An announcement, maybe

I began this blog in early 2006. I had no particular agenda, no theme really in mind when I started writing. I don’t have one still. And, it has worked out fairly well so far. I write when I feel like it, predominantly about issues surrounding me, my likes and dislikes, my perspectives on the world in general – a lot of globe, so to say. I have enjoyed the freedom this ‘globe’ has given me.
But, for a few months now, I have had this increasing urge to put in to writing, a subject that I get quite high on. And just the thought of it has made me feel good. So, I have finally decided to start another blog, too.
The difference this time around is that I have an agenda and the blog will stick to a particular theme. That means the new blog gets a little more professional too. It will not host posts that are doled out in half an hour to one hour’s time with the first thing that gets in to my head.
So, what happens to the existing blog? It will exist as usual, hosting stuff that is as arbit as it has always been while I “solemnly promise” to try to be a little more frequent with the arbitness.

Oh, by the way, I had an agenda for this post, the first time I have ever had an agenda on Namesake and that was to market 'Tinker Mag'azine :)

So long!

License to Anagrammatize

All of us would have experienced some form of waiting in our lives be it the ticketing counter at a railway station or the waiting room in a clinic. What does one do when one is “in the process”?

Having spent my childhood in the still evolving India of the late 80s and early 90s, I had no access to mobile phones, leave alone iPods. So, I would be armed with a book whenever I was headed for an expected-to-be “queued” place including hospitals and passport offices. But, there were times when I was not adequately warned and so I would turn up at such places with absolutely nothing to do and lots of time to kill.

I do not possess the most important skills required in such situations
a) Sketching, drawing and other variations of this art-form (in fact in school I used to pray that art class get cancelled and we be allowed to go to the library instead)
b) Playing running-and-catching with other kids in the queue or waiting area (Games class was another one of those in school which I would strive to bunk)
c) Observing people (this is ongoing trouble as I am not even 1% a good listener and observer as a talker)

So in such tricky situations, I would rummage through my mother’s handbag and get a piece of paper and a pen and start writing. Usually, I would bite and chew the pen in an attempt to write a poem which would be very diligently transferred to my poetry book once I got back home. But, one can write only as much in such an environment, filled with people worried and grumbling and wanting to go home soon. I tried my hands at story writing as well, but realized soon enough that it is just not my forte.

Then was I introduced to this brilliant game in school. It was some form of Anagrams, but I fail to remember the name now. For instance, from the word “Anagrams”, I needed to make as many words as I could like gram, ran, sang etc. The catch was that I could use a letter in the word I formed only as many number of times as it was used in the root word.

And, so, in any queue, I would take a word from a poster around me, preferably a long one and preferably having an ‘S’ and start making words from it. The longer the size of the word, the more letters there were to choose from and hence the more the number of words I could arrive at. Also, if the word had an ‘S’ it just made it easier to make plurals of the same word like run, runs, bun, buns, rub, rubs etc. from a root word like “burns”.

As time went by, I made the game stricter for myself. First, I banned pluralized words from the resultant set. Then, I introduced another rule that allowed only words of size not less than four in the resultant set.

I also started playing different versions of the game with improvisations like:

A) Forming whole words or phrases from the root word

1. Deliver -> Relived
2. Update -> Tap Due
3. Respond -> Ponders
4. Industry -> Try usin' d

B) Extracting sub words from the root word which mean the same as the root

1. Deceased -> Dead
2. Hectare -> Acre (not exactly the same meaning, but such ‘anagrammatic license’ is allowed in my game :))
3. Stripe -> Strip
4. Strip -> Rip

This game comes in handy even now, when I sit in a class which I do not feel like listening to, when I am stuck in a lecture hall where I should not have been, when I am in a taxi in a sea of traffic. It calms down my nerves and helps me be at peace with a very shifty, pained and irritated ‘queue-world’ maybe because it involves a little bit of concentration and hence provides the required distraction, or maybe because it helps me live in my own world of words, a world I love so much.

GROWTH

You know that you have grown older when
• In the Saraswathi Puja, your cheque books and files replace books and note books
• You start waiting for the beginning of month instead of term holidays and summer holidays
• You look at that young adolescent couple on the road with the eyes of a veteran chuckling to yourself, “Kids!”
• You work towards project deadlines during weekends rather than doing homework
• You start keeping track of the amount of money you earn instead of the CGPA you get
• You do not look forward to your birthday anymore ‘cos not withstanding all those celebrations you are growing OLDER BY A YEAR

You know that you have not grown up when
• You look forward to every festivity solely because of all those sweets you will get to eat
• You still get up at 11 in the morning on a lazy Sunday afternoon with not a worry in the world
• You discuss that handsome guy on the road with your childhood friend with the same excitement you had as an adolescent
• Your mom still packs lunch in the same lunch box to office that you took to college
• You still fight with your friends over silly, trivial issues like “Why did you not call me back that day”
• You still look forward to your birthday not withstanding that older by a year part ‘cos of the rich chocolate cake you are going to eat

And badly in need of a nice, witty tagline

This is another of those tagline posts, and, yeah, I am obsessed with taglines. I somehow get very excited when I update my GTalk with some tagline that I perceive to be witty, either mine or stolen. For instance, my most recent stolen witty tagline (with due credits to ‘A Suitable Boy’ by Vikram Seth) goes like this:
“I know that I am indecisive, but he takes the cake. Or, rather, he doesn’t even know whether he should.”

I am not just smitten with my own babies, as I call them, but also painstakingly read through the taglines of each of my friends on GTalk. And I respond to them in different ways depending on the person and the tagline.
• If it is a close friend and if the tagline is happy or sad or witty or K-Max, I ping them and tell them so.
• If it is a close friend and I am in a mood to play, I reply to the tagline with a tagline of my own and the game continues.
• If it is an acquaintance, I just put a tagline which is a response to his/ her tagline and find it very entertaining that the other person has not realized that I am having fun at his/ her expense. For instance:
Acquaintance’s tagline – What to do when there is lots to do?
My tagline – Err.. not capable of much, uh?
• If the tagline has grammatical or spelling errors, I do not care whether it is a close friend or an acquaintance. I just ping them and tell them. It just breaks my poor, little heart to see wrong English up there.

The tagline world is a world by itself. It is a world that comes to my rescue when I have totally given up on life, whether out of boredom or out of ‘running away to the Himalayas’ level emotions. It gives me the opportunity to talk something with people I just want to keep in touch with but do not have a particular subject to talk about except for the same old monotonous things like “How is work?”, “How is life?”, “How is Delhi/ Bangalore/ Chennai/ Singapore/ Switzerland/ whatever treating you?”

The other day, I had “105!” as my tagline and people were pinging me trying to guess what it could mean. Someone said I was running a temperature; someone else thought it was a countdown. Good fun it was. I was actually trying to show off that I had to read a 105 page document in very little time and evoke some sympathy for the same. But, when the explanations were made, my friend just said, “That’s why you are screened through CAT. The RCs test whether you would have the patience to sit and read so much.” :-(

For the past few days, I have been hunting for a nice tagline that would suit my personality. Yes, I firmly believe that one should not copy – paste taglines just for the sake of trying to sound cool. The tagline should really reflect the kind of person one is. For instance, I would never be able to bring myself to put “Winners do not quit and quitters do not win”, for I do not believe in it. I feel that I should quit when I am fairly certain of not winning. And, even more importantly I would not want to put a proverb that has been around for ages. What kind of “value add” am I providing to the society blah blah! Well, putting something like “105!” is not much of “value add”, I agree. But, it at least provides other incentives like catching up with people etc. (Like many others, I put an etc. when I am not able to come up with any more tangible benefits, examples etc.).

Coming back to the topic, as a part of my hunt for taglines, I had put a tagline saying, “And badly in need of a nice, witty tagline”. Three people took the pains to figure out nice, witty taglines for my sake. Thanks all! And, I am not going to share the taglines here for fear of losing exclusive rights on them. I have made the mistake before with 15 odd taglines given out for public consumption. These days, I am marginally smarter. I can maybe share the fourth guy’s idea which was that I should just put a plain K as tagline. K2U, Vinay Vasan Badri.

Taglines rock!

Update:Vikrant wants due credit for being one of those three guys who took pains to give me a rocking tagline.. sigh.. the perils! And let me also give due credits to the other two who gave me rocking taglines, Jags and Denzil! Thanks guys!

As Hinglam as it gets

Having moved in to a new city just a couple of months back, the past days have been filled with esteemed visits from painters, electricians and carpenters among others. Predictably, none of these guys know English, not even Hinglish at times and neither my mother nor I know Hindi. We know little enough to give directions to taxi drivers in the range of “seedha jaayiye”, “left lelijiye” etc. but can deftly read and write Hindi (with the help of the third language Hindi courses we did back in school respectively).

Since I am at office during the week, most transactions happen between these guys and my Mom. During weekends, I too am treated to a few of these conversations! Some memorable snippets as follows:

Wordplay
Supervisor: “Rod kal aayega”
Mom (Apparently understanding what he says): Kallu kal aayega? (kallu is Tamil for Stone)
Supervisor: Kal aayega
Mom (turning towards me): Paravale! Kallu naalaikku vandhidum (Good, the stone will come tomorrow)
I, having understood the conversation a little better than her tell her it might not be so after all. She chides me saying that I do not know Hindi enough to understand their conversation. I shrug my shoulders and give up.
Mom (now back to the main conversation and making some actions with her hands): kallu (stone).. kallu (stone).. wo kitchen ka kallu.. stone.. kab aayega?
Supervisor (an enlightened man now): Kitchen ka stone abhi nahi aayega. Bathroom ka rod kal aayega
The conversation is finally over! My mother is unhappy that the more needed stone is preceded by the unnecessary rod. I heave a sigh of relief at having been saved from forgetting what little Hindi I use to survive this megalopolis!

The medicinal treatment
I walk home one day with groceries and vegetables in my hand. A heated one sided conversation is taking place in Tamil. The painter leaves and then I ask my mom, “Is he a Tam?” She gives me a very naughty smile and says, “No he is a Marathi.” I get confused and ask her why she was talking to him in Tamil. She says, “He knows that I know neither Hindi nor Marathi and still kept talking for 10 minutes straight in a mixture of those two languages. So, I decided to give him a taste of his own medicine. As soon as he stopped, I talked non stop in Tamil for 5 minutes. He got terrified and left”!!

Relationship Building Measures (RBM)
The other day, Mom and I were walking into the building. My mother walked up to the watchman and started holding a conversation with him. She said, “Suresh, Ganpati ko no chutti?” meaning “No holiday for Vinayak Chathurthi?” Since I did not want to corrupt my already scant Hindi, I decided to watch this spectacle from a safe distance. During the course of it, both participants were vigorously shaking their hands in different ways and shaking or nodding or shaking and nodding their heads and talking. Finally it ended and we got into the lift. I asked her what they had been talking about. She responded with a “Who knows? I talked in English + Tamil. He talked in Hindi. It is just a part of my relationship building spree with the people here.”
Project RBM is executed in more ways than one.
Mom (to carpenter): Naam? Naam? Aap ka naam?
Mom (to fitter): Bhai behen hai? Bhai behen?! Sister brother?
Mom (to servant): Ghar kahaan? Beti which class?
Mom (to refrigerator installer): Kaana (meaning Khaana) over? Want Paani?
And so on it goes..

And, yeah, God save the world!

P.S. Hinglam = Hindi+English+Tamil

Sometimes..

Sometimes
The whole world looks bleak with no rhyme or reason
Sometimes
There is nothing to look back at, nothing to look forward to
Sometimes
My frustrated screams spare not even trees and walls
Sometimes
A nasty voice in my head says, “No one really cares about you”
Sometimes
I question existence, this fight for nothingness
Sometimes, sometimes
A wave of loneliness consumes me amidst a sea of people
Just at those times comes that call
A few minutes of arbit talk
Some cribs, a little nostalgia
And then happens sunshine
The world turns a tad rosier, the day a little pleasant
My heart gets filled with love for things animate and inanimate
For
Life is beautiful after all

Inspired by a conversation with K about J;
Dedicated to M, D, J, V, B and many others who make my life beautiful

The vela-vettis of life: Some clarifications

When do people blog? OK, I will restrict this question to myself. When do I blog? I got thinking about this after going through comments on some of my posts written at various points of time in these two years.

Quite a sizeable amount of my readers have commented, “Are you so vela/vetti that you are blogging about this (referring to the subject matter of the post)?”

For the uninitiated, vela and vetti are different ways of saying ‘jobless’.

In fact, I would say that my readers are hopelessly wrong when they ask me such a question. I do NOT blog when I am jobless. Laziness consumes me so much at such times that I just loll on the couch reading a book and dozing off. And, this jobless-funda does not even apply to my life anymore. I blog on these ‘apparently’ vela-vetti topics in the cab on my way to office and back home.

No, I did not write this post in a cab. It is too small for such a longish ride I thought. So I wrote it during lunch time at office.

The city that is

9.30 A.M. on a Monday morning. I am in a cab inching its way towards Worli. The cab driver asks me, “Tilak Bridge se nikaaloon?” And, I give the obvious response (more so obvious since I have no idea of which ‘bridge se nikaloon’ to get to Worli). “Kiss raste pe traffic jam kam hoga?” And, he says, “Is city mein kahin pe bhi traffic kam nahi ho saktha.’
That is Mumbai for you!
Where people and vehicles together throng the roads at comparable magnitudes. Where a measly 5 km drive might take you around an hour if you are lucky. Where there is no time to stand and stare, for time is money here.
But, with all its drudgery and pain, it is still a beautiful city!
Beautiful because it is the city of everyone’s dreams. Beautiful because it welcomes everyone who comes to it with open hands and still has space for more. Beautiful because of its never say die spirit.
The cab is still inching its way towards Worli, now having crossed some bridge like structure which I presume is Tilak Bridge.
I look out and back at those good old days when there really was time to stand and stare, even in this crazy, mad paced city. Perhaps, if I had been thrown into it with no time to inhale its spirit but just time enough to run from home to office back home again to sleep all through the weekend (as is the case these days), I would have hated the city for the turmoil it had brought me. But, no, I was introduced slowly and steadily, to sea faces, to town and its enjoyments, to eat outs and hang outs, to these and much more.
Maybe that is what has made me fall so much for the place that would have meant nothing to me a year and a quarter back.
Maybe, sometimes, it has nothing so much to do with the place as to how and through whom you get absorbed into it.
Maybe, it is plain old first impression.
My initial impressions of the city were molded by experiences with cabbies and auto-wallahs who used a meter to tell me rates (Chennaiites would understand my excitement) and took me where I wanted to go without worrying about how interior a colony it was (people from Bangalore would definitely empathize with me on this one). And there on grew my respect for this city filled with ‘round-the-clock active people’ who did not have time enough to poke their noses into others’ businesses.
Today, this respect and love has gone up to such proportions that I do not regret having relocated here when I get up early to leave for office so as to save some major time on the traffic jam front.
Finally, the cab has reached destination Worli. And, I gear myself up for another of those longish work – laden weeks in the hope of catching a better glimpse of Mumbai Meri Jaan this weekend.

The perils of a school life

I am from one of these amazing schools in Chennai, which used to churn out state and national toppers, among other things. Other than exciting tasks like studying and studying more, “We had joy, We had fun, We had seasons in the sun”. Let me describe one of the main aspects of my school which makes it a really special place. It was an all girls’ school. And, no, it was not a convent. We had co-education till 5th standard and then were separated so that we would grow up to be pious, disciplined men and women. And, man, wasn’t it fun!

When I was suddenly thrown into a college with a more than fair share of boys around, I went almost paranoid. Though my friends claim that I do not behave like a person from a girls’ school (Yeah, I love giving myself such footage and yes, I am a Leo), I still remember those days when harmless comments from guys used to make me go mad with anger. And, looking back at all of it today, if not for a couple of male friends who made sure that I got comfortable with them, I might still remain the same, confused, unaccustomed to the real world, lost woman that I was the first day I entered college and never bloomed into the 'kavity' I am today.

I have heard people describe all women’s colleges and all girls’ schools as fun places as one has some kind of freedom which apparently gets restricted due to inhibition when one is in a co-education environment. I would tend to think of it on different lines, rather. If a kid, right from kindergarten, has been used to moving along with kids of both genders, then there is no question of inhibition. The factor of inhibition gets in only when there is a sense of unfamiliarity, which is definitely going to be a high possibility in case of an adolescent who is moved from a same gender school to a co-educated one.

In my opinion, a same gender school is one of the worst demons to a healthy childhood and a wholesome adolescence and acts as a major roadblock to what we all call, “gearing up for the real world”.

P.S. I did not intend to take digs at my school in this post. It was really a special school, and except for this one aspect, it made me an amazingly wholesome person laying down the foundation for what I am today.

Thirty Two flavors, all of them vanilla

Our best universities have forgotten that the reason they exist is to make minds, not careers, says William Deresiewicz in The disadvantages of an elite education. More on it later. Right now, I am busy making a career.

My Experiments with Sathyam

The tryst with Sathyam, I mean, Sathyam Cinemas, started way back in the 90s. In those days, we used to watch a volley of Tamil films. Hindi was a strict no-no 'cos none of us in the family knew the language except for 'mein' and 'tu'. English movies were filtered so as to ensure that I watched 'safe' ones such as Jurassic Park, Lost World, E.T. and so on in that genre.

It was a long time before I was allowed to go along with friends to watch movies, and then, started the experiments! The trip to Sathyam Cinemas for me and my friend (let's call her M) became a holiday ritual. Initially a triplex, Sathyam, in the 2000s, expanded into a multiplex of six theaters, not being able to withstand our demand for variety. The experimentation had to necessarily be restricted to Sathyam 'cos our respective families would not have taken too kindly to the idea of our going to any other theater in the city. But, we too had 'strict' filters for the kind of movies we frequented, mind you! It had to be in one of the three languages that we had at least heard viz. Tamil, Hindi and English. Already, Hindi would be a major fight, but viewing something in Telugu would have been disastrous in those years, 'cos we did not have any idea of even what 'cheppandi' meant. But, M and I mostly ended up seeing English films (usually animated), occasionally Hindi films and avoided Tamil as long as we had the former two options. Not that we thought it was not cool to see Tamil movies, but more so that we could see those with our parents and the rest by ourselves and hence maximize the fun factor!

Once, to break the monotony of animations, we tried to experiment a bit more. A movie by the name of "House of Wax" had released that very day or a couple of days back and hence, we did not have any idea what the movie was all about. We had most conveniently missed to see the promos as well. Hence, from the name of the movie, we hazarded a guess that it would be a fun movie, as the name somehow reminded us of doll houses and kids. Little did we know that it was a horror flick loosely based on a 1953 movie of the same name. And, once we started getting 'involved' in the movie, we realized that it was no usual horror; it was too yuck to even be a thriller of any kind. When we got out of the theater and went back to M's place, their parents exclaimed how weather beaten our faces looked and chided us for having gone in for a movie without even bothering to find out what genre it came under!

Next time, to be on the safer side, we tried a well known Hindi movie, "Lakshya". At least the stars looked familiar and I am a die-hard Hrithik fan after all. But, we conveniently seemed to have forgotten that we had advanced not much in the knowledge of our National language. The movie turned out to be another disaster, with each of us trying to guess what the previous scene could have been all about and ending up with translations vastly divergent from one another. The movie having quite a number of lengthy dialogues did not help the cause too much.

But, our never-say-die attitude continued, ranging from Shrek-2 to a couple of more Hindi movies to some Tamil flicks as well, till the end when we had to part in order to continue pursuing our respective masters'.

But, my tryst with Sathyam still did not end. A term holiday would never be complete without a movie in Sathyam, good or bad, Tamil or Hindi or English, with mom or with friends. The experiments might have failed many a time; but my experiences with Sathyam have always been a relish.

Today, I saw "Sarkaar Raj", a Hindi movie. Here again, the experiment proved to be grossly wrong, but the Sathyam experience has, as always, been delightful to say the least.

The greatest 'Mood Elevator'

Moods are subject to change, with time, place, people, thoughts, just about anything. My all time favorite mood elevator has been shopping. But, like everything else, it too comes at a price. The number of hours for which my good mood prevails increases exponentially with the amount of money I spend. Perhaps, that way, I feel that I have done right justice to the use of my mother's hard-earned money.
No, today I am not going to discuss my pleasures with shopping. It's rather about something more unusual, something that at most times does not come with a price - SCENT - the greatest of mood elevators.

The other day, I had gone to the T.Nagar vegetable market, which, thanks to my two years' hostel stay, I had almost forgotten. Not that I have ever missed the place at all; on the contrary, I have many times in my past dreaded going there, what with the crowd and the noise, among other things. This day was different. The crowd and the noise did not disturb me, 'cos I was swept away by the scent of the market. I was transformed back to college days, when I used to walk back from the railway station along with my bosom buddy Sups, both of us sharing a laugh over sheer nonsense. And, all through the evening, I was in great spirits, despite having visited one of the most dreadfully jammed and crowded parts of the city.

There are other scents that have such feel good effects on me, even minus the nostalgia part.

The scent of wet ground
After a light shower,
Of fresh flowers and saffron
In the temple on a beautiful morning,
Of friams in simmering oil
On a cloudy Sunday evening,
Of new clothes enough
To satiate my shopping hunger,
Of mint, of spinach,
Of melting butter on my toast,
Of strawberry gloss and new books,
Of old, weathered library books too

And, there are many more too, which, owing to my poor, aging memory, I am not able to remember anymore. This reminds me of Deepa's post in which she says how nice it would be if we had some mechanism to save scent, like how we save AVs.

P.S.: The phrase 'Mood Elevator', most predictably, was given by an FPM (Fellowship Program in Management) student! Who else can globe so much! Thanks Mani :)

Little Heart

A friend of mine once said, "It is toughest to know that a person is dying and be next to them and see them dying". I told him then, "Do you really think so? It is equally tough when you do not know."
Death is a humbling experience. It shows us how little control we have over the next second of our life. Money can do little much to control our lifespan, really.
Everyday, there occur a number of unexpected deaths, of middle aged and young men and women, leaving behind a lifelong gaping hole in the hearts of their near and dear. And in this same world do exist an almost equal number of people burdened by infirmity and deadly diseases with no return from the path to death, waiting and abiding their time, suffering excruciating pain. It is then that I wonder how incapable a being the human form is, how very incapable in front of God and Nature. We cannot control when we can die; rather, we can just wait and bide our time, meanwhile trying to make our existence as meaningful as possible for ourselves and others around us.

P.S. : The title of this blog was taken from the bed sheet that covers my grandmother's bed.

pgp_iimb_2010@yahoogroups.com

It has been almost a month and a half now since I graduated and vacated my “2 year home”. I have been missing all of what I guess everyone else has been missing which includes the midnight chai at Athicas, endless discussions on nonsense, sense, the world, some globe and a little bit of marketing, bracket spams, mess ka khana, and so on. In order to reduce the intensity of senti, I have been filling my daily routine with an hour of compulsive browsing of the various photographs I shot of campus, with and without people, at all times of the day, but it has not contributed much to the cause except for making me miss the past even more.
In the midst of this misery, a fachcha posted a link to the yahoo group that would welcome and clear the queries of the incoming batch of 2008-10 on BR and then ALL HELL BROKE LOOSE. Yes! I am back to my old routine of almost night outs, sifting through hundreds of mails, laughing my head off, starring the “star mails”, reading and re-reading them and musing over how much my seniors would have laughed reading our mails to a similar group two years back.
The prim and proper ones introducing themselves with “Name:”, “Grad College:”, “Work Ex:” etc. are a tad too boring and do not catch my fancy. Nevertheless, they do tend to remind me of my own first mail which was equally boring and mini-resume level and probably one of the safest ‘cos of its obscurity. They also include some common place queries like “How many suits would we need?”, “What’s the dress code?”, “What is the minimum attendance requirement?” etc. And, there are hell a lot of boring ones on the loan process and laptop configurations, which, contrary to the popular belief of every incoming batch are extremely hassle free and easy to acquire. And, yeah, every one of these mailers solemnly promise how much they are looking forward to joining B blah.. blah.. which is totally true I think, for after all, I too said and expected the same and got more than I asked for :D
But, there have been some queries which are real gems. And, I wonder, I do wonder, about the first week of the poor pitiable guys who generated these queries :P
Here are a few:
• "Who bears the expenses for the exchange program.. self?" – Well, what the heck is that supposed to mean? If you are trying to ask about scholarships etc., why not make that clear rather than getting into trouble with Arbit of this kind?
• "Someone posted that there are good reasons to stay back during term V at IIMB. What are those?" – The answer to this one is extremely profound! It was something like “Because in an exchange system, when you give something, you get something in return.” – Now that is one hell of an answer which made me laugh for 10 minutes straight
• “Though most of my questions have been answered but I was just wondering if we are allowed to visit anyone's room late night as well, considering that there are mixed hostels??” – It is intriguing what is really going on in that mind which posed this question. Extremely fast that one! But equally kiddish too! 'Allowed to visit' I believe.. Haven't heard of such stuff in a post graduate environment!
• And, some of these “I am handsome, I have 1 GF and expect to have many more” level intros which must really be pissing off those poor fachchas interning away to glory promptly evoking responses like “C'mon guys this is not some orkut community. And we seniors are not jobless at all. Its high time you realise that you will be entering a Post grad. campus and professionalism is expected from each and everyone here.” – Oh man! Sometimes or at least most times, even words in mails get passed down from one batch to another
But overall, the fachcha batch seems to be most creative and enterprising in its endeavour to help out the incoming batch what with the 11 p.m. rule and “Peace Club”! IIMB Rocks as always and am still sifting through hundreds more of these mails laughing every other second. Some way of time pass, that, at least for the rest of the month!

P.S. I was terribly hungry at 2.30 in the morning today and missed Athicas like never before for 2 hours straight before dropping off to sleep again :(

Tashan

Today, I was wondering why I had not blogged in a long time now, considering how jobless I have been the past few weeks. Well, that's really not true. Given that I have been jobless for so long, I have been going about with a hung out tongue in search of some subject to blog about. And, when I get one, I don't jot it down because I inevitably am not using my laptop at that moment. And, funnily enough, I forget the stuff later on which stands testimony to how boring and uninteresting a thought I must have been having.

And, it's not with blogs that I am having this trouble. These days, I find it tough even to put some creative tagline on GTalk. Now, this is some serious problem, 'cos if you refer to my previous post Of manias and disorders you would definitely have realized what a "Tagline-maniac" I am.

And, thus, the problem set me thinking. I read through each of my posts and realized that I do not write too much about the world in general. There have seldom been posts on issues of public interest. They are rather posts on my own personal world. Looks as if I am pretty much obsessed with myself and what affects me at a personal level. Is such an obsession healthy? Or is it that I like writing about things that I actively participate in or am a subject/victim of rather than those that I view through the lens of the road sider?

P.S. - I am on this "Hindi-learning" spree and the latest word in my dictionary is "Tashan". Since this post has somehow touched upon my style of blogging, I thought I would name it "Style". Well, I know it does not really have that fitting a contextual meaning, but, nevertheless, I am a very arbit female :)

....

A thing of beauty it was
Happiness was in the air
Every day was new and fresh
Everything around a feast to the eyes
Thoughts never before dreamt of
Became the essence of life and the universe
Joy multiplied by leaps and bounds
With each subsequent act
Of nature and man, in sync with one another
Life is beautiful, said I
Over and over again
And felt and lived it too
An unrepeatable phase of life it is
But, nevertheless,
A thing of beauty is a joy forever!

An ode to IIMB, perhaps

I came in all excited
And then immediately wanted to leave
'Cos I was missing home and my room
Mom and my friends
And thousand other things
But slowly I forgot that I was missing anything
There were other people, lots to do
Stuff to think about
So much to explore
There came a time
When I stopped going home
'Cos this was home after all
And my room my own
With a community for an identity
Now a time has come
To leave a place again
The place that made me what I am today
Brought out the real me from the trenches of my soul
Full of energy and enthusiasm
Knowledge about the little world I am part of
Craziness and Arbitness
Fighter spirit too at times
Made me behave my normal abnormal way
While still enjoying it all every minute
I know I will terribly terribly miss you
My dear own IIMB
But what is love if not missing too!

Of manias and disorders

Different people have different manias in life. For example, some people keep talking over phone all through the nights (with people other than their gfs and bfs as well: night - phone - o - mania), some keep going for second and third and fourth rounds of desserts (sweet - o - mania), some keep sleeping through days and nights continuously (sleep - o - mania), some keep orkutting with arbit people and known people also at times (scrap - o - mania), some keep cribbing about shortlists and interviews and the fact that they are single (group all that together as crib - o - mania) and so on.

I have a very strange mania, called tagline - o - mania. Yes, my frequency of changing taglines on GTalk and BRacket is one per hour, if you are lucky. Sometimes, I even change them every five minutes, because I seem to be having so much to tell the world. I would put "I am loving everything" this very minute, then get cranked up over something, scream at someone and come back and put "I hate the world!" in just five minutes time. I think it could even be a Compulsive Tagline Disorder (CTD), something far more strange and scary than a mania. But, I do like it after all you know. All that footage I get from those hazaar taglines I keep changing on GTalk. Right now, I am battling with myself and the world on which of these taglines to put on GTalk for the next ten minutes. Should it be "Aakhri Baar.." (Last Exam), "Completely Taxing Management" (That's my last end term Comprehensive Tax Management), "I flit, I float, I fleety flee I fly" (I don't know why because I am not exactly feeling that way), "Last exam of my academic life.. phew.." (Well, that's self-explanatory after all this rigmarole), "Of eminent friends and responsible superiors" (Which is not self explanatory and which I am least inclined to explain) and so on (Well that was just out of habit. It's only that much!). Anyway, going back to why I was writing this, it is just that I am not able to express soooooo much on a single tagline and so I thought "Why not blog this crap and then put the blog address as a tagline!" Not a very innovative thought that! But still a thought. Ok, I know I am arbitting too much today not least because its one of those "last" days again tomorrow. Yeah I guess you know by now.

Well, lets not digress. I have not yet figured out whether this is a mania or a disorder. But, I know of one other thing which is definitely a disorder.

I have this other, you could probably call mania, or in simple terms habit, of chatting really lots! If you have been following all my posts carefully, you would know that I am in fact addicted to GTalk and BR. So, I have this habit of chatting on multiple windows at once. And, when I am talking really interesting and/or personal stuff, I tend to rightly (or wrongly most of the times) type it on someone else's window. For instance, the other day, I was chatting with this friend of mine and telling him that my research work is getting published as a case in a book by my Prof (yeah I know I am bragging and I love all this footage! In fact I even put the mail from my Prof indicating the same as a tagline!). So, he asked me for a treat and I said "Yes, sure, why not, meet you at CCD tomorrow evening". And, promptly typed all this and sent it on this other group chat window, immediately leading to some 7 people pouncing on me saying "Yes we will be there". And, did I stop there? I actually typed what was meant for this group chat which went something like "Yeah 10k is too much. I can't afford it for the trip" and sent it to this friend of mine! Phew! One of those embarrassing moments, you would think! But, I have done more of them. Just today, I was asking after someone's health and telling him that he should call me if he needs anything at all and sent it on a GTalk chat window. These are just few of those instances I remember. I seem to be doing at least one every week and more on an average per week.

And, I tend to repeat mistakes with the same people at times, which is even more embarrassing. It is almost as if I am deliberately trying to get attention, which I am not, of course. I would be doing it only if I am not chatting with that person. Why would I do it with someone with whom my chat is going full strong and then get embarrassed and stop even!

Not that I get too embarrassed as well, you know! Most of my friends tell me that I do not know how to get embarrassed. More on that some other time (I know you are least interested in knowing about it, but I would still type it out in my own verbose way and pain everyone to read it as usual!)

Nostalgia!

"Time to leave the dream place I slept through, " says a friend. Once I log into GTalk, there are similar sounding status messages like "The last mile", "One more week to go", "Last three days of classes", "Done with IIM" etc. each one expressing a myriad of emotions on this last one week. To some, it looks like that most awaited release from jail. To most others, it feels like the end of the world.
Not many months ago, I too was counting down weeks with glee, reflecting sentiments similar to the former group, immensely happy at the thought of leaving. Now, there is little less of the glee, little more of the sorrow at having to leave.
Sorrow at having to leave
• Late night meetings
• CC war rooms
• The squad at the PGP office headed by Gundu Rao
• Talks at the Audi
• PPTs attended in business suits, business formals, PPT formals & informals
• Sleeping in class
• Working stealthily on the laptop (read chatting on GTalk) while some really serious stuff like economics, tax, finance and sales keep happening on the dais
• Surprise quizzes, not-so-surprise quizzes, announced quizzes all considered alike after sometime
• RGgiri
• Learning diaries
• Mentoring and mentees
• Unmaad and Vista
• L^2s and Dandiya nights
• Sports meets - the numerous Spardhas and Sangrams and Sangarshs and what nots
• Official GBMs and not-so-official GMs(Gossip Meetings)
• BRacket and Arbit
• Pathetically slow internet speeds
• DC++ our savior
• Resume submissions and shortlists
• 11:59:59
• Tea at NC at 12 midnight
• Campus walks at 1 in the morning, on the road to Whispering Teaks especially
• Music at full blast at 2 in the morning
• Laughing away to glory on not so deserted corridors at 3 in the morning
• Hot plates of Maggi at Athicas at 4 in the morning
• Chikamallaiah and his everyday quota of spams
• RTK with his own share
• Innumerable birthday treats, PPO treats, LPO treats and any other plausible treat on Earth
• 'Jab we met' level movies watched with a gleeful group of friends, armed with Lays and Pepsi
• Breakfast at the mess
• Dinners at Krishna Kafe
• CCS and its extension
• Papers, Competitions and Debates
• UnBold Inc.
• CP, ACP, DCP and more variants
• Special lunches for Pongal and Onam, candle light dinners on V Day
• Chocolate dedications on Christmas Eve
• Study groups formed towards the end of our times here


I know, I know I have got obsessed with bullet points. This is my third bullet point post. Happens with experience.. sigh! Could not find a better way to mention each and every one of these things that I am going to miss so much. Others please feel free to add to the list. I might have after all missed some really important stuff.

102F 120/100

I will really really try not to make this sound like Quite senti this one although you have no option but to put up with it even if it does :P

I have been "terribly ill" for some days now. One of those terrible times when I oh-so-much miss Mommy. Being the spoilt single kid I have always been (yes yes I am still a kid - don't even think otherwise, will you!), Mamma has been around always, be it fever small or big, food poisoning, or a fall on a perfectly flat floor with all the right friction. Oh yeah, that's another story in itself. My Dad used to say that I never learnt how to walk right. Just imagine walking on a perfectly flat floor with proper friction, as I said before, and generally tripping on your own feet and falling down, hurting your knees, ankles, hands and even face at times.

This term has been all this and more, the latest being 102F, 120/100 (Temperature and Blood Pressure in that order). Mom was yesterday very senti and said, "If I had been there, I would have done this.. that.. and a lot more". Then, I told her, "Amma don't worry. Really, people are doing this.. that.. and a lot more for your kid".

For instance, there is my brother, the official Hospital partner, who keeps shoving food into my mouth all the time. Actually, I do willingly eat because the alternative would be to listen to whole loads of related and unrelated gyaan with probablys and possiblys thrown around freely here and there. Sometimes, I imagine what's gonna happen when this guy gets kids. Imagine a place full of small gyaaners replicating him! Lord save the world!

Then, there is the happy family which lovingly cuts apples for me, forever chides me saying, "Beta, how can you not finish a course of tablets", gets fruit cakes 'cos am tired of having mess food that further sickens my already sickened mouth and tongue and life, forces food into my mouth, even mess level food, makes me laugh and laugh and laugh leaving me happy and contented like never before.

Then of course, there is the fairy who thinks she is the Dada of IIMB. Oh yeah, you should listen to the kind of stuff she talks. "What eh! What! What will you do now? You better don't do anything that I do not approve of ok!" I love it when she thinks am really really getting intimidated with whatever she says with that cute smile on her face :) I still remember that night when I was shivering like crazy and kept calling her to cover me with blanket after blanket, quilt after quilt. She kept rubbing my feet and hands and making them warm, and almost moving me to tears.

How can I miss out the k'night' who calls me regularly before every meal to find out what I want and keeps getting it for me, and keeps scolding me all the time for not taking proper care of myself, forces me into wearing sweaters and jackets. I hate to admit it, but I do get kinda scared of her at times!

And yes, the Black Tea woman who keeps saying, "If you need anything call me ok" with a cute sweet smile. And 'cos of whom I have taken a sudden liking for black tea.

And Manage who says the whole illness could possibly be because of loads of ice I kept on my face around two weeks ago (remember that habit of mine to trip on my own feet and fall - one of those days when I hurt my face major time). I know that life is a cycle but I did not know that it is chain enough for one illness to lead directly to another. Interesting thought that!

And, almost all the people in this small world of mine who keep calling me to assure me that I am over exerting myself (God knows who put such ideas in their minds!) and I should really sit back and take some rest for a change(which I am anyway doing, more so ever now thanks to all these antibiotics).

Actually, you know what, I do not know how to end this post. Like, should I sing an ode or something as tribute? Would sound very filmy right? So let me stop here. Very abrupt, I know. It doesn't really matter. And, I am NOT going to say thanks now and get kicked when I am in a 'bimaar' state already. Love you guys! All of you! Each of you in a special, different way :)

I wish.. or rather I wished!

When I was around ten years old, I got this awesome looking diary for new year from my dad. It was a UNICEF diary with pictures of kids from various parts of the world on each page. I fell so much in love with the thing that I spent around two months preserving it carefully with not so much as an ink mark on it while wondering about what kind of use to put it to that would merit its beauty. And then it hit me. Yeah.. I had for such a long time been aspiring to be a poetess (During those times, feminist I WAS, I still preferred using words like poetess and authoress of the archaic world :P) that the idea immediately caught on. And, I started writing. The usual stuff, you know.. On Nature and Flowers and Children and Animals.. And then, I wrote "I wish I were". I wrote for around 2-3 pages on what all I wished I were and why. The poem was on the following lines
"I wish I were a rose
That would be admired and loved by everyone"
and so on..

Now, you guys must be getting exasperated and wondering what I am trying to get at with such a long autobiography on nothingness. I will tell you in a moment.

Today, I was thinking too much (as usual, about irrelevant and incoherent stuff)and suddenly I wished again. This time, I did not wish to be things or people, for, after 12 long years, I have realized that I am quite content and happy with who I am rather than being a tiger or a lion or a nightingale.

I wished I could tell my little world what all goes through my not-so-little mind. I wished I could tell it that it is grossly wrong about the notions it has about me and my apparently uninteresting & ordinary life. I wished I could tell it that all that shows out might not always be the truth. I wished I could break this world free of its misconceived and baseless ideas. But, I realized soon enough that these are just wishes, not hopes. They are as good as those wishes I'd had 12 years back. Things that can neither be said nor done, but can only be imagined and illusioned. Or, rather, things that WOULD neither be said nor done, but WOULD only be imagined and illusioned.

For, ain't I a true Leo after all!:D