Deserved Respect

Today I fired my servant maid. Not a great start of the day, is it?

The conversation touched a topic that I have always found very unfair and irritating.

She took up another house’s work at my time slot and told me she cannot come before I go to the office anymore. The reason she gave is that the people who had asked her to do the work were older than her, and hence out of respect, she could not deny. Apparently, they are older than her, hence it is her duty to do whatever they ask of her, even if it is unfair, but I should not ask her about delays coz I am younger than her!

This is the thing with our country, isn’t it? The word RESPECT is not defined correctly. They call it culture. They call it values. They call it tradition. I call it b**l s**t. 

Respect is something every human being is entitled to. The amount of respect a person deserves may depend on – being human, outward cleanliness and personal hygiene, social ethics and one’s beliefs & acts. In a professional setting- one’s education and position, and in social setting- senior citizens, handicapped people, pregnant women and sick people get higher preference. I say preference here, and not respect though it is misconstrued a lot in our country. Isn’t a Janitor as much of a human as a firm’s Partner. Doesn’t a child / teenager deserves as much of respect as senior citizen in a bus / train / party?

NO ONE is entitled to be unfair or arrogant or manipulative and take the world for granted because of age! The time ticks the same for all and the world revolves the same for all. 

Below are some of the social thoughts around the older generation, and my personal beliefs.

Older people are Gods, they should be worshiped – they are humans just like everyone else. 

They have the right to take all decisions – only when it concerns them, and to an extent, their dependant under-aged children. Above 18ers deserve to make their own decisions. Older generation can guide, consult, and support if they wish to. 

They know the best, they know it all, they are always right, they don’t make mistakes – they, like any other human beings, they can most definitely be wrong and should have the humility to accept that. Their experience can definitely be a perspective to consider, and might bring many new angles to the table, but that doesn’t mean they are always right. 

It’s ok if they are unfair and unjust, they don’t have to be brought to justice, they should not be challenged, they should not be questioned, they need not apologize as they are older – No one has the right to be unfair or hurtful or unjust to anyone – age no bar, caste no bar, religion no bar, sex no bar. Anyone who does a mistake can be and should be held responsible and brought to justice, and at the very least, apologize for their mistakes.

IT IS NOT SAD IF SOME ONE OLDER THAN YOU MAKES A MISTAKE AND APOLOGIZES TO YOU! It is the right thing to do! YOU DON’T HAVE TO FEEL GUILTY FOR BEING APOLOGIZED TO! A person apologizing doesn’t look bad, in fact earns more respect by acknowledging their mistake.

Younger people around them have adjust to them, they don’t have to adjust to anyone – I don’t have to adjust to ANYONE beyond my tolerable point. My daughter doesn’t have to adjust to me beyond her limit either! And I shouldn’t expect her to. In fact, the older I become, the more understanding I should become, and more tolerant and adjusting that should make me. Adjustment is mutual, if someone doesn’t adjust to me, I am NOT OBLIGED to adjust to them because of their age – and this is NOT DISRESPECT. 

Raping is a sin (also a crime); But so are others like  insulting someone, depriving any human being of freedom, fundamental rights and self-respect in the pretext of being older, hurting anyone – be it  a child or an animal, considering oneself superior and others inferior, being arrogantly proud and egotistical. God doesn’t weigh good and bad based on age. Law doesn’t change no matter what the age of the convict is. 

Old age can be entitled for a separate queue, sympathies and support; NOT an excuse for boosting self-egos, making mistakes and stomping over youth on the grounds of culture / tradition / values. 

Respect is earned, not forced out using threats and blackmails. Respect should be given at will, not under pressure. Respect should be deserved.

6117

I was driving back home at around 8 pm a few days back, in fact to be exact, on 31st July, after a really long tiring Saturday, with lots of multi tasked work and weekday-pressure-spilt-over-weekend. Work that should have taken ten minutes took half an hour, work that should have started was not even remotely close to starting and work that was planned to have been completed was nowhere near the end.

Above all these, I was damn sleepy!

About my current sleep pattern -

The more I sleep, the sleepier I feel.

The less I sleep, the sleepier I feel!

I ALWAYS FEEL SLEEPY!

So there I was on my pep, trying to safely-drive-rashly (yes, I find rash fast driving very soothing, but I tend to drive cautiously all the same, n hence I call it a safe-rash-drive), when I saw something that made me smile.

I have this habit of looking at the cars, if a really royal cool looking car, look at the driver (it is my belief that the coolest of cars mostly get horrible looking drivers) and any vehicle, look at the license plate to check out the numbers and their pattern.

So back to my story, I saw a really cool Honda City, in royal red color. But I did not even go to look at the driver, coz I was too busy staring at the license plate. It was 6117.

6117…

That was my first year’s room number. 6th block, ground floor room no 17. 6117.

It brought an instant smile on my face, and brought back a series of memory flashes. I had shared the room with a Delhiite, who hated South Indians, esp. Tamilians.

We hardy used to talk to one another, since both of us were a part of totally different worlds and had complete different attitudes and absolutely no roads crossing each other’s paths. But surprisingly, we kind of got along pretty decently.

I was thinking of all these things when an Innova crossed my track, with the number plate 6320, my third year room!! Boy, would you call that a titanic coincidence or what?

6th block second floor room no 20. That was the best year, my third year.

Filled with hopes of future and beliefs in present and loads of extracurricular activities and positions and fun in labs, lots n lots of friends and what not!

I just can’t remember the last stretch of my drive home. I was drowned my pensieve filled with memories of my past, my insides happy and sad at the same time.

I am afraid I might never, you know, be there, ever again.

Last July 31, our ID cards expired and we officially became the BITS Alumni. This July 31, it was like the world was reminding me about my one year of having been a part of BITS Alumni.

I was truly overwhelmed and came back home and watched a couple of college videos. I truly felt like back in Summer of 2004. :)

The Beeper

Once again, its been a while since I had time and mood enough to blog. And yet again I am typing away while importing an obscenely huge ugly file into an analytics tool and waiting, waiting and waiting. This waiting seems to have become quite a habit these days, but all the funny incidents that I keep thinking of posting now and then get lost in huge numbers and scripts and other screw-ups.

Yeah! The past 10 days have been an utter screw-up of a lot of things, and then me getting bashed by seniors and managers, first politely and then not-so-politely for my stupid gimmicks. Even at home, parents these days are not as forgiving as they used to be!

Everyone keeps telling me to grow up, though I seriously can’t really relate me growing up as even a remotely possible solution to the existing problems! First of all, why should I grow up?!? And what fun do they all get in making? I live in my own goddamn world and do not intrude into theirs, nor do I try to change their world. Why do people keep trying to invade into mine? Oh well, I guess that’s the definition of ‘Mature Adults’.

Seniors in work keep telling me to take things seriously and attend all meetings and trainings and remind me that I am no more in College and I should learn to be a ‘Professional’ in a ‘Corporate world’.

Parents go a step further… No No.. One step each, and one + one here = three… so three steps further and have taken it as a primary mission in their lives to make me ‘a-marriage-material’ for which I somehow show a shockingly strong resistance, according to them.

Mom that day made me stand in front of the servant maid and her little girl and asked me to identify the different Dals (Kadala paruppu, thuvaram paruppu, ullutham paruppu, etc) and the different types of flour (kadala maavu, maida maavu, arisi maavu etc). The wicked Grandmom and gossipy Servant waited for my answers, which as everyone expected, were totally and completely wrong. I got embarrassed n irritated, Grandmom started laughing and as usual called up the relatives and narrated a hugely exaggerated version and mom was extremely psyched about my ignorance even at something so basic such as ingredients. From that moment, I just resolved openly that I would not set foot into the kitchen even if the rest of the house was on fire, and have been religiously sticking to it since then. The fact that I can cook pretty decently when the ingredients have been identified and given, doesn’t get a lot of credits, it seems.

Grand mom then asked: How are you going to cook for your entire family after you get married?

Me: Family? It would be me and some loser iyengar guy, who would be earning too, I suppose, so we’ll either order from outside or go out and eat! Convenient for both of us!

Beeeeeep. Wrong answers. Yes… Plural.

Grand-mom’s reply to my wrong answer no 1: After marriage, my family would not only be the guy, but his family too.

My response (Sarcastically): Shearr.. just like my current family would become his. So he can come n cook n serve my parents in my place, n I would do the same to his in his place.

Beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeep. Wrong answer again.

Grand-mom’s reply to my wrong answer no 2: ‘Order from outside or go out and eat’?? Really?? You are really proud that you are earning, aren’t you?

My response (Bewildered): Well, why shouldn’t I? I mean… I am not stealing money or doing anything illegally or immoral, for me to feel ashamed! I have money, so I can spend it the way I want! Now if I buy one pizza, after marriage I’ll probably order two, one for each.I won't mind that.. Honest!! What’s wrong in that?!?!

Beeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeppppppppppppppp
And the beeper never stopped!!

Well, maybe, just may be, sitting in the office was a tad better than sitting at home with an irritatingly ultrasonic beeper going on every time I open my mouth!!

Good lord.. the import is done earlier than expected! Yeah well, I m sure I’ll get more of such ugly huge files in the near future, and hence more possible blogging time!! :)

Queen of the Road

And yet again, its been quite long since I could write my heart out into my dear darling pensieve. The job takes up almost 3/4ths of my day, and the remaining 1/4ths goes off sleeping and in driving. Yeah.. driving my pep+. :)

Oh yeah… driving.. :) :) Even though my family has been in Chennai for quite sometime now, I used to come home for hols n drive the old scooty now and then, but actually driving for about an hour every day, is cool! Infact a couple of days back, the whole road from Cenetoph Road to Raj Bhawan was empty, with traffic police all over the place expecting some VIP. I was the only one on the entire road with no signals, all the police personnel stopping vehicles from perpendicular streets just to let me pass to keep the road free, and there I was riding alone, with all the police and people in sides giving me so much attention that I felt like the Queen of the road!! I was wooping with joy when the speedometer in my pep+ reached 80! IT FELT AWESOME!!!

There have been quite a number of such small small incidents, that I keep wanting to post into my pensieve. Infact I type the whole thing in my mind as and when they happen, just never get time to physically do it. Thanks to the really loong time that 'vlookup' takes for like a million records, I could type this post! :P

Just like millions of other Indians, work has taken over my entire life, it seems!

The Wet And The Cold

Have I ever mentioned before that I hate wet and cold? Well, ordinarily, moisture would drive me atleast a mile away n cold would make me shiver and cuddle into warm clothes. But today neither affected me at all! No Sir, not one bit! All coz I was where I have always wanted to be! Nothing mattered!

The past couple of days have been a few of the most blessed most cheerful days. After shopping extravagantly for clothes n shoes n heavy dhaba lunch with friends n big time gossiping about nothing and everything, life seems all too colourful! I know.. shopping, beauty parlour and at times, gossiping are the best turn-ons for young women!

In addition to a new wardrobe, now that I have a new scooty pep+ with an awesome electric blue colour, my happiness seems to have no limits! I mean literally! Today, as I rode on the roads at 60 kmph, over taking heavy bikes without stopping at some red signals(though they weren’t intentionally done), the cool wind blew through my hair, slight shivers ran down my spine and chill rain drops started falling on my skin.

Now I had to stop coz I was wearing a white sal and if I continued driving in the rain that had now started pouring, I would be arrested for indecent exposure! :P So there I waited in the shade of a huge tree with a hundred others, and then it hit me! I had a rain coat! So what the hell was I waiting for?!?

So I wore the huge rain coat and with the rain splattering on my face, I rode home, all wet and cold, though with a wide smile on lips and peace at heart.

One of Us... One of Them...

It’s been so long since I blogged, actually, since I wrote at all about anything or anyone. After all, life isn’t filled with sunshine and rainbows and butterflies and puppies, now is it?

The weekends seem to have huge ‘to-do’ lists and going out of towns and weddings (yeah.. awfully lot of them these days!! We’ll come to that one later.) and weekdays… umm.. well, what did I do on weekdays? Good grief! I really can’t even remember what I did on weekdays! They seem to have just flown away (nothing too pleasant though, I assure you!).

But amongst everything/nothing going on in the mundane life, one very special occasion that happened last weekend in Salem brought back wide smiles and sound laughter and back-in-the-past feelings.

It was our wingie’s wedding!!The first of us to enter into ‘the holy matrimony’, and all of us (well most of us) gathered in her home town Salem to attend the function and be there and wish her the best of luck.

Well, it all started way back in their psenti-sem, my fourth year, when one night at 1 am, the female called for a mid-night-wing-meeting and ushered us all into her room. Anxiously, we snuggled comfortably on her bed as she sat opposite to n told us about how she, one of us (happy singles) had had become one of them (committed ones), about how this guy from her PS station liked her n proposed to her and how she had taken her time to think about it and finally agreed the day before that night, while we all sat looking at her in total shock, with our mouths wide open. After all, she was the most sadhu-est most rational and level headed person in our wing and here she was, in love (no offence to the other lovers in the world)!! I mean it wasn’t rare to find girls ‘in love’ or going out with guys on campus, just that it was hard to imagine her there!

Far away seems those days when she would lie to us about her sleeping and hide into her room talking with him over phone and think we didn’t know what was going on. But they all came back when there she was, standing in her wedding sari, with all the bridal make up, blushing all over when the photographer asked the bride and the groom to stand in a variety of poses (please don’t imagine anything perverted.. they were cute pics taken all done under both parents’ supervision. :P) while me n data were standing in a side, commenting big time and making them all laugh.

All five years on campus, whenever it came to wing’s decking up session, I was the one who used to tie them all saris, helped them with eye liners and kajals, etc. (yeah.. and I loved it- and as I remember, the decking sessions used to be so much fun!!) Here in the wedding, though a couple of beauticians were onto her, it was really cool to look at, a girl being dressed and attended and pampered like a queen!! Complicate hair-dos, face makeup, kundan stones being stuck on hair to give a classy effect and even designs on hands with sparklers and stones stuck here and there, lots of bangles clattering on her arms, as she stepped out of her room in the Bengali-styled sari, gosh! She looked so pretty!:)


From about a month ago, us wingies had been brain storming about the best gift we could get, and loads of ideas were pooled in, and we finally, after a million email-threads, successfully decided and ordered one. For the wedding, since the gift itself was too huge to carry, we ordered it to be delivered at her home when she went back to Hyd, and gave her a huge greeting card in the reception, with each of us personally signed- with love, from wingies.:)

The Saturday night was in a hotel room with all of us sitting and gossiping away like old times, showing each other the dresses and accessories we had gotten for the wedding, telling each other’s stories, taking snaps.. wow! It was like having fallen into a fantasy pit of the past!

The wedding itself, was pretty simple, about an hour or so full of rituals n relatives gathering around the stage. After the wedding was over, she came and sat with us for some time, and her happiness and her peaceful mind and genuine smile said a lot about how much she had enjoyed every bit of the ceremonies and how much she loved this guy and the extent to which she was looking forward to this new lifestyle as a wife to someone she loved and someone who in turn cared a lot about her.

There have been loads of times when I have thought (actually all of us wingies have had discussions on), about how embarrassing the whole ordeal of bearing with our parents’ look-out-for-a-groom drama and how awkward it was going to be to be introduced in front of strangers, to a stranger, whom they would have supposedly chosen for us to move in with and live with when we didn’t even know if he, in the very least even respected us! I mean- a happy life starts with love, love starts with friendship, which begins with trust and understanding, the very basis of which is mutual respect and acknowledgement of each other’s likes and dislikes, attitudes and ideas, policies and beliefs. With none of these, with complete faith in just a small piece of paper called horoscope, when our (I refer to girls alone here) parents would get us married send us off to a stranger’s place (that too after spending completely for the wedding, as the groom’s side would, in most cases, hardly even open their purse!), it wouldn’t be just embarrassing or awkward, but much more.

Anyway, we were all glad about how our friend found love and trust in the hands of someone with whom she was a good friend first, got to know him well, and then fell in love and after an year of being a ‘girl friend’, got married to him, and escaped the-parents-pressure. For everything, there is a worst case and a best case and loads of cases in between, and hers, I would definitely classify amongst the best case.

On Sunday as we all started off in different directions after the wedding, there were a chain of thoughts haunting my mind, ”Damn! After the really awesome weekend, here I go back to reality, the @%@#$#&^*%^$ world that I live in, and back to office on Monday! Why-o-why does Monday have to come so soon?!? Why-o-why do good times end so fast?!? Oh the nooo… I don’t wanna go home now… I don’t wanna go to the damn office tomorrow, and to think about it, I don’t wanna go anywhere! The only place I wanna go is to the past, and that’s the one place I can’t go! AAAHHHHHH… #$%$&Y^%E$&*%^@$%@!!!!!”

Wrong Attitude?!?

Navaratri time, loads of relatives to visit. Since I am agnostic (more of an atheist these days), it doesn’t mean much to me. But I usually hate this time of the year.. the whole festival in general; though it’s a pretty vibrant atmosphere with hyper-active people buzzing around various colorful idols and all. There are two main reasons.

When I was young, I was sent to classical music lessons, probably right from when I was three. I used to learn it sincerely, practice it meticulously. As I grew up, so did my self-consciousness. But my parents, being ‘parents’, couldn’t see this, and continuously encouraged me to sing in public, in front of relatives and especially in ‘Navarathri/Dassara’ times when they all met up in everybody’s houses and young girls were made to sing to ‘God’ while they sat around staring at the poor embarrassed creature, commenting about her, her voice, her skills, compare it with every other ‘budding singer’ whom they had come across while the little singing girl would be secretly wishing to disapparate from there and apparate in the North Pole.

Years of experience in such singing-in-front-of-people embarrassment and hundreds of arguments and fights with parents and millions of curses from them, I quit classical music with a lot of hatred and aversion to both singing and Navarathri days and as a bitter disappointment to my parents since I had failed to fulfill their dream! But at least they don’t force me these days since I am much older and I tend not to stick around them much when the old ‘music’ topic is rekindled.

Second reason is stronger these days, which is being with curious gossipy ‘know-it-all’ relatives who judge anyone who thinks differently and bitch about everyone who does not follow their rules. Today’s get-together proved to be enjoyable mostly; until they all started discussing the topic I hate the most- marriages. They were discussing about how one of my cousins, 26 now, was weeping a whole day refusing to take a man’s hand, who was more than 7 yrs elder than her and who wanted her to leave her job here in India and move to US as his ‘house-wife’. Educated male chauvinistic bastard is what I would call him. Then when I started saying that it actually made sense, and that it was her call and people should mind their own business and not emotionally blackmail her, they all started targeting me!

There is a family friend, well educated girl, marrying an American colleague and so all of her relatives are abandoning her and her family. She fell in love with him and decided to tie the knot with him despite the hell of objections because she was so damn frustrated with her religion and caste’s pathetic ridiculous superstitious beliefs in horoscope and her birth-star being unpopular for girls and bringing ‘bad luck’ to the groom and his family and the grooms in her caste demanding 6 lakhs as dowry.

In fact another reason she is doing this is because her life is more comfortable with him than it probably would be with any South Indian, and especially, any guy of her caste. He, being an American, believes that his wife has her own life, understands concepts like ‘privacy’, and most importantly, in sharing daily chores like cooking, washing plates & clothes and cleaning and shopping, and takes equal part in it with pleasure, which most of the guys here would certainly fail to oblige!

To this, my paati(grandmom) went on about how women are responsible for all these and they shouldn’t trouble men with them and how women are born to cook and clean and serve men and how men should be manly and just earn, eat and sleep. When I said otherwise, I realized it was a mistake simply coz I had no one to back me up. I was a single person up against all the stereotype elders who now started sniggering at my ‘attitude’. Finally, I just gave it up when my mom was giving me murderous looks and they too ended with a conclusion that my parents were going to have a really difficult time in looking for ‘a suitable guy’ for me and that when they do find a ‘match’, they should probably not let me talk to him before marriage coz then, I might scare him away with my ‘equality attitude’ and ask him if he knows cooking or likes cleaning and might just never get married!!

And now I am so damn pissed with all this nonsense but decided that all I could do at present was avoid relatives when they start talking nonsense stuff, give up on trying to figure out a way to jump to Jupiter and not worry about my future and simply enjoy House MD!

Cameron: "Men should grow up."
House: "Yeah, and dogs should stop licking themselves. It's not going to happen."

Yeah... I do love him!

The Master of Unforgivable Curses

Till sometime back, I used to very proudly believe in only and only logical reasons and scientific explanations, and I kind of overlooked things or issues that didn’t have tangible or explainable evidences or witnesses, and restrained(as much as possible) from indulging into common social practices that did not have logical and rational grounds.

I used to feel that miracles and fate don’t exist. Nothing can be achieved without fulfilling the requirements that included sincere efforts and hard work, and vice versa. But this goes against the existence of miracles, which are unnatural unexplainable occurrences, said to be supernatural acts of God. Similarly, I used to call ‘fate’, as the last reason claimed by the people filled with hopelessness, helplessness and despair, when in reality, it doesn’t exist. I would say that I prefer knowing and feeling that I control my own life, and not some unknown unaccounted factor called fate.

Here I am today, sitting at home without a job, praying to God, wishing for miracles and cursing fate, when nothing happening in my life seems rational and justifiable. Everyone I have spoken to in the past couple of months seem to feel that I was not at fault, and that I had done my level best at every step, and that I was not to blame myself for my present condition, and I was to wait patiently and pray God. Well, then if I weren’t to blame myself, who the hell am I supposed to blame? That is when everyone said in unison, “FATE!” That’s all! Wow. That was easy! Not remotely satisfying or helping my cause, but somehow, I felt the pieces fit together, with this illogical reason! This is what set me thinking.
While everyone praises God for his creation, everyone normally curses Fate for destruction. May be Fate is just another name for God- the wild and bad and sinister sadistic side of Him, just like the black-Spiderman. Fate, I guess, is the master of unforgivable curses- the Imperius Curse, the Cruciatus Curse, the Killing Curse.

When we plan something meticulously, work hard over it, yet meet an unexplained failure, we say, ”Man proposes, God disposes.” How very true. We think we are walking down a lane, when Fate hits us with an Imperius Curse, only to make us walk where we never thought of and do mortifying things we never intended to do. By the time we wake up from the curse, the damage is already done and though it looks like we did it, we really aren’t responsible for it, are we?

Similarly, let’s consider innocent people who happened to be grievously injured in some terrorist attacks or freak accidents or bomb blasts or natural calamities. This is Fate shouting, “Crucio!” Unbearable pain that could numb your senses, and sometimes lead one to painful death. After all, You don't need thumbscrews or knives to torture someone if you can perform the Cruciatus Curse!

Likewise is unnatural untimely death, which is when Fate points its wand and says, “Avada Kedavra!” As we all know, no one has ever survived it except the famous Harry Potter!

Anyway, what I meant is that seeing things this way does make believing in oneself easier, in a weird way. It makes one feel better knowing that it wasn’t his mistake. I haven’t yet seen any glimpses or snapshots of miracles to start believing in that too, but Fate, I guess I just cant ignore it anymore! Not that I can do anything about it, like anyone can do anything about God, simply coz Fate infact, is God’s darker side, and as I said, the Master of unforgivable curses.

The World Needs a Super Hero!

The racist attacks in Aus on harmless Indian students whose only crime was to farewell in acads and in jobs, while the aussies weren’t as good, and were driven to this point merely by their own insecurities, is just shocking! I mean how lower could they fall? Feelings like these just don’t burst out suddenly! They must have been pent-up for ages! If they thought that Indians were such a competition, then why don’t they just work harder and prove that they are as good! How cheap is it to physically hurt an enemy (as if their feelings towards Indians aren’t obvious!), when he is, infact unarmed. But then I really cant help questioning the Indians either, as to why they still risk walking alone on Aus roads, or even don’t fight back(Oh no! I definitely did not mean the ‘Gandhian way’. See what happened? Even the Aus police are clearly against them.)
May be Indians should start going out in groups, be well armed and hurt the attacking racist mob back, so that they never dare hurt another Indian in their remaining life. I am definitely not suggesting starting a war. But walking away, beaten up by brainless jobless gits for no mistake of theirs is as shameful too, and does infact portray Indians as soft and easy targets as they claim! If we are not as soft and cowardly as they say, then SHOW THEM! If the Aus govt doesn’t see a problem arising at all, if they really are deaf and blind to the obviousness of the situation, then they are playing an active part in the racist movement too. Why don’t they just gather their balls and jus tell the Indians to leave their country alive, and outright?
And here are our dear politicians, walking, talking and thinking in slow motion! Well, obviously, if they take immediate steps, even though people would benefit, they’ll also forget it as fast. The men-in-power want the whole issue to blow up as much as possible so that when they actually do something, they will be able to flaunt it in next elections and gain votes. They are just making news and talking a lot, just like the post-26/11 attacks.
Now that issue is even more ridiculous. Kasab’s trial, his sneering jeering comments and smirks over the accusations, with our dear darling Indian police and military wiping his dribble and washing his poop and feeding him with nutritious diet, when people like him and the masterminds like Hafiz Mohammad Saeed who has actually been acquitted and freed of all charges, don’t deserve a fair/unfair trial at all! All they deserve is to be executed publicly, right on the Rajpath, in front of the India Gate. That would show the terrorists where they stand and what their fate will be if they even so much as set foot on Indian soil with any wrong ideas. But they know just as we do, that Indian politicians are spine-less useless softie-pants who would even bear seeing poor helpless Indians suffer, but never have the heart to give terrorists what they deserve. Even they know how corrupt the post-bearing people are, how corruption starts from the lowest levels and how high all these things run and how Indian politicians are highly predictable and over-ride the military, and can really be taken for-granted. They know that they can get away with anything, without as much as even a scratch on them!
The past few days, have been really horrid, not only in our country. Over 2,000 civilians massacred in Srilanka, even after the war was clearly over, suicide bombs in parts of Somalia and Pak, financial crisis all over the world; Yesterday and today kind of reaching the peak, in all parts of the world. A lot of people have suffered physically and mentally and psychologically. Air France crash taking down around 228 people along with it, their bodies never to be found, about 35 people dead in a bus crash, drowned in Chambal lake, over 400 teenagers taken hostage by the Taliban (who have now been released though, but imagine the plight of parents when their home-returning kinds are in the hands of the mercy-less terrorists!), GM going belly-up leading to a possible unemployment of over thousands, students protesting and suiciding over the smallest of issues like tests and marks.
My mom said that it was high time ‘Kalki’ came to the rescue of humans, or there might not be left any in the future. Kalki is the tenth avatar of Lord Vishnu, who is prophesied to come riding on a horse back, to the rescue of the innocent from the hands of modern-day asuras. Now when they had prophesied this, they might not have thought of predicted the emergence of sophisticated motorized vehicles. But you know what I think? I think ‘Kali’ is simply a super-hero, who could have fallen from a ‘Krypton’ or simply has billions of money and a brave heart to use it against criminals. Kali could emerge from a space-ship or a limousine or a horse-back (as predicted). But right now, the world could really use a Superman!

Out-of-Ordinary

Here is me, in this mundane world, hoping and wishing for titanic adventurous miracles to happen- for a Godzilla to walk through the streets (I know- a lot of people’s lives might be destroyed, but what the hell!), or a meteor shower with a space ship from Krypton (a lot of meteor freaks might emerge, but it could be good entertainment!), or a volcano to erupt somewhere close(I know- I am turning into a sadist!), or for me to by-mistake slip into the volcano’s crest to reach the center of the Earth (hey! I am not all that graceful, you see..), or find a car which would take me to the past/future at 88 Km/Hr (yeah yeah, highly unimaginable, but I can still hope, right?), or for me to walk through a closet into the monster world(alright! I am not as small or as cute, but I am not scared of ghosts either!), or the queen of Genovea declaring me to be the princess of genovea, the next heir to the thrown :P( I so wish even more for the handsome romantic duke), or for me to discover that I am actually a witch, and get an invite to attend schooling at Hogwarts( fine! I might be too old for school.. but it I can still learn to use a wand!), or fall in love with a vampire(then, life wouldn’t be more exciting!!) , or for me to discover that I had a special ability(may be the healing power :)), or for atleast Kolangal/Kalasam/Solla than nineikiren/Kasthuri to end(Like that’s gonna happen!!). Sigh.. There is no limit to what a person can dream, now is there?!? But hey! Don’t get me all wrong! I am not a terrorist, wanting to hurt people. Just think that I could use some real adventure and some excitement in the world! That’s all. :)

Subtlety Issues

Now that I am home and pretty jobless, I seem to have loads of time to spend. Not too unusual as its just like any other vacation, in fact summer hols used to last for about 3 months! The only difference is that now, I know that I am definitely not returning back to campus, and have no sense of purpose, as of now. Disturbing though it may be, that doesn’t change the fact that I still have the entire days and sleepless nights to kill (I am mostly insomniac. I sleep only once in 2-3 days, that too during early mornings or noons only! :P Old habits die hard, I guess.). So, now I am into watching movies and a few dumb weepy illogical storyless tamil serials on TV. Well, living with 3 adults who could compromise anything but tamil serials for me, I don’t have much of a choice, considering the fact that I m kinda taking it slow in watching all the movies and series I got from d campus due to fear of running out of them. :D Nevertheless, I watch re-runs of a few of the old fantasy movies and Smallville now and then, when I get too sick of TV. Seriously, they hardly screen anything watchable. But occasionally, a few good ones do get shown, for which I fight for happily and watch.

But if there is anything that I have realized, it is that it is too damn hard to watch a good movie in a house with 3 adults!! One kissing scene and I HAVE TO CHANGE THE CHANNEL! Else THEY WILL!!! If no one does, then there will me my dad giving me looks of disapproval, my mom giving me shocked looks that say, ”Oh my! Why is she watching such movies? Doesn’t she have anything good left in her? Has Pilani taken them all away?!?” and then she would get up and walk away, careful not to make eye contact. But there would me my paati (grand mom), sitting with a smirk on her face, looking at me to check out my reaction. Now she would have loads to talk to the relatives!! You can actually see her hiding her wicked grin and turning away, shaking her head, and nonverbally exclaiming,” Oh!! So this is what she has been upto all these years away from home! Watching indecent movies! Kids these days! :D”. What would they even say if they had a son and they caught them watching porn! Sigh! After all this, anyone would just want to give up on them, switch the channel to some weepy tamil serial, and just LEAVE! Grr.

In our country, ‘falling in love’ with a fellow student/colleague itself is a sin in itself. Expressing it is a crime worth punishing! Absolutely unforgivable!! The whole world believes that marriage is a leap taken by two people in so much love with one another, who wish to spend their entire lives together, a celebration of bonding, a declaration of until-death-do-us-part. The whole world but ours! Here, the whole definition of marriage is different, bonding oneself to a stranger/acquaintance, chosen by one’s parents based on the words of a stranger who draws squares and ‘predicts the future’, so that the two married strangers can live a ‘happily-ever-after’. Outside world-“We are in love, eventually married”. Indian version-“We are married, hence in love”. Why are people here so afraid of expressing love? So uncomfortable of watching even movies that show a girl n a guy holding hands? I do understand the awkwardness in watching your close friends/relatives making out in front of you (have seen a few friends do and felt nauseated), but well, some of the current so-called subtlety rules over watching a nice-sweet-cute-romantic movie really bothers me! Hmph!

The Man in Dhoti

We were in the library- oh yeah! I go there once in a while. Had to start working on thesis some time before the end of the sem! Well, as I was saying, we, as in a group of 5, had gone to library to ‘research’ on our topic. I had never even touched such huge books in my entire life! Well, the whole research expedition was more like a drill exercise assignment, but did it with enthu nonetheless. There was another girl, sitting in the only comp in that room, referring a number of journals and typing her report. At around 5 pm, a man in around late 50s, wearing a old shirt and a dhoti went to her and asked how much more time she was going to take. She assumed that he was the caretaker or possibly the librarian and said that she would take more than an hour more. He then asked her if he could use the comp just for 10 minutes to check his mails and scraps as he wouldn’t be able to wait for an hour, for his duty was over. We were all shocked!! I whispered to the girl sitting next to me about his guts to openly ask someone who was using it for academic purposes, to check mails, and how atrocious it was! Well, they guys who were sitting on the other site were sniggering! I gave them a quizzical look, n they asked, ”Did you see that? Its funny enough that that guy knows to read and write and type. But its funnier that he has an email account, an active one too, and an orkut account!! We were just wondering the people in his friend-list!” Well, though it was rude of them to think so, I couldn’t help join them, thinking of how important his mails/scraps could be if he had to check them in a ‘library’ and that too couldn’t even wait till the next day’s duty when the comp was empty, and actually borrowed it from a poor studious student!! But well, we shouldn’t be judging anyone by their looks/age/dress… right? ;)

A picture-perfect morning

Today, I woke up with a wide smile on my lips. It is raining after a really really long time- the first after the long period of bitter cold; and there is a break in the clouds, through which the warm rays of the sun are flowing down to earth. The climate here today is so beautiful, so gloomy yet so delightful, and the place itself is so wonderful, so colorful and marvelously picturesque with a few peacocks dancing(well, actually just flapping their wings & feathers n circling, and coming in the way of people who are walking or running late to classes, and the peahens actually seem to run away scared! :P). And here I am sitting on my bed, cozily snuggled under two quilts, drinking hot tea, not thinking or worrying about anything, looking outside (and yes, typing in the side too :P), wishing this romantic moment could be paused and a ‘5-D snapshot’ (1^st ,2^nd & 3^rd dimensions being x, y & z co-ordinates, the 4^th being time and 5^th being my state of mind) could be taken, digitalized and saved. :)

Back to heaven

Well… here I am, back in college campus for this semester- my last semester in the prestigious institute BITS, Pilani. In train, my bay was filled with weirdoes! All of them! A guy in early 30s braying all the time, a 50 yr old who played really loud masala music from 7am apparently to keep us entertained and kept ‘trying’ to help me, an uncle who kept boasting about his profession related to film industry n all, a kiddo who loved plugging his ipod into his ears and singing aloud, 3 middle aged freaks in the next bay who kept staring at me all through the journey (to such an extent that twice I went to the bathroom to check in the mirror if something was stuck on my face!), no no- 2 were staring, one was infact glaring for some reason; a couple of romancing teenagers who slept together all through the journey- no they never came down from the upper berth unnecessarily, grandpas sitting below who were frowning on them, and a huge bunch of muslim-orthodox uncles in the bay on the other side of mine who played urdu prayers most of the day and took turns in doing namaz in the small place. On the whole, the journey wasn’t remotely pleasing, a lonely 40hr day train travel (delayed due to dense fog), then a bumpy tiring 8hr bus journey from Delhi to Pilani, with a bloody cold climate and fog so thick that I couldn’t see my own hand when I stretched it out, n the bus was running at the speed of an old man walking with a stick!! I finally reached the campus and the one n only Meera Bhawan (the only girl’s hostel) to find that someone else was already in the room allotted to me! Then it was about 10.30pm when I managed to convince my warden that the room was occupied n that I was roomless on a bitterly cold night and all the issues were sorted and I was given another room. Then I went to C’Not and packed some food n came walked back with a friend, and it sank in my head- I was finally back! It was so peaceful, so blissful, so wonderfully calming to be walking through Shivji! I missed the place so damn much! The next day I went to the institute and there it was, standing as majestically as ever- The Clock Tower! It was as if I had never left! The registration was very simple since I hardly had any courses. But I did meet a number of old friends n juniors, who on seeing me, came over n enquired about my PS. Well, I was glad I was wrong. I did have a lot of friends here n I shall make new ones too. But yes, it wasn’t and will never be the same without my old friends. I am sure it is going to be different in every aspect. Nevertheless I have decided to enjoy my psenti-sem to the fullest possible though 522, 588, 454, 785, 448, 183, 351, 096, 536, 003, 256 will all surely be missed.

The Perfect Guy

Yesterday, I was stranded in the heavy traffic under the scorching sun, irritated as I was, I started looking at the people around, trying to analyze what they were doing to spend the time wasted on the roads while waiting for the damned vehicles in front to move. There was an old man sleeping on the steering wheel on each halt. Wow tats neither good for him or the people around or interesting for me, I thought. Then my eyes landed on a cute girl, who was wearing nail polish in each signal! Now that’s what people call EFFECTIVE TIME UTILIZATION! Then finally my eyes landed on someone, and couldn’t move away after! I saw this tall young handsome guy, with tanned skin tone, with a well maintained body, I must say, with… how do I put it… uh.. really manly wrists and hands with nerves being seen conspicuously on them (he was wearing a full hand shirt, so could see only till his wrists, you see); clean shaven, nice haircut- not too short, not too long, not shabby, not oiled or gelled, just perfectly casual hair, sitting in an elegant posture in the passenger seat of a cab. There was something about his eyes. They were so beautiful, so sad, staring at an infinite point thoughtfully, oblivious to the burning sun or the noisy traffic. They were so warm and attractive that I just couldn’t look away! Then the traffic moved on and so did our respective vehicles, and we again halted at the same relative positions in the next few signals. I was here, trying not to look in his direction in vain, n he was there gazing at infinity, unaware of the real world screaming and honking around him. In one of the signals, his head jerked and he came to the present, and started looking around, trying to remember where he was and why, when whose beautiful thoughtful caught mine looking at him!!! I immediately swore at myself n looked away. In the next signal, I couldn’t resist one stealthy look to check if he was still in this world or went off to his own again. Shockingly, he was still in the present one, LOOKING AT ME, with a faint smile on his lips!!! Now wait! I am not really sure if he was in the present world or not. For all I know, he might have gone into tat floating world of his, n Incidentally, I might have been tat infinite point he could have been gazing! But before I could ponder more on this, his damn driver turned left in that fateful signal and my driver, who was infact my Dad, turned right. Well, cant really blame him, now can I? But thank God my Dad didn’t know about any of this coz otherwise, I m sure he would have decided to turn right way before that signal!!! :D

Aah well, atleast I got the chance to look at the ‘perfect guy’ for a few minutes, and got the proof that such guys DO exist in the non-model non-movie non-fictious world afterall!

My Message...

Yesterday, we were asked to observe a moment of silence and pray for Mumbai and its people, and for this craziness to stop. When all of it was actually going on, i used to watch the news to see the extent of damage, sympathize and feel sad. But yesterday, in those 2 minutes of silence, i suddenly remembered a small choir song which we were taught in our primary school. For some wierd reason, i thought i should post it here, as MY MESSAGE. It goes this way...

Its a world of laughter
A world of play
Its a world of joy
And a world so gay
Its a world far and wide
Though the oceans divide
It's a small world after all
It's a small world after all
It's a small world after all
It's a small world after all
It's a small, small world

Its a world of plenty
And world of space
Its a world of variety of human race
Its a world far and wide
Though the boundries divide
It's a small world after all
It's a small world after all
It's a small world after all
It's a small world after all
It's a small, small world

There is just one moon
And one golden sun
And a smile means
Friendship to everyone
Though the mountains divide
And the oceans are wide
It's a small world after all
It's a small world after all
It's a small world after all
It's a small world after all
It's a small, small world

With blacks and whites
And browns everywhere
With plenty of foods
And drinks to share
Its a world far and wide
Let love be our guide
It's a small world after all
It's a small world after all
It's a small world after all
It's a small world after all
It's a small, small world

It's a world of laughter
A world of tears
It's a world of hopes
And a world of fears
There's much that we share
That it's time we're aware
It's a small world after all
It's a small world after all
It's a small world after all
It's a small world after all
It's a small, small world...