1. I have found out that the obsessive compulsive hair pulling disorder that i have ACTUALLY has a name. I now officially suffer from trichotillomania. I think it started when i was class 12th and because of undue stress (ahem!!) due to the upcoming boards (aaaah!!) i started pulling out my hair - not in clumps (thats my sister's job to pull MY hair out in clumps!! :P) but strand by strand therby irritating everyone at home and dirtying the entire house. Over the past 7 years though i have made a conscious effort to stop it even now when i am tensed or in deep thought my hands unconsciously reach out to my hair to pull them out. I cant believe i ama maniac!! :-

I am going to stop!! oh yeah i am going to stop

2. What happens to people when they are in love? Why do they stop thinking rationally, or rather why do they stop thinking at all? Why dont they listen to reason? Why do they lie to parents - the same parents to whom they have never lied before, never hidden anything, been completely honest? Why do they break their trust? I guess I never will understand and I seem to be surrounded by people like this. And dont u dare look at me condescendingly,smirk and say "Never been in love, you will NEVER understand"

3. I just realised that unconsciously i have built circles of trust around me and every time i meet a person i place them in one of those imaginary circles. Family and 4 close friends - circle 1, good friends - circle 2, online friends - circle 3 and so on and so forth. I think consciously or unconsciously all of us do it - segregate and classify people based on how relevant they are in our lives. So much for telling everyone "Heyyy! I am not judgemental"

4. My friend A must be the only person in India to have failed a driving test. So the other day she had her driving test and when i called her later this was the conversation between us
Me: So what happened??

A: ha ha ha ha ha!!

Me: Congrats!! So all the tension was for nothing eh? You cleared it

A: Ha ha ha ha!! Noooo!! i flunked. i didnt realise the hand break was in place and tried to start the car and the car threw up. And he threw me outta the car. Ha ha ha ha

Me: Ha ha ha ha!! but errr. why are u going Ha ha ha ha ha

A: Ha ha ha ha. I dont know. Its just so funny!!

A now has the dubious distinction of being among the select few who failed a driving test in INDIA!! Sheeeesh!! I thought no one failed a driving test in India.

5. I now regret having had a wonderful childhood, great parents and a privileged life with no financial worries. For the past few months i have been filling a couple of application forms which ask me the following questions

-some acute adversity which u faced in life and how u overcame it

errrrr...the acutest adversity which i faced in my younger days was my sister and in college days was my roommate. I love both of them so didnt actually have the need to overcome them!! Does this qualify??

-Have u ever supported ur family financially?

Ha ha ha ha ha!! I am still not able to support my OWN self financially

-Have u ever availed a student loan to pursue your education

Errrr..Noo

-Have you ever worked part time while getting an education to support yourself/family

Hulllllo!!! I considered getting an education as WORK!!

-Have you ever funded the education/needs of a younger sibling?

I AM the younger sibling. Now somebody fund me please!!

I mean what is it with these colleges? I filled No for all the questions asked above and I am about as sure as making it to those colleges as Pramod Muthalik is of growing some hair, moustache and brains!! Sighhh!! Its all my parents fault!! :-

6. So this weekend i am again going to Bangalore. I am not very fond of that city and it is OBVIOUS that its not a voluntary trip for pleasure though i fully intend to make it one. But since meeting Sowrangutan is on my agenda i dont know if i can really call the trip a pleasure!! :P

Aw le le le Sowrangutan!!

And be rest assured I am not bringing you gifts like a certain someone did last week!! Yours Truly is the biggest gift you will be getting!! :D

P.S: I just realised random scribbles and rants seem to be the only thing i am writing nowadays!! Its been ages since i wrote a proper review/post etc!! Hmmmm!!

Yawn!!!!

I am sitting in a meeting room listening to something which I don’t understand, listening to some technology which is beyond me, an application which I wont use, a knowledge which I cannot appreciate. Yes I am bored, yes I am sleepy and it will not look nice if I suddenly fall asleep on the glass table when 10 other people are listening intently. Hence I am doing what I do when I dunno what to do. I am writing. It is at the most inappropriate of times that I decide to do some introspection. I mean right now I am supposed to be listening, understanding and absorbing a new earth shattering application. Everyone else around me thinks I am scribbling some notes related to the meeting in my notepad. I cant help but smile when I think of how they would react if they really knew what I was writing. Oh shit!! A team mate of mine just saw me grinning and wants to know what I find funny. Turns out she is also bored. Think Revs think. What is so funny about this meeting/application that makes u smile?

"heh heh!!" I smile lamely "her voice" I say pointing to the phone from which emanates the voice of a lady who is teaching us how to use the application. "is so funny"
"heh heh" my team mate laughs
"heh heh" I reply
I am sure she thinks I have an IQ lower that lowest form of aquatic life. Whatever!! I am used to that!!

Ah!! Where was I ? yeah!! Introspection. Coming back to that. There is a voice inside me which is asking me "why are u doing this? Why are u even sitting here pretending to listen but paying as much attention as this country pays to its women (my blood boils as I think of the fact that Mysore issue and the Karnataka CM's statements about it. Maybe I will write about it next. But I need to simmer a little down to write about it. On second thoughts Maybe i wont write about it. This blog never made any sense anyway and i would hate for it to do so suddenly!! hmmm)

For the first time in my life I find myself shutting out my inner voice because for the first time I dunno what answer to give!! Why am I doing this? Why am I sitting in this room listening to some application which is earth shattering and I am about as interested in listening to it as you would be in getting ur daughter married to dawood Ibrahim. There is a saying which goes like this
"if u don’t do what u like u will eventually end up liking what u do"?
I am scared. I am scared a day will come when I will go "sigh!! how beautiful. What grace. What panache" and shed happy tears when I see a java code compiling or an sql query working. I hope that never happens to me.

Rofl!! A team mate just asked me if I was taking down notes and I cant help laughing out aloud. Another team mate quips "Revathi and taking down notes. humph" she smirks. "you have got to be kidding. Must be writing a blog" . I am glad for her support. I guess I must be really really predictable.

Anyway I am not complaining. I am really not. I am just errr..musing!! :rolling eyes: I love my life as it is now but sometimes I feel it really has no meaning. Sometimes I have these troughs in my life’s graph (this is one of them after a long crest period!! :)) when I feel I could have done something else, been someone else, done something I really like to do. Hmmmm. Sighhhhh. I hate the 'if only..' phases of my life.

Ewwww. Another team mate of mine just saw that I had written 2 pages and wants to read what I have written. I better stop now and continue my ramblings. Maybe when the next meeting happens. In S/W companies trust me there is no dearth of silly meetings!!

P.S: Yep!! Coding phase of my project has started!! Pretty evident huh?? ;)

1. The resilient nature of humans will never fail to amaze me. Its amazing how soon normal life resumes after any kind of calamity or mishap. Its time to quote the most cliched dialogue of all time. Life just goes on come what may. So after a terrible week now everyone a home is slowly limping back to normalcy carrying on with their routine lives.

2. I must have done something right in some of my previous births to deserve the kind of friends i have. Aki, Moti, Gundoo, Sam, Diw. Thanks a lot for just being there on sunday and lending me your shoulder. i owe u guys one.

3. It was G.B.C.I's (my blog's) third birthday on Jan 10th. I dont think i can ever think of GBCI's birthday without thinking of perima.

4. Its not very difficult to actually pretend like you are working. All u need is an excel sheet with some gibberish written on it and keep adjusting the column width or copy, paste data from one cell to another. Be sure to listen to some music so that no one disturbs you or asks you what you are doing. You will be in trouble then.

5. My dad's concept of missed calls is very weird. I tell him clearly "Appa, i will give u a missed call. Just let your phone ring and then call me back. ok?" But he picks my call grunts into the mouthpiece and then cuts it. When i asked him why he does that he says "i need to ackowledge your call dont i?". Sheeesh!! Me thinks my dad doesnt know what the red button in the phone is for. he just always uses the green button! :-\. Oh BTW all you people who are thinking "sheeesh, she still gives missed calls?? Even now when she is earning??" lemme hasten to reassure you that i m not the kind of leech who likes to suck all the blood out of her parents and then go "Smack!! That was yum!!". Its just that its free if my parents call me. :rolling eyes:

6. My sister who is(or is it was. I dunno. She refuses to tell me!! :P) working for a certain company which errr is going through rough times now (no prizes for guessing which company i am talking about.;)) has been threatened by her husband that he will throw her out of the house or mete out untold atrocities on her if she doesnt earn her rozi roti. So if any of you good samaritans want to prevent domestic violence. please give my sister a job!! :P

(I sound like those guys who come on local trains with letters which read "I am deaf dumb blind lame and have 4 holes in my heart. Heart surgery will cost 175000 rupees. Please donate generously" with a pitiful look on their face)
Yaar Preethi. Just hang in there. Tera kuch na kuch bandobast mai karti hoon. Behen hoon aakhir. Kuch to farz banta hai!! :P

7. I think i am becoming super old. There was a time 6 months back when i had amazing stamina and could trek easily for a long time. Last weekend's trek to kolli just proved what a pathetic shape i am in. I needed to take rest every 10 metres and panted and puffed my way up the mountain. People who called me super woman in the last trek looked down upon me the same way narayan murthy is now looking down upon satyam employees. (that was mean of u mr.murthy. Satyam employees are not at fault if their CEO goofs up. Its almost like saying all muslims are terrorists just because majority of the terrorists are muslims).
anyway bottom line, i need to buck up and i am going to run 5 kms everyday starting next week and build my stamina!! (no kidding!!).

8. I thoought i got over my OCD. Apparently not. i saw 7 points and my hands itched to make that number even and write one more point. Hence this point. 7 rubbish points or 8 rubbish points. what difference does it make?? :P

Owing to the installation of the toll at OMR all buses come half an hour early to office as a result of which i am here in office at 8.30, with no one around me, trying hard to start working and do a decent round of requirement analysis at least this time. exactly 20 seconds after i opened the requirements doc i realized i am totally totally not interested in this and so here i am another word doc open in front of me typing this nonsense.

· This weekend has been another one of THOSE weekends where i have done 3207423 things in a short span of 2 days. I like weekends like these. They leave me no time to think or brood. Even before i am done with one thing there is something else demanding my attention and i switch to that and before i know it whoooosh!! the weekends gone

· My close friend got married and friends’ marriages are always amazing fun with all the speculation about who is getting married next, brainstorming sessions about what gift to buy, staying the night at a friends place putting mehendi and watching movies. good fun :)

· I finally did hold the veil for my friend when she got married. God!! i felt so important. I mean no one was allowed to come close to the bride but another friend of mine and i were allowed to stay close, talk laugh and hold the veil. Felt good!! No one has ever given me so much of respect before!! :P

· This year started off with me attending the marriage of a hindu friend, followed by the marriage of a muslim friend and then followed by the marriage of a christian friend and i have come to the conclusion that hindu marriages are the most cumbersome and complicated of the lot. the muslim and christian weddings are over in half a day. thats it. i mean they start at 11 in the morning and by 4 everyone is home again. Hindu marriages on the other hand are a 3 day sloth fest and are an abominable waste of money and time. I remember when my sister got married we had sumangali prarthanai, maplai azhaippu, kasi yatra, oonjal, thaali, metti, grahapravesam, nalangu and reception!! Phew!!! by the time it was over we were all so tired that for a week after her wedding, i remember we just slept and rejuvenated ourselves. I think everyone should just run away and get married. Would make things so much more easier

· One of my friends got over enthusiastic during the wedding and put the hair iron (the one which straightens your hair) on my hair and now i have some 10-15 strands on the right hand side of my head which refuse to curl and are just standing upright and it looks kinda sad coz i have super curly hair otherwise and these strands really stand out

· So (sigh) a couple of my friends (sigh) are going to the himalayas (sigh). and i cant go(sigh) because i have office and (sigh) some other crappy exams too (sigh)
oh BTW if you hadnt guessed yet i really really really want to go(sigh)

· have finished reading all of Rohinton Mistry's books. I liked them all but none even come close to fine balance. Wondering what author i should start off with next. Any suggestions? How does Amitav Ghosh write? Should find out and buy him next. Will settle for good ol' PGW or RKN this month though. finances are really poor and i really dont think i can afford to buy Amitav Ghosh or any book now. I have also been trying to get my hands on Out of Iran by Sousan Azadi suggested by a friend. I also finished reading Midnight’s children and maybe I am just shallow or maybe I don’t have the taste for Rushdie kind of writing. The book bored me to death.

Ahhhh!! It is 9.15. time to call the on site and get my requirements clarified!! Sigh!! Adios!!

Random Scribbles on a Rainy Evening

It has been pouring in Chennai for the past 3 days and having missed the last bout of rains in mid October I am glad I am here when Chennai is being struck a hurricane. In a sudden bout of kindness and unusual spark of humanity, HR sent a mail today afternoon declaring that EOD (End of Day for all you plebs) today would be at 5 because of the looming hurricane and advised all the associates to leave early to avoid getting caught in the storm. They were however quick to remind us that EOD on Friday would be extended by an hour. So much for kindness and humanity.

So its one of those lazy evenings when for a change I am home early with nothing much to do. Cant go out for a walk. Though I love walking and getting wet in the rain, walking through knee deep slush and mud is not exactly my idea of a good pastime. I cant read a book. Coz I have already read all the books that I have and I cant go out and buy some because
a) it is raining and
b) it is the 26th of the month and my bank balance is errr in double digits.

Not really enough to buy a book. I cant watch TV because there IS no TV to watch. I cant mail a friend of mine overseas whom I have been grossly ignoring for a week now lamely blaming work and other things because her mail is languishing in my personal folders in my system in office to which I have no access from home. Sorry Anu.
So right now I am sitting here listening to the steady “chh chh chh chhh chhh” of the rain outside my window and it reminds me of all the wonderful rains that I have experienced in the 23 years of my existence.

-- The rainy seasons in Surat from 1992-1997 with Preethi and my cousins Rishu and Prashu when we would continuously watch Tom and Jerry from 2 in the afternoon to 8 in the night and still not get tired..

-- Playing dark room.

-- Cutting the little earthworms in the balcony with the kitchen knife and watching in wonder as the two ends of the earthworm wiggled in two different directions while it poured outside and produced more earthworms for us to cut and experiment

-- Making mud pies and small plates and spoons of mud and playing house house (Sheeeeeesh!! How much I loved being a wife and mother then!! :D)

-- Learning to ride a bicycle on my own in the parking area and cycling in the narrow area between two cars so that even if I lost balance I wouldn’t fall down but would fall on one of the cars while it rained mercilessly never letting me practice my bike riding on the roads.

-- Purposely wading through ankle deep, knee deep water and wetting my shoes and socks just so that I could hear the pleasant “squelch squelch” of my shoes whenever I walked and get scolded by amma.

-- Going to bed at night listening to the howling of the wind and the “crick crick” of crickets.

-- Snuggling up under a quilt and close to paati while she told us stories, happy to be safe and warm at home while it was dark and cold outside.

-- The rains in Jamnagar which always brought with them cyclones. Cyclones became such a run off the mill thing for us that every rains we would go “Cyclone a?? seri seri” and go on with our work.

-- Driving in our first car – a blue color Maruti 800 in the rains watching in wonder as dad put on the car viper which magically devoured all the little drops which formed on the windscreen.

--The rains in Bombay which are MERCILESS and go about ravaging the entire city with a clinical precision not caring two hoots about the people who suffered. The impudence and audacity of the Bombay rains has always mesmerized me.

-- The rains in Chennai – the friendly rains as I call them. Always raining throughout the night, letting us enjoy the pleasant weather during the day.

-- The rains when I was in class 12th and paati would invariably make bhajji or bonda every time it rained. Snuggling to a god book with a cuppa tea in one hand, bajji in the other, listening to the rains – Ah!!! Bliss!!

-- The rains during my fifth semester in college when Anna University postponed the exams because of heavy rains and I sat and cried in the common room in our hostel because my trip home which I had been looking forward to had been postponed indefinitely and as if to rub salt on my wounds it didn’t rain at all the whole day.

-- My friends trying to cheer me up during that time and even today I remember distinctly. I was crying and one friend said “They have postponed the exams man. Lets not waste this holiday, lets go to Mayajaal and watch Harry Potter 3. Because of the rains we will get tickets easily and it’s a weekday too”. And off we went in that ominous looking weather to watch a movie and cheer “me” up!!

-- Now I feel glad they postponed the exams. One of the BESTEST times of my life when I made some of my closest friends, had all night talk-athon and chat-athon sessions in the rains. Getting wet every time it rained.

-- The rains in Manali during final year tour when we walked on the road, a light drizzle beating down on our faces, a cup of hot tea in hand, rushing to the nearest dhaba to have some aloo ka parantha!! Lovely!! :)

-- The sudden rains in Skandagiri which took us by surprise and lashed out at us with all their fury leaving us shivering and singing in our tents throughout the night

-- And finally the rains now which help me think of all the wonderful rains I have seen!!

Ah!! The rains. Its amazing what the rain does to me. I love the rains!! :)

Title ko maar goli!!

1. I have this terrible problem of tears magically appearing in my eyes when I yawn and not just couple of drops but whole oceans of tears. It’s a really unfortunate thing when you are in some meeting in office and my body over reacts to words like ‘holistic’, ‘development’, ‘leverage’ , ‘business users’ ,’client’, ‘integration testing’ and the likes. As most of the meetings in office consist of these words its rather tough to control them yawns and in turn them tears. So it so happens that every time the person who is talking looks at me he sees a girl with a bright red face and pursed lips, flared nostrils and eyes full of tears desperately trying to hide a yawn which is threatening to reveal itself.
Tip: Never try to hide a yawn. Might as well yawn it away than suppress it. a suppressed yawn causes more agony than a full bladder in a meeting room.

2. The only question in CAT 2008 which I answered confidently was a question in verbal. That question had a couple of lines from my favorite book (unaccustomed earth by Jhumpa Lahiri) and I had to correct the grammar in it. I aced that question!!! I wish CAT had more questions on books by PG Wodehouse and Roald Dahl and Gerald durell and rohinton mistry and James Herriott and….. Sighhhh!! I would sitting in those IIMs now!!

After-thought: Thanks for gifting me Unaccustomed Earth for my birthday Aki. Pssst... I want Hitchhikers hide to the galaxy trilogy for my next birthday!! :P

3. Asking friends to meet you outside one of the statues in marina beach is a BAD idea especially if the friend of yours doesn’t know Chennai. So I had asked sheikhee to meet me at marina on 5.30. By the time we met each other it was 7 and both of us had a lot of kind words to say to each other. :-\. He was standing on one end of marina saying “hey I m front of a round white building (ullavar statue)” and I was at the other end saying “hey I am front of a round white building too (Thanthai periyar maligai)”. Sighhhh!!
Idle Musing: I was just wondering how people survived before the invention of cell phones. I mean if this had happened 10 years back what would we have done? Thank god for technology!!

4. Nowadays I am scared to check my yahoo mail. Everyday either in one of my school groups or college groups I see someone’s wedding invite. People my age getting married or engaged or having babies (no kidding!!) and I scream silently. How!! How can people decide who to marry, get married and have babies at the age of 22??? I am jealous. I cant even make simple decisions like “do I want to eat my idli with chutney or sambhar” and I spend 5 minutes every morning wondering if I oughta eat idli with chutney or sambhar and there are people MY age who are making life altering decisions.

5. I am relationship, commitment and responsibility phobic. I hate responsibility of any kind. If I sense the slightest hint of responsibility I bolt. I get along extremely well with people who have no expectations from me, which is great because I have no expectations from anyone. I do not expect people to call me, mail me and message me and hate feeling bogged down. My closest friends are people who would talk to me the same way if I called them every day or once in two months. I remember in school I had a couple of friends who would go “Revs, you promised to sit with me and instead sat with XYZ” or “Revs, you said you would call me last evening but you never did” and it would suffocate and choke me and make me feel like I was losing my freedom. No wonder I am not in touch with any of them now. Even if I tried to it would be a string of “you never kept in touch, you never called, you never mailed etc.” I have never understood possessiveness or the need to be answerable to anyone except my parents. I am extremely wary of sensitive people and people with any kind of emotional baggage. They scare me.
Ok now that’s a lot of introspection shit, so I will stop right here!!

In the land of the NANO!! :)

1. I hate travelling in second class sleeper trains. By the end of the 45 hour journey I am dirty sweaty and smell like a skunk and a stinky one at that. I was on a train which consisted of 300 christians coming back from a convention in channai. All the time I feared someone would come and burn the train down given the situation in Orissa and the sudden hatred towards Christians. I will never understand communal riots. Out of my closest friends, 3 are christains and one is a muslim and though it sounds very dramatic I would rather give my life than see them die.

On the other hand I love travelling in second class compartments. This is where you can see real india and its people, admire the green fields as they whiz by, capture a beautiful sunset, wave to the little kids working in fields, talk to people who try to convert u to Christianity by giving u books on the gospel of Christ, get invited to the house of some random stranger in ahmedabad whom u know for ten minutes and have them scold you when u politely refuse and tell them u have to immediately catch a bus to Jamnagar. Hmmm. I love this country!!

THE ELUSIVE SUNSET THAT I TRIED TO CAPTURE

2. I am yet to come across a toilet in second class sleeper trains without obscenities scrawled on the doors, near mirrors, above the commode etc. personally I think the toilets in Indian second class trains is where the Indian male gives vent to all his sexual fantasies. And its really not an advantage when u can read hindi, tamil and gujarati, the languages in which most of the obscenities are scribbled in along with graphic pictures. The reader might ask why this particular blogger wants to go and read the stuff written on the doors. All i can say is "Hey!! Two days in the train. I need some entertainment man!!" :P

3. After I got down in ahmedabad I had to catch an auto to reach a bus stand. I had been instructed by amma, not to give more that 30 bucks to the auto guy. Anything more would be daylight robbery she insisted. I catch and auto guy and try my rusty gujarati on the guy. Its been 8 years since I spoke gujarati with anyone and I do not miss a chance to practice. I tell him “mane paldi javoo che” including a nasal twang to achieve the authentic gujju effect. 40 rupees he says. Though this is the first time I am going to this place in ahmedabad I act like I own the place. I turn my nose up act like a seasoned gujju ben and say “hoon 30 aj aapun” (I will give 30 only). He smirks as if to say “I can see through u clearly, u pseudo gujarati” and says “Beso Beso ben” (sit sit sister). That’s one thing about Gujarat. Everyone is a sister or a brother. He drives in a way which would make schumi blush, skips all the signals and says ahemdabad has become a very unruly place. He asks me where I am from and I proudly say “hum to madras se aaye hain”. “Ahhh madras. Wahan to roads acche hotein hai na?” he says and I just gape at him and don’t say anything lest I blurt out the truth. In the end I end up giving him 35 bucks for all the entertainment he provided me.

4. I go to the travels guy and the luck of the Ramanan’s starts working again. I have been travelling fro 38 hours now and all I want to do is reach home, take a bath eat good food and go to sleep and this guy tells me he cant put me on the 10.00 o clock bus because only “gents” are there in the bus and he cant send “ladies” in that and puts me on the 11.30. I have 3 hours to kill. I eventually end up calling up all my friends at STD rates. I figure that since I am anyway not going to use my phone for the next two weeks I might as well talk and while away time. I also finish the last few pages of maximum city by suketu Mehta. One of the best books that I have EVER read and will ever read about Bombay. Its amazing. Thanks to maximum city I had no idea how two days flew by in the train. Amazing book. People who haven’t read it yet please do read it. Will do a review soon.

5. Reached Jamnagar at 6 in the morning to be received by two completely excited human beings who have been waiting at the bus stop for an hour now expecting me to come. My parents crush me in a hug and the bus driver smirks and says “utarne to do” (let her at least get down first). I have come up with a law for family. This is how it goes
a. If you visit home daily parents don’t care two hoots about u. you are scolded frequently, the food is on the table, the keys are with the neighbor, u can fend for yourself they say.
b. If you come home once in 2 months they worry about how thin u have become, make sure you eat your meals on time, there is ice cream in the fridge keys are still with the neighbor
c. If you come home once in 6 months you are a princess, your food is ready when u want it, your bed is made, you are fed sometimes, you are scolded very rarely and they don’t leave u alone and go.
d. If you come home once in 17 months (a la moi) you are treated like ROYALTY. Queen Elizabeth doesn’t get the kind of welcome you do. Your mom doesn’t say a word when without taking a bath you sit in front of the computer. She climbs up the stairs with the breakfast in hand and comes and gives ur breakfast to you. You just say “internet appa” and your dad disconnects his laptop and connects the PC to the modem. You just saunter into the bathroom and scream soap, shampoo, towel at regular intervals and have them handed to you without a word. 5 years back amma would have said “did u go to take a bath or go for a picnic” (I have never really understood the significance of this statement. I mean I thought people went prepared for a picnic. whatever).
Maybe it has something to do with the fact that the daughter she sent looking like “Karnam Malleswari” comes back looking like “kallubai” the woman from the famine affected district in Orissa which hasn’t seen food in 10 days. Appa gives me one withering look and says “she has lost more weight than I did after my open heart. Feed her something” and that’s what I have been doing since I landed. Eating eating and more eating.

Thanks!! :)

The other day i got a mail from one of the readers of my blog saying

Hi Revs,

Recently I had been to Los Angeles and visited this famous Chinese Theatre where you have hand and foot prints of many Hollywood actors.
Well I took this photo of George Clooney's hand and foot prints. Just after taking the photo the first person came into my mind was you :) (don't know why :D ) so thought of mailing it to you.
Not sure whether you will like it or not :)

Keep blogging :)

Regards,
Chintan

and he sent me the following pic



I couldnt stop laughing. and after reading his mail i had this faint hope that if my love for clooney had reached los angeles, the day isnt far when it will reach hollywood and Georgie will come and ask for my hand in marriage after acknowledging my true love for him!! :P

Here i am on Gandhi Jayanthi - a national holiday, sitting in office handling them null pointer exceptions, waiting for them SQL queries to run and fixing them javascript errors but life doesnt seem all that bad.
Thanks Chintan and be rest assured that i LOVED the pic!! :D
Now i have something to worship!! :P

Of silly friends, the english language, office and marathons!! :)

1. So one of my closest friends Akila has gone to Sweden on an “on-site” trip. Being the first one to go from our group of “we-are-useless-and- we-hate-the-software-field-but-we-still-will-rot-here” group, all of us were enormously excited about her trip and asked her to mail us ASAP about Sweden, her hotel, her life, her work everything. Now Aki, nice though she is, for the life of her cannot write or type long mails. She uses all kinds of short forms whose meanings we are never able to decipher.
If I were to give an appropriate analogy I would say “Aki is to long letters as Osama Bin Laden is to world peace” or “aki is to words as maneka Gandhi is to non-vegetarianism”. You get the drift? She cant write.

So the other day we get a mail from her saying

(quoting her verbatim)

“hotel provides bf....thr r lots of stuff for bf...but then they don display the names”

And she sends this to our group of 6 friends all of whom are perverts in their own rights and whose thoughts are as straight as a Jalebi!!

One friend replies saying “they give u boy friends in the hotel?? Whoa?? Are they like tall dark and handsome. What do u care about the names of the ‘BF’??”

Another one replies saying “Aki, what the hell is wrong with u and what kind of a hotel are u staying in which provides blue films?? Eeeeeeyuck. And this is company accommodation??? And u want the names of the movies??? Eeeeeeee!!”

Another one thought it was buffet.

And not a single one of us actually understood that by ‘bf’ she meant breakfast.
It was only after she clarified, that we were enlightened!! :|

2.Sometimes wrong messages i.e messages of which you are not the intended recipient can be fun!! On Saturday I was to meet another very close friend of mine, Milinta, in bessy at 6 in the evening to share some high profile gossip about who’s going out with who and who’s marrying who. (Sighh!! Yeah. We are a group of sad individuals who meet at besant nagar ever other weekend, sit at Barista and discuss the lives of other people over a plate of dark temptation. Who was the dude who said “Great Minds Discuss Ideas; Average Minds Discuss Events; Small Minds Discuss People?” Yeah, so we are small minds!! :P). So on Friday after a friendly round of unparliamentarily words had been exchanged and after we had politely called each other a “stinking pig” and “rotting piece of garbage” for not calling/mailing, we fixed up a time to meet and “discuss people” we hung up and I suddenly get a message from Milinta saying (quoting her verbatim)“I am meeting Revs tomorrow. :) :) :). God. I dunno y but I am so so so happy”

:D:D. I was flabbergasted when I saw that message coz among us friends we have a rule. No gooey sappy senti shit whatsoever!! Anyway not the one to let go a chance to throw some weight around all I can say is “Jeeez Mi!! I know I am smart and sexy and awesome and funny and intelligent and people are thronging and languishing outside my gates to catch a glimpse of me but do u really have to be so explicit??” :P

Awwwwwwwwwwwwww Mi!!wipe that embarrassed expression off your face. Now not only me but the whole world knows that u like me and die to spend time with me!! :D

3. I hate the English language. I think it is the most illogical and ridiculous language ever. This Saturday as I was volunteering at deepam and teaching the kids the spellings of a couple of words I was stumped by some of the questions posed by the kids. I mean sample this. I asked a kid the spelling of culture and he says “c-u-l-c-h-e-r” and I go “no, that’s wrong. Its c-u-l-t-u-r-e” and he says “but last week u asked me to spell teacher. Wouldn’t culture be spelt the same way?” and I am like “errrr. Ahem.. cough. That’s english” and the boy says to his friends “Yenna da indha akka ke onnum therila”!! :| :|. Pretty embarrassing u say and I completely agree. I dunno how to tell the kids that, that’s how the English language is where “feet smell and noses run” and “plural of goose is geese but moose remains moose” and so many other things. Next was teaching them how to use the “conditional formatting” feature in excel. Now I am pathetic at excel. I cant even add two numbers using excel and I have never heard of conditional formatting. Needless to say I made a complete fool of myself in front of 20 kids half my age with one of them telling me that I if I wanted to enter a formula in excel I must put an “=” sign in front!! :-\
Sigh!!! so much for having done “computer science and engineering”!!

4. my enthusiasm (for people who don’t know, I have been blessed with amazing levels of enthusiasm and energy and I very rarely get tired or lazy) reaches a nadir when I am organizing some activities in office. I hate office, I hate organizing games for people who are about as enthusiastic and interested as a wet sponge. I know I am being judgmental but I sit like a zombie in all the “Connect” (that’s what the “fun” group in my account is called) meetings keeping my mind shut and refusing to give any ideas and refusing to refute crappy ideas like “lets play housie or lets play antakshari (who plays antakshari except 14 year old school girls going on a bus to picnics)”.
This is soooo not me but I just cant bring myself to be enthusiastic about something being done in office. :-\

5. I ran the marathon. Yay yay!! I ran all 7 kms.
Ok. I walked 6.75 kms and ran the rest. Don’t blame me. There were about 50000 people running and there wasn’t even place to crawl let alone walk or run. The bottom line is that we finished running all 7 kms!! I ran mainly to get a “I love Chennai“ t-shirt but didn’t get it!! :(

So this Saturday fermie and I were in odyssey browsing through the books section to buy a gift for a friend.

Suddenly I notice this book called “World’s best short stories”. I open the book , see names like E.M.Forester, Saki, O henry and my BP goes up by several notches, my heart starts beating fast and with my fingers crossed I flip the book to look at the cost, give a huge sigh, realize that I have already bought this month’s quota of books and unwillingly place the book back on the shelf not willing to let go off it.

Fermie standing in front of another shelf is holding princess diaries part I (errr. yeah meg cabot is Fermie’s favorite writer. If u know Fermie you will NOT find this surprising). The book which she has wanted to buy for a long long time. She has all other parts except the first one. She slowly flips the book looks at the price tag, lets a huge sigh and replaces it again.

Suddenly she looks at me and says “Revs, u know what? I didn’t get u anything for ur birthday. I saw your reaction to that short stories book. I m gonna get u that”

And I go “U know Fermie, even I never got u a book for ur birthday. I am gonna get u princess diaries part I”

We look at each other for a minute and start laughing like crazy, get weird glances from an old man holding a book by Leo Tolstoy (weight of book = weight of old man) go to the billing counter and bill our books with a huge grin on our faces

I walk away with my short stories and she walks away with her princess diaries, with no guilty conscience of having spent too much on books. Buying gifts for friends aint such a bad thing, is it? ;)

Friendship - I just love that word!! :)

P.S: Ultimately we never got anything for the friend for whom we went to buy a gift!! :-\

P.P.S: Errr if any of u guys are having birthdays in the near future do come with me to odyssey. There is this book which I have wanted to buy for quite some time, and I am sure there is some book which you would like to have too!! :P

P.P.P.S: the book which I was referring to in the previous P.S is the entire calvin and hobbes collection worth 4000 bucks!! :rolling eyes:.

Notes

1. On a happy note, it rained today in Chennai . After 4 long days of having oppressively hot weather it rained and it felt like heaven. While everyone around me went around carrying umbrellas, I had a capital time splashing in ever y small puddle I came across, wetting my legs (and thereby allowing all kinds of germs to reside on self), humming a song, loving the feel of the little drops on my eye lashes and shivering a little. Only after it rained I realized how much I had been waiting for it to rain.

2. On a sad note, two of my closest friends who work in the same office as me have been shifted to another god forsaken office. They were my only touch/link with my college life and now that they are gone lunch will never be the same again. No more giggling sessions, no more looking at everyone and commenting, no more fight for the gulab jamoon (the only decent item on our office lunch menu). Sigh!! I am supposed to be a very change liking and accepting person. How come things in my life in which I want a change in remain the same ALWAYS?? :

3. On a distressed note, my feet have started stinking again – BIG TIME. I mean the smell had abated fairly such that only I could smell them but for the past 3 days the smell has become worse with my team mates saying “what is that disgusting smell like a rotting dead rat which hasn’t been discovered for 4 days”. I don’t have the heart to tell them that its me!! :( Guess its time for me to buy mycoderm again!! Sigh!!! why me? :(

4. On a euphoric note, a certain post written by a certain friend of mine on a certain unpleasant event which happened in my life (I cant confuse u more can i?? :P)has me grinning from ear to ear . I have fallen in love with my friend all over again (errr. in a totally platonic sense of course!! :P). Thanks a lot A!! love ya!!

5. On an important note, henko stain champion is a much much better soap than Surf excel/rin supreme bar. I never knew the white salwar which I had could actually be this white till I washed it with henko stain champion. Leaves a pleasant smell too, which is more than what can be said of my feet and shoes!! :P. so all u people out there struggling with rin supreme and wondering “itna jhaag aata hai par daag kyun nahi jaata?” throw that bar and get henko stain champion. Trust me I m no brand ambassador for henko stain champion

6. On a very serious note, a friend of mine has started an NGO which is a first of its kind called earn karma. Please do check out the site HERE. Remember all those times when u wanted to help, but didn’t whom to approach or knew someone who was in need of help and wished to raise funds but didn’t have enough contacts? Well now u have a forum which does away with those small problems. So register today and EARN KARMA!!

7. On a boastful note, Revathi Ramanan will register for the 21 km give life Chennai marathon which is being held in chennai on august 31st and whats more she even hopes to win it and buy a flight ticket to dubai to visit her sister with the prize money of 10 lakhs!! :P

8. On a surprised note, I was reading my 12th standard slam book the other day and most of my friends then have written “stay the same revs, don’t change”. I m very surprised. Even if I were given a million dollars I wouldn’t want to be the person I was in 11th and 12th. I have changed by leaps and bounds in the past 6 years. I was a nerd whose idea of entertainment was solving math problems and I wasted two golden years of my life slogging my ass out to get into BITS (which I eventually didnt). I was a silent, morose, boring, painfully shy and sad individual who wore specs, had braces and was 10 kgs overweight. Something tells me that for lack of anything better to write they wrote “don’t change” in my slam book!!

9. On a wistful note, I read THIS article and I am still hopeful that one day I shall become Mrs Clooney!!:P

10. On a sarcastic note, personally I feel the person who writes the use cases in my project might as well write them in swahili or Egyptian hieroglyphics rather than wasting his time and doing it in english. Would be easier for me to translate hieroglyphics and symbols rather than trying to understand what the hell is it that he is trying to say. Seriously. It would be easier to make a 5 year old kid understand leo tolstoy’s war and peace than make me understand the use cases. (assuming that I have the IQ level of a normal 22 yr old and the 5 yr old has the IQ level of a normal 5 yr old!! :P)

1. Everyday when I look at the mirror I see the face of a stranger. There are no profound implications of this statement. Its just that I have been shedding so much hair that everyday when I look atthe mirror I see that my hair line has receded further and have trouble in recognizing myself. It reminds me of the protagonist in the movie crouching tiger hidden dragon whose hairline used to start from the middle of his forehead. I used to crack up every time I looked at him when the movie got released but something tells me that pretty soon I will be like that given the exponential rate at which my hair is falling.

2. I have been reading gerrald durrell’s “my family and other animals gifted very lovingly to me on my birthday and I just LOVE the book. I dunno how I hadn’t heard of gerrald durrell so many days. He is one helluva writer and I would rate him next only to PGW, James Herriott and Richard Gordon in humor writing. Typical clean English humor. I just discovered that I seem to enjoy all books which either deal with animals or talks about them (doesn’t help that my favorite character in PGW is the empress of blandings or that I grew up reading tinkle where kalia the crow was my favorite character!!) what’s wrong with me? I mean I have heard sentimental and romantic people read mills and boons, adventurous people read spy, detective or adventure novels, serious people read philosophical books etc. and I read animal books. So where does that put me? (P.S: on second thoughts don’t answer that question. Milinta and Kilpauk Mental, I don’t, I repeat DON’T want any wise cracks in the comments section about this from you guys. I was just thinking aloud)

3. This weekend I attended the marriage of a very close friend in sivakasi. She is 22. How, how HOW can people get married at the tender age of 22? As her fiancé tied the mangalsutra around her neck I suddenly felt like shouting and saying “Stop!! This is illegal. This is child marriage” but all I could manage was a whimper and a sob as she went from Miss to Mrs in a few seconds. Sigh!! I mean I have known her for five years and she is the kind of person who cant even fold a bed sheet properly, let alone cook and clean and the very thought of her getting married, running a family, cooking and being a daughter in law and wife is very unsettling. I dunno how she is feeling but I am worried sick. Personally I think the legal age for marriage should be pushed to 25. Come to think of it, even my sister got married when she was 22. How the hell did she do it? Now that I am 22 I think I can vaguely understand how apprehensive she must have been.

4. I have the worst luck in this world. I mean its amazing how much pleasure Murphy gets out of seeing me suffer. And my bad luck affects everyone around me. On the way to sivakasi on Friday evening we reached the station in the nick of time after a friend of mine left her bag in office and came to the station without it and we ran all the way back to office and got it. and then the next day the train was 5 hours late and we reached sivakasi at 12. on Sunday after the marriage I was to go to Madurai to attend the engagement of another friend and I caught a bus at 12 to Madurai. As luck would have it the bus broke down in the middle of nowhere, it was sweltering hot, absolutely no shade or trees and I was the only one going to Madurai. Everyone else was going to virudhunagar and got into another bus and I waited and waited and waited for what seemed like an eternity. Finally a bus came rumbling and was jam packed and there I was, stuck between a woman who had never heard of the word deo and a man who had obviously never taken a bath and I reached Madurai at 4, only to discover that I had missed the engagement!!! And then the next day morning the train again reached Chennai 4 hours late and i had to miss office (ok. this is the good part!!!:P ). It was all I could do to prevent myself from screaming out of frustration. Why me? I mean there are 137899853226839 other people in this world and Murphy has to play with me ALWAYS. Sigh!!

5. I am not able to decide about my views on many things. I mean I thought I was a pretty broad minded and open person and thought that nothing could actually shock me. But the other day I was in coffee day for a friends treat, a place I completely avoid going to because rather than having one coffee/milkshake there I would rather have bajjis at subbaiya’s for a week. Anyway I was there and I saw a couple getting extremely cozy right there in the middle of coffee day for everyone to see and I was disgusted. I don’t understand. What does being modern translate to? Does it mean having an open mind or does it mean wearing minimal clothes? Does it mean shedding your inhibitions and flaunting ur BF/GF to the entire world? What was the couple trying to prove? Their undying love for each other? Or that they didn’t care a damn about what people think about them and were exercising their freedom of expression? What is the limit for PDA or public display of affection? Don’t get me wrong. I am not a messenger sent by Bal Thackeray whose job is to track down all the people in love and shoot them down. But yes I get uncomfortable when I see a guy wearing jeans so low down on his hip that I feel like buying him a belt or something to pull them up, and I feel embarrassed when I see a couple doing anything more than holding hands. Call me old fashioned, call me conservative, tell me that I am behind times but it will take some time for me to assimilate this new definition of modern.

6. For the past one week I have listened to the song “You Fill up my senses” by John Denver and “Tosey Naina Lagey”(dunno which movie) approximately 5876 times. Both of them are beautiful songs and I just don’t tire of listening to them. Tosey naina lagey is soulful Hindustani music and is the kind which can move u to tears and listening to “you fill up my senses” will give u the feeling that all is well in this world. What an amazing voice John Denver has.

???

Why is it that when I wish for something to happen it never does?

Why is it that when I advice someone it never works?

Why is it that I hate the course my life is charting and still feel pathetically incapable of doing something about it?

Why is it that I assume that people won’t mind what I say and will take whatever I say in the lighter vein? Why don’t I understand that people have feelings and can get hurt and feel bad unlike me?

Why MUST I act like I know everything that there is to know and why can’t I mind my own business?

Why is it so easy to convince me? Why do I always say yes to whatever people say? Am I indecisive? Am I a sycophant? Am I vulnerable? Am I stupid? Am I confused? Why don’t I know what I am?

Why is it that I lack the basic maturity to handle simple things in my life but seem to have lots of maturity in areas where it is of no use to me?

Why is it that though I have everything in life that I can ask for I crib?

Is it possible to love someone whom u haven’t seen, haven’t spoken to,dont know how they look, and who doesn’t even know that u exist just because u admire one trait in that person?

Is it possible to completely hate what you are doing, completely hate your job and yet be completely in love with life?

Is it possible to completely hate and totally love the same person at the same time? For that matter are love and hate mutually exclusive of each other?

Its been more than an year since I last cried because I have been really happy for the past one year, but yesterday night I was thinking “now why haven’t I cried for an year? Something is fishy”. Why am I scared of being happy?

The other day my manager told me that I had done a good job and gave me a high rating for everything this promotion cycle and told me she enjoyed reading my blogs. I should have been happy but I told myself “No Revs!! You hate this job. You hate the IT industry. You want to get out. Don’t be happy. No!!” why do I deny myself happiness?

If some one is nice to me I start thinking “ok!! Now what does he/she want” and when someone doesn’t talk to me I am like “huh!! Attitude?? See if I care”. Why am I so skeptical?

This post comes across as a post written by a morose, sad and suicidal person which is FAR far far from the truth. I am extremely happy and content with life as it is right now and life’s near perfect but these are questions which have been in mind for a long time and now they are out there because I decided I could do with a little bit of self introspection. It hasn’t helped because just like in college, though the questions are clear, the answers still elude me!! :)

Lessons learnt by Revathi Ramanan in the last one week!!

1. Never ever ever again waste money (however little it is) by buying any book written by chetan bhagat. I picked up three mistakes of my life and I can write a book with the same title the three mistakes of my life being

1. Five point someone

2. One night at the call center

3. Three mistakes of my life

Ok!! Five point someone wasn’t all that bad but the other two books!! Saaaaaaaaaad!! Someone please ask Chetan Bhagat to stop writing. Buying this guys books is like watching a karan johar movie. U know its gonna be bad but u still go ahead and read the book and watch the movie for reasons known to no one. Next time Mr.Bhagat decides to write a book and I like a fool decide to buy it again and write a post on how sad it was please feel free to get in touch with me and kill me. I would be very grateful to you.

2. Moto L6 when dropped from the fourth floor of an apartment is shattered into approximately 47 different pieces. This has been tested and proved by the author. :(.
Yep!! I accidentally dropped my cell into the lift of our building while attempting to close it. I had to then call the watchman and ask him to open the lift, jump down into the shaft and retrieve my sim card. My cell was beyond repair and I wish I had a camera so I could take a picture of my cell’s display and paste it here so you could see how I had tortured the fellow. I am now using my friend’s nokia 1600. May my moto’s soul rest in peace. Anyway with my cell gone I have lost all my contacts so if you figured in my contact list please do send me a message letting me know your number.

3. if u work in an IT company you would have come across the automatic doors which have sensors of some kind and open and close when the detect any movement around them. The lesson I learnt last week was that these doors can detect movements only when some one approaches the doors and not when someone stands right between the two doors. Here’s what happened to me last week. As I approached the doors, they opened and just when I was about to cross them my shoe strap snapped and I stood there in between the two doors trying to fix it. And suddenly I felt someone pushing me and when I turned around I was shocked to see that the doors were closing in on me and there I was caught like a little rat between the doors squealing for help. And then a good Samaritan came and the doors opened. It was such an embarrassing situation. So all u designers of automatic doors please make the doors intelligent enough to detect the presence of someone between them also

4. when your sister who recently moved to dubai calls u and starts crying DO NOT assume that she is crying because she is missing you. This was the conversation between my sis and me last week
Preethi: sob sob!! Sniff sniff!! Shruthiiiii
Me: (acting all smug thinking she is crying because she is missing me): what is it Preethi?
Preethi: Shruthi can u believe it? They give milk in bottles here and not in packets like in India. Who gives milk in bottles??? Waaah waaah
Me: (rolling my eyes and thinking)Sheeeesh!!! So much for missing me!!

Jokes apart i do miss her!! :(

In Happier Times - yeah!! the person with the idli like face on the left is my sis and the person on right who looks like she is the brand ambassador for anchor white is yours truly!! :) . This is one of my favorite pics taken when we went to Kabini some time last year!! beautiful place, lovely memories!!

5. Distance DOES the make the heart grow fonder. My sister and BIL when they were here wouldn’t trust me with a saefty pin at their place and now my BIL has gone as far as giving me his hardly used almost new 8 Gb Ipod nano saying he anyway doesn’t have time to listen to it and figured I would be the best person to make good use of it. You are now reading the blog of the proud owner of an 8 GB ipod nano. :). Sigh!! Is it possible to die out of happiness?? If yes then I would have died long ago!! Thanks guys!! (hey Milinta u dawg. i wrote this post before i read ur vile comment on my last post!! :P See even i can be grateful!! ;))

You have logged on to 100% bakwaas blog!! :P

DISCLAIMER: Read the rant below at your own risk. its utter bakwaas and nothing but bakwaas at its best. dont bang ur head at the table or curse me and all future generations of Ramanans after reading it!! :P

1. Last Friday when I had gone to the airport to drop my sister off I saw Mpumelelo Mbangwa (Yayy!! I got it right) standing right behind my sister and getting on the same flight as her. He is huge and has never washed his hair. His hair is disgusting to look at and he caught me looking at his hair and smiled at me thinking I was admiring his unconventional good looks. For the life of me I cannot understand how parents can take a new born baby look at it lovingly with happy tears in their eyes and name the cute l’il baby “mpumelelo”.!!! I mean would they have gone “Sigh!! such a cute baby!! lets name him Pume… I mean mpule…errr I mean mpumelelo”. I am sure even they wouldn’t have got his name right the first time. But like my friend says maybe he has the same things to say about my name though personally I think Revathi is much easier to pronounce than Mpumelelo!! Actually on second thoughts what an exotic name to have. what a great feeling when u realize that no one in this world shares ur name. sigh!! I guess I never will know what that feels like.

2. With my sister gone, I feel strange because I have no one to call and tell “I am bored. Chal koi movie chalte hai aaj raat ko” or calling her to say “sheeesh. U know what? Mere office mein ek ullu da patha hai jo…” or her calling me and telling me “aaj khana banane ka mood nahi hai. Chal punnu ka dhaaba chalte hai”. Now if I want to call her the thought that “damn it is 14 bucks per minute” remains at the back of my head. The leap from 40p to 14 bucks is a little unsettling and it will take some time to get used to that. Anyway I am getting used to it and I have been catching up on a lot of reading which I have always wanted to do but never found time because I had to chill with my sis

3. Its an amazing thing when u meet a friend of yours after 6 months and realize that NOTHING has changed and u resume talking to her as if u last spoke to her 10 minutes ago. Talking to a best friend, along with a huge glass of chocolate milkshake in a quiet corner of qwiky’s with the AC just right is the closest I have come to experiencing heaven. And heaven is when u tell her to put one straw in each nostril of hers, dip it into the chocolate milkshake and exhale (not inhale!! Otherwise u will die of chocolate milkshake asphyxiation) and admire the bubbles caused by the process and make a completel fool of ourselves in a decent establishment!! hmmmm please don’t use the straws which u put into ur nostrils to drink the milkshake. That’s GROSS!!! Did I hear someone say “yeah right!! Like the other stuff was very pleasant to read!!”. Humph!! :-\
Anyway the comfort levels I share with some people is amazing and I think I must have done a lot of good deeds in my previous births to have the kind of friends I have. Thanks guys!! :)

4. This weekend I went to higginbothams (with the same friend mentioned above) and had a whale of a time looking at, smelling and taking in the heady smell of all the books. I prefer higginbothams to odyssey/landmark because it is a place completely dedicated to books. Just books wherever u look. Not so with landmark and odyssey where if I turn right I can see random colors splashed haphazardly on a canvas under a section called modern art and when I turn left I see stuffed toys of all sizes and shapes. They seem to adulterate the place.

5. Chennai is becoming excruciatingly hot day by day. Its so bad that I actually look forward to come to office so I can spend some time in the AC. Can u believe that?? Looking forward to come to office. What IS wrong with me?? and with the mercury rising everyday and with the impending threat of being roofless I just hope we find a house soon. (don’t ask me what is the correlation between us being roofless and it being hot. :P)

6. I have a problem. I cant I just CANNOT be serious. However serious or grave the situation is, I find something to laugh at or something to be sarcastic about. This might be good and SEEM like an advantage but when people are talking seriously to u and u in turn crack some sad joke it seems rude and seems like u r making a mockery of the whole situation. like last week a friend of mine who is trying to woo this girl he likes, seriously wanted to know where he ought to take her for a date and I went “ha ha!! Take her to watch arasangam. Captain will be so revolting that you will look decent in relative comparison and she will say yes”. A second after I sent the message I was like “Sheeeeeeeesh!! How insensitive can u get Revs???”. Though my friend didn’t seem to mind I felt like a piece of shit. Sometimes in my attempt to be funny I think I unconsciously hurt people. I am sorry if you are one of them. I might seem like a person who steals hand bags from old ladies and pinches small kids hard when no one is looking (in short I might seem like a B**ch) but assure u I aint all that bad!! ;)

7. My parents are going to the US and UK for a three month trip and I am really really happy for them. I mean in the 26 years that they have been married, they haven’t had a single decent holiday (nope! I don’t count the annual visit to Chennai in the peak of summer every year till 2000 as holiday) mainly because either I would have malaria or Preethi would have typhoid or either one of us would be in 10th/12th or just about to join college or just finishing college or be home for the semester hols or shifting houses or something. They have sacrificed a helluva lot for the both of us and I am glad they are taking some time off now and going to have a ball without having the two of us to badger them. I would have loved to sponsor their US UK trip but the last I heard, 600 bucks (my bank balance) doesn’t buy to and fro tickets to the US!! :-\

8. The aunt of a very good friend of mine is admitted in appollo hospital in a very critical condition with serious head injury because she was run down by a guy on a bike. To all u guys who drive fast bikes, please be careful when u r turning and please respect those traffic signals. They have not been installed on all busy junctions to teach kids the difference between the colors red green and orange. They have a more serious purpose and a lot of people would appreciate it if u followed them. Anyway I hope she comes out of danger soon and gets well soon. She has two young children and I again find myself doubting the existence of god!!

9. Work is pretty relaxed now and I am getting lot of time to blog about inconsequential things and subjecting u to utter nonsense but u don’t have a choice but to read this crap. :P

10. If you are still reading, hats off to you. It either means you are mother Teresa or as jobless as I am!! :)

Lately I have been spending obscene amounts of money on books. I was just writing accounts yesterday (oh yeah!! That’s one new year resolution I have been following religiously never mind the fact that everyday it reads like this Food: 70, misc:100!! ;)) and I discovered that I spend close to 7% of my salary every month on books. (I mean the miscellaneous expenses most of the times is on books). When I started earning I promised myself that I would spend all my money on books and after that if I had anything left I would spend it on rent and food and other such trivial things. I remember as soon as I got my first salary in hand I rushed to odyssey looked lovingly at all the books and thought “Wow man!!! I can buy all these books with MY money now and I am gonna start right NOW!! Wow wow wow!!” Thankfully(or maybe not) sanity prevailed and after all these romantic dreams had been wiped out cruelly from my mind I told myself that come what may I would buy at least 3 books a month. The result of this promise which I made to myself is that my bank balance by the end of the month reads in double digits and at the end of every month I find myself thanking HDFC bank that they let me have a zero balance account!! :-\

But I just can’t seem to help myself. Whenever I go out I see myself picking all the wodehouses, roald dahls, R K narayans, Ruskin bonds, james herriots, bill brysons Jeffery archers and john grishams that I can lay my hands on. The other day I went to odyssey and I actually picked up a book because I completely loved the way it smelt and just didn’t have the heart to keep it back on the shelf and so I bought it. and I love these second hand book shops in T Nagar and Moore market. They have wonderful hardback and paperback versions of PG Wodehouse and Roald Dahl available at steal prices and I completely love the heady smell of moth balls and yellowing paper which emanates from them. And before my bank balance and my conscience can reprimand me I buy the books. Its been 10 months since I started earning and I have close to 28 books in my collection now!! :)

The days when I come back early from office or weekends when I have nothing to do, there is nothing in this world which gives me more peace than curling up on the bed, hide and seek in one hand and a book in the other lost to the world. Ah!! Bliss!! :) Some people I know don’t read books and have never heard of enid blyton or tintin or RL Stevenson or archies or asterix and I feel sorry for them. I mean how can u honestly say that u have completed child hood if u haven’t solved a couple of non-existent mysteries with the find outers, if u haven’t been to the far far far away land on the wishing chair, if u haven’t loved betty and hated veronica, if u haven’t used words like billions of blue blistering barnacles, if u haven’t sung yo ho ho and a bottle of rum with long john silver or if u haven’t signed letters in blood ala tom sawyer and huckleberry finn?? All my life I have never been able to understand how people cannot like books. I mean the very sight of good books sets adrenalin coursing through my body, I become breathless and I want to possess the book ASAP. (ok!! Now even George Clooney has the same effect on me but given a choice between Clooney and a carton full of books the latter would win hands down I think!! ;))

Some books which I have read a gazillion times and would still read them again without tiring are

1. Mating season, pigs have wings, leave it to Psmith by PGW. Basically all books by PGW

2. boy, going solo and short stories by Roald Dahl

3. swami and friends by RK Narayan

4. daddy long legs by jean Webster (ok this probably speaks volumes about my level of maturity but seriously if u guys haven’t read daddy long legs yet, please go to ur nearest book store, pick up this book and read it. its one of the most eloquently wonderful work of literature that I have ever read)

5. time stops at shamli and other stories by Ruskin bond

6. The lord god made them all by james herriot

7. anne frank’s diary

8. fountain head by ayn rand

9. a twist in the tale by Jeffery archer

10. all enid blytons

of all the books that I have read the ones which made absolutely no sense whatsoever to me were

1. one night at the call center by chetan bhagat

2. making the minister smile by some one, don’t remember who

3. eleven minutes and alchemist by Paulo Coelho (ok I can see half the population of this world going Whaaaaat??? But I am this extremely shallow person who cannot appreciate fine stuff like john keats’ poetry or Paulo coelho’s writings. I can’t delve into what the author is trying to say. It has to hit me right on the face for me to understand it. In alchemist I couldn’t really follow why the boy must speak the language of the desert or why the horse must speak the language of the boy. And in eleven minutes I couldn’t for the life of me fathom why he wrote a whole book on eleven minutes of errrr.. never mind!!)

4. Life isn’t all Haa haa Hee hee by Meera Syal. (I decided she must have either been stoned or in an inebriated state when she wrote this book)

5. Mein Kampf. (all my attempts to try and read this book and complete it were in vain. I finally gave up)

6. Love in the time of cholera by Gabriel gracia marquez. (another one of those deep profound books whose actual meaning completely eluded me. I think the book lost most of its essence when it was translated from Spanish to English. And I kept reading the book till the last page thinking I would understand and follow. Normally I can finish in a good 300 page book in 5 hours but this book took me a month to finish!! :)

Generally I can read any book and there are no books which I dislike per say and I have this amazing ability to read a book till the end however miserable it is. I just have to know how it ends. I think mein kampf was the only book which I gave up on. Phew!! This post is getting way too long!! :). Isn’t it amazing how u just cant stop talking when u start talking about books!! :)

A couple of days back I cleared an exam which I was supposed to take and clear so I could become a confirmed employee of cognizant. I wasted the whole of May day studying and trying to find out if EJBHome can be used only to create a bean or if it can be used to both create and remove session beans (or was it entity beans!! Whatever!!). Till a week back I didn’t even know what EJB stood for and now that’s the only thing about EJBs that I know. That it stands for Enterprise Java Bean. Its depressing. I have no clue why I am being made to write this exam where I am being forced to study technology which I will never use in my project, which I forgot the minute I cleared the exam. But I had to write it because only then I could hope to remain employed.

So I started studying two days before the exam. Started reading stuff like EJBs, CMP, BMP, Collection, Junit, design patterns. Obviously if u start studying 2 days before an exam u cannot hope to become well versed in the above mentioned nonsense. So we did what we do best. Tapped our sources who had already written the exam and asked them to prepare a question bank which contained the most important questions and studied only that. Not a single question made any sense to me. So we devised ways to remember and mug up the answers for all the questions.

Sample this. There was a question which said “what is the interface which allows operations on beans” whose answer was “javax.ejb.EJBObject” (EJB enthusiasts, DESIST from commenting!! :P )and three other questions which were exactly similar but had different answers. This was the conversation between my friend and me a day before the exam

Me: Yaar. I cant remember a single thing. I mean how will I remember that the entity allowing operations on beans is EJBObject and that which stores the state is EJBSession?

Friend: abey!! Simple hai. See. Look at the first question. One which allows Operations is EJBObject. Both have the letter “O” in them. So that’s the option. No other option has “O”. Ab second question dekh. One which stores the state in session. Both have the letter “S”. that’s the answer. Simple hai na??
She said with an all knowing air!!

I looked at her with new found respect, speechless, not knowing whether I should laugh coz I could now remember the answers or cry that the whole thing was nothing but an exercise in futility and if someone changed the question even slightly I would be lost.

After I finished the exam I proudly came out and messaged all my well wishers and told them. “Cleared. Got 76!!”. And even if a single one of them had replied asking “so!! This means u can start coding using EJBs right?” it would have been as absurd as asking Ricky Ponting after the Sydney Test “so!! This means u can conduct a seminar on sportsmanship right?”. :-\. I cant help but scream “What is the point of it all???”. Anyway do drop in your congratulations because, for whatever it is worth, I have just been promoted from Programmer analyst trainee to a programmer analyst!! And this also means that I am eligible to apply for visiting cards which bear my name and proudly proclaim Revathi Ramanan, Programmer Analyst. :P .

Hmmmmm

The other day I was watching the movie Bombay on TV. Now the only way you wouldn t have heard of or seen the movie Bombay is
1. if u have been living under a rock for the past 15 years
2. if u don’t appreciate good movies and prefer to watch movies like veerasamy etc.

Jokes apart, It is one of the most beautiful Indian movies I have seen. It has mani ratnam written all over it. The story is impeccable, the actors are impeccable, the direction is mind blowing and I am not even going to talk about the music. It speaks for itself. After all God composed the music for it. its gotta be great!!! :)

Anyway as I was saying I saw the movie (for the 7th time I think) after a very long time and it took me back to 1992. The babri masjid riots. On December 6th 1992, the babri masjid was demolished by hindu extremists and the whole of Bombay was burning. At that time we were living in surat- a city which is 5 hrs from Bombay and hence was affected by the riots. My dad had gone to a god forsaken place called babrala for a 6 month trip from office and my sister, mom and I were alone in surat when the riots struck. We were hindus living in a muslim area then, and my sister and I were attending a muslim school near home. Our muslim neighbors were extremely nice people who helped us when our area was attacked by muslim extremists thirsty for hindu blood and I don’t think I would be sitting and typing this if not for them.

I was a six year old for whom riots meant no school for ten days. It is only now that I realize what my mother would have gone through without having my father for support and living in a muslim area. My mother was a 30 year old woman with 9 and 6 year old girl children. It is only now that I understand what she would have gone through, what a struggle each day must have been. A struggle for food, struggle for milk, struggle for life and existence and yet there wasn’t a single day when my sister and I went hungry or a single time when my mother actually made us realize the seriousness of the situation choosing instead to keep all the troubles of herself than let us know. Sometimes I wish I had at least half the courage and fortitude which she has. I would be a very different person today.

I remember there used to be no vegetables or bread or milk at home and my mom would be scared to leave home to buy it because she was afraid that if she was attacked/killed, we would be alone. So if she went out anywhere she took us with her and I have vivid memories of sitting on a policeman’s motor bike and going to buy milk and veggies (due to curfew no vehicles were allowed to run and only police jeeps and motorbikes dotted the empty roads). I also have these disturbing images of entire buses being burnt and curfew being declared. On the roads where we usually saw children playing, vehicles zooming, people buying vegetables etc we saw skeletal remains of burnt buses, police jeeps and absolutely no souls on the road. Some of these images are etched and ingrained in my memory and I am not likely to forget them for a long time to come.

During the riots a part of our school was burnt by hindu extremists and many of my friends lost their parents. It was appalling. The massacre of innocent people in the name of communalism makes my blood boil. Also people who make statements like all muslims are terrorists or terrorism is rampant because of the presence of muslims irritate me to no end. All terrorists might be muslims but not vice versa. Someone rightly said that it is only in times of adversity that the true colors of human beings show. And in times of adversity you are neither hindu nor muslim. You are just another human being either capable of helping or in need of help.

To all the extremists and fanatics who are ready to take innocent lives and demolish prayer houses in the name of religion I have only one thing to say to u. The primary difference between animals and us is the fact that we have the ability to think. If u cannot think, cannot value another life, cannot understand that terms like hindus and musilms are trivial and are of no consequence whatsoever in a world where relationships and human bonds matter the most and not caste, creed or nationality than u most probably shouldn’t have completed evolution and your very existence is a shame on the human race.

Trip to Bombay - Part II - Train journey from malad to churchgate

Having spent four days in Bombay I have come to the conclusion that Bombay is a hugeeeeeeee city. But hey!! That’s like stating the obvious. That’s like saying anupam kher is bald or saying TR Rajender is animal like. Anyway where was I?? Ah yes!! Bombay. Bombay is a beautiful city. . After reading shantaram I wanted to see the city with the eyes of one having read shantaram. Having been in Madras for almost 7 years now I am loyal Chennai-ite and I completely love it because of its people and kind of life it radiates. Bombay I noticed exudes the same life. Delhi and Bangalore somehow never charmed me. Maybe it was the lack of beaches or the people I saw. I dunno what. They somehow seemed beyond salvation but Bombay is still so Indian and a very charming place. If u really want to see Bombay I would say take the electric train. Even as I write this I am traveling in an electric train from malad to churchgate in a first class ladies compartment to catch my train back to Chennai. I am surrounded by 10 women and since I love observing people and for lack of anything better to do I start looking at them and start sizing them up.

The 55 something woman sitting near the window has prayer beads in her hand and is praying fervently. I try to guess what it is that she is praying about. Maybe she is praying for her daughter to get a job or for her son to get married. :P or maybe she is just praying for the general good of the world.

Near her is sitting a woman not more than 28 or 30 who is so made up that I cant resist the temptation to go touch her and see if she is for real or is one of those mannequins u see in these clothes shops. She has so much lipstick on her lips, so much kohl in her eyes and so much of foundation on her face that even if u dug a feet deep into her face you wouldn’t touch skin. Ok I exaggerate. Make that half a feet. She is carrying a Gucci handbag, has fast track sun glasses on her head and is screaming of brands. She is wearing a funny kind of skirt. I mean in my humble opinion it looks like she left home wearing a complete skirt with a proper hemline and on the way was chased by a dog which managed to get a bit of her skirt and she was left with a skirt with a ragged end. I mean I don’t understand. Why else would her skirt be of different lengths at the sides and different lengths on the front and back? Aren’t skirts supposed to be of the same length throughout? Fashion. I never will understand it I think. Anyway this porcelain doll doesn’t smile and I guess it must be difficult to smile when u have so much of weight on your face. I mean imagine having to push layers of make up, curl up both sides of your mouth and attempting to smile. Phew!! Must be tough!! I quickly lose interest in her and concentrate on the woman sitting in front of me.

She is one of those “i-can-manage-everything” kind of woman. One of those super moms I decide. She carries two cell phones. On one of them she is giving instructions to her son named Ashish telling him that the dal is in the microwave oven, curd is in the fridge, asks him not to fight with his sister and dirty the house as they are having guests for dinner at night. On the other phone she is giving instructions to someone asking them to pick her up at Hyderabad airport. “GTL - 143” she says “G for go, T for tomorrow and L for lucky 143 is the name of my flight”. Just looking at her makes me tired and I wonder how these women do it.

As I finish writing about super mom and look out the window I pass this station called marine line and I can see the beautiful marine drive before me. Of course since the train is moving I can’t see much but I love what I see.

I shift my interest to the woman sitting next to me. She reeks of cigarette smoke and some kind of mint. The smell is far from pleasant and I guess she realizes it because a minute later she takes out a can of deo from her bag and sprays it liberally on herself. It only results in people moving further away from her. Bagon cockroach spray smells better than her deo I decide as I turn to look at the woman sitting diagonally opposite to me, next to the super mom.

She is a nervous 35 something woman, whose eyes keep darting here and there and she is biting her nails so fiercely that I am surprised that she is not drawing blood. She seems to me like one of those insecure people who keep worrying about what people think about them, try desperately to fit in and fail miserably. I dunno why but as she smiles nervously at me, I feel sorry for her. I smile back and avert her gaze. The other women in the compartment are not doing anything interesting. Two are sleeping and one of them is reading a book. This interests me and I try to look at what she is reading. I am deeply disappointed when I discover she is reading something called “the power of your sub conscious mind”. Such books bore me. Suddenly I wonder what each of these women is thinking about me.

old aunty: (she hasn’t opened her eyes even once during her prayer so has not seen me yet).
porcelain doll: God!! Just check out her fashion sense. Totally wrong. Who wears a yellow kurta over blue jeans? Yellow is so not the color of the season. She is approximately 20 years behind times. And why cant she use a little bit of lip gloss. Would do a world of good for her sad face!!
Super mom: (I dunno why but this is what I think super mom would have thought about when she looked at me.)Sheeeesh!! I forgot to ask Ashish to feed the dog. Should call him and tell him that. :D
Bagon Spray: why the hell cant she keep her bag on the rack above. There is no place for me to keep my legs. (in my defence I had all my original certificates in that bag and didn’t want it out of my sight)
Nervous lady: I wonder what she is writing. Maybe she is writing about me. I wonder what she thinks about me.
Of course I could be totally wrong in my interpretations but something tells me this is precisely what they think of me. By this time I have reached churchgate. And my 20 minute walk from churchgate to Victoria Terminus deserves a post in itself. A lovely walk. Made me feel like Lord Emsworth going for a walk to see the Empress while admiring his garden on the way. That reminds me. I added two more wonderful wodehoueses to for my collection during that walk and I am as happy, to quote a popular saying ,as a dog with two tails!! But more about that on my next post!! :)

Disclaimer: The contents of this post are completely my thoughts. They haven’t been influenced by anyone. I am sorry if this post hurts anyone’s sentiments or if anyone thinks its contents are sacrilegious. My intention is not to hurt anyone.

I was a believer. A staunch believer. I used to make it a point to visit the temple at least twice a week, say a prayer daily, say a little prayer every time I passed a temple on the road. But somewhere in the past two years something has changed, some part of me has started asking some fundamental questions. In the past two years I have seen so much and experienced so many things that I have started asking some blasphemous questions. The past two years of my life have been relatively relaxed and as a part of college and also out of my personal interest I visited a couple of orphanages, old age homes, spastic societies to try and do my bit for the society.

The scenes which met my eyes when I went to these places were heart rendering and as I visited more such places I found it more and more difficult to believe that up there, there exists someone who is supposed to be looking after all of us, supposed to be doing justice, punishing the wrong and rewarding the right.

What wrong has 15 year old shabana done that she is “blessed” with the intelligence of a 3 year old, cannot wear clothes, cannot button up her dress, and cannot use the bathroom without someone helping her. What wrong has she done that while her peers talk of board exams, farewell parties and the latest trend in clothes she cannot even speak a coherent word let alone a sentence. She suffers from down syndrome.

What wrong has 67 year old patamma done that at the age of 67 though she has 2 sons and a daughter none of them want to keep her and have sent her to a depressing old age home where she gets a 5 feet by 3 feet space for herself, 2 sarees for diwali, one for new year and no visitors throughout the year though her children live in the same city.

What right has laloo Prasad yadav done that inspite of charges of embezzlement of so many funds, inspite of being such a corrupt politician he enjoys the status of a king?

What right has jagmohan dalmiya done that after misappropriating “just” 2 crores he gets bail and most probably will escape scot-free?

What kind of a justice system is this, where the innocent get punished and suffer more and the guilty enjoy a hassle less life? This is the justice system which is revered all over the world, accepted by one and all despite its horrendously screwed up laws and principles. The juctice system of God.

My grandmother tells me that every person who is suffering is actually repenting for the sins which he committed in his previous birth and every person who is happy and contented is reaping the benefits of the good things he did in his previous birth. What kind of a stupid, skewed system is this where u get punished for something but have no clue what you are getting punished for?

She says that this is the kalyugam and this is how god’s system works and that once evil has completely overshadowed the good, that is the time when god will descend in all his glory to take his last avatar and save the world from the evil. BullShit is all I can say. Even the most cruel person or a person with a heart of stone would melt if he saw the likes of shabana and patamma and we are talking about God here. The compassionate and considerate do gooder who cares for nothing but the “well being” of his children. If he does exist and is looking at all the pain and suffering and not doing a thing when he has the power to change all of this, then I cant believe we trust and pin our hopes on a person like this who just likes to look at all this suffering and not act. I would rather build temples and worship the person who started the old age home where patamma lives or the people who started Banyan the home for destitute and mentally ill women. My blood boils when I see people drop obscene amounts of money into the hundis in temples, some of which goes to decorate the idol of god and most of which goes god knows where.
I am confused and hurt when I think of the fact that something which I believed in for 20 years of my life is actually a farce.

I was a believer, a staunch believer, then I became agnostic and now I find myself tending towards atheism.