Exams or Xmas??

In less than a week, i have EXAMS!!! Starting a day after Christmas, my exams drag upto a day after New year. This technically means, no Christmas or new year hols for me.. :(

When the whole world is free, the music season in chennai is tempting, the weather makes you want to curl up for five more minutes...I am mechanically reading line after line of printed text.

Miserable existence i should say... The only thing that keeps me going is coffee and christmas carols...Speaking of carols..here's a very funny one i heard...Merry Christmas folks!!!

Grandma Got Run Over by a Reindeer

Why me?

Client visit on Friday...Office abuzz with insane excitement... The team that is meeting the firang, strutting around like they have been awarded the Oscars...

As a part of the privileged team who was meeting the guy, I had no choice but to be a part of the general cheer. As luck would have it, I was plopped right in front of the conference hall, about five inches away from him and his PowerPoint slides.

He began his monologue by killing my name. After becoming 'vaash' for him, Jabeen became "Alright, next", and Kalai, Senthil were reduced to mere nods. Then was the time for my biggest gaffe. He opened a huge plastic cover and said, "I've baght some thin for ya guys. Jus a bag of caramels. Pass it 'round", and passed the bag to me.
Beaming, I said, "Thank you so much" with so much of passion and vigor and Jabeen nodded encouragingly. Desperate for some chocolates, both of us ripped open the bag to find 'cameras'!!! Both of us had heard him wrong. We then passed the bag around with a face that made Droopy look cheerful.

After what seemed like ages, it was time for lunch. One of the biggies in the company that I worked for also joined us. As my lady luck had decided to go on a vacation that day, the bigwig motioned at an empty seat next to him. I had no choice but to oblige. The minute I sat down, another 'no-so-big-but-still-big" manager sat on the other. Before I could change my mind and get up from the table, the firang decided to sit right opposite me.

Trapped without an escape route, I decided to concentrate on the food. When I ordered a roti, the client made a wisecrack on my diet and the whole table guffawed like it was the joke of the millennium.

This is a serious lesson, all restaurants should learn - Indian food cannot be eaten with a fork dammit!!! The waiter, probably mistaking my 'is there any way to get out' look for the 'I could eat a blue whale' look, decided to plop an extra large piece of cauliflower on my plate. Without a choice, I took my spoon and started sawing the vegetable with fervor. What I did not realize was that the spoon had made noise equivalent of making marble cutters blush. Earning glares and ‘shhh’es from even the next table, I abandoned my effort.

After lunch, there was some live demonstration with cameras for about an hour, of which 55 minutes was spent on getting the wires fixed. The only thing that went alright was a surprise birthday party-complete with surprises and a chocolate cake for the team.

Moral: Faux pas and forks go hand-in-hand.

Rock on...

Yes. I crossed out yet another item on my ‘Things-to-do-before-i-die” list – Go to a rock concert.

Rock music thrives on the irrefutable and proven theory that anything that damages your eardrums will sound good eventually. After all with damaged eardrums , even CNN IBN reporters would sound like nightingales.

So what is the criteria for being considered a rock band?

• Should have a name that anybody remotely human cannot pronounce correctly for the first time, without sounding like a drunk. The band that I listened to was called splat or scrat or sprat, I can’t be sure even now.
• Should have a drummer who has long hair and a constant ‘I will kill you if you come nearer’ look. The more uncombed the hair is, the better.
• The lead guitarist should be a guy who should have the ability to disillusion the listeners into thinking that he can really sing. He can do so, by coming very close to the mike and shouting at full throttle. This will lead to interference and the mike starts singing by itself.

So, how can you get in?

• If you are a girl, empty two jars of perfume, three sticks of kajal, and one litre of hair gel on the concerned body parts. Also wear clothes that make war refugees look like Vijay Mallya.
• If you are a guy, wear trousers that might come off if you sneeze. Never even think of a comb for a month.
• General observation: Anything that will make the dogs on the street violent is acceptable.

How to be a Roman in Rome?

• Practice the forward and backward movement of the neck and head. It might make you look mentally unstable by the daylight, but here it is normal.
• Say ‘Wooo’ and clap in a frenzy after a song finishes. It makes you look very rock-knowledgeable.

Let me not even get into the lyrics part. One song just had, “Say it once again’ in several variations that almost made me get and ask them not to say it once again. The song format is this simple: Whisper into the mike...Saaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay (Decent enough)...Whisper...Sayyyyyyyy it vaaaaaaaance again.... (Insides churn)...Loud drums accompanied by whispers...Saaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaay (creepy at several levels).

But, yes, the hypocrite in me says, 'I liked it after all' :)

Awesomeness...

A recent SCIAM article that my uncle sent me talked about how noise helped entanglement of electrons and related scientific jingbang. But only these lines stuck to my head:

"In the most distinctive such effect, called entanglement, two electrons establish a kind of telepathic link that transcends space and time. And not just electrons: you, too, retain a quantum bond with your loved ones that endures no matter how far apart you may be. If that sounds hopelessly romantic, the flip side is that particles are incurably promiscuous, hooking up with every other particle they meet. So you also retain a quantum bond with every loser who ever bumped into you on the street and every air molecule that ever brushed your skin."

Imagine your skin still retains one tiny electron of that long lost love, the mad guy at the rock concert, the last goodbye handshake... :) Awesomeness...

In sickness and health...

After a month of raging fever, headaches, and painful blood tests, I sat in the doc’s office, looking expectantly at the man scratching his head and chewing the tip of his pen.

Tapping the report with the side of the pen he just relished (Ewww!!!) he uttered the three words I did not want to hear, “You have typhoid”. My world crashed. After innumerable blood tests and x-rays and other tests that I have left out for the sole virtue of their being extremely complex to spell, this is what the doc had to say. I stupidly repeated, “I have typhoid?”

He nodded gravely and scribbled the names of all medicines that he could remember. “Complete bed rest, no physical or mental strain”, he droned. Dad sniggered at the mention of mental and pointed to his head and signed ‘empty’ with his hands. I rolled my eyes. It was his old joke about how I did not have any brains and therefore the question of mental strain did not arise.

The evil doc did not stop with this. He gave me a graphic description of how my intestines were being eaten by the typhi viruses every minute. I immediately started counting the number of wreaths that would arrive at my house if I died.

For three weeks after that I could only eat food that even the scruffy neighborhood cat rejected. Meanwhile mom devised this intricate diet routine that involved feeding me with fruit juice and tender coconut water at times that did not hinder her daily dose of afternoon soaps. Banished to my room for a month, with only the ceiling fan for company, I watched the blades in fascination as they fused into nothingness when the fan gathered speed. (And I had always thought babies were really stupid to gurgle at a thing as mundane as a ceiling fan.)

On some days I would sleep on for hours together, only waking up to take medicines every six hours. On better days, I would curl up on the living room sofa watching soaps with mom. Sometimes I would throw up dinner as soon as I finished washing the dinner plate. Lunch would follow in a matter of minutes. Dad would retort, “Don’t come out yet. Breakfast is on the way. By the way, don’t throw up the tablet. It is three bucks”, and chuckle at his own joke.

Honestly, though I felt miserable at times and loneliness depressed me to no end, the flurry of ‘get well soon’ messages and calls really made my day. Close friends came home and my boss gave me a month off without thinking twice. Also, the neighborhood cat curled up next to me everyday and we became so close that it started following me around the house. Of course, I also enjoyed all the attention and basked in glory when I finally returned to work.

I mean, how much more lucky can a person get :)

Red queens of the dark night

…by Theatre Nisha - a commendable effort I should say! The play is about 2 hours long and delicately weaves the story of about 10 prostitutes (or 9??) from different time frames. The play starts with Rishyasringa, an excluded hermit, who lives among the trees and has never seen women. A courtesan named Tarangini is then sent to him to woo him and break his vows, but is later beheaded. This part was a bit surprising, because according the Ramayana I have read, Shanta, the daughter of King Romapada is sent by him to break his vows and they get married too. Tarangini’s seduction and Rishyasringa’s emotions when his vows of abstinence are washed over by the waves of his new-found desire were sensuous and beautifully crafted.

The next episode is about an old couple who try to save a prostitute from her pimp. The old man gets killed in the process. The last scene where his wife cries over the dead body was extremely realistic and poignant. Then, there is an episode of an ordinary man who works at the barracks, and another one about a prostitute who kills her owner and convinces a bartender to lie for her in front of the policemen. These were pretty short and interesting nevertheless.

Another episode on Urvashi’s curse on Arjuna was misplaced. Urvashi desires Arjuna and when he refuses, saying that she is mother of his race, she curses him to live among the women in his 13th year of exile. Urvashi’s vilification to a mere prostitute was way off mark and uninspiring. This episode was very ‘sleep-inducing’ according to kiki, and only me, vamp and kiki clapped for this because it ended with GP’s aalaap (for the uninitiated, an aalaap is the ‘aaaaa’ part of classical music, in the simplest terms possible).

The last episode had Bala, the director himself, playing the part of a torturer (cleverly named Fuehrer) during the Nazi regime. He torments a woman until she accepts that she is a homosexual whore and then kills her. This episode was exceptionally intense with an unforgettable climax.

The play was haunting and enjoyable, but the episodes were unconnected and very long. The literal translation of Sanskrit texts into English became lackluster after a while. With uncomplicated costumes, very few lights, a flautist and guitarist for background music, the stage looked minimalist and sleek. A few episodes only had an inconspicuous bench serving as a prop and still looked stimulating.

All the same, it is refreshing to see that theatre (and conservative Chennai) has come of age. Hats off to Bala for this attempt at portraying prostitution so daringly and not succumbing to clichés.

For a beautiful soul...

Today is my paternal grandmother’s (a.k.a Patti’s) first death anniversary. Surprisingly I still miss her with the same intensity and force I had last year. So, today I dedicate this post as an ode to the beautiful soul who in her own way defined what I am today:

Her life:

• Eldest of the three daughters.
• Was apparently very smart and got a double-promotion from the third standard to the fifth standard decades ago. (According to her it was an achievement worth a Bharat ratna and unfailingly recited it at the drop of a hat.)
• Lived in Bombay for a while after her father passed away.
• Got married early and lost her hearing ability even before she was 20.
• Brought up five naughty kids of which my dad was arguably her favorite and the naughtiest too.
• Lost two of her daughters (equally charming souls) to health ailments.
• Was diagnosed with terminal illness and battled her disease until the very end with such grit and determination that shocked even the doctors.

Favorite and oft repeated dialogues:

"This is the only treasure I have. Nobody treasures it anymore" -Making kolams (colored patterns) are a big thing in our family and if I refused to learn them, she would dramatically gather all of her kolam books and say this with flourish.)

"Don’t put mug inside bucket. Don’t touch plate with your left hand. Don’t leave your hair open. Don’t wear shoes inside house" - Her rules were extremely complex and difficult to master. You were not allowed to touch your plate with your left hand, but you could lick fingers and slurp the rasam. Talking when eating was a big no-no, but she could read her 'tughlak' (which is a popular Tamil political magazine). According to her, leaving the hair open made girls look seductive. Hello! I live in a place which has more buffaloes than men, and the possibility of somebody getting seduced by Ms. Frizzed Up Always, seems extremely remote.

"Noodles is bad for health." - She was an authority on classifying food items into edible and fatal. Fatal things including everything she did not like and did not know how to make.

"I know English, Marathi, Hindi, Malayalam and Tamil. Everybody should learn at least five languages" - Honestly, she knew only Tamil. I have my own doubts about her other claims because I have heard her speak butler English and Malayalam in front of others and wished I could melt right there.

“Nobody saves electricity” – This comes from a person who never switched off bathroom lights. When confronted she would say, “I am old. Don’t mistreat me”

“You wear it today. Tomorrow it will become a fashion” – When I lost my hair band and she wanted me to wear an extremely ugly looking scarf on my head as a substitute.

“You are useless. Without doubt you will end up grazing cows” –When I stoutly refused to go out with that scarf on my head. This dialogue was also used very frequently on everyone including her sons, daughters, son-in-laws, and grandchildren.

I could go on, but to keep it short, she was a remarkable woman. She was a combination of warmth, love, kindness, good, and bad. The gaping void she left can never possibly be filled. I miss her.

Movies and me!

This weekend was the most boring I had ever endured in a while. I was in no mood for studying and the internet was cranky. So by this cruel twist of fate I decided to watch some movies with my bro. We actually watched a mallu, tamil and a telgu movie in less than five hours :) And at the end of the session, I realized:

1. They all start with a hero-introduction song!
2. The hero and heroine quite literally fall in love. The hero falls on the leading lady and they have the tumbling down the stairs/river bed sequence (with ear-splitting la-la-la chorus), ending with a sloppy kiss. The heroine blushes and voila, they are in love. If I were her, I would have probably been busy nursing my fractured bones because that’s what would really happen if a dunce weighing a hundred kilos suddenly decides to plant himself upon damsels.
3. All the good, innocent girls are homely, wear saris and look gorgeous with their hair open. (I tried the hair-open-in-the-wind part once, but instead of flowing across my face in lovely waves, they decided to frizz up and it took ages to detangle my hair). Also, they bear all atrocities silently and the only testament to their suffering is their sari pallu. The bad girls are the ones in skimpy clothes wearing red lipstick.
4. All songs (even the sad ones where the heroine is angry with the hero or his mother/best friend/anybody who is shown for five seconds in the first scene kicks the bucket) are shot in foreign locales. They all have matching embarrassing dance steps. Also this cruel death brings more sympathy from the heroine and she forgives the hero by the end of the song.
5. The lead pair romance around trees happily and the next scene is predictably: hero's mischievous smile - a door closing - camera pans up to the moon. And we are left to decipher that they are up to something naughty!
6. Yes the inevitable scene: The heroine pukes and her parents are shocked. Her dad takes the dagger out and the mother and daughter fall at his feet. The dad actually walks until the door dragging the ladies at his feet like a pair of mops. Not even for a moment do they think that the puking could have been just indigestion.
7. Then at the door, he drops the dagger with a loud clang and sits down. The whole family now huddles and bawls. The dad after hitting his head a million times with his hands; comes up with a brilliant solution for the disgrace his daughter has brought to the family. Consume poison!
8. The next five minutes is spent on zooming in and out of the poison bottle. The background music is the sad version of the la-la-la song. Finally when they actually start drinking it, the hero breaks the door open and starts a monologue. He talks about suppression of women, and how they should be given equal opportunity for selecting their partner. And this was the same dude who admonished the bad girl for wearing clothes not befitting a woman! Hypocrisy!!!
9. Then there are villains who try to kidnap/molest the heroine. The bimbette only screams and the hero is so overcome with rage that he single-handedly kills a bunch of henchmen. The police arrive only at the end of the fight and promptly arrest the baddies. In one movie, a policeman actually congratulates the hero and says he would love to get him as a son-in-law. Even my bro who actually watches pretty intolerable movies, groaned at this!
10. The bloodied hero unties the heroine, who is very conveniently bound with ropes and looks into her eyes deeply. She nods to articulate that she is okay. He grabs and hugs her. The dad wipes his tears and everyone is happy once again. Tada! Movie over.

Never for a moment will I ever regret my disinterest in movies :)

Silence is loud

Working late nights in office can be extremely annoying! Especially when:

• You have an unfinished chapter in that gripping book you have to complete, but left it to the twist of fate in the morning.
• There is a TV show in which your heartthrob is performing and you would not miss it even during a natural calamity.
• You Tube is blocked.
• You are gushing with hundreds of 'what an awesome day I had' stories to tell your roomie.
• You finally get to eat the yummy-looking dish all by yourself for dinner without having to feed it to a dozen hungry mouths. But it does not taste all that heavenly anymore.
• You miss the soft music from the manager's bay, incessant chatter from a guy who does not know what subtlety means, gossip and laughter from people around.
• Your creative juices have long stopped and all you can churn out is long essays that taste like cardboard.

My birthday and more...

Whoa!! I am still reeling under the fantastic birthday bash I had on Friday. I don’t usually celebrate birthdays; probably because they remind me of how closer I am to getting wrinkles, wearing bifocals, and growing gray hair! But this year, I cut three huge chocolate truffle cakes, got a dozen bear hugs and priceless books.

The day started with several calls and messages from friends and foes :). Yeah, anybody who calls me at 12 with the sole intention of waking me up gets segmented inside my brain as a foe automatically. My roomie included! But I did forgive her for the lovely bracelets she gave me.

I reached office to baby pink roses and a gazillion birthday wishes. I have never felt so pampered ever before. To top it all, I cut two surprise chocolate cakes and got my face plastered in chocolate syrup and slabs. All thanks to S’d and everyone else who chortled at the sight of me licking cake from my nose. The name on the cake was not very flattering I should say! One had a ‘Happy Birthday Geek” (I so hate Gau’mi) on it and the other one had a ‘Happy Birthday Pogo” (Apparently I look like a cartoon from the POGO channel. Some cheek!) . I also got a gorgeous green kurta and ‘Brick lane’ a book by Monica Ali. Thanks mates!

GP then called me up to say she wouldn’t be able to meet me today due to other engagements. I grumbled about it to Vamp, who suggested a visit to his new house to cheer me up. I readily agreed! All the way to his house, I kept a low profile, muttering vague things about getting ditched on a birthday.

When we finally waded through the impossible traffic, and reached his place, I opened the door to find GP, Kiki, Aks and most importantly another chocolate cake :). This time I am not even mentioning what was written on the cake! GP and her tricks. I always fall for them.

Vamp gave me the whole ‘Lord of the Rings’ collection. After a yummy dinner with 10 others, I crashed at Procky’s place. Me and Kiki encountered a cockroach that flew around the house. Kiki kept running from one corner to another with a broomstick in hand. The sight was so hilarious that I started laughing uncontrollably. The cockroach wiped my smile away by settling down inside my handbag. Later, with an Outlook and Baygon spray we finished the job.

I ran home next day morning, to find an unnamed package. ‘The Black Swan’, by Nissim Nicholas Taleb was inside it. Before I could go into the dreamland of some unnamed mysterious caped crusader, who would sweep me off my feet, by surprising me with unnamed packages, Mom asked me to check with Unz. When I did, I realized that it was indeed Unz who sent it. So much for my dream, but nevertheless, thanks a bunch for the brilliant book!

At the end of it all, I felt immensely lucky to have such friends. It takes a lot to organize surprises just to make my day special. After all, my friends are the best! :)

Phew!

It is only 7.00 AM in the morning, and I am already wiping away tears with the back of my hands. I splash cold water on my face, willing the tears to stop, but they don’t. I curse and continue peeling onions. I need to get an edible curry ready before Dad and Bro bring the place down with their claims of how they have never been late for work/school.

“We could have got something from Nilgiris!” grumbles Dad, scrubbing the kitchen sink. “Breakfast will be ready by the time you finish your bath”, I announce in my most-reassuring cheerful voice. Dad shakes his head and storms out of the kitchen.

Sigh! It has been more than a month. Thanks to Mom, who is enjoying her extended vacation in her hill-station cum hometown, I have been confined to the kitchen walls on all weekends. Sundays included!!
A typical weekend starts like this.

SATURDAY:
I come home after a crazy, breathless, impossible deadline achieving work-week to this mess. After a hurried dosa-making session and packing lunches, I return to the kitchen for a round of washing and scrubbing vessels. The Pooja room is a mess. The lamps have turned green. This according to Dad is because of some chemical reaction between oil and copper. He illustrates with a formula that he makes up at the spur of moment. I scratch the formula out and write in bold letters, ‘This reaction would have never happened if you cleaned the lamp.” He goes back to polishing his shoes muttering about how he could have grown paddy in the fields and helped poor farmers instead of wasting time giving birth to me. I want to point out a fundamental mistake in his time-space hypothesis of making children and growing paddy...But I keep my mouth shut.

After a couple of bear hugs, both of them leave the house. I start with cleaning the kitchen. Mom has a particular order in which she arranges her vessels, and anybody who messes the order will probably get hit in the head with her favorite wooden ladle. So I fix the jigsaw and wash clothes. Our washing machine thinks it is a pet animal and works only if Mom is around. The other members of the family do not exist in its world. So I end up washing clothes manually (White-turned-brown clothes are surprisingly more in number than colored ones). After trudging the million stairs to my terrace, I dry the clothes out, hopping from one foot to anther, to avoid roasting my poor legs completely. Then I start sweeping, mopping and dusting the house. By the time I finish it is already time for lunch. I mercifully gulp down the rice and rush upstairs for a nap.

I wake up after an hour to make coffee, and start my usual round of washing vessels. Bro returns and I have to make another round of coffee and wash vessels. Dad comes back, and I have to make yet another round of coffee and wash vessels. I cut veggies and make dinner. Of course, there is another round of washing vessels.

All of us eat dinner and thankfully this time, Dad washes the vessels. I quickly check mail and reply to the ‘Are-you-dead-or-what?’ messages on Orkut. All of us tuck in for some bedside reading and Bro sleeps off with his book open. I hardly get through three pages and groggily ask Dad to switch off the lights.

SUNDAY:
All of us wake up only by 8.00 AM. I get the customary call from Mom, and I almost ask her to pack her bags and get back. The goodness of my heart and the angel that I am; is the only thing that makes me say, “I am having fun here. You come back whenever you want.” I also nicely let the ‘I am not cleaning the house today’ fact, slip in between our conversation (In my classic ‘Am-I-not-your-bundle-of-joy’ voice). “Varsha!” she says. The only time she calls me by my name is when she disapproves of what I am doing. Otherwise I take the names of various species of cattle depending on her mood. She tells me if I make this a habit, what will my future in-laws think of me? “Fine”, I grumble and go back into the kitchen. I hope she never finds out that I blogged this conversation. Her daughter ruining her own prospective marriage alliances is not something she can digest!

MONDAY:
My boss asks me in a cheerful voice, “So how was your weekend?” and I am tempted to reply, “Squeaky clean”.

Acrobatic lizards and anxious lasses

It has been more than three weeks of peak workload, leaving me very little time to blog, mail, or even read. So, when I did get some time to leave a bit early, I decided to work myself out of the 'Will-I-end-up-like-this-for-the-rest-of-my-life?" mood, by cleaning the kitchen.

So, I started with the stove. The stove in our common kitchen is buried under layers of spilt milk, noodles masala, burnt rice, dust, grime, and dirt (Of course it is not all that bad, but I love making embroidered statements). So I painstakingly removed layer-by-layer of the dirt, until I saw the first glimpse of the silvery aluminium.
Satisfied with my handiwork, and egged on by the gleaming aluminium, I ventured to clean the trivet and burner of the stove. The burner successfully transformed the kitchen sink into a dark hole, and I ended up cleaning the sink, only to find my scrubber turn jet black from light green. Then I washed the scrubber, to find my hands turn into a ravishing shade of grubby brown.

It was only when I started cleaning the trivet, did the dramatic, or rather a swift termination to my cleaning spree come. I pulled the trivet out, to find a lizard hanging upside down from it!!! As expected, I screeched as loudly as possible and put it down. The acrobatic lizard with the mighty swung, got back to its feet and scaled to the top of the stove smoothly.

I couldn’t but appreciate the impudence it had, to stay there quietly amidst all the clatter I had created. Before even it could think of doing something funny, I slowly tapped the stove with the gas lighter, silently urging the dear Lizzie to back off.

Yes. I named the lizard too, in the middle of all the commotion.

Lizzie did not budge. I hit the stove harder. This time she only backed off a few steps. (I decided the lizard would be a 'she' because she was captivated by the kitchen stove and exhibited unusual daring). Then I began a slow rhythmic tapping against the stove. Lizzie moved into a trance-like state, inching backwards with every tap, and before I could stop her...She slipped and fell into one of the holes inside the stove.

I swallowed hard. Did I kill her? I pictured headlines in the 'The Creepy Crawly Times'. “Chef Lizzie burnt to death. Lizzie, a successful chef and also the co-author of the book, '100 Tasty Insects And Where To Catch Them' was cruelly hypnotized by a two-legged slaughterer and burnt to death inside a stove. Investigations revealed that the two-legged being is still on the prowl, brutally putting an end to all the successful career-minded woman lizards. "She is a shame to the two-legged community. She is an obstacle to the empowerment of lizards” said the spokesperson of ‘The lizard on the wall’, an NGO for displaced woman lizards."

In a second I had become a serial killer, shunned by the lizard community. Still panicking, I peeped into the hole for any sign of life. Gradually I could see two beady eyes glowering from inside the hole, admonishing me for my deed. A wave of relief spread over me as I watched Lizzie slowly clamber over the hole, struggling to find a hold. And when she finally did, she fixated a stare at me. It was an acutely piercing angry glare. No doubt.

I muttered a hurried apology and quickly switched off the lights.

Random thoughts...

When I moved out of my house a year back, I packed a few dresses, kitchen utensils, and a few essentials...All that fit into two small bags...When I got onto the waiting bus, the conductor grabbed my baggage and effortlessly shoved them under a seat. 20 years of existence packed into just two bags. I strangely felt offended. For a minute it seemed like I was the one being shoved.

It also fetched me the revelation that; all I ever owned was in those bags. I felt eerily buoyant. I felt there was nothing to hold me back, except maybe a pair of bags. I immediately text messaged my silver-lining to one of my friends, who asked me to stop the drama..., and the same friend, just a few days before, said he wanted to get rid of all his belongings and carry only a pair of bags, before he left India for good. With the beach sand dancing to the music of the waves at my feet, I could only muster a weak smile. How things you say come right back to you :)

It would be nice to leave the world beholden to nothing.

Unrelated thought: I am listening to Cliff Richard's 'Theme for a dream', and it sounds exactly like 'pal pal pal' from Munnabhai MBBS 2. Disgusting!!!

The sound of music...

My iPod usually decides my mood for the day. Sometimes it is the guttural John Denver with his 'You fill up my senses', or BJ and her classic Bharathiyar song 'Suttum vizhi chudaar dhaan kannama'. On other days it is ARR's 'Luka Chuppi' or my new found favorite astapathi, 'Rathisukasaare'.

But today started with the racy 'Nakka Mukka'. :)... Please listen to understand how it feels to get jerked out of sleep!! It admonishes you for being in bed and gives you an inferiority complex with its speed. Phew!! I even got tired after watching this song on TV once.

And true to this fast paced number, it has been a crazy day :)

I voted...

I voted I voted I voted... :)

I voted for the first time in my life!!!
I saw anxious party cadres along the streets encouraging everyone to vote.
I observed burly policemen flashing mean looks inside the polling booths.
I waited under the scorching sun to have the first glimpse of an EVM.
I felt triumphant when I heard the beep of the machine after I voted.
The beep of democracy.
The beep of a bright Indian future.
The beep I was responsible for.

For the first time ever, I am proud of the dirty black mark on my index finger.
Let us make our voice count. Let us vote.

A Splendid Sunday

(Note: This was written last week. Due to time constraints and an impossible workload, here it goes…late by a week :) )

• Woke up only at 7.30 A.M.
• Watched the morning news interspersed with Tamil songs, sad VJs, and of course a hot cuppa coffee.
• Missed home and therefore coined the term ‘home-sounds’. (Home-sounds include Dad furiously devouring the newspaper. You can actually hear the segmenting of news into ‘Ignore’, ‘Bah’ and ‘Yay! Comics’ inside his brain, strains of humming from the bro-in-loo, mom’s kitchen clatter, and my own unheard complaints about the monopolization of newspapers by the male population in the house.)
• Hummed Kishore Kumar and made breakfast.
• Ate what I made (which was not what I intended to make), with Frank McCourt giving me company.
• Cleaned out cupboard amidst roomie snores and iPod songs. Found Rahul Nambiar's autograph safely tucked in between books. Removed creases and tucked it back again in between books.
• Made Rasam with Oregano seasoning I saved from Pizza corner. Roomie christened it Italian Rasam.
• Went for a play titled 'The Pregnant King' by Theatre Nisha that resulted in pointless discussions about the concepts tackled by the play, and of course tea and chutney sandwiches at dear ol' Yusuf's.
• Had yummy dinner at Bessy with a bunch of chatterboxes who refused to shut up even for a minute.
• Returned to hostel, tired, but content.

A splendid Sunday indeed…

For this is what we do...

"For this is what we do. Put one foot forward and then the other. Lift our eyes to the snarl and smile of the world once more. Think. Act. feel. Add our little consequence to the tides of good and evil that flood and drain the world. Drag our shadowed crosses into the hope of another night. Push our brave hearts into the promise of a new day. With love: the passionate search for truth other than our own. With longing: the pure, ineffable yearning to be saved. For so long as fate keeps waiting, we live on. God help us. God forgive us. We live on."
- Shantaram, Gregory David Roberts.

And thus ends Shantaram, undoubtedly one of the best books I have read. It is of the kind that grips you until the very end and makes you feel upset when it is over. It bubbles with enthusiasm, despairs in search of life, preaches philosophy, destructs conformist premises, dilutes beliefs, and finally ends in hope.

India, as one of my friends, D, said ‘is the only country foolish enough to glorify and cherish convicts". Shantaram pretty much proves that point.

I enjoy

• Examining my fingers after a long bath. The fading wrinkles on the fingers effortlessly forward me to the way they would permanently look in future.
• Watching the languid bus depot from my bedroom window, enjoying the breeze playing on my hair, till I feel a tinge of pain on my nose after pressing it too hard against the iron grills.
• The irrepressible tears that come out involuntarily after listening to 'Kwaja mere kwaja' from Jodha Akbar and BJ's ' Bhavayaami Gopalabalam' set in the Yemen Kalyani raaga.
• The relief and gratefulness for the first serve of food on a grumbling empty stomach.
• Taking a quiet walk from Bessy to Adyar any day, any time.
• The divinity of a roadside makeshift temple.
• The references that I unconsciously make to my own life while reading a book.
• Lethargically turning my head in response to the wave of fresh cool air in the office atrium.
• Walking home through the chaos and confusion of a busy road.
• Nostalgia when shopping at Nilgiris that plays Kishore Kumar songs on a full blast.
• Loneliness at the relative quiet of my apartment after I shut the door.
• Brimming tears after spicy Sāmbhar at the Murugan Idly shop.
• Heaviness after crushed expectations.
  I enjoy :)

A killer instinct

I shuddered when I saw blood. Dripping nonchalantly from the table to the white marble floors in a haunting rhythm...I saw blood.

Reaching for the end of my duppata, draped neatly around my neck, I covered the velvety spots that were becoming bigger by the minute. The knife that had effortlessly cut the veins looked at me accusingly.

The cotton cloth soon lapped up the blood in a parasite-like frenzy and asked for more. Shivering and afraid, I rushed to the nearest wash. As the first stream of cold water hit my wrists, a surge of pain traveled across my body and I arched in agony. Sweat, tears, water and blood filled the wash, creating arbitrary patterns on the smooth ceramic.

Willing the flow to stop, I opened the tap to its fullest. I could suddenly feel my knees going weak. I clutched the wash tightly to steady myself. The ceramic gave way and I caught hold of the stairway banister just in time to cushion my fall. I looked back at her.

She was still sitting where I had left her. It had hurt me. Didn’t it hurt her too? It made me retch. Didn’t she feel like throwing up? When I cut my wrists I screamed. Didn’t it wound her too? How would I know? She didn’t say a thing. I could feel the knife as it cut my hand. Didn’t she feel it too? Why didn’t she tell me if it hurt her? Her eyes that were perpetually set in a meek surrender looked at me even now. A spurt of anger surmounted me. Why couldn’t she react? Why didn’t she protest? Why didn’t she shout? Why on earth did she have to be so good? Even when the knife drew meticulous lines of precision across her neck, she didn’t tell me a thing.

How could she tell me? I had gagged her before I killed.

And the winner is...

Elections are a carnival for jokes. And I as a first time voter, take it up as my moral responsibility to encourage our dear leaders who keep the humor alive within all of us. The result of which is a list of awards for all the jawans who continue to tirelessly entertain us, by looking absurd and silly, every single day.

"BJP is a truly secular party" - Advani

Did this saffron brigade leader hear what Varun had to say about Muslims? The frantic waving of hands and his claims of sending all Muslims to Pakistan, successfully earned him the 'Fanaticism bordering on the lines of insanity' award. And Advaniji fiercely defending the party ideologies and praising great leaders of the BJP, even when reporters pointedly questioned him on Varun’s speech wins the ‘Going temporarily deaf when (unmentionable body part) is on fire' award.

"Terrorism and religion conversion are two sides of a coin which will swallow our nation. The Hindus are now waking up against it'"-Pramod Muthalik

Yeah, his sevaks are busy bashing up women in the name of culture protection. Though I don’t see how he is planning on eradicating terrorism and religious conversions by declaring that women have no rights to their share of fun. So unquestionably the ‘I still live because it is illegal to shoot me’ award goes to him.

"In north India, the SP, the RJD and the LJP have dominated the secular space." -Mulayam Singh

These three parties are notorious for vote bank politics in UP and what we call communalism is their secularism. They win the 'Learn the meaning of English words first' award.

“We were defeated in 13 constituencies by design.” – The Ramdosses

This father-son duo largely made unpopular through the unceremonious sacking of the AIIMS head; usually say such incredible things when they feel largely ignored. Their hobbies include criticizing anything that the others (Read: Not PMK) do. And they clinch the ‘Desperate limelight hoggers’ award.

'There was a communication gap, that’s all' - Jayalalitha

Dropped out of a tea party hoisted by Mayawati, Jayalalitha dignifiedly fielded the media glare. Well, communication gaps happen all the time. That explains why the Left and the MDMK parties were missing during the tea party she threw a few days back. ‘I don’t like to be ignored' award goes to her for sure.

MDMK has been eerily silent this year after the embarrassing defection of a few prominent leaders to DMK. The party together wins the ‘We eat our own words’ title. (Another close contender for this award is TR Rajendher of LMDK. He also wins the ' Does anyone except me knows that my party exists? ‘award)

Of course the icing on the cake was Venkaih Naidu's speech that demanded the Prime Minister’s resignation on moral grounds as the UPA had been ‘deserted’ by its allies and the Congress had become a ‘loner’. Does he know there are elections coming up in a few days? He portrayed another streak of brilliance when he declared that Slumdog Millionaire won the Oscar because Congress had successfully kept poverty alive in India. He undoubtedly wins the ' I love making stupid statements’ title.

(Of course, this idea is not original and there are other people (with a superior sense of moral responsibility and brains) who have given out better awards. So suggestions, corrections and additions are always welcome).

Seen on a T-Shirt

I have
NO Girlfriend
NO Work
NO Problem

Strangely I couldn’t get the joke. Call me a feminist, call me a humorless old maid, but I just can’t stand chauvinism .

The shirt was missing one more line: 'No life' !!!

Once again

Once again the colored pieces suddenly come together...Their sagacity almost blinding…Complementing each other...Almost perfectly....In a moment of ecstasy...in the heat of solving the enigma finally...in the bliss of seeing the picture slowly falling into place...demystifying the darkness around you...a million hues diffusing…spreading a joyous glow....filling your heart with light...You smile...

And then abruptly the bits begin to falter...like a kettle ready to blow up any instant...simmering and scathing...the agitation becomes impossible to ignore…Apprehensiveness replaces smiles...Trepidation fills the space that you have started staring into insignificantly…

And in those moments of finality...you realize that the colored pieces were gray after all.

If you start with a bad-hair day....

...then your social cum work cum love life is doomed. After spending fruitless 15 minutes into taming my hair into an agreeable mess (the privileged others who have straight hair call it a pony tail), I was wondering what else could go wrong when...

a. I choked on a piece of idly; I was trying to gorge down in nano-seconds. Normalcy was restored only after a few gulps of water, two hard thumps on my back from mommy dearest and a long-winded ‘how-idlys-can-be-life-changing-if-you-eat-them-slowly' speech.
b. A group of frustrated men in the bus suddenly decided to vent out their pent-up emotions. What ensued was a 'not-too-pretty-to-watch' brawl involving a group of huffy-cheeked men against another group of huffier-cheeked men.
c. The impact of losing all my contacts on my mobile phone hit me fully only after I started getting the routine, customary, and almost revoltingly sweet ‘good-morning’ messages from friends today. I hardly recognized the numbers and was forced to ask them their names. This little activity of mine managed to get the majority of them pug-faced. I also earned the ‘How-can-you-forget-MY-number’ wrath from all of them.
d. A seemingly cute guy in the atrium of our office building decided to walk through me like I never existed. Cursing silently I reached the lift, only to find him inside, still looking away.
e. Tripped in front of a million colleagues, and had to swerve in the most uncomfortable way to avoid falling flat on the face, and ended up looking like a crooked, contorted Oscar statuette.
f. One more attempt at taming my hair in the office loo went astray as my comb decided to plop into the wash basin with a loud clang. The other peacocks, pruning their feathers gave me their looks of purest contempt.

It was then, that I gave up!

Moral: Maybe the guy didn’t look because my puerile hair looked like a bramble bush that had a magnetic attraction to anything even remotely dusty?? (Nah…Not a good enough moral you say?)

Well, then....The real moral: If anything just cannot go wrong, it will anyway...Courtesy Murphy.

A brief adieu…

The air was tumultuous with shrieks of joy. Festoons of different colors filled the place. The wind howled in merriment and made the flags flutter.

Her eyes slowly scanned the landscape. She could see tiny people hurrying along, young men trying to be gallant, fathers trying to coax children into leaving the fair before dark, and exited women trying hard to tear their eyes away from one stall to another.

She looked up at the radiant sun that was slowly losing luster. She smiled to herself. The whole place seemed so agitated when compared to the gloomy silence the mountains possessed.

"Over here, look over here", she heard him shout. For a moment she was tempted to rush down the slope to join him. But she stood still and continued probing the landscape. It was because of him that she was here. A rush of hatred, love and fear overcame her. But she stood still, for the fight was worth it.

When the sun slowly started moving towards the western horizon, she knew the time had come. The wind whistled into her ears and soothed her frayed nerves. Slowly, step by step she edged tentatively on the rocks. She was now on the topmost point of the hill and she could see the fair gradually losing its energy. Her senses were inhumanly alert while her agile body moved in grace. She could feel a thousand eyes on her now.

He was still there looking at her intently. She could feel her whole body go rigid. From this point she could see vast stretches of barren land surrounding the fair. She steadied herself and took another step towards the edge. Cold wind seeped through her clothes and chilled her skin. One more step and it would be over. She could see the tiny flags from the fair fluttering nonchalantly in the wind. She wondered if she would look like them if she fell. And then she turned to give him one last look. His face had turned white. She closed her eyes and lifted her right leg…

"Cut", he shouted, "Excellent! That’s all for today... Lights and camera off. Pack up".

Slumdog Millionaire - Review

Poor guy makes money. Gets the girl he wants. That sums up the storyline of Danny Boyle's most awaited movie of the year - Slumdog Millionaire.

So what's new and why are people going gaga over it? Well, it is the treatment of the plot that makes this movie pretty memorable. (Well, given the fact that G spent two hours clutching my already cold hands and won disapproving glares from A, itself explains why I will not be able to forget this movie in a hurry)

The quasi-narrative plot opens in the riot-stricken Mumbai slums with the happy-go-lucky brothers Jamal and Salim. Despite deep poverty, the two brats get into every possible mischief. (The best part of the movie still remains the Amitabh autograph scene. I fell in love with the sheer cheekiness)

Circumstances force the brothers to move to the north and there again the brothers impress with their audacity and imagination. Finally Salim gets drawn into a web of local kingpins and Jamal goes on to become a chai walla at a call center.

Somewhere in the middle, the movie loses pace and becomes predictable. In fact it remains racy and gripping until the boys grow up. Salim impresses more than anyone else in the movie. Anil Kapoor too has assayed his role with ease.

The music is not very impressive, but the BGM is pretty haunting at many places. The scene where the boys tumble down from the train, the riots, and the first police chase sequence has music that is incredible. I wonder why ‘Jai ho’ won the Globe instead.

In short, Slumdog would have managed to strike, minus the hype and hoopla.

Realization...

I stooped down to smell them. But I could only see the sullied mud beneath.

I reached out to listen. But I could only see the wiry stalks that drooped.

I tried to hold them. But I could only see the thorns that pricked.

When I realized,

The mud beneath was clearer than my conscience,

The wiry stalk was stronger than my heart,

And the thorns were not as perilous as an aimless mind,

I stooped down again.

By then they were already safe, in another hand.

Bingo :)

Quote
Sing like no one's listening,
love like you've never been hurt,
dance like nobody's watching,
and live like its heaven on earth.
-Mark Twain, Author.

De-Quote
Dance like it hurts,
Love like you need money,
Work when people are watching.
- Scott Adams, US cartoonist.

Haaapy New Yeeeer!!!

Happy new year all ye folks. Have a wonderful year ahead. 2008 was pretty eventful for me. Highs and lows. Elation and grief. Triumph and failure. Life and death. Learnings and un-learnings.

I have also learnt that when life seems dark and murky, and nothing seems to go right, the only thing that can save you is belief. An indomitable belief in yourself. This reminds me of a poem by Robert Frost.

“I'd like to go by climbing a birch tree~

And climb black branches up a snow-white trunk

Toward heaven, till the tree could bear no more,

But dipped its top and set me down again.

That would be good both going and coming back.

One could do worse than be a swinger of birches."

-Robert Frost.