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.

There are so many regrets I have in life, including not learning swimming or to play any sport. Looks like my parents were too bent on just getting me to learn to sing carnatic music professionally, which though I was good at, disliked many a time.

But yeah, blame me too. I was never even remotely interested in sports, except for those yearly-once sessions when I had to recruit athletes for my house for the inter-house sports meet every year. Funny that I had to head a team which had some of the brilliant sportspersons in the girls’ wing. The only thing that consoled me was that I was good with marching ;), and could carry off the house banner or flag pretty well.

It so happens that my school actually conducts exams for giving us PT grades for the board exam. Religiously, during our class X and XII, our PT teachers would make all forty of us line up, and watch most of us crazily running through our long jump, and dropping the shot-put ball right near our feet with a yelp of pain.

Class XII board exam PT ‘exam’ is the craziest and funniest PT exam I’ve ever taken. We were asked to do everything from long jump, high jump, throw the ball into the basketball ring, of which I could do only the last thing (anything-close-to) well. The other things were an absolute fiasco, and I searched for consolation in the fact that I wasn’t alone.

Then was the running race ‘test’. The teacher divided us into groups according to our attendance list, and as usual, I was the last but one. My group had just three of us. As did all the other groups, the three of us planned that we would run in the same speed so nobody would finish first and nobody, the last.
And the races began.

In every group, some girl managed to come first, while the rest more or less finished at the same speed. Smart.
When it was our turn, the three of us decided to stick to our resolution. Well, my faint idea was that someone among the three would go first so that the teacher wouldn’t recognise our plan. I mean, just slightly overtake the other two.
We positioned ourselves on one end of the ground.
The teacher blew her whistle.

The three of us ran, and within seconds, we all managed to adjust our speeds to the same. We were running at the same speed, and being in the centre, I could see that we were all running in the same line.
Well, I really wished someone would shoot ahead and go first.
But no, apparently we would resolutely stick to our plan.
All the three of us were still running at the same speed.

And lo, we had finished the race to great cheers from our classmates. As we finished, all three of us doubled up in laughter, for we had run at the speed in which people usually perform victory laps. I fell on the ground, clutching my stomach hard, unable to control my laughter, as the teacher came to us.
‘You think I didn’t know your plan?’ she asked.
Hitler, Hitler.
‘I’m going to fail you.’
Feeling-less me, I smiled back at her. I tried to stop, for my mind was warning me – ‘Thimuru unakku, stop smiling’. But no, I wouldn’t, and continued grinning at her, panting.
She glared at me like she had innumerable number of times before. The house captain she hated the most.

Of course, I didn’t fail the PT exam, like she had threatened (I mean, of course, she can’t do that!!!).
But she did get her revenge. While everyone else got an A1 in PT, I got an A2. But yeah, I won :)

PS: Do read the post below as well. Your help really counts!!!

Ever felt extremely happy doing something extremely simple, something we really didn’t think would actually matter? The happiness we get from this is the best – anytime we think back to it, we will feel ourselves brimming with joy. This happiness is exalted when we give someone else a reason to smile. We get so many chances to do this, to give someone a chance and reason to smile, but how many of us take the chance?

Take the children affected by Down Syndrome (DS), for instance. I had the opportunity to meet eight of them during December last year. Simple and delightful people to be around with, they really make you think hard about how easy it is to gain happiness. These eight children work and make simple things people can use, like floor swabs, incense sticks, yoga mats, little carpets, greeting cards, paper bags and so on. Managed and run by their parents, “DS Special Children Welfare Association” is the organization in Chennai that brings together these eight children and puts into use the vocational training they have been given by their parents.

The organization sells its products in various little sales organised around the city. The best part about this organisation is that it makes these children believe (rightly, at that!) that they can support themselves with the work they do. And this, is the best gift they can give these children, who normally only attract attention or sympathy anywhere for how they are different from others. Each child does his or her work with absolute dedication, and being a personal witness, I can only say that their resolute attention to what they do stuns me.

This organization has now moved to a building in Virugambakkam donated by a well wisher. As they are moving, they are in need of some things like a van to bring and drop the children in their homes, tools, machinery, raw materials and fans. The parents of these children have so far been supporting this cause whole-heartedly, by providing the capital needed for all their work. Now that they are moving to a new place, they need more funds for the things I just mentioned.

Many of us here earn, most of us are well enough to provide for these children. A tiny contribution we make could really make a big difference in the lives of these eight people who are able to support themselves to a big extent. As I already said, giving them the confidence that they can also make a contribution is the biggest help anyone could do to them. And when we have the means to do it, let’s not miss the chance.

I put forth my appeal on behalf of the organization to you. Please give in what you can. Cheques or DDs can be made in favour of “DS Special Children Welfare Association, Virugambakkam”. Even if you won’t be able to be of help financially at the moment, encourage anyone to do so. They have their regular sales where they sell the products made by the children, and if you come across one, do buy something. For, unknown to you, one of these children glows with pride and happiness every time you help them.

Click here for details of the organization and its appeal.