I am SANE

Sappy new year.

2012-01-01T11:30:00.000-08:00

I want one. Out of character? Fuck you.
As you grow older, your expectations become more realistic. Sometimes, that means expectations are lowered. Am I ok with that? I don't know.
Your idea of what's more important gets clearer. Sometimes that means lesser ambition. Am I comfortable with that? Perhaps yes, perhaps not.
What mattered a lot in the past seems frivolous. Sometimes that means losing an ideological 'high ground'. Do I really stop believing? Not quite.
People who took up more emotional energy seem distant, others change in flavour. Have I then changed so much? Yes, but not so so much.
And the fact: I speak to myself more than I used to before.

Realisation dawns. I become Buddha under Bodhisatva.

2011-11-27T08:28:00.001-08:00

Food.
Food is directly proportional to my mood -- and I have just realised the full impact of this fact. The only times I have felt like laughing about the silly things that get under my skin in the past couple of days is when I'm well fed... And when my stomach's empty, my mind grumbles, and then those hated moments arrive when i hate my life. Which absolutely sucks because, frankly, what's there to hate??? Do I hate the fact that I have a high pressure job? No. Infact I love the dynamism of the whole thing - I love how it changes everyday and how there's always something new to learn... I enjoy 'firing it', no matter how difficult it might feel at the moment... Yes, I hate the stoopid politics that comes with the job, but what you can ignore shouldn't bother you right?
So what is it that I hate? Not myself -- actually I love myself to an obscene degree...
But this logic evades me everytime I'm hungry. Parts of my brain stop functioning without food, and some other parts go on overdrive...
Food. I love food. I want food. I need food...

Loser

2011-11-25T01:51:00.001-08:00

A fucking long week that fucking does NOT end... When everyone wants to make you feel like you should climb a hundred flights of stairs, and just be glad that you'll permanently rest your feet when you fucking jump off the terrace... Feel like hitting people... Saying fuck off every fucking time someone wants to play with your head... Every time that someone tries to pull you into their politics -- shit you DON'T fucking want to be part of... When there's enough shit chewing you from inside without their extra benevolence... And then there's my own stoopidity...
Stupid. Stupid. Stupid.

Alcohol, alchemy and little white lies

2011-11-23T23:28:00.000-08:00

I want to run into the sea and lie down on my back and hope that may be this time, I'll float. Fully float. And feel the sand between my toes.
And stay there forever...

And I can't do shit about it.

2011-11-20T13:20:00.001-08:00

When the carpet's been pulled from under your feet, it's easier to fall than to try standing on your feet, overbalancing, and falling anyway...
But you try and stand still anyway.
Oh that bloody carpet... Gah!

It Grunts

2011-11-16T12:17:00.000-08:00

1. I'm hopeless
2. If It has caught my fancy, It has caught my fancy
3. It is usually just not it
4. And It isn't this time either
5. It grunts, apparently
6. And doesn't like listening to a type of grunting
7. It is nothing like its
8. I want
9. I Want
10. I can't.

Bring it on!

2011-11-04T15:12:00.000-07:00

I crib i cry i whine i bitch i curse i hate i snap...
And i forget to remember I'm fuckin alright and young and absolutely insane - that i shouldn't fuckin care about shit!
Thank goodness for late night realisation!

Six.

2011-11-02T11:39:00.001-07:00

Roomie1: I'm looking for grooms for my rabbit.
Roomie2: I had one boy rabbit and one girl rabbit a few years back. Every 3 months i used to distribute baby rabbits to all my friends.
Roomie1: They make too many babies, no!
Me: They fuck like mad. It has to happen.
Roomie1: Ya, they should be made a symbol of-
Me: Umm, playboy bunny?
Roomie: Oh. OH. OHHHHH! Damn. I never realised. :o

=====

I bought a sketch pad. And oil pastels. I drew hands once. It's therapeutic.

=====

Eating out all the time sucks.

=====

Beaches make me happy. I talk too much and am easily amused. When I'm quiet I'm either high or just in equilibrium. The beach is my equilibrium. The beach is my silence. The beach is my reality check. The beach is my schizophrenia cure. The beach is the answer to all of life's riddles, and the machine that squeezes all of life's lemons.

=====

I suck at keeping in touch :x

=====

I miss home. And everything that home signifies.

=====

Once again, mentally, I'm at that juncture where i cannot relate with either the past or the present, and i just can't bring myself to think of the future.

=====

Hmmmmmmmmmmmmmm

Coffee and Cauldrons

2011-10-14T09:40:00.000-07:00

When you get out of your ugly pg late at night to quench your coffee thirst..
When you decide to go looking for a coffee shop to get a chocolate rush..
When nothing in life seems as important as just getting the fuck out and taking a walk..
When you wonder why today couldn't have been as long as yesterday or day before, just so that you don't have to think about what to do with your time..
When doing something with your time becomes such a difficult task..
And when you actually sit at coffee day, alone and bored. And whip out your phone to type out this blog post --
you know you need a life child. Really.

Cough, fever and mobile phone

2011-09-12T06:14:00.001-07:00

Every once in a while, I find myself in a difficult place. Stuck between a rock, a hard place and several pointy needles. Although I've never exactly been popular, when I'm unpopular it's usually my own doing. Usually.
And this is unusual.
So, do I just go on without paying any heed to what is not in my control, or do I obsess over it and try to change things? Will I, by doing the latter, only be losing focus? And will the former make me look weak, and if it does, should I give a damn?
At the end of the day, it's not a big deal... Nothing is... When I see the new ad for What'sApp - I keep reminding myself that the drama in my life is not so different from 'red or green'... That, really, i should just pick purple already :p

Can't.

2011-09-11T09:28:00.000-07:00

Can't pretend to not care.
Can't care either.
Can't push it all under the carpet. I have no carpet.
Can't wear it all on my sleeve.
Can't trust my instincts always.
Can't ignore my one true friend - my instinct.
Can't not crib.
Can't convince myself it's ok to crib.
Can't get away from my trust issues.
Can't not trust absolutely random people.
Can't help but connect with unexpected people.

Can't feel a connection to anyone at all.

Just can't.

I hate you (Like I love you)

2011-08-06T10:43:00.000-07:00

It has been an INSANELY long time since the last time.

I have turned a year older (technically). And as scrooge would say, not an hour richer :P

I have moved to a new city (one that takes time to like, they say).

I have 'seen' the 'real world' (whatever that means).

And here I am, home for 2 days and finally in front of a system that's not open on iNews. It's been an amazingly long three months, and have I learned!

What did I learn, you ask? You don't? I shall say it anyway: People.

It's people who make the world (no offence to the sentiments of any environment fans), and it's people who make you like it, hate it, ignore it.

Maybe it's the sheer number of people around me everyday, or the fact that I am in the REAL BigBadWorld finally - whatever it is, I have just begun to understand the expanse of emotions that people can inspire, both bad and good. Earlier, when I was frustrated with someone, it was just that: I was frustrated with someone. But now...

Someone, XYZ, is frustrating me. ABC, meanwhile, wants to make me cringe. P, btw, is nice to me. Q hates me.

The intent, for want of a better term, behind everything you inflict on others, including your 'good mood' is just scary. Before now, I have never really questioned the intent behind most everyday things - things you take for granted, things people do for each other or to each other... But now I believe that was a skewed perception. I was just too naive perhaps. However difficult that is to imagine :P

But once you realise that 'intent', though you might not always know what that intent is, life becomes simpler. You can tolerate the ride, and sometime during the five millionth free fall, you might even start enjoying it...

The woman is 3 million and counting...

REFRESH!

Why did the animal kick my head and shit in my mouth while I was sleeping?

2011-04-17T13:33:00.000-07:00

Because I let shit out of my mouth before I slept. A.k.a - I'm a bitch. Period.

Another essay in the hope I understand the shit I do and the thought of public humiliation by my own hands might just stop me the next time around. But even before I begin, I know deep down this is just a narcissistic effort at proving myself 'funny' - to myself. If I were to be a little more inclined at proving - to myself - that I am rather 'witty' and 'intellectual', I'd say writing things down helps me sort my own thoughts. Why then do I not stash it in that Secret Folder, for it to never see the light of the day? Well as I've been telling a couple of friends recently - have it, flaunt it. Although, what I 'have' is of course a question that cannot be simply answered.

So, here goes nothing...

There's no 'cryptic' way of putting this - I suck at keeping my mouth shut about things I really have no business talking about, if my 'intuition' or 'vibes' or whatever shit tell me that I am a 'stakeholder' in the matter, even in the most meaningless sense of the word.

So, to begin with, my resolve is weak. Add to that some alcohol and shit forgets which end of the digestive system it's supposed to come out of :P And then I ask myself - really? Why the FUCK would you do that???

And when the person on the receiving end of my verbal diarrhea is not-so-dumb or bitchy... Ughhh! Why why whyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy!

The bestest part of course is this: I hate clarifying myself. There is no 'taking back', but different people understand the same words differently... Do I clarify in the hope that the damage would be lessened? Nope. No no no no no............................ What if my brain was playing games with me, then what? Huh???

It is a necessary condition for this post to be taken with a pinch of salt. Or a whole truckload. preferably after a few tequila shots.

Speed

2011-04-05T08:23:00.000-07:00

A while back I posted saying I felt static.

Well, now things are moving at a dizzying speed! The woman is still trying to come to terms with life and cope with the changes...

There, I made it sound like something awful happened :P Good changes (sortof), I keep reminding myself... Changes that'll help me get somewhere in a few years...

But that doesn't make them easy, nope. Moving out of your comfort zone is not easy at all... Plus, when you've been the big fish in the small pond for a while now, the very idea of moving into the ocean is a little scary... Although it does help when certain people tell you that in a way that's supposed to be deriding and is supposed to make you get a reality check -- only, the reality check that you do get is not the one they were hoping for :P At the end of a recent interrogation session, I could clearly remember again why I wanted to move out of the pond and into the sea in the first place...

But the difficult part is (as out of character as I sound saying this), leaving people behind... Two years at home and I'm a spoilt child all over again :) To leave all the comforts and all the unquestioned love behind is painful... The freedom to be able to get irritated with someone just for the heck of it, only for the 'issue' to be sorted out with a tickle or a smile ... to give that up is difficult...

But as they say - Que Sera Sera!

So, scary place that I ran out of as a student, here I come. I'll hopefully be prepared for your worst...

Everything else... matters? Nah...

2011-02-17T11:46:00.000-08:00

I'm not that woman anymore.

Once upon a time, not so long ago, or maybe really long ago - depending on your idea of time - I was someone else. Someone who believed in certain things, who was confident that life was what she had in her head - and her head, that huge thing on her shoulders with a wild, wild mane, was all that mattered...

And then. Then what? Nothing. Absolutely nothing.

And so this other woman became her.

She is the same, yet so different.

Happy? Unhappy? Satisfied? Angry? Indifferent?

Just is, actually. Just.

"... unless you got something. Anything. One thing. The reason normal people got wives and kids, hobbies, whatever, that's because they ain't got that one thing that hits a man hard and that true. I got music, you got this, the thing you think about all the time, the thing that keeps yourself normal. Yeah, makes us great, makes us the best. All we miss out on is everything else."

Go Fish.

2011-01-29T09:41:00.000-08:00

I hate socialising.

There's a fine line between socialising and catching up with friends and people I'm comfortable with in the current timeline.

There are many, but at the same time very few.

The previous timelines don't count in here and now.

Mixing the two is not always to my liking.

Especially when I'm particularly in no mood to socialise.

Or be nice to anyone.

Which is why I'm extremely thankful for the fact that I'm an interesting person to talk to.

I love making conversation. With myself. :P

And my sister's endlessly dying and changing collection of fish.

How they gorge up all the food - first pretending to not notice it's floating over their heads in red and green balls.

Then the big one goes and gulps the first three grains it can get its mouth around.

The rest follow...

What was I talking about again?

The inner monologue

2011-01-15T11:20:00.000-08:00

I feel tired.

I feel tired of being lethargic.

I feel like I should probably try moving a mountain. Or may be that's what I've been trying to do, and that's why I'm tired. Mountains don't move.

The inner monologue points out that if it's movement I want, perhaps I should be on a bus, or a boat, or may be a helicopter.

The inner monologue also points out that perhaps what I think is a mountain is just a large rock, and I'm not trying smart enough to move it. Hard and Smart have a fine valley between them.

I love the inner monologue. I hate it.

I'm attracted to an unexpected person - someone I came to know very, very recently, and is extremely inspiring. Not attracted as in 'attracted' - I just find him very compulsive. Looking at him makes me believe there's some hope left in civilisation. Just a little.

My 'crisis' usually sounds funny to my crisis-handlers. :P I tell you, it's so damn serious. And all they can get themselves to do is snort. I need a reality check in life - either I need a different kind of crisis, or new crisis-handlers.

I. Love. Food.

The Morning After

2011-01-13T07:33:00.000-08:00

The morning after a good chilling-session is always, always interesting.

In a good way, unless your high-ness has done something absolutely ridiculous. In which case, let's not even get there. :P

But, otherwise, the morning brings with it a multitude of possibilities - or atleast you believe so for an amount of time.

Images of awesome breakfasts are the very first thing that come into my mind. (I get 7 on 7 on the 7 sins, but Gluttony is my most passionate. That's a post for another time though!) Awesome breakfast, and my brain racks my memory for all the awesome places around wherever-we've-crashed to fulfill that desire...

And the second thought is rebellion. To do my own thing. To not care what anyone thinks. Thoughts of freedom, independence, of travel and adventure, of big bucks, of more alcohol... Talks of new things to do, new places to visit, new goals to achieve, new stuff to try...

Then come the day-dreams. Night outs are usually followed by long travel-back-homes - which invariably have me day-dreaming. Day-dreams of doing the impossible, of being in the middle of a murder mystery, of understanding Fermat's theorem and winning a noble prize for useless-Internet-feed...

All this followed by some much needed sleep :D

This blog post is dedicated to all those big and amazing breakfasts, long chats with amazingly interesting and twisted people, day-dreams on buses and autos (and co-passengers who don't know if they should stare or not) and to one of the most amazing day-to-day experiences on earth - the wonderful thing called sleep :)

The Border

2011-01-08T09:06:00.000-08:00

Consider this a thesis in understanding oneself.

Yes, a thesis. This is where you stop reading, click on one of the links on the side, say what the fuck, and leave.

Still there? Well on your own head be it.

Some people like being heroic. Some people like being villainous. Some funny. Some serious. Some are just parrots who imitate whoever they meet. Some like being nice. Some like being rude. Some enjoy modesty. Others revel boasting.

I like being-on-the-border.

Well, maybe 'like' isn't the right word. There really is no word for it - it isn't compulsion, it isn't 'external forces' or any such shit. I don't love it or hate it.

I just am.

So, on-the-border is this place where you always want to politically incorrect, but never quite are. You are smiling at a person and bitching about them in your head - at the same time there's this other part of you which keeps reminding you that you are, actually, rather fond of them. The border is the limit - beyond which there's neither pain nor pleasure, nor any real reason for being.

It's not diplomacy, don't get me wrong. Diplomacy is that necessary evil perfected by some cunning few. I'm not a diplomat. I'm the girl who 'resigned' from the post of a placement-cell rep back in college - where my 2 page resignation letter had a 10 page attachment, it foul-mouthed quite a few 'people in power', and was distributed to no less than 20 people. No, I'm no diplomat. I like it upfront. I like telling people when they're fucking something up.

But then, I almost never go all out with the 'You're fucking it up' line.

[At this point, you realise that I'm just typing out words as I go along and don't really know what my exact point is. If you're still reading, let me tell you this - this is the exercise that arrives at that damn point. Which is the point.]

Let's put it this way. Let's say you've got this huge-ass wall that needs to be broken down.

In that situation, I will be the person who will play a part in deciding how the wall would be broken down, what equipments will be used, how many people would work on it, how much energy would go into it, at what time it will be done... I might even splash some water on the wall to make it easier to break it down.

But I wouldn't deliver the final blow. That's for someone else to do.

Yep.

What do you think of yourself?

2011-01-05T12:25:00.000-08:00

So there's this question I want to ask a lot of people... well may be not a lot, just some people. One person in particular at any given point of time:

What the hell do you think of yourself?

I know that's an extremely generic question, it has many generic answers, and can generally be (mis)understood in too many ways.

But when 2 people are on the same page, that question usually has only one meaning. And when the person it's directed to does not have a response... well, the situation really is fucked up, aint it.

You may want to ignore it, but you never really can. When something's eating you up, it rears its ugly head at the most unexpected of times.

How much I rant!

PS to Randomness 5.0

2011-01-03T10:43:00.000-08:00

But then you don't.

Period.

It's hard work, being lazy!

2011-01-02T06:24:00.000-08:00

I am the sooper lazy hard worker. (If you know me, think about that statement and you'll realise that that is the only truth on earth :P)

So, yea, I'm extremely lazy.

Ask my mother, sister, father, roommates and any other person who's tried waking me up, tried to get me to go take a bath, tried to get me off facebook and do something useful, tried to make me do something complicated... Ask my bathwater that has gone cold from waiting for me since I woke up... They'll all happily give me the laziest person on earth award.

But I'm also extremely hard-working when it comes down to work.

Ask all those people who lazed away while I saw my dear office days and nights in a row, and also cribbed about how their life sucks! :P

On the bright side, I now know what time the chaaya kadai opens!

What's so new about the year, I asked myself. Then I changed my blog layout :)

The sleep deprived multi-tasker

2010-12-18T12:04:00.000-08:00

I am a woman of contradictions.

And what that fancy phrase basically means is that at any given point of time I have multiple feeling on the same issue.

Which could just be linked to my incurable Multiple Personality Disorder, but I digress...

So, if you're standing in my vicinity, at any given moment, I want to say hello, give you a hug, scream at you, beat the shit out of you, tell you you look gorgeous (and that's always a lie unless you're a petite girl), smile at you, frown at you, AND ignore you at the same time. That's an overwhelming number of things to do at a moment you see, and although I am good at multi-tasking - I can smile and bear, do what you say, tell you I've done what you said, curse you inside my head, sabotage your dinner and tell everyone how big a bitch you are at the same time - so, although I am pretty good at multi tasking, where each task is just a different mutation of an emotion, multi-emotioning on the other hand is rather impossible for me.

That was a LONG sentence. No, I'm not going to break it up for you. Get it or leave it.

So basically when I'm faced with multi-emotioning, I choose the simplest, most ambiguous option. Ignore. The Brits got it right - Ignore and rule.

That wasn't it you say? And you think I care? Why?

So here we go again.

And, btw, time for a little confession. I haven't slept properly in, like, a whole week. :P Worsening insomnia. Any clever solutions that let me stay awake at night anyway? No? Thought so.

Randomness 5.0

2010-12-16T09:17:00.001-08:00

So...........................

You know when you drag that particular word like that? It's NEVER a good thing. It either means you're too stoopid to know what to say, or you're too stoopid to get to the point where you don't know what the fuck to say. So, don't.

Don't what?

Don't be Stoopid. Either way. With a Capital S and two 'o's too many.

And then there's this matter of getting overly excited. It's great when you are, but fuckall when only you are. I face this. A lot.

Two days back I was sooooooo excited I couldn't sleep.

And then the next morning I was still excited.

And then my self-induced-and-absolutely-non-material HIGH came crashing down. And then I was angry.

After anger comes dejection. Followed closely by utter disappointment. At one point, you're flabbergasted that you were even excited in the first place :P

And then I get excited AGAIN! And Phussssssssssssssss............ It comes down again! It's like the world wants to prove to you that you're a bloody misfit in multiple ways.

But you fight back, the stoopid fool that you are. Silly notions in my head that I can do whatever I put my mind to.

And then you voice that thought. Not in as many words, not loudly, not to 500 people.

The result? Hmm...

Not with your charm, not with your influence, but through sheer will power and smart work ---

You take the first step towards conquering the world :)

Ex-Static

2010-12-08T11:28:00.000-08:00

I feel Static.

I know it's 1am, and I'm at World's End here at my office, and static is perhaps just the right, normal feeling anyone in my situation should have.

But I feel more than just static. I feel Static with a capital S.

Like the earth's sort of realised there's no point chumma spinning on its axis and going around the bloody sun year after year - it's not gonna get anywhere near the sun anyway, what's the bloody point? Better just give up and save your energy, no?

[Question: So what will happen really if the earth was allowed free-will and decided to stop spinning around like some crazy planet? In the larger scheme of the Universe, how does this fit in???]

Anyway...

Every once in a while, this weird thing happens. Out of the blue, while walking or running or standing or screaming or doing whatever, I just stop cos I can't go on. Like I decide I can't walk to the gate anymore, I give up, sit on the stairs, and just, well, do nothing. Think nothing. Feel nothing. Give a damn about nothing...

It feels good, these moments...

But they're bloody gone as soon as they come. Like there's a hand on my back that tells me there's no point in giving up, THAT'S not gonna get you anywhere either. So, atleast when the earth is spinning around like a crazy thingy, it's Doing Something. With a capital D and S.

Hmm. It's a good thing not many people I *know* know read this bullshit :P

The a l p h a b e t

2010-11-22T13:13:00.000-08:00

Awake

Bloody pissed

Chastised

Dreamy

Eccentricity

Fuck

Genius :P

Hmph

Jealous

Kill me

Louuuu

Mind-phakkd

Night

Perfect

Quest

Ragamalika

Stoopid

Time

Umbrella

Vendetta or Vacation?

Wow

XXX

Yea right

Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

GRRRR! WHATEVER!!!

2010-11-10T13:12:00.001-08:00

HATE it when someone CANNOT accept a mistake.

EVEN MORE when they try to prove point, and try to convince you it was your fault all along :P :P :P wtf?!!

WORST of all when you have to waste precious time and energy arguing over a point THAT EFFING DOESN'T EXIST.

Phew! Now that that's out of my system... :P

I think if I ever die of a chronic illness, or if I die too young, or if my already-salt-and-pepper turns all-salt-no-pepper before I turn 22, I'll just have to blame it on my being too idealistic and not choosing the engineering route after school :P Or maybe the IDIOTS of the world. Or both. Or just the bad habits which feel SO GOOD at the end of the day :P :P :P

Whatever!

Blah

2010-10-24T13:37:00.000-07:00

So, I love talking about things I've just discovered - even if the world has moved on to something 10 times 'cooler' or 'newer' or whatever. It's not like I make a conscious effort at working backwards, it sort of just happens. Like when I start watching a TV show downloaded on my system when everyone's on Season 7 and I've just sort of finished watching season 2 in one sitting. It's just me, really.

But then there are some evergreen subjects that I never, ever, ever tire of. These are mainly people - about whom I love to bitch. Currently, the list includes a certain blonde with the initials IR-ritating. And the blondes who love the blonde. And the sluts who suck up to the blonde. And the blonde.

I just sort of wanted to put up a post...

But I can't dedicate half a damn post on the said blonde, now can I?

So let's talk about... well, can't really think about anything.

So I'll put up the second picture you get when you google image-search 'blah'. I wonder why...

Dream a dream... and this is how I prove I'm MEntAl

2010-10-09T12:22:00.001-07:00

So here's a little confession.

Actually, it sort of just qualifies for a weird-fact-about-me :P Which wouldn't really be so weird cos it's me. Makes sense? Whatever.

So, last night I had this dream. I'm not gonna describe the dream because this blog is embarrassment-proof. Nonetheless, this dream is one of many of a kind, where everything feels absolutely real - the smells, the tastes, the touch, the sight, the texture... And these are some of the only dreams I vividly remember. And then, when I wake up, the people in the dream all become hitherto-unknown species, and it feels like I've never really known them before.

Sometimes it's a bunch of people together at the same time, and then that's so fucked up.

[My brain just keeps wanting to tell me I need an asylum I think. But I'd rather interpret it as my supernormal senses trying to tell me I'm special. Which I am, by the way.]

So yea, one time it was a dead grandfather whom I hardly knew. He was suddenly alive and supportive of some creepy night-time running away from home. I quite obviously didn't know my grandfather the next morning.

And then once it was someone whom I was good friends with and then we fell out. After that night I've never felt bad about it, really. Like it was a closure or something...

And then there's yesterday... And the person in the dream feels so... well, alien now. Like I want to figure them out from the beginning.

Ok. Time to stop before a mental personality of mine takes over the world. :P

Snape-cessed :P

2010-08-29T13:20:00.000-07:00

................................................................................drew.......................................................................................................................

Here we go again... [Teach me how to write better titles :P]

2010-08-18T15:08:00.000-07:00

Suddenly, I realised what I was missing. I remembered this space existed. So very uncool of me I say :P

So, in between my last post and this, so much has happened, and so little. But all the same, I have changed ever so slightly. So has the world. The osmosis continues till eternity...

What do I want to write about? I am ashamed of admitting so much even to myself... How do I write about it all? The answer is simple. I don't. :P

I know some people -very close to me - who are never lucky. And I know some people - again, very close to me - who are too lucky for their own good. I wish there were more balance in nature. Everything seems so asymmetrical, at time I wonder if democracy is something nature understands at all...

Sometimes I wallow in self pity - life everyone else, I know. And at these times, I begin to think about how easy it would be to live someone else's life. But then, realisation strikes me. Anyone, and I mean ANYONE whose life I imagine to be mine is just not right. I cannot be anyone else because I enjoy being me too much. I might say, in jest, that I want someone else's life - a celebrity perhaps, or a gifted friend - and I know within seconds of saying it that I lie. That doesn't mean I love my life or that it's too good to be true. It just means it's mine, and I won't give it up for anything else. I'll change it, twist it, tun it upside down, re-decorate it, or even bulldoze it if I feel like it. But it's mine and I will never give it up.

That was enough random things put together.

Oh! Calcutta...

Salute to 'Society'

2010-05-30T13:48:00.001-07:00

It's crazy that a college student killed herself because of harassment by her college authorities. What's crazy? The 'reason' for the harassment - she kissed a boy in class. The college got hold of CCTV footage of her 'in the act' and mentally harassed her. The girl's father says she was even sexually harassed. Tortured.

But that's not the craziest part. The most insane thing about an incident like this is that many, many people believe this was just a freak incident, and that there's nothing quite wrong with the college questioning students' 'moral' behaviour.

Parents who year after year admit their kids in engineering colleges which has dress codes which are 'indeed necessary for decency', cctv camera instalments so that 'the children don't get spoilt' (like 'children' are tomatoes or eggs), separate rows for girls and boys and ridiculous rules that don't allow you to interact with a person of the opposite sex - it is an 'impressionable age' afterall!

Well these parents believe that such rules are necessary in the first place - which is why they continue to exist. Even if they're 'open minded' enough to not think they're necessary, they believe it can do no harm. It's just a little discipline, according to them.

So yes, according to these people, who form a major chunk of our 'society', there's absolutely nothing wrong with the college authorities questioning the girl who ultimately killed herself. "May be this is an extreme case, it's not usually that bad. The girl must've been too sensitive."

It is FRUSTRATING to listen to such bullcrap. Even more frustrating that people pass judgements on you because you believe there's nothing wrong in a girl kissing a guy in class... The very idea, for some reason, repels many people I know.

And the media, which is supposed to be progressive, ringing in new ideas, trying to change minds and yadayadaya is filled with people with ideas beyond archaic. Yes yes, I shouldn't generalise and all, but when a senior guy you work with has a problem with using the term 'moral policing' for a case like this, and says 'So are you saying the college shouldn't monitor such activities? Kissing and all?', you sort of tend to lose hope.

And you have all these movies secretly glorifying suicide in case the girl has been sexually harassed or raped, or had 'brought shame upon herself' in some such other way, like getting physical with a guy or something... Really, where are we living? Is it just me - am I just 'eccentric' or some such shit? Or are we really an absolutely fucked up society???

I've told some of my friends that our generation is the most messed up ever - I revise my statement. The generation before us - killing in the name of religion, morals, language, nationality, gender, sex, money, politics............

Atleast all that we do is smoke up, pass out and have messed up personal lives :P

The Void.

2010-05-16T11:48:00.000-07:00

It's what we all suffer from.

The Void.

And it's so darn full... of emptiness...

I'm absolutely scared.

Of the future. Near future.

You don't know why. No one knows why. No chance.

It's my burden to bear.

And if only I wasn't so... full of empty!

The power of social media!

2010-04-12T08:27:00.000-07:00

Press statement from Ragamalika Karthikeyan on her virtual 'engagement' with Prasunna Kp.

_________

When my good friend Prasunna Kp sent me an innocently funny message on Friday, the 9th of April at 4.23pm [I don't know if it's Indian Standard Time or the time thingy they use back in Cardiff], I replied, in absolutely good intention. This is where my journey towards realising the power of social media started. That was the moment that made me understand how a simple tool called Facebook could be used to influence minds and create opinions - how simple it is, in fact, to lie, cheat and steal and create an entirely different identity of yourself on the web! It is extremely scary even, if platforms like facebook go into the wrong hands and they start creating a web of lies on the, err, web!

For all those who haven't really followed the media hype on this simple case of quoting status messages out of context, let me bring you up to speed. It all started when I got my wall back after years on facebook, and my friend Prasunna sent me this rather innocent, funny message:

"kalyanam dan kattikitu odipolama! illa odipoi kalyanam dan pannikalama!?"

For the uninitiated, that's a line from a popular Tamil song, roughly translating to - Shall we get married and then run away or shall we run away and then get married?

I, of course, had to reply - Prasunna is an absolutely marvellous friend, how can I ignore such a flattering facebook wall comment from him? A series of sweet exchanges later, we just decided to take our very platonic love one step further and put up status messages which had the words 'love' and the other person's name tagged. Imagine our surprise when we started getting so many thumbs up!

I was so 'engaged' in this conversation with Prasunna that we both automatically changed our status to 'engaged' with each other! This is the truth, and some sections of the media have badly misquoted us on this issue. I would like to clarify that this is what happened.

Once Prasunna got engaged with watching the IPL, we both promptly changed our relationship status - in 'relation' to each other, we were no longer 'engaged' with each other. The power of social media is such that many people instantly got to know about our little 'engagement'. But later, our comments were taken out of context - some sections of the media even called this the shortest virtual engagement in the history of facebook! Some reported that Prasunna and I had never actually met each other and that he had put up somebody else's photographs on his profile to fool me into getting engaged to him. Some others went on to say that we're already married, and yet others wanted to prove that this was my third wedding, after being married to an academician and a foreign national. This is absolutely untrue!

I hope this matter rests now that I have given a proper clarification.

____________

Disclaimer: Relax. Don't take these comments seriously. It's just meant to tickle my funny bone - I don't even claim to come across as hilarious to you. And if the style of writing - if one such exists - seems similar to any other style living or dead, it's purely co-incidental although rather intentional.

2010-04-04T07:11:00.000-07:00

'Voyeur' happens to be my word of the week... So here's something of voyeuristic value from my 'secret' folder :P

_____

Or so I thought 10 minutes back. Nope. Nothing in the stash that can see daylight :P Toooo persshhhhhhhhhnalllllllllll I say!

Talking people.

2010-03-12T06:27:00.000-08:00

People who have once affected your life - positively or otherwise - continue to be of great interest even after you've 'moved on' and away from them... That's just the way the brain works...

That should prolly have been on Twitter.

Oh well!

Complacent lives...

2010-02-28T11:03:00.000-08:00

Hmm...

Bye bye goodnight because of good morning?

Suddenly remember college days... where life was lived last minute :P Assignments to be submitted by 5 pm were started by 5.05 pm, and would somehow atleast slide under the teacher's cabin door before 5.30 pm.

From then to now, kaam chalao attitude lives on :P And absolutely sad to know it's not just-out-of-college kids who follow the mantra!

But at the end of the day, the assignment was submitted, the mental note was made to be forgotten, crap got passed through, and generations thrived!

Long live complacency.

Rant? Gyaan? Rebellion?

2010-02-22T06:48:00.000-08:00

The more I listen and analyse, the more I come to question social conventions.

The more I try to ignore 'society', the more happy I am in my skin.

I've always got too much gyaan from people around my age - maybe because I tend to appear lost many a times. Or I appear 'used' or 'exploited' to some - which is slightly ridiculous because if I am being 'exploited', it's probably with my full knowledge, and that you re-iterate it is not going to make any difference. It will perhaps get absolutely redundant after that halfth time, and hence irritating, but it dunnit serve any other purpose. Of course I have no complaints with genuine advice on how to handle things or concern over my receding hairline from a good friend, but when gyaan about how to handle a situation comes from someone who isn't doing a great job of it themself... Well... I'm no great shakes, but please, your pants are wet and you need to worry about that before you try to help with my runny nose.

Above and beyond everything else, I know that I have a lot to learn. I'm extremely scared of situations where stuff I personally think is not-so-great and needs-improvement, is generally accepted to be decent - because this acceptance has full chance of making me complacent. I know shitty when I see it, even if it was my own handiwork. Tell me how I make it better - don't tell me it was ok or don't tell me it was crap, and leave it with those statements.

Of course there is something above and beyond 'above and beyond everything else'. So yes, there is the omnipresent sense of purpose - rather the lack of it. Don't get me wrong - I'm not unhappy, nor do I think my current life is worthless. Quite the opposite in fact. BUT, I cannot look beyond today. I don't know tomorrow. I don't know where my fuel reserves are and I don't know how I'll drive on when (that's not an if question :) ) I burn out. Or get bored. Or get too disillusioned to care.

Enough about me. Coming back to those social conventions. Just want to know - discuss, debate, deliberate [:)] - as to why we, as a society and as individuals, accept the following concepts? What's the logic, according to you? [I don't say there isn't logic, just want to know what the different logics are.]

> Matrimony (One topic that's the buzz word right now among my graduate or soon-to-be-graduate girlfriends. Cos they've crossed 21.)

> Monogamy (This has been a topic I've thought about for a long time now, following certain discussions with a certain friend - about the nature of relationships, their 'expiry date', their reason and their necessity at an emotional plane versus their relevance at a physical plane. Also talks with a homosexual woman, whose views on 'brain knows no gender' and a heterosexual woman on 'why should you restrict yourself to liking only one person' have, definitely, made an impression on me.)

> Loyalty (Whatever makes it a positive trait? The most exciting jobs are those where you need to be disloyal to people around you... Why is this so sought after?)

> 'Humility' and 'innocence' over 'attitude' and 'wit' (This probably is just because I watched shitty movies like Theeradha Vilayattu Pillai :P)

> Looking down on all things 'obscene'

> Chivalry [:P]

Where I promote the 'immoral' and write the 'wrong'

2010-01-09T12:52:00.000-08:00

And even as I wait for a mail to fall into my mailbox (20 minutes, she promised, and it’s been much over two hours), and as I read the various indignant blog posts and comments on Facebook about the ‘colour’ campaign, and bide my time till I can sans-work-worry talk to (argue with) a friend about the VIBGYOR effect, I said why not put down in bytes what I can formulate in words only while writing.

Yes, the viral campaign where women across the world put up the colour of their bra as their status message, which many of my friends seem to have taken offence to.
Well firstly, I want to say it right up front that I don’t think it had anything to do with breast cancer. We didn’t create any awareness about the issue, and if it did offend those who have suffered from this disease, apologies ladies, but you really need to look at it differently.

From a lay person’s point of view, what this – call it a ‘campaign’, call it a ‘gimmick’ – what this ‘thing’ did was to make women do something they rarely do – ‘divulge information’ which is ‘taboo’. If the reason you disagree with it is because it didn’t do what it claimed to, well I’m with you.

But if your disagreement is with the very fact that women put up the colour of their bra ‘up there for everyone to see’, I see a flawed argument there.
So what?

You’re a man and it made you think about the girl’s breasts? I think that’s quite natural, it would make anyone think about breasts cos that’s what they’re covering – same way lipstick makes you think of lips, socks make you think of feet and a cap makes you think of a head. Your thoughts went beyond just the anatomy and to what it signifies? Well then don’t blame it on the woman, blame it on your head and on the society you grew up in. It’s just a goddamn garment women have been wearing since time immemorial – did you pretend that the woman didn’t wear it just because she didn’t announce it’s colour?

The reasons for people’s dismay range from “why should you?” to “why ape the west?” to “it is detrimental in a society like India.” I think all these arguments are ridiculous simply because this is part of change – good change. This was out of the blue – but it wasn’t ‘radical’, people weren’t running naked on the street. Women weren’t showing their bra straps to those around them. This ‘thing’ happened online – on the Internet, in a more or less closed domain. No one was in it alone, no one was forced into it, it wasn’t that damned term – peer pressure.

No, it wasn’t about breast cancer, yes it was more breast than cancer; but mostly it was the fact that women decided to take a chance and say – so what if you know? Does that make me a slut in your eyes? Does that make me ‘forward’ and ‘ready for anything’? And in that case, how many women you know are ‘open for all’? Your girlfriend, best friend, sister, cousin, colleague – all of them are the same as the item girl on tv or the slut on the street? How many men are willing to go that far in their comparisons.

I don’t think it was aping the west because we weren’t looking at women from the west when we changed our status messages. Heck no one even knew where the message originated from, and no one thought of creating ‘awareness’ – though many pretended to and I’m definitely not with them. We were looking to women sitting on either side of us, for friends on our chat lists. We took our cue from them – so many of them.
There was a time when women going out to work was taboo. There was a time when wearing a pair of jeans could make you look ‘open for anything’ – we still live in those times in many part of the country. Does that make it wrong to wear a pair of jeans? Are men who think they can view women as sex objects right just because of our culture and upbringing? Are women ‘ashamed’ of their breasts? If yes, why? It is – as many have been quick to point out – ‘useless information’; why be ashamed of it?

Yes, I know practical, I know pervert, I know slutty, I know cheap thrills. This ‘thing’ might draw concern in each of those, yet it has made people think – what’s the big deal? No, it hasn’t empowered anyone to do anything in the gender race, it is not a weapon in the hands of women who fight sexual discrimination, it is not a means of helping those who are suffering just because they belong to the ‘weaker sex’. It is a tool – a tool that has made women think about questioning social norms. Why is a man walking around in his vest cool but a woman just announcing the colour of her bra culturally wrong? Frankly, a couple of more days like this and atleast a section of men would stop making a big deal of it – and if your argument is that they might also start finding patterns in their friends’ bra colours, well, who does it bother you so much?

Till the ‘thing’ happened, the ball was on the other court – men called the shots on drawing attention to women’s anatomy and the bra was automatically a part of shame. Just a few years ago a glimpse of it was enough for any man to leer knowingly and any woman to cringe like she should kill herself for ‘her mistake’. But now that women – a section of them and only on the Internet – are willing to not give damn, even if just for a day, people who’re used to social norms, especially men, are scared.

Let’s fight fear, lose them ‘morals’ and ‘cultural rights and wrongs’. Let’s live, knowing what’s just plain silly and appreciating it for just that.

:P

2010-01-05T08:16:00.000-08:00

Oh look! It's the first post of the New Year!
:P

This as the first time I went out to celebrate the 'ringing in of the New Year' that we all (the media :P) keeps talking about, and honestly, I don't see how it matters.

Like Ebenezer Scrooge says in Christmas Carol (before he was brainwashed), you're just a year older and not an hour richer. Substitute richer by smarter or even happier for that matter and still the equation just ain't balanced boss!

It's just another day in a series of days. All of them equally good bad and ugly.

Anyway, there's so much to say and nothing at the same time...
So I'll just go watch a movie now.

Nothing much... you temme?

2009-12-01T09:25:00.000-08:00

It's been a crazy week.

For one, I realised just how moody I can actually get. And I realised how much the people I really care for, I care for and I sort of care for can get on my nerves, first by making me guilty for nothing at all, and then by acting holier than thou. And if that someone is equally moody (what to do, same blood :P), then I just get worse. To the point of being social with those I can't care less about, and being antisocial with people I don't hate. I know. Its weird.

And when I'm in such a mood, I don't want to 'talk it out'. Talking doesn't help. Punching someone on the face, on the other hand, is an extremely pleasant option. Not for the one who gets punched of course, but then I don't care do I?

It doesn't matter how early I sleep, by the way. Because I just CANNOT get up. There were some things that motivated me enough to wake up in the morning, a few months back. Not anymore. Nothing, absolutely nothing, can inspire me enough to wake me up. I'm dead on the inside. At least sleep provides me with a world where I have interesting and cruel dreams. Interesting because they all seem very very real. Cruel, either because they live out what I can't get in real, or because I see someone in pain. Sometimes me, sometimes someone I know, sometimes a total stranger who's pain pains me. My 'dreams' have become vivid. I like them though, cruel or not

And yet again, it has been proved that I need to need to trust my instincts. Nothing to lose by trusting them, a lot not to gain by not doing so!

I like myself. I like my time. I don't have enough of it.

I is my favourite word.

Choices and consequences.

2009-11-10T12:51:00.000-08:00

Technically, I should be in bed right now. Especially since I should be up early and going to work early, to finish off some work which should already have been done. It's not that I can't get sleep if I do try. The truth I think is that I'm screwed in the head - I'm an insomniac by choice.

Doesn't make sense? Don't try.

Yesterday (the day before technically but who cares), I had a conversation with a relative stranger and somehow the talk turned to choices. He says he's done many things that he hasn't wanted to do, and I disagree. You always have a choice. Even at gun-point, you have the choice to die or do what the dude with the gun is asking you to do. And the very fact that you are at gun point is the result of several other choices you've made in life.

Except for those who cannot take their own decisions owing to mental or physical handicaps, the rest of us have no damn business complaining about the 'position I am in today'. If you're doing a course you don't want to, you should have made a wiser choice earlier. If you're in a job you don't like, you always have the choice to leave. If you are in a relationship that doesn't make you happy, you do have the choice to walk out.

The fuck up of course is that every choice comes with consequences. And that means your choice shows what consequences you're ready to deal with, and what you're not. You may have mis judged the outcome, you may have 'thought' you could deal with it - but at the end of the day, they're your decisions. Don't blame anyone else for it. Worse still, don't blame 'fate', just cos it's a figment of our collective imagination.

100

2009-09-11T11:45:00.000-07:00

December 27, 2006: This blog was born.

This is the hundredth post.

And just before I opened my dashboard and realised that this was going to be my centurian post on this blog, there were a number of questions buzzing around in my head.

There was a fire once, burning somewhere inside and providing a direction of sorts. That fire is being doused out now. Even if it doesn't put out instantly, it's definitely starting to stop crackling. And if that happens for a long enough period of time, it'll die. For sure.

But then what?

What went wrong in evolution?

2009-09-07T14:01:00.000-07:00

You know thw whole concept of getting high... whoever came up with the idea? Who figured out that that state of being is better than the others? And why did people then label it immoral and wrong? It's just something you consume after all - and even if it is unhealthy, that really is no reason to advocate something as wrong considering the amount of unhealthy stuff we consume otherwise...

So is the historical 'man' just afraid of pleasure?

Getting high is wrong. Sex is wrong. Too much laughter is wrong. Not working too hard is wrong. Heck, your deadly sins say everything you might enjoy doing is wrong.

Why?

Don't gimme religious shit. Gimme speculations - interesting ones. What went wrong in evolution?

Why I like today

2009-08-25T06:43:00.000-07:00

It's been a long time since I lay in bed well past 12 noon, didn't step out of the house at all, lazed around and only lazed around, read a book, blogged (in process), and didn't take a bath till the time this post gets published.

When such days are in plenty, I don't really like them. I don't like any kind of days that are in plenty. I hate routine.

So yea, there's a silly smile on my face, I'm still in my pyjamas and will change into my pyjamas after a bath (bliss!) and will stay up late reading and browsing.

Hoping for more of these!

After Death

2009-08-18T12:45:00.000-07:00

It's crazy when you start thinking thinking, cos then you think a little too much. That's never very good, because if you go back and see, that was one of the prime reason's why so many religions started, and why we're so fu(ked up today.

In any case, everytime I think think, the question of existence haunts me. In the present, the question doesn't matter at all - you're doing what you're doing right now because you have to, and you are what you are, or what you think you are. When my mind isn't empty, I don't contemplate existence. What is there to worry about anyway hen so many billions of people are just living and continuing to live no matter what. The purpose must be to just live, isn't it, if so mant people do it everyday and make more little, irritating people who will continue to live and make more little, irritating people. So many billions can't be wrong, right?

But then when you start thinking thinking, you want to know why you're here, what happens after you're not here, would you not exist at all? Ever had that feeling where you're just thinking about what else you could have done in your childhood that you haven't done yet? And then you try to look into the future and inevitably see yourself not doing it till you die? And then you think about doing it after you die - which is where you get stuck. What after you die? Is it just that your body decomposes and becomes pig-poop? Then what happens to your mind that continuously thinks whether you're sleeping or you're awake? What happens to it when your body dies? Does it cease to exist, though you always feel that it's something that is right outside of you, and not really inside you? Doesn't your mind, in a sense, 'see' you, in which case either you exists inside you along with your mind at a higher altitude, or your mind exists right outside of you, at a higher altitude. Makes sense right? No? Whatever!

I am curious about it. There has to be a scientific explanation. We just haven't discovered it yet.

An auto-ride to remember

2009-08-14T12:10:00.000-07:00

I had the most interesting auto ride of my life yesterday. On a different day, I might have found it creepy, might have even freaked out and jumped out or something knowing how paranoid I am. But yesterday was one of my less paranoid days. So this is what happened...

As Shim mole (now a Chennaiite!) and her mom were here and I made plans to meet them for dinner, I left office around 8.30. And since it's become a (bad) habit now, I took an auto. Actually, I didn't directly take an auto, I really thought of taking the bus, and walked almost till the bus stand when my resolve broke :P So there was this auto going on the road which I stopped, and the driver looked a little like one of those fake sadhus, in khaki instead of saffron. He had a small bun-kinda thing on top of his head, and a long and shaggy beard. I got in, and the road, as always, had a BAD traffic jam.

"This traffic is mad," he started. And I told him it was one crazy road, which has a jam at all hours of the day. "Oh no," said our man (let's call him Drive D to make things simpler.) "This road is crazier than that. It has traffic at all time except when people are actually going to work. It's all because our society has changed today..."

Society? Damn, what's he getting at? But Drive D went on about how he does 'meditation' and that all the problems in the world are because of the heat. About how the climates are changing and our eating patterns are changing, and that's causing a lot of health issues. And I really don't know how, but our conversation turned to sex.

"You know, I don't have a wife," said Drive D, and I nodded. [Looking back, it's like a scene from the films, what with us looking at each other through the rearview mirror, and having this totally absurd conversation.] Where were we? The wife, yes. So, yeah, Drive D explained in not too much detail this one night that he took a girl (prostitute) home, after a couple of hard drinks. And the next morning, he couldn't move his limbs. "Suddenly I had become my 70 year old aaya, and I was ashamed of myself for getting an old woman's disease. The doctors told me I had chickungunya, and after 7 days of eating chicken soup and medicines, I felt better," said Drive D. Our man apparently has been 'meditating' since he was 15, and since he couldn't find himself a guru, he became his own guru. "I observe things around me and learn. And please don't look at my beard and think I'm into that kind of meditation - it's just because it's difficult to maintain a clean shaven look! I don't want to waste money on cutting my hair when there are so many other things I can do with that money," he said.

So we went on talking, and he told me how women today are so much better than probably ten years ago, when if he had even tried to talk to them, they'd run away. We talked about MGR and his movies, Jayalalitha and how she loves sex (and Sasikala found about about Jaya's sex cravings and that's how she got her wrapped around her little finger), and Drive D's own 'doing things' since he was '10 or 12'. "Doing what?" I asked the rather dumb question. "Indha sex ellam..." said Drive D.

And as we went on talking, I got advice from him too. "Marriage is a complete and total waste of time and energy. I'm not planning to get married - I'm going to enjoy life. There are plenty of things to do and plenty of people around. If you ask me, getting married before experiencing things in life (anubavichittu) is stupid. Take my advice, if you ever get married also, ellam anubhavichittu get married. You'll be wasting your life otherwise."

Wow.

The destination arrived. I got down, payed him his due. He left, I went on to have dinner. But this is one conversation I will never forget.

1:28 am, Tuesday

2009-08-10T12:44:00.000-07:00

I wrote something. And then I deleted it. Some other time...

It's raining like crazy. Its a very nice whether outside and I totally hate it right now :P

I Rediscovered wikipedia (;))

I want to start working on my plot to take over the world all over again.

All the previous sentences started with I.

I'm self obsessed.

I wanna eat Pasta.

I want to start working on my plot to take over the world all over again.

I repeated that sentence.

The Wish Maker...

2009-07-25T10:14:00.000-07:00

This will be long.

A few days back, we recieved a press release about a Pakistani author who was going to come to Chennai to promote his debut novel. What caught all of our interest at first glance was the cover - it had a review by Khaled Hosseini. I thought to myself that, assuming Khaled Hosseini's review was honest, this guy had to be good then. I forgot about the mail sitting in my inbox that day. Didn't see anything other than the cover.

The next day, my colleague asked me to call up the PR person and fix up an interview 'the moment he lands'. "He's VERY cute," I heard from them all. Well, I am new in here, and this is the first time I heard such excited exclamations in that direction. I re-opened the mail and saw that it had a couple of photos of the author. And he was cute. F

ine, so what? Anyway, fix up the appointment I did. And that too for the 'moment he landed'. My first ever 'in the car' interview was fixed up, and I had a copy of the book in my hand the night before, so I could browse through before I met him. I reached the airport early (it's a problem

I have), and waited - first for the PR guy, then my photographer, and then our author who

's flight was over an hour late. He better be worth the wait, I thought to myself.

Ali Sethi arrived, smiled at us from the 'other' side, and came out to shake hands with us. He looked a little dazed. I introduced myself, my photograppher introduced himself, and all he said was 'Ali', with a nod of his head. I had the copy of the book ready, so he could pose with it right there and my photographer could then move on to other assignments. That done, we started talking, as we walked towards the car.

"Where all have you been in India?"

"I've been to Delhi a couple of times before, but this is my first trip to the south. I was in Bangalore yesterday..." And then he turns to his editor, "We'll be able to meet a doctor right?"

After her affirmative, I asked him the why and what for. "Oh, it's my toe... you want to see?" And he shows me his big, bruised toe - he doesn't know how it happened though. "I have a big toe problem," he says. We got into the car, I was eager to start the interview. He settled down and put on his seatbelt. "You should put on your seatbelt I think..."

I hate seatbelts.

Then the interview started. I was talking to a tall, lanky Pakistani uthor, who was, as my colleagues kept reminding me ( :) ) quite cute, and as we talked, and as he made more sense with every word, I knew I was going to have a fun interview.

I had only read a few parts of the book because of time constraints, and we started talking about the story, and what it was all about. [A very, very, very tiny interview will appear in the paper tomorrow. I was told it was to be 280 words after I had written 400, and then after I managed to cut it down, they cut it down further. That's why I love my blog.] {Oh, and i'm yet to finish reading the book.}

"There are many important parts in the book, but the basic story is about getting to know other people - knowing them and understanding them. Most of the time, our lives are completely different from that of people around us. Even people who've been brought in the same circumstances as you - may be under the same roof - have a completely different life, and completely different experiences from yours. It may be because of class differences, or gender differences, or sometimes for reasons you don't understand. Sometimes, we notice all this and sometimes we don't," he started off. "I've always believed that any book has an alternate story, which is probably more important than what you think is the 'main' story," he says. "My story is about the relationship between fate and choice."

Ali grew up in a joint family. His parents are journalists and he has a younger sister. "When I was growing up, I hardly used to see my parents. I really never spent much time with them," says Ali. So is the novel autobiographical? "Yes and no."

The parts of the book I've read have many references to homosexuality. "In Pakistan, sexuality is a taboo topic. You can't even talk about heterosexuality outside of wedlock - you can be stopped on the roads and arrested by the state. The establishment controls too many things in my Pakistan - the state has no business when it comes to a person's sexuality. Coming back to the book, Zaki, my main character, has a homosexual, physical relationship with a classmate, and also has a sexual relationship with a girl. Why should a person confine himself and not be allowed to do what he wants to? I hate the fact that in my country, homosexuality, heterosexuality outside wedlock, pedophilia and all sexual crimes are considered to be on the same pedestal - which is stupid."

"I grew up in Pakistan in the 1990s, where there was a lot of gender discrimination. Zia-ul-haq's Pakistan - a nationalist, Islamic state. I have drawn inspiration from my experiences of growing up in such a state. When I went to University in the US, I read a text on Anarkali, and started reading about Mughal women. And as I read more, I kept finding poetry from different parts of South Asia which were written by men, but had a female voice - a woman narrating it. Whether it is Hindu literature, or Sufi songs, this was a common trait I found. Well I went to the US in 2002 - a year after 9/11. And while I was there, I read a lot about sexual crimes and gender crimes back home, and I felt really bad. I thought to myself, are we going forward, or are we going backwards? Or are we stagnan in some position we took many years ago? And if we are stagnant as a society, why is it so? All these thoughts culminated in my starting to write The Wish Maker way back to March 2007."

The book has many descriptions of clothing. Who is wearing what, what colour is it, how long the sleeves are. "I really don't know about India, but in Pakistan, your clothes are a giveaway about your identity, especially for women. Girls have to think a hundred times before they decide to wear a pair of jeans, because you can be stopped on the streets and asked embarrasing questions. Nowadays, even men have to think about whether they wear a shalwar kameez or western clothing because of the increasing fundamentalism. It's a huge part of our lives, and it is present in my consciousness - it wasn't deliberate."

Ali is learning music now. "I always wanted to be a singer. I train three hours a day in Hindustani vocals when my teacher is in Lahore, which is half the month."

"What I do realise always is that my work - this book - is for an English speaking audience - it isn't going to reach out to a majority of the people in Pakistan. I know there are many authors who don't care about this - and they're justified because it is a medium of expression - but I personally believe that a writer has a relationship with society. It bothers me that I can't reach out to everybody."

I have eight more pages of short notes, as we talked about the establishment in Pakistan, insurgency in Baluchistan and NWFP, the Taliban, fundamentalism, Bollywood, Amitabh Bachchan, Arundhati Roy, Islam and everything else we could talk about by the time we reached his hotel. In the next post, after i've read the book.

Oh, and he signed the copy of the book. And beyond cute, he's smart and funny. I hope enjoy the book!

bungee jumping

2009-07-19T12:28:00.000-07:00

see

dee

eeeee

eff

jee

ech

aye

jay

kay

ell

emmm

ennn

pee

kyun

'es

tee

you

double you

why

zed

Pathetic

2009-07-15T10:15:00.000-07:00

Things I'm quite pathetic at:

> recognising faces

> toung twisters

> headlines

> remembering details

> budgeting

> making small talk with strangers

Things I don't get enough of:

> sleep

> nonsense talk

> hookah and booze and all the other 'immoral' and 'bad' things

> chocolate

> coffee

> intersting people

Oh, and I need to stop 'thinking' and start 'thinking'. That obviously didn't make sense to you. It wasn't supposed to.

I'm sleeeeeeeeeeepy..........................................................................................

xxx

2009-07-07T13:18:00.000-07:00

Grrrrrr.............

Of morons, vegetarians, cocktails and long days. No, they don't all mean the same.

2009-07-06T13:38:00.000-07:00

I like morons. I hate being one.

Oh, and people should start respecting the fact that vegetarians would like to be treated on par with non-vegetarians at those big shot events in star hotels. Right to equality boss. You can't have crab, chicke, mutton and more chicken and crab and fish and everything else imaginable for the 'privilaged' sections of the society, and have only paneer for us in the minority. Seriously! Things need to change around here!!!

And either I've had bad luck both the times I tasted a proper cocktail, or I really don't like those things.

I have a long day ahead... Damn. And I'm not sleepy yet. Double damn.

Dreams and Reality

2009-06-30T01:58:00.000-07:00

A couple of days back, I had the strangest of dreams and it all felt so real! Ghosts from the past haunted my brain-space for the time of my dream, and I felt cozy, happy, relieved. My brain re-lived scenes from real life, though stitching together a fabric of it's own from bits and pieces from here and there.

And believe me, I woke up hoping it was all real... The perfect world. No missed opportunities, no stupid mistakes, perfectly belted out insults, and no words left unsaid. Damn! It felt goooooooood!

It's probably when I woke up that I realised that I desperately wanted some parts of the dream to be true. It's like that feeling I have when I'm out at an event - I come back, and I always feel i should have spoken to someone who I saw there... Life is like that! You 'meet' so many people, but you hardly 'know' any of them... I can remember that I had a friend in UKG, who used to sit next to me and help me with remembering left and right. We used to have 'intelligent conversation', and we used to, well, bitch about our other rather dumb classmates who used to beg the teacher for a star on their notebooks. Well, I don't remember his name or his face. I obviously have no clue what happened to him after our brief friendship on the second bench of the UKG classroom, but I darn well remember reciting the 'I'm a little teapot' rhyme standing next to him in class!

I had another friend - I remember her name too. For the sake of this blog let's just call her J. J was my first 'best-friend', and in those days, it was a necessary and sufficient condition for one to have a best friend to be considered normal in class. If the best friend is not in your class, even better. J and I met in LKG, because our mothers were friends. We were in two different sections till class 1, when we were both in the same class. My first 'studio photo' was taken with J, both of us all dressed up and excited. (I still have that photo btw.) The next year, J moved to another school, but we were still in touch for a bit, before I grew older and eventually moved to another city.

When I came back to bangalore - to my old school - a couple of years later, my mother told me she'd met J's mother, and J herself. Well, I didn't want to meet her. There were so many years between us... She was still technically my 'best-friend' if somebody asked me who my best friend was, but...

Well, after living two decades of my life, I've realised that J isn't an isolated case... There are so many people like that... People whom I've met and I've loved, only for them to be converted conveniently into memories... I dunno if I hate myself for this, but it is the truth. I need to keep in touch with people constantly if I need to 'know' them... Not a phone call everyday, or even everyweek. It's the knowledge that they're updated on what I am right now, and I know who they are right now, and we're cool with the people we've become since distance kept us apart...

I'm digressing! :)

Well, the dream. It had people I've never known but would have loved to know if I got the chance. And in my dream, they were exactly who I wanted them to be. I'm crazy right?

Good night people! I think I should sleep now...

ramblings of a midnight brain

2009-06-28T11:55:00.001-07:00

When is a decision a wrong decision? And when is it a wrongly diagnosed 'wrong' decision? Does every minute of your life matter? If itt doesn't, why is it there? Does every though count? Shouldn't you think before you utter any words? Isn't mindless conversation reserved for close relationships - friends, family - where it doesn't really matter what you say, it just matters who you are...?

And if every decision counts, then is there a way of knowing if not making that decision was wrong too? Isn't it perfectly possible that there is no right answer?

Assignment.

2009-06-22T11:33:00.000-07:00

Guess what I'm gonna do? I'm gonna put up one of my college assignments up here. Not in one go because it's more than 5000 words long, but in parts. It's about the book Ladies' Coupe. Many parts are extracts from the book, so yeah, I don't own the book or characters and all that blah blah.

I'll start with the first part in this post.

________________

Between Feminist and Female – Text, context and subtext in Anita Nair’s ‘Ladies’ Coupe’

Ragamalika Karthikeyan

Any literary work by a woman writer need not necessarily fall under the category of ‘Feminist Literature’. At the same time, a woman writer’s scholarship is definitely different from that of her male counterpart. Men and women think and experience different things over a lifetime, and a book like Ladies’ Coupe cannot have been written by a man. The narrative, the situations, the in-your-face embarrassments, and the internalised confusion of a woman have been portrayed extremely well in this novel by Anita Nair. Though the story of self discovery is not something that no one has attempted before, it is the attitude of this book towards the society, and the attitude of the writer towards the story that make it an extremely interesting and heart wrenching read. Ladies’ Coupe is not a typical Feminist literary work. In fact, in many places, the book does question some Feminist assumptions. Like the title of this novel, the ideologies here are, too, in parts.

As many researchers in the field have said before, Feminism itself is not a homogenous thread of thought. In such a case, to categorise any work of literature by women as ‘Feminist’, or ‘non-Feminist’ would be an aberration. As Sarla Palkar says in her paper ‘Feminist Literary Theory: Creating New Maps’,

If one discerns a common strand in the great diversity of the feminist scholarship it is its critique of the patriarchal modes of thinking and its political approach to literature and literary criticism. Feminist literary theory has evolved according to the needs and demands of the international women’s movement.

(Feminist Literary Theory: Creating New Maps)

All women writers are not Feminists; but their writing, or their characters may, in part, subscribe to one or more of the Feminist ideologies, either knowingly or un-knowingly. Indeed, the author or her characters may even contradict themselves in places, or not realise that they are making Feminist statements. Or, even worse, the writing may reveal male-chauvinistic ideals being passed off as Feminism. As a critic, it is necessary for one to understand that not all women are Feminists, and that to gauge any piece of literature by a woman writer by the Feminist yardstick is a grave mistake. While tracing a female literary tradition in England over a long period of time, Elaine Showalter in her paper ‘A Literature of Their Own’ discovers three major phases of historical development in women’s literature. She says,

First, there is a prolonged phase of imitation of the prevailing modes of the dominant tradition, and internalization of its standards of art and its views on social roles. Second, there is a phase of protest against these standards and values, including a demand for autonomy. Finally, there is a phase of self discovery, a turning inward freed from some of the dependency of opposition, a search for identity. An appropriate terminology for women writers is to call these stages, feminine, feminist, and female.

(A Literature of Their Own)

According to this categorisation of women’s literature as ‘feminine’, ‘feminist’ and ‘female’, Anita Nair’s novel ‘Ladies’ Coupe’ would come somewhere between feminist and female, although threatening to be feminine in parts.

what else? randomness only...

2009-06-21T10:30:00.000-07:00

Went for the Twitter meet in Chennai today, even if only for a couple of hours... It was fun...

I want to read some book. Fiction. Meaningful. Long. Any suggestions?

I don't have a wednesday this week. I have a friday instead.

Went for an LGBT event yesterday. The panel discussiong was interesting. The cultural program was fun. Did you know that in 1930s or something, the first transgendered person was arrested under section 377 (just cos the rule existed.) She was not 'caught' in the act of 'sodomy' which is what 377 is against, but after she was caught, they ran a medical test to 'prove' that she indulged in 'sodomy'. The words they used to convict her were something along the lines of, "Her anus was flared like a trumpet, so she obviously does it." :P

For some reason, I could go on without food for a really long time in Manipal. Longest has been two days without any food I think. In Chennai, if I miss lunch, I can't concentrate... Is it the place or is it just me?

rAndOmNEss

2009-06-20T13:50:00.000-07:00

Ok, one last post (hopefully) before the sleep break. I love my blog. It's a nice place to e-scribble and I love scribbling.

There are so many times a day I feel the need for an internet connected something not as heavy as a laptop and not as useless as my phone so I could blog something instantly.

Like the office boy suddenly cutting a jackfruit in the middle of the editorial.

Or the picture where her dress which was black came back blue from the tiffing section. Not intentional, I must mention.

Or the boy filling up share auto after share auto with people in the mornings for a commission from the drivers.

And of course, that IRRITATING kid who can't keep his mouth shut sitting next to me while getting back home...

I phase out so often... I almost forgot to get down at the last stop yesterday :P

A + B = :-X

2009-06-20T11:36:00.000-07:00

Some days are good some days are bad.

Some days are looooong!

Today's going to be long. It starts now. Then there's a sleep break. Then there's an event. Then there's office.

Have I ever mentioned I don't like ants? Looks like they've heard it and have made it their species' mission to irritate me. They. Are. On. My. Laptop.

AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I don't believe in re-birth, but right now, I WANT rebirth, and I want to be an ANT-EATER. Damn those bastards.

Randomness @ work

2009-06-20T00:52:00.000-07:00

There's honest.

There's politically correct.

And then, there's the vast space in between.

untitled. could be called spam.

2009-06-17T12:29:00.000-07:00

Anyone else celebrating spam-your-own-blog day???

I am a selective insomniac. Every night, I can't sleep unless I talk to myself enough. Sounds mad? It is. But once I do sleep, well, I don't like being woken up. I hate it infact. My parents, my sister and my roomies (especially Ashima!) will stand testimony to that.

But there are those days, today being one of them, where however tired I am, and however logical it is to just go to sleep so you can get up on time in the morning, I just can't make myself go to sleep. It's not really like I'm not sleepy, it's just that I don't want to sleep. Ever get that feeling?

I am a confused person in general. It takes eons for me to make up my mind about really small things. And I don't even know what I really like sometimes! I like it when i don't have to think about these things... it makes life easier. Why should I have one favourite ice-cream flavour or one favourite drink? Why can't I just feel like liking something suddenly.

Like Momos.

Someone asked me today (yesterday :P) if my outlook of life has changed, from school to college. The answer? I don't know. I think I have a serious memory problem... I don't remember things being distinct at all. Stream of thoughts and ideas... Doesn't it follow a logical thought process? Does it have to be different, just because it has changed from point A to point B?

hmmm....

What happens when I open a new post... Randomness

2009-06-17T10:40:00.000-07:00

It's nice to revisit the past sometimes. It's nice to know you have friends who are there, and who know you're there, even though times have changed and there are years between who we were and who we are.

It's nice to talk about the past, the present and the future with a sort of detatched attachment. We all know we're off in different directions, with some similar hurdles, but it all really doesn't matter to what we share. The confidence and intimacy with which I can share my dreams, hopes, fear, ambition... I can't do it with everyone. It's not like these are secrets, not like I won't tell you if you ask me. I'll tell anyone infact, even people who are complete and total strangers. But the feeling of having 'talked' to a person who listened and perhaps understood more than the others would have - that does not happen often.

I have trust issues. I wouldn't fall back with someone standing behind me in the hope that they would catch me. Nope. It doesn't work. I trust people to the extent they need to be trusted. Beyond that is a waste of time, energy and precious thought. My life is to be trusted with one person only - me. That's probably one of the reasons I never managed to learn to swim. The only way I probably will is if I teach myself. hmmm... I trailed off...

I like Bajji at the beach.

I always have this feeling that I want to eat, but when I do get down to eating, I don't feel like it anymore. This bugs me more than anything else. Why, oh why?!

I have at last realised that for me, the grass is greener on the other side. Just that i'm too lazy to go to the other side. And I like nice, brown grass.

My wishlist is building up. And it looks damn scary right now. Very few of those things I need as such. I want the rest. I'll not get it for a long, long time. :P

Oh, the other day, I didn't want to drink my (compulsory :( ) glass of milk plain and I didn't want hot coffee either; so I mixed cadbury's shots and a spoon of coffee with the milk in a mixer and let it cool. I'm not saying it was great, I'm not even saying it was good, it was just weird. I like to think I like it. Next time, more ingredients go in to the milk. Got any suggestions?

Nine and One

2009-06-09T10:21:00.000-07:00

Nine days.

Nine days since I started working. Tomorrow is my first off day.

Nine days of figuring things out. I'll have ninety more of those.

Nine days of struggling hard against un-learning. Because you need to remember what you've learnt.

Nine days of nine-hours a day of not thinking, letting go, and letting life take its own course.

Nine days of an increasing Manipal sickness.

Nine days of using my official id more than my personal id.

Nine days of experiencing work-relationships for perhaps the first time.

Nine days of being quiet. :P

I went to my first party place in Chennai (10d), I met some great Directors, I went to Mocha Mojo, I (sort of) met Asin. I had a slightly meaningful conversation with a PR person! I got my first on-the-job byline, I got my first on-the-job ethical shock.

I'm learning...

Answer time!

2009-06-09T10:00:00.000-07:00

Here I am again. I vowed I wouldn't post again till I got 5 comments, but no. No way. :P

So, before I answer these questions, people please remember what Dr house has taught us. Everybody Lies.

;)

Anadi's question: Which junior among guys did u think was the 'HAWTTEST'... One name compulsory.

Hmmm... How do I answer this question now? I know the answer you want to hear, I know you don't know what you will hear. Because both of us know that there is no answer to that question. So, should I be benevolent and give you the answer you want, or should I not?

The answer is : RINKU!!! [He is a 'junior' in terms of number of years spent in MIC.]

Ruchika's question: Which soap do you use?

I love this soap called House MD, I 'use' it online. Other than that, I have 'used' many K soaps in Bombay :P hehehee....

On a slightly more serious note, I don't really stick to any one soap. Currently i'm using Hamam.

Though I really can't figure out why you would want to know that...

Vineeth's question: What is the one thing about girly girls that you hate the most?

Before I type the answer to this, you need to know one thing about me. I forget. A lot. And my strongest pet peeves are also subject to forget-tion. So, obviously this question has arisen out of one of our many conversations, but the answer you expect might not be the answer you get. Both answers, however, are honest.

I hate many things about girly girls, but the worst thing about them is that when it comes to man-woman 'equal' relationships, they want to have the cake and eat it too. This is an un-diplomatic and honest answer. Many girly girls, henceforth dumb-chicks, don't like to work lest the last coat of their nail-polish peels off. They want to enjoy all that 'man'kind is ready to provide them cos they are good-looking.

Now, there really is nothing wrong with it - everyone has their own priorities in life and I am no one to comment, except when THEY SAY THEY WANT 'EQUALITY'. Damn, really! You want to be treated equal, act equal. Simple. Don't hide behind the 'delicate-darling' mask if you don't want to be treated like one.

Ok, now that answering those questions is done with, i can move on to my next post, obligation free :D

Manipal. Home. House. Google.

2009-05-31T01:57:00.000-07:00

One of those days I really want to write but I don’t really know what to write! Everything and Nothing is happening. Life is coming one full circle. And over the past 10 days, I have gone from missing people to purposely hiding from people to not bothering to getting back to normal. Damn, my brain works in very weird ways!

The last few days in Manipal were torture. The next place I am where everyone has to leave, I’m making sure I’m not among the last few. To stick around and say goodbye to everyone is painful. One silly head staring out of a bus window and waving goodbye is better when the head is yours. When I finally did leave, it was haphazard and worrisome because of the luggage – no time to think too much about other things. I left, and it didn’t hit me that I actually ‘LEFT’ till the bus crossed Udupi. You ever have that feeling of having to convince yourself that some things were actually real? That a face from the past IS ACTUALLY A FRIEND? That’s what it was like.

I reached the station with my many bags. The train came. The journey was beyond bad. And I reached home.

I slept through the first two days. Then, I started watching House.

House...! I’m hooked. I got introduced to Dr Gregory House sometime last year, when mad-man decided he was house-boy. “You MUST watch it!” he told everyone. And he did everything short of tying people up and making them sit in front of a laptop to make them watch it :P [I think Ashima, Surbhi and I would particularly never forget the day he decided to literally ‘become’ house, misused Surbhi’s umbrella for a cane, and denoted us Foreman, Cameron and Chase. The now-canteen and before-then UG Lab which was right at that time an empty room with a white board, was used for differential diagnosis. Of what? If my memory serves me right, it was the Ad assignment where Peace mysteriously became Mercedes.]

Well, Dr House has completely blown me over. From his witty one-liners (There’s no ‘I’ in team! There is ‘me’ though, if you jumble it up...) to his complete disregard for the norm, he is an arrogant bastard. And as he himself puts it, Arrogance has to be earned! Before coming back home from Manipal, I had watched but a few episodes – disconnected, infrequent. But over the past 10 days, I’ve been watching the series properly for the first time. I have painfully buffered tens of episodes online, and am almost through season 2 now. Since I have to share the internet with my sister, I usually end up watching properly at night, and however resolute I might be to sleep ‘after this episode’, I end up watching ‘just one more’.

House is my new favourite fictional character. His obsession obsesses me. [See what I did just there? True House fans would put 2 and 2 together and come up with 7. Lol!]

Talking of obsession, I’m obsessed with google-ing. I google people, places, names... anything! And I enjoy every bit of it. I enjoy every new discovery about every new thing. Of course, all this would be even more enjoyable if I had a decent memory and I could actually remember whatever I google. Unfortunately, I’ve realised over the years that my memory quotient is almost as bad as its emotional equivalent.

Ok, I’ve run out of things to write. Lemme make this blog more ‘reality’, and lemme announce a game of truth or truth. Since I have no clue what to write, and assuming you are bored enough to respond, I shall answer any questions asked on the next post. You can ask absolutely anything – questions about the Universe to questions about my stuffed toy, everything shall be answered. You think it’s a frivolous exercise? You’re entitled to your opinion, especially since I myself think the same. But what is wrong with frivolous I ask? :P

Sympathy.

2009-05-22T11:27:00.000-07:00

I'm back home. And I'm trying to get a hold on 'where I am' and 'who I am' and 'what I am'. So, obviously, I've been sleeping. I've taken the advice that everyone's given me - take some rest, yes, I'm doing it. It better work :P

So, in between 'complete rest' (read: sleeping) and eating, I've been watching some TV (the politics of course, what else is there to watch?) and buffering episode upon episode of house :P

I'm forgetting to think. I'm not, by choice, speaking or chatting unless spoken to or, well, chatted with. I haven't gone out of the house except to buy that pack of goodday choco-nut cookies. And I don't plan to go out atleast till the weekend ends.

This blogpost was out of sympathy for my blog :P

Randomness

2009-05-01T12:50:00.000-07:00

Some things are not meant to be gotten over. This post is not for anyone else. I don’t even know why this goes up on my blog (if it does after I finish typing it on word: P).

All of us are different – we’re unique. I am yet to come across two people who are exactly like each other, and if I ever do, I would try and get to know them much better to find out what their differences are. Because no two people can be exactly like each other. Owing to this difference – this uniqueness of each one of us – our perception of things around us, too, are different. I wouldn’t say unique, because I really don’t know how many ‘unique’ ways one same thing can be perceived. But definitely, I’ve been in numerous situations – everyday – where I thought something was rather funny whereas someone else found it extremely disgusting or offensive. A says something as a joke, and B thinks A is actually being serious. This has happened many, many times.

Most of these times, it isn’t a big deal. You get over it and you move on.

But sometimes, you’re obsessed with it forever. No, not the concept, but the perception and the knowledge that your perception might definitely be wrong, however much you want to believe it is true. And it hurts when the ‘knowledge’ is proven.

I had this friend in school who thought every guy within the radius of 500 metres was looking at her. No doubt she was pretty, but she was a 12 year old. We used to get irritated, usually. One day, I was standing with this friend and another friend on the side of some random road. This dear friend again spotted a man ‘looking at me!’ Well, nothing unusual, except that my other friend said, “Funny. Because he’s definitely looking at me.” Umm, are we really fighting over who some slimy man was ogling at?

Some things are not for ‘speaking out loud’. You can contemplate about them, inside your head; you can have nice, lengthy conversations with yourself about them, but you really can’t speak to anyone else about them. Other people, however close, pass judgements – like the judgements I passed on my friends.

So when these hush-hush things are also the (wrongly) perceived things, there is a problem. Since you have these really lengthy conversations about these things with yourself, you’re obsessed till you find the answer, till you solve the puzzle, till you finish off what you started.

But some things are so goddamn weird, you don’t know how it started, or where it started, to know how to finish them off. You want to believe with all your will power that you’re done, over with these highly time-consuming thoughts. But every time you think that way, something else happens to increase your curiosity, and you want more – and you realise that the puzzle itself is so interesting, you probably don’t want to finish it off.

Janani. (Jenny for me.)

2009-04-08T11:49:00.000-07:00

I've done Ctrl+A and delete some 5 times already. It's one of those days I really wanna blog, and I have a lot to blog about, but I really don't know what to blog about...

So let me just tell you about abstract things.

I love having conversations with people. Like meaningful conversations, even if I'm not talking. Sometimes these conversations are stressful, sometimes they're fun, sometimes they're thought-provoking, sometimes they're action-provoking!

Sometimes you have conversations about almost the same thing with different people. And each time, your stand differs because of who the person is.

Ok, I've changed my mind. I'm not talking abstract. This post is for a very, very special person.

I remember, long long ago, this ball of pink which suddenly came into my life. She was always quiet, she looked like she was permanentaly perplexed. I thought she was the prettiest, nicest doll ever.

She started talking. She could never get the pronunciation right - especially my name! 'Yagamazhigaaa' it would be. And till today, I can stand the mis-pronunciation from only one person :P She was one cute little firecracker. All the kids in my class loved teasing her. She was everyone's baby. She was the most popular kid on the block, whereas I was the most boring - the one who never went out to play with anyone! She had friends all over the place - everyone knew where she lived - including all the shopkeepers. I was the silent shy stupid kid who didn't have any friends. In school it was a little different though - only for her kindergarten that is. Everyone knew her because of me - the topper, the nerd :P

We used to steal money from home to buy ice-creams from the cart. We used to go with grandpa and buy bubblegum!

In Goa, when we were with all the other kids, and all the parents were at the function, and I was supposed to be in-charge, she ran away. She scared me to death, she made me cry. She made me pester the only grown up around to send a boat into the sea to see if she had fallen in! And then when I still couldn't find her, and went to the function to confess my guilt, she was there, on the stage, with mother and father dearest.

When I got my first cycle - the oh-so-cool Hero Devil - and I was kicked about riding it, she was the first person to take a ride on it on the backseat. The first time I ever took anyone 'doubles'. And she puts her foot into the wheel. ;(

In Noida, when mother and father had gone out, and she came back from school, she stood knocking at the door for an hour because I had fallen asleep.

She believed all my rubbish theories! Like "When you walk, you aren't really moving, but the earth is moving under your feet!" Awww........ She believed it for a long time after I had forgotten it.

She's always made me do her assignments. And taken them to school as her own. And poems I've long forgotten were mine, she can recite by heart...

She fought with me, screamed at me, loved me and cared for me. I'm sure she still does. The little idiot.

And suddenly, a few years away and she seems to be growing up. Like, really fast. And I'm the dumb one who doesn't know how to react to what. Well, I never knew, did I?

I might be older in age, but you've always been 'in-charge'. I've cried buckets into your arms, you've always been in control. I know more, becaue I've seen more. But you understand more, because my emotional IQ can fit into a tea-spoon, and yours is much beyond anyone else I know. All that we've been through together, I couldn't have managed without you. I try to act strong, you are. You always told me it was going to be ok, that I shouldn't be so stupid, that what has to happen will happen. And it all turned out alright in the end.

Now, it's my turn to tell you - it's all going to be ok. I'm always, always there for you, whether you like it or not :P If you need someone to fall back on, to scream at, to get your frustration out, I'm there for you.

My little kid. I love you. I love only you. :)

Handwriting. Analyse the analysis please!

2009-04-01T12:44:00.000-07:00

I've been rather fascinated by Handwriting Analysis - thanks to Mr Kartavya - for a while now. It has interested me, and I guess I've believed a lot of it cos i've wanted to. Anyway, so, a couple of days back, I did an online 'Handwriting Analysis' of myself. I've obviously had my handwriting analysed before by Kartavya, just that I've never had it written and printed for me to copy-paste and share on my blog! So, here goes... Just some bits and pieces!

Rgmlk is moderately outgoing. Her emotions are stirred by sympathy and heart rendering stories. In fact, she can be kind, friendly, affectionate and considerate of others. She has the ability to put herself into the other person's shoes.

Rgmlk will be somewhat moody, with highs and lows. Sometimes she will be happy, the next day she might be sad. She has the unique ability to get along equally well with what psychology calls introverts and extroverts. This is because she is in between. Psychology calls Rgmlk an ambivert. She understands the needs of both types. Although they get along, she will not tolerate anyone that is too "far out." She doesn't sway too far one way or the other.

Rgmlk is a "middle-of-the-roader," politically as well as logically. She weighs both sides of an issue, sits on the fence, and then will decide when she finally has to. She basically doesn't relate to any far out ideas and usually won't go to the extreme on any issue.

Rgmlk will demand respect and will expect others to treat her with honor and dignity. Rgmlk believes in her ideas and will expect other people to also respect them. She has a lot of pride.

Rgmlk has an over-awareness of self. She often feels self-conscious. She fears ridicule, therefore she is careful not to place herself in a position to receive any ridicule. She wonders what people will think if she acts in a certain manner. When encountering a new group of people, Rgmlk may stay on the sidelines until she has the people categorized, or she may behave in a "positive attention getting" manner to assure people think good thoughts about her from the start.

In reference to Rgmlk's mental abilities, she has a very investigating and creating mind. She investigates projects rapidly because she is curious about many things. She gets involved in many projects that seem good at the beginning, but she soon must slow down and look at all the angles. She probably gets too many things going at once. When Rgmlk slows down, then she becomes more creative than before. Since it takes time to be creative, she must slow down to do it. She then decides what projects she has time to finish. Thus she finishes at a slower pace than when she started the project.

She has the best of two kinds of minds. One is the quick investigating mind. The other is the creative mind. Her mind thinks quick and rapidly in the investigative mode. She can learn quicker, investigate more, and think faster. Rgmlk can then switch into her low gear. When she is in the slower mode, she can be creative, remember longer and stack facts in a logical manner. She is more logical this way and can climb mental mountains with a much better grip.

Rgmlk has very high goals. She has many big dreams that will be difficult to make happen. One way for Rgmlk to make these dreams become reality is to surround herself with people that do not have as much "vision", but have the ability to see these projects through. Sometimes she has a new and better dream every day, thus forgetting about yesterday's plans. Rgmlk's plans can be extremely successful only if she sees them through. She dreams of great things. Rgmlk will be more successful if she sets her goals more realistically. Her goals are so high that she will have a hard time reaching them. It only takes a small stroke adjustment to bring these dreams from the dream stage to reality. She is self confident. She believes these dreams can be achieved and she is the person to do it. This belief in herself leads her to over-sell her abilities. She is capable of great things, just not always as great as she makes them seem to be.

One way Rgmlk punishes herself is self directed sarcasm. She is a very sarcastic person. Often this sarcasm and "sharp tongued" behavior is directed at herself.

Rgmlk is very self-sufficient. She is trying not to need anyone. She is capable of making it on her own. She probably wants and enjoys people, but she doesn't "need" them. She can be a loner.

Die Baby. Don't.

2009-03-24T13:12:00.000-07:00

It has been decades. Yes.

There was a young girl who liked to believe she was from 'all over the place'. She was confused to a large extent and suffered from severe subtle multiple personality disorder. She could never understand why she was never the same person in 2 different situations; but she understood that's the way she was, and she could do shit about it. So she went on with her life - dreaming, laughing, procrastinating, planning, plotting to take over the world...

It was a combination of all these activities at a time when all her personalities were inside her head at the same time that she suddenly became pregnant with a child. This was a child like no other - she could decide when to give birth to her, but she knew that the child would die in the womb if she didn't have a material form soon enough. The girl knew that she couldn't take care of this child on her own - she wanted the child; she needed her to make some sense of her own life; but the child would simply die before anyone knew of her existance if there was no one else to help fend for her...

So the girl sought out four other gaurdians for her baby. She chose when to give birth to this baby, along with all the other gaurdians, and the baby soon began to grow nice and healthy. Like I mentioned before, this was a child like no other, and soon, many many people joined hands to feed this baby and make her presentable for the outside world. They provided her with all that was necessary to make her useful. They made sure she looked good. They made sure everyone noticed her - and whether they loved her or hated her, they couldn't really ignore her.

And then came the dawn of realisation. She had to let go of the baby sooner or later. She could either let the baby die when she and the other four gaurdians could no longer take care of her. Or she could pass her on - put her up for adoption; she could choose between loving the baby enough to sacrifice her so that she never has to see bad days; or trust other people enough to leave the baby with them...

One of the gaurdians left when time came, and she knew the others too have to leave soon - so does she. She decided to take a chance - she decided to try trusting others for a change :P

She doesn't know whether it is the right decision. It looks like it is. It looks like it might work. She hopes it does...

If she loses hope, she would rather the baby died.

Dat' tha way, maain! Jus-la-that

2009-02-07T10:10:00.000-08:00

La-that

dude

fuckin'

n-aaai-wuz-laik

n-aaim-laik

reeeleee

wah-dah-fuck

waddevar

maain

wah-dah-hail

Laik...

Decisions

2009-02-02T10:52:00.000-08:00

Sometimes, the outcome of your decisions might affect so much, you have to mull over them for a while before you decide on them. And sometimes, the world fucks around with your head so much, you have to take decisions on an impulse.

There are times when you end up doing both - in different situations - in a span of 24 hours. And it probably isn't till much later that you'll know the outcome of either.

10 things WOMEN should stop doing.

2009-01-31T08:52:00.000-08:00

Feminism is not always about men; my idea of feminism is, actually, mostly about women. I believe men and women should be treated equally - and I will maintain that I KNOW there are physical differences, and I am DEFINITELY NOT talking about those. I agree men are physically stronger, and I'm tired of hearing this, but I agree to some extent that women are emotionally stronger; but I have a problem with celebrating masculinity as a virtue and femininity as weakness.

But this equality cannot - and will not - come out of the blue. Every woman should earn her share. The following is a list of things women should stop doing: Start taking care of yourself and stop looking at the nearest male you know for help with everything. Don’t make the male the legitimising identity, and then don’t crib that women don’t have any freedom in this country. Stop believing that only men can do some things – I’m not talking about strenuous physical labour, I’m talking about simple things in life. Stop telling men they’re being ‘girly’ if they cry or express some other ‘weak’ emotion. Stop associating femininity with weakness.

At the very basic level, we shouldn’t be living in a society where women need to be protected by men, from men. I think, from the beginning – from when they’re kids – everyone should be told that they’re different, but equal. Chastity should not be such a big ‘virtue’ that it becomes a hindrance to social life. Sex should not be such a taboo subject – its just another process of life. I’m not saying move to a world where 13 year olds are fucking each other left right and centre. What I’m saying is that at 13, every individual should understand what their responsibilities are, and that it is no big deal, and that when they’re older, they can do what the fuck they want to in that respect.

A young girl shouldn’t grow up believing that her hymen is all she has and that to protect it from tearing before she gets married is the job of her life. I mean, really, what the fuck? Why such an issue over a tissue???

Ok.

Just heard: All the Rama Sene Mangalore Pub attackers got bail. And their comment : We will do it again.

Well, imagine your screen has hands, and that two fingers on the left and two fingers on the right are bent.

Wine. What say Ami?

2009-01-28T13:33:00.000-08:00

Wine.
Wine is red in colour - that's the first thing that comes to my mind when i read wine. But there's white wine also. Which the Germans call "Wise wine". Cause in germany, White is wise. Hmm... Maybe they believe in peace a little too much.
Anyways, Anadi loves wine for some reason - and he gets high on wine. It's a dumb thing to do, but then he does. i don't know why.
Talking of colour, which is actually C - O - L - O - U - R, firefox follows the American dictionary, which puts a red underline for colour. I don't like it. I hate American spellings actually - its some kind of a fixation I have.
And I love commas. Though that has nothing to do with wine.
Anyways, i don't like wine...
Malavika made wine in college. bio-tech and all! all lab work shit. The other day we were talking about alcohol, and 'kalla-saarayam'... and she said they were gonna arrest her teacher and her group which made wine in the college - :P Kalla Saarayam!!!
Is it five minutes yet?
Fine. Wine is fine. Wine is wine. But Wine is not fine because fine is not fine. It may be fine in texture and taste, but then it is not fine. Because fine is money - which we have to pay for coming late to hostel.
Damn.
Wine wine wine
Doesn't that sound like whine whine whine? and when someone whines... it's whiny!!!
Oh, and till I did my first internship, I though it's meant its, and its meant it is.
Ok, wine is tasty for some people. Others like me don't like it. Some make it. Others take it.
Wine Wine Wine. It's fine. With it you dine. But just don;t whine.

The past years...

2009-01-28T12:50:00.001-08:00

The following is random excerpts from stuff I've written over the past year and a half... This is stuff I write for myself, only for myself, but I feel like just putting some of these sentences together up here, just for kicks. So don't ask me the context.

Be satisfied with what you have. Follow the rules set down by others. Never question authority.

Bull. Shit.

Now, that’s not happening; the process of un-learning is done, and to un-learn whatever I’ve learnt since is impossible as of now.

It’s day-after… technically tomorrow since its today already!

And I really hope I don’t die tomorrow…

Please!

I think sometimes, we all make decisions which go very wrong. But at least people are brave enough to make decisions and not sit on things forever…

If I want something, I get something else. Its not like I don’t like the something else, its just that its not what I wanted in the first place.

How does it matter in the larger scheme of things?!

– in all those dialogues I have with myself inside my head, I’ve somehow....

This process in simple terms is thinking. The synonyms are scheming, and plotting to take over the world.

Hmmm....

She is in control.

2009-01-23T10:46:00.000-08:00

Last semester, when as part of the Information Society course, we had to do an assignment on identities, I was definitely interested. I have always looked at life through the window of my experiences and beliefs, always knowing that all people are different from each other, but still trying to find myself everyday...

And my identity... It is not something that can be explained very simply, though I'm not a very complicated person. There are many layers to me. There's a part of me that no one but I know; she doesn't exist in the real world, but she's probably more real than any other 'Me'that I know. She cannot exist in the society, for she is beyond such concepts. She is an infant, who refuses to grow up; but she knows what her basic needs are, and would do what the fuck she can to get those. but like I said, she just isn't real...

And then there's this 'I' that everyone 'knows'. She is what they see everyday, and she has fixed agendas and no feelings attached. There really isn't too much to her beyond the facts that she's loud and rude, and she's more or less straightforward, so there's hardly anything to think.

And then again there's this third person... who is very much real, she definitely exists... BUT, hardly anyone knows her. Most people who ''know me'', don't really know this third person, who for some reason does not believe in socialising too much. She is a believer of ''one arm distance'' like all the other Me's, but then there are times when the arm has been put down, and defences have been lowered.

There's the fourth. And the most dangerous according to me. She believes in more than one arm distance, but then she makes people believe something else altogether. She thinks something constantly, but these thoughts are never for anyone else's ears. She is constantly in two places at the same time, and she carries many, many masks which go up on her face as and when she wants them. I said 'dangerous' not because she schemes to kill others or something, but when this person is in control, there is no real me. For she is many people and nobody at the same time. She, too, does not exist, but in a completely different way from person one.

A Moo-ving issue...

2009-01-13T03:23:00.000-08:00

Traveling on jam-packed roads, for almost 4 hours every day, for the past month has been quite an experience. There are so many things to look at on the roads when you nothing else to do, unless of course you're screaming in agony inside a bus where you have just enough space to keep the big toe of you left leg on the floor. Well, I usually ended up taking a combination of a share-auto (those deadly back-killers) and a bus, once in the morning, and once in the evening.

There is one extremely amusing thing that I noticed on the roads of this city that I currently call my home; cows. It's really not like I've never seen cows on the road before - really, I've seen cows of all shapes and sizes doing all sorts of things, in different parts of the country. But what was different about these cows is that there were rows and rows of them, sitting on the median. For a strech of about 3 kilometres, for about a week, I noticed these cows standing there, as though in silent protest. It was a huge cow-dharna. They were there, somber expressions on their faces, tails twitching slightly, the young ones quite close to their mother... They were not on the sides of the roads where they're usually found. They weren't even crossing the road, as if to get to the other side for some important business. They were just standing around, sitting in some cases, on the median, like they were trying to create awareness about some important issue!

I don't know what these cows were trying to do, I would have asked if I wasn't always late, or if I atleast knew enough cow-speak to approach them boldly. I hope they find a proper PR agency which can sell, I mean, tell their stories to the media...

Freedom. Your Right.

2008-12-25T00:41:00.000-08:00

Merry Christmas!

The end of the year, and realisation time. And one thing that the month of december has taught me so far is - I hate sitting empty. As in, not doing anything and watching TV types empty, not the browsing type empty.

The difference between traditional media and the internet - interactivity. Yeah yeah, we've been studying that all along, nothing new in what I'm saying you say? I agree. But the implications of this interactivity is what I'm high on.

The way you can search about something for some reason and end up doing something completely different; the bliss of making new discoveries; the joy of reading people who write what they feel like, and not just people who write what their organisation feels like... The internet is the embodiment, if I might, of the Freedom of Expression. And this is one freedom that I stand for above all else.

Freedom has intrigued and enchanted mankind like forever. Like the robot in Bicentennial Man (which I watched last night) says, so many wars have been faught for the sake of freedom, so many lives have been lost for the sake of freedom... And what is this freedom anyway? Are we free today because India is an independent country? Are we free, at all?

Freedom to me has always meant Freedom of expression. I realised long ago that the other freedoms, you don't really have. What does financial freedom mean anyway if you don't have any money? Religious freedom when you are born into a religion? Freedom from gender bias, when the whole wording of this is biased? But freedom of expression...

This is something we can achieve. This has been commercialised, yes, people misuse it, yes. But this is one freedom that can pave the pathway for anything else that you want in Life.

Let's unite for this freedom of expression, let's start a movement. Because Freedom is Your Right. Let us understand ourselves and the world around us.

Article 19

The Semester that Wasn't!!!

2008-12-14T03:02:00.000-08:00

This semester was crazy. Before this semester, I always thought to hate someone, you have to know them. Now, I know better. If it's people in positions of power, you just need to hear their words!

I realised many things this semester - one of them is that sometimes, I have a problem with criticism. Not the kind that I recieve after work, but the kind during work. I refuse to accept genuine criticism just because the other person refuses to accept MY genuine criticism. Not a great attitude if the other person believes the same ;)

I used to think descipline was a decent word. Used to. Period.

This sem was pathetically hectic in a way I don't quite like. So much didn't happen because of the stupid schedule. And it's not like we learnt much out of the schedule - dude, gimme a break! Why stuff so much into 4 months? Like what do we learn anyway?

I don't know what next sem is gonna be like... I don't know what the next one month is gonna be like! Internship time...

Hmmmm......

more will be added later....

A quick post...

2008-11-13T11:48:00.000-08:00

Chumma felt like blogging...

There are so many ppl in everyone's life. And we love them all to different degrees - we even love our enemies in that enemy-ly way...

Nowadays, I absolutely adore some people. I probably never paid attention to these people before, but now they're like a chocolate addiction - sweetness makes me go on a high!

I like long walks. Especially when I have myself for company. These are times when ppl say I'm 'lost'... Its actually the opposite. These are the times when I'm probably found - when i have time for myself and my self and my self...

I'm a sucker for cute things.

Digits that perform definitely is not the tagline of whisper. Imagine - Whisper Ultra... Digits that perform! Like, dude!

I dude a lot.

I like the children's park in Manipal. There's no other place I would go to if I wanted some time alone. Unless the park is filled with ppl. In which case I have my other hideouts.

I'm very hypocritic.

I absolutely want to fuck around with some people's heads. i can't. This makes me go cranky.

There's a placement brochure to be designed. And I'm procrastrinating.

:P

I'm in LOWE. With who, you ask? I still don't know. Will let this blog know once I figure out.

I lie a lot.

The end is not too far! Or maybe it is...

2008-10-19T06:16:00.000-07:00

It is one of those long Sundays where I know that a lot of work needs to be done, but I don't know what the fuck to do about it.

And as confusion about whether a plus b is c, or is it actually Dragon Dung, is eating up my head, I don't understand why the answer actually matters. Why should it?

Coming back to the work front, I'm in denial. I can see the end is approaching for something very very very close to my heart (non-existent), and I know that however hard I try, I will not be able to save it anyway. But I won't stop trying - and I won't stop hoping for a mass-miracle. My brain is weird that way.

And I'm not clear about many many things. I have started questioning some not-so-strong beliefs of mine, and I don't think I'll be happy with the answers!

And I royally suck at maintaining a peaceful equilibrium. I'm just too good at fucking it up.

And I'm broke.

The only thing I'm very clear about is that I'm going home soon. Ah, peace, peace!

Sunday Night. And another week ends.

2008-10-12T11:45:00.000-07:00

When it comes to some people, some people are darn biased. Actually, most people, if not all, are biased.

These biases come out in soooo many different ways. In so many different places...

Personally, I know some people who have different standards for me alone. It's not exactly a nice sort of high standard - its just a different standard because I'm some sort of different creature. This beats me, most of the time, but I don't care, coz it doesn't matter...

When you're walking on the road, you're either walking together, or you're trying to prove a point by walking at a different pace. The two don't go together. When you're trying to prove a point by walking at a different pace, and then you say its not your fault that you're not walking together, its kinda mad, no?

There have been these defining moments in my life... Where I think something, and the human beings around me (for I, according to most, am not one), interpret something completely different. These moments come out of the blue, out of nowhere... They happen when I'm having fun, and they piss me off. They happen when I'm working, and they piss me off. They happen when I'm talking to people, they piss me off. They happen when I'm in the middle of a fuckin thought process, and they fuckin piss me off!!!

This week was filled with such defining moments which I'll never forget. I swear by the Tree Of Wisdom I'll never ever forget some of these incidents. And, as always, lessons were learnt. Lessons learnt this week...

Don't try to tell people you have a limitation. It is interpreted as either being egoistic or heroic, even if that never was the initial intention.
Mob mentality never dies.
When some people don't like you, they'll use every possible opportunity to tell you you're useless, worthless, dumb. They'll also use every possible opportunity to gang up with someone else, and prove you wrong even if they don't know nor care what is right. Beware of them.
Sometimes, you just can't connect with the past, however hard you try.
Very often, I suddenly feel that i don't know anyone. Like, everyone is some person who i know from some different world, like a movie or something...
Conflict is the norm. Peace is the rare exception. Period.
Never expect.
Mediocrity pisses me off. But mediocrity is the norm. Coz most ppl settle for it.

I'm fuckin mad...

Enter - AI!

2008-09-29T08:51:00.000-07:00

'Lo Peoples!

From today, I, AI, will be co-blogging in here to make this mundane virtual space more happening! First, let me start by introducing myself. I insist on doing it, for I don't trust the original owner of this blog to do justice to my charismatic personality!

Popularly known as AI, I am Rgmlk's long lost twin brother. And I'm the one with two sets of parents, btw. That obviously makes me the cooler twin. :D Now, the exact story of how we were separated at birth and why neither of us were told was explained to both of us by both my set of parents, but we couldn't understand it. How did we find out if they didn't tell us? Well, we knew each other through the internet, and then we landed up in the same college. And then we found out...

Anyways, I'll be posting some photos of us up here soon. Expect some interesting observations of the world from AI.

Some rules to live by: Lessons learnt in a week.

2008-09-26T07:58:00.000-07:00

There are times when you want to act really sober, and really nice, but people just won't let you. Comments, jibes, indirect remarks... It is difficult to not play dirty at these times.

People have different notions about others. They believe what they want to and don't think twice.

If you're fat and ugly, you have no business getting sexually abused/molested. No, don't try telling anyone you fat pig - they all know you're lying. You just want to feel special by saying that you got sexually abused!

Sometimes, to belong, you need to believe. Or make yourself believe. Or get used to don't belong.

Don't expect. Only then there are chances of feeling dis-satisfied or unhappy.

If you want to get it done properly, don't ask your 'friend' to do it, or do it yourself.

Keep a tab on everytime you get irrationally angry or extremely depressed. These are your weak moments brought about by touchy topics. Never avoid them. Overcome them.

Google.

browsing...

2008-07-10T23:54:00.000-07:00

.. centers... are weird places...
and i don't seem to like them that much.

dEfiNe iT

2008-06-20T11:49:00.000-07:00

How do you define politically correct? How correct are you exactly, when you are politically correct? Is correct an absolute term anyway???

The World.

2008-06-19T11:59:00.000-07:00

I am interning
and I am learning
that
its definitely not
a dog eats dog world
no sir!
there are no dogs
its a different world
very different
here
bitch eats bitch.

Period.

life sucks.

2008-05-06T09:55:00.000-07:00

i'm irritated. i want to be rude. i want to scream at people. i want to just jump off a fence or something...
i wanna scream! i want to cry! i want to strangle. i want to stomp hard.
i want to just break something - anything!
coherence is un achievable.
people are irresponsible.
i don't like being cooped up.
i need to talk. but i don't want to. i don't feel like.

i want to... do something horrible... torture someone, even if its only me.............................

spam.

2008-05-04T13:22:00.000-07:00

Oh, you know what, till this post is published, all my blogs had total number of posts in multipes of 3? Aint that cool?

The Earth Snake...

2008-05-01T12:44:00.000-07:00

Astrology has always, er, 'astonished' me... It's funny how 'accurate' these things are... Anyway, one of my best friends, who is mentioned very often in this blog but who, I'm sure, hasn't even come in here once :P, doesn't believe as such in astrology, but believes in it.. She likes to believe in it more like ;)

So madam endlessly argues with herself about how a certain thing written in a certain place about 'Scorpions' is true, or maybe not... Hehe...

Anyway, knowing her for quite a few years has rubbed off on me. No, I don't believe in it, at all. But I find it amusing, ALWAYS, to see what people have 'predicted' for me, and my zodiac and my birthdate and blah blah blah...

Now, many [Read : MANY!] people keep telling me that I'm a 'Perfect Arian', whatever that means ;) Now, I'm not, technically, a 'perfect Arian'.. I'm 'cusp born', which I found out when I did a summer job with an astrologer (he's a nice chap... paid me well :D ), and read a lot of Linda Goodman... Super timepass believe me!

Anyway, according to that astrologer, I'm a 'Taurean', cos of some birthdate + year + time thingy... Well, Linda Goodman has asked every person to be aware of exactly what zodiac they are. "For all you know, you're a Ram who lives his entire life thinking he's a Bull!"

How THAT matters is, my dear ladies and gentlemen, beyond me!

Anyway, some things called Suzanne White and Master Rao on Facebook tell me that I'm an 'Earth Snake' according to Chinese Astrology. (Uh, why are there so many different astrologies and how come all of them are 'right'???) Anyway...

Brief Description: Snakes are wise (yay!), romantic (blah!) , deep thinkers heavily guided by their intuition (does that make me sound interesting?). They do not trust others easily (I don't trust this!) and have trouble accepting criticism (no way!).

Positive Traits: amiable (uh, what does that mean?) , compromising (me? yea right! and that's supposed to be positive?), fun-loving (huh?), altruistic (f^(k you, that is just a term!), honourable (^_^), sympathetic (about?), philosophical (of course I am :P), charitable (Yea, I'm going out notes now, want a 500?), a paragon of fashion (snort!), intuitive (I have a feeling they're bluffing...), discreet (very!), diplomatic (that's a politically correct term), amusing (I amuse myself a lot) and sexy (HAHAHAAAAAAAAAAA!)

Negative Traits: self-righteous (that's negative?), imperious (now what does this mean???), judgmental (so?), conniving (they know about my plot to take over the world...), mendacious (I should start using dictionary.com more often...), grabby (no way!), clinging (uh, that seriously is the last thing I am!), pessimistic (lol!), fickle (huh?), haughty (that aint negative dude!), ostentatious (whatever!) and a very sore loser (I am so not!)

There was more after this, but I have no patience to actually read it now!

:D :D :D

2008-04-28T13:29:00.000-07:00

Aaaahhhhhh!!!!!!
I'm in such a weird mood! Haven't felt this way in ages! It's like being 8 again...
For the first time in ages, like really ages, I've been hopping around. I've stomped around. I've talked shit. I've felt like whistling. I've laughed for no reason... I feel like crying happy tears, if that's even possible :P Nah, kidding! Last thing me wants to do right now is cry!
I want to fly! I want to drive fast on an empty road! I want to eat something interesting! I want to order food cos it's been a long time since I ordered food. I want to drink lots of coffee. I want to blow coffee bubbles at strangers!
I want to drink Irish coffee! I want to eat lots of chocolate... I want to have melted chocolate stuck to my fingers and lick my fingers clean in front of all the cleanliness and hygiene freaks :P
I want to slurp milkshake in a crowded cafe. I want to point at weird people on the street and laugh! I want to scream from the top of a building...
I want to ride a bike. I want to bottoms-down sipra lime :P
I want to scream at a female dog in the middle of the road and say "You bitch! Haha!"
I want to talk to everyone who's around! I want to write! I want to say silly things!
I want to send a ":D" to everyone who's online. I want to smile at random creatures in the hostel, including bandicoots.
I want to laugh at a bandicoot which gets stuck going into a hole and say "ha! you got stuck! heheheeeeee"

I'm happy. For no bloody reason. :D

I have to think...

2008-04-26T12:14:00.000-07:00

Maybe an after effect of MMSC, but nowadays, I have this sudden urge to blog even when I don't really have anything to blog about...

But that isn't really possible, is it? I'm a person who's mind is never empty. I dunno what it's like with other people, mainly because i haven't spoken about this to other people. So maybe it's just a perfectly normal thing, but I think it's something to do with me alone cos I don't know that its a normal phenomenon!

Like, when I was younger, a lot of normal things seemed weird to me.. I thought I was the only one who day dreamed for instance... I have this habit of thinking I'm unique I guess :P

Anyway, my 'mind' is never silent... something keeps happening inside. some noise or the other. my multiple personalities keep scheming, and keep coming up with plots to take over the world, one step at a time!

Once upon a time, I used to do math in my head. Not just simple addition subtraction multiplication... I used to do calculus in my head... pick the most complex looking problem and try to solve it in my head when i'm bored... it was good time pass...

Now I'm no longer a student of mathematics...

There is not a single waking moment of my life where I haven't 'thought'... I have to think while eating, while drinking, while peeing, while talking to others... I have to think compulsively sometimes... If I'm talking to someone boring, i amuse myself by having the next ten lines of the conversation ready in my head and trying to hit the bulls eye about what the other person is going to say next...

I have to think just before I sleep... I have to think think think...............................................

Life is all about discoveries

2008-04-24T12:50:00.000-07:00

This is called wanting to write about something badly, opening the clicking on the new post button and then realising that writing it is really not happening :P

Anyway...

Life is all about discoveries. You discover yourself, you discover the world around you... and I choose to do these things using my blogs as tools...

I've realised in the past few days that I cannot live without speaking. If, by some accident, I was to lose my voice at some point of my life, I'd just as well choose to die... I need my voice.

And I need to do work continuously.. I can't take a break.

And I have some priorities in life. And I have to take care of them.

My personal life has gone through a lot of ups and downs in the past few months, most of which hardly anyone knows about, and almost all of it I wouldn't like to discuss. Un expected stuff... Stuff that I never hoped would happen... which led to stuff that I always hoped would happen.. Seen things, not boasting, but things that are probably much beyond my age...

I've been in overwhelming situations - but never got a chance to vent it all out. Or more like, never felt a real need to vent it. May be, if I do, it won't be real anymore...

Do I talk to people? But why should they listen to me? And why should they even try to understand anyway? It's my life for god's sake! Why should anyone else care?

But why then am I talking now after so many years...? I haven't spoken about a lot of things to anyone outside of my family till probably a couple of months ago... Why did I start doing it then? What was the need?

It started with one person - if you're reading this, I'm sure you don't know that I'm talking about you. But this is where I say the one thing I need to say - Thank you. You made me start doing what I should have done ages ago. And if somethings are better now, I think the credits for initiating change go to you.

Then i started talking. I dunno why. I don't believe in 'sharing my pain' or whatever... It really is not that... But I just needed things to be real I guess... Didn't want to end up realising someday that it was all my imagination... You know how difficult things sound in your head, but when you actually say it out, loud and clear, you realise it's pretty trivial?

No, it isn't trivial. But it helps to know that it isn't. It helps to know that it is actually as grave as it sounds in my head... At least my head is functioning properly...

What is the point of this whole thing? It is meant for me, not you... However, if you did understand any part of it, you're welcome to comment...

living hell...

2008-04-21T10:36:00.000-07:00

This post is dedicated to all those who know me.

It hurts. It hurts to eat. It hurts to drink. It hurts to brush my teeth. It hurts to spit out saliva. It hurts to even swallow it! And it hurts damn bad!

For all those who believe that I brought this on my own head - I'm not going to justify myself or any such shit. I know I haven't been eating properly - my fault. But all those who believe that I deserve this - No. Even the most evil person on earth doesn't deserve to not eat, drink, or even cough like a normal person when they really want to.

It's really not funny when, in the night, I have to wake up atleast 3 times to make sure I don't drool on my pillow. It's not funny at all when I can't drink water from a tap. It's not even remotely funny when I'm hungry (really hungry), and am not able to eat...

I really appreciate all the help from you guys - the past few days have honestly been some of the best in my life - I feel very, very loved. I know I'm not very good with this expressing emotions stuff, and many a times, I've been misinterpreted too! But I really mean this - thanks for all the help! I understand your concern everytime you ask me to eat - please understand that it's not like I don't want to!

Everytime I even drink something, and a little particle gets stuck on one of those ugly things, it burns. It burns to take the tablets I've been religiously taking. It burns like hell to apply the gel, which I've been applying as often as possible. It burns to open my mouth after keeping it shut for 5 minutes...

And i can't say any of this. I can't speak.

All I can do is to blog.

And yes, to the doctors tomorrow. Without fail.

Alful - My secret!!!

2008-03-31T04:38:00.000-07:00

My dear blogger brothers and sisters, sit back and read, for this post is going to be the most emotional you have ever read in your entire bloody lives. I, Ragamalika the great, am going to share a secret with you today. You should be honoured! *wipes away a tear*

Tomorrow is a day that has always fascinated me. No no, I’m not being philosophical; don’t try looking for deeper meanings. I am talking about April 1 – ‘All Fools’ Day’ (henceforth AFD). Since time immemorial, I have ‘celebrated’ this day with full vigour! When I was a little kid running around (my mother says that’s a wrong expression. She says I never ran – I just dragged my feet…) with other little kids and falling down and getting hurt, I remember being the only person with a sense of humour. Every time I pulled a great prank on someone, I’d congratulate myself for being a genius! But for some reason, no one else laughed. They said it wasn’t funny at all – I know better. They just didn’t understand my jokes. Ha!

Anyway, I’ve always marvelled the genius who came up with a concept of a day for playing pranks and fooling people. I mean, this has got to be the most practical ‘western festival’ ever! To celebrate Valentine’s Day, you need to have a boyfriend/girlfriend/husband/wife or any of the above in the plural. To celebrate Mothers’ day and Fathers’ day, you need to be slightly senti, and you just have to make sure you don’t get into an argument with them on that day.

But AFD is plain and simple celebration of creativity. How best can you make a total jack-ass out of a person? How well can you fool them, knowing that they know that it’s AFD? What lengths are you ready to go to show the world that you are the best prankster on earth, and then when all of them are awed by you, quickly take over the world!!! Muhahahahahaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!

< / evil laugh>

(Oops, did I just let out my masterplan??? Shhh! Don’t tell anyone!)

Anyway, I just did a google search on AFD, and guess what they define it as – a holiday of uncertain origin! Damn it, there has to be a better explanation for the best day of the year!

Anyway, the most ‘popular’ theory about the origin of AFD is some bullcrap about shifting of the calendar beginning from April to January. So those who still celebrated the new year in April after the calendar was shifted were considered fools. Oh, haha! Let’s all laugh because it’s oh-so-funny! Please!

All that, my dear children of Kalyug, is not true at all. Do not listen to any of these people who tell you any such ‘theories’, for I, and only I, know the truth.

Once upon a time, long long ago, there was a man who had only one eyebrow. Now this man, he took care of all the work for the king of the land. He made sure that the people stayed happy and did their work and paid their taxes on time. He made sure the king slept with all 99 and a half wives of his in rotation. He made sure that the other 98 and a half wives were also, ahem, satisfied every night. He took care of the number plates on the necks of the 151.75 kids and kept track of which kid belonged to which wife. He did everything that was to do, for his sole aim was to make sure that the governance was smooth…

One day, our man was taking a long walk and he stumbled upon a magic cow dung cake. As soon as he stepped on it, out came a genie! Well, similarities with Aladdin stop right there. This genie, whose name was ‘Alful’, didn’t grant him wishes, he just said, “Dude, what a loser life you lead man! Like, chillax no! Go play a couple of pranks on those wives of your dumb king! Scare those kids by acting like a monster or something! Do something dude!”

And so, our man thought and thought and at last realised the genie was right. So, with the power of governance he already had in his hand, not only did he play pranks on the entire kingdom, he also made sure the rest of the world did! He named the day ‘Alful’s Day’ after the genie who made him realise what a fool he had been till then! Today, that has been mutated to ‘All Fools’ Day’.

And I, I am the genie’s great great grand daughter. All hail Alful!

Crazy at last!

2008-03-24T13:49:00.000-07:00

I've been telling people for quite sometime - cha, I have no excitement in life; nothing new happens anymore; I haven't done anything crazy in ages...

Well guess what, I just did. the four days that we had off, I just went crazy...

Had a 'sleepover' in hostel (:P) and watched this really stupid chick flick. And then we wrote this beautiful 'song', and then set it to tune and even sang it ;) And I had a couple of sips of neat vodka. (burnt my throat!)

The next day, I got up in the afternoon, and didn't do anything the whole day..

The day after that, on Holi, I didn't get out in the morning. But I went to end point late afternoon with a couple of friends.. We walked along the jogging track, all the while getting wet in the rain... and then we got a wave of inspiration and decided to trek down the hill to the river, and go boating! Perfect plan, right? Well, we thought the same, till we trekked halfway down and got stuck. There was no way to get down after that!

I refused to climb back up, but my dear friends were convinced that jumping down and dying was more painful than climbing back up the hill. I wonder why they thought so!

So, we trekked back up and it was MAD! We spent some time in the park after that, clicking crazy pics...

All the while getting wet in the rain ;)

And on Sunday, I met a school friend after 7 years! Went to Mangalore and had a lot of junk to eat... Including this ice cream called 'Jackpot' which has the weirdest possible combination of everything. Including Jelly and Halwa :P

Then went to Suratkal and then back to Manipal...
And went to dinner with a couple of friends and tried Hukka for the first time... Turns out I'm not really cut out for 'intoxicants'...

Well, so, at the end of this craziness, I'm succesfully feeling feverish. Have a cold and a headache. Hope i don't fall sick! All hail crocin!

Let's play Tag!

2008-03-21T10:41:00.000-07:00

Ok, I'm gonna answer these really weird questions, and I'm gonna tag ppl. Why? Coz I've never played tag before, and i want to try!

What is one weird thing about you that nobody knows till date?
Umm... Well, I picture almost everything. And in a particular format that too. So if you say "39", in my head I can see

21 31 41
22 32 42
23 33 43
24 34
25 35
26 36
27 37
28 38
29 39
30 40

Yea, weird...

Favourite Ice cream flavour?
Blackcurrant!

The craziest dream you had in the past one week?
Well, now, this is interesting. I dreamt that my friend Ruchika was a terrorist, killing people left right and centre, in this weird old palace where there were a lot of us. She was very good at aiming and shooting, and for some reason, she thought we were all with her! And then, I coaxed the gun out of her hand, and she took out this huge rifle kinda thing... She shot at a wall, and the whole building came collapsing down on us!!! It was a looong dream, but the short of it is - I got killed. x|

One embarrassing thing you've done in public, which comes to your mind right now?
Uh, I was standing at this bus stop, and this bus stopped there... Wasn't my route.. Was just standing there looking around. And through the window, I saw this girl. She was my classmate, I thought, and started waving to her. When she didn't wave back, I was like, can't you recognise your classmate??? And then it hit me...

Are you going to be attending MMSC? Why or why not?
Of course! It's the bestest thing ever!!!

I tag Anadi, Akruti, Karishma, Ram

You guys are supposed to answer the same questions, and pass it on to minimun 3 other people, and tell them that they've been tagged. After you've posted your replies on your blog, you let me know through mine!

Questions.. Questions... Questions...

2008-03-17T11:49:00.000-07:00

When I was in school and we had study about Buddha, I was like, what a jobless guy man! Why would he be so worried about the 'truth' and stuff like that? Just enjoy maadi and chill maadi, right?
Wrong, apparently. Maybe it's the age and those weird liquids in your body fooling around with your mind, bring to your memory super-hip term like 'teenage anxiety', 'growing up confusion' or shit like that... these questions just trouble you. Like seriously seriously trouble you.
Am i gonna end up like this middle aged person I know? Am I gonna die like a gory death? What'll happen after I die? Will anyone care that I existed, except for maybe my family and a couple of other people? How does it matter anyway? All the work that we do - for whatever reason - how does it matter in the end? Ok, I enjoy doing something now, but does it matter to me, or am I just doing it because I'm part of the 'system'? So if I decide to stay away from the system and be labelled an outcast, does that mean I need not work, or eat, or sleep, or do anything?
What is hunger and sleep anyway? Is it in your stomach and your eyes? What happens when we sleep? If I were faced by death now, will I be scared? What'll be the first thought in my head? Will I think about what I have done in life, or what other things I want to do in life? If I were to die now, suddenly, will I be happy? And do my emotions matter in death? What the frickin hell is death anyway?
How much do relationships matter? I had a lot of friends at different stages of my life, and there are very few from the past that I still keep in touch with. And to be very very very frank, I don't 'miss' most of them. Is it just me - emotionless, ruthless, harsh, cold Ragamalika? Or is it like everybidy is the same but nobody accepts it cos that's the norm - to miss ppl. This is not to say I didn't have fun with them when I was with them - I did. LOTS. But I don't crave for those times now... Isn't that just part of moving on?
How much does it matter that someone who was very close to me at one point has drifted away now? It's not like that fact is constantly in my head. So if I can constantly be occupied with something else, it doesn't matter right? There is no problem to be addressed, right?
And what is this whole 'stress on emotions' anyway? How does it matter to anyone how I am feeling right now, but I still tell everyone I can about how I'm feeling. Is't that plain dumb?

The story of my life

2008-03-13T12:14:00.000-07:00

And then, there were none...

Or so I thought till I saw one more...

Eh...

2008-03-07T11:21:00.000-08:00

Happy Women's Day...

Today (or is it yesterday already?), I was talking to a friend about 'boy trouble'... I'd link to her blog to reveal who she is, but what's the point, she doesn't blog anymore... Snap out of it woman!

Anyway, coming back to 'boy trouble'... This is a term I've encountered ever since I realised that even if I cut my hair short, I'm still for some reason different from those who wear shorts to school... Not that the difference made any difference in the beginning... I can remember playing Kabbadi with a bunch of homo sapiens with y-chromosome till as late as class 8... Not that I got 'shy' afterward, or 'realisation dawned on me' or any such shit, just that i shifted schools (again!) after class 8, and in the new place, 'girls don't do such things!'

Whatever!

People who know me from school know that I've been suffering from 'boy trouble syndrome' ever since forever. Just that, its a different kind of boy trouble than they mostly had...

For most of my school life, I've had so many fights with guys, I can't even start counting. Whether it was the time when I was 9 years old and got told off by my class teacher for kicking a guy 'where it hurts the most!' (Well, in my defense, we were having a fight and i didn't consciously choose to kick him, forget kicking him 'right there'...) Or the endless arguments I've had with guys because they kept teasing me (Like you're an athletic hunk yourself , you asshole!)... Or those totally irritating arguments about who got more marks... Or who's smarter or who can talk better...

Somehow, this boy problem seems to have vanished after i came to college... Some people might want to disagree, but hell, compare myself to then and now... dude its impossible!

Maybe its age... Maybe its just the people... Or maybe it is just plain Manipal...

Welcome to another year of understanding "womanhood" and "manhood".

PS: According to one Miss M, my 'normal boy troubles' seem to have vanished as well... I don't understand what she means obviously.