What's in a name?

Yesterday, I introduced myself to a colleague as ‘Kavitha Murali’. And, I was shocked to note that teeny weeny bit of hesitation in me before I introduced myself so. That was when it hit me quite hard. Let me go back in time a bit to set the context before I explain what hit me hard.

Back in school and college, the concept of a second name was practically non existent. That’s ‘cos, for most of us Tams, our second name happens to be our father’s name and we have always been known by our initial followed by our names. For instance, I was always known as M. Kavitha. Unless and until there were two people with the same name and the same initial in a particular class, the expansion of the initial was never required.

This underwent a sea change when I joined B School, where everyone seemed to be having a last name which was not their father’s name but their family name, or some such thing. I started being known and addressed as ‘Kavitha Murali’. Or rather, I started being known as ‘Kavitha Murali’. I have ever since been addressed as ‘Kavitha Murli’ or ‘Kavitha Muraali’. I used to correct the pronunciation initially, but gave up very soon. Now, what does one do with people like S who wantedly address me as Muraali. Sigh!

Anyways, coming back to the issue at hand, I know that I got accustomed to being addressed as ‘Murli’ pretty soon. What I did not realize till the call with my colleague yesterday was that I have started introducing myself to others as ‘Murli’. And, it has been such a long time since I came across a Tam colleague that I did not recognize this. So, when I spoke to him, my sub – conscious mind automatically prompted me to say ‘Murali’, like how we write in Tam as ‘Mu’ followed by ‘Ra’ followed by ‘Li’.

I have observed this phenomenon in others before me. I have, for hours at stretch, made fun of all those ‘Narayan’s who introduce themselves as ‘Naren’ and those Chennaiites who pronounce the name of our hometown as ‘Shennai’, ‘Shenai’, or sometimes even ‘Shenoy’. Little did I know then that I would soon fall prey to such an identity theft.

One might say there is not much of a slip between the ‘R’ and the ‘Ra’. Nevertheless, I miss ‘a’ so much, it hurts!

For, after all, what’s in my name but my own identity.

Am An Alliterations' Aficionado

I am suddenly consumed by an insatiable desire to alliterate (if I may say so). That’s why my previous post has quite an unnecessary title, Bleaky Black Bygones. It would have very well sufficed if I had named it ‘Bygones’ or ‘Looking Back’ or ‘Back to the Past’ or ‘Un – Reminiscences’. I considered ‘Bleaky Black Back’, another alliterative title but decided against it for it might convey other unintended meanings.

Anyway, I am digressing here. Getting back to my latest obsession, here are a few more I thought up:
Socialite’s Sabbatical – I had actually come up with the phrase Socialite on a sabbatical; tweaked it a bit for the alliterative allusion
Wow! That gives me my next one.
Alliterative Allusion – I am not sure whether this is actually alliteration, for Wikipedia defines alliteration as ‘the repeated occurrence of a consonant sound at the beginning of several words in the same phrase’
Lost Little Lamb – That was how I was, lost for words to alliterate, for some time after the previous one. Before anyone else points it out, I do accept that ‘little’ is a major force fit here
Glorified Garbage Giver – What I do day in and day out; thinking about it, I am a Glib Glorified Garbage Giver. Or, is it perhaps Glorified Glib Garbage Giver?
Humor Has Happiness Happening Here – Always!
Feverish Fancy For Friggin’ Fantasy Fiction – A friend of mine does have such a fancy

Initially, I thought that I should come up with alliterations for every letter in the English alphabet. Half way through the exercise, I realized that it is an over – ambitious project, just like my final year project in college. I dropped that idea and devised another one, to have increasing number of words in succeeding alliterations. If you notice above, I have started with two, moved to three, then five and then six. However, creating greater than six word alliterations is just beyond me.

So Song! Oops, So Long!

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

However, indicatively analyzing..

It’s been some time since I updated my blog save the random post and a movie review, the latter being more uncharacteristic of me than the former. The reason is that I have been both petrified and repulsed at the same time by the thought of writing anything. Oh, well, to cut a long story short.. on second thoughts, you may have the (not so) long story to start with.

For the past two months, I have had to write loads and loads and loads. And, have had to re - write most of them too. For instance,
“But, ­__ shows that __” has been modified to “However, __ indicates that __”
“Assists in containing” has become “Facilitates in optimizing”
“__ might look at __” has transformed in to “__ may consider __”
Did you notice something here? The first example I have used has ‘modified’ as the joiner, the second one has ‘become’ and the third one has ‘transformed’ totally.
This is something else I had to inculcate in me to improve the quality of my work.
If the 1st sentence is “__ indicates that __”,
the 3rd sentence becomes “__ provides a snapshot of __”,
the 5th sentence becomes “__ depicts the __” etc.

I have had some expertise in formal writing, having been quite a ‘Globe Goddess’ both in college and at campus. My exam papers have carried pages and pages of writing, my project reports have been longer than anyone else’s. But, the past two months have been the most trying in my “write-life”. It has made me so paranoid that I do not use but and might and show anymore. I have acquired an OCD to use the formally correct, politically right words. And, it has hampered my thinking process and writing skills very badly.

I have been worried that the next time I blog, I will sound more like publishing a report than writing just for the heck of it. Incidentally, even my last published writing was not so cautiously executed. It did have ‘but’ instead of ‘however’ in a lot of places.

On second thoughts, all this writing has done me good I guess. If you notice my previous post, it is ‘marginally’ well structured and well thought out (relative to my other posts) – quite atypical of me.

On third thoughts, it somehow feels too unreal to write that way, where everything is in place and written the way it should be, as if my eyes are all set on winning the Pulitzer Prize. Ok, that was a BIT of dramatization, but I guess you are getting the point. There are certain things I do because I have to do them, out of a sense of duty, like writing reports, making presentations, attending parties (rarely) so as not to project myself as a social un-animal and so on. And, there are certain other things I do because I love doing them, like bathroom singing, playing Veena, hanging out with friends, blogging and tinkering.

Now, if I spend time with friends because of a sense of duty towards the whole concept of hanging out, it kills the joy and the beauty of it. Similarly, if I blog using semantically and syntactically right sounding words and phrases, it would kill my individuality and originality.
Not for me the ‘however, indicatively analyzing’ style, at least when blogging. And, I hope that there is clear work life balance on this respect at least and my official writing skills never spill over in to my personal writing.

Like how a friend used to sign off any post on Arbit, I hope I am arbit enough, always!

Movie review "Are" there

It has been a long time since I reviewed anything. However, this is not exactly a review. It is just a collection of some random thoughts that crossed my mind when I was seeing Delhi – 6 today evening.

“Please do not watch Delhi – 6. If you have booked tickets already, try selling them to someone,” was the warning from a friend last night. When I walked in to the movie hall today, these words were still ringing in my head. So, it was with a lot of skepticism that I settled down for the show.

I really do not have much to say about any of the actors’ prowesses. They play their parts quite well; there is nothing phenomenal about their acting though. Nor am I the right person to comment on whether the movie captures the essence of Chandni Chowk, not having visited Delhi even once.

The one thing that the movie has going for it is the creativity that oozes all through it although this does not come out at first instance. For, the story line at the outset is tried and tested. It looks like an attempted Swades where the American born hero comes back to India and finds that “India works!” after all. But, in my opinion, the director deserves much more appreciation than that. He shows how a small thing like the “Kala Bhandar” (remember the monkey man rumors that were doing the round in Delhi a few years back), a hypothetical creature no one is sure of having seen, can make people paranoid enough to riot, burn, shoot and even kill. He brings out how petty instances of everyday life lead to the building up of a rumor eventually culminating in extremity.

My dad used to say, "Symbolic shots are important. Those are what make the movie click." The movie has a lot of symbolism. This is the work of a poet, filled with beautiful similes and metaphors, be them the Ram Leela scenes or the undercurrent dislike between the brothers or the Hindu – Muslim confrontation. All of them come together to present a wholesome feast which actually looks arbit unless one wants to really concentrate and pass a positive verdict on the film. Maybe, that’s where the director fails; he has drowned the movie in subtleties and provided a delight that is not understandable at first go.

Having said that, I do have my reservations against the movie, the biggest of them the climax. The climax is cliched, it has rounds of dialogue which suddenly seem to enlighten people who have been quite oblivious to the obvious so long, it is consumed by histrionics. Somehow, the movie turns commercial in the final stretch. It is a big contrast from the rest of the movie, as if someone else directed the last ten minutes; it spoils the experience.

I guess the last impression makes the lasting impact in a movie. But, I would still discount it for the rest of the movie in this case. The music is brilliant and has perhaps augmented my good opinion of the movie.

Unrelated Arbit, really!

Written under extreme levels of no enthu; prone to be energy sucking and gloomy in general
What if there were a Ctrl+Z option in life?
Life would be so much more peaceful. We could check each of our options like in a decision tree and track back every time it did not work out and choose the right one.
What if everyone could get to live with everyone they liked without ever having to convince everyone else as to why they should or should not?
We would not have to see people who are special to us suffer and whither right in front of us, incapable of doing anything but crying silently
What if miracles do happen in real life, really?
Like in commercial cinema, we would walk away happier people, for the hero would have run to the railway station at the last moment and scooped up the heroine in his hands
What if life were as arbit as arbit itself, with no semantics and no protocols to adhere to, with each one of us living it on our own terms?
Maybe it already is; everything is in the mind after all.

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

'aabb', 'abab' and others

The other day, I was chatting with a friend about poetry. He was saying that he likes poems that rhyme and in fact went on to say, “If there is no rhyme at all, I wonder what the difference between poetry and prose is”. It set me thinking.
I have always found it nice and soothing to read poems that rhyme. Somehow, they get more understandable when there is some rhyming scheme, be it an ‘aabb’ or an ‘abab’ or any such thing. On the other hand, I cannot get myself to write poems that rhyme perfectly. It somehow feels forced when I sit down to write a poem and spend hours chewing the end of my pen trying to fit in rhyming lines such as
“I am a flower
In a pearly tower”
In my opinion, considering rhyme to be a predominant parameter of poetry, one that defines poetry, is quite juvenile. For that matter, prose too can rhyme (the way our most versatile Tamil actor cum director cum musician cum what-not TR talks it).
Poetry is a literary form that expresses a lot of meaning and/ or emotion in a very suggestive and beautiful manner. In the process of delivering an aesthetic poem, a poet might use various techniques including simile, metaphor, alliteration, hyperbole, personification and so on. Rhyme is just one of those techniques.
All said and done, rhyme, when used the right way, is a tremendous tool. And, I have forever been envious of people who can write poems that get enhanced twice over ‘cos of the rhyming scheme employed in them.
P.S.: ‘A Suitable Boy’, a brilliant novel by Vikram Seth, is a must read for people who would love to read rhyming poetry as part of the novel.

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 :)