Mom, don't click that.

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

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

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

To the Unsung, with Love

* 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

Lets Talk About Making an Impression

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??