Musings

It has been raining cats and dogs and donkeys and tigers for the past two days. Seriously. It has been raining like nobody’s business. All schools are off today, all colleges are off today. I won’t be surprised if they close down government offices too. Then why the HELL are IT companies working all the time??? :-\

What I want: hot steaming tea with a plate of pakodas, a nice book and some good music
What I have: hot tea from the vending machine, code which doesn’t work

What I want: a job which lets me talk to people, read a lot and write a lot
What I have: a job where I talk to a maximum of one person, read the lunch menu everyday, and write some nonsense and try to convince everyone that it is code.

What I want: to read John Grisham’s latest novel called playing for pizza
What I have: complete reference java

What I want: is to be able to sleep peacefully without anyone waking me up and asking me to come to office
What I have: am at office at 8.30 owing to the bus driver who drove like he had a pregnant woman in his bus and was rushing her to the hospital

What I want: is to roll my jeans up and splash with gay abandon in the puddles formed by the rain outside
What I have: a voice inside me telling me that I am 22 and a professional working in a leading IT company and professionals working in leading IT companies DO NOT splash in water!!

Sigh!! But what is most surprising is that despite all this I am really really happy and completely in love with life right now. What IS wrong with me??

Survey

Hi all,
I need a favor from you guys. You need to fill this survey up for me. Now before u guys think this is one of those stupid things which says "choose the fruit u like the best and we will tell you your personality" and in the end says "if u chose orange u are a person who likes oranges" or something equally and incredibly silly, let me tell you that this is a real survey and it would help a lot of people if u took this survey seriously and gave your esteemed opinion (:P) on the questions listed in this survey. Your results will not be shown to you or anybody else (meaning it is an anonymous survey) so feel free to check whichever option you feel like. Here is the link which you need to follow and take the survey. Even if u dont like my blog and hate the way i write please be kind enough to take some time off your busy schedule and do the survey. Thank you!! :)

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=qet2evuPO3TBuI5cy8_2bYAA_3d_3d

The Week that was

It has been a good week.
On Monday I did something which I have always always wanted to do and I am glad I finally got around to doing it. A tiny feeling of guilt still lingers but the sense of achievement (however small) kind of overshadows the guilt
On Tuesday a part of code which I had written actually worked. Now this is something earth shattering and mind blowing. Right from class 12th when I first started coding, till now not a single piece of code of mine has ever worked and I was elated when something I had written actually worked
On Wednesday I got the following mail from one of the readers of my internal blog and I haven’t stopped smiling since. It always feels great to be appreciated but this mail just made me soooooooo happy. :)

Hi revs … was thinking to write to u from a very long time …Chakkas post likha hai yaar …Loved reading it ….But whenever I go to d comments section , I read ur or someone’s retaliation n start laughing out so much tat I forget what I was about to comment …I enjoy reading all your posts …D best part is d choice of topics …Everyone can relate to them…u r very witty and u know wats d best part is tat ur humor is clean n neat n u never make fun of others … Ur posts tells us tat revs is a simple , down to earth and very approachable gal…And thanks for linking me in your post … I was so happy to be linked by u … Please continue d great job …Keep Blogging !! Keep Rocking!! Kudos to u!! J
Bye,
Sona.

Thanks a lot Sona. You absolutely totally and completely made my day. :)

Since I have had a great week till now obviously today/ Thursday had to be a spoiler. Got up to find no current hence no motor and hence no water (Aaah!! I know what u guys are thinking. No!! the next statement is not hence no bath). I rushed to my grandmother’s place early in the morning to take a bath. Fought with an absolutely irritating auto fellow in the morning. I hate these fellows!! Seriously. Almost missed the bus and on top of it I have this absolutely infernal cold which refuses to go away so my eyes are constantly watering!! Sigh!!
Anyway I will get back to work. And yeah Happy Birthday Namu!! Hope u have a great day. You are one of the nicest people I have known and the past 11 years of knowing you have been fantabulous!! :). Have a great day!! Love you!! :)

Today is the birthday of one of the most important people in my life. The person I love most and respect lots. She turns 66 today and I hope she lives for 66 more!! :)
Love you loads and loads paati (I know u will probably never read this but still I just felt like writing this). Wish u a very very very happy birthday. My grandmother by the way is one of the most special people in my life and the only person whom i listen to.
LOVE YOU PAATI!!! :)

Conversations

People are the most interesting creatures on this planet. Maneka Gandhi and the late Steve Irwin might not think so but personally I just love observing people. Have u tried listening to random conversations around you when you are alone either traveling or sitting in a theatre or in a shop? Sometimes these conversations can be very interesting and provide the much needed entertainment you need when you are alone. This is not called eavesdropping. Eavesdropping is when you listen to some conversation which has something to do with you. Listening to the conversations of some random people and compiling them into a blog is what I call research!!! :)
Here I write about some conversations which I have heard when I have been traveling in the bus, train or in theatres etc

1. Heard in the bus. A conversation between a girl of about 20 and her boyfriend on the phone. I could hear only her side of the conversation so I conjure up the boy’s side.
Her: Hmmm. Then what else. What did u have for breakfast?

Him: idly

Her: hmmm. Just idly?? What did u have along with idly?

Him: chutney

Her: what chutney?? Coconut or tomato?

Him: Coconut

Her: Hmmm. Then what else?

Him: I need to go. I will talk to you later. I love u

Her: Hmmm. Bye. I love u too You keep the phone down. Last time I hung up first and u didn’t speak to me for 35 full minutes

Him: No. you hang up first. I promise you I won’t be angry. And I love u more.

Her: No sweetie. You hang up first. And no I am sure I love u more.

(the “you hang up first” and “I love u more” conversations go on for about 15 minutes after which the girls mobile goes out of charge and she is forced to cut the call. By this time I have lost interest and I am afraid I will lose my breakfast too if I listen some more and move onto the next conversation. I have never understood what two lovers talk or why they talk for such long duration. I mean I am sure they don’t discuss about global warming or about the condition of slums in India or about the agenda of the world development report. I think the worst thing that service providers like airtel and hutch have come up with are CUG or groups where they provide unlimited free hours of talking.) Note: My friend Milinta has written a whole blog on this “talking for long hours phenomenon”. U can check out her blog too!! ;)

2. This was the conversation heard between a mother and her son in the theatre when I had been to watch some animation movie

Boy: Mommy. Why have the switched off the lights

Mother: so that we can see the movie

Boy: but I thought u needed light to see

Mother: Yes. But only if they switch off the lights we can see the movie better. If they switch on the lights the picture won’t be very clear.

Boy: Why does it become dark? Why can’t we always have light?

Mommy: because the sun goes down in the evenings.

Boy: why does the sun go down in the evenings?

Mommy: because like u there are other children on the other side of the world who want the sun so the sun goes to meet them

Boy: other side of the world?? Where is that?

At this point I lose patience and move on to the next conversation. The boy kept asking questions and the mother patiently kept answering. A child’s inquisitiveness is amazing no doubt but something which is even more amazing is a mother’s patience. I swear had I been in the mother’s place I would have scolded the child and asked him to watch the movie quietly!!


3. Following was the conversation I heard between a husband and a wife outside a change room in a clothing store. She would go inside, change into something and come out and show her husband.

Wife(wearing a green kurta): Sathish how about this one. This is the the same kurta which preity zinta wore in Lakshya.

Now Mrs.Sathish by no stretch of imagination looked like preity zinta and to be very fair to her, Mr.Sathish also by no stretch of imagination looked like Hrithik Roshan.

Anyway mildly put the kurta wasn’t exactly flattering her figure and was hugging her at places which are best left unmentioned and I was expecting Mr. Sathish to say so much

Husband: Ummm..Errrr.. Well actually this color doesn’t really suit u.
He picks up another blue kurta which if it were worn by Jayalalitha would be loose for her

Now this is the color which would really really suit you

Wife: what u are trying to say is that I look fat. That’s it. Isn’t it??

Husband: no Uma. I am just trying to say that blue color would suit u much better than green.

Wife: ok. I will just go and ask if they have this green kurta in blue. Except for the color everything is fine with the green kurta right?

I am beyond myself with laughter as I see Sathish squirm. And I did not envy his position when Uma came with the same green kurta in blue color and told him she was going to buy.

Sathish: ummm… maybe we should just visit some other shop Uma. The prices here are too steep!

Uma: Are u crazy? This kurta’s original price in 650 and I am getting it at 300 after discount. There is no way I am letting it go. Why are you so apprehensive?

Sathish: (He is really gutsy I decide) No it’s just that maybe this kurta is a little tight for u. maybe we should try the next size!!

Oh my god!!! You guys should have been there to witness what ensued afterwards!! Phew!! They had such a big fight and they kept on fighting. Yours truly just left the place!! ;)

4. This one was while I was traveling in the train from Chennai to Bombay. Some of the moments of my life which I cherish are the train journeys when we as a family would travel from wherever-in-India-we-were-at-that-moment to Chennai. So I love observing families when I am traveling alone. It takes me back to the good ol’ days. Anyway this particular family had two daughters, a mom and a dad and was ur usual gujju parivar.

Daughter 1(called Pinky): mummy!! I want the window seat

Daughter 2(called Sweety): mummy!! Nahi. I want it. Remember last week when u were talking to gupta aunty on the phone and the milk was boiling in the kitchen I asked u if I could have the window seat u said I could have it.

(I pitied mummy and appreciated sweety’s cleverness. The best time to ask a parent for a favor is when they are extremely busy, totally un-interested in what u have to say and cant wait to get rid of you.)
Pinky: but mummy the last time we went to madras Sweety sat at the window seat

Mummy: we had 2 window seats then Pinky and both of you were sitting at one.

Pinky(obviously not very pleased): but I want it.

Daddy: Pinkyyyyyyyyyy!!!!! Sweetyyyyyyyy!!! Bas Karo!!! Enough of ur nonsense. Pinky will sit for half an hour then Sweety will sit for the next half hour

Pinky: I get to sit first.

Sweety: no!! I do. Daddy tell her.

And the fight went on. I didn’t think pinky and sweety were being childish. My sister is 25 and I am 21 and we still fight for the window seat when we travel together. : I have always maintained that it is good to have a bit of fighting/squabbling between siblings. (I am not sure how many parents concur with my views though)

5. Following is the conversation which took place between my mom and my dad when I was in class 7 and till date remains one of my most favorite conversations

Mom: (talking to my dad): Shruthi (yeah that’s me. That’s what I am called at home As to why I am called shruthi at home, well that deserves a separate post in itself) has been really naughty. I have been getting lot of complaints regarding her behavior from all her teachers.

Dad(reading the newspaper): Hmmmm

Mom: She actually put horns on the head of her computer teacher and it got reflected on the monitor and she got caught (this is completely true. This did happen and till date it has been the funniest and most embarrassing situations in my life).

Dad: Hmmm

Mom: And preethi doesn’t study at all. I am worried she will hardly score in her 10th exams.

Dad: Hmmm

Mom: Maybe we should send her to coaching classes

Dad: Hmmm

Mom: you never listen to anything I say

Dad: I don’t believe it. I just don’t

Mom: what?

Dad: in a country with 1 billion people isn’t there a single doctor who can find a cure for Sachin Tendulkars shoulder injury??

Mom: *&^%*%&**^.

Errr. The scenes that followed were errr. Not very pleasant and hence I shall refrain from elucidating for fear that some children by chance might come visiting and get scared!! :P
There are many such conversations which stand out in my memory but this post is getting way too long anyway. Maybe I will do a conversations part-II. :). So till then Keep Talking!! ;)

Tolerance

I really really need to control my anger. I really do. I am generally a very nice person(Really. I swear :P) but if I get angry I just seem to completely lose control of myself. And the minute after I have literally raped the object of my anger with the choicest of words I begin to feel sorry and wish I hadn’t done it. The other day a certain colleague of mine and I were having this discussion about our favorite authors. This is how the conversation went

Me: Oh cool!! You like Grisham too?? I love “The Client” written by him. Have u read that?

Colleague: oh yeah!! I loved that one too. And Erich Segal's Class and Doctors is simply mid blowing

Me: oh yeah!! I just completely fell in love with Class. And more recently, did u read khaled hosseini's kite runner and 1000 splendid suns

Colleague: Oh my god!! Yeah yeah yeah. Absolutely loved them both. I cant believe our tastes match so much

Me: (Moving on to the acid test): Hmmm.. errrr. Then I presume you like PG Wodehouse

Colleague: Shucks No!! I HATE him. I just can’t stand the way he writes

Until this point I was genial, friendly and nice, even cracking little jokes but once she said I hate PGW I think I completely lost it. u can tell me stuff like "I think your father is a terrorist Revs, and he is the master mind behind the WTC bombing" and I wont be provoked, or u can say stuff like "I think ur sister is a cannibal and the only reason she calls u home so frequently is so that she can fatten u up well and then eat you" and I would probably just give u a little smile and say "Oh!! Is that so??" but if u say stuff like "I hate PGW" I get livid. Come on. My dad can turn terrorist (errr.Appa if you are reading this u know I love u!! :)), my sister can turn into a cannibal (on second thoughts she already is one. Preethi if you are reading this c’mon sis it’s time u faced some facts). Both these events are not entirely impossible but hating PGW?? Now that’s impossible. PGW aint a writer. He is a magician who plays magic with words.

Shit!! This is exactly what I was talking about. I need to simmer down. I just need to.
Anyway after my colleague made that statement I went "What??????? You don’t like PGW and u call yourself a person who likes to read books??" (Now, I realize that I was being entirely unreasonable. I cant understand a word of what Paulo Coelho is trying to say in alchemist and I don’t understand why the boy must speak the language of the desert. call me shallow, call me un-philosophical but that’s the way I am but then when I was at the peak of my outburst I wasn’t really thinking reasonably). But the point I am trying to make here is that there is a world of difference between saying "I don’t understand what PGW writes" and saying "I hate PGW". The former statement I can tolerate,even understand, the latter, I have realized sadly is beyond my tolerance level. Needless to say after that little outburst of mine my colleague hasn’t been very cordial to me to put it mildly.
Same thing happened with a friend of mine who said she didn’t like the way Atif sings and I again went "What???????*&^%^##@$%&"

I just need to get a hold on myself

Following are some of the things I need to do

1. Need to tone down Sreesanth like behavior
2. Need to visit the Himalayas and have a look at how the sages live
3. Need to apologize to my colleague
4. Need to be more tolerant
5. Need to accept the fact that not everyone likes Wodehouse and not everyone can appreciate Atif's singing. (But for crying out loud how can u not like stuff like this "A melancholy-looking man, he had the appearance of someone who had searched for the leak in life's gas pipe with a lighted candle" or "I should like to start by saying that since the first human being crawled out of the primeval slime and life on this planet began nobody has ever loved anybody as i love Gertrude Wnnkworth".Sheesh I am doing it again.)
6. I really need to follow this need to list!!

Shantaram!! Awesome!!

For the past one week I have been staying up nights and trying to spend every waking minute that I get reading Shataram by Gregory David Roberts. I still haven’t finished reading the book. It’s a huge book about 1000 pages and I still have 100 odd pages left to finish but I just cant help writing a review. What a book man what a book. I am usually lousy when it comes to reviewing books but there are very few books which I have really really felt like reviewing and this is one of them. It’s been a long time since I read a book which has been so stimulating moving and un-putdown able. Its non-fiction and I generally hate non-fiction and self help kind of books. This book is a kind of a self help book too I would say.

The real life story of a man who has been through sooooooooooo much in life and the way he has written it is BLOODY brilliant. I have just completely fallen in love with the way he has written. He describes India and Bombay so beautifully that it especially appeals to a person like me who has this “crazy almost bordering toward madness” kind of love for India. I cant really explain what I love about this country but I just love it with every fibre of my being and to hear my sentiments being voiced by a foreigner, to hear my country being praised by him felt so good.

And another astounding thing is that Gregory david Roberts wrote Shantaram three times after the prison guards destroyed the first two versions. Each version was around 600 pages. And to have continued writing after having his first two version destroyed tells you about the kind of amazing grit, willpower and determination this man possesses. It is very very hard to believe that it has been written by a prisoner, an armed robber and a hopeless heroin addict. There is a part in the book, around 50 pages, where he talks about his stint in an Indian prison. It just completely moved me to tears and threw light on the kind of circumstances under which prisoners in India live and the way they are treated. (But according to Roberts such is the case in every prison in this world.).

Shantaram is a riveting read which is at once moving, touching, humorous, dark, thrilling, full of suspense, compassionate, sensational and erudite. I am running out of adjectives to describe this book. Please do read it. Don’t let the size of the book intimidate you. Trust me it is worth the read.

Next on my list is Orhan Pamuk’s ‘Snow’ and ‘My Name is Red’. I generally do not read books written by Nobel prize winning authors because most of what they write is a bouncer for me but I am going to try. So any reviews on these two books are most welcome!! :)

Hmmmmm!!!

It is a Friday and I feel none of the excitement associated with a Friday because I am working tomorrow. I had this wild fantastic idea today morning that maybe just maybe everyone at work will forget that tomorrow is working and not turn up thinking it is a usual Saturday. Lame I know but then when u are as desperate as me for a weekend u begin to hallucinate and think that anything is possible. And today morning as soon as I checked my office mail the first mail to meet my eye was this mail from Operations HR “just a gentle reminder to tell u that tomorrow is a working day as usual and we are compensating for the holiday announced on Monday because of the state wide bandh”. So much for everyone forgetting that Saturday would be working. Never before have I pressed the shift + delete keys with more vengeance to delete a particular mail. :-.

And after u have had an absolutely fantabulous four day weekend (God bless mahatma Gandhi for being born on October 2. October 1 was a state wide bandh so ultimately it became a four day weekend) doing nothing but eating, sleeping and making merry with your friends, you hate coming to office so much that the hatred which osama bin laden feels for Bush would seem trivial compared to it. The best day was Monday. I love going around with my friends and roaming around the city but I love idling away time reading a book and listening to music a little more than that. Monday I was on house arrest because of the bandh and I spent it reading a PG Wodehouse, listening to songs by KK and eating vengaya sambhar and vendekka curry made by paati. I have decided that IF IF IF IF IF ever I marry I will only marry someone who can write like PGW, sing like KK and cook like my grandmother. That’s not much to ask for. And oh yeah!! If he happens to look like George Clooney I wouldn’t mind that!! ;)

I just realized that I have been meting out step-motherly treatment to my blog. After I started blogging on Cognizant internal blogs I have almost stopped blogging on my external blog. I feel really bad coz this blog has been with me for almost two years now and has seen me through sooooooooooo many things. My emotions are best expressed when I write about them and this blog of mine has been proof of that fact. So no matter how popular I get on the internal blog revsrules will always be my first love (internal blog would be my second love, and third would be the guy who can write like PGW, sing like KK, cook like my grandmother and looks like George Clooney(this one’soptional)..;) ). Well anyway so I am going to increase my blogging activity on my external blog and try to blog almost daily about my un-eventful life. Maybe writing about it will make it more eventful. Maybe. Un-eventful life reminds me, I better get back to work!! ;)

Re"Vetti" - R.I.P (Even my jokes are as sad as my Life is :-\)

I hereby announce the death of my alter ego a.k.a Re"vetti". I was re-christened Re"vetti" by a friend of mine (I forget who. I think it was Rahul. I am not sure though and I definitely don’t want to give HIM credit for re-christening me!! :P) around three years back in my second year of engineering when the maximum work I did was eating and sleeping(yeah sometimes when I was awake and not hungry I also visited college once in a while). I was utterly jobless then and hence the name Re"Vetti" came to be. it became hugely popular and almost everyone I knew (even those I didn’t know) then started calling me by this name.(I didn’t mind. as long as I wasn’t called fatty or shorty or something I was happy.)

Anyway coming back to the point I hereby announce the death of my alter ego Re"Vetti" because after she stayed in office till ten for the past two weeks(it promises to get worse by the way) and worked on Saturdays she no longer deserves to be called thus!! I can’t believe (and most of the people around me can’t believe) the fact that I am actually doing some work. in the past 21 years of my existence I have never done anything which can even remotely be classified as work (no wait!! I really really worked for my sisters wedding. I tasted all the food in the sathram and informed my parents if the menu and taste were fine. yup!! now that’s work.***) and now I am working so much that I have no time left to do anything else nowadays. I get up at 7.00 leave for office at 8.30 come back home and 10.30 and hit the bed. (wow!! what an absolutely happening life I must say). one day I had so much of work that I had to actually catch the cab at 11.45 in the night and by the time I came home it was 12.30. Sheesh!! I can’t believe its me. I used to look down upon people who worked beyond 6.00 in the evening and now I have become a person whom I would have scorned a few months back!! :(

I think god has this quota that every human being should do so much of work and since I haven’t done any of it in the past 21 years he is making me work my posterior out now (oh yeah!! I am a thorough professional now. I don’t use terms like A** and all that now. sigh!! how much a job in a software company can change a person!!)

So it’s official. all u people who derived pleasure out of calling me Re'Vetti' kindly desist from using the word vetti in my context. I no longer deserve it. people who sympathize with me after reading this blog and are going "Awwww. poor girl" u guys are the best and I hope god blesses you with as little work (and as high a salary of course) as possible. and for people who are smirking and going "Hah!! she calls 12.30 late?? I stay in office till 2.00- 3.00 and am back in office at 9.00 next day morning" u seriously need help. there is lots and lots to life apart from work and if u r missing out on all that its time u went to psychiatrist and got ur head checked. Sorry if I sound rude but frankly I doubt it if anyone belonging to the latter category would actually visit my blog.

By the way my blog is right now suffering from abject lack of visitors with visitors fewer than Pamela Anderson’s clothes in Baywatch (and that is saying something). Now I am not a person who cares about numbers. I don’t care if I have any visitors or not. I write because I love to write and right now it is the only source of entertainment in my otherwise bland and bleak existence. It was just something that I noticed. U stop updating Ur blog and the visitors to Ur blog also stop.

I am sure at least 99% of u r wondering what the hell is she trying to say. Honestly even I don’t know. So I will just stop rambling now and let u derive ur own conclusions from this post of mine. I will just get back to work. C ya.

P.S: initially I thought I wouldn’t post this blog at all because it was so full of shit but then it took me ten minutes to type all this nonsense up and I am not letting all that effort go waste!! so people who are still reading and have actually read this far I bow down. if I had been in ur place I would have just clicked that small red color cross on the right corner of my window right after the first para!! :P

***- This is what i meant when i said my jokes are as sad as my life is!! My sense of humor seems to have gone for a toss!! :(

Hair (S)care!!

I remember about five or six years back there was this advertisement of some hair oil (the name of the product eludes me) whose tagline was Careless a irundha thalai hairless aaidum (If u are careless you will become hairless) and my sister and I used to go into peals of laughter hearing it and throw knowing glances at my dad who in spite of not being careless was hairless!! ;)

A couple of days back my worst nightmare turned into a reality when I saw half my hair on my pillow half of it on the comb I use and remaining in the sink in the bathroom after I had had a head bath. I was as shocked as mallika sherawat would be if she were asked to wear some clothes, as shocked as bal thackerey would be if he were asked to be the editor of playboy (trivia: who is the editor of playboy??).

Anyway you get the drift as to how shocked I was don’t u?

When u r 21 you are young, enthusiastic with a zeal for life and a hairless head is not something u would like to have. Obviously I was extremely worried about this and asked the various members of my family what must be done.

In the order of seniority I shall describe the reactions of my family members at this sudden mane-loss I was suffering!! I asked my grandmother who I assumed would have one of those grandma things to give me which would make my hair grow overnight.

Now for my grandmother the only solution to all the ailments in this world is one single thing - Curd Rice or thayir sadam. She believes that almost any disease, infection, mental agony etc can be solved/cured just by having thayir sadam!! Her standard reply for everything is “Thayir sadam sapadu. Yellam seriya podium!! (Eat curd rice and all will be well)”
This is the conversation which generally goes on at our place

My Aunt: its the year end and I have so much work in office. I feel so tired when I get back home

Grandma: eat curd rice. It will give u energy

My cousin: Damn!! I have got my physics exam tomorrow and I cant remember any of these stupid formulae

Grandma: eat curd rice. It will sharpen ur memory

My 7 year old cousin: Paati my leg is itching from the morning.

grandma: must be some kind of skin rash. Eat curd rice. it will be ok by tomorrow

no prizes for guessing what her reply was when I asked her the remedy for my incessant hairfall..Curd Rice of course
My grandmothers idea of paradise would be one huge hall filled with people with all kinds of problems, a cow which would continuously give her good milk (to make curd of course) and a huge cooker where she would prepare rice and distribute curd rice to everyone!!
needless to say after eating all that curd rice, grow I did but not in the head region. I grew immensely along the x axis. and in a way my grand mom was right. curd rice did solve my problem. after eating curd rice I put on so much of weight that my hair fall problem seemed trivial!! :

Next was my dad. now for u guys who have seen my dad quit laughing. I know asking my dad tips on how to control hair fall would be as absurd as asking Sonia Gandhi to take Hindi classes or asking Vijay Mallya to hold discourse on simple living. But anyway I did ask him. Now my dad is exactly the kind of dad a lazy, lethargic girl wouldn’t want. He goes jogging at 5 in the morning then comes home and does yoga and even before I get up he is off to work. And he never misses an opportunity to advise me on my “early-rising” habit.

Me: appa my hair fall has increased exponentially and I am really worried. What should I do?

Appa: Exercise!!

Me: eh???

Appa: you just don’t get enough exercise. If u exercise u will have a healthy body which in turn will lead to a healthy mind and ur hair will grow

(No!! being the good daughter that I am I did not ask my dad if he was an exception to that rule!!)
My fathers idea of paradise would be our entire family dressed in reebok shoes, tracks and jogging 5 kms every morning at 5.00 am.

Following my dad’s advice made me lose all the weight that curd rice had genially helped me put on but it did nothing to control my hair fall!!

Next was my mother. I knew what my mother’s solution would be but me being me
I just couldn’t resist asking her

Me: amma I have been having this problem of hair fall for the past two weeks. What should I do to control it?
Amma: what’s ur hemoglobin

Me: (thinks) now my hemoglobin aint George Clooney’s birth date that I will remember it by heart.
Me: errrr..ummm..9

Amma: See!! No wonder. You never eat green vegetables or fruits. How many times I have told u not to eat junk. Eat pomegranates or apples when u r hungry not chips and all that other nonsense u eat!!

Now in vegetables green is the only color I dislike. I cant stand green leafy vegetables, I cant stand bottle gourd, bitter gourd, snake gourd, all the other gourds, palak, methi, mooli, cabbage. Basically I have an allergy towards healthy things.

My mom’s idea of paradise would be a huge table filled with never-ending cabbage, palak, broccoli (this blasted vegetable wasn’t even available in India a few years back but ever since my mom realized that it is rich in vitamin A and C, is anti-cancer, anti- cholesterol, anti-fat and anti-children she always makes it a point to stuff me with it) and my dad, sister and I grazing errr i mean eating while my mother looks on.

Amma: hair fall is mainly because of lack of vitamin A. now if only u would drink the broccoli and palak soup I made u wouldn’t complain so much!! Hmph!! :?

Me: broccoli and palak soup??? Ewwwwwwwwww…

Needless to say my mother wasn’t pleased and she refused to give me any more tips on how to control my mane-loss (and in a way I was relieved)

Next was my sister.

Me: hey preethi!! Listen..i have been having this problem of hair fall man. I am really worried. What do I do?

Preethi: Shehnaz Hussain!!

Me: huh??

Preethi: try this hair cream by shehnaz hussain. Its absolutely great

Now if u have seen shehnaz hussain u will know why I was very sure that I did not want to use any hair cream made by her!! ;) for the benefit of those who haven’t seen her here is a picture.

(Don’t ask me who the dude with her his. This was the first image of hers which was thrown up when I said shahnaz hussain on Google images!! )
Anyway coming to the point Yeah I want my hair to grow but not to such an extent that u cannot distinguish between a bear and me.

For my sister whatever shahnaz hussain says is gospel truth. As for me I wasn’t very convinced and hence refrained from using the hair cream suggested by my sister!!


Ultimately suggestions from my entire family failed to help me and even as I write this post my hair fall is probably in progress and I already have these bald patches around my head and I really don’t appreciate it when people look at my dad then look at me and say with a smirk “Must be hereditary ”

So there ends this sad story of how a girl born into a weird family, suffered from hair loss, had no one to help her ultimately died bald!!:(

Yeah I know u guys are choked and are probably bawling now so for every person who sympathizes with me I shall give a free box of tissues!!

My Cooking (S)Kills

Couple of days back i decided to surprise my sister by cooking dinner for her before she came back from office. knowing that my minimal culinary skills(read zero culinary skills) did not permit me to make aloo ka paratha, malai kofta,shahi paneer etc i decided on simple roti, dal and chawal.. i learnt a lot of lessons that day
now i have no clue how to cook dal so i went to food world called my mom and asked her what were the ingredients required to make dal

mom: toor dal can be used to make dal but there....
me: yeah ok ma.talk to u later.bye

Lesson 1: when ur mom says "but" dont cut the call. listen to what she has to say.

not heeding my mother's "but" i went around to the dal section of the shop and was met by a 6ft x 5ft shelf full of dals of different sizes shapes and colours

me:(asking the help there): errr..toor dal..which one is it
help: which one do u want. do u want full toor, half broken, broken, premium quality, normal quality
me: wait!! stop. err gimme the one they use to make sambhar

Lesson 2: Just because both sambhar and dal are different shades of yellow DOES NOT mean they are made using the same dal

the help gives me a dal which i proudly buy. i also buy some tomatoes, onions and chillies and head back home to prepare dal a la yummy!! (thats the name i proposed to give my dal. only it was all but yummy)

i go home take a cooker measure some dal wash it thoroughly put the dal into the cooker put lots of water and put it on the gas and wait for the whistle.

next i cut all the vegetables put it on a kadai and saunter the vegetables. i do this realy well

Lesson 3: sauntering vegetables is the easiest thing to do and even a baby can do it and only an extremley culinary un-skilled person can spoil this

next i try to make the dough for the rotis. i learnt a lot of lessons while doing this task.

Lesson 4: never make the dough for the rotis without supervision when u r doing it the first time. you will i repeat WILL spoil it.

Lesson 5: if u are forced to do it alone then for pete's sake take a small quantity to experiment and then if u are successfull make more atta

i took about 5 table spoons of atta (pilsbury) put it on a plate, poured a tumbler of water and started making the dough

Lesson 6: while making atta DO NOT add all the water all at once. add water little by little and make the dough

i started making the dough but it was a gooey messy affair and there was entirely too much water so i put in two more table spoons of atta, and then there was too much atta so i put in some more water. this went on until i was left with one huge blob of &*#%^(i dunno what to call it. even i wouldnt go as far as calling it atta). i tried to check the porosity (hardness) of the atta by poking it with my finger. my finger refused to penetrate the dough. Next I tested it using a pencil. The pencil broke (Come on people!! Graphite is after all the softest non-metal. Its not like my pencil was made of diamond or something). Well anyway the bottom line is that euphemistically put the dough was not appropriate for human consumption
at this point I suddenly remembered my dal. All this while I didn’t hear a single whistle and hence assumed that the dal was happily cooking inside the cooker.

Lesson 7: If after 20 minutes of cooking something in the cooker (esp dal) if u don’t hear a whistle it is NOT a positive sign.

I just left the dal in the cooker and was wondering what I would do with the hard, rigid, tough, inflexible and inedible blob of &*#%^ when I smelt something burning faintly. I rushed to the cooker switched off the gas and opened my cooker to find a 3 inch layer of black soot and four (yes guys!! Exactly four pieces of that blasted yellow colour dal that I bought) sitting prettily on top of the bed of black soot. If not for my distraught state I would have taken a couple of pictures and put it up but unfortunately I didn’t take any pictures.

Then I tried to clean the cooker. I tried and tried and tried cursing all those people in the Vim and Pril ad’s who make washing dirt and grime on vessels seem like so easy and effortless (agreed the “grime” in my case was a little too much but still)

Lesson 8: if u burn something do NOT try to wash the burnt vessel at once. Let it lie in water for some time. The water helps loosen up all the dirt and washing is easier

Anyway after this disastrous attempt at cooking I tried to clean up all the mess I had created. (there was white colored flour everywhere aesthetically decorated by black soot at places, sauntered vegetables on a kadai gone cold now etc) but before I could begin the bell rang and in came my sister.
Shock, wise people have said is also a form of surprise (so I actually did manage to surprise my sister!! Yay!!!)

Now my sister is a cleanliness freak. She just CANNOT stand dirty things. Her wardrobe is perfectly clean, her house is always disinfected and its floors can be used for the “after” scenes in the domex and lizol ad’s , her kitchen is always clean and there isn’t a single vessel or towel or plate which is ever out of place. And when she saw the state of the kitchen, the dough, the black soot and the non-existent dal she flipped!!

Lesson 9: when u have a sister who is a cleanliness freak don’t even attempt to give her surprises. It really doesn’t work. Trust me

I got a longggg lecture from her explaining to me the difference between the dal used for making sambhar and the dal used for making normal dal (frankly speaking i still do not know the difference. they are both yellow and they are both round). apparently the dal which i had used requires more water and hence the silly dal had burnt and not cooked!! when I tried telling her that I was just trying to surprise her I got another long lecture on the ill effects of surprising people.

Lesson 10: (the golden one): When u are in deep shit DO NOT open ur mouth!! ;)

After my futile attempt to surprise my sister with my culinary and not achieving the desired effect I have never attempted to cook again both for my sake and for the general good of the world!!

For all those people who are wondering where my previous post is, I had to remove my previous post due to some constraints!!!
so kindly wait till my block clears and i am able to write again..will try to blog more often now that training is over!! :)
And i just now noticed(thanks to BOB) that i have crossed a 10000 hits
thanks all for taking some time off and reading my verbose ramblings..feels great to cross 10000 hits!!
keep visiting!! :)

I Hate It!!!!

It’s been really long since I wrote. A month and a half to be precise. As the old cliché goes I seem to be suffering from a writers block. The main reason for this block is the fact that I have absolutely no free time on my hands now and I hate it. There was a time when I was averaging 7-8 posts per month and now I am finding it difficult to write a post a month. It’s amazing actually. when I was absolutely jobless and there was nothing happening in my life I had so much to write and so much to look forward to and now when there is so much happening in my life my mind refuses to give my hands the ability to pen down my thoughts. I wish my mind were a free bird again so that it could wander here and there looking at life from the eyes of a person who had nothing better to do than eat and sleep and write. I find it irritating finding no time on my hands and even if I do find time I am thinking about trivial and mundane things like house rent, cell phone bill, water, food, electricity, java tests (ewwww) and so many other things which I had absolutely NO interest in about a month back and its really hard to write when your mind is bogged down by such things. If it had been the "jobless" me I would have found something interesting to write about how we searched for our house (the difficulties encountered) how I struggled to pay my bills, what I did with my first salary and so much. But right now have lost the ability to laugh at life, its idiosyncracies, its beauty, it charm, it cruelty etc. I am leading this extremely monotonous and miserable existence where the only things that change daily are the clothes I wear. I think dinesh put it beautifully when he wrote this post. I am pretty much going through the same now and I absolutely hate it. I want no stress on my pea size brain, I want me to be absolutely free with lots of time to think about what to write, I want to regain my ability to laugh at myself and my surroundings and most of all I want to write but cant.. :(

Finally i am back to chennai and back to where i belong. and yeah thankfully my trip back to chennai wasnt as eventful as my trip home. i just had to wait for 7 hours in the ahemdabad airport doing absolutely nothing. my bus from jamanagr to ahemdabad arrived at 7.00 in the morning and my flight from ahemdabad to chennai was at 3.00 in the afternoon. oh man!!! i experienced absolute heights of boredom. i did not have my laptop, i did not anyone for company and i knew absolutely no one in ahemdabad whose house i could go to and the worst part was that i could not walk up and down exploring the airport for fear of the fact that someone might pilfer my luggage. as my luck would have it my mom sent all important things with me to give to people all over chennai. the number of instruction i got!!!oh man!! "mythili aunty's sari is in this one. its very important. dont lose it". "preethi's diamond earrings are in that one. guard it very carefully dont check in that bag. have it as your hand luggage and this is a gas regulator which your fathers colleagues neigbours wifes sister will come and collect from you once u reach chennai. be very careful with their stuff. mothers i tell you!!!

so i just sat like piece of luggage in the airport, obvioulsy inviting curious glances and stares from the airport workers who were probably thinking that i am a terrorist checking out the aiport to bomb it or something. maybe the airhostesses felt that i had come to take their place. heh heh!!ok ok..no tension. and anyway those air hostesses look so bad. i mean yeah ok u need to put make up to look presentable but cant u put it in such a way that makes u look presentable and also a little human?? they have layers and layers of stuff on their cheeks, their eyes and lips and an extremely artificial and plastic smile on their faces. ewwwwwwww. well somehow i managed to kill time. thankfully i had a book with me. god bless PG Wodehouse. thanks to PGW i was laughing to myself all the time thus inviting even more glances from everyone around me. :D:D. and the worst part was that the ahemdabad airport was being renovated or soenthing there was just one shop in the whole airport which sold something to eat. i had one sandwich for 60 bucks and i dunno what filled my stomach. the sandwich or the steep prices!!!

well finally 2 o clock came, i checked in my luggage, discovered that it was 2 kilos overweight because of all the stuff my mom had packed, paid excess baggage charges and finally boarded the flight thinking that i would be in chennai in another 2 hrs. only then i came to know that the flight had a stop in hyderabad and only then it would go to chennai. had to wait in the plane at hyd airport for about an hour and then finally after four hours i reached chennai at 6.30. phew!! did i say it wasnt an eventful trip??;)

Its Funny

Though it might sound very funny I am finding it very difficult to adjust to my life at home. Home is the place where one is most comfortable and finds all the pleasures of the world and still I feel so out of place. Each morning when I get up it feels funny to get up to the smell of clean sheets and burning incense and an empty other half of the bed after being used to getting up to the smell of unwashed dirty linen and the presence of my huge roommate on the other half of the bed. In my sleepy state I shuffle for my cell and my bathroom slippers only to realize that I am home and have no use for these things. While going to brush my teeth I brace myself for the toothpaste hunt and then realize that a new fat tube of toothpaste is staring at me from the shelf. Its funny. After being so used to the ways of the hostel I am finding it difficult to adjust at home. Its funny when my dad comes and wakes me up at 5.00 and says “you never get any exercise. Lets go jogging” and I feel like telling him “Dude!!! Get a life and a watch. Do u have any idea what the time is. How can u go around waking up people in the middle of the night like a banshee”. But of course he being my father I refrain from saying those words. Its funny when my mom tells me “you are 21. you have attained marriageable age. U better learn to cook”. The woman who has never let me enter her kitchen for fear of me converting it into a disaster zone is now giving me responsibilities and asking me to cook, clean, water the plants (it’s a different issue that I never do any of that). Its funny when I realize that I can eat how many ever papad’s I want to without the mess workers telling me that I am allowed only one(papad’s are the only edible things in our mess). It feels funny to enjoy all the food that’s on the table and have mom cook what u like. It feels funny to have the computer all to yourself without having to share it with twenty different people on the floor. It feels funny when I try searching for a bucket while going to take bath and then realize that this is home and bucket, soap and all the luxuries are available is in the bathroom itself. Its funny when I hear a particular song and excitedly look around to tell someone “machi!!thats our song they are playing” and realize I am sitting in a empty room whose silence is deafening after being used to the constant din at hostel. Its funny when mom comes at 10 in the night and tells me “still awake??? Its so late. U better go to bed” and I feel like telling her that this is the time we usually get up after our afternoon nap in the hostel and start having fun. My life at home feels very very funny but when I go to sleep at night and silent tears fall down my cheek and I wish I were back on my smelly sheets in hostel, back to the disgusting mess food and back with all my friends, that is when it stops being funny.

P.S: this I think is my third nostalgic post about college and hostel life but I cant help it. I miss that life so much!!!!:( :(

Jinxed!!!

After the happenings in my life in the last one day I have come to the conclusion that I must have been very very busy collecting bad luck and jinxes when god was distributing good luck and charm. Before yesterday I used to find Murphy’s laws funny and laugh at them but considering all that has happened yesterday if Murphy were alive today I would have given him a slow painful and horrific death.

Before u guys decide to call Kilpauk and institutionalize me let me recount the happenings of 17-18th May. For the first time in my life my parents had booked me on a flight from Chennai to Bombay and another one from Bombay to Jamnagar (usually I go in flight from Chennai to Bombay and then from there till Jamnagar in train). I was thrilled and overjoyed at the thought of traveling in comfort all the way from Chennai to Jamnagar, something which I had never done. Jamnagar being an extremely remote underdeveloped and disgusting city is situated in the western tip of Gujarat (don’t sweat if u have no clue where Jamnagar is. When my parents first told me that we were shifting to Jamnagar in class 7th I thought it was some foreign country) and is the worst connected place. There are no direct trains from Chennai, there is only a single flight from Bombay and the trip from Chennai to Jamnagar is an adventure in itself. An auto from home to Chennai airport, flight from Chennai to Bombay, train from Bombay to Jamnagar and another two hours of car journey on disgusting roads to home. By the time I reach home the excitement of coming home would die down and the fact that I would have to undergo similar torture a month from now to come back to Chennai would totally put me off.


This time I was beyond myself with joy that the torture trip would be a lot less tortuous because I was going all the way by flight. My happiness was very very short lived to say the least. I caught the flight from Chennai to Bombay and landed in Bombay at 11. my flight to Jamnagar was at 12 and I so I had to rush to another terminal to check in my luggage and get my boarding pass. The two terminals are separated by a distance of half a km and I ran like a woman possessed to reach the correct terminal at time(all this while my cell was ringing away but because I was running like my pants were on fire I couldn’t talk). I reached just in time puffed and panted and checked in my luggage and went to the counter to collect my boarding pass. This was the conversation between the guy at the counter and me

Me(puffing and panting and heaving): Jamnagar.. Bombay Jamnagar please.

Guy: sorry ma’am??

Me: boarding pass for the flight to Jamnagar please

Guy: Oh!! Sorry ma’am that flight got cancelled in the morning. Dint u get a message from us??

Me: what????????????? What the#@%#$%R%*&

Guy: yes we sent a message to everyone in the morning at 9.00 ma’am.

Me: but I was in the flight from Chennai to Bombay then and my cell was switched off (I have no clue why I said this. It made absolutely no difference to him if I had come from Chennai or Chicago or Czechoslovakia and he was about as interested in my case as I am during a class of software testing)

Guy: I am sorry ma’am. U can go to the ticketing counter and get a full refund on the ticket or reschedule for the same flight tomorrow. Sorry for the inconvenience.

Me :( thinks) U As******. Don’t say sorry for the inconvenience when u don’t mean it.
Me: (says) ok

Now I had no clue what to do who to call. That’s when I realize that I better call my parents and tell them that they can enjoy one more day of peace without me when they call me and tell me that my flight has been cancelled and that I need to contact my cousin in Bombay who would come and pick me up. Now for people who know me u know that I never have balance in my cell to even message let alone call. So I went to the nearest STD booth called my cousin fixed up things and went to the ticketing counter to re schedule my tickets. When she asked me for a photo identity I rummaged in my bag for my purse to get my license when I realized that my purse was missing. With all my luggage I ran like a crazy idiot to the STD booth when I heard the loudspeakers in the airport blare “We request Miss. Revathi Ramanan to kindly get in touch with the airport manager as soon as possible”. I rushed to the manager’s office and had to listen to a fifteen minute lecture from him about carelessness (I hope my parents never stumble across this blog. I still haven’t told them that I came very close to losing my purse with 1000 odd bucks, my license, ATM card and my identity card and if they come to know about it they will never let me live it down) and then for another fifteen minutes he made me describe the contents of the purse in detail. (it was silly because my photo is there on my license and on my ID card and he just had to look at my face to know that it was my purse he was holding in his crummy hands). Anyway I had to again rush to the original terminal where I had gotten off because the driver was waiting there. He took me to my cousin’s place. I was kind of happy because I have two angelic nieces and an awesome sister in law and I was really looking forward to seeing them. But as luck would have it they had all left for delhi for the summer and my cousin was leaving that night.

So I was stuck in a house with a laptop for company and no books to read. Absolute heights of boredom. Somehow I killed time spent the night in an empty house and got up in the morning to a message from the friggin airlines (air deccan) telling me that my flight had been delayed by an hour and that they were “sorry for the inconvenience”. So I spent another three hours at my cousins place and finally reached the airport confirmed if the flight was on today and sent the driver away, checked in my luggage, got my boarding pass and waited for 1.00 to come. Till 12.40 when they hadn’t called for boarding I went to the counter and asked them and the lady at the counter very coolly tells me “the Bombay Jamnagar flight has been further delayed by an hour ma’am. We will be leaving at 2.00 and boarding at 1.40. sorry for the inconvenience ma’am”. I still dunno how I controlled myself from hitting her and boxing her ears. In an extremely sarcastic tone (which was wasted on her) I asked “will it atleast leave at 2 or will it be further delayed?”. “no ma’am we will be leaving at 2.00 sharp’

That done I sat and waited for another hour at the airport counting the number of lights the number of vents in the AC and trying to solve the sudoku, kakuro, crossword etc in the paper. Finally at 2.10 I boarded the rickety flight(I am not exaggerating but I swear I have seen PTC buses in Chennai which are more hi tech than air deccan’s flights. No AC, dirty seats, sleepy sir hostesses and a captain whose English was pathetic). And then the runway wasn’t free so we had to wait for another 45 minutes and finally the flight took off at 3.00 and I reached Jamnagar at 4.30 pm.

After I had reached Jamnagar for some time I dint believe it. I saw my sister and mom at the airport and rubbed my eyes to affirm the fact that yes, after much ado I had finally reached the godforsaken Jamnagar. I just cant wait for CTS to call so I can leave this hell and go back to my paradise a.k.a Chennai!! :)

Operation Sunrise :)

Though today can go down in history as one of the most depressing days in my life I am quite happy that finally after the end of four years I have been successful in completing operation sunrise. Before u guys decide that I belong to some terrorist group which goes around murdering people before sunrise let me tell you what operation sunrise is. Operation sunrise in ladies hostel of SSN means that we stay awake till the sun rises and after dawn breaks we hit our beds..:P:P..i have been unsuccessfully trying to complete operation sunrise for the past four years but I always doze off by four. But yesterday I sat up till six and watched the sun rise over the horizon and for the first time in my felt that I could have been a morning person. The dawn looked beautiful, the weather perfect, the breeze just right and the company just awesome!!(thanks Mi:)). I am sure I will be overwhelmed with emotions if I start writing about operation sunrise in detail. So I will just tell u in short about yesterday night (my last and most perfect night in hostel)

Toshibha laptop with 80 Gb harddisk : Rs 35000

Thiruttu DVD of Chennai 28 : Rs 40

Packet of Murukku and two diary milk bars : Rs 50

Sitting under a tree at 3.00 in the morning watching the song jalsa pannunga da..from Chennai 28 with some of my bestest friends in the cool summer night breeze and wishing the night would never end : Priceless :) :)..

I dedicate this post to all my friends in general and to Milinta, Aki, Fermie, Madhu and Gowri in particular who made my last night in the hostel all the more special by staying up all night with me. Love u guys a lot.

Today is my last day in the hostel and I have met some amazing people and made some really great friends. I sincerely hope we remain in touch years after we part!!

P.S: a special mention about preethi who came in at 3.00 and provided us with diary milk (she specifically wanted me to mention this..happy now preethi?? :D:D)

P.P.S: Another special mention about Thiru who tried to stay up with me but dozed off in between. Love ya loads

P.P.S: No more special mentions girls. I Love all u guys. :):)

Travails of Travel

Having lived in Chennai for the past six years and having traveled in the bus for majority of those six years I think I am qualified enough to write about bus travel in the (in)famous PTC buses of Chennai. This blog comes in wake of a recent event in my life. My bus travel from adyar to velacherry.
Now coming to bus travel. There are five stages in bus travel namely

Sitting
Standing
Squeezing
Dying
Dead

Let me discuss each of these stages in detail. My experience with the first and second category is almost nil coz I have NEVER got the place to sit, sometimes if I am lucky I get an area of quarter feet by quarter feet to stand but MOST of the times I come under category three or four.

SITTING:
If u have done punyam in ur previous janma or if u r as belligerent as mike Tyson or if u board a bus at the source station u will be lucky enough to belong to this category. When u belong to this category u can sit comfortably in the seats and smirk at all the standing/squeezing/dying/dead people around u as if to say “Ho ho ho!!i sit therefore I am”(ok that was a bad one!!sorry). most of the times even if u board the bus at the source station u might have to go to the standing category because u have been pushed roughly or elbowed cruelly by some meenkaari/ pookaari/pichakaari/karigakaari who believes herself to be mike Tyson re-incarnate!! A disadvantage of being in this category is that if u r below the age of 30(and are sitting) then u will have to give up ur seat for old women/expectant mothers/ women with small wailing running nose kids. This way u can do some punyam and ensure urself a seat in the bus in ur next janma.

STANDING:
This is a comparatively comfortable position where u will have some space to stand (sometimes even lean) comfortably and have no fear of perverts (because u can steer clear of them. U will have ample space to do so) or pickpockets. U will have enough space to walk to the conductor and buy ur own ticket and will be able to get down comfortable when ur stop arrives without having to push/pull/shove/ jostle through a sea of humanity. And after u get down u wont feel like someone has just squeezed the life out of u and u will be still be able to walk.

SQUEEZING:

This is the next stage where the rule of 40 sitting+25 standing will be broken. There will be 40 people sitting and around 40-50 people hanging, standing, suspended, stamping and doing lots of other disgusting things. In this stage it is best to carry with u a deodorant with you. This is not for you. This can come in handy when u r forced to stand next to person who has lifted his hands to suport himself and the stench emanating from his underarms is suffocating u to say the least. So a minimum requirement for this stage is to carry a deo if u want to survive and not die of asphyxiation. U can liberally spray the person with the deo. In this stage u must try to reach the entrance two stops before u wanna get down. Only then u might be successful in getting down two stops after ur intended stop. In this stage u can vent out all ur anger on someone by going personally to buy tickets(rather than passing it thru someone) and stamping the feet of everyone really hard with all ur strength in the process. Really helps ease out the tension of being squeezed mercilessly like a lemon inside a lemon squeezer.

DYING:
In this stage it is wise to call home before boarding the bus and telling them that u MIGHT only come home and let me tell u there in NO point waiting for the next bus to come because the next bus will be equally if not more crowded. When the bus approaches the stop u might wonder “how the hell am I gonna get into this sea of humanity”. Don’t worry. U just have to stand near the entrance and a wave of humanity will push u inside. It is advisable not to carry any bags because when u get down after this stage either u will not have a bag or not have the straps on ur bag or the contents of ur bag will be missing. In this stage u must try to get to the entrance almost as soon as u board because only then u will be able to reach the entrance in time for ur stop. All those people who argue that they will stand near the entrance itself, it is obvious u have never seen the insides of a bus in the “dying” stage. As soon as u enter the bus the conductor will shoo u and u will be pushed by fat grandmas, stinking men and malicious aunties into the absolute interiors of the bus. A deodorant wont help in this stage because u wont have enough space to take it out and spray it on ur fellow passengers. In this stage mostly there wont be place for u to keep both ur feet on the ground. So u must necessarily keep it on someone’s feet. And don’t even dare to try to get ur ticket on ur own. If u value ur life and limbs pass the money for the ticket. This stage can get really really worst during peak summers when everyone is sweating and the stench is unbearable. And after u get down at ur stop it will take u atleast 5 minutes to collect urself and even after that all u can manage is a hobble back home.

DEAD:
What can I say. This is the worst stage by far. Personally I have never been inside a bus during this stage so I am not qualified to write much about it. When this bus arrives at the stop it is at an angle of 75 degrees to the road (instead of the usual 90). The other two wheels of the bus are almost off the ground and the number of ppl inside the bus in the sitting stage will be equal to the number of ppl hanging on the foot board in the dead stage. I never board a bus in this stage. I value my life. I cant imagine how the people are able to survive

And with the ever increasing population (and with Mr. Murphy always being on my side) i never seem to find a place to sit or stand comfortably nowadays. Phew!! i love chennai but sathyama bus travel mattum thangala pa!!

Aaaachooooo!!!

I have been suffering from this insufferable cold for the past three days and it is absolutely getting on my nerves. GOD!! Give me malaria, give me typhoid, give me jaundice. They atleast have a cure. But please don’t give me cold where medicines don’t help, the inedible unpalatable mess food does not help and the fact that I have my semester exams coming in a week most certainly does not help. I m sick of blowing my nose(the dustbin in my room is overflowing with pink colored used tissues), sick of coughing and sneezing, sick of this blasted weather which aggravates my cold by making me sweat, sick of not being able to smell anything, sick of not being able to drink or eat anything cold for this weather, sick of eating horse hide chapattis and a brown colored liquid with alien particles floating (proudly called by the mess workers as kurma) and sick of having to study a subject called software testing(which is almost as insufferable as this cold if not more!!) when all I want to do is curl up and sleep. I proudly got the photocopies for my subjects next week about two days back and at once I got this cold which makes it impossible for me to appreciate what William perry has to say about software testing (he is the jobless dude who writes book which we must read to become “engineers”). I keep telling myself that software testing might be a very interesting and absorbing subject but I am not able to appreciate its nuances because of this cold. :P:P. well whatever!! I better start studying if I must clear my papers and become another useless engineer of this vast country.

P.S: Ahem!!I read somewhere that a shot of brandy helps cure cold. Can some good Samaritan provide me with some???

Bored!!!

The writing bug seems to have bitten me. I seem to be caught in a blogging frenzy. Words just pour out once I open MS-Word. This verbal diarrhea can be attributed to the fact that nowadays I have so much of time on my hands I don’t know what to do. Suddenly the ladies hostel is blessed with 24 hrs free super fast net (originally we used to have something like 15 mins of net a day. Its an irony actually. The times when we actually needed the net for “educational” purposes like project or assignments it never existed and now when we have no use for it, it is lightning fast). So what do I do when I get absolutely sick of orkut, sending mails to equally vetti ppl, chatting with some more vetti people and reading the novels which I have already read a zillion times?? Yes!! I blog. There is no subject or anything for this blog because this blog is just a proof of my utter boredom. I am qualified enough to write a book called “100 ways to kill boredom without spending a penny”. I have suggested some ways here. These are excerpts from my book. So be grateful that I am giving u some tips for free. I am sure my book will be a bestseller once it hits the market. :P

1. do a general survey and find out who has what movies in the girls and boys hostel.

2. ask them to share it and save them on to ur computer/laptop and watch when bored (I have watched forrest gump 5 times, green mile 3 times, first daughter 3 times and a walk to remember about 6 times.)

3. when feeling really low or lonely keep a copy of veerasamy, sudhesi, dharmapuri or Michael madana kamarajan and watch them again and again.

4. give missed calls to everyone in ur phone book. Atleast 50% of the people will call you and ask you whats wrong. WARNING: Never call a parent. They will ask you to study for CAT, or study for the upcoming exams or generally and waste ur precious time giving u advice which can be used effectively to do the other things on the list.

5. change ur profile in orkut, change ur profile name, change ur display picture, change ur interests and hobbies, change ur nationality, ur religion and scrap all the people who are online in ur friends list and be assured of atleast three replies.

6. catch up on all the lost sleep(even if u haven’t lost any sleep there is no harm in catching up on the sleep that u might lose in future). Go to bed at 2 or 3 after watching all the movies and wake up for lunch the next day. Start the movie and orkut marathon.

7. if u ever get tired of doing the above have a stock of Jeffery archers, sheldon’s, Wodehouse, ken follet, archie comics, malory towers, St clares etc. these books can be read again and again and it has been proved that boredom can be killed effectively.

8. make a list of all ur favorite songs(hindi,English and tamil) and google for the lyrics and try to master the song (ur voice is of no consequence. Even if u have a voice similar to rani mukherji's sing out really loud. This will result in people coming to ur room and asking you to shut up. Once they come do not let them go. Catch hold of them and irritate them by singing even louder)

9. if u are still bored then go online and read blogs. This has been proved to be a really good pastime and can do wonders to kill ur boredom

10. still bored??? Start a blog and write about inconsequential things which are of no use to anyone but help u kill time like me.


If all this still does not kill ur boredom then you are beyond help. You have reached a stage where you must spend money to kill boredom. So catch a friend, catch a bus and go to mayajaal, blow up 150 bucks on a ticket, another 60 bucks on a burger and voila!! U have killed five hours of boredom.
For any more details please feel free to contact me on orkut or yahoo or gmail or hotmail and be assured of a quick reply!! :):)