My vow of not blogging frequently!
Oh well, I need some help finding statistics of how Hindi and Tamil movies perform in Singapore. (w.r.t. box office revenues and theatre attendance) Any of you got any idea where I can get them? Singapore Film Commission and Singapore Film Society are of no bloody help.

Latest to join the bandwagon of stopping blogging temporarily - me!! With exams less than two weeks away, I think this declaration comes quite late!!!!
Will be back by end of April, and wait for some changes in my blog!

Some mystical forces are into play. I somehow find the temptation to blog soaring only when I study economics!!
Today I'm blogging about one of my favourite movies of all time (to while away time). It's Kannathil Mutthamittal (A Peck on the cheek). It traces the story of a little girl who is being brought up by a writer and his wife in Chennai happily until she is told on her ninth birthday that she was adopted. A very beautiful story, and...this post will be a little long.
What amazing portrayals by each person who acted in the movie! I don't know why this movie is somehow not appreciated as some other movies of Mani are, like Mouna Ragam. Being a Mani freak, I cannot understand how this movie somehow is missed out.
Madhavan especially, was amazing in the movie. Yeah, one thing is that I like him whatever he does, but I think he has put in a lot of effort for this movie and it's paid too. Who would imagine a typical lover-boy playing the father of three kids? A very neat essay by Madhavan, especially his portrayal of being a very short tempered person who, though, dotes on his adopted daughter. His short temper somehow never irritated me, one reason though could be that I was watching the whole movie with the "Hey this is ManiRatnam's movie" bias!
What is great in any Mani Ratnam movie is the naturalness of most of the situations that happen. In this movie again, the cute scene when Simran goes and quietly whispers into Keerthana's (the little girl) ears "En Amudha kuttiku Happy Happy Birthday" reminded me of how my mother wakes me up every year on my birthday. And all the kurumbu that the three kids do is all so natural and seems to be lifted directly out of life. The scenes where Keerthana goes and complains to her father saying her mother doesn't like her et al. are too good! And Madhavan's "so-cutely-fatherly" behaviour just made me long to be a kid again so I could go enjoy with my dad like this again!
And to top it all, is genius A.R. Rahman at work!!!! A.R. somehow gives his best to Mani Ratnam inevitably!!! That just makes this movie another of my favourite combinations at work - madhavan, mani ratnam and a.r.rahman, the other two being alaipayuthey and aitha ezhuthu. Aitha Ezhuthu is another movie which I feel did not get the recognition it deserved. Yes, it did have many shortcomings and disappointed mani fans, but it did not deserve such a let-down! In this movie again, Mani brings out so many natural things, lifted - out - of - life scenes. The spontaneity of the character of Siddharth, which was my favourite, was really great. Many people are surprised that I liked his character the best, of all people, but I do quite have my own justifications. What he is, I think, just truly represents how the youth today are, or at least majority of the well bred, (quite) spoilt youth. His dreams of going to the U.S. while wanting to please his dad for a little while by lying that he would pursue his I.A.S., I think, just represents us. Most of the youth today want to please our parents while ensuring we don't leave our dreams into thin air, and I feel Mani has done a great job in bringing that out. Here again, Madhavan showed his acting skills, easily switching from one mood to another, being fiercely angry enough to kill his friend to crying to his wife the next. And of course, Surya....a nice portrayal of the very committed person - to his ambitions and to love.
There was quite a huge mistake in the hindi version, though. I somehow felt that Abishek Bacchan wasn't able to bring out the emotions as successfully as Madhavan could. Ajay Devegan, again, was a bad choice to play a student, isn't he too old? It's as bad as asking Ajith to play a college student, if not worse! Maybe we can discount for the fact that Ajay is a better actor! (Sorry if I'm offending any die-hard Ajith fans!!)
Sorry again for the people who haven't watched either of these movies....but I'd say Kannathil Mutthamittal is something you should not miss!!!!

Maybe I'm not that hard hearted after all; I cried today watching a movie!!!! Surprisingly, for the first time, the other me did not say "Hey Vani, come on, it's just a movie.." Well, it was for real, it wasn't anything made up. I shed tears for a scene in Swades.
What a beautiful movie! I got it from my friend to watch it for the n-th time, but I was amazed, I was so moved by one particular scene only when I saw it this time - the scene when King Khan buys that tiny pitcher of water from the little boy selling it in the station - it brought a surge of emotions in me - of the helplessness of doing nothing to help the situation of the little boy selling water, his desperation to get money, that counting of change, that sudden hope he must be getting once he sees the train, the anger of India still being like this, and finally, and very strongly, guilty to be in another country.
Well, though it's just a few months since I came to this place and I have plans of spending the greater part of my life only in India, I feel very guilty at times that even I'm one of those people who have left India. I do try to convince myself that I will return, that I'm here only to study and will go back but I have always been afraid that even I will be caught in those endless fantasies and comforts that a life abroad will have to offer. Well, I can say that I do have a strong mind and it is quite difficult to get me do things which matter, though I easily give in to wishes of others for trivial matters; and I hope this holds true even for this thought - I should get back!
As I prepared to leave India to come to this place, many told me " Hmm, so now you're going there, and you'll become a Singaporean...you might choose to settle there, of course, it is anytime better than our dirty, crowded and polluted city!" I protested saying no, I will come back here and only work. They laughed it off saying everyone says this when they leave, but seeing the comfortable life there, nobody will choose to. Well, such talk really irritates me. As elders, I would always rather they say that I should come back. Or at least, if not, just leave it and say good! Why do they have to be so? That's when my mom said that if they talk about me this way, I shouldn't really care. "Just nod, and leave it. Prove to them you are not that way. " How true that is! I only hope everyday that I don't get caught in this torrent too, that I will do what I had always thought I will.
Whatever comforts I have in another country, I never think I will have the ease of mind and familiarity that I have in India. For that's my home, that's where I belong.

This post will have lots of tamil; I really want to talk in proper tamil and..sorry for those who can't understand!!enga floor-la oru poonai irukku. one friend staying two doors away always gives it some food..so eppopaathaalum ava room vaasalliye kadanaa kadakkum. summa irundhaa paravaala...naan eppo andha vazhiya ponaalum "meow meow" nnu katthum. As though I had given it some problem in some way. Actuall-aa paartha enakku adha kanda bayam so sevuttha ottindu thaan nadandhu poven...still it has some problem and keeps growling. chumma vaaya mudindu okkaaraadhu? enakku irukkara tension poraadhunnu idhu vera. cat-naa azhagaa chamattha..quiet-aa irukkanum.I don't know why this neighbour girl of mine gives it food. Cats in my univ. are fed through the "Unversity cat feeding program"...
I'll stop here.. :D

Hmm...
My phone just didn't ring today. It has been silent the whole day. I mean, yes, it did ring, but it was only for messages. And all the messages were from my project mates, for project discussions. Irritating that I did not recieve any interesting calls or messages. It's so surprising if the phone is silent for such a long time! WAaah....nobody interesting (to talk to) is calling me! :'(
Equally worse, NOBODY's even mailing me! It is at these times that I'm almost let to conclude people have forgotten my existence. It is like I open the mail box and all that I see are silly forwards saying "Pass this on to --- people for better luck, otherwise ill luck will befall you.." Ya, thanks, man....if not for you I'd be dying. When will jobless people stop sending these forwards? A nice picture of Lord Venkateswara suddenly becomes a bearer of good luck (or bad luck, if you don't forward the mail to others and leave it in your mailbox or delete it!) Whoa!
Things are this bad because I've been in the room all day and it's the weekend. I just hope that they'll get better soon tomorrow when I can meet people!

P.S.: This is a short post. Howzzat???
Added at 7:40 P.M. : Got a call from home. finally, my mobile's silence has been broken!!! :)

I just realised that my posts are getting longer; god knows how! (Do not say, obviously, if you type, they will become long, silly!) and it is increasingly difficult for even me to scroll down all the way to the end of the article and check for comments. Let me try making them short... this is a test for my English skills as I was very famous in school for busting the word limit!
This being my first ever visit to any foreign country, it was also my first experience to know how Indians living abroad feel. What I'm writing is a purely personalised opinion; no reason for anyone to get offended.
Even 9 months after coming to Singapore I sometimes cannot believe I'm out of India; it is not that Singapore is so much like India and I'm not missing home, but it is just that I'm not able to believe I've actually left India to come to a whole new country to study. Every time I go out is only when I realise I'm not in India.
As I was preparing to leave India to come here, many people told me that Singapore is a beautiful place to stay, so nice "that you won't feel like you've left India". This did make me happy. But I could recognise everything was different from when I landed here the first time and went to a relative's place to stay. True, those were my first few days away from home in a totally alien country, but I was lost. it was something more than homesickness; rather I never let homesickness get over me as I was all enthusiastic about living my life so independently and responsibly. But there, staring at my face, were differences. I could find them as I struggling to find how to open the shower tap in the bathroom, how to drink water from the cooler, how to get many things done using a machine, etc. These will obviously be present and I made up my mind not to notice these.
But I could still not ignore the differences. A visit to the temple here rarely leaves me satisfied. They are air conditioned, granite floored, have idols made of marble, priests recite the mantras over a mike, and ultimately I don't feel like I've visited a temple at all. Yes, true, these temples are in Singapore where things are highly advanced... but I feel that we have let technology overpower us; with the result that the subtle things I used to enjoy in our temples in India are lost here.
Elaneer (I don't know if I'm getting it right, it is coconut water I'm talking about) was sold for $1.50. Well, I just think I should accept all these without any questions; I should be happy I'm getting these in a foreign country, while many in, say, the US or Canada won't be able to.....
Now I have learnt to ignore these differences; or rather not think about them....maybe that is an improvement.
Nothing beats India!
There is something I forgot to mention though; the reverance Singaporeans have for the indian temples. A visit to one of the temples here put me in awe. The temple was one for Krishna, and right next to it was a Chinese temple. I was really in awe and wanted to take a bow as I saw most of the Chinese who passed by praying outside our temple in their own Chinese way. There were many chinese inside the temple too, and there was one Chinese father who was showing his son all our idols and reading out the mythologies. This is truly amazing! I take a bow.
I really hope everyday that India will also become as advanced as Singapore one day, soon, but still retain its own form and its simplicities and niceties.

Please don't conclude that this blog is devoted to ridiculing Singapore..it's just that this "unique" place makes me go into peals of laughter everyday, about something or the other. Here are some things that made me laugh for the past two days.

****Block supper and exam goodie bags.
Here hostels are called halls. Each hall is divided into a number of blocks. My hall is really blessed. Just go two levels above my room, and you can see my whole university and some of nearby Singapore too. Why they built this block atop a hill is something I can't understand. As I told in one of my previous blogs, many of my friends simply refuse to come up to my room, because of the mountain of stairs they have to climb. Un malaiya yeri un roomukku varathukku naan India poi thirupathi malai-ya yeralaam; punniyamaavadhu kidaikkum. Well, I don't blame them.
Ok, I'm digressing. Block supper.
These hall students' committees organize block suppers every month or so. I've never attended a single one because they don't have any vegetarian (also sensible veggie) food for me to eat. But yesterday was the last block supper for this year. So senti poattu, I attended this one and just stood about and chatted away as others happily ate. Boy, their juice also didn't taste good! Then they gave medals to some people(for what I didn't know..) and then we all went back.
Then one girl from the committee came to my room with two bags (ya, ya, they were goodie bags! :) )
"Hi...your roommate there or wad?"
"No..she's out"
"Ok la, these two exam goodie bags leh...give your roomie also eh? Gulluck (no brownie points for guessing it's goodluck) for exams! Oh i forget...inside there are 'suvvey' forms leh, about hall 9 la...please fill and put them on your door and we'll collect le..."
"ya, sure, goodluck to you too...goodnight!"
I closed the door and checked out the exam goodie bag. Cha! Last sem's exam goodie bag was much better.
This sem it had a huge box of ready to eat noodles (which I got to dump on someone), numerous discount forms for things ranging from hair salons to contact lenses to skating entry fee discounts.
Hmm..quite interesting.
Then,
"Heritage Jia Jia Liangteh Sugar Free Herbal Tea"
You need a very strong mind to drink this tea. It's more like the tea water thingy we get after straining the tea powder + water (ayyo.. I forgot what it's called...dicoction?)
Duh, nothing useful till now (ya, the survey form too...).
Hey, there's something else big and bright.
FHM magazine.
I thought it's a women's magazine.
Well, no...it was a men's magazine.
(No, no don't think otherwise, they gave it to me, I didn't ask for it!! )
Wah...what a book to read before the exams!!!
Think of an exam subject like this:
Paper: FHM and it's important lessons.
Time : 2 hours
Topics:
Singapore's 100 Hottest Girls Next Door
Thai bar dancers
FHM s** class




Questions:
1) Who features in the "Wet and Wild" section of FHM's October 2004 issue? (adapaavi! October 2004 issue-va!!! Dhrogi!!!)
2)Explain with reasons who is the hottest Singapore's next door girl
3)What do Thai girls talk about in the issue?



:))
I can't believe it!!!! lol....Is this some kind of incentive to get down the guys to study?
This exam goodie bag ultimately did not have anything related to exams, not even a pen.
I now looked at the survey form. Some drab questions, sidily giving me nice nice information about hall 9, trying to entice me into staying in this *damned* hall the next year also.
Poda, unga jambamellaam balikkaadhu!!!
I'd gone to the block supper with a bad headache.
After another two hours, it changed to stomach ache...sirichu sirichu vairu vallika aaramichudchu!

***SDU
SDU stands for Social Development Union. This is the the organization founded by Singapore Government to get more Singaporeans to date, fall in love and get married. Eppo indha velaiyellam government aaramichadho... see what SDU has become:
Sad, Desperate and Ugly.
ya, I know, it's such a sad situation that it has been termed thus.
Today, we saw a group of final year students from my school showing their project to us. The video showed us differing views of the SDU and many other issues like that.
I found it really funny that Singaporeans actually need an organization to monitor over them, arrange for dates, get them married and so on. Worse than this is the baby bonus. You have no idea how shocked I was to know that the Singapore government was giving married couples incentives to have more children.
$XXXXX for your first child, $XXXXX for the second child, $XXXXX for the third child, some more for the fourth child.
All these policies are announced on August 9 every year, which is Singapore's national day, when the PM addresses the nation.
I'm sure the next year, they'll fully agree to sponsor a child's education and health care costs if he is the fifth child!
Well, I personally feel that all this is quite a sad state of affairs - money for getting more children??
Immediately after this "baby bonus" scheme was announced, there was a flurry of discussions.
What can we do if youngsters simply don't want to get married?
The answer is simple.
Marriage Bonus!!!!
ya, these do exist, I'm not kidding. Youngsters get some incentives to buy a residential flat easier if they were married than if they were alone. Sounds like our tamil movies' house owners' conditions right?
I sometimes don't know what to do in a place like this. Best is to ignore and laugh it off. That seems to be rarely possible as teachers always turn to us international students for opinions on such policies.
"Vani, what do you think will the reaction if you go show this video to your friends in India?"
lol....it will be the best comedy video we've ever seen!
Hmm..I just realized this is a looo....ng post.
For those of you who reached till here, thanks!!!! :)

Ok, before any of you think this is a review of the latest PDA, let me tell you its not Personal Digital Assistant, but Public Display of Affection. ;)
Coming from quite a conservative place like Chennai, of course, Singapore would be like almost watching a "live" English movie for me. I stared in horror and surprise the first day as I watched couples all around happily embracing each other in the crowd. Absolutely no inhibition! In the beginning, God only knows why, I used to feel embarassed if people are doing "matter" anywhere around and I used to put my head down. Now, good, I've learnt to ignore it (or at least pretend to) and slyly pass comments to my friends around.
These people, oh man, exceed their limits most of the time. As you go around the university at night(well actually, any time of the day!), you will see so many couples so engrossed in talk, hands clasped together, and some extreme cases where the guy takes the girl around on his back (you know, the "Ponnumani" style ;) ) and I think "They can't get worse!!!"
Fine, man, the girl or guy is your life.... show it out to a certain extent....but think of the others in the road, enakkenna unga romance-ellam paakanumnu thalai ezhuthaa? Ozhunga ellathiyum silent-aa pannungalen! There are hardly any chapta girls here without a boy friend. And what I can't understand is why the boy thinks the girl can't survive without him. He holds her hand as he walks, and if any of us come in between, he puts their *joint* (for lack of a better word!) above us, or pulls her closer and does all in his power not to let her hand go. Oh my God! Such kiddish and irritating boyfriends!!Konja neram summa viduda!!
If at all I have a bf who does such nonsense I'll yell at him and ask him to leave me free for a while. Well, its another thing that I might say all this because I'm not in any such *silly, romantic* relationships now and might actually enjoy them if in one, but they seem to be hopelessly romantic, and I'd rather he be a guy who doesn't go about showing the world our relationship! Silence please!
This might be contrary to many of your beliefs, I'd like to know what all of you think also! Do let me know... all I can say is I don't know what I will do if I come to the U.S.....it should surely be worse, right? Oh Lord!

Reading the comments for my previous post, I realize that all that I can do at my best is to laugh away to tears. And this reminds me of my innumerable attempts to cook in my hall canteen and how I've still managed to survive.
It was only after I came here that I fully knew how to operate a microwave. So the first time I had to use it, I was bewildered at all those buttons they had, and took my Thai roomie along with me to the kitchen so that she'll be able to help me. All I had to do was to keep a vessel with rice in it for 11 minutes.
I listened carefully as Tutu(that's her name..) instructed me on what to do. I did as she told and right next to it, trying to peep in through the glass door and see what was happening : I found the whole idea funny and, actually cute, to see the vessel slowly turning inside.
"No, no, don't stand there", said Tutu. " you might catch the microwave radiations, and they might be really harmful..."
Oh my god, not what I wanted.
I stood elsewhere in the pantry. And Tutu soon had to leave, she couldn't wait for the whole 11 minutes with me.
And as she left, she said "Make sure you know where the fire extinguisher is, just in case"
Boy, I was scared and immediately rushed out. Thank God, Singaporeans were intelligent and had an extinguisher very near the pantry.
This was just the beginning of my cooking adventures.
All this while I had only used the microwave. Now, I had to try the gas stove once. I knew these things were automatic (man, what in Singapore ain't automatic??) and that I just had to turn the knob to light the stove. I do that, and whoa! the stove is lit with a bang... and louder than that was my heart beating so loudly.... you know, I've like never seen stoves getting lit by themselves, sounds quite scary!!!!
The next was to make maggi. I didn't have a pan so I couldn't use the stove and instead used a microwaveable vessel to put it in the oven for 2 minutes.
Darn!! The maggi was all done, but that 'water' part of it had flown out of the vessel and the microwave plate was fully drenched in maggi thanni. Enakku irukkara velai poraadhunnu oven-a vera clean pannindu irundhean, and guess, with what?? Tissue paper from the loo ! ;) ....theviya kadavule!!
But what beats the whole list of my kitchen adventures is the paratha experience. My friend and I bought a pack of onion parathas (those frozen, ready to eat ones) on a Friday, with great hopes of eating it on Saturday for dinner. Both of us didn't realize that these things have to be frozen ;) (namma levels ivalodhaan) . So we happily brought it on saturday to heat it in the oven and eat. There were 5 parathas, each with plastic coverings on both sides. We turned the pack to read the instructions.
'Heat for 5 mins' was all it said.
Good yaar, we thought, and opened the pack. The parathas in between the plastic coverings looked kinda melted. Ya they will be, we thought, realizing late that they have to be frozen and we didn't have a fridge. Never mind, just heat it for 5 mins.
We put the paratha with the plastic coverings (they should be microwave heat resistent, shouldn't they?) and set the time for 5 mins and left the pantry to go to the adjacent TV lounge. We were busy switching channels when we smelled a faint, burning smell.
Ah, can't be.
NO IT IS!!!!
We ran to the pantry only to find the oven smoking and coughing, and hurriedly switched it off. Opening the oven door(my hands were really shaking you know..) we saw the paratha black and karugified, with the *microwaveable* plastic covering melted and all over it. it took 20 minutes for this mess to cool and almost an hour for us to clean it. We had to scrape the nonsense out with spoons, forks and knives and the oven actually smelled of our burnt paratha for months after the episode.
As you might have guessed, I never tried making parathas again.
We managed to eat the remaining four parathas after almost an hour again.. cooking these required a lot of work, hunting around for a pan, scraping the parathas stuck to the plastic sheet, rolling them into a ball, flattening them, heating them etc. etc. etc.
Well, looking at all this I can confidently say I'm "cooking" much better now...I can make maggi properly in a pan(though it never gets cooked in 2 mins. all promotional gimmicks, man!!!), know what to and what not to keep in an oven, etc. Good, I'm pleased with myself! I'm in a much better position now than what I was before coming here: running away from the kitchen at home if amma is thalicchufying kadugu or doing a whole jazz dance when I had to seive maida(it's just me that shakes, not the seive), or taking one hour to cut those boiled potatoes to pieces.
But I'm sure many of you will agree, only people like me will become the best cooks later in life!
Vani V invites you all for dinner, will serve maggi and pickle. Game?

Most of my friend-girls often wonder how I can be so. They even call me hard hearted at times. And I do feel like agreeing with them, but no, you don't have to agree, says the other me. You're just not being a sentimental *fool*, it says. (you'll get to hear a lot of what the "other me" says....)
Well, all this is in reference to how I react to an emotional movie or book. While most of my friends shed a tear or two or at least choke, I sit with no emotion.
"How, Vani.." they ask, "how can you sit like an emotionless being?"
I just laugh.
It's quite a surprise to them that I don't cry for emotional scenes in a movie or a book(in fact I sometimes go to the extent of laughing looking at some guy emoting!!). There've been many instances of my friends reacting (or can I say over-reacting) for some situations, let me give you one example. My dear friend Sandhya(read her blogs at http://thedreamydryad.blogspot.com), the one who made my dream of blogging a kind of reality(I was too lazy till she started one and gave me inspi) burst into tears as she watched Harry Potter and the Sorcerer's Stone movie, as she was so happy to see Harry on screen. (I hope all this is true Sandy!)
All my friends also recollect of how they silently shed tears as Di Caprio froze( ;) ) in the sea in Titanic, and I told them I didn't really feel much, except that they made a cute guy like him die!!
I also remember lending one of my friends the book "Little Women" in my 8th class. She read the book before me and returned it to me saying that it made her cry like mad and her people at home were shocked that she was crying so much for a book.
I was thrilled. I hurriedly started reading the book, but damn, the book got over before it could give me an opportunity to cry. I asked her later what she cried.
"What!! I wept when Beth was dying.." she said.
Oh, that wasn't much, not enough to make you cry at least.
And this really made me think if I was actually hard hearted, because the friend I had given the book to wasn't one who'll cry for such stuff.
Well, it just feels nice to be one girl who won't cry for the things that others cry for, but at times I feel so sad that I'm not like them, not like them in the girlish sense. This, coupled with frequent comments from home that I should've been born a boy (Oh my God... NO!!!!) make me reflect on whether I'm actually boyish.
Nowadays I've even stopped thinking of all that. I enjoy being myself so much that I don't care if I'm boyish or girlish. I'm a great mixture of both, being more of one at one time than the other. Maybe the idea that it's just a movie or a book and that the things I see don't really exist is firmly rooted in my mind!!!!
I love me, and that's great to feel! But not to high and psychic levels to be a narcissist!!!
Hey, is someone shedding tears of happiness for me?? :D

It's been 2 days since I had proper food.
Yesterday I was outside the whole day for a talentime as one of the organizing committee and was in Orchard with no Indian or vegetarian food. So what else, go to Burger King, eat french fries. This was lunch and dinner.
Today, near the same place as yesterday covering an event. Same lunch. Thank god, I'm back in the room so I can make dinner!!!
Whoa! Being veggie here is difficult!
Yaara enakku oru nalla saapadu kudungalen... FREE-YA!!! ;) (seri, seri, venumnaa $3 tharaen, aana naan kettadhellam irukkanum..)

DAV... The very name at once conjures up visions of a super grey building, a huge banyan tree, the grey uniforms, assemblies, and my most important and familiar feeling of looking at the whole thing from behind, the appointees' line, in the assembly. Four years as house captain gave me trouble, but more than that, unbeatable fun.
The school split us into 4 different houses when we reached sixth class. It was really exciting. All of us madly went about promoting our own house, mine being the great Shivaji. The other three were Bharathi, Tagore and Pratap, the last being almost Shivaji's sworn enemy. This classification was basically for the various intra school competitions and the sports day activities. It was great fun to take part in all these activities and I always used to look up at the house captain with awe, almost holding her as my idol. And, sure enough, it soon became my most fervent prayer and dream to become one when I reached the IX class.
Good for me and my enthusiasm, I was made one and my joy knew no bounds. I started with the work with full zest and josh, only to be hampered and slowed down soon by the way Shivaji began to lose. I was aghast and began to cry out loudly one day when Shivaji was unfairly(no, really, it was unfair!!!) given the third place in an amazingly made and enacted hindi drama. And that was also when I really started to mature and learnt how to accept defeat and gained a lot of mental strength. No wonder, it's pretty difficult to make me cry! (Touchwood! :) )
Not just the maturing part of it was nice, captaincy also gave us a lot of fun. Our IX class was situated right above the Principal's office and IX C was very famous for its rowdyish behaviour. There was one lunch break when a huge, ugly looking lizard went about the class room creating havoc. Obviously, little, dainty girls of 14 years will be scared of lizards! And as the whole class roared and screamed, and ran helter skelter, the 3 captains from the class (that includes me too!) hurriedly climbed up the benches to save ourselves from the impending (disaster). God only knows why IX C got such a location, but the class was also strategically situated next to the PT room (the PT teachers' staff room) and the loo for the floor. Sure enough, PT teachers came running to see what the riot was all about. Some girl mustered enough courage to tell her that there was a lizard about in the room. The teacher was, well, freaked.
"Where are the captains?", she screamed.
And three weak hands went up among the 40 heads, all on desks.
All teachers were very upset that 3 captains were scared of lizards! "We should have chosen better captains!", they said, shaking their heads in disapproval, as the three of us stood (our heads lowered, we had to show them a sense of shame, though the 3 of us wanted to burst out laughing thinking of what all the captains were expected to do: chase lizards out of the class?)
Things got better in X as we didn't have to do the major work for the activities as it would be taken care of by our IX class juniors. But X C, my class, made sure we were caught for something even then. It's ok, it was too good fun.
I was appointed captain again in XI again, and this time Shivaji improved tremendously well in activities. Things were great for me as I marched carrying a banner with SHIVAJI in huge bold letters and marched during the sports day. (We got first in march past, now, what do you think of my marching skills? It's a surprise they retained me as the house captain coz I was bad, no, terrible in sports!!!)And in XII, the work of the captains was (degraded) to the most possible limit, as we went and opened gates for chief guests, swept the floors, dusted the windows, etc. etc. The sad thing was that the Principal always turned to us if there was something wrong. The nice thing was that 3 years of experience made us all maratthufied to the thittu and we learnt how to laugh it off. On the rare occassions it was actually taken note of seriously, the effect of the thittu was lost in a couple of days and XII A, my class, soon went back to its old ways.
It's all extremely good in a way, I can now thangify almost any thittu, stand shocks, know crisis management (especially after many times of finding a replacement when that girl ditched in the last minute!) and well, managing a group of uncivilised animals (that's my school mates). And all these qualities surely help in life!!!

It all started with 12 midnight of March 1, 2005. Now my legs are tired, my hands refuse to co-operate. But my mind says write, and thankfully my hands have agreed.
Today is a batch mate's birthday and as was the university Indian Gangs' custom, all of us met in the garden to give him the "sabo" ( a better name for birthday bumps, etc.). Happily we caked him, guys kicked him to their hearts' satisfaction, and by the time I returned to my room it was 1-45. And an 8-30 class in the morning.
"Six hours of sleep should be fine, " I convinced myself and slept.
Sadly it was at 8-45 that I got up. The first lecture would've started.
I dragged my feet and got ready for the 10 o' clock class, wide awake and finally fresh.
It was over after what seemed eons and we got ready to start our video shooting for our project. The scene was one where I had to doze off during the lecture (man, it should've been shot during the lecture for better effect!) And now that I was wide awake, I had to fall asleep with great difficulty.
Next was the canteen scene where I had to walk with sleep again, and groan at the long queues for food. Boy, what a trouble this was! First I had to evade the poor people who were distributing flyers for various programmes, then chase away so many people who knew me and found all the time in the world to tell me a Hi!, and finally prevent people from walking past when we were shooting. It again took ages to shoot the scene after fulfilling all these requirements. After that, it was to go stand in the long queue for food. Boy, the queue was getting short and soon the ever flowing canteen looked so empty and not-so-suited for our video. So abandon this and come back tomorrow and repeat the whole procedure again. Adding to my already-high irritation, my friends kept smiling and asking "What's happening here?" and kept laughing all the while when I was trying to stare at the canteen with horror(at seeing it so full). Refraining from laughing and getting ready to shoot was already an ordeal for me, and these people added fuel to the fire.
Yeah, so this scene didn't come out as expected, so has to be done again tomorrow. Now, the scene was where I had to run to my school from the canteen as I had realized that I was late (as usual!) for project discussion (Oh God, there's surely more to life than projects! Projects within a project!!!) And this required me to actually run. So I kept running back and forth, much to my dismay, as my team mates struggled to turn the camera to my running speed(not that I run so fast, just that they couldn't turn the camera that quickly!) or cut off my head into half, with the result that my eyes and forehead were nowhere in the picture. After running here and there for about 12 times, we decided to go elsewhere.
The video shoot was proving to be some kind of AXN's Amazing Race competition for me. Every step was proving to be more difficult than the previous. Now it was to run and climb a flight of 15 stairs. This was thankfully, quite fast. To compensate for all this, the next one came up.
I had to climb up a flight of about 40 stairs, pause a while for breath and then run up more stairs again. My super-talented-amazingly-brainy team mates pushed the camera up so much as I was climbing up that the camera was shooting the rain clouds and weak sun instead of me. Again, after about 6 or 7 shots, they decided I'd had enough and we proceeded to the next scene.
Some more scenes of confusion and looking at the map followed. Finally, the scene was to show me horribly depressed and walking with dragging feet, in the rain. With a white sweat shirt and its hood over my head, I looked quite a funny scene, trying to be depressed and frustrated. Though I was tired, I couldn't show the emotion, as everytime I heard the "1, 2, 3 and go!" I burst out laughing.
Thankfully we decided to wind up for the day.
I just know now how tough it is to shoot a movie. Of course, the people involved might all be experienced or trained unlike us, but just look at the amount of effort that should go in to produce a 3 hour movie while we struggling our lives out to produce a movie for 2 1/2 minutes!!!!
And I knew another thing today.
I shouldn't ever try to act in front of a camera! :)
Whew, what a day!!!!!