Of Gunda, Papi Gudia, Behne and the rest

So yesterday, I was sitting and watching Paapi Gudiya at 1 in the night on Star Gold with a bunch of friends in the TV hall. A completely kvlt movie starring Karishma Kapoor in the 1996. You know the kind of Karishma Kapoor I am talking about. Red lipstick, fake eyelashes, jhataak clothes and a childish voice which makes you contemplate if strangling is a better idea to kill yourself or slashing your wrists. In fact, I have it from very reliable sources that ideas in the Inglees movie, Child’s play have been shamelessly lifted from the very original Paapi Gudiya. The beginning of the movie has Karishma Kapoor dressed like Amitabh Bacchan when he sang “Saara zamaana haseenon ka deewana” complete with the black dress with bulbs on it and gyrating on stage, in the middle of overweight middle aged men singing “I love the beat in Muuuuusic, I love the heat in Muuuusic”.

Lately I have been watching a lot of these kinds of movies mainly because I seem to have ample company in hostel to watch movies like Papi gudia, khoon bhari maang, Gundaa etc. Star Gold very thoughtfully telecasts these movies at 1 in the night when all of us are wide awake and have nothing much to do except giggle and laugh.

Anyway, I realize that dialogue writers these days just don’t have the kind of creativity which the dialogue writers in the 90s possessed. For eg: Sample the following

1. In paapi gudia there is a scene where the child (Karishma Kapoor’s brother - a kid who I think must have been ragged mercilessly in school for speaking such dialogues and must have faced severe emotional trauma later in life) wants to buy a doll, actually THE doll – the doll which is possessed with the “aatma” of the killer and he goes “mujhe yehi gudiya chahiye, mujhe yehi gudiya chahiye” and Karisma Kapoor goes “Bilkul ladki hai tu. Gudiya ke saath to sirf ladkiyan khelti hai” and the boy says

“Arey didi. Aisi gudiya ke saath to ladkiyan hi nahi balki ladke bhi khel sakte hai”

:D :D

Woww!! What innuendos, what excellent double entendres even in that day and age.

Just think. When was the last time you heard such excellent stuff in Hindi cinema?

2. Which brings us to some EPIC dialogues from the movie Gunda

Each villain in Gunda has a kvlt tagline.

The main guy is called Bhulla and his tagline is “Mera naam hai Bhulla, mai rakhta hoon Khulla”

His sidekick is this guy called Ibu Hatela whose tagline is “Mera naam hai Ibu hatela, maa meri chudail aur baap mera shaitaan ka chela”

And so on and so forth. You get the drift don’t you? So the entire movie is peppered with such dialogues.

Picture this. The sister of the Bhulla is raped by another villain called “Lambu” who unfortunately doesn’t have a tagline (if I were to give Lambu a tagline I would say “Mera naam hai Lambu, yen kitta vechukadhe Vambu” or “Mera naam hai Lambu, maa meri savitha bhabhi aur baap mera shikari shambu” :P)

Anyway so this girl, Munni, is raped and she is lying dead in the middle of the road. Along comes Bhulla and this is what he says when he sees the body of his sister.

“Munni meri behen Munni, Lambu ne tujhe Lamba kar diya? Maachis ki teeli ko khambha kar diya?”

:D :D

So effectively a scene which is supposed to be a very poignant and heart rendering one turns out to be laugh riot. The unintended (or maybe intended who knows) comedy of the movies in the 90s has been unmatched till date.

I digress. The main reason for this post was actually a very serious thought that while Hindi cinema has matured over the decade (and you thankfully don’t have many movies like Gundaa coming up), how Hindi soaps continue to deteriorate at an alarming rate.

Now while watching Papi Gudiya, the thrilling plot, edge of the seat drama and intense dialogue was interrupted in between by commercials of the various Hindi soaps and one of them was this serial called “Behne” where the only aim of the four sisters in life is to get married, be subservient to the husband, have children and take care of their in laws and if they manage to do all the above they would have roshan karofied the naam of their parents.

So there is this one particular episode where one of the sisters is pregnant and the father (I *think*) kicks the bucket. So the other “behens” decide not to tell the pregnant behen of the death of their father thinking it would devastate her and she would lose the baby. The vamp of the serial over hears this and sends the pregnant girl green bangles wrapped in the newspaper cutting of her fathers death (suggesting that the only way the girl would read newspapers is when they come wrapped in bangles or pakoda or jalebi or something) and the commercial stops with the pregnant woman opening the “gift”

I gathered all this from a 50 second commercial of the soap.

Having grown up watching serials like Tara, Shanthi, Buniyaad, Zamaana Badal Gaya, Zaban Sambhalke, Waghle ki Hasin Duniya, Hasratein and Banegi Apni Baat which portrayed women as progressive, independent, self sufficient individuals, I am shocked by the current trend where girls in the age group of 12-20 are subjected to such colossal crap and probably grow up thinking this is the way to be.

That it is perfectly ok to be ill treated by your husband and in laws, perfectly normal to bitch about your sister in law, perfectly sane behavior to sleep at night wearing full make up and georgette and chiffon sarees. None of the women in the ‘K’ serials work, they are never shown as reading the newspaper, they are always shown cooking for men in the kitchen while the men have “intelligent” discussions in the drawing room. One of the serials I remember even had the protagonist’s mother telling her before marriage, “Beta, ek ladki ki jagah uske pati ke charnon ke paas hoti hai. Pati se zyaada tarakki karne ki koshish mat karma. Tum hi pachtaoge”

Pleeeease!! This is the 21^st century for christs sake!!

Soaps in my time had women, who stood for what they believed in, did not need men to define their identities, portrayed normal housewives (who weren’t caked in make up with half baked brains) fighting for social causes and not fighting for saasu ma ka pyaar. I find it VASTLY surprising that writers 15 years back had so much of foresight and were so broad minded while the Ekta Kapoors of today trivialize important issues and magnify useless things.

Sighhh.

I think its high time Indian soaps got better writers or someone, 15 years down the line will write similar posts about Indian soaps the way I now write about movies like Gunda and Papi Gudia. At least Gunda and Papi Gudia were a phase of Hindi movies that we have outgrown. Thank God we don’t think that Govinda is the best dancer or that Mithun da is the best actor. Its part of a normal growth curve but this continuous deterioration in the quality of Hindi soaps is depressing.

I think I need to watch Sabse Bada Khiladi or Coolie No.1 to cheer myself up now.

So long.

Duniya hi saali khilaaf sasuri!! :P

So I am happily singing 'Beedi Jalai le' and bounding up the stairs of the hostel after a particulary distasteful meal of sticky noodles, stone hard peas masala and chapati. I am on a high. One of those highs which have no explanation, you know. Where you just feel light and are in a "singy" mood.

I take two steps at a time and I reach my floor. I turn sharply to find assorted men's underwear hanging on the railing of the steps. I am shocked and i stare uncouthly for a minute. I am in NO way interested in men's underwear. Its just that I find it rather strange to find men's underwear hanging on a floor which is a floor full of girls. I think "Jeeez. do these boys have no shame? Coming to the girls' floor and hanging their dirty..err..clean linen? eeeeks". I dismiss it as a sudden burst of insanity and walk towards my room still LOUDLY singing "Beedi Jalai le". I am at the part where Bipasha goes "jigar ma lagi aag..dhan te nan na na dhan te nan" and i sing particularly loudly and even break into a little jig.

I reach my room at the end of the corridor, put my key into the keyhole to open the door but strangely the door is open. I am surprised. I could have sworn my roommates left for Pondy. Oh well. Maybe they are back. I open the door with a flourish singing "Thandi hawa bhi khilaaf sasooriiiiiii" and I see three boys in various states of undress doing ermm.. various things totally and absolutely taken aback at this sudden female intervention and that too one which is singing a rather tapori song rather loudly and one which does not have the habit of knocking on doors.

Dense and absolutely brainless that I am I stare at them and go "Eh?"

My hand flies to my mouth as i realise my mistake and I swear rather loudly and use a word which i reserve for special occasions where I am in deep shit.

I am in the third floor standing in front of room 305 while my room is on the second floor and my room number is 205. Third floor is the "boys" floor.

I open and close my mouth not unlike a goldfish, almost as if I am waiting for them to apologise and vacate the room.

I then mumble a sorry and turn around to see another boy in the corridor grinning condescendingly at me.

I run like my pants are on fire and in an instant I am in my room on the bed aghast at what I have done

How could I have not noticed I was on the third floor?

How could I not see the big and bold "305" on the door?

How could I not miss the Garfield poster on my room's door?

How could I not miss the giggling of the girls and the general girlish smell of the corridor?

How could I not sense that it was the boys' dirty floor?

Ewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww!!!

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!!!

Idiots par excellence!

Whenever I go to sangeetha (a famous chain of restaurants here in Chennai) I invariably always order the ghee roast or one of their other dosas. Not because they have the best dosas in the world but because their dosas are closest to what amma makes. So every time I feel homesick I go to sangeetha for the aathu saapadu experience. Despite the flaws the dosa has I like it because I feel close to home.

I would say the same of 3 idiots. It may not be the best movie made, it may not be flawless, the story in parts may have a lot of holes, but it took me back to the four best years of my life. 4 years of engineering. Every scene, almost every character was something I could instantly relate to.

In the first scene when megabyte and kilobyte are introduced it reminded me of Ganguly who was born within a week of our arriving in hostel and for whom we cared for all the four years of college life.

The movie reminded me of the umpteen times when my friends and I would sit outside the hostel at 3 in the morning with a packet of murukku or chips (minus the alcohol of course ;)), stare at the stars and moon, berate the educational system and shout “Die M*th*ra d*v*, die. May your soul burn in hell u miserable piece of rotting flesh”. MD was one of the most loathed professors on campus MAINLY because she knew nothing, was a failure in life and hence liked to pick on all students if they did well.

It reminded me of the various Chaturs that I have come across while doing engineering whose only motto in life was marks and who would do anything to get them and who passed out of engineering having a percentage aggregate inversely proportional to the friends they had.

It reminded me of the days when results would come out and all of us would crowd around the computer to see that magic last column of “P”s which meant all pass. Only a week later would we be bothered to look at the marks. On the day of the results all that mattered was the column of Ps.

It reminded me of the time when inspite of having Ps we would all sit and cry because one of us would have that loathsome dreaded F.

“The only thing which saddens you more than a friend who has failed is a friend who has topped” says Madhavan in the movie. A truer word was never spoken.

Personally I could relate totally and absolutely to Madhavan’s character because Madhavan’s character was so totally me during engineering. Never doing very well, never having the guts to actually stand up and speak out against the system, always the person right in the middle of some mischief, always the “tinka” in some professors eye, never having the courage to actually pursue what I really wanted to, loathing engineering while enjoying every minute of my hostel life.

If you have ever seen people succumb to the pressures of engineering, if you have ever wondered why in hells name does it matter whether you read books written by two useless Bakshi brothers on electronics and electrical engineering which anyway they copied from “foreign authors”, if you don’t remember jack shit of what a capacitor does or what color wires are what in circuits lab or what control systems are, if you have wondered how 2500 lines of doubly linked list code (shamelessly copied from logic and ragesh - the two guys who really deserved to be computer science engineers) would help you get a job, if you have had friends whose parents weren’t very well off but who were excellent human beings, if you have had useless friends whose ideas of achievement were watching 4 movies back to back or sleeping 38 hours at a stretch, if you have cried more for a friend than for yourself, if you were at even one point of time in engineering willing to give your life for your friends, if you valued friendships more than silly marks, if you have hated all or most of your professors in college because they were cretins, if you have spent the 12 precious hours before the exams sitting in the hostel mess ,drinking chai and discussing the Indian educational system and its faults, if you have stared at an exam question paper and lost the blood on your face because not a single question looked familiar to you, if you have had professors saying gems like, “what is this smell coming out of my backside? I don’t like it”…

if you have done any of the above you will most definitely enjoy and love 3 idiots

I am not saying the movie didn’t have its WTF moments

You don’t try to look for your closest bosom friend for 10 long years and finally when u decide to do, its because the nerd of your class wanted to prove a point? - WTF

You wont send an invite to your closest friend for your wedding just because you don’t know where he is? - WTF.

You say Aaal izzz well and a still born baby jumps to life - WTF

You use a vaccum cleaner to pump out a baby out of the mother? - epic WTF (they could have proved that he was an excellent engineer in a million other ways.)

And so on. But at the end of the movie I walked out of the hall feeling all warm and gooey and nice inside, not to mention the salty water in my pupils which resulted out of my thinking about my college days, my friends, the food and a gazillion different things. it’s a movie which is a laugh riot in the first half, so much so that you laugh so much for one scene your laughter drowns the humor in the next dialogue so u control those guffaws so u don’t miss the jokes.

Especially the speech given by Chatur is HILARIOUS. (an amazing actor.).

Enough said. Please watch the movie. :-)

'Paa'rvaillai

Paa is what the title suggests it is. Paarvailla or "not bad" in Tamil. Following are my thoughts

1. R.Balki, BAD idea to have jaya bacchaan read out the credits. I mean yeah its innovative and has never been done in indian cinema but there was something so artificial and false about it, by the time she finished with your name we were all kind of cringing. And I think the least Jaya Bacchan could have done was practise saying Ilayaraja and desist from pronouncing Ilayaraja like an "Amit". I cringe almost every time when northies amitise tamil names

2. The movie might as well have been named Maa or Bum or Auro. The mother son and grandmother so relationhip was shown more than the father son relationship. They dewelled so much on the whole "redevelopment politician" it makes you wish they had spent that time in building the father son relationship

3. What in HELLS name was that whole doordarshan expose thing? That was definitely pukeworthy in the movie. I mean agreed the media go overboard and all that but the way Abhishek Bacchan gets back at them and makes it seem like the smartest thing to do. Ewwww.

4. I think my most favorite character in the movie is this friend of Amitabh Bacchan's called Vishnu. Especially the scene where he is on the phone with Auro and he says stuff like "yaar mai creative aadmi hoon. Ab kya geometry algebra sab padhna" is LOL!! :D. Some of the dialogues are really funny/ Especially the "MP ka 'bum' blast" kinda silly third standard jokes.

5. Vidya Balan looks hot and is such a yummy mummy it makes you wonder why she doesnt appear in more such roles and why she chooses to act all hot when she can be homely and sweet. After Parinneta I liked her best in this.

6. Amitabh Bacchan is just a class apart. Though you are used to the deep baritone which says "Mere paas gaadi hai bungla hai..tumhaare paas kya hai?", and it takes you some time to get used to his voice saying "tumhara potty mere peth mein.." in that squeaky voice I dont think anyone else could have done justice to this role.

7. One of the very good things about the movie was the total lack of melodrama. I mean there are no scenes where there is an "Aaa.aaa.aaa." music in the background when Auro cant play cricket or cant run or has a wheezing attack. He is treated just like a normal 12 year old boy and never does the progeria become the main part of any scene. I wish they had maintained that till the end and not had the "saat phera" wala scene. Another pukeworthy scene

8. I also felt it could have been cut in a lot of places and made into a much shorter movie and they could have concentrated on the father son relationship

Anyway, my first movie in this vacation. Yayyyyyyyy!! Its so good to be back home, eating good food and watching movies and writing senseless blogs. Ahhhh!! Bliss :)

P.S: Jamnagar aint cold. Thank God!

Of sad alert messages

So I logged on to the Tamilnadu PF site to find out the status of my PF. I entered the wrong establishment code by mistake and following is the error message I got. WTH!!

This is the website of the employee provident fund organization's regional chennai office and the least you would expect is decent/grammatically correct alert messages and not an alert message which would make you think that Javed Jaffry's english in Salaam Namaste was good. Did no one test the site??

Sighhhh. "Establishment not exists"?? Ewwwwwww!!

Diwali "Eve"

Yesterday a friend of mine burst into my room in the afternoon looking all flustered and worked up

Me: hey. Whats up?

Friend: You wont believe it man. Its broad daylight. 3 o clock in the afternoon. I had gone out to get an ice cream and I got eve teased.

(Context: Right opposite to my college is a boy’s hostel of central polytechnic which consists of a bunch of sexually frustrated boys most of whom are just discovering their hormones. Needless to say anything even remotely female excites them and it’s a nightmare to go out alone after 6.30 because of the cat calls and whistles.)

Me: Sighhh. You know what irks me most? The fact that we cant do anything about it.

Friend: Totally man. You know what she said in the gender class right? They are just trying to assert their masculinity by doing this

Me: Mmm-hmm. They need to get into either the role of a protector or provider. When neither happens these good for nothing fellows go around teasing or else they feel emasculated.

Friend: Yep. Its not about the fact that I went out in a pair of jeans. They would do it to a girl if she was in a salwar. Heck!! They would do it if they were blind but realized a girl was approaching them.

Me: Hmmm.

Friend: We need to challenge the hermeneutics (If you don’t understand this word. Chill. Neither do we. We had just learnt it in class that day). Of the fact that men are supposed to be protectors and providers while women are just objects of pleasure or just plain objects.

Me: The whole gender equation must change man. I mean who decides what are the characteristics of a man and what are the characteristics of a woman. These are just mere constructs of society which we need to challenge

Friend: Very true. Enough of this weaker sex nonsense and all the inequalities we put up with. And you know these incidents make me feel so cheap. Like I were some piece of trash or something. Sometimes I want to just turn around and lash at them but its no use I know. It would just provoke them to tease me further and frankly I don’t think they are worth it.

Me: True True.

Friend: Sighhhh.

Me: Hmmm. What did he say by the way? The usual whistling and cat calls and acting smart by trying to cycle right on top of you? Something obscene I am sure. Cha!! *coupla bad words*

Friend: Errr. He said “Happy Diwali”

LOL!!

This is what happens when you have gender classes continuously for a week and are so full of fresh ideas and thoughts and perspectives that you seem to want to debate and question everything!! Ohhh!! I love education!! :-)

Happy Diwali to you guys and errrr.. Nope I aint eve teasing!! :P

Honestly....Honored!! :)

So Rajalakshmi presented me with the Honest Scrap Award AND tagged me.

The rules are:

“When accepting this auspicious award, you must write a post bragging about it, including the name of the misguided soul who thinks you deserve such acclaim, and link back to the said person so everyone knows she/he is real. Choose a minimum of seven (7) blogs that you find brilliant in content or design. Or improvise by including bloggers who have no idea who you are because you don’t have seven friends. Show the seven random victims’ names and links and leave a harassing comment informing them that they were prized with Honest Weblog. Well, there’s no prize, but they can keep the nifty icon. List at least ten (10) honest things about yourself. Then pass it on!”

Thanks a lot Raji

So here are 10 honest things about me...

1) I love the sound of my own voice. Most of the times I just talk aimlessly without actually having anything to talk about. And I can talk rubbish for HOURS and not get tired. A coupla days back I saw this movie called “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” where Jim Carrey says “Constantly talking is NOT communicating”. I am like that sometimes. I don’t actually convey anything but will continuously keep talking. But that does not mean I am not a good listener. I can be a very good listener too.

2) I have this constant need to be in two places at the same time, to do two things at the same time. Nothing satisfies me. When I was in IT I wanted to do journalism, now that I am doing journalism I want to do adventure sports or biking or something. Hmmm. Maybe I will do that some day :-)

3) Don’t kill me but I ACTUALLY like the movie "Mujhse Dosti Karoge" and I have seen that movie ummm 3 times and find the part in the end where the sindoor aligns itself properly on Rani Mukherji’s head HILARIOUS. :rolling eyes:

4) Maybe this makes me sound like a saint (which I am NOT BTW) but I cannot say No to people, friends especially. I know this sounds terrible but I d rather lie than say no to a friend. (Ok!! I had to be honest right?)

5) I cry VERY easily. :P. No Honest. I am sure all my close friends would breathe a sigh of relief when they read this because I am FINALLY being honest about this. :P. My tear taps are always hyper active. I cry for a LOT of movies (and for every movie that I cry for I declare it’s the only movie I have cried for :P), I cry when I read books, blogs (literature can really move me, really), I cry when I listen to a particular kind of music, I cry when I think of the fact that my grandmother and parents are becoming old and ohhhh I cry for a lot of other things which I am rather embarrassed to mention. But I am particular about who sees me crying. I prefer to cry alone or when I am with people from my first circle in my circles of trust. :-)

6) My General Knowledge is pathetic. Yesterday I was asked to write about the elections which happened in Japan. I didn’t even know they had had an election recently, I didn’t know if Japan was a democracy or a regime or a communist state or if it was ruled by a man or woman let alone the name. I find this extremely shameful given the fact that I want to be a journalist and I don’t know shit about current affairs.

7) I talk a lot to myself. I have always had that habit. I talk when I am walking alone on the road, going in a bus/train etc. It helps me sort out a lot of stuff when I am talking with myself and since I am a HUGELY impulsive person it really helps to have someone to talk to instantly who will tell me what I am doing is wrong. My conscience is much wiser than I am. There times when I have drafted a mail (I shall refrain from revealing its contents :P) and then talked to myself with the mouse hovering over the send button and then eventually clicked on cancel and have been extremely grateful about that.

8) For a girl, I eat very very well. Close friends know my summer menu/winter menu. :P. Both my sister and I eat considerably well. I think it’s just the way amma/paati brought us up. One thing which we were never refused when we were children was food and there always seemed to be enough food at home to feed an army. As a result of which we have phenomenal appetites which can be kind of tough when we visit homes of people with normal appetites and I feel like Oliver Twist asking “Can I have some more please”. I can eat 4 chapatis and rice and dal and curd rice and ice cream. I relish good food but I usually never complain about bad food. I was hugely overweight till a couple of years back.

One of the biggest jokes in the family (about me obviously) is that once we went to a restaurant when I was a kid and after eating quite well I apparently looked around and asked “no thayir sadam?”. And another one was when we went to this beautiful lake called Pichavaram near Chidambaram when I was a five, our boat capsized, got caught in quick sand and we had to swim our way to the shore and after reaching the shore the first thing I said was “I am hungry, when are we eating?” :P. These are my parents’ favorite anecdotes at family get togethers even NOW. Sighh. Parents.

9) I find it very very difficult to trust people and lest you think its because of my "PAST" relationships or some shit rest assured its nothing like that. I am just cynical when it comes to trusting people. I talk with everyone but trust very very few people. It takes some time before I can allow people inside my circles of trust.

10) I am a very very superficial person. Meaning I have no depth. Errr.. not to say I am 2D. It’s just that I can’t think profound thoughts or appreciate deep stuff. Slap it on my face and I will understand it, sugar coat it or try to give it to me indirectly and the expression on my face will make Moose in Archie Comics look like Albert Einstein. This is the primary reason why Alchemist never made any sense to me. I mean all the while I knew he was trying to tell me something but not directly and hence I never understood or appreciated it. I love PG Wodehouse/ RKN/ Roald Dahl/ Archer/ James Herriott/ Bill Bryson because they say it like it is. For me book reading is a pleasure activity. I d die if I have to interpret each and every line and find newer meanings every time I read it.

Phew!! That’s done. Was fun doing it :-) and following are the people I tag. (I cant think of 7 people to tag)

Amilie - coz I always tag her!!

Karthik - he last updated during his birth as Shakuni uncle of the Kauravas :P

Arun - He has been so busy doing carics i really want to read stuff written by him!! :)

Lets Meet!! *GROAN*

Nowadays I shudder every time I see the words “weekend plan”, “XYZ’s birthday – what plan” , “meet up”, “guys – what plans” on the subject line in my mails. Even something as harmless as “Hi guys” can send shivers down my spine.

These terror mails are mostly started by either Yellow or Aki the two people who constantly strive to keep our group together (which is a euphemistic way of saying they are pretty jobless. I know coz a coupla months back I was one of the few “striving to keep the group together”:P).

Don’t get me wrong. I love these guys. Honestly I have known them for so long that meeting them is always a pleasure but not when I have to read 73 mails (NO exaggeration. Check image). And even after reading 73 mails I am pretty clueless about the “meet”.

When I was working it was a different thing. I would check my mails 3 times every second and could delete mails faster than they were produced by my friends. But now with me checking mails just about twice during the day the amount of backlog I have is HUGE (as if backlogs in assignments weren’t enough) and at the end of the day there seems to be no consensus about the place, time, day date of the meet.

So though I get to know valuable facts like F had dosa with sauce for breakfast (ewwww) and that N is on a diet, which essentially means she will eat chocolates only twice a day instead of four times and that yellow’s manager has loud conversations on the phone and that A’s onsite coordinator appreciates her work (its very rare u see so she makes sure we all hear of it) and lots of other things, I am COMPLETELY clueless about the actual “Meet” which was the purpose of the mail.

So a frustrated me sits at 5 in the evening after my classes and patiently reads those mails trying to find out if ANY of those 73 mails even remotely talks about the meet. Nope!! Though there are a BUNCH of excuses given for not being able to come to the meet and other inane conversations no proper plans of a birthday surprise or a meet. Trust me it IS a pain when u go through EACH AND EVERY mail, when u click on each and every one of those 73 little tabs to find out what the other person has said and still remain as clueless as ever.

And following are the top excuses which are given by the “group” to not attend a meet.

1. I can’t come because I have to take a bath man. So you guys carry on.

(No shit. The person who has used this excuse has not only used it once but several times as a result of which we have stopped calling her for the meets. Cleanliness is before Friendliness apparently :P)

2. The sun is too hot on Sundays. I don’t like to come out on a Sunday.

LOL!! :D. This is my favorite excuse. And the rest of us would go, “eh??? Errr. Dude!! The same sun shines all through the week. How can it be any hotter or colder on Sunday. If anything it should probably take a break and shine less on Sunday”.. But this person can be excused because when the sun is not “too” hot she always makes it to the meet AND on time.

3. Hey I am on a diet. So if we go out we are BOUND to eat out and that’s bad for my diet. Please. This is my first sincere attempt at dieting (YAWN!!). Don’t spoil it. Why don’t you come over to my place?

The person who gives this excuse lives in one godforsaken corner of the city and reaching that place is like undertaking an expedition. So all of us politely back out!! :P.

4. My parents are sleeping. Someone has to lock the door if I leave. Sorry I can’t come. Gee. That’s seriously the lamest I have heard till date. Ermm.. How long would it take to drop a vessel in the kitchen, act like it was by mistake, wake a parent and ask them to lock the door?

5. I have to study for my mock CAT (*YAWWWWN!!*).

The person who uses this excuse would probably excel in CAT if they posed questions about sleeping patterns of humans and had average sleeping time as a criterion for admissions.

6. I have office.

Sometimes genuine but most frequently abused excuse. Used when you are actually lazy to go out and so call up a friend and say “office maaan!! Soo sorry” :P

7. It’s my mother in law’s birthday guys.

Sighhhhh!! No comments.

8. I have assignments.

The person giving this excuse is an extremely nice person who usually makes it for every meet so she can be excused :P

So these are some of the most commonly used/abused excuses. And FINALLY by the time we actually reach a consensus, decide on a date and time we realize that it’s Monday and we have effectively lost the weekend in mailing each other. (We quit calling each other long time ago when we realized that all of us are equally bad at picking up the phone and answering calls or talking sense for more than 28 seconds.)

Effectively by the end of the day we have a terribly bad strike rate. Out of 25 meets planned 3 materialize and only 1 has all of us together (in which everyone will forget to bring the camera so we don’t even have any proof of THAT one meet when we were all together.). Going by statistics the only times when we have succeeded in meeting without hearing any excuses from anyone were the times when someone got married. And that was in December of last year.

I think it’s time someone got married. It’s been quite long since I saw everyone together.

Lets meet!! :P

P.S: I am GLAD gmail shows all 73 mails as just one mail. Imagine having to open 73 different mails and delete them one by one. *Shudders uncontrollably*

Natural Haircut or a Haircut in Naturals? Former for me please!! :-\

Now I am one of those people who hate getting a haircut. I get a haircut once a year when I go home and this is not because I think I need a haircut but because you can get haircuts done for really cheap rates in Jamnagar. Yeahhh!! I am a cheapo because I just don’t (will not) understand the funda behind spending anything more than 50 bucks for a haircut. Though in essence, that’s what this whole post is about. About how I almost had to sell my kidneys to pay for a haircut. Sighhh. Am not a cheapo any more. No sir.

Anyway so about three weeks back I realized that it had been a year since I last went home and my hair errr…euphemistically put would make birds look lovingly at my head and go “Sighhh. Home Sweet Home”. Don’t get me wrong. I love animals and all that but not when they are thinking of starting a family on top my head. (I better be careful about what I say about animals. You say something as harmless as cattle class and a whole bunch of anally retentive politicos will start letting out steam).

I am digressing. Where was I? Yeah so I realized I was majorly overdue for a haircut because given my trichotillomania and my hair which is prone to split ends I had hair of varying length all over my head and let aside looking lady like, I didn’t even look human.

So I set out to get a haircut done. Now never having had a haircut done in Chennai I had absolutely no idea about the rates. So I started calculating. Since Jamnagar last saw civilization in….. oops. Sorry. Jamnagar has never seen civilization. My bad. So since Jamnagar has never seen civilization it was but obvious that the rates in Chennai would be say three times more than the rates in Jamnagar. So I guessed that a haircut in Chennai would set me back by 150 bucks. Not bad I thought. Given the fact that I had last gotten a haircut 15 months back it wasn’t bad at all. But yet I thought it would be better to ask coupla friends.

So I sent out a message saying “Hey. How much do you guys pay for a haircut in Chennai man?” to about 4 of my friends. And I got replies from two of them saying “Depends on the parlor and the cut” and I sent back an “eh?”.

My friends knowing me elucidated that there were different ways in which you could get your hair cut, called U, V, W etc and depending on the cut you would be charged. So how much for a straight cut I asked and the casual reply I got was “Ohh. About 250-300”.

And I freaked. 250-300 bucks for a bloody haircut? Who was I? Julia Roberts? Hell!! ideally beauty parlours ought to be paying me coz I am GIVING them MY hair. 300 is what I spend in 6 years for a haircut. So I decided to ask in a couple of parlors. First I went to L’Oreal (Sighhhh) coz that was closest and I walked in and asked them the rates. I shall not repeat the price for many a faint audience might suddenly choke and die. So I gasped uncouthly at the receptionist when she told me the price and made a hurried exit.

Next stop was Naturals (double Sighhh!!) where I was told that I would be charged 250 bucks. Now in relative comparison to the price I heard in L’oreal, Naturals sounded so cheap I agreed at once and sat to get a haircut done.

12 minutes. I counted. She cut my hair for 12 minutes and I sat there stupidly for 2 minutes when she came and told me “Over madam” and I gawked. What?? I had paid almost 25 bucks a minute for this express haircut?

“Hmmm. How much?” I asked

“275 ma’am” replied the receptionist with perfectly made eyebrows, delicately powdered nose and bright red lipstick

“umm. You said 250 right?”

“Yeah ma’am. But with tax it will work out to 275. Cash or card?” she smiled sweetly.

I looked in my wallet and found a lone 100 rupee note laughing almost derisively at me as if saying “Ha ha. And you thought I would be enough to pay for your haircut? Sheeesh”

“Card” I grunted

And I came out with 275 bucks less in my already impoverished account. (I am a student remember. Its been 3 months since I last received a salary) and a couple of hairs less on my head.

My cell beeped. I opened the message morosely and it read

“Hey sorry. Was sleeping so couldn’t reply. It will cost you 80-100 bucks for a straight cut in Green Trends”

It took everything in me to muster all the self respect I had and not sit in the middle of the road and bawl shamelessly. Green Trends was two streets away.

Sighhhh.

I think I will next get a haircut when I am 37 years old and I am NOT going to Naturals!! GAH!!!

Of easy exams, strange students and electives

Had an anti climax of a test today. My first open book test in college and I dunno what i expected that i studied like it was an IIT entrance exam or something.

Its like you study for a paper of Advanced Mathetmatics and the question you get is "Please add two, two digit numbers (Calculators allowed)"

Bah!!

Anyway not that I am complaining about the paper being easy and all that but saala mazaa nahi aaya paper likhte waqt. You know the usual reactions ranging from "Is this the subject I studied for" and glancing at the title to confirm your suspicions to "Do I know enough to pass" to counting every mark of yours to see if you are anywhere near the border to "How long will it take to study all this shit again if i fail" was all missing. But a part of me is also immensely glad because I have had it uptil here with exams.

It is liberating to be in a college where they give you truckloads and truckloads of assignments and say no to exams. It is so much more easier and helps improve your understanding if you ACTUALLY do the assignments than sitting on your backside and reading for some shitty exam. One of the main reasons I joined this college was because the prospectus said "no exams" and like all colleges which lie through their teeth, we are having exams for a couple of papers this term but if they are as easy as this one was then all i can say is "Bring it on" :)

I somehow cannot understand the attitude of people who hound the lecturer after class to ask "doubts". I mean what is so secretive and special about your doubt that you cant ask it in class in front of everyone? Or do you think that the lecturer will suddenly reveal something which will help you become the best journalist? Or do you believe that the lecturer's intellignece will rub off on you if you stand close enough to him/her? I just don't get it.

And this is not one stray lecture/lecturer I am talking about. But lecture after lecture the same people hound the lecturer and if thats not enough there are a couple others who probably think they will choke and die if they sit in their seats for one more second when they see some other person asking a doubt and they will go and swarm around the lecturer and furiously take down notes.

So effectively one person has a doubt and goes to clear it but ultimately 10 people are standing around the lecturer, nodding their heads prosaiclly though they probably cant make head or tail of what he is saying. But hey thats ok, because we are atleast standing there and not losing out on any pearls of information thrown by the lecturer. DUH!! This goes on till someone has to come and shoo these people like flies and rescue the lecturer. I mean seriously. The average age here is 23 or probably more. And yet this kind of 5th standard behavior. Sighhhhhh.

Submitted my elective choices today. I hope I get my environment and gender electives. I loved those two lectures and are probably the only two things I am passionate about. Aaaaaaaaaaaah!!!

India Won....Yayyyyyyy!! :)

Nothing helps people bond like cricket does.

Come a cricket match and you find yourself slapping hi fives and hugging people whom you generally wouldnt touch with a barge pole and people whose rightful place, you thought, was either the kindergarten or a drug rehabilitation centre. Yesterday's India Srilanka match was one such. Every wicket, every run, every sixer and every four, found us hooting and shouting like banshees bringing down the entire hostel.

You watch a cricket match and you realise people arent that bad. What IS bad is probably your perception of that person and your pre conceived notions about him/her. I am not coming to say that I watched the match with people who were descendants of Mother Theresa, who I originally thought were flesh and blood of Saddam Hussein, but you know, you just learn to look beyond certain flaws of people and enjoy that particular moment of pure ecstasy when you see Sachin come up to collect the Man of the Match and Man of the Series award.

Aaaah!! Am getting too philosophical aint I? :-|

Anyway, Its also funny to watch a match when you have a couple of Srilankans around you. Every time you cheer you warily look around to see if you have offended that person and grin sheepishly. And you try to get the people from other SAARC countries to support you and root for your country.

Oh it was nothing like the cricket matches I have seen in hostel in SSN where atleast 50 of us would be huddled in the TV room to watch a match and completely lose it when India won. This doesnt even come close to that but my first match watching experience in ACJ has been good.

And this is the first time I have seen it with such a Pan Indian audience.Right from Punjab to Bombay to Delhi to Kolkata to Chennai, people from all over bowing before GOD (read: Tendulkar). Wowww!! An experience indeed.

When you are in India there is NOTHING that promotes communal harmony better than cricket. Trust me, NOTHING!!

And like it or not.. I am Back!! :)

Suddenly I decided I didn’t want my blog to be private anymore. Don’t ask me for explanations because I don’t have any. I just sat thinking about the reasons for which I blocked my site and after almost six months I realize that it was as smart an idea as Himesh Reshammiya thinking that he would look nice in weaved hair. You get the drift? In both cases the ideas and final outcomes were disastrous. It was an impulsive decisions and my impulsive decisions always suck and today morning as I missed GBCI sorely I said “To hell with it. I am gonna start writing on GBCI again”.

For all you people who didn’t even know that my blog had gone private – Pfffffbbt to you – (author maturely putting out her tongue at everyone who is going “Really, you made you blog private?”). And for all those who mailed me asking for permission to read my blog, Thanks so much. I never did know that there were so many people who read the stuff I wrote and it was one of the main reasons for my coming back (No use cribbing now. I am back now and back for good – I hope so :P)

A lot has happened in the last 6 months. For one I have quit my job. Yeahhh. For people who have been reading my blog you know HOW much I have cribbed about having to sit in front of a computer for 15 hours everyday and doing something which was OBVIOUSLY not coming to me (read: coding). I am a student now and doing something which I have always always wanted to do. I get to read a lot, write a lot and talk and lot and I wake up every morning thanking all my stars and wondering how in hell did I get so lucky? But that’s the thing about life. The minute you least expect it, whooooosh it sweeps you off your feet and leaves you breathless

I am doing a course in journalism at Asian College of Journalism here at Chennai. I love the experience so far. I love being a student. I love all the courses and the lectures/lecturers. I almost shrieked with happiness when Bharadwaj Rangan (one of my favorite bloggers) came to talk on film reviewing, I watched in awe as Navin Chawla spoke about the election in India and cringed in disgust when Sitaram Yechury spoke about how Left is the way to go. Kancha Ilaiah provoked me, Krishna Ananth delighted me and I have realized how badly read I am and how little I know about my own country and the world. I feel insignificant when I look at kids (Yep!!) two years younger than knowing much much more than me. It’s a humbling experience but worth it.

I have met a lot of like minded people. I have met people who are skeptical about Gandhi (yayyy!! finally) and people who don’t go “Hawwwwwww!! He was the father of the nation. How can you talk like that about him?”, when I would air my opinions about him. I have also seen a lot of people who I d have been better off not knowing but when you are 23 you learn to live with all kinds of people, never mind if they smoke weed, drink like a fish (NOT water mind you) and smoke a lot. And yeah passive smoking does not kill instantly like I originally thought. I mean I thought the minute someone smoked on my face my lungs would shrivel and I would choke and die. Nope. That doesn’t happen because I have had quite a few people smoking on my face and I have learnt to hold my breath and talk at the same time.

I have also seen more of my dear city Chennai in the past two months than I have in the past 8 years and I love the city all the more. I have watched more plays, dance shows and music concerts now than I have in the past eight years. I have made new friends, been in touch with old ones, known again what it is like to stay awake for 36 hours straight (did that last before Artificial Intelligence exam during engineering) and do work I actually like.

Oh I have learnt a lot and I now that GBCI is “open” I think I will write about it one by one as and when I think of it. Today I am just a happy and contended person. Today I have no regrets. Today I am as much in love with life as I was during engineering (for totally different reasons but in love nevertheless). But lets talk about all that some other time.

Today, I live :)

Become a Java expert and you will lose all ur hair and here I break the record for giving the saddest titles!! :P

1. I attended a lecture on Java today in office. There were four people who took the session and my net learning has been
a). The net total of all the hair on all the four men's head = hair on one half of my head
and if u have seen me you will know how little that is!! :P
So,
net learning: Never become an expert in Java. You will lose all your hair

2. Volunteered and attended Swabondhini's annual day as usual this weeknd . It came at the right time and gave me the much need perspective that i need in life right now. For the whole of last week i was wallowing in self pity and asking profound questions like "Why does shit happen to me always" and generally going around keeping a face like a dead duck. After Saturday's event I am like "I have a great set of friends, a decent job, a great family, hell i have arms legs and a brain that functions ok" and i have been trying my level best to not keep a face like a dead duck.
P.S: if my natural face is like that of a dead duck, its hardly my fault, dont u think?? ;-)

3. Saw Evam's play "Who murdered Hamlet" on Sunday and my admiration for Evam has increased exponentially. I am amazed at the amount of talent these guys possess, the absolutely brilliant sense of humor, the unbelievable energy they exude on stage and their ability to weave humor into the most mundane of things/topics/current affairs. I mean they are such naturals. Their performances are spontaneous, not rehearsed and the way they blended current affairs into it was just brilliant. But i have completely forgotten the original hamlet after watching Evam murder Hamlet!! :P

4. My cousin S had his 9th birthday on Sunday and we got him a nice red flashy bike. the thrill and joy which you see on a 9 year old's face when he beholds the bike for which he has been waiting for a long time is just priceless. He kept going to the balcony every 5 minutes till he feel asleep to see if his bike was alright and if someone was touching/fingering it and going "Deiii, Adhu yen bike. Kai vekkadhe, pakkadhe, moochu vaangadhe etc" while we looked on in amusement. Now all of a sudden he has problems with his old bike. Its small, the brakes are sad, the seat is torn etc etc.

Hamra Pehla Interview!! :):)

So the guys at blog adda decided that they needed some looniness on their website and decided to ahemm!!!cough!! cough!! interview me!!!!! :P:P
After reading my answers i am sure they would have hit themselves with the nearest lethal weapon they could lay their hands on but nice that they are they eventually did publish it!! :):)

Do read my first ever interview HERE

Man!! Do i feel like a celebrity or what!! ;-) ;-)

P.S: I didnt write the VGP wala line!! God Promise. Mother promise!! :P

Children of Heaven - a review

I just finished watching this Iranian movie called "Children of Heaven" (Bacheha-Ye aseman).

Thank you so much for gifting me the cd of the movie Sumeetha!! :)

Coming back to Children of Heaven, its one of the most beautiful movies i have seen in a very long time. (This one time i will not tear a movie apart but will give a decent review!! ;) because this movie is really worth a watch!!)

The story revolves around two children Ali and Zahra aged 6 and 8 respectively whose father is a poor tea server in the mosque. One day Ali misplaces Zahra's shoes while going to get them darned and knowing their father's financial position they hide the fact that Zahra doesnt have a pair of shoes from their parents and secretly decide to manage with a single pair. Since Zahra goes to school in the morning and Ali in the afternoon they manage with a single pair of shoes which results in Ali often going late to school and getting into scrapes with the headmaster.Ali gets a chance to take part in the sprint contest conducted by their school and prize offered for the person at the third place is a pair of sneakers. Ali decides to participate, come third and get the sneakers for Zahra . He accidentally comes first and is given a different prize and not the pair of sneakers.

So from where do i start praising the movie? Let me start with the characters of Ali and Zahra. I have never seen such natural actors. At some point in the movie you forget that you are watching a movie and not the real life replay of 2 children. The child artistes emote so beautifully. Be it joy or sorrow or pain or fear or anger they are so natural, Darsheel Zafry of TZP would pale in comparison.

There is especially this scene when Zahra wears the sneakers (basically boys shoes) for the first time to school. She is scared that in PE class the teacher will catch her and tries to hide her shoes behind her desk. And then the teacher announces that in PE class it is best for the girls to wear sneakers because they will help you run and jump much better and appreciates the girls wearing sneakers. The change in Zahra's expressions from apprehension to fear to relief to pride is so beautiful you want to hug the child and give her a new pair of shoes.

Some of the other scenes which stand out in my mind are when Ali comes first in class and is awarded a gold ball pen by his teacher. Though he himself wants to keep the pen he feels guilty and responsible for losing Zahra's shoes and gives her the pen. Zahra is angry with Ali because not only has he lost her shoes but also scolds her for coming late from school every afternoon because of which he is forced to go late. Zahra threatens to tell their parents. So when Ali gives her the pen her pensive face breaks into a shy smile and she tells him that she did not tell their parents. Ali grins and says "i knew you wouldnt"

When Zahra sees her lost shoes on the feet of a classmate she is shocked but when she realises that the girl has a blind father Ali and Zahra do nothing about it and continue to suffer the agony of sharing the pair of shoes.

The bond between the brother and the sister is shown extremely beautifully and the fact that the children are enormously adorable helps a great deal. When Ali's father has some money Ali tells him to buy a pair of shoes for Zahra. The selflessness, innocence and the pure heart of the children touches your heart and strikes a chord somewhere.

The ending is beautiful and Ali's expressions when he realises that he has accidentally won first place and denied Zahra a pair of shoes is priceless.

I cant say enough about the wonderful acting of the two children and I think you should see it to believe it. Its a movie which is worth watching and Indian directors would do well to take a leaf out of movies like this. No loud dialogues, no unnecessary characters and absolutely no melodrama. I think the beauty of the movie lies in the way the director has dealt with emotions so subtly and the understated acting of the children!!

Do watch it if you get an opportunity!!

P.S: Personally i think this post was too sensible for my taste!! :P. Blame Aravind and Sumeetha- They are the ones who got me hooked on to foreign language movies. Errr. I dont know if hooked is the right word. I have seen 3 foreign language movies and i have liked all three!! :)

Elder Sisters - Bah!! :-\

So the other day my sister called me and went

Preethi: Yaar Shruthi, Karthik India aa raha hai.

Me: ahaan!! good. Yeh karthik kaun hai?

Preethi: what?? I cant even recollect the number of times i have told you about karthik. Why are u behaving like Lord Emsworth. Next you will probably ask yeh Preethi kaun hai. sheeeesh!!

Me: Preethi. Is it a crime to not know who Karthik is. Bata na.

Preethi: Arey appa's mother's sister's son's son who stays here in Dubai very close to my place. K and I hang out with him and his family mostly

Me: ohh ahhh!

Preethi: he is coming to india

Me: mmm hmm.

Preethi: I want some stuff

Me: ohhh!! who is going to give it to him?

Preethi: Errrr. i sort of thought you would

Me: Like hell i will. What do u want, where does he stay and when does he leave? I will try and give it to him this weekend

Preethi: errr. He is leaving on Friday and he lives in Kodambakkam

Me: Friday?? thats like day after. no way man. Work is shit in office. Its been ages since i saw sunlight. I reach home at 9 everyday. there is no way i can go to Kodambakkam and give this stuff to him. Kodambakkam!! Sheeesh!! Thats soooooooo far. I dont even have a vehicle. I might as well courier it to Dubai. What do u want that is so important?

Preethi: Errr. I want some coffee powder.

Me: what??? You want me to go all the way till Kodambakkam for 1 kg of coffee powder. Hah!! NO way!!

P: Please yaar. Its been 2 months since i last tasted coffee. (Putting on a voice not unlike Lalita Pawar in all those movies where she plays the hero's mother and goes "Cough Cough Betaaaaa mujhe bahu ka moo dikha de phir mai khushi khushi yeh duniya chod ke chali jaoongi")

Me: Whatever happened to Nescafe, Bru etc

Preethi: Ewwwwww. You know how much i hate instant coffee. I want filter coffee. Proper Leo Coffee shop coffee powder put inside a filter with hot water around 100 degrees temperature poured over it and percolating to give the sexiest aroma ever. mmmm

M: there are children in Somalia who havent seen water/food for ages and you want coffee shipped to Dubai!! Sheeesh!! Talk about insensitivity!!

P: please yaar

M: Abey!! why dont you ask karthik to buy coffee powder. I am sure there is a Leo Coffee shop in Kodambakkam.

P: Chiii. accha thoda na lagta hai. Doesnt look nice. He has come to India on a flying visit and how can i ask him to buy me coffee powder, chilly powder, paruppu podu, vetthakozhambu and all that.

M: Its just coffee powder yaaar!! Eeeeeeeee!! I am not going!!

P: Please Shruthi. How many times have i taken you to the movies, played badminton with you, spoken to so many relatives, lied for you, not told amma about the time when you...

M: STOP!!! what else do u want

P: Thats more like it.!! Hmmm some idly podi...

M: Yeah ok. Will do!!

P: Aur Shruthi

M: hmmm

P: Dont go empty handed yaar. buy something for them go. Accha thoda na lagta hai. They are doing us a favor and you go empty handed

M: Sighhh!! Ok. Shall i buy fruits?

P: Fruits?????? Eeeeeee!! Dhadhi!! Buy some mixture and some sweet from Grand Sweets or something.

So today morning i woke up at a godforsaken 5.30 to go to Kodambakkam and give Leo Coffee Powder and Idly podi to my cousin for my sister who doesnt like to drink instant coffee and only likes filter coffee if the coffee powder comes from a certain Leo Cofee Shop in Adyar, the water is set at 100 degrees centigrade and percolated for exactly 7 minutes and 20 seconds!!And oh yeah!! I did buy something from Grand Sweets. Khali haath jaana accha thode na lagta hai!!

Sisters!! BAH!!! :-\
Sisters living outside India - Double BAH!!

I HATE Monday Mornings!!
So whats new?
I hate Monday mornings, especially if u have had one helluva Sunday, right from 3 o clock in the morning on Sunday till 2 o clock in the morning on Monday. For all you guys whose eyebrows have risen up an inch bring them down and wipe that skeptic look off your face. I went on a one day trek to Nagalapuram near Chennai.

This was the 15th time that Chennai Trekkers were doing a Nagalapuram and my first time. I had almost begun to believe that i would die without doing a Nagala and the thought of having missed Nagala 15 times began to haunt me in my dreams. So when Peter sent out the invitation on Wednesday i jumped at it and decided that come what may i was attending this trek even if Geroge (clooney) suddenly called to tell me that he would marry me on Sunday. So on Sunday morning 4 o clock if u saw a pretty young girl sitting with an alien like creature which vaguely ressembles a human (only vaguely mind you!!) at Madhya Kailash, it was me and the weird creature which likes to call itself Rahul!! :P

In this trek for the first time i jumped into water. Yayyy Revs!! Way to go!! :) In all the other treks that i have been to, I have always been terrified of water and when everyone enjoys in the pools i dont even venture close to them. I think of myself as hydrophobic (Just clarifying that I take a bath daily and i am just wary of huge water bodies!! Wary mind you and not scared!! Phew!! That was close!! :P). But this time we didnt have choice but to go splash in the water and I went SPLASH and maa kasam it was SO MUCH fun. I mean for a minute there when all that water went up my nose i was like "Oh my god i am dying" but as luck would have it (your bad luck and my good luck) i did survive and had immense fun!! :)

And so by the time we finished and came back to Chennai it was like 2 in the morning and I was completely and thoroughly exhausted and shamelessly slept in the front seat and made the driver too feel sleepy!!

Sighhh!! So right now my leg feels like a sugarcane after it has been passed through one of those umpteen sugarcane machines u see on the roadside, climbing a flight of stairs causes pure unadulterated agony with each muscle crying out in pain, my eyes are burning from the lack of sleep and the light from an unfriendly computer, my neck is completely cramped because of an errant branch which hit me wham!! in my neck and the slightest movement of the head sends shooting pains through my shoulder and back. So every time someone calls me i move my head in a very royal and slow manner like an emperor. I knew i had blue blood running within me!! :P

not to mention the many thorns which now proudly reside under my epidermis and every time i hold a pen to write something or hold a cup of tea or keep my hand on the mouse there is something which pricks me and makes me go ouch. :P

And on top of all that i have so much work that i started writing this post in the morning at 10 and just about managed to finish writing it.

But i feel good. Yay!! Finally finally i did a Nagala!! :)

P.S: I deleted my previous post for obvious reasons. Some of the comments which i received were in really bad taste and before the discussion grew up to something which would not be favorable for family viewing :P, i decided to remove it. Personally i thought it was a plain harmless post, one of those posts which you write in the spur of the moment as soon as you think of it but sadly people started having silly fights in the comments, started calling each other names and started discussing many other graphic details which i feel are best left unmentioned.

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!!