My Dear Sweet Blog Reader. This is gonna be a very short post and a very emotional one. I’m taking a break…… and am gonna start posting in something like 3 months , maybe.
I just wanna thank you, for reading my blog .. taking time out to hear me out …. It meant a lot to me . Thank you so Much .
I wanna give you a warm cyber hug. May you have a happy , romantic 2012.
As a kid I had seen this movie, Crouching tiger, Hidden Dragon. The heroine just blew my mind away with all her kicking and flying and jumping.
My favorite scene was the one where the girl stands on the tip of a branch. Even a bird wouldn’t be able to do that. Another was where she flies from one terrace to another…she literally floated in the air.
Now I know it was the camera. But then I thought it was real. And I believed it all that. I was like,won’t it be amazing to be like her. My that year’s resolution was to become a Taekwondo or Kung Fu girl.
On searching, it turned out that there was this karate school near my place. I literally begged my mom to send me there.My mom has her own ideas about what “a girl” should learn and I was sent to music, singing and painting classes.
Interestingly my bro got sent for karate classes. He had these different colored belts for different ranks showing how much they’ve learnt. God knows what he learnt coz even as a brown belt,whenever we fought it was always me who won.
That was then. Something happened in between. Now he’s double my size and my chances of winning are slightly less…something like zero percent.
As if not getting the karate classes wasn’t bad enough, the singing class were at eight in the morning…and on Sundays. I mean, couldn’t she find any better time to hold the class? Our teacher claimed the morning air would awaken the “singing spirit” in our soul.Half the class would be so drowsy and sleepy. Maybe the ‘singing spirit’ thing happened when we were feeling drowsy and we didn’t notice it.May be.
Photo courtesy: http://calyxdesign.com/
Wow. The New Year’s come again.
Since the time I was in first grade. Throughout my school years my new year’s resolution was the same thing: to stop day dreaming. Everyone has their own vices. And mine is daydreaming. I just go on dreaming.
So we had to make this classroom chart . You know those chart everyone at school tells you to make about your new year’s resolution and stick them on those colored sheets of paper.
Making it was fun. That was the easy part. The difficult part was to carry it out.
I would make these huge to-do lists of all the things that I’m going to do today.
I would divide it by the minute. …6:43 pm to 7:54 pm. The first target would be met. Then I’d tell myself I’m going to take a “well deserved” short break. The short break would eventually stretch itself into the whole day.
It was around high school that I stopped making that as my New Year resolution.It made me feel less guilty somehow.
I eventually got around to stop daydreaming. Ironically it happened at a time when I had stopped believing .
It was when I realized one cannot force things. You should not force your heart to do what you think you should do. Instead you should do what your heart feels like doing. Just let our heart guide you the way.
It was all about finding what I really wanted to do. Maybe I daydreamed because my heart was not in the work I was doing at that time.
I’m thinking of a good resolution this time. I think it’ll be to write more. Or maybe something else….Aaargh . Why does it take so long to make up my mind?
Photo Courtesy: http://www.reslife.com/Default.aspx
My neighbour’s cat has her own set of issues about things. The latest one is her mirror issues. Now, she is a very cute cat, (like all cats are.) And since her cat mom didn’t introduce her to mirrors, I took the personal responsibility, to introduce her to it.
I thought she’ll feel happy seeing that she looks so cute. You know, I had these beautiful ideas of how she would admire herself in it. I could never have imagined her real reaction.
Who's that Purring Back At Me?
It started with the fist fight (or maybe I should call it Paw Fight). First, standing on her hind paws, she pressed her front paws against that of the mirror one. The eyes then narrowed to slits as she pressed her nose to the mirror cat.
I, hoping for the positive, assumed this to be a closer appreciation of her looks.
Then she just leaped back Bruce Lee-style . She crouched, head ducked under, jumping all of a sudden at the mirror… Guerrilla tactics, no doubt. It really perturbed her that no matter how fast she jumped at it, the mirror cat was always there.
The fight stretched so long that I finally had to cover the mirror with a cloth . The mirror was under her surveillance for two days. She clawed and chewed away at the cloth for a while.
Finally, she left it alone. Seeing the mirror cat not appearing, I guess she assumed her victory and went searching for other braver conquests.
I feel the most beautiful thing someone can do for you is to write a poem for you…By poem I mean one of those properly written ones, not those like we wrote in kindergarten… the sky is so blue, and I love you.
By chance, I’m one of those lucky people who got to meet the best poet in the world ….and got to have her as a best friend too!
Some days back, this genius poet friend of mine tells me that she was going to write a poem on me. I thought it was one of those b’ful sweet dialogues which she is full of. Or maybe she was just joking.
And then I saw it. It was written in Devnagari. I saw the title . And it was my name.
I have a very rare name. Spelling it is difficult, and pronouncing it is tougher. When I was a kid, people used to wonder how I was so good in spelling. Well, if you have a name that is as difficult to spell and pronounce as mine, other words naturally start sounding simpler.
Now coming back to her poem. ..Her poem always has that pied piper effect. Irrespective of what was going through your mind, you just hear her poem , and you’re transfixed. Well, at least that’s the effect it has on me. And every time. Every time.
I sat there losing myself in her world.
And after I read it she’s like, “you have to comment”. I didn’t know what to say. Her poems leave me too spell bound. You know there are those moments when you feel so emotional, and no words come out. I keep talking all day long, and when those moments come when I really wanna say something, all that comes out is a silence.
I’m just too bad at finding words to express the intenser emotions. Contrary to me, she’s the kind of person who can find words at any emotional state and can compose a poem even in her sleep.
Her poems have a world of their own. It’s like a faraway world, stolen by her words, entrapped in the curly loops of her devnagari writing.
Over that, she is a moving dictionary of words. And she assumes everybody to be one. Since my Hindi proficiency is pretty much on second grade level, she’s used small words this time, to match my vocab.
She breathes out art. She herself is like a moving piece of art. Her poems being read out in her words: they’re too enchanting for poor mortals to resist.
In case you don’t know by now, she’s something sort of a Narnian. Yes and she’s living on top of the clouds in a house made of clouds. She has an elfin face with tiny elfin ears. And these innocent childish eyes which you shouldn’t go by.
She’s a mix of many unique qualities rarely seen together. She is an amazing badminton player, a researcher, a poet, a model and can cook well enough to give any chef a run for his money. She’s the Geminiest of Gemini girls.
Don’t know if it has anything to do with her badminton practise, but there’s this match going on between the two sides of her mind. And it’s so comical to watch. It’s so difficult to not laugh when you’re around her.
I don’t know what else to say. Guess I’ll just end abruptly.
I just wanna thank her for being such a good friend: Thanks, Rashmi.
Photo Courtesy: http://www.zodiac-signs.org/
Today we were introduced to Chinese zodiacs.
There are theses twelve of these according to the year in which you’re born.
It’s different from the Aries / Taurus/ Gemini …zodiacs…
Like… we know Taurus is a bull, Pisces is a fish. But you don’t go around saying “I’m a bull,I’m a bull”, do you? No, coz if that had been the case, people would never be talking about their zodiacs in the first place. Well, that’s exactly what happens in Chinese zodiacs.
What Animal are You?
I found out I’m a sheep .It had a pretty quiet reaction. Thank God nobody sang some silly stupid nursery rhyme about some silly stupid woolly sheep.
I was hoping to land up in a braver zodiac and can’t say I was too happy about it when I first heard it. But that was before I heard what the others were.
The girl sitting next to me got asked, “Ok. What do you think you are? Rat?Pig?Or Dog?” As expected, the range of options sounded too good for her to respond immediately, and she just sat still, mumbling something that sounded more like “I don’t wanna know” than“I don’t know”.
I mean it was so funny and you can’t help laughing at it. I mean how many times can you actually tell someone to their face that they’re a pig….and say it with a very serious expression.
My mom who I thought would definitely turn out to be a horse, turned out to be a cock. A cock? My aunt, not surprisingly, turned out to be a rabbit.
It turned out my best friend is a tiger. I wonder what’s the friendly connection between them. Are tigers and sheep supposed to be best friends? (Try explaining that to a sheep.)
Anyway, chinese zodiacs were very fun(ny).
Photo Courtesy: http://freechinese.org/
I wrote a blog yesterday and it had something about the ‘open sesame’ thing. And I wrote Alladin instead of Ali baba ! If anyone read it they must be confused. ( that is, if they noticed it in the first place.)
I always get confused between Aladdin and Ali Baba.
It all started with the picture book I read as a kid. It was a big pink one called ‘My Big Fat Book Of Fairy Tales’. It had these beautiful paintings which I would sit and gape at as a child. The illustrator had drawn Ali Baba and Aladdin similarly and they even wore the same costume. (May be he had the same confusion as me.)
Anyway so the confusion began .
Besides, personally I like Aladdin more. He has a cool flying carpet, a magic lamp and that too with a genie in it. Ali Baba couldn’t boast of that, could he? All he does is say Open Sesame. And though there sure is something interesting about the cave opening thing, seriously it’s no competition to magic carpets. Aladdin even got the Princess.
Maybe that’s why the pro-Aladdin part of my brain bullied Ali baba out,while I was writing the previous blog.
This Poor Ali Baba Got Renamed Aladdin. (May be that's why he's looking so confused)
Generally, I get confused with words that have the same starting sounds. In this case the ‘al’ beginning of both their names.The same goes for ‘cardamom’ and ‘cinnamon’. Same for ‘ginger’ and ‘garlic’.
Maybe that’s why, when I cook, food ends up tasting pretty contradictory. And I keep wondering what I did wrong. You see, it’s a pretty risky thing, getting a dinner surprise from me.
I have a fetish for collecting emails. Not clothes, not shoes, but emails. It’s not intentional. It just happens.
It starts like this. I’ll come across some word in a movie or a mag. And I’ll be like “Wow .This sounds great. Why not have it as my email id?” And I’ll make it.
The Modern Day Aladdin
And then comes the Aladdin moment when you have to choose the password. There’s something so fun about this: A great secret place which is password protected where no one but you can enter. There’s something so Open sesame–ish about it, that magical effect. Movies and books completely romanticise it. And then you think, “Aaah let me keep an interesting password, one that will be too difficult for anyone to guess. And then I keep some strange ambiguous word, thought of at the spur of the moment which usually has its share of garbled mysterious letters. And then I’ll store it as my super-secret, super-safe password. And after setting my gobbledygook password I’ll feel so proud of it.
I’m gonna go “inside “and decorate the interiors of my brand-new email account. It’s like that brand new book effect. you buy a book, and you’re so completely smitten by how it looks that all you wanna do is decorate it and stare at it. So you give it a nice shiny cover , put a nice smart label on it , and then write your name beautifully on it and then pack it and keep it away safely… to be discovered 6 months later and then used like any normal book.
And then I’ll send emails from my own accounts to my other accounts since my friends find it too difficult to adjust to my constantly changing email ids, which rarely last more than a week.
After some days when I come to have another look at my ‘infant’ account I’ll find that I’ve forgotten the password. It’s that feeling when you’re standing outside your room door and fumbling in your bag for the key, too scared to think what’s happened of it. It’s a bad feeling and I don’t like it. I feel so sad then.
Even the email guys tell you to keep something no one will be able to guess. They keep emphasizing it. They never mention that it’s equally important that at least you yourself should be able to remember it. Maybe it’s bcoz I take the instructions too literally.
I’ll then spend some one hour at the machine writing garbled letters hoping one of them will click. It’s so ironical: my own password protecting my account from me!
And then? Then what? I’ll get up and start thinking of a name for my next email id.
The Way Cats Would Like It
There ‘s a shop owner , who has a huge love for his pets and likes to carry his huge pet love filled heart on his sleeves. So his pets accompany him to his grocery shop.
So when you go to his shop you see the cat sitting solemnly in a sphinx like pose on top of the weighing machine. Yes of all things in the world, the weighing machine. Maybe she‘s checking her weight. You have to request her to shift if you want to weigh something. After a lot of deliberation and coaxing she finally hesitantly steps down.
There is also this big Saint Bernard who’s sitting right at the doorstep. Saint Bernard’s are the sweetest of dogs. I know that. But their size can be pretty deceptive of their true intentions. For people who are scared of dogs(and there are many of them over here), seeing one who is 4 times the size of a regular dog isn’t really heart warming.
Maybe that’s why his sales are falling. But I don’t think that bothers him.
I was the most love prone kid in the world as a child. I would have 3 crushes a week.Every book that I read came with a whole new hero who I would fall head over heels in love with.
It didn’t matter that he was a character in a book, and not a person. ‘Love is love’ was the philosophy ,even if he just existed in the black and white print of a library book. It was worse in case of a movie crush.
I really have to roll my eyes when I think about the silly things I used to do as a kid. Next in the crush cycle would be the ‘secret’ thing. Have you noticed this, once something becomes a secret, it become so interesting? It doesn’t matter what it is , as long as it is a secret.
So I’d be looking at the clouds from my bedroom window and daydreaming about my crush, when suddenly this thought would come : I’m gonna keep it a ‘secret’! I’m not gonna tell ‘anyone’ about my ( silly) crush. And then I would proceed to write the name of my crush in the safest place a secret can be written in: inner fold of my skirt’s hem.And then would be that jubilant feeling. Yeah It’s a secret now. I wrote my crush’s name down and no one knows about it.
The Secret About Skirts and Their Pockets
Then would follow those backbench activities like Love percentage calculators and flames, where you go around typing different lengths of your name to see which one gives the highest compatibility. So it’s like, Okay I typed my first name and it says 46 % compatibility. Too low. Let me see what happens when I type my full name. Ah now it says 76 % . That sounds nice. Let me try my nick name now. So you just go around trying different variations of your name to see which one works.
There’s so much of hype around this soul mate and love compatibility stuff as if somehow if you just knew who your soul mate was, a big mystery of the universe would get solved.
Then come all the things that follow all hypes : zodiac books that claim to know exactly where your “one and only true love” is. They should rename their books: How to make a confused person more confused. At least that would be honest.
Somehow when my mom enters the picture, the scenario really changes. There is this instance of this rude bully at high school, who I didn’t like at all. There was this certain photo of him somewhere in school. Since fighting him was beyond me, I decided to fight his photo, meaning tore it off and then pushed it deep into my pocket.But by the time I came home , this was all forgotten about.
The Likeliest Place To Find The Unlikeliest Secrets
This is the thing about pockets . You don’t see pockets and think they don’t exist , and so forget to empty them. While my mom was doing the laundry, she checked the pockets and found like six photos of this guy.She jumped at the most exasperating conclusion. That he was my bf. In couldn’t have been further from the truth. But she’s always so sure she knows everything, that you might as well kiss ‘explanation’ a goodbye.
My painting plans keep getting postponed.
Ideally I’d like to draw people, figures and all that. But there’s a small problem in that. My male figures and female figures both look the same.
Why that is I don’t know. I’ll start drawing a male, trying my best to make him look as male-ish as I can. And when I complete it, it looks like a girl in guy clothes, with a guy’s haircut.
So since then whenever I draw a male, I draw him from the back view. Ya. Always with their back turned. And that seems so funny. A line of people with their backs turned towards you. But the good thing is I can draw guy cartoons.
My Picasso Doodles
So at least in cartoons they do look like males. So now I’m thinking of sharpening my cartoon skills. I know the doodles here may make you doubt my sharp cartooning skills. But they’ve been drawn at midnight ( by a very sleepy me, and so are out of context…And so you’ll never know about my super sharp cartooning skills.)
Drawing reminds me of this little kid who used to stay downstairs. She used to love drawing…all small kids do.
She’d never say, “No, that’s difficult. I can’t draw that.” It was always a yes. And whatever she drew always looked the same. A tree. Scribble Scribble. A girl. Scribble Scribble. A house. Scribble Scribble.And then she’ll give a big smile and show you what she’s drawn.
Te Mysterious Sketches Of My 3 Year Old Neighbour
The only different thing was the cloud. If you asked her to draw a cloud , she’d scribble the whole page till the four corners. Ya… Coz the cloud was so big , it filled the whole page.
Then there was this another kid , whose mom had these long picture charts hung all over the room, of fruits , vegetables, numbers, letters , flowers, what not. The baby was really small, really really small. She knew the sound, but had not yet learnt to identify the corresponding picture.
So if you pointed at A she’d say P. Rose was called Q. Same with the fruits. I think she recognised 1 and 2 slightly. So when she saw i or l or anything looking like 1 she got very confused and would tilt her head to a side and stare so cutely.
We have a genius teacher in our midst. She has finally found the “ultimate, no side effect , 100 % effective” cure for insomnia…. Just try doing one of her homework assignments: Guaranteed sleep in 3 minutes flat.
So, not surprisingly, one day the whole class turned up without anyone having done the work. She was so perturbed by it that our next assignment was to write a 500 word article submission on “why we don’t like homework.”
And then she also likes giving us a lot of homework. I think if she got to fill a scrapbook she would actually write “favourite hobby: giving students homework that makes them frown”. The frowning part is very important…brings a very satisfying smile to her face.
The Ideal Week
Wednesdays mean having a double lecture of her class. For her class we share tips on how to yawn without being noticed. Since I sit in the first row it means nodding off and day dreaming are difficult to pull off. It also means it’s the place where you’re most prone to do this.
So you get up and you’re like Oh God! It’s Wednesday again.
Sometimes, I wonder if it’s about Wednesday. Poor day! It must be feeling so jealous of Sunday. Wednesday strangely is also the day when most of our exams and tests tend to fall on. I wonder why that is.
I personally feel Wednesdays should be off. Won’t it be a nice feeling to know that there’s a holiday right in the middle of the week. It’s already making me feel so happy just thinking about it. It’ll even improve the overall image of Wednesday. And then, maybe, people are gonna get up from bed and say: Yeah, It’s a Wednesday!
This is about the time when I entered college and we had to choose our optional.
Now a foreword: I am very good in maths; so good that my maths marks were the first from the bottom of the list . Second, and god know why, my family is convinced that I’m a maths genius.
Now that’s a really sweet thing but the problem is that it makes me doubt my ‘numerological ability’ and makes me think things I would normally not… like thinking of choosing maths as an optional in college.
This was inspite of my solemn pledge of not to have anything to do with it again after my nightmarish experience with high-school maths. But here maths came, sneaking back on me again, with that menacing sigma smile of his. But this was when my guardian angel came to my rescue.
I trotted off to meet the maths teacher. Not surprisingly, she was a sweet teacher with a big semi circular smile. Why do Maths teachers always look so kind and understanding? I’ll never know. Coz it just doesn’t match with what they do to you later. They have these happy complacent smiles on their face and you could never have imagined binomial theorems and calculus have anything to do with it.
Deceptive Looks
So this ‘sugary saccharine smile’ teacher comes up and I confessed that I had decided to choose her subject and wanted to know what it was about. She seemed very happy and took out this fat maths book. Now this is another characteristic of maths books. They’ll have very small print. Normally small print books are thin, aren’t they. But the math ones’ll be fat too! I knew one maths book which was thicker than my pillow. (The student used it as her punching bag.)
So she shows me the book. Well, I saw the book, but what it was remains a mystery. Now there’s a symbol called sigma. You must have heard of it. It is this romantic looking curly symbol. There’s something very Romeo Julietish about it. It always stands apart from the otherwise pictureless mundane maths pages.
But wait, Don’t go by its looks. Experience has taught me that if there’s a sigma in a question, then you might as well move on to the next one .Sigma is like one of those mean unfriendly bottles , which just don’t wanna get uncorked, no matter what you do. And when she opened that book, I found myself in Sigma land.
I flipped the pages in the hope of daylight, but only more sigmas came curling towards me. And then I made the mistake of asking her the forbidden, “Ma’am what is all this ?” Coz then she embarked on an explanatory voyage and started rattling off words which made as much sense to me as the word “gobbledygook”.
Or maybe gobbledygook made more sense.
At some point, she stopped. Maybe the aghast expression on my face caused her do that.
I was very happy when I came out of the room. The small conversation with the maths teacher was very inspiring and I hurriedly chose other subjects in place of maths.
I’m not really a clean freak. How things get piled up in the first place and how the room manages to get messed up is still a mystery.
All I know is that one day my room itself transforms into a pile of papers. And moving around the room means I have to do gymnastic jumps at distinct points where the floor is still visible.( This, on second thoughts, means being messy has additional health benefits. It makes you jump around and that is more fun than most of the things those health mags go around telling you. )
In such moments, finding a paper means diving head first into a wave of papers, and then swimming my way through them till I find it. Though it might seem a bit strange to clean freaks and Miss Orderliness-es out there, I somehow do end up finding the paper every time.
And then there’ll finally be that moment when on all sides all there’ll be is papers. I’ll be sleeping on top of papers and sitting on top of papers. And it ends up seeming like my room itself was made of papers.
Supergirl vs Paper Pile
And then I’ll know it’s time I faced the monster called house cleaning. This is a Herculean task and it requires me to be suitably prepared. So I put on my “super girl” shirt, push my sleeves up to the elbows, whip out my two “power” dusters and let out a battle cry as I charge towards the paper pile.
In the background will be screaming music. And the playlist will be so arranged that the starting ones will be those fight back ,angry break up songs to match my attitude of “I won’t take it anymore, I’m gonna hit back at you, Paper Pile”. The ending ones though will be those soft soulful romantics to celebrate my sparkling clean room.
I’ve found out that there’s something very treasure hunt-ish about house cleaning. You’re finally “exploring” those piles of papers you were surrounded by, but had no idea about. And there’ll be that surprise: Aha so this is “that”, that elusive something which you always thought you had, but just didn’t know where. Quite like a photo album. You find a paper and it gives you a jog down a memory lane. It’s like every “scrap has a story to tell”.
“House cleaning” day is also when my daydreaming graph peaks. As I clean, I’ll be lost in the thoughts of when I’m gonna own a robot who’s gonna keep the room shiny and clean (maybe with a twinkle, the way they show in the ads.) Or if not just a magical broom which puts everything in place and then sings a song as it does it. I’d seen something like that in a mickey mouse film when I was a kid. The wizard’s apprentice, if I’m right, or something like that.
I finally caress the beautiful cold floor with my bare feet and realize the beauty of empty floor space. There’s something very beautiful about the fact that every corner of your square room is visible without any paper scrap on it. Like a blank canvas waiting to be drawn upon. In fact, I’m so mesmerized by this that for the next two hours, I just listen to music and admire my floor.
Memories of schooldays.
…The feeling of getting that ten on ten with that big happy circle around it.
…How a yummy tiffin-box magically comes out from your bag, the moment it’s the lunch break. You aren’t even aware when your mom put it in.
…That time when you could lick a lollipop, or have a funny haircut, and yet not feel self conscious about it.
The Practicality Of My Childhood Imagination
…When you had classes called “reading” classes, where all the whole class would do was read aloud in chorus. There’s something so warm and cute about it, everyone keeping pace with each other together.
…Childish imagination trying to fing the reason behind everything.
…When everything was so full of surprise and mystery and simple things were so magical.
…How when you would stare at the clouds, you would hold on to your mother’s pallu, out of fear you’ll fall on top of the clouds?
…How, when you read a book and see a picture of a dress, you press your nose to it, and keep rubbing your fingers over to see how the dress would feel!
I‘d been coaxing my family to have a pet for a very long time. And I finally succeeded.
Of course there were conditions . One of the conditions was what the pet was gonna be.Cats were struck out ,dogs followed the same fate. Dolphins were ignored and finally goldfishes were chosen.
My pet was to be goldfishes: decided.Well, I’d always wanted a much more expressive pet than quiet, shy, swishy goldfishes, but a pet’s a pet.
Once it was decided, it was quite like the way parents behave when there’re gonna have a baby. What’s the aquarium gonna look like? How big is it gonna be. Where are we gonna place it?
Now goldfishes are supposed to stay in goldfish bowls. At least that’s how it is in movies.And goldfish bowls are supposed to be round.And so a round goldfish bowl it shall be.
Wow,They Look So Different !!
Then started “The Naming”. Way before I got a goldfish , I had wanted a cat , and a dog and a parrot and a dolphin.And in my daydreams about these pets, I had even decided their names.And so there was this long list of names my future pets would have. So I was like, So what if I didn’t get those pets, I can always name my goldfishes after them.Right?
But then when they finally arrived in their shiny new goldfish bowl, naming them turned out to be a very daunting task.The moment you gave one a name it just swished about , and then you never knew who was who. Dogs look similar, but you always know which is which.Right? All goldfishes look the same. Not similar, but same.This was a shocking fact I learned that day.
Then I thought I’d simplify the names and keep it to just Goldfish 1, Goldfish 2, …… Sounds Darwinist, nah? Well even that didn’t work.
Goldfishes are very Expresssive Creatures. Here are Their Myraid of Emotions
I wonder if they recognise me.One moment they’ll swim towards me, rub their orange noses against the glass, the next moment they swish away , to the other side.They must be feeling confused , I suppose. (They always look confused!! ) It’s difficult to know what they’re feeling.They don’t have many expressions, unlike cats or dogs. (They don’t even purr.) But then there’s something magical about themat the same time.
Now I’ve finally settled down to no names. Yes.
But I wonder what to do with the list of names I made. I guess, I’ll just go to the terrace, find the first 8 pigeons and give them those names.
Our psychology professor likes to take detective tours around the campus armed with his sole weapon: his black suitcase. Inside it are mental tests of the weirdest types.
On his tours around the campus he’ll catch anyone who’s sitting alone. Once you’re caught, out comes his ammunition of polka dotted papers and abstract images. Sometimes he even brings out his hypnotising pendulum. Then you’re stuck.
Pop comes the first question: what animal does this look like? You’re staring at a blank page of paper, with a big black blot on the centre. As far as you’re concerned it doesn’t look like anything, forget about animal. Maybe a mosquito or a fly, if it’s been squashed, that is.
Then there are his large luminescent eyes behind his even larger glasses watching your every expression. You whisper, fly. He looks at you with a scandalized expression and frowns. You immediately regret being so open about your opinion.
He clarifies: Is it a dog or a tiger. In case you happen to sit near the canteen, you can see the crowd of canteen loyalists: the dogs. Irrespective of what’s being cooked, irrespective of what day it is the dog fans will always be there. You scratch your head and stare at the dog scratching himself, and start wondering from which angle it could possibly have resembled the ink blot on the paper.
The professor warns you, don’t let yourself get distracted. Distracted? Is there anything more distracting than 4 eyes staring right at your face recording you like a camera? Seeing the impatience creep into the 4 eyes, you look around impulsively searching for an intelligent sounding answer. Tigers.
The blot doesn’t look like cows or horses or monkeys or dogs or cats. Since you didn’t have any picture of a tiger around you, so assumed it to be the safest choice.
Now that you’ve said, it’s time to pay. He’ll sit still holding you in his gaze and shake his head contemplatively. And then ‘Aha’ with the eureka look as if he’s discovered one great secret about you. And then you start getting nervous. When you’ve reached your fidgety-best and are just a ball of nerves, you muster your guts and venture, What does that mean, Sir?
And then he replies airily, Hmmm. Nothing. And you stare stupidly. And then he’ll give that victorious smile: Mission Accomplished.
The fever has caught on and another of our professors has decided to take an online handwriting analysis course. Of course we’re the ones bearing the brunt of it.
Part of the problem is that he’s always so sure that he‘s right. The other part of the problem is that he’s hell bent on helping us with his handwriting analysis skills .His class always has this Big Boss effect as if there’s a secret camera surveying you ,and that you better watch out.
He likes to dictate us notes, and as we huff puff to get down all that he mutters, he’ll take a “little walk” around the class. Your T says that you’re a loser. Your M says that you are a cheater. And then to the class, stay away from this boy, he has a dangerous A.
And then the student will look accusingly at the silent M sitting on his book. This is a regular thing. So in his class our hankies, pencil boxes, pencils and mobiles are all over our books. This is a precaution against his helpful advices.
Once he even passed us a paper and asked us to autograph it. We all signed innocently, unaware of what would follow. After that he picked us up individually and started our negative qualities list.
One student asked him in the end,”Sir, what are the positives?”
His response: No positives. What’s the use of the positives??!!!
I know so many people who sleep cuddling their cell phones that sometimes it seems they are the new teddy bears. My ex-roomie was one of them .My neighbour’s daughter another. She’d fall asleep while she was smsing… and in her sleep her hands would end up pressing some buttons ….
Maybe that’s how I end up getting weird nonsensical messages. One urgent 12 am message read as:aasdahsa//hastrss:?muygfmgfmgf???. there was another, triple in length with an equally intelligent message.
A Very Urgent Message ( Indeed )
There’s this girl in my class who’s always messaging. Till now I’m yet to see her in a non-smsing state. She messages even when she’s writing or reading or eating or talking!!The telephone companies aren’t really all too happy about it…coz its anyway on a free sms pack. I found out that when the first mobile came out the rate was 39 rupees per min… and wait this was for incoming! And now!
I’ve recently come across such ridiculous ringtones. The one that I found the most interesting was the cat’s purr one. Whenever it would ring the cat in the house would get all so worked up and start prowling about, ears cocked up and whiskers trembling. When the tune would end she’d actually start purring, as if calling out. It would be so touching somehow. She never guessed it was the mobile.
I wonder what would’ve happened if it was a dog who heard that. They have a pretty different way of reacting. Maybe he’d have chewed of my mobile. By the way, we don’t hear any dog ringtones, do we? All the doggies in the world are very angry. It’s one more entry into their list of complaints. They feel their loyalty is not being rewarded properly. In ancient Egypt a man hurting a cat would be punished by death .Dogs can’t boast of any such life insurance policies. Not only this, after all their tail wagging and snooping around its cats who get featured in every Bond movie.
A while ago I got the good news that I’ll be getting absolutely free breaking news for 10 days and I could subscribe to it if I wanted.There was so much hot breaking news being delivered to me that there’d be moments when I would be deleting 25 of those unread ones at a time. So you can imagine how happy I was on the 10th day that the absolutely free offer was finally going to be over. But the telephone company had different plans. They happily announced I’ll be the lucky receiver of hot breaking news for another 10 days. Now its been 2 months and I’m still receiving unwanted hot breaking news.
It makes me wonder what their business strategy is behind this. Now tell me why would someone subscribe if they know they’ll anyway be getting it free. I guess what they’re working on is getting us addicted. Like this…People ‘re gonna read so much of this stuff that when we finally stop, they’ll be hungering for us.
There was a time when athletes would advertise for biscuits and milkshakes…..(Boost is the secret of our energy.)
Now we find Brett Lee and MS Dhoni advertising for apartments. Then you see 6 cricketers advertising for Muthoot finance!! Now how in the world is a bank loan related to cricket , or an apartment…the bizarreness.
Talking of advertisements, we see some funny endorsements,
Recently Vidya advertised for a mosquito coil. Of all the things she could possibly endorse … a ‘macchar’ killer. Seeing the once Queen of Hearts, Vidya in a mosquito repellent ad was quite a shock. I think it’s because her home mosquitoes are really vicious
In another ad I remember there was Priyanka . The make-up artist had done such a good job, that she wasn’t even looking like her. Finally they had to put a label below and write Priyanka Chopra.
It’s like those Biology exams in school when you’re asked to draw some microorganisms. Wait…..They’re microscopic. You can’t even see them with your naked eye. How does it matter the way they’re drawn. You anyway won’t notice it. And then if we get even one thing wrong, we get minus 1. That ain’t fair.
So our cricketers are going running around and getting all the advertisements. There’s this one cricketer who advertises for a fairness cream. Fairness creams were thought a very girly product and so this company roped in this cricketer to endorse them, thinking it would up the manly quotient of the product.
End result: he, in his cricket suit, with a bat on his right hand and a fairness cream in his left. I wonder why they made him wear the knee pads and the helmet in the ad. Wonder if it has anything to do with the product. Or maybe they just feared without the ‘costume’ no one would recognise him!
Coming to the other sports, Mahesh Bhupathi has announced that he’s going to enter Bollywood. So we are expected to hold our hearts and wait hungrily for his film release. Someone would think there is a dearth of people wanting to enter movies.
Our national game, hockey entered the limelight through a movie Chak De . Ironically, the movie is still more famous than the game. Despite winning a World Cup (yes!!) their presence is overshadowed by batsmen getting out gor a duck.
Then comes chess. This is the game parents make their kids learn during school, thinking its gonna increase their IQ. After playing it for some time, the kids finally become intelligent enough to dump chess and play some more thought provoking game like firangi version ‘gulli danda’ ( read as ‘cricket’).
It is at this point that Formula1 and motorsports makes its entry. The popularity of motorracing as a sport in India can be understood from the fact that Buddh Circuit is the first constructed circuit in India. Now that there is a circuit, motor racing as a passion is gonna grow.
I wonder what their cricketing counterparts have to say to this. The winner, Vettel, is way fitter than cricket heartthrobs, Yuvi. Even (Rank 7) Lewis Hamilton can challenge most of our B Town heroes. I wonder if the cricketers are feeling threatened after this. Threatened to be pushed off the pedestal they’ve been reigning for so many years.
All the cricket fans are gonna say “NO”. So what if they make sloppy catches and go out for ducks and spend more time practising for their ad shoots than their on-field performance; cricket will always remain no.1
Now that’s called Amar Prem.
Being Bengalis , Durga Puja is the “big” festival.
Diwali is more like, “Ah so its Diwali.”…. And then… “Yeaaah we’ll get holidays .”
Sometimes I feel its celebrated more bcoz its a holiday than for the festival.
My fire-cracker phobia dates back to my childhood.
We used to go to this pataka shop ,I remember, and load the cart with patakas.
This was the part where I very enthusiastically took part.
It was the latter part of actually burning the patakas, which proved difficult.
Like all kids who are gifted with brave moms, who expect their kids to follow in their footsteps , my mom too was no exception.
Strangely , my brother got my mom’s brave genes.In my case they skipped a generation.
So come Diwali day , and my bro would be out on the streets flaunting his ammunition of rocket patakas , and “this” patakas and “that” patakas.
…And I would be sitting in the bathroom ,shut .
Our bathroom door is very firm. Its pretty protective if you wanna use it as an armour.
But my ever positive mom will be shouting from the other side, “Come Out , you can do it.”
Then there would be this certain point when she would finally cajole me out of my shell , (read as the bathroom.)
An then I would burn one of those sparklers.
And wait … burn means, she will be holding the burning sparkler in her hand and I’ll be holding to her elbow.
This was in Junior School.
And then I reached Middle school.
This was the time when she would go pataka shopping alone ,coz I‘d be dropping subtle, and not as so subtle hints ,about my opinion about Patakas.
But I would be there with her during the mombatti shopping.
So on D Day, all my friends would come and burn my patakas.
The rest of them would then be gifted to the neighbours as gifts. Diwali Pataka gifts .
Luckily, by the time I reached high school, my mom had finally got the message.
It took some time but it had finally sunk in.
We now only go mombatti , diya and twinkle-bulb shopping.
Made in China twinkle bulbs ,
Wow! What a spirit of celebration.
Chinese people making twinkle bulbs for an Indian festival.
Once we’ve decided the bulb string we want, we move on to step 2 : Bargaining.
And then you buy and come, and realize they’re too small and too short.
And then you go tugging here and there.
These bulbs come with a guarantee of 2 months …which means … if they don’t work we can go and ask the illegal Chinese company for the replacement!
Maybe the guarantee comes coz they know we’ll only use them for Diwali….around a week (time enough for them to pack up and disappear.)
Within one hours the bulbs start having hiccups . And then you try giving a twang here and there, as if magically expecting it to light up.
All these electrical stuff is so complicated.
Those electricians are so similar to those doctors.
You have no idea what they’re doing .
And while they’re repairing , you keep trying to read their expressions and every twitch in their face gets you so worked up.
Most of the time before Diwali is spent watching Diwali blockbuster movies.
Sallu movies , in my mom’s case.
And SRK ones in my case.
The best part of Bollywood movies is that they make you feel like such genius : You know exactly what’s gonna happen in the next scene.
Not only are storylines copied, even covers are copied.
Mostly ,it’s just a remake of some H’wood movie released some 5 years back.
Not that there really is anything much to know in most b’wood films .
Most of the time, the efforts of the filmmakers are that no brains should be applied, whether in making it or watching it.
Maybe that’s why movies like Kambakht Ishq and all of Saif Ali Khan ’s movies get made.
Of all the patakas that people buy in Diwali , only 25 % of these are burnt.
The rest are stowed away , for occasions like winning cricket match.
Since T20 and all the cricket tournaments, there is this never ending saga of cricket.
So if you don’t watch cricketand you hear a sudden burst of patakas, you know why : India has one a quarterfinal match .
That’s why the pataka industry is so happy… cricket sells more patakas than Diwali!
As far as local industries are concerned, I once asked a “friendship band” seller what he does with the rest of the bands, once the day is over.
“Whatever bands don ‘t sell “, he said, “we convert them to rakhis!”
Now that’s a word of caution for all those people who take these days seriously.
So girls who intend to tie friendship bands on their close guy friends , really need to think this through.
Then comes the Sweet shopping.
We being Bengalis , the sweet shopping is the most important part.
Rasgullas , pedas, and besan laddus are the top favorites.
Just like the “pataka bravery “ genes ,the” sweet tooth” genes too skipped a generation in my case.
Then starts the house cleaning.
This is the part I hate the most. But I really like it once its done.
Then come the passing of sweets .
This sometimes resembles the “pass the ball” game we played as kids.
You keep passing the sweets on and on, never know if they just end up with you!
Naturally, if 5 people give you sweet boxes, you’re not gonna be able to eat all of them.
It’s not humanely possible.
My cousion though is an exception.
Once my mom gave him a big box of besan laddoos.
He ate them all up in an hour. Some feat,yeah?
…And then he spent the next day , staring at the doctor’s face.
Then there’s also the diya and the candle burning.
There’s something about candles, which is so b’day –ish.
Especially, when it goes out, there’s that certain smell which is so unmistakeably b’day-ish.
Once when we were in Calcutta , we had put candles all around the front of our house.
Then we went to the back side to put candles there.
When we came back in 10 min, all the candles had disappeared . Now that’s a mystery.
And then start the patakas.
I hold my heart and hide between pillows, hoping that it’s going to mellow down the noise.
Coincidently, we have a pataka-happy kid upstairs. This means the we enjoy the boom- boom noise more than others.
Then come the jewellery sales.
In all the jewllery shops there is this kabaddi-like match going on , where 3 females go tugging at the same chains and bangles.
And then comes the comparing , you bought that? (smirk) I bought this …. And that too cheaper than you.
And the streets turn into a fashion competition.
Which means the dressing time of my aunt, which is usually 1 hour increases to 2 hours.
And then when the holidays are over you get an assignment :how you spent your holidays ?
Now ,that’s a very interesting question. The problem is that it’s supposed to be of 500 words ,when actually one word itself could have described it sufficiently well enough : Enjoyed.
Sometimes I feel I’m in a ballet school. Our teachers like to keep us “on our toes.”
They have certain misconceptions about things. They feel we like exams. So as soon as one long string of exams get over , they smilingly tell us that there’s another string waiting for us.
Yeah so the most beautiful times ,actually, is that day just after the last exam. Coz that’s furthest away from the next series of exams.
We were having our exams some days back and they lights went off.In the exam hall. First, it sounded very romantic. One big hall of students….in pitch dark….
People normally think that if the light goes off, its good for cheating . But it’s not. First, if you haven’t slept the night before you start feeling very sleepy too. Then, how am I supposed to sneak at my neighbour’s paper if I can’t even see his face.
The funniest part of it was the crazy invigilator. She was moving through the rows with a torch and telling the students , don’t you dare cheat. What a joke!
After this exam , this thought struck me…Now looks like there’s one more addition to the list of “things you need for a exam” : shine – in – the -dark luminous ink !
My landlord’s favorite pastime : peeping in through the window.
I used to hear murmurs of people saying ,”…she’s eating this, ….aah
…She’s standing there, ….what’s she doing with that . …Maybe she’s going to eat.” I could not imagine where this voice could be coming from .
My caring landlord has put a one way glass on my window.They’re opaque from inside. Since my floor is very high , I had no way of knowing this.
First I thought it might be a secret camera. But then cameras just record , they don’t talk.
Like you’re in a reality tv show, except that thre isn’t any trp ratings and you aren’t getting paid for it !!
What was strange about it, was that the sounds start after the evening, around the time when the lights go on….his favorite time for night watching.
My landlord stays in the adjacent house ,which has a window strategically located.
Seriously , how nosily inquisitive can someone be ?
My landlord is the person to seek this answer from. His wife opens my garbage can and sifts through it , to see all the things that I must be doing !! Unfortunately , all she finds is banana peels and yoghurt cups.
But this doesn’t disappoint her , she still continues the “trashcan raids “. Pretty determined lady.
Then there is my landlord. He comes in announced, knocking at the door. He strolls about bossily, chest puffed up …..God knows who he’s trying to look like , Coz that just makes him look stupider than he already is.
He never comes unaccompanied..(company meaning his son.)
O god!
Together they tear posters on my wall to see what’s behind them . Then they crawl below to the dark recesses under my bed to see what’s under it. They jump onto my table to see what’s’ in the rack above,my toilet is not spared either. All my books and papers are then thrown hither through…..
They go as abruptly as they came. And I’m left standing there in the aftermath of the room that “was”.
According to my landlord college anatomical drawings are a threat to society…(I’m still trying to figure out how.)
Ironically , alot of my college assignments revolve around them.Maybe that’s why 18 of my completed assignments reached the dust bin. He did this to prove his righteousness.
My landlord favorite activity ( after watching me through his one way glass ) is giving his never-ending opinion on things , I’m not interested in at all.
Most of them start like…the divorce rate is increasing , why?
“Girls are becoming untraditional ,they want to go to their offices instead of doing house chores.” ,”If a girl refuses to swob the floor ,cook the food and wash utensils, divorce is bound to happen.”
Now tell me, if a girl is working from 9 in the mornng to 7 in the evening , isn’t she tired when she comes home? Now what do you expect her to do after a 10 hour office timings… swob the floor? Cook 5 course meals?
My landlord has a very positive opinion about women : according to him a women’s ambition in life is to change diapers and of course cook yummy food for her husband .
What more can a girl expect from life ? he says .
And then he’ll stand with his eyes closed , with that all knowing expression. And then,” why’re you studying ? In the end you’ll just have to change diapers.”
And I’ll have to listen to this patiently , trying my best to conceal my anger, and try to look at something else. I have to do this, or he thinks I’m really enjoying his lecture, and then the monologue lasts twice as long. And then he finally shuts up when he realises he’s talking to his yellow walls and white ceiling. ( He’s very protective about them.)
According to my landlord he is the smartest person in the whole colony. Reason: He was a kabaddi champ in high school!! His victory as a kabaddi champs regular topic of discussion that I can’t even laugh at it now.
Day to day shocks have mellowed down to become day to day experiences
As a kid could you imagine what you’d grow up to be…
For me its a surprise .
I remember those junior school textbooks , where there’ll be those questions….what do you want to be when you grow up?
And then one just stare blankly wondering what to say… ( well, that’s what I would do) . This question so completely perplexed me.
Since my second grade textbooks skipped this question , it was not until third grade that I started to be bothered by this.
Since then there’s been this ever changing list of ”what to be “.
Third Grade
This is the time when everyone wants to be teacher.
We used to play games like teacher –teacher .Then there were also girls who used to draw make -believe attendance books with their friend’s names and then take attendance !! Now when you think about it,it seems so funny.
But strangely, then I wanted to be a doctor. I just thought that if was a doctor , I wouldn’t have to swallow bitter medicines ( Ever seen a doc taking pills? ), and could scare anyone away by waving an injection at their fac e.
Fourth grade.
Here I read my first Harry Potter book, and decided I wanted to be an author.
Fifth Grade
Here the Harry Potter fantasy took over to such an extent, I decided I would enroll in Hogwarts, and become an accomplished witch.
Sixth Grade
It was by sixth grade, that I accepted that maybe it was too late for my Hogwarts entrance exam… and so I decided to go to next most Hogwarts - y place in the world,the Harry Potter movie sets.
I thought I’ll become an actress and then go to Hogwarts in the movie.
Seventh Grade
In seventh grade reality struck , maybe struck real hard, coz Hogwarts along with Harry and his friends packed up their bags and flew away on their brooms…
Eighth Grade
I didn’t really have any profession on my list… but more than made up for this by having a bagful of them in ninth grade .
Ninth Grade
In ninth , I wanted to be all of these : Athlete, Radio VJ, Author, Orator, Singer and Scientist.
Tenth Grade
I had this chapter in tenth called ”DNA and heriditary …. something something”. I had bunked the lecture , so discovered the chapter the day before my exams. It was love at first sight.
I decided I wanted to be a genetic scientist .
Eleventh Grade
More than my passion for designing , it was my bad school scores that made me believe that there’s a designer within me….c’mon gotta be good at something.
Twelfth Grade
As my scores went lower , the list of things I wanted to be increased. They were poet, writer, card maker, designer, counselor and pscycologist.
And then surprisingly , I’m here now painting and writing. I always wanted to do this…just had to realize it.
I guess , as you go around finding your work , what you really discover on the way is … you.
Pune food has transformed my culinary feelings.
Suddenly I feel like learning how to cook … which also means I’ll have to find someone who’ll eat all my experimental dishes.
These are the things I intend to be an expert on .
Magical Rumaali Rotis
When I was a kid there was this rumaali roti stall in the main market near my place.
I used to just stand there and stare at him ,hypnotized by the white balooon like circles dancing in the air .
There ‘s something like the Pied Piper effect… rotis dancing to his tunes.
Karnatakan biryani
I had this Kannada dance teacher.
So once I went to her house all so famished and hungry.
She instantly whipped up some rice prepartion which was a warm sunny yellow. God knows how she made it , but before I realized , it had vanished in me.
Yummy Sambar
Dosas were one of the first things I learnt to cook. Maybe that’s bcoz they’re my favorite.
Tangy Chowmein
I love smelling its aroma more than eating it…!
When I make it I’m gonna flip it around like those chefs do on their TV shows.
Pav Bhaji
I tasted this at one of my friend’s b’day parties.
I had never tasted it before and was quite surprise at being served pav with sabjis. …Isn’t this supposed to be eaten with rotis?
It was only after tasting it that I fell in love with it.
Stuffed Capsicum
This was the chef’s special in my previous mess.
Inside the beautiful green capsicum, there’ll be the aloo stuffing peeking shyly at you. There’ll be yellow capsicums , green capsicums and even the red ones.
So colorful …and yum too.
The chef would was a Rajasthani. When he would make this ,he would wear a red-and-white Rajasthni costume with a turban and a waist knot. And then also were the curled moustache and curled up chappals (there was something matching about their curliness. )
It was a sight ,both he and his food.
Ragdi Bhel
Maybe some people find it easy to make , but for people like me, (whose culinary skills are so high that cinnamon and cardamom seem the same ) , such recipes are quite a daunting task.
Now, having made the list ,I wonder when I’m gonna do it.
The tiger lazing in the grass in my bedroom is very happy ….
The most repetitive dreams I ‘ve had were about tigers. They were less a dream , more a nightmare.
These dreams followed from my childhood ,right upto my college first year.
In reality , I find tigers so adorable and they top my favourite animal list.
And so my wall is full of these tiger pictures I have , of adults as well as kiddo tigers. Seriously , if tigers were vegetarians , they’d be my pet.
In the pictures in my room (where they’re either gazing romantically at the trees or playing tiger games with their tiger chums ) they seem so lovable , its difficult to imagine them “vicious”.
But the tigers of my dreams are a different type altogether.
May be that’s why I always get eaten by them!….You can imagine my shock , more so since its my favourite animal who’s doing this .
Of all the dreams tigers I’ve met , there’s only been one who let me escape, that too ” just escape”. Kind tiger he was!
So then there was this time ,when there used to be this sort of cycle which every tiger picture went through.
First, I’ll get these tiger pics. I’ll search them in magazines, newspapers, internet, and any crazy place I can get them from.
Then I’ll stick them very strategically so that they’re right in front of me .
And then one night I’ll have a tiger dream………That ‘s it.
I wake up from this dream in the middle of the night. I dare not even switch the lights on ( I’m scared there’ll be a tiger on my bed ) as I grope my way to where my tiger pictures are stuck.
Twang! My tiger picture gets ripped off the wall.
Next, my once treasured photo gets shredded into small pieces .
The next minutes its flushed down.
That’s the end .
……And then begins the hunt for the next tiger pic and the cycle repeats over.
Now the dreams have stopped I’m really happy about it.
The tiger lazing in the grass (in a picture) in my bedroom is happier about it.
Are you an early riser?
Or you really shouldn’t be reading this.
I hate mornings .
I get up in the morning and I’m like…Oh Damn.Really ?Its morning … So fast? I’m ready to just tuck into bed and say g’nite.
When my alarm rings and announces its 7 , I’m feeling so sl;eepy it feel like I’ve slept for just 30 minutes.
How I wish I could catch some extra minutes of sleep….(Well I actually do do that coz its only after the snooze button’s been pressed something like, thrice ,that I stir.)
I can’t wait when these scientist are gonna create this time machine….I’ll be the first to buy it…coz I’m gonna stop time and do all the things on my ‘Wanna -Do -Someday’ list . (There are so many of them !)
I stay in a very noisy area. (Well,its not the area exactly, its the people who are noisy . )
The residents here define evenings at 12:30 am.
Sometimes it seems like the walls of my apartment are made of cardboard coz every single sound gets amplified to a booming level.
And so as night comes , my whole room is echoing with dialogues of TV soaps my neighbors watch.
And so when I finally fall asleep ,I find myself waking up a100 times a night.
There is this one particular show which my neighbour watches where the anchor is completely crazy .
He says this ……Niiiiiii. THat’s it…. Niiiiiiiii. He just says this again and again . Just that one word. I find it so weird. And annoying , especially when I’m trying to go to sleep.
And then its just that holy post 3:30 am tim e, when you finaly settling into something resembling a sound slep,and then… the alarm rings.
I haven’t even heard it , what am I gonna react to it?
And when I wake up I keep wondering why my alarm never rings.
Then my second alarm rings . This is an hour later.
As soon as it ring my hands sleepily grope around and press the snooze button,thinking its the first alarm…… No wonder it’s always a surprise when finally check the time and see that it is an hour and a half later than I had imagined.
Its only after I’ve pressed the snooze button thrice, that I finally stir, and get up grumpily.
But you can’t really afford to be grumpy, especially if you’re just 20 minutes to your class.
As if 10 am isn’t early enough, There is even one mad professor who starts his class some 30 minutes before.
So then there is this fumbling of things. I’ll jump around the whole room , tugging at this , tugging at that and then just rush out, looking as decent as someone straight outo bed can look in 20 minutes.
It s14 th Feb.
Unlike other parts of this country ,Pune februaries are very warm.
No wonder Cupid’s gone all miinimalistic in his dressing sense.
Cupid gets reminiscent about the good old days, …….
Days without sneaky photographers ,satellite cameras and most importantly , days before Archies.
He remembered the last time he had visited an Arhies shop.
Poor little Cupid,had almost dropped his arrows in shock ,seeing his pictures splashed across cards an Posters.
That his identity had been made public was something pretty tough for Cupid to come to terms with.. if not insulting .
Gone were the days when he could just sneak up and pierce someone with his heart tipped arrows , and then rub his hands in glee and watch the fun unroll.
These were those downpoints, when even Cupid had serious thoughts of opting for a carreeer change .
After all what’s the point of being Cupid ,if you can’t even be sneaky.
After all , even he had a reputation to live up to .
Hello ,
I ‘m Garfield.
As you can see from the sidebar , its 10 th September.
Today was a very busy day, just like all my other days.
I have such a hectic lifestyle,…..but it’s all part of being a cat.
Today I came across John’s grocery list on the kitchen table.
(That was when I had sneaked into the kitchen and helped myself to some well deserved patries.
You see, The pastry was sitting on the table all so alone,… my generous spirit couldn’t resist helping it ….reach my tummy. )
Seeing the list on the table inspired me.
I’ve decided to make a similar list….list of the things I hate .
So this is what I came up with:
NO.1 ….Odie
THis as you all must definitely agree.. is Odie.
Handling Odie is one of the most strenuous jobs.
No matter how much I try to reform him, he goes back to his “old” ways.
Sometimes, I think of giving up. But then the determined cat spirit in me keeps me going.
God How do People handle dogs?
NO. 2……My “John-approved” diet
I got up at around 11 am after a very restless sleep of 14 hours….
And what do I see…
That same old boring cat food of some god-knows-what brand taht cat doctors think the world of.
Say, where is a cat supposed to get his nutrition from if all he eats is “healthy” food.
I keep telling John about it , and how he should urgently bring in some changes…
But John is John.
No.3 … Lizzy
The third thing I hate the most is Lizzie.
It was around 3 pm , when I had just awoken from my post-breakfast .
Lizzie had come.
You know Lizzie , right.
Ya , that silly girl, John keeps blabbering about.
She seems so stupid, I can’t imagine how someone can talk to such a person.
But then of course , I keep forgetting, John is stupider.
Oh God the stupid peopel I get surrounded by.
To top it off there’s Odie, always at his stupidest best,tongue ever- dangling, his tail wagging so ferociously, one fears it might just fall off.
Well. That rounds off my list…
Well ….I had intentions of going till 20 …but having written the first 3 I realize the rest of the list will have to be cmpleted with just the same word…ODIE.
After all, there ‘s nothing that fills a hate list better than him!!
Garfield.
N0.1 Model
Well you can start dieting , Be a model.
Sounds difficult ?
Not at all.
Anna Hazare has already made things very easy.
Support , him for 10 days.
Get a model bod on the 11th.
NO.2 Journalist
You could start writing ,….. submitting articles to a newspaper , preferably ,one who thinks that your work has a special message.
It can be anything.
You could write on sensible stuff..(thinks people like to show they read, but don’t really read).. like finances ,or economics.
You could write on not so sensible stuff ..( people really read , but don’t like to admit it ).. like love .
By the way, The not-so-sensible stuff do better.
Or ,
NO.3 Cartoonist
You can start drawing caricatures, …
You know those crazy people who appear in our lives.
You keep wondering where they popped in from.
I mean ,Those naggers.
The ones who believe their noblest goals in life is to bug others.
They are the people companies like Dispirin, give annual awards to.
After all they contribute to their maximum sales by giving the best headaches.
Write down they’re trademarked diaogues.
Caricature them ,and shoot it off to a cartoon page.
NO.4 TV Celeb
Next , you can Do something crazy.
Yes, Craziness can be a sought after quality.
Don’t believe it.Switch on the TV
There’re enough examples moving around over there.
At a time, when there’re more news channel than people watching it ,everything becomes a top story.
Recently there was a top story about how a cat has been sitting on a tree for 3 days.
…And people were being interviewed about it!!
If a cat can make it , I’m sure you can too.
All you have to do is inform the news channels about it.
The best part of it is ,that anyhing will do.
Its all a matter of how creative you can be.
You can start by … like .. an alien came last night and proposed me.
Ya that ‘ll work.
Then you need to melodramatise it.
Don’t know bow to melodramatise?
Simple…… just switch on one of the daily soaps. There’re enoughs tips out there on how to do it.
This is gonna run for some 3-4 days.For sure.
NO.5 Reveal-It -All Book Author
Once the media and everything is splashed across the screens.
You can then write a reveal-it-all book about it. How you had an alien going on his knees for you.
NO.6 Bollywood Hero
During the media recording of your alien proposal, you can make some preposterous remark about some actor, especially if his movie is releasing this weekend.
This gonna be good for both.
As surveys show,movies do better when their cast has a fight on the releasing week.
You and the actor will become best friends later. (Of Course, the media won’t know this.)
You can then get cast in a Bollywood movie, which as everyone knows doesn’t require acting.
THese were the 6 easiest professions I could think of getting started into.
THere are many reasons which can be responsible for this.
No I’m not talking about work, peer pressure…
No the major reason is Love.
First , people make you watch romantic movies…
They make you believe that something called love exists …
NO one knows what it is . ..No one ‘s seen it… Yet everyone talks of it.
( Isn’t that how normally aliens are described?)
We are taught that love is beautiful , and once you get it everything is gonna be just perfect…
And ,this is when you’re so happy to know about it ,and are all eager to fall in love.
But Wait..
Its then that you’re told that you’ll have to search him out.
What?
Yes.
You are even made to believe that its very important to find this whoever he is, …( so you dare not back out )… or you’ll be missing out on some great special feeling, which no one knows what it is.
Somehow this would still have made sense , if you knew his name , or maybe if you knew how he looked, or maybe if you knew where he stayed .
But no…wouldn’t that would rob Love off of all the confusion and ambiguity .
And so clueless, you go out , in a search for your soulmate.
Then one fine day, you see some person across the street .
He’s sweet ,isn’t he?
Yeah . Very Sweet.
An then he talks so lovingly to you, doesn’t he?
Now isn’t that what happened in the movie?
Yeah .
So that must be my soulmate, you conclude.
…And Down you swoop into the depths of love……
Just to realise .. well he’s not the one….
Then all a girl wants to do is run away from love.
As if this isn’t enough.
There are those smiling Mr. Wrongs , the ones you are just not interested in , the one who are so sure that you’re interested in them.
No matter what you say, no matter what you do, they’re always so sure you love them.
There’s only one way out you have to run from them.
Then come your parents.
Dare to drop a guy’s name, it can be anybody, just a guy’s name.
And that’s it….
No matter what you do now, that name just sticks in their head.
And then they’ll have that look on their face , as if they’ve uncovered some great secret .
And that expression on their face : our girl’s in love.
Aaaargh…
And then they’ll go on repeating the name…
How is he ?
What did he say today?
What was he doing?
Arre What the heck !!
The worst part is no matter how much you try to explain after that ,they’re always so sure they’re right.
You go so crazy in the end you just want to run away.
Sometimes, a girl really does need to run.
