Handling Irritants - A case study.

Day in and day out, one comes across people who know only to irritate and break the hell loose out of the mildest of human beings. I don’t know the intentions behind this category of homo sapiens, but any argument they raise will be futile at all given circumstances. Here are certain tips on how to bring that curve on your lips back, instead of tearing your hair.



Scenario1: You have just got some information from an onsite call, and need to close an urgent ticket within an hour. You rush from the conference room to your workstation, grab a chair and start flipping through screens. Suddenly the irritant appears from nowhere and says, ‘Hey how come you always take my chair’. At the back of your mind you want to bang the chair on his head. But here is the tip. ‘Hey, I am sorry I took your chair, but evidently, I was in a hurry, and have so much work that I couldn’t measure the size and shape of it before sitting on it’.

Advantages:

1. You said sorry and apologized.

2. You have made a point that you are busy, and he is the one making fuss over a chair.

3. You win. He is speechless.

Scenario2: Some girls cannot even stand it, if another wears a new dress, or if they just got married. They also tend to say green-with-jealousy stuff like, ‘So what if that is a new dress.. I had one like that two years back.’ This statement usually gives them heavenly bliss. Another typical statement is, ‘Hi, did I tell you that I have an aunt who looks just like you?’. Boys please stop reading here. Girls, please continue. This is a rather twisted statement. The person who said this obviously couldn’t contain their jealousy at your dress, purse, car, haircut. So they want to attain satisfaction by saying that you look like an aunt. Just immediately say, ‘Is it? I think you have put on so much weight than I saw you last time’. If that was a girl, You Win without leaving any traces of her!

Scenario3: At office irritants can come in the form of managers, Leads, colleagues, subordinates or security guys. Well, just keep smiling and never let it go. There is no way out than to grudge and grumble within, still smile and make a statement outside.


Scenario4: Someone makes fun of you in a totally unreasonable manner. Or even has the courage to say something about you referencing your parents too. You want to kill them on the spot. But don’t.
Tip – Say , ‘My parents taught me not to make fun of others or say a tit-for-tat. Hmm..They had a point’. The rivals may laugh, but here are the advantages.

1. You portray a good image of yourself and your parents and exhibit aristocracy.

2. You say indirectly what their parents taught them ( I love this point ).

3. You win again, as no one has no reason to complain. You dint say anything, right!


Scenario5: Someone makes fun of your appearance, hair, height. If you are married, say, ‘Oh my, how much you care for me…Even my husband/wife dint notice that..!’. This could obviously leave the irritant hunting for words.
If you are unmarried, say, ‘I wish I was perfect, like you’ with a smirk and a laugh. This always works, in all given situations. You always win in this, unless it is Hema Malini or Sridevi who is talking to you.

Top ten husband myths.

Here are a few husband / boyfriend / prospective groom myths. I hope any girl reading this would agree with me, and any broad minded guy would admit/laugh/nod/ at it.  Here is to you, guys :)

Myth1: If a woman overtakes him on the road, then it is a potential threat to masculinity.


Myth2: To stay in her house for more than a day would mean that he is henpecked.

(‘Sorry Mom, we will come again for Christmas..this time we really have to go back as my dog is not well and it has to be taken to the Vet’)

Myth3: That making comparison of her cooking to that of his Mom’s would help her love his Mom even more.

“You know… my Mom makes fish curry like….’ AAARGH! ( That dialogue nullifies appettite. Cooking is not in the picture anymore. Sure everyone knows what kind of comments those statements invite)

Myth4: Washed, sun dried crisp clothes will be in the wardrobe whether she is here or not. The biggest myth of all times.

Myth5: Apparel shopping is more boring than being in the science section of the British Library.

‘Please go with your friends. I am not well’

Myth6: Hrithik is not all that sexy. He is just ‘okay’.

‘Oh whats there to admire about..he is tall..and dances well…that’s it’ (Very very typical)

Myth7: We can always get a fresh pair of socks, even if one of it was put to laundry and the other is still inside the shoe.

Myth8: Her dad is not all that smart.

Myth9: My mother never talks like that! Women really cook up stuff.

Myth10: Gossiping? Thats what women do!

( Do yo guys really discuss about Mamta Banerjee and Sonia Gandhi at smoking zones?)

Rewinding to those lovely days again.

Well, one of my friends who called marriage ‘legal prostitution’ recently got married, and I am totally happy that finally she did. Ironically it was a love marriage and I wonder whether it was so huge enough even to inspire Chetan Bhagat (Two States!). She was one crazy non-vegetarian "Brahmin girl", who would go to such extent as to catch fish from my fish tank at home for lunch. Her near and dear don’t have any idea about this, as she carries a factory of mint in her bag and always smells of fresh veggies ( and sometimes of stale ones).


Innumerable school day memories always come rushing to my head, when I am not thinking of something crazy (which doesn’t happen too often). I still remember the teacher who hated me, another, who actually loved me like she would her daughter. If only I could wind back time. At school whatever mischief I got into, however big a hurdle befell me, I knew Papa would be there for me. Sometimes it was to squeeze my ears in front of my teachers, but still he would buy me Frooti on the way back home, as a sign of apology. And back home, Mummy would be there, supporting me even if I was wrong (but never if the grades are low).

Now my Mom bakes cocoa cakes like no other in the country. My friends would come home and attack the cake seconds after it is taken from the oven. In a few minutes, it would look like a mountain of brown rice, and we would be uncivilized barbarians, until not even a tiny morsel is left . Even today, I cant properly make chocolate milk, given milk, sugar and chocolate cream or if I did, the kitchen would look like a war zone. Only God knows how she makes those little brown pieces of heaven.

Days passed and Papa showed signs of diabetes. So it was my turn to play ‘Papa’. I would give the cold ‘how-dare-you’ stare at wedding lunches when the caterers come to serve ice cream. Papa would look at me like a lamb and I would finally yield to a small spoon of ice cream to taste. Mummy is lucky enough not to have diabetes history in her family, but rejects even a spoon of it ( 'Papa's food, is poison for Mummy), as she thinks it would change her voice and  made to sing ‘bass’ with other men in the choir.

I also used to be in that choir.


Which is not funny if any of you are laughing.

Breathing an air of disgust..

At this point of time, I personify annoyance. I remain pissed off. I stay aloof from what you call, LIFE. I can’t say what it is, over here, as some futile concerns have saturated the air around me. I do not hope for a better outcome. I do not wish for it. During subtle breaks from intense displeasure, I still thank God for being born in the perfect family, and having the best people in my innermost circle.


Somehow, I am not able to explain the state of affairs going on. It is unjust and mean. However I do not want to reveal it, as I know that there are people who actually rejoice at my sorrow. I have been nagging,  and touchy with my sis and better half who are well aware of my situation , but the issue continues to depress me in all its glory. It is stealing away good times. It is haunting me day in, day out. I am shaken and insecure. I am apprehensive and have forgotten the good things around. I just ceased to see the blue of the sky. Everything appears in black, white and gray to me.

It is just the tough getting going. It is temporary. It is huge as it passes.
God, I know you are reading this. Please help me stand the pain.

Corporate Blues.

I now know how frustrated a person can be at office and how equally demeaning are its policies. People , people everywhere but not a friend to talk. By the way who needs friends during these trying times? Especially cry baby friends. Some such friend species can break the hell out of you.. And that too in such a place as my office.

Before one talks about my pay package or recognition, the first thing I want out of a workplace is peace of mind. Given a chance I would explode the HR to bits. They kind of decide when we should go to the loo. They tell us what ******* to wear on which day. Ultimately they decide our lives. The day will come when they tell us whom to marry. I wanted to do an MBA in HR, but I dropped the idea. Who would voluntarily want to bear the curse of thousands of employees for the rest of their lives? I certainly do not.

Now they want us to set ‘goals’ for the performance year. Goals! And me? ! Sure typing imaginary stuff in goal settings can be very interesting at times. Especially when my goal is to finish off the moron who wants us to document the goals. Whatever. Now there is a guy, who approves it. He can be miles away or in a totally different planet. And he, decides what I should do during the coming ‘performance’ year. Oh that sounds very interesting and pragmatic. And there is another guy, who analyzes what the alien has approved and passes his own comments in it. The broth is now spoiled to its nucleus by all the supernatural cooks and this would be the documentation of my fate for another 365 days. End of the day, I end up venting my frustration on my blog and the approvers are drawing fat salaries and filling excel sheets in their glass cabins.

Heights of injustice as I call it. There is another category whom I want to bombard and get rid of to the very blood cell. They are called ‘peer groups’. These are disturbingly lucky chaps and definitely not any better. They get promoted every six months and thereby raise the assessment bar so high that other deserving fellows are dragged through the rock bottom and they get to see how it is like to be in a space where there is rock bottom and layers of crap on it.
 I am in such a space now.

 It doesn’t feel good.

 It doesn’t smell good.

 I can still see the undeserving morons smirking devilishly at me.

It is ugly.

What comes when you least expect it to come?

Hiccups.!

It stays until I:

 Gulp down countless gallons of water (Makes me think about shifting my workstation nearest to the loo)

 Eat sugar or gulp down a big ball of rice ( these resources would be unavailable on the spot)

 Hold breath until I’m almost dead ( I would die to get rid of it !)

 People around me take the ongoing conversation into their court. ( Situational advantage)

 The morons across the table who are entertained by the whimsical show are out of breath.

And, not necessarily in that order. Sometimes one has to live with such irrational tendencies. Sigh..! Inbuilt ways of being publicly embarrassed..!

Hiccup Occurrence:

If you have read till here, you might have understood that I have nothing to write about. Although that is partially true, I really got pissed off with hiccups today, which extended its occurrence like a mega serial. Halt and think before you write me off saying that I am unbelievably silly. There is an interesting group discussion going on.. the hiccup descends on me for no reason at all, and it refuses to leave my damn throat after repeated attempts of breath holding and gulping down gallons of water! Isn’t it embarrassing? GRR. Now the group is so amused by the show that they laugh their heads off . God save these pessimistic morons.

The spasmodic contraction of diaphragm !@$%^&*(! Well that was the definition of hiccup I got when I googled it.

Lord,
Lead us not into hiccups and deliver us from embarrassment.

*HICCK—UP *!

If only I could..

1.Seize all the street dogs in Bangalore, and dump them at Maneka Gandhi’s house. *Evil grin*

2. Suggest all gadget makers to make gadgets- especially cameras, tolerant to water and rough handling, so that people like me are allowed to touch them.

3. Make pop corns at theatres cheap so that I can afford and eat them peacefully, without calculating the number of movie tickets I could have bought with the same amount. Moreover, during some Hindi movies, these are the only reasons which keep me awake.

4.Send an invitation to Queen Elizabeth to visit my parents so that Mummy has a reason to use her best crockery.

5.Convince Papa to stop smoking. Cigarettes should be denied to Papa from every store, even if he agrees to pay double the price or more.

6.Install repellant rays in front of my car so that either people or animals crossing the road during my arrival will be temporarily paused and I can have a peaceful drive and they can have a longer life.

7.Rats and cockroaches should be banished from the surface of the earth and theory of eco cycle revised.

8.Make all vessels microwaveable and microwaveable vessels unbreakable.

9.Revise Christian wedding wows, which say that the bride should ‘obey’ and groom should ‘love’. Does it mean that the bride doesn’t necessarily have to ‘love’ and the groom doesn’t know what the word ‘obey’ means?

10.Ask God to show some mark of acknowledgement by which we can be sure that He was listening to our prayers. There should not be any typical signs by which we can understand that He is angry, especially during salary revision.

11.Good looks, intelligence, talents and culinary skills must not only be inherited by the first kid of a family. Research should be done by scientists to have some of these left for the second kid also.

12.Ensure that personal issues like tooth decay, be available only to people whom we authorize. It should not be celebrated in the family with occasional irritating sighs of ‘No one else in the family has problems with teeth’.

13.There shouldn't be anything called a ‘ripe age for marriage’ and every girl/boy should be excused from the torture and stigma associated with it.

14.A five minute delay for going to the doctor/vegetable shopping/movie should be tolerated with patience. One should not be stared and silenced as if we are late for the All India Entrance Examination.

15.Lock my sister in a room of my house, with access to food for a day and make her watch animal planet. (She hates animals ).

16.Adult movies can be watched only after 18. But there is no age limit for cartoons. No one should be underestimated for watching cartoons.

17.In corporate circles, a person should be granted the right to choose the person who evaluates him.

18.The cost of Golden Retrievers and Pugs should drop so that people other than The Ambani’s can afford them. (My cousin should be allowed to keep a Neopolitan Mastiff, which she identifies as her ‘Prince Charming’). Such dogs should inherently eat less.

19.Biscuits should be less brittle so that the place where we eat it is not littered. Even if it does, it should not attract ants, but it should still be sweet. Even if it attracts ants, it should not be considered as a grave mistake and people should not be forced to sit at the dining table to eat biscuits.

‘Anita! Are you done with the coding?’

What?

Onam News..!

Gadget shopping, when the festival discounts are at a full swing is a great idea. It turns out to be even more exciting when it is raining heavily outside, the credit card machine doesn’t work and one has to run in the rain to withdraw the amount from the ATM. I rush out of the ATM with the withdrawn amount, having Papa waiting outside and he notices me carrying the money in my hand in exactly the same way as it had come out of the machine. The whole series of affairs is at its peak of glory when I have to put his handkerchief (which is nearly close to the dimensions of a bead spread) on my head (I know it doesn’t help, but I do it for Papa) when it’s raining cats and dogs, the way we can’t see each other, but I still can make out each and every word of Papa on how to fold money safely after coming out of an ATM and not provoke onlookers in the queue, as it is a bad, bad world.

Back home, it’s a cozy, happy Onam with Papa, Mummy and Ammamma (grand mother). Papa is still on the ‘dispersing wisdom ‘ mode.

Papa: “You should practice to drink tea or coffee. Wherever you go, you will be offered either of these, and you shouldn’t be fussy and ask for juice or horlicks”

Me: *STARE*

Papa: “why cant you drink TEA like everyone else” GRR

Me: “‘ Why cant everyone else drink Horlicks ?”

The conversation ends there, and Ammamma laughs away hysterically, totally unaware of the fact that we all know that she drinks Junior Horlicks 1-2-3.

Back to office,and Onam celebrations back home gets into the pages of graceful yet painful memories as the claws of nostalgia firms its grip hard on me, so much that inspite of work piling in my bucket, I manage to sneak out of office and go home just to sleep on the couch. The frequency of STD calls to home are aggressively high and the bills are alarming. I guess Papa is partially true when he says that Airtel survives just because of me. I never take a look at my watch when I make a call to home or friends, because even during financially tough times, I think time spent for relationships which are priceless should not be measured.

Onam was special this time, as I had my grandma accompany us to our home, when we went to visit her. I persuaded her to come with us, and she did. Her face is still the perfect circle, the reason why we used to assume that she is the daughter of the then ‘Circle’ Inspector, (stale joke I know), and she gets softer each time. Her culinary expertise is phenomenal that even water is tasty if she boils it. I might be the mark of disgrace to the family in this area, as my mom and sister have invariably inherited the great culinary skills of my grandma.
I am glad Papa has not tasted any of my dishes, as once he tastes it he will cut my side of the branch from the family tree.

That’s all this time :). Have a nice weekend, folks!

Tagged!

This is to notify one of my fellow bloggers ( meet this blogger at: http://themindmeanders.blogspot.com/ ) that I am also 'proudly stupid'!
Here it comes...!

1. Grab the book nearest to you, turn on page 18 and find line 4
Aperture…adjustments…focal length. ..Its the user manual of the camera I recently bought.

2. Stretch your left arm out as far as you can & catch air?
Grabbed some air.. and a chair.

3. What is the last thing you watched on TV?
one Malayalam movie which they played on asianet today morning.

4. Without looking, guess what time it is?
2:30 pm?

5. Now look at the clock, what is the actual time?
2:15 pm.

6. With the exception of the computer, what can you hear?
My neghbour's dog barking.

7. When did you last step outside? What were you doing?
Stepped in to home from outside by 7 a.m.

8. Before you started this Q&As, what did you look at?
My blog.

9. What are you wearing?
A red and black cotton pants and white t shirt.

10. When did you last laugh?
Just half an hour back.

11. What is on the walls of the room you are in?
Basically paint… also a calendar, clock, two ravi varma paintings, 2 small sony speakers.

12. Seen anything weird lately?
Havent seen.. but heard something weird.

13. What do you think of this quiz?-
Nothing.

14. What is the last film you saw?
At the theatre- Bhramaram. On TV – Arabikadha.

15. If you became a multimillionaire overnight, what would you buy?
Would first finish my credit card dues.

16. Tell me something about you that I dunno!
I don’t know!

17. If you could change one thing about the world, regardless of guilt or politics, what would you do?
Attitude.

18. Do you like to Dance?
Yes, at home, alone.

19. Imagine your first child is a girl, what do you call her?
Shyamala

20. Imagine your first child is a boy, what do you call him?
Komalan.

21. Would you ever consider living abroad?
Yes, not only for the lucrative salaries, but to see the world, to learn about people, to widen my views, and to do a lot of shopping..!

22. What do you want GOD to say to you when you reach the pearly gates?
My dear daughter, I am impressed by your performance. You are a lot better than your peers at office and you are brilliant. You are appointed as the manager for the project that you were working on, during the period 2008 – 2009. All your senior managers will report to you henceforth. They are currently in hell. Will appoint them soon.


So..that was it.Anyone who visits this blog, or even had gone through it, can consider answering this..! Pass it on..!

A call from happiness to despair..

That call came all of a sudden. I was balancing a plate of food, an overstuffed purse, and a mobile in my hands. The mobile hadn’t lost its ability to display the incoming number, and I was thankful to the fossil (read: mobile) for that. I kept the plate amidst a gang of cheerful friends, pressed the ‘answer’ button (which God willingly hadn’t been damaged yet) and moved apart.

It was an official call. The caller was melancholy. In another five minutes, it all happened. My performance ratings for the fiscal year were not even close to my expectations. My spirits faced a mighty downfall. My smiles collapsed to give room to expressions of indifference and frustration. I was facing away from my friends, and I could still hear them laughing. I stared through windows into space. The guy had already disconnected the call, but I was pretending to be on call. My eyes welled up. I am not an over ambitious techie who expects a double promotion with an onsite project in these times of recession. The right to desire the minimum is still mine. The passion and loyalty behind it is genuine and as real as life. I felt like being dropped unfeelingly from the top of a mountain into bare vacuum.

Holding the mobile closer to my ear, I rubbed off that tear with my dupatta. I was still on pretending mode. I was told that the guy who did my ratings had left. There weren’t officially anyone to help me, even though there would always be peers to join in my disastrous performance ratings and console me. My eyes were still fixed on nowhere. The urge to go back and join them at lunch was declining by the minute. If I go back now, I knew that my face would declare aloud the frustration which I do not prefer to disclose. It would spoil the only brief camaraderie which we all enjoy during lunch hours. I dint want to put the fly in the pudding.

I grabbed up some fake expressions, painted them beautifully on my face, and walked back merrily to the bunch of friends who never stopped eating. I talked and laughed as normally as I would always do, and left the cafeteria gradually, showing no signs of the fast depleting courage.
Back in my den, I leaned back and got lost in thoughts. I called up my sister and talked the matter out. Its almost out of my head now. But there are traces.

These ratings sure left a mark of despair,din't they? Not to let history repeat itself, is still in my ever optimistic hands. Safe until the next fiscal year.

Dear Papa... With Love.. :)

Happy Birthday Pappa…!!!

I am short of words here, but expressing completely my feelings and love for Papa is next to impossible. Here is a composition of a few things you might not have known.

Whenever I order cold coffee, I am reminded of you. Cos you used to make cold coffee for me and try to wake me up from my long afternoon naps. After repeated failed attempts you would say that the cold coffee would get cold!

I still don’t wear nail polish on nails of my right hand, because you don’t like it.(I know you don’t like it if I paint my left hand nails too, but sorry, that’s unavoidable!)

I used to appear annoyed and freaked out when you genuinely say that there’s no change in my appearance after I come back from the beauty parlor. But when you’re not noticing me, I would laugh my lungs out!

Even to this day, I don’t wear anything other than salwar while going to church, because you don’t like it otherwise.

Mummy , sis and me are in fact a welfare association trio effectively operating and functioning for you . We hold online STD meetings too. Beware we will soon come up with a bit insensitive decision on smoking.

My school friends love you more than me. I know that they dial my number to talk to you. You are a superhit among us girls! (Sorry Mummy)

When you drop me at tuitions, I would look at my watch and depending on the expected time that you reach home, I would console myself saying that you must have reached.

I still don’t know how to bind my books, as you did them so neatly until I passed out of Engineering College! (Anyone who reads this might say that you were responsible for pampering me, but I say that you made my books last longer!)

Even today, I am obsessed about Bata footwear. (Remember Bata ballerina school shoes..?)

You may just coldly flip pages through my drawing book, but I know you are proud of me when I hear you telling others that I make beautiful pencil sketches.

I loved it when you gifted my grandma ‘Junior Horlicks 1-2-3’.

I know you’ll be furious to know that I am not at par with current affairs and I am scared when you talk about it, but I am also proud to see my Papa knowing everything in the world.

You are so systematic in calculating my taxes, renewing savings and updating all financial stuff ..! Keep up the good work..! You are also my personal tax consultant!

Snoring during church sermons is not appreciable, but being able to summarize biblical verses and being wiser than the priest himself surely is.

We are really thankful for letting us accommodate our kitten at home after overcoming a lot of hesitation from your end . I also remember those five injections for which you diligently kept the dates and took me to, after it hurt me and disappeared. I’ve not asked you this, but I know that you know how it disappeared.

When I asked you whether we could adopt those three kittens from aunt’s house, and you said that I should choose between you and the kittens, I embarrassed you by taking a while to decide. But that was just to irritate you. I was sure I would choose you.

I am totally jealous of your friends, because, to this day, I couldn’t find one like you. But chill, I have YOU!

When you twisted my ear for losing the 151st umbrella you bought me, I was totally in pain. But I use those ear-twisting memories for being more careful.

You taught us to be patient and to shut our mouths tight when we’re angry and are in catastrophic situations. I appreciate the way you do it, but I don’t have one thousandth of the virtue you have to follow it.

This blog is dedicated to you, Papa, my best friend ever. Rock solid at life’s turbulences, soft hearted to your little girls, epitome of patience and good will, fountain of wisdom, and whose love is endless and boundless…that’s my Papa, who is the reason for who and where I am today, my role model, sole strength and support. My love for you knows no ends. Luckiest in the whole world I consider myself, for being born your daughter, and every day I thank the Almighty for giving me YOU. Love you loooots…!!!!
Long live His Highness Papa dear!!
MUAH!

An ode to Friendship..!!

Its friendship day, the only day I actually halt and think of my friends who support and care for me… as, on all other days I take them for granted. I am not such a perfectly lovable and sweet person. I am weird , impatient and horrifyingly short tempered. But it is a surprise that I still have friends, who know me well and do not bitch about me anyways.

Here is a tribute to my friends, as they dint simply happen to me, I handpicked them personally.
Here is to you, my friend, for..

1. Giggling, passing notes, drawing portraits of the teacher during classes(yeah, Miss.D) and playing pranks throughout… we painted the town RED!

2. Making my days from Std I to XII at Holy Angels Convent, the chapter of my life most visited , missed, and re-lived.

3. For all the lovely Archies greetings, innumerable gifts, soft toys and 36756 friendship bands, and for screaming at me if I don’t wear those bands for the rest of the year.

4. For calling me up on my birthday every year at 12:00 am sharp and making me say that you’re the first. ( I usually say that to anyone who calls after that too..! sorry idiot.)

5. For coming over to my house and making my neighbors wonder if the Tsunami occurred within the small geographical area of the premises of my house.

6. For helping me climb the stairs at school when I’d met with that scooter accident, and for making creative stories of how I met with that accident anyways * sensored*.

7. For lending me maths homework to copy ( even though it was wrong..yeah yeah anyone can make mistakes..where did u copy that from..?).

8. For letting me call your names whenever we encountered monkeys on the way to our excursion, and expressing that helplessness of revenge (oh that was priceless,darlings), as there was a teacher by my name in our bus.

9. For saying, ‘If I could have given you some marks of mine, I would have done that to raise your aggregates’ … I don’t know if the person I’m referring to still remembers this, but these are a few words I will not forget in my lifetime, and it makes you immortal in my world of friends. And, there are tears of happiness in my eyes now.

10. For being the life saver at college.

11. For staying awake all night when I was bed ridden, that too during University exams, and making me lemon tea every now and then, spoon feeding me dinner when I just couldn’t move, ironing my uniform, and for being just like a mother to me. I am not just plainly grateful.. I am indebted to you all my life.

12. For making me feel like a VIP at your wedding.

13. For making office just like a college.

14. For being the perfect batch of good-to-be-with people and for making me laugh my lungs out.

15. For creating an air of college at the pantry every noon and making lunch seem tastier than it actually was.. Lunch times were awesome..!

16. For considering me one among the guys and picking and dropping me at office get-togethers, treats and lets-go-have-a-juice evenings.

17. For referring to me as ‘best friend’ and saying that I was an ‘angel’ who touched your life. No one ever told me that, I am not even close to being angelic, but I’ll remember you for it, even though you don’t feel the same about me now.

18. For lending an ear to my innumerable silly complaints, grudges, troubles, problems and laughing them away… those were actually adjustment cranks to the totally new environment. This is my new home and I do feel like home..just because of u!

19. For being the most sensible person around and helping me overcome every single thing I bother about.

20. For defining what it is to be a great friend..!

Thanks everyone who touched my life is more ways than the above…there are trillions of points I dint cover here, but still, I am thankful as always… Happy Friendship Day…Love u all!!

****Fancy title currently not available****

Yeah the tough is getting goin...deprived of time and thereby ignoring even the basic sensation to pee, spending day, night and weekends in front of a monitor with lots of pending activities on my plate, sitting across tables listening to high end technical talks with the most uninteresting people in the world, gulping down lays and cheetos for lunch essentially at 4:00pm, realizing that I have a gadget called mobile phone after hours of royally ignoring its existence and finding smses from HSBC and Airtel ads flooding my inbox, and so on and so forth. This is currently my situation.No imaginative exaggeration attached. Makes me think I was so virtously destined to toil four years at that fateful instituition to gain this.!I'm certainly not doing what I want to, but basically, I want to do this, I sometimes find it interesting, I am mentally and physically involved in my work, but man, I need a break!

There is a ten minute walk from where I am diligently dropped everyday at 9:00pm to my home, and this is certainly not a joyful stride.I am called to overcome faunal hurdles of pretentiously sleeping dogs which await my arrival to wake up and potentially alert the entire lot of street dogs in that locality.Back home, I thank God for helping me reach home, safe from the deadly jaws of street animals, and for my ego, I would definitely not want to die so early, and for a reason if that ever happens,being bitten by a street dog is ceratinly not acceptable.
Poor blog is cerainly mirroring my thoughts err , frustration now!Poor thing. Damn it! Thats what you are meant to do!Bear the brunt of my momentary contraventions... God, did I deliver my work without getting it quality-checked...oh Holy Lamb of God! Help this poor sinner realize that life is not always the weekend...how long do I have to wait to reach the Pearly gates?

Golden eye, through my eyes!

A day at my hometown for a short weekend vacation would mean , tuning my ears to receive high frequency, high decibel sound from digital home theatre playing 007 movies. I have a bunch of little English-movie-savvy cousins too, enough to form a cricket team, who would totally get glued to it, and we would have to wait for the Tsunami to come if we were to make them get up from their seats and wash their hands for lunch/dinner. Small kids na, these are normal natural instincts of age, and that explains the fascination for Bond and his non existent gadgets.

Taking a little time off my errr..productively roaming around the house, I engaged myself to five minutes of ‘Golden Eye’ that they were watching. There’s a forest, Bond , a stunning woman whose name I obviously don’t know, near a small pond. In Bollywood this was a perfect setting for an item dance.
To my surprise, a large tower emerged out of the little pond, sequentially, meter by meter. Meanwhile Bond and the lass looked on. And there was the tower, almost as tall as the towers of our service providers. I screamed (I have to scream to get their attention as the volume was totally out of my hearing capabilities) ‘What is that’ ? ‘Tower’ came the collective reply in a microsecond. The faster they answer, the lesser the time they lose in between, as no one is allowed to distract; they were just trying to be nice to me. And my next question came in the next second itself. By this time, most of them had given me options enough through their facial expressions –It read- just leave or shut up. The former would be a more welcome choice. My next question was a concatenated series of unanswerable questions, may be to Bond himself. ‘ Tower? What do they do with that? What does it actually do? ‘ At this, the expressions I saw on their faces was priceless. Little Bond fans looking at each other and communicating eye to eye as to who will explain that to me.
So my question is answered. Its not just me!!!

I.T woes :(

Have you come across formally dressed people carrying square shaped bags and a belt err tag around their necks,a woebegone expression, forever engrossed in conversations on their bluetooth devices which sounds more or less like, 'Yeah the con call is fixed at 5:00 pm.' ... 'Yeah I'll take care of the presentation'..'I'll do that...' 'Yes, we are working on Saturday..'
These are typical techie conversations.These guys almost drive the nation, and are nothing more than high-level-programmed robots, who has eventually forgotten to smile. Some conversations in their day-to-day lives goes like this.

Husband is onsite. Wife is trying to chat with him on Yahoo messenger.
He: Ok, so bye for now. I have to prepare dinner.
She: I just started talking…I have so much more to say..
He: So you are saying that I should go to bed on an empty stomach after a tiresome day at office?
She: *expressions of despair* Hmm… I will prepare dinner for you. I just learnt how to make omelets.
He: You gonna take it up as ‘remote support’?

Mom of a techie had a sprain on her ankles. She had taken a week off and is on self imposed bed rest.
Trring..Trring…
Mom: Hellooo…did u reach office? Did u have breakfast? Did he go to office too? What did you cook for lunch? Is that dress I sent you fitting you properly? Did you call your in-laws? How is his work?
Techie (diplomatically ignores all questions): Tell me fast what is the ‘current status’ of the pain on your leg? Any ‘issue’ ?

He is sleeping overtime on a week day, and she tries to wake him up. After a few minutes,of consistent shaking and poking, he responds.
‘Key in username and password’.

At never-ending annoying queues of the cash counter in a super market.
She: Why cant this guy buy lesser items? Why does he need 3 packets of tea powder anyways? Why don’t they enhance this by having more sales guys and counters?
He:‘ You’re right. It is a 'high priority issue’

Auto driver : ‘ madam Mere paas balance dene ke liye 2 rupya nahin hai’
Techie: “No issues”.

A techie friend on phone: “ Did you know about that new movie? SRK is the villain as well as the hero. He is a…... ‘global variable’.

Techie to the maid: Pick her from school, and bathe her first. Keep an eye on her always, and make sure she finishes her homework. If she asks for me, tell her that I will come home early today, by 11 pm.Else, if she asks for her dad, convince her tactfully that he is spending the night at office.Else if she asks for food, prepare her favorite dosa with ghee in it. END IF.

Being Anita!!

Friends at school and their moms call me ‘APC’, which is highly creative nickname, the full form of which I would definitely not want to disclose here, for the horror of being addressed ‘APC’ in the years to come. I’d been the youngest in the family for quite a long time, and during this period, my cousin and sister used to publish my innocent (read ignorant) childish dialogues .They would laugh their lungs out and say those to anyone who visits the house. I would find temporary hideaway behind curtains, mummy’s saree and squeal at the top of my voice. I was a terribly bullied little girl *sob*.

I grew up smarter than them all, and now I have tagged their blunders too and so I’m equipped with enough weapons in case I am quoted or misquoted at family get-togethers or family weddings. My name is often pronounced by elders within double quotes to this day .

Holy Angels was the place err school where I met an absolutely wonderful group of pranksters and soon I became one among them. Birds of a feather. We called ourselves ‘the notorious nine’. But from the mischief’s we got into and the grades we scored, I’m sure we would have earned some other name among teachers…however, we loved being us. The nun at the office room who was snow white in complexion and weighed almost 150 kilos was ‘Giant Panda’ to us, and we collectively forgot her name after we left school (Girls, if you remember, please let me know).Then there were guys at the tuition classes nicknamed Dola (Donkey look-alike), M2 (Man Mountain) …and trillions of censored stuff which remains girly moments of laughter in our great book of blunders. I can go on writing pages on the lighter moments we had at school, but it is reasonable to keep them with myself because, the tendency to write the blunders of others will be more, and triggering people sunk in work to wake up and start blogging about me is potentially dangerous to my image.

After school, I went to college, the dark days of my life, distressing moments which I would rather not remember, as, unlike what college days means to most of u, it is downright catastrophic to me. There is not a moment in it worth recollecting, apart from the fact that I did academically well by the grace of God. All four years at engineering college one good thing that happened to me is my best friend whom I met at my hostel there, and she continues to be the gem she was, till date.

I compensated my college life at the firm I joined at Technopark and had an inexpressibly exciting time there. Now at Bangalore, again with a bunch of big-time fun-to-be-with people, I am comfortable as ever, closer to the Anita I was at school.

I sincerely believe that I wouldn’t have existed in this world if it weren’t for this element called fun. I love all the poor jokes and adore the ones who say them! Who doesn’t, isn’t it? Yeah , I know people who doesn’t enjoy jokes and tag me ‘noisy’. I want to let them know , that life isn’t always fun, but remember, you can create fun from life, only if you want to. Ruling out fun is not the identity of entering into adulthood and it doesn’t mean that you are serious and wise! I love absent minded, fun-loving, noisy, jovial, total blunder packages err people.
Here are tokens of appreciation to you all. 

To the notorious Nine : Love u gals!! You made the best moments of my life so far and I am so lucky to be a part of such a prestigious gang !lol .. As a mark of this evergreen era, I treasure some stuff, which you can associate with..
• navy blue nail polish which we all sported the day after our school described nail polish as violation of discipline
• my uniform shirt which carries all your autographs
• the controversial autograph book of std 12
• countless friendship bands
• innumerable bday and Christmas greetings
• school magazines carrying our group snaps and articles,
• instrument box
• posters of SRK
I treasure these stuffs like jewels.

To my best friend at college: You are my family, I don’t have words to express what you are to me. If it weren’t for you, I would have been a totally different person today, worn out by bad experiences and complexes.

To friends at Technopark: Thank you guys, for being just like the notorious nine..You wiped off my misery of having spent totally freaky days at college. You created a college atmosphere at workplace and I sincerely don’t regret my college days anymore! Thanks a ton for being you..!

To friends at Bangalore : I really look forward to lunch and tea time, and I’m at my noisy best with you guys ! You are so cool and if truth be told, I consider myself lucky to still be in a multitude of like minded individuals!

Thank you all…continue to be what you are..! If you think I am a good human being, it is just because of the roles played by the people I mentioned above, in my life, and the memories about them which I carry. If you think otherwise, please attribute it to me. 

The 'Idiot' Box

Why is TV called the ‘idiot box’ ? Is it because idiots appear in it, or because only idiots watch it? There are no prizes for answering this, as the answer is ‘all of the above’. I am reminded of Kerala entrance type questions which looks more or less like, which came first, egg or chicken?
a. Egg
b. Chicken
c. All of the above
d. None of the above

Sure they expect us to answer that in less than a minute. No wonder my partners in crime and myself scored bigger ranks than anyone else in our school (Obviously, we were watching too much TV). The ever-curious aunties and uncles who are forever in hibernation surprisingly sprung to active mode when the results were published. After all the skin of the Notorious Nine at Holy Angels’ is unyielding competition to the rhinoceros himself.

Coming back to TV, I don’t mind being called an ‘idiot’ for watching it. There are informative channels also...but I really don’t know whether it is available in our package or not.

As I was enjoying a lazy siesta on a Saturday afternoon in my couch flipping channels, I came across some ads and I decided to give them a serious glare.
Rani Mukherji teaches us how to eat Munch Pop chocs. Listen everyone…now don’t follow any other method to eat the chocolate.
The method is… ‘ Open, Take, and Eat..’
Thurakkoo Edukkooo Kazhikkoo…Oh sweet Jesus, what an enlightening piece of information! Does anyone who is reading this, know any other method to eat munch…or leave it…anything for that matter?

Now comes a tea ad. The ABC tea ensures all the idiotic viewers , a happy and stress free life , as, the magical molecules of the tea powder would be relished with the innermost senses and it would guarantee joy and bliss every minute of the day. Oh something bad happened to you today? You must have forgotten to drink ‘ABC’ tea!
I seriously feel, ‘Wherever you go, I am there – Gadha Jam’ makes more sense.

Pythogoras theorem is made remarkably interesting if the teacher uses ‘Tinz’ talcum powder. All these days the students were groaning and bawling under the disturbingly stinking supermodel cum school teacher, who made situations worse with the boring theorems. The talcum powder sure brought a difference to the theorem itself! (Why oh why dint they tell me this earlier? *sob* )

Axx deodorant – Do u, girls out there actually throw yourselves at men who use this deo? By the way, did the creators of this ad think that women have super sensitive sensors?

Here’s the worst of its kind…a typical third rated mallu ad.
Contestant: ’14 aam raavudichathu maanatho kallayi kadavatho….’
Judge: ‘Nannayirunnu mone.. pakshe…14 oo? 17 alle kutta?’
This ad, I tell you, generates in me, an intense urge to bang my head against the wall.

A lady blessed with long and healthy tresses now appears, and detaches a piece of wall with just her hair and walks away proudly. Even the dinosaurs in the Lost World couldn’t accomplish this feat. Kudos to you, young lady! By the way, that was the ad of a shampoo. (This one however, blows up a nightmare of me trying to do what that lady did ,and getting bald during the act).

The axx deodorant comes in a new version, and this time it is a chocolate man walking the streets. Girls at the background screaming, howling, screeching and squealing as if they were deprived of food over the week is visually atrocious. But I made sure that my husband doesn’t use it. ;)

Hey, I am not negatively criticizing the above ads ! Gone are the times when we actually had good ads around, simple and precise ones. Yeah odd ones like these still existed, which made viewers look at each other and smirk. But nowadays imaginative brilliance is wasted, that’s what we actually conclude from such visual ‘threats’. Although Vodafone ads are always on or above a standard, the connection obviously isn’t. But, ads are ads. When I started noticing the ads itself, I knew…it is content for a blog post. From my previous posts it is quite evident that my mind does NOT wander into the loneliness of the sky,counting the odd and damaging moments of life , brood over it, drag myself into traumatic mood swings , and waste my life on it. I believe life is too short, and youth is even shorter for all that, and I believe in ‘live and let live’ concept. Next time I come across some such silly stuff, its again gonna be my blog content! Keep waiting for more nonsense!

MJ...!!

Yesterday I woke up to the news of MJ’s death, and it sent shockwaves down my spine. Legends like him are taken for granted, scandalized and scorned at and mourned upon after death. Many legends like him have had the same fate. Whatever it is , ‘Bad’, ‘Thriller’ and ‘Dangerous’ are the most sought after albums for dance shows even these days, in spite of music albums being released every minute of the day by thousands of artists worldwide. It is hard to realize that he was 50 and fighting cancer, even though he appears supremely energetic and invincible in his music videos and in the back of our minds. MJ was the reason for pop music and ‘break-dance’ as we call it, to become so popular in this part of the world, and he is known among people who don’t know A.R.Rahman. The music and its beats are foot tappers, hip-shakers, stress-busters and whatever one may call it. The world missed his greatest comeback which was scheduled in July at London. If he was alive, it would have been celebrated all around the world; channels broadcasting it live, setting the world rocking away to the tune of his magical performance. I guess the world dint deserve the comeback of the legend. His name is engraved in the history of pop music, dance and in our hearts and will live on forever n ever!!
Love u , MJ!!

Most touching lyrics from one of his best choruses:

There comes a time ..
When we head a certain call
When the world must come together as one
There are people dying
And it's time to lend a hand to life
The greatest gift of all

We can't go on
Pretending day by day
That someone, somewhere will soon make a change
We are all a part of
God's great big family
And the truth, you know love is all we need

[Chorus]
We are the world
We are the children
We are the ones who make a brighter day
So let's start giving
There's a choice we're making
We're saving our own lives
It's true we'll make a better day
Just you and me

Send them your heart
So they'll know that someone cares
And their lives will be stronger and free
As God has shown us by turning stone to bread
So we all must lend a helping hand

When you're down and out
There seems no hope at all
But if you just believe
There's no way we can fall
Well, well, well, well, let us realize
That a change will only come
When we stand together as one..

Illogical Mannerisms..!

Cool Saturday night.Its drizzling outside. I’m alone at home, there is a power failure and I lit a candle in the living room. Sitting comfortably on the couch ,legs stretched enough to accommodate the laptop,I notice the candle shining in the darkness,the flame waving in tune with the cool winds blowing outside...and it reminds me of..….. Florence Nightingale.. ? is it diffusing the ambience of an ever so romantic candlelight dinner.. or are the beams outshining even the celestial beauty of the moonlight, which has been faintly dimmed out by the dark monsoon clouds….?.oh ! are the shadows of the living room objects framing beautiful kaleidoscopic patterns from the beams scattered by the tiny wick of the wax clad candle stand..?..? sorry guys…. When rain falls..I do not get such weird thoughts. I am not that supremely imaginative being. I am just wishing if we could get one emergency lamp like the one we had back at my hometown. And yeah, I am also thinking where the umpteen street dogs next to our apartment would sleep tonight, as its raining heavily now.

Last week, we’d been to the movie, ‘Bhagyadevatha’. I would suggest all Mallus who live outside Kerala to watch this movie, as every scene unfolds picturesque Kuttanad and typical Kerala food. The urge to rush home and book tickets for a vacation at home would be irrepressible after the movie gets over. Visual treat as that one was, the movie has quality, theme, music, good storyline, not-so-brilliant but reasonable plot and granted, you wouldn’t have to wail over the ticket money, cos its worth the watch. Bhagyadevatha had me even shed some tears towards the end…but no! Don’t jump into conclusions that it is a tragedy movie…There is a highly sensitive water works working diligently beneath my eye, 24 X 7.

Tears are my problem..tear glands are probably malfunctioning. I am NOT trying to say that I am very angelic, innocent, and soft hearted. I had seen 6 year olds laughing and leaving the theatre after the movie was over, but I was trying very hard to wipe my tears, cos if anyone had caught me whining and wiping my eyes, it would be the topic of discussion (read humiliation) at family getogethers, and I would be made fun of for the next 150 years. Even today, the Malayalam movie ‘Friends’ was telecasted in Surya. However when I switched on the TV the movie was about to get over, and Mukesh was on his way to Jayaram’s home in Army costumes. Now the melodrama begins and towards the end I find my eyes welled up, shit!! I saw it just for around 10 minutes..and to hell with my tears.

Laughter is another problem for me. Once I catch it, it becomes an enormously difficult task for me to stop. I had one of my tuition-mate guys back at high school pleading with me ,’ Anita, I really want to tell you something… I don’t know if it is hasty, I thought a lot about it… I’d been brooding over it during study hours..and finally, let me tell you, coming up to you to tell this sure takes a lot of guts…” Me : ‘ Whats it?’ He: ‘ *silence*.. don’t laugh like that during class hours..it scares me and most of the guys here’.

Let’s take the example of the Malayalam movie , ‘Godfather’. I am not ashamed to call it one of my favorite movies ever, even though when asked about favorite movies to my friends they usually reply ‘ Die Hard’, ‘Schindler’s List’, ‘Quantum of Solace’ , ‘Matrix’and other hi-fi stuff. Its true that I don’t watch English movies, mainly because I cant concentrate on them. Recently I even tried watching ‘matrix’, but in five minutes I was alarmed at how much the nails on my toes had grown, then I found myself filing my nails, applying nailpolish , and …*snore*. Yeah English movies help me realize when it is time the floor has to be mopped or to go for a pedicure.
Coming back to Godfather, my family remembers me most when it is telecasted on tv. I have seen that movie around 476523 times. But each time, the jokes are fresh and timely, and I laugh like crazy. My Mom has never found an answer as to what is there to laugh so much. Even she knows it scene my scene, dialogue by dialogue.

Now tears and laughter..in short, emotions are in their extremes for me. I wish there was a knob somewhere where I could adjust the sensitivity levels. “Oh, these theatres are so unkept and dusty” followed by a fake sneeze and obviously-practised-with-ease-cough is my usual and most frequent monologue, which happens after every movie, which probably gives an explanation to my friends and family to the redness in the eye …yup the water works is sure getting me embarrassed all the way… Guess I am born with such illogical mannerisms. If I try to change it, would it still be me?

Things Men should know!

Well, those who hate girl talk, please position your cursor on the top right corner of the page, and click!! This is all about girls. Now what makes me write this, is yeaaaars of eggsperienceee….
12 years in Holy Angels’ Convent, 4 years in a college which was supposedly mixed, but as good as a ladies college, makes it 16 years of solidarity with girls…this is probably experience enough to jot down a few words on this.. Ladies hostel is sure fun enough without cigarettes and beer bottles. Now if you guys think that we are always having discussions about you there, you are sadly, and badly mistaken. We do discuss about you, and address you using nicknames only. Sure you nickname us and scream it at the top of your lungs at public bus stops, canteens and on the roads for everyone to hear. We appreciate your guts. Nicknames we use still remains secret.
However, we girls have noticed some common traits among you guys..You’d probably be a father/brother/boyfriend/husband to someone.. and I guess this write-up would make you understand some things which we wish you’d known!

•When we are on the phone, talking to our friends, we are not essentially gossiping. But if we are gossiping, please don’t disturb!

•We do not take a lot of time to get dressed. We do take time to choose what to wear. Deal with it, and there hasn’t been a solution to this over the ages.

•Wooden thick bangles that we wear these days, are in fashion. They ARE NOT hand cuffs..please..! for God’s sake!

•‘Patiala’ is pleated pants, loose and colorful. They are another ‘IN’ thing. They ARE NOT what the clowns wear at the circus.

•We, sometimes, feel that you love your bikes more than us. Wish it was not true.

•99% of us do not like gold jewellery. We prefer wooden and metal ones available at the streets. They are NOT the crockery you saw in the kitchen or the windchime that you saw in our rooms.

•During get-togethers, do not silence us , indulging in detailed discussions about car stereos, alloy wheels,woofer, sub woofer, spoiler and…*snore*..

•Shilpa shetty is hot, isn’t she? So is John Abraham!

•Please do not gift us with apparels of your choice. They will be received with a smile and will be dumped to the darkest corner of the wardrobe in no time. Let us choose!

•Your Mom is the coolest. Our Dads are. Compromise.

•Waste baskets, are to put in waste. Waste is essentially, things we do not use any more. Waste has to go to the waste basket. Please avoid cupboards/drawers/shoes, store room, space under the bed etc to throw them.

•Making faces at Shah Rukh Khan and Hrithik Roshan does not make them less sexy.

•We talk, discuss. Everything. YES!!

•Don’t threaten us saying that you will inform our dads!! Our dads are the closest to our hearts, and they love us like hell! Dont make a clown of yourself telling them!

•We are all not feminists. We do know since childhood that the Lion is the King of the jungle and not the lioness. * Aside:* Lets forget for the time being..that the Lion does nothing but sleep, yawn, roar and eat in its den all the time.*end aside*
Long live the Lion King !!!

•We carry hand bags, still manage a tissue, mobile phone, money, umbrella and other items on both our hands. Don’t ask us whats there inside the handbag then. Hand bags are accessories!

•We do not find GPS, PDA phones, digital cameras and their ever so complicated specifications, laptops and other gadgets interesting enough to spend the entire evening in electronic stores ,that finally they have to request us to leave so that they may go home.

•We squeal and shriek at the sight of cockroaches/ spiders / grasshoppers / lizards / bats / dogs. This is not a FUSS. We weren’t essentially pampered at home to do such a thing. This is a spontaneous reaction and guess you would have to dwell with it. Well, how do you guys live with these horrendous creatures in perfect harmony?

•We become kids when we’re with school friends. We turn houses upside down. We laugh and shriek at the top of our lungs. It’s just our way of enjoying a brief camaraderie.

Thinking of more points… there are trillions of things guys…which you need to know..! I know this wont help you understand even a drop out of the ocean … there are things which no one dares to understand, some things which no one bothers to understand… some which everyone knows but act as if they dint understand… its those teeny weeny understandings and misunderstandings which sums up life in all its brilliance and assortments.. ..End of the day, life is beautiful.

Shopping spree with Papa and Mama!!

From time immemorial, this category of homo sapiens are very much known to accuse women- be it mother/sister/wife for ‘excessive’ shopping. This generously common species are called ‘Men’. Be it a saree, a plastic container, soap dish, or footwear, that we choose to buy, often they mutter, that it is the 65,687th one added to existing ones (non-existent, of course)at home. whatever. I have had this experience of hunting for Papa/hubby at shopping malls/exhibitions, as they just disappear in a fraction of a second to..I don’t know where.

Act I Scene I:
Papa is accompanied by me as he goes to the city to fulfill his lifetime obligation of paying bills on a pleasant Saturday morning. As we speed across Statue Junction,

Me: Papa there is a Wills Lifestyle showroom near Raymonds…I have a purchase there.
Papa: * Acting as if he is lost in thoughts*
Me: (Loudly, this time, the windows almost vibrating) I need to go to Wills Lifestyle.
If he refuses to change the expression on his face, the physical torture of shaking, poking, and other irritating activities are started and gradually ends after we’ve crossed the store.
Me: Where is that shop? It was somewhere here..
Papa: Oh ! I forgot to tell you. They closed down last week.
Me:$&&*(*() Aaargh!!

Act I Scene II. (True incident)
One fine morning I succeeded in pulling Papa to Palayam, and he walks along, hesitantly. All along, I am subjected to stories of how his great grandmother and her mother (he has not seen either of them) were so humble and undemanding , and would never go out of the house unless it is to feed the cows and would wear only what their husbands bought for them. I nod my head with an expression of sarcastic appreciation,as if he was talking about Indus Valley Civilization.
Suddenly one of my school friends appeared as if from nowhere and shrieked ‘Anitaaaa’ and everyone turned around to look at us, terrified . I introduce Papa to her, and she released me in around 10 minutes, from the prangs of hot and spicy 'girl talk' which comprised of common exclamatory statements like.. ‘who? Is it? When? She got married? Oh he cheated on her? She eloped ‘again’?‘ and lots of other hoo-haaa-ing.
* Meanwhile,Papa is in a selectively deaf mode now*

Back home, in the kitchen:
Papa: We met Anu’s friend at Palayam today.
Mummy: mmm.
Papa: And that girl asked Anu where she was going with her "brother".
Mummy: GRRR (Eyes popped out)
Papa disappears into thin air.


Act I Scene III
Mummy and me are going to Parthas. Papa is as usual, sulking and hesitating as soon as he hears ‘Parthas’. For him, “Parthas’ means ‘pestilence’ .However, we are conveniently dropped right at the entrance of the showroom and Papa promises ‘to park the car’ and would be ‘right back’.( He must have surely heaved a sigh of relief when Mummy and me got down).
Now, ‘To park the car’ means he is going to find the parking lot atleast 2 km away from parthas and we would finally have to hire an auto to get there. ‘Right back’ is the time starting from the drive from Parthas to parking lot, parking, getting out, smoking an average of 6 cigarettes, going to the nearby tea shop, getting back into the car, reading some 20 pages of Reader’s Digest, until a call from me squealing from Parthas is received.

Act I, Scene IV.
Go to style plus with Papa, and he disappears right at the entrance area itself ,and I would finally have to hunt for him.

If you find a cloud of smoke behind the car, he is there.
If you don’t find him there, he is at the lounge with four year olds, and would be frantically searching whether he has left out any piece of news in ‘The Hindu’, or if there is anything different from the one that we get at home.
If you still don’t find him, you will find him at the Books section, seriously checking the prizes of Pulitzer prize winning books. *eeks*
The last place where you can find him, would be, the Music and DVD section wherein he would be checking out on ‘Beatles’ and ‘Jim Reeves’ DVDs. :D

He he.. that was a series of shopping episodes put together… just thought of documenting them as I was gliding through those sweet memories of childhood.. above all that, Papa and Mummy were , and are the best people to be with. I guess not many of you would have had your mothers tying friendship bands for you!! Yes believe it or not, my Mummy used 2 tie friendship band for me and my sister on Friendship Day.Yes, they know all about my friends,most of the secrets we usually discuss about at school, jokes which they dont find so funny, but still listens not to let me down...Often they end up chatting to my friends when they call, and I'm not home...! They were strict parents when they had to be, and were our best friends (still are) after we grew up! I still prefer mummy and Papa along when we go shopping/picnic/exhibition/beach/restaurant…anywhere and everywhere…!! Love you n miss u tons….!!! Mwah!!

The Calamity-Maker (Read Chapathi-maker)..!

Recently I went to a nearby store and found a chapathi-maker there. I was told by the sales guy that it made chapathi-making very easy. This almost lured me into buying it, taking into account innumerable days I sweat, groan, nag and sulk at the kitchen,laboring hard to accomplish the above mentioned activity. As most husbands usually are, mine is also selectively deaf at apparel stores and other ladies stores. I had to shake him vigorously to bring him to his senses when the sales guy delivered a totally overwhelming speech about the advantages of a chapathi maker.By the end of the speech, I was almost convinced into buying it. Smart as I always were, I got him pay the bill with an attached, personalized warning: ‘ medikkunnathokke kollam, Use cheythillengil nokkikko’. I was excited, conveniently ignoring the above comment.

We got back home, and the urge to ‘use’ the chapathi-maker was tempting. It had two heavy circular plates, connected to each other, and a lever on which we were to ‘lightly press’ so that the chapathi becomes thin and round. The dough was made with great hurry, and we waited till it got all ‘set. Meanwhile we watched idea star singer and indulged in creative activities like imitating the anchor and her Oxford style of teaching Manglish to Mallus all over the world.

I now step gingerly into the kitchen looking forward to make hot, soft, delicious chapathis using the chapathi maker.

Dough 1: I take the dough, which is quite the size of a table tennis ball, apply some flour on it, press lightly with my hands, keep it inside the chapathi maker , topped with lots of expectations. I press with the maximum pressure I could possibly apply. With beaming eyes, I open it, and saw that it had grown to the size of a puri, and is stuck at the top circular plate of the maker. I tried to detach it with all my strength. Exhausted and worn out, I started breathing heavily, and this invited him to step in hurriedly into the kitchen. He tried to hide the amusement the scene had brought to his lips, pulled it out as if he was doing some Herculian task and it emerged into the weirdest shape ( close to the shape of Sri Lanka as we see it on the map). I am totally embarrassed. I roll it up again to its original shape as if nothing happened and gave an ‘its-all-in-the-game’ look. He gave me a I-tol-you-na-that-it-wont-work stare and a sarcastic what-a-beautiful-shape-for-a-chapathi look and left immediately with a have-a-nice-time-with-your-chapathi-maker smile.

He left muttering words and I could almost make out ‘avalude oru chapathi maker’.

Dough 2: Now that was a call to prove myself.
The second dough is taken with utmost care, placed inside, and pressed after uttering The Lord’s prayer. This time, more flour, and the pressing becomes scrupulous that both my legs are in the air now, a few centimeters abover sea level err..i mean the floor .I open the chapathi maker again with a hell lot of expectations. This time, the chapathi is thin and rounded (thanks to each and every gram of my weight). I jump with joy and try to pull it out. The chapathi gives way to two big holes for the Bay of Bengal and the Arabian Sea.

I solemnly placed the chapathi maker in the sink, and made yummy, reasonably shaped chapathis in the next half an hour, in the traditional way.

Thanks to chapathi maker for sending down the drain 500 bucks (which I could have judiciously spent at fabindia), for wasting 30 minutes of a working-day evening, water ,soap, and giving me a joint pain bad enough that I had to use ‘moov’ continuously for 10 days after that. The chapathi maker which made my life easy, now rests at the farthest possible corner of the kitchen cupboard and is available to all readers on an auction. If you are interested, you can mail me directly at my email id .

The item on auction can be disintegrated, and creatively used as
 Paper weight
 Stand to keep oil and other jars
 Hot vessel plate
 Cutting board
 Modern wall hanging

p.s:-If you happen to buy this item and use it for purposes other than those mentioned above, please let me know.

Thanks!

Cooompromizes n Grieeeevancez!!!

1.When I was at school I had this habit of remembering all the ‘big jokes’ that my friends cracked and would wait to run home to tell everyone. However, Papa comes from office at sharp 6:00 pm everyday (I don’t know how this happens so accurately) and I would wait for him to join so that I don’t have to repeat the big ‘joke’. Now I start off, with Papa,Mummy and chechi listening with a seemingly interested expression on their faces. I complete the joke, and burst into an aggressive clatter (laughter, in my words). Papa and Mummy continues to keep the earlier expression thinking that the ‘funny’ part of it is yet to come.

2.I have a set of Winnie the Pooh stickers with which I frequently blackmail my hubby saying that if he doesn’t take me shopping I am going to stick it all over his bike. Although I am damn serious about this, he keeps the aforesaid expression (as in point no 1).


3.Papa always keeps a watch on me and my closest circle of friends. Once he told me, that my friendship with one of the girls in the gang is going too far and that girl is not so good to be best friends with. To this, I commanded him to stop all friendship with his best friend, who was working with him at VSSC for the past 32 years. Finally this girl about whom I was warned about , put me into an acute trouble which I was not involved or aware about, and had me in staff room half a day proving my innocence to the teachers. How did Papa know this earlier? GRR

4.My sister,was an absolute contrast to all my behavioral traits - silent, soft spoken, attentive and possessed all the blessed virtues of a student. She had the best grades ever at school.I, poor little underperformer (comparatively)bore the wrath of all the staff and at times,had teachers sarcastically pointing out disgraceful comments like, ‘Are u really Anjana’s sister?’ ( What the hell does she mean by the word ‘really’ here?)
I tell you, having a studious brother/sister/cousin in the same school/college/office ultimately makes you feel like a celebrity!! Each and every piece of news will reach your parents before you reach home!!

5.When the school bell rings for lunch, my friends and me run out of the class like a swarm of bees, to play the most popular game, ‘Touching the wood’. Five minutes before the bell rings, we run back to the class, almost at the speed of light, open our lunch boxes and gulp down whatever is there. We were some 10 or 12 naughty girls, and washed our hands conveniently through the window of the class, as the bell rang for afternoon sessions. The teacher came in and caught me washing hands through the window. All the other girls escaped and started staring solemnly at the teacher like heaven’s little angels and at me like I’ve done some grave, unforgivable crime. She had me write, ‘I will never wash my hands through the window of my class’ and get it signed from THE GUARDIAN. So I waited for the guardian (my Papa) to come back from office. I thought, ‘After all, this isn’t my progress report. So he is not gonna be mad at me’ (progress card was the only reason for my dearest Papa to be mad at me, and I cursed my own ‘progress’ because of that). Finally Papa came and I delightfully gave him the piece of paper to which hell broke loose.

Me: ‘Papa can u sign this for me..?’
Papa: ‘What the hell is this? Inspite of signing your report card, I have to sign this also! I never sent you to convent school to study maths and social studies. I sent you there to learn manners and discipline..! God what a blessed father I am!!’
Me: Papa please..papa.. She wont let me enter the class without your signature.
Papa: I love your teacher.
Me: (Burst to tears) Papa please…
Papa walks away.

Next day, Papa accompanies me to school ..the controversial piece of paper on his right hand, my ear twisted in his left. The teacher ( who looks more like the ugly wicked witch now) greets us gleefully and narrates a set of complaints between which I noticed that she was using the word ‘chatterbox’ too often. Papa tells her, (my ear still twisted, developing a permanent twist now), to write whatever complaints she has about me and inform him immediately ( I still hang from the tip of his fingers). I saw the rarest of sights – heaven and hell at a glance- heaven by having my little ear supporting my entire body from papa’s fingers, the ear twisted cruelly for around 20 minutes, and hell , with a gang of teachers and my Papa teaming up against me like demons.

6. When we were in tenth standard, slam books were the ‘IN’ thing, and all of us had one. During one of those days, Miss.N was in a hurry, and got another classmate Miss. A write in her slambook… Miss.N kept pestering her 2 complete it fast and Miss.A scribbled something. The slam book had a hell lot of illogical, unanswerable questions like, ‘your fav color? Dress? Movie? Actor? Actress? Villain ? director? Producer? Makeup man? Cleaner? ’ and other bull shit.
Miss.N came home and started reading the slam book.
It went like this..
Most Unforgettable Moment: “I don’t remember!!’

Miss.N realized she should have given Miss.A more time.

7.One day I was traveling in a KSRTC bus. As you all know, KSRTC buses are in perfect condition (haha), and are never crowded (haha )due to ample buses (haha) in each route (haha). My sister, even if she gets a seat doesn’t sit if I am still standing or she wants me to sit on her lap. However, I made her sit in one seat and acted very comfortable standing. Im sure she was having a hell of a time sitting there with my school bag on her lap, which weighed more than me. I was standing next to an aunty, who looked approximately 125 kgs, the bus kept crawling at 20km/hr, and I kept praying earnestly that she gets down soon. Finally God answered my prayers and I saw her helping her butt lift up from the seat as if it was stuck to it, and her thin and frail arms (!!) leaning on the seat in front. I rejoiced. As soon as the entire butt disappeared from the seat (my eyes focused on the seat and partially on her butt), I immediately placed myself there, and it felt like a football ground for me. I can only remember a roar of laughter from my sister and the passengers at the back. Aunty only leaned forward to take her ticket which had fallen down. Fortunately, God had more years ahead for me to live that she dint land on my lap..!!

8.Another day, my tuition got over at 6, and papa told me to come home by bus. I gave a warning signal in the morning itself, ‘Papa , unless and until u pick me from the tuition class I will not come home’. In the evening, I kept my promise, and waited outside the tuition class knowing clearly that papa is not coming to pick me anyway. My tuition teacher was however kind enough not to let loose her ferocious dogs (wonder why she needed dogs for security, she herself was dead scary). Papa sensed a 0.01% chance of me staying at the tuition teachers house and she in turn, complaining to the police about the menace that’s outside her class since evening. So Papa set out to pick me in scooter. I was delighted to see him, and got onto the back seat. However, at PTP nagar, a dog suddenly ran across and we landed up in the nearest hospital.

9.I had a cat during my school days and I was very fond of her/him. I still don’t know whether it was a male or female, but our maid chechi confirmed that it was a male ( I guess it was because it had a moustache). My sister hates all animals/insects/birds/human beings(selectively) and of course was not very keen in touching or feeding my cat. However she never does anything which hurts me. Dinner time, we are all around the table and kitty dear is near my sister (although I am its authorized local guardian). My sister, sissy as she is, gives all the fish in her plate to my kitty, and the kitty in turn gives them to its mother cat (who is a bitch of a cat, immoral to the core and is a permanent resident of the back side wall of our house). Sister dear later understood that kitty was taking advantage of her dinner, and stopped the entire fish outsourcing business. Talk to my sister now about my cat and you can see real wild expressions!!


10.When Mummy screams at me for talking too much on the phone during study hours, I pick up the remote and press the mute button at her, and the series of domestic violence is triggered.

11.I remember my sister crying and wailing like hell when she found her ‘hero pen’ in the freezer. She and Mummy still believes that it is me. Papa, however, has no doubts about it.


12.As I was comfortably sitting on the sofa, with my leg cozily hanging itself on the armrest, I had Papa telling me to hang it on the fan. How cruel!

13.My Mom has this disease of cleaning the house in regular intervals of microseconds and expects every little thing to be kept at the places defined by her. She gives us hell if we rub a piece of crayon or pencil on the walls. During those frequent catastrophic events like, a fight with my sister, I end up losing it all by being the first one to cry, and the biggest punishment I give her (eventually to myself) for hurting me, was to draw senseless pictures of mountains, sun, moon, stars, crows, children (whose arms and legs apparently look like they were born with polio) on the wall, and write my sisters name specifically below in caps. This name-mentioning at the bottom itself clearly shows that it was me, and I get an additional dose of parental harassment and my sister escapes giggling.


14.Arguments with one of my close friends at school eventually leads her into uttering curses like, ‘Anita, you will get married to an old man who is a native of Uganda, and there you will give birth to quadruplets’. This statement pissed me off regularly, and I usually end up picturizing my wedding album.

15.During five minute sleep breaks on the previous day of university exams, I get nightmares like: dozing off till the morning/ink of my pen getting over/getting short term memory loss/dozing off till afternoon and waking up to see my friends discussing the questions/my Mom coming as the invigilator/losing the hall ticket/ and the like.


16.Papa has this habit of snoring. There are several humiliating incidents of him snoring at the back seat of the church during Sunday mass, and people looking around to see, where this exotic music is coming from.Often, we had our neighbors (who stay atleast 2 km away)say that they too can hear his snores from their bedrooms ( I know that was too exaggerating for anyone to believe, but our neighbors are very creative and have a wild imagination). On some days I watch movies like ‘manichithrathazhu’ and get horrified. Even the telephone ring sounds like the magical inkling of nagavalli’s anklets. So brave as I always were, I prefer to sleep in Papa n Mummy’s room. The snoring starts almost immediately, which not only deprives me of my sleep, but enhances by innermost fears of Nagavalli appearing in the bedroom. Mom seems to sleep peacefully as if some lullaby is being played in the background. However, I fell asleep and got nightmares which when told sound amusing to others. Large, out-of-the –world type dinosaurs near our house, bawling and groaning out of hunger, and chasing me to death. I puff, pant and sweat from head to toe.
I open my eyes, see Papa snoring away to glory, Mummy still with the aforesaid expression. I take my pillows and all the other little things which people rarely sleep with, (book, water bottle, around 12 pillows) and get back to my room. I realized that Nagavalli was less scary.


17.HE (hubby dear) wears a mixture of AXE and Brut deodorants, applies hair gel for half an hour in the morning, sports a French beard, uses only branded shirts, pants, socks, upto the shoelace, and drives the car with music on volume 15 and still expects me to wear a sindhooram!! Good joke!!


18.If a spoon/fork/hairpin/safety pin/tv remote/rubber band/Vaseline is missing/misplaced, Mummy screams at the top of her lungs, ‘Where is Anu?’ Of course, not bothering to find it out herself. But most of the time she succeeds finding it by performing the above mentioned activity.

19.There is a plan to go to the church/beach/restaurant. The plan had been there for the past four days. As I cozily ease myself out on the sofa, my face covered fully with the fancy square shaped cushions, I hear the sound of shoes. Papa is dressed in a shirt and pants, shirt tucked in perfectly, and has the car key in his hand. He stares at me with anger and disgust. However I can’t figure out any language from facial expressions. Mummy also comes and joins him, dressed in a neatly ironed cotton saree. Sister is already there, you can’t really make out whether she is ready to go out or not. I look at them surprised. Then everyone walks out uniformly, uttering in seemingly low voices:


Papa: “Enikku nerathe ariyamayirunnu’
Mummy: “Aval varunnillengil venda..ivide irikkatte
power cut aavumbol
padicholum’
“ Ningal vandi edukku… avalodu njan 5647645 times paranjatha
dress cheyyan”.
Sister: expression of agony

Who? When?

I race to my room, wear some dress, carry comb, lip gloss, hairclips along so that such activities can always be done in the car. Simultaneously everyone gets into the car and the horn is sounded for the entire district to hear. The whole of neighborhood now knows that everyone is going out and I am applying ‘makeup’.
I am always blamed for having studied in a convent school without knowing the basics of punctuality!!. *sob*


Hmm… more grievances to be added…. *sniff* *sob*

Finding nemo...

Here is a brief introduction abt the movie, "Finding Nemo'.

Finding Nemo is a 2003 CGI animated film. The film received overwhelmingly positive reviews and won the Academy Award for Best Animated Feature. It was a financial blockbuster as it grossed over $864 million worldwide. It is the best-selling DVD of all time, with over 40 million copies sold as of 2006 and is the highest grossing G-rated movie of all time.

:) I had the DVD of this movie, but couldn’t watch it … because of no reason whatsoever. However, I saw how touching and inspirational cartoons can ever be. I know some of u must be smirking at the idea of a cartoon film being ‘touching’. Hmm. The story boasts of a wonderful relationship between a father and son, much more poignant and inspiring than what we see in ‘Varanam Aayiram’. Theres a cute clownfish couple, Marlyn and Coral. Coral lays 400 eggs which were eaten away by giant sharks and Coral was killed in the encounter. Only one egg survived. That was Nemo. The survivor, Marlyn,Nemo's dad, loved him soo much and pampered him.Nemo asks his Dad, whether he has encountered sharks, how they are.. and to what age does sea turtles actually live.Marlyn , was a coward himself and has never been into risky areas in the ocean.

As days passed, other fishes of Nemo's age went to school, but Marlyn wasn’t confident whether his son was old enough for school. He thought that Nemo cant swim as well as he could. Nemo, insisted that he wants to go, and Marlyn agrees and takes him there, and secretly watches his son… during one of Nemos little adventures..he swims away from his school of fishes. . challenges his Dad… and gets attacked by a submarine…a diver comes out, and catches Nemo.

Nemo is taken away to a domestic fish tank at Sydney.

The story takes its twist when Marlyn sets out to find Nemo ..all the way to Sydney…thousands of ocean miles away.

He is accompanied by Dory, a female fish, suffering from short term memory loss. For a father who goes to find his son, a partner with a short term memory loss is a disaster. However, Dory tries to follow and help Marlyn , as much as she could. The movie depicts a wonderful chemistry between Marlyn and Dory. Dory is a friend, expects nothing in return, tries to overcome her weaknesses just to be with Marlyn and to help him find his son.She tries to remember things and seems to overcome her weakness when Marlyn is around! It is notable that Dory swims all the way upto Sydney even after Marlyn tells her to leave. But something noteworthy over here is that, this kinda unconditional love and friendship might exist only among fishes.

On the way to Sydney, they come across many hurdles and during a shark attack, they both are eaten up! Marlyn doesn’t give up and they escape from there also. Sea turtles come for their help, and shows them directions. There is one scene, where, amidst all these hassles, and not knowing whether Nemo is still alive or not, while bidding goodbye to the turtles, Marlyn asks them how old they are… cos he wanted to tell Nemo!! Marlyn wanted to tell him abt the sharks and how old the turtles were when he meets him next!! Marlyn was soo positive that he would get his son back..!

Finally after a movie-hour of challenging waters, sharks, and other hurdles, they reach Sydney.

After some more adventures there is a father-son reunion, which is again a visual treat.

Switching off my laptop.. I stretched myself and comfortably got lost in thoughts.

Did I ever have a friend like Dory?
If I were Nemo, would someone come for me, this far?

School days.. :-)

15 years down the lane I still remember one song , taught at my school, which we used 2 sing even during lunch time. Today, during power cut, I sang it aloud.
It goes like this...
In the forest there was a tree
The finest tree that ever we'd see
The tree was in the woo-oo-oods and the green leaves
Grew a-round and round and round
And the green leaves grew around...

In the second stanza, its like..
In the forest there was a branch
The finest branch that ever we'd see
The branch was on the tree..
The tree was in the woo-oo-oods and the green leaves
Grew a-round and round and round
And the green leaves grew around...

Then to the branch will be added nest, birds, eggs, and so on...we find endless little things on the nest (including worm) cos we'd never want 2 stop singing.
Today, when the power went off, I suddenly got reminded of this song and started singing soo loudly... forgetting everything.....the surroundings... everything. Its good to sing out like that, once in a while, forgetting yourself..and everythin that u bother about...

There was a game in our school too...where one person is chosen and made to stand in the centre of a circle of girls holding hands.Now this perso, is chosen by other versions of the popular, 'In Pin Safety Pin'. It is ...'Inky Pinky Ponky, Father had a donkey, Donkey died, father cried, inky pinky ponky. Father called the doctor, doctor called the nurse, nurse called the ambulance, 1,2,3...!!'...

The chosen person comes in the centre and performs the dance to the tune of the song sung by us. I bet noone can sing this song better.
We are goin to the party,
We are goin to the fair,
To see the son (!!) of Rita,
With flowers on our hair..
Oh shaky shaky shaky...( performs a belly typo dance here)
Shaky like a man ( !!)
Shaky like a machine
And do the best you can.
OH ! round upto the bottom, round up to the top..
Turn around and turn around and will u make a stop!!...

Now this song and dance, is very much by heart to me, although i dont remember even a line of any poetry which was in the syllabus.

Even today, when I go via Nanthencode, Holy Angels Convent my Alma Mater stands tall and prestigious, I get echoes of the golden times I had there...12 years of my life. Innocence personified.. a little angel..that was me.. How I left that innocence behind those gates as I stepped out of school on our last day...and how I changed for better or for worse.. I cant wish my school days back , which is unattainable..I know..it never comes back.. I wish I had that angelic innocence of school back in me..

Lessons in life..

1. Be patient all the time. This is something I have to teach myself. Everything that happens to me, tests my patience. However, I feel that it is very important to react to whatever injustice has been done to me.
Moral: When someone says something on your face, just act as if you are deaf, dumb and blind. But never forget that incident!

2. You are safe if people think that you can’t be trusted. You can have the company of everyone, yet don’t have to carry their secrets.

3. Misunderstanding is something, worst of its kind, which deprives people of peace and sleep.


4. Don’t pull any friends into your close circle of family.
Moral: Blood is thicker than water. Water makes blood dilute. Dont lose the thickness of blood by mixing water in it!!

5. Don’t underestimate or hate anyone. In the course of time, God does it in such a way that the person you hated and underestimated will eventually do your appraisals.

Moral: Just smile at people you hate. They know that you hate them, they will at least think that you have manners.

6.

7. Try and you can keep your secrets to yourself and with God. Disclose it, and you are either blackmailed or the info u passed is misused in some other way.
Moral: Self explanatory.

8. Just don’t give a damn about what people think about you, or say about you.
Moral: Let them say whatever they want, about you. They have no idea what you think about them!!

9. Don’t take revenge. If you do, you are no different from the rest of the world.
Moral: Someone does something bad to you. You lose peace of mind. Wait and plot a good idea.. give them a tit for tat. The tit for tat should be in such a way that, it makes that someone think that what they did was wrong. It should not be embarrassing.

10. Stay away from people who talk little and think more. They can’t be trusted. Be friends with chatter boxes. They are clear in their hearts.
But don’t disclose secrets to them!
Moral: I am a chatterbox. Please don’t say secrets to me. I am much happier that way.

11. Don’t distrust and have a bad perception about people who can’t keep secrets. They are either weak at heart and personality, or too innocent to keep one or they might be heavily dependent on others. Its not their fault. Just don’t say secrets to them!!

12. Don’t comment about anyone’s appearance. They are not responsible for it.
Look at the mirror again.

13. If you talk ill about someone’s family, that’s the worst kinda sin you can ever do. Wait for the judgment day.

14. Don’t keep saying and gossiping about the past of other people. You are certainly not going to like it if they say about yours
Moral: Would you? ;)

15. Don’t trust anyone in the world head to toe. There are no Gods around, only human beings.
Moral: I am a human being too!

16. Never ever speak about religion and politics. It’s a person’s fundamental right and strictly a personal choice.

17. Trust in God, always. Even if you think that He is being partial. He is NOT partial.

18. Don’t advice anyone!! Very important!! It is the first step to generate hatred. Advice someone in their love affair related issue, you are doomed.

Moral: I was once doomed for a similar case when I was in Std XI..

19.

20. When A complains about B and is in tears, console A saying that everything will be all right and problems wont last forever. But, if you also agree to the complains that A said about B, then A will feel happy.

AFTER 6 MONTHS – one fine morning.

A and B are in love. They get married. A says that you are passing rumours about B to spoil their relationship!!

Moral: When A or B is crying, console them, but shut your mouth!!! (This actually happened to me. A and B are happily married, and I am the bitch).

21. University exam at college. You study hard day and night the prev day. You write the exam. You pass with a 70+. The girl next room fails. She tells.. Oh.. you know Anita? The girl next room? Oh she is always reading archies, sketching away cartoons or sleeping.. she passes just out of ‘luck’ !! And the masala: ‘ You know what…when I asked Anita a doubt , she dint know it!! Then how did she even pass? Leave alone 70 !!’
All your batchmates are convinced. They look at you like they look at criminals. They smirk. They talk behind your back.
Moral: They like to believe it that way. Let them J . Rumours are not going to the university level to reduce your rightly deserved marks.
More to come..!!!

Seasons in the sun...

Here are lyrics of one of my most fav songs,'Seasons in the sun' by westlife..
Those out there who havent heard this song yet..please do..

Goodbye to you my trusted friend
We've known each other since we were nine or ten
Together we've climbed hills and trees
Learned of love and ABC's
Skinned our hearts and skinned our knees
Goodbye my friend it's hard to die
When all the birds are singing in the sky
Now that spring is in the air
Pretty girls are everywhere
Think of me and I'll be there

We had joy, we had fun
we had seasons in the sun
But the hills that we climbed
Were just seasons out of time

Goodbye Papa please pray for me
I was the black sheep of the family
You tried to teach me right from wrong
Too much wine and too much song
Wonder how I got along
Goodbye Papa it's hard to die
When all the birds are singing in the sky
Now that the spring is in the air
Little children everywhere
When you see them, I'll be there

We had joy, we had fun
We had seasons in the sun
But the wine and the song
Like the seasons have all gone
We had joy, we had fun
We had seasons in the sun
But the wine and the song
Like the seasons have all gone

Goodbye Michelle my little one
You gave me love and helped me find the sun
And every time that I was down
You would always come around
And get my feet back on the ground
Goodbye Michelle it's hard to die
When all the birds are singing in the sky
Now that the spring is in the air
With the flowers everywhere
I wish that we could both be there

My first post!!

Helloooo!!!
Yesterday I wrote on my orkut and facebook pages... that I look and sound crazy to some people..and its they who actually love me... Yeah these two lines came spontaneously to me, without much thought to it, actually. So, it is genuine, frank and original. Yep thats what I am to those who actually love me....I realized that a bit late, though.
Hmm...marriage had made me mature ..that means!! I still have vague ideas about people and what they think of me. My closest friends have deceived me, had been secretive and have hurt me a lot. But friendship is something which I still believe in, even though a majority of them choose me for entertainment. Forgiveness comes with time, and comes quickly when I have an affection for them deep inside. I tend to overlook what they did, and what they are still doing..for that matter!!
They say blood is thicker than water..yes it is. Nowadays I cant rely on anyone else!!! Experience was the best teacher... however finally i realized that I neednt consider friends bigger than myself!! :)