Beginner’s Bad luck

One lazy day I was just sitting around and wondering what I could do. Surely there are plenty of things that I’ve always wanted to do, so there could be something I could use my time on. Then it struck me, I’ve always wanted to write stories. Not necessarily publish them (Well if they were any good, why not!).

Anyway I had this long wish to pen up an entire really good story. But I dint want it to be based on my experiences or something that has happened to me in the past. So I open up word and stare at the blank white screen and said silently, “Okay let me figure out how creative I am after all”. Then I find an inspiration (About which I am not going to discuss right now! Who knows it might in fact shape up to be a story sometime). Okay I got the idea in my head and now I have to sketch out characters, lay plots and ah! Describe happenings!

Hmm so I start, go on a few lines and Grr! I am stuck, a character in my story is pregnant, and I really don’t know how to describe pregnancy and my plot required the intricacies of the baby within along with the symptoms of the mother’s health and possible complications (for dramatizing ofcourse). So I decide, ok let me educate myself about the whole process and I google up! And well you know the internet, there is a hell a lot of information. You get lost in the wilderness of cyber space! And I thought jeez god! Do all writers actually do this much research? I couldn’t get past a page and these people actually write volumes!

Well there is a case when my writing might just flow in the speed of a running river! And that’s when it’s been close to my personal experiences. But writers don’t always write about their own life, (Or do they?) that’s not creativity or imagination! Or was it just starting trouble? I do want to write a good story someday! And a darn good one it will be! (Even if it’s just going to be something only my grandchildren might read!). Until then I can see my writing is getting bad, including my Blogs :D

Virtually Reclusive!

Here I am! Back after a long long time. I’ve changed my blog’s url since my last post. So I doubt if everyone who used to follow my posts can reach here except for a few who were curious to know where my blog’s new hiding space is. I’ve also stopped advertising my blog on my social network profiles or messenger statuses. No special reason just felt like hiding my blog in some arbitrary place in cyber space. There sometimes is a little pleasure in being reclusive. If you stumble upon this page read on! If you’d like to share this page with your friends your welcome to do so. But I still prefer to remain anonymous. This is where I scribble when my pensive mind needs an outlet!

A COWgirl's game

Being in India on a vacation and I got the time to write a blog? Well psychosis is not something new you would witness about me! :P

Anyway met with my school friends after close to 5 long years. Hailing from an all girls convent, life was never more fun! We could talk about absolutely anything with no shame, embarrassment, awkwardness or any weird feeling in the world. I got reminded of those best days of my life from kindergarten right up to standard 12. When I mused over standard 12 I thought of another institution - my tuition center. Everyone goes for tuition in his or her 12th standard. It’s the big thing… It’s the boards… It’s life or death. Wait but was it the case for us?

When I say “US”, it means a bunch of my schoolmates and I who went to this tuition center and our featherbrained behavior there. I don’t know after so much monkey business how we managed to do a decent job of the boards. For anonymity sake I’ve changed their names and will also change other objects that could relatively be identified with.

Introducing the powerpuff girls, the dames of destiny, the princesses of the universe… (Ok I’ll cut the crap!)

Me, Annie, Priya, Nandini and Sheela….

Scene 1: At the bus stand outside our school Nandini and I are waiting to take the bus to the tuition center.

Me: First day of tuitions today!
Nandini: Hmm yeh!
Me: 12th ya! Whys it gottu be so much pressure
Nandini: Hmm
Me: Hullo are you listening?
Nandini: Well, check out that guy… ain’t he cute?
Me: What? You in your senses? …hmmm well anyway he’s kinda okay
Nandini: Come on man… don’t you discuss guys… Ok let’s make up a code word
Me: What kinda code word?
Nandini: Something which wont make other people suspect we are discussing guys!
Me: like what?
Nandini: Hmmmm….(thinking deeply, you definitely need to dig your gray cells for this one! ;)) Got it! Guy…. Sounds close to Gaay which means cow in hindi… So let’s refer to guys as cows.
Both of us: Giggles giggles giggles… (Now I understand why convent girls look stupid but I still don’t know why guys like dumb girls)
Nandini: What do u think of that cow… well forget it…you can’t even call it a cow. Gosh man madras has fewer good cows day by day! What am I going to do!

Now people around us if they even heard our conversation must have been wondering why we were soo concerned about the dropping population of cows in Madras!


Scene 2: Part, which introduces the heroes of the story. One of the classrooms in the tuition center, a long one with one column of desks. The girls sat in the front and boys at the back. The first session was attendance.

Maths Master: Deepak
Us: shoulders bent forward and heads turned close to 270 degrees clockwise direction and quickly back to position
Maths Master: George
Us: 135 degrees anti-clockwise direction
Maths Master: James
Us: 135 degrees anti-clockwise direction
Maths Master: Naren
Us: 180 degrees about turn and all heads froze for a fraction of a second
Maths Master: Salman
Us: 135 degrees anti-clockwise direction all heads back to position except Annie’s head.
Maths Master: Sundar
Us: dint quite hear a “yes sir” so we dint know which direction to turn immediately. But somehow found the owner of the name. We the smart babes ;)

Many other names in between and after. Then the girl’s attendance, which is not of much significance ;).

Scene 3: After a few weeks. Conference after tuition class.

Nandini: God gurls! Naren is soo cute! He comes to class in a really cool English color car. (She always looked out for that car when the roads were in her range of vision). Bet he’s rich. My kinda guy. What say?
Annie: Dunno man! I think salman is soooo chweet…cutie cutie types, and he drives a really cool bike… He’s the man!
Me: Huh? He looks like he jumped out of a farex tin. Picturing him on a bike is a disgrace to the biking community. What say sheela?
Sheela: Huh! Hmmm yeh I guess. I think… hmm maybe!
Nandini: Ohh come on Sheela … atleast naren is cute right?
Sheela: Probably…. Hmm perhaps…. Errr… ( From that instant Sheela the dummy! No one cared what she thought!)
Nandini: Ok Whatever! Congrats Annie we got guys! Lemme see…hmm… alright Salman’s my brother and Naren’s your brother what say!
Annie: Done! Yaaay! We are sister in laws!
Priya and me: (look at each other… and think -heights of insanity? Sheela was figuring out if they were actually sister in laws or co sisters)
Nandini: Come on girls pick guys soon…
Priya and Me: What?
Annie: Ok fine I’ll pick (Somehow all my life people around me thought they were better in making MY decisions) how about Sundar… the nerd guy who whisper’s his attendance… I checked out his test notebook…god man he’s scored as if he eats his books for breakfast, lunch and dinner.
Me: No way! (Who wants to be the girl of the nerd anyway!) By the way I think he kind of resembles my grandfather! (What a weird reason to think of! That’s all that came to my mind)
Nandini: (Laughs like she’s crazy) Does he look that old? Anyway forget Sundar. I think Deepak is the best match for you. (Deepak happened to be the most unsightly guy of the lot!)
Me: Nandini No fair! You just pick the best-looking guy in the class and you pair me up with Deepak? For no reason at all!
Nandini: There is a reason dear…listen. Deepak is my son… So am your mother in law… Need a better reason to go for him? (smirks and giggles)
Me: Yeah right! Now I know from where he inherited his looks!(irate by her queen of the world attitude I flair up) Ok Ms. Oh so arrogant! I’m in competition with you for Naren. You gottu fight your way through.
Nandini: No you wouldn’t
Me: Try me!
Annie: Peace girls…. We still got priya!
Priya: Why me?
Annie: How about James!
Priya: Why him? I don’t need any!
Nandini: You are asking us why we chose James? Are you blind girl? That guy can’t take his eyes off you. Do him a favour ;) Come on! It’s just for fun.
Priya: Oh really nandini? George’s friends always nudge him when you enter the class…and he’s all pink. What to do George a favor?
Nandini: Nopes… Am settled!
Me: Ms.Kittie…are you sure?
Sheela: (Still wondering how the family relations connect… if Nandini is Annie’s sister in law and Pavithra is Nandini’s daughter in law. Then how is Pavithra related to Annie?)

Scene 4:And many more discussions like the previous scene over the year… quoting all that will increase the length of this already long blog. Well everything was for fun… the small bickers were for fun too nothing serious. We never thought of talking to those guys (that would spoil the fun) and the guys would have wished they were invisible if we even uttered a word to them. It was the last day of class and the owner of the tuition center was giving us a speech about how important the 12th boards are and blah blah….

Owner: !@#%%^%&*(**^$$@@!@ blah…blah…blah… I am very proud of all your performance so far. I wish you all the best in your exams. I am sure you will come out with flying colors. Thank you! Now all the BROTHERS leave first and then the SISTERS can leave.

Us: What??????? Aaahhhhhh Haaaa!!!!!!! Hell! Are the brothers and sisters related? We mean from the same parents?

Disclaimer: Few dialogues might not be the same as it was spoken in the past. I added my own touch here and there to boost the humor. The gist is true though.

Blog Disaster!

I kind of have a hunch this is going to be long. I can hear all you guys saying “Jeez girl, tell us something new.” Well well let me get started right away and stop making it longer…

After a week of quite a lot of work I kind of went insane, I dint want to work or study. So it all started one Friday evening when my friends and I decided to just take the weekend off in spite of the fact that it’s just a week before our final exams. So we started watching F.R.I.E.N.D.S. and laughing our heads out. Then I thought what makes something funny? What makes things more amusing than other “normal” stuff? I dint understand how and why… So I decided ok let me sit down and classify, analyze and come to a conclusion. Hence the blog…

Okay let’s divide it into sections and subsections (Yeh! Your right I’m Crazy :D)

Physical form:

I think joking about physical form has been the most famous and easiest way to make movies, TV shows, plays and gossips funny!

• Size: The size of a human is by far the most popular under this section. Any abnormal size, skinny that a small woooosh would disturb your balance or super extra flesh growing probably even on your eye lids and earlobes (if that’s even possible) is great for a little joke!
• Hair: Hey this by in itself is funny, but it so seems that something as small as hair is a good subject for some fun. I wonder if there is anyone who hasn’t seen a joke of a wig being blown off a bald person. Too much of hair is funny too. Hey blonde jokes! Related to the color of a person’s hair!
• Skin Color: How can I forget mentioning this! An absolutely fair girl in my college was nick named “Miss. White Cement”. And about dark people I do remember watching Hindi comedy serials featuring dark skinned “madrasi” people and South Indian movie comedy tracks involving repulsively dark men/women.

Brilliance and Mental State:

• Stupid in class: A stupid classmate is a perfect choice for some funny gossip, who should have rather admitted she dint know than mutter something. But not knowing it sometimes funny too.
• Absent Minded: Professors and teachers are a sure target for jokes; we hate them for inflicting education on us. Their occasional/frequent follies are for quick grabs. All that knowledge is probably getting too stuffy in the gray cells that its pushing common sense out for a little while :P
• Lunatics: Well a lunatic asylum is a surely a perfect stage for a full length comedy movie. Insane is definitely funny, things have to reach the extreme end to get more and more funny. Lesser the feeling of consciousness the better. Drunken people make good comedians too.

Community:

• Gender: Men joke about women and women about men! driving skills(w.r.t. women),cooking skills (w.r.t. men), shopping craze (w.r.t. women), beer craze (w.r.t. men) and so on…. Just remember all your fwd mails.
• Marriage: Wow! This is popular too… not just the husband and wife bring in the in-laws too! Infidelity, authority, regrets, quarrels…blah blah blah! Hey the pre marriage stuff is funny too; blind love (firm rooted definition of love) and/or match making (probably the most hilarious part!)
• Neighbors: Hey come on… being nosy is fun and my nose can only reach next door!

Forbidden stuff:

• Swearing: South Park… probably one of the best examples of how extremely amusing profanities can get.
• Sex: Even if you tell me you’ve never heard / said such jokes… I’m sure you are lying. Forbidding something is probably analogous to lifting it higher on humor-content-meter!

Practical Jokes: Play a prank and get the gags out of it once you see the fool tricked!

Black Comedy: Sarcasm at its bes….

Wait a second!! Hold on …. I somehow don’t see this analysis going good… Is it my imagination or is it really so that every sub-division of humor I’ve listed so far is at the expense of someone or something. So is it that every form of humor involves some kind of implicit mockery or the other! And is making fun of someone a good thing? At every point aren’t we hurting someone’s feelings?

My realization came to rescue before I was going to jump into the well of guilt. Something can be funny ONLY when its “True” or at least has a very obvious implicit truth hidden in it (Sarcasm). And something which is as a matter of fact true after all can not miss the stage! Er! Atleast that’s how I think so!

God! I never thought that this is such a complicated subject to write a blog on… All my fun this weekend just inspired me to start this analysis but it turned to be a helluva disaster dint it? I realized that if you ask why something is funny…it simply ceases to be funny! Thank you for bearing to read until the far end of this disastrous blog, I was thinking of not posting it… but well… If I had got this drafted well I would have probably got myself a paper published in a psychology or psychiatry (don’t really know the difference) Journal

I’d just like to say one last thing though…. When someone’s making fun of us we should probably be a sport and laugh over it too. Because probably if we feel bad about it, we are only being guilty of what we are. And if they are kidding us about something we are not, we just got to learn to laugh at their bad sense of humor :)

I once read this on a very short guy’s t-shirt “Life is SHORT ……. Make fun of it!” I could not help but smile! So take it easy and spice up your life with a frequent dosage of Humor and fun and sometimes make fun of yourself!!

Affections Disguised

I was just looking at an old photo I had with me and my mind went wandering all over the infinite memories stored, especially the ones with one special guy who was always around me. My Little Brother! (Well, hez not little anymore but I’d like to think so always). So here’s down memory lane.

22^nd January 1987 this soul came into being on earth. He is four years and a half younger than I am. He troubled my mom with his bad appetite for food but would drink close to 2 and a half glasses of Bournvita and jump up with infinite energy like a wound up spring.

I had a cupboard full of toys all neatly arranged and taken care of, just after a couple of years of his life and it reduced to a rack of toys and a cardboard box of ruins of his staged war among all my toys. I hated him for that and my mom would pacify me “You’re a grown up girl you don’t play with those toys anymore”.

He was so mischievous he climbed up a chair and swung open the window and THUDDD! It hit right on my grandmom’s face who was watering plants outside in the garden and poor soul she lost her two front teeth. To this date we all pull his leg about it…

My dad has this fancy of recording kid’s voices, he had a tape of my voice as a kid and wanted to record my brother’s too…Boy! Was he giving us a tough time…. My dad would say “Say, A for apple” he would be like “uhh hoooo!” and run all around the room, I would then go up to him and say in his ears “Hey say A for apple otherwise daddy will scold u” and then he said “A for apple” then my dad continued “B for ball!”. He then said “B for ..B for…B for” I tried prompting from behind and he gave me a sly smile and said “ B for Bamrakatta (don’t ask me what it is or what it means, it was his own crazy vocabulary) he haaaaaaaaaa ha ah” and run away.

There is something I’ll definitely avenge him for someday. I had this cute little pink teddy my dad got for me from Bombay! I used to hold him while I sleep. In a little fight we had he snatched it from me and ran all around the garden and I was trying to catch him. He held is above his head as though he was taller than me. Once he realized it would be easy for me to reach…He flung it over on the sunshade. My dad told me he would get a ladder the next day and rescue teddy for me. Damn! It had to rain that night and all I got back was something looking like a Black Voodoo doll! Grrrrrr!

He had some fascination for “One Rupee”. He once told my dad, “Daddy lets get a car!” My dad would say “Its too expensive ra!” He would innocently reply “No daddy its only one rupee”. My dad laughed and asked “Only one rupee??” and he would spread his hands around and say, “Whole world is one rupee! Everything is one rupee!!” and my grandma would come around and tell my dad “Your son is preparing himself to buy the whole world”.

He was somewhat a kid-electrician, my mum had to make sure to hide all possible electric and electronic goods. He ripped a tape recorder into parts proclaiming that he is repairing it and reduced an old clock into nuts, bolts, needles and wheels. Pulled out the tape from cassettes and stretched it from one end of the living to the other.

Michael Jackson was his demigod and he would throw himself into what I recognized as synchronized fits! He always had a clapping audience so he never really cared what I thought of it.

He was such an impressionable kid. After watching a superman cartoon he ran to the room pulled out a towel tied it around his neck and ran all around the house. He ran up the stairs to the terrace. My mum got so scared if he would attempt to jump off the parapet but all he need was more space run around and wind for his towel to fly.

He had some technique of pinching with his knuckles and he would try it on my hand and challenge me to do the same. OOOuch! It hurt sooo much. I would take up the challenge and he would laugh seeing me not able to do it and then I would stealthily use my nails to hurt him and it would end up in big time bash up time! Who was I kidding… That guy had the strength of the Gods!

I always enjoyed teasing him. He was out of his bath and my mom had gone to attend the door bell. He opened the cupboard in an attempt to pick his own t-shirt and ended up pulling out my red frock with white spots. He just wore it on for fun and spun round and round holding up the flare of the skirt. I found it so funny that I rolled over the floor and laughed. He was so offended that he ended up wrestling with me and my mom comes back to witness it and says “Ohh Nooooooooo Not again!!!”

He always has absolute determination about what he loves to do. His first bike was his life. Nobody taught him how to ride a bike, he came back home with a lot of bruises but it was amazing to see how slowly he himself removed the supports of his bike and ride without holding the handlebars!

We grew up! I started going to college and he was in high school. He became less mischievous, more responsible and mature. But that’s not stopping us fight he he! Remote Fight was everyday fight!!!!! The only time we used to agree on channels was 8pm…Anything but Sun News! But the ruler of the remote at that time was DAD!!!

He automatically by default hated all my celebrity crushes. “Whats that fatso Madhavan got…what do you girls see in him?” and I would say “Don’t be jealous, He’s got a cute smile”. He would sneer back “Jealous me??? I don’t even want to have a smile close to his”

Poor guy was always tired of attending my phone calls. I would come back home after a class or outing and ask, “Did anyone call?” and he would irritably say “Yeh Shah Rukh Khan, Hrithik Roshan and Salman Khan called to ask for appointments with you!”. I’d shout back “Don’t kid…tell me its important”. He would snigger and say “Who else Kadalai Mama and Lipstick Maami (his nick names for my friends, he hated them all too) Whats so important about them???”

I could go on and on and maybe write a book… It’s always been fun to have him around. I’ve seen that as people grow up into adults they fight with their siblings over issues like property, prestige etc etc. Even though we’ve fought over so many things we’ve always come around it because they were all soo trivial… Hey bro! I promise that I’ll never let things go soo far that it would lead to misunderstandings with permanent damages like I see all around the world, because my life with you means a lot. I want to add a whole lot to my already existing sweet memories, as I grow old :). Waiting to see you after a year and a half in December :)

That unspoken love around fights and hidden possessiveness around arguments – are "Affections Disguised" – too proud to be expressed.

Its the Crab Speaking!

This probably will be the shortest blog I’ve ever posted. So you really won’t be boggled down with loads of paragraphs of my abstract musings. I’m reading “The Fountain Head”, I’ve read “Atlas Shrugged” and “Anthem”, some of Ayn Rand’s other books. I can quote a whole lot of lines from her books which I adore a lot (Even though there are a few I don’t quite agree with). But here is one paragraph I can relate to myself.

“There’s so much nonsense about human inconstancy and the transience of all emotions.” Said Wynand. “I’ve always thought that a feeling which changes never existed in the first place. There are books I liked at the age of sixteen. I still like them.”

The significance of those lines doesn’t need pages of description and reasoning, as simple and deep as it explains the word “Clingy” as opposed to “Possessive”, does anyone not see the difference?

The Recurring Fear

This is not my attempt at writing poetry, I don’t even know if it can be called one. But I wrote it today out of some whim.

The Recurring Fear

I descend down the creaking stairs;

To pick up my laundry from the buzzing dryer.

I hear a loud bang upstairs

My friend’s closed the door to trap me down here.

The lonely electric bulb above my head turns off

Of course not by itself the prankster commands up there

I wait till my eye adjusts to the darkness

And find a corner on the stairs to sit and wait

Slowly light flows down the stairs

And I see the prankster look down and stare

I look up and smile “What’s the idea?”

A defeated voice asks “Don’t you ever get scared?”

A shrug, a grin and I’m back to my chores.

A hundred students in a vast air-conditioned lab

A duster and a chalk in hand, facing them all

I hardly sweat nor shiver, with a voice loud and clear,

I explain the rules formulated by Dennis Ritchie.

As I grow up in an alien land

And learn things never heard before,

I stand behind the podium, with a microphone pinned to my collar.

The professors I have admired the most in the panel

Don’t cause me to blank out or pass out,

Nor do my PhD competitors freak me out

As I present what I learnt and found.

It’s a couple of hours after the middle of the night

I’m at my desk with no other living soul around

The messenger window flashes and blinks bright

It’s my roomie, “you should have come right home”

I smile and type, “Hey, I’m alright”!

Still not satisfied, “How do you do it, its a scary and depressing night”

As grateful as I am to have a caring mate,

It’s just a research lab for heaven’s sake

No soft mattresses and quilts here

To tempt laziness when I can’t afford it.

A group in high spirits and cheer

Walking home after a midnight submission.

A guy among the group stops and begs the rest to hear,

Attentive ears and a single voice breaking the silence

“You see the engraved stone below this tree here?”

Eyes Widened and heads nodded,

“It’s the name of the professor whose soul haunts that Hall there”

I only hear a “Hmph!!” and Oh! That’s from me

Seeing the amused me he says, “It’s true”

Then piercing into the night, a sharp scream,

It’s my friend being pushed to the tree.

Suppressing giggles I follow the path home.

Today is a fine day; I can see the sun shining

People around me say it’s warm and cozy, a rare feeling around here,

That’s the reason they are all smiling

The hollow of my palm is wet with sweat

Shouldn’t that mean it’s humid?

But I impulsively pull out the sweater sleeping in my backpack

And Slip it on; the wool relaxes the goose bumps

But doesn’t cease the shivering

I feel my forehead with the back of my hand,

To find it colder than normal, just as I expected it to be.

So I’m not sick with fever, I’ve felt this before

I know its fear, but why and for what reason.

It’s not fear of crowd or darkness

Neither fear of the dead nor loneliness

I taught myself to overcome all the known mundane fears

But of what form is this unidentified fear?

Which keeps recurring out of the blue…