sush

THE DECISION

2010-12-05T00:20:00.000+05:30

“...I’m sorry; I can see no other way out. I just cannot live without her. I love you and Appa and Anand and I hope that you will find it in your hearts to forgive me.”

He signed his name with a flourish and walked slowly to the bed. He sank into it; his face buried in his hands and sighed. He picked up the length of rope he’d bought from Shiv Kirana Stores that day and measured it. Five arm lengths. Like the five mozhams of malli poo he used to buy for Shweta every day. He checked again. Still five arm lengths.

He kicked the shirt off his chair and positioned it under the fan. Picking up the rope, he clambered clumsily onto the chair and tied an intricate knot around the fan that wouldn’t give under his considerable weight.

Door locked. Note written and signed. Strong knot tied. All that was left now was the final act itself. He pulled the rope under his chin, clenched the muscles in his neck and slowly, hesitantly pushed the big toe of his left foot off the chair. He noticed a tiny spot of dried up mud on the nail and bent down to scrape it off. He straightened up and got back into position.
The toe was beginning to inch forward again when he heard the faint sounds of cheering from the living room.

“Sehwag 195, Anna! Brett Lee, next over” Anand shouted.

He stopped and nervously fingered the rope for a few seconds. Then he pulled the rope off the fan, flung it under his bed, pushed the chair back to the table and opened the door. He looked back, quickly stuffed the note into his pocket and went into the living room. He took a can of Pepsi out of the fridge and settled down on the couch across his brother to watch the rest of the game.

Mirror Mirror On The Wall....

2010-06-24T21:38:00.001+05:30

Me,

It's okay to make mistakes, right? Everyone makes mistakes. Everyone does things
that are uncharacteristic of them. You weren’t annoyed enough to pinch your sister
so hard it left a red mark when she didn’t let you play with her doll, but you did.
You just weren't thinking about it when you peeked into your friend’s hand of cards
and won that round of Uno. You didn't really intend to be catty and mean to your
best friend, but you're best friends and neither of you had anyone else to play with
after school, so you hugged and made up and went back to your game of "teacher-
teacher". When your best friend got into college before you and couldn't feel happy
for her with all your being, you told yourself that it was only because you were
worried sick about your own uncertain future. You knew it was just attention you
wanted when you threw a tantrum and sulked for days until your mom let you go to
the sleepover that you weren't all that keen on going to in the first place.

You forgave her, it didn't matter to you all that much that she lied or told someone
else first but your ego was still severely bruised, so you continued to give her the
cold shoulder, continued to make repeated digs and thinly veiled sarcastic remarks
until you forgot how to get along, forgot what it was that made you friends in the first
place and all that remained was suspicion and hurt, an ugly, ruined and fragmented
shadow of what once was.

I was younger then, I've learnt from that, you tell yourself. Things will be different
now, I'm more mature. Yet, the same patterns continue to play themselves out over
and over again and each time, it's harder to brush aside your actions and tell yourself
that you weren't really being yourself when you did those things. It becomes more
and more difficult to convince yourself that you did as you saw right at that point,
and just didn't know better. What if that isn't true anymore? If it isn't you acting a
certain way, who the hell is it? What do you tell yourself now? It was you, all you.
And there's no escaping the fact. What if you really really should have known better?
Maybe it's these things that really determine who you are as a person. Maybe it isn’t
okay to take advantage of the fact that you're going through a tough time and people
won't judge you too much if you succumb occasionally to your baser, petty instincts.

Maybe it's when you're down, or hurt or worried or feel slighted somehow that you

have to step up and face it gracefully like the responsible adult that you claim you
are ten times a day.

The picture that emerges isn't half as pretty and saint-like as you
imagined, is it?

Me

Moon River

2010-06-18T15:51:00.001+05:30

Moon River
Wider than a mile

I'm crossing you in style

Someday.......

I fell hopelessly in love with this song when I watched Breakfast at Tiffany's last summer. It was all I listened to for an entire week. Although I loved the version in the movie, sung by Audrey Hepbrun herself, I've grown to like Henry Mancini's version best. It's haunting and almost eerily beautiful. Also listen to the Frank Sinatra version. His powertful voice makes the song sound a little different, but it sounds incredible all the same. Apparently the producers of the film hated the song and wanted it cut out of the movie but Hepburn insisted that it stay.

I thought the movie was great too, possibly an all-time favourite. Audrey Hepburn looked perfectly stunning throughout the movie, it was an inspired look for her. The long, black Givenchy she wore in the film sold recently at Christie's in London for $807,000!!

The male lead, George Peppard was very good too, and incredibly handsome and charming in his own way. I hadn't heard of him until I watched the movie and haven't seen him in anything else either, but IMDB tells me that "he seemed to settle as a tough lead in more average, often hokum, adventures".

I read the Truman Capote novella the movie was based on a few months ago. I quite liked it, but since I'd already seen the movie, it was Hepburn who defined Holly Golightly's character for me. I think this is one of those few instances where the movie is better than the book.

Some random impulse made me look for Moon River again a few days ago, and I'm in love with it all over again!

Two drifters

Off to see the world

There's such a lot of world

To see.....

What to write? What to write?!

2010-06-13T13:57:00.002+05:30

I never know what to write about, ever. There's at least twice as many unpublished drafts in my Blogger account as there are posts. A couple of lines, a paragraph, two thousand words....stuff that's incomplete, fiction that sounds ridiculously silly as soon as I'm done writing it, pieces of writing that are much too personal and have far too many names and allusions to real incidents for a public blog. Sure, the best thing about a blog is that you can write about anything YOU wish to write about, but it still isn't a journal.

Should I give short fiction a shot? The few times that I have tried my hand at fiction, I 've borrowed liberally from real life and haven't really learnt to stop doing that. Even if I do write something that's purely fictitious , people tend to assume that I'm referring to something that actually happened. I do it all the time with everyone I know who blogs. Besides, my parents and half my family read the blog, so I have to continue to pretend, even on the blog, that no one my age has ever been in a relationship or even had a crush on a real, non-celebrity individual! I've toyed with the idea of an anonymous blog but vanity and the not-so-great experiences of the writers of the few anonymous blogs I've come across prevent me.

I've thought about poetry, but honestly, I never get poetry. Okay, maybe I can sort of get on board with the rhyme thing, but still, why should anything rhyme?! I see no reason for rhyme! How does it add beauty to a piece of writing in any way? A cat met a rat. The cat had a bat. Yes, ok! Alright, even if we do accept that rhyme can be a good thing, what about the other kinds of poetry? Free verse, really? Isn't that just an excuse to write incomplete, incoherent, grammatically incorrect sentences? Or does one write a pseudo-profound sentence or two and then hit enter at random intervals? Is that how it works?

Don't get me wrong though, I mean no disrespect to either poetry or poets. Rhyme or no rhyme, I have enjoyed some poems- stuff that I read at school, poetry that my friends have written or poems that I've stumbled across on my nocturnal wanderings through the blogosphere. It would be kinda fun to be able to write dark, mysterious poetry that conjures up images of gorgeous, enigmatic, troubled women with long, slightly matted hair and dark nail polish brooding in lonely alleyways. You know those blogs that offer prompts? They make me want to write poetry so bad, and prompts like “hesitation” or “betrayal” or “desire” fill me with so many wonderfully dramatic images and disjointed sentences or phrases but the moment I open a Word document the words dry up.

You think I should try writing on paper? Done that. Didn’t work. My sister even recently got me the most gorgeous bling-y gold notebook with pages the loveliest shade of white and faint lines spaced just so, but no, even that couldn’t get the creative juices flowing. Pretty notebooks and girls in pretty clothes furiously scribbling away in them belong in a vast field with a stream bubbling through it and a huge mansion just barely discernible in the distance through the mist. Or you should be holed up in the attic of your house, churning out story after story to support your family, a la Jo in Little Women. Sprawled on your bed in a messy hostel room with your roommates doing their own thing and a class to attend in less than an hour, or at home with your mom interrupting with “I can’t find my phone, can you call it please?” and the damn doorbell ringing incessantly, it just doesn’t work.

Ideas, anyone?

Tagged!

2010-05-22T12:55:00.003+05:30

So I know this comes a little late, but The Dryad tagged me a while ago and so, in no particular order these are a few of my favourite things :)

Reading. Like I've mentioned before on this blog, I love to read. It's probably the one thing I've done pretty much all my life. My taste in literature is constantly changing, it's very easily influenced by the people I'm with and the places I'm in. I'm proud to say though, that after some not-so-gentle persuasion, I've started taking my slow, hesitant baby steps away from chick-lit and trashy thrillers :)

Washing my hair. Silly as that may sound, there's little that can lift my mood quite as effectively as freshly shampooed and conditioned hair followed by some quality time with a mirror. Compliments about freshly washed, pleasant smelling hair? Even better :)

Insti at night. Our campus is simply gorgeous at night. I'm not exactly the commune-with-nature kind of person, and I really couldn't be less bothered about the environment or saving the planet, and will always take the elevator if I can, but with massive banyan trees, the moonlight filtering in through the trees overhead, the gentle breeze, the graceful deer, the blackbuck(s?) prancing about, the absence of the incredibly annoying monkeys, the silence interrupted occasionally by laughter and conversation from randoms groups of people, coffee and "arbit" conversations, I love campus at night.

A cliche, yes, but I do love waking up in the morning to find that I can sleep for a little longer :)

Liking people. Really liking people. I honestly envy those few incredibly fortunate people who naturally and genuinely seem to like other people. It's very easy to be dismissive of people, pick at their every fault, criticize and whine about them. I think it's a lot harder and takes immense courage to let go of all those little things and let yourself like people. It doesn't happen too often, it probably wouldn't mean much if it did and sure, you could get hurt, but with those few people, it's worth it.

Pedicures are the best. What can get better than soaking your feet in warm water and having someone make it pretty again while you sit back and read?

If you're reading this, you're tagged!

2010-04-19T02:46:00.001+05:30

Sometimes, pretending it isn't there does make it go away. If you don't, you can really destroy things. Irreparably. Everything doesn't need analysis and dissection. Everything needn't fall into certain categories and classifications just because you're familiar with those. Everything need not "follow a graph", the same graph. Sometimes affection is reason enough.

Do attend!

2010-03-28T22:43:00.001+05:30

Pleasure is the flower that passes; remembrance, the lasting perfume - Jean de Boufflers

2010-03-07T17:24:00.003+05:30

I know this isn't the end of a year or a birthday or even a new semester, but so much has happened over the last few months, so much has changed. New city, new college, new life. New people. Holding on to the old city, the old people. You know that feeling, right? Trying to understand what you were, what you've become, what you want to become. Trying to figure out if you want certain things because, you know, you've always wanted them, and it would just be weird to not want them all of a sudden, you don't know what it feels like to not want them. Wondering if time really strengthens bonds or if it's only the comfort and familiarity of old relationships you crave. Wondering if the new relationships that form appear alive only because they're new and different and exciting. Dealing with changing opinions. Letting people in. Letting yourself like someone enough to get hurt. Letting people influence you without resenting them. Making mistakes. Hopefully, learning from them. Messing up. Repeatedly. Tears, both shed and not. Words, oh so many words- uttered, heard, read and written. Some that I'll always cherish and hold on to, some that were completely true when they were uttered, but never will again...

Yet, when I think about the past year, the scenes that flash past my eyes are almost without exception, pleasant ones. I don't know if that's because right now, I'm trying not to dwell upon what went wrong and trying really hard to focus on what little is going right or because the things that made me happy made me far happier than the things that made me sad made me sad. Now that I read that sentence, I'm not sure if it reads like sense, but yeah.

My sister's wedding. Not so much the "event", but the initial discussions about her telling my parents about Ashwin, the first time Ashwin came over to "meet the parents". Dad trying to coerce information out of me about my sister's refusal to let him "start looking" before he realized she'd done her own "looking" :) Dinner at this tiny little eatery in Haridwar- piping hot puris and absolutely delicious aaloo and chole in the freezing cold by the Ganga. New Year's eve with my Mom, talking, reading and watching some random show on the "top 20 Bollywood hits of the year".

The little talk Suhit and I had when I went home for my semester break. A conversation I had with Nikki over the phone just a little over a week ago, I'm sure she knows which one. College-shopping with Nikki in the summer. Testing the web-cam on my new laptop with Suhit. The three of us playing badminton a few days after the boards, the day before the Physics practicals. Didige visiting me at college in September- the beach, Pondy Bazaar ("enna da?" :D ), the whole trip. Catching up with Shireen a few weeks ago after SO long. Looking at the all the wedding shopping with Didige and Raafia. The long chat Sriram and I had early this year when he dropped me off at college one night. Asha and my little "adventure" en route to Ascendas. 3 Idiots with Cheth and Sabnam. Siddharth and I the day the end-sems got over, the time he was sick last sem, the weekend it wouldn't stop raining. Pratyusha, Oviya and I "venturing out into the city". Looking for the non-existent grave on campus after jumping out of the SAC windows. The time Sneha and I completely embarrassed ourselves outside CCD. The time we used totally random phrases for volume exercises at play practice. My eighteenth birthday, one of the perfect-est birthdays of my entire life :)

Okay, that's more than I had in my mind when I sat down to write this post. Maybe it's been a nicer few months than I'm letting myself believe at the moment :) And maybe this post should really have been an fb-note but if you've read this, or are in this post, I'd love to know of your favourite moments :)

Spotlight

2010-02-13T10:44:00.004+05:30

The spotlight is always on you. Except, in real life, the spotlight isn't really created by one single bulb. Different lights of varying brightness, intensity and warmth make up this spotlight and their proportions are forever changing. There are some lights that shine on, steady, constant, always have, always will. It's these lights that are most precious when the other more temporary, more showy, more twinkly lights threaten to go out. There are some lights that shine for some time, then fade out slowly but leave this lingering warmth behind. Such a light fades out so slowly that when the other lights make an effort to shine just that little bit brighter, you barely notice this one going out and are able to value and appreciate the pleasant warmth it's left behind. There are several more that appear vaguely pretty and sparkly at some point and provide a temporary distraction but don't serve any other purpose.

Then there are some special lights, ever so rare, that shine with so overwhelming a brightness, with almost unsettling an intensity, that all you want is to soak up its wonderful fresh warmth. So much that all the other beams in your spotlight begin to pale in comparison to its radiance. These lights are pretty fickle, though. You may be smart enough to notice when it begins to flicker and brace yourself for the impending darkness, however temporary, or you could still be so enamoured by its former beauty that you convince yourself it only appears to flicker because you're blinking hard. Whether you notice or not, the light will go out. And it will leave behind this horribly empty feeling, you know that hard little knot that forms at the base of your stomach that just won't go away? You probably need that perceived darkness for a while, until you let the other lights in again, slowly, but with pleasure, to let your life get pretty, happy and fulfilling once again.

Here's to hope :)

Worship

2010-01-31T20:23:00.001+05:30

"Sir, we ought to teach people that they are doing wrong in worshipping the images and pictures in the temple."

Ramakrishna: "That's the way with you Calcutta people: you want to teach and preach. You want to give millions when you are beggars yourselves.....Do you think God does not know that he is being worshipped in the images and pictures? If a worshipper should make a mistake, do you not think God will know his intent?"

- "The Gospel of Sri Ramakrishna"

I read this a couple of days ago in Salinger's Franny and Zooey. Something to think about, no?

The idea of "idol-worship" puzzled me greatly as a child. It was what we did at home, what I'd always followed without really questioning. We lit a lamp and agarbattis twice a day, put a spot of vibhuti on our foreheads in the evening, drew kolams on the floor for festivals and prayed to the portraits and murthis in the puja room. Not that I didn't get that real worship, whatever that was, and "connecting" with God went far beyond these little rituals, but I just didn't think too much about them.

I went to one of those Anglo-Indian type "missionary" schools in Calcutta. We'd have all these firang religious groups coming to visit who kept telling us that it was absolutely futile to pray to stone and clay, that we'd have to reach out to "the son of God" if we wanted ever to speak to Him, that "we Indians" just followed blindly customs and rituals that had been passed down to us through the ages. Other adults at school said pretty much the same thing in milder words, minus the repeated digs at "us Indians". When I spoke of this at home I was simply told not to get too influenced by what "those people" had to say and I should understand that these idols and images were merely representative of the God we wished to speak to and having something physical to look at and address words to just made things easier. It was all too confusing, so I stopped thinking about it. School and home were two separate entities anyway, so it seemed natural that different things were believed in each place.

I'm not a religious person, no. Neither am I spiritual. My relationship with God over the last few years has been confined pretty much to my "praying" for good grades and visiting the Khairatabad Hanuman Mandir when I get them. I like going to certain temples, though. Small, quiet ones where you can think. And I like lighting the lamp in the evening, even take pride in the fact that I can produce the tiniest, prettiest flame at home. Maybe I'm imagining it, but it makes me feel rather nice. Even if I am imagining it, so what? It's a perfectly harmless activity to indulge in.

Hostel is different, though. Yes, there is a small Pillaiyar and a little Saraswathi idol I got in Koothanoor a few months before my tenth board exams (I know. I know.) on my table, but I've barely prayed in any form since I got here. A couple of nandiyavattais did appear before them the end-sem week, but that was just force of habit, nothing more than that.

I'm not quite sure of my views on the subject of idol worship, or worship of any sort, or anything concerning a supreme power, but the Sri Ramakrishna quote got me thinking a little. What do you think?

Imagine :D

2010-01-02T12:17:00.003+05:30

So I come home for my semester break and find that my mother has developed a new obsession. NDTV Imagine. Yeah.

Which was weird, because my mother just isn't the soap-watching type. At all. She hardly ever turns the TV on, and when she does it's always the news or a cricket match or the occasional movie. My mom's taste in movies deserves an entire post of it's own. Psycho. Omen. Scream. Every part of each. Anything written by Stephen King, the one in which the dude who comes in Jurassic Park turns into a fly or something equally bizarre, the one in which people turn into leeches. I think one of the happiest weeks of her life was when HBO had a "Creature Feature". :P

My first day home, we go shopping for the wedding and my mom wants me to buy some outfit because Sumanji had an almost identical kurta. Who, pray, was Sumanji? She and my sister immediately start talking about what was going to happen when Vidya Bua saw Sumanji talking to Kartikji in the gaay ghar, while two men patiently stood, holding up a saree my mother had asked to see. Later, on the way home, my sister was actually singing "Bolo bolo kya karengi ladkiyan......Shaadi! Shaadi nahi, Rahul se shaadi *giggle*”. Insane, eh?

I should have seen it coming, though. Last summer when my sister was idly flipping channels, she stumbled upon some serial with a pretty cute ex-Raymonds model in it. I can’t remember how, but soon a habit was formed and we all started watching Siddharthji and Aanchalji ke zindagi ki kahani. I was desperate then. My study holidays were on and I was willing to do just about anything to avoid studying. Yes, I’m embarrassed to admit, that’s when the Splitsvilla-Roadies phase happened. I was even hooked to “The Bold and the Beautiful” a couple of years ago :P I knew these shows were ridiculous, but sometimes you watched just to see how ridiculous they could get. Really :D

Not very surprising then, that after a couple of days of acting all disdainful of and relentlessly making fun of my mother’s new interests, I was sucked in too. I was curious, every night, to see what new ways Vidya Bua had come up with to torture the poor, spineless, widowed Sumanji. I wanted to know if Jyothi and Pankaj’s marriage was strong enough to survive Brijmohan’s (again played by a very cute guy) attempts to destroy it. I hoped Santu would be able to get around Motiben to sort out her issues with her sister, who had, by marriage, become her daughter-in-law. Yeah, go figure.

But then I leave for college today and will have to settle for my mother’s daily updates now. Oh, two firsts happened. This is the first time I’m posting on my blog twice in under twenty-four hours and the first time I wrote an entire post on my cell phone :) :)

Happy New Year :)

2010-01-01T22:46:00.002+05:30

2009 was eventful. A lot happened, a lot changed, some growing up happened. I actually got through the board exams-entrance exam months. Those months probably saw more tantrums, arguments, tears, doubts, anxieties and fears than the rest of my life put together. Then, college happened. I moved to hostel, hated it, was terribly homesick, couldn't deal with the food, couldn't deal with the room and generally acted like a thoroughly spoiled brat. There were more tears, doubts about whether I'd made the right choice of subject, doubts about whether I should've stayed in Hyderabad, doubts about whether I'd ever settle in college. Eventually I got tired of being unhappy, realized that misery was no longer fun company and actually began to have a decent, nice even, time at college. I quite like college now, yes. :)

I learnt a lot. I learnt that board exams are pretty damn easy. I learnt that it really doesn't pay to overanalyse. I learnt that it's okay to admit to yourself that you're having fun, that you're happy. I learnt that it's not the smartest thing to leave your new watch in the hostel bathrooms. I've learnt, to some extent, to deal with the fact that tens of thousands of people are way smarter than I'll ever be, and that's really okay. I'm trying to stop judging. I'm slowly, very slowly, learning that classics are classics for a reason and it isn't pretentious to read them.

My hair's grown much longer. I got a very pretty phone :) I pierced my nose! Yes, I finally pierced my nose. Nikki and I went together to get our noses pierced :) I've discovered bizzie lizzie (that's some kind of cotton, my mother says :P) patialas and fake churidhars this year, and they are the bestest :)

My sister is getting married!!! And soon. Less than a month from now :) I'm super happy for her and Ashwin :). We've all, especially my poor mother, been busy with preparations for the wedding. Invitations, flowers, photographers, caterers, shopping....I had no idea this much went into the planning of a wedding. Saree shopping has been such fun. The best thing about saree shopping is that you don't have to try anything on. So you don't feel hideously fat and can come back home and have appalam without feeling like throwing yourself off the balcony :)

New Year's Eve was tame. I stayed home and read High Fidelity and talked to my mom. I didn't even want to go out or anything. Weird. First New Year after I turn eighteen, and I was perfectly happy sitting at home. No enthu whatsoever! Maybe I'm getting old or something.

Today was pretty nice. I woke up late. Nikki came over. She laughed at all my baby pictures and insisted I listen to Pink Floyd. We gossiped and bitched about a whole lot of people :) Then I went shopping with my mom, my sister and Ashwin and got super-pretty, dull gold almost-stilletoes for the wedding :) :)

Then Didige and Nikki and I went out for coffee and it was so much fun! It was so easy and comfortable and relaxed and I could just think out loud, no need for filtering of any sort. What better way to start a new year than a wonderfully giggly, gossipy, girl-talk filled conversation with my two favourite girls on the planet? I love you both :) :)

Oh yes, Happy New Year :) :)

Apoorva

2009-06-06T00:30:00.002+05:30

My best friend of ten years moved to Calcutta last month. Appu and I have been best friends since class three in Calcutta. I was heartbroken when I had to move back to Hyd five years later, but you know what? A year after I returned, Appu moved to Hyd too! Although we've been in different schools for the last six years, the strenght of our friendship hasn't diminished in any way. Had a long chat with her today and I miss her SO much! Love you Appu :) :)

Fake IPL Player

2009-04-26T21:01:00.005+05:30

Okay. If you haven't already, you have GOT to read the Fake IPL Player's Blog!

This is big, okay? This is one of the most scandalous things to happen to international cricket! With all due sympathy for Bob Woolmer, this is bigger than that! Okay, it isn't, but it's huge all the same!

I love the blog! I know it's very catty and downright nasty at places but its wonderfully written and hilarious, and hey, he's nice to 'Lordie' and can't stand 'Bhookha Naan' :) Which is what counts.

Dinner beckons. Will be back.

Back. Rajasthan Royals going strong. Looks like they're all set to repeat last year's spectacular performance.

Anyway, coming back to the Fake IPL Player, who could it be? He says SRK, Buchanan and McCullum (They could at least have made Chris Gayle captain! He has some experience. One spectacular innings and McCullum becomes captain!) actually asked Sourav Ganguly if he was the Fake IPL Player! Unbelievable! After all he's done for Indian cricket! Sourav may be a whole lot of things, arrogant, bratty, stubborn, but sneaky he is NOT.

So, who is it then? I just saw on the news that the KKR Team Management has axed Sanjay Bangar and Akash Chopra. Why? Could it be because they think one of them is the Fake IPL Player? Unlikely. Neither comes across as witty. Not even remotely.

It must be someone who has nothing to lose. Because if he's caught, it is most certainly the end of his cricketing career. He probably will get several book deals though. Or is it a member of the KKR support staff? Or a journalist who's following the team around? I'm leaning towards a playing team member though. Too much inside info. Do you have any ideas?

I think SRK deserves it though. Earlier I thought his self-obsession was cute, but now it's plain annoying. KKR is NOT about him! It's about the team, it's the cricket that matters. Not the over-inflated egos of the team owners. Vijay Mallaya is guilty of the same thing. It's always about him! Poor KP. There's such immense pressure on him to perform. No wonder the Royal Challengers look miserable all the time!

All right, more later. I do have to study once in a while.

Update: At the time of this post, the Rajasthan Royals were going strong!

Choices........

2009-03-28T20:12:00.009+05:30

Isn't deciding on what to do in college the HARDEST choice you've had to make?

This is one choice I love to make :) :)

Growing up, I've wanted to be a whole lot of things. I remember this one time, we had a Hindi exam in I think, class four and we were asked to write down our ambitions. While my friends very sensibly, just wrote 'doctor' or 'adhyapak' or anything they could spell correctly, I wrote 'cricket commentator' ! No, I wasn't even given half a mark for originality :(

In class four, I went on my first trip alone from Calcutta to Chennai. A week or so prior to that, I wrote a story about my being on a flight that got hijacked. I of course, emerged the heroine, when I tripped the hijacker with my foot and rescued a hundred people! One thing I distinctly recall is the hijacker saying to me "Sit down, you little shrimp!" Where did that come from ?!

Well, anyway, that was when I started thinking that writing was fun. I was convinced until class ten that I wanted to study Mass Communication , become a journalist and become the country's next sensation ,the next Barkha Dutt !

Since I'd always enjoyed Physics and was fairly good at Science, we decided that I'd continue with Science in the 11th and 12th, so as to not close any doors. So, I joined KV (We won't go there now, oh no, we won't.) and I took Informatics as my optional. I haaaaated KV and I haaated Informatics!!!! While explaining to us the idea of programming, the teacher told us "Hum kumpooter ko bataate aise karo, waise karo, phir uno khud kar leti" ! To keep me occupied in the evenings, and in the hope that I'd learn something (KV was certainly not going to teach me anything), my parents put me in TIME, this place that coaches for the science comptetitive exams.

Initially I went very reluctantly and would come back home in a foul mood everyday, feeling dumb and inadequate, but I stuck with it. It was so worth it! I thrived on the competition, enjoyed learning all these new, fascinating things that school would never teach me, loved the fact that I was encouraged to try out any method that occured to me, loved that I didn't have to quote verbatim from the textbook! There were as many lows as there were highs during those months, but I learnt a LOT! One thing that worked about TIME was that you were often left to figure things out for yourself. So, you just had to read different books and try to figure out everything for yourself, you didn't have another alternative.

The enthusiasm fizzled out later though. I'm really not sure why. By this time, I had moved to PORPS, where I took Economics as my optional subject. I was okay with it in the eleventh, we did pretty boring stuff , history of Indian Economics and all. In the twelfth, I really started enjoying it! I realized how important it was to have decent linguistic skills and quantitative aptitude to really get the subject. My Math background really helped too. Some things that the non-Math students would have to simply memorize, we could work out using very basic Calculus :)

It was the perfect combination for me! It combined my liking of writing and my unconscious need to put everything down in equations. So Economics it is for me !

Tagged!

2009-03-24T09:57:00.007+05:30

Akka tagged me way back in January and much to her disgust, I haven't gotten around to writing ANYTHING in the last couple of months. But hey, my board exams were on!

These are the rules of the tag:

1. Link to the person who tagged you.
2. Post the rules on your blog.
3. Write six random things about yourself.
4. Tag six people at the end of your post and link to them.
5. Let each person know they’ve been tagged and leave a comment on their blog.
6. Let the tagger know when your entry is up.

Okay, here goes :)

1. Most people don't know this, but ever since I was a little kid I've had an obsession for multiples of four. When I walk across a room I have to do it in a number of steps that is a multiple of four, or better still, eight. In dance class, I never, ever faltered while doing the eight-count steps. I've just got to write eight words, and no more in a single line.

2. I love, love, love to read! My mother tells me that when i was in class one or two, she had to force me to start reading books, but once i got over the initial resistance, there was no looking back. Reading brings me immense, unparalleled joy and I can't help but feel pity for those who haven't discovered the joys of reading yet! Right now I'm reading this collection of short stories, essays and excerpts from various novels by R.K. Narayan (one of my favourite-est authors, you haven't lived until you've read Swami and Friends, really!) , and Vanity Fair by William M Thackerey.

3. Of late, I've developed a taste for old Mohd. Rafi, Lata Mangeshkar songs. Very uncool for a seventeen year old to say this, I know :)
If I could only master Kathak and dance to one of those songs, I couldn't ask any more of life!

4. My mother and I are obsessed with cricket. I think it's rather strange that I'm as into cricket as I am, considering the fact that I've no athletic ability whatsoever!

I love Sourav Ganguly for his spirit, pride, brilliant captaincy and getting on Steve Waugh's nerves. Oh, and those times when he'd come half way down the pitch and whack the ball for six :) We are, as a family, Sourav devotees.
If you're coming home, you don't want to say anything anti-Sourav. Trust me.

Sachin, however will always remain number one for me! When I visited Shivaji Park in Mumbai a few years ago, I had a moment! I actually felt a connection with him! No, I'm not loony, just totally believe that "If cricket is my religion, Sachin is my God"

5. I'm a little wary (okay, terrified), of pigeons. They're so grey and fat and have those little beady menacing eyes and sharp pink claws that are just waiting to have a go at your skin. Eeep!This place, outside some palace in Jaipur, was a nightmare! I didn't get out of the car!

6. I must be the world's most indecisive person. Honestly, I'm simply incapable of taking decisions! I can't even decide whether to have coffee or bournvita in the morning!

P.S. My sister took the picture. You can check out her Flickr photostream here. She's an amazing photographer and so is my dad!

I now tag

Ashwin
Vandana
Gaggu

This is me, signing off :) :)

Change.....

2009-01-12T10:34:00.004+05:30

It's funny how our relationships with those around us are constantly evolving, ever-changing. And it's funny how drastically these equations change in a new environment.

I knew changing schools after the tenth wasn't going to be easy. One thing I always believed however, was that my friends from CV would always be there for me, no matter what. I truly believed the friends I made were friends for life. I thought the eight of us would, cheesy as it may sound, be best friends forever. Despite all the internal politics and quarrels and little rivalries, I thought we had a bond that would last us a lifetime. I couldn't envision a future for myself that they weren't an integral part of.

Now, less than two years after leaving school, I realize I was wrong. Although my affection for my friends hasn't diminished in any way, I feel like we have less and less in common everyday. Maybe CV homogenized us. Coming out threw all our differences into a clearer, harsher, more unforgiving light. It's only now I realize that we're all very different people, with very different backgrounds, values, priorities, dreams and ambitions.

I find myself drifting away from people, sometimes for no apparent reason other than that we're no longer the same people we were when we became friends or running out of things to talk about when there's no gossip about mutual friends to be shared. It's terrifying to think about where we'll be ten years from now if two years later, we're at this point. Then again, maybe it's a phase. Maybe this too, will pass.

TAX FREE

2008-11-10T09:27:00.003+05:30

Suhit, Suhit's dad and I watched TAX FREE by D-FIR Dramatics on Friday. It was a nice way to unwind after a rather hectic and confusing.

Adapted from a play by Marathi playwright Chandrashekhar Phansalkar, Tax Free was rather disappointing.

D-FIR is a theatre group, with young students Deeksha Marur and Firdous Majeed at the helm, that aims to ‘shatter the elitist veneer cloaking the art’ of theatre. Tax Free, their first production was presented in association with the The Actor’s Studio, an organization which aims to popularize theatre among the city’s youth.

Tax Free is a tale of three blind men who come to terms with their disability by not taking themselves or their condition too seriously. A Mr. Kenjale runs The Blind Men’s Club, to provide tax-free entertainment to the blind. The play opens with Mr. Kale seeking to become a part of the club. What ensues is a hilarious account of his initiation into the strange ways of the club.

To their credit, D-Fir’s Tax Free did evoke a few laughs from the audience. Their portrayal of blind men, however, was not very convincing. The actors looked at each other while they spoke and knew exactly where to sit. At one point, Kashif Ali even delivered a dialogue in response to a nod. Kashif Ali, despite his crystal clear diction and brilliant dialogue delivery, was most unconvincing as a blind man. Pradyun Rao, who played Mr. Pandharpur did a good job of appearing blind, but some of his words were not clear enough. Radheshyam Pai , who also didn’t look blind enough, managed however, to connect with the audience as the silly, gullible and naïve, but endearing Mr Kale. The sets were simple and effective and the lights and sounds (handled by Suguna Gopalakrishna) did their job well and unobtrusively.

A large part of the audience was very appreciative of D-Fir’s description of themselves. It was incredibly well-written and very sweet, particularly the tribute to “Laxmibai, for all the great food”.

All in all, a brilliant script, let down by amateurish execution.

The Hindu published this review today. Do read the Hyderabad edition of The Metro Plus today. Yaay! :D

Im a velociraptor!

2008-10-13T10:16:00.005+05:30

According to a quiz on facebook, im a velociraptor! Velociraptors are small, fast (hence the name velociraptor, get it?) and the smartest of all dinosaurs!

I've loved dinosaurs ever since i was a little kid. I had this really big, old book The World We Live In with wonderful pictures of dinosaurs- the mighty t-rex, the gentle brontosaurus, the flying pterodactyl, the humped stegosaurus. I also immensely enjoyed The Jurassic Park and The Lost World by Michael Crichton. The movies were okay, but the dinos were too plastic looking.

HARRY POTTER AND THE DEATHLY HALLOWS

2007-09-05T09:08:00.001+05:30

Early Saturday morning, thousands of Harry Potter freaks queued up in bookstores across the world, eagerly waiting with bated breath to get their hands on their very own copies of Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, the grand finale of the phenomenon created by J.K.Rowling ten years ago.

Darker, more mysterious and far more action-packed than any of its predecessors, Deathly Hallows has not disappointed any fans. Every chapter, every page, every paragraph has something happening in it. Just when you begin to breathe again, relieved that the trio have made it out of one adventure unscathed, its time to start worrying about whether they will make it through the next.

With Dumbledore and Sirius gone and entrusted with the seemingly impossible task of having to hunt down and destroy the last five of You-Know-Who’s horcruxes, the trio’s path ahead is fraught with peril and danger.

Not being keen at all to have my house burned down by Fiendfyre or inflicted with the Cruciatus curse by raging Harry Potter fans for giving away spoilers, I’m going to keep mum about all the shocks, revelations and surprises that J.K. Rowling has in store for you (including what on earth she means by the Deathly Hallows)

Unlike the earlier books, Deathly Hallows has almost no humourous or light-hearted moments because there just isn’t enough time. With the number of the dead and the missing steadily rising and the Dark Side, with each passing day bringing more and more of the wizarding world under its control, the urgency to find and destroy the horcruxes is too high to leave the trio time for fun and games. No Hogwarts. No Quidditch. No romance. Trying to minimize the number of victims claimed by the Dark Lord, by putting an end to him is uppermost in everyone’s minds.

As Harry comes of age in the Deathly Hallows, his evolution from an innocent boy to a brave adult who has accepted what he needs to do is complete. Although physically absent, Dumbledore’s presence is very powerfully felt throughout the book. Hermione proves beyond all doubt that she is more than just a bookworm. Her loyalty, courage, foresight, presence of mind and brilliant wizarding skills prove to be invaluable in Harry’s quest. Surprisingly, even Ron displays excellent leadership skills when things threaten to fall apart. Neville Longbottom’s bravery and faithfulness in the face of extreme adversity prove that he is indeed a true Gryffindor. Hagrid’s role in the book however, is disappointingly small. The rest of the Order of the Phoenix goes all out to stop the Dark Side and are willing to heroically lay down their lives “for the greater good”.

He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named is ruthless, not hesitating to get rid of anyone who stands in his way and severely punishing his own people for the smallest errors. Bellatrix Lestrange is as despicable and unbalanced as ever, while the Dursleys and the Malfoys give us a few surprises of their own. Rowling takes readers on a very illuminating journey into the past of one of the most intriguing characters of the series, Severus Snape.

All kinds of magical creatures have a part to play – from house-elves to giants, from centaurs to goblins and dragons to thestrals.

The deaths of some much loved characters (whose names I’m not going to be suicidal enough to mention, lest I be Avada Kedavra-ed by furious fans) add poignancy to the book. There are a few happy moments like Bill and Fleur’s wedding. However, the reader can never escape the atmosphere of rapidly increasing tension, constantly lurking danger and a panicky sense of time running out.

Although a few loose ends have been left untied, Rowling has, through a brilliantly concocted plot, answered most questions, something that Harry Potter fans thought would be impossible to do in one single book.

But, alas, all good things must come to an end. With no more theories to exchange, no more far fetched speculations and will guesses to make and no more eager anticipation for what the future holds in store for Harry Potter, this book, marking the end of era, leaves one feeling a little sad.

Mischief Managed.

ARTEMIS FOWL

2006-04-06T21:57:00.000+05:30

For many young people like me who have been looking for new books to read after having exhausted all their Eragons and Harry Potters, the Artemis Fowl series is a perfect discovery to make. Artemis Fowl by Eoin Colfer is the first of the popular Artemis Fowl series. In 2002, a year after the release of the first book, the author published Artemis Fowl: The Arctic Incident followed by Artemis Fowl: The Eternity Code in 2003. The fourth book in the series Artemis Fowl: The Opal Deception was released earlier this year. The author has also published three independent novels The Wish List, The Supernaturalist and The Legend of Spud Murphy.

Artemis Fowl, the 12-year old protagonist, is a genius with thirty-one patented inventions to his credit. He even beat the best chess player in the world in an online match in six moves. Artemis Fowl also has LOADS of money. His father, Artemis Fowl Sr. had been a well-known criminal who wanted to turn over a new leaf and establish himself as an honest and respectable businessman. Unfortunately, his ship, the Fowl Star, sank in the Bay of Kola near the North Pole while transporting 250,000 cans of cola. His body was never found and he was declared dead. His wife, Artemis Fowl’s mother Angeline Fowl, became insane after his disappearance. Artemis, however, was convinced that his father was alive. The young genius stopped going to school and started spending all his time in funding search parties to the North Pole in the hope of finding his father. He soon began to run out of money. In a quest to recover his lost family fortune, Artemis stumbles upon a race of fairies living underground, who call themselves The People and humans Mud Men After having read the Book of the fairies to find out all their secrets, Artemis decides to rob them of some gold. With the help of his loyal manservant and bodyguard Butler, Artemis kidnaps a leprechaun Captain Holly Short of the LEPrecon (Lower Elemental Police Reconnaissance). Holly was the only female officer in the LEPrecon. Fowl’s plan was simple. All he wanted from the fairies was one ton of gold. No fairies ever gave up their gold to Mud Men without putting up a fight. So, Commander Julius Root of the LEPrecon tries to rescue Holly with the help of a select team, Mulch Diggums, a kleptomaniac dwarf and against the Commander’s wishes, a troll. Artemis outwitted the fairies in every stage of the kidnapping in spite of the People’s terribly advanced technology until something went horribly wrong. Read the book to find out how Short’s quick thinking helped avert a cross-species war and come to a compromise with Fowl.

The book is an interesting mix of advanced technology and the fantasy of fairies and goblins and dwarfs. A person reading it is sure to feel the thrill of reading a science fiction while enjoying the pleasure of Harry Potters. The series is just perfect for those who are graduating from their Harry Potter and Inkheart to more serious science fiction like Isaac Aimed or Arthur Clarke.

RANG DE BASANTI GAVE OUT THE RIGHT MESSAGE

2006-03-31T15:42:00.000+05:30

Last week at school, we had a debate on the above mentioned topic and i was to speak against the topic. The following is what I had to say. My sister helped a lot with this, so thanks akka! ;)

Lieutenant Ajay Rathode kept telling his friends to stop sitting around, grumbling about the system but to get up and do something about it. So what do they do? Finish off the Defence Minister!!!

Lieutenant Rathode crashes to his death in a plane with faulty parts. But when the Defence Minister denies this and insists that the plane malfunctioned due to carelessness on the pilot’s part, the Lieutenant’s friends are outraged. When their protests against the Defence Ministry yield no results, they decide to avenge their friend’s disgrace after his death by murdering the Defence Minister. And they succeed.

The point I am trying to make is this. However desperate the situation might be, there is no justification for taking the law into one’s own hands. Two wrongs do not make a right. What the protagonists of the movie did is no different from what the old man in the movie Hindustani and the greasy-haired man in Aparichithudu did. No one found it right when they went around killing people, but everyone thinks it is so noble when a few “cool guys” do exactly the same thing! By the way, let me remind you that there was not much patriotism involved as the point of the whole episode was to keep the Lieutenant’s reputation from being tarnished rather than to reform the system. I was nothing more than a revenge killing. In fact if you have watched the movie, you may remember Sidharth saying he doesn’t care about what is going to happen in India because he is going to the US anyway! Where else?

We are civilized people and by way of a democracy, have set up for ourselves a legal system, a proper way of dealing with wrongs. Whether this is working or not, is a different issue altogether. Imagine what the country would come to if we had people killing off everyone, who in their opinion were wrongdoers! As Mahatma Gandhi once said “An eye for an eye will only leave the world blind”.

MY FIRST POST

2006-03-31T15:30:00.000+05:30

This is my first post on my first blog!