Something and All

15 minutes

2010-12-19T07:27:00.001-08:00

It struck me while I was tap-tap-tapping my foot waiting for the lift to reach my floor, the other day. There I was, staring at my watch, a little irritated that the bus had reached 15 minutes late. And as the numbers changed slowly in the lift display I kept thinking about all that I had to do, all that would be delayed by the late arrival of the bus. I was getting more and more irritated. And then as the lift and my frustration both reached the peak, something happened, with a ‘ding’. The lift door opened. And it had struck me that I was so irritated, so early, on such a beautiful morning. No wonder things would keep going wrong if I kept this up. I would ruin entirely what would potentially be a good day because of 15 minutes of irritation. Was it really worth it?

It kept me thinking, that thought about how much frustration I picked up from small things. My slow computer. Lifts not arriving on time. Queues at lunch. I really couldn’t help any of these things and yet they’d get me so bothered. And I have read a lot of articles and books, as you have, I’m sure, about the importance of letting go. Why not to get frustrated if there is nothing you can do and so on. But seriously, I have tried deep breathing. I have tried clearing my mind. I have tried a lot of things. And mostly still felt like screaming like a banshee. I wonder how many people can really put all these seemingly excellent theories to practice when the moment really comes. In any case I needed a different solution. Yes I was going to get frustrated. As I sailed through my day I was going to pick up all that flotsam and jetsam of annoyance and botheration. I just had to deal with it.

And so I came up with this plan. 15 minutes. Exactly the same time that it took to get me all wound up in the first place. I decided to take out 15 minutes for myself. When nothing seemed to be going right I would pick up my mug and brew myself some tea and watch the traffic of toy cars on the expressway through my steam fogged glasses. I would listen to a couple of my favorite songs on my iPod. Or read a few pages of the book I always keep on my desk in the hope of reading. Or even just put my head down and just sit and clear my head.

It amazed me. I started to feel so much better. Problems didn’t seem so big anymore. And even if they did I felt like I could handle them. At first I did have a problem. I kept thinking ‘No I cannot take a break I simply cannot. I do not have 15 minutes to spare. This work is simply interminable and I need every minute I can get. I need to work faster. Not take a break’. (But seriously, if it’s so interminable then its really not going to finish in the next 15 minutes is it?)

I suppose we have forgotten what it is to slow down. We actually accelerate through the amber traffic signal. In a world that exhorts speed we have forgotten the importance of taking a little time. And in reality I understand that there is not that much time to take long vacations. To stop. So go on and at least hit the ‘Pause’ button of your life. Take those 15 minutes for yourself…Hopefully you’ll feel the magic too.

Mumbai Trip

2010-12-19T06:29:00.000-08:00

A few days ago life had gotten to the point where I put my head in my hands and groaned ‘I need a vacation’. Things seemed to be going wrong faster than I could deal with them. I mean an embarrassment a week is a normal life situation for me. But when I start pinging people their own name in communicator prefixed with the words ‘who is…’ or when I have a clipboard malfunction and send a teammate a part of a friend’s email instead of the error message he was expecting...I put my head in my hands and think ‘Vacation in order’.

You will understand that there is a major difference between wanting a vacation and actually taking one. So I had filed this much needed vacation under the mental folder ‘Wishful Thinking of the Tired Mind’ and was pounding my frustrations away on the hapless keyboard as usual when my friend from college called to say ‘What do you think of visiting Nandita in Mumbai sometime this month?’. I said yes without even asking when, why or how. One thing led to another and I found myself early one freezing Thursday morning staring groggily out of the airplane window at the rising sun and then it hit me. I was on vacation.

So began the great Mumbai trip. I reached Mumbai and was just battling the heat and humidity when my friend waved a neatly printed sheet in my face. It was actually a list of places to visit and things to do that she had printed out. (I also have friends who make and send excel sheets asking which food court we want to have lunch during the week). After jumping into and out of 3 different modes of transport we ended up at Colaba causeway. And hungry and tired that we were we walked into this charming place called Mondegar’s (this was in our list incidentally). As we ate and drank our way through the discussions on what we had been doing in the past 8 months we discovered quite a few things. Like the fact that gay man at the next table was wearing the same t-shirt that my friend. I doubt that shirt is ever coming out of the closet…

Evening found us sitting at Marine Drive listening to music on my phone, eating channa, drinking tea. We remembered our college times. An incident in particular when Nandita and I lay down on our backs in the middle of Ramya’s living room and sang Chasing Cars by Snow Patrol. I suppose for some reason reminiscing was not enough and so there we were, on our backs, staring at the night sky, singing ‘If I lie here, If I just lay here….’ It’s amazing the kind of things you do with your friends and not feel stupid about. I mean, would you otherwise feel its ok to sing the song ‘Sheela ki Jawani’ loudly in a taxi? Or pose like an Egyptian painting in the middle of KFC just because you bought Egyptian sandals? I thought not.

One night we went to this lounge called 21 degree Farenheit. It’s all made of ice. The seats, the walls, the tables… And for some reason people (including us) think it’s fun to drink ice cold drinks in this place. As if it’s not enough that we’re freezing from the outside, we want to freeze on the inside. I am coming up with this theory that a temperature of -6 degree centigrade slowly kills brain cells. This is the only explanation I have for the crazy bet that was put by Sushma to Nandita and me. To be fair I’d say Nandita and I had a much higher brain cell death rate because we actually completed the bet. We licked the ice wall. It’s a wonder that our tongue didn’t stick to it. I have recurring nightmares now of being escorted out with my tongue attached to an ice brick.

Other good times include our visit to the comedy store. Standing like ghosts around a man at a table, on the beach and frightening him into finding another table. Eating chat till we would have burst with another mouthful.

What I would not recommend however is jumping into a train that has started moving. I was the last one to get in and I actually got hit in the shoulder by the train as I did this amazing stunt. Yes you’ll tell me that people do that on an everyday basis in Mumbai. But for a Bangalorean it’s still an amazing stunt. It was a while before I got over that shock. And Sushma and Nandita carefully herded me into all other trains following this so I have nothing to complain about. If ever you do this, however, take care to not make the mistake I did. Do not tell your mother. Mothers do not understand the spirit of adventure in such ‘amazing stunts’.

And so on it went till I arrived in Bangalore sleep deprived and almost dead from exhaustion. And in a coffee induced fervor I decided to come to office. I remember that some important things were said to me that day though I simply cannot recall them. What I can recall though is the single thought that was on my mind that day-‘ I need a vacation to recover from this vacation’.

Life's like that...

2010-10-15T21:57:00.000-07:00

Its been 6 months that I have been working in Bangalore now. And I remember the first question that all the girls asked me. Over the communicator and on the phone. From the office mails and to the Facebook wall it was the single question on their lips... "So are there any cute guys at work?"

And my invariable answer would be "No". Or rather "No. :( :( :( :( " . (Just so you know the feeling correctly.)

Anyway this went on for months, and because they were questioning me so much I thought let me see. Maybe I was missing something. After all there cant be so many thousand people working in this place and not a single cute guy. Its against every law of probability. And math is the one thing you can trust to be consistent. Right? Wrong. I looked in the food courts, on the streets, in other peoples cubicles and in the buses. No sign of the cute guys. I was beginning to doubt the infallibility of math...

And then there was the day. The evening to be precise. When I was hurrying toward my building in the fading light, when the stars were just beginning to wink on. There I was phone held to the ear,balancing a cup of corn in one hand and a bag in the other, walking fast toward the sliding glass doors. Now at this point I would like to tell you, even before you have that doubt, that I did in fact see the doors. Mirror-like, shiny and...closed. I would also like to point out that these doors are the automatically opening type that swoosh open like magic when you get close enough to them. And so I walked on, not breaking my stride, expecting the magic to work as expected. But no.

I don't know whether I was too fast or the door too slow (I prefer the latter explanation) but the next thing I know is that I have banged my nose and hand hard against the glass. As if that were not insulting enough I look down at my hand to see the paper cup of corn look like...well it looked like it had been banged hard against a glass door. I did the only thing that most normal people would do. I looked around to see how many people had witnessed this embarrassing moment. Just when I was about to heave a sigh of relief, I spotted him. He who I had not seen in all the preceding 6 months of futile searching. There he was, standing with his phone held away from his ear looking like he had just said into the phone "Wait a sec I just saw a girl walk headlong into a glass door". And he said to me"Are you all right?". I was mortified to say the least. I mumbled "I'm fine, thanks" and ran in through the doors (which had by then mercifully opened) all the while hoping that he had not gotten a good enough look at my face...

All the people to whom I have told this story have given me countless and imaginative suggestions on how I should have handled the situations. My most favorite is "But you should have fallen into a dead faint when he said that. Then he'd have had to call the ambulance and take you to the doctor!". But I didn't and so I don't know who he is. I just wish I had seen him in better circumstances so I could have taken a proper look...or sneaked a look at his ID (pathetic but true).

I'm left wondering what I should do to see him again. And a small voice inside says "C'est la vie Sharma...Life's that that".

PS: He restored my faith in math though. :P

Songs..

2010-10-13T10:17:00.000-07:00

Its amazing how much a song can bring back. When the first strains of a song you used to love tickles your ears and brings that smile on your face... It all comes rushing back- the people, the places and the feelings... I was sitting in the car on a hot Sunday afternoon feeling not a little low when the radio chose to play Iktara.

"Ore manva tu toh baavra hai....Tu hi jaane tu kya sochta hai"

I remembered waking up at 12.30 in the night, during my Mysore training days and feeling walking. And so I had hopped out of bed and out into the foggy night. I remember seeing the fog highlighted into visibility under the bright street lamps, the smell of the rain in the air...the soft crunch of my sneakers on the concrete, the people all walking in the opposite directions towards their rooms...

"Jo barse sapne boondh boondh...Naino ko moondh moondh"

I remember seeing the rain fall through the glass panel in the door. Listening to the soothing sound of it over the drone of the classroom. I remember going out in the break to sit on the window and watch it make the grass greener and the hear the patter of it on the granite. I can feel the cool spray of it on my skin. I remember the horrible coffee that I drank in a green plastic glass. I remember listening to this song on my iPod and thinking of someone.

"Kaise main chaloon, dekh na sakoon, anjaane raaste"

Memories come back to me of the times I used to get frustrated with the work and run away to the Gazebo and watch the sky slowly darken while blowing the steam off my coffee (Coffee Day. There's only so much yucky coffee one can drink!). I remember missing home and calling mom as I sat there watching the smoke-blurred people in the smoking zone. Hearing about the delicious dinners while I threw the greasy remains of a samosa in the dustbin. I remember wanting more than anything to be at home...

"Goonja sa hai koi Iktara Iktara... Goonja sa hai koi Iktara"

I remember singing this song up on the podium of my empty classroom. I remember my friends smiling indulgently back at me as I near massacred the song. I remember even smiling for a video of it. I remember thinking "Oh Wow, I survived this". I remember listening to it in the car when my family came to take me back from Mysore. I remember the smile that slowly widened as the miles between me and Mysore slowly increased...

And that's how I found myself smiling again. And suddenly it came back to me that I have a lot of things to be happy about. Life has its downs, yes, but its sad how soon we forget the good times. Because there's a fair share of them too if you can just remember them. So play your favorite song and find what you have forgotten. :)

Slaves of Routine?

2010-09-01T01:52:00.001-07:00

I have a lot of time these days to think. 3 hours almost. Not much I can do in the bus really when I can't read and am unable to fall asleep. So I just listen to music, or stare out the window and...think.

Here's a thought for you to think about...

I remember wondering, as a kid, about why people sleep on only their side of the bed. And then I observed that my mom or dad did that too when the other was not there. I used to think it's a waste of a nice big bed and if it were me I'd sleep right in the middle with my arms and legs spread out, or just roll in the blankets from this end to the other....

And the thought struck me that I never did do that. Now I too sleep only on my side of the bed. Even when I have the whole bed to roll in. Just to fulfill that childhood fantasy I tried sleeping bang in the middle of it and wondered...why did I ever think this would be fun?

Now that I think of it, we really are creatures of habit. In Mysore when I was in training, we were a classroom full of people. As people left the room started becoming emptier. The spaces between two people grew. People were okay with yelling out their thoughts to the person who was 10 seats away but would not agree to move and sit next to him or her. On asking they'd protest with "No...This is my place. I don't want to move. Ask him/her to move"

What is it with us? Why are we so resistive to the smallest of changes? Why do we not jump headlong into fun?

Maybe that's what they mean by holding on to your childhood. When you can sleep in the middle of your bed with more blankets than you need and roll...and think it's fun.

Ah,those times

2009-03-20T10:14:00.000-07:00

Have you ever wondered how it is always moments in your life that you were highly embarrassed or scared witless are the ones you will remember even after many years?The stuff that you'll write in scrapbooks for memory.Those are the things you will talk to your friends about and laugh like loonies.

Remember when we got caught by the cops for the unforgivable sin of having dinner and going back home late?how they wouldn't let us go and wanted to talk to our parents?How we called up our friends to pose as parents which ended up in comic situations like kannadiga parents with malayali children?
Never mind that we were scared witless at the time.Scary almost always turns into funny once you're out of it!

Remember the time I said Thank God in prayer and raised both palms up in His direction as part of the conversation we were having in Field theory class that the teacher saw and asked "what does that mean?Tell me what that expression you were doing with your hands means".
Till date the entire class thinks I showed him the finger.Although if that was the case I'm sure there would've been no doubt as to what that meant!

Remember the time when the Lancer with the blue taillights chased us on that empty road?
That totally tops my list of scary situations.I think it'll take a few more years for that to become slightly funny.

Remember the time we talked so loudly about baboon guy that his friends actually wrote him a testimonial that mentioned what all we'd said? We still cannot look the guy in the eyes and keep a straight face.As for him lets just say he's taken to wearing kurtas and not shirts...

Remember the time I was asked in Power Electronics,"what will happen if i don't give gate pulse to a thyristor?" and I stood there muttering brilliantly a series of ahhhs and ummms when he said "It will go to sleep just like you".
In my defence it was 2pm on a hot summer afternoon with no electricity.oh who cares.I was dreaming happy dreams.I'm not apologetic!

Remember the time you idiots,my so called "friends" introduced me to SG and then proceeded to send him lame texts from my phone which included 'remember me,we met in S's house?'
At best he thinks I have a crush on her.Thats being optimistic.I'd bet he thinks I'm a crazy,desperate,stalker female who has to resort to asking her friends to set her up.
You'll all be lucky if I ever find that funny!

See?I dont remember much the really fun things that happened,though there are a lot of them.Its just these things,that,at the point of them happening you wouldn't mind forgetting.Now you just go ah...those times! :)

Haircut

2009-03-20T09:30:00.000-07:00

A few weeks ago I got this new summer haircut because hot summer+long hair=high level irritation, at least for me.So off it went and i'm all comfortable and happy.But whats more fun than the haircut is people's reactions to it.There's this single moment between the time they see it to the time they give fake compliments thats really worth seeing.the italics indicate the stuff that i'm not saying. :P

Reaction #1: (eyes so wide you'd think I'd shaved my head bald)
You cut your hair?
*brilliant,holmes*
It looks...er....different.
(at which point i ask if its good different or bad)
Its...er...different (This always means bad and they're trying to be polite)
(Then they see my rather sad expression and they try to make me feel better)
It suits you though!
(extra bright cheer up smile)

Reaction #2: (sad expression).(forever).
Why'd you cut your hair?
(beautiful mixture of sadness,pain,shock and pity in one single expression ,you'd think I cut off their hair...)

Reaction #3:You look like a fairy doll.
(yes you know who you are who said this...)
*What what what is a fairy doll?Is it a fairy?A doll?A doll who is a fairy?vice versa?what??*

Reaction #4: (These are the ones who should be up there receiving oscars)
You cut your hairrrr!It lookks so goodddd! It totally suits you!!! Even I need a haircut..where'd you cut it?
(roughly about a million questions to which they don't care for answers)

Of course there are the people who genuinely like it,or the ones who frankly say they liked my longer hair better.That second category consists mostly of guys.What it is with guys and their obsession with girls with long hair I will never know.And if I ask,their most clear and informative reply would be "its...its..".So if any of you figure it out,let me know. :)

Meanwhile get a haircut.Its really amusing if nothing else and it'll grow right back so what have you got to lose 9other than a few hundred bucks)? :P

Morning Walk

2009-02-09T20:58:00.000-08:00

The dreaded phenomenon which I am sure is the cause of at least 60 percent of the young population's presence in Sankey Tank happed to me,two weeks ago.This is a very common phenomenon that occurs with alarming frequency about twice a week and afflicts most of the people i know.Since it yet doesn't have a name i shall simply explain it to you...

Its called 'Oh no my jeans have become tight'.In this,you take a freshly washed and pressed pair of jeans and try wearing it but suddenly they don't fit.If someone can please explain to me how jeans shrink when you wash and iron them and how they loosen out (a bit) when you wear them,please tell me.A severe case is when you wear them,but mysteriously they still don't loosen out.At this point you need to take emergency measures and hit the nearest park or Sankey tank in my case and pray the jeans fit again.But of course you tell people you're just shifting to a more healthy lifestyle or some such.Thats completely alright.

The good part is there are some people who look so good they really don't need to exercise but are there anyway.Its what keeps me going,really.Yes I mean you,really hot guy... ;)

The bad part is that my mom and me have pretty loud voices which become louder when we have to prove a point.And for some reason she finds very controversial things to talk about during our morning walk which involves arguments in sufficiently high decibels as to grab eyeballs within a radius of about 6 feet.This sometimes also includes ducks.Though its very restful for us I'm sure a lot of people are going home and saying 'the kind of people who come to the lake these days...bah' and other such complimentary things...

Unfortunately walking has made me eat ever more than before.Now i'm all 'anyway i'm going to walk,what does this piece of chocolate cake matter?'.'Oh i'll walk a bit extra tomorrow,let me finish those potato chips'.You get the picture.End result? Jeans still don't fit.

Who said exercise is good for health?Take it from me,its not.Sleep till 10.30 am and you'll have lesser time to eat and you'll lose more weight. :)

Temple troubles

2008-11-09T21:56:00.000-08:00

I have no objection to going to temples.Its just that I don't like going to ones where my mom knows nearly all the people who go there.I mean one has come to pray after all,and if one is forced to make polite conversation with obnoxious aunts and uncles i'm sure God would understand if I said I'll pray from home itself.But my mother ,as all mothers are,refuses to accept this logical explanation.

"Wear salwar kameez.No not that one.That other nice one. (This is invariably some jhing thing which will not give me the hide-in-the-crowd anonymity i want) So many nice nice salwars you have,yet you wear only that one thing.Even when it was new it looked old and now... (sighs,melodramatically and generally has a long suffering expression till i capitulate)

You would think this is enough to make her happy.No.The torture is never ending.One day i decided to make her happy and tied my hair in a neat ponytail,put bangles and a bindi.Here i was expecting a little bit of happiness from her.What did i get?

"Is that a bindi?Cant you put a nice bigger bindi?This looks like a fly's leg."

Bah! I gave up.

As it is my temper is on a very short fuse on the way to the temple.I sit quietly and decide not to pick a fight.But no.

"Can't you smile a little?Always frowning you are.No wonder people are afraid of you"

Depending on my mood I let that slide or have a full blown fight that results in two unsmiling faces reaching the temple.By then I feel somewhat bad at fighting and being rude and decide to be extra nice and polite to everyone.Which is easier said than done.

Because my scary face,which seems to deter every guy i'd like to come up and talk to me,perversely seems to attract aunties with sons they need married off.After surreptitiously staring at me while talking to someone else they come up to ma and me and give exceedingly bright smiles and say-

"oh this is your daughter is it? (look at me closely up and down) hmmm... what are you doing ma now? (i reply) final year is it.hmmm. my son did MS in US.now he is working in blah blah (looking pointedly at my mom and giving strange sly smile) please tell if you know any good girl..." (i'm looking murderously at some poor jasmine flowers hanging by the door...)

There is just no escape.Everywhere i try to roam and hide I am assailed by conversations of who married out of the community,whose husband bought new jewellery for his wife or how much some lady's saree costs...yadayadayada...

And I actually thought people go there to pray.

Saree tales

2008-11-09T21:41:00.000-08:00

The other day ma was holding out a saree and everyone else in the house was commenting on it...
"is it silk?i don't think so?"

"no no silk only it is,these days you get these light silks,they won't be like our old silks but silks only they are"
(saree is passed around from person to person,followed by comments like yes yes silk,no no pa.I just give a very bewildered expression drawing sympathetic smiles from cousins and resigned looks from aunts.)
Why it is so important in life to know all the types of silks and differentiate between them through touch alone is simply beyond me!
For some reason I am now expected to sit around and be polite and join in these inane conversations.It does not matter to them that i couldn't care less if it was sackcloth let alone silk.

I miss the younger days when i could just slip out of sight and no one would ask where I was until it was time to leave.To think that in those days I used to sometimes like to sit around and listen to them.And used to be sent out of the room.Life is full of these unfunny ironies.

Even as I sit there with the glazed look of one whose brain cells are committing suicide,the spirited discussion around me continues...

"see this pallu,such nice work it has"

"Is the blouse piece there?How is it?"

"My sister-in-law's sister has the saaame sari pa in blue with gold border.but this is only...aiyo Sneha has fallen asleep i think paapa..."

On knowing.And not.

2008-10-30T10:48:00.000-07:00

Ever thought you know everything or at least mostly everything about a person?Or had them all figured out in your head?And decided that yeah i know this person.Or better yet,that know this person better than others because this person is my friend?Because i do.Or i did.

There is this person whom i consider my friend.Well that was all before i read the blog.Apparently there was 3 yrs worth of blogging that i didn't even know about.I say this because i'd rather not say that i never thought to ask or find out.In my defense i have to say that if someone writes a blog and wants you to read it they should just tell you.So maybe by not telling me my friend was saying don't read it.I don't know.But i chanced upon it yesterday.

There was this whole new person out there that i didn't know inhabited the body of my friend.If that sounds creepy it is because that's what the experience was.Creepy.I didn't know that this person had so many problems and so many issues that i did not even know about.And i felt hurt.And somewhat sad.It made me think about me.I mean what does that say about me as a friend if my friends cant confide in me?What does it say about our friendship if i'm finding myself a stranger to their thoughts after 3 yrs of friendship.It makes me wonder if friendship should be put in double quotes.What if i thought this person was my good friend and it wasn't reciprocated?Have i made the biggest fool of myself?I spent the night thinking about these what ifs.

You know who you are.I have a lot of things to say to my friend.But i don't know what to say to you.

Lost!

2008-10-25T09:16:00.000-07:00

I will straightaway start by telling you that this post is about me lacking a sense of direction.Not in life (alright maybe!) but literally.I think there is this gene which is responsible for remembering roads and places and in general knowing where you are.And i don't have this gene.My internal compass is broken. :(

I have friends whom you can drop anywhere in Bangalore and they will correctly know the directions home.These are the people whom you can show the way to your house once and they will forever remember it.Me,i am fully capable of getting lost in my own neighborhood.I still don't know if my doctor is on 14th cross or 15th or whether it is the 3rd left or 4th.This is inspite of going for the 6 anti rabies shots that i had to take.(which is a story for another day).

Whenever guests call up to ask directions to my house i give mom the phone.
My mom gets irritated.Go with them and show them the way to your uncle's house,she says.I just go ummm errr and so on as the guests curiously stare at me.The truth is,I have forgotten the way.However much i try,and trust me i have,I just cannot remember the right way.And i dont want to get the guests lost.

I walk out of my friends houses and promptly start walking in what i am absolutely convinced is the right direction till my friends grab my arm and turn me around.I've tried making lame excuses saying I was just going to look at something and stuff but we all know the truth.They also know that if they tell me two alternate ways to reach their house i probably wont reach there at all.

Even yesterday we walked twice or thrice through the subway in IISc where we had gone to see their high voltage lab and I had no clue which side of the road I was or whether i was walking towards or away from CPRI.I'd probably have gone around in circles blissfully,convinced that I am on the way out.The conviction that i feel,even when the way is actually wrong is simply amazing!So maybe i should see what my gut feeling says,this thing we call instinct,and then turn and walk in the exact opposite direction...

My family and my friends have made jokes,they have laughed and teased ("How Sneha how how how can u forget the way there?You go there so often!") and now finally they have given up and accepted me just as i am.They have realised that saying "Its right from Anandrao circle" or "near indian express building" will only draw blank stares from me because unlike them i cannot picture those things in my mind.
Somehow they seem to understand stuff like that very well.You can just ask them where that road in front of that Cornerhouse goes and they will say "left will take you here and straight will take you there."What do they have in their heads?maps?More importantly where are mine?Aarrggh!
Everyone has understood that even after telling me hundred times i will still call them up and say I'm here and i need to go here.What should i do.I must say that they have the patience of angels!Specially R and C.Without them i can truly say i wouldn't be here! :)

Well thats me.You know whom not to call when you're lost.I'll probably get you lost-er! :P

Sankey Tank

2008-10-23T08:08:00.000-07:00

I was passing sankey tank today morning on my way to college.it looked so beautifully serene compared to the jumble of thoughts that were crashing around in my head and i had a momentary inpulse to just stop right there and let the peace wash away all those horrible thoughts in my head till i felt as smoothly calm as the surface of the lake.But better (or maybe worse,in retrospect) sense prevailed and i went to college.sigh.ironically there were no classes and i was left sitting in the canteen thinking wistfully of the lake.

I remember so many things about it.Going on those boats with ma and dad,sitting on the grass and eating ice cream...

And when they made that circular path to walk on i remember going on jogging sprees in which i would sometimes go upto 6 times around the path.never mind that i had screaming cramps in my leg the next day.

I remember the very hot joggers.And the ones who used to see my very hot friends and suddenly feel the need to do push ups...

I remember waking up early in the morning to go for walks and if u walk close to the railing you can actually hear the water lap lap lapping against the stones.its indescribably soothing.

I remember seeing the water levels slowly rise and drown the tiny islands.I remember seeing the tree tops disappear into the murky water a little bit each day.That was the end of the jogging path.

I remember how they dug it all up and re-made the path though it wasn't circular anymore.I remember them paving sections of it even as we walked around.

Of course there is bad stuff too.Like the time V,C and me couldn't eat our bhel puri after seeing the dead body they had fished out of the lake and the numerous suicides.I like to think of it as the place where S and me have spent many a boring afternoon discussing profound and mostly not so profound thoughts about life while munching on nippat masala and bhel puri.Or the place where i sit with mom and eat hot corn on the cob with streaming eyes.(i refuse to admit that the masala is too hot for me).Its the place where C,B,V and me sit and talk when we meet while seeing new colours in each sunset.Where we talk so loudly about inappropriate things and joggers give us dirty looks.Where my cousin used to try to feed my nephew as he stared at the giant bats that circled around..As you can see i can go on and on and on.

Its a beautiful setting in which to make memories.So grab someone,go alone whatever.Just go take a walk!

Creepy old man

2008-10-16T08:45:00.000-07:00

A couple of days ago i was in coffee day in sigma mall when i saw a familiar face.This is not the kind of familiar where u keep staring at them and they keep staring at you until one of you figures out where you saw the other and then smile weakly.No.This was not that.What i saw whas a creepy old man.Yeah.What,you might ask was this old man doing in coffee day of all places.I still don't know.Not that there is anything wrong with it but you would agree its not the kind of thing old men do.All i know is that i have seen him sitting alone in coffee day near college,where he came up to me and my friends and asked us for our phone numbers,in daily bread near my place,in coffee day in sadashivnagar, and in pizza hut where the lady serving us said he'd crashed some kid's birthday party.He wanted birthday cake apparently and he didnt even know the kid.But i could put all this is just a waitress wanting to talk to someone about a strange old man who sat there all day and just ordered one piece of dessert.Then this creepy man comes up to our table and says to us "I am a face reader.And you girls are going to become really famous.Like Sonia Gandhi." Exactly how is one supposed to react to that? I didnt know,so i didn't.React i mean.Then he just went away and sat at his table while my friends and me wore identical what-the-hell expressions and the waitress shot us sympathetic looks.Creepy old man.

Yellow

2008-10-16T08:21:00.000-07:00

Before i begin i would like to say that i personally dont hate the colour.But it is sort of getting to me.I'm sure you don't want to know why but here is the story nevertheless because i realised i haven't written anything here in a bit so might as well bore you,jobless person that you anyway are to be reading this in the first place. :P
Early today morning i decided to have tea on my terrace.Not that i do this everyday beacuse i hate mornings in general and cold damp ones in particular.But yeah for some reason i did.There i was sitting on the makeshift bench looking here there,shivering,thinking ah what a lovely morning and other such thoughts when the house across the street made me choke.on hot tea mind you.Breaking into the blue (alright alright greyish white) skies was this monstrosity of a yellow building.Last i saw it was a nice sober cream colour,befitting the nice sober neighbourhood that it is.But now suddenly it was yellow.With blue trimmings for contrast.I was just getting over my shock when i looked at the next one.through an open window i could see into a shoebox of a room and there it was.An orange wall.Bright screaming will-cause-eye-damage orange.with the photo of an old man and a fake garland to break the monotony.
Now this got me thinking.(the wall,not the portrait).Which is a strange thing to happen to me in the morning so u can imagine the intensity of the situation.I climbed onto the bench and wobbling precariously i looked all around.All over my neighbourhood i could see it.This weird phenomenon in which people are painting their houses lurid greens and pinks.and purples and blues and in unbelievably stange combinations that would put a three year old to shame.
Why? i wondered. So that they wont have to give directions to people?So that they can say "Come off straight on 6th main.You will see one green house with purple and orange balconies.That one only."
Or have paint companies suddenly decided to give out these colours for free?

My tea,needless to say,had become off cold. :(

HA HA HA

2008-07-30T10:25:00.000-07:00

Picture this.Weekday afternoon.Residential street.A man sitting in car talking on the phone.A couple of kids are playing badminton and a girl is walking with the expression of one who is walking alone.(this means a solemn,slightly pissed off expression that says loudly "dont mess with me").Normal huh?Now suddenly the girl starts making a weird expression.(this is when she is having an internal tug of war with her facial muscles which seem hell bent on producing a wide smile).Then she giggles.Man in car gives a wtf expression.Children however dont bother with wtf expressions.They join in the giggling.I can read mad-neighbourhood-girl in their expressions though...

Yes as you may have rightly guessed this girl is me.I burst into hysterical laughter over something funny that happened to me,or even my friend,last week.This is highly embarrassing but sadly uncontrollable.As if it were not enough that my entire neighbourhood thinks i'm a mental asylum escapee,this has to happen in buses also.When i'm hanging precariously by one hand trying to fish for change with the other,suddenly i get a fit of giggles.I know by experience that you cannot remotely succeed in trying to hide your face when hanging on for dear life with one arm.So i just shamelessly giggle (not that i have much choice!) while aunties shake their head and look away.Yeah.All around mad-girl-in-bus expressions.Life goes on...

Why me?why why why me?

The curious case of the canteen students

2008-07-15T06:14:00.000-07:00

If you have ever sat in the MSRIT canteens you will know what i am talking about.I'm sure it happens in all other engineering colleges too.You're probably thinking what the hell is she talking about!?but wait wait i will explain :P But before that i need to say some stuff for your better understanding of the situation (for i have taken pains to observe that the weird occurance i will tell you happens only in canteen dont ask why) or for you to nod your heads saying yes yes in agreement...

Let me start with what we do in canteen.We dont eat.We occasionally eat of course but more time is spent doing one of the following things.

1.Doing record work and graphs and commenting on how god-knows-who's rice bath has left its stain on the record and flicking the aforementioned rice off with disgust.
2.Checking out other people,while pretending that we are not.of course!
3.Avoiding people by looking at table or book like suddenly it is of extreme interest.
4.Talking on phone.
Now this last thing i must say is very extremely interesting.This is what i was talking about.Now as most of you will know,cell phones are "banned" in college.So the protocol to be followed before picking phone is...
a. Look around frantically while holding vibrating phone in bag or clutching pocket.
b.If coast is clear (no teachers around) pick up the phone.
But for some reason this pick-up-phone process is involuntarily accompanied by a sudden bending at the hip(as if to pick something up) and stay that way for the entire conversation which of course depends on what the situation is with the boyfriend/girlfriend.That should give you a clear idea of the timeframe involved!
This is sometimes replaced by the hold-bag-next-to-ear routine.Yeah.I am not kidding.People will hold up their entire bag to their ear,over the phone,and will look as if they are having a very secret conversation with it in the canteen full of people.
Of course by doing this they are "not catching the attention of the lecturers" which was the point of the whole exercise as you might have guessed.We future engineers sure are a brainy lot! :)
So,if by chance you see one of us,standing in a bus stop or in a restaurant and we pick up our phone and bend over indefinitely,dont think badly of us.Its not our fault! :P