B for Birthdays

When I was in school, birthdays were huge though not in a fancy, "need a holiday", way. The biggest issue I had then, funnily, was that my birthday would never fall on a working day. It falls on a day that is a compulsory off for everyone across the country. To the school kid me, that meant "no flaunting new dress when everyone else is in uniform and distribute chocolates" day. But, I was never one to be daunted by such silly challenges as this. I would wear my new dress on the next available working day, and go packing with all the chocolates. My classmates and friends would be kind enough to remember and wish me "Belated Happy Birthday" while for the uninitiated who did wish me with a "Happy Birthday", I would be ready with a "Oh no, not today; my birthday is on Independence Day" rejoinder  accompanied by a beaming smile. 

Anyway, that's not why birthdays were huge then. Birthdays were huge because we had awesome at-home parties every year, the house being decorated with festoons and balloons by mom and dad, a cake ordered from McRennett a week before and picked up a day before the birthday (Wow! McRennett has a fancy website now and is even going to start off online orders in a bit. Times do change!) And, mom would actually make samosas and batata wadas at home for the little guests who would grace the occasion. 

The guests were what made the parties awesome. It was a long list, believe me, of all my friends from school, who lived within the 1km radius of our house, along with the neighbourhood kids who I knew well (though I didn't play with, because I was never the playing kind. Sigh!). The list also included the neighbourhood adults and family members that could make it. The little guests would arrive at around 6pm soon after which the cake would be cut, gifts given and received, photos taken by dear uncle on his Kodak camera, snacks and cake polished off with some juice on the side, return gifts given and received, goodbyes said and party wrapped up by around 8pm. 

My dear friend from across the road would celebrate her birthday 5 days after mine, where the process would repeat itself with Minnie mouse cakes, a much larger gathering (she has thousands of relatives, I tell you), Fruitnik and Rejoice for refreshments and a larger house to play around in.  

I can't remember a thing fancy about these parties, no fancy outdoor location, no fancy music, no fancy themes, no fancy gifts and return gifts, but they form some of the best parts of my school memories, because we were happy then, in a silly, childish and innocent sort of way.

Two days back was the little one's one month birthday and as I hung up a few ribbons and color papers, I couldn't help but look back at my own birthday parties and wonder what kind of parties the next generation would have. Something flashy I guess? Well, as long as happiness resides, I don't mind the flash and glam.

P. S. This post is the second in the A-Z blogging challenge series for April. 

A brown paper package

It was the summer of ’95. Or perhaps autumn. One would never know in the Chennai of those years, whose best friend was the sun, monsoon only a one-day trickle that flooded not the discarded cap of a cola bottle.

I alighted from the cycle rickshaw, and sauntered home, looking forward to the weekend. Outside the door there were a lot of slippers, and inside, a lot of noise, mostly female. “That’s strange”, I told myself, as the house would usually be empty at that time of the day, save my mother with some interesting smells wafting from the kitchen.

Inside, a strange sight greeted me. My mother was sitting in the middle animatedly discussing something with the horde of neighbors who had descended upon our house, gesticulating at a brown paper package kept at the corner of the drawing room.

I looked at her, at the neighbors and at that package in the corner. The package seemed infinitely more interesting than the rest of the objects and subjects there, so I walked towards it hurriedly. “Stop! Don’t go near that box!” my mother rasped sharply. I looked around wondering why it was such a big deal, which is when the story unraveled.

The box had originated in Australia (as evidenced by the postmark) and traveled a considerable number of weeks before being delivered in our humble abode a couple of hours ago by the ever dependable India Post. It didn’t have a source address or name, but it did have a destination address and a name, both matching our coordinates. Going on in her animated voice, my mother said she suspected it could have a bomb and so they (she and the neighbors) were discussing on the best course of action to take. 

Eventually, curiosity overcame the cats in the room and the few kittens scattered around. It was decided that the package should be opened, my mother reasoning that India Post must have got wind of it if it indeed contained a bomb (Really? India Post? In the 90s?). 

So was it opened, to a dream come true for me. It was WonderLand, La La Land, NeverLand, DisneyLand all put into one. It was a brown paper package that wasn't tied up in strings but filled with my most favorite thing - stationery!!!

Colorful pens, pencils long and short, crayons and water colors, sparklers galore, notebooks beautiful, sheets and sheets of lovely paper, some really cool sharpeners, many shaped erasers - oh the list goes on! I was lost in a trance flooded by the deluge, but I did manage to have a huge fight with my mom after the neighbors left. How could she have invited the whole world to open this love of my life? Like how some people don't like sharing their chocolates, I don't like sharing my stationery. Most. Definitely. Not.

P.S.: The package was from one of dad's business associates in Oz land, as a goodwill gesture for the profits he made thanks to dad. And, it was meant for me and me only (not even my dad). He of course had not anticipated shares for the neighbors! And I never bothered to find out how random he could have been not to mention the "From" address on the package.

Body shamers

I have always been what one would, if they wanted to be polite, call "healthy" - a chubby child, an awkwardly big adolescent and now, a rotund adult. Neither I nor the people around me have forgotten that, and when I am not taking digs at my own size, my family and friends would run jokes on my behalf. In fact, my cousin's childhood nickname for me was "Moti", and he most definitely was not referring to pearl. I have never considered digs about my weight or size "body shaming", till almost a decade back at B-school.

At the end of a morning class session in the first term, a classmate came up to me and told me, very gleefully, how a bunch of guys in the last bench were just discussing about how large my arms were and the apparent sex appeal in them. My friend, who was sitting next to me, shooed him off saying he was talking 'bakwaas' and he should shut up. But, I was mum, a tad too numb, because I was too shocked that someone said that to me, about a specific body part. I didn't turn up in class the rest of the day as I spent the day wondering about what body parts of me people would be looking at or thinking of instead of talking to me, if and when I turned up. Of course, I went to class the next day, because I couldn't miss the course for the sake of a few bozos. However, my only regret for so many years now has been that I did not give it back to that guy, and had it buried inside me for so long. 

That situation has now been taken care of. The person contacted me for something, and while I was still mum during the initial conversation, something in me snapped when he said, "Looks like you are loving fitness routines. Your photos seem to suggest you have lost weight." I just told him that I am still the same person, only that no one body shames me any more unlike a bunch of bullies back in B-school. It felt good, though it was many thousand hours late.

Body shaming, as the urban dictionary informs me, is about shaming a person for their body. And, it isn't always about a fat person. It is about that girl who has a stick thin body and is insecure about it, because someone once told her that her clothes hang on her like on a pole. It is about the dark skinned boy who is compared to the night of the new moon or a 'karuvadu' (sun-dried fish in Tamil) day in and day out. It is about that short boy being told he will not find a girl his size and a tall girl being informed she is too much of an ostrich for marriage. For years, marketing companies have used our insecurities and these body shamers' words to coerce us into buying and using things we may perhaps be better off without than with. 

No, I am not going to spend time giving links to those advertisements and the outrage in media over them. Many a good samaritan has already taken care of that. I am just going to remind you, the body shamed (no one has the picture perfect body after all), to give it back when someone tries to shame you. You may yell, you may talk nicely, you may smile, you may not smile. Just drive the point across. The more you call out the shamers on their shaming, the lesser they will shame everyone, and the better this world will be, for us and our future generations too.

Y for Yoga

I was 5 years old when I was enrolled into the “best” yoga program in the city, because my child specialist had suggested yoga would help increase my immunity level. 

I kind of liked the location. It had a huge idol of Patanjali, a sage who compiled Yoga sutras in the ancient past. The idol was right next to a tree towering over it which showered fragrant flowers right on top of the idol, and the whole scene was nothing short of serene. And the place inside had multiple yoga rooms with individual sessions. Well, they weren’t really rooms, to be fair to the beauty of the place, and the lack of vocabulary creativity within me. They were small hutments with thatched roofs, off shoots littered across the property, and each one had a dedicated Yoga teacher imparting the knowledge of Yoga to young and old, man and woman. The place was largely silent, true to the spirit of the Yoga taught there, and it might have given any meditation center of today a run for the money.

I was assigned to this menacing lady who was (and hopefully still is) extremely committed to the cause of Yoga. She wouldn’t wear a smile on her face, but her asanas were perfection. And, I would work hard just to please her, because what better joy can there be than pleasing the best in the trade. It didn’t matter that she was all of 16 and 5 feet tall. The confidence with which she carried herself taught me very early on that neither age nor size matter. Looking back, I can imagine what a scary class monitor, peer, student, and mother she must have turned out to be. But, my health did take a turn for the better, thanks to the rigor and science behind the exercises.

As with all new things learnt and lack of discipline, I lost touch with Yoga and future attempts to regain the mastery never worked, I suspect because I never got my first teacher back. I wonder sometimes, what she is up to now. If things worked well and her students reciprocated with the same commitment that she showed towards the art, I am sure many lives would have been touched and changed for the better.

P. S. This post is the twenty fifth in the A-Z blogging challenge series for April. 

R for Redial

I dialed her number and waited. There was the long screeching "engaged" tone that had been bothering me for the past half hour. Cursing all and sundry, I slammed down the blood red phone and waited. Exactly 9 nanoseconds later, I dialed again.

Are you a millennium child? As in, not a millennial, which google informs me is "the cohort spanning children born between the 1980s and the early 2000s". Are you a millennium child, one that was born when I was at my adolescent best, or worst? For you, this will be a nice, new post that oldies reminiscence about, stuff that you can safely include in your ancient history curriculum. For the rest, well, let's revel in some nostalgia.

As a school kid, I was an extensive user of the dial-telephone. We had a red one at home similar to the one in this pic. 

And, I used it under the ruse of homework discussions, a fair bit. Hey, really! I was a diligent kid, having lots to discuss about my math and science homework, and the ghost house next door to school (our own little fairy tale-ish gossip) with my best friend. And my friend used the phone even more extensively than I did, so much so that I was faced with the situation referenced at the beginning of this point quite frequently. My fingers would feel wobbly and sore after the many redials, and I would be ready to throw something at someone, at which precise moment, she would call me back, as if on cue, the red telephone shrilly announcing her re-entry into my life. Was it telepathy, I wonder now.

For, we did not have basics like punch keypads and redial buttons, let alone advanced tech like call waits. And, I am not missing the lack of them. No, that's a lie. I miss the lack of call waits and call logs. Now, there is so much evidence of a call received that I cannot really say, "Oh! You called? I never received it." Sometimes, to hell with technology. 

I don't think we have the telephone with us anymore, what with my mother's obsession with throwing out anything old and useless (which gene she has promptly passed on to me). I keep telling her how we have lost that one chance to make millions (or billions, basis inflation) in the decades to come, passing it off as "precious antique furnishing". While that ship has sailed, I have implored her to keep the typewriter and the ammi-kal well and happy, because those might just make up for the loss of revenue from this one!

P. S. This post is the eighteenth in the A-Z blogging challenge series for April. 

H for Heroes

Who's your favorite hero? Batman, because he is the silent crusader? Superman, because he is from Krypton? Spiderman, because his hands and feet can spin webs? Or, Ironman, the flashy, rich, hot boy?

I never read comics as a kid, so I never had a favorite hero, or super hero. The first time I fell in love with a superhero was when Nolan introduced the spruced up, wise crack cracking, ‘baritoned’ Christian Bale on screen. 

But, this post ain't about my super heroes. Nor is it about yours.

It is, rather, something inked in my memory, from primary school. Fifth class was really the most exciting of all of primary school, and something all of us looked forward to as fourth standard kids, for solid reasons really.

The first day of fifth class, I swaggered into the classroom, with as much self-importance as a vain king walking to the battlefield for the first time, with a shiny, new sword in his sheath. In my case, the weapon was an ink pen, and the sheath, the good old pencil box. Yes, the day marked an important transition – from pencils, erasers and sharpners, to the revered ink pen. Class started and I unleashed my weapon on the notebook. Only then, the battle began. Ink blotting across sheets, ink not flowing through the pen, ink splattering on my bright new white shirt. Ink everywhere, blue as the sea, smouldering in the storm. The evening I went back home is when the actual fury unleashed. Apparently, my lips were blue, and so were my cheeks. My mother spent some quality time scrubbing my face and hands and giving me a few “must-be-heard” scoldings, and then devoted the rest of the evening to bleaching out the shirt. Anyway, I wasn’t smart enough to ask her then whether she had been an expert with ink pens from day one!

After this fiasco, we had to look for some quick workarounds. The traditional ink pen, you would know if you are from that era, can be filled up only through an ink filler. An ink filler is this small tube like contraption that first needs to be dipped into a huge bottle of ink (huge bottles that would leak when opened, leak when kept aside, leak in general) and then taken very slowly and shakily towards the ink pen. By the time filler goes from bottle to pen, around 50% would be lost to the table or floor beneath, which ink can be used to make beauty art with hands or feet, that will then stay on forever like a tattoo (exactly like a tattoo, in a few minutes time you will realize the folly and try to wipe it frantically with anything available around, before mom comes with a tirade fit for two ears full). And then, the pen itself would not shut properly, will leak from the sides, from the nib etc. which is what leads to a fiasco (similar to the one that happened on my first day at school with the ink pen).

Ball pens were strictly prohibited in school, as it apparently hampers learning to write well (perhaps, all doctors learnt to write in their fifth class with ball pens). So, our nearest workaround was this, the Hero pen.

Have you used a Hero pen? He is the king of the ink pen community, comes with his own ink filler, where the nib can be dunked into a bottle of ink, sucking ink into the filler till it can take no more. No messy drops, no leaks, no blue lips or splotchy shirts, no fiascos. He truly was the hero of my childhood. I, in fact, had him in all colors – brown, black and green. The black was my lucky one, my exam pen. The brown one was my every day pen, my go to boy for math and science, and English especially. The green was one I avoided, he was the ugly duckling that I took out for classes and teachers I did not like, as a sign of my rebellion against them.

Unfortunately, despite all this practicing with the ink pen, my handwriting is exactly like a doctor’s. And, I did not even end up a doctor! Even my hero couldn’t save my handwriting I guess!

P. S. This post is the eighth in the A-Z blogging challenge series for April. 

Gone with the wind

The charming Southern belle, the battle with the Yankees, the slaves and their loyalty, the dashing romance – Margaret Mitchell’s Gone with the wind is my all-time favorite novel and Scarlett O’Hara, my most favorite fictional character.

Many call it the book of the hopeless romantic. I think of it more as a brilliant narrative of survival. 

To read the rest of the article, click here.

The Educated

I absently flick through Facebook (on my unreasonably expensive smart-phone) and, by mistake, click on ‘Write status’. Facebook asks, “What’s on your mind?” I stare at the screen blankly because nothing that matters is on my mind. And, then I see “Vikhroli, Maharashtra” on my location indicator. It is another Friday evening, one filled with lot of work spilling over to the weekend, one spent at the end of the world, because that is where Vikhroli is.

To read the rest of the article, click here.

Up in the air

I was flying through the clouds on my magic carpet waving to the twinkling stars. My hands were just about to reach out and touch the moon when a gust of wind threw me off the carpet. And, with a thud I woke up. I had rolled off my bed in my sleep.

It was the Half Yearly Examination of 1993. I hardly remember that 8 mark question in the English paper now. It had something to do with writing a story. And this is pretty much the long and short of what I wrote. I got a 7.5 and much praise from Mrs.JS, my most favorite English teacher of all times. My friend wrote about some houses made of chocolate that children could lick whenever they felt hungry; he got a 7 on 8. I personally liked what he wrote much more than what I wrote.

And, I think that is the last time I did serious creative writing. Perhaps, it stems from a huge lack of imagination and a fear for dreams. I have never thought about it much.

Yesterday, I was on an early evening aircraft for a change. The sun was going down, and the sky was clear. The aircraft was almost empty and I was looking out of the window in a long, long time – not reading, not dozing off, not cursing the delay but just looking out. And, there was a sheet of clouds beneath me and clouds all around me. I was trying to imagine huge white cloud castles in a square shape, a tall tower on each corner, and a clown face with a gleeful smile at the gateway. I was building castles in the air, almost literally. Sometime then, I must have dozed off. For, when I woke up, it was already dark and we were landing. And, I think I felt alive in a very childlike way then.

It is nice to build those chocolaty homes and fly through the clouds with angelic wings, and live a fairy tale life, sometimes. It is nice to forget those concrete jungles, stressed out moments and robotic lives, sometimes. Perhaps, it is just nice to dream sometimes.

Sibling-hood redefined

A few weeks back, my kid cousin listed me as ‘Sister’ on FB. I got very excited, and fondly accepted and reciprocated the gesture. Today, when I was snooping around her profile (shameless that I am), I figured out that she has listed almost 10 people as sisters and brothers.

Other than feeling a tad disappointed that I am not an exclusive ‘sister’ (Leos love exclusivity, or so someone tells me), I almost immediately got transformed back to my college days.

We were fresh out of school then, reveling in the new found freedom that only a Government college can proffer. There were no 8.30 a.m. prayer sessions, no first bell and second bell, no full day attendance. We could bunk classes, or just sit around and sleep. No one gave a friggin’ damn.

But, for many of us poor kids from girls-only schools, the freedom came with a huge price tag. And that was to live in peace and harmony with those monstrous beings called boys. At least that was how the 16-something never-been-friends-with-boys* me chose to categorize them then.

Nah! I am exaggerating. You have sure heard of that whole adrenalin pumping thingy associated with adolescence. It is not all over-rated. It actually used to happen, in fair frequencies and adequate quantities too.

It was quite a big deal to converse with a guy. There used to be a sense of accomplishment around such interactions, though paltry and restricted to answering questions bordering along the lines of “Do you have all the notes of all the Data Structure classes ever conducted in the history of this college?”

As the terms went by and the data structures graduated to algorithms and the algorithms to dynamic programming, the friendships happened too. The friendships were funny though. The minute a guy and a girl became close enough, they would term it a brother-sister relationship. Even if they did not announce it so, their associates would discuss very authoritatively on the pure ‘siblingy’ relationship evident between them.

There were girls who tied rakhis on their ‘brothers’ hands and then started going around with them. There were guys who publicly proclaimed who their ‘sisters’ were and then proposed to them. I found it hilarious then. Well, I find it amusing even now.

What kind of society produces humans who are scared to acknowledge a thing called ‘friendship’ between man and woman? What growing-up pressures force people to give a safe label to such a relationship? From where do so many of us get the idea that it might actually be wrong to get overtly friendly with a person of the opposite gender.

So what if it does not remain just friendship in some cases. To me, that sounds much healthier and more logical than having an entire world of brothers / sisters.

* I had exactly one male friend before I went to college. Weird? Blame the same-gender school :P

Letter Writing: A Case Study

Last post, we saw the different forms of communication prevalent in our forefathers’ times. Now, let us go back further in time to understand the predominant form of communication in the prehistoric era of the 20^th century.

Perhaps, that is how history would introduce the concept of a ‘Letter’ to its students five hundred years from now.

When was the last time any of us wrote or received a letter? Letter, as in, handwritten (however bad the handwriting may be) and delivered either through India Post or in person? Except for the occasional note attached to a gift, it has been ages since I received a nice handwritten personal letter. And of course, more than ages since I wrote one too.

I still remember the time I used to write to this pen friend of mine. It was during secondary school. She was technically not a pen pen friend if you know what I mean. A friend of mine had moved to a different city and we used to correspond through letters. E-mails were not popular options those days; we were still programming (read playing) with Logo on a now ancient black and white computer. Her friend in the new school somehow got introduced through mail to me and so we started corresponding too. I vividly recall the expectation with which I would await each letter of hers and the happiness with which I would write to her. Aah well, it died down due to some reasons. But, that is for another day!

One of the most memorable gifts I received for a birthday was a very smartly masqueraded, apparently alarming letter trying to profess love finally ending with a ‘Happy Birthday’. My reaction changed from speechless shock to undying laughter for the rest of the evening. Anyway, that is again a story for another day totally!

Many are the stories of the letter. These are some I remember off hand now. And I still have a file (hard bound) containing many of these letters, reminded of which, I think it is time to go through them today and relive old memories.

Today, we have only e-mail and chat history to go back to. But, what is scarier is we are very quickly migrating to Facebook and Twitter. The quick fix solution of updating statuses on Twitter* instead of sitting and writing a mail, even an electronic one at that, has become the trend of the day.

This post will be antique material in five years’ time. Already, ‘letters’ sound slightly dated.

Anyway, let me stop being so cribby about the whole thing and tell you about how we got around the problem of the ‘dying art of letter writing’.

Rashmi got married, very vividly recounted here. We, some very arbit almost 12 people (some did not participate to their full potential, so am not going to count them completely :D), started a thread to discuss operational issues like when we should reach the venue etc. Sometime down the line, the mail thread reached a count of 50 and we realized we had been mailing random stuff very similar to spamming on BR (our internal messaging system at IIMB). And, then, we thought we should take the thread to perhaps 1000 and print the same and give a hardbound copy to Rashmi to read and enjoy!?! We did not reach 1000. We ended at 263 odd. And, being an extremely environment friendly group, we translated the mails in to pdf, wrote it on a CD and gave it to Rashmi as a wedding gift. Last heard, Rashmi’s husband very patiently read through the entire set of mails and thanked us for the same. Some novel ways to keep the art of letter writing going!! What do you say? J

* – It would be extremely unceremonious on my part to not acknowledge that the minute this post is published, the link would be up as a status message on both Facebook and Twitter

Without which it could not be!

I heard of Sine qua non for the first time in my life during under graduation when my friend M was still reeling under the pressure of the Barrons’ of the world. We used to have fun trying to pronounce the word, it sounds so rhythmical and lyrical. I soon forgot the word, like how most others would have forgotten their legerdemains and skulduggerys and genuflects as part of the post GRE recuperation phase. However, for a few days now, this word has been haunting me, for no fault of its. It is because I have been subjected to hearing a word (which I later realized is a phrase) very similar to sine qua non.

‘unokina’ is a one of its kind phrase I have never before heard elsewhere. For the uninitiated, that is not the way it is written, that is the way it is pronounced. The ‘u’ and ‘no’ are pronounced as two distinct words while ‘kin’, contrary to popular assumptions, is not pronounced like the one in kith and kin. It is a “betailed” (very similar to beheaded) version of ‘kind’. I presume that the objective of the word is to portray the phrase, ‘you know kind of’.
It is used in all circumstances, whether it does or does not fit in. "unokina we should do it this way", "We should include this factor in the business plan unokina", "I will unokina give you a call to update you on the meeting" are some examples. And, no, I am not exaggerating, these are all real life instances!

unokina has suddenly become such a part and parcel of my life these days that every time I hear it, even if it fits in to the bill perfectly, I want to burst in to peals of laughter. But, long years of penance and practice help me refrain from doing so. After all, we have come across better and funnier gems than this in school and college. No?

Sample these:
Soluvision – meaning solution; don’t even try questioning me on why anyone would want to complicate such a simple word as that, I have no answer
Fold it properly – When you are holding a convex lens in your hand and someone says this to you, you would be slightly confused; it is actually expected to portray the phrase ‘Hold it properly’. It is a different story altogether that from the moment I got to know that a physiological defect causes such a condition in people, I have been gripped with guilt for having made fun of this

Variance analysis – That is straightforward or so you think. Not when ‘Variance’ is pronounced as ‘Ver’ ‘I’ ‘Aans’ in a typical British accent. I accept defeat here. My English is too 'desi' to understand the models (pronounced as ‘ma’ followed by ‘dhal’) and variances of this world

Am not complaining though. Pronouncing words in a way different from normal and reiterating meaninglessly conjoined phrases at an alarmingly high rate of frequency are just some instances that add fun to life, make us look back at our past with fond recollections, very similar to photographs and old school magazines. But, somehow, they help us relive the past much more vividly than by going through albums, slam books, testimonials and the likes.

In some way, they are sine qua non too, that without which life could not be!

A Tribute that would never suffice

This post has been in the pipeline for a year now, and, finally, I have decided that I can never ever do justice to it. So giving up on the same, I am posting it here.

My uncle is a very well known Professor of English in the English Language Teaching (ELT) circle. He is renowned for his dedication and commitment to the college he has been serving for a major part of his life. His students worship him, his peers are intimidated by him and every college in this city and in many others has tried to poach him. And, I have been very careful so far in not sending him the link of my blog. Else, he would have had a heart attack by now over his niece’s grammar, spelling and overall English language skills!

He is not the only such teacher I have met, just started with him because the example is closer home.

Right from the English teacher who inculcated in me, the love for reading, writing and imagining in English, as early as third standard to the Science teacher who made me enjoy Physics and Chemistry despite the pressure of Board Exams to all my Tamil teachers in school who inspired me to write Tamil poetry to the Computer Architecture Professor in college (that is the only subject I ever truly enjoyed in college) to all my Marketing Professors in IIMB (the ConB God, the Brand Guru, the ever so nice and knowledgeable S&D Prof to name a few) to the Macroeconomics Wonder Woman Prof, it is a realllly long, perhaps never ending list!

I know what drives me; am trying to build a solid career that would make me powerful in the long run, apart from providing ‘intriguing challenges that tease and test my brain’. I know what would have driven my parents to make me what I am today; never ending affection in wanting their kid to get the best, be the best and get the best once again (‘best’ being a very subjective word, I have just used it for the sake of simplicity).

What drives a teacher? I mean, what does (s)he ‘get’ per se out of grooming hundreds of thousands of young talent day in and day out. A person as narrow minded as me (there must be a harsher word than that, I sooooo hate calling myself names), sitting in a plush air conditioned office in front of a laptop trying to push myself and my career ahead with every subsequent move, would never know. However, I do know that nothing I ever do, celebrating ‘Teacher’s Day’, sending cards and flowers and wishes, writing tributes on the blog-o-sphere will suffice in terms of gratitude.

Nothing can, should and would suffice in assessing and repaying with interest, a teacher’s eternal service to mankind.

Sayonara

2000
I passed out of Class X, to join a different building (same school and friends) across the road for Class XI.
On farewell day, I cried.

2002
I passed out of Class XII. I was very happy to ‘escape the jail’ and looked forward to going to some place as fancy as college!!
On farewell day, I cried.

2006
I passed out of Engineering, and was so happily looking forward to joining B School that I rejoiced and partied for days together.
On farewell day, I cried.

2007
I finished a short internship (2 months) in Mumbai and was heading back home. I know it sounds weird to the reader, but…
On my way back, I cried.

2008
I passed out of B School. I was inconsolable for days together before the farewell.
On farewell day, I shamelessly wailed.

2009
I am moving away from Mumbai, my favorite city till date. My farewell was scheduled for last week; a few people called me up to say that they would not be able to make it to the farewell due to work. That evening, I was not able to make it to my own farewell due to the same reason. Even if I had been able to, I would not have cried.
My colleagues have been congratulating me left, right and center for moving out of here, as work – life balance is expected to be better in any other city compared to this one. But, that is not the reason I would not have cried. According to me, TIN* balance OTM. So, I am not gleefully looking forward to the move, frankly. Nor am I disillusioned and tearful at leaving my favorite city. I am not counting down, I have not begun saying my goodbyes yet, I am not even packing up (well.. that’s just because I have outsourced it to, or rather, it has been forcibly taken over by Mom :)).
I feel like am going on a short break, like any other holiday. When the break is over, I might not be back here, but go elsewhere. I like this randomness, this absolute peace with not being too attached to a ‘farewell’ anymore.
And that is why I have termed this post ‘Sayonara’ and not ‘Adieu’ or ‘Goodbye’. Somehow, Sayonara to me sounds like a short nap, a siesta, nothing permanent.

* TIN xx OTM is a simple, short and effective way of saying “There is No” xx “Outside The Mind” :D

Bleaky Black Bygones

Most times, I love to look back and reminiscence. I can ramble on for hours and hours about my good old school life, ‘very happening’ internship days and cherished B – school life, amongst other things.
So, it was quite a shock even to me when I shuddered to look back at the past yesterday.

‘She’ brought back memories
Of the rain and the flood
Of night outs and screwed weekends
Of the insufficiency of 24 hours in a day
Of working lunches of Subs and Mcs
Of trying to settle down amidst chaos
Of a lost ‘4 – month’ of my life to work

Today, we had a “Sub” lunch again
And nothing has changed
Just that
These are saner times
And
‘She’ is on the other side now

The resolution that never was

My colleague and more importantly bay mate (R), if such a term exists, is majorly in to low calorie foods. And, her desk tray (the rack which used to hold keyboards when things like desktops still existed) is always filled with different kinds of food items ranging from rusks to fruits to soup sticks. The latest addition is the diet “khakra” (a Gujarati food item which she says should be pronounced khaak – raa).
Now, I am someone who is used to chocolate, chocolaty biscuits, rich chocolate cakes, chocolate brownies – I hope you are getting the drift. So, I have been on a guilt trip seeing this low calorie gourmet fest right next door for the past many weeks.
And to top it all, when she said (with reference to the Mumbai marathon), “I don’t think I would participate in the marathon this time. I am terribly out of touch. It has been like, 6 months since I ran”, I could only say, “Yeah, I too am terribly out of touch. It has been like, 23 years since I ran.”
From that moment on, guilt started wagging its accusing finger at me every time I tried to eat anything tasty. I had to do something, and really fast. So, last weekend I went to the nearest super market resolved to pick up every low calorie food item that caught my eye. But, as providence would have it, the first that caught my eye was Bournville. Right in to my shopping bag went the dark chocolate. After that, however frantically I searched, I could not find any of the low calorie stuff that R had recommended. So, I picked up a large packet of Britannia Low Calorie biscuits (which I suspect is not low calorie ‘cos it tastes so good) and came back home, neither happy nor less guilty.
All said and done, I have always firmly believed that I am on the plumpier side strictly owing to genes :). And, it has never bothered me – so much so that I have instigated jokes on my “healthy” physique many a time. Add to that a clear hatred for any activity which involves movement (I used to bunk physical exercise classes during school days) and a never ending list of immobile activities (reading books, writing/ blogging, playing Veena, and singing).

So, weighing the pros and cons, I have finally decided that diet food is not my kind of stuff, really. Nor is running the marathon. I am quite content being the chocolaty person I am and have resolved not to take resolutions on this one any more:D

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.

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.