**My 4 year old nephew almost cried himself hoarse one day screaming ‘V-A-N-I Vani Vani’
**Sitting on a huge see-saw made me feel like I was in the sky
**I laughed so much sitting high up on the see-saw I was sure I would die laughing
**I went on the giant wheel for the first time in my life – and enjoyed it too!
**Nearly died laughing looking at the videos of all the antics 4 grown-ups had done in a children’s park (umm, yeah, grown-up includes me too! :) )
**Visited four temples in two days ;)

**We went to a quaint, unknown village after receiving directions from very eager-to-help people.
**I met some of the most beautiful children in the village – where one girl refused to stop staring shyly at me and my sister
**We smiled heartily at three kids who were proud that they took a ride in the car we’d come in and rolled out of it joyously, grinning away to glory
**I caught a sad cold which surprisingly, got cured soon! :)
**After the trip, finally got something I had wanted for long, but was slightly scared of: getting a second hole pierced in my ear! ;) It pains now, but who cares?

Couldn’t have asked for a better ending for a wonderful year….Happy New Year, everybody! May we all have a beautiful year ahead, filled with happiness, health and laughter!

Yayyy! A check up for my eyes after almost 18 months of glasses revealed that my power hasn’t gone up. I’m delighted! I’ve been such a good girl, considered the complaints I made for wearing glasses.

Blessed with the comfort of having an ophthalmologist way too near, it took almost the end of my vacation to get my eyes checked. Busy gal, you see.
Boy, this doctor is all sophisticated (well, she is the only person who’s checked my eyes, but nevertheless). Random machines doing things I don’t know (of course!) and some tests which nearly made me cry out in pain for all the light that was glaring at one eye, the testing took 45 minutes. Good girl that I was, I read all the letters on the board correctly with my glasses :)

The doctor recommended to my mother that I can get a laser surgery done the next time I come home so that I wouldn’t have to wear glasses (lazy me, I don’t have the patience to wear contact lenses!)

One small disappointment, though. I was secretly hoping that I could change my glasses’ frame if the power changed, though I had told my mom that I would wear the current one for two years. No power rise, no new frame. :(

Doesn’t matter, the happiness overrides the disappointment. I’m all smiles. :D

“Rakshasa!” is how even my mom calls me now. This ‘nickname’ was given and popularised by my elder brother 10 years back, when I was a brat who refused to learn to swim.

It all began one fateful day when dad decided swimming was one essential thing left out in the plethora of extra-curricular activities that I was in: tennis, modern dance, carnatic music, painting and sculpting. My brother Vipul, well-established (so he claimed!) swimmer (all because the guy who crossed the English channel was his senior in school; I know, the connection’s really weak, but I didn’t know this much then!) was given the charge of taking me to the pool and leaving me with the instructor. And so began trouble.

Swimming is no dangerous stuff; but I freaked out and wailed the moment water entered my ears. Our instructor, Thangadurai sir, though, was convinced that this was natural, and made sure my ears were well covered before I even stepped into the water. He began with teaching me to float.

Floating did go quite well, as water really didn’t enter my ears nor did I have to breathe with difficulty. But the moment sir decided I was ready to go the next stage, he had it. The first day I cried so much that he actually got terrified and asked my brother to take me home and console me.
After fake promises from my parents that I would no longer be taken to the pool, I slept that night, reassured.

But my parents had their own plan; “Vishal has to know to swim,” said dad. So my brother did take me to that fateful pool the next day despite my wailing all the way to the pool and even one attempt to jump off his cycle and run back home (like I knew the way! But that time I’d do anything to avoid the pool.). That day, sir was more considerate than usual and put me under ‘special’ training - I was to wait till all others in my ‘class’ finished and then I was taught by sir – special attention was given to me. That day went fine as not much water entered my ears though at the end of it I was shaking and thanking the Lord for making me come out of the pool alive.

Sir was encouraged by the lesser amount of fussing I had made that day. But he took the wrong step the next day – he made me go deeper into the water.
I was shocked. And outraged.
I screamed my head off, claiming sir was attempting to kill me. Sir tried telling me that he was teaching me how to save my life in case I was drowning, etc., but none of it worked. He became stubborn too. He refused to give in to all my tantrums and held on. When I realised he wasn’t going to let me out, I didn’t know what to do. I grabbed him by his hair and pulled at it ferociously, threatening him to let me out. After three minutes of struggle, I won. He pulled me out of the pool and told my brother it was impossible to teach me. And the moment he said that, my tear-stained face smiled. And my brother was enraged. He picked me up, scolding me all the way, and ultimately concluded that I was a rakshasa, a demon.
And the name has stuck because I still refuse to learn.

P.S.: Sigh, I don’t know how to swim, too. And I have never tried to learn, too. My class mates in university are surprised that I don’t know swimming though I come from ‘ a city on the coast’, but how’ll they know that swimming is the last thing my parents want me to do in the beach! But I guess I have to give it a thought now that water-related disasters are occuring often in Chennai!

God, I’ve hardly posted with this frequency in the recent past. Still ‘velai irundhum vetti’!

After playing minesweeper for hours losing every minute, I decided to give up. Luck wasn’t favouring me at all (well, only in the case of Minesweeper, Lady Luck!) and every guess I made was going wrong. I was getting bored and thought of going to the kitchen to see what my mom was doing. One look convinced me not to near the area: she was making ‘pori urundai’ for the Karthigai festival this evening. I had done my part of the work: I’d peeled and powdered tens of cardamom seeds. That done, I have silently refused to do any further work by retreating into my room and ‘working’ on the computer.

Then mom wanted me to find the dhobi guy in our apartment. I went down and found him sleeping. Then I went past him into our lil’-park. I went and sat on the swing when two old women gave me weird looks. Concluding that they definitely thought I was too old for the swing (sigh…I’m not that old!!) I got down, depressed that I was getting old for many things I wanted to do. Then I realised that I would feel young in one place: the gym. I went to the apartment gym and found it locked. I peered through the curtains and was delighted at all the things inside. I decided that I had to be fit when at home especially, since I was doing nothing but eating, sleeping and watching movies. Then somebody said the gym wasn’t working properly.

Dash it! I returned home. Found some random self-improvement books: 25 ways to motivate people, 52 ways to live successfully, and finally Improve your English. I decided I didn’t need any of those and went back to my huge Shantaram book.

Damn…can’t even read that now. I have so much to do (what, I don’t know, but that’s what my mom says), but I don’t feel like doing anything. Probably watch a movie. But that’s a bad chance to take since going anywhere near the television would mean a good shelling from mom (and chances of work: cleaning the lamps!). Right now I’ve spent some ten minutes wandering around the apartment searching for people and another ten minutes writing this. Another 8 hours 25 minutes left before everyone thinks it’s high time I slept.

-- Velai irundhum slight-a vetti.

Before I go to the things which went awry, some nice things:
My blog’s worth $22,181.68!!!!! (Ok, maybe a digit in the end is wrong…)
Yippppeeee…ma blog’s gonna be makin’ me rich!!
THE SUN’S SHINING!!! :)

Gosh, am I thankful for the last one! After what seemed to be eons of rain, Chennai is back to its warm and cosy self.
I undertook a spiteful trip to the terrible-as-ever Ranganathan street to get some craft work stuff for my cousin, two days back. Thank god, I came out alive!

The road was horrid. We took some shortcut when entering and avoided a lot of the slush around in the road. But a slight error while returning made us skip the ‘shortcut’ and we ended up in the street. Milling crowds, all too anxious to get out of the street safely, made sure I didn’t have to walk. They kept pushing me here and there, and I knew that another 5 minutes in the street and I would burst into tears. Thankfully again, it took lesser time to get out because of the crowd, which in its eagerness to get out, pushed me out too.

I know it’s too much to feel this in a crowded hell like R. St, but I didn’t want anyone to stamp my shoe, especially in all that slush. And I didn’t want to step into any of the waters, too. As I tried my best to avoid these things, hoards of women grabbed on to my arm for support, upsetting my delicate balance of oh-the-marsh-in-the-right-and-the-feet-in-the-left-so-center’s-the-only-safe-place support many a time. And as one woman threatened to knock me down, I gave her a glare she shouldn’t forget in the near future. :)

It’s been real long since I went to that godforsaken place, and the rains added to the misery, and I’ve vowed not to go in there again before I leave again.

Things are really going awry. Rains, which we wanted so badly that I was sending prayers to God every time it rained in Singapore for it to rain in Chennai, have just exceeded their limits. But now maybe I should just be thankful that I wasn’t there when the real heavy rains poured down in beginning of November!

Ah..work coming up now. My grandma is giving me a choice between setting the table and folding the dry clothes. Sorry, grand, neither. Wish I could just escape doing any of these things :P, but it’s so difficult adjusting to some things back home when I’ve complete independence in my hostel. But again, I can’t grumble: home is where mom’s good food is! And it’s just more than food: it’s all the pampering!! Mom says don’t whistle after 6 in the evening when I’m happily whistling a whole song from Ah Aah, while grandma wishes I would whistle carnatic songs instead. Mom then wonders how the Creator made a mistake by making me a girl, because according to them I’m the total opposite of any gracefulness expected in a woman! (God forbid!) After a while, maybe she decides that more than being boyish, I’m being feminist. Hmm…well, feminism is maybe too strong, I would rather say I have a teeny-weeny bit of chauvinism, female chauvinism. (If such a term even exists!) Just reminds me of a silly guy in a Singapore bloggers’ meet who thought my blog URL was chennaigirlrights!! WTH!

Ok, totally unconnected stuff. Technically this post must be titled ‘Random Scribbling-4’, but sequels can get too monotonous at times.

"Vidu, can you come here?" yelled mom from the kitchen.
It was 8 in the morning. I was sitting on the floor in my room, newspaper spread out, sipping warm Milo. The MetroPlus section had something about Madhavan and I wanted to read it at the earliest.
I got up and went to the room where she was.

"I have to get that carton down. The dolls are in the carton," she said.
"Hmm.." I nodded. The day after was the Navarathri festival. My mind was busy thinking of all the work that I would have to do for the festival: dusting the dolls, fixing the broken ones, and worst of all, make the field for the 'cricketers' to play. Those 'cricketers' dolls were actually pretty awful looking. They didn't look like they were wearing pants: "Veshti kattindu vilayadranga paaru," Dad often used to joke.

I got a chair and pulled the carton out of the loft. Dad had got the other ones out. As I put it down with great difficulty, I saw another familiar, old, purple bag. Wondering what it was, thinking where I had seen it before, I pulled it out.
"Ayyo, Vidu, don't take that out now! It'll be difficult putting it back in..." groaned amma.
"I have to see what it is, ma..." I said, pulling it out.
Mom took the carton and left the room. I took the purple bag and went to my room.
It had accumulated a lot of dust. After dusting for two minutes and a sneezing fit lasting for ten minutes, I opened the bag. I gasped.

It had my entire Barbie set: two Barbies, a Ken (Barbie's ex-boyfriend!), a Skipper (Barbie's sister) and two babies (don't really know how they are related to Barbie!), and a whole dismantled doll house.
I quickly assembled it, forgetting the tough code I was working on for my work the next day. I was getting as excited as I had been when I had first got a Barbie. The kitchen was looking cute as ever. I remembered how I had always wanted to build a kitchen like this in my home. And looking at it now, I realized that I had, after all, built the kitchen in my home now, somewhat similarly.
I soon started placing 'dishes' in the microwave oven and tried to make 'pancakes' in the stove, all the while smiling to myself.

After making my dolls eat, I ran up to the kitchen and gave my mom a plate of 'food'.
Mom was shell shocked seeing what I was doing.
"Vidu, unakku enna di aachu?" she asked in a very concerned tone.
"Ma, I'm playing with my dolls!" I answered and pranced about the kitchen singing a Barbie song.
Mom was almost convinced I was mad.

I ran back to my room. It was then that the computer screen caught my eye. The debugger was showing a shocking 300 errors for a few hundred lines of code.
I quickly pulled a chair and got down to checking the code again. Four hours later, I was tired to every muscle, trying to rectify the horrible code. I stretched and looked around the room.

My eyes fell on the playhouse I had assembled. I smiled, thinking of the 25 minutes of joy those dolls had given me. I made some space on my work table and put the dolls there, and took the 'dish' out of the microwave.
In another five minutes, I was all set to look through my code again.

Thatha would talk about his cup often. He would hold it up for us, his little grandchildren, to see, sitting in his reclining chair with all of us crowding around it.
“50 naya paisa,” he would say. “Can you anything this valuable today for that amount?”
We would shake a no, in awe that 50 paisa had so much value decades before we were born.
“Madras central….I wanted tea. They were giving it in dirty glasses, so I bought this cup so that he could pour the tea in this…it has been with me ever since,” he would go on.

We would giggle. Thatha would drink anything only from the cup – water to coffee to medicine to juice. He would even take it with him if went away from home for more than a day, much to Patti’s annoyance.
“Why, can’t you stay without it for some days?” she would ask.
“No,” he would reply, then turning to us: “You must throw this cup along in my funeral pyre.”
We would nod vigorously.

And one fine summer day, when we were all together at our grandparents’ for the vacations, the cup disappeared. Thatha, as we would describe now in our ‘grown-up’ language, freaked out. He was close to bursting into tears every time he had to drink from the normal tumbler instead of the cup.

Finally, we, the kids, decided to launch a massive search for the cup. We searched high and low all around the house. Servant maids at home were questioned as to when they last saw the cup, where, etc. After searching for three entire days, (it was good entertainment for us; we found many other things we had misplaced long ago) we concluded that it was not in the house, and was lost for sure.
Patti was worried when we conveyed the news. With a lot of apprehension, we told Thatha that we were unable to find the cup. Thatha broke down, all the while talking about the importance of ‘lost memories’ in old age.

Things soon grew worse. Thatha fell very sick and was bedridden. We all, young kids he used to play with often, missed him. Our parents regularly kept checking on him to see how he was doing. Doctors said he had a lot of mental worry which they could not treat with medicines. His sons and daughters talked to him day and night in the hope of relieving any mental tension. Nothing worked much.

Among all this hulla balloo, Bablu one day found the cup. He had found it in the fridge freezer when we asked him to scrape some ice for us to use in play.
Patti started shedding tears of joy when she saw the cup. With all energy she could summon, she ran to the kitchen, filled the cup with hot water, and ran back to where Thatha was lying, sick, talking vague matters in delirium. We all ran behind Patti.
“Your cup….”she said as she gave it to him.
Thatha broke down again as he drank the water from the cup. Then he looked up at all of us and smiled. We all smiled back.
Thatha was back playing with us two days later.

(Inspired by real life ;) )

My first ever trip in a non-Indian carrier was amazing. I came to Chennai this time through Colombo, in Sri Lankan airlines. Some nice things I can’t help forgetting:

The ‘ayubuvan’: Sinhalese greeting. Every air host greeted all of us this way.
Excellent service: I was really pleased by all the attention they gave us; we felt pampered.
The TV screen (or whatever it’s called) in front of every seat: Watched Charlie and the Chocolate Factory for the second time, but this time with a very special difference: 40, 000 feet above land. It was amazing to see Johnny Depp and his weird ways at that heigh (yeah, don’t say as though it makes a difference, it did!).
The cameras on the flight: one at the bottom of the aircraft and another at front. If anything got boring, it was spell binding to sit and watch the clouds above or through which we were flying.
The regular maps that came on the TVs telling us how far from Colombo we were, and at what altitude and speed we were flying at.
The beautiful beaches of Colombo that we could see from the aircraft: they were really heavenly.

Once at Colombo, everything looked beautiful to me: the pleasant and always smiling airport officials (especially the men ;)) and the rhythmic Sri Lankan Tamil. The airport officials (men again!) were very cutely asking the passengers who had just landed from Singapore whether they were going to Bangalore, Mumbai or Karachi, as these flights were leaving very soon. And every time one approached me, I would smile a “No, Chennai” (trying hard not to grin, and controlling hard the flirt inside me), only to get back another cute smile from the authorities (ayyo, romba vazhiyareno, ok, I’ll stop!
:D ).

The Colombo-Chennai flight wasn’t all that eventful, except for a cute little boy in the opposite side of the aisle who started crying as the flight started to land as his ears were getting blocked due to the changes in pressure.
Things started picking up again as I craned my neck and peeped over the startled guy sitting in the window seat to see dear ol’ Chennai slowly looming into view.

I had to fight very hard to check the wide grin spreading on my face as the flight landed with a thud and went rushing forward, and finally came to a halt near the “Theeainaipu Nilayam” in the Anna international airport.
Immigration stuff surprisingly got over really quickly and I was soon waiting outside the airport for someone to come and pick me up. My flight supposed to land at 7 50 had somehow arrived at 7 30!!!!
The feeling of coming home was complete as I heard Ajay blabber away in Radio Mirchi. Hoping to have an amazing time here.

The old lady who cleans my floor bathrooms really made many of my mornings bad. I wished I could go on with my day without seeing her, but it seemed to be impossible. Most of my classes start before 9 30, and hence I always find myself running into her whenever I want to bathe.

It is quite a silly thing, I could’ve just gone on, ignoring it, but increasingly it was getting impossible to ignore.
The old lady mumbled something to herself every time she saw me.
Me, an Indian.
And it is not just me; it was the same thing with another Indian friend of mine who lived on the same floor. We noticed that every time she saw us, anywhere, she would start yelling in Chinese.
After some other case studies of Indian girls, we decided that she was doing this only with us, Indians. We concluded that she was being racist.
And now that we knew she was mumbling (I know she was swearing in Chinese!) only with us, it made us more irritated, and me with a higher degree of temper, fuming. I had to get it out of my system, somehow.

There was one fine day when I had my semester’s most-important presentation. I had to make sure I was in a fine mood all day, and not get myself excited or anxious over anything. I convinced myself to be calm, as I knew any slight tension in me would ruin my presentation.
I went to have a bath. As soon as I entered the bathroom, I unfortunately met the old lady. As expected, she started cursing. I decided to be nice; I smiled and said “Good morning!” This made her enraged. She began yelling even more.

I decided enough was enough.
I had a bath quickly and came out and stood face-to-face with her.
Again, she raised her pitch and started shouting even more.
I took a deep breath.

“Ei patti, ozhunga un velaiya pathundu po! Naan onna enna pannen….kezhavi! edhukku nee ipdi panra unakku kozhuppu romba jasthi! Oru naal na poi office la sonnadaan nee adanguve!”

It was a long sentence and I had spoken without even pausing for breath. I was panting. But strangely, I felt extremely happy. I would have never dreamed of saying this to some poor old lady, but this one did deserve it. Now I had cursed her back and she would be wondering what I said, just like I do when she yells at me. I was happy that I was not upset for doing so (keeping in mind my presentation).

The lady glared at me. I glared back, my eyes full of spite.
She began talking.
“Office-la poi solliduva? Vamba velaikku vangadha..”
My heart stopped beating for one micro second.
I opened my mouth to speak and it went dry.
I finally managed to get some syllables out of my mouth.
“Tha-tha…thamizh!” was all I could say.
The old lady gave a wicked grin and nodded. I ran out of the bathroom right away.

“Oh My God!! What have I done”, was running in my mind all the time. I quickly pulled myself together, prayed to God and apologised to Him, and made off to school.
There one of my Singaporean friends told me that many of the oldest generation in Singapore could speak all the three languages here: Mandarin, Malay and Tamil. Gosh, I was stunned and ashamed.
The next time I saw the old lady, I apologised. This time she smiled back. Soon, she even stopped cursing.
And what had I intended by yelling back at her in Tamil!!

P.S.: Again, fiction only. The ladies who have cleaned around my rooms are very nice and we even have little chit-chats often!! ;) But one old Chinese woman did give me the creeps one day in a bus stop when she commented about my black hair.. in Tamil!!!

Do you believe in wars?
I don't.
Or maybe I do?
Well, whether I believe in them or not, when it comes to fighting one, I give my fullest. I wish I could give very bit of energy needed to win the war.
Yes, I wish I could do away with losing. But sometimes losing is nice, too. Makes you feel humble in the presence of whoever won. Sometimes it's the huge, invisible power which I believe controls every one of us. There are also times, though, when whoever defeats you is totally unworthy of the victory she/he has won. It's totally unfair.
Now I've had to accept defeat.
In a war which is really stupid. A war which no one should lose, yet many do.
I grit my teeth with anger every time I look at one of the things that made me lose.
Guys, I lost the war against spam.
I've turned on word verification.
I do not like it, but guess there's no other alternative unless I start using haloscan comments, maybe.
Thanks for being patient and continue dropping by! :)

Yes, a number of things!
First, wish you all a happy Diwali!! A tad late, yeah, but never mind, hope you all had a nice day!!
Second, sound three cheers: this is my 75th post! :)

I watched Ghajini sometime back...and the background score for the movie sent me into peals of laughter. Random noises getting characteristic of Harris Jeyaraj: Bozo Zulo...oh my god! =)
I really can't understand what's with all these guys who make wierd noises in the name of background music!

When A.R.Rahman started out, there were a number of people who were criticising and making fun of him for introducing such 'noises': but dammit, his sure make much more sense than these zulos and habibiyas!! (Yeah, like I'll ever give up on Rahman! :) )
The thing with Rahman's 'noises' are that nobody can make out that what they are supposed to be: have any of you been successful in deciphering what the background in Mudalvan that comes whenever Arjun does something revolutionary means?! I haven't!
HJ tried something of this sort in Anniyan. And the result, needless, was extremely funny. Praveen had done an awesome job in finding it out and posting it in his blog! :) Do check out his blog if you want to know what it is... ;)

Another such example is from Vaseegara from Minnale. The female humming was awfully funny. When I had to learn that humming bit for a performance, I had great difficulty controlling my laughter as my friend patiently told me what the 'words' are: Iska ilaa ilaa othaailaa... Gosh, cannot make it!

Other examples include Habibiya Ilgae yathanehan (whatever!).
Kudos to all the music directors for managing to fit in such crap into their songs and movies. Another thing to be appreciated is the tunes are nice: maybe they should try to get some words which should make sense: like Shakalaka or Boom Boom by Rahman.

And guys who go about saying Rahman's rap sucks, puhleeez..... check out 'Unakku salsa, enakku jalsa' in the Remo song in Anniyan. It kept me in splits. Rahman (or rather Blaze's) rap is just too good compared to these!

Finally, no, I'm not trying to pull down efforts of these guys. They do give us some awesome pieces of music, and though it's difficult for them to match Rahman's standards, they do a great job! (ahem, listen to the music expert talking!)

I was in a co-ed school only till my class 5. While many say I missed out on a lot of fun without being in a class with guys after that, I think we girls did have fun in our own way. But in this post, I just want to talk about some of my 'boy' classmates I had in primary school.

Even when I was in kindergarten, I ended up fighting with many little guys. One of them especially (I think he was called Manoj), drove me mad. This chap always used to steal my lil' cutely shaped erasers (cycles, humans, etc. , the cycle being my favourite!). He ultimately even stole my cycle eraser and returned it after pulling its wheels and handlebar apart. What remained of the eraser, I don't know, but I'll never forgive him for damaging my cute cycle.

In my new school guys were a bit better. There was one who was great at drawing dinosaurs and the Ninja Turtles. This guy would also be a great source of entertainment for the class. During the lunch break, all of us would quickly gobble our food and hide under the benches, waiting for this guy to 'hunt' us out. He was especially good at moving just like a dinosaur (Oh, Jurassic Park had released just then!) and shouting like one. Though he kept us occupied during lunch hours, I hated him because he was one of the two people in class I had to compete with for the first rank.

When I was in class 3, there was once this rowdy from another section (!) who pinched me so hard my hand began to bleed. This happened in the school grounds and 2 'senior' boys from class 4 who saw the 'incident' made sure they reported to his class teacher and came back to tell me that he was punished :). Funny!!

I soon changed my school again and this time, there was more trouble. Unlike in my previous school, this school had benches where only two people could sit. And my first bench mate was a troublesome boy. Gosh, how much I hated him! He used to take pencil shavings and draw 'boundaries' in the bench to define our 'territories' and would yell at me if my hand went into his 'territory' during writing. He tortured me, poor little new student me, until some fellow classmates took pity and requested the class teacher to change my benchmate. Boy, I shall always be thankful to those guys! :)

The new benchmate was a very nice guy, a tad too fat, though. The first time he came to sit in my bench, he sat with such a thud that the ink pen I was writing with fell down and the nib was broken. Though I was really thin that time, I did need some space to sit and he really did not give me much choice than to dangle somewhere in the edge of the seat and hold on to some chunk of wood to prevent myself from falling down. So this guy defined territories unconsciously.

Well, my benchmate was changed soon, and this time it was a girl, and a really nice one. By the time I could revel in the happiness of getting a new benchmate, school was over. And from the next year, I would be in an all girls class, and the beginning of understanding how much (more) fun an all-girls class could be! Yes, of course, I don't have a standard to compare it with, but it has been awesome! :)

Projects...sigh! As much as I love my course and the projects that I have to do, it does get on my nerves at times when I struggle like Atlas under a world which meant only projects for many weeks.
Right now, my mind is desperately crying to get away from my computer desk and get out. How much of it I can fulfil, I don't know. That's why a break - to blog.

Just can't help smiling thinking of the debates I took part in recently, one on my birthday when I almost made a fool of myself too.
Debates in school had been so dumb, with topics given a week in advance, and people coming in with prepared speeches in papers, and no on-the-spot questioning allowed. A really stupid policy; feel like going and telling my teachers it's not doing anything to make the students debaters.

Not that I love debating that much; I'm more of a public speaker, and do better with making eye contact with all the people in the room, and making an earnest attempt at connecting to them and make them accept and enjoy what I'm talking. Eye contact isn't really necessary in debates, and whenever I debate (that's rare!), I have some difficulty trying not to look at the person whose points I'm trying to rebut.

So when I saw a proper debate in university for the first time, I was awed: it would be too good for my course, I thought, with all the critical and on-the-spot thinking that it required. So I even enlisted for selections in the univ's team. Didn't make it, though. I made quite a mess of things in a debate with a motion on banning smoking in public places (ha! I don't even remember it properly!). I was stumped when the first speaker in the opposite team contextualised the topic such that I, the one to go after him, had nothing very valid to offer. I managed to spill some related words out of my mouth for two minutes and got back thoroughly irritated.
The next topic was funny: "This house would legalise prostitution". I heard it and laughed, which made the senior debate member whose team I was in, pretty pissed. "What's there to laugh about? You're not a kid!" Oh boy, I didn't laugh for the topic. I laughed because my dreams of getting into the squad were over.

Good thing I didn't get through, though. I can only shudder now thinking of what would have happened if I had gotten through: a very hectic course and regular debate sessions which required a good deal of reading up. Whew!

Now I just stick to attending the inter-school debate contests held annually. They turn out to be good fun, actually. I remember the first time I saw some people raise Points of Information (POIs) and tried hard to control my laughter. To put it simply, it's somewhat like how some singers (ideally with a harmonium in the front) put a hand to their ear and stretch the other hand (when they sing). :) POIs are when they have something to ask the speaker.
The way a POI is dismissed is by saying "not now madam/sir" or "later" or whatever the individual speaker wants to say that clearly says 'sit down.'

Some occasions when you think the speaker has made some sensible point, you say "hear, hear."
So my most recent debate was on my birthday. I, as usual, was talking with my intonations, moving back and forth and occasionally looking at the opposition member and then remembering not to.
One friend on the opposition side was irritating me because she had some POI to raise for almost every other sentence I spoke.
"Later, ma'am." I said "Later, ma'am" I had to keep repeating (ha! Doesn't that show what a good debater I am!?).

I was so busy waving my hand asking anyone who raised POIs to sit down, so much that I knew even before the person stood up with the pandit gesture. ;)
Looks like accidentally I dropped out some sensible sentence.
"hear, hear.." said the friend who kept raising POIs.
"Later, ma'am," I said immediately, mechanically.
P.S.: My team came third in that round. But I was really happy: for the first time in my debating history, I had spoken for the entire 7 minutes allotted and took a POI! :)

Updating my blog after a long time with a story written when I was vetti, yes, during my summer vacation.

Suresh's family had four people including him - his mother Girija, widowed when Suresh was barely two years old; his older sister Devika, divorced four years back, and Devika's little daughter Preethi.

Things used to be so bad in their family; so bad that you'd think you were watching a typical Tamil mega serial. The happenings in their family would be so similar to a daily soap that you would feel some director saw their home and struck upon the idea of daily soaps that just wish you weren't alive. Girija had brought up Suresh and Devika with great difficulty, making sure both had their schooling completely, and in Suresh's case, a graduation. Borrowing money here and there, and using all what she had saved, she had managed to marry off Devika recently. But fate had something else in store: Devika's husband turned out to be such a drunkard and wife beater that even conservative Girija agreed to get her daughter divorced.
When Devika got divorced and came to stay with them, Suresh was still studying his B.A. in History. Just the fact that Suresh was doing a degree was a matter of fierce pride for Girija; she went about telling everyone that her son would get a degree soon, 'deguree' as she called it.

The onus of providing for the family fell on Suresh as soon as he graduated, and he did carry it off with great elan. On the second of every month, he gave Girija an envelope containing Rs. 1500. Devika supplemented the family's income by teaching embroidery to the kids in the neighbourhood.

Girija was obviously pleased with the work and responsibility of her children; one thing perturbed her greatly, though. Suresh never told any of them where he worked. When pestered, as Girija usually did the night he brought home the salary, all he would say was "Marketing."
"Marketing-naa? Selling something door to door?"
"No," Suresh would say, "this is different. People come to me to buy."
"Okay, then what do you sell?"
"Amma, if you don't let me eat in peace I will leave right now."

Girija would stop talking. But she would constantly feel uneasy. What if he was doing something illegal? What if he gets caught or something? Even when she addressed such concerns to Suresh, all he would say was "I'm doing nothing wrong."
Thus would cease the discussion for at least a month till Suresh brought home his next salary. This dialogue was a regular feature.

Little Preethi had always wanted to go to Mahabalipuram, and had been asking her mother to take her there for quite some time now. One fine Friday during her summer vacation, Devika and Girija found the time to take Preethi to Mahabalipuram. Together they set out, with a jute bag having food and a mat to spread on the floor when they would eat. They waited for a bus for a long time at the huge Saidapet bus depot, and finally got one.
The day was hot; the two women wrapped their saree pallus around their hair to avoid the hot air. The bus sped towards Mahabalipuram.

Little Preethi was the one who spotted it first. The bus was approaching a signal. There was a man in the signal selling these beautiful stuffed toys for Rs. 50. Preethi jumped at the sight of those dolls.
"Amma, I want one!"
Devika sighed. Rs. 50 for a doll was something she didn't want to spend now. But then she remembered that Preethi was turning six in another month. She could buy this instead of a new dress.
"Let the bus stop at the signal, "she said.

The bus stopped at the signal.
Devika fished out Rs 50 from her purse.
Suddenly Preethi was tugging at her saree.
"Amma....velila paaren..."
"Ennadi enna ipdi poattu padu...." Devika stopped.
"Patti neeyum paaren," cried Preethi.
Girija also peeped out, surprised at Devika's open mouthed stare.
Suresh was there, waving the dolls at each window of the bus. He hung his head low when he came to their window and noiselessly passed through it.

P.S.: Please don't tell me there is no bus that goes to Mahabalipuram from the Saidapet depot. I really don't know.
Psst...how do you like the title?? :)

You open your blog after a long day of work.
(well, actually you've been opening it through your day of work, but let's not really talk about that).
You've not updated your blog for a long time, but still keep checking it to see if someone cares to drop by your blog.
Ah! There's a new comment!!

Eager to see who it is from, and already planning to thank the person for checking your blog, you click the comments section link with anticipation.
And what do you see?
A comment from Jon, telling you about Nike Basketball shoes and capricorn horoscopes ( what on earth this means, I don't know!). Or probably how to make easy and 'free' money (free money-aa, adhu epdi? Find out from Jon!! ;) ).

So what's the solution?
Blogger came up with word verification to prevent spam comments. Gosh, this thing is extremely irritating... typing some nonsensical letters (well the other thing I've never understood is how this helps remove spam!Techies, come over!!)
Another huge thing I've never understood is why spam comments appear: do people actually click on Jon's link and see what Nike Basketball shoes he has to offer?

A dear friend sent me into peals of laughter when she cutely replied for a spam comment. Whether she had done it knowingly or not I don't know, but dear, you really don't have to reply for spam comments!!!
Boy, aren't spam comments giving us good laughs at times?!
Wish I could prevent spam comments without that stupid word verification thing!!

Read on.

She glanced at the clock.
9:00
I looked at my watch with anxiety.
11:30
Ugh, it’s not yet time.
She went back to her Ananda Vikatan magazine. Sujatha’s story was proceeding at a very interesting pace.
I looked at my “A History of Communication Study” and stared at the chapter about Carl Hovland. My eyes were just scanning at the text: nothing went in, I made no effort to try to register the text.
I looked at my watch again.
11:47
I sighed. There was still time.
I opened my blog and started reading my older posts. This would be the only way to keep me occupied for some minutes.
She put the Ananda Vikatan down and picked up the newspaper. She laughed. She was reading the day’s newspaper when the day was almost over.
“Oh! The day is almost over!” she thought again, only that this time it reminded her that she had to do something else.
She looked at the clock.
9:27
She went to the phone.
She dialed the numbers.
My phone rang.
I looked at my watch.
12:00
I leapt up with joy.
I picked up the phone.
“Hello..”
“Ei kutty, Happy Birthday!”
I smiled widely. My eyes danced with laughter and happiness.
“Happy Birthday to you….. Happy Birthday Vani!” sang amma over the phone.

I checked my flight ticket.
23rd July, 0150.
"Yes, ma, it is tomorrow early morning. As in, today late night," I said.
My mom sighed.

I knew why: an early morning (late night, actually) flight. She was slightly discomforted by the thought of leaving me alone in the airport for about an hour before I could board the flight back.
"Oh, what if you fall asleep," she said, worried, every bit of anxiety apparent in her voice.
Well, I knew it was a very high possibility, but of course, admitting that would leave my mom sleepless.
"Of course, not...they'll keep announcing, and if it's a night flight, there will actually be people looking around and asking people if they have to take this particular flight," I said. I had no idea if there were any people like this in the Chennai airport.

The day went by so fast that I felt startled when I found myself in the airport, boarding pass in hand, talking to my parents as they stood on the other side of the grill. Dad's advices of spending wisely (not too much, but do what you want, keep an eye on the expenses, etc.) and mom's advices about eating properly everyday (whatever happens, never compromise on food) made me feel like jumping over that metal barrier and going back with them to stay there for just another day.
When the call for security check came, I told them goodbye. Mom held my hand and gave it an affectionate squeeze. "Take care, dear," she said.
Too scared that she might soon burst into tears, I quickly left the place.

As I went through the security screening, the guys in the counter who had checked my knapsack gave me odd looks as I collected it.
"Yeah, I have a bomb inside," I angrily muttered.
Mutt-heads.

I got into the flight. This would my first flight in any non-Indian carrier. The air hostesses, for a change, were young and pleasant, and not like some I had met before, who would make me think a lot before asking them for anything.

Soon came dinner time (or whatever meal that was). I was actually starving. I eagerly opened the salad that only had leaves, so neatly wrapped, in the food tray. And then opened the big box. A damp squib.
Non vegetarian food.
"Excuse me," I called to the hostess. "Can I have some vegetarian food, please?"
"Please wait, ma'am," she said and disappeared inside the veiled cabin.
She returned shortly.
"Ma'am, may I know what preference you had given in your ticket about the food?" she asked.

I was nonplussed. Food preference? I had no clue that this carrier had something like that. Then it struck me that my travel agent had not bothered to get that bit of detail from me when I booked the ticket.
"Umm..I don't think I mentioned any..."I said.
"I see...Well, ma'am, I am really sorry, but we ran out of veggie food trays. We are very sorry, but this has never quite happened before. Is there anything else I can get you?" she asked.

Damn, I thought.
Unpleasant first times happening with me.
"Yes, some of this salad, please," I said, pointing to that leafy mass in my tray.
"Sure ma'am, can I get you a drink?"

I sat staring at the detachable table. A glass of Coke, and two boxes of that leafy salad. Munching the last few bits of salad left, I felt bovine. These leaves were never getting in, they kept coming on how much ever I chewed. Damn them, I cursed.
I was reminded of home. How much I had fussed to eat idli or upma, I thought. I would even eat that rava upma I so hated, now. The hunger soon vanished.

The hostess was kind enough to later come and hand over a bun. I spread some butter and pushed it in.

The four-hour flight went by quick, thankfully. I didn't want to be the victim of anymore 'this is the first time' crap.

I finally reached my room. As none of my friends would be awake at this 'unearthly' 8 30 in the morning on a Sunday, I had to contend myself with unpacking and getting excited about the new stuff I had bought from the trip home.

The room had now come back to normal.
I reached for my knapsack and started emptying its contents. Mom had put in a lot of things in it. I smiled.
She had put in the jewellery box I had to refuse to take because of lack of space.
Mom, she can fit in anything, I thought.
There was some box I never remembered seeing before, when I was packing at home.
I opened it.
Then I realised why the security screening guys were glaring at me in their counter.

Inside the box were 4 idlis, with evenly spread molagai podi on them.
I smelled them. They had become spoilt.
With a heavy heart I threw them away.

P.S.: No, this is not a true story.

Thatha was nonplussed. "It has been sent?" he asked, in utter disbelief.
Vikram nodded. "Yes, really, he has recieved it and even replied," he said.
"Baghya, inga vandhu paaren, the letter I typed to send Krishna has been sent and he has replied also!" thatha cried with delight to patti.
Patti came and looked.
"Ada, aamaam!" she cried with surprise, and started reading the e-mail her second son Krishna had sent from the U.S. with her own, slow, speed.

Vikram smiled. His grandparents could not believe the speed of e-mail nor understand how it happens. He had tried many a time to explain to them, and finally realised that it was just the communication they needed and not how it works.
"Ah," cried thatha, "technology is improving at a great speed. Thank God I'm alive to see all these developments!" He went back to his room.

Vikram had just finished his class XII and was waiting for his results. Thatha had been a great support to him during his final exams, with his encouraging talk and more so with his prayers. Without his prayers, thought Vikram, I surely wouldn't have cracked that horrible Chemistry paper.

Thatha came back with another letter the next day.
"Dei Vikrama, please send it through that special mail da... It's very important, Krishna has to read this."
Vikram devotedly sent the mail and also read out the reply as soon as he got it.

Soon his grandparents were beginning to get doubts about e-mail.
"Dei Vikram, Subbu was saying her son in England wants to contact your father. She asked me for some e-mail address. I gave her our house address saying if she sent the mail to this address, you will be able to read it and tell me. But she was saying it's not possible..I did not know..." He gave a worried and bewildered look.
Vikram laughed. "Illa thatha, adhu mudiyadhu. Give her this address and she will know," and gave him his father's e-mail address.
Thatha took the paper with the e-mail id and stared at it. "Oh, ivalo vishayam irukko... this old mind will not understand all this da,"he said.

Vikram then went on to check his mail.
His heart started thumping loudly as he saw a mail from University of Toronto.
With his fingers shivering, he opened it.
Reading it, his heart leapt with joy. He had secured admission in the university, a long time dream of his.

Vikram left a month later. Life there was very different, but he learnt to enjoy it too. Meeting different people from different countries and cultures, was exciting for him.

He called home just about once a week. He knew he could not expect more correspondence from his extremely busy parents. He did not miss them. But he missed his thatha and patti. He had become very used to their presence in the two months he was entirely at home after his final exams. He missed the poojai mani that would ring everyday from 8 30 in the morning for two hours, when his grandparents were offering their prayers. He missed that little piece of fig his patti would give him everyday after she did the neivethiyam near the tulsi chedi.

It was a pleasant shock when he opened his mailbox one day. It had a mail from "Subramaniam, F/O Ramakrishnan" He opened it, amused. Could it be thatha?
Well, it was.

"Dei Vikrama," it read.
"I learnt how to send this e-mail from Ahswin, our next door kutti paiyan. How much he knows! I am so glad I can mail you with this service.
Patti and I are fine. Both of us miss you very much. Nobody is here to type our mails to Krishnan (though I have learnt to slowly look and type, I am not able to do it as fast as you) and to eat the figs after the neivethiyam. But we understand this education is important to you. Our blessings are always with you. Amma and appa are fine.
I have added you on Yahoo! messenger. I have also attached a photo of Muppathamman somebody sent. Put it on your desktop.
Thatha."

Vikram was stunned.
Mail, messenger, attachment....he couldn't believe it. And thatha had learnt it all in hardly a month!
True to his thatha's wishes, he put the Muppathamman photo as his desktop for some days. He removed it two days later when his thatha sent another picture of a sunrise taken from his room's balcony with his own digital camera.

Gosh, this is going too hi-tech, Vikram thought.

So bored....Can't actually believe I was eagerly waiting for this break. But it's sure fun to laze away when your daily planner is filled with work. That's just what the break is for!

As I desperately try to push in 'Interpersonal Communication' concepts into my head: Self concept, Reflected Appraisal and blah, I hear this buzz around somewhere.

Ugh, not again. Insects somehow seem to swarm around in my room a lot (yeah, swarm is an exaggeration, I'd die if they actually did!). Initially, I used to let out a gasp (or rather a muffled scream so that my room mate doesn't wake up or get startled to find me screaming at a vicious bug crawling on the floor!) and run to fetch my broom and be nice and sweep it out, alive, hale and healthy.

One month of stay in this room (and my room mate's lessons ;) ) has taught me what to do. The first time I found bugs in my room I wasn't really bothered. They are everywhere, and it's nothing abnormal that I occasionally find one or two buzzing aound. But when they exceeded their permitted frequency of arrival into my room, I of course had to take notice.

There was one fine night when after long hours of work, I finally went to start sleeping.
Buzzz.....
I tossed around and covered my ears with a pillow, thinking maybe it's something coming from someone's room.
Buzzz...
I shut both my ears with two pillows.
Buzzzz....
This was it.
I got up and switched the light on. I was cursing whatever or whoever it was (Umm, people don't really buzz but at that state of mind, I couldn't really use the reasoning faculties of my mind!). I looked about the room, as I was soon awake enough to conclude that it was some insect. And there it was, buzzing happily about my room's ceiling light!I was wild with anger. "Damn you, stupid bee!!" I yelled, as though it would understand. Yes, I was still not awake enough to realise that yelling wouldn't help.

Then an idea. I went and opened the door. It could fly out! I smiled, and waited for that bee to go out and enjoy with dimmer yellow lights in the corridor.

My room mate just walked in.
"The bee," I said. "I've kept the door open so it can get out."
She smiled.
"So that it can go out and more come in?"
Oh yeah, I didn't think of it, she has a point there.

"Just turn the light off, it'll go," she said.
"Oh no, then it goes to the next light in the room that's on."
"That's better. Turn the big light off."
I did so.

The bee flew to the light under my shelf that's supposed to light up my work desk.
Oh god, it was now buzzing louder than when it was near the ceiling light.
My room mate picked up a newspaper and looked under the shelf.
Whack!
I freaked out. Last thing I need here is to pay for a broken tubelight!
"It's somewhere in between...I'll get it," she said.
Another two more whacks and the bee had enough sense to fly out away from the tubelight.
Damned bee, I thought, you atleast had that much sense. I silently thanked God the tubelight wasn't broken.

Now the bee went somewhere near her bed.
She picked up a tissue and edho keezha vizhunda saapada edukara maadiri she squashed the bee (I know, sorry for the comparison!)

I heaved a sigh of relief, though I felt sorry for the bee. But not too long.
Another one flew in soon, and again went to my shelf's tubelight.
I was furious. What the hell was wrong with my room?!
Same procedure repeated. Dead bees thrown out.

Soon I picked up the art. I was able to confidently deal with a damned cockroach that had somehow made its way into my room. After some seconds of running away from it, I decided to confront it. Some whacks later, with my heart pounding with terror and a sense of disgust, I felt slightly proud. I, I, who would jump up and run for shelter on some high platform if I spotted a cockroach on the floor, had actually killed one. Well, yeah, it's not a nice feeling when you just killed a life, I felt sorry for the dead cockroach, but what else could I do? Adhu adhu adhoda idathula irundha inda problem-ey varaadhu.

After dealing this way with insects, I was happy. That's one fear of mine almost wiped out. The other two still remain, though: horror movies and sudden loud noises.

Thankfully, this time the buzz wasn't in my room. It was on the corridor. That's a life spared, I thought, and thanked God He didn't lead me to be a cause for violence(!). And prayed that He be kind to the insects and keep them away from my own room with concern for their own safety.

P.S.: Sorry if anyone squirmed at any of my descriptions; I'm here, experiencing them, so thank your stars you're far away, safe, without any insects buzzing in the vicinity.
P.P.S.: In case there is some insect buzzing around, all I'll say is "It just takes two whacks... and it's history!"
And I can't add anymore postscripts, so I'm saying this plain: Please, I hate killing animals...but if they're this troublesome, I can't help it! :(

Another tag.

7 things you plan to do b4 you die:

*Head Ogilvy and Mather, or at least be a copywriter there.
*Meet AR Rahman
*Meet a sensible guy. (Matthathellam pannidalaam, idhu romba kashtam!)
*Learn to cook, and try hard to like cooking!
*Sing for AR Rahman
*Take a trip of Europe
*Publish my book

7 things I can do:

*Be a great friend
*Laugh a lot, at myself and others
*Grit my teeth and go about anything
*Cheer up people
*Be nice to even people I hate
*Sleep at least 7 hours everyday
*Be optimistic!!!

7 things I can't do:

*Eat non veggie food
*Change some of my behaviours. Am quite resistant to any attempts to change me!
*Say or do something without thinking what others will think of it
*Give up on somethings or somepeople easily
*Keep my first impressions. They always change!!
*Forget bad things easily
*Cook!

7 things that attract me to the opposite sex:

*Height. Thin and tall guys
*Voice, should be deep
*Guys who look at your eye when they talk to you
*Hair
*Similar interests
*An attitude, those guys who give themselves airs. (Should be controlled, though! :P )
*Talk a lot, write well

7 things I say the most:

*Pisa
*Dhoda
*Hey!
*Poda/podi
*Hmmm....
*What the heck/hell
*Damn

7 celebrity crushes

*Madhavan
*Pete Sampras
*Arvind Swamy
*Rahul Dravid
*Karthik (singer)
*Sameer Dharmadhikari (Dharmu ;) he comes in the Sunrise ads)
*Josh Hartnett

No, I'm not going to ask anyone to take this tag. Pozhaichu Ponga!

Having a huge campus, our university has been considerate enough to have shuttle buses to take us around the campus. Till last year, we had to drop a 20 cents coin everytime we wanted to go in one. This year, the univ came up with the plan of (finally!) making it free. So, we thought, there ends the hassle of finding 20 c. coins every time you wanted to travel by a shuttle bus. Things didn't get that better, though.

After making the rides free, the univ. seems to have cut down the number of buses plying around. Buses now seem to take an eternity to come, and sometimes they even take as long as half an hour.

The most horrible times are the mornings, with huge queues for 8:30 classes. Being an unfortunate person with 8:30 a.m. classes three times a week, I am a victim of the overcrowded shuttle buses. There are some arivu jeevis who wake up earlier so that they can take the first bus that goes in the campus at 8. But come on, namalku idhellam otthu poguma? I make it a point to reach the bus stop only at 8:20. Some Indian mates may argue that even this is way too much, but since my lecturers aren't very pleased to see people walking in late and openly rebuke them, even if I don't care, at least I have to make some effort to make them think that what they say has some effect on me, :P so the whole thing.

The bus stops are still crowded. The univ is smart in that it has two shuttle bus routes A and B, which cover almost the same stops on the opposite sides of the road. So we have the 'comfort' of running to the other side of the road if a bus comes there.

As the morning buses are incredibly crowded, many a time the buses don't even stop in the bus stop, and we're left with standing in the stop staring like fools at the bus which just goes by, probably even wave a 'bye' if you find someone you know inside the bus.

Buses here stop only if you wave before it comes to the stop. There are some sad people who don't realise that the bus is overcrowded and go about waving, expecting the bus to stop, and even give 'what the heck!' stares if the bus doesn't stop. And I resist laughing with great difficulty, despite the pressure of reaching class on time.

What's more (self) entertainment is when I cross the road when I see the bus on the opposite side coming. We cross over, wait for the bus, realise it's crowded and hence won't stop. Then the bus on the other side comes, and we cross back again, only to realise that the driver was being unfair and didn't stop though at least five more people could've managed to get into the bus. Maybe he got intimidated at the sight of about 30 people waiting with bated breath for the bus. It's funny, when you realise that you've been 'shuttling' across the road more often than any 'shuttle' bus available. One comes at long last, and a huge wave of people swarms into the bus.

I must say that Singaporeans are quite inexperienced when it comes to traveling in a crowded bus. No one can probably beat Indians in that. Singaporeans, when they do try to squeeze into some place in the bus near the driver, unfortunately block the driver's view and get slightly yelled at(in Chinese, which of course I don't understand).

While this is one extreme, there is this other one of two or three empty buses going behind one another, within a gap of say, 30 seconds. One day I had the misfortune of getting into one of the second buses of a row of three. And I was the only one in the bus. The driver was really angry with me, why I didn't know, then I guessed that maybe if it weren't for me, he would've parked the bus in the 'depot' and gone for a rest or something. He kept expectantly looking at me through his mirror as every stop neared, wondering if I would get down, making me extremely uncomfortable, wishing I could get down somewhere and walk the rest of the way. Nobody, unfortunately for me, even got into the bus, despite the driver waiting for a couple of minutes at every stop. Finally after what seemed to be hours of discomfort, I got down from the bus.

Hmm....accounts of a shuttle bus travel!

She was sweating profusely. She didn’t know what to do.
Decisions can sometimes be so hard to make, she thought. She then brushed aside the thought and started thinking again. She must not waste any more time.
She reached out for the box of tissues on her table and wiped her face. And before she knew it, she had already wasted precious minutes.

In her anxiety, her fingers unconsciously went near her mouth. Slowly, and with ferocity she did not even realize, she was biting her nails, in a maniacal fashion. It was like she was giving vent to all her anxiety by biting off those beautifully polished nails. She suddenly looked at them, just as she realized that she was biting nails.
“God!” she thought. The beautiful baby pink nail enamel had now lost its glory. She thought of Vidya, who would keep chiding her for biting nails. And as she thought of Vidya, she thought she felt the taste of nail polish in her mouth.

“Ugggghhhhh!!!” she exclaimed.
She reached for that bottle of water nearby and gulped the water furiously, all the while thinking what to do.
Time was moving fast.
She had to act fast, too.

She hated such kind of working. Working under pressure. They never brought out the best from her, she always felt. Her best was always when she did things just by chance – her award winning short story, for instance; it was just written one night when she couldn’t sleep. This was one reason why she could never really do her school assignments well – the teachers gave deadlines. Deadlines always freaked her out. This, is very, very bad, she thought; whatever she would ultimately have in life would have deadlines; deadline to finish university education (though not exact, there was always this deadline of “Finish by 4 years.” ). Deadlines to find a job; or to get married. Deadlines to finish projects at work. Deadlines ruled life.
Deadlines!! She got highly irritated at this thought.

She suddenly shook her mind off all this thought.
Time was moving fast, again, and she still hadn’t made her decision.

God, why such a trap, she thought. Why now, why me! Why not someone else? Have you no consideration, she thought, as she wiped her face and fanned herself with the other hand, as though this fanning would give her any amount of relief.

She stared helplessly.
She looked at the time. It was ticking fast.
And she still didn’t know what to do.
It was well over five minutes. She had to do something fast.

She gingerly touched it and pressed it.
“Nooooooooooo!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” she screamed.
She screamed her heart out. A silent tear somehow found its way out and left a trail on her right cheek. And before she knew it, another one slowly trickled down the other cheek.
This isn’t fair, this is just not fair, she thought.

All because of the pressure. All because of that ticking clock which couldn’t make me think.
She stared at the screen.
At the minesweeper screen where she had clicked on the wrong box and lost the game with the one mine left, after 523 seconds of hard thinking.

One week since I posted and I'm already getting impatient, thinking about what to post next; topics, again, range from the A.R.Rahman concert in Singapore that I will miss because it's horrendously expensive, to the-saree-wearing-singing-hungama that happened on Wednesday, to cursing my heavy, burdening, workload.
And then, it struck me; one thing I would be ready all my life to ramble about for as long as possible - dear old Chennai.
Every time I looked at the name of my blog, I would feel pretty stupid - chennaigalwrites?? Then I convince myself saying it was a name I had thought of in class X, four years ago, when I had first heard of blogs and so badly wanted to have one, but did not know how to. Then I thought, probably the name ain't that stupid, for after all, it defines me, I am a Chennai girl.
I am the only misfit in a family where everyone unanimously hates this city. What's there to hate, I wonder. Well, of course, there are umpteen number of reasons - bad water, roads dug up every now and then, the heat, the pollution, the current cuts (thankfully not in my home sweet home!) and blah. But hey, I say, every Indian city has them! Studying in a place where none of these problems virtually exist, I must confess, I miss them. What's the point living in a place where you don't face any problems? Staying in cities like good ol' Chennai only makes you appreciate these things more. Things feel so artificial sometimes in Singapore, and I'm left wondering what's the point. Grass mowed every three or four days with an annoyingly loud machine, vehicles which take the leaves off the road everyday.... Well, give me a break!
Just facing totally unconnected streams of thoughts....I'm reminded of the highly occasional 'Bangalore vs. Chennai' fights that I used to lead back home, and sometimes here, too, with the Bangaloreans. Chennai, I say, has a soul. It has people who live life normally despite the innumerable shortcomings they face everyday, right from water to public transport. It has a just perfect blend of tradition and modernity, the perfect Kabaleeshwarar koil devotee and Saturday discotheque freak. Girls here shop in Globus as much as they would on Pondy Bazaar's famed platform shops. Chennai has everything. Chennai is brimming with life, brimming with optimism. Chennai can shrug trouble off its shoulders and come back to normalcy after any disaster, the tsunami being the prime example.
Now everytime I go back, I make sure I never have that NRI feeling (uhh, well, if I can be called one??) of 'God, how did I live in this country?' which I so terribly hate. Life so smoothly glides into the Chennai way of living as my flight lands and I start in long queues which people break with ease, for immigration. When in Chennai, I become the chennaigal, feasting on amma's amazing thakkali rasam and vendekkai curry. And jumping over those can't-be-counted number of potholes. Wading through the heavy Usman Road traffic with ease. Taking a bath before 10 a.m., before the water stops. Fighting a vain battle with grandparents to watch a different channel, and ultimately ending up watching 'Metti Oli' or 'Kolangal' with them. Bargaining with the shopkeepers in Pondy Bazaar. Standing in the strangling queues in temples. Getting crushed in the overcrowded public buses, and sometimes, footboard travel too. And yes, living a life.
Living in Chennai can make you prepared for anything in life. After living in Chennai, I sure can face most of the things in life, and with a schooling from DAV, I dare say, anything, anything, can be confronted!!!
Oh god, off I go rambling again. I can almost see the 'Organizational Communication' textbook on my table glaring at me and saying, "Hello, you were supposed to read something from this book??"
And yet again, I'm unable to think of any heading for this post, now that the org. comm. book is staring right down at me. So this post gets a name I've used twice before, it's a sequel.
And hey, Chennai rules!!! :)

11-year-old Aditya went up to his mother.
"When are you going to have the Upanayanam ceremony for me?" he asked.
His mother was confused.
"Why, oh, well....umm, soon, dear!" she said.
"Why are you delaying it so much? Amma, I'm 11 ! Innum podalena thappu!!" said he.
"Nee ipdi kekarche podaama iruppoma? We'll do it soon. " said amma.
Adi smiled and left.

Adi's major reason to ask his mother to hold an Upanayanam ceremony was because he wanted to get some attention to himself. Somehow he had felt that all his relatives had quite forgotten him when his older brother left to study abroad. They all fussed over him so much that in between Adi had felt there was a period when everyone had even forgotten his existence. He had had to pack his lunch bag even himself - put the towel and spoon inside, and oh, get the water filled in his blue bottle (which, incidentally was broken, but since no one was bothered, he had to manage with that).... He was so angry that he had to so much of work when he had to study and also play those regular tennis sessions in school. One of his class mates had then suggested that this would be a good way to remind people of his needs and wishes.
"Hey, that's a nice idea...how come I never thought of it before?" he thought. And then started his implementation of the idea.

Slowly, after the first time he asked his mother this idea, he began to ask the others in his home too. He realised that the best people to pull on his side were his grandparents (who, incidentally, had been pushing for this from quite a while ago).
Well, the idea seemed to be working quite well, for his mom decided to talk to his father about the whole issue.
"Paarungo, avaney ketutaan...We have to do it soon...and besides, he's 11, and that's a perfect age for the ceremony!"
After some more talk, dad finally gave in.
"Yes, let's do it. I'll ask appa to ask the shastrigal for a good date during this month....if we do it in July itself, it'll be good as he won't be having any exams and won't have any problems taking time off from school..." suggested dad.

Soon, things started going in full swing for Aditya's poonal ceremony. Amma fretted about for pattu veshtis, pattu podavais, madisar podavais et al. This impressed little Adi greatly. He felt grateful for the friend who had suggested this idea. "What a brainwave," he thought.

The d-day arrived quite soon. Adi could see excitement rising up his spine as he was asked to do various things. The shastrigal, though, were pretty strict.
"Nanna balamma mantra-thai sollu...."
or
"Kiaya ipdi vechukanum....un ishtathuku pannapdaathu",
which made Adi wish he didn't have to go through all these procedures. But things got exciting again soon when his father taught him the "secret" : the Gayatri mantra with the pattu veshti wrapped around them. He also got wildly excited when he had to ask for bhiksha, though he would have done it without that droning Bhiksham dehi he had to say everytime,but still he derived a lot of pleasure as all mamis and atthais lined up to give him his bhiksha.

Then came the part which he had anticipating all this while - the presents. He could barely conceal his excitement as friends and relatives poured in with gift wrapped boxes of various kinds and size, and some with cash (he was not very happy with cash, he knew he would have to hand it to amma or appa the next day....presents were anytime better, assuming, though that the people had enough sense on what to gift a 11-year-old).

As soon as they got home after the Upanayanam ceremony, Adi wanted to open his presents. Amma and appa were very tired, but they let him open them nevertheless...at least that would give them some hours of rest, without any new nagging from him.

Adi felt his hands shiver with excitement as he opened the presents. Mama's present seemed very inviting. Before he opened it, he thought what it could be. Maybe a PS2? He had been asking dad for one for quite a long time...and probably appa had told mama about it...and mama had got it.....

He found his dreams soaring. Unable to contain the excitement, he opened it. His dreams came crashing on to the ground. Lay inside a set of Scrabble. And that too, the same set he already had. The rest were no better too, except for a set of beautiful Parker ink pens from Uma atthai and a blue digital watch from his best friend.

God! He couldn't believe that most of his presents had turned out to be damb squibs. Well, at least the ceremony had reminded people that Aravind had a younger brother called Aditya who needed to be looked after, too. But he felt sad nevertheless.

His sorrows did not end there, though. Very soon, the troublesome priest from the ceremony came home to teach him how to do the sandhyaavandanam. He felt utterly disappointed and irritated. He had to do this twice a day, and that too the second one at 6 p.m. when he would be playing! It had never struck him as bothersome when he had seen his father do it every day. Dad seemed to be very excited at the prospect of his younger son doing all this that for a whole two weeks, he came home from office early so that both of them could do the sandhyaavandanam together.

Soon, things became worse. Now all that everyone wanted to know was whether he did the sandhyaavandanam regularly everyday, not excepting that nagging priest, who also dropped in at least thrice every month and oversaw his prayer. If Adi skipped the prayer even once, his mother would pounce upon him and say "Idhukkudaan sonnen, it's too early for the ceremony-nnu....yaara kaetaa dhaane!" She seemed to be taking a new stand now, though she had convinced his father that it was high time Adi got his poonal.

Adi soon fell sick of all the attention poured on him. He tried his best to divert them toward his brother, but even when talking over the phone to his brother, all that his parents said were complaints that Adi wasn't doing sandhyaavandanam properly. "Konjam avana panna sollen da," they would say.
"As though you know he does it regularly there," Adi would mumble.
So much for 'brainwave' ideas and getting attention, Adi thought.

P.S: No questioning on the traditions; I've just written what I vaguely know.

Well, yes, they do ruin my life. What would should have been a blessing turns a curse. And it's all here, in Singapore, where day and evening (thankfully, not the nights!) they torture me into slow illness.

As I sit through lectures and tutorials everyday, slowly, air-cons freeze me into numbness. Yeah, physically and mentally. To such an extent that beyond a point I feel like a body just made alive by thawing after being frozen as a part of some cryonics study. As soon as I'm free to go out, I feel like some captive tortured by unique methods running out to freedom. But oh no! You only run out of a freezing air con-ed room to enter the bus which is cold too. Thank lord, though, at least I could control the little air-con outlet in the bus.

At times, or no, always, the closed corridors are colder than the rooms themselves that I would think kenathula gudhikardhu is surely a better option than leaving the room. And yes, the rooms are not good, either. Inside, I would sit trying to cover every little portion of my hands or legs that are exposed to the chilling air.

Enter trains, AC. Enter canteens, AC. Enter TV Lounges, AC. Enter labs, you would almost freeze to death. Even after having been here for a whole year, I am unable to stand it. I would feel so content in life with that ceiling fan...instead I have to return everyday with head aches and colds because of the air-con. And not to forget the innumerable number of times air-cons make me sneeze.

I wonder how girls here come in the shortest of mini skirts possible and sit in this freezing cold atmosphere in theatres. God! Fine, you could say romba naal pazhakkam but these places are like igloos!! They sure do deserve awards.

Well, there is no escape from this monster. All I have to do is hope that I get immune and don't react abnormally. :)

So much for air-cons!!!

By the way, I realised my posts are getting shorter and shorter! No, not good lah!

When Phobiac asked me what 'Pisa' meant, it sent into a long, nostalgic journey, stretching three years, into school, into a totally different life (Phobiac, did you ever think one question of yours would give such a chain reaction?). From that time, three years back , 'pisa' became an integral part of my life, assuming more than one form and dimension.

It all started in my class XI when I had to put up with this incredibly idiotic and irritating person in school; one who made my life miserable. It was one bad day when this person had gone beyond limits that I wanted to yell something bad at her, some word which would be powerful enough to withstand all the vengeance I wanted to pack into it. Though the word I had intended to say was 'pisasu', because of all that anger within me, the word became mutilated to 'pisa'(with a hiss in 's'), just like Saraswathi did something to the tongue of Kumbakarna so he asked for some boon he had just not wanted to ask. And lo! 'Pisa' seemed to be much more useful than 'Pisasu' because 'Pisasu' was just a kiddish version (what I used to call my sis when she irritated me beyond levels.). The word 'Pisa' thus entered my life, only to stay on forever.

What further strengthened the bond between me and 'Pisa' was the welcoming of one another Pisa into home; she was this 'Candy' doll my sis gave me in class XI (Now, now, no discussions of class XI and dolls being presented! FYI, my sister got herself that doll in that age!! :P ). This 'Candy' doll was so scary to some people, and yeah, even in broad daylight you could shake her in some way to make her look scary. And when you are sleeping and she sits crouched somewhere, a so-life-like figure, you could even end up screaming. Such is the 'Candy' doll's power. For further help into visualising 'Candy' dolls, if you have seen all those 'pei' movies in Tamil where this cute doll goes about with knives, stabbing and killing people, 'Pisa' could so fit into that category. Only thing, she does not wink and close her eyes like those scary dolls in movies.

As my new 'Candy' doll looked like 'pei', I christened her 'Pisa', though oh God, she is no way close to the real 'Pisa' in school. My doll 'Pisa' is a sweetum, cutie pie. Thinking of dolly 'Pisa' sends into me pangs of anguish; she is not with me now. There in my friend's home she is, crouched, bundeled up and put in a plastic bag inside a dark, scary storeroom, waiting for me to come and take her back. Hope it happens real soon!!!

I entered the flight and found my seat. 20H. A middle aged lady was already sitting there.
"Excuse me, umm...that's my seat....", I said.
She quickly got up and sat in some other seat.

I stared at her. Does she know that flights usually have a fixed seat? Did not seem like she did. I sat in my seat and watched all the people getting into their places. Nobody seemed to be coming to sit in 20G. I was pleased. I loved travelling alone, without people next to me. I smiled.

My happiness was short lived, though. The old woman came and sat next to me! I could not bring myself to ask her to sit in that seat she was sitting before. That would be awfully rude. So I just shut and came staring out through the window. The flight was to leave at 10:30. It was 10:50 and the plane had not moved an inch from where it was when I had boarded it. As I was watching outside, somebody suddenly pulled my left hand. I was startled and looked. The lady next to me was looking at the time in my watch.

"10:30-kkey flight-a edukkanum illa? Time aaiduche!" she said.
I nodded. God! Was she the company I was going to have throughout the flight?
As though in response to her query, the flight captain just then announced that there was a small technical problem in the aircraft that would be set right soon. I groaned. Not a delay!
The aircraft finally took off at 11:15 after a lap in the runway for about 5 minutes. As the flight took off, I could not keep my eyes off the window to look at the city I so loved. How long would it be before I would see it again!

As expected, the lady next to me started her conversation soon.
"What are you doing in Singapore?" she asked.
"Studying"
"College-aa?"
"Hmm."
"Which university?"
This set me thinking. How safe is it disclosing information to some lady I meet in the flight?
After thinking for a few seconds, I replied "SMU".
"Appdiya...which course?"
"Uh.....management" I fibbed. I didn't even know if such a course existed in SMU.
"I see...."

Lunch was served soon. I could barely eat that drab food. All I was thinking was about that thakkali rasam, vendekkai sambar and cauliflower curry I had eaten at home. I sighed. This was how bad food was going to be, from now on.

I put on the headphones and started listening to "Bollywood hits". I soon dozed off for such a long time that when I woke up they were already distributing the immigration forms. I filled one. I knew that the lady next to me would soon ask me something about the form. And sure she did.

"The form asks for the number of days. What if I'm not sure of it?"
"You have your return ticket, right? You wouldn't have got a visa without showing it to them. So why do you have uncertainity in the number of days of your stay?" I asked. Then I felt stupid for that slight tinge of arrogance I had in my tone. She looked slightly startled.

"Um...maybe you could explain it to the people in the immigrations counter....I don't really know because I've never had to do anything this way..." I said.
"Yes, I can do that", she said.
The flight had started its descent. I looked down at the city polluted with lights, where I would be spending many, many days.
"How will you go to your university, ma?" the lady asked.
"Uh, take a cab...."
"Nobody will come to pick you up?"
I smiled. How I wished somebody would!
"No."
"My son is coming to pick me up."
"I see.."

The flight landed with a thud and went on with such a furious speed I thanked God and blessed the man who invented seat belts for airplanes.
By the time I had reached my university and my room, it was evening and I was hungry, for I had eaten practically nothing during the flight. I went to the canteen which had the Indian stall.

"Hey Vani!!" yelled Preethi, my batch mate and close friend. "How was the flight?"
"Yeah, ok....now, I'm starving, let's get something to eat", I said.
We bought our food and found a long table occupied by Indians, seniors and batch mates alike. All of us chatted continuously, catching up with three months of tales at home. Anthara was particularly funny, telling us stories which kept us in splits. I could hardly eat; I kept laughing with tears in my eyes. As I laughed, I suddenly looked up to the door as someone called out my name. It was Vikrant, my school mate.

"How're you....I just landed...so shameful we didn't meet up even though we were in the same city in India..." I said.
"Yeah...and hey, my mum has come. I just picked her up from the airport....she said she was hungry, so I brought her here..." he said.
"Oh, ok.....where 's she?"
"Oh, there she is, in the queue for food...."
"Ha! Sad plight no," I said, turning toward the queue,"..... for your mom to stand in queue and..."

I stopped midway, shocked.
The lady from the flight was in the queue.
"Is-s she th-the lady in the green saree?", I asked him.
"Yeah, how did you know....and she was saying that she met a wierd girl, you know...studying management from SMU it seems...."
"Vikrant, that was me!" I said, feeling slightly ashamed.
"You?? When did you start studying in SMU?? Oh ok ok...I see, very cautious, not disclosing information to strangers, is it?" Vikrant roared with laughter.
I was turning pink with embarassment.
His mom came soon.
"Dei, indha ponnu thaan naan plane-la paathen da..." she said.
Vikrant laughed more loudly, with Preethi giving him company.
Soon, the whole table with Indians was bellowing with laughter, and Vikrant's mom cast me wierd looks.

Not very long ago
A young, little girl,
Tried to write a poem,
And let her thoughts unfurl.
But alas, what she wrote,
Seemed more
Like an essay
With the lines broken,
And written
Just to rhyme.
(Ahem! What does it look like now?)

Poetry and I have rarely gone together. As far as I remember, the last poem I wrote was in my grade seven about cartoons; this “poem” talked about how cartoons can make even fussy eaters (kids) eat their food quickly. Very dumb concept, I know, but well, the poem was quite cute. I remember just two lines from the entire poem now:

“Ow! Ow!” cried Jerry,
Jumping up and down in a ferry.

God! Like most of the kids, my idea of a poem was a story basically split up so that the last word in every other line (or okay, every second or third line) rhymes with its counterpart. This way I strained my class seven vocabulary to find words which rhyme and this was a hell lot of effort. This poem was to go into our class magazine, “Fun Fiesta”, edited by Yours truly, and the name of the magazine suggested by my sis. Fun Fiesta was quite a good success for its very first edition, though it had to be stopped very soon for it being very unproductive. No more could we go about the business without money and of course, no parent was really willing to give their daughters money for a silly (!) class magazine. Also because some of my class mates became pretty dumb and started giving me crossword and Crayon Corner from the Young World asking me to “publish” it in their name. Fun Fiesta, hence, stopped being “printed” after two issues because of the aforesaid reasons.

After this last poetic effort of mine, I decided that it was high time I stopped trying to write poems and concentrated on stories instead. So Chumki came up. In the next year, a joint effort between me and my friend happened and we came up with a story titled “The Hallucination”. A very weird story it was, and it still got published in our school magazine, replete with typos. Next year, I went a step further and wrote a story in Sanskrit. Uhh, well, this wasn’t my story, but was an Akbar Birbal thing translated into Sanskrit. It was very funny to imagine and write Akbar and Birbal talking in Sanskrit, with me consulting the dictionary to find the Sanskrit equivalents often.
These school magazines are highly funny things. When my sister was in her seventh grade, she wrote a poem on teachers, which was published in a newspaper. When she was editing her school magazine, she came across the same poem being submitted by another school mate of hers. When asked, this girl said she had copied the poem from some other school magazine. One silly poem written ages back, and it was still making rounds.

Not knowing what more to write,
That girl,
Who had stopped writing poems
Ages ago,
Again tried to write one,
To finish her post.
This one,
It seemed to her,
Was worse than the one
She had written in the beginning,
And knew that it was best
To shut up and stop.

My mind is busy wondering what to post on the blog….it’s been a week since I posted and I’m desperate to write anything so that my previous dumb story isn’t the first thing people see if they visit my blog. I’m thinking of topics ranging from the awesome song “Chaiyya Chaiyya” to my lil’ vacation in Bangalore to the trip to the vegetable market yesterday. Interesting topics for me, though, I wanted to put them further by at least a week or two.

As I spend my last two weeks in India for this vacation, I wonder how drastically life will change after those two weeks. Difficult to believe that! I feel so ‘out of touch’ with staying in the hostel, cursing the food and best (or worst?), studying. It’s been ages since I picked up any book that has to be ‘studied’; eons since I went into the kitchen with even slight intentions of cooking. I’ve just been lazing around in the house and religiously attending marriages of relatives. People whom I meet there find it astonishing that I had a three-month long vacation. With utter disbelief, they ask, “Oru thadava ooruku poitu thirumbi vandhuttiya?”. I could not help but smile; my school mates started their exams a month after I came, had a three-week vacation and have started college again. Each of these people burns with jealousy when I tell them how I struggle to ‘joblessly’ spend time.

One week in Bangalore was a lot of fun; spent most of the time playing with kids of my relatives. It was funny watching my nephew crying when he returned from school, chiding us for coming late to pick him up, when we were in his school ten minutes before the final bell. The return journey from B’lore was, though, bad. Thankfully I got a window seat and I refused to give it up to anyone who even ventured near asking for it. With me were eight people returning from a marriage, I assume. Fat people they were, and they made it a point to deprive me of my legally allotted space and squashed me to the window. They kept eating, how on earth it was possible I didn’t know; as soon as the train left the B’lore station, they started eating what they had packed from home (or wherever), followed by generous numbers of bananas at any frequent interval possible. As though these weren’t enough, they kept buying most of the things people from the pantry were bringing; I’m sure the pantry guys would have made a fortune that day, all thanks to that family which tortured me. Adding fuel to the fire was a huge group of college students who boarded at Katpadi. Though they managed to steal even that little space my neighbours had left without stuffing their luggage, it was fun to watch the seniors rag their juniors and I slowly drifted off into making my own plans for how to give my college juniors a ‘warm’ welcome.

Now, at home, telephone is perpetually busy, people calling in and out; television rendering its services to my grandmother, who is busy watching a mythological serial in Telugu; what she can understand, I wonder, but frequently she keeps smiling and saying “aah!” as some mahatvam of Lord Krishna is being shown.

All last minute bouts of visits have started and I’m busy making lists of things I need to buy before I leave. Duh! Can anything be more boring than packing!! Thankfully, mum is here to do it for me this time.

This time, two weeks later, I would be wondering where to go for lunch. Back to present. Lovely home food ready now.

Going out of town for almost a week. Won't be posting then, mostly. I don't have the heart to leave the blog "un-updated" for a week. So here's a filler post of a story written quite a while back.


Aakanksha sat brooding in a corner. She glanced at her watch. 4:30 P.M. Another hour left.
She fished out her music book and searched for the song taught last weekend. Ah! There it was.
She looked around to make sure no one was watching. She quietly shut the door. She marked the page on the book and flung it across the room.
There! Her anger lessened a little. She silently opened the door and again made sure no one was watching.
She took the book and went to the balcony. She peeped out. All her friends were down there, playing. One looked up and saw her.
“Anku! Coming down to play?” she asked.
Anku shook her had.
“I have music class.”
“Oh!! Ok, bye..”
Aakanksha sighed. She quietly pulled a chair to a corner of the balcony and sat there, barely being visible in between the many clothes hung there to dry.
She tried to remember the tune of the song.
“Samthajhanulla Kella….”
She tried repeating the words over and over in her mind. They rang no bell. She even began doubting if she had actually learnt this song.
Oh yes, the date said it all. She had learnt the song last Sunday.
Damn it.
She so fervently wished she could skip the class at 5:30. This 11-year-old girl could never contain herself when she thought of her music class. No bad words were left out if she wanted to describe her music teacher.
Aakanksha had started learning music as a 5-year-old. Though she was very passionate earlier, this music teacher from whom she had started learning three years ago had literally pulled down to abysmal levels her interest in classical music. As an 8 year old, she would throw tantrums as every weekend approached, weekends being the only two days of classes. (Whew! That was a relief, but Aakanksha didn’t want classes anytime!). But as she grew up, she realised such tantrums wouldn’t work and almost resigned herself to the fate of attending music classes every weekend.
“Samthajhanulla Kella….”
“Samthajhanulla Kella….”
Ah! Finally she remembered the tune. She quietly hummed the tune to herself, or rather, in her mind.
She looked at her watch.
Oh god, it was 4:50. And she had not memorised the words yet!
She quickly began memorising the words of the song and trying to recite them with the book closed. Lord, she prayed, as she kept forgetting at least three words at each attempt.
Do I really have to go to such a dreaded music class, she wondered again. Though she had tried to reason this out with her parents many a time, they seldom listened. They argued that this teacher had improved her singing, which was, in fact, true, and they had no plans of stopping this class.
By the time Aakanksha had come close to memorising and reciting the whole song, it was 5:10.
She quickly gobbled the food kept on the table and got ready to leave. As she weaved across the traffic, Aakanksha bathed in self-pity. She felt like she was approaching her doom. She was sure she would forget the song by the time she reached the class and stared at her fierce looking teacher.
She finally reached her music teacher’s house. Aakanksha gulped down that knot of fear in her throat. She left her slippers outside and entered the house. It was astonishingly empty. Aakanksha was stumped for words.
Am I too early or too late, she wondered. No, she was on time. She stared around in bewilderment.
“Aakanksha!” somebody called.
She turned. It was the tenant living on the first floor of her teacher’s house.
“Yenna ma, ipdi vailaye nozhaiyaadha paeru vechirkaale un appa amma….”
Aakanksha smiled, despite all her worries. Many had told her the same thing.
“Miss had to go out of station unexpectedly for an urgent work…she will be back on Tuesday. You can start coming for regular classes from next weekend.”
Aakanksha’s heart leapt with joy. She managed to check the joy right on time from erupting out in front of the neighbour.
She smiled.
“Seri aunty. Mami kitta naan vandhennu sollidungo.”
Silently she went out, wore her slippers and closed the gate. Once out of the house, she gave her biggest smile ever and laughed. She ran, skipped and danced in glee almost half the way back home.
“Amma!” she yelled as soon as she got home. “Inikki no class!!!”
“Adi kazhudhai….thappichuttiya….” her mom smiled.
Aakanksha ran into her room and stylishly threw the bag into her shelf. It landed in its proper place.
She raced down the stairs and ran to the park to meet her friends. Boy, wouldn’t they be surprised!
She suddenly stopped running, and paused for a few seconds, thinking.
Next class, next weekend, she wondered.
She then shook her mind off it and started running. That can be thought of later at 4:45 next Saturday!!

Little Smriti was thrilled beyond words when her aunt gave her that gift. It was long, and was wrapped in the most beautiful wrapper she had ever seen. The wrapper had pictures of balloons, angels, teddy bears and candies on it. It was colourful and even glittered at some places. Adding to Smriti’s delight was the beautiful, soft, pink satin ribbon that held the wrapper.

She felt her hands shivering with excitement as she held the gift. Why, it was the BIGGEST gift she had ever received so far!

She let out a wide grin and looked at her aunt.
“Thank you, aunty!”
She looked at her mother. Mother was smiling.
“Can I open it now, ma?” she asked.
“Of course, dear. Keep it in the prayer room, thank God for a minute and then open it” said mom.

Smriti’s grin lessened a little. This meant a delay in seeing what the gift was. Her three-year old mind could never understand why she had to thank God, keep new things in the prayer room before using them, et al. Anyways, she had to do it because otherwise ma would get angry.
She hurried into the prayer room. She would place the gift on the platform where pictures of all sorts of Gods were kept. She carefully cleared that place off flowers, ‘kolams’ made in white powder and incense dust so that the wrapper wouldn’t get dirty.

“Thank you God!” she smiled.
Whew, finally a minute over.
She took the gift and sat down. She cautiously untied the ribbons and removed the wrapper, taking care not a speck of it got lost. She folded the wrapper neatly and kept it aside. After all, it was a memorable one – it wrapped her best gift!
She opened the box, all excited.
She gasped.
There, inside, were many shining, tiny, train coaches and an engine. And a red track for the train to run on.

She quickly assembled the tracks and fixed the train. She fondly looked at the whole set, flowing in admiration. Yes, it was her best gift. She should thank aunt once more.
She put the train inside and ran out, clutching just the red track to show her mother how quickly she had assembled it.

She stopped short at the door.
She couldn’t believe what she was seeing.
There was a much bigger gift in the hall, for her baby sister! Her mother was all smiles, telling her aunt how much she had wanted to buy this for the baby, as she opened the package.
A torrent of anger raged within little Smriti. She hardened her grip on the little red track in her hand. This anger had to get out very soon, somehow, immediately.

She summoned all her might and flung the red track out into the hall. It broke into pieces. Every head in the hall turned and looked at her with shock and disbelief.
Smriti ran inside and shut the door, tears streaming down her face.