Hmmm..Aaaarrghhh!!

Another year goes by, a decade just went by, its been four years now since this blog was started and I am 24. 24 is not a very nice age to be. For one you are terribly confused (its a different thing that i am always terribly confused but 24 is particularly confusing). You have no idea about the future. You are not sure you want what you are getting and you are not sure about getting what you want. You are apprehensive as hell because all of a sudden you are being pushed into adulthood. You have conversations with friends which you would never have dreamt of having three years back. Your priorities are being forced to change and suddenly you realize that the whooshing sound you hear is time just flying past you. You attend your college's alumni meet and you realise you are old and there are scores of juniors who you dont recognize, calling you akka and you want to sit and cry and come running back to college where your maximum worry was how to handle project reviews.

There were a certain set of ideals you had always lived by. Ideals which you built by reading loads and loads of books and watching movies. Suddenly you wish you could just throw all those books out of the window and burn them. You wish you were illiterate or had spent all these years reading mills and boon and danielle steele. At least that would have prepared you for certain things which Ayn Rand does NOT. You read Ayn Rand and you think you can conquer the world and suddenly all that comes crashing around you when you realise how perfectly ordinary you are and what a boringly normal course your life is taking. You reach that point in life where reality strikes you and you realise that the ideal world exists only in books and movies. Its almost like the child who realizes that santa clause doesnt exist or that spiderman is all animation and there is not really a man who can spin webs by just folding his fingers and pointing it at you.

You read books and fantasize a world where everything is exactly the way you want to be. You are Dominique Francon a minute and Howard Roark the other. You are Galahad and Jeeves. Hercule Poirot and Jane Marple. Tintin and Asterix. Julian and Fatty. You are the strong character helping everyone and the one who everyone turns to. None of your favorite characters had ordinary lives and you grow up thinking its a sin to have an ordinary life. You build a world around those characters. And that world comes crashing down and you realise that its all make believe and what a weak and loser-ish person you really are in real life. Forget making the world happy, you cant even make the ones close to you happy. You are torn by your ideals (stupid as they are) and the real world (real, loving and caring as it is). A part of you knows that the latter is permanent and safe and which is what will make you happy if not now, then 10 years down the line and yet another part of you wants to break free. "Who wants safe? Safe is for wimps. Go out there are fly. So what if you will regret it 10 years later. At least you would have tried" that part says and your life now is a constant struggle between those two parts of your self. All your attempts to merge them fail and its almost like suffering from multiple personality disorder.

You suddenly wish time would fly faster, either forward or backward, as long as you dont have to face this stage in your life where simple decisions seem herculean. You dont want to be 24. 17 was nice. 31 will definitely be nice. But 24 is sad. And worse still is when you look around and you see people handling 24 gracefully and you wonder "How the hell do they do it man?". You see people who are 24 getting married and having children and you want to run and hide under a rock out of shame. You cant blame god because you are agnostic. You cant blame your parents and siblings because they are sane and sensible people, mature and composed when they were 24. You cant blame your friends because most of them are married or at least they know want they want when they turn 25. You cant blame your stars because you are skeptical about astrology. Its just you.

Oh my God. Am i suffering from quarter life crisis an year before i become a quarter century old? Aaaaaaaaaaaarrrghh!!!

Of chaddis, Delhi 6, infinite loops and other bakwaas!!

1. I saw exactly 57 chaddis in bangalore this weekend. I mean what is it with people in bangalore and showing chaddis. I mean c'mon man!! You can hardly sit in an ice cream parlor, restaurant, theatre or mall without beholding at least 3,4 chaddis around you. Maybe i am old fashioned, maybe i am so archaic and ancient that i m scandalized at the sight of a mere 50 gram chaddi peeping out of pants so low i cant believe they actually stand up there, but i liked the days when chaddis were something very personal, were not sent to politicians when u were offended with them, were not brands but were just u know chaddis. sighhh!!

2. All you people out there who are planning to watch Delhi 6 one wise word of caution from this wise girl!! :P (okk!! the me being wise part was a joke but not the wise word of caution part). It is a TERRIBLE movie. I wasted 165 bucks to watch the movie in a seedy theatre called "Urvasi" theatre in bangalore and since yesterday i have been unable to sleep just thinking about all the things i could have done with 165 bucks at the end of the month. And it doesnt help when you have friends who tell you "165 bucks??tch tch. you could have fed 4 kids in somalia for that money."But seriously. I dont know what Rakyesh Omprakash mehra was thinking when he made the movie. now RDB was a wholesome entertainer but Delhi 6 is a sloth fest with such a horrific climax it makes u wonder if this was made by a first time director. Trust me Vijaykanth's movies where just a "tambalam" would prevent our captain from getting hurt seemed much more logical than the climax of Delhi 6. The music seems to be wasted on such a good movie. The songs hardly play for 30 seconds each and Abhishek irritating-fake-accent Bacchan makes sure he gets on ur nerves every time he opens his mouth to talk in English. Dear AB jr, rolling your r's when u say serious and works DOES NOT constitute an american accent. It seems like the director started making the movie, hired ARR (he won 2 oscars!! woo hoo!! :)) to make some FANTABULOUS music, made AB jr work on his crappy accent and after shooting 10 minutes of the movie he realised "Ooops!! no story", after 20 mins he realised "Ooops!! no climax", after half an hour realised "Oooops, American accent doesnt work" and then just because he had spent so much decided to go on and continue making the movie using the monkey man (Kaala Bandar) concept. The movie is also a walking adverisement for motorola and IBN. every frame has either one of these products. Untouchabliltiy, Casteism, Family feuds, Unmarried girl being a stigma, Girl getting married against her wishes, Grandmother wanting to die in "apni mitti", showing the pathetic state of Indian traffic and calling that "real" India is all passe and cliched Mr.Mehra. Seriously, i expected much more from you and i am very disappointed with Delhi 6.

3. Sowrangutan who had promised to meet me this weekend decided to ditch me in the last minute citing lame excuses. I still cant believe that someone would want to meet an architect when they have the opportunity to meet me!! :P. Something tells me I intimidated the little (in the literal sense. I hear she is not more than 4 feet tall) kid and she was just scared to meet me!! Or maybe because she met Goof and S3 she kind of developed an image in her head of the kind of people all the Chennai bloggers are and hence refused to meet me!! :P

What the real reason is I never shall know!! :P

4. I have eaten enough ice cream in corner house this weekend to feed 20 kids in somalia for 2 days. An year back on my first trip to banaglore i expressed an interest to eat at corner house. My friends sicne then think that eating at corner house for me is almost equivalent to having a date with George Clooney, so they play the good samaritan and without fail take me to corner house every time i visit Bangalore and watch lovingly as i wolf down the ice cream. I think i have tried all the flavors of chocolate ice cream in Corner House (which has the dubious distiction of being the place where i saw the maximum number of chaddis)

5. RK Laxman is as amazing a writer as he is a cartoonist. I bought an omnibus of his with the three books he has written and i m floored. Please do read his autobiography "The Tunnel of Time". The simple language and subtle and dry humor is brilliant and I cant put the book down. i was just wondering how proud RK Narayan and RK Laxman's parents must be of their two boys!! Pretty much the same way that my parents are NOT proud of my sister and me!!

6. A certain binary search algorithm was getting on my nerves from last Thursday, irritating me by getting stuck in an infinite loop and stubbornly refusing to do anything except crash my entire workspace. I found the bug today. I had not incremented my loop variable and i realised that it is not possible for oneself to kick their own behinds. Would someone please do the honors?? (That was a joke!! Ha ha!! :roll:)

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!!

Last week hasnt been quite the perfect week.

Things with a friend arent going to great. As in not with regards to my relationship with her but her relationship with someone else. Thats the problem if you are real close to someone. You can almost feel their anguish and pain and i have been worrying myself sick wondering if there is absolutely anything that i can do about it. Hmmmm.

Things at home are also taking an ugly turn and after ages and ages I had a fight about a really petty issue with people at home.

I have been completely avoiding human contact as much as possible. There was a time when i would talk for at least three hours on the phone daily with certain friends in bangalore, certain friends in ayanavaram and certain other friends completely losing track of time and yapping away to glory. I just dont feel like talking anymore. So much so that i switch my cell off at night to avoid talking on the phone. Sighhh!! I never thought there would be a day when i would get tired of talking but i hate talking on the phone when i am not my usual cheerful and enthusiastic self. I mean I hate talking to crabby people and I am sure no one would have liked to talk to me these last few days.

Books and Music are my only solace now. Oh by the way one source of happiness in the last few days has been the fact that Viva la Vida of Coldplay won the Grammy's for the song of the year!! Yay!! Coldplay - Congratulations and Thank you so much. If not for you the past one week would have been hell. I love your songs!!

I have also been reading like never before. Reading well into the night, Reading in the bus, Reading while eating..... I have had quite a capital time reading. I finished reading two books over the weekend. Three men in a boat by Jerome k Jerome and last couple of chapters of "The hungry tide" by Amitav ghosh. Loved both of them and I have started reading 'Emma' by Jane Austen - a book which i got for a steal price in Odyssey. If not for friends,books and music (in that order) life wouldnt have been worth living i tell ya.

And the fact that work has been rearing its ugly head and has made it near impossible for my lifeless life to perk up is not very consoling.

Sighhh!! I need a break. Yes. I think i will take a break!!

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?? ;)

Bakwaas

It was a wonderful long weekend. Long weekends are like a family pack of chocolate chip icecream. Large and wonderful and delicious and SEEMINGLY never ending but when they get over you are left with a pleasant taste in your mouth and an empty box, hopelessly wishing there were more left. If you thought coming to office on Monday was the pits try coming to office on a Tuesday after a long weekend. I mean I almost think of it as capital punishment.

Boss: Revathi, We charge you with the offence of having a fantabulous weekend not staring at a computer screen but having maximum fun. You deserve capital punishment and will be placed on the death row. Go to office at 8.30 on Tuesday.
Me: Nooooooooooooooooo!!

Sigh!! Ok!! So I am overreacting but after a great weekend work is the second last thing I want to do. The last thing being drinking the vending machine ki chai.

I went on a trek to Javadhu hills this weekend. Javadhu hills are a part of the eastern ghats located near vellore famous for sandalwood trees and frequented by our very own Veerappan.
Maybe it is psychological or maybe the trek was super easy (who am I kidding. It WAS easy) but I trekked like a mountain goat. The kind of mountain goat which throws caution to the wind and leaps and skips and jumps confidently over rocks confident of its step. I would like to think its because of my 5km running in the morning. Ok. So time to blow my trumpet!! Ahem!!
I have been sincerely running 5 kms from my house (near grand sweets adyar) to Tidel park everyday in the morning all of last week. I didn’t bunk a single day or play hooky. If you know me you will realize what a Herculean task it is for me to get up in the morning at 6.00 to go running when the weather is cold and perfect outside and my bed looks so inviting. The fact that I have done it for a week makes me feel pretty much the same way Edmund Hillary and Tensing Norgay felt after they had scaled the baap of all mountains. I don’t know what my motivation is. In the past 23 years my mother has tried, my sister has tried my grandmother has tried, my roommates have tried waking me up at 6 in the morning without luck. I just wouldn’t wake up. Exercise to me was for people above the age of 50 or those who had some disease.
I think it is largely because of the pathetic form I was in during the Kolli trek panting and puffing like an 80 year, 95 kg woman that I am running so sincerely now. After Kolli I promised myself that I would try to regain the form I was in in class 7th when my physical education teacher had nicknamed me "Lambi race ka ghoda" because I had excellent stamina and would run 7km marathons as effortlessly as Obama delivers a speech. I mostly go wagging (errrr walking + jogging) in the morning nowadays. Jogging for about 4 minutes, walking for another 2, jogging again and so on and so forth and I seem to be doing better each day. the first day it took me 50 minutes and nowadays it takes me somewhere between 38 to 42 minutes to jog 5 kms.
Ok so that’s enough blowing my trumpet. I just hope I can continue in this spirit for at least 2 more months.

I came back on Sunday night from the trek and went to watch Slumdog Millionaire on Monday. It’s a good movie but I am not sure if its worth all that hype. I mean personally I think the media needs to chill a little because I have definitely seen better Indian movies which never got the kind of hype SDM did. I mean hadh hai yaar. Jahaan jao bas slumdog hi slumdog hai. I have seen T shirts, mugs, pirated VCDs, fan clubs, golden globes and Oscars associated with SDM. For the past 2 weeks both the Hindu and Times have had at least one article or "tidbit" associated with Slumdog.

Dev is a very warm human being - Frieda Pinto. (Yeah and we are all cold blooded mass murderers).

Dev has to work very hard to lose his accent.

SRK was offered Anil’s role but he refused..

Uffff!!
I went to Odyssey and saw that Vikas Swarup has changed the name of his novel from Q & A to Slumdog Millionaire!! Sheeeesh!! Which reminds me there is a sale on at Odyssey. So all u book lovers now is the right time to visit Odyssey. I have already hoarded.

Coming back to Slumdog there were lots of places where it was unreal. I mean it would have been authentic had the kids spoken in Hindi. The Taj Mahal scenes were a little too hard to digest. I mean the part when the kids are young was nice mainly because of the use of Hindi.And whats with Anil Kapoor? I mean the least he could have done is learnt to pronounce the word "millionaire" correctly given the fact that he uses it so often in the movie. His pronunciation ranges from "mill-nare" to "mill-ner" to so many other things except millionaire. Anyway I liked the movie. Good time pass though at times I wonder if the movie would have worked if some Indian director had made it. Hmmm. And I loved the music but then again I have heard better from Rehman again. I think Bombay, Roja and all were classics and SM’s music pales in comparison to them.

But like I said its good time pass watching the movie and when Dev Patel looks so cute who am I to complain?? ;)

So that was my weekend. Wanted to badly watch the plays and attend a concert at Saarang but trekking takes preference any day.

Signing off in the hope of another long and fun weekend
Yours Truly
Revs

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

Labak Ghulak Jhatak

DISCLAIMER: A fair knowledge of hindi, english and tamil is required to follow this post. :)

Sometimes it is not a boon if you know too many languages and can get very very confusing at time. For eg: i know hindi english and tamil fairly well and can converse and switch between the three languages quite fluently but sometimes i get thoroughly confused as to what language to talk and end up making a khichdi of all languages i know.
Sample the following incidents

1. Situation: A team mate telling me that XYZ is wearing new clothes and asking if i have pinched her (Errr yeah. you know the "new pinch same sweet" concepts which we used to indulge in as little kids? The "Hey new rubber, new pencil. New pinch" and then pinching the new person with all your might. I always thought it was a means for jealous people to vent out their frustration on their peers having new stuff which they wanted but didnt have. whatever. My team mates still indulge in such activities and yours truly can do nothing but oblige!! :-\)

Me: (always the one to discourage such activities): No man. Dont kill her. especially you. it hurts like hell when u kill.
Team Mate: errrr. what?
Me: what?
Team Mate: who said anything about killing her
Me: Sheeeesh. i meant kill as in pinch, u know in Tamil!! sorry.

2. Situation: I was with 2 of my friends the other day and one of them eats entirely too much and we were generally teasing him
Friend 1: He can actually eat 17 naans. no kidding. 17 naans and thayir sadam after that
Friend 2: i just like to eat man. whats wrong?
Friend 1: kids in somalia are probably dying because of the amount of food u consume
Me: Awww Chod na. Bechara valartha baccha hai.
Them: errrr
Me: what??
Them: valartha what??
Me: i mean badtha baccha, vallarra payyan. Sheeesh!!

3. Situation: a friend asking me to give an invitation to some body
Friend: Hey do give him the invitation man.
Me: Hey sure.
Friend: Courier it to him if u cant meet him
Me: Sure. i will give it to him when i see him in naer
Friend: eh??
Me: mmm
Friend: see him where??
Me: Errr. i mean see him in person or "naer la pakkaropo"

See what i mean. Total Confusion.and how can i forget all those umpteen times when i have said "I will talk later. Mujhe thookam aa raha hai" or "Pagal hai kya? Na kaise mail pannuven? i cant access gmail" or "Amma na tujhe later call pandren. Ippo i am in office" or "andha book tune padha. Yevlo super tha na" or "yaar movie itna kevalam tha, mai solla mudiyadhu".. :-\Reminds me of this time when my sister and i were travelling in train and this little gujju kid from sowcarpet fluent in tamil and gujju wanted to tell his mom that the "towel she had hung on the window was flying" and the kid went "mummy mummy thundu(Tamil) parke(Tamil+Guj) che(Gujju)" :D:D

P.S: The title..err.. my creativity is at a nadir today. I cant think of a single decent title that i can give to this post. Can you?

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!!

I got up today morning to read the newspapers only to read about Mumbai EVERWHERE.

I just finished reading Maximum City, one of THE BEST books that I have ever and I was wondering if I could/should do a review on the book and I read in the newspaper today that Vijay Salaskar is dead!! I almost feel like I know him after reading Maximum City.

I wish I were illiterate deaf, dumb and blind. I wish I didn’t have to read the news every day. I wish I didn’t have to hear about the death of the ATS chief and read in the newspapers about this.

Terrorists come to VT/CST, the busiest terminus ever with grenades and AK-47 and there is no security to stop them.

Terrorists come to the Taj hotel. casually ask which room houses foreigners and are readily given the information with no one to question them

We lose our best cops, our ATS chief and 2 other encounter specialists to petty despicable men from a completely new terrorist outfit which calls itself Deccan mujahideen and all we can do is sit and stare at the TV screens in horror

The terrorists demand that all Mujahideen should be released and instead of taking steps to increase security and prevent such terrorist attacks we will meekly hand over the ruthless terrorists. Why struggle so much to capture and kill the terrorists when at a later point of time you are anyway going to release them.

The impotent government sits and offers condolences to all affected and will probably throw in 1 lakh as compensation for each life lost.

It’s a shame that not only can this country not protect its own people but also puts the lives of people from other countries in danger. So much for Athithi Devo Bhava.

I shudder when I think of the world that we handing over to the next generation

I gulp when my 8 year old cousin asks me why people are bombing and shooting other people. I don’t know how to answer his questions.

I am ashamed of myself.

What is this world coming to?

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!!

Jamnagar diaries

1.     So I got a sexy looking hair cut today (yeah!! When u go to the beauty parlor and the lady there asks you “step cut, layer cut, mushroom cut, v cut, w cut??? Which one do u want?” and u say “errrr. Nothing. Just trim my hair. Can u just cut the ends off a bit. I want to get rid of the split ends” and she shows u 2 inches of hair and says “can I cut this much?” and u absent mindedly say “hmmm ok” and she cuts bloody 6 inches and u r left with exactly 4 inches of hair on your head what u get ultimately is a sexy looking hair cut!! :-\). Whatever !!! My hair is wayyyy above my shoulders now and I m feeling kind of insecure now. Yeah insecure. It feels like stepping out without clothes and going “ueee man. Itni thand kyun lag rahi hai”!! :P

2.      So yesterday my dad took me on a walk and asked me “errr. Shruthi. You know. If there is someone in Chennai whom u get along well with you should tell us. We wouldn’t mind”. Fully understanding what he was trying to say I acted and innocent and went “I get along well with everyone appa!!” and he is like “no. I mean for life”. God. My dad is cute!! :). The conversation ended with me telling him “I don’t want to get married and live with a man appa!! please”. I hastened to add “errr..neither with a woman. I just want to be alone” when his eyebrows kind of shot up!! :P

3.      So now that I have lots of time at my disposal I spent the entire weekend watching “Indian idol”. More than the actual show the auditions are really funny and hilarious. Sample this. The judges went to London to pick a couple of contestants and this girl sings “aap jaisa koi meri zindagi mein aaye toh BAAP ban jaaye”. Ha ha ha ha!! OMG. Even as I m typing it my face just broke out into a huge grin. :D Javed akhtar hastened to tell her  “beta..baap ban jaaye nahi, BAAT ban jaaye”!! my mother and I have been giggling like little school girls ever since. :D

4.   .  Today I went on a cycling trip around the township with mom and dad. That is the advantage if u have a mother who is a school teacher. She just has to call a couple of students and within 4 minutes we have 20 kids outside out house saying “teacher teacher, take my cycle.”, “no no ma’am take mine. Naya hai” and I went and picked this ladybird. Its been ages since I rode a cycle. Last time was in 12^th I think. I had a red color BSA SLR then I think. I always craved for a ladybird but a BSA SLR is what was handed down to me by Preethi (that’s the disadvantage if u have a sis who looks after things very well. If she had broken the cycle my parents would have been forced to buy me a new cycle. But no. she polished it, cleaned it, rode it well and ultimately gave it to me!! :-\). So where was I? yeah cycling trip. It was lovely. The township looks lovely and I had a capital time cycling with mom and dad. Both of them were way ahead of me and I was panting and puffing to catch up with them.  I can still ride a cycle with both my hands off the handle bar *big accomplishment grin*. All through the trip my mom and dad tried to convince me to quit my job in chennai and come and live with them. The township is beautiful, the mall is great, there is a huge multiplex, the air is salubrious, food is great, and i would save a huge chunk of my salary but.. So why don’t I want to come and live here?? I dunno. I guess Chennai is home now. Sigh!! I am so confused

5.  My sister got her passport!! Yay yay!! Ok. For uninformed people she lost her passport while in a foreign country, one day before she was supposed to come to india after 6 months and she was devastated. She even went and tried telling the passport officials “hey, I look like an Indian. Please let me go to india”. LOL. Last heard the passport officials in dubai have been warned about a crazy looking Indian woman desperate to go to india and willing to try anything. Anyway after 3 weeks of plain AGONY and pure determination she got her passport. You gotta hand it to that girl. When she learnt that one of the passport officials had lived in neyveli for exactly 3 months of his life she went and told him “you are from neyveli? My great grandfather is also from neyveli. Can u please give me the passport now”!! :D :D. I think he gave it just to humor her. So congrats preethi!! :)

6. .  Yesterday my mom was cribbing saying “OMG. Township has become so crowded shruthi. I cant tell you”. Find below pictures of peak hour traffic in the township. First one was taken at peak hour in the morning and the second was taken at peak hour in the evening. I could only gape and feel glad that my parents weren’t in Chennai.  Where is the traffic u say?? Duh-huh. Our car was on the road!! :P

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.

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)

Lessons learnt by Revs - Part II

1. Sometimes little things which you do can make people really happy and you don’t even realize it, until they write or tell you about it. So I have been going around feeling as benevolent as mother Teresa, though I haven’t done a thing but because someone else thought I did!! :)

2. Never make new year resolutions. I have shamelessly gone and broken all my new year resolutions. I am PATHETIC. Earlier this year I promised myself that I would be nice to everyone, write accounts and do more of what I like and I have broken all of them.

--I was rude to a really really nice person and u know what’s the worst thing about being rude to a nice person? The nice person doesn’t mind it and says “Naaah. That’s ok!!” and gives a benevolent smile when u apologize to them making u feel lower than Mallika Sherwat’s neck line, lower than the blood levels in Vijay mallya’s alcohol stream, lower than the lowest form of aquatic life which resides in the marina trench of the pacific ocean (errrr.. the lowest point in the earth). Sigh!!! you get the drift?? Really low!!

--I stopped writing accounts two months back and my finances have again gone for a toss. I withdraw whenever I feel like and I have been doing quite a bit of withdrawing and my account looks malnourished as usual. When I was writing accounts there was some kind of control which doesn’t exist now.

PJ: what’s the similarity between Revathi’s bank account and Kareena Kapoor
Answer: both of them are a size zero!! Ha ha ha ha!!
Sad joke!! but then I am a sad person!!

--And despite lofty promises to self I have hardly been doing the things I like. And in fact I have been doing the things I dislike more and more. :(
--The only resolution which I have been keeping successfully is reading books. I have been religiously reading good fiction and spent most of my salary buying books, reading and re reading them but sigh that’s one resolution which I knew I would have no trouble keeping, given my inexplicable love for books. I always take time out to read however busy I am. Always!!! Its like taking a resolution to brush daily (I really do guys!! Cross my heart and hope to die!! )

3. It is not a very good idea to listen to music when you are working. Last week I was listening to “Love me Tonight” by John Denver and without realizing while listening to the song, I went “Kick of your shoes, turn of the lights, love me tonight”. Apparently I was really really loud and the men in my team have been maintaining a safe distance ever since. Sigh!!! I wonder what they think about me!!

4. It is best to read and re read your mails before u send them to others. Yesterday I had to send a mail to a team mate saying “Hi XYZ, mandatory fields have to be marked in blah blah use case” and I ended up sending “Hi XYZ, mandatory fields have to be naked in blah blah use case”. And I quickly scanned the mail for read marks and not seeing any I sent it and needless to say was the butt of all jokes the whole day with some perverts asking me what pleasure I got out of looking at naked mandatory fields!! :

5. Never grow up – It sucks: Lately I have been reading asterix and tintin comics over and over again thanks to my 9 year old cousin (I added the word cousin while re reading the post and editing it. before that, it read “thanks to my 9 year old who seems…!! Eeeeeks!! Thank god I corrected my own mistake!!:P) who seems to have taken a fancy to it. I completely LOVE asterix. Every time I read I am like “oh my god!! Now where does this guy get his sense of humor from?”. Will I ever grow up and stop reading asterix, tintin, archies and tinkle? I hope I never do.

6. Be careful what title you give your posts. I have been following Feedjit carefully for the past 1 month and I noticed that I had maximum visitors for this post. Not that my other posts are great or deserve to be read but this one is definitely not one of my good posts. A little bit of sleuthing ke baad I found out that when u say “lost my orkut account” in google the first link that google throws up is GBCI!! Eeeps!! Sigh!! no wonder I got so many visitors for that post. The number of people whose life orkut rules must be slightly more than the hair on TR’s face, slightly more than the number of pimples on my face and almost equal to jayalalitha’s weight. You get the drift? So I am sure that every day there must be at least a few addicted souls (whose idea of entertainment is refreshing their orkut page to check for scraps, idea of fun is replying to scraps and idea of passing away time is checking out the profiles on unknown people) who lose their orkut account who must be visiting my page!! Hmmm

7. I have decided. I don’t want to get married and I don’t want to study further. I want to go trekking and climb all the mountains in india. Sigh!! I just came back from a weekend trek to tada and it was amazing!! sigh!! will upload someone's pics soon!!

8. It’s a bad bad idea to say “Jeez!! Go jump into a well. You depress me” to a person who is depressed. They, I have noticed, don’t like it. my relationship with a certain friend of mine is at its breaking point coz I couldn’t really understand her mood swings and depression and wasn’t patient enough to listen her out. :S

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!! :)

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 .