Speaking the thousand words..

Winter Wonderland

2011-01-01T16:55:00.000-08:00

Anybody in my facebook friend's list can tell you how much I hate the winter. I hate practically everything associated with it - the grey skies, the leafless trees, the dried grass, the mushy roads, the slippery sidewalks, the dry skin, the heavy coats.. like I said - everything... except one.

A lot of people I know like winter - they talk about the cool breeze, the peace it bring, the holiday season. I have a favorite thing about winter too - the one thing which makes the whole season bearable - the way the landscape changes overnight. Spring comes over a fortnight and it merges into summer. Autumn takes a few months to gradually set it. Winter, though, comes overnight - 3 inches of snow is all it takes to change a barren grey landscape to a beautiful storybook-ish one in a matter of hours. I can go to sleep to a depressing sight and wake up to a 'winter wonderland'. It is the only thing that convinces me to put up with the cold harsh northern winds.

After the terrible (read: awesome) snow storm last year, the Pittsburgh municipality has been on its toes to clear the snow ASAP. Though it started snowing by the end of November, I have not been able to see the white landscape so far because by the time I wake up, the streets (and pavements) have already been cleared.

However, on the 25th of December, after a late Christmas dinner and a game of Monopoly which ran into the wee hours of the morning, I stepped out to see the road covered with three inches of snow. It was bee-uuu-ti-ful. The snow was untrodden and peaceful and silent - my footsteps ruining the beauty as I trudged home in the cool morning. Sleepy as I was, I was happy to be awake and alone so early in the morning. It was oh-so-peaceful!

It was a real white christmas.

Paneer mazhai puriyum maegangalae..

2010-09-15T23:15:00.000-07:00

I went to Mathura 3 years ago. It was during a class trip to Nainital. The trip was in August and a classmate of mine was complaining about how she didn't get to celebrate Krishna Jayanti at home thanks to the class trip. Imagine her joy when we found ourselves catching a train in Mathura that night. The bus dropped us at 10.50 outside the station. The train left at 11.05. What followed was (imaginably) a mad rush towards the train. And that is when I got my real taste of North India.

One of my favorite books while growing up was Kim by Rudyard Kipling. Not many people like the book since he was highly racist. But apart from that, the book is beautifully written and puts images into your head about what India might've been like once upon a time. Stepping into Mathura Railway station, I saw the images come true.

Some bright person in our group had the idea that it might be easier to use the back entrance. What he failed to inform us was that it involved dragging our brand new Samsonite bags through a quagmire for about half a kilometer. Our stuffed bags were of course too heavy to carry. We finally caught sight of the platform and heaved a sigh of relief thinking "we can atleast use the wheels the makers of the bag have so thoughtfully provided us". Boy, were we wrong!

If you have been reading carefully (and I'm sure you have), you would've noticed that I mentioned a tiny fact about landing in Mathura on Krishna Jayanti. *Click* The devotees were returning home. And Krishna has a LOT of devotees who want to visit his birthplace on his birthday! Trust me on this. And moreover, they are not the kind who reserve tickets on trains. Very few of them even know which train takes them back home. Hotel rooms of course are out of the question. They sleep, (you guessed it) on the platform. On every inch of it. We had to lift out bags to our heads and walk very carefully. It was no longer a matter of getting our branded shoes covered in mud. If we slip now, we step on someone's face. Literally.

There is a movie starring Robin Williams - "What dreams may come". In that movie, he dies and goes to heaven. His wife, unable to bear the pain of his death, goes to hell. The movie about his search for her through eternity. The station with it's eerie yellow lights looked like a scene from that movie where he is in hell and all he can see are faces of people tied down together - millions and millions of faces.

We had to get into the train as soon as it came to the platform and lock ourselves in. Like I said, people didn't know what reservation was, and didn't care. You found people seeing our coach was relatively empty and banging the door asking to be allowed in. It was crazy. And scary. It also makes your stomach drop a little with guilt.

I suddenly started talking about Mathura because I read that it's facing "the worst flood in recent years". Whatever that means. And also because it's Autumn again where I stay now.

Autumn because last autumn, my uncle had taken me on a drive down the heart of Pennsylvania. For the uninitiated, it is a beautiful beautiful state which transforms into something beyond description during Autumn. I took photos (duh!) and sent it back home(double duh!). MY mom enjoyed the pretty photos and told me "Chitra, you're so lucky to have seen this". And that's when it stuck me - I am lucky and I got to see what all those people (hardworking and sweet - most of them, I'm sure) will probably never get to see. It makes one feel guiltier than you can imagine. It also makes one miss their homeland. :-(

Note: The title is line from a devotional song praising Krishna. It translates to "Oh clouds which give us sweet rain, please sing about the beauty of our lord". Of course, as usual, a humongous amount is lost in translation.

Aachi was right.

2010-06-28T23:10:00.000-07:00

"தன் கைய்யே தனக்கு உதவி" she said. I do not know how much she believed in it, but now I think that's about as true as it gets.

Translation: "Your hand is the only one that helps you"

*Aachi - what I call(ed) my grandma.

No more excuses

2010-06-18T18:38:00.001-07:00

Now that Chicken L. is back I decided to make a comeback too. Seriously for the past few months the blog sphere has been dying. And the few 'famous bloggers' who were still blogging seem immature and highly opinionated. They resisted conservatism so much that they ended up being close minded about it! Hence I grew sadder and sadder till I finally gave up coming here until one fine day who should I see posting - but CL herself. That's reason enough right?

I made a quick tour though and realised things were the same. Take the discussion on that Priya Ramani's post on India for example. I first came across it on Google Buzz (yes, there are people who actually use it!!!!!) when an aquaintance had put it up as a 'fail post'. I completely agree with him and also think that girl(woman) is an idiot who doesn't know what she's talking about (no, seriously. Where in US did she go if she didn't have strangers on the bus pouring their heart out to her or find people spitting on the road?). But to actually defend the article...!!!
Or another famous blogger who thinks posting sensational stuff is what gets her readers.
Or the other one who dramatized death! The death of the person close to her was actually the punch line of her post!!! I mean, seriously.

Oh and the actually fun bloggers - like PI, Ess, Mads, Mathika, Sayuja, Nikita, DJ, etc.. - they blog no more. Or more rarely than me.

Anyway, those were my excuses until CL's recent post.

I dedicate my comeback to her.

The city wars.

2010-05-29T14:05:00.000-07:00

Ever since I joined MCC, I have been subjected to what I shall henceforth refer to as "City wars". You know what I'm talking about - Chennai vs Bombay/Delhi/Calcutta, etc. This poor blog has also been subject to a few of them.

However, I have decided, the wars - they shall stop. Simple because if I have a right to love my hometown with a passion and find every other place pale in comparison, everyone else has a right to feel the same way about their hometown, do they not?

On the other hand though, those who do not have a 'hometown' - the ones who do not understand what I'm talking about when I call a city "home", or what a phrase like "Panamarathila vavvala, Chennai kae savvala?" (Seriously, what do you say if someone asks you to translate it? It doesn't make any literal sense but it makes so much sense at the same time!) really means, I do not think there is any point in fighting with them over something they won't (will never) get! I cannot explain to them, why Chennai, with everything they deem atrocious, is still the best place in the whole wide world - to me. It's like explaining why we love rain to someone who's lived in Western Pennsylvania all their life! It just cannot be explained.

So over all, the city wars have stopped. For me at least. It's pointless really.

In any case, my only real weapon is/was "Chennai is home". That's all I got. That's all that's valid. That's all it takes.

Took me long enough to get here, right?

When dreams come true..

2010-02-13T20:49:00.000-08:00

When I was a kid one of my cousins got us this little table prop which said

"I came to America because I heard that streets here were paved with gold. When I came I learned three things:
first: streets in America are not paved with gold;
second: streets in America are not paved at all;
third: I am expected to pave them."

Yet the reality of the situation does not hit anyone till they actually land here. Each day I'm more and more convinced that good old India (with its 1.1 billion population and it's corrupt politicians and love/worship of cricket) is far more developed that the US is or will be.

We've been told that the first step to victory is realising your faults (or something like that..). I think I can safely say no one in India (except maybe the BJP) has any illusions of where we really stand and what we really are. We are a poor developing country with no money and lot - and I mean LOTS of mouths to feed. We know we have the second largest slum in Asia with a 40 storey mansion right at the centre of it. We know we have the Coovum and that 50% of us have TB. We know that the men in saffron are complete maniacs who cause us constant amusement(well, cause me constant amusement - (does that guy honestly think people take him seriously? I want to know...)), we know that our hospitals are not the best in the world.

But.. but but but.. our hospitals(the govt one) don't demand you have insurance or pay 5000 rupees for prescribing you an antibiotic. They may not treat you like a princess but you don't have to be rich to give birth in one. You don't have to worry about the smallest tooth ache and how much it's going to cost you if you go to a dentist. And most of all, the government isn't run by insurance companies, is it??

Also, since all of us know exactly where we stand, we know the importance and value of hard work. We know what our paybacks are. We see - with our own eyes - what happens if we fail to work hard or if we do not study. The big bad world isn't shielded from us all the time with a shiny pink wrapper like it is in the US. In the US, it's almost as if poor people do not exist. Ask your average kid if she/he knows about the homeless or people on social security. They don't know any such person - have probably never spoken to one and think they're from a different planet at best. The kids are told to dream(which is good) but not what they need to do to make those dreams come true. We aren't told either, but then again, we don't need to be told. We see the ends of both roads in front of us all the time.

We're prudent at worst. We don't run up debts buying frivolous things all the time (most of us - not all). That is not saying we don't borrow money at all - but we think twice. And we most certainly don't buy the latest Channel outfit on borrowed money. Our mistrust of anything 'foreign' stops us from using our credit card the first time we get one. We find out what it means, what we have to do and the minute they tell us you have to pay more money if you exceed your limit. We shudder and decide we'll just use cash or debit card unless that stupid site absolutely denies us the use of one! We definitely don't run our whole economy down.

We're poor, yes. More than half of the country is below the poverty line, true. But do you realise that when we run out of our natural resources and destroy our planet completely and global warming takes over, it is that half which will survive? Provided they aren't drowned in the rising sea first of course. The live the natural life. No plastic. No CFCs. No space heaters. Just a colour TV in every house to keep them connected.

Finally, I believe that America is no longer a land where a child can dream. India is. We have free education. Till one finishes college. Half the kids here don't go to college because they can't afford it. Well, half the kids in India don't go to college because they can' afford it, you say. I say, no that isn't true. There, people don't go to college because they have to work 24/7 instead. College education itself is free (or nearly so). Here, people don't have to work 24/7. In fact they can be 'well off' and still not be able to afford a college education. You know this.. You have an uncle/aunty/cousin/sibling who cribbed about it to you..

So, to all those who did/do/will ask me where I want to settle down 'finally', well, the answer's kinda obvious, isn't it?

Oh, oh.. not to forget the fact that you just don't get anything which remotely resembles a good cup of coffee on this continent! Also, the spell check keeps insisting that c.o.l.o.u.r is wrong. That's just weird. Most importantly, Americans measure temperature in farenheit *shudder* and distance in miles *more shudders*

The begining of the cloyingly sweet

2010-01-01T20:34:00.001-08:00

I did not like 2009. No siree. It was all downs. Right from the beginning. Right from New Years day! The only part of the year I liked, nay, loved, was the summer. It was a lovely 4 months of, well.. nothing to do.

Anyway, it's 2010 now. Doesn't feel like a new year though. Watched the ball drop on TV. Whatte rip off. That's not saying I won't spend at least one cold 31st night at Times Sq. I will.

My cousins and I - we baked a layer chocolate cake. With chocolate icing and rainbow sprinkles. In every single book I've read, the cake acts as an omen. The Chalet School, Enid Blyton stories, L. M. Montgomery, An Old Fashioned Girl - they all predict the furture/the start of a new year/project/event with a cake baked for the occasion. So I was all "lets see how this cake turns out".

And the cake was super sweet. So sweet that my littlest cousin got a sugar high after eating a piece and half.

So, I guess this means this year is going to be super-sweet too. At least acc. to the books.

Mind you, I ain't complaining!

Have a great 2010, you guys!

Coming back to you...

2009-12-26T20:31:00.000-08:00

After a recent trip to visit one of my best friends from school, I am missing all my school friends badly. So here's a post dedicated to all of them. :-)

There is something about your school friends which allows you to just be yourself. Maybe it's the fact that they know you too well.

You don't have to explain names and dates and events or books or teachers or TV shows to them. They went through it all with you once upon a time. They know exactly what(or who) they're talking about. They're just slightly surprised that you also remember that!

You don't have to(read: can't) pretend. They'll see right through your pretensions.

You don't have to worry about doing or saying something stupid. Chances are you've said something stupider and they still remember to tease you about it!

You don't have to worry about a bad hair day when you're with them. They were with you at the parlour when you got the worst haircut ever!

You don't have to hold back your opinions when you're around them. They know your reaction even before you do.

They don't look down upon you when you stalk people on facebook to find out the gossip. They're merely happy to get the news!

The remain some of the most interesting and fun people you have met till date!

And most importantly - it doesn't matter that you haven't met them in years (which it was in my case) and you are in completely different stages of your lives (both personal and professional). It doesn't matter that in those years you think you've 'changed a lot'. She doesn't and you guys pick up exactly where you left off and it feels like you're back in your pink and white having lunch under the trees!

'Tis the season to be jolly!

2009-12-25T20:39:00.000-08:00

Judging by the number of people going "you haven't updated your blog in a long time... what happened?", apparently a lot more people follow my blog than I thought! Which suprises me, yes. And also makes me extremely conscious of what I'm typing! :-(

Therefore, from now on, more neutral stuff. No more angry growing pains problems and silly antics. No more kiddish fights and delights. More serious stuff. More grown up, thought provoking blogs. More science and research and less frivolous coffee tales. That will be my new year resolution.

And since it isn't not new year yet, let me proceed to tell you about the snowman we built.

So we wake up last saturday morning (alright, afternoon!!) to find that we finally have enough snow to build a snowman. So we promptly proceed to build one. Problem is, none of us had ever built one before and so it was all trial error. So we tossed a few ideas around and settled on building one giant pile and making creases on the side for the head. For resons all too obvious, that didn't work out. So one of the guys flicked a snow shovel from his neighbour(don't ask!) and his other guy took out his wind-shield scraping thingy and together they brought a LOT of snow from else where! Bring the only person with two pairs of gloves (what? I feel cold!) I had to pat down the snow as they drop it. So then we piled a bunch of snow on the ground and I patted it down to make the body. And they piled another bunch on the shovel and someone else patted it down to make a hemisperical head and we put one on top of the other and used the scraper to make the hemisperical head to almost sperical head. Then we took someone's scraf, carrots for eyes, stick for nose and hand and berries for coat buttons and voila, we made this.

Je te presente Flakes! :-)

Isn't he adorable?

Oh, and the cap, that's mine. And no, normally, it isn't covered with snow! Somebody *glares in the person's direction* decided it might be fun to douse me with snow as I worked hard on the snowman. *more stony glares*

Understandably, a snow fight ensued, but since they made me prime target, an account of it would not potray me in a good light, so why would I want to put up a belittling image of myself?

Anyway, we understand that that is by no means the best way to make a snowman and would be greatful to anyone who could tell us tropical creatures, how exactly to make one!!

I guess, I shalt bid you fine people goodbye, leaving you with the thought for the day:

You know those few seconds when you're on a flight and decending but haven't yet touched the ground? And then you hit the ground and you're going super fast? And for a fraction of a second you hold your breadth and when you see yourself slowing down you start breathing again? Do you think the pilot holds his breadth too at the same time? Kinda like when you jump off something high and wonder if you're going to fall unhurt, even though you kinda are in control? Or when you make a turn in a curvy road?
*sings*... and I wonder..

Since I know now a lot of people miss me on the blog-o-sphere, I promise to be more regular.Maybe you will get lucky and even get a blog on the Carolinas!

But for now, that's all folkes!

The poll (again)

2009-07-29T09:21:00.000-07:00

So, aparently the poll on my blog (it's on the left - a little down) closed sometime back, can the winner was Calvin and Hobbes. So, what else is new? Calvin ROCKS! Anyway, in celebration, here's one of my favorites:

Anyway, new poll will be up soon. As soon as I figure out another fun topic to take a poll on. Any suggestions?

We are the Curies, powerful race!

2009-07-21T03:47:00.000-07:00

Remember when you were in school, split into 5 (some schools had four) different houses. Remember how your activities revolved around your house - your favorite colour was (and in some cases, still is) your house colour (I have a senior who apparently colour coded her whole wedding to be green - green invites, green decor, green sari, etc.. - just because she was in the green house!), there was no one cooler than your house captain and prefect, winning the sports/dramatics cup was all that mattered!

In my school, the houses were named after famous women. I was in the Marie Curie house (I was a 'Curie', how cool is that?). We had, of course a house colour, a house slogan, a flag, a banner - you name it.

The slogan was a funny one. It went:

"Alpha, Beta, Gamma Rays
We are the Curies, powerful race"

How cool is that? Of course, i didn't really understand what it meant or the connection till I was in High school, but now that I think about it, whoever framed it was a genius!

And what is the point of this whole post?
Why, none as usual. DJ and I were talking about our schools yesterday, and turns out that everyone identifies people with their house. As in "Do you remember so-and-so? She was in Kellers(the red house - named after Helen Keller, of course!)". And the house(colour/name/symbol) always holds a special place!

So, I just thought I'll post about it since it's been long since I posted!

Until next time then.

Talking of Garden City..

2009-07-03T09:40:00.000-07:00

Is it just me, or is Chennai really going green? There is a garden/park in every spare bit of land in the city. There is even a garden tucked into the Gemini flyover!! And Hadder's road has it's own petite garden - right next to the Oxford bookstore. And the garden at the end of Cenetoph's road - that's pretty too - overlooking the river and all. And as Mutt put it - Tiru.V.Ka park looks like a fairy land if you drive past it in the evening!! Do try to drive past it - even if you live on the other end of the city - it's totally worth it!

And apparently there is this huge 17 acre park coming up somewhere near the beach. And they're going to convert Woodlands drive in into a botanical garden as well!!

Not to mention the roads - GST as well as the first part of OMR are now a sight to behold! (I'm not gonna mention ECR, because the pretty parts start only after you leave Chennai). Oh and the tambaram bypass too - though, again, I dunno if you can call it Chennai!

I know we have miles to go, but not a bad start, eh? I'm so proud of our corporation. I mean, yeah, they do stupid things like put a flyover in Cenetoph's road (seriously, what's with that?!) and Sardar Patel road(which noone uses!), but then they also build something like the Kathipara junction (which I'm totally in love with, btw).

So now, it's singara chennai yet again! :-)

A city I once loved..

2009-06-24T01:36:00.000-07:00

Once upon a time, when it was called Bangalore, this city had wide roads lined up with beautiful, giant, green trees. The trees used to be so thick that they used to block the sunlight to a large extent. The roads were wide - or maybe they appeared wide to a 10 yr old me, and the traffic used to be so little that they used to allow us to run across the road. The weather so cool, that fan used to considered a luxury - used by the rich during two weeks in the summer.

Once upon a time, you could go from one end of the city to the other end in less than an hour, and MG Road meant lots and lots of bookstores.

Once upon a time, we used to catch a double decker bus and sit on top and ride all the way to Majestic every time we wanted to 'go shopping'. There wasn't a mall every ten yards then, see?

Once upon a time, my mental images of Bangalore used to be covered with green trees and mist - lots of mist. Actual mist - not smog.

Once upon a time, Bangalore used to be called "the garden city".

And now...?

It took us two and a half hours to drive from Mysore to the edge of Bangalore (Mysore road) and another two to drive from there to Koramangla.

That's all I'm saying.

The Hierarchy

2009-06-09T02:23:00.000-07:00

I have long been reproached/teased/mocked/looked-at-curiously/made-fun-of/etc.. fr claiming to have 18 best friends. (Yup, the count is out, and the number is 18.)

I shall give you a few examples:-

a)My testimonials in orkut - Almost all of them mention this fact.
b)I've always wanted a small wedding (I know, I know - too much Hollywood), but my mom wants a biggg one. So my sister, tells my mom "Don't worry, there is no way it will be small. She will have to invite all her best-friends, remember?". Yeah. Humph. We'll see. x-(
c)My RG proclaims "She will wake up before 11 in the morning during weekends only if she has a date with one of her 716 best friends" :-P
d)Every time I mention someone - anyone, Mutt demands if that person is a best friend.

And of course there are many more..

So, for once and I've decided to quell all doubts and explain to all and sundry the hierarchy. I've even drawn out a picture. Look:

So, like I've shown, you can have only one bestest friend. Mine, is Samie. Why you ask? Well, she is a sweetheart and we did have the pact (I know I broke it, but still..). Also she's the only one who, like me, is enthu for everything under the sun and has a gadzillion best friends. More than me, believe it or not.. Also, she's the only one who doesn't have another bestest friend.

All my other best friends do.. Like Chicken has De (yeah, gurl, you do. She is you bestest and you can't escape that)(and vice-versa), Kosu has R, Mr.A has Joe, MM has Pumpkin(I tell you, it's an exclusive spot), Mutt and Kitty have each other, Assie has Vasu, Sug had A and Mads has B, The girl, RG and Pipe have gotta work it out amongst themselves, and Tea has Ash, Blue angel has that girl whose name I forgot (sorry! :-( ), the Sista has well.. i dunno a million people other than me.

See? This is what I mean. If you ask any(or at least most) of these people, they will tell you that I am indeed a best-friend of theirs. Even those idiots who tease me mercilessly. Yet, they all have a significantly closer best friend. Who becomes the bestest. And the rest remain in "best".

So, anyway, for the newcomers, let me explain the terms.

1.Bestest friend: The person whose house is your second home. Whose parents know your favorite dish and who you tell (or can tell) everything to! Who will fly down from the other end of the world if you need them to(Hear that, Samie?). Who completely understands why you're doing what you're doing.

2.Best friend: Much like the bestest friend, but not quite. Their house need not be a second home necessarily, but more often than not, that is the case. They will also be willing to do the flying down in case of emergency thing, but you don't need 20 people with you during an emergency, so you ask most of them to stay put. They are people who you can call in the middle of the night if you're feeling miserable, wake them up and crib till dawn (Indeed, that has been done to all many times)- even if they have an exam/presentation the next day(this has also been done. They know what you are up to currently.

3.Good friends: These people are usually people you were very close to for a short (short can be up to 2 years!) while - maybe over a project, or a course together. Maybe you stayed together in the same hostel, or were roommates at some point or the other. For that short period, you knew each other very well, but over time, you've kinda lost touch. Yet, those events bound you together so hard, than even years apart, you can still call them and ask them a favour without any qualms. These are people who actually do know you and your family. Your mom will recognize the on the road even when you're not around. They will drop by when they are in the neighbourhood without fail and more often than they know your food preferences and your many ailments.

4. Friends: This is every single person you can ever count on. Who you can relate to in someway or the other and who you can call without having an excuse to do so. Most of your old classmates who you played with on the swing, your current one whose notes you borrowed come under this category. These are people who you're happy to meet on the road, and if you do, you'll ask them to have a cup of coffee with you. These are people whose numbers are there on your phone and email IDs are there on your Gmail contact book.

5. Acquaintances: Like I said, this is practically everyone who you have ever met who remembers you and who you remember. If you have a reason to call them, and do so, they should be able to recognize you the minute you introduce yourself. This is a HUGE list because it includes almost all your classmates from every school/college you attended and friends of friends you hung out with.

Having said all that, let me conclude that there is no hard and fast rule which divides the classes and this is just the definition I give.

Disclaimer: This post was put up in a state of extreme joblessness and in order to clarify a few doubts friends of the author had.

The 'M' word

2009-05-31T01:17:00.000-07:00

Since I am nearly [insert age + 1], the extended family has started mentioning the M word to ze parents. My parents, who were initially taken aback (my dad especially - he was quite at loss as to what to do), have learnt how to deal with the.. er.. proposals, thankfully and bug me no more with funny anecdotes which they think are cute but I think are just plain irritating..

Like the one where my uncle, who was woken up from his sleep, forgot my existance and claimed there was no such girl.. Okay, that one was actually funny!

And the other one, where a certain grandaunt said something to the effect of "I'll find you a really good guy who will let you study further.. don't worry". Hang on there.. let me??? LET me? Whoa! Boy, do these people not know me at all!!

Oh, and not to forget the "if you study so much, how are we gonna find a guy who's stuided as much"!! Sheesh!

You know, that's what really strikes me. How little these people (not my parents and their siblings - they thankfully suffer under no such illusion) know me, yet suffer under the impression that they do. They think I'm a CSIG (I am, btw.. at least according to the Mutt) who will listen to her parents, get married at [insert age], to a guy in the same caste who they pick out for me - probably some 2nd or 3rd cousin, and I will actually listen to what the guy will tell me to do, suffer under the whole "kal aanalum purushan" thing, and have two kids as the age of 25, etc...

And the worst part is, I do not know what I can say to make them understand that the world has evovled very much since they were kids and that is not how people do stuff anymore. I mean, I can be a lesbian and they wouldn't even understand what that means. They'll probably think it's 'a phase'.

It's funny actually. And quite sad too. Funny because, lets face it, people stuck in the past are funny. Sad - because people stuck in the past means there will be no progress..

Keerai

2009-05-24T02:22:00.000-07:00

My words of great wisdom for the day: Parents are like spinach - boring, uncool and distaseful - but very good for your health!

* waves to the cheering crowd *
Thank you. Thank you ver' much.

The 1st supper.

2009-05-21T22:34:00.000-07:00

I cooked dinner last night. The whole of it. As in chapatti as well as curry. I know what you're thinking, but no, everyone at home is quite alright, thank you very much!

Last night was lesson no.1 in my mom's "teach daughter to be independent as far as food is concerned thingy".

Anyway, I made this very simple tomato curry thing whose recipe I'm gonna put up here for people who have only 15 mins to prepare themselves a nice meal.

So you cut up some tomatoes in small pieces and some onions - say about one onion and two tomatoes. Two green chillies are also cut up. (if you don't get green chillies, you might wanna use chilly powder. If you like spicy use more. Don't use less than two, it becomes too bland). Cut up some ginger also (again as much as you want for taste. I'd say some 10 small pieces (small being .5 cm sided cubes approx).

Next, you switch on the frying bowl and put in about 3-4 tea spoons on oil, and wait for 30 seconds. Then, you put in half a tea spoon of mustard and half a tea spoon of black gram dal(ulutham paruppu) and fry for 15-30 seconds. Then add the cut up onion, ginger and chilly and fry till the onion starts developing a tinge of brown. Just a tinge, mind you. And then add some salt. 3/4th - 1 teaspoon. Depends on you, actually.. Then add the tomato and fry for about 5-10 mins and voila, you have your tomato curry.

15 mins max. And you can garnish with coriander if you want, but if you're cooking for yourself, I'd say "don't bother". Unless of course you like coriander.

Oh, and I made chapattis as well. Not that that's new - been doing that since I was 'eah high.. but the mother seemed to have forgotten that. She bought me my own rolling in and rolling board when I was about 5 which she has no recollection of! Which was good in a way. She was all in raptures when she found out I could roll chapattis. Ah, whatever. These mothers, I tell you...!!

Oh, and tip: Once you roll said chapatti, fry it immediately, else they become dry and hard. At least cover it up.

Okay, enough cooking lessons for the day. And do not fear, this is not going to be a cooking blog, but since the mother is set on her "my-daughter-independent-blah", a few recipes might pop up every now and then. So be warned.

On being followed!

2009-05-16T13:14:00.000-07:00

Mathika finally taught me how to use a reader today (yes, I needed to be 'taught'), and guess what I found? There are 24 people who subscribe to it! How 'bout that?? 24!! And to think that less than 2 years ago, I actually was here and now I have 24 subscriptions and 5 followers!!

Someone's really come on in life, eh?

On the down-side though, it means I get 24 less hits everytime I write a post because those people just read it using a reader and many of them(my sister for starters) are too lazy to comment! x-(

Ah, well!! Still.. 29!! Yay!

My new target is 50. So tell one, tell all, people!

Red Hot

2009-05-16T03:16:00.000-07:00

My mom recently commented on how the guy I marry will have a hard time putting up with my temper! Let us at this point take a moment to mourn for him..

* silence *

But on a serious note, I do find myself getting irritated for the minutest things. It can be anything - like my dad refusing to write down the address and insisting jot it down, Debo rapping hard on my door unnecessarily, my friends fussing about going somewhere, people not calling me back, the politics in the department, someone telling me "you should know hindi", meaningless debates (like the ones on the blog) where the other person is thick headed and refuses to see reason and goes off in a tangent, my friends proposing on having a drink during a journey (I wasn't even going with them and I still got irritated!), some guy making eyes at me on the bus/train, people not returing my books, people not realising how much trouble I get into for breaking a curfew and treating it frivoulously, people pretending to be know-it-alls, etc..

I know that most(if not all) these reasons are valid enough, and most people get mad, but I do not think any of them experience a flare of anger rush through them and their heart starts beating fast demanding justice!

I usually either give the look that might kill or ignore them completely. but more often then not, I yell.

Maybe BP is my thing. I always thought it would be diabetes.

Whatever.

Beware of me. I bark.

On RGness*

2009-05-07T23:55:00.000-07:00

Is an RG still and RG if he/she doesn't realise he/she is RGing? Just a thought..

* RG is a term used at an insti for people who don't share their notes/assignments/or teach you concepts. They do that because the grading system here is Relative Grading (hence the term RG), so your grades depend on how everyone else performs. So, the worse everyone else performs, the better you perform. So many people don't share ideas, etc.. because they want to get good grades by supressing the others. I think the system sucks, but then again, who am I to judge?

Cutting off..

2009-04-25T11:37:00.000-07:00

Eventhough I'll be 22 soon, the way some of my friends behave, I feel I never left high school! They gossip, they bitch, they get hurt when you don't choose sides, they hold grudges and refuse to let go of them and basically make your life hell.

I don't think my parents aprove of my feeling so strongly about this, but I hate it when one friend of mine bitches about another. What I hate more is when one of them goes all "Oh, we should so meet up sometime and catch up - all of us" and doesn't turn up for any party you arrange, even if the party is so scheduled just so it matches their schedule! I hate it when they cite parental permission as a reason for not coming but manage to get around their parents when it comes to meeting their boyfriends/girlfriends.

And you know what else I hate? If they call one of my close friends names and claim he/she(person X) just "uses people" even though I know very well that it is no so and X was the only person there for me through a certain mini crisis when all of them weren't even acknowledging my existance.

I hate it that they can be so insensitive about my friends and how I'd like to hear such things about them.

Yesterday, Mutt was cribbing about how a friend of hers "cut her off". (You know, doesn't pick up/return calls, emails. Always busy, the works.) And I was all "why would anyone want to do that?". Now I am seriouly considering it. Not that it'll take much effort mind you, considering I'm the one who calls most of the time anyway!

And why am I not doing so? Because they're most of what I have left from a certain period in my life and to let go would mean.. I dunno.. Failure?

P.S: I am writing this in a lot of rage, sorry about that. And if you're wondering about what happens if one of them reads it (because it's pretty obvious who the people are), then my answer is, I'd like it if they did. I wouldn't have any explaining to do.

No more Mr. Nice Guy

2009-04-09T09:24:00.000-07:00

Chicken Little recently said "Being nice is extremely under-rated and rare. And outdated".

Yet it a 'nice guy' that every mother wants for her daughter; every sibling for their sister and every person for their friend. A nice guy is what every grandparent blesses their grand kids with and every girl hopes for when she is 10! Then why is it, that the minute she turns 18, she does an about turn and looks for everything except nice in the man she seeks?!

Save a handful, I find that I do not approve of the guys my bestfriends/friends/acquaintances are dating. Not because these guys aren't 'well-settled' or good-looking (my friends are pretty wise to those!), but because (I feel) they don't treat these girls the way they should be!

Every girl I know, has gone for a guy who is dashing, plays slightly hard to get, is flirty and has 'attitude'. Put 'em together and what have you got? Your mother's nightmare!

These otherwise smart and sucessful young ladies are blind to the fact that these guys are the ones most likely to break their heart and the least likely to help them build the home they dreamt of when they were 10 - which, lets face it, is what every girl still wants!

The truth being, these nice guys do exist. I have met them, even befriended a few of them. And while doing so, I realise that is highly unlikely that they will ever get the attention of the kind of girls who deserve them simply because they will not take the risk! These boys will probably end up marrying some lucky girl who their mommy picks out for them!

That is not to say, all hope is lost. Break-throughs have happened in the past and are quite likely to happen again! And if that does happen to you, I paraphrase the second part of what Chicken Little said and advise you: "Hold on to that one."

The request.

2009-03-28T10:45:00.000-07:00

I wonder if any of you have bothered to read what is written on the front page of an Indian passport. Wanting to do anything other than study for my quiz, I recently flipped it open and this is what it says:

"These are to request and require in the name of the president of the Republic of India all those whom it may concern to allow the bearer to pass freely without let or hindrance, and toafford him or her, every assistance and protection of which he or she may stand in need."

Isn't that sweet?

So, next time they refuse you a visa, remember, they aren't just refusing you. They're refusing the president's request. (I just realised president means Ms.Patil and there goes my vision of a strong leader heading our republic.)

Only I didn't know that we are called "Republic of India"! I mean, I knew we were a republic, of course, but I didn't know that was the name of our country. Why are we listed under 'I' then?

Also, does anyone know why all official sentences are so long without much punctuation?

Note of thanks.

2009-03-21T11:49:00.000-07:00

Don't you love it when someone calls you up in the middle of the night and tells you you're a great friend, and thanks you for being one?!

Much as you know you completely don't deserve it, it's in the top ten "best feelings".

The great divide.

2009-03-16T06:25:00.000-07:00

Disclaimer: I am grossly generalising here and I know that each of you can think of thousands of examples countering what I am about to say! Also, thanks to The Girl for the idea.

Chennai, culturally, can be divided into two - the two sides of Mount road. The Tenampet/Poes Garden/Besant Nagar etc.. side(lets call them side A), which are more westernized than the Nungambakkam/Egmore/T Nagar/Kilpauk side(lets call them side B).

A person from side A would probably take life more casually and adopt a "life life one day at a time" attitude. They would be more open to casual relationships, pre-marital sex and the works. They are way more likely to take an arts/humanties course in college and adopt a variety of hobbies which potray that. They are more westenised in their way of dressing and thinking.

A person from side B on the other hand are way serious about their life and career choices. They stick to traditional choices such as engineering or science. They prefer long term relationships and dress more conservately (except for the oh-so-occasional night of clubbing). They derive more fun out of hanging out with small groups of friends or being along rather than wild large parties.

Which isn't weird at all when you thing about it. I know it's still just one city but the people of side A probably schooled together, just like side B did. And if you see the friends you grew up with doing something, you think it's okay for you to do it too and it becomes who you are, if you get my drift.

Anyway, it was just a thought and Ess said I should post it, so I am. He also pointed out that people in Kilpauk quite make up for the presence of a certain hospital by being super-serious and thinking many-a-time before they make any decisions - whether it be which college they attend or how much money they spend this weekend. I thought about it and realised that, weirdly, it isn't about schools anymore, because all my friends in school who weren't flighty weren't from Kilpauk!

Weirdness.

But, remember, both side A and side B worship thalaivar.

P.S: For those who do not know me or are not from the city and are curious about this fact, I'm from side B.

A Hitchhiker's story

2009-03-05T20:06:00.000-08:00

It's a two kilometer walk from the main gate to the hostel, so the admin has arranged a (highly irregular) bus/'battery-powered-van' service to shuttle us back and forth. A walk to the main gate takes 20 mins (if you walk fast enough, of course), while most of the time, you'll have to wait half an hour for the bus. So we seldom take the bus.

However, hitch-hiking is pretty common. Esp when it's two hot you have a lot of luggage with you! Having been both the hitch-hiker and the hitch-hikee (if there be such a word), I must say it is very educative. Apart from being able to travel in fancy cars (I almost traveled in a S-class once. Almost.), you also get to meet a lot of very interesting people and learn a lot about not just them, but the insti in general.

For example, the first time I ever heard about the pan-IIT was when I was given a lift by one of te organisers. And recently, I learnt that about 25 yrs ago there were peacocks and crocodile on the campus!!! Crocodiles - that's right! Another time, we got into a car with loads of kids including a very sweet 5 year old who invited us home and was sad to bid us good bye at the gate!

And while giving rides, you meet a number of just-graduated alumni and it is pretty interesting to know what they are doing now.

For my part, I've informed a number of people about the existence of a M.Sc course in IIT. You'd be shocked at the number of people closely associate with the institute who do not know that. I would be insulted, but I guess I'm used to being a 'matak' by now.

Sigh.

P.S: Sorry, couldn't resist the fancy title!

On friends and labels

2009-02-20T12:18:00.000-08:00

One fine morning, between two classes, I had 45 mins to kill and so i sat and labelled all my posts. It tells you a lot, this labelling business. It tells you what you spend your time on mostly. Apparently, I spend the least anount of time on lists and romance. Which is a weird thing to say if you know me, but whatever. More romantic lists coming up! :-P Oh, I don't post much on the IPL either, but the 2nd seeason will open soon and then we shalt have more!

But that is not what this post will be about. This one will once again be dedicated to my friends. So here goes.

Note: If you are my friend, you're bound to be mentioned. If you can't spot yourself, shame on you! But ping/message/mail/call/scrap/wall/comment and I shall point you out.

Everyone, esp the dad, loves pointing out that I have too many friends. Too many "best friends", they say. 'You undermine the meaning of 'best'!', they reproach. What can I do? I love them all equally. I have no way of deciding!

And the strange part is, how little they all have in common. If you take a set of all my best/close friends, there wll be at least one person each one of them will not be able to get along with/will not approve of. I guess the only thing they have in common is that they are all judgemental! But then again, who isn't?

I have such a huge variety of friends. From the quiet types like Colla, Jen, RaG and RA to the tomboys like jude-the-dude. From the holy God-fearing people like Mopsi, Princess, Assie, Jan to agnostics like RG, MM to atheists like Tequila and Mutt. From geeks like Jij, MV, DC(!!!) to the I-haven't-touched-a-textbook-to-save-my-life like The girl, Row and Chai. From dancers like Jan, Shiny, Aru to singers like SC and well, most of the others! From the I-am-too-lazy-to-leave-my-room such as Mutt, Colla and De to enthu-for-anything like Samie, Muds, Kitty, Tequila and RG. From supremely helpful bordering on doormatedness like MM, Pumpkin, Assie, San to bossiness personified a la Mutt, Mopsi and CL. From the burka sporting CL and De to the mini-skirt sporting (that sentence sounds weird) Rad and Tequila. From friends who have made me feel like, well, a princess (no, I haven't forgotten) at a moment's notice like Pipe, The girl, MM, Chai to people who have made me cry(yes, they are still my close friends - ask me not why!) like CC, Cheapskate. From the tech-savy Arjie and Chai to the girl who asks me to configure her nokia settings - Sony. From the deathmetal addicts like Arjie and the The girl to Carnatic music fans like Assie, SC to hip-hop fans like Kitty(my love) to sad-80's hindustani music fans like Mutt, SC, Colla.

And this, my dears, is just the non-incriminating tip of the iceberg! There is loads hidden below the surface.

But none of it matters. Because I love them all (almost) the same. And I see no reason why people should have difficulty believing that!

Bigger picture, people! Please.

2009-01-27T07:32:00.000-08:00

The recent incident in Mangalore left us all shocked, but I fail to understand why, really. We should've seen it coming and we deserved this in more ways than one.

We are all busy cribbing about how this is not democracy anymore and we should have the freedom to do what we want to and how it could've been any of us! That is exactly why we are concerned, you see! Those guys didn't have to pick Mangalore, they could've picked a pub in Chennai (yeah, right!) when my friends and I are hanging out there. They could've picked a pub in B'lore when my sister's hanging out there. This is something which affects us - the upper middle class - directly, which is why there is so much publicity over it!

The journalists - they frequent pubs too; Or their friends/girlfriends/wives/daughters/sisters do! And it scares them to think that they kit and kin could be subjected to such a thing! Hence they make sure it's brought to limelight and pester the CM about it and urge the people to rise in action, etc.. Basically, they're scared. And the pub owners(influential people, all of them) are scared as well. What if the women stop coming? What if ladies nights don't happen anymore. How exactly are they gonna manage the ratio?

The act itself is something which should be condemned, no doubt, but don't you see? The Ram Sena people were just the stupider of the lot. They picked the wrong people to mess with! If they had tortured some poor villagers in some remote part of the country, they wouldn't have gotten more than 5 seconds of T.V time and their acts would've gone unnoticed.

As I said, we deserved this, since we failed to notice the girls who are not allowed to go to school in J&K (they will be killed, no less), and were busy worrying about not being able to go to a pub! We compromised on the rights of those not fortunate enough to be born to parents rich enough or living in the right cities, and in a way told these guys, 'go ahead, we won't stop you yet..' and now we pay for it, albeit meagerly.

Sure the Karnataka police can lock up 10 people and claim they've 'taken action' against them, but we aren't really a free democratic country until everyone is able to practice their right!

Wordle

2009-01-25T10:45:00.000-08:00

I made myself one. Loooooook:

If you want one, go to wordle.com. It's pretty neat.

The real bite of nostalgia

2009-01-01T21:56:00.000-08:00

I was going though the folders on the pc at home and I found "The Making of Woodstock". Pipe put his foot down and said we weren't gonna print that. Too degrading or some such thing. But I wonder why. I mean who wouldn't wanna be part of that mad maaaad world? It was fun while it lasted. But it was more than that. It's one of those few things I really do (did?) miss about MCC. Pipe goading us on; Roshan's wisecracks during our 3 hr meetings (which consisted of 5 mins of deciding what the next issue was gona contain and 2 hrs and 55 mins of the aforementioned wise-cracks); Sande's "I'll take care of it"s; Danny pretending to know it all- Danny suprising us by actually knowing it all! Vasudha's writing.. Plus that was where I met three of my closest friends..

For those of you who wonder about the nostalgia, I present to you, for the first time, "The Making of Woodstock". May Pipe burn in hell! It's my blog and I write what I want!

The Making of Woodstock

We aren’t saying it isn’t fun. We aren’t saying it is hard work. We aren’t saying that we don’t enjoy it. All we are saying is.. Well, read on and you’ll understand what we went through before we brought out this issue.

It all started on Jan 3rd when we came back after spending 12 days sleeping and eating - and sleeping some more. Realisation dawned upon us that the January issue of Woodstock was due. Someone mildly suggested that we get started immediately, but it was immediately quashed down by cries from the geekier of us claiming that we’ll do it after the CAs – no problemo.

Well, the CAs came and went (and left us none the happier for it). It was Saturday the 12th and we decided we’ll get started. An online meet was scheduled for nine p.m. At nine, I logged in to find no one there.. Frantic messaging gave me to understand that out of the remaining 5, one was in Hyderabad, one was out for dinner, one was practicing.. something, one was fast asleep, and the last one was, shall I say.. at a different level of thinking. With a sigh, we resheduled it for the same time, next night.

Now anybody who knows the woodstock team would not be surprised that the online meet scheduled for 9 started infact at 10.30 and went on till past midnight (which got some of us nearly thrown out of our houses, but we will not dwell on minor issues). The topics discussed included serial killings, shilpa shetty, how to apply Gauss’ law using spherical co-ordinates, pongal celebrations, birthday parties, the book fair, the hottest guy/girl in college, etc.. Finally, we decided we’ll send in the articles by Tuesday – do the DTP by Thursday and get the issue scrutinized and out by the next week.

Tuesday night saw one article in the inbox. By Wednesday there were two. By Saturday, the number increased to 4. On Sunday the following message was sent to all
“Dear team member, This sms is regarding the your article for the next issue of woodstock. On checking the mail account, I am saddened to note that it has made it’s appearance yet. Please look into the issue. Thank you. Your’s sincerely, A teammate.”
Reply 1: Don’t worry sweetheart, it’ll be done.
Reply 2: Tonight. Tonight. I’ll send it in positively by midnight.
Reply 3: What’s the hurry?
Reply 4: If I do it.. Will you get me OD?
Sunday night in the inbox – You’ve got (0) new mails.
(to be continued..)

The reader will please note that close to 600 rupees worth of talk time, 500 messages, three online conferences – each lasting for approximately 2 hours, 15 online chats – lasting an hour, 5 fights, numerous train rides and sessions in front of Nescafe and endless cups of lemon tea (courtesy the college cafeteria) went into the making of this issue.

The change

2008-12-25T23:25:00.000-08:00

You may wonder why i now call this blog "Speaking the thousand words". It's because of my name. You see, my name - it means picture. And you know what a picture does!

And in answer to many of your questions, the old name - "Fading dreams grow cold as ice.." is a line from Elton John's "Return to Paradise":

It's paradise here where the sun meets the sea
There's nothing to fear and so much to be
But soon I must go, say goodbye to it all
That homeland of mine is beginning to call

Goodbye doesn't mean this has to be the end
Fading dreams grow cold as ice
And I got a feeling we will meet again
When we return to paradise

The wind in our hair and the sun in our eyes
There's no need for tears and no time for lies
So reach out your hand and I'll reach out my heart
Remember me while we are apart

Goodbye doesn't mean this has to be the end
Fading dreams grow cold as ice
And I got a feeling we will meet again
When we return to paradise

I'm heading homeward
Leaving sunshine and heading for rain
But we'll return to paradise again

Goodbye doesn't mean this has to be the end
Fading dreams grow cold as ice
And I got a feeling we will meet again
When we return to paradise

Hold that thought!

2008-12-23T13:14:00.000-08:00

A friend of mine (who begged to remain anonymous) said to me "when I was in school I decided to take up science - because by doing science you actually contribute to the total amount of human knowledge. With humanities, you don't - maybe to the beauty of the world or whatever, but not to knowledge, and with management, you contribute absolutely nothing!"

So, all you geeks out there surviving on phdcomics, now you know..

:-)

Cowardly Cops

2008-12-02T00:48:00.000-08:00

A friend and I were travelling by 23C recently on our was to Besant Nagar. As we got into the bus at the IIT stop, two(obviously drunk) guys sped past the bus on a bike yelling and screaming at the bus driver. The driver kept trying to lose them - by either going slower or faster but these guys kept up with the bus and kept screaming. Apparently, this has been going on from Saidapet. Finally, the driver stopped the bus at the Madya Kailash signal.

There were 3 cops at signal - it was sunday evening and they were doing what cops do best on sunday evening - torture inncoent college students regarding lack of various papers and so make huge sums of money in the process. The driver stoped right next to them and tried telling them about the two guys. One cop was on the phone and didn't realise that the driver was talking to him until he caught me waving frantically to him he trotted over to see what was going on and when he found out he came back to his original place, a completely bored expression on his face. The second cop - an old cop, listen to the driver and then walked away, and the third cop was in the corner 'potty kadai' smoking!!!!!

They were completely unconcerned. Why should they listen to what the driver has to say, was their attitude? After all, the driver has no money to hand over as a bribe.. he has no influence, he can't get them a promotion! And helping him, would probably mean, they'll catch a lesser number of students and lesser bribes!

Yuck!

Recently, a friend of mine was caught "speeding" (read: 40 km/hr) at 11 in the night. The cops caught him and because there was a girl(another friend o mine) with him, they started giving him ahard time and demanded he pay them 8000Rs. They kept at it until the girl remarked, "this is ridiculous, lets call your dad". Then they backed off, since the dad was a respectable gentleman who's sure to be influential.

And this other friend of mine, who's doing journalism, tells me that even if he's caught breaking traffic rules (going the wrong way in a one way lane, for example), the cops don't do anything further. They just let him go. Which, if you ask me, is as cowardly as they can get!

This city's policemen disgust me no end!

I wonder if there's something I can do about it - at least the Madya Kailash incident since I witnessed it first hand. If you guys can think of anything, let me know..

Words! Words! Words!

2008-11-22T01:41:00.000-08:00

Don't you love them? They way they sound when you say them out aloud? The taste they leave behind? The way they mean something different in every context? The power they give you?

Don't you love learning a new word? I remember the first time I chanced upon a new word. I must've been 8. Maybe 9. I was looking up something in our tattered Chambers' and I saw 'quintessence' on top. The word caught my eye and I looked it up. It was beautiful. Chambers also gives you the origin of the word - it's roots. I won't spoil it for you. Look it up yourself. In a dictionary - don't google it. Googling, for some reason takes away the beauty of words. You can never do the "on the way to the dictionary" thing.

My dad, when he is super bored, and had no new books to read, opens the dictionary and looks up words - their meaning, the story behind them.. It might sound geeky, but I can totally relate to that. I'd like to do that too!!

But, you know, at the end of the day, it's not the words you use that counts. It's how you use them that really matters. Sadly, few people get that.

Take Chicken Little for example. I believe (and I'm sure once you read her blog, you'll agree) that her language is extremely powerful! She doesn't write about anything powerful or deep, mind you. She writes about college, relationships, friends, studies - stuff everyone goes through. She doesn't use big words either. She uses simple, everyday, what you-and-i-will-use words. And yet, her posts are powerful. She has a way with them words.

Or take Roshan George. He has, by far, the biggest vocabulary among anyone I know. His vocabulary is even better than my dad's (yes appa, it is and you know it!), but you hardly find him flaunting his words. He learns these words and waits to use them. He threw this word at me the other day and I went all blank and he said "I've been waiting to use it ever since I was a kid. Try it somtime." I promptly forgot the word.

Me, I'm not so good with the vocabulary. I forget things. I don't remember words easily. They slip through my mind. I envy Roshan George very much. But I envy Chicken Little more. Because while Roshan knows the words, Chicken knows how to use them. And that's what really counts.

P.S: Roshan writes pretty well too. Much better than me at any rate. Loads better.

@ Roshan and Chicken: Sorry guys, the post isn't aimed at either of you. I just used you as examples.

This tag like thingy

2008-11-13T01:25:00.000-08:00

It's Roshan's fault this time. Pass on the hate, he says. Very well, I shall.

"..too long; we've got to move on."

Here's how it works:

1.Grab the nearest book.
2.Open it to page 56.
3.Find the fifth sentence.
4.Post the text of the sentence in your journal along with these instructions.

I was at my desk with my bookshelf behind me. First book from the right, he said. I took the first book from the right. It happened to be Issac Asimov's The rest of the Robots. Collecion of short stories which never got published as a book. This one's from Victory Unintentional.

Apart from that, I apologize for my long absence. I had - you guessed it - exams! And app work. More exams and more app work beckon. Wish me luck, people!

Sabbath day

2008-10-19T06:32:00.000-07:00

Well, since I liked the response I got when I told everyone, I thought I might as well post it:

Today, sunday the 19th october, I had my Atmoic and Molecular physics quiz.

There. I said it. The funny part being, we picked a sunday. The prof wasn't too happy with it. Why would he be? He has to come to work on a sunday!. But we clearly told him that we don't have another date to spare. It was now or never. So he picked now. He needs to grade us, you see.

Ah well, says something about wannabe nerds, doesn't it?

So morning I wrote the exam. Afternoon I slept. Tonight I will write record.

In other news, my Toefl results came out. Apparently, my english is good - I know how to read, understand, speak and write english. Well, that's what they said. If you have a problem with that, you may pick a fight with ETS.

As cute as it gets.

2008-10-07T22:45:00.000-07:00

Got my first intro to 55 from Pseudo here.

Anyway, decided to write one myself. A '55' is a story which is written in less than 55 words. So here goes:

Her mind wandered as usual. She smiles to herself as she thinks of the previous evening. Dinner was perfect. Her phone suddenly vibrates. She checks it under the desk. A message - 'Stop thinking of me and concentrate on class :-) '. She couldn't help grinning as she continued copying down what was on the board.

Oh, I know that's so-cute-it-makes-you-puke-ish and who-does-that-anyway-ish, but hey, it's my first attempt, so be nice, okay?
Oh and you guys should try a 55 as well!

My third :-)

2008-10-06T06:17:00.000-07:00

My little brother(nice chap - brought me baccarwadi's (which is all I could think of all day since I let myself have one. It's one of those Ruffles lays things -No one can eat just one fits right! :-) )) told me last week to expect a tag. Too bad for him I had been tagged simultaneously by the same person. I see he hasn't done his bit though.. Anyway, here I go:

The rules for the tag are:

RULE #1 People who have been tagged must write their answers on their blogs and replace any question that they dislike with a new question formulated by themselves.

RULE #2 Tag 6 people to do this quiz and those who are tagged cannot refuse. These people must state who they were tagged by and cannot tag the person whom they were tagged by continue this game by sending it to other people.

1. If your lover betrayed you, what will your reaction be?
Knowing me, denial.. Until someone kicks me nice and hard!

2. If you can have a dream come true, what would it be?
To be the queen of the world!! :-D

3. Whose butt would you like to kick?
A certain pumpkin's!

4. What would you do with a billion dollars?
Buy a yatch! Travel the world in style!

5. Will you fall in love with your best friend?
Ewwwwwww... No, really. If you know m best-friend, you won't even ask!

6. Which is more blessed: loving someone or being loved by someone?
Assuming, I'll have to choose, I'll say, being loved. The other hurts!

7. How long do you intend to wait for someone you love?
If they love me back - forever. If they don't - maybe a day! Maybe.

8. If the person you secretly like is attached, what will you do?
Sigh over his gtalk icon in secret! ;-)

9. If you could root for one social cause, what would it be?
Global warming! Though i dunno how 'social' that is!

10. What takes you down the fastest?
Cramps! A thousand times over. Literally!

11. Where do you see yourself in 10 years time?
10 years.. Um. Married? Kids? Oh, and a world reknown scientist waiting for the Nobel, of course!

12. What’s your fear?
Monsters under my bed!

13. What kind of person do you think the person who tagged you is?
A great kid! My fav. blogger friend!!

14. Would you rather be single and rich or married and poor?
Um. That would depend on who I'm married to, of course. What if I get to marry Prince William or something?

15. What’s the first thing you do wen you wake up?
Yell at whoever wakes me up! *sheepish grin* Sowwie!

16. If you fall in love with two people simultaneously who will you pick?
The one who loves me back. In case both do, I'll toss a coin! Coins don't lie! :-)

17. Would you give all in a relationship?
Depends on how old the relationship is and how serious it is!

18. Would you forgive and forget someone no matter how horrible a thing he has done?
Um. Yeah, I've been known (infamously) to be very forgiving.

19. Do you prefer being single or in a relationship?
Oh, it can be fun both ways! I don't really care. As long as I'm not in a love triangle or something, I guess!

20. List of 6 people to tag:
Aarti - cause she loves tags.
Mathika - cause she gave me my first ever tag.
Vinod - cause he needs a reson to blog.
Rabia, Roshan - cause I want to know their answers to a few of these questions.
Satyaki - cause if I don't think anyone else gives him tags.

Nsoy! :-)

Footnote: Aquila is a sweet kid as well, considering she showed Ajay where one might obtain the said baccarwadis and Sharmila is 'ze best' cause she introduced me to them!

The list

2008-09-20T08:30:00.000-07:00

I had compiled a list of movies-to-watch-when-you're-feeling-bored-cause-you-gotta-watch-them-before-you-die-else-your-life-had-no-meaning sometime back, but never got around to posting it.. and then of course, I forgot all about it. Recently, Aquila had asked me to suggest a movie, and I remembered the list. I took it out, dusted it, and now i'm putting it up. I haven't seen some(say, 30%) of the movies myself, so dont blame me if you don't like it - just know that whoever recommended it did so strongly! All additions are always welcome. Happy watching! :-)

The serious ones

1.Mississipi burning
2.The deer hunter
3.Dead man walking
4.Scent of a woman
5.The bridges of Madison country
6.Flags of our fathers
7.Leaving las vegas
8.Syriana
9.Traffic
10.Cast away
11.Apocalypse now
12.The French connection
13.The swashank redemption
14.Lost in translation
15.Schindler’s list
16.Million dollar baby
17.Crash
18.Blood diamond
19.Arlington Road
20.One flew over the cuckoo’s nest
21.The aviator
22.Life is beautiful
23.Dangerous minds
24.Saving private Ryan
25.Road to Perdition
26.The deep end of ocean
27.A few good men

The not so serious ones

1.Good will hunting
2.Wag the dog
3.As good as it gets
4.Ocean’s eleven
5.My best friend’s wedding
6.Notting hill
7.Music and lyrics
8.Little Miss Sunshine
9. Seabiscuit
10.The greatest game ever played
11.Father of the bride
12.Starsky and Hutch
13.Hitch
14.Forrest gump
15.One fine day
16.Pretty woman
17.Pirates of the Carribeans
18.True lies
19.Erin Brochovich
20.The terminal
21.About a boy
22.August rush
23.Love actually

As kids

1.Finding Nemo
2.Ice Age 1 and 2
3.Madagascar
4.Parent trap
5.Lion king
6.Dunston Checks in
7.Liar Liar
8.Prince of Egypt
9.Baby’s day out

The classics

1.An American in Paris
2.Sound of music
3.Roman holiday
4.Star wars – the whole series
5.My fair lady
6.How to steal a million dollars
7.Sabrina
8.Charade
9.The good, the bad and the ugly
10.Benhur
11.For a few dollars more
12.for a fistful of dollars
13.Once upon a time in the west
14.Unforgiven
15.Mackenna's gold
16.Godfather
17.Casablanca
18.The bicycle thief

I'm a... WHAT?

2008-09-13T10:41:00.000-07:00

Scene one(Temashek hall, NUS - my room): Aquila's gtalking and I'm sipping the Raspberry Vodka I split with her. The vodka's getting to me, I guess. I turn to her and go, "doesn't all this feel nice and grown-up. Sitting in a different country, chatting with your best friend and drinking pink-colour alcohol? Like your childhood dream?" She turns back and smiles.
Half and hour later:
Aquila: Do you still feel on top of the world?
Me: No!

Scene 2 (Fruit shop, Anna Nagar): I'm meeting two of my school friends - Banu and Archana - after four years. We haven't met or spoken since school, but we used to be pretty close then. I called them on an impulse and we decided to meet.
Archana: So, what you planning to do next?
Me: PhD, hopefully.
Banu: But won't that take a long time?
Me: 5 years, if I'm luck (yes, I think of Mike Slakenerny and smile!)
Archana: So, when you planning to get married??
Me: M-M-mmarried?
Banu: Yeah..
Me: After that I guess.. Why? When you guys planning to get married?
Archana: In another year or two I guess.. They're looking out.
Me: Looking out??? But that's so... grown up!

Scene 3 (I'm having a messaging conversation with a 'friend*'). Friend sends me a message "... so, we suspected my girlfriend was pregnant and I had to got her a test.."
Me: ??????????????????????????????????!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

* I'm obviously not gonna tell you who I'm talking about, so don't even bother asking!

Scene 4 (Bakkiya's house): We're sipping juice and listening to her describe labour pains and how great it is (yeah, you heard me right the first time)! Sug is listening. Soumya and I look at each other. Um, but this is what adults - older women talk about! Not.. not us!!!

Scene 5 (On the phone): A friend is telling me about his taxes and arrears. I go "Ha, ha, you have arrears". I hear a frown which conveys 'grow up already'. I try to cover up with "It sounds so.. you know.. grown up. It's what parents do!!". It does!

Scene 6 (Suganya's wedding): Some dude goes "I welcome Mr.Allen and Mrs. Suganya Princess". Mrs???????

Scene 7 (In the car): Archana goes "do you know we are over age for all sports training camps in the city? Everyone tells us 'we'll let you know if we start a senior batch!'" We are??

Scene 8 (last night, outside my gate): We're returning from Soumya's sister's wedding. Divvya (for those of you who don't know, Divvya is my oldest friend. We've been 'best-friends' since 2nd standard) was dropping me home. It was around 11.30 in the night. I was the last one to be dropped, as usual (It's because I live the closest to her place. Plus I'm good with directions). I had to keep going 'turn left, go right, go straight' since Deena's house.
Finally we entered my colony. I said "you're supposed to know this place.. you grew up here!!"
She goes "yeah, I know"
But to irritate her I continued "take a right here".
"I know"
"Left"
"I know"
"Go straight."
I get a glare.
(At my road) "Turn right"
"Hello? I know!!!!"
"First house on the left."
"Oh, apadingala (Is that so)?? I didn't know.."

We both laughed as I got out of the car and she waited till I got into the house before leaving - like her dad and granddad used to do the many times they dropped me over the past 15 years. I thought of 15 years ago when I actually didn't know her house and went searching for it with my maid on Diwali day. She came back home with me that day and it's been 15 years since then. But it seems like just yesterday. Not that I mind the drop-you-off-post-11-and-make-sure-you're-in-before-i-take-off thing. It kinda feels nice.
(Who am I kidding?)
It feels real good and all.. well, grown up.

Maybe, just maybe, being grown up isn't so bad after all! :-)

Fling! BANG!... Ooops!

2008-09-11T06:25:00.000-07:00

Everyone's done a post on LHC. Why should I be out of the loop??

Today, while walking down the down, I happened to overhear two girls talking about the LHC:
Girl 1: So, if this experiment went wrong, yesterday is the last day of earth.
Girl 2: (Shocked) Oh no!
Girl 1: But thankfully, the experiment didn't went wrong, so it's okay.

Anyway, apart from telling us what exactly our government spends half our education budget on, and the state of english in IIT (I told you so!), it also gives us a slight idea of exactly how uninformed the people around us are about the LHC!

My at.mol prof told us on tuesday "So, in the event that the rumour about micro blackholes being created and sucking us all in is true, we shall not meet on monday. But I can pretty reasonably assure you that that will not happen. So, be on time."

One of those times, when you forgot your physics and wished for blackholes. Especially since we have an assignment due monday!

Ah, well, C'est la vie.

I sent this link to most of you. Got it from Ajay's status message. Apparently, most of you have already seen it. In case you haven't:

http://in.youtube.com/watch?v=j50ZssEojtM

It's not completely true. But funny nevertheless.

Apparently, Hawking has a bet for $100 that the Higg's boson will not be discovered. Which is not so good, actually. The search for it will still be on, and they'll just end up building a bigger accelerator and spending more money. Starving millions, anyone?

The latest addiction!

2008-09-03T21:52:00.000-07:00

Okay, I admit it. I really am addicted to phdcomics. Just that the strip is so damn funny!!! Take this one for example:

And this, strangely is not even one of the more popular ones.. But you must've seen the others. This one is just my personal favorite.

Anyway, I went into the archives and started reading all the ones written long ago - some 1000 odd strips and I'm proud to say that yesterday, I finally finished reading all of them! Now I'm an expert. Almost. :-)

P.S: Mike is my fav. character. Who's yours?

The poll

2008-08-28T10:42:00.000-07:00

Just out of curiosity, how come no one's voting on the poll. Just wondering.. Just 3 votes so far and I - accd to sitemeter - have about 10 visitors a day. Oh, and does anyone know how to change the font colour. It is difficult to read, I agree. And this is also a 'I-just-wanted-to-post-but-didn't-know-what-to-post-on' post.

In other news, I have started swimming again - after 5 years. And it is true what they say - you can never forget how to swim!

Enga area.. ulla varadhae!

2008-08-22T07:25:00.000-07:00

Before I begin,
Happy birthday, Madras!

A long promised post. I must say that the repeated requests for it flattered me no end and I wanted to do justice to it! Hence I took a long time and decided to post it on August 22nd - for what better day??

I’m not gonna give you people a list of reasons we love this place. Enough blogs have them. Or open the supplements today. All of them will carry popular opinions which will, I’m sure include filter kaapi, podimas, beach road, mount road, ranganathan street, spencers(for Gawd knows what reason), Anna nagar tower, etc.. I, however, am gonna merely state and refute or reinstate popular opinions, giving credit where it is due.

So what is so great about this place, you ask? After all, it has been voted as being the hottest, most conservative, boring, and most under-developed among the metros! A desert - in short. Chennai autos are infamous throughout the country and the city is definitely not known for its night-life, hot chicks or guys! There are exactly two big malls and Chennai people do not know how to dress and those who do, find it too expensive to maintain it! The city dwellers refuse to learn hindi, thus making it difficult for the rest of the country to come down for a visit and what's there by way of sight-seeing anyway? The city has a rainy season of two-weeks and is eternally on the verge of a water-shortage. The politicians are again infamous throughout the country (who doesn't know Jayalalitha? - who studied in Church Park, btw..)and the people are uninteresting and stupid. Most importantly, according to my friend, "It didn't even have a McD till 3 months ago, and Madrasi food sucks!" and the beach is of course, as dirty as it gets!

Okay, now that I've written all the points which people keep throwing at me, let me start by refuting them one by one.

First of all, this place is not a desert. As my sister put it 'The only thing you don't get in T.Nagar is an aeroplane'.

Yes it is hot, I'm sorry about that - but has anyone ever noticed that it is hot for precisely 3 months a year? The rest of the year, I am cursing the hostel administrators every morning for not having a geyser!

And yup, most people are conservative, but that is just about the way they live their lives and the way their children live theirs! They let everyone else be. Chennites are among those who do not pass judgement easily, believe it or not. We're more open minded than B'loreans or Delhites in the sense that, in either of those places, you need to be 'cool' and 'hep'. You can't be who you are the way you want to be. You need to fake it and pretend just to fit in - something neither I, nor anyone I know had to do in Chennai. It's a city of extremes and weirdly, the extremes get along very well. Here, it is common to find a pardha cladding muslim be best friends with one who sports the minis and halters.

The autos are irritating, but be a sport about it, won't you? Walk! Nothing feels as good as a long walk. Just trust me on this one. And if you hate your feet, take the public transport. Apparently, Chennai is one of the few cities which is very wll connected by public transport! (If anyone has a contention here, they can contact Mr. Ipe Job, who, by the way, spent his entire childhood elsewhere).

And as for the nightlife, we do have our fair share of clubs and discos and pubs. What we also have is more than our fair share of Sabhas and Concert halls and Theatre/Rock fests! *Allow me a huge grin here, will you?*

Two big malls and one McD – forgive me, but I’m kinda proud we haven’t yet succumbed to the US based MNCs who drive our men out of business!

The hindi bit, again something I’m proud of, but that has a whole post dedicated to it. Besides, did you know that you didn’t need to know Tamil at all to survive here? Ask my friend Anisha – she was born in Chennai, lived here all her life, her mother-tongue is tamil, she studied tamil in school till the 8th and she still can’t frame a proper sentence in it! Why? Because she doesn’t need to!
In fact, apart from her, I have exactly, *counts* 5 tamilian friends. No, 6, but the 6th is the same as Anisha - can’t speak tam for nuts! I’m talking about people born and brought up in Chennai, of course. It is expected I should know many more… but weirdly I don’t! *grins* Cosmopolitan, eh?

The city, though has always been on the verge of water-shortage, never actually was! 5 successive years of failed monsoon and I didn’t have to miss a single bath. Compare this with the west, where one failed monsoon and they’re already worried to death!

I dunno what they mean when they say ‘Madarasi food’, but I’ll say one thing – we make the best god dammed sandwiches EVER! (If you don’t know what I’m talking about, please please go to Alsa mall the next time you’re free!
Oh, and one thing non-south Indians should know – idly doesn’t taste the least bit like how you get it in restaurants – I dunno why, but home idlys feel and taste very different!

Hot chicks, dreamy guys – well, you got me there. Er.. * scratches head*. All I can say is Madhavan, Siddharth, Shriya, anyone?? *sheepish grin*

Oh, the sight-seeing bit *chuckles* (bet no one else got the joke anyway!), well.. apart from the beaches (check ‘em all out!), I have on my platter Dakshin Chitra, 3 amusement parks, Mahabs, Crocodile bank (it’s really cool, trust you me!), Vandalur zoo (It’s almost as good as the Singapore one. Almost), etc.. (Remind me to put up a long list at some point of time in life.

As for the uninteresting and stupid people bit, well.. off the top of my head – Indira Nooyi, A.R Rahman, Kalam (well, he studied in MIT – that counts), C.V.Raman, Chandrashekar, Vishvanathan Anand, etc..

So yes, there I refute all the statements ever thrown. If you have anymore, bring ‘em on!

Oh, and also, let me mention that no one can stay in this city for more than 4 years without falling in love with it, apparently. Ask my MCC friends – Unni Nair, Sai Krishna, Satyaki Roy, Prashant Ipe Job, Shannon Peter to name a few..
They constantly surprise me with they proclaimations! Stuff even I wouldn’t dream of saying. Like Unni saying he’ll do anything to settle down in Chennai! Or Satyaki (this guy swore he would never return to Chennai once he was done with MCC) pinging me to let me know that he was returning to ‘his favourite city’ the next day. And Pipe (dude could never stop talking about UP when he landed here) having an argument with me – ME – about the afore mentioned transport thing. And Shannon (sigh, you gotta meet him – no word would do justice here) calling me up the night before an exam to argue about how Chennai is the safest city on the planet. Yes, I said argue. I didn’t agree with him of course!

Last year, same day, I sent a message to all my friends wishing them. I don't have a copy of the message, so I can't quote it verbatim, but here's what I remember of it: "I'm looking out of my window and all I can see is a vast expanse of green trees and shrubs against a light blue and pink and purple sky dotted with white clouds. A few coconut trees are popping out of the green mass and swaying to the wind. In a distance is a solitary building - the tidal park with it's lights coming on! And all this, bang in the centre of the city! Where else, but here?”

That message still holds.

We love you, Madras!!!! :-)

With friends like this...

2008-08-19T06:45:00.000-07:00

Have you ever come across a pair of friends you envy - envy, cause you never had a friend like that? A pair who make you wanna lean against the door and smile? A pair you're not a part of, and though you'd love to be, you do not want to even peep into their world in case you destroy the balance? The kind of friends you read about in books, and are talked about in movies - and all this while you thought that that kind did not exist and when you realise they do, you suddenly feel lonely - lonely like never before.. and happy - happy, cause, to re-quote Aquila's blog title "it's a wonderful world indeed which contains something so beautiful!

( To answer your questions, yes I am thinking of certain two people, and no, I'm not gonna tell you who it is!)

My second tag

2008-08-10T00:17:00.000-07:00

So soumya tagged me.. Visit her blog page sometime. She updates it more regularly than anyone else i know. The tag itself is simple. You just answer some 30-3 questions. Here goes:

1. What's your latest addiction?
Coffee. Can't live without it anymore!

2. What are you listening to?
Some stupid song which plays everytime I visit soumya's blog. (P.S: Girl, how do i turn it off??)

3. How late did you stay up last night and why?
Um. 3 o clock in the morning.(Dad, if you're reading this, DO NOT freak). We having having a heart to heart thingy follwed by two phone calls (I was returning them).

4. Who were you with last Friday night?
My classmates and my juniors (Dept. freshies!)

5. Do you think you will be in a relationship 3 months from now?
Well, one hopes.. :-)

6. When is the next time you'll see your close friends?
In a few mins.. Someone's sure to knock on my door, calling me for dinner!

7. What were you doing this morning at 7am?
Sleeping, of course!!

8. What radio station do you listen to the most?
104.8 F.M.

9. What was the reason you last cried?
Lemme see.. I guess it was when a friend of mine yelled at me in public.

10. Have you ever talked to someone when they were high?
Oh, yes!!!!

11. What's the fifth text in your inbox say?
It says "what happened". Go figure. :-)

12. Where was the last coffee shop you [went to]?
CCD, of course. One week ago.

13. What's your outfit right now?
PJs

[No 14 and 15]

16. What were you doing at 11pm last night?
Having the aforementioned heart-to-heart

17. Who was the last person you talked to last night before bed?
Um. Jenita and Shravini. Wished them goodnight.

18. Will you be driving in a year?
Unless I have an accident, yeah!

19. Is there anything that you are craving right now?
The beach. (No idea why..)

20. When did your last hug take place?
Last night. I burst into Ranjini's room saying "I need a hug" right after a horrible GRE test!

[No 21 either.]

22. Have you ever started a sentence with "No offense, but..."?
Of course... Many many times. But usually, as a semi-joke.

23. Do you drink tea?
Occasionally. When there's no coffee. [Coffee rocks! :-) ]

24. Have you ever been arrested?
Nope.

25. Have you rode in someone else's car today?
Didn't leave the hostel today (yeah, yeah.. I know. Sad life et al.)

26. Have you made a mistake this past week?
Maybe. I wouldn't know yet.

27. Who was the last person you texted?
Vinod, I think.

28. Are you happy with your life right now?
With GRE next week, how could I be?? ;-(

29. In the past 72 hours have you been under the influence?
Um. "The" influence? Nope.

30. What's the connection between you and the last person you texted?
I'll stick with the "best friend's best friend". It's more interesting than 'friend' at any rate.

So I tag everyone who's on my blog roll!

One jobless optics class..

2008-08-09T06:42:00.000-07:00

So yesterday we were studying the Drude model in Cond. Mat. (I can see all of you going "eh? what?") and in the next class - which happened to be optics - Debo and I came up with a poem which is bokka (to know the meaning of the word ask a bong near you) to say the least!

This is what Debo had to say:

Drude the dude,
See, i don't mean to be rude,
But your model is so crude,
For mankind it's no good,
Cv and are wearing a hood,
I'm sorry to say that this'll be definitely be rejected by Sarika's Sood*!

So I replied with:

Hey Debo, this is Drude,
Just wanna tell you that I'm in no mood,
To listen to you be so prude,
I think your humour is better when it's lewd,
So stop putting pseud!

Now you know what IITians do in class! :-)

* Sood is a prof in IISc. under whom Sarika did her summer internship.

And once again - goodbye!

2008-07-29T08:42:00.000-07:00

The following is an excerpt from a mail I meant to send a year ago(31/5/07 to be exact), but never did! I found it in the drafts today, while looking for something else, and I just thought I'll put it in. It describes a feeling I was to experience many times over in the following year:

You know that feeling you get when you see a friend off? You see her getting into the bus and take up a seat. She looks out at you from the window and smiles and waves. You smile back and keep waving till the bus turns around the corner. Then you turn around and start walking. The road suddenly looks both beautiful and empty. You have a smile on your face but you feel lonely.. Why am i typing this? Because i just saw Madhu off on her JNC shuttle and I wanted to get the feeling while it still was there. Sure there's another shuttle I can catch in another two hours but life - my work would've caught up with me by then. I would no longer want to get into the bus.. I'll meet her, maybe, this weekend, but the moment would be long gone. But, years later when I look back and ponder upon what our friendship was all about, it is this moment that i will think of. It is that feeling - a sudden loss of safety, a sense of loneliness - that I will remember.

And now, a year later, I've done that over and over again. Endless times. Now-a-days, it's with a "I dunno when I'll see you next, so I'll see you when I'll see you" - to close/best friends from school going abroad, to cousins leaving to different places, to classmates from college who work in different parts of the world, to friends I met during the summer during my internship... the list is endless!

There is no escape of course - the goodbyes must be said, the hugs must be given and you must watch them as they turn and disappear out of sight - perhaps forever!

For Thine is the Kingdom

2008-07-15T00:33:00.000-07:00

God - Possibly the most discussed topic ever. No, that would be food (three times a day per person min.). Well, alright, the second most discussed topic ever..

The fact that I'm an atheist has invited it's share of shocked expressions as I grew up. I still remember our valedictory lunch when all of us were sitting around a table in Mainland China - dressed in our saris and feeling all grown up - when Rabia suddenly remarked "Oh, but Chitra doesn't believe in God!".
"What?" - A general cry and shocked expressions all around followed by a discussion on God and Religion where everyone else agreed that 'God invented man but man invented religion'(quite profound for a 16 yr old, come to think of it).

That being the first time I had openly admitted to being an atheist, it was also the first time I had to put up with such a reaction. Also I came from a very Christiany Christian school - you know, prayers 4 times a day, teacher making fun of Durga's multiple hands during a history lesson, Darwin bashing during a bio lesson, scripture verses competitions, no bangles/bindi, plain sari for the valedictory(though, I have to admit, that looks very pretty), arguments on the big bang theory, the choir singing only religious songs - heck! the rock band played only religious songs!, etc.. you get the picture.
At the end of it all, I was sick of the whole thing. Sick of having a religion being pushed upon me and having to defend my beliefs.

I was also a very confused kid as I grew up. I don't come from a particularly religious family. There was the usual temple visits every birthday and every summer and pray to God on religious holidays thing, but I wasn't brought up on stories of Hindu mythology(things I pester my classmates at IIT for now!) - my dad used to tell me stories of the wars and the rise and fall of civilisations and dynasties - facts, not fiction, mind you.

Maybe that was what got me interested in Science - it dealt with hardcore facts. You got to verify everything. In religion on the other hand, you gotta trust blindly - something which never appealed to me. It was tempting, mind you. I mean, imagine putting all your trust and troubles and burdens and duties on someone else and believing that it'll all be taken care of! I would give a lot to be able to do that, but I know I never can.

It, somehow, doesn't seem right!

When my sister and I had our little accident, my mom prayed to some temple somewhere down south and said she'll do an 'archanai' there if we get better. We did and now she wants to go. She thinks my dad and I were sniggering at her when she told us this, but we weren't. Well, I can't speak for him, but I, for one, have never been against anyone else's blind faith. Just because I like to lead a life where I believe I and I alone am responsible for everything I do, doesn't mean I expect everyone else to do the same! Which is why it irritates me when others come and try to convince me that there does exist a God. Why do they do that? If they can accept that Hindus believe in Brahma, Vishnu and Shiva, the Muslims in Allah and the Christians in Jesus Christ, why can't they let me believe in none? Why is it impertinent that I believe in someone whoever he/she be?

Though I'm being a tad unfair in making the previous statement. People accept the other religions because of religious harmony but they don't stop trying to convince the others to accept their own. I can understand that. What I can't stand is when someone pushes their beliefs upon you. Like Mrs. Rajan in school who made fun of Kali when we were studying about Durga Pooja in Social studies (I was 8 and I wasn't pleased with what was happening - if I had been older, I guess I would've protested, but then again she wouldn't have made such a statement to a bunch of 16 year olds - which just makes me lose all respect for her, but that's besides the point..). Or that lady who came home and gave my mom, who politely asked her what she did, a nice long lecture on how Christianity is the best and my mom should come for some meeting somewhere (I couldn't control my laughter and walked out of the room soon enough), or my aunt(who I love a lot and would die for her and so shouldn't put her name along with the others, but, hey, it's just an example) who tries to convince me to attend 'Art of living classes' - something, Chicken Little will assure you I don't need, since acc. to her I can be happy in a jail - whatever that means!

Another thing which always struck me as strange was the way girls are usually either firm believers or atheist. They dislike being an 'agnostic' for a long time, while that seems the popular choice with guys!! Of course, I will discount the masses who claim they are an agnostic because "they believe in God - some God, no name, but a supreme power" (to such people, I would suggest that they please go look up the dictionary meaning of the word and not be ashamed of believing in a supreme power. Trust me, there's nothing 'cool' about being an agnostic or a atheist!).

There's another category of people - my favorite - the ones who believe in God thanks to Pascal's wager argument ! Smart people, they are.. but it does seem like cheating, doesn't it? And if there is a God who knows all and controls all, won't he know exactly what these people are getting at? Ah, well..

Whatever works for them!

The night before the wedding.

2008-07-08T10:04:00.000-07:00

One evening Marilla, coming in from the orchard with a basket of apples, found Anne sitting along by the east window in the twilight, crying bitterly.

"Whatever's the matter now, Anne?" she asked.

"It's about Diana," sobbed Anne luxuriously. "I love Diana so, Marilla. I cannot ever live without her. But I know very well when we grow up that Diana will get married and go away and leave me. And oh, what shall I do? I hate her husband--I just hate him furiously. I've been imagining it all out--the wedding and everything--Diana dressed in snowy garments, with a veil, and looking as beautiful and regal as a queen; and me the bridesmaid, with a lovely dress too, and puffed sleeves, but with a breaking heart hid beneath my smiling face. And then bidding Diana goodbye-e-e--" Here Anne broke down entirely and wept with increasing bitterness.

- Anne(12) in Anne of Green Gables

"It's all pretty much as I used to imagine it long ago, when I wept over your inevitable marriage and our consequent parting," she laughed. "You are the bride of my dreams, Diana, with the `lovely misty veil'; and I am YOUR bridesmaid. But, alas! I haven't the puffed sleeves -- though these short lace ones are even prettier. Neither is my heart wholly breaking nor do I exactly hate Fred."

- Anne(21) in Anne of the Island

The narrative - Part 1

2008-07-04T12:09:00.000-07:00

Here is a very brief (by my standards) report of my recent trip to Singapore. Popular demands et al..

Characters you will meet during the course of this narative:

1) Ranjini: (a.k.a assie) She's a classmate of mine. A total nutcase/genius/idiot/sweetheart - you get the picture. She denies the obvious very vehemently. Both of us travelled to and fro together. She can be fun when she's not scared of the little beetle on my head or a water tank or, i dunno.. the skyline!

2) Aquila: My soulmate ;-) Well, the only other girl in India to be doing a master's in physics, have a blog, 2 friends from col., go through a make-over, read the way books should be read, etc.. If you know any other, we'll be happy if you could let us know!

3)Sharmila: Aquila's classmate (they're from Pune university). A complete sweetheart. The only sensible and responsible person among the lot of us - hence she gets stuck with handling our finances, tickets and p.o.a wherever we go. Oh and she knows moonwalking! But that's a tale of it's own..

4) Tanya: A girl from Delhi. One of those who remind you not to go by first impressions. Sweet, cheerful, bubbling with life, confidant, etc.. - a typical Delhi girl! Except she's smart too!

5,6,7) Siddharth, Soumalya, Veeresh: Three guys from my class. I will say no more. Read on and form your own opinions :-)

8) Sandip: Aquila's classmate. Obbessed with photography. Has been known to take a minimum of 1000 photographs in one day. And no, I'm not exaggerating. Oh, Veeresh like taking photos too, but Sandip takes the cake.

9) Rakhi: A PhD student from IIT-M. Helped us settle in and gave us murruku everytime we visited her. :-)

10) Sharon, Minrui, Binni, Yilin, Zhi Han: People in my lab. But more about them as the tale proceeds.

11) Dr.Sow: My guide. (Yeah, I admit his name should've been first conventionally, but heck, you guys don't wanna hear about my work in the lab, do you??)

The story:

Ranjini and I arrive at the Changi airport and are picked up by my brother. I guess he convinced the taxi driver that he knows the town well, cause we had to pay barely $20, while my friends paid $35! Guess the autos in B'lore and the taxis there don't really differ much!

We reached Temashek hall (our home for 6 weeks) at 9 in the morning. We went to the chap who was incharge of giving us the keys(correction: transponder) to our rooms only to be told by this lady (maid? wife? daughter?) that he was still sleeping!! We insisted that he be woken up, and he came out all grumpy and grouchy (it was only later that we found out that that's how he normally looks; even when he's telling jokes about how there are two sesons in S'pore: hot and very hot (you can roll your eyes all you want - i was forced to laugh politely)). He gave us the transponder and explained how it works. I never did get why they had to use something like that! What's wrong with a normal key?? Esp since they made us pay 42$ if anything happened to it!

To be continued..

Wherever I roam..

2008-06-22T07:53:00.000-07:00

Last night it rained hard in Chennai. A sudden burst of thunder followed by heavy rain which lasted for many hours. A strange occurence in itself. Many wondered why - it was so out of the blue. It seemed like a clear evening.

Not those who knew me of course! The city was in tears with happiness. The princess had returned to her kingdom! :-)

The streets were muddy. The roads - flooded. Even the new bridge over the Katipara junction had stagnated water all over it. It was 12 in the night and the traffic was still chaotic. We got splashed and sprayed as the call taxis and guys in their shining pulsars over-took us as they raced past, breaking a million traffic rules on their way. As i looked out, many people huddled close, holding a plastic sheet over their head. A thin old man, walked past us near nungambakkam, with a walking stick to hold him up and a towel to protect him from the lashing rain. A transformer sent out a shower of sparks before immering the area in darkness. We drove past old forgotten buildings, construction sites, half-broken walls, huts with the roofs letting through the water, buildings with the paint peeling off..

And i smiled to myself. I was home.

:-)

The Great Cross Country Walk

2008-06-02T08:43:00.000-07:00

Before I begin, lemme give credit where credit is due and thank Roshan for this tres brilliante idea! "Thanks, dude!" :-)

Well, now that that's over... Yup, as the name suggests, I did a cross country walk. Literally. One end of Singapore to the other.

We measured out the shortest distance and figured 8 kms wasn't too far. Of course, we forgot that it was 8 kms as the crow flies.. and since we had also forgotten to use google map, we ended up walking nearly 12-13. We(alright, I!) forgot to set our alarm the previous night and woke up really late and after a late brunch, finally set out at 4.30. We hadn't also taken into account that the ride to our starting point will take us an hour and a half of travel by bus and metro. And another half an hour to find out starting point. This:

Originally, everyone was enthusiastic about joining us. But laziness gets to one soon. So finally, it was just me and Sharmila. And i guess the main reason she came was because we had told everyone in the lab that we were gonna go! Anyway, we started from pasir Ris park. The previous picture was taken from the end of Pasir Ris park. What you see up ahead is the sea. Here's proof that it was indeed the Pasir Ris park:

The park was one of the pleasant suprised during our walk. one of the prettiest places we've come across in S'pore, it's a place which we otherwise would've never visited. It was complete with a swamp, a bird-lookout, cycling lanes, people playing football, a maze and benches facing the sea.

Anyway, we started walking down Pasir Ris Drive 3 which went along the north coast, i.e, perpendicular to the direction in which we had to walk, but we had no choice thanks to the aforementioned failure to use google maps.

We finally rached Lovang avenue.Now the stupid map we carried showed only higways and expressways. One isnt allowed to walk on expressways, so we got completely lost and had to ask random people for directions to Simei avenue - our next destination. The thing about S'pore is, people here have no imagination. They pick one name for a locality and every place there is 'that name + a number'. Like you had Pasir Ris drive 1, 2,3,4, Pasir Ris street 1,2,3.. etc.. Similarly, we had Simei street 1-5, Simei road 1,2,3,4.. and finally a Simei Avenue not to mntion the Simei metro station. So of course, each person we asked showed us a different direction. They all of course very sweetly suggested that we take a cab/bus since it was too far to walk. We gave various reasons to various people for wanting to walk. The real explaination would've been too long an explaination in broken English.

Anyway, it was soon 8.15. We were tired and hungry and in desperate need of food. Oh, not to mention lost. we were down Simei 3rd street when we stumbled upon the metro. This was when thoughts of "we should just go back was crossing out minds". Finally Sharmila said, we'll eat something and then decide.

Do you have any idea how much of a difference food can make to you? Just one hotdog + one cup of coke? We set out again, determined this time, not to give up till 10.30. 10.30 we knew we had to rush to the nearest metro station cause otherwise we had no way of getting home. We walked down the 3rd street and reached Simei avenue! Ah, bliss.. here's the snap.

Anyway, after that we walked down to Upper Changi Road. short walk actually, but the walk down upper Changi road - not so short.

We were crossing a busstop and I asked Sharmila to take a look and see if a bus goes to the golf course - our final destination (Beyond the golf course was the sea) - but she stumbled upon a bus - bus no.10 which stops right behind out hostel.Talk about luck! Especially since we were halfway across town! We decided to come back and take that bus since the last bus was at 11.15. It gave us slightly more time. From that time onwards, everytime we passed a busstop we peeped in to see if there was a no.10 bus going from there.

We stupidly decided to take a detour through unknown territory - i dunno why - we just did and entered Beedox road. We came across an indian family and asked them for the way to the Golf Country club. They starred at us.
"At this time? Why?"
"Well, we need to get somewhere nearby.."
"But there's nothing nearby!!"
"Okay.. But could you tell us the direction, please?"
* More suspiciously * "Why?"
"Okay, how do we get to the metro station (this was another metro.. the map told us how to get from the metro to the golf club)?"
" You go straight and take a right. Take a bus.. it's too far"
"It's okay, we'll walk."
"But the busstop is right behind you. and the bus is approaching. Go take it go!"
"No really, we'll walk. Thanks a lot."
"okay.." * more suspicious looks *

Anyway, we walked. Reached the metro and were fumbling with the map when some random Malay guy offered to help us. He was very helpful alright, but sadly he sent us off in the exact opposite direction. We walked and we walked and we walked. No golf course. Finally, we asked two Chinese girls. They informed us of our grave mistake. We asked them what happens if we walk straight ahead. And they replied, " you reach a bunch of private residential appartments, beyond which is the sea". Yipeee!!!! We had reached the sea! Or, well, one can't go across the residential appartments, so we reached the East Coast Road! Good enough! Now please don't ask me why the road along the Southern coast is called the East Coast Road.. i told you the Singaporeans, although nice people, have no imagination!!

Anyway, here's the final pic! :-)

Anyway, now the problem was getting back. Both the Metro station as well as the last no.10 busstop we had seen were far away and we were feeling too tired. We were considering a cab, when sharmila said, "lets just walk down this road and see if we can see the sea (no jokes intended)". And guess what we found? A no.10 bus stop, no less. And a no.10 bus approaching it! We scrambled in and had one of the best rides back to the hall. Along the East Coast Road and a long one hour drive. Lovely.

Oh, we treated ourselves to sugar doughnuts as a reward!

Now I have a story i can tell my great-grand kids! :-P

Personal jinx!

2008-05-27T22:57:00.000-07:00

Lately, I have a feeling that I'm cursed! Any IPL team I support seems to be losing! It started of course, with CSK. I admit it,it was me who was in the way of all their defeats! Took me long enough to realise what the problem was..

It started last saturday. CSK lost against RR. My status message was "Go CSK go!" And they promptly lost the match! There was a match after that - Mumbai indians vs Delhi Daredevils. I was told to "pray that Mumbai wins, cause if they do, CSk goes to the semis". So obviously, my status was "Go Mumbai!". Guess what? They lost the match too!

Coincidence? That's what I thought too, until there was a Mumbai vs RR match.

Jaipur needed 35 runs from 2 overs! Everyone assumed that Mumbai will sail to a finish, but sadly they didn't know that I had just joined the Mumbai cheering squad! Just to irritate a friend I said "Mumbai rocks. Go Mumbai Indians!". The next ball, jaipur hit a six and went on to win the match!!!

It finally dawned on me what I had to do! Switch loyalities! CSK vs Deccan Chargers. CSK's final chance to get into the semis. My status message: "Go Deccan". And guess what? It worked! CSK won! There was much celebration afterwards. Though my team (DC) lost, I was kind hearted enough to be happy for my friends... ;-)

Now I switch my loyalities again:

"Go Punjab! Go Delhi! Go Jaipur! Go Go Go!! Lets kick some CSK ass!!!"

:-)

A racey post!

2008-05-20T11:10:00.000-07:00

Recently, Aquila accused "tams" of taking a lot of pride in their race. "Second in the line", she claims,"right after the bongs"! A statement which caught me completely off-guard! Do we really?? The fact is, this is the first such accusation I've faced in the past 21 years..

It all started off with me correcting the way she pronounced "Madras". It's Med(as in short for Medical)-raas. That's the way we pronounce it. Truth be told, I dunno if that's the right way of doing it, but that's the way the localites fondly refer to it as and that's what stays. She insists on "Ma(as in mother)-da-raas". I correct her and she says that's how they write it in Marati and then goes on to accuse me of acting like a bong! * Huh? *

Lemme clear a few things right now. It's not my race/language/culture I'm proud of. They're as good as any other (except maybe America). No better. No worse. But when it comes to my city, it's a whole new story.

Most people assume yhat the 45 degree temperature which forces everyone to flee and the obvious conservative and traditional lifestyle which the people there are so scared to come out of doesnt leave much to be proud of. And now, a cricket team which insists on losing all it's matches doesnt add much!

There is much more to the city than that, but i don't wanna get started on why I love my city again. I promise I'll dedicate a whole post to that when i come back. For now, lemme just state that I love that place and can bear no criticism of chennai or it's people. I mean, will you be quiet if you family is being criticised? :-)

Coming back to the accusation. Yes, if you accuse me of standing up for my city, I shall bow and admit that it is true. So shall every other fellow Chennaite I know. But we do not claim that tamil food is the best. Dosa's are alright, but we can survive on naan just as well. And yes, we crib and crib about not having the perfect filter kaapi, but it doesn't take us too long to realise that Bru is a good substitute - it has a slight chocolatey taste to it too!

But that wasn't her accusation. Her accusation was about how we're proud of being Tamil. Are we, really? It's easy to see why one would think so. Our absolute refusal to accept Hindi as our National language, for starters. For the record, I'm completely with my state government on this. I think it's ridiculous for the Central govt. to force a language upon me. I agree we need a unifying language et al, but why Hindi? It's bullshit to argue that the majority speaks it, cause majority of what? Majority of the people I know don't speak the language! And i live in a Metro!! Why not English? Please don't reply with "English is a foreign language", because Hindi is just as foreign to me as English is. Plus if I learn English, I'll actually be able to communicate with people all around the world. In fact, knowing Tamil, will probably help people much more in Singapore and Sri lanka - where Tamil is a national language. The only reason I see for me to learn Hindi is so that I can watch Shah Rukh Khan movies! But hey, I'd like to learn Chinese so I can watch Bruce Lee too!!

The august before last, we had gone to Nainital on a college trip. We had to buy a few curios and stuff and had to bargain with the peddlers there. We had to speak to them in broken Hindi and every single one of them made it a point to scold us for our lack of knowledge of Hindi. One of them even said "Hindi is an international language - everyone should know"(!!!). We meekly heard them out, took our shopping bags and came home. After all, their territory, their language. We were the outsiders. What can we say? Back home, on the other hand, my North Indian friends crib all the time about how the auto-karans here speak only Tamil. No meekness there. No acknowledgement of how it's okay for a person to speak their mother tongue in their part of the world!!

How can we be full of pride after all this? After not being able to speak our language in our own cities? After being imposed upon from all sides to learn a language we don't want to?

The central govt. has imposed a new rule that everyone working in a Central govt. academic institution must pass a basic test in Hindi. To read and write it. Not enought to know your physics/chemistry/math/mechanis. Nope, one's gotta know her/his hindi! No matter where the institute is. IISc and IIT-M come under this even though they're both in South Indian cities rebelling against imposition of Hindi. I, for one, will not pass such a test. I know exactly two letters in Hindi, and though once upon a time I wanted to learn the language, recent events like those stated above has put me off. It might be a fun thing to do - learn a new language, but I will not. Just because it is forced upon. "To take a stand", if I must use forceful statements. It probably sounds childish, but that's the way a whole state feels about it and the Central govt. doesn't seem to care.

I'm not saying my language is the best. I'm not claiming that Barathi was the best poet ever. I'm not saying that no one compares to Kris Srikant in cricket. I'm not saying that idlies are food of the Gods. I don't care how much you mutilate my name. I don't give a damn whether we're a pure Indian race or not. It really doesn't matter to me if Tamil is the oldest language. And I definitely don't wish to prove to you that we're the best.

All I'm saying is that, we're a nice bunch. Fun people doing their own thing. Let us be..

P.S: In retrospect, I realise I started talking about one thing and ended up somewhere else, but it all connects up in it's own way..

The lions vs the chargers (?)

2008-05-06T12:45:00.000-07:00

Before I begin an "objective" description, lemme start off with a few sad smileys:
:-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-( :-(

There. That felt good. Not really, but it feels good to say it felt good.

Anyway, lemme start off by saying Chennai people are sweet. Right from the guy who gave me his 4/6 card at the beginning of the match when I asked him where he got it from, to the audience who clapped for Gilly when he got out, they're nice people. One cannot deny that. I dare you to. We may not have the hottest chicks, we may not have the most happening malls, our night clubs may have sad curfews and our theatre may show more regional movies and we may hero worship our actors, but we're nice people. Nice people who love their team! So I want no CSK bashing on my comments okay?

I've never been to Chepauk before and when I got there, what struck me was how surreal the whole stadium seemed. The green green pitch. The bright lights. The smallness of it all. It was quite different from what i imagined. And that's an understatement.

We bought this yellow 'Chennai super kings' flag, but sadly, the cops at the entrance took off the stick and gave us only the cloth. The sticks probably went back to the peddlers, but whatever, at least we got the cloth! And after CSK's batting was over, we converted the 4/6 board into a stick.

Anyway, we entered the stadium wearing yellow, (what? it's not a crime to like yellow, is it), just as the toss was over. Chennai had decided to bat and Karthik came to the front singing "theradi veediyil..". All the songs he sang that night were very local songs. Good pick. He ended it with "we will rock you"! That, you see, was before the match started. Before Afridi and before Gilly.

Shivamani came on next. He got more cheers than the entire CSK team! He played a few beats. There was this one he did, where he plays three beats on the drum and the audience clap in accordance and he does three more and so on.. He kept increasing the speed till at one point, we were clapping with him, because it was so fast. Good stuff! :-)

Anyway, the match started. We were progressively 11/1, 22/2, 33/3, 44/4.. Didn't continue on that line, thankfully.. We got 144/7, you will know if you watched the match. I'm not gonna bore you with the details. What I am going to tell you about is the crazy guy next to us who kept yelling out to the CSK guys. He kept calling them fools and was asking Dhoni to hit a six. Top of his voice. I believe his exact words were "fool CSK. fool Dhoni.. hit a six.. come on". Then, towards the end, he just started mumbling and started calling them bananas.. Yellow bananas, chilly bananas, fool bananas, cool bananas, split bananas. They even got a "mutaal valapazham"! It was hilarious!!

Finally, 1st inning ended and after 10 mins of the cheerleaders dancing around - the DC cheerleaders had nice hair and a pretty outfit and one dance sequence and all they did was blow kisses into the camera. The CSK cheerleaders has 2 dance steps, an 'ok' outfit and no enthusiasm - though i don't blame them for that!

The second inning soon started and meanwhile the crazy guy had disappeared. The 1st two overs, they didn't score many runs but soon the downpour started. Dipika and I suddenly decided to start screaming "we want wickets.. we want wickets".. We were the only ones screaming (none of the other idiots joined it) and the next ball, the bowler bowled it, Gibbs hit it and suddenly I say the bowler throw the ball in the air and everyone running towards him!! I was so amazed that I dropped the 'flag' I was holding.

Sadly, the next time we tried doing that, Gilly hit a six! He got out too, eventually, and the game became a drag. It got so boring. Until Afridi came and finished it off in one over! :-(

The thing about a live game is, you forget to watch the ball. There are no commentators reminding you to. You see a four and you turn around to crib and by the time you look back, the next ball has already been bowled. And you turn to the big screen for replays and by the time that's done, the next ball has already been bowled. And so on.. But it was fun, all the same. Worth my 600, definitely!

The game was well organised. There were PTC buses waiting outside the stadium. A whole long line of 'em. Covering almost all the locations in Chennai. There was a parking lot which had a different entrance and a different exit. The car was triple parked, but we didn't have to wait for too long to take it out and the stadium lights lit up the whole area and made it easy for us to find our way.

It was our third loss in a row, but as my gtalk status message says: "We shall rise again!"

Teenage dirtbag! - The player told me to!

2008-04-29T04:17:00.000-07:00

So my sister pings me for the first time ever to tell me that I've been tagged.

The last time she tagged me, I happily ignored it.. but this time, it seems fun. She puts up a bunch of questions and I'm supposed to leave my played on. At each question I'm supposed to press "shuffle" and type out the song with comes on as the answer (with comments - witty or otherwise). Well, here goes..

If someone says “is this okay?” You say?

It's my life (Bon jovi)

Whoa..

What would best describe your personality?

Why can't a woman.. - My fair lady

No comments :D

What do you like in a guy/girl?

Rock Bottom - Eminem

Ah.. the secret's out! ;-)

How do you feel today?

Ob la di, od la Da - Beatles

Just finished Quantum exam.. ob la di, ob la da.. life goes on.. though "rock bottom" would've fit better, me thinks..

What is your life’s purpose?

Unbreak my heart - Toni Braxton

How noble!

What is your motto?

Bed of roes - Bon jovi

Yup, that is exactly how I sign off my letters:
"Chitra Gautham
Bed of Roses"

Hail the roses!!

What do your friends think of you?

Lose yourself - eminem

:-( Really? :-(

What do you think of your parents?

Two princes - Spin doctors

Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaatttttt?

What do you think about very often?

Bebot - Black Eyed peas

Wow. I think in spanish!

What is 2+2?

Trumpets - flipsyde

I'm sure we just haven't understood the question properly. The mice will know..

What do you think of your best friend?

Flying - Beatles

Knowing my best friends, I'm sure!!!!! ;-P

What do you think of the person you like?

In your eyes - Kylie Minogue

Ah well.. * turns red *

What is your life story?

Losing grip - Avril Lavigne

This player is psychic!

What do you want to be when you grow up?

(I won't) do this anymore - Nickleback

Do what? Grow up? I guess not..

What do you think when you see the person you like?

Hey mama - Black Eyed Peas

Hee hee.. "So come on mama, dance to the drama"

What do your parents think of you?

Walnut tree - Keane

That's.. er.. nice.. - I think.

What will you dance to at your wedding?

Crash and Burn - savage Garden

I wonder how?

What will they play at your funeral?

Poprocks and Coke - Greenday

Right. That's it. I'm leaving everything to charity! Hmph!

What is your hobby/interest?

Happy Birthday - Flipsyde

Maybe that's a sign.. Maybe someone up there is trying to tell me to give up physics and take up event management. Maybe..

What is your biggest secret?

Basketcase - Green day

"I think I'm cracking up.."

What do you think of your friends?

Lust like a woman - Bob Dylan

I really do think that. Esp about the guys! :-)

What should you post this as?

Teenage Dirtbag - Wheatus

Ummm.. okay.. I will.

This was actually loads of fun!! You guys should try it too. I tag everyone who's commented on my blog!

Juno

2008-04-16T05:20:00.000-07:00

I have no idea why I decided to watch the movie when I was bored and depressed after having screwed up my viva, but I'm glad I did! It really did cheer me up.

The story is about a 16 year old girl, Juno(named after the Greek goddess), who gets pregnant but decides not to get it aborted and gives it up for adoption instead. Period.

The best part of the movie is how light a serious subject is treated. Though, I think, a few parts are a little unrealistic. For example, the parent's reaction when she tells them. I can't imagine any parent taking it so well!

The movie, of course, has a happy ending. Juno seems to have no trouble at all coming back to her normal life (!!!!!) and playing in a band. Her acting, I must say, was terrific. Clueless, very teenagey and yet mature.

But my favorite part of the movie - apart from the lingo (it's the kinda stuff you can listen to for days) - is the background score. Good stuff. If anyone knows where I can get the soundtracks, please let me know. It's not avaiable on the LAN.

Definately a movie I would recommend.

Shades of Grey

2008-04-08T20:47:00.000-07:00

My house is being painted in my absence, and my tasteless father came up with the brilliant idea of painting it grey and white.

Not that it looks bad, but isn't every other building in the city painted grey? My dad begs to disagree and says that every other building in the city is painted yellow - the color I wanted. Somehow that didn't make sense, so the next time I travelled the 12+2 kms from home to college, I started counting. And guess what? There were more yellow buildings than grey! Shades of yellow.. Bright, sunny - the colour that cheers you up just looking at it.. Deep, orange - makes me hungry for some reason.. Lemon yellow - intellectual (?) (Don't ask me why - you just relate different emotions to each colour and that's how I feel), and some people had painted heir house a shade of yellow which the mals, I'm sure, will brand as "pandi colours!"

Strange. But I don't blame them. Yellow has always been a colour which cheers me up. Green makes me feel at home, true.. But disaster resulted the last time we tried painting the house that (ever read Anne of Avonlea? The exact same thing happened!) So, I wanted yellow. But on account of how lazy I was to pick out the shades myself, my dad got his way, causing me to swear that I'll have it repainted the moment I get my first stipend! I talk too fast, sometimes.. Sigh..

But I'm deviating terribly from what I meant to say. The title, as you can imagine was a metaphorical one.

A person, one knows, is never black or white. But somehow we tend to classify them as if they are. Good people. Bad people. It's hard for us to accept that the good people might do bad things and vice versa. It goes against the ordering in our minds. And sometimes confuses us. Good people always do good things. So, if a good person does a bad thing, the bad thing becomes good, no? Of course. It's easier to say that, than to accept the fact that there is no 'hero' and 'villain'. Just people. Regular people, who lie, cheat, help the old lady cross the road, give some money to the poor, back stab their friend, buy their daughter a doll, copy in the exam, walk 3 miles on a hot day to help a friend out, do marijuana, turn down the a.c to conserve electricity, all in one day and one breadth.

Though we see this around us all the time, it's hard for us to accept that it could be so. Every movie has taught us it is not. There is a good guy who does the good things and a bad guy who does bad things. God forbid the bad guy from giving alms to the poor. If he does, he's only showing the world that he's got a lot of power!

And mentally, we like to classify things. We like to say 'this is right and this, wrong' and stick to it. It takes too much effort to think in every situation and a decision accordingly.

And it's not just with people that we are so. Reasons, excuses.. There is no one explanation for not turning up at a party, for liking a certain hobby, for disliking a certain person, for not wanting to go somewhere, for breaking up with someone, for wanting to go a place, for coming late, for studying what you're studying right now. Yet, that is what we look for. A clear reason, an answer: "I had an exam", "It stimulates me intellectually", "I'm running a fever", "she doesn't love you anymore", "I like the food there", "Traffic!", "I read this book by so-and-so which got me hooked to this".. Excuse and reasons - standard ones which we use. Black and white. Simple. Will convince anyone. And save us a lot of trouble.

I'm not gonna ask you to stop giving such reasons and excuses. I'm gonna tell you not to. No one will understand the truth - no one understands shades of grey. They're hazy and depressing. They make no sense, and take too much time to decipher. And even when we do, they're just lines of black and white superimposed. Never a pure milky grey - creamy like the paint being applied to the window sills even as I type this.

It can't be done. Our mind likes to organize our thoughts. Fight against it, if you will, but remember, not many others will.

Just another day..

2008-04-07T10:59:00.000-07:00

She enters the room, eyes glinting with anger and.. and something else - could you call it hatred?

Her friend asks her to "relax".

"How can I?", she yells back, even as she knew she soon would. She knew that the next day, not only would she relax, but she would even be comfortable with the thought; a thought which made her quiver with rage; a thought which made her want to choke him with her bare hands. She knew that within a mere 24 hours, she would've gotten used to it.. Grudgingly, she would've accepted it as a part of the unfairness of life.

"Which him?", her friend asks her.

Which him, indeed!

Suddenly she realises (strange, how the thought hadn't occurred to her before) that all her current trouble could be attributed to guys!
The one who denied her her constitutional right to freedom of speech; the one who rejected her proposal because he didn't want to lose power; the one who threatened to destroy her world because she reported the truth like it was; the one who reduced her friend to tears everyday - they were all men!

"Is this what they call sexual discrimination?", she wonders aloud.

Oh, there were guys being affected by it as well.. but somehow she couldn't help feeling that she felt the impact more! maybe because she couldn't help believing the best of everyone - she couldn't help trusting..

"Don't worry about it", her friend tells her, "another year or so, and you needn't have anything to do with them ever again!"

She nods her head, though deep down she doesn't agree. She doesn't like what happened to her. She doesn't like the idea of being suppressed by people just because they feel threatened. She doesn't like being told what to do, what to write, what to say.. She wants to fight it, but doesn't know how! She thinks it's unfair, but sees no solution. She feels helpless.

She knows, deep down, that these people need to be taught to be fair. Yet, she nods her head. She knows she won't do the "teaching".

"I don't have the time", she tells herself.
After all, there are assignments to be submitted, tests to be written, records to be drawn, projects to be done..

She sighs..

She knows by next week all this will be forgotten and they - the people who inflicted all this pain - will be forgiven. Forgiven without heir their knowledge for something they did not know they did! Free to continue doing what they've been doing all along - making people's lives miserable, if only for a day!

Creationalism

2008-03-24T11:27:00.000-07:00

http://abcnews.go.com/Nightline/FaithMatters/Story?id=4467337&page=1

Hee hee..

These guys will do anything to remain in the cozy shell. Reminds me of the matrix.

Mental note: Post on cozy shell and matrix.

P.S: I hope that this doesn't, in any way, hurt the sentiments of the creationalists(right!). It's just that as a scientist, i find it slightly on the amusing side..

Gimme red!

2008-03-24T05:24:00.000-07:00

Ask any girl - any Indian girl, I mean.. She'll tell you about the magic that is mehendi (a.k.a maridani).

You usually get it done before a big event - a wedding, birthday, diwali, maybe.. even a cousin's engagement is excuse enough. Or during the holidays when you're jobless and have nothing better to do..

If you are lucky, you get to watch as the leaves are grounded and made into a nice paste (don't add too much water - it'll run; not too less, either - it won't flow; add a little lemon - it'll make your hand redder) and made into cute cones with the bottoms cut.

You watch as your mom/sister/neighbour/friend races patterns on your palm. The paste feels cool against your skin. You tell then to change the pattern here(you don't like mangoes), you ask them to draw some leaves just here.. But in the end it doesn't matter, because the design is so intricate that you find it hard to make out the original pattern..

You strech your hand out for an hour - two hours. You can't hold anything - can't read a book - can't use the mouse - cant study(!!!!:-)) - can't eat.. So you sit and watch tv. Or sleep - unless of course, your mom is very particular about mehendi stains on the covers.

Once every half an hour, you squeeze lemon over your palm to stop it from drying too fast, but it dries anyway and little pieces of the mehendi fall off and you try to peek at it from the sides to see how red it has become. You imagine it becoming really red and you picture you showing it off to all your friends who will "ooh" and "aah" over it. You wonder if it'll go with the dress you're gonna wear the next day (No jeans and tee for a week! Stick to the indian wear!)

Finally, it's time to take it off. You, of course, aren't supposed to use water. You scrub it off, dirtying the floor, but who cares! Your hand now has pretty red patterns on it!

Of course, you find it hard to eat for the rest of the week considering the smell takes off the flavour of anything your bring near the nose, but that's a small price to pay!

Lost in translation

2008-03-21T01:59:00.000-07:00

I was really looking forward to watching this movie. Epecially since about 10 people kept urging me to. Which is why I reserved it for a thursday before a 3 day weekend. But at the end of the movie, my only reaction was "huh?"!

The movie didn't (and continues not to) make any sense. I didn't get the point the director was trying to make. If he was trying to make a point, that is.. I don't think it was "another episode in so and so's life" kind of a movie, either. It wasn't a depiction of life in Tokyo, either. Nor was it about forbidden love affair. It wasn't even a honest combination of the above!

The story's about a famous american actor, Bob Marley who goes to Tokyo to advertise a drink. He's also facing mid-life crises and part of the reason he comes here is because he wants to get away from home. He finds himself utterly bored in this new city where noone speaks his language. He shoots for the commercial in the mornings and hangs out in a bar all evening. That's where he meets Charlotte, a young american girl who's married (for 2 years) and is in Tokyo with her husband who is here on some project. She is really depressed. I never did understand the reason. Her husband leaves to another town for a few days and she gets friendly with Bob. The rest of the story is about how they manage to enjoy themselves in a city they both have come to hate.

But it didn't make any sense. Everyone hates a new city when they go there for the first time. Then you make friends and start loving it. Was this the point? Well, then it wasn't potrayed well. Especially since towards the end he doesn't love the city, but her. Yet he leaves the place and goes away. Not in a heroic way, either..

Another thing which sruck me about the movie was the way Charlotte's husband loves her. He's all over her and is stuck on her completely even though they've been married two years. Whcih guy does that, tell me?

Why am i obsessing over this movie? Because, i was told, by many, that it's a really great movie.. Yet, I can't see where the greatness lies.

Maybe I just don't understand movies.

Sigh..

On Spica the star

2008-03-18T10:25:00.001-07:00

I did a wiki on Spica.. and this is what they had to say:

Spica (pronounced /ˈspaɪkə/) (also known as α Vir / α Virginis / Alpha Virginis) is the brightest star in the constellation Virgo, and the 15th brightest star in the nighttime sky. It is 260 light years distant from Earth. A blue giant, it is a variable of the Beta Cephei type.

So first of all, let me start off by apologising to those to whom i had given the wrong pronunciation, though if you ask me, I liked the old pronunciation much better.

Secondly, for the sake of those who still do not know, what I'm talking about, let me take you through the usual routine.

See, my name is Chitra. It means "picture" in Sanskrit. It is also a name of a star which is usually seen during April. The rest of the world calls the star "Spica". Hence, the title of the blog.

But there is more to it, as i recently discovered. Spica, wiki tells me, is a binary star. Which means, what we perceive as one star is in fact two stars.

Hmmm.. I wonder if my parents were psychic when they christened me!

Ouch.. that hurts!

2008-03-15T13:23:00.000-07:00

You know when you lose a friend?

It is not when they move to another country.. It is not when they die.. It is not when you've lost their number.. It is not when you haven't spoken to them in many years.. It is not when parents or circumstances forbid you from speaking to them.. It is not even when you betray them or they betray you!

It is when you call them up and talk to them for a while and into your head pops a host of things which you would've confided in them in the ages past, but you dismiss them now with a wave of hand as unsuitable conversation and talk about the weather instead!

:-)

2008-03-15T05:19:00.000-07:00

You replace live journal with blogspot and you get what I mean..

The ultimate plunge!

2008-03-14T23:17:00.000-07:00

Last night we had a panel discussion on the increasing number of suicides in IIT. Frankly, i am not so suprised that there are so many. Not to soun cruel, but what is suprising is that there are not many more!

Consider a typical IIT student. All his/her life, (s)he has been at the top of the class. Probably first in school, with a NCERT schol. and an olympiad medal thrown in for good measure. Then the kid manages to crack the JEE/JAM/GATE. (S)he becomes an instant celebrity. They're paraded around town by their parents who are feeling indulgent and would sanction any wish (s)he has. (S)he is utterly pamered until it's time for him or her to leave for the insti.

Once here, the ragging - although mild now - starts. They find that all of a sudden, they aren't top of the class anymore and they are (horror of horrors) an average student!!They're still considered the best by their parents who believe they're doing great, but only they know the real truth. A feeling of guilt sweeps in. Not being at home anymore, they have no one to talk to.. Most of their friends are locked up in their own room watch pirated movies downloaded from the LAN. Of course, there's the Guidance and Counselling Unit (pop. known as GCU), but that's not a big help. How many people are willing to go talk to an utter stranger? Thus they becomes more and more depressed, friendless. Meanwhile, their parents and others at home continue to think that they're the best. They know better than that. Rather, they think they know better than that. The guilt intensifies and finally.. well, they decide to "end it all"!

The professors aren't much help, honestly. Some are brilliant and approachable but you also have a few who'll call a spade a spade, and don't mind telling you to your face that they think you're useless! Obviously you're not, but acc. to them, not being able to solve a gamma function is useless!

And the whole concept of relative grading does nothing to aleviate the situation!! But more on that later..

Last night during the panel discussion a person in the audiance asked the guy from suicide prevention society, a question on inferiority complex. That guy replyed saying "it's strange to hear the words 'inferiority complex' inside IIT, but we're all human beings, aren't we?". But if you ask me, there's more IC floating around in this 420 acres than anywhere else in the city.. Oh, don't get me wrong. All IITians think they're the best, la creme de la creme and all that jazz.. But only in comparision with the rest of the world. Inside IIT, there's always someone better than you at something. Most of the time, most people are better than you at most things. And since you think you're better than the rest of the world, you care more than the rest of the world does. The rest of the world don't have any false notions about their ability. They are honest to themselves about how good/bad they are. They don't have any false pride. But since the IITian does, (s)he cares much more about the fact that (s)he's not good at something. And as one can't be good at everything, everyone here has an inferiority complex w.r.t something and a very intense one at that!

So long, and thanks for all the fish!

2008-03-06T02:38:00.000-08:00

Closure is a strong word, but I suspected that that's what I needed.. I had hoped that my convocation will give me that, and I guess in a way it did.

For many months now - since July, 2007, to be precise - I have been looking back on my life in MCC with a sigh. Nostalgically.. Wishing with all my heart that I was back there. Everytime, I go there, I'll make a note and start counting down to the day when I'll go there again. This time, though, I left not knowing when I'll go back again, and guess what? I'm perfectly fine with that thought.

I guess what it really required was wrapping up the personal ties - realising a few truths, restarting some old friendships, rekindling the ones which are dying out, and letting a few die for the sake of friendship itself. What it took was a look at what is popularly known as the "big picture" and realising that fights, elections, tears, love and friendship was all just a part of college life. A three year drama - a masala movie with every spice in it - equally proportioned.

With that para, my post stopped making sense, so let me recap for the sake of those who are still reading and more than that for my own sake.. As i said, i need to press "publish post" before it ends.

June 16th, 2004(I do have an uncany memory for dates), I step in to the portals of MCC big eyed and full of wonder. There are all those people on stage who we're told are "gen. sec." and "chairman" and "convenors". Little do I know how I'll come to lose all respect for those post. The post, mind you, not the people. I still remember the first three days - the first day was the campus walk (I still can't, for the life of me, remember where they took us that day!). College ended at 12. The second day was dept orientation - college ended at 10.30. The third day was class orientation, college ended at 9.30. "This is too much", I remember complaining to Soumya.

The rest of the semester is just a haze.. I remember Nirupa, the triangle, Nirupa leaving, Subhashini's birthday party(the day she told us she was leaving), my first crushes in college, and my very first deep-dark-carry-to-the-grave secret(s). Oh yes, and of course the Goa trip.. But that's a post of it's own..

The second semester was even hazier.. Let me see.. The hall days (for some reason, I remember those!), Amandeep's arrival and all the guys going nuts, the girl gang, Yi and the drama club - which never really started, but yet led to other things which will not be mentioned in this post except to state that that is all I remember of the third and fourth semesters.. Well, almost all..

Third semester was also when the "cafe gang" was closest. Something happened in the 3rd sem which caused it to start breaking up.. I never figured what. I remember my and Sai's suprise parties, the trip to coorg and french classes.

Fourth semester: More hall days (wait, I think I went for only one that year).. Oh, yes and the elections. That is something I'll never forget - the year I came face up with hardcore politics and realised that there are things in this world I will never understand. The semester I lost all respect for the politician in a (wo)man - cause that's the worst in a person coming out - it's all about the self. The semester, when, suprisingly, my respect for Naren tripled - no, quadrupled and my respect for every other person involved fell into an abyss. The deeds were mended and made up for in other ways,but the respect never returned and I don't think it ever will.

Fifth semester: I was in depression. End of story. Oh, yes, depressed Nanital trip. And of course, Woodstock comes into existance (ta-da!).

Sixth semester: I stop hanging out with my batchmates because I had something to tell them which i didn't want to tell them and they kinda guessed it and i knew they had guessed it, so basically, It Was A Mess. Sixth semester was also Deepwoods 2006 third day and the week that followed. Sixth semester was also the time when life in MCC got really good. Almost as good as my first month there. Note how I said, almost. Not quite, 'cause I had JAM hanging over my head, but otherwise.. I made the kinda friends I had given up all hope of finding in MCC - I found people who I was proud to say I knew. For once, I didn't care about what the world thought and I became really close with my classmates. That was when I started loving my train rides. That was when I, for the first time in my life, did exactly what I wanted to. And realised, that that's all it took to be happy. Not happy happy. Just happy.

Yup, apart from the first one month, the sixth semester was the best of them all. Which is why, I found it so damn hard to get over the place. Which is why I needed a closure. I called up a few friends and cleared things out. I came to terms with the fact that some people just will not change. I accepted that a few of them make new "aquaitances" and I realise why they need to - silly, though the reason be. They're still my friends inspite of their silliness and that's what matters.

But most important of all, on my convocation day, I tried to reconnect with the whole lot of them and I realised that, save a hand picked few (the ones I can see have - and will continue to - survive the test of time) I couldn't relate to anyone else.

I had moved on.

I now know what I really got out of my 3 years - courage, freedom, a sense of independance, open-mindedness (I'll put important marks here, only my keyboard doesn't support it) and about 10 friends.

I need no more.

And so, as the title says "Goodbye, and thanks for all the fish!" :-)

Everywhere

2008-02-19T04:25:00.000-08:00

In layman terms, according to quantum mechanics, ever electron/proton/neutron in your body is delocalised all over the universe. So essentialy, I'm everywhere.. In Paris, Venice, Spain, North Pole, the Sun, the andromeda galaxy.. everywhere.. Omnipresent.

So, if I every miss another wedding/birthday party/baptism/engagement/etc.. Just remember, I was there! Or a part of me, at any rate..

Summer's here...

2008-02-09T03:51:00.000-08:00

You know summer's here when:
~you cannot stay in a room without a fan for more than 5 secs.
~you are once again thinking of chopping your hair short!
~the only thought running through your mind is "bath.. bath.. bath.."
~you kick away your bedsheets in the night!
~you don't care if the monkeys come in, you keep the window open anyway..
~you look at your full sleeved dress and you wonder what made you buy them!
~your face starts resembling as oil field!
~you drink more water than the food you take in!
~blue skies no longer make you happy!
~for the first time, you don't care that the solar water heater has conked!

Chennai - it's beaches and the elite.

2008-02-08T01:55:00.000-08:00

Okay, I'm supposed to be typing out a project proposal.. (Ranj is gonna kill me when she comes back!) But that being the most boring thing in the world, I decided to blog. Honestly, writing a project proposal out of thin air is real hard work! Ask anyone - they'll tell you.

Anyway, we went to the beach last saturday.. The whole damn class. The HoD took u, believe it on not. We met at the GC and cylced all the way out, went towards Anna Univ and took a U, cycled up the flyover and down - the down part was way way fun. And it was super-ool to cycle as a big gang. Imagine 30 people cycling down the road together! You'd stare, right? Aarti fell down while coming down the flyover, hit herself against the railing and stubbed her toe. But that didn't stop her from fooling around in the water for an hour and a half like the rest of us!!!

Initially we were told that we can wet our feet. Max. But of course the guys went 50 mts into the water and we girls went about 10.. Fun stuff. We were soaked to the skin.

Missed the sunrise though, thanks to the clouds. Of course half the gang missed it because they were looking in the opposite direction waiting for Aarti and her convoy.. A bunch of guys who strived to "not let her die", as she put it! ;-)

Now being the bunch we are, we didn't stop with one accident. We also managed to lose our cycle key in the sea, causeing us to approach the HoD and requesting him to break the lock!! He said he didn't know how to himself, so hired a guy there to do it. Quantum Mechanics isn't everything, I guess!

Anyway, around 9 o clock, we packed, went to Murugan Idly store where the said HoD treated all of us. We had coffe which tasted out of the world - the idly and vada were okay, but the rest of the gang - who've never tasted proper idly before loved it!!

We cycled back - me leading the way - as if I knew everything about adayar! Adayar!!! i must've been there twice in my entire life before IIT!!! Sheesh! Of course, if I said I didn't know, there'll be cries of "local girl!".. What one has to put up with these days..

But you know what reaally gets me mad? When someone curses this city of mine! Which my friends constantly do. I mean, they have absolutely no right to speak! The don't even know the city! They're in their snug campus full of deers and monkeys and they have no idea what's there in the rest of the city!! Like this guy who said "ha, why would i go out to a restaurant? you only get idly and vada anyway!" WTF?? I have NEVER - never eaten idly in a chennai restaurant before last saturday (except palimar, but that is purely due to hunger striking when I'm finacially low, so it doesn't count!). At least some of them are willing to take an initiative to get to know the city.. The rest just sit and crib and crib and crib.

That is why I still love and terribly all those irresponsible, happy-go-luck, MCCians. all of them were like that and most of them were not localites. But fact is, every single one of them gave this city a chance and every single one of them fell in love with it. And from what i've seen, anyone who's lived here for 3 years agrees when I say "it's home"..

Friendship - What's that?

2008-01-16T03:59:00.000-08:00

I hate it when people say stuff like "my friends are the most important things in my life"! (things?) Maybe it's the J factor, 'coz i never felt that way about any friend. I don't think I can point at any of my friends and say "He/she knows me completely". Actually i can't even say "He she knows me" about most of my best friends, but you see, they still remain my 'best friends'.

Maybe I just define friendship in a whole different way. For me, friends aren't people you go to when you feel like crying (I go into my room and lock my door if i feel like a good cry). They aren't people who i confide my deepest secrets in (in that case, i have no friends!) Friends aren't even people who make you feel better, cause different people make you feel better at different times and the same person who cheered you up last semester can make you feel down in the dumps with the help of just one conversation!!

My Dad tells me I have too many friends.. Maybe I do.. What with school, college, insti, summer projects, neighbours.. one can't help having a lot of friends! But the point is that I'm equally close with a lot of people, thus leaving my really close with noone. And I like it that a way.

I like to organise things in my head.. Friends, wether they aprove of it or not, get classified - school, summer, home, camps, college, inisti, neighbours, good, close, best, kindred, etc.. But none of these groups are mutually exclusive. People keep jumping back and forth that I wonder if it's even worth it. And at the end of the day, I'm just plain confused and end up writing incoherent articles like this!!!!

A year ago, I sent this message to 8 of my school friends:
"Prashant asked me what connects my school friends.. What the bond is.. This is what I said: My friends and I, I don't really know.. But there is something, cause even in school we always knew that someone else didn't "belong".. Maybe it's that we like doing the same thing..Hanging out in the same places, shopping for similar things.. We like talking talking about the same subjects.. Give importance to the same things.. like studies always comes first.. But only during exams.. Otherwise no studying business! Just party.. We all talk sense, think straight, do not exaggerate or lie to impress, and are responsible.. yeah, I guess it's a combination of all this. Most importantly, we give each other space and yet go back knowing that there is a friend out there! You know, a feeling which I KNOW will last forever.."
These are the replies i got:
Deena, Divvya, Madhu and Suganya: "Who's prashant?"
Anisha: "Dude, are you okay?"
Soumya: "huh? gal.. why suddenly?"
The other two didn't even bother replying!!!!
But many months later, we had all met up in barista and the topic of that message came up and I found that they had all saved that message.. Is that what it's all about??

5 things i can't live without

2007-12-16T05:12:00.000-08:00

Of all the things they ask in your orkut profile, i think this is the most ridiculous! The obvious answer being oxygen, food, water, etc.. But I've read that so many times that i conclude anybody who has that written as "bo-ring". I'd rather they leave the field empty..
The next obvious thing they write are "mom, dad, siblings, dog(?), friends, girl/boy-friend.." Yeah, sure kiddo, your mom and dad and siblings and well, dog mean a lot to you, and sure you'll be heart-broken if anything were to happen to them, but it's not like you can't live without them, is it? I'm sure you've lived away during your hostel days/school, college trips, etc.. And as for friends, i think it's high time they realise that 40 years from now, it's highly unlikely that they'll still be in touch with their friends.. And as for the boy/girl-friend, well, actually, i won't say anything there and merely give one of my "looks".

So why am i being such a hypocrite, you ask, when i have filled in my tab with 5 things i supposedly can't live without.. Well, I've written "laughter, coffee, something to hug, books, a phone".. My dad, thanks to not-too-pleasant expirences regd. the phone bill for the last 8 years or so will say that the last at any rate is true.. But i don't think so.. If you take away my phone, i'll be miserable, sure, but i think it's highly improbable that i'll be broken-hearted and die.. Ditto coffee and books and "something to hug". But laughter? If there was no laughter, I don't think life will be worth living. I am as good as dead without it. But that's one. And honestly, i can't think of anything else "i can't live without".

They should change it to "5 things without which you'll be miserable". Makes more sense. Else i guess, the answer is the same for everyone: Oxygen, food, water, a working heart and brain.. And of course laughter.

On Crying

2007-12-09T22:48:00.000-08:00

Well, I'd like to dedicate this post to a certain person (and no, it's not who you think it is), but i shall refrain.

I think I was in the 5th standard when I saw Anisha trying not to cry. She had just been told off for some reason or the other, and I remember she standing over her lunch bag, looking up at the ceiling 'furiously blinking back the tears'. I guess it was then that i first got an inkling that maybe it wasn't so cool to cry. Over the years, a general annoyance towards people who cry too easily deepened that idea.

As I grew up, i tried my best not to cry in a hurry. Not in public at any rate. Well, maybe an occasional movie or two, but in general, the tears were reserved for the dead of the night and my teddy bear. Which is why, the fact that I cried a year ago made big news and invited a lot of unpleasant comments.

To be honest, i was ashamed of myself. My friends, of course, hugged me, and consoled me and did the usual 'come on da, don't take such things seriously'. Which was very sweet of them. But I guess what i really needed was the 'oh, it's okay to cry.. proves you're human after all'. You see, after having spent 18 years beleiving that it's wrong to let your feelings be known in public, i had done the unthinkable! I had actually cried. So what i needed was to be told that it's okay to cry.

Another thing which puzzles me is how guys are so eager to accuse girls of using 'tears as a weapon'. Is it because they feel guilty in some way? In that case, they shouldn't. I guess there are girls who do use tears as a weapon. But ultimately, girls(or even guys) cry because they feel helpless. They've reached a point where they don't know what to do. They feel helpless but they have to do something to let out their anger/frustration/sorrow/joy so they cry.

That does explain why one who cries is frowed upon and considered weak. For isn't it weak to feel helpless? Isn't it weak to give up and say 'there is nothing more i can do'? But isn't it also inhumane to never feel so?

Kids these days..

2007-08-16T07:08:00.000-07:00

My 9 year old cousin has come down for a visit. In passing, she happened to mention that she writes poems. A few of them are pretty amazing. A couple of phrases she uses are ones i'm sure i didn't know when i was her age! Anyway, i've put them up her.. Check it out..

Green

Green is the joy of nature
Green is the whistling of grass
Green is nice bright happiness
Green is the surprise of breaking glass
Green is a cucumber, smooth and soft
Green is fresh apples sitting in the loft
Green is vines swinging to and fro
Green makes me happy like a frolicking doe
Green is the joy of nature

The next is a limerick:

Red

Terrible, terrible red,
A battlefield with bloodshed
I hear a loud rumble
Of a castle going to crumble
So I ran home to my bed

A haiku:

Blue

Deep loyal and dark
As beautiful as a lark
Sea with a giant shark

A couplet:

Purple

Purple, purple magical and deep
Eggplant that’s good to eat

Purple is the sister of pink
They have a very close link

Purple is the sign of love
As lovely as a white dove

5 W’s

Who? The green grass
What? Whistles quietly
When? In the afternoon
Where? At the meadow
Why? Because of the wind

The next one is my favorite. This is one of her 'deep' poems...

Life

Life goes spinning at a pace
Life goes spinning in your face
Life goes spinning round and round
Until you fly and never touch the ground

Pretend you’re a fledgling learning to fly
Upto a point that’s high
If you miss a flap or two
You’ll fall down and that isn’t cool

Pretend you’re building a bridge
With a tall pointed ridge
If you miss a brick or so
It’ll fall down and you’ll have a row

Life goes spinning at a pace
Life goes spinning in your face
Life goes spinning round and round
Until you fly and never touch the ground

Okay, the next one she wrote in a matter of 10 mins. Pretty good for a 9 year old, no?

Morning

The flowers are opening their petals
The sun is rising on a new day
The dew drops are splashing on the grass
I could shout hooray

Hooray, hooray it’s morning
A few flowers are opening last
Hooray, hooray it’s morning
I can see a mast

Lol.. The next one she started it when she was 6 or something.. She completed it just before coming. But phrases like "in a thrice", who uses that??

India

I like India a lot
Even though it’s hot

I have family there
I know they care

India is very nice
I’ll be there in a trice

The first

2007-08-07T08:56:00.000-07:00

First day, first impression, first friends… They somehow don’t last too long. The only reason I’m even writing this is because Pramod insisted that I do. So here goes..

I’ve been to IIT-M loads of times before. The first, I remember was during my 10th std. I had gone with my Dad to pick up Vineeta. It was two days before a maths exam. As we drove trough, I was looking out for the deers. I thought the campus was very pretty (who doesn’t!!). My Dad pointed out the library hoping that I’ll get inspired by it! I probably just nodded and thought “how boring.. they probably don’t have books without pictures and conversations anyway”.

I’ve been there many times after that too – for Saarang, for numerous entrance exams conducted there, to meet a few professors there, etc.. But going there knowing that you’re gonna live there for the next two years and that everyone around you is your new college mate – that’s quite a different feeling!

We drove up with my mattress, bucket and bags packed into the back. Not a long drive – from Anna University to IIT. I looked into the trees as we drove down the Delhi avenue. (IIT-M was started as a collaboration between India and Germany. So, out of the two roads leading from the main gate to the Gajendra circle (the statue with the fountain and two elephants!) one is named Bonn avenue (the then capital city of Germany) and the other is named Delhi avenue (Delhi is the capital of India!)).

My dad gave me all this information as we drove in. We passed the rather crowded campus, lost our way twice and landed in the registration place 5 mins late. After registering, we went and bought a couple of locks and odomos (which turned out to be a waste since I haven’t seen a single mosquito in my 4 days there!).

Well, I was mainly sad that my holidays were now over! No more waking up at 11 in the morning, no more hogging chocolates, no more jobless golden days!!
And a LOT of apprehension – What if I didn’t make any new friends??!! What if they were all from the same college and knew each other previously and ignored me completely?! What if my MCC friends and my school friends meanwhile got too busy with their own lives and started ignoring me too?? What if my next two years are miserable beyond belief?? What if I’m bottom of my class??

The car pulled up in front of my hostel – Sharavati (the hostels there are names of rivers and the messes are names of mountain ranges!). We paid them the hostel fees and walked up with the luggage to my room.

My room – this deserves a whole para to itself! It’s a single room. Pretty spacious. One bed, one table, one chair, a big cupboard with top luggage shelves et al., a book rack and one of those mirrors which opens up and has compartments inside where you keep toothpastes/cosmetics/medicine/face wash. One tube light, one night lamp and a ceiling fan. Two windows - one through which you can see tidal park and another glazed one opening to the corridor.
But all this is the tame bit! What is spectacular about my room are the decorations on the walls! There are about twenty hand prints in different colours adorning the wall with names scribbled beside it and stupid senseless phrases written all over! It’s crazy!! And well, ugly. The handprints by themselves would’ve looked pretty, but the phrases alongside make them look uncouth! The place is a mess!
“Oh shit!”, “I thought, as I accompanied my dad back to the car, “what am I gonna do? Maybe I can paint it”.

Preoccupied, I hardly noticed my dad pulling out. Not tat it matters… home was a 47A away. Or a phone call to dad or Naren or Divvya away.

I walked back. The floor was empty. Not a good sign. I walked into my room to unpack. I messaged someone – I forgot who. Then I unpacked a bit. I tried cleaning my room and ended up making it twice as messy, and crashed into the bed!! Finally, I heard some noises outside – I found two of my classmates had moved in, borrowed a broom from one and newspaper from the other and continued making the room messier!

Finally, at 8 we went down for dinner. My first taste of IIT mess food – chapatti, rajma kurma, rice, sambar, salad, kelangu, buttermilk and banana! I actually liked it! I guess the IISc C mess had really taught me to appreciate food!!!

I came back and crashed.

That was my first day at IIT Madras.

Sale

2007-07-22T08:56:00.000-07:00

I saw a hoarding yesterdayfor pantaloons which proclaimed "End of season sale - 70%off". Inviting, definately. But it did lead me to wonder what they meant by "end of season" in Chennai. Chennai has only one season - HOT.

And if you wanna argue that no, there was 'rainy', 'pleasant', i guess, then 'rainy' starts sometime mid-june and ends in the begining of december. So what the hell did they mean by "end of season sale"?!

Mind you, i'm not complaining.

The road

2007-07-19T11:00:00.000-07:00

A friend of mine once remarked about MCC: “Call this a college??!! It’s more like a holiday resort.. quiet.. green.. peaceful...” Of course there are more analogies, but we will not dwell on those, for this is not an article on MCC, but on how unfortunate it is that the road in front of the college (the Velachery Main road) is not the same.

Every person who enters college through the main gate in the morning will agree that I am not exaggerating when I compare crossing the road to an obstacle race. A little worse than an obstacle race because apart from jumping over auto headlamps and medians, squeezing between cars, tripping over cycle stands, and praying you don’t go deaf with all the honking going on around you, you also have vehicles creeping towards you from all points on the compass, ultimately leaving you with so little space that the larger of our species are sometimes forced to climb on top on the vehicle itself. Let us also not forget that the regular latecomers will also be busily messaging to find out if the professor has come to class yet, while running through this obstacle course.
As for those who come to college by bike, it’s a wonder that they manage to reach their classes before 8.30!!

The opposite occurs rest of the day. Now, the students are unable to cross the road because the vehicles, though few, are travelling fast. The Chennai municipality, out of concern for the MCCians has installed a speed breaker near the main gate. (I distinctly remember there were two last year!). However, that does not seem to be nearly enough, because though it smoothens the traffic on the MCC side of the road, while crossing the other side, one just closes her eyes, holds her friend’s hand, runs, and hopes for the best.

The situation is more serious than most realise. Apart from a countless accidents - both minor as well as major ones, there have also been many causualities. Two of our non-teaching staff fell prey to it in recent years.

The crossing, you will notice, is strangely aligned. It isn’t a crossroad, though one tends to think so. You just have the Velachery main road and a small side road leading to the station. Diagonally opposite is the main gate of MCC. If the MCC main gate had been directly opposite, or conversely, fifty meters down the road much trouble would’ve been saved. Unfortunately, since it’s just a few meters away, people tend to go on the wrong side of the road to get into college, not wanting to waste petrol going one kilometre down the road before being able to turn back. On the right side (while facing the main gate) is the East Tambaram bus stand, which takes up half the road leaving the other half only for both lanes. Thus, the traffic towards Selaiyur makes another diagonal near Palimar before they get into the proper lane. Also, the PTC buses insist on making MCC main a regular bus stop, which (though convinient for the MCCians who use tat particular mode of transport) does nothing to lessen the chaotic situation present. Of course, there is an occasional policeman sent over to man the traffic, but the situation, if you ask me, is beyond human control.
The solution also, isn’t all that simple. One can’t really move MCC main gate, can we? Nor can the path to the station be shifted without causing discomfort to many. The median can be extended, blocking traffic to the station from the left side of the road, with a U-turn further along and a zebra crossing installed for those who travel by foot, with a couple of speed bumps thrown in for good measure, but, unless I’m much mistaken, that will invite a lot of murmers from the east Tambaram residents who use the Chennai metro. Of course, one can hope that an over head bridge be installed connecting the two sides of the road, but that seems closer to day dreaming…

Of Bikes and Fairies

2007-07-19T10:59:00.001-07:00

So once again, my mind wanders as I sit in class. Instead of stopping it, this time I actually ure it to run as far away as possible. A screechy voice shouting “thus we prove this equation” brings me back to reality. I glance at the blackboard and shudder. All I could see are Greek symbols. I sigh and pull a paper close to me. Just as I’m positioned to copy down what is written on the board, the girl next to me whispers “I’m bored.. Write me something. I’ll take down the notes”.
Glad that I can do something else, I begin ‘this piece’..

So the next question: What do I write on? For a long time, I’ve been wanting to write my observation of guys – men, as they prefer being called. Boys – if you ask me. Babies – will be closer to the truth.

Don’t get me wrong - I have nothing against babies. I love them and I cannot imagine a world without them. Even when they’re being whiny, they have a certain charm and are utterly lovable. They need to be pampered, hugged, coaxed and loved and yet be treated as if they are all grown up. It is a challenge and we women love a good challenge, so we take it up with glee!

But you have to give it to them – each man (boy) is different and unique. Of course, who have more men who would be willing to discuss the torque (term understood by them as ‘power’ ;-) ) of the latest harley Davidson rather that explain to me the difference between a nymph and an elf, but that does not mean that the latter type does not exist! Of course, you have the rare (very, very rare) exception where you’ll find a man who can discuss the details of the bike to the last nut, knows what torque means and can explain the difference between different mythical creatures, but such men, I repeat, are rare..

Guys, when you come down to it, aren’t all that hard to understand – not as hard as girls, at any rate. They’re like Ferro Rocher – hard and full of peanuts on the outside (colloquial pun intended), soft and creamy on the inside and a nut right at the centre!

Of course the thickness of the outer shell varies from guy to guy – some have it waffer thin, and others hae it as hard as coconut. But remember, it is always a shell. Based on this, they can broadly be categorised thus:

First are the set of guys who allow anyone at all to break through – any family member or friend. This kind is boring and we shall say no more about them. May they rest in peace.

Second are the ones who allow only members of the same sex to break through. They are usually distrustful of the women around. They will learn one day.

The third are those who disrust anyone new. They trust only their family and their old friends. These are the sensible ones.

The fourth – and my favorite – kind are those who pick and choose . They ones who allows a best friend, maybe – or a girlfriend (both are hand picked). The remarkable thing about this kind are that they’re emotionally very very strong.
There are other differences of course, such as whether they are straight or not, party animal or bookworn (or both), sensitive or hard hearted, stubborn or ..- there’s no ‘or’, actually, top dog or door mat, Robert Ludlum or Charles Dickens, humble or proud (strangely, there is both), atheist or theist (weird observation: more men believe, or are willing to believe in God than women), orthodox or broad minded, etc.. But such differences are there in women as well, so I will not dwell on it, but conclude in the hope that the bell will ring soon..

Hee hee.. Couldn't resist putting this in.

2007-07-19T10:57:00.000-07:00

As he hurries to class, Prasad glances at his watch for the 10th time, quietly wondering what excuse he should give his professor – should he blame it on the Aquaguard man, or should he claim to have had a meeting or should he just stick to the plain and simple truth – that he woke up late! As he stands in the doorway of his classroom, with a sheepish grin on his face, his classmates smirk. The person who had come five minutes before him had got blasted and shooed off. The professor won’t do the same thing to the chairman, would she? The professor turns around and sees him standing there. She opens her mouth to say something, but the cries of “chairman sir” daunt her. She gives in with a small nod. Prasad, the Chairman of Madras Christian College walks in amidst cheering!

The above is a daily occurance. While it goes to show how his position influences his activities, Prasad is, essentially, a 3rd year Physics student – right from sneaking into the lab an hour late, having his cell phone confiscated, forging spectrometer readings to having a nickname for every single one of his classmates!

It all started, he says, with his wish to be “involved in college activities”. To satisfy it, in the first year, he joined the college ball badminton team. He practiced everyday from 3 - 6.30. Unfortunately, come the first tournament, he was not-so-politely asked to leave the team. Undaunted, he joined the NCC. There, due to his physical stature, he wasn’t allowed to do “drills”. They trained him intead to climb obstacles(literally) and shoot (again, literally). At his first camp he was the only MCCian to be selected. However, he didn’t get through the second. “All this taught me not to get dejected when you lose what you’re aiming at”, he says. “Oh, and also punctuality” he adds with a wink.

Thus he stood for the post of department representative. Once selected, he wanted to give the Physics dept ‘a voice’. So, he stood for chairman. Contarary to popular belief, one doesn’t have to know the big shots or the “annas” to become chairman, he says. All one has to do is contact the many hundred people who do not even know that an election is happening and convince them to vote – for him.

Now that he has become chairman, he insists that he is “one among the students”. “After two years of enjoying without responsibility, I have begun to enjoy with responsibility”, he muses. He also claims that his professors are understanding and he takes care not to miss a single practical class(even if all he does there is blink at the sodium vapour lamp). Theory class, on the other hand, are a different story…

He also says that he has had to learn to deal with different people during his tenure and one of the issues he is sensitive about is the name of the college getting tarnished due to improper behavior of the students.

“As a chairman I learnt not to simply give promises but to be honest and be fair so that no one can point to you”, he concludes.

An MBA asapirant, Prasad has recently been placed in CTS, but whether he will take up the job or not will depend on his performance in CAT.

In desperation

2007-07-19T10:37:00.000-07:00

The link to my blog page was on scroll down thingy of my IE7, and my dad chanced across it. Thankfully I had deleted the incriminated blog only the previous day (Muhahahaha, Dad!) :-P Anyway, he commented on how there was nothing there, so I wondered what to put in.

As a general rule I love writing stuff - recording events of the past. I send e-mails which go on for pages and pages. My style of writing, I have been told, is very conversational. That is perfectly fine by me. After all, I ain't trying for the booker.

Anyway, with regard to my blog page, I wondered what to put it. I wanted to fill it in, so I can format the page (I love formatting - don't ask me why!). So I clicked "new post". The box opened. I looked at the cursor. It blinked at me. Wanting to be polite, I blinked back at it. But the cursor, politer than me, blinked again. This went on for sometime. Finally, I minimized the window and opened my google chat. RG was online.
"Ah", I thought, "RG has a blog, he'll know".
The following conversation ensued:
me: i've started a blog!
RG: Cute
let me read it
me: er..
i haven't written anything yet..
RG: Oh brilliant
me: actually i wrote something.
RG: I'm definitely going to sleep now.
me: then i deleted it.
anyway..
sleep
'night
but answer this..
what does one write in a blog?
RG: Ha ha
okay
Anything
Whatever you want.
me: see..
it's gonna be read by everyone no?
RG: Yes.
me: so it can't be personal stuff..
RG: And there'll probably be an archive that'll never die
Depends on whether you want people to know
me: No!
duh!
like, it isn't a diary..
RG: You can write stuff like about your trip and shit
It's cool.
Actually depends on you.
me: i usually don't like too many people knowing too many things about me.
ah.. trip
good
wait.
wat trip?
RG: Or like, about IISc.
Or stuff like that
me: but tat'll go for pages and pages
remb the mails i sent?
tat was only half of it!
so it'll be really long..
RG: Ah, that's good
me: which no one will read anyway..
RG: Long stuff is cool
me: so wats the point?
RG: Just split it up to multiple days.
Yeah, that's the point.
me: the point is no one reads?
RG: Exactly
me: ah.
so no one reads your blog?
RG: Ron Weasley dies.

Like that helped! Like I said, I don't want to write personal stuff, cause I wouldn't want anyone to read it, and my day-to-day activities are just too long. Too many things happen, no? So, for starters, I've decided to upload a few articles I wrote.. Most of them were wrtten in class due to desperation. (Desperate to have something to do which'll prevent the prof's dulect tones from reaching you..). A few are copyrite Woodstock.

Boredom

2007-07-17T10:24:00.000-07:00

Ah.. boredom! How we long for those golden days when we have absolutely nothing to do... those summer mornings which are spent with the sandman... the brunches at 1 in the afternoon (can it even be called a 'brunch'?).. the slow afternoons which are spend in front of the TV watching a rented movie.. those long long baths... the many books on the 'pending' list we manage to read.. the siesta.. the evenings online, browsing, chatting, emailing.. the jealous looks from friends who have college/work/school.. the chocolates.. the shopping trips.. the music.. the cleaning of the room which lasts a whole week.. the evening rain.. Sigh..

It's pretty amazing how much a 'bored' person actually gets done!

Why i decided to start a blogspot..

2006-10-12T07:24:00.000-07:00

Of late I have discovered that writing (typing, rather.. I don't really like using a pen) relaxes me.. I'm writing this for noone but me. Maybe one day I will let someone read these.. But for now, I write this to relax.. To force myself to think sensibly, and to get my thoughts in order. If anyone stumbles across this and makes no sense out of anything written, don't worry.. You were not meant to.