I peeped into the living room, shyly, as Ma called out to me.
'Come, Minu, tell Uncle hi...'
I bashfully crept up and hid behind my mom, tugging at her saree pallu. I peeked out from behind her and smiled at the man who was a new uncle at home.
I had never seen this man before, in my 6 years of life.
He took out a box of colour pencils from his bag and stretched his hand toward me. 'These are for you, Minakshi,' he said and handed them to me.
I took the box - it had 24 colours! I then mumbled thanks, still suspicious of this new relative. Who was he? Why had I never seen him before?

'Colour something and show uncle,' said Ma. I wondered why she was referring to him as 'uncle' and not 'mama' or 'chitappa'.
I nodded and went to my room and tore a page from my school drawing note, and then remembering I would later have to ask Ma to stitch the pages together (again) as the pages were coming apart because I'd torn a page.
I drew a butterfly, what I was an expert in drawing. A big one. Bright, beautiful wings. I used each of the 24 colours in the pack.
I ran out into the living room where 'uncle' was. I showed him the picture.

'Beautiful!', he cried in appreciation. I looked at Ma. She smiled approvingly.
'Oh, Lakshmi,' he said, ' I need to make an ISD call, where can I make one?'
'The booth is at the end of the 3rd street from here,' said Ma. She then noticed the confusion in uncle's eyes.
'Maybe Minu can take you?'
'Of course. Will you, Minu?'
I looked at Ma, wondering how she could let me go with this stranger, 3 streets away from home. She nodded, as if reading my mind, telling me 'It is safe. Go with him.'
I couldn't believe my ears. She was letting me go with some stranger! What if he kidnapped me, or worse still, wanted to hurt me?
I had not much choice now. I ran to the door, and shyly called 'Uncle!'

He got up and came with me. I took him to the shop where I waited inside the booth and watched the little fan getting stuck and working again, while he spoke on the phone. Whenever the fan got stuck, I used a cone made of a flyer in the booth and twirled the fan around, and it would work again.
He was done. We walked out of the booth, and he paid the bill. Then, noticing me wistfully looking at the jar of toffees and candies, he asked if I wanted a Dairy Milk.
'No!' I vehemently answered, worried about the consequences at home. (Ma would scold me for eating it without offering Somu, my elder brother, still at school)
'Sure?' he asked. I nodded.

He then went over to the counter and spoke to the man with brown teeth there.
And as I looked, 'uncle' got a cigarette and lit in a box with a switch nearby. He drew in, and a ring of smoke came tumbling out. I immediately choked, and coughed. I pinched my nose to block out the smell.
He held out his hand. 'Let's go.'

I looked at him. He held out his left hand, still smoking with the cigarette in the other.
I just turned and ran with all my strength.
'Minu, Minu, wait!!' I could hear him yelling.
Overcome with fear, I ran even faster. This man was out there to kill me. I ran until I reached home and hid in the safety of my mother's arms, while she wondered why I was panting, and where 'uncle' had gone.

Remember I wrote a post with a happy It's-sunny-again feeling? Darn, it's raining in this wretched place again. I've been in room all day, not even stepping beyond my corridor to go to the canteen, managing lunch with damned Maggi. And now that it's dinner time, I'm wondering if I can even go out and find decent food.

It's been raining ever since I woke up at 7 in the morning and nodded off to sleep again. It was still raining at 10 when I switched off the alarm, in a vain attempt to wake up 'early'. It was still raining when I finally got up at 12 30, and ever since. How, really, how, can it rain in a place like this? My first December in Singapore, and the rains have been really pissing off.

Went to Sentosa yesterday to show my cousin around. We were ushered at 6 for the magical fountain laser show at 7 40. Gosh, the place was so crowded it looked like a cricket stadium in India during a ODI. Wily pushcart sellers sold ice creams at exorbitant prices which we were forced to buy out of boredom of waiting, for the simple reason the authorities wouldn't let us out of the arena. The show was good as usual, and was really nostalgic of my first month in Singapore, when our seniors took our entire batch to Sentosa.

Otherwise, the beach was as usual, useless. My cousin's first reaction on seeing the water was 'Hey, idhu thaengina thanni, beach illa!!' (It's stagnant water, not a beach!), and I couldn't disagree with her. There was the (I'd say fake) 'Southernmost point of continental Asia' where one 'island' was connected to another 'island' by a swing bridge (and below the bridge was the thaengina thanni) and we went there only to discover that technically, the southernmost point was another tiny island in the sea. Ok, I know I'm confusing - welcome to dear Singapore!!

Christmas eve's outing was a lot of fun. We first went to Boat Quay for dinner, then went on a boat in the Singapore river, seeing Singapore's 'sights' - the Merlion, Esplanade, you know, the usual touristy blah. Though quite ashamed I'm seeing it in my third year here, I was relieved I'd finally 'lived the experience'. After that, we were treated to amazing Haagen-Dazs ice cream - oh dear God, heavenly!!! I then went to a Midnight Mass for Christmas - my first ever. The church was extremely simple, and that was surprising! I had expected a more cheery, brightly decorated church, but this one was down-to-earth simple and sober. I listened to whatever was read out with not much idea of what was going on - but the nice thing was I could understand everything that was said for the simple reason it was in English! 'Twas nice!

Goodness, it's 8 pm already. Canteens would be closing down, and the rain shows no signs of stopping. My late night walk plans will be foiled, I know. I should find some dinner.
Oh yeah, belated Merry Christmas, guys!!

I stopped short on my tracks. Looking at the nearly-clear, rainless sky, I saw, for the first time in Singapore, a beautiful sky - the most beautiful one I have ever seen here. Brilliant, bright stars, and a naughty one twinkling and smiling at me! I kept looking up and walking, mindless of where I was going.
Who made the universe so beautiful???
Thanks, Corbis, for the picture.

After two days of endless rain in Singapore (third highest ever recorded, triggering floods and landscapes - ouch! Can Singapore stand it?), it's finally a bright and sunny day.
I woke up at 8 and looked around the room. I could actually see sunlight streaming in!! Thrilled, I decided to sleep for longer to celebrate the sun's outing after 2 miserable, depressing days.
And then, they come.
It's not the first time I write about these guys (Even in my year 1, here! and a couple of casual references here and there), but it's a wonder they make me write about them again and again. The guys mowing the grass.
Funny, in year 1, I thought they were cleaning it :P

These guys promptly come only when I'm sleeping, be it early morning, afternoon or evening. The point is (not that I sleep all day) but that they come when I'm sleeping. Nothing can block out the noise and I woke up with a dull gritting headache this morning. I wish I could record the noise and play it so you can hear for yourself how annoying it is, and wish why they can't just leave the grass as it is. And, the whole ceremony goes on for hours, that I can't hear the music my comp is playing, when my phone rings or if I have dropped something. The men are right below my window..unfortunately for me, they are a whole floor below, but I seriously wouldn't mind finding my lost window grille key, opening the window and jumping out to pull that noisy machine out of their hands and breaking it.
I wish! That's all I could do. Right now I can only grit my teeth and live with it for a few minutes.

Wait... they've stopped!
Now I realise my music's been blaring so I can hear it over the noise.
I suddenly feel like some noise going all my life has stopped.

Chal.
Chal.
Chal.


I smile to myself, glow inside every time I hear the noise. It's ages since I wore an anklet. Oh, rather, it's the first time! (I've never worn just one!!)
And I'm just like this little girl, looking at my right leg from time to time, and grinning!
I feel like a lady!

Well, colds don't really stop some people! So the author didn't care, got out, drank cold orange juice and got better!! She has hardly been around in her room since Monday, this week being the one when she's been out all day, every day of the week, and has spent shocking amounts in travel, that she has to make promises to self about keeping her expenditures tight.
So, on Tuesday went she with two friends to a place called MacRitchie Reservoir for a 'Tree top walk.'
Now, the tree top walk seemed to be an extremely interesting idea, as one has to walk many kilometres into the forest (yup, Singapore has forests!!!!) and reach the suspension bridge that goes above the trees.
The website promised some very interesting sights, including extremely beautiful fauna, flora, blah, blah. Author got wildly excited to see beautiful plants, and got ready at 7 in the morning to leave.
A journey of almost 2 hours including one in a random bus going randomly through random parts of Singapore finally ended when the horrid bus spat the three of us out near the jungle. And there began the walk.
They were welcomed!!!


The three walked past them and found that they'd not walked into the forest, but back into the main road. Author thinks some of these creatures might have even laughed.



Not letting such starts deter them, they walked on....



... past confusing sign boards, past hopes of food for three starving souls, and reached the flight of stairs leading to the suspension bridge...






To the bridge, ahoy!! The beholder of stunning sights, flowers, plants and rare creatures!

















Oh, the bridge is in sight!!!
























Ah, here comes the bulb... the bridge is like looking from the third floor of an apartment! The trees are barely tall!!
(Now, now, don't be cheated by the picture, the angle may make the trees look taller!)















There... (meaning, theeee....ere), the water you see is the water in the reservoir!! Check out the view, whoa!









Well, alright, it wasn't as bad, but still wasn't as expected. Slightly disappointed, but still enthusiastic, author and her sleepy friends drudge on, walking on slippery, rocky, hilly grounds training army men (whom the author saw and found amusing too!)....



... and got hopelessly lost.
Finally, one of the trio walked up to some army man and asked him for directions. And guess what, they had to walk 5.5 km to reach the damned 'exit'!!!
Starving, tired, sleepy, they kept walking, finally reaching a 'map' (those misleading maps they have in MacRitchie, take the author's word, never trust them!!)
The trail the author and her friends took weren't even visible in the map, God knows where all they had walked!


Worst part about walking in a 'forest' is when you realise you're right next to civilization, but have to keep away because it's 'Private property - do not trespass'...
Golfers, get a life!



Author wonders how a 'fence' separates civilization (a golf course, that is!) from forest, and how the separation means hours away from food!








God showed some grace... 250 m to the main road!!! See that clearing? That's the bloody main road!!!
Author was so tired and jumping with joy, that she didn't take any more pictures. Whew, what a trip!!!!
PS: People viewing the blog in Firefox may have some skewed pictures - pardon me, I got tired of trying to rearrange and making them look better!

Young ladies shouldn't catch colds. At least not when exams are over and it's time to eat ice creams, get wet in the rain and go to beaches and play in the water.
Achhooo!
Excuse me.

Guess what started curing my cold? A few sips of heavenly cold orange juice!! :) Reverse medication or something?

(A little entry inspired by a little spider who crawled on my notebook, while I was studying)

It took me a while to realize that the little grey thing moving on my notebook was not my imagination, but a spider. Scarily tiny, he looked so fragile.
My first impulse was to blow him off the paper. But I stopped myself, for he was more interesting to study than impact of globalisation on news reporting. He walked a bit, then paused. Walked. Paused. It looked as though he was searching for something in the vast forest of blue and black lines on paper. A place to spin a web, maybe? He should've been disappointed.
He never quit, though. Just when he had finished traveling the entire length of an A4 sheet, he started again in the diagonally opposite direction. His tenacity fascinated me - what did he want?
Just then, I sneezed.
I opened my eyes. He was nowhere to be seen. Futility of existence - his or mine?

Whew, finally. No more exams for at least a year! (Refer to last post for explanation.)
The exam on 'Information Visualization and Perception' was one of the funniest I've ever written in university. After having spent days preparing for it, I felt like how I used to in Class XI or XII, having no clue what I've studied, my mind foggy all over.
I proudly claimed 2 chapters weren't important - and guess, there were questions worth 50 marks (i.e. half of the marks allotted to the paper - I almost shrieked in the exam hall!!) from just those two chapters!! :O
Thankfully, the questions had some clue on what they were asking (err.. didn't I tell she was a bit, erm, you know!), you know, like 'What are the 3 primary colours? Explain with special importance to red, blue and yellow. (I mean, those are the answers!!)' Those kinds. So I made up answers based on these 'explain with reference to..' and so on. Fabrication, I can say, but basically it's all crap.
Turns out studying mass communication and the ability to write crap in blogs really helps. My answers were bloody correct! No, I don't claim to have intelligence that I can even answer questions from chapters I have no clue about, but it was luck, sheer luck. I even had no clue what I was answering (from my example, I wouldn't know what primary colours are, but just would know red, blue and yellow), so I have no idea how well I managed to connect the answer to the main topic. Oh well, who cares now.. I'm done, and I think it was ok. Looking at the faces of others taking the exam, I guess I was fine!
I had German yesterday, which was quite insignificant and even boring, that I just finished the paper and left early. I mean, it was fun to sit and recite lines like Kindergarten kids in level 1, but it got boring in level 2. I hope I sustain enough interest in the language to finish it with level 3 in my final year.
So, what now? I made the horrible mistake of watching 'Vallavan' yesterday after I got back. I'd already watched parts of the movie, and watched the last one hour yesterday. I think I have to reserve an entire post to bash up that idiot and how Tamil cinema has to really shake him up and ask him to be sensible in his characterization.
I just woke up after 9 1/2 hours of sleep, compensating for all those hours I lost out doing my projects during the semester. Sigh, feels good, now! I hope it lasts long and I don't feel really bored very soon!
To all guys writing exams, good luck, rock them!

Ever felt teachers/lecturers have no idea what they're teaching you? Oh well, I'm sure some of you feel that all the time.
For the first time after high school, I started studying a subject having no idea what on earth it talks about - Information Visualisation and Perception, which I took on as a General Elective. Now don't ask me why I took such a boring subject - the course description during subject registration cheated me. The description said that we'll study meanings of symbols or words in visualising information. Going by how much I love meanings and my interest in analysing what a word or visual is doing in this context, I registered for the subject - only to realise that the information they were talking about was the engineering information - damn it! And here I am, staring at powerpoint slide after slide, wondering what on earth the lecturer was thinking when she put these totally unconnected slides one after the other. Of the 15 lectures that were offered, I would have attended 5! Not that attending really makes a difference, because she puts on a microphone and mumbles whatever she's written on the slide.
Gosh, why are some people so bad at what they do? Why not instead do something they're good at? I'm sure this lecturer is brilliant with her research (maybe why my univ decided to take her in..) but she really has to learn how to teach!
Two more days to freedom from studies and exams for a whole year! My next sem is going to be completely devoted to a 6-month internship. Maybe I should enjoy writing exams, as I won't be doing so for another year! :D
I'm busy figuring out what to do for the December vacation I'm going to spend here - damn, I'm really going to miss home, India, Chennai, Ahmedabad and my cute neighbour kid! But I'm gonna be here for the famed Singapore Christmas! Let's see how it is..
Now that was enough entertainment for 15 minutes.
By the way, listened to Guru? Man, it's brilliant! A R Rahman rocks, totally!!!! Cheers!

Mina sighed happily, looking at her new gleaming fountain pen. For the umpteenth time, she turned it upside down, and saw the ink flowing and collecting at the other end of the ink barrel. She opened her new pencil case and placed it carefully inside, away from the two pencils, eraser (pencil and ink), sharpener and ruler.

As she excitedly looked forward to her first day in school of writing with a pen, her mother fervently prayed to God for all to go well.

Decked in a dashing white uniform, neatly braided hair, and new white canvas shoes, Mina kissed her mom goodbye and got into the school van.

When Mina reached school, she ran to meet her friends, all of whom were showing off their fountain pens to each other. Her pen elicited a ‘Oooh’ from her friends, who obviously found it impressive – it had a transparent body, was lavender in colour, and had a silver nib, while all of theirs’ had golden nibs.

Well, everyone seemed to realise it was a big day for the class III students of the school. Class V akkas and annas wished them good luck, while class IV ‘Seniors’ had a smug What’s-the-big-deal look. Teachers let the students clap for each other at the beginning of each lesson, and all students were extremely eager to write something even on the first day of school. Some students even insisted on writing the bio-data themselves, and ended up getting scolded for doing so. Mina was a well-behaved girl throughout, and secretly giggled with joy every time the nib smoothly flowed on the lined notebook paper.

Well, all did go fine till 2 pm in the afternoon, during the Social Studies class. The SST Ma’am had obliged to dictate something to them so that they could all write with their fountain pens, and was explaining the beginnings of the Mughal Empire by the side. At the end of the hour, just before the P.T. class began, Mina realised something cold on her left shoulder.

She looked, and to her utmost horror, found a large ink blotch on her left sleeve, a big, blue, ugly stain. As she came back to her senses after staring it for almost half a minute in unbearable agony thinking of what her mother would say, she turned back to see what was causing the stain, which was still spreading.

Somu had dozed off!!! The idiot had left his pen open in his right hand, which was stretched across his desk and reached Mina’s shirt sleeve.

‘Idiot!’ yelled Mina.
The whole class looked at her, shocked. SST Ma’am interrupted.
‘Mina, that’s a bad thing to say! Say sorry at once!’ she said.
‘I won’t! I won’t, I won’t!’ screamed Mina, in a blind rage of tears. ‘Look what he has done to my shirt!’
Somu was still sleeping, oblivious to the happenings. Vatsav, who was sitting next to him, nudged him awake. ‘Dei, get up da, ma’am is going to scold you!’

Somu woke up finally, dazed. Even before he could say anything, a fist came flying at his face from front.
He gasped. So did the whole class.
Mina had hit him – big mistake.

For when Somu woke up, he was terribly angry. Huge for his age, hitting him wasn’t something anyone would really want to do. Mina’s rage seemed to have confounded her senses as well.
When Somu stood up, though, Mina didn’t cower. She was completely ready to continue the fight. Just as she was about to grab him by his collar, the teacher interrupted.
‘Enough is enough! I shall not tolerate such behaviour in my class. Mina, get out of the class and stand there!’

Right then, the class bell rang. The whole class, as though the bell was the gong that woke them up, shook themselves off the whole episode and ran out to the grounds to play. SST Ma’am made sure Mina didn’t punch Somu on the way to the grounds, and even went and reported the incident to the PT Teacher.

It so happened that the PT Teacher like Mina more than Somu. Being the kind hearted woman she was, she let them play too, even though SST Ma’am had vehemently told her it wasn’t a good idea.
Oh, if only she knew. Within minutes of start of the class, Somu came and pulled Mina’s plaits in revenge. Mina ran forward and kicked him hard in his shin. In another two minutes, the two were on the ground, pulling each other’s hair, and kicking and punching, screaming all the while. It took the good natured PT Teacher almost five minutes to realise a commotion was going on – she was thinking a game was going on when a circle had formed in a corner of the ground with the children screaming ‘Go, go, go!’

She came running when she realised it was a fight, and dragged the two warring kids apart. Both were hurt and bleeding – Somu in his legs and elbows, Mina in her ankles, elbows and palms. By the time they got their first aid dressing, the bell rang and it was time for them to go home. The Head Mistress’ yelling was reserved for the next day.

When Mina reached home that evening, her mother nearly fainted of shock. The uniform didn’t just have the blue stain from the fountain pen on its left sleeve, a part of the right sleeve was torn, the shirt and skirt were brown from rolling in mud.
The next day, the Head Mistress issued a note to all parents advising them not to give their children pens to write with until the school management decided it was time to do so.

Bright, mystical and classy. Just the way I like it.
Yup, it needs a lot of editing to make it what I want, but how is it? :)

... I'm back.
After weeks of back-breaking work, tension, project meetings, interviews, lows more than highs, confidence-threatening situations, I can't say I've come out unscathed. Life is tough! Glad as I am that I'm able to take it all in pretty well, I wish I could go a step higher and be calmer, and not think of unnecessary things and situations. I find myself worrying sick sometimes, until I just shake myself up and say that when some things aren't in your hands, there's no point worrying yourself over them.

Unceremonious rants with my friends and parents when I contradict myself to the greatest extents possible ('I'm scared I'll be disappointed, but I know there's no point in being scared that I'll be disappointed; it's not in my hands, but yeah, it is in my hands considering I should try to not to let this affect me' - that's just a sample!) just show how foggy my mind is at the moment. Well, at the end of such monologues I just end up laughing wondering how I could get this crazy!

I keep thinking of all that I told my interviewer - that I'm optimistic, and never let difficulties bog me down - and wow, how much this helps in putting me back on track! At the end of it all, hope wins. As I wait with bated breath for something that could make or mar my confidence, I also desperately try by the side to make sure whatever happens, I don't lose hope or the trust in myself. After all, who knows me more than I do; somebody's judgment should have no effect!

I know, again, it's one of those senseless posts - I just wanted to vent everything running in my mind right now. I should be feeling much better by the end of this week, or by the end of the day, rather. Let's see what future holds in store for me. After all, everything happens for a reason - and the reason will be good!

P.S.: Thanks all, for still seeing what I'm up to..this is the longest ever break I've taken from blogging, and I can see what it's done to me - I missed it dearly!

Never sleep at odd hours, always says mom. Alas, for how much heed we pay to those simple, yet numerous things mothers keep saying!
1:36 am on early Friday morning, here I am, typing a blog post. A cup of hot, steaming Milo sitting on my desk, my table lamp on, soft songs playing in the background, ‘Life of Pi’ open and spread on its front, and a drawing block which just plainly stares back at me.
Waking up after a weirdo three-hour-headache-prompted-funny sleep, I have lost orientation. My music had been on all through my sleep, and I wonder how many times the songs played in a loop. Interesting.

I am suddenly full of energy and enthusiasm, to do what, I don’t know. I walk out of my room to make Milo, and I find people in the TV room studying. I am inspired even more, and I rush back and take up my drawing block to think of ideas. New ideas, supposed-to-be-creative ads for a portfolio to be shown to people who could possibly employ me for the next 6 months. Bah, nothing. After all, creativity begins with a blank paper and pencil.
I am wide awake, in the mood for everything from taking a walk in the lovely orange-hue filled campus, or simply sitting in the bus stop and staring at the rich, creamy moon – she is just beautiful!

Totally random, I know.. but excuse me for the fact that I woke up just ten minutes ago and am still wondering if it is Saturday instead of Friday. Dreamy, disoriented, and bursting with enthusiasm which will probably go unheeded and unused.
Never sleep at odd hours, they say.

.... it's been 20 years!!! :)

Mrinalini finished unwrapping all the presents her friends and cousins had given her. They ranged from dolls to clothes to make-up accessories. The usual stuff given to girls. God, she thought, why can’t people think of different things to give a girl who’s just turned 21?

21, the number suddenly flashed across her mind. Twenty-one, she said aloud. I’m 21. The age when one is a proper adult. When one can vote, in many countries around the world. ‘Pennin thirumana vayadhu,’ (a girl’s right marriage age) according to autorickshaws in Chennai. An all important age, when the girl suddenly gives way to a lady with her new dreams, goals and life.

Then it struck her. I’m 21, so I can now ask them, she thought.
She slept that night thinking of how she will phrase the whole thing and tell her parents.
The next morning, she woke up at 6 30, giving her enough time to get ready well ahead of time for the college bus to come. She went to the kitchen to get her coffee and entered the living room.

Appa was sitting with The Hindu in one hand and steaming hot coffee in the other. An AIR morning kutcheri was playing in the background. Amma was muttering Aditya Hridayam under her breath. Her younger brother Nakul was busy practising for his math exam the next day.
Mrinalini quickly gulped down her coffee and cleared her throat.
‘Appa, amma, I want to ask you something.’

Appa looked up from his newspaper. Amma came out of the kitchen, ladle in hand. Her lips still kept moving in silent prayer.
‘I have given this a lot of thought,’ began Mrinalini, ‘almost five years, to be exact…’ and her eyes darted to her mother, whose mind she could precisely read. She would be fervently praying that it was not about some guy whom Mrinalini claimed she was in love with, whom she would want to marry. As her mother’s eyes widened, Mrinalini began again.
‘No amma, there is no guy, don’t worry.’
Her mother was visibly relieved. She shook her head and wiped her brow with the edge of her saree pallu, giving a ‘girls-these-days’ look.

‘Appa, remember, on my 16th birthday, I had asked you to start giving me pocket money?’
Her father stared back at her.
‘Hmm.. what about it now?’
‘And you had said that you would give me a substantial amount when I’m a grown up girl?’
Her father continued looking at her, expressionless.
‘Now that I am 21, I want that substantial amount of money.’

Her father removed his glasses and put them on the table, vigorously rubbing his eyes to take off the strain.
‘What do you want to do with the money?’ he asked her.
Mrinalini braced herself. This was it. She took a deep breath.
‘I am going to invest it. With Aditya, my classmate, you do remember him, don’t you? He is planning to start a consultancy firm. He is willing to start it with me in partnership. You know, I can really put into use whatever I have learnt. With a little money from you and his parents, we can apply for a bank loan for entrepreneurial businesses, and start up. You do not know, but we have most of the plans ready. The required capital has been calculated, we have contacts, the building to have our office (Aditya’s cousin has arranged it)… almost everything is arranged, appa. I can take half the amount you’ll give as a loan, and we can repay it with interest, as you wish. It’s now up to you to keep your promise.’
She breathed again, having spoken so much in one breath.

Amma stared at Mrinalini, open-mouthed. Appa rubbed his chin thoughtfully. Nakul had put down his pen and books and eagerly studied the situation – it seemed extremely interesting.
Appa spoke.
‘Hmm.. how much do you need?’
Mrinalini cleared her throat and loudly announced: ‘4 lakhs, appa.’

Appa looked at her, then at Nakul, and finally at his wife.
All the three burst out laughing, Nakul clutching his stomach and rolling on the floor, dropping his books in the process.
Amma put her hand to her mouth and continued to laugh in her ladylike manner. Appa, on the other hand, had put his paper down and was heartily laughing, his hands occasionally rising up, as if thanking God for the ability to laugh things out.
After what seemed ages, with Mrinalini staring at her family members laughing in maniacal proportions, appa spoke again.
‘Child,’ he said, ‘go inside and take a bath. You don’t have much time left before the college bus comes.’
He wiped tears off his eyes and still quietly chuckled.
Amma went back to the kitchen, quite relieved.
Nakul went back to his work, after a few short but some of the most entertaining moments in his life.
Mrinalini went back to her room and sat on her bed, brooding.
Damn, she thought. 21 isn’t a great age when people start respecting you, after all.

P.S.: Slightly inspired by the fact that my dear friend turns 21 today. Happy Birthday, I.!! Don't know what you've been wanting so much in life, girl, but hope you get everything you want this year!
P.P.S.: Here it comes. Don't know how much you enjoyed it or how good it is, but I tremendously enjoyed writing it, spending so much time on a story after a long time.

Ever felt so bored that you just opened a tin of Milo and started eating spoonfuls of plain, raw, fatty and oh-so-delicious Milo? That's just where I am - I am not interested in knowing how blogs have altered the way journalism functions, because the guy (or woman) who's written it has an awfully unreadable language that makes my eyes smart after a few minutes.

Guess this is another of those posts which might not make sense.. I just wanted to type something and here I am! With Rahman's goosebump-causing 'Dil Se Re....' in the background, it feels great to even open Blogger and type a post.. it's been that long! Life is just feverishly busy, and I find myself hugging my cushion and nodding off to sleep at every given opportunity. And worse, I dream in those ten or fifteen minutes of sleep I catch! They're funny and give me great entertainment ;), but it's irritating that my mind is so preoccupied with work. I'm scared I'm becoming a workaholic!

The few things that keep me going are the walks at night with friends, the few episodes of Grey's Anatomy I manage to steal in from time to time (which are now getting predictable and boring, by the way!!), good food that I come across extremely rarely, and music, God be blessed for it!

It's been ages since I read blogs of other people (I'm really sorry!) or even switched off my computer. The poor thing is forever on, ready to bear the brunt of my work, day and night.
The funny thing is it feels important to be busy, because this way, I manage things much better! But even then, nothing can match the comfort of laziness, the comfort of knowing nothing would go wrong if you sleep for an extra couple of hours when it's raining. Boy, I miss those times, those early weeks of the semester! I think it will be ages before I get back such a comfort again... but of course, it's all part of life - and guess I'm coping well!

Some weekend, some day, I'll write a story I've been wanting to write for a long time. Right now, I just wish there was something that could quickly note down the words forming in my head so later I can put them all together and form the story in actual black and white. I wish! Ha!

Yeah, crossroads?? Am I at this stage in life where everything one does seems important, leading somewhere? So many things I'm happy about, the same things which torment me and give me headaches almost all day; which confuse me. I'm trying to feel all busy and nice (yeah, being busy somehow keeps me cheerful!), but I'm hurriedly reaching my break point, I guess. I hope things go fine. I hope I'm confident enough to keep swimming where the tides take me - after all, how much is in my hands?
Don't wonder what I'm trying to say - that's just what the post is supposed to be - ambiguous! I'll get back real soon with what's happening!

Tanya boarded the train at Tampines. Her stop, Clementi, was a good hour and a half away. It was just her fifth day at work, in her six month internship, and she was tired of it already. The guys at work were nice to be with and all that, but she just couldn’t along with their sickening sense of humour or understand what they wanted her to do. And it was just Tuesday. She had another 3 days of torture to stand before the weekend.

The train was quite empty, surprisingly, for it was 7 in the evening, and this was the rush hour when hordes of people left office for home. More people started coming in soon, though, and in five minutes, the compartment started filling in with dozens of people, who spread themselves out in various parts of the compartment. Tanya sat on, reading ‘Sophie’s choice’.

She gradually noticed a pair of eyes constantly on her. She quietly looked up and saw that they belonged to a middle aged Indian man, who refused to take his eyes off her even when she looked at him.
Tanya sighed. These men, these Indian men, who stared at every Indian girl like she had jumped right off Mars. Or like she had been bred in a lab in some secret underground city and let free on Earth.
She went back to reading. The train stopped at Paya Lebar. An elderly man walked into the compartment and stood near Tanya. She got up and offered the man the seat. Mistake.

The man was furious, like she had insulted him by offering a seat. The worse part was he was yelling in Chinese, and she couldn’t follow a word. He pointed at her, then turned to other people in the compartment and yelled at them too. Everyone in the compartment looked at the old man, and then at her. Most of them stiffened in tension because of the commotion the old man was making. Maybe he was swearing aloud in Chinese, she thought.

In the meantime, another woman had come and occupied the seat where Tanya had been sitting. Curse my luck, thought Tanya, for now the Indian man in the corner could see her more properly. The idiot, she thought, he still didn’t have the sense to stop looking.
In a few minutes, the man came and stood next to her. Tanya got irritated, and tense. She moved a few steps left, so there would be more distance between him and her.

Just a few more stops, she told herself. He was still staring. She silently swore to herself that she would stamp his foot hard as she left that he would never try to stare at any other Indian woman again.
It was one minute to Clementi. Tanya slowly edged her way out of the crowd and reached the place where the man was standing. She crept into the tiny vacant space near him and waited for the opportune moment when the station would loom into view.
It happened soon enough. Tanya quietly lifted her right leg and drove into hard into his foot.

For once in her life, she was extremely glad she was wearing pointed heels. She heard a yelp of pain. Now that would teach him a lesson. She pressed her heel harder into his foot and then the train doors opened.
She got out and turned, murmuring ‘Idiot’.

And got a rude shock. The Indian man’s left foot was bleeding and everyone had noticed. Some even pointed to Tanya standing in the station platform, looking at the extreme damage her heel had done. One man even made a move to pull her back in.
Tanya fled the place at once, her heart thumping with fear. When she reached the exit and had climbed down into the road, she paused.
Well, the lesson’s been given, she thought, and headed back to hostel.

My dear little one,
How much you have grown! You will still remain my little one even then… the little girl I pampered, many a time secretly, the one I used to pat to sleep, take to school and run around with too.
At this time, I cannot help thinking of the time I held you in my hands for the first time – you were a tiny, sleeping baby, but fresh and beautiful, and I remember how my eyes filled with tears of joy as you opened your tiny mouth and yawned, then slowly opened your eyes and blinked. And as though you already knew me, smiled too!

And oh, the joy when you held my hands and showed me you could walk! And chuckled as I looked astonished, speechless, that the dear girl has already made her first steps.
Remember how you held my hand as we proudly walked out of the Principal’s office after getting your LKG admission? These memories are still etched in my heart.
As you grew, and asked your parents for the chocolate or mint they would refuse to buy, remember how I would take you out and secretly buy you 5 Star? Or perppermint? I can never forget the little hand that would hurriedly reach for mine as we neared that main road we had to wade across with difficulty.

Time flies fast. I grew old, and when we walked, now I had to hold your hand if we had to cross the road! You became the confident one, leading me across, taking charge of things. I knew you noticed every time I left your hand immediately after I knew we were safe, but pardon me, child, my little ego refused to acknowledge that I needed help.
Even those days are gone now – I lie in bed all day, waiting for you to come back from work, safe and sound. And to hold my hand and reassure me, encourage me, talk to me. Come, Mithu, the old man needs your warm hand.

Grandfather.

P.S: Our lovely babe's been celebrating her birthday. Join me in wishing dearest ol' Chennai a very Happy Birthday!!! Miss you loads, far away here!!

Technically, I'm supposed to be studying now. Nobody asked me to, nor am I required to. But looking at my room mate vigorously taking one book after another, highlighting and making notes really makes me want to study. Of course, that this want drops dead as soon as she leaves the room is another thing.
I woke up half an hour back (early, according to university standards), telling myself I have to study. And what did I do after the routine checking of mails in the handful of mail accounts - reading blogs! I kept reading every blog in my list until IE suddenly decided to play moral police, gave an error, and shut IE down.
I took this as a cue to start studying, and opened the book, and with all earnestness, another notebook to write down. Two minutes into the book, and I decided to switch on Media Player to listen to music. And the first few songs that come up? U2's 'Trip through your wires' and Eagles, all one after another, and I'm reminded of my 70s post because of the songs. Bah, here I am, in Blogger.
Do you think I should study when I don't have to? :P
(I'm in for it if my parents chance across this post! : )

Wow, you know what Eagles are telling me now? 'Take it easy!!' :) Guess you could call this a cue. Close 'Management of Electronic Media.' Open Kazuo Ishiguro's 'Never Let Me Go.' I can get back to CS301 later, innit?

Context: Waiting outside classroom for class to begin. Author walks in and finds a group of friends - mostly Singaporeans.

F: Hey, Vani!
A: Hey, hi!
F What have you done to your hair?
A: Erm, cut it short?
F: No, no, have you permed it? It looks really nice!
A(gently smiling): No, it's natural, and it's wet - I washed it, that's why.
F: Wow, it looks really pretty. So nice!

Author hides a grin.
Silently confesses that as much as she hates it, it feels nice to act girlie at times too.

Kabhi Alvida Naa Kehna - well, that was all what the movie was about - people breaking their marriage vows. And I broke another vow, and I feel like banging my head in the nearest wall for doing so - I really shouldn't waste my money on such Hindi movies, desperately hoping these kind of directors will get more mature. Though this movie was a whiff of fresh air from the usual crap Johar churns out (you know I'm not a big fan!), it ultimately succumbs to be one of them too.
Now, if this contains spoilers, don't curse me for giving it away - after all, I'd rather you don't watch the movie.Why I agreed to watch this movie was plainly because my friends said it'd be fun, which well, it was in a way - we did have good fun passing random comments. Now, I just feel sad I should have saved this $11 for a second viewing of JoK to hear the songs in Dolby sound, probably.

SRK's bitterness in the whole movie, though again, a refreshing change from his usual ( I mean in Johar and Chopra movies) flirting with girls, the happy-go-lucky dude was so irritating that I should say he quite succeeded in portraying his character. Wonder how (and why the HELL!) Rani falls for this chap instead of her husband Rishi (Abhishek, nicely done!). Preity's character was great too, for a change she wasn't a woman who wept and crumbled when she learnt of her husband's affair, but instead asked him to get out. Whew, seriously.

Another thing I was desperately praying for was they shouldn't set Preity and Abhishek together, I would definitely have hunted down Karan if he had done that. Instead, both move on with their lives with ease (though the complications towards the end of the movie were unwarranted for).
As usual, the movie had its dose of 'comedy' and some relief in the name of Amitabh, Kirron Kher and the cute little kid who played SRK's son.

At the end of the whole 3 1/2 hours (without an interval, dammit, I hate these cinemas!), it left a bitter taste in my mouth. I'd probably have even accepted it if they had stopped the movie a few minutes before the actual climax (I'd been sure it was ending then, and really believed Karan Johar had grown up!!), but no, it goes on for another half hour and killed any good opinion left I had of the director and the movie.

I'd say : Don't pay more than Rs 60 if you want to watch the movie. Seriously. I'd rather say you watch the movie only if you love to watch Rani's right eye (only!!) filling and shedding tears. Even the glycerine doesn't know how to work. Gosh, what do I say, it's Johar afterall.

It's a surprise how quickly my mood changes. Oh, from bad to good only, though. I'm so proud to realise it's extremely easy to get me back to normal after disappointments or anger (maybe it has a lot to do with that I laugh for the stupidest things on earth!).
Anyways, all this talk has to do with how my computer conked out when I desperately needed it this afternoon after I came back from my first class of 3rd year, depressed, for no reason I could clearly identify. I was listening to Jillunu Oru Kaadhal (Hail Rahman for churning out this brilliant album!!) to cheer me up and sat down to blog, and right then, it happened. The network card stopped working for some reason, and after frantic uninstallations and reinstallations and a call to a senior (thanks to him!), it started working again around 45 minutes back. And the best part was, this time I didn't fret around as much as I used to before (the one week without internet at home was a huge help!), and kept going with a firm belief that things weren't bad at all, that I could conquer it all, I can!!
This is just the second most important year for me, one which lays a foundation for almost everything I hope to be, at least for a few years to come.
Entering a whole new year with high hopes, fervent prayers and confidence.
Will be back very soon with another post!

... When
I would only wear a paavadai-dhavani,
Oil my hair everyday and wear flowers,
Draw the kolam in the corridor and
be the lady my mother is proud of...
Spend 10 paise for the bus ticket
and go to college,
and be one of the five girls doing their B.Sc
in a class of 50!
Go to the beach in the lunch break,
have ice creams for Rs 3,
Drool over Amitabh or Gregory Peck,
copy Jaya's hairstyle?
Walk home to save the 10 paise
and listen to music in the turn-table
Pay Re 1 and talk on the phone for hours
Listen to the cricket commentary
in the tiny transistor radio and
cheer wildly for India!
Then crowd around the big radio and
listen to the news, and then
new Tamil music...
until mother calls us all for dinner
with sutta applam, claiming it's special,
and then chase us all off to bed while we,
sisters and cousin sisters, giggle throughout...
Wow, wouldn't living in the 70s have been fun? (Even sans the things we can't survive without today?)

Seriously. Deaths everywhere, most in man’s hands, as if plane crashes, earthquakes, tsunamis and floods weren’t enough. What the hell is happening to the world, to the cruel we who inhabit it?
Two weeks back, a series of blasts I needn’t talk about. Attacks on Lebanon. Regular blasts in Iraq. An unresolved Palestine issue on which hundreds die every week, at least. Damn, I’m irritated. And what am I doing other than just feel irritated and further still, talk about it in the blog? I’m scared I’ll just live through it, and die some day just like any other normal person. Is anything in our hands? Our protests, strikes and so on… do they have any effect? What happened to the Reservation issue despite heavy protests country wide by students?
It was a shame to watch the parliamentary proceedings yesterday on Television. Members of the ruling party and opposition literally bitching about each other, calling the other liars, and yelling slogans in the house. And a frustrated speaker, who was totally helpless, that he had no choice but to adjourn the house. It’s disgusting, it’s shameful. I don’t care if this happens in every country around the world, it all just boils down to the same thing – we are a miserable, messed up species. We all lust for money and power that in the end is not going to help even the tiniest bit.
If I could, I would have throttled the neck of one TV channel producer who decided to screen “special” movies on 26^th July commemorating the first anniversary of the day when the world woke up to the fact that Mumbai was drowning in floods. ‘Watch special movies on 26^th July and stay at home all day – don’t venture out’ the promos said. How cheap can we get? In what way are we paying any homage to the people who lost their lives or to the families who suffered an irreparable loss?
I hang my head down in shame.
I belong to such a world.
I just pray that we can do something about it. That all of us, members of the filthy race called humans, realize our mistakes. Hope that I live long enough to see us change. God save us all.

Oh, just a bit pissed off. Doesn’t mean I’m having any less fun! The Pani puris, ice creams, DVD movies, entertainment from the kid upstairs, and from kids in the garden nearby go on! (Ironic, I know)

It's amazing how one month flies by even if you're utterly bored, jobless, and desperate to get out. One month since my vacation began, and I have done nothing significant. If you'd discount knowing words like cat, dog and horse in Gujarati, shading with colour pencils, eating off roadside stalls, of course.

Worst part is I've landed with a cold, which has even cancelled my everyday little ice cream parties.
And good Lord, I heavily miss Radio Mirchi. The Radio Mirchi here is obviously entirely in Hindi, and though the RJs are decent (they have great voices!), they discuss some extremely important things like why the director of 'Dus' ended his marriage and left his wife and child abandoned. I couldn't believe it, they had an entire discussion on such a topic, and I was purley disgusted.

Well, at least if the songs were good, I'd probably grit my teeth and listen to the RJs going on and on with their gibberish. The songs are TERRIBLE! I'm left wondering at the staleness of Hindi songs... and Himesh Reshmiyya... oh my God! The station somehow keeps playing only his songs (or yeah, 'Mitwaaaaaaaaaaaa' and 'Kabhi Alvida naa..' which are better, though!), and his awful nasal voice, his similarity to Inzamam-ul-Haq (which I laugh about!) and his songs (each of which I think he insists on singing!) make me wish with every ounce that I was in Chennai listening to Suchi, Balaji or AJ or even the unbearable Chinna-thambi-Periya-thambi duo in Suryan FM. Deivam!!

And Television, no better. We have over 125 channels I used to long for in Chennai (like HBO, the Zee English series and the Sports channels) and just a few of these manage to retain my interest. Wimbledon kept me really occupied until it's amazing finish with an equally amazing Federer (awwwww.... he's just second.. Pete Sampras always rocks!)... Federer, with his excellent forehands and backhands and his calm self (excluding the weeping he does when he wins or loses) was a total delight to watch.

Yesterday, with a firm resolve, I decided to watch Bunty aur Bubli on Max. Never mind the movie, it's not worth talking about here, the ads every 15 mins (for 15 mins, bloody!!) totally bugged me! And best part was I couldn't follow what happened in the very end :( which left me even more frustrated.

Ok, if I continue at this rate, I'll be turning my blog into a moaning forum :P
Signing off,
Bored even while doing other things.

So the girl stuck in Gujju land finally got to move around with dear ol' mum.







First stop: Kankaria lake.
Pedal boating after a very long time.







Then, stopped by this mosque (whose name, err.. doesn't really register!) which was built by a possessive king who later ordered the hand of the builder to be chopped off! The designs on the windows are extremely intricate, and of course, beautiful.








And then to this temple - which, incidentally, was different - the only 'Gods' were idols of three men in kurta-pyjamas!
-- The Sri Swami Narayan temple
Saw those dark clouds?
Spoilsports, bah.





And, it rained. It poured. Winds blew. A thousand trees fell. Cables got cut. So did my internet connection.







Stuck at home, without the WWW, was forced to turn to other forms of entertainment.....







......... like this...........














...... and this........
Psst... that's a peacock on someone's terrace!!









So on, until folks at home took pity and took her out again... here...

..... the Sabarmati Ashram.







Brilliance, humbling.












Narmada, the delicate darling.... the princess of controversies?









And is back to being bored now. At least, the net connection is back after one harrowing week of yelling, cursing and a bit of silent swearing (in Gujarati :D) too!
Hmmm... and to think just 3 more weeks left to go back again!
Forgive me for the resolution of the pics... had to purposely reduce them to make the blog easier to load!

Smriti was fussing. She wouldn’t eat. I ran behind her, finding it difficult to keep pace with those cherubic little legs as she ran from one room to another, trying to avoid me, to avoid eating.

I knew what she wanted – all the running around she was doing was for exactly one end – the terrace.

‘Smriti…’ I called out, and she stopped, knowing what I was about to say. She turned and grinned at me. I grinned back.

‘The terrace!!!’ we cried in unison.

The little girl insisted on taking the stairs, not the elevator. I huffed and puffed as I climbed four floors to the terrace, a bowl of curd rice in hand – curd rice peppered with bits of cabbage – now that would require some extra effort to push into the little devil, I thought.

I sighed as I picked the shreds of cabbage and put them in a corner of the bowl – the girl simply refused to eat them. Why should I be right most of the times?

There was a glimmer of hope from among the clouds – literally – the moon came out of hiding. Cream, majestic, and resplendent. Shining. My saviour. To get my little angel to eat.

‘Amma, look!!’ cried my imp. ‘The moon!!!’

‘Yes, dear, the moon,’ I replied, absentmindedly.

She ran to the other corner of the terrace to have a better view.

I was losing patience.

‘Smriti,’ I called out. ‘C’mon…let me tell you a story about the moon while you eat…’ I said. Pointing my index finger up to the full moon on the sky, I said, ‘See those black spots on the moon…’

‘No!’ she interrupted.

What now?

‘The moon is here, ma..’ she said pointing directly upward from her corner of the terrace. ‘Not there!!’

I smiled.

‘Of course, Smriti….’ I said, walking towards her. ‘The moon is here.’

My little imp. She always wins.

When nothing interesting is actually happening in life around, even the craziest or dullest things can becoming something worth writing about, even if it is just to pass time. So here I am! If this is really bugging, do pardon me - for I am feeling sluggish and bugged, and it wouldn't be long before I'm back to writing something else!

So off we went to a temple on my second day in Gujju land. And I did anything but pray there... everything around was different! First, the little boys who came to beat the temple drums. When I first entered, random little boys took up the chance of beating the drums. My interest near its peaks, I asked my mum if I could go do it too. Ah, well, of course not - it's just for those guys who're in the temple school. So I kept watching as they beautifully brought in newer rhythms throughout the arati. Oh, that reminds me, the arati was so long I got bored standing there. The craziest part was till around three days later, I had no clue which God the temple was dedicated to. A few days later, I ask mom and she says 'Didn't you notice the lingam in the sanctorium?' Damn me if I did... I was too busy looking around at people and temple walls, and of course, silently ridiculing the Gujarati script in my mind.

I've been eating awesome food off roadside stalls, things we would have never dreamed of in Chennai, mostly because we wouldn't trust the water they use. Here I have had pani puri, an extremely tasty and tangy soda made in a weird way, and of course, ice cream everyday.

Bargaining is so much fun here. I stand by and watch, as my mum deftly brings down the price of a kurta from Rs 350 to Rs 100 - the best part being that we finally didn't buy it :P I could almost hear the poor shopkeeper calling us 'behen' cursing!

A good source of entertainment here is the delightful 2-year-old kid living upstairs. We both can't understand what the other says, but the kid is so cute and has such beautiful eyes that I don't even mind it when she hits me ;) [God knows for what, but kids have their reasons!] This kid has taught me gujju for dog, cat and so on, and everytime she says anything in Gujarati, my mum and I frantically look through the 'Learn Gujarati in a month' book to know what she says. Gujju is such a tough and funny language - almost sounds like Chinese to me, because of it's innumerable hoons, chhos and choons. One word I know perfectly is no - naah!

Duh, life is such a bore now, with just three activities filling my day - eating, sleeping and internet. Sometimes going out, or taking a walk or jogging in the huge garden nearby. One 'party' yesterday seemed to promise fun - an office party for my dad. Well, it was fun in a way - looking at everybody's plastic smiles and polite masquerades as they sat and 'enjoyed' a singer's performance. I was the only one of my age there (I went just to give my mom some company! :P), and felt completely lost in the world of working men and their (bitching) wives, all politely smiling at one another and introducing themselves, and asking random questions to keep the conversation from crumbling apart. God, I hope I never have to attend such parties in my life - tough calling, considering the field I've opted to go into! I also realised yesterday that I have become such a talkative girl as I comfortably chatted with some lady - oh, she was poking fun of Chennai, and could I be silent without telling them what I really thought of Gujju land? :)

Sigh, that's all there is to in life now. No companions of my age, people at home who are either more bored than me or just too depressed to give me company, hot weather and an unknown language. It could be fun, but I miss Chennai! If only I could reverse time, go six months back in time, to my old house, to Chennai and to playing with my little nephew, who was all alive and bursting with joy! Oh well, there's a lot to learn from life - and to not think of the past is a huge lesson.

Finally, I finished a post after helluva lot of interruptions. I'm all smiles!!!!



28/06/06: Got drenched in Ahmedabad's summer's first rains. Played on the road with kids. Just stood still for minutes, wondering how nature could get this beautiful. Listened to the peacock nearby voice its happiness in its shrill tone. Bliss.

The first thing I noticed when I landed in the Ahmedabad airport was the way ‘a’ was so skewed up in Gujarati. This of course, only beside the sweltering heat that made me feel Chennai is way better, really. I felt like I was walking through a furnace – and grimaced at the thought that just a few minutes back, I had to hug myself to keep warm in the crazy Air Deccan flight.

Well, Air Deccan did turn out to be better than people had described – it wasn’t noisy, and the aircraft wasn’t like a taxi. It was a decent airbus, and I was quite comforted at that. No food, of course… this was the first time I was taking a budget airline in India, and it definitely was just as (errr…) good as the domsetic Air India or Indian Airlines flights I’ve been in before.

After 2 busy days in Bangalore with my sister and one hurried one-day trip to Chennai, I’m home in Ahmedabad 5 days after I landed in India. The new place is weird, different – I can’t believe this is actually my home and I’m not in someone else’s home for just a vacation. It’s tough to accept! The city’s good, though. Unless you discount the heat. It’s still sort of bright at 8 in the evening, the roads are so broad, I can’t believe this is an Indian city, and they’re really clean too. And my ‘new’ home is a bit old, though… I feel like I’m living in some house built in the 80s (I think this was!!), with its old-fashioned rooms and style of the apartment. It’s apparently located in a posh locality, but we’re yet to have a 24-hour broadband Internet connection. So much for living in an area where police commissioners, judges and mayors are our neighbours.

New place, new home, new life. Lots of things are different this time. Darn, I miss my Chennai home and Chennai itself (of course!). But damn, it’s great to be home.

PS: All you people in Chennai now (lucky ones!!), there’s going to be a bloggers’ meet at Ascendas in Taramani on 24th Jun in the evening. Do check out Mark’s blog for more details!

Whew, what a hard day! Last days of an academic year are always tiring, but tremendous fun. As I hurriedly run here and there packing my bags, meeting people, and remember my insipid accounting class and a horrible accounting exam, I can’t help give a grin of joy as I think of tomorrow, when I go back to India after completing year 2. So well, today isn’t my last day, but I’ll call it so! (Now don’t ask me why!)

What a year it has been! Joys, trials, tribulations, testing times, heart-shattering losses, victories, defeats – this year has seen everything. And taught me lots.

I have become even stronger, and that is what I am happiest about. In the process, I have learnt that sometimes it is necessary to be rude to certain people too, which though I regret, think they deserve it. But well, I also learnt later that I don’t have to regret it, because some things just deserve the importance we attach to them.

Acquaintances have become friends, friends have become closer and I have had a lot of fun. I have matured more as a person, I think, and have learnt to keep my emotions in check as far as I can.

On the bad side, my individualistic thoughts have risen to a new peak, thanks to inspiration from Ayn Rand. She has influenced me to an extent that I refuse to do some things just because the society expects me to do them. I sometimes feel bad that I may be becoming selfish in the process, but I also feel that if I don’t stand up for my individualism, I am only living my life for others.

At the end of it, I’m happy, despite all the terrible things that have happened on the way – a torturous wait in the beginning of the year to get my room, loss of some very dear loved ones, and some little disappointments here and there – like our relocation from Chennai to Ahmedabad (No, I’ll still be chennaigal!).

But it is all worthwhile only if you have learnt the lessons ultimately, after going through the acid tests life has posed for you. When you have, you have grown. And I have grown.
Next time I post, I’ll be in India. Cheers!!!

As I desperately searched for newer music to keep me going while studying something as ‘interesting’ as accounting, I realised there were many Hindi songs that I liked but didn’t have. So I downloaded them from my friend’s computer, and sat down with the huge book with a flourish, with all the songs in my playlist.

I was happy for about half an hour to listen to those songs after a long time, for a while, but beyond a point, I started getting irritated. I don’t know why (pardon some bias from my side too) but every song began to sound similar to some other song I had in the list.

I have to confess I don’t like Hindi that much, I have no idea why, that I wouldn’t speak it unless in dire situations when I can’t get myself understood in any other way. Having lived in the South all my life, my only regular input of Hindi was from the (many-a-time sickening) Bollywood movies.

I watched, as SRK aged and still played a Rahul or Rohit or Raj and heroines were still Pooja or Priya. I watched as random people came in and out doing things in the name of comedy. I watched as Bollywood-ians rejected songs or movies generally deemed as hit or critically claimed elsewhere.

And years later, even now, nothing seems to have changed. Bollywood remains the same, only more sophisticated. Once in a while, someone gives something worth watching like Swades, RDB or Black. Otherwise, Bollywood continues in its same annoying monotone, churning out movies like Veer-Zaara, Mohabattein or the more recent Fanaa. Interesting story lines these movies have, but they falter in an unimaginable way and come down crumbling like a pack of cards, well at least in my opinion.

And hence, I’ve taken a vow that I will never watch a Bollywood product in the cinema unless it has good songs, so I don’t feel like I’ve wasted good money on something utterly useless – at least I have the songs to look forward to.

Talk about the songs – oh my God, there are just hand-countable songs that are fresh. Every other song has pyaar, deewana, jadu, marna kisi ke bina, rasta kho jana, dil dena, or jeena and well, you get the drift. The dholak or the tabla inevitably enters at some point in the song, and at least once you’ll find women in the background crooning la-la-la’s, hmm-hmm-hmm’s or something. Seriously, for once, I even appreciate Harris Jeyaraj’s Zulos and Iska maskas. At least he’s more imaginative with the humming.

Oh well, God show Hindi movies a way. Every time I realise that some only-watch-Bollywood-movies people don’t know about some movies down South, I feel bad that they are missing some good stuff. Maybe we need subtitles for all Indian movies released all over. I feel bad for the only-Bollywood-movies watchers.
Bollywood should just get more creative.

I was fretting about more than usual for a presentation. The next day was my final presentation to be made before the entire creative department of the ad agency I was interning in – it was the decisive presentation for the grade the agency would give me. A chill ran down my spine every time I thought of the fat, funkily-bespectacled-rosary-on-his-neck creative head who was infamous for the way he graded the interns. I felt like I was going to my grave.

Everything had to be perfect for the d-day. I checked my formal suit for the umpteenth time and brushed the dust off the coat. My room mate laughed.
‘The suit might just rip apart for all the brushing you do!’ she joked.
I smiled at her courteously. Poor thing, she was trying to alleviate my tension. Nothing seemed to ease me, though.
I then went out and brought my only pair of black, formal shoes.
‘Nina, is this fine?’ I asked my room mate.
She carefully looked at the pair of shoes.
‘Hmm…should be good! Why don’t you try wearing it with the coat…so we could just check if they match?’
I put the shoes on, and wore the dull grey coat. They matched quite well.
Whew, at least this is fine, I thought.
I sashayed around a little bit. I was quite thrilled because this was the first time I was wearing the new suit. For an all-important occasion that too.

Then it happened. My clumsiness chose to show its head out, and I hit my leg hard against the leg of the cot. And fell down. And broke the heel of one of the shoes.
Suddenly everything was going wrong.
I groaned with pain, and after seeing the heel that just came off on my hand like a piece of cake, in agony. My face fell, and my head was swirling with pain, depression and anger.
Nina quickly came to the rescue. She helped me get on my feet and examined the broken heel.
‘No worries, we can fix it,’ she said.
I smiled, despite the smarting pain in my left leg. Smart, smart Nina. Nina who always had a solution at hand.
She quickly rummaged into her draw and brought out a tube of PowerGlue. ‘Really, sticks anything,’ she said.
We glued the heel and the part of the shoe which held the heel. It stuck. Stuck hard. I sighed with relief.

As I tried to put the shoe away, I realised something with horror. I mean, it was terrifying. Two of my fingers were stuck to the heel of the shoe we were trying to fix. Try as I might, I couldn’t pull it apart.
I cried out with a yelp of pain. I tried hard again as Nina tried to moisten the stuck fingertips with water to help them come out from the shoe.
Of course, it shouldn’t work, my mind told me. My presentation the next day has to get screwed up.
Fifteen minutes later, another girl and two other guys had tried to take the damned shoe apart so that my fingers would come off it. It didn’t help. I was almost getting used to having a shoe in my left hand. My mind was conjuring up scary images of me having to live with the shoe for life.

Then Vik decided it was time to go to the hospital. I freaked out, thinking of what they could possibly do to detach the shoe from my fingers.
‘No, Sarah,’ he told me. ‘That’s the only way!’
Reluctantly, I agreed. Of course, I can’t live with a shoe in my left hand forever.
It was 12:15 in the night. And five of us ran into the emergency section of the nearest hospital we could find.

It was the most embarrassing thing for me to show the doctor two fingers stuck ferociously to a heeled shoe (the heel was stuck well now, as you may know!). The doctor couldn’t control his smile as he saw a 22-year-old girl helplessly hiding her embarrassment while he examined the situation.
It took just 20 minutes for them to get the shoe off my fingers. I was in a daze when they were doing it, sweating profusely with fear for the presentation I had to make in another 9 hours.
When my fingers were finally free, I didn’t even realise it. Nina had helped me on to bed in the room, and I had just dozed off in a daze again. When I awoke the next morning, I saw a plaster covering my ring and middle fingers. I decided to be nice and didn’t curse the damned black shoe or the glue that had caused so much trouble.

I went to my office, well dressed, confident and prepared. After all, nothing could go terribly wrong, isn’t it?
Well, it happens that day wasn’t really my day. 7 minutes before the presentation, as I was pacing the corridors of the conference hall in heights of anxiety, the heel of the right shoe broke off.
‘Damn you!!!’ I screamed with all anger I could muster. Tony, my co-intern, came in running from the next room.
‘Sarah…is anything wro-?’ he began to ask and paused, as I bitterly held the heel of the other shoe in my hand. God, I thought, what more?!

‘Ah, dear…that’s no problem, I’ll fix it for you in a jiffy…just wait right here,’ said Tony and ran to his desk.
He came back in a minute holding a little tube which he gave me, saying, ‘Sticks anything, you know?’
I took the tube from him.
PowerGlue.
‘Oh yeah, I know,’ I told him. And put the tube away, muttering the most random excuse that came into my mind for not using it.

The presentation actually went well. Except of course, the frequent stares my shoeless-stockinged barefoot legs got from time to time from the creative head and most of the other people. I’m waiting for my evaluation.