear or English-miss here, but if you want to speak a language, shouldn't you at least try to know how?

N- for Neverland.
A place I've truly always been fascinated over ever since I was old enough to understand the dialogues from Disney's Peter Pan. I fell in love with Peter, Tinker-Bell, Captain Hook, the mighty pirates, cute croc and the captivating concept of a faraway land where you'd never grow up.
It was nice to think about then, but as I grow older, I tend to wish it were more than just a fantasy.

I- for India.
Kidding, that was lame. But wait, actually, why not? For a country that I never ever thought I'd fit into a decade ago, its now become a place I'd live in despite its many cons. I'm now reluctant to live anywhere else under ANY pretext; be it work or the inevitable, matrimony.

I now tag thee Preethi , Venki, Busy_Writer and Mark IV and anyone else who wishes to take this tag up.
Do me proud guys ;-)

Much love!

EOP

Whats up Doc

2007-11-21T09:49:00.000-07:00

Evil-Doctor (ED) sticking evil- laser down poor-me 's throat:

ED: Say 'aaaaaaaaaaaaaa'

Me (mouth wide open): 'aaaeeee'

ED: Say 'aaaaaaaaaaaaaa'

Me (with more conviction but not quite): 'aaee'

ED: No, say 'aaaaaaaaaaaa'

Me(almost close to tears): 'aaee'

Am suddenly reminded of Henry Higgins from My Fair Lady where he'd eat Eliza Dolittle 's brains forcing her to get her 'ayyy' s and 'aaai's right. Frankly, am rather disturbed that I cant enunciate 'aaaa' with precision just like the doc has instructed me to, but with him pulling my toungue out and a nurse pulling the corners of my mouth side-ways for an endoscopy (dont picture that please), I realize that the only possible vowel that can be uttered at this point is 'ae'.
So, enough already.

ED(looking at TV which supposedly screens the insides of throat): Hmmm.. your vocal chords asdfasn sdfgdfg kasdfadsf gdfgdfgafg (something in medicine-language which I couldn't comprehend of course). Think you've over-strained them.
(Right..that should explain why I've been sounding like a frog for the last 1 week)

Worried-mommy: So....now what?

ED: Just have these for a week and get back. And oh yes, did I mention absolutely no talking for the next 5 days?

Me (aghast): What the...

Suddenly-not-so-worried-mommy: You mean she's not supposed to talk...at all?

Very ED: Yes, thats the minimum period she'll have rest to allow her throat to heal.

Me (touching mouth to see if its in place after agonizing session with evil-doc and evil-nurse): Can we go home now mommy?

So, now that I've been sentenced to a 5-day tenure of 'mounavrath', the only form of allowable communication is the scribe and paper. But if that means having to write every single word I wish to utter, I fancy just keeping my gob shut and not say anything at all...which is exactly what I'm doing now. (*sob*)
The house seems a lot quieter now and I'm sure the entire neighborhood must seem so too, considering all the yelling and debating my mom 'n I are depriving it of.

My dad keeps forgetting that I can't talk and whats worse is that he just doesn't seem to understand any of my sign-languages. I had to do a mini-dance show to convey that we had to get back to the Doc's after 5 days.
Like, I'd stick my hand out to convey 5 as in 5 days and he'd be like.. 'Stop? But what do you want me to stop?' :P

Oh well.
1 down.
4 more to go.

Sigh....

2007-11-15T08:32:00.000-07:00

Sometimes 'sorry' seems to be the most difficult word to say.

Precariously egoistic. Yeah, I think so too.

New News

2007-11-10T10:05:00.000-07:00

Finally. The two movies are out.

I can now heave a sigh of relief and watch all the national chaos on the telly like good 'ol times.
Whether its Mamta Banerjee wailing her guts out in Nandigram or the lil kid with 8 limbs or good 'ol Sonia Gandhi reading out verbatim from her transliterated script...I really missed watching all the real news which was moreorless overshadowed with all the hue 'n cry over the Diwali releases 'Om Shanthi Om' and 'Saawariya'.
Seriously.
One more look at Shahruk's hand getting stuck to Deepika Padukone's pallu or Ranbir Kapoor prancing about the sets of Saawariya in his white towel which looks like its gonna fall off any second and I will solemnly swear never again to switch on the telly (news channels, get a life. Please.)

But wait a minute...whats that I hear you say..Its not yet over???
Movie review time???

Oh Dear.

The Idiot's Guide to SysAdmin'ing..

2007-11-04T11:59:00.000-07:00

A few things those 'How to' books didn't tell me...

Crying out loud to Ravi and Johnson may not necessarily be the solution to all mainframe problems.
Oops is certainly not an appropriate response-to any boo-boo.
'Oh, is that really a command? Cooool!' is not is NOT an acceptable reaction however genuine it may be.
It doesn't pay to curse someone over the phone without pressing the mute button.
No, it never really does.
'I'll be right back' is the most frequently used phrase next to 'Huh? How'd that happen???'
You can run but you certainly cant hide.
Its a fact that half you're problems are because people get locked out of their systems every day. Dwell on it.
No, its not your problem when someone calls you and tells you he's locked out of his house. Hang up already.
Lets just try and hide that subtle element joy when we say 'Oh, thats not our problem. Try the neighbouring team'
The log never lies. This just reinforces point #7
No, you cant help yourself when you're locked out of you're own system. Well, like they say, every SysAd has her day.
The 'I dunno why...but my boss told me to press that button' routine doesn't always work especially when he's on the call too.
If you run out of alibis, blame the server. If you work on the mainframes, just run as fast as you can from your seat.

Happy Administering.
Amen.

Of Confounded Birthdays et al

2007-11-01T09:57:00.000-07:00

I have that darned confounded look when...

....I wake up this morning to find the whole house sleeping with no one to wish me. So I get back to bed and sleep a wee bit longer...
....when I still get calls when I'd thought that I'd been wished my everyone I knew last night..
.....I realize that I don't have a new birthday outfit to sport so I choose the most decent looking one from my wardrobe...
....I rush to the temple just to realize that the therai (doors of the Lord's Chamber) have been shut and that I have to wait another hour to get the Lord's Darshan..
.....I don't know how to react when I visit my friend who's just then lost her father...
.....I meet all my college folks there who have the same confounded look when they whisper a silent Happy Birthday to me at the mourning place...
.....I get a call saying that I have some roses and a cake delivered to me.... (oooooh!)
.....I plot how to flaunt the flowers and cake at work..
.....I cut the cake at my office's canteen knowing that no one's really interest in singing a tune for me when there's a big fat mouth-watering Black-forest cake awaiting us...
.....I watch all the cream being smeared across my face while secretly I wish I could have licked all the cream off my face.. (I'll send you the pics when I get them Harish) :)
......I receive Takloo 's 'Happppppppppui Budday' call with the same josh-even though its the fourth time..
.......I answer Ramangouda's call by wishing him a Happy Birthday over the phone (this time he had the confounded look)
.....I call Harish and thank him for the beautiful flowers and delicious cake- and narrate how interesting my day has been..
.....I wonder how to describe this day in just one word...

Would 'confounding' to the trick?
;)

Happy Boithday To Me

The Way of Dude-ism

2007-10-26T12:47:00.000-07:00

*Its been long since I last blogged. A month to be precise and that's the longest hiatus I've given. I actually do have tonnes of reasons for not being able to blog, read and comment(the complete ritual of a blogger) ,but lets just leave that for some other time. Nevertheless, I'm thrilled you bothered to turn up just the same and read me again. (Actually I'm jumping so high out of glee that I just bumped my head. Wait did I just hear the ceiling crack?) *

Of late I've been relentlessly struggling NOT to suffix or prefix everything I say with the word 'Dude'. No, not food, not doodh...you heard me right, 'dude' ( and to think you always thought that you had weird neighbours).

I admit it does sound stupid, might make me sound like a desperate wannabe from an arbit 1980's American movie. Yeah. Nevertheless, I just can’t seem to fathom why this sudden obsession over the word.
Why dude. Why now.

There was this time in the early 2000's where the semi-hit movie 'Dude, Where's my Car' turned out to be a cult amongst the wannabe-so-cool youth. Dude had then become a word no sentence could do without.

““Dude, where’s my eraser?”
“Ouch, you stepped on my toe, Dude.”
"That is soo cool, dude"

Yeah, we were young and oh-so-hep back then. Then we all grew up .
Well at least some of us did.

And now, its all coming back to me. This time with more feeling.
I’m bitten by the dude-bug all over again and this time, it’s a more of a corporate and matured way of dude-ism.

“Dude, mail the boss and ‘cc’ me.”
“Dude, I’ll be there for the conference call at 7. Count on it”
“Dude, there’s a bug in my tea”
“Dude! Damn!”

Now, with the ‘D’ word being thrown here,there, everywhere, every time, my teammates weren’t particularly comfortable with that, initially.

Ravi was my team's 'dude'(pun intended, maybe) thanks to Yours Truly's fabulous-yet-weird name-keeping skills and of course not to mention, annoying fixation over the word d*de. For quite some time, I saw him rebel relentlessly to do away with the D word.
This innocuous title bestowed upon Ravi stuck on to him over due course of time where he soon became the well acknowledged dude of my team, whether he liked it or not. The ‘ol boy just had to relent.

I mean, initially it was like:

Me (frantically) : Dude!!!!!!! The mainframes are gonna crash…. We'll be hunted down like goats for an explanation and then sacked..and then our families will be stranded in the middle of no where, and it will all be because of this stooped command we issued. We're dead meat dude. We are so dead. Dude!!!!!!! Are you listening??????

Ravi/Dude (Chewing gum): Yeah. Don’t call me Dude.

Me (contorted face): WTF!

And nowadays, its like..

Me(frantically): Dude..!!! Storage says they don't have enough volumes to bring up the system…I’m out of gum…The systems are gonna crash…We'll be hunted down like rabbits (or was it goats?)…Our families will suffer…We'll be devastated and it will all be because of…

Ravi/Dude: Chill dudette. 'Dude' 's got it all under control here. And, did you just say we’re out of gum?

Me(for different reasons): WTF!

So, you see, over a period of time, people have learnt to respond amicably to dude-ism without much of a smirk. Its now a become a way of living. Now who would have thunk eh?

Well, like I always say (well not 'always', but yeah sue me) that’s just how the cookie crumbles. Dude-ism is here to stay and no one in my team could/can stop it. But just to be a bit fair, I’m fighting real hard trying not to start every scrap/mail/chat-session/sentence with dude. But with dudes and dudettes like my teammates who have so warmly welcomed the way of dud-ism into my team (despite Ravi-dude’s relentless efforts), I don’t think I should really try so hard.

Dudes and dudettes are here to stay.

Now isn’t that real groovy?
:D

Phir bhi Tagged.

2007-09-27T02:42:00.000-07:00

Tagged.

Yayy for me, again. Ok, Markiv, I was leaving this tag for one of those hopeless ‘I-so-wanna-blog-but-can’t-think-of-anything’ days, but oh what the heck, now will do. This tag is dedicated to the tagger without whom this wouldn’t have been possible *controlling tears of joy*, to all those generous readers who presumably will NOT have the patience to read single word I’ve typed here BUT will certainly try to give their best with generic comments *Lol! I love you guys * and last but not the least,to a special place where I spent a bulk of my life in. Bahrain.

91-93 The Lil kidd
Easily the fattest and chubbiest kid in class; a 'blessed' feature which would invariably win me a seat next to the class teacher in all class photographs. :D Teachers would try (note, try) to carry me in all the pics ‘coz I’m told I was the perfect ball then. Orchestra and sports was all I ever thought off. Not to mention, food too. Yes, those were good times :D

94-95 Switching ‘ovah’
Switched schools from a British school to the InDIan School. I was in trouble now. Being branded as the kid with the ‘fAreen’ accent who didn’t know beyond the 2,3,4,5 and 10 times tables, who had to mug every line of Hindi from Bal Bharati to pass in exams when kids in class could quote lines from 'Hum Aap Ke Hain Kaun' with admirable ease, who didn’t even know where India was on the map, literally- Yes, I was your typical loser then.
I’d cry to my mom every single day saying that I wanted to go back to the British School ‘coz I hated the Indian system of education and that I certainly wouldn’t learn anything from plain mugging. For some reason, I feel that I was much wiser as a kid. ;-P

95-96 Teen-bean
The year of the Spice Girls. Girl Power! They SO rocked and I was totally gaga over them. Wannabe, 2 become one…god! I could sing all of their songs word for word…and I even remember asking my dad to buy me Emma Burton costumes ‘n all. I’m thankful that my dad didn’t disown me after that period of crazy harmones.

96-97 Being Bad
Found a best friend in Anisha. Spreading rumours, being a part of rumours, imitationg teachers, being teased with the weird boy next door, this era totally transformed me from the silent insignificant no-one at school to the notorious kid who bunked Almeida’s math classes for some band-class practice and lived to tell the tale of it by acing her subject.

97-99. Postatem obscuri lateris nescitis - (You do not know the power of the dark side)
Power in the School Band. Anisha and I became Head Corporals of the wood-wind section (read flute) where the former was soon my partner in crime where we did things which totally make me cringe now. Yes we were teenage brats then, with hormones running wild. Bossing over junior flutists, flirting with the drummers, breaking clarinets and hiding it from the band master, bunking math and social-studies classes in the pretext of ‘leading the band’ (like it was training for Kargil war or something), being popular, life was good.

98-99 No looking back
A very special year for me as I’d moved to India. Was one of those do or die moves where all eyes from previous-home country were intently watching and speculating on whether this spoilt kid could survive the most conventional metro in India. I more than just survived it, I became a Chennai-girl from the word go. My school disproved all prejudices in me that Chennai and its people still belonged to the ooga-booga stonage era, and that pop music and ‘cool’ language was totally unheard of. This place was anything but that. There was just no looking back from then on.

Yep. There was just no looking back. :)

Right…that pretty much covers what I have to say about the nineties. There are quite a few things I miss, and even more things I don’t miss. :D
Anyways, this was a fun tag reminiscing ‘n all. For what its worth, I tag everyone who’d like to try this one out.

Take care..and stay out’v trouble!
Ta!

2007-09-23T12:29:00.000-07:00

Yaaawn...*stretch*....But mommy, I don't wanna go to work today.

Ah, the good old days when I was paid heed to.
*Sigh!*

The Lament of a Betrayed Heart..

2007-09-17T13:21:00.000-07:00

The tooth-fairy ain't real..
Santa ain't real..
Prince Charming ain't real..
God ain't real..
And now, Ram ain't real.

ok...

But Starvation is real...
Poverty is real..
Rape is real...
Nuclear war is real..
Death is real..

The bathos in life we're all subjected to.

How much can this feeble heart take?

Kangana, me...and a lot of thinking

2007-09-08T12:56:00.001-07:00

Making reviews just isn't my forte because of which I'll never subject the readers of my blog (however few in number they may be) to a movie-review by me . Well, never again at least. I promise. Now that thats out of the way, I begin my blog...on a movie I just saw recently.
* chuckkles slyly*

Some eight months back when Krati and I were roommates in Trivandrum, I'd asked her what the movie Gangster-A Love Story was all about and why people were raving about that movie 'n why girls were swooning over some new dude called Shiney Ahuja. Krati, the very darling she is, patiently narrated the entire story, scene by scene and by the end, I'd already gotten a feeling of watching the movie already.

But ever since then, I longed to watch the movie. I had to see it for myself... Could human emotions be this complex? Could something this intense be portrayed in celluloid without confusing the viewer and making him/her endure two 'n a half hours of an emotional-fun-fest?

I finally got to watch it yesterday with Rema (the diabolical-cousins doing what we do best. Switching on the telly and shutting- up) and it was just what I'd imagined it to be.

Ahuja is a Greek God. Yes. I wish I were 16 years old so that I could openly drool and swoon over him as it doesn't particularly look appropriate for a girl... sorry, 'woman' of my age to be doing so. *I so hate growing up...sob!*

The movie had very intense and poignant scenes which should have ideally made my tear-glands function with unprecedented efficiency, but I surprisingly found my self thinking through the movie and even more intensely after it.

Kangana Ranaut 's character, however whorish it may have seemed in the movie, portrayed the basic instincts of a woman - in its rudimentary and crude form. That, she wasn't satisfied completely until she was emotionally satisfied. That, no matter how much you gave her, how much you loved her, 'n how much you promised to give her, nothing enticed her as much as the inner feeling of knowing that someone could give her/be the solution to her (otherwise) passionless life.

Kangana's character betrayed the man who loved her more than life itself, while in search of true passion.
Well, you'd think that that's perfectly natural, if not justified, for a women to have behaved the way she did in the movie. I mean, with women always carrying that 'emotional' tag around wherever they go and with bullshit quotes like 'Men think with their brains, women think with their heart ..coz they can't otherwise' floating around, you wouldn't expect 'her' to introspect or think deeply on what she'd be gaining or losing in the bargain of satisfying her inner most needs and desires.

A woman has needs and if it means tearing down the curtains and drinking your way to hell, so be it.

But the actual risk, in the blind pursuit of satiating what one's craving for - lies in not being able to realize or understand what she has in her life already. In the quest for more happiness 'n bliss, she might lose whatever little happiness she has.
People say that those who think with their hearts, are the happiest. Well yes, maybe. You may be awarded with bliss and ecstasy,just like you're lil heart wanted. But you can't count on being successful all the time.

hmm...so what was I trying to insinuate all this time?
That there's always a trade off or compromise in love? That you cant *always* afford to follow your heart and that it may be sensible for one to opt for the most rational of all options -even if one knows that it isn't going to promise her/him whatever she/he had dreamt of all her/his life?

Well like I said, I did a lot of thinking. Plus it was the weekend -I had nothing better to do.
So, *contemplates very deeply* I think I'd be better off thinking with my brains than my heart.
But wait. Did I just say that?
Who am I trying to kid anyway.

P.S- Krati. You've been an inspiration for this post. Please read my blog (from now on at least).

:D

Ta!

To....

2007-09-03T13:49:00.000-07:00

...The Adorable-naughty kid..

....The Enchanting-Loverboy

.....The Passionate-Romantic..

.....The ideal friend, philosopher & Guide....

...To my Saviour...

Here's wishing you a Haaaaaaaaaaaapppppppppppppppy Birthday!!!!!!

You're my favourite God and I wish you alllll the luck in the world (and outside it too) in fulfilling all my dreams and wishes. :D

(Hope you don't forget last night's prayer)

Happy Krishna Jayanthi :)

Tagged

2007-09-01T10:24:00.001-07:00

I've been tagged.

Yayy.

I was beginning to think that no one cared for li'l Miss. Confounded and was starting to feel left out when everyone had a TAGGED post but me. Ah...I've been rewarded for my patience.
I'd like to thank SPARK for making me feel as special as I thought I was(:P) .....and I'd also like to thank my mom, dad, next-door neighbour, dog...*sniff..*

(psst, is the camera still rolling?)

1. Pick out a scar you have, and explain how you got it.

A nice distinct one on my right-side eyebrow. Got it when I fell down the stairs and came tumbling down when I was 3 years old. I'm told I wailed my guts out and attracted quite a crowd in our flat. The stitches-area is a bit invisible now...but they show when I get my eyebrows done. :'(

2. What does your phone look like?

Like any other damaged, manhandled, impaired, chipped cell crying out loud for love and tender loving care.

3. What is on the walls of your bedroom?

Some lovely glow-in-the-dark thingamajigs I've always had and treasured. Stars, planets and shooting stars... I take pride in aligning them very neatly on my walls and ceiling of my room. They look astonishingly beautiful when I turn out the lights at night.
I once heard my mom tell my friend's mom how she wished that my room were as neat as its walls. And as for my room...*sigh*...well, we've lost quite a few people in the mess I've maintained over the last few years despite the extreme efforts taken by mom...search-party et al.

4. What is your current desktop picture?

A picture of some of my friends 'n me. It makes me happy gazing at us when my comp hangs and displays the desktop-theme for eternity after that.

5. Do you believe in gay marriage?

Of course. All marriages are happy and gay. Its just the life after that thats a bit questionable to me.

(I'm just playing dumb here...I know what the question means. No, really.)

6. What do you want more than anything right now?

To do what I want to do and never regret it at *any* point of time in life.

And, a grand piano. The one with eight octaves and a pedal.

If someones still reading this, please mail me..I'll send you the list. Thank you. Move one.

7 . What time were you born?

A few hours after Indira Gandhi died.

8. Are your parents still together?

Uh....Hell, yeah!

9. Last person who made you cry?

People don't make me cry like they used to. Bollywood and Kollywood movies do...for more reasons than one :P

10. What is your favorite perfume / cologne?

DUNE by Christion Dior.

11. What kind of hair/eye color do you like in the opposite sex?

Not really choosy. Just as long as you don't have F-R-E-A-K written all over you.

12. What are you listening to?

Kadanuvaariki in Thodi by T.N.Seshagopalan.

13. Do you get scared of the dark?

Only when I'm not assured of light.

14. Do you like pain killers?

I don't believe I do. Analgesics don't deal with perpetual pain-in-the-neck/ pain-in-the-wrong-side sort of people because of which I have to resort to my own tactics to escape from the torture I'm subjected to.

15. Are you too shy to ask someone out?

Depends..on the degree of liking. If I really do like the 'ol guy, I'd be extra shy in asking him out.
Heck...either way, I'd be shy to ask him out. I have loser written all over my face when it comes to expressing what I want to.

16. If you could eat anything right now, what would it be?

A big fat piece of creamy, sumptuous chocolat cake.
Having one would make me un-imaginably guilty but having none would make me crave desperately for a chance to indulge in all that chocolatey-goodness. *lip-smacking....hmm*

17. Who was the last person you made you mad?

Sonia Gandhi.
Period.

18. Who was the last person who made you smile?

My mom and dad. In any order. Boooooring...but true. They always make me smile. :)

Thanks for reading this post so far. I really love you for that.
If you didn't, well....I love you just the same for reading 'this' then.
:D

I thus tag thee Kavi, Ash, Athia, Divz, Lavanya, Mridhula,

Toodles!

Life's Lesson #280708

2007-08-28T12:25:00.000-07:00

Your mysterious absence at work on a Friday can only mean one thing. And its NOT the flu or a sever cold 'n all that jazz.

Corollary:
Taking off to Blore with a couple of friends for the weekend seems far more plausible in the corporate world than 'unanticipatedly' falling ill just before a long weekend.

Bah!

2007-08-27T12:48:00.000-07:00

Scenario: 21:10 hrs, Four of us at the Wooden-Tables beside the salad counter, Canteen.

Shyamala's taken a day off today, she's not feeling well (sure, whatever you say lady )
Renu's no where in the scene..she's perhaps decided to stay back at the cubicle and wait for Damu and Subin to take her place (I absolve thee Miss.Paulose)
Surosa has broken her leg and is at home sending us senti-senti friendhip sms'es. Veena 's on call as usual and Krati..well, I just dont know where Krati is.

So,where does that bring me?
Well, it brings me to the wooden tables opposite the Salad Bar at the canteen, with just 3 gentlemen (out of the 10 members at work)- Damu, Subin and Ravi (my precious teamie )

Now, normally these guys are a pleasure to dine with. We'd have a vibrant discussion on multi-farious topics ranging from the intricacies of Vaishnavaite philosophy to Kurt Cobain.

But today's not like that. There's a Cricket match on (or so I discover, from the abominable silence at the table).
My reaction to cricket-matches these days is '*Yawn* Nice... Can you pass me the salt please?'

I witness 40 minutes of silence at the dinner table while these 3 men have their heads tilted at an angle of 45 degrees gazing intently at the telly placed directly on top of my head.

Dinner time at work is very precious and I/we generally treasure every minute of it.
Not that we're made to work like cattle and are facing a severe time crisis at work or anything(Hell no! I love my boss. Well, when there's an appraisal on its way, why wouldn't I?), its just that its the only common time we have to do some friendly bantering and catch up with the chaos in everyone's team. We really enjoy it and we really do look forward to it. I know I do.

Silence at the dinner table? I mean, thats unheard of ..unless one of us was being paid to shut-up or all of us were feeding on our Canteen's special glue...sorry, halwa. Our team wouldn't know silence even if it bit us in our ear.
Today...well, I could have strangled my self and these guys wouldnt have noticed.

Next time theres a match, I'm heading straight to the Salad bar and dining with some of the married ladies there. I'd rather hear them blah-blah nonsense all day long than not have a a single word at dinner.

Men.
Cricket.
Bah!

Of shrewd mothers, presumptious daughters and two louts in between.

2007-08-22T11:31:00.000-07:00

The more I think about it, the more I find it quite funny being uncharacteristically tongue-tied infront of a 9 year old kid and watch her deftly rag us when we ‘attempted’ to do the same.
Ragging will never be the same for me, whether from the ragger’s end or the receiver’s end.
The phrase ‘Putting my foot where my mouth is’ has never ever made more sense than it does now.

My parents wanted to go to Thiruvendipuram for the weekend for some sort of ritual/pilgrimage and I wasn’t particularly thrilled when they forced me to tag along first thing Saturday morning.
Not that I have anything against the hundreds of rituals we Hindus perform on practically any and every day of the year (with due respect to their respective reasons of course), but what triggers the intolerance in me is when they require migration or any activity of that sort on a Saturday morning. Saturday mornings are for hibernation, just for hibernation and nothing BUT hibernation. But then again, who listens to me.
I thus move on.

My cousin Rema had also volunteered to accompany us, thankfully for me. So, that kept me from whining and complaining all along our way to the Aashram. It was a 6 hour journey in our Ambassador. I didn’t compromise on the hibernation-part ..even if it meant leaning and dribbling over my mommy’s shoulder on our way there.

After visiting a few temples nearby and having a sumptuous Iyengar-type dinner in the Aashram with some 30 other people within the community whom we hardly knew yet smiled at for reasons which are still unknown to yours truly, Rema and I sat down on the steps outside and watched all the oldies retire for the day.

It was 8pm and the whole village was asleep. There could be a bomb blast and yet people wouldn’t notice.

All of a sudden a girl comes prancing down the steps, hopping merrily on the road.
This girl reminded me of….well, I’m not ashamed to say it but..me, when I was a kid. She was perhaps the plumpiest kid in the face of the Earth and she was our meat tonight.

“Hey ponnae! Romba Azhaga irikae won dress…. Won paer enna? (Translated to: Hey girl! Your dress is very cute… Whats your name?) “

“Thanks. Solla maataen” (Sollamataen=I won’t tell you)

(Sensing that we were dealing with a smart-alec) “Sollamaten? What a cute name. That’s a nice name you have there Sollamaaten. Is that what they call you at school Sollamaataen ”

(Defensively) “Noooooo..Sollamaataen is not my name.”

“Then what is your name?”

“Sollamaataen!”

“Precisely what we’re calling you, kid”

“ But that’s not my name. And I’m not going to tell you my name. So there.”

On saying this, she comes and sits beside us on the steps.

Now this was beginning to seem like fun. I mean, any other normal kid would have walked just right past us into the Ashram or ignored us all the way. Most of the other kids did just that..but not this one.

It was around 9:30 pm now…it was Saturday night…we had no telly, no music, and most of the lights in the street where out..And just when we’d lost all hope on how we were going to survive the early night, here we had an incredibly chubby, plumpy entertaining, over confident kid who refused to give in.

“This is indeed a very cute dress Sollamaataen. Where did you buy this?”
This was Rema trying to start a conversation.

“Hyderbad”

“Oh”

“I dance.”

“Eh?”

“I dance. I learn dance”

Wow. That was quick.
I mean here we were, trying to break the ice and socialize the cordial way or to be more precise, the ‘corporate’ way, asking her her name, complimenting her on her oversized flashy chumkee-chimkee dress, while Miss. Chubby here was more interested in giving us the bigger details.

“You do eh? How nice! What dance do you learn?”
Us sounding genuinely interested.

“I learn Bharatnatyam” Like every second kid in South India.

“Ok..so how many jathis have you learnt? Have you learnt all the adavus and jathis till Allaripu?”
Ok, This was me, trying to flaunt the very little dance I could remember from my younger days.

“You know dance?” Kid, Incredulously.

“Yes I do” Correction, ‘did’ .

“Don’t lie ok-va? I learn from Lakshmipriya Miss.”

“Who’s Lakshmipriya-miss?"

“My miss” Saying it like she were Queen of England or something.

"Ohhh!!! Lakshmipriya-va? Of course! We remember her....We only taught her dance”
This was uttered in unison by the both of us, Rema and I, the diabolical cousins we are.

“You taught Lakshmipriya Miss?” Voice sounding incredibly surprised.

“ Yes we did. We taught her everything we could. But poor child, she wasn’t a very bright student. That’s why she’s still teaching despite learning dance for sooo many years”. Rema was unstoppable now.

“Lakshmipriya-Miss is 22 years old”. Boy, this kid was shrewd.

‘Only’ 22 years old? See what too much of dialogue can get you into?

“Oh? Well…there have been dancers who have achieved much more at that young age” This was me trying to back Rema up.

“You mean Sheela-miss? ”

“Who’s Sheela-Miss?”

“Sheela-miss is Lakhsmipriya-Miss’s miss”.
And the plot thickens.

“ Oh Sheela-miss a? Ah, I remember her! Yes, she was an extremely bright student. One of a kind. They don’t make ‘em students like her these days”.
I was trying my best to make all this seem plausible to the 8 year old kid.

“You know Sheela-miss?”
Kid’s eyes widened like space-saucers from space.

“ Know her?? She is what she is because of us. We put her up on the map. You go and ask Sheela if she knows ‘Maythini Sridharan’ and she’ll tell you of the sacred relationship we share. Go and ask her tomorrow itself at dance-class, ok-va? ”
Ok, I was trying a bit TOO hard.
And, I was beginning to get the ok-va slang from Miss. Chubby. Kids! Geez!

“ Sheela-miss isn’t in India. She’s in the U.S. running a dance school”
This was said very matter-of-factly by kid.
I was losing all weapons of defence.

Rema to my rescue. “She left without telling us?? Maythini, after all you’ve done for Sheela-miss, just see how she’s absconded without the slightest indication. Dancers these days, cha!”

“ I know, Rema. Cha! I am very upset now.” Trying to fake a hurt-look.

Kid tries to cheer up the not-so-diabolical twins by changing the topic.

“So…Are you running a school anywhere?”
Kid now fishing for more details from the not-so-diabolical cousins.

“Oh yes certainly. “

“Don’t lie, ok-va?”

“We aren’t lying ok-va!” I was sounding a bit desperate now.

Kid waits patiently as one of us makes the story up as we go along.

“We run a school in Australia and Bostwana. We’re doing very well in northern parts of Australia (heavens forbid she opens up a map and discovers a desert all over) and also in Bostwana (clueless of which part of the world the place may be in). The problem with opening up a school in London is that there is a lot of racial-discrimination there and also oflate a lot of political disturbances. You know how these English people are, don’t you? They’re never gonna send their kids for dance lessons once they know that a guy from our country is bombing up their place. So we preferred not to expand towards Europe, and decided to just settle with our success in Australia and Botswana.”

All this to an 8 year old kid with a flashy chumkee-chumkee dress.
Like they say, if you can’t convince them, confuse them.

“ Oh, ok. But Sheela-miss is doing very well ” Kid is still smitten by Sheela-miss.

Hell with your Sheela-miss I felt like saying. But all I could think of is “ I can only be too glad for her. She’ll contact me if she needs to learn some more dance the next time she comes to India”

Just when we were going to switch topics to a much more ‘safer’ one, a woman comes down the stairs calling out for Rajalakshmi.

In a split second, Sollamaten-dearie jumps up and shrieks, “Amma! They know Sheela-miss”.

Ok… firstly, Sollamaten’s name is Rajalakshmi eh? Well, that’s a lot of help.

And secondly… Now, we have your mom in this mess???
What the *@#*$@!

Mommy-dear looks at 2 pretty girls clad in a sari with the most skeptical of looks.
“You know Sheela-miss, do you? Which Sheela-miss?”

We’re both silent like we were caught cheating in an exam.
Rema. Not a sound from her.
Me. “ Well….Sheela-miss..the one who….who…..”
And we both burst out laughing.
And we were laughing and laughing.

Kid pointed her index finger at us and was chirping, “ I knew it all along. I knew it alllll along. I knew you guys were bluffing. I was just waiting for my mom to get here”.

Guess kid wasn’t that dumb after all.

Mommy-dear wasn’t ready to forgive our sinful act. Stern, teacher-amma look all over her face.

“So..where are you girls coming from?”

“Madras” Both of us spoke in unision.

“Ok. My daughter really learns dance” The word ‘really’ stressed with a bit of emphasis.
“ We’re looking for a good teacher now, because our Rajalakshmi is very very talented”.

Sure she is.

I was now trying to cover up the seemingly sinful act of deceiving young Rajalakshmi for which Mommy-dear was still glaring at us.
“Well why don’t put her in a good school? I travelled all the way from Nangannaloor to Kotturpuram (some 20 kilometres) for dance-classes.”
I was now giving my 2-cents worth advice.

Mommy-dear now fires. “You learnt dance?”
History sure does repeat itself.

“Yes, aunty I did”.

“Which school?”

“The Dhananjayans.”

“The Dhananjayans? You learnt from the Dhananjayans?”
She looked as though wouldn’t have believed me even if I said that cows moo and pigs oink.
She gives her child a crafty smile and moves her right hand in a circular motion to indicate that what I was saying was ‘reel’.

“Noooo”. This was me now.
“I really 'did' learn from the Dhananjayans school. Srilatha Vinod is my miss’s name. I was her student. Honest to god ”.

Ok now, I was sounding really desperate.
But this was the truth. And mommy-ji and chubby-ji were reluctant to believe me.

Rema and I tried to indulge in some other polite form of small talk. But aunty-ji didn’t budge. She still had that ‘you-tried-to-fool-my-daughter..MY-DAUGHTER’ look on her face.

We knew that mommy-dear was inconsolable. So we politely said our good-bye as fast as we could and tried to bail out without a trace.

I think about it now..and still wonder what went wrong where. We had everything under control while Rema and I worked with such unity in concocting crap instantly. But still we felt like losers in the end.

Kids these days. And their moms.
Gotta lot to learn.
But its not fun.....being stuck in the middle of one shrewd mom and a presumptious kid.

Calvinized..again.

2007-08-12T12:26:00.000-07:00

Had to.

To Sir, with Love..

2007-08-10T12:31:00.000-07:00

I hum when I work. Ok, this time I happened to hum a bit louder than usual and people around me tell me I broke off into a (slightly loud) song. Unfortunately, I didn’t really realize that. I never really do, until Aravinthan comes over to my cubicle to tell me to put a sock in it. My boo-boo.

A leader from the neighboring tower stood up and gave me a cold glare and even worse, threatened to escalate if I went any louder. Boy, that’s sure made my day. This will be the first escalation of its type.

Slightly embarrassed and a whole lot furious ,I scream out (after the royal sermon-giver has left the area of course) that I hate this place I work for. I can’t do anything without music against my ears (headphones mind you)….. and unfortunately without a mild hum too. You want people to work dead silently and go ra-ta-tup tup at their key-boards all day without the slightest sound/noise?…well fine, I’ll give you that. But, not without silent curse at you under my breath. (not that that’s really threatening, but I’m told a curse with a clean heart, and plenty of faith will actually work :P)

Its at moments like these, I solemnly swear that I will break free from this crazy claustrophobic work-place given the slightest chance. And, that day, is not too far away from now.
Till then, sir, Fcuk you.
-
Lots of Love.

Some digression with a Point....Somewhere.

2007-08-07T13:33:00.000-07:00

Current Status: Helplessly watching my friends triumphantly flash their ‘I-told-you-so’ look at me (and this, I must add, they do quite effortlessly) while they witness me undergo my silent eat-my-words syndrome.

Frankly speaking, I never ever thought it would come to this.

Well, I’ve gotta give it you. You guys were right. I still have a lot to see. And I’m sure glad that (some of) you were a part of my awakening.

Sideline: The above few lines may precariously insinuate that I’ve suddenly attained some TOTALLY out-of-this-world realization of some sort …. Like the concept of Moksha..or Something like roaches being capable of producing almost 3000000 more roaches every year….or Prathibha Patel becoming the President of our Country. (Kidding….I always knew that roaches reproduce like crazy)

What I’ve always known and ALWAYS realized, is that I suck BIG TIME at practicals, vivas and interviews (in any order). 4 years of engineering and a lot of my supportive friends from college are more than just testimony for that.

But (trying to strike a contrast here) what I’ve always known but NEVER EVER realized is that how big and heterogeneous a country I’m a part of. (No, I’m serious and truly not up to any wise-cracks here).

There are some things that are easily a part of an everyday conversation or discussion but never really dawn on you with their exact meaning and significance unless you sit to think about it.
Something like the fact that…the universe is infinite.
Yes, you ‘know’ that and I ‘know’ that… but it would typically take you a while to actually ‘feel’ the gravity of that statement …for the fact to actually sink into you. And when it does, boy, it would leave you marveled and amazed; despite the number of times you’ve thrown that statement here ‘n there in public.

This is something like the point I'm trying (quite earnestly) to drive at.
Terms like ‘multi-cultural’, ‘harmonious integration’, unity-in-diversity’ never really meant anything more than just salient features of a distinctly complicated country, until I got out of my ‘shell’ (READ: Chennai, which is moreorless the only place I’ve known well. Yes, I know I’m ignorant.) and traveled ta Bombay for the first time.

I went..I saw..'n I was conquered. It overwhelms me to think of how a single country can house SO many different states which are SO incredibly different from each other. Its has been a week..and I’m still amazed.

And still haven’t gotten over it.

The more I think about it, the more I’m falling in love with this country….and I promise this has nothing to do with the fact that Aug 15 is round the corner. (skeptical folks, hmph! :D)
I’ve already chartered a virtual plan in my head listing out all the places I’d like to visit in the near future and I’m already soopah excited about it. My ideal travel plan would certainly NOT include those enormously popular planned-tours with horribly boring Volvos which house at least 3 kids wailing their hearts out, or at least 2 people wanting to stop for a pee every 30 minutes. (the chances that your VOLVO will have at least 3 potential cry-babies when your on a holiday, are unfortunately rather high)
Thanks, but no thanks.

My heart is fervently hoping for my next venture to the North…. Something I could handle myself without anyone’s assent/consent. A wild trip with me and just me, my digi-cam, a crazy hat, a jute bag worn diagonally across me, a rainbow-walla chaathi (my unfulfilled dream to own one…*sob!*), and absolutely NO luggage. ;)

I can imagine catching an train to some arbit sub-urb/village, holding on to the pole at the bogee ‘s gate, with the wind hitting against my face while I find it difficult to hold on to my flying chunee. (Ok, I’m imagining a bit too much, but I told you I was really excited) :D

Before I stop…(yes, miracles do happen)

Things I loved about Bombay.

The Local trains

How people board the 'Bomaby' local trains and survive to tell the tale of it still remains an enigma to me. I was warned by my friends the moment I landed in Bombay, of the peak-hour traffic within the general compartmnet and that I shouln't go about heralding the fact that I *love* the local trains after one measly trip on a Sunday.

So....in order to prove a point, I travel by the local trains, on a Monday morning, where I imagine half the Bombay-population in plonked into that very same bogee I'm situated in. After the painful ordeal of finding a seat (which is a luxury far from reach for most travellers) I find myself squished between two pan-chewing uncles on either side of me, with their news-papers sprawled across their laps. (sort 'v missed the Hindu here) . Getting out of that mess would easily surpass signing a peace treaty with Bin Laden in terms of impossibility.

But...I still loved it. Every single, sweaty, tormenting second of it.

2. The chaos and the crowd

This was a riot. Want to be scowled and scorned at for fun in Bombay?

Walk fast in some arbit public spot. Stop walking and stand still for 3 seconds. You'll hear (at least) seven people asking you to move your ass off their way. They are busy people... and do not have time to watch a static piece of mass on their way...for 3 whole seconds. (And I always wondered why Bombay was too 'fast' for some people. )

3. The Bombay Rains

Ah...my favourite. I could go on and on 'bout this one.

You havent seen rains till you've experienced Mumbai rains. They pour 5 cats and 6 dogs. (bad joke..but I use it all the time :D). Lord Varuna's in for a party when the Monsoons hit Mumbai. The thing about Mumbai rains is that, they just're amazingly dynamic. I mean, one moment you see them..'n the next second you don't. I remember fidgeting with Tosh's purple umbrella trying to open it and save my head, and by the time I'd gotten it open, the rain had stopped. (I had that 'well-I'll-be-damned look ever since)

4. Pani Puri

Whats so special about the PP (Rathi's way of putting it) in Bombay?

I really REALLY don't know. But all I know is that its absolutely divine. I mean, I'm a sucker for the normal Chennai-canteen walla PP itelsef...so when I had a taste of the PP in Churchgate, I went gaga over it. I would 've ordered indefintely, but I reminded my self of public norms of decency (whatever that means :P)

5. Marine Drive

It was undoubtedly love at first sight. For all you non-Mumbaikars, Marine Drive is just a road with the sea adjacent to it. Like any normal beach actually. But there's something about taking that walk along that stretch of land. While Sahil and Parimal were playing Mr.Tourist-Guide by explaining the worth of property at the other side of the lane, I was busy being mesmerised by the view from the kerb. At one point, it looked pretty much like New York.

6. The rocks at Nariman Points

Trying to walk across those rocks on a rainy evening isn't exaclty the wisest thing to do. But thats exactly what we did. And man, it rocked! (pun unintended)

Actually, It got so complicated as I hopped from one slippery rock to another, that at one point of time, I had to squat on one of the rocks to print a mental strategy on what rocks I had to travese by next, to reach the point were Parimal was standing. And then, it would start to rain. And I'd be squatting on that slippery rock; plonk in the middle of no-where, till the rains subsided. This still makes me laugh.

7. The guilt-less arriving home late during weekends (and every other day presumably)

Lets just say that my mom doesnt know that I had dinner at a restaurant in Mumbai with friends at around 01:00 hours on a Sunday. For me it felt sooper-cool to be doing something I (still) am not allowed to do, but for folks there....it was another normal weekend.

8. People I more than just know ;)

Tosh Raman Sahil Takloo Chacha Rathi Poorva Chirag Nikhil Vishal Prithvi. Your more than just a reason for me to get my ass back down there. Need I say more.

Things I didn’t like about Bombay:

That it wasn’t Chennai.

Ok..do I laugh or..?

2007-08-02T10:12:00.000-07:00

Just One Bag

2007-07-28T02:43:00.000-07:00

Current status: Packing

YOU: Oh? Then what are you doing 'here' if you're currently packing? And packing?
Where're you going, for Pete's Sake?

ME :Well... I'm off to the Land of Opportunities..the Land of undiluted Glitz and Glamour, the land of the Bold...and not to mention, the extremely Beautiful....the Land that has all the filth and dirt, and also the strength to clean up the same (quite literally)...

YOU (incredulously): Don't tell me..!! Your going to LA.... Holy mother of God..really????

ME (smug smile): Naah.....I'm off ta Mumbai.

(Maaaaaa...Help...some one's after me with a frying pan..!)

Ok. I'll really tell you what I'm up to.
I'm going to Bombay for a 3 day trip. Its all happened so quickly and I'm fluttering with extreme excitement. (excuse me while I do I mini-dance here)

Now Bombay to me is not just any city. For confirmed Madrasis like me who envision themselves to live, breed and die in Madras, Bombay is like Hollywood; the land of glamour and sparkle. Considering my pre-conceived notions about this place, expectations are currently sky high and I'm soooo gonna make a conscious effort not to fall in love with the place that makes news every single day or every other day.

I called up my dad 3 days ago and told him about my impending jaunt for the weekend.
Reason for this impetuous plan ? Simple... no particular reason at all.
Just to meet some dear friends there.
My father doesn't know how to react and I feel sorry for not being able to view his expression at that point of time. Thats OK, cos I know what he looks like when he's majjorly flummoxed.
Oh yeah, 've been there...done that.
But anyways...He's fine with it...not without few words of wisdom of course:

"Child, its a 2 day affair. Please don't pack the way you normally do. Pack light and pack sensibly."

blah-blah-blah.... The way you normally do.. blah-blah-blah ..

I'm in a dilemma as to WHAT to put in quotes from the above statement...is it the 'normally' or the 'you' ? I mean, that line is plain euphemism for 'Dear, you screw up always. This time sweetie.. dont.'

I have my pride (no, really) and hence, I've resolved to carry one bag.

Just one bag.
If I travel alone, I travel in style.

A very neat and simple affair. I mean, how hard can it be? Packing 3 days stuff into 1 bag. Come one...its not rocket-science! To think that I'm even blogging on this.

I pack with a tune in my lips and a smile on my face.
Yea rite..I wish! I'm frantically rummaging through my wardrobe which is presently screaming out loud for its well deserved summer-cleanup.
Oh Lord...I'm desperate...Where's a decent bag when you need one!

After 20 minutes of searching and throwing some forty odd pieces of clothing on the floor... Finally...a 'BAG'!!
Ah-ha! Lets see... Its in one piece..it has a strap with no loose ends..and the best part, a zipper that hasn't yet fallen off....Ah, am I blessed or am I blessed!

NOW current status: Packing

Ok..Everything nicely packed into my small, blue and please note , 'single' bag. I'm all set...quite impressive if I do say so myself.
My bag looks like an overstuffed Turkey for Thanksgiving, but hey, protocol read 'Just one bag'...and am I the protocol-girl or what!

Awritey then..I'm movin outta here to Bombay..See you later.... but wait, whats this lying under my oversized-excuse for a bag?
Crap! Its my pair of JEANS!! Damn, I've forgotten to pack my jeans.
I'm not leaving without my jeans..no way!

(Detecting the skepticle look on your face) Whats that I hear you say...?
Why am I fretting over my *jeans* like it were some master-piece by Prada?

Well...yes I know, its just another pair of jeans. But I have my reasons. Let me explain why I'm not leaving without my jeans. I (and in all probability, you too) have nothing better to do while I'm still stuck here with Miss. Over-Stuffed-Turkey and a lonely pair of jeans...so, hear me out.

Reason 1: Firstly, I'm going to Bombay honey, not Anna University.

Reason2: These jeans are the only saving grace of my otherwise loser-wardrobe which I have not the time to re-vamp...and its these few loyal garments like this pair of jeans that leave me with some scrap of dignity at a social get-together these days .

There!!

So I'm tearing open this 'Turkey' and stuffing a pair of jeans into her whether she likes it or not.
*Grunt...puff...Grunt*
This zipper sure is stubborn. Fine...I've stuffed my jeans in successfu....*Snap*..uh-oh!

Christ....Nooooooooooo! Zip in hand!
My bag is now split wide open to almost a mile..and is now tragically zipper-less. Friggin detached-zipper!!
I have a flight to catch straight away from work... and I'm still looking for a bag with a decent zip.
Could ANYONE even be more helpless? (in Chandler-like tone)

Concluding points of action:

Will not panic.
Pick up phone, dial the 'friendly-neighbours' next door;

"Hello, Aunty? Mayth here...I was wondering if you had a bag......with a zip....."

:D

My Mate..

2007-07-20T13:17:00.000-07:00

...would be someone who could sit beside me and listen to Tu-bin-bataye a thousand times... and love it more 'n more with each time .

Life's Lesson #190707

2007-07-19T11:17:00.000-07:00

Real Happiness is knowing that you've made some one happy. Really happy.

Corollary: Flowers to friends (with a little help from the internet and my Credit Card) apparently does the trick.

Love Actually...

2007-07-16T16:06:00.000-07:00

A little bird from work is awfully chirpy these days and this is getting quite hard to ignore.

Madam Chirpy (MC) 's getting engaged to a bloke she was introduced to exactly 5 weeks back (the quintessential arranged types) and now, she's tragically been reduced to nothing but an uncontrollable blush-pot.

I'm not the only one who's noticed this distinct transformation in MC's behaviour ever since she's been..umm..well, booked (whatever the word may be) and this change is rather striking I tell you.

Now, for all you know, you could storm into the room and ask/ tell/ yell/ scream/ order/ command/ bellow/ beg/ implore her for something rather important but all your gonna get from her is a quaint giggle- giggle topped with a lot of blushing-blushing.

" What?", I exclaim out loud with the most incredulous look on my face.
"Please tell me, what!!!!! Is there something I'm missing here?"

"Ah Mayth dear, you wouldn't understand", says a girl in my cubicle with the most patronizing of looks. "And by the way, you might want to hush down a bit and not invite myriad not-so-attractive glares from cubicles surrounding ours and the ones surrounding theirs"

Ok..... see, that I can do. Hushing down isn't all that difficult for me. There. (Aravinthan would slightly disagree with me though...He thinks that I have 'mics' and 'amplifiers' for lunch everyday. Maybe I should tell him how untrue that is one of these days. Or, maybe I'm just loud, for life. *Shudder*)

But, getting to the serious part...
Really! Now, what wouldn't I understand?

That our damsel 's in love? That the world looks mysteriously brighter to her because of which she looks forward to waking up to the very next day, every day? That I shouldn't blame her for that disappointed look when she receives a message from anyone else but 'him'? That me wanting to have chickoo-milkshake with her at the canteen over a nice, bitchy chat about office no longer gains top priority in her Things-I-love-Doing list?

See, all that I understand, the smart girl I am..but what I don't get is the excessive giggle-giggle, laugh-laugh and the unexplainable mirth with which she says and does things these days. Does a commitment actually make you do all this? Are you a perpetually happy over...everything?

Right, yeah.. Maybe girl-in-the-cubicle was right afterall (she'd thrash me if she found her name here)... maybe I just couldn't understand all this .... till I eventually do.

Sigh! Whatever....I'm really really happy for MC (except for the fact that I have to wait in a queue these days just to talk to her ...grr...the darned-cell phone and the person at the other side of it).

I'm still the confirmed Mills-'n-Boon deprecator and I still squirm at the very thought of overtly-mushy and saccharine romance.
But I just can't help thinking...
If falling in love can make anyone this happy, then I actually find myself looking forward to it.

*Sigh*...(sob)..Oh Crap, where's that can of ice-cream?

Well, I'll be damned!

2007-07-14T15:35:00.000-07:00

Appalled.
Thats what I am now.

http://www.ibnlive.com/blogs/sanjeebmukherjea/262/2126/rajini-the-blogbuster.html

For some reason, I not only find this blog repulsive but also sad, in a sense that our country has to put up with a shit-load of racists like this.

Not that I'm a confirmed Rajini fan or a Dravidian-fanatic (except when its Rahul Dravid we're talking about), but its the constant battering of the so called 'Dravidian' race (the dogmatic way of referring to the southies) like they belong to a completely different lineage.

What in heaven's name are these guys trying to do...that too in a public forum???
Friggin Racists!

Life's Lesson #120707

2007-07-12T16:29:00.000-07:00

Thou shalt not be proud of thyself for bringing down the Mainframes.

Corollary: Lets just keep ourselves out of trouble, shall we.

Go Figure!

2007-07-08T10:38:00.000-07:00

Lets see..

5 Jumbo Jangiris/Jilebees (Courtesy: Surya Sweets, Mylapore)
2 Raj kachoris
2 fat Samosas
1/2 packet of mixture (the other half being devoured by yours truly the previous day itself)
1 big Mango
3 Vaazhapazhams (Bananas for the un-informed in Tamil)
1 packet of Top Ramens Smoodles
1 Packet of Krishna Potato cheeps

...All this in addition to the customary 'Rasam' and Curd rice with vendakkai-poriyal ; A combination I can't do without before hitting the sack.

Well...if you're still here and haven't fainted yet, you could read this too.

Today, most evidently, I had a diet any model would die for (or actually, die with).
What model, most of my friends would crave for this sooper combination of food-items considering that some of them have really transformed into Divine-Goddesses ever since we got out of college...all this while I'm radically turning into a plump-kush-ball.
They all have the will-power. And I don't.
No,actually its the other way round....I have all the will power to gorge in all the food I set my eyes upon ...while tragically, my friends don't.
(slight call for SOS here!)

Off late, I've been forced to confront this insatiable urge of mine that makes me devour anything I can lay my hands on and this activity of eating like theres no tomorrow, is performed by me with such elan you know...absolutely no guilt, no remorse...no prudence over the dire repercussions I have to face once all that I've gorged in, has turned into un-digested (or digested...whatever!) fat which gets deposited in all the unwanted places (not like there are many wanted places...but I'm not getting into all that).

The fact that I'm unable to refrain from thulping in everything I see (well..almost everything, I most conveniently happen to stay away from healthy food. damn!) doesn't really seem disturb me as much as the fact that I am un-perturbed by my over-indulgence.

Too complex a sentence? Lets re-word it.

The very fact that I'm shamelessly un-perturbed by my herculean appetite, perturbs me and I seriously don't know what I ought to do about it. I'm always hungry. Period.

Do scientists have a cure for hunger?
'Well,of course you nitwit....food', you might say.
But isn't that my problem in the first place?
Too much food?
Aren't we back to where we started?

hmm...ok,I don't intend to publicize my problems over the internet (yeah right..thats what this blog was for, anyway). To his own, each problem (That would have sounded much better in Latin.Ignorance..hmph! )

Anyways, I'm working on it.
Well, ok...its not really a nerve-wrecking problem 'n all, when benchmarked with poverty in Somalia, venal Governments, Global Warming, and unmarried girls in my family .... one or two words of wisdom and encouragement will do ;)

Until then, all I can say to myself is..

Goooooooooo Figure!!

Calvinized

2007-07-08T02:17:00.000-07:00

Some Trip (..or why you should just walk it all the way)

2007-07-05T11:01:00.000-07:00

My office-mates scattered all over India (Delhi, Bombay, Calcutta, Ahemedabad 'n Bangalore to be precise) had decided to meet up in Madras for a nice holiday over the weekend. The itenary involved visiting Thirupathi followed by a trip to Yercaud.
Simple.
Yeah, I wish!

This trip would have been just another trip if we had planned it meticulously for which I sincerely advocate people to plan their holidays in future in such a way that, they are unplanned to the last minute.
Chaos is good fun, I've discovered. :D

Before going about this journey, let me introduce you to some of our key players in this trip.

1. Pradeep - our mystery bus that did everything but move.
2.Mr. Muthu, the Bus owner-Who seriously ought to close down this incompetant bijjiness of his and perhaps join another software company. I’m talking to HR-TCS for a fair opening.
3. Fate (without which this trip would have been just another trip)
4. Us crazy juntha-Need I say more.

12:30am Thursday : Night out at Anchal’s.

Bombay, Guj, Calcutta ‘n Delhi guys turn up at Anchu s place…Takloo (who was not yet takloo), his friend Sudheep, Sahil, Tosh, Chacha, Raman, Paro, Bhaumik, Yudee, Chirag, Nikhil, Chirag Patel,Anchal Surosa Shyamala ‘n me..
boy, seeing everyone under the same roof would never feel the same. After doing some exuberant screaming, shouting and catching up we head to the nearby TCS office for tea at some ungodly hour 4am. The bus is expected to arrive at 5am. We re all ready leave.

Thrusday, 7am
Its 7am We’re STILL ready for the bus to arrive. Calling the bus-driver seems tougher that talking George Bush into joining Indian politics.
But oh well, we have our cameras and ourselves to have some fun.

Some one ‘n half hours, 21 phone calls and ten photos later, the bus finally arrives.
And following that, is the grand entry of Saaaaaaaaaaaai ;) (Applause, applause!)

Friday 10AM, Pradeep
We re on our way to Thirupathi…. It feels nice not to be cramped up in a bus like we used to in Trivandrum. Lots of space….lots of talking..and a bit of sleeping. (Sahil also caught up on a bit of sleep if I do remember ;) )

Friday, 12:00 pm Thirupathi
Blore guys arrive…PayDay, Naveen, Jimmy and Veena (PD’s friend) are welcomed with much excitement. We move to the local bus-stand in Thirupathi to board another bus which will take us to the hill-top (the temple being on a hill). Topic of discussion during our ascent up the hill was Jimmy’s new sexy cell phone-one in black with one of those tooth-pick types you can poke the screen with.
Some good fun there.

(flanked by Naveen, Raman, Bhaumik 'n Tosh)

3pm Thirumala, hill top
It isn’t too cold, neither is it too hot. We walk to a public hall where we can keep our stuff in lockers and freshen up. We’re all set to head to the temple after that.
But not without some lunch at a nearby restaurant. Sahil-saab very dutifully took our orders and we were all now really ready for the temple J

Friday 5pm, on our way to temple
2 official takloos originate at this hour.
Takloo and Parimal (like one talkoo was not enough in our gang :P)
Chacha, I presume will now be the style icon in Mumbai ;)

The queue is long.

Very long.

Free-dharshan has a notorious reputation for making people wait forever to see the lord. What follows the long queue is a room which houses something like 200 hundred people and makes us wait for another for 5 odd hours.
But trust me, waiting has never really been this much fun.
Imagine 20 people cramped up along the steps which can customarily seat 12 people. Absolutely no space to even lift your hand and scratch your head.
Activities during this wait, involve fervently discussing Tosh’s romantic engagement [;)], Chirag’s 4 day wedding, Sahil’s childhood love stories, and hitting Jimmy’s face every 3 mintues. (ask chacha)

Friday 8pm, inside waiting room
Paro faints.
She feels bad about it later….sweet girl
I seriously don’t know why she feels guilty.
I’m sure all of us would have dropped in that claustrophobic ambience in some time anyway.

Friday 9pm, inside waiting-room
We’re tired of waiting but we still have to. So,now we all plan to sing. I sing Lukka Chuppi which sparks up some laughter for some unknown reason. Unknow then, known now (reasons please contact chacha and Takloo)
We’re still waiting for darshan.

Saturday,12:30 am, Temple
Darshan time.
We scramble in the stampede to get darshan. Its just some 9 seconds of viewing the magnificent lord in his chamber, but the darshan was worth all the waiting. Defintiely.
We move out of the temple and have dinner at a place that’s ready to kick us out in any moment. I don’t blame them. It is really late.

Saturday, 2am, bus-stand
We move to the bus stand there and do what we do best.
Wait.
This time, we re really bugged as its night, its dark, we’re tired and we have no roof above our heads…waiting isn’t exactly what we like doing now though we’ve gained enough expertise in it.
Some try to sleep..some continue playing an exciting word game (I like word games J )while some just stare into space…wondering if there is a bus that’s going to pick us up after all.

This was taken that night when no one even bothered to look at the cam :)

3:30 am, in bus-stand
That’s it. No more waiting. Some action here please…so Sahil/Chacha/someone goes to a nearby public hall so that we can rest in it while we wait. We all rest and almost sleep.

3:40am
Pradeep arrives. Talk about perfect timing.
On our way to Salem, then on to Yercaud….yaahoooo!!!!!!!

Satuday, 9am, in Pradeep
We’ve left Andhra and are at some place in Tamil Nadu I’ve never even heard of before. (Yes I’m a Tamilian, not further questions )

I wake up to see a load of people still sleeping in the bus. Chacha apparently hasn’t had a wink of sleep all night.
Poor fellow…. This guy ‘s an organizer all the way. Peedee,Veena ‘n I promptly leave to the wash-rooms in the bus-stand nearby and later realize, that was a futile waste. I cant brush my teeth there and that fact disturbs me to a great extent.

The bus moves from there VERY VERY slowly…and soon breaks down.
Fine, no problem.. happens to buses, so no problem. We get down, and wait for the driver to be back.
I discover that the place we’re in is called Thirupathoor.
We call Krati (whos in Yercaud now) and tell her we’re on our way and we ‘ll be there in another 3 hours max.

Saturday, 1 pm broken down bus
After an hour of waiting the driver takes the bus and we’re off. But this time, we move MUCH slower. Sooner than later, he bus breaks down. Again.

This time we’re really pissed off. The driver begs for one more hour. JUST one more hour and he promises the bus will be ready. We comply and decide to have our lunch.

Saturday, 3:00 pm, back from lunch
We return 2 hours later..the bus is still not ready. Driver begs for 3 more hours.
Anchu ‘n I frantically call up the owner, Mr.Muthu and ask him what the hell is going on.
Krathi calls up and we tell her we’re on our way to Yercaud. :D This game really was a lot of fun.

3:30pm, near the broken-down bus
We decide to send the entire lot in a TATA Sumo to Yercaud while the 5 of us (Anchu, chacha, Takloo, Sahil ‘n I) wait beside the bus and settle things out with the driver. We’re proud for having sent the rest of the lot “safely” on their way to Yercaud.
Krathi is impatient…but we tell her its just another one or 2 hours.

After some talking, yelling, thinking and agreeing…the 5 of us decide to send the bus back to Chennai and settle the money matter once we get back to Chennai.
We get into an Ambassador which we pay a fat lump of money to take us to Yercaud.

Finally, every one s going to Yercaud.
Or, that’s what we think.

Saturday 5pm, White Ambassador
Doing some major time pass in the white Ambassador, discussing quite a few thing. Good fun.

But the climax is getting a call from the Sumo guys…saying that their gaadi just broke down and even better, their gaadi has crappy brakes.

We (the white Ambassador juntha) laugh our gutts out thinking of their fate, while we merrily move on towards Yercaud.

Saturday 8pm, WhiteAmbassador
We reach Salem ,some 1750 metres below Yercaud (which is at the hill top )
The driver stops.
And tells us we can get down.

Ambassador Juntha: ummm….why have we stopped by the way?

Ambassador Driver: Because we’ve reached the end of our journey.

Ambassador Juntha: Umm….. Mr.Driver, hello!! We paid you for Yercaud didn’t we?

Ambassador Driver: You paid me for Yercaud ‘Road’. This is Yercaud Road.
So please get down.

Ambassador Juntha: What the @#$%#%^!

After some yelling and shouting and tonnes of laughing (I think I broke a few bones laughing there) we pay that stupid driver and looked for other means to getting to Yercaud. I think I lost hope of reaching here.
Krati calls up..this time genuinely asking us if we’recoming to Yercaud. We tell her we’re on our way.

Saturday 8:30 pm, bus-stand in Salem
Finally a bus.
A bus.. that moves, a bus that wont break down, a bus that has brakes and most importantly a bus that’s taking us to Yercaud. Aaaaaa…we’re a happy lot. Meanwhile the Sumo people are luckily on their way despite their brake-less gaadi.

Saturday 11 pm, Yercaud, hill-top
All of us meet at Yercaud. Sumo guys, Ambassador guys and Krathi. (Krathi along with Dhari and Shreyans)

Aaaah….finally!!!!
Hooooorrraaaay!!!
Everybody has something to say about the journey. Krati is thrilled. She’s waited the most. (14 hours to be precise).
We have a camp fire.
It rocks. Biggggg time!!! One of Sahil's rare appearances ;)

Next day.

Sunday, 9 am, Yercaud
We leave the cottage and have breakfast. The mini-van we’ve arranged for is such a darling. It takes us to places all over Yercaud without absolutely any trouble.
It doesn’t break down, it didn’t demand for extra money, it doesnt crash.
We have a mind-blowing time in Yercaud.
Trekking was just A-W-E-Some!!!!
Krathi leaves with her friend. The rest of us carry on.

I’m not gonna say much about the trekking part as I feel the photographs will do more justice J
(but just one thing though…a big thank you for those guys who helped me all the way up to the farthest point in the trek. It felt magical for having made it that far..Naveen,Raman,Chirag,Shreyans and the rest…couldn’t have done it without you guys!)

(At the top. No we arent lying down :D)

Sunday 6pm, Salem
We’re done with Yercaud and we’ve all made it to Salem in one piece.
The journey downwards exposed the Yo! side of Nikhil Ravi.

His Eminim-style rap ‘Dono maja karengae’ rocked….. though I had to get all that translated by Tosh later ;)

We have to bid the Blore guys good-bye. That’s is the tough part. But the tougher part is yet to come.
Arranging for transportation to Chennai was not going to be easy at the eleventh hour.
Running around here n there..to the Railway station n stuff deprived me of a chance of saying a proper good-bye to the Blore folks.
All of you…u guys rocked yar…serisously!!
PayDay…sweetie, you’re a chocolate!

8:30 pm
Sahil, Anchu n I run frantically to the railway-station to book tickets…found them, paid for them… done! We’re gonna go ta Chennai, confirmed…hooooray!!!!!!!

Monday morning, we bid some of the Bombay guys farwell…I was incapable of being too senti then because of the tension for finding a decent means of transportation to Anchu s flat.
Love you guys!!

I stop here.
(I hear a sigh of relief but let me just pretend like I didnt hear that.. ;))
This was indeed a very long mail and I really appreciate it if you read it this far.
If you didn’t, no problem, I still love you guys no less ;)

I look back at the last 96 hours and I wonder in bedazzlement at the dynamic-factor in life and the enormity of unpredictability it has in store for anyone who is willing to accept it as it comes.

What I learnt or rather inferred, was that there are some things in life we have absolutely no control over what so ever, and in such cases we just have to patiently watch the turn of events – you’ll be amazed at the way things turn out when left to themselves.

It just goes to show that good times are not about what you do, when you do or how you do it; but just the people you share your moments with.

And now as I type this on my lappy listening to Roobaroo from Rang de basanthi with a smile on my face, I have a feeling of content and deep satisfaction that I have quite a bank of memories to dwell upon for some time to come and that I have some fabulous people to share them with.

Love you guys.
More than ever
Mayth!!

Life's Lesson #70623.....

2007-06-23T18:34:00.000-07:00

Happy bosses maketh happy juntha

(Though the converse is very seldom true)

Shivaji - I rest my case

2007-06-19T17:08:00.000-07:00

I've never actually been a Rajini fan. Never really liked him all that much.
But I’ve seen it for myself now.

There is no denying in it anymore and now I'm forced to eat my own words.

Rajini-kanth…Tamil-Nadu’s sooobar-star. You can love him or you can hate him…but you certainly CERTAINLY can’t ignore him.

The Tamil-movie industry has an uncanny way of reminding its faithful patronizers who the 'boss’ still is (pun unintended) and now the prejudiced-section of the audience (a part of which I was, till a while back) can no longer sit at home and twiddle their thumbs while the entire nation (and I read, the whole world too) gazes in bedazzlement at this high-budget phenomenon from Asia.

I know. Rajini has grown old and is now rather squidgy around the edges.
I’d be lying if I said that I found him to be sinfully sexy with/without that magical make-up and fluffy wig of his.
Yep, he no longer can do those eye-catchy dance steps with sooper jhatkas & matkas because of which his dance steps are tragically limited to the ‘bulb-dance’ sequence (college’s ragging routine which involves hand-movements analogous to the activity of screwing/unscrewing a bulb)

But all those cons just seem to vanish out of sight when he delivers those lines of his with unmeasurable attitude and class knowing that the audience is going to lap it up for whatever ludicrous content it may bear.

I perceive Shivaji- to be a beautiful movie for more reasons than one.

a) Shankar. Need I say more.

b) A not too-serious-yet-rather-striking theme based on giving your mother-land your
very best ; even when shit happens (Which is quite a lot these days).

c) Money money everywhere in every frame of the movie. Lets you get in touch with the surreal part of reality.

d) Raghuvaran. An small yet honest role that reminded the Tamil audience of what this fine actor was and is capable of doing. Every movement and line had a genuine feel to it. He definitely deserved this. And much more.

e) The wardrobe.
Man! Mind boggling stuff there...couldnt take my eyes of Shriya's attire. Manish Malhotra has delivered to this movie more than he ever would and could to Bollywood itself. Shriya is here to stay and she's climbing up up wayyyyyy up.

f) Cute humour... Enna vicha Commedy onnum pannaliyae, Kids paakardidu Pogo; Shivaji kitta vechikkadae gogo :P Vivek, your my man!

g) Music. A.R. Rahman. I'd be wasting my time if I wrote anything here.

h) Songs.
For their resplendence and overtly ostentatious choreography. You’ve to see it to believe it. Karan Johar’s got some records to beat here.

i) Rajinikanth (well of course...who did you expect here..Paris Hilton?)

I thoroughly enjoyed this movie despite detesting logically-depraved movies.

This one is exclusively for Tamil folks...and they simply love it.
Typically entertaining, typically Rajini.
And thats all that matters.

Amen.

For a Name's Sake

2007-06-14T17:15:00.000-07:00

The Namesake would have been just another book I scrambled to read in a hurry in order to avoid paying a customary fine to the librarian (who of late has considered making me one of the library's official stakeholders for the fat income it gets out of the fine I pay).... if it weren't for the profound retrospection it gave way to.

Retrospection, on all those times as a kid when I'd wish I had a cooler name or at least an easier one to call myself by so that I wouldn't have to repeat my name some 5-10 times to all the British kids and teachers at school.

Having your name mutilated by the Indian masses is one thing (Mythili, Mydeenee, Maydilee,Megini...yeah, I've heard it all) but having your name shrunk to the size of a month of the year and being called that by everyone including your teachers is another; and this certainly is not my idea of 'cool'.

My name was a serious issue for me when I was in Junior-School more so because of the cute names my friends in class would have. Even the Indians in my school had short and chic names.
I remember Kajal Pai being a hot favorite and I secretly liked the way it sounded as opposed to the 3-syllabled first-name I possessed followed by yet another 3-syllabled sirname......too much for Non-Indian standards.
And too much for a sensitive 7 year old.
There were seriously times when I'd ask my mom if we could change my name...and she'dlook at me incredulously and ask..again?

Unlike the book where in Gogol changed his name from a un-cool one to a cool one, my name when I was a kid was changed from a simple one to a complex one. This bugged me for quite some time. (long saga...might blog on it sometime. Or then again, maybe not)

But yes, my detestation for my name did die down soon.
I moved schools. The Indian School, to be precise.
I was no longer the strange kid with the weird name.
I discovered that Indians (especially South-Indians) have the innate ability to name their children with the longest of names and I was no longer left alone in the dark.

Ah, those were the days (loud sigh)....where the smallest of things would leave me excited!
I'd go running home to my mom (well not really but I'd like to think so) exclaiming, 'Ma! There's a girl called Hamsavardhini in the neighbouring class' and I would count my fingers while I chirped Ham-sa-var-dhi-nee in glee.

(Note to self: keep topic of blog in mind while blogging)

Ah right..so what was trying to say (somewhere) is that, despite the initial apathy I had for my name, I'd begun to love my name . The very sound of it...and very way its written in Sanskrit and in Tamil; Not because of its uniqueness or anything or because there are perhaps only a hand-few of 'me's in this world.... but because its my identity and its perhaps one of the few (or only) decisions my parents have both harmoniously agreed upon.

On reading The Namesake, I felt grave pity for Gogol. (the protagonist of the book who apart from leading an unfortunately-loser life, changes his name to suit the American way of life) ...pity, because he'd turned down his father's most precious gift to him...an identity, with a solid meaning to cherish.

I sometimes fear that there's a Gogol in all of us. Inside me.
I could categorically dismiss this thought as seeming absurd...but I don't know.
I really don't know.

You know that its just NOT your Sunday at the Movies when...

2007-06-10T09:23:00.000-07:00

1.You plan for an exciting meetup at Sathyam expecting some 15 people; where only 7 turn up.

2. You rush like a maniac across the roads of Chennai and park your vandi outside the theatre gate just to get there on time; only to discover that your quite early than expected.

3. Watching a movie turns out to be a visually tiring experience leaving you feeling as though you've faught a battle against the Pirates from the movie.

4. You spend half your time gaping at the screen wondering what the hell in going on out there; and the rest of the time waiting for the pop-corn to arrive.

5. You've been dumped with a life-supply of pop-corn and what easily seems to be one-litre of ice-cold Coke which you struggle to drive down your throat throughout the movie; only in vain.

6. You've sat through the movie for 180 minutes and you still don't know what the movie's all about.

7. You leave the theatre just to find that your vandi has been towed by the Chennai Police; on the grounds of parking in a non-parking area.

8. Your friends accompany you in travelling another 2 kms to get to the Police station to demand for your vandi because your the rightful owner (hell, yeah!).

9. You pay up and eventually don't get a receipt. Ahem.:D

10. You decide to cross the road and park at Spencer's Plaza with Vikram, Shyamz and Surosa...for a blissful sandwhich at Sub-ways and a good stroll at Landmark.

11. You think to yourslef,

"Aaaaah....all in a day's work.
Shouldn't all Sundays be as invigorating as this?"
:P

It spreads inside you and outside too

2007-06-09T21:23:00.000-07:00

There is something about the word ‘cancer’ these days that gives me an instant gush of fear about the profound uncertainty of ..life. Uncertainty manifests itself into a whole new meaning when taking the word cancer into consideration.

Now, this is one disease which hits us when we’re in the pink of health and when most unexpected. The sad part of succumbing to this wicked-disease is that, its perhaps the only one (apart from tumor which again is another form of cancer) which defies Newton’s 3rd Law of Motion
"For every action there is an equal and opposite reaction”
(ok….serious misinterpretation of 11th grade Physics I hear you say, but wait…hear me out I say)

I’ve always thought of diseases to be a result of some perceptible cause. I’m not saying that its karmic ‘n all, just that you can account for every state of illness, injury or disorder that you endure. Everything can be accounted for.
Everything has a concrete cause.
Everything.

Except Cancer.

So far, from what I’ve seen, cancer can hit absolutely anybody.
Regardless of whether you live a tobacco free life or whether you own a tobacco factory....Its just as random as the grading in one of my papers in 6th sem.
Anybody.

This very thought hits me with a sudden spasm of sadness and anger considering that we humans, the most intelligent and powerful species in the Universe (disregarding any probable signs of extra-terrestrial wildlife out there ) are incapable of confronting and curing something very much science related as opposed to a tsunami (which man possibly couldn't control or evade); despite the colossal advancement we’ve made, over the years, in the field of science and medicine.

Doesn’t it haunt you when you realize that there’s a probability that you might be in a position to confront something you can’t understand or account for?
Something you can’t reason with or bargain with?
Something you can solve or resolve?
Something that brings irreplaceable sorrow and loss that spreads across a family or an entire generation,like a cancer (pun intended).

I would mention the various intriguing causes to cancer listed in one of the sites...someof them absurd, but fascinating just the same...
But that’s not what I blog for.... No. I don’t discuss useful information :P(that you should’ve discovered by now after reading some of my informatively-prolific blogs, O tolerant reader).

I’m still baffled by this medical-enigma and all I wish to say is that.. ..No one deserves to be killed unless he legally deserves it or illegally wants to.

Its one thing if you are diagnosed with malignancy after puffing a fat six-digit-number of cigarettes (die smokers, die!) but it’s totally different thing when your diagnosed with the same while/after living life abiding by all the protocols of perfect healthy living; when it suddenly hits you like a bus.

Life has so much it can unravel.
Sometimes, the best-est of solutions to any confusion in life could lie in answering a simple question… Will you have fun while resorting to it…?

Because at the end of the day, you should be proud of what you’ve lived for and lived through… and not how long you spend doing just that.

To Smt. Vatsala Nagarajan whom I love and respect with all my heart. Its not fair what life (or otherwise..) does to fabulous people like you.

Life's Lesson #74567.....

2007-06-09T06:50:00.000-07:00

A Scorpio forgives....but never forgets..

And I'm as Scorpio as they come.

Calvinized

2007-06-06T15:18:00.001-07:00

Had to.

My Helmet's Redemption

2007-06-03T13:16:00.000-07:00

...Our Government has finally done it.

The Law now has it that car-drivers not not strapping their belts (Aww...don't give me any crap about trouser/pant-ka-belt funny-guy..Tamil-Nadu Policemen aren't THAT dumb.THere! No legal hassles attached) and two-wheeler drivers driving without a helmet, will be caught and prosecuted.

Bwahahahahaha...(Evil laughter)

hmm....Lets see...this new Law-thingy does insinuate a few things.

Ayy) I hunt down that big-fat-ugly-red helmet of mine from the cob-web laddened archives of my house (despite learning a lesson the hard way ) and put it out for a while in the sun, to make it more head-friendly (and more spider not-so-friendly)

Bee) My mom takes our car to the garage to fix all the belts in the car even the ones at the back,so that they..come, when pulled (the very way well-behaved belts should behave)

See) Now this is something I'm not so sure about. Should pillion riders be donning a helmet too? I'm quite concerned because I always have someone or the other behind me everytime I ride my vandi.

Well, if yes, I'd very happily share mine..but I don't intend on getting prosecuted in the near future,thank you very much. And for some wicked reason I don't intend on investing on another big-fat-red thing;even if its for you, darling.
So, that brings us to a point of uncertainty in Point#See.

But ...hey, there is a good chance that we don't get caught for my pillion-rider-not-donning-a-helmet.
I'm quite fast on the roads and I could just Vrooooom! past the pot-bellied men-in-white.
My pillion riders love me! :)
(I can say what I want...Its my blog!)

But I'm not getting all jumpy and thrilled by that optimistic-notion because the probability that we're gonna get caught on the road with me maneuvering my loyal blue 2-stroke vandi for reasons apart from you not donning a helmet, is tragically quite large.

So either way you 'n I are meat, sweetie!
(that still brings us to a point of uncertainty in Point#See)

Never mind..

At this moment when early cab drivers,lack of good sleep, unfinished documents,an mp3 player that needs fixing and an impending Quality Audit at work ,are issues to be considered, 'Point#See' doesn't really gain top priority in my things-to-worry-about list.

There!
Well...whadya know? This country IS getting better after all...'n I'm so proud of it.
Now, if only the idea of a ban on auto-drivers' reckless driving could sink in.

(But who listens to me! Bah!)

;)

To Crib or Not to Crib..

2007-05-31T15:21:00.000-07:00

Corporate life and its very overwhelming side-effects (plenty, on which I shall elaborate in detail later..if you haven't had enough of it so far, that is) have been one of the prime factors of inspiration (if not the only) for the genesis of my blog.

You know... I've read blogs on politics,societal hypocracy,college pressure, family knots,patriotism and some on improving your culinary skills too and all these blogs would be really enticing and not to mention, insightful.

I'd always wonder what I would blog on bearing in mind the multifarious topics that will interest both me and a common reader so that one day an arbit reader would exclaim out loud.. 'Ah good blog! I should definitely come back and learn more.'

But try as I might, I am exceedingly incapable of refraining from centring my blogs around the common-denominator, 'Work'.
And it doesnt stop with that..

From work, springs more work...which leads to pressure...which brings us to tension...taking us to dissatisfaction, and eventually my most favourite comfort-zone, 'cribbing'

Ah, cribbing!
Now don't you uncategorically dismiss this act as a trite activity.
Judgemental you!
hmph!!

Convincing and captivating cribbing comes only with practice and how convincingly you enthrall your sympathizing audience depends on how well you've mastered this art (and of course the sort of people you're subjected to at work...but thats just a tag added-on for humour. Or is it?)

I for one am the indeclared Mistress of Cribbing. Why, in fact, 'crib' is my middle name (after whining, fusspot, and lazy-bum of course)

And you know what?
Cribbing is contagious too. In a fun sort'ov way.

How?
Well...picture this...you wouldn't want your life to sound all mega 'peachy' over the phone when your poor friend's stuck at work with absurd timings, a crappy home...with crappy roomates...with an abominable boss..not to mention the miserable pay she might be getting.

So what can you do?
You can't undo her crappy life-style...No siree!
But what you can do, is make your life sound a little less chirpy...just trying to make your friend feel better, if not good.
So you do an itsy-witsy bit of cribbing in front of your depraved friend.
Like a harmless drink in front of your boss.
No harm after all.
Its not going to change anything anyway.

Thats harmless, steadfast and unadulterated cribbing for you. :)

The problem only rises when this becomes a habit and when you blame all your problems on one soul reason.
This is whats called 'uncool' cribbing
That is when you need an urgent metamorphosis on your outlook on life, in general.

hmmm....so much for uncalled-for philosphy-preaching.
(Please dont hate me for this)

So...will my blogs be worthwhile and constructive henceforth??

umm.... Next kosteen please :D

A forward I accidentally happened to read. Somethink to think about.
Always..

Vivek Pradhan was not a happy man. Even the plush comfort of the air-
conditioned compartment of the Shatabdi express could not cool his frayed nerves. He was the Project Manager and still not entitled to air travel.
It was not the prestige he sought, he had tried to reason with the adminperson, it was the savings in time.
As PM, he had so many things to do.

He opened his case and took out the laptop, determined to put the time to some good use.

"Are you from the software industry sir," the man beside him was staring appreciatively at the laptop.

Vivek glanced briefly and mumbled in affirmation, handling the laptop now with exaggerated care and importance as if it were an expensive car.

"You people have brought so much advancement to the country sir. Today everything is getting computerized."

"Thanks," smiled Vivek, turning around to give the man a look.

He always found it difficult to resist appreciation. The man was young and stocky like a sportsman. He looked simple and strangely out of place in that little lap of luxury like a small town boy in a prep school. He probably was a railway sportsman making the most of his free traveling pass.

"You people always amaze me," the man continued, "You sit in an office and write something on a computer and it does so many big things outside."

Vivek smiled deprecatingly. Naivety demanded reasoning not anger. "It is not as simple as that my friend. It is not just a question of writing a few lines. There is a lot of process that goes behind it." For a moment, he was tempted to explain the entire Software Development Lifecycle but restrained himself to a single statement. "It is complex, very complex."

"It has to be. No wonder you people are so highly paid," came the reply.

This was not turning out as Vivek had thought. A hint of belligerence came into his so far affable, persuasive tone.

"Everyone just sees the money. No one sees the amount of hard work we have to put in.Indians have such a narrow concept of hard work. Just because we sit in an air-conditioned office does not mean our brows do not sweat.
You exercise the muscle; we exercise the mind and believe me that is no less taxing."

He had the man where he wanted him and it was time to drive home the point.

"Let me give you an example. Take this train. The entire railway reservation system is computerized. You can book a train ticket between any two stations from any of the hundreds of computerized booking centres across the country. Thousands of transactions accessing a single database, at a time concurrency; data integrity, locking, data security. Do you understand the complexity in designing and coding such a system?"

The man was stuck with amazement, like a child at a planetarium. This was something big and beyond his imagination. "You design and code such things."

"I used to," Vivek paused for effect, "But now I am the Project Manager,"

"Oh!" sighed the man, as if the storm had passed over, "so your life is easy now."

It was like being told the fire was better than the frying pan. The man had to be given a feel of the heat.

"Oh come on, does life ever get easy as you go up the ladder. Responsibility only brings more work. Design and coding! That is the easier part. Now I do not do it, but I am responsible for it and believe me, that is far more stressful. My job is to get the work done in time and with the highest quality. To tell you about the pressures, there is the customer at one end always changing his requirements, the user wanting something else and your boss always expecting you to have finished it yesterday."

Vivek paused in his diatribe, his belligerence fading with self- realisation. What he had said, was not merely the outburst of a wronged man, it was the truth. And one need not get angry while defending the truth. "My friend," he concluded triumphantly, "you don't know what it is to be in the line of fire."

The man sat back in his chair, his eyes closed as if in realization.
When he spoke after sometime, it was with a calm certainty that surprised Vivek.

"I know sir, I know what it is to be in the line of fire," He was staring blankly as if no passenger, no train existed, just a vast expanse of time.

"There were 30 of us when we were ordered to capture Point 4875 in the cover of the night. The enemy was firing from the top. There was no knowing where the next bullet was going to come from and for whom. In the morning when we finally hoisted the tricolour at the top only 4 of us were alive."

"You are a..."

"I am Subedar Sushant from the 13 J&K Rifles on duty at Peak 4875 in Kargil. They tell me I have completed my term and can opt for a land assignment. But tell me sir, can one give up duty just because it makes life easier. On the dawn of that capture, one of my colleagues lay injured in the snow, open to enemy fire while we were hiding behind a bunker. It was my job to go and fetch that soldier to safety."
"But my captain refused me permission and went ahead himself. He said that the first pledge he had taken as a Gentleman Cadet was to put the safety and welfare of the nation foremost followed by the safety and welfare of the men he commanded."

"His own personal safety came last, always and every time. He was killed as he shielded that soldier into the bunker. Every morning now, as I stand guard I can see him taking all those bullets, which were actually meant for me. I know sir, I know what it is to be in the line of fire."

Vivek looked at him in disbelief not sure of his reply. Abruptly he switched off the laptop. It seemed trivial, even insulting to edit a word document in the presence of a man for whom valour and duty was a daily part of life; a valour and sense of duty which he had so far attributed only to epical heroes.

The train slowed down as it pulled into the station and Subedar Sushant picked up his bags to alight.

"It was nice meeting you sir."

Vivek fumbled with the handshake. This hand had climbed mountains, pressed the trigger, and hoisted the tricolour. Suddenly as if by impulse,he stood at attention and his right hand went up in an impromptu salute.
It was the least he felt he could do for the country.

PS: The incident he narrates during the capture of Peak 4875 is a true-life incident during the Kargil war. Capt. Batra sacrificed his life while trying to save one of the men he commanded, as victory was within sight.
For this and his various other acts of bravery he was awarded the Param
Vir Chakra the nation's highest military award.

Live humbly, there are great people around us, let us learn!

Life's Lesson #300507.....

2007-05-30T03:27:00.000-07:00

Leave all your attitude at home when dealing with the Management.

Now tell me…

2007-05-26T17:42:00.000-07:00

Am I weird just because I sit on my office-chair with my legs crossed ?

Am I pretentious just because I prefer the Queen’s Language to any other?

Am I confused just because my blog says so?

Am I unromantic just because I’m not in love?

Am I content just because I’m not ruthless?

Am I a narcissist just because I love myself?

Am I egoistic just because I think I can?

Am I a spoilt-brat just because I’m the only kid?

Am I a push-over just because I’m accomodative?

Am I aggressive just because I want to get my work done ?

Am I your friend just because I tolerate you?

Am I callous just because I don’t tell my dear ones how much I love them?

Am I cruel just because I have no control over my temper?

Am I a sissy just because I like pink?

Am I selfish just because I don’t wish to share my make up?

Am I vain just because I’m obsessed with my kajal and mascara?

Am I a nice person just because I let you have all the paneer from my dinner plate?

Am I a snob just because I don’t make the first move?

Am I meek just because I don’t rebel?

Am I self-centred just because I don’t volunteer to do your work?

Am I asking for too much when I want some time for myself?

Am I lazy just because I demand a sound 10 hour sleep?

Am I indifferent just because I don’t remember my best friends’ birthdays?

Am I stupid just because I don’t get things instantly?
(Don’t answer that, thank you very much)

Am I jobless just because I put this post up?

Are you, just because you’re reading this?

So many questions…so little time..
Life is unfair.

But Tell me…So what?

Life's Lesson #564855.....

2007-05-23T17:06:00.000-07:00

A fever doesn't let you sleep for nuts....
How many ever sheep you try counting.

I'm learning...

2007-05-21T15:43:00.000-07:00

I dunno.
Life, over the last few weeks has become unexpectedly hectic and overwhelmingly flustering.
Thanks to the work-factor I’m a part of, I’m able to keep the insanity in my life live ‘n kickin .
(Goooooo WORK!)

Lets see… lots of deadlines sprouting up, lots of tension in the air, lots of planning, lots of talking, lots of midnight tea, lots of strategy making, lots of strategy re-making, topped with lots of timely goof-ups, lots of laughter, lots of tempers flashing about, lots of frustration, lots of cursing (:D), lots more laughter, lots more midnight tea……….
Yep, quite a lot I’m seeing here with my naïve inexperienced eyes.

The team of ten I spend an average of almost 60 hours a week with, is the most heterogeneous and amajjingly bindaas kind of team…. and can be quite a handful to deal with when I'm tensed and under pressure (which is like…always)

Every day is a new day (well duhh..) but I've come to learn that you don’t always start on a clean slate. You do carry some baggage on to the next day, whether you like it or not.
So I’ve learnt to play it cool….chill, sit back and watch the fun (purely figurative mind you. Can’t afford otherwise)

Something makes me think of this song at this moment.

I'm sittin' here in the boring room
It's just another rainy sunday afternoon
I'm wasting my time, I got nothing to do
I'm hanging around, I'm waiting for you
But nothing ever happens and I wonder

I'm driving around in my car
I'm driving too fast, I'm driving too far
I'd like to change my point of view
I feel so lonely I'm waiting for you
But nothing ever happens and I wonder

I wonder how, I wonder why
Yesterday you told me 'bout the blue, blue sky
And all that I can see is just a yellow lemon tree
I'm turning my head up and down
I'm turning, turning, turning, turning, turning around
And all that I can see is just another lemon tree

I'm sittin' here, I miss the power
I'd like to go out, taking a shower
But there's a heavy cloud inside my head
I feel so tired, put myself into bed
But nothing ever happens, and I wonder

Isolation, is not good for me
Isolation, I don't want to sit on the lemon tree

I'm stepping around in the desert of joy
Maybe anyhow I get another toy
And everything will happen, and you wonder

I wonder how, I wonder why
Yesterday you told me 'bout the blue, blue sky
And all that I can see is just another lemon tree
I'm turning my head up and down
I'm turning, turning, turning, turning, turning around
And all that I can see is just a yellow lemon tree
And I wonder, wonder

I wonder how, I wonder why
Yesterday you told me 'bout the blue, blue sky
And all that I can see, and all that I can see
And all that I can see is just a yellow lemon tree..

Fools Garden

I’m work-under-progress.
I’m learning.
It slow and crappy.

But I'm liking it..
:D

Ah...

2007-05-18T19:29:00.000-07:00

...My first 15-hour day at work.

Am I on fire or what!

:P

A Sip of Coffee for the Beginners' Soul

2007-05-15T13:03:00.000-07:00

I was stuck in a meeting this morning with some angr(ej)y folks at work and the amount of continuous yada-yada-yada blah-blah-blah I was subjected to, is just inexplicable.
It was past my lunchtime and this meeting just never seemed to end.

I was beginning to feel hungry...and restless...and fidgety....and agitated...and jumpy, and irritated to say the least 'coz my tummy was now making funny noises and let me tell you, you don't want to be within a 10 metre radius from me when my tummy is no longer under my control.

I was desperate. I'd keep eyeing the door waiting for a miracle to happen.. like for instance, someone coming through the door with lunch on a tray or the bell ringing signalling that all activity ought to stop.
(Bell???? At work?? Anyone having the feeling I skipped college and joined work straight away from school??)

Just when I was I beginning to lose all hope a fellow enters the Conference Room with a tray.
Prayers answered!
Talk about wishful thinkin...Boy, that was quick!

But wait...a tray...with cups?
Tea??
At 01:30 pm in the afternoon???
Who, in his/her right senses would serve TEA in the afternoon?????!?!?!?!?!?!!?

Fine whatever....I gazed hopefully at that tray while it was gracefully but friggin slowly taking its turn round the table.

I grab that cup when I get the chance.
Sip...lick....mmmmmmmm

No...more like...gulp...lick..gulp...gulp...gulp...mmmmm...(burp)

That drink was well deserving...Big smile on face.
But wait..this wasnt tea....this was...wait..its like something I've never tasted before.

Coffee.
Coffee....It was Coffee!

By George!

I drank my first cup of coffee ever, unknowingly that too....shattering all my ancient apprehensions on caffeine, throwing my prejudice against poor-'ol-coffee out the window.

And, you know what?
It didn't taste all that bad.

Think I'll give this drink a try once in a while.
(I'm still loyal to milk and tea though)

Anyways.....
Well...whaddya know....looks like coffee,most definitely, is my cup of tea after all:)

A Song for the Heart

2007-05-13T15:49:00.000-07:00

The radio played Anne’s Song a few days back.
Its been more than a decade since I’ve listened to this song and I’d almost totally forgotten what it was like to listen to the most romantic song ever (not that I have a single romantic bone in my body but still)

I remember having listened to this song over ‘n over again some 14 years ago till I could sing it in my sleep (and also till the tape got stuck in our old fashioned tape-recorder which had be thrown out by my disgruntled mother who was disappointed that her 1980’s-ka tape-recorder didn’t last another decade or two.)

There are few songs that please your ears and even fewer songs that go an extra mile in making you a happy person.

Have you ever felt the need to listen to some songs over and over and over again…because of the tantalizing effect they have on you; Some songs which haven’t really been played anywhere in ages, but make you sit back and allow yourself to bask in those abandoned and disremembered tunes the moment the blessed radio or the doordarshan plays them one fine day;
Or some songs,where all you have to do is just listen to them once…and you can feel your heart smile from inside.

Music in its varied forms has always captivated me and I say this at the risk of sounding clichéd. But I, like everyone else, have a set of songs that mean more to me than just rhyming words and addictive tunes.

Paradoxical as it may sound, I don’t have any if these tracks in my lappy or my new Ipod (what better place to flaunt it than here) save one or two of them thanks to the bulk of the population that’s gaga over KK’s voice.
(that would ideally include me by the way)

My hitlist (in no particular order mind you) for eternity would be thus and will never ever be subject to change.

(Well, that’s what I always say :P)

1. Blowing in the Wind - Bob Dylan
2. Hari Tum Haro – M.S. Subhalakshmi
3. Anne’s Song - John Denver
4. The Boxer - Simon ‘n Garfunkel
5. I am a Rock - Simon ‘n Garfunkel
6. Jane Vaalon Zara -Dosti
7. Scarborough Fair - Simon ‘n Garfunkel
8. Yesterday - The Beetles
9. Vanchathonuna set to Raag Karnaranjani-sung by T.N.Seshagopalan
10. Tu hi Meri shad hai
11. Enda Mutho-By Saint Thyagaraja set to Raag Bindumalini sung by T.N.Seshagopalan
(Actually all songs by TNS but I’ll restrain myself from giving too many details)

Now will yours truly, at least now, take some efforts in loading some if not all of her favourite songs into her lappy?

Well…

The answer, my friend, is blowin' in the wind,
The answer is blowin' in the wind.

- Bob Dylan

Lets Talk About Making an Impression

2007-05-06T13:33:00.002-07:00

Funny what you put yourself through JUST to make a good impression.
Even funnier how things blow up on your face at the end of the day.
Life, Bah!

Picture this, my boss asks me to send one of those neat meeting invites you can create in Microsoft Outlook for a meeting over the phone, to brief me on some Client-Fundas I ought to be aware of, and in turn enlighten my team.

So ,Friday evening, the excited me fixes up a decent meeting-invite (first time you know.. )all properly worded and stuff, keeping in mind the time-zone-complexity involved in this entire scene.

Meeting for 1 hour.
11:30 am, afternoon, on Sunday.My time
2 am. His time.

Comfy for both my boss and me.He doesn’t sleep early on weekends.. he said so himself.

Nice, meeting invite accepted also.
Done.
Not bad na?

So, Saturday afternoon, I ask myself if I have to do some reading-shmeeding, just to go over the company’s policies, so that I don’t sound like a complete jerk on Sunday’s meeting.

Its all about making an impression, remember?

Its Saturday evening, and I haven’t yet bothered to read through any of the relevant pdfs in my mailbox.
Bah…Procrastination!!
Oh well, its probably genetic by now.

Saturday night.
Will not be smitten by the procrastination-bug.
Will-power.
That’s the spirit.
I read all the pdfs in my mailbox…so that I can smartly say… 'Yes Boss, I know that…Oh yes, that too' :P

Fine…apart from that, the least I can do is get a decent note-pad and a pen..that writes (That combination is a luxury in my house…trust me). And to make the call even more convenient on my side, I hunt for my long-lost earphones, so that I don’t have to tilt my head during the entirety of the call.

The checklist before I hit the sack that night….infrastructure, all set.
I’ve told my grandparents not to summon me and make me run any errands for them from 11:30 hours- 13:00 hours.
Rite, done.

Yep all set.
Am I prepared for a meeting or what!!

Sunday morning.

Yawn….stretch….yawn yawn..

Lets look at the clock....
AAAAAaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhh!!!!!!

Meeting with boss!!!!!!!!!!!
Frantic hunt for cell under the sheets….missed calls.
Missed calls!!!

Christ…I just slept through a supposed-to-be-meeting with my boss!!!!!!

As if things weren’t ‘great’ enough at work!!!

(Don’t believe me? Check the post downstairs )

I sit on my bed…...and think.
And think.

Any more smart ways to make a good impression??

Its a 'Crazy' night out there

2007-05-04T03:25:00.001-07:00

Night!

You know, these timings sort of bring out the worst in you. No wonder God programmed all of us to sleep through this time entirely and wake up when the world is devoid of darkness.
Boy….we have one hellova focused fellow up in the skies, I tell you.

Not an axiom I’m coming up with, but with the exasperating experience I’ve had over the past 4 weeks, I think I’m entitled to form my share of judgment.

Night…There are only 3 things you can, ought to and should be doing at this time.
Sleeping……Studying… and thirdly ,well..I’ll leave that to your imagination (ahem..)But I seriously don’t think ‘work’ ought to come anywhere near this list.

People are like the skies…they turn their shades in the absence of the sun.

Wait, did I say people??

I don’t wish to make a universal statement on the global juntha. I’m not that old-and-wise to comment on Human Behaviour ‘n all.
But comment on myself…yes that I can do very well.
I’m beginning to understand myself better every day….Or, every night.
(Night shifts remember? :D)

Let the unit of measurement of Human-Tension, for this discussion, be….say, Litres.
(Might sound crazy but do bear with me..)

If the average tension level of Yours Truly, on a normal working day, be 40 litres..
Night shifts bring up my tension level to a whooping un-precedented 400 litres.

Profound self assessment over the past few weeks has lead to the final conclusion ….. that, I’m unimaginable crazy under pressure.

The funny part of all this is that…my poor project mate is having to bear the brunt of my flaky temper and eccentric idiosyncrasies.

I end up losing my cool and screaming at him every other day…and also shamelessly apologizing every other day.
Crazy crazy cycle this is .
Amazing patience this fellow has… man!!!!!!!!!

Today, …we had quite a lot of documentation to do. It was around 2:30 am….’n we still had miles left…when I totally lost it..and screamed at this Mr. Fellow for not helping me with the doc’n . This shameless act of loose temper was followed by the customary goofy apology I deliver with great ease. This time with more style and élan.

Our crazy crazy conversation goes something like
this…
(Anyone here feeling that I’m using the word ‘crazy’ more often than not )

Oh well..Koi baat nai…read on

(I walk up to this fellow’s seat)

ME: Ravi..
RAVI(eyes anticipating havoc): Ab Kya?
ME: I’m….I’m….sorry .
RAVI(Non-chalant look): Ya, I know
ME(with over-whelming guilt ): Hey..lots of documents…all unfinished business… all drove me visibly insane.
RAVI(sarcastically): Really? I didn’t notice.
ME(detecting the tint of sarcasm):Ya, Whatever. We’re ok na? Not angry or anything na?
RAVI: Ya ya..go go..do your documentation.
ME(alarmed at his shameless reply yet grateful for not being mistaken ): Ya ok..

And I go on to do documentation at some goddamn time at the middle of the night…while Mr. Fellow, is doing some non-documentation work.

That’s what I call style man.
(Or ishtyle… whatever :D)

Now I sit at home…in front of the lappy, at 5:30 am typing this mail…. Asking myself ….is life, or more specific, work, worth all that tension…and all that apology???

Really…..like what Sahil (my friend,philosopher 'n guide) says…all our problems, in a broader perspective, disintegrate to be minute atoms in the Solar System called Life… So why bother ??
We just have to remember that …In the end, it doesn’t really matter.
(Copyright: Linkin Park)

So…Tension Kai ko lene ka?

Woman's Day...or something like that

2007-05-04T03:23:00.001-07:00

I seriously fail to understand what this day is all about.
This 'Women's Day'
Forgive me,but I really am a dumb girl.
My logic is generally acknowledged to work in the most bizarre of ways, so I don't wish to impose it on all of mankind but I still feel that I have the liberty,if not, the right,to proclaim what I'm ponddering over.

With due respect to all the women of this world (a dignified fraternity of which even I am a part of) who feel that this very day has its own significance in the calendar, let me say that I cherish this very day and I do agree,we certainly are a unique species and I don't wish to disprove or antagonize you.

But still, I go on to ask... What exactly are we trying to prove to the world here, on this special day?
The existence of women?
The importance of women?
The crucial and indispensible role we play in the circle of life?
The significance of the weaker sex?
The compassion thats an intrcate part of us??
The extent to which we can make a difference in the society?
The equality,if not the superiority, of the Women-species V's Men-species?

This is something that has always irked me on the dawn of every 8th of March, every year, ever since I was able to think clearly on my own; uninfluenced by the shadow of my parent's and society's thought processes.

Gandhi-Day, Nehru-Day, Netaji-Day..yes understandable.
You pay homage on that one day dedicated to them, bcause you certainly can't remember them everyday.
They are indeed great souls, yes, but come on, they're dead people.

But Tell me...Are women something to be remembered and celebrated on just ONE day in the calendar?
Is that ALL we are???
Somethin to be remembered?

On this day, 8th of March, We thank the woman for being who she is....
while for the rest of the year we watch, in total helplessness, man beat his wife, a child scream at his/her mom, girls harassed on streets, adults throwing their aged-parents into old-age-homes, young girls(and boys)forced into child labour, female-infantiside
We watch all of this with total indifference and non-chalance.

Women have suffered in the past and have been submissive till the dawn on the 19th century.
Yes, women didn't receive the appreciation they deserved in the past.
Yes, women were looked at with scorn and contempt, as useless memebers who could contribute nothing to the family except food and off-spring.

Now things have changed.
But only in a superficial level.

A deep look into the interior villages of India can bring the entire country to shame at the way women are looked at and treated.

Women can't be thanked on just one day.
We are beyond all that.
We have to do something more.

We ought to kick this hypocracy of 'Celebrating Women' out the door...and deal with serious matters.
Are women being treated the way they ought to be, in the real world?

Is a women free to walk out into the streets of Delhi at 11:30 pm without any element of fear?
Can a woman walk into a police station and file a complaint against one of the police-men working there...without anticipating an attack on her family the very next day?

When she can...that will be a revelation and definitely my idea of a celbreation.
That will be my 'Woman's Day'.

Untill then....we can just wait and watch.

Happy Woman's Day!
8.3.07

Helmets are a girl's best friend

2007-05-04T03:21:00.000-07:00

Hi Logon!

(The bulk of juntha who read the first line as log-on, please take a long coffee break, come back and start all over again)

Hi Ppl...

I love my helmet!

Hope you guys are doing splendidly well this fine Friday morning!
Bet you hundred bucks that half of you readers spent at least 11 seconds this morning, on your way to work, marvelling at how fast the last one week has sped by, and how last Friday just seemed like....a few days back.
Well...Thats 'Corporate Life ' for you.
Nothing more, nothing less.
Amen to that.

I, for one, have actually stopped cribbing about my life. Cool na?
I mean....me, the goddess of complaints...NOT even bothering to make my life sound more crappier than someone else's ...wow, indeed a transformation, I might add.

Well lets just put it this way...
Splendrous architectural ambience,ravenous appetite, delicious food, money in the wallet, jovial team-mates, friendly boss, so-far-interesting job (touch wood), decent project, good pay (yeah rite!!), and enthusiastic 'ol me.....
All this sums up to form an ambitious and explosive combination.
Yeah....Thats what YOU might think...but..hehe.....I've STILL found some reasons to crib. ;)
Lets just hope that the light at the end of this tunnel is goddamn bright. ;)
More about my reason-to-crib in my next mail. (Yes, there's more where this came from)

Right....Just a few days back..... I was sitting on my living-room sofa with my legs crossed and eyes gazing at the ceiling (Legs crossed on a sofa...yes,I know I'm weird), and thinking to my-esteemed-self ...
' Ah, Life is stagnant. Stagnant indeed! You need some thrill Maythini ...Something out-of-the-blue....Something that would make you say, Oh yes....That day, god!! Remarkable! I'll never forget that day!! '

hmm....Funny how life ' misinterprets ' what you mean, in the most inexplicable of ways.
How?
Wait....I shall explain.

(I still love my helmet though)

Yesterday,after a good day at work, and a quick conversation with Takloo, I was riding my Scooty home...speeding quite a bit, unable to curtail my excitement to see my father who'd just come home on a 2 week vacation.
( Okay..not speeding a bit, quite a lot actually. 65km/hr is quite a speed for a poor two-stroke engine, called Scooty's Engine, to bear)

Nevertheless...I was just approaching my abode... When I spot a huge garbage bin at the centre of the road.

Let me quickly describe what these blessed 'Garbage bins' in Madras look like.....They are huge, unattractive, stinky, 3 feet high, 2 feet broad and 2 feet long... dark green in colour (which makes them look practically invisible at night time) and last but definitely not the least, a necessary evil.

Ok...My mind took a microsecond to register the presence of the garbage bin ahead and the fact that it was far too opaque for my Scooty to just drive through...So I make a sudden jolt to the left, to circumvent the obstacle.

But to my surprise what do I see on the road....Oil !!!
Yes, oil!
Oil spilt all over the place!!!!!

Ahhhh.....So THATs why the garbage bin was placed on the road as an obstacle...To act as a speed-braker, for people who might skid on the oil that was spilt in front of the bin.

Ah, the irony of late realisation!
Too late!

The oil had already done its job....and my Scooty skid majjjjorly with me on top of it. (Picture Hrithik Roshan in the former half of Kaho Naa Pyar Hai...Its always nice to have a dramatic effect in a story thats being narrated)

I fall..my bag falls, myScooty falls...bigggg scary fall !! People come running....blah-blah-blah!
Had bruises allover..but head, untouched, depite falling head first on the road.
My big fat ugly helmet had saved me.
Helmet saved me.
Helmet helmet helmet!!
God bless my helmet.

Helmet helmet helmet......You're something I wont forget...!!
(Think I'll compose a song and dedicate it to this incredible piece of plastic...or metal....or whatever!! )

So...How am I going to conclude this piece of blah-blah?

ONE: Be careful what you wish for. I did get my memorable day after all...But with a sadistic sort of thrill at the end...which, at the end of the day, DID make me say....Ah! That day...I will never forget! (For all the wrong reasons)

:D

TWO : Always love thy helmet.

:)

My Best Friend's Wedding

2007-05-04T03:16:00.000-07:00

(Something I wrote a few months back…old stuff can’t hurt)

My best friend got married yesterday. Kal meri yaar ki shadi thi.

This was a special wedding for me for TWO reasons predominantly.
First of all, this would allow me to witness the most important ceremony in my precious friend's life, whom I've known ever since I began to crawl. Those were the days when she'd bite me and I'd cry.(Or was it the other way round, I don't remember).

Secondly, this was my first ever North-Indian wedding.

'The Raos and The Rathis welcome you' , read the big hoarding at the entrance. A confederation of two communities. Thats just euphemism for 'A Love Marriage'.
(I need not mention who one of these names reminds me of )

Much against all speculation, my mom gave me her usual mommy-ka-funda's on how girls nowadays, have the audocity to stand up to their parents and demand what they want(or what they think they want).
Culture this....tradition that...preceeded by the usual 'When I was a girl...' story.
I think my mom covered everything, a normal history book would cover, within those 35 minutes we travelled to the Mandap.
Moms, I tell you, have the innate ability to talk forever, regardless of you paying heed or not. (But I Still love you ma!)

We reached the mandap an hour earlier because the bride was afterall 'our' girl, and we wanted to help around the place, if not just perform the trite(usual) come-smile-eat-smile-leave routine. I found a lot of my friend's parents there, whom I hadn't seen in some gazillion years. All of the mommies gleaming in pride because all of their daughters were married off in great splendour.
What is their hurry I secretly exclaim, but who listens to me!

While I was in my own dream world, (Sahil would know what I mean ), gaping at the grandeur and the melange of colours with which the mandap had been decorated, there suddenly was an army of women cascading themselves to ME shooting out all sorts of questions,which drove me crazy,like ...
'Ah Maythini, when're you going to get married' and ' Maythini darling, your's should be the next wedding'...blah, blah blah blah blah!

I gave them one of those 'Will-your-highnesses-please-mind-their-own-businesses' look, topped with a vibrant smile just to cover my distinct exasperation, while my mom gave me a desperate look, signalling me to be polite with these aunties.
What is it with women and weddings, I ask while I shake my head in defeat.

Suddenly there's this loud drumming noise which startled the entire crowd. Really loud. And everybody goes rushing to the entryway. I go there a few minutes later to see what the crowd's flocked over there for, and I see the groom arriving on a horse. A horse!!

God..it was soooooo adorable. Really!!! Reminded me of the scene from Kuch kuch hota hai, when Salman does an entry on a donkey. :)

My excitement (considering that this was my first non-southie wedding) was clearly visible in that crowd while I was watching the 'scene' intently. Some of the ghar-ka women even let me take the front row seat in watching the celebration. Watching all the girls and women dance there, brought out an insatiable urge in me to go out there and join them in that circle, but my shy-demeanour got the better of me. (As if I'd go there and dance anyway).:)

The second phase of drumming, a few minutes later, was for the bride. She arrived in the traditional Marwadi red attire surrounded by people holding up a carpet of garlands.
God.. She looked stunningly beautiful. I'd never seen my friend is such a graceful and bewitching form before.

Man, girls grow fast!

Finally after doing a mini-chit-chat session at the mandap with the bride and the groom, I descended the alter to watch the bride walk around the whatever-you-call-it 7 times with my jiju.

This ceremony, was then succeeded by the traditional southie-styled ceremony to honour the girl's side. The contrast in these two nuptual(wedding) ceremonies was ever so striking that it set me thinking on another plane; On how varied and beautiful our country's cultures areand perhaps how EVERY girl (and fine, every boy) could have both kinds of ceremonies in their wedding. Gives the wedding a wholesome feel. As ridiculous as it may sound, it certainly looked like a whole lot of fun there. (I'll write on this, sometime during this lifetime)

My friend was getting married to the bloke she loved...something I wouldn't dare do even if you held a gun down my throat....Cheers Aruna!

So..what is my point to all this blah-blah afterall???

'Love' is a feeling, that doesn't smack you at your face when you want it to. Different people find love at different phases of their lives.
But when you think your even 'close' to falling in love, no matter how long you'veknown him/her, no matter how he/she would react... Express it explicitly...Just go for it.

Go for it like, you'd go for a chocolate brownie behind a glass panel...just plunge and indulge without second thoughts.
Trust me, you'd rather vent the feeling out of your *system* and face defeat , than live your entire life wondering what would have happened if you'd just tried.

I dedicate this mail and my arduous hours of pondering over what to write, to..

Deepak Nagar whose just got married....
Aruna (Rao) Rathi, who's unknowingly, the sole inspiration behind this mail...
Those of you in love
Those of you being loved...

Celebrate Love... the most genuine and un-pretentious fashion.

Happy Valentines Day!!

14.2.’07

Yes sir...Thats me!

2007-04-30T16:57:00.000-07:00

Hi , welcome to my blog.

You're permitted to do some extraneous browsing while reading this cos this is my first blog and I cant promise you any nail-biting excitement. Not yet at least.
A wee bit bout me.

I did my schooling in Padma Seshadri Bala Bhavan and passed out of College of Engineering Guindy, Anna University.
I have nothing more to say about this college than what has already been said by my friends and seniors.Please don't believe a word they say.
My college rocks!
End of story.

I do like making new friends (contrary to the image I portray otherwise) but I'm afraid I cherish only a few of them. Very few of them.

I crib a lot. 'A Lot' would ideally be an understatement here.
I know that life isn't all that bad. But cribbing makes it better.

I like rainy days especially when they're a good alibi for no work. Heck...I love rainy days!

I like pink. This blog was originally pink but due to popular demand (or readers threatening to file a complaint against me for trying to impair their vision) I had to transform its theme into my next best colour, green. It wont stay this way for long I tell you.

Listening to 'Anne's Song' by Denver and 'Scarborough Fair' by Simon-Garfunkel with my eyes closed is Nirvana to me.

I'm extremely loyal to my blue Scooty and any insult to that frail 2-stroke vaahanam will not be tolerated.

I'm highly unstable. Or maybe I'm not.
Wait..Hang on a sec, I'll get back to you on this one.

I love curd rice.Any of its derivatives would make me a happy girl at the table. Period.

90% of my friends would declare that I'm a confirmed extrovert.I'd prefer to agree with the 10%.

Pink really is a very nice colour. I really think the juntha should give it a chance.

I'm weird.
Yes.
But please do close the door behind you.

I hate coming into work where no one says hi.
Its not really protocol to say hi or anything, but comeon.. its just a hi.
How impoverished would that one word leave you?

I'm grateful to my parents for not contemplating adoption when I became quite unbearable. Parenting is not that easy my mommy tells me. I pretend like I don't know why.

I think of my friends 24/7. I cant comment on that being mutual though.

I like my Fridays like everybody else. Planning for the weekend sure stirs up some excitement in me, but I hate admitting that all our plans blow up on our face.

I don't really adore animals. They're cute and shouldn't be harmed 'n all, but thats it.
Does that make me a bad person?

I always remind myself I'm not doing what I should be doing..or worse, what I want to be doing. It takes a lot of courage to do what you want to in life.
I haven't the courage, yet.

Pink looks great on women. Just like blue on men. Don't disparage this colour anymore. Thank you very much.

Sometimes swearing does lift all the smoke from inside you. Its like having a bubble-bath after a long weary day. Its just #%^#$%^@ when your mom's beside you and asks you to repeat what you just said.

I'm me.
Just another blogger.
Just another girl.
Just another person.
Just another brick on the wall.
Thats what I keep reminding myself from time to time.

Take care...and always thank the lord for the roof above your head.
Ciao!