all time fav....

troubled by failings

today(it's post midnight) is the mega hyped solar eclipse of the century. there has been enough talk all over our news-deprived news channels about what it will supposedly mean for all of us. but that's not what is worrying me enough to rouse me out of bed n typing here. what triggered my brain into over-drive was my hand-made tapestry of ganesh ji in my room. the year was very nicely also embroidered into the setting n as i just noticed, it's 10 years old! man was i a creative kid :P

what i wonder aloud here is this: is god vengeful? this is something's that's been bothering me for quite a while. when we listen/read to any scripture be it the Gita or the Bible, there are obvious similiarities that arise. am not doing a comparative study here, but just wish to point out the 'good way' to lead life. there are pre-conceived notions of how life's to be led, how we are to pray and how we are to pay for our sins. and lest we forget, they are very subtely repeated over and over again. it's not that i'm sitting here challenging what is a way for life for all, including me, just wondering why God's potrayed as being too busy to be watching over us directly? why is God is so unbending that there is only a certain way to get his attention? it's not like i want some special powers from him that i'd have to prove to be worthy of it. then maybe i'd consider all this effort!

resonating in my head right now is the satyanarayan katha. i've always been fascinated by it and there was a time when i could recite it with my mother. not that it's been ages, just i grew up and life changed. till a few years back i couldn't wait for ma to call me to recite it with her n then i'd get the kasar! yum! so now that i was thinking of God being potrayed as being vengeful, it's not suprising that i'd shuffle back to it. there is a story of a man who wished for a child and promises to fast on the birth. when the couple was blessed with a bonny baby girl he promises to fast when she marries. on her marriage he forgets. a few years later, the girl learns of the fast and for some reason she is unable to complete it. that is when God decides enough is enough, He punishes the family until the fast is complete.
now analyse the story as to what are we supposed to learn. there are a few lessons i can pick up though can't decide which to pick as final. first is the moral lesson that if we make a promise, we should keep it. simple trust n trade. second lesson is that God keeps track of our actions and loses both patience and can be very vengeful! so is He really not as forgiving as He's made out to be? and frankly it's not only hindu mytholgy, every religion has it and none is lacking in such tales.

the latter observation of the Almighty's personality is rather troubling to me personally. why do we make the Omnipotent, Omnipresent and Omniscient all so human? why should the one giving us a drive have his failings?


google threw this at me when i googled vengence god:
http://www.desiringgod.org/ResourceLibrary/Sermons/ByDate/2005/204_Gods_Wrath_Vengeance_Is_Mine_I_Will_Repay_Says_the_Lord/

scroll down to para 2 onwards...not close to what i was trying to imply, but then a minister wouldn't tell the faithful to doubt.

Saying goodbye...

This is to write what I'd need to say. On Sunday, the most dreadful news came. Of all the people that I had come to love, the few teachers who moulded me into who I am, I lost one of the best. Mrs Flavia D'Souza, or Fundy and she was popularly known, passed away on Saturday. Surprise, disbelief, numbness and a little shock were my first reactions. It was then and there that I decided that the least I could do for her was to be present at her funeral and pay my respects. The afternoon passed trying to find someone who would accompany me for I wasn't sure that I had enough composure to go alone. For Reasons varying, most declined. Finally I found one.

That very evening after I parked my car, it started to rain. Rain was something that had been eluding us for weeks now and all I could think of was how it turned out to be a befitting farewell to a teacher always with a smile, a word of advice and an infectious enthusiasm . It turned out, the entire programme had been advanced. By the time we got there everyone, the family and the school faculty, were on their way out. I did not expect my teachers to recognise me, but most of them did, and did with a wistful eye and even a few hugs. To stand at the foot of the grave of one of your favourite teachers, is not the easiest thing in the world. To stand at the foot of the grave of your teacher and not know what to say it even harder. As Charlie Chaplin put it, I love the rain because no one can see me crying. It was ironical for me to be speechless in front of the teacher who most often trained me on how to speak.

Mrs D'Souza was the youngest of four sisters and a brother. She is survived by her little daughter and her husband who most of us knew through her stories as sonu and uncle. She was born and brought up here in Delhi, went to school to Carmel convent and further to the college of Jesus and Mary. Her stories, her antics and the peculiarity of being the quintessential English teacher somehow became her identity over the generations.

I could never see her conform to anything even remotely resembling the almost boring demeanour of the rest of the teachers. Everyone knew that very few got along with her, sometimes irritating, childlike behaviour. She could be deadly serious, most miserly with marks, rarely angry but more often than not have an air about her that you could not help but be affected by the energy in it. I am yet to see another person who could evoke such emotions in so many people at the same time. I am also yet to see a teacher who could give marks ranging from 0.15 to 8.6 and yet claim that her mathematics was weak! Most don't even try to break up the marks into quarters.

Almost all of us have at least once seen ma'am racing down the road, flailing her arms about and shouting, " let me through, I am late!". It's not every day, only it was for us, to see your teacher racing about just so she wouldn't lose a leave of because she was late and then most properly settled her hair, fix her dress, calm her nerves and go to the staffroom. Another of the peculiarities. Another of the reasons most found her weird.

She had a way about her that I cannot express. She not only went about completing the syllabus but often indulged in discussing things that happened around us. I still remember the one discussion she had with us way back in class eight. It was on surrogate motherhood. Young teenagers have an awkwardness that can only be felt. Topics like these are heard with every eye avoiding the other. She still went on and since she barely got a response from any of us, she gave us her's. Oh we all discussed it among our little groups but we just couldn't say it aloud. Maybe that was the first time I felt the urge to say what I feel without worrying about how others would judge me. From then on I tried to express my opinion where it would be heard and haven't looked back much since.

Talking of English teachers, I can safely say that I have had many over the past two decades. I've had a full-time one at home and some brilliant ones at school. Even though they have taught the same things how they did it was always different. For Fundy it has got to be her grammar and interpretation. Working on my diction or strengthening my arguments, she would always have the patience to not go about always correcting me but finding the way to just alter me enough. And how can I forget, when things got too serious, she'd just go and say,"Angrejan aisa hi hai bachha! kya karen?!".

On Sunday, when we were leaving I met an old friend who was just coming. He called out and when I saw him all I could think of was how she had affected us. All I could think of was S-H-U-G-A-R. I spoke what I had to, I told him where he had to go but I could say no more. I didn't feel up to it and I said as much. The rain just about concealed it all.

On Sunday Mrs Flavia D'Souza was laid to rest above her mother in the family graveyard in the presence of her family, colleagues , students and friends. May her soul rest in peace.

In the name of the Father, the Son and Holy Spirit, Amen!

three guys, a girl and a beautiful trip

this is to document my bangalore-kolar trip, starting on the 7th of june and ending this morning, on 12th of june.

day 1: june 7

early start at 4:30am just so i could make it to the airport on time by 6. we board our hopping flight to blr and after a bumpy flight we land safe at BIAL to see for ourself what's all the hoopulla about the new airport. it's afncy, it's clean n rather small :P

our next mode of transport was a volvo bus to the city and i must say the drive was pretty! we drove around, i'm assuming, the old part of the city which frankly was a bit of a let down considering i was expecting the silicon city to be swankier and smooth. this place was cramped, old and all in kannad! churches, convents and cemetries lined the road and when they thinned, the army took over. the houses were typically sufferring from a bad english hangover and the roads couldn't be wide enough to accommodate two of these high capacity buses! this is bangalore?!

finally we reached our destination by 1 and had for lunch the most unique paranthas...kannad style with sambhar! our tryst with the sambhar was only just beginning, as we were to discover much later. we were driven down to kolar, some 90 km away in what seemed to be a journey meant to tantalise sleep! exhaustion of the past week and the day was fast catching up but the bumpy road and lack of leg room kept us in between sleep and awareness.

kolar turned out to be the msot unexpected place...a protected defence area with luxury rooms! where we'd expected hot southern summer, we found cool coastal monsoon winds. where we'd expected run down basic student accommodation, we got pretty rooms! where i'd expected some confusion and awkwardness at being the only female around, i found receptive and supportive scientists who were more than glad to have a girl around and gave me my own room!

once we got down to business we kept our eyes and ears open wide to the incoming competition and possible glitches in our PoA. not to late to realise we'd found one...our final ppt got promptly left behind in delhi in one of the many pen drives we'd used all year round and considered unncessary for this trip! we didn't have a ppt! which meant we cursed, we shouted we cried and stay up the night! registration and briefing was where i first laid eyes on those who'd come this far like us and those who were judging us equally critically. also watching them was a girl. and like always i found 2 taller than i :(

the night was full of palpable friction and tension and frustration was just setting in. working with guys till late at night was a new experience and something i was sure i'd pull despite all my apprehensions and i must mention the guys made it much easier on me by treating me like a guy most of the time(i'm more comfortable that way) and like a girl when it was most necessary. 

love isolates

i've been wondering hard and long. people often refer to it as pms and mood swings, but it's highly rewarding considering the revelations i make! and lately i've been thinking of the highly over rated phenomena called love. i'm not overtly cynical and i'm not calling grapes sour(as many often attribute it to) but all i'm saying is that the first flush of spring time love often makes people cocooned. all my friends who're in orkut's misnomed terminology are "committed" explain this as love being so satisfying that you need nothing more. 

as the well known song from 'dil apna aur preet parayi' goes:

mubarake tumhe ki tum

kisi ke noor ho gaye

kisi ke itne paas ho

ki sabse door ho gaye

the last few lines are what are i'm refering to. so obviously i'm not the only one to notice that it happens!

now as to what triggered is line of thought, was that i've been missing many of my friends. not in the physical absence way, but emotional way. the connect's been missing and often in the  most blatan t way. maybe it's jealousy. or maybe it's convention but why is it that ur social life though it's on a high when u're with someone, also depends competely around taht person's schedule? i can only imagine it be some extreme form of possessiveness on the part of the lover, but don't they miss some "me" time? 

i still wonder. maybe coz i'm the odd numbered one in parties and sitting alone in the canteen waiting for my friends' gf/bf's classes to begin! good lord!

ps: i still love my friends and i hold their 'loves' dear for all the (apparent)good they've done to them. but i miss my friends!

Pepper spray

all and sundry claim delhi to be unsafe for women. all and sundry keep coming up with protection(read self defense) measures so back in time that one feels exposed in a sleeve-less shirt. the best option i liked was a pepper spray, not that i've tried one, but an option i knew i'd prefer after my taekwondo. so just this afternoon when i was delegated the job to look for one for a family member, i happily walked off to the market to get it. after all i wasn't looking for ammunition!

shop1: spencer's

me: i need pepper spray.

attendant: this was ma'am.

we walk to the condiments' aisle

attendant: ma'am, your pepper. 

i stare blankly

attendant: black pepper, powdered and balls(he said balls!)

me: i need pepper SPRAY

he goes to call his senior

senior: ma'am how do u use pepper spray?

me: for self defense

senior: huh?!

gapes at me...i walk off

shop2: chemist next door

me: i need pepper spray

chemist: kiriyane ki dukan aage hai

no comments

shop3: chemist no2

me: i need pepper spray

clerk: cosmetics ki dukan aage hai

me: it's not a cosmetic

clerk: phir hamare pass nahi hai

shop4: cosmetics shop

me: i need pepper spray

he gapes and gapes and gapes uncomprehendingly. i walk on

shop5: chemist no3

me: i need pepper spray

clerk: cosmetics hum nahi rakhte

me: it's not a cosmetic

clerk: to kiriyana wale ke pass hoga

me: it's not edible

clerk: is it medicated? or theurapetic?

me: it's to immobilise jerks and for self defense.

by now my temper is high, patience low and sarcasm at it's peak

clerk: try archies' gallery

shop6: departmental store

me: i need pepper spray

dumb girl: ma'am party spray archies ya hallmark pe hoga

me: i need pepper spray

dumb girl: ma'am woh kya hota hai?

me: it's for self defense and protection

dumb girl: ma'am chemist pe pooch leejiye

shop7: chemist no4

me: i need pepper spray

attendant(to his collegues): arre koi pepper spray kharidne aaya hai!! kahan gayi woh?

people seem happy n scurry about to look for it.

attendant(suspiciously): ma'am 400-500 rupiye ki hai, aapko lena hai?

me: nahi khelna hai. obviously lena hai!! 

attendant: ma'am 399 ka hai!

me: arre wah! ek rupiya kam?

they pack it, i leave. 

and i heave a sigh of relief! i finally found 1 bottle of pepper spray. and considering i was looking in gulmohar park, hauz khas and kailash colony and people there are supposed to be informed. talk of women's emancipation!

space is a luxury...

weekends my 'social' life hits the roof. i don't know how fast it passes and thanks to the compact size of delhi, like every other day, i spend bulk time commuting. now watching life go by as it were, something came to my notice...for an average middle class fellow life is certainly a funny joke.
picture this: a young gun(no gender prejudice) starts off at a decent salary. the best home would be a small comfy li'l pad(were he/she rich, they'd have a huge empty place and hence my point of it being useless all the while costing too much to maintain). they probably drive a two wheeler(not in delhi, it's dangerous) and when they marry, they share it well enough. then comes parenthood...all the hoobabloo with it. more money, more time and loads more space!! fine slowly and surely they cope. they rise in their careers, they make more money and get lesser time to spend with their kids. but they manage to pull off good schools, better cars and better homes. children grow up all the while still wanting more(thankless bunch :P). then our protagnist starts getting old, their salaries are good, cars are among the best and a lovely house in a good place...only trouble is there is no one to share it with! the kids are gone to make their own nest!
the situation is true for so many. if we'd look we'd find it on every red light we stop at. a family of four on a two wheeler and an elderly couple in a car. i see my own family and i find it pretty true...young couples on bikes graduating to a kid in hand and the first car being one capable of accomodating kids in the backseat; the car changed as we grew and now it's a rarity that all four of us ever need to travel together in one car!!
that whay i say space is a luxury...we came squeezed in the womb and we go wound in bamboo to a pyre. what we do with our time in between is rather amusing. there have been volumes written on how pointless it is to change life, yet we all do. we crave the element of luxury. it makes us feel we've arrived...we've made it!

long time coming...

it's been 52days since i last posted something on this veritable platform for my jumbled existence. not that i've been short of ideas, just short of inspiration to stay put and type out my head!
i've been through conflicting emotions relating to this blog. from,"why should i type out my emotions for people to read?" to, "who even reads this space??". And i'm nowhere close to deciding if this space should stay or go.
i dedicate this one to ms. swayamsiddha das. she made me cross out my last question as to who even bothers to check if i write, she does :) and she deserves this one from me for proving it to me that women, however smart and intelligent can never out do the incrutable jerk-ass emosinal atyachar of the male species! men are jerks. period
i am a jerk magnet, is another story! why do all men prove it one after another that their neurons are connected in the same obtuse manner such that they are all equally big idiots?
men please reply...

I'm a Barbie girl!

barbie turns 50 today! not that i keep track of how old she gets, but today on the news they got random females to relate their relation to barbie and i decided she deserved one from me...because even though I'm trudging in my twenties, i still have all my barbies neatly stacked away with their box full of clothes and accessories! i don't remember when i got my first barbie or who gave it...but i remember my last. i gifted myself one on my 14th birthday and that too coz i couldn't resist. she was just so pretty! and partly because i felt angry at them for launching such beautiful and varied types, when all through my tender years they were almost all alike! so currently resting in the attic are 3 barbies, 1 skipper(for the uninitiated, she's Barbie's younger sister), 2 Kelly(her youngest sister) and hold your breaths...1 Ken(her boyfriend-i have the 80s one, only he's blond)!


if you ask me, Ken is my most priced possession. not coz he's a tall, handsome, blue-eyed blond male(:P), but because i know that at least in India, not many would have it. i don't know when it was launched here, i don't know exactly when it was banned(thanks to people who considered a boyfriend as a corrupting influence on 'indianness'), but i do know they happened in quick succession and somehow in the middle of all that my mother put in all her efforts to get me one. all because i said i wanted one! so of all the girls i know of around me, family school and college, I'm the only who can claim to have one!

as Aqua very rightly put it,

life in plastic, it's fantastic!
you brush my hair, undress me everywhere
IMAGINATION, THAT IS YOUR CREATION!

the last line i think best symbolises what barbie, over generations, has stood for. personally it was a way into life...how i pictured life, what i visualised my future to be, how love between humans was far more important than the lap of luxury, how i answered for myself the million questions of life! objectively they were family in some western concept, to me they were mine...i got to play fairy god mother, you see! i owe a lot to barbie. it kept me involved all day long, day after day for years. she's lived in bed sheet tents, pillow sheds, a 2 floor brick doll mansion(bhai built it all by himself for me), plastic box doll houses and even a shelf in my almirah(when i was tall enough to see in it and play comfortably too!).

she's worn clothes so impeccably stitched my me that i wonder why i didn't pursue design...ken's entire wardrobe was hand-made, since they were never available ready made. a pair of blue denims for all, a wedding lehenga, heavy sari(ma made), a two button formal suit for ken, a silk night suit and nightdress for barbie n ken resp, and as ma never fails to remind me, made from my silk kurta...apparently i thought it unfair that i should have a silk night suit, not them? that's all the wardrobe i remember working on...accessories were far easier to procure!

earrings, i remember, were promptly stuck in their head with no worries of trying to screw them on. bangles came from the metal rings around bhai's pens while shoes, slightly more permanent, were varied colour tapes! one obsession i had for my dolls were belts and bags-one for each occasion, one for every dress. now when i look at them, i wish i had those! my barbies always had a bath-twice a year! they had to scrubbed clean after a soak in warm water, their laundry was spread out to dry(our garden would resemble Lilliput for a day!) and their hair washed, conditioned(now i wonder why?) and blow dried. then I'd spend another day making their hair before setting them on the dining table in their finery for all to admire!
god! i love my barbies!

ps: the last pic is the only i could find of the barbie ken magazine! i've read a few..though not so archaic ones

winter's here!

i woke up this morning to grey overcast skies and a new fresh chilly nip in the air, and i said to myself,"winter's here to stay!". coming out of the warm cozy realm of sleep n a warmer blanket, winter definitely didn't top my list of favorite things, rather my list of depressing things! suddenly the fear of life set in...what will i do when my vacations are over? how will i ever manage to pull out of bed at seven just to make it to college on time? how will i sit in my rather obviously depressing semblance of a classroom, without thinking and dreaming and most probably sleeping over thoughts of warm blankets and hot tea?! how?! this bit i knew i must...face my fears before they had the better of me...even go beg the hostel people to let me live! :(((( the more amusing(now that i think of it) and then depressing thoughts came with what I'd planned of my life. working in this hustling bustling metropolis in Europe(America doesn't appeal :P), living on my own and having this wonderfully good time, what scared me this morning was the fact that I'd not see my beloved sun! when i couldn't spot a yellow stain in the skies at half past ten this morning, how the hell will that happen the closer i move to the north pole? though the sun is bad for my skin, i still love its warmth, it's shine and its sheer presence...and i didn't realise i loved it so till now! the most amusing part of my dilemma was that if it's going to be cold, and hopefully snowing, how will i build up my wardrobe of skirts and frocks? jeans and stockings barely keep me warm enough for Delhi winter, how will i manage on my own in my dreams?! rather depressing and funny..if u see it from my perspective! i can already feel the quintessential horns of dilemma! clatter, clatter, clatter...zzzzz...it's chilly!

रास न आए हमारे...

यह मेरा पहला प्रयास है हिन्दी में लिखने का। जो मुझे जानते हैं वोह यह भी जानते हैं कि हिन्दी मेरी मात्र भाषा होने के बावजूद मुझे हमेशा मात देती आई है। कई लोगों ने मुझे यह चुनौती, ज़िन्दगी के इस सफर मैं, कई बार दी कि मैं बिना अटके बिना रुके कुछ समय के लिए सिर्फ़ हिन्दी मैं बोलूं, और मुझे यह कहते हुए बहुत दुःख होता है, बहुत शर्म आती है, कि मैं इस चुनौती पे खरी नही उतर पायी। कहने को तो मैं हज़ार बहाने मार सकती हूँ, पर सच क्या है, क्यों है, यह तो शायद मैं भी नही जानती। अंग्रेज़ी हमारी ज़िन्दगी कि एक ऐसी लड़ बन चुकी है कि चाहे नचाहे एक न एक शब्द इस कम्बख्त ज़बान पे आ ही जाता है!
दुनिया है कि अपनी दौलत को संभाल के रखती है, हम हैं कि उसे ख़ुद से छोटा समझते हैं। जब भी मैं आगे किसोचती हूँ और बहार जाने का सपना देखती हूँ , तो हसी आती है कि मुझे अंग्रेज़ी का टेस्ट (देखा?) देना होगा...कभीयहाँ रहने के लिए हिन्दी का देना पड़ा तो मेरा क्या होगा? मैंने तो मुंशी प्रेम चाँद कि कहानियां भी अंग्रेज़ी मैं पढ़ीथी। कभी यह भी नही सूजा कि अपने हिंदुस्तान के महाराथिओं के उन चुनिन्दा काव्यों का रस मैंने नही पिया परविदेशी कथाओं पे लट्टू रही। सोच के भी अब बुरा लगता है।

आज मस्ती मैं इस पन्ने को हिन्दी मैं लिखने के चाह उठी
दूर दबे उन ख्यालों कि कश्ती उम्भ्री।
लिखने चली थी कुछ नग्मे प्यार के
दिल से बस एक आह निकली
चाहत थी कि इन लम्हों के संजोके संवारूंगी
आँसू हैं कि बहते हुए काजल की धार बन गई।
सोचने को तो बहुत है
दुनिया विशाल होते हुए भी, चोटी पर गई।
कहना चाहते थे अपने दिल की वोह खामियां
देख आपके अक्ष दिल की बस आस निकली
हस दें आप तो क्या बाहार आएगी
होटों पे हलकी सी जब मुसकुराहट छायेगी।

Control me not...

this post comes for britney spears. I've never liked her music, I've never liked her life but frankly i can never ignore her. she burst onto the music scene a few years back as this teen singer who rolled out hits and empty-headed lyrics with groovy music, she went on to marry her back-up dancer(lucky guy?), gave birth to two kids in quick succession and made a wreck of everything she subsequently touched. she's been labelled a 'threat to herself and others', almost made it to an asylum and been into rehab countless times(at least for me). then y do i write this? a recent article cum interview in the Daily Mail talks of Britney today. Britney who's made a come back, one who's mending her ways, one who's not allowed to see her sons and one who earns enough so people can be paid to keep her in control. that's right. paid to keep her in control.

the article talks of the men who've taken control of a life that paying them. literally. her father, who she was estranged from till recently, a lawyer(don't even ask!) and body-guards who decide what where how she lives. frankly i don't give a damn! but what got me wondering was the way a mother was being kept from her own children. and it's not just her that i see and wonder over...a whole bunch of people kept away from their kin for someones good.

i agree people can be bad influences ,especially with children being so impressionable ,but who decides who's bad? you keep them away hidden from hurt and torture and make them endure the agony of separation and isolation? i understand i cannot be completely right with my conviction of "good or bad, it's family", but can the heartless wretches of social service be doing any good to two people who want to be together by keeping them apart?

life in my back yard

thinking of all the deaths in mumbai, i look around the house and i find life. life not just as we know it, but new life and all forms of it.
there is a pigeon couple(if they have couples!) that had made their nest securely between the air-conditioner in 'my' room and the floor of the balcony. now skipping why the ac was taken off, the point is last night the pigeon and their nest were exposed to the big bad open world. ma and i finally came up with the idea of covering it with a shoe box, but it didn't work. finally after having scared the pigeons away twice, leaving the little chicks probably all scared and worried we managed to satisfy our worries and left it to nature and the pigeon's maternal instincts to take control from there. this afternoon when i woke up(yes afternoon, morning is going to bed time :P) ma informed me the chicks and their mommy were back on track...food n milk courtesy my mother's hospitality! as of now, they are comfortably sitting in my balcony and no one is allowed in it, lest we scare them again.
these pics i've loaded are really from my backyard. this nest was hidden in the leaves in a creeper!! i don't quite remember which bird but she definately wasn't around when i went photo hunting. the nest i remember quite clearly was very strategically hidden under the big leaves and practically suspended in mid-air. the chicks look so limbless(compared to my previous animated exposure!) and almost merge into the nest. the pigeon's chicks though, as i saw them last night in the moonlight, were much bigger, furrier and pale yellowish-whitish.




this parrot here is from the hollow barren tree across my house, and directly across my li'l cove. i simply love this snap...one major reason being i managed to click without shaking my hands!
the next two snaps are of a woodpecker...i'll try putting up the video too.

Chronicles of the U-Special

The Delhi University provided DCE with one thing similar to the rest of the university...a university special bus! Then DCE became DTU but thanks to the efforts of its die hard fans, it survived! It’s been 3years, this January that I’ve been travelling in that fixed 4th row window seat in that rickety DTC bus that the depot does us a favour by allotting. This January I am not in it and as it is I have just a semester left, so I decided my U-special deserved a mention in my life.Oh the convenience of it all, that it didn't allow the hostel to settle in my system. I remember me craving for teleporting powers just so I could spend all night in my hostel, sleep with my friends and wake up at home with the uspl always there to take me to college. Alas! science fiction never became my reality and I gave up(as much as hostel authorities with me) on the hostel and in ways I’ve never regretted it. I met more people in the u special than I would've otherwise, being the outsider that I was back in 2nd sem. if nothing else, it forced me to endure random people's company and in return forge wonderful friendships with not just classmates but batch mates across branches. Shy, reserved, dumb, ostentatious, bold...I met each kind and life made a wonderful routine! As blissful as it sounds, these rides through the better part of the route traversed the city forests of ridge and I’ve lost count of how many times we've had a prayer on our lips just so that the bus wouldn't break down! Oh but it did! So dramatically and like such an over drawn tragedy scene! As I remember our misadventures, I list them here:

Scene I: a much-in-need-of-retirement bus is allotted and even before boarding, it refuses to start. Somehow it coughs, spews some smoke and relents. We start crawling towards college. We stop at the first stop, it takes time to restart. We reach our first flyover; it feels like someone with a heart condition's chugging up some mountain and failing miserably...our bunch of qualified mechanical engineers just gaze all lost. 2nd stop it dies for good! By now it's almost 8:40 and we're miles away!

Scene II: another season, another time the bus, this time loaded to full capacity, decided we were much too heavy for her delicate frame. I can bet we never tipped a 30kmph that day but she pulled along just fine, till we came to our 5th flyover and guess what the driver did...asked us to get off and see him at the top of the flyover. So there we were, some 50-80odd kids walking up a flyover and then scrambling for seats just when the driver took off at full speed! It had been decided that we'd try not to slow down and never to stop! Sadly we had at a crossing and without saying a word we all knew this would be as far as we'd get that day!

Scene III: in other misadventures, the bus broke down once in the midst of the jungle on a winter morning! That was when Salony coined our trip as "jungle main no-mangal" or something. that would also be the day when I realised for well and good, that "big" boys at dce will never take responsibility...they happily sauntered off, hitchhiking with strangers, leaving behind a bunch of scared, hysterical, angry and plain lost people behind to wait it out for a replacement bus with the oh-so-weird driver and conductor!

Scene IV: let me see...hmm. Oh yes! We had a bus breathe its last next to a big huge slum and hence our abandonment! Also once we travelled all the way with the engine throwing out black smoke and even threatening to burst into flames! I remember bikers turning around to check if it were really a moving bus on fire.

Scene V: one fine summer morning, in the midst of our semester exams (or mid, I don’t remember) we travel happily studying. Since it was an exam day, only those who had a paper at 10 were travelling in it. By now the dear never-to-be-sent-to-retirement bus is familiar and no one pays heed to its groaning and grunting. I call it a sheer attempt at attention seeking, but the bus managed an unimaginable feat...the rear axle broke and popped out!! And bang in the middle of the jungle! Oh the panic! How will get there? What of our exam? Oh this and oh that...and all this from the boy-folk. No offence, but I can't call that behaviour man-worthy! So then groups formed and a taxi was hailed to get us to the metro...6people stuffed into one cab and going zigzag like a pot-boiler he got us there after happily fleecing us. One of the guys, who'd declared himself our leader, proudly proclaimed, "Main baniya hoon, mujhe paise bachane aate hain!". Poor him, it took us a minute to prove how badly we'd been fleeced! All I can say is I gave my exam somehow!

It’s not like I have no sweet memories. I have so many I can't start to put them down here. Early in the 2nd, 3rd semester days Salony and I would sit and laugh all the way. It wasn't like any of us had some great sense of humour; it was more her thirst for gossip, my inadvertent supply mixed with her unique drama-queen style and my cynicism. Oh what fun! But then she stopped coming and I, around 5th semester on, found a smart Monday morning company...aka swayam. Monday morning fun only but our male bashing sessions were hilarious and heart-ache tales so similar! It was great having those intelligent conversations that didn't make me feel too dorky or too romantic or too cynical, depending on my mood, and was even better learning from her!

Not to forget, there was the "chi-chi" gang. Mayank and Prannay christened three irritating, loud, ill-mannered females, a year junior to us as the CHI CHI gang. the head chi chi was a migraine inducing female who had too shrill a tone and their conversation wasn't even ever fun, far from interesting! The conductor once had asked them to shut up, he'd had enough!

Coming to the last 2-3 semesters, it's noteworthy how on most days, I’d end up being the only female aboard. Given how this was nothing more than a passing observation of my own, I’d settled very comfortably in the entire atmosphere. I knew I had friends here...Mayank, Prannay and Anoop. Silence was comfortable, debates a lot of fun (I’d always be quiet), EPL almost a religion and taking my, Anoop's or absolutely anybody's case, Mayank and Prannay's best time pass. But I loved it all!

Now as college comes to an end, my daily dose of music, score updates, match analysis, newspaper reading and gossip will not come out of the same 1hour early in the morning. As for what's passed, I wouldn't have had it any other way! Look what I’ve had...

GIRLS AND THEIR TRICK BOOK

location: mom's workstation
day: monday evening
why am i here: didn't wanna travel...will take a ride home with ma.
why i write: just because i do :D

i have a travel companion. we make sure to check before leaving, coz we both hate travelling alone. we both talk on any and everything under the sun and frankly they are very insightful conversations. people often misinterpret our relation as romantic...ask me, it's far from it! a very cliched line, but we're good friends. not to waste time on that, let's come to the point. todays's conversation was ruled by love stories...mine, his and loads of other people's. we laughed, we blushed and we were in for suprises. such is love i'd say...never perfect. stories lead to analysis and analysis lead to what i've now labelled the 'Girls' trick book'. evrything i list here has been my travel companion's obseravtions and as a girl i must admit, they are very insightful, funny and freakingly true(to a large extent).

1. if girls like someone they'll try their best to get talking...but no first moves(for reference: A Lot Like Love, Ashton Kutcher and Amanda Peet). since they won't necessarily make a move, steps in the 'best friend' to guide the conversation along acting like a mutual friend till it's self sustainable and she's kicked out!

2. once they get talking, if they really like the guy then they'll try their best to set him up or atleast tease the guy with someone else. now my justification for this one(i've done it, hence i had to justify) is that she can't tell him to consider her...so she picks up random people with the hope that he'd reject them and fall on his knee to express his undying love for her instead. in built female optimism i'd say, coz as i was duly informed...it's bound to fall flat or badly backfire(tell me about it!).

3. if the girl still can't get the guy to notice her, she'll play for jealousy. tell him a story, make up a hero, create a legend!! as always...the guy happily says "good for you!" and poof!! vanishes, period.

4. if at all she's gathered the courage to ask him out...after having giving up on him, of course, she'll fumble and tumble and fiddle and twist and turn it so much that it might've been better she'd never started! it's weird and rejection is not a very good feeling...but still the girl risks it...

5. now apparently a female vying for attention is easy to spot. here i disagreed, though i was promptly dismissed. according to this particular guy, women state their intentions in clear and loud terms...u can tell when she's ready to play the field! a guy when he spots a female admirer in his radar is extra cautious, coz he knows he's being watched...why and wherefore he acts in the manner he does, is of course his personal tuning. and then they say women are difficult to understand! hypocrites...

come to think of it, i can list my 'romantic' bloopers pretty similiar to what i've stated, but unlike male mannerism, i can't be so heartless about it. to me love is sacred...i tread stupidly maybe, but i tread carefully. having seen absolute heartless pusuits and rebound affairs in abundance, i still hang to the hope that some guy will say to me that he'd rather have me, than all monica belluccis that i could pick out for him. ha, fat chance!!

:P

i claim to write about english...but my heading for the last post is itself misspelt!!
the reason i chose to write a new post for it is that i acknowledge my stupidity
in case u still haven't figured(considering u rolled down to check), i've spelt an ISTHMUS as ISTHAMUS
somehow it doesn't feel better still...so if i've still not got it right, leave a note

english: isthamus or strait?

There are always things each one of us takes for granted. What those may be, vary. I, for one, have taken my communication and language skills as an integral part of me for the last two decades, which is what drives me to share this piece with you…
The queen’s language might as well have been my mother tongue, and I wouldn’t bat an eyelid, but college has made me meet people who through no fault of theirs are often criticized for their lack of it.
Does having an English medium education all through your life make you any better qualified or any better suited to face life? How come in India our own mother tongue is so badly treated that those who hail from Hindi medium backgrounds are made to feel inferior and thus ignored, left behind and unknowingly chastised? I know this because I’ve seen it. And it doesn’t make me feel any better to realize that initially I’d reacted with incredulous amusement and horror. Blame it on my south Delhi hangover!
Today I write this because something broke my heart. A classmate, who I’d seen carrying a dictionary and a ready reference English-Hindi translation set in the first few months, was asked to explain the term inventory. Now considering it’s not a very good term to explain in terms of management, the kid fumbled and stumbled and our teacher lost his cool! He blasted him off saying preposterous things like that word forms basic English and how could a person who’d qualified this far, not know. Not know? Good lord! It just pained to see that person bear the humiliation in public.

Teachers are meant to be an understanding tool to the knowledge we aspire to gain. They are our guides, our mentors and often our philosophers…how then can they be, albeit unconsciously, so heartless?

If you wish see this, come watch a viva-voce of any of us. If you’ve ever stumbled, ever felt at a loss of words you’d know what I mean. And to think of those for whom the queen’s language is just a big barrier…

ah those days!

watching those american chick flicks is good for the body(no exercise) and the brain(no exercise, again!). the guys are down right gorgeous, the leading woman is identifiably smart, not-so-sexy and gives a damn about it, the people are almost like what u've known through ur school life from the dick-head football captain to bimbette sluts, bespectacled nerds to good doing nobodies! how can generation after generation spread over continents, school still be so identifiably similiar?
what i write today is not about my school life and exactly how i'd classify my presence, or lack of it, but something that is absolutely hilarious, now that i look back at it. believe it or not, i was a cheerleader! and a downright good one at that. looking at me now or even these past few years it's hard to imagine me ever being so svelte and supple to be a cheerleader, but yes i was. the only reason i was one was that back in class 4/5 i was about the average height of a class 9 chick...who were the cheerleaders in fact. i was picked because:
1. i was as tall as them(lord they must have been short!)
2. my built sorta compensated for my obvious lack 'curves' and a bust at the age of 10!
3. since i played basketball(people assumed i must be good since i was tall), the coach knew me and the 'didis' adored me(that, i later figured, was all thanks to my brother who studied in the school rt across mine and obviously had attracted some female attention).
4. our convent was running short(haha...pun unintended!) of suitable ladies for this job

so there i was...daily being escorted from the junior school to the senior school wing for my practice. truthfully the part i loved best was getting to play with my pom-poms!! i had red and silver ones and it was soooooooooo good! much better infact than those trots and jumps and twists and loops. LC was to host the basketball tournament n this was the opening ceremony...n i the youngest participant!
i haven't thought of this li'l event for so long that details skip me. i remember faces, not names; my dress, not the day. no one outside school knew i did something that can be classified as cheerleading in a black bodysuit with a red skirt over it, no one asked, i told no one. no one asked me how it looked, how i felt and no one came to see. at least no one i knew!
but i did...n that's the best part! i've been a cheerleader :D