Precarious Potions

While we were sleeping...

2011-04-08T08:42:00.000-07:00

I didn’t realise so much had happened in the last few days when I was so occupied with my own world. It suddenly struck me that I hadn’t glanced at a newspaper since India won the WC, or caught the news or even checked my mails. And today when I did it all and went through some of the blogs and twitter updates, I realised the world outside had changed drastically as I was wrapped up with my own worries.

It’s about Anna of course. This is one particular mail that I received that I’ve forwarded everyone and here’s sharing it with you…(There's also a petition below!)

From Kiran Bedi and Arvind Kejriwa

Do watch this film:

Salient features of Jan Lokpal Bill

Drafted by Justice Santosh Hegde, Prashant Bhushan and Arvind Kejriwal, this Bill has been refined on the basis of feedback received from public on website and after series of public consultations. It has also been vetted by and is supported by Shanti Bhushan, J M Lyngdoh, Kiran Bedi, Anna Hazare etc. It was sent to the PM and all CMs on 1st December.

1. An institution called LOKPAL at the centre and LOKAYUKTA in each state will be set up
2. Like Supreme Court and Election Commission, they will be completely independent of the governments. No minister or bureaucrat will be able to influence their investigations.
3. Cases against corrupt people will not linger on for years anymore: Investigations in any case will have to be completed in one year. Trial should be completed in next one year so that the corrupt politician, officer or judge is sent to jail within two years.
4. The loss that a corrupt person caused to the government will be recovered at the time of conviction.
5. How will it help a common citizen: If any work of any citizen is not done in prescribed time in any government office, Lokpal will impose financial penalty on guilty officers, which will be given as compensation to the complainant.
6. So, you could approach Lokpal if your ration card or passport or voter card is not being made or if police is not registering your case or any other work is not being done in prescribed time. Lokpal will have to get it done in a month's time. You could also report any case of corruption to Lokpal like ration being siphoned off, poor quality roads been constructed or panchayat funds being siphoned off. Lokpal will have to complete its investigations in a year, trial will be over in next one year and the guilty will go to jail within two years.

7. But won't the government appoint corrupt and weak people as Lokpal members? That won't be possible because its members will be selected by judges, citizens and constitutional authorities and not by politicians, through a completely transparent and participatory process.
8. What if some officer in Lokpal becomes corrupt? The entire functioning of Lokpal/ Lokayukta will be completely transparent. Any complaint against any officer of Lokpal shall be investigated and the
officer dismissed within two months.
9. What will happen to existing anti-corruption agencies? CVC, departmental vigilance and anti-corruption branch of CBI will be merged into Lokpal. Lokpal will have complete powers and machinery to independently investigate and prosecute any officer, judge or politician.

(This movement is neither affiliated nor aligned to any political party)

India Against Corruption: A-119, Kaushambi, Ghaziabad, UP | 09718500606

And the petition :

http://www.avaaz.org/en/stand_with_anna_hazare/97.php?cl_tta_sign=ff66344cf9

SIGN TODAY!!!

I HATE QUESTIONS!

2011-04-07T09:35:00.000-07:00

I recently quit my company, searching for a better offer, to look for an opportunity to study further. A new city, new place, new job… I landed one too. So when the time came to submit my resignation and telling everyone that ‘Hey, I’m moving out…’ questions, and a lot of them, were expected.

Where are you going? What job? Profile… package… city…??? And why? All of these were expected. And I was ready with all the answers… at least the ones I could readily give.

Telling at home, in office, to friends, relatives, neighbours, even acquaintances you bump into on the road who had heard it from one of your colleagues, friends, relatives, or neighbours. Telling once, twice, thrice… repeating over and over again… phew! Exhausted!!!

The thing is, I’m a person of few words. I don’t like talking too much. In fact, nature has strategically programmed my word limit to a 1000 words a day, with ease! Anything above that comes with a lot of strenuous effort. So I never ask too many questions myself, never seek oral information more than what’s strictly necessary and always answer to the point... unless I’m under external influences (Ahem... like uncontained excitement).

Naturally I’m an excellent listener, content book-worm, and a very poor fighter-cock. I excel in essay writing, suck at debates… and I don’t think I even exist on the gossip grapevine.

So obviously when someone sits across from me and starts asking me questions, my level of patience starts depleting faster than the Wall Street Index’s nose dive on the 2008 recession graph.

So just the other day, I met another random nobody who I happen to know through some distant friend... and he starts asking me questions in the middle of a shopping mall. Why are you going out of Goa? You’re earning so comfortably her, isn’t that enough? Why do you want to study further? Itle shikun kite kartale? (Konkani) Which roughly means, what are you possibly going to achieve by studying so much?

Now, questions I get! But when someone just wants to sweetly insult my judgement while pretending to be curious about my decisions – that pisses me off! You don’t even want to genuinely know why I’m making these choices... you’ve come with your own mindset and prejudices, and no matter what I say, according to you, it’s all pointless and wrong.

You don’t care, so why pretend? Mind your own business and get off my face!

And this is just one type of questions. Then there are other examples – like my company librarian. He’s never heard the phrase, ‘Curiosity killed the cat’. The moment he sees you, or anybody for that matter, he starts firing questions at you like some 2 year old who’s just learned the word ‘why?’

I just took my neighbour today to the library who had come to my company to return a book she had borrowed from me and in the five minutes that it took for him to enter the book back, he managed to ask her not only her name, address and qualification, but also her religious orientation, where she got her masters from, how she knew me, how long she’s been working as a physiotherapist, what exactly is a physiotherapist and her future study plans!

I had a ball of a time looking at her exasperated face and we laughed all the way back to the railway station.

Come on dude, you don’t get it that we all laugh at you the moment you turn your back?

What do people get out of one-sided, long-winded questions? Why don’t you make a conversation instead? Talk to me, contribute something... ask intelligent questions! Don’t behave like a corny chat-show host; let me see that you are more than just a gossip-seeking quiz. Be open-minded to what I have to say and leave all your prejudices and frugality behind. I’m all ears, and I’ll gladly exceed my stipulated word limit for you.

But I have absolutely no patience for egotistical, narrow minded morons who have nothing better to do than go poking their oversized noses in other peoples private lives, just to get their share of the latest juicy gossip. And then you have the nerve to call me a snob when I don’t answer your questions to your satisfaction.

Look at my face, the awkward grimace, the patronising glance... and remember it. It’s the look that says, ‘Buddy, I hate your QUESTIONS!’

55er : Magic of the helping hand!

2011-03-11T07:26:00.001-08:00

Uncannily, the bike stopped in the middle of nowhere.

9pm… a distant corner… nobody around.

Cursing, she dragged it uphill somehow reaching the highway.

“Fuel empty, child?” someone asked, kindly.

“Yes!”

Stopping, he whipped out a bottle from his bike’s boot and emptied it in her tank.

She barely said ‘thanks!’ before he drove away.

______________________________________________________________________________

Even 9pm in my little Goan town means almost midnight, especially in the corner where my bike decided to leave me stranded. My fault actually, I had not checked the fuel levels before I left the house, and now I was getting punished. I was already having a rough day and I didn’t have the strength to drag the bike up the steep slope to reach the main road but I did it anyway.

I had just managed to push it up the slope and around the bend when a motorcyclist in a dark helmet stopped right in front of me.

“What happened child?’ he asked in the kindest voice. “Fuel empty?”

“Yes.” I said.

“Going far?”

“Just another kilometre… I’ve called my father, he’s on his way.”

“I have petrol with me, enough to get you home. Open your tank.” He said, calm yet with an authority that I couldn’t refuse.

“Ok!” I muttered.

He then produced a bottle from the boot of his bike and poured half its contents into my tank as I watched, slightly mesmerised.

“Go now! You’ll reach home” he said.

I barely had the sense to open my mouth and say ‘thanks’ before he waved and drove off.

I was left wondering the whole way back about the kindness of that stranger, the perfect, almost too perfect timing… and wondering if I would do that for him if the roles were reversed. And in all that, I did not even see his face.

But at the end of the tiring, blah day… he had given me a reason to smile, to believe in simple magic of a helping hand! Thank you, whoever you are, for caring, for helping!

Doctors, medicines, needles… and the Phobia! – Part II

2011-03-05T08:55:00.000-08:00

Some people are born with some or the other phobia; others just catch on along the way. And even though doctors, medicines & needles have become such a constant part of our lives, like I previously mentioned, some people still don’t take too kindly to them.

I googled to find a few related phobias and got a big list of them.

Trypanophobia is the extreme fear of medical procedures involving injections or hypodermic needles.

Latrophobia is a fear of doctors.

Medication phobia (also known as pharmacophobia) is the fear of taking medications.

Blood phobia or Haemophobia – do I even need to say what that is?

Honestly, doctors never bothered me much. My only problem with them, as with most things, is patience – waiting hour after hour in the clinic for your turn to come, remembering to take the medicines everyday, before food, after food, after certain number of hours. Tonics, capsules, syrups… and then watch your diet – no salt, cheese, pickles, no eating out, no ice creams or sweets. Blah…

Needles are therefore better, one shot and you are done. How I wish everything in life was that simple… (sigh)

My cousin Mru is the best example of inborn phobias, she cries – like really breaks down and cries – if you approach her with a bunch of tablets. She hates taking medicines, she hates the sight of them… so getting sick is the worst thing to happen to her. When she gets fever, she prefers sleeping through the seven day cycle rather than popping a crocin. Even when she’s forced to take it, she makes you break it in quarters so that it would go down easily her tiny throat or worse – dissolve it in water so she would gulp it down with a crucified look on her face. In fact she even prefers the needle just to escape the torture of taking medicines.

This one time we were at my grandma’s place and she came down with a bad bout of flu. And the doctor, to her intense horror, prescribed her an elaborate dose of 5 different tablets and capsules to be taken 3 times a day. She was nearly hysterical. She just wouldn’t take them. Everyone, including her mother just gave in to her tantrums, but not me. I became her worst nightmare; I would sit down and not let her move until she swallowed every last crumble of her tablets between snobs and sniffs.

I don’t know if I managed to cure her phobia because since then, I’ve somehow never been around her when she falls sick.

Then again, there’s my other cousin Vandan. As the eldest of the three sisters, she is always the mature, responsible one… and sometimes such things can take you a bit too far.

We were having a function at out house, and all my relatives had come over. I was going out of my way to help out (by which I mean that my mother had dragged me to a corner and threatened me with consequences worse than death if I dint get my butt off the couch and do some work). I don’t know how exactly it happened, but as clumsy and accident-prone as I am, no one was surprised when I ended up with the heavy wooden stool with sharp edge down on my toes. Three cracked toes nails and a sizable pool of blood was the verdict.

My father promptly took me to the doctor, and Vandan tai insisted she come with me. Now, she wasn’t phobic of blood, no faint heart either but the sight of my mangled toes was enough to keep everyone away, even my father, but she stood there stony-faced nonetheless with one hand holding mine and the other clutched at her own heart as the doc did his job.

I was fine; I have been through the entire drill so many times I could have slept through it. And she seemed to be handling pretty well all the snipping, cleaning, sowing that was going on at the tip of foot, until...

Until the time came to pull out a toe and her carefully maintained facade started to wear off. The doc then adjusted the tongs to the toe and that’s it, she cracked… just like a scene straight out of a sitcom, she dug her nails in my palm so hard I forgot all the pain in my toes and screamed out loud. The doc jumped (only slightly), he hadn’t even begun to apply pressure. He didn’t realised what the yelling was all about, until I wriggled my hand out of Vandu tai’s grasp and ordered her out.

She gladly waited out with my dad then, only coming in to help me hop out of the clinic.

She’s all cured of her phobias now though. She doesn’t get scared of anything anymore she says, least of all blood. Oh no! I’m not trying to claim responsibility here; apparently going through the process of becoming a mother cures you out of all that.

So much for inborn phobias...

My phobia, however, is acquired... and how!

But it’s a bloody thrilling story, and I really want to do it justice. So disappointed as you are going to be after reading this, I must ask you to have patience till my next post.

Till then, have a great weekend people!

Image from GOOGLE Where else?

Doctors, medicines, needles... and realisations!!! - Part I

2011-02-25T08:17:00.000-08:00

Think of the times when you’ve seen the child in the eyes of the most unsuspecting adults. Perhaps when you went to that amazing theme park, or while you watched Hera Pheri on TV for the first time?

I saw the look on my fathers face when I was taking him to the doctor on Wednesday… for a tetanus injection. :)

My father, the person from whom I inherit traits like independence, strength and the weakness of not showing weaknesses, is the caretaker… always has been. He fusses over our health, eating and drinking (water only) habits, worries a lot, and has a host of prescriptions ready at the tip of his tongue whenever something goes wrong, no matter how trivial. Just the other day I heard him telling my next door neighbour the best ways to counter the side effects of heavy medicines for my neighbour’s mother-in-law’s sister’s grandson who was having a stomach upset. Jeez!

So when he asked me in a really small voice if the tetanus injection was going to hurt, I looked at him in total surprise and then burst out laughing. He told me he had never taken an injection, or at least that he doesn’t remember it. Looking at his sheepish expression, I suddenly realised how little I knew about my own father. For starters, how many times had I visited the doctor with him when I wasn’t the patient? Not once. My father rarely fell sick (another trait I’ve thankfully inherited from him) but even on the rare occasions that he did catch a cold or ran a fever, he diligently avoided the doctor. I’ve been trying to get him to go for a full medical check-up ever since he turned 55 last year, but he always finds some excuse to avoid it. How did I miss this? My father, Mr. Dependable-cum-medical-dictionary was scared of Doctors!!!

My mum, on the other hand, is a completely different case. Its not that she loves doctors, it’s that she can’t avoid them. She is somehow always sick, her one constant problem is cold, cough and every other ailment related to it. Monsoons and winter are her mortal enemies, and this time both came down strong on her. It’s safe to say, she pretty much coughed her way through the entire 2010.

We always poke fun at her for her constant bouts of flu. I even suggested that for 2011 she should make a New Year resolution to not run to the doctor more than once a month. She dint take it too kindly. She replied sarcastically to point out that if it weren’t for her, my medical allowance would run dry! And she has a point.

Doctors, medicines, needle… such a constant part of our lives, we don’t even think about them anymore. Not unless some part of you suddenly wakes up to the obvious and ponders over it long enough to sit and write about it.

One minute you’re the kid sitting teary eyed in the dentist’s chair while he – sweating profusely – tries to wrench your stuck jaw open (extremely scary-hilarious story, wait for the next post), and next minute you’re the parent holding your parent-kid’s hand while he braves the tetanus needle…

Seeing the child in him for the first time… the hilarity of it, the innocence I cannot describe…

Yeah, suddenly made me skip a few years in life! :)

P.S. - I know the above image is a little too cute for this post, but like I said, its just too cute. Found it Here

55er - Handicapped, but why???

2011-02-04T09:08:00.000-08:00

As the name implies, 55-ers are posts which contain 55 words or less.

A literary work will be considered 55 Fiction if it has:

· Fifty-five words or less (A non-negotiable rule)

· A setting,

· One or more characters,

· Some conflict, and

· A resolution. (Not limited to moral of the story)

The title of the story is not part of the overall word count, but it still can’t exceed seven words.

This is my second attempt.

___________________________________________________________

“Net romances don’t last. This was stupid.”

“Let’s meet just once, please!”

“I’m sorry.”

“But…”

But she was gone, back to her disabled world – one tear glistening on her cheek, glaring wrathfully at her wheelchair.

In a different world, he too logged off wistfully, thinking he wasn’t worth it anyway, and reached for his crutches.

Image courtesy - Google

55er – The Void!

2011-01-30T04:23:00.000-08:00

It was hopeless as he leaned in to touch her lips. Underneath the warm lips the response was cold. He drew back, not daring to look in her eyes.
She was determined and he was helpless.

The last he remembered of that night was the sound of fading heels on the concrete.
And the Void!

P.S. - 55-ers are stories told in a total of 55 words or less. The rules are simple –
A literary work will be considered 55 Fiction if it has:
• Fifty-five words or less (A non-negotiable rule)
• A setting,
• One or more characters,
• Some conflict, and
• A resolution. (Not limited to moral of the story)
The title of the story is not part of the overall word count, but it still can’t exceed seven words.
This is my first attempt to write a 55er, and it has come after a lot of painstaking effort, hope you like it.

Here I’m listing a few of my favorite 55ers written by others.
Chronicles : She said Yes!
Horizons - Filled with Hope : Small problem big problem
Horizons - Filled with Hope : Story of life

Adios!

2011-01-21T09:31:00.000-08:00

We all have regrets in our lives and we all have speed breakers in our path. But most of all we have our ghosts – our own personal ghosts!
Ghosts of our past, memories that haunt us, people who turn into ghosts and never leave our side.
Once in a while, a sudden gust of directionless thought leaves you breathless! A random sight triggers some distant memory and a familiar ache in the pit of your stomach. Some foreboding event looms on the horizon and makes you stumble and stop.
They’re everywhere – ghosts who suddenly become a reality and shake the core of your being!

Some leave you dejected, some helpless... and some times some one just takes away a part of you and leaves you behind to pick up the scattered pieces of your broken heart.
Try as you might, it’s never easy to run with these ghosts with a smile plastered to your face. But we try...

We battle with these haunting; and we regret that we haven’t been at our best while dealing with them. Many times we try to run away, stress out, we refuse to acknowledge them, feign blindness, and then once in a while let them haunt us so terribly we nearly break down and destroy ourselves.

But through all that and more, what you learn is the importance of perseverance, hard work, and patience... the importance to hold yourself with pride and to move forward no matter how many times you stagger and fall, no matter how many times you’re left broken-hearted.
You discover that becoming selfish isn’t such a bad thing after all, especially when you train to prioritise your life and worry about nothing else.

Eventually of course, you learn to live with these ghosts. You look at them and smile, making peace with their proximity. They still follow you everywhere, but you don’t look over your shoulders fearing them anymore.
You learn to take them with you as your companions. They become your experiences, your teachers, your masters, your lessons. They guide you through, reminders of good times, protectors from the bad, making you stronger, making you wiser! You realise over time that they’re not your enemies; they aren’t here to haunt you, to make you miserable… as long as you learn to accept them as a part of your psyche, a part of your existence!

In time, some of them will become nothing more than milestones in the path that you’ve carved out. And slowly as you keep moving on, you’ll notice that you’re carrying fewer ghosts than what you started with.

P.S. - on a lighter, brighter note, I want to tell everyone that one such haunting has left me to become a milestone – I’ve cleared my exams and I’m now officially a Chartered Accountant.
Adios my friend, my nemesis!

31st night blues!

2011-01-05T06:12:00.000-08:00

“What’s so special about this night that every body wants to go out and spread chaos? Isn’t it like any other night?” I asked my brother.

Actually, I was a little deflated thinking it was another New Year’s Eve I was going to be spending indoors like any other ordinary night. So I was trying to convince myself that that’s exactly what it was – just another ordinary night, meant to be slept in whether or not the whole world was out there celebrating. Classic case of sour grapes!

“Well yeah,” came the reply, from my ever optimistic darling brother (I swear, sometimes I feel the sun shines right from inside his bedroom door) “…But then isn’t your birthday also like any other day? Or the night before the results or a job interview? Does it really qualify for all the jitters?

And then, isn’t a date just another coffee or dinner? Or a childbirth just another addition into the already overflowing population?”

OUCH!!

And as if to further emphasize the point or maybe just to drive me out of his room so he could continue surfing the net, he went on “And what about your favourite mozzarella cheese sticks? Isn’t it just like any other food? Meant to fill your stomach?”

“Yeah, yeah! I get your point mister!” I sulked and stalked out.

My brother is getting very wise to my mood swings! Maybe a little too wise!

HAPPY NEW YEAR

2011-01-03T09:24:00.001-08:00

So much to ask for in the new year, so much to hope for...
so much to achieve, so much to look forward to.
Yet so much will change, so many things to leave behind.
so much to expect, and so much unexpected.
Here's to living life in its every beat!

HAVE A GREAT YEAR FOLKS!

Trivial stuff

2010-07-15T02:45:00.000-07:00

With camera’s surrounding us on all sides, even available in mobiles, it doesn’t take much to make every trivial moment of your life seem significant.

But then, if it isn’t the smallest moments that make our life, than what does?

Just another trivial thing that occupied a few hours of my time last weekend, with a cousin’s baby shower in progress…

Looking forward to this next weekend...

Butterfly fly away

2010-07-09T02:52:00.000-07:00

She was a dreamer… the kind that doesn’t just dream of a beautiful place, but the kind that constantly lives in it.

Day after day, she sat by the window of her tiny little world and looked out wanting nothing more than to break through. She wanted to experience that high, drink it, get intoxicated and live in that trance. But the world around her wouldn’t understand it… they all came back to tell her the horrifying stories of the big bad world. And she always listened with bated breathe, not wanting to believe it but scared it might be true. Afraid, she created a shell around her, luring herself into its false sense of security. She was gloomy, she was just so sad… but this was home after all, can anything really be better than this? She would look out of her box over and over again, and the brightness would just hurt the eye. But she still took another nervous peek, and wondered whether there could be a better world out there.

But then she asked herself…

What if the world of her imagination isn’t all that shiny and bright as she had hoped?

That the stories others brought back with them are actually true?

What if she was making a mistake; that it was just not meant for her?

What if…?

And she dreaded the answers, too scared to find out on her own, and she fell back into her sanctuary, deciding that this in fact was the best thing, no matter how horrible it might be. And she wrapped up her folding even tighter, refusing to let go.

But one day, the patience broke through, the carefully built wall of inhibitions collapsed, the frustration spilled over and she flung all cares to the wind and broke through her cocoon. It was scary, blinding, too vast to contemplate compared to her tiny refuge. But she took a deep breathe and took the plunge. She spread her wings, the ones she didn’t think she had and soared up high. She stumbled, she was clearly confused, it was all just too overwhelming but she kept going now that there was no way to turn back and suddenly she found herself enjoying her new journey. Soon, sooner than expected, she was in her zone, she was comfortable, she was actually enjoying herself and she realized that this in fact was what she had wanted. She saw that the world really was just as shiny and bright as she had hoped.

Finally, she looked back towards her tiny shell, too little, too far behind and she asked herself the wretched question again – ‘What if?’

What if she’d never shown the courage?

What if she’d still been too afraid?

And she knew… she finally knew that the answer to this question is much more dreadful than the ones she asked herself before! She still didn’t know if the world of her dreams was waiting for her or not, but this time she knew she wanted to find out!

She was after all, a butterfly – not a caterpillar!

Caterpillar in the tree, how you wonder who you'll be
can’t go far but you can always dream
Wish you may and wish you might
don’t you worry, hold on tight
I promise you there will come a day
Butterfly Fly Away

Flap your wing now you can't stay
Take those dreams and make them all come true
Butterfly Fly Away

- MILEY CYRUS

Going down the Slam book lane...

2010-07-07T02:00:00.000-07:00

Remember the school days, college? Particularly the send off?

And what about slam books? ‘Oh right, where did I stash mine?’

Well, I was introduced to the culture of slam books in schools. When you are parting with friends, knowing it’ll never be the same again, you get desperate to preserve what you once had, trying to lock those corridors firmly in your memory; those graffiti-ed benches, the chalk fights, the blessed P.E. periods... all of it suddenly doubles up in it's worth and you want to pack it up and take it away with you.

Perhaps Slam books were just another way to do that. But for the love of god, I wouldn’t get what all the fuss was about, or maybe I was just too lazy for it. But school was nearing its end, and emotions were running high. And not wanting to be left out, I too made a slam book and passed it on enthusiastically just because that’s what all my friends were doing.

Well, I can tell you now that it does pay off. One fine day almost 9 years later you are bored with getting bored and decide to clear out your desk and stumble across that faded colourful book, full of posters and drawings and copious amounts of scribbling, some of it in really bad handwriting... and it brings back a flood of memories.

So leaving all work at hand I sat down to go through mine. I had decided to keep my book really simple then – just the contact details, and an opportunity to get a little philosophical about life, friendship...

I think the decision to keep it simple had perhaps come from the cramps in my fingers after writing on and on in other slams about my favourite actor, favourite place, favourite movie, song, outfits, teachers, dish, colour, newspaper (?) and also dream partner, dream date, dreamy moments and dreams in life; even about what I would wish to reincarnate as, or demand if I was omnipotent for a day.

Anyways, going back through my simple slam book, I saw a lot of nice, funny, stupid, really funny, witty, really really hilarious stuff!

For example, one Mr. A had painfully scrawled everything backward so I had to rush to the mirror to read that page. 10 seconds later I was bent double laughing. In his opinion about me, he has written ‘well I think that you should talk a little more since I feel that you are a silent ‘gay’’.

And then Mr. S, a classmate I had broken ties with a long time back and after reading what he had to say I wasn’t at all surprised that we were no longer in contact. Reason? Page after page of friendship being described as a ship that never sinks, finally here was the opinion of a classic cynic, ‘Friendship is a ship which sinks anytime, anywhere, anyhow etc.’

And then, reading between the lines I was also realising that the last few years had not changed many people.

Like, all of Mr. V’s answers were similar – can’t think – my brain is corroded – No aim in life. And curiously, I realised he still gives similar answers to any questions he wants to dodge!

Ms. A, thoughtful and sombre as ever had written ‘Life is a pendulum oscillating between sorrows and joy.’ What a thought!

And then there’s always someone who’ll write either on the last page, or somewhere in between, so it's a good idea to flip through the pages to make sure you did not miss out anybody. I found one on the last page, turned out to be Ms. L, unconventional as ever!

And of course I wasn’t too surprised to see that all advice to me was... to eat a lot to gain weight – eat a lot, you are too skinny – don’t take tension, you won’t become fat – please don’t go on a diet – and with one person taking it too far to emphasis the point with this sarcastic remark ‘you are too fat’! Well, it finally seems to be working!

Looking through everyone’s ambitions, I wondered how many of us have actually accomplished what we wanted to be. At 15, did we really know where life was going to take us? Then again, was 15 an age too young to dream and plan? Maybe at the simpler mindset that we carried at 15, delineating our minds and feeling was much easier than as we grew older and more confused.

Wouldn’t you say than that the simpler, wilder dreams of a teenager made more sense than that of a flustered adult with concepts of security and stability drilled into the head by parents and society? With the age running out, hunger for success & pressure to make a comfortable living, coupled with the uncanny marriage proposals kicking in, it's no wonder we are producing a bitter, frustrated and more harassed-than-ever generation-next who all seem to be running after the MBA!

But right now I’m too nostalgic to worry about that...

I never really had a proper college life, and being a CA student meant you were too busy or too harassed to think about slam books. So school days were the only ones where I had most fun and they are the ones I remember with longing. They were one of the best days of my life and I miss them a lot.

So with another parting look at it, I stashed my slam book deep inside again so that I find it in another 9-10 years, to go through it again and perhaps to write about it once more from a different perspective, this time from the point of view of a 30something.

One Ms. A described it the best:

Writing with pleasure, parting with pain,

Because our school days will never come again!

Kati Patang...

2010-05-22T01:13:00.000-07:00

It was the movie we had waited for… especially since it was the first promising movie releasing after my exams, and we made plans… plans that we immediately put to action on Friday. Komal went through all the trouble of harassing the theatre staff till the advance booking opened and I risked going for a movie without reading the reviews, which is a huge deal for me!

And now after watching the movie, I want to say that at least it should not have made me want to run out of the theatre during Intermission, which Terence almost did… and I had to pull him back inside reminding him that we had paid 140 bucks for it.

And that’s what Kites is, a complete bore! It was a huge disappointment… it has a very half hearted storyline, makes you wonder whether the writer had more to say but was just too lazy to pen it down. It moves at a snails pace, so slow that (spoiler alert : read ahead at you own risk) when Hritik stands at the edge of the cliff at the end of the movie looking over at the vast and gorgeously blue ocean, you just wish he’d jump off soon and finish it off.

It’s a plain love story, kind of reminds you of one of those 80’s movie where two lovers from distinct backgrounds run away cos the world is too harsh to understand their love… broke with nowhere to go, one of them with a poverty stricken family to support, continuously facing a dilemma and the unruly, money powered, arrogant villains chasing them wherever they run.

The only difference this time is the language instead of the caste(she doesn’t know English, he doesn’t understand Spanish), casino barons instead of the big haveli rajputs, high speed car chases with police sedans painted white and blue instead of the usual khaki gang in open jeeps and the blatant acknowledgment of their sheer desperation for chasing after the money instead of the age old pride and honour ‘we-don’t-need-the-money-when-we-have-our-love’ funda! Hritik is Hritik, nothing more, nothing less! And what a waste of Kangna Ranaut.

A few good things if you must go and watch the movie;
Barbara Mori in a bikini, even being a woman I couldn’t take my eyes off her.
Amazing landscapes in bright contrasting colours; the casinos and the luxurious villas. The whole feel of the movie is larger than life!

But all in all, this one is worth a miss!

My verdict : **/ 2 stars.

If I were...

2010-05-18T05:56:00.001-07:00

Now i had to kick start my blog with something, its been dormant for too long, and currently I'm blank to think of something new! So here's answering your blog post's answer, Janaki.

If I were a Month, I would be August ;
If I were a Day, I would be Saturday - So i'd have the whole weekend ahead;
If I were a time of the day, I would be Midnight ;
If I were a Direction, I would be Up ;
If I were an Element, I would be Oxygen ;
If I were a Liquid, I would be Water ;
If I were a gemstone, I would be a Diamond ;
If I were a Tree, I would be a Cashew tree - big strong branches, low lying, so u can climb up n go to sleep;
If I were a Bird, I would be an Eagle ;
If I were a tool, I would be a swiss knife;
If I were a pair of shoes, I would be a pair of Hiking Boots ;
If I were a color, I would be Green ;
If I were an emotion, I would be Happy (is FREE an emotion?) ;
If I were a Fruit, I would be a Mango ;
If I were a Sound, I would be the sound of the gushing waterfall;
If I were a car, I would be Land Rover;
If I were a Food, I would be Mac n Cheese ;
If I were a Taste, I would be Sweet ;
If I were a place, I would be the tip of Mount Everest ;
If I were a Material, I would be Cotton ;
If I were a Body Part, I would be the Eyes ;
If I were Music, I would be Instrumental ;
If I were a Dance, I would be a Dance, doesnt matter which ;
If I were an Animal, I would be a Koala Bear ;
If I were a gift, I would be anything You need ;
If I were an Element Of Earth, I would be the Water ;
If I were a Historical Figure, I would be ;
If I were A Famous Actor, I would be Julia Roberts or Helen Hunt ;
If I were a Book, I would be The Harry Potter ;
If I were a Poem, I would probably not exist ;
If I were a Room of the House, I'd be my room .

And a few more from me
If I were a Smell, I'd be the smell of earth after the first Rains, closely followed by coffee.
If I were a Dessert, I'd be a Cheesecake
If I were a Clothing, I'd be a pair of Jeans
If I were a Gadget, I'd be a Camera.

Anybody wants to add something, feel FREE...

Two voices, one song...

2010-03-26T00:30:00.000-07:00

Loved this song, and it so made me think of my Best friend...
Sharing it with you!

It's so rare to find a friend like you
Somehow when you're around the sky is always blue
The way we talk
The things you say
The way you make it all ok
And how you know
All of my jokes
But you laugh anyway...

If I could wish for one thing
I take the smile that you bring
Wherever you go in this world I'll come along
Together we dream the same dream
Forever I'm here for you, you're here for me
Oh ooh oh
Two voices, one song

Now every day is something new
And any path we take I'm looking forward too
The way we try and never quit
The way that all the pieces fit
The way we know the parts by heart
And sing out loud

If I could wish for one thing
I take the smile that you bring
Wherever you go in this world I'll come along
Together we dream the same dream
Forever I'm here for you, you're here for me
Oh ooh oh two voices one song

And anywhere you are you know I'll be around
And when you call my name I'll listen for the sound

If I could wish for one thing
I take the smile that you bring
Wherever you go in this world I'll come along
Together we dream the same dream
Forever I'm here for you, you're here for me
Oh ooh oh two voices one song
If I could wish for one thing
I take the smile that you bring
With you by my side I can go on
Now I have all that I need
And the sweetest sound will always be
Oh ooh oh two voices one song

- From "Barbie and The Diamond Castle"

I surrender...

2010-02-17T01:31:00.000-08:00

I give up the fight
Let there be an end,
A privacy
An obscure nook for me,
I want to be forgotten
Even by God!

- R Downing.

Half empty or Half full?

2010-02-15T02:00:00.000-08:00

Source for the philosophy this time: a SMS received on Tuesday, 24 March 2009, 19.50 hours!

Source reads as follows: We are camping in the forest. To pass time we start narrating real life incidents. My turn is up, you are next – narrate the nicest incident in your life!

??? … ???

I dodge the question by saying, “You go first!” and then sit down to think… several minutes later I realise that if I was asked to narrate one of the most painful or terrible memories, I would have easily come up with a dozen! But ask for a nice incident and I’m black… I mean, blank! Does that make me a tragedy queen? Someone with no good thing in life to talk about? Hardly! It makes me one of those who always insist perhaps to look at the glass as half-empty. Oh my god… it makes me a whiner, a pessimist! No, i refuse to believe that - come on now, think! One good sweet incident that isn’t a good result, birthday or a wedding!

Several more minutes pass, and I notice something. Hey… the guy didn’t answer back! Does that mean he couldn’t think of anything either? Of course it was a forwarded, right? So it means he must have received it from someone else and just forwarded it on, because he couldn’t reply himself! Hmmm… is this theory correct? Are we all like this? I decide to test it for more blog fodder… I forward the same SMS, wording it differently to make it personal and send it to 10 different people.

24 hours later, I’m sitting in front of the laptop screen typing away that I’ve not been disappointed… not a single reply back… and mind you it was some of the closest people I know who would never ordinarily ignore a SMS from me!
A few days back, when it rained unexpectedly, the sun and the clouds met and they shot up a beautiful rainbow in sky. I was in market and I cried out loud when I spotted it. People around me followed my line of gaze and once they saw what was causing all the excitement, they gave me a look that plainly said – why are u behaving like a 10 year old?

Gosh human tendency! We make the terrible times larger than life, but we forget in our worldly mess the pure joy of small (read ‘petty’ in common terminology) moments! And ask for a happy memory and we perhaps come up with, “hmmm… when I topped the class some 7 years back!” Oh, quite an achievement I’m sure, but come on people – is that the best you can do? I’m talking about the small things in life that nevertheless make it worth living. Perhaps a lovely weekend somewhere secluded, meeting some stranger who made a journey worthwhile or a Valentine date with a friend laughing at the mushy couples surrounding you? Yeah, those were some of the sweetest moments and I have to remember to remember them. It’s the phrase – smelling the proverbial roses!

Conclusion: I believe – Look at the glass as half-empty and it doesn’t take time for it to dry up completely; but look at it as half-full and the glass really does start getting full.

P.S. - This is an old post, that I recently found buried in some corner of my computer, so its finally seeing the light of the day after almost year. :)

Finding Me

2010-02-02T01:00:00.000-08:00

Sometimes I think, if I had taken a class in philosophy, I probably would have scored top marks in it! For me, life's every mood, every turn of events, every decision to make... marks a quest, a pursuit to decipher a deeper, hidden meaning – constantly trying to see myself in a different light that would make more sense. Maybe sometimes I overdo it, but then again as common philosophy would suggest, isn’t that how we find ourselves? Isn’t that the whole point, the way to do better, by knowing what we are made up of, at last for starters? But me, I still get confused, like now, while typing this, a constant dilemma… because ‘Finding Me’ is a test which is not so easy to crack after all.

Sometimes Life’s just so serious
And there are days when naughty is the way to be,
But now I’m curious and confused;
Which of it is really me?

P.S. – If all the above gibberish did not make sense to you, don’t worry – it just proves that you are a very sane person! :)

MISSING!

2009-12-01T05:59:00.000-08:00

I know I've been missing from this space for over a month...
But its been crazy... with lots at hand.
I'm trying and will fill this space up with posts soon, PROMISE!!!

The Empty Jar And 2 Cups of Coffee

2009-10-20T06:18:00.000-07:00

I'm sure almost everybody has read this by now, it's one of the most widely circulated mails on the internet... But everytime I read, I just love it more and more!

So just uploading it for those few who might not have come across it yet!

When things in your life seem, Almost too much to handle, When 24 Hours in a day is not enough,
Remember the story of the empty jar and 2 cups of coffee.

A professor stood before his philosophy class and had some items in front of him.
When the class began, wordlessly, he picked up a very large and empty jar and proceeded to fill it with golf balls.
He then asked the students, If the jar was full.
They agreed that it was.

The professor then picked up a box of pebbles and poured them into the jar.

He shook the jar lightly. The pebbles rolled into the open Areas between the golf balls.
He then asked The students again If the jar was full..

They agreed it was.

The professor next picked up a box of sand and poured it into the jar. Of course, the sand filled up everything else.
He asked once more if the jar was full.

The students responded with an unanimous 'yes.'

The professor then produced Two cups of coffee from under the table and poured the entire contents Into the jar, effectively
Filling the Empty space between the sand.
The students laughed.

'Now,' said the professor, As the laughter subsided,
'I want you to recognize that This jar represents your life.
The golf balls are the important things - God, family, children, health, friends, and favorite passions – things that if everything else was lost
and only they remained, Your life would still be full.
The pebbles are the other things that matter Like your job, house, and car.

The sand is everything else -- The small stuff.

'If you put the sand into the jar first,' He continued, 'there is no room for the pebbles or the golf balls.
The same goes for life.

If you spend all your time and energy on the small stuff, you will never have room for the things that are important to you.

Don’t be under impression that u don’t have time, u have to manage time that is the key for your success.

So...

Pay attention to the things That are critical to your happiness.
talk to your friends.
Take time to get medical checkups.
Take your partner out to dinner.

There will always be time
To clean the house and fix the disposal.

'Take care of the golf balls first -- The things that really matter.
Set your priorities. The rest is just sand.'

One of the students raised her hand and inquired what the coffee represented.

The professor smiled.
'I'm glad you asked'.

It just goes to show you that no matter how full your life may seem, there's always room for a cup of coffee with a friend.

Not the final goodbye...

2009-10-12T10:14:00.000-07:00

Just as I was beginning to get comfortable with Mumbai, its time for me to leave. And suddenly, I don’t think I’m too comfortable with that.

What was it that I used to say about Mumbai?
Noisy, crowded, polluted…???

And yet I can’t shake off the first surge of something exhilarating that I had smelled in this air when I had first walked out of Dadar station on 16 July. Something other than the smoke and dampness in the surrounding had caught with me and it’s as if I can feel it in my senses all over again. It smelled like freedom, a heady sense of purpose, and a spirit so like me that I could never walk away from, despite the city’s many vices.

Gosh, I’m surprising myself!

And yet, having said all that, I still have no reason not to go back to my precious Goa… as always!

But I know I’ll be back – back to explore Mumbai as Mumbai is, back to the gallis and locals, markets and malls, to the crowds where you can be invisible and not worry about being judged, to a life which knows not the snails pace, to never ending opportunities, undying spirit and most importantly – the freedom!

I know I’ll be back, to that part of me which is sure to bring me back!

This one is to all my new friends – Charlette, Sarita, Mandar, Mahesh, Pradeep, Megha, Hetal, Dinesh.
And of course – Atya and Gaurav…

Freedom

2009-09-10T07:53:00.000-07:00

I’m sick again, and being unable to concentrate at all on studies at hand, I was flipping through a book that my cousin is currently reading and happened to come across a very interesting passage. It was on freedom and the book is ‘The Zahir’ by Paulo Coelho. Just then Komal called and after talking to her on the same subject on similar lines, I thought I would share this interesting passage with everybody else.
The author’s view could be debatable, I don’t know. But it struck a chord – do read till the end.

I’m free. I’m out of prison; my wife has disappeared in mysterious circumstances. I have no fixed timetable for work; I have no problem meeting new people. I’m rich, famous, and if Esther really has left me, I’ll soon find someone to replace her. I’m free, independent.

But, what is freedom?

I’ve spend a large part of my life enslaved to one thing or another so I should know the meaning of the word. Ever since I was a child I have fought to make freedom my most precious commodity. I fought with my parents who wanted me to be an engineer not a writer. I fought with the other boys at school who immediately honed in on me as the butt of their cruel jokes; and only after much blood had flowed from my nose and theirs, only after many afternoons where I had to hide my scars from my mother – because it was up to me not her to solve my problems – did I manage to show them that I could take a thrashing without bursting into tears. I fought to get a job to support myself and went to work as a delivery man for a hardware store, so as to be free from that old line in the family blackmail: ‘we’ll give you money but you have to do this, this and this.’

I fought – although without success – for the girl I was in love with when I was an adolescent, and who loved me too; she left me in the end because her parents convinced her that I had no future.

I fought against the hostile world of journalism – my next job – where my first boss kept me hanging around for three whole hours and only deigned to take any notice of me when I started to tear up the book he was reading: he looked at me in surprise and thought that here was someone who was capable of persevering and confronting the enemy, essential qualities for a good reporter. I fought for the socialist ideal, went to prison, came out and went on fighting feeling like a working-class hero – until, that is, I heard Beatles and decided that rock music is much more fun than Marx. I fought for the love of my first, second and third wives. I fought to find courage to leave my first, second and third wives, because the love I felt for them hadn’t lasted and I needed to move on, until I found the person who had been put in this world to find me – and she was none of those three.

I fought for the courage to leave my job on the newspaper and launch myself into the adventure of writing a book, knowing full well that no one in my country could make a living as a writer. I gave up after a year, after writing more than a thousand pages – pages of such genius that even I couldn’t understand them.

While I was fighting I heard other people speaking in the name of freedom, and the more they defended this unique right, the more enslaved they seemed to be to their parent’s wishes, to a marriage in which they had promised to stay with other person ‘for the rest of their lives’, to the bathroom scales, to their diet, to half-finished projects, to lovers to whom they were incapable of saying ‘No’ or ‘It’s over’, to weekends where they were obliged to have lunch with people they didn’t even like. Slaves to luxury, to the appearance of luxury, to the appearance of the appearance of luxury. Slaves to a life they had not chosen, but which they had decided to live because someone had managed to convince them that it was all for the best. And so their identical days and nights passed, days and nights when adventure was just a word in a book or an image on the television that was always on, and whenever a door opened they would say:
‘I’m not interested; I’m not in the mood.’

How could they possibly know if they were in the mood or not if they had never tried? But there was no point in asking; the truth was they were afraid of any change that would upset the world they had grown used to.

The inspector says I’m free. I am free now and I was free in the prison too, because freedom continues to be thing I prize the most in the world. Of course this has led me to drink wines I did not like, to do things I should not have done or would not do again; it has left scars on my body and on my soul, it has meant hurting certain people, although I have since asked their forgiveness, when I realised that I could do absolutely anything except force another person to follow me in my madness, in my lust for life. I don’t regret the painful times; I bear my scars as if they were medals. I know that freedom has a high price, as high as that of slavery; the only difference is that you pay with pleasure and a smile, even when that smile is dimmed by tears.

Ganapati Bappa Morya

2009-09-04T02:48:00.001-07:00

Contd from Silence plz…

It was almost as if I was waiting for Anant-chaturdashi to write about the Ganesh festival of Mumbai. I had heard tales of this day from my cousins and many friends. It’s the D-day for the Ganesh festivities here – the 11th day where most Ganesh idols are collectively immersed on the Mumbai coastline. The sight is a one to watch!

The final aarti takes place and the processions start in the early afternoon. These processions are very similar to a typical Hindi film wedding barat only minus the designer dresses and jewellery. People dance, play numerous instruments, the most popular being the dhol, around the idol. And the idol, magnificent and standing tall and towering is taken in pick up trucks moving at snails pace. I dint have to go far to see it. Just sitting in my aunt’s living room window was enough to provide a wide view of numerous such barats.

Expectedly, it’s also a day of the worst traffic jams in the city. My cousin took his bike to work today, skipping the company bus. He said it would be easier for him to navigate through traffic and hopefully that way he’ll be able to make it back home before dawn. And even as he stepped out of the door, he left dire warning ringing in my ear to study in the morning and not to leave much for the evening. I took him very seriously – after Gokulashtami, I would have been a fool not to do so.

And so, I spent the better part of my evening sitting in the window watching people covered in gulaal dancing to the tuneless beat of the drums. I tried very hard to try to decipher one of them and I think it was ‘Mungda’… but I can’t be sure. Well, as long as they don’t play stupid Bollywood songs on the loudspeakers, I knew I would be just fine.

When I was in Pune a couple of years back for my studies, I would run back home during Ganesh celebrations. Every street would be blocked by pujas being performed where cars should be running, loudspeakers blaring all over the place and rangolis decorating the sidewalks leaving no place for pedestrians. And as an art lover I have to say this – it would be heart breaking to walk over somebody else’s beautiful hard work.

In Pune, there is a Ganesh temple at every nook and corner, 2 of them were just outside the hostel where I stayed, separated approximately by 10 metres. And it meant that every month for Sankashti and Ekadashi, nobody slept peacefully in the hostel. There would always be a fierce competition between the two groups to demonstrate who owned the loudest music system. It would reach such unbearable decibels that we would go complain to the rector and she would go scream herself hoarse at them and the music would be lowered to a respected volume. But after half an hour, we would be back to square one. By the end of the day, the rector would be too tired to do anything and we would get an earful if we even uttered a C of complaints.

Au contraire, in Goa, Ganesh Chaturthi is celebrated in peace. Every house brings its own Ganesh idol and private celebrations go on all over the state. At my natives, Chaturthi means delicious smells of various delicacies wafting through the house, family members all sitting together for the aarti with taal, decorating the makhaí(the place where the idol is placed), drawing beautiful rangolis, collecting durva(the three leaved green grass specially offered to Ganapti) and many such small and wonderful rituals right from the day when the idol is brought in to the day we sadly bade him goodbye. It’s the time for family members to get together and have fun. After spending the entire day would be spent in preparations, all us cousins would then sit and play card late into the night.

Ah! Good old memories…
I never thought I’d miss this festival until I actually had to miss it. This is the first time I’m spending Chaturthi away from home.

Anyway, I’m not a very religious person and my knowledge of festivals and rituals is extremely limited. But I always thought faith was a very private thing. And festivals were only an excuse to celebrate it, bringing happiness and abundance in life. Really is that what festivals are meant for nowadays?

At my mum’s ancestral house, we have the same idol that we worship year after year. A few years back, I had asked my uncle, why is it that we don’t immerse the idol in the well like everybody else? And he had told me that a great deal of effort is involved in digging wells and such other wells, or streams, ponds and lakes are a source of clean drinking and irrigation water; and so it would be a shameful act to pollute them plaster of Paris statutes or even block them with clay idols.
Such is the kind of respect I learned not only for our festivals but also for the life sustaining nature from an early age. So it kills me to see that people cannot apply the same simple principles everywhere.

The festival spirit in people here is tremendous, but so is the disregard for others convenience. And nobody thinks about the kind of pressure we put on our environment. Sure, the energy and the mood they bring in is incredible but so is the level of noise and air pollution. And what happens to the ecosystem when these ‘Plaster of Paris’ idols are immersed in our seas? And what when broken parts of these idols of faith are washed off to the shore where they are cruelly left to rot along with other garbage and debris?

Don’t get me wrong, I’m not against festivals; I’m just against the way they are being celebrated.

Eat Cake

2009-08-31T03:37:00.000-07:00

We read a lot of books, watch a lot of movies… many are good, too many are horrible, and few fantastic make the favourite list! But there are a few that leave their own mark, even if they were not appreciated worldwide and we don’t often hear about them. And they are slowly forgotten – the marginalised!

Lets see, we all hear about DDLJ and 'Sholay', but who really talks about ‘Dor’ or a very sweet personal favourite named ‘Socha na tha’? We all hear about ‘The monk who sold his Ferrari’ and ‘Shantaram’ but I’m probably the only one who’ll mention ‘Eat Cake’!

‘Eat Cake’ is one very lovely book I had once read – about 2-3 years back. It’s not a literary genius and doesn’t have a very brilliant plot, nor is it a heart wrenching drama. It’s a very simple book about a simple housewife who tries to pull her family out of a financial crisis with the help of her cakes.
Even as a young girl, this lady develops a close bond with baking, especially cakes. And her love for those cakes is brought out in almost every page of the book. Her life, her dreams, her problems too are described with the help of the many cakes she regularly bakes. Every layer, every scent, every flavour has its own meaning. And it leaves you craving for a cake of your own, even though her family really wishes she would stop baking them on a daily basis.

It even finishes with 2 lovely recipes for cakes in the end.

This book without doubt is meant for a foodie – one who can appreciate the writer’s and the protagonist’s cake fetish. And I enjoyed it for that, it’s still on my mind after so many years and I wanted to make a little mention about it here.

Of course, I should also mention that the book I had read was an abridged version – part of the RD special editions – which meant that the story was over within 100 pages, and I sincerely don’t think that the book had any more to offer. But if you’re looking for something light to take you away from stress, here’s a cute next-door story for a pleasant evening read.

Go… Eat Cake!

Silence plz...

2009-08-26T06:04:00.000-07:00

Forget enochlophobia, crowds…
Forget slums and the stench
Forget the sheer size and the volume
Forget pollution and the smoke, the dust…
I might get used to them. But the one thing about Mumbai that I might never adjust to is the constant level of noise, the relentless activity, steady undying commotion in high decibels.

I am such a silence loving person that Mumbai literally gets on to my nerves.

Currently I’m sitting in my aunt’s one-bedroom ground floor flat in Andheri (E) trying to get on with my Financial Management Foreign Exchange problems, while a huge, loud Ganesh procession is passing by blocking the traffic, so that all I can concentrate on is the drums, tashe, loudspeaker-ed Marathi songs coupled with the blaring horns of the traffic while the Dollars, Pounds and Yen on my notebook do a well choreographed Tandav Nrutya in front of my eyes.

Yes, it’s a festival of a lot of joy, exuberance and splendour. There’s absolutely no way you can escape the energy. But why-oh-why do we need to turn it into a freaking carnival?

The same was with 'Gokulashtami' a week back. Just outside on the street on the morning of 14th August, I was greeted with a huge road block as I walked back home from my classes. The traffic had been diverted and a huge pillar was being lifted supporting a horizontal rope tied between two tall buildings on which was dangling a small earthen pot i.e. ofcourse the prized Dahi-Handi. I hurried inside expecting the worst and it came… sooner than I had anticipated. 10 minutes later, the loudspeakers started with ‘Dhan Te Nan – Ta na na na…’

20 minutes later – (Song: Singh is King)
It has reached an unbearable pitch, and I can already feel the old migraine kicking up.

12 noon – (Song: My Desi girl.)
I can hear my brain pounding against the walls of my skull, synchronising a nice background beat to go with the music while I wholeheartedly prayed the Desi guys to get on with the Dahi Handi.

By 2 pm – (Song: And we twist)
I’m twisting and turning in bed trying to drift into oblivion with pillow over my head, buried deep inside the blanket.

By 4 pm – My brain is numb, and my ears seem to be revolting. I have two large cotton balls stuffed in them with no use, and I have tears in my eyes. I mean who plays ‘Main talli ho gayi’ on Gokulashtami?

6 pm – Finally the Govinda team arrives to break the handi and claim the prize and I silently begin the countdown. (Song – Govinda aala re aala)

8 pm – Suddenly everything goes quiet. Have I gone deaf?
But no, the handi is down, the team has claimed their prize and the crowd slowly disperses. I have tears in my eyes again… this time of happiness!

I had immensely enjoyed the festival of Gokulashtami before this, but this year was a totally new experience – different and in no ways pleasant. If the Dahi Handi fod was scheduled so late then what inspired the need to play Bollywood songs throughout the day? Who had asked for such atrocious free entertainment? Is it just me who cannot understand the public mortification of our festivals?

But ofcourse with Ganesh Chaturthi coming up, I knew this was just the beginning.

To be contd…

Kaminey

2009-08-23T07:01:00.000-07:00

Dhan te nan... ta na na na!

A little late with the film review but Mumbai was closed last weekend with the H1N1 scare and so I finally watched the movie I had impatiently waited for this weekend.

My verdict of Kaminey - WICKED!
Four stars ****

Guddu - Innocent, naïve, an NGO worker with a stammer who gets his girlfriend pregnant... absolutely cute!
Portrayal by Shahid – m - m - mindblowing!

Charlie – A petty gangster, who lisps his way into your mind and fuzzes it completely! Reciprocal of Guddu...
Portrayal by Shahid – Abfolutely Fexy!

Sweety - Naughty knows no boundaries, not just a hapless lady love but a fierce feline who completes the movie.
Portrayal by PC – very convincing, I can’t think of a better person to play the role!

Other sundry characters are cast so well, it gives you an idea of how seriously Vishal Bharadwaj takes his movies. Out of them, the most memorable are Amol Gupte as the callous communal leader/politician Bhope and Chandan Roy Sanyal and Charlie’s half-boss, half-best friend Mikhail.

About the plot – The first half is impeccable. It’s full of rib-tickling dark humour and the story unwinds beautifully, comfortably flitting in and out of the lives of the two brothers who have wilfully separated, until fate collides their lives and turns it into an upside down roller coaster ride. But the first half builds a momentum the second half can’t quite keep up with. At times it loses its ground and drops its pace as the plot gets thicker and a bit confusing. It shocks and baffles you and you really need to keep track of who’s who and who’s killing who. But just when you start to feel apprehensive that it’s going to wander off track, it slams on the accelerator back again. The full on gang wars and violence can get a bit extreme but doesn’t go overboard. And the end wraps up the loose strings nicely, it’s predictable but fitting and thankfully doesn’t get too clichéd.

The film is extremely creative and fresh! Dialogues and sequences are mind-blowingly original and the humour cracks you up. After beautifully portrayed ‘Omkara’ I had high hopes from this one and it did not disappoint me. I’m one of those who watch max 2-3 movies in the theatres every year, ‘cos I simply hate wasting my money and patience on mediocre movies, but ‘Kaminey’ was definitely worth putting in my annual list! I don’t know how much the masses will like it (my own aunt and cousin didn’t have anything much to say about it) but I know it is one of the better movies I had seen in the recent times. And after a long time, it gave me somebody to swoon over – Shahid! His ‘Charlie’ is going to stay with me for a while and has set a benchmark that is going to be hard to compete with in the future, especially for him!

Pothole

2009-08-14T08:08:00.000-07:00

I know the monsoon started a while back, and so did the potholes.

But the pothole I’m talking about is a little different, the one I had anticipated, foreseen and yet I inadvertently managed to get myself into it. And now I’ve fallen so deep, all I can see is the muddy claustrophobic space engulfing me and the murky grey clouds obscuring the distant blue sky, waiting no doubt, to pour insult on injury. How did I get here, I ask myself… when did I sink so deep?

I had read somewhere a while ago, “There comes a time in almost every man’s life when he tries to run away from life. The trick is to know when to stop running and how to get yourself back!”

And as the sky starts to pour and the space around me closes in, I finally know it's time for me to stop running. As to how to get myself back up, I’m working on it!
I’M WORKING ON IT!

The woods are lovely, dark and deep...
But I have promises to keep,
And Miles to go before I sleep...
Miles to go before I sleep !!!
- Robert Frost

Dedicated to my repeated CA final fiasco…

Size Zero

2009-08-12T06:49:00.000-07:00

“Oh my god Sharvani, you look so thin!” I hear the umpteenth time.
And quite uncharacteristically, I roll my eyes, make an exasperated noise and march out of the group leaving everybody to stare at my retreating back.

Outside, I sit alone on the veranda wall, fuming. I was already in a foul mood, but had been dragged to the house-warming party of a relative by my ever-insistent parents. And now, whatever little mood I had left for the party had evaporated with that last statement.

Yes, I’m accustomed to it by now, but it still is quite grating to hear it everywhere I go.

I’m thin – so what?

Some clarifications –
· Being thin does not mean I don’t eat enough; I’m just genetically built that way. I’m NOT a believer of size zero to starve myself for fashion. So leave me alone!

· Thin does not necessarily equal fragile. On the contrary, I’m one of the most energetic of my lot. I’m strong and I have great stamina. In my trekking group, I know how it feels to be one of the first to climb an arduous mountain and then watch others who are left behind huffing and puffing.

· Being thin also does not mean I’m weak. I boast a strong nervous system. Proof? I've never had a major sickness, I don’t remember the last time I had visited a doctor and definitely don’t remember the last time I had taken any medications except a few antibiotics for a wisdom tooth pulled out.

And people, it certainly means that I don’t have to watch my diet, constantly counting my calorie intake. I can eat whatever I want, whenever I want. I can finish that entire chocolate brownie when many have to satisfy themselves with a tinsie little bite.

And as a added bonus, my mum’s cooking is one of the healthiest in the world. And I’m grateful to the healthy eating habits that my parents have inculcated in me right from my childhood. So there’s no way I’m going to put on weight, try as I might.

So there! I’m proud of being thin. I don’t need to be told that I look like a combination of a hanger and a stick insect, which FYI I don’t. I don’t like to be greeted with a ‘Have you lost even more weight?’ I’m perfectly happy with a ‘Hi, how you doing?’ and I’m tired of the constant sermons of what I should or shouldn’t wear and how much I should or shouldn’t eat.

Those who flaunt my category or those who parade in the other extreme (always carrying a few extra pounds on their conscience), know that we don’t want that look from you, even if all you want to do is show you care. Because all that we’re thinking while pretending to listen to your ‘you’re-too-thin’ gospels is… Just. Get. Off. My. Back.

11 august 2009

2009-08-11T00:27:00.000-07:00

I had a dream - one of the few dreams that I actually remember.

I'm in a huge auditorium, conducting a symphony orchestra. I'm waving my arms delicately the baton in one hand and smile on my face, urging the tired and yawning band to play the one last piece for me.

The melody goes – and I sing along silently…
Happy Birthday to me,
Happy Birthday to me,
Happy Birthday, Happy Birthday,
Happy Birthday to me!

The music stops. I turn around and take a bow. When I straighten up, I realise that the entire auditorium is empty.

I woke up with the same sick, empty sensation deep inside me. I try to shake it away but it doesn’t go. I don’t know why, but I dread my Birthdays, not because of the prospect of getting a year older but something inexplicably seems missing.
A Void – that always puzzles me. How? Why? Can anybody explain?

One snowy morning...

2009-08-10T05:46:00.000-07:00

Scrap – swoosh – thump…
Scrap – swoosh – thump…

A pause to wipe the trail of sweat off the brow…

Again, scrap – swoosh – thump…

I check my watch, I still have another half an hour before dad comes out and I see the incredulous look on his face, the pride in his eyes.
And I get back to work.

20 minutes later I’m done. I look back at the stretch of the driveway that I’ve just shovelled clean – a feat that took me nearly 45 minutes, something I’m sure dad would have done in 15 minutes but nevertheless it was worth it. I look back up at the sky; it looks like its frozen solid, an ominous sign. “Oh god, please hold it for another hour!” I say looking at the occasional snowflake falling from the sky.

A quick check of the watch – 5 minutes. I rush back into the garage and fling the shovel aside, strip off my dad’s oversized and heavy gumboots and run upstairs.

5 minutes later, I walk back down in the kitchen where dad is sitting at the table, a half finished cup of chai and a newspaper open in front of him.
“… worst snowstorm in a decade…(sigh)… god only knows what’s waiting for me on the front walk.”
“Well, its hardly snowing anymore… you should get it done with” mum replied with a peek out the window.

Dad gets up and leaves. I take his place at the table trying not to smile but fail miserably.
“What are you so happy about?”
“Nothing!” I hide my face behind the glass of milk.

“Chitra…” I hear dad call out 2 minutes later, “Did u ask anyone to shovel the driveway this morning?”
“What?” Mum screams back, “I didn’t ask anyone…” but stops abruptly at the look on my face.
“Did you do it?” She asks me sceptically.
I grin from ear to ear in response and rush outside.

“Dad, I did it!” I say breathlessly while accidentally spraying him with snow as I come to a stop on the frozen lawn.
“Oh… well, thanks beta! But why did you do it?”
“It was a surprise for you.” I’m still grinning.
“But look at your hands…” he says as he pulls my palm closer to his eye, “they’re all sore. IT’S NOT A GIRL’S JOB, BETA!”

The words reverberate in the cold wind, chilling it instantly. No, he didn’t just say that.

“Mein kar lunga…” (I’ll do it next time) he finished heedlessly.

I feel like someone just dunked a bucketful of icy cold water on me, freezing me to the spot. Even my foolish smile froze halfway, uncertain.

And suddenly I’m 5 again, eagerly opening my birthday present. But instead of the video game I had asked for, out comes a very frilly, very pink, very blonde stupid doll.

And I’m 9 years old; my mum is telling me off for having an argument with the arts teacher.
“You need to respect you elders!”
“But he treats us like shit…”
“Don’t you use that language with me. It doesn’t suit girls to behave like this!”

Last summer – My dad drags me back home because I had been “…playing football with a bunch of boys”, while my older brother Nitin sniggers from across the yard with his friends.
“When will you behave like a girl?”

Two weeks back – I wistfully watch my friends sign up for the overnight astronomy trip.
“But its astronomy,” I had tried to reason; “it has to be done at night. Besides, you’re allowing Nitin bhaiya to go for his 3 days Tennis camp.”
“I said no overnight trip, that’s it! And Nitin is a boy, it is different…”
But I had already left the room.

And I’m 12, still frozen on the porch, watching my dad pull out on the recently shovelled, slightly slippery driveway… the injustice still rankling in my ears,
“… IT’S NOT A GIRL’S JOB, BETA!”

Expectations...

2009-07-28T08:43:00.000-07:00

Yesterday, I read a short story ‘The Cut Off’ published in Brunch, Hindustan Times – the first ever by Chetan Bhagat. A young man’s story who wants to commit suicide just because he knows he hasn’t made the cut off of a highly sought after and reputed college even after scoring 92% in HSSC Commerce, just because he’s afraid he’ll disappoint his parents and others.

Familiar? Very familiar… in my small town school of Goa itself, 2 boys have committed suicide in the last 5 years. And not a day goes by when you don’t hear about it from someone or read it in the newspapers.

Expectations – the word itself has become a taboo, like a naked steel blade hanging inches over your neck, perennially reminding you of the price you’ll pay for failure. And not just any failure, a failure combined with guilt of breaking your parent’s heart!

And academics isn’t the only issue here…
No – it’s the clothes you wear, the friends you have, the time you come home…
It’s the career you choose, why commerce? Why not Science?
Creative arts? That's so risky... do you think it's easy? Just do MBA!
It’s the person you choose for your life… she’s from the other cast???
Why do you want to adopt? I only want biological grandchildren.

Maybe I’m biased. But at 23, I still find it very exhausting to try and keep up with my parent’s outlook. Being a fiercely independent individual is like a curse.

Let’s just go back a few months, when pressure started building on me, it took its toll. I would burst out at every opportunity, blaming my parents and the world around for their over-expectations. I have a few friends who do the same.
My mum asked me, “You say we expect too much! But is it wrong for us to want to see our kids succeed and do well in life?” I understand it's normal for parents to expect from kids, a person to expect from spouse, a friend from another friend. But how much is too much? When does it stop being caring and start coming in way of relations? Don’t we need to keep a track of that as well??

Up until a few years ago, any expectations from my parents were only a chance for me to prove that I was the best daughter in the world. No matter what they put on my shoulders, I deftly carried it through. I was always a brilliant kid and the expectations only kept mounting.
But ever since I got into CA, any expectations began to be a burden, a put-down. I couldn’t understand, was it because of the already demanding profession or was it that I just grew out of the age where I would do anything to please Mommy and Daddy.

I’m not used to disappointing my parents, but lately that’s all that I seemed to be doing. And I always carried a façade of superficial strength, and that started breaking through too. For me, it feels like I have reached the ‘crossroads’ where its more important for me to find myself apart from them, but how do I explain it? I’ve come so far walking on a path somebody else showed me, that lately all I do is look back and wonder. And I’m confused, because I do not know if there’s a path left to choose from here or even the courage to do so.

I don’t know when its time for me to live for myself… whether that means anything at all?

The Monk who sold his Ferrari states, ‘The secret to happiness is simple. Find out what you truly love to do and then direct all your energies towards doing it’. Personally, I’ve always believed in it. But I also know that freedom of choice isn’t an easy virtue. There’s always the fear of breaking someone’s heart when you make the detour on their path of expectations; but an even bigger fear of losing yourself if you keep riding along.

You’ll always have the world telling you what’s best for you, your parents included. But finally it comes down to the choices we make…. the choices that define us… the choices that make or break us - the choice to take a stand or commit suicide, the choice to believe in yourself and surge ahead or quietly follow somebody else’s footsteps. Finally it does come down to this… whether or not we have the courage to break through expectations, whether or not you have the courage to define yourself!

Link to the short-story by Chetan Bhagat 'The Cut Off' : http://www.hindustantimes.com/thecutoff

The White Tiger

2009-07-20T08:13:00.000-07:00

Dear Mr. Wen Jiabao, (that’s how the book begins)

What is this book? I look down at the first page by Aravind Adiga and look up to stare outside the grilled window of the almost empty compartment of the Mandovi Express at 8.30am on 16 July. I feel more apprehensive about the book than of the 13 hour journey and what lay beyond. The only other person in the compartment is my dad, silently reading the newspaper. The train starts to pull of Margao station and I look back down at page number 1.

This was my second journey in less than two weeks, this time in train. Why do I make such a big deal about journeys like these? Well, I think I better explain that first.

I come from a family who doesn’t believe in traveling much. Ever since my childhood, all my journeys were restricted to going over to various relatives or trips to various temples to pray to a variety of gods. I, on the other hand, am a person who loves traveling for experience sake, to see different places and enjoy different weathers. So traveling anywhere is a big deal for me. So when I was packing my bags to go to the most hustling bustling city of the country for a course of 3 months, I couldn’t help but write about it.

I begin the journey with 3 heavy bags (courtesy the books), my dad and the White Tiger by Aravind Adiga. I normally prefer traveling alone, or doing pretty much anything by my own – not just because it gives me the freedom, but also because I stand responsible. With my dad, I become a complacent 5 year old, oblivious and feigning deaf to everything, mostly because he takes care of everything and well, it avoids arguments.

But not always – a tip to those who don’t travel trains regularly, make sure you check your tickets thoroughly for every little detail. Our TC pointed out that our ticket showed two female passengers as opposed to one male and one female. For not being watchful, dad got an earful from the TC and I got an earful from Dad. What could I say? What can a complacent 5 year old say anyway?

We reach Sawantwadi and that’s when ‘The Talker’ walks in with his wife. ‘The Talker’ is a big, burly, almost albino fair guy in safari suit and big fat gold rings on his many fingers.
“Hya aajkalchya traininch kai khara nai. Tumhala saangto, magachya veli asach station var eka chorala pakadla me, an don kanpatat lagavli tyacha. Asa tirmirla, pani marlyavar shudhit aala”
I hide my grin, pretend I’m not interested, and edge towards the window, while he immediately starts talking to my dad. I think this is an appropriate time for me to mention that I’m enochlophobic (phobia of crowds), not literally so, but pretty much. Being comfortable in large social circles and striking conversations with strangers doesn’t come to me naturally. The more the space around me fills up with people, the more an unexplained loneliness presses down at my windpipe. But I don’t want to get into that right now.

I bury my head once again into the book. The white tiger has reached Fourth Morning, I flip through the pages and see that his story is spread through Seven days – his story about the transformation from being a half-baked son of a poor rickshaw driver to murderer to a Banglore entrepreneur.

Meanwhile, ‘The Talker’ is rattling off from across the seat. I can hear snatches of the conversation – about the 15 lakh bungalow he recently built in Sawantwadi – servant who stole 20 crates of mangoes from his farm – his business in Mumbai – and mentioning slyly that he is nephew of a famous Mumbai politician. On that last one, I try to catch his tone – bluff, boast or a subtle hint dropped to show who you’d be dealing with?

Suddenly I catch my name and realize that dad told him about my trip to Mumbai to attend CA classes.
“Baby,” I flinched as he addressed me thus, “Be careful in Mumbai… stay away from strangers… blah… blah…”
I wonder why it is that people who blurt out their ‘Janam kundali’ and financial history to complete strangers in the middle of a train compartment without even asking their name are the first ones to give advise about being safe in an unfamiliar place.

I just nod awkwardly at the end of the sermon to show I understood.

By 4, we had crossed Roha and I had reached the end of the book. My verdict of ‘The White Tiger’ – boring, the kind of book to be read by people studying literature… or those who have a 13 hour train journey with nothing else to do.

The rest of the journey passed pretty much uneventfully, with me staring out of the window this time, at the mountains decorated by streams and waterfalls, with occasional showers adding to the whole beauty; paused only by many ridiculously long, dimly lit tunnels. But if we were traveling by Konkan railways that connected Goa, Mumbai and other coastal areas, than why were we passing mostly through mountains and tunnels? I felt like a 5 year old again wondering that. Probably should catch hold of an atlas!

Anyway, fast forward to 9.45pm, Dadar station, Mumbai!
What happens next – keep reading!

TWILIGHT & THE KITE RUNNER

2009-07-14T04:20:00.000-07:00

I read two great books this week –‘ TWILIGHT’ & ‘THE KITE RUNNER’

The first book ‘Twilight’ is a love story with a difference. You see, one of the characters is a vampire. It’s set in the rainiest town of Forks in US, where Bella must move even though she hates it there. What she never expected was something that would be waiting there for her for almost a century, something that perhaps she had been waiting for too.
It is author Stephenie Meyer’s debut novel, and she does a wonderful work. What I liked the most about the book has to be the amazing characterization of Isabella ‘Bella’ Swan and Edward Cullen, the way these have been intricately defined and the delicate way their love story is woven leaves you absolutely spellbound. Of course, I’m sure you have to possess a little romantic trait to agree with me. I didn’t like the ending much, simply because it continues in a sequel ‘New Moon’, sot that I have to get my hands on that next. But either way, you have my full recommendation for it.

I then followed it with the movie version and was a little disappointed, mostly because of my unusually high expectations. Robert Pattinson as Edward Cullen failed to leave the same impact as the book. He along with Kristen Stewart who plays Bella has a long way to go as actors. But the movie has its moments. The desperate search of Bella to find Edward’s truth and Edward’s soul-searching are portrayed well and their moments of togetherness are shot beautifully. But seriously, read the book first.

The next book I read was ‘The Kite Runner’. I had been meaning to get my hands on this book for a while. And now I don’t have good enough words to describe how good it is. It’s a man’s journey living through a vile of guilt and trying to earn his father’s love, to finally finding the courage to search for redemption. It’s set in an Afghanistan that no one remembers anymore, and the transformation of this land of culture and peace to the hellhole of Taliban breaks your heart. It’s a unique story and yet so familiar that you can easily connect to it. Read it!

A special mention to my favourite quote in the book:
‘I remembered something I had read somewhere a long time ago: That’s how children deal with terror. They fall asleep.’
I just felt that was something true with almost everyone, not just children – a retreat where we all escape trying to turn our woes into a bad dream that we’ll be able to forget next morning.

Anyway, my next stop: The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga.

2009-07-13T00:01:00.000-07:00

Every day as our lives get more hectic, the fine lines that separate the different parts of the day grow increasingly blurred. Mornings merge into afternoons into evenings and we barely stop to notice. Shadows sway as the sun moves across the sky and we ignore their beauty. So, lets pause. Lets take a moment and cherish the uniqueness that every moment of every part of the day brings with it.

- Advert of CCD's latest line of beverages dedicated to each mood of the day! I just thought it was very beautiful.

Travel Tales

2009-07-04T01:28:00.000-07:00

You know how it is when you are travelling long distance alone in a bus and all you ask for is a good company in the form of the person sitting next to you? Doesn’t matter if she (in my case of the ‘ladies seat’) isn’t too interesting or fun as long as she can just be quite and not bother you much? Well, that’s all that I was hoping for this Friday when I was travelling Goa to Bangalore. And due to lack of ladies seat elsewhere I had inadvertently chosen a double sleeper, which meant that I was praying twice as hard. Little did I know that god also had something double in store for me – a middle aged plump, seeming illiterate grandma with her fidgety two year old granddaughter.

It took me two whole minutes to digest the shock. Which abysmally foolish person reserves a single sleeper for two people, even if one of them is a child? They’re the ones who need a more comfortable setting. Suddenly the 14 hours seemed monumental. How was I supposed to get through the night in this situation?

"Yeh bhi aapke saath hai?" (Is she with you too?) I ask pointing at the child, just to confirm.
"Haan! Ek raat ki hi to baat hai" (Yes! Its just about one night, anyway!) Comes the reply.

‘It seems like there was no way out of it’, I think. I timidly get on the berth and make myself room in one corner wishing time to run faster. It was ok till we were in the city and the lights were on. I concentrated on the rains and the sights outside the window. But as soon as the lights went out, the woman started with her bedtime routines. She fed the child, gave her water and some medicine and then started taking off the child’s clothes.

I wanted to vaporize on the spot. She coolly then changed her into pyjamas, tied a scarf on her head and then pulled a sweater over her.
"Woh baarish mein bheegh gayi thi na, to thoda bukhaar hai." (She got wet in the rains, so has a slight fever!)
By now, I was beginning to feel like I too was coming down with something!
She then puts the child to sleep who comfortably takes up more than half of the space. Unable to take it any more, I ask her where I was supposed to sleep.
“We’ll adjust somehow. She has fever and even I have a sprain in my leg. But what can we do now?”
I ask her why she dint book the entire berth for herself in that case.
“But this is our seat! Why dint you go to your berth when you had the chance?’
I don’t understand her, “This is my berth!” I tell her.
“Nahi! Yeh 4 number hai. Aapka to 3 number hai na?” (No! this is berth number 4, and you had berth number 3)
“This is berth 3 and 4.” I try to tell her.
“Don’t eat my head. This is number 4, I know it!”

I understood by now that the idiotic woman dint realise how the double sleeper system works and she actually had the nerve to think that she was doing me a huge favour. I could already imagine her complaining to her relatives the day after about some girl who captured her seat. Definitely, Fools are god’s way to remind us to be thankful for our intelligence.

I knew there was pretty much nothing I could do then, at least till the bus reached Karwar where the last of the passengers embark. By the time we got there the woman had already asked me a number of times if it was possible to shift to a different berth. You wait, I kept thinking, I’m not too thrilled about sharing this one with you and your fidgety grand daughter anyway. So after it reached Karwar, I asked the conductor if there was any empty seat explaining him the entire situation.

It took me a while to convince him, but thankfully there was a double sleeper empty and ultimately I ended up sleeping comfortably on the entire berth alone for the rest of the night.

I kept thinking; there are some memories that want to make you experience travel alone. I remember one of two times, when I had great company, people who made the journey not only easy but worthwhile. But then, life’s nothing without the spice of a few hiccups here and there, right? And these three hours made up for more than my share of hiccups! All in all, I’ve discovered that travel stories are always great fun. Whatever the experience, good or bad, you are either left with a great memory or at the very least you can always flashback and have a great laugh.

Nature Person

2009-06-29T23:50:00.000-07:00

Last weekend was fun. My friends and I went out first for dinner beach side and then to Aguada Fort next morning. And we saw ruins of Aguada right down at the rocks where hardly anybody goes. It's a 5 minutes walk past the lighthouse and you have the most breathtaking view. It's a beautiful place and I had to think twice before mentioning it here because I saw the tourist swarm at the Aguada fort and I don’t want the same to happen down there too. But then, how many people will really read this blog anyway?

I’ve always been a nature person. I can get myself lost when I’m out in the wild. Normally, when I’m with my friends or cousins, I talk a lot. Not that I’m a chatterbox, but I contribute, or at the very least I’m listening raptly. But when we go on picnics or trekking, I go mute. I’m hardly aware of anything around me except the view, the sounds, and the very freshness that nature provides. I take a deep breath and all life woes disappear. It's like my entire system undergoes the shut down and restart procedure.

My friends call me ‘weird’ and ‘mental’ when they are out with me. They never understand what happens to me. And I don’t blame them because I do weird stuff. I wander off alone, climb trees and rocks, jump in water, play with grasshoppers and snails…the list is endless. And I love doing it; it's a part of me that even I can’t explain.

When I was in Pune for two years, I practically hated that city. Every time I would long to come back home. For quite some time I thought that I was homesick, yet I knew I enjoyed the freedom. But one day, travelling back to Goa in bus, I looked out of the window and saw the lush green fields in the early morning dew just beyond Pernem and I realised that this is what I’d been missing in the city. In Goa, all you need to do is drive out 2-3 kms and you are out of the city, you can go for a walk without worrying about crowds or pollution something that the metros could never provide.

This weekend too I was amid nature again, spending two days at my mum’s native village… enjoying the rains, clicking photographs and plucking lemons with my aunts.

Ever since I was a kid, nature’s been an intricate part of my life. I spent all my summer vacations at my natives with my cousins playing outdoor games in mud. In scjool too, i would wait to sign up for nature camps and overnight treks. And as years have passed, my love for nature has only increased.
Sometimes when I think if I had not gone after a secure life and wandered around to search my true calling, I would probably end up in the wild, surviving thick jungles and climbing tall mountains, painting white waterfalls or photographing tiger cubs and rescuing king cobras. There’s something about it that’s more wonderful than love, more mysterious than death, more innocent than a child and more adventurous than life. And it never ceases to amaze me. Sometimes I think… if there’s anything in this world worth living for, it's this… NATURE.

Saawariya

2009-06-25T00:01:00.000-07:00

My exams in the second week of June meant that I couldn’t be online for almost a month now. But that didn’t mean that I stopped writing, it just wasn’t uploaded. And that’s what I’m doing now, all the previous posts, lined up one after another. The first one is here.

Here’s how bored I was sometime in April that I actually wrote this:

I have a shocking revelation to make!
Two years after the film released with ultimate hype and shocking reviews, I watched ‘Saawariya’ on TV. I had refrained from doing so after the dire warnings of my many friends. But you see, I was bored, nobody was home, and it was the only other thing running on TV besides ‘Beauty and the Geeks’. Every other channel ran re-runs of soaps, news and advertisements.
But that’s not the shocking revelation. The shocking revelation is that, I LIKED THE MOVIE.

I had nothing to lose when I sat down to watch the movie and I had no expectations whatsoever. The movie promises everything that the reviews had revealed. Frames bathed in eternal blues and blacks, streets and streets that lead to nowhere, houses and houses where no one lives, the river which is smaller than an average drainage seems to be there only to justify the curvy bridge that centres the story. Sonam Kapoor laughs where she should be crying and cries where she should be laughing. The film reveals nothing in terms of the era, the time, the place…just goes on eternally dreamlike, unlike one of those magnificent Shakespeare plays that capture your imagination breaking the boundaries of the four corners of the stage on which it is presented. And mind you, even they give you the era and the place. Maybe if Saawariya had been a play, it would have been better accepted. Is that what Sanjay Leela Bhansali was trying to do perhaps? Capture the essence of theatre on screen? Backfired, dint it?

Wait, I think I was trying to tell why I liked the movie. As I already said, I wasn’t expecting much. And maybe therefore I looked beyond the obvious to try to figure out Bhansali’s intentions behind making a bizarre movie like this. So what I saw was its perfect frames, it felt like canvas after canvas of lifelike paintings put together on reel. The story of a boy, who falls for that sad b’ful face and tries to be her prince charming, and the girl who waits for her man, which even in this day and age does happen. I liked it for its melodious music, and Ranbir Kapoor for his shockingly expressive eyes. And lastly for the ending with the perfect dilemma, to choose between a love that took an eternity to materialise or the one that waited on just to make you smile. It felt like what a girl like her would ordinarily do. I can understand the outrage at seeing Ranbir’s heart break and the lack of logic behind her actions, but ever heard of the phrase ‘Love is blind’???
Maybe that’s why Bhansali portrayed it without an age and time or a definite backdrop, perhaps he was trying to show that it could happen anywhere, anytime?

The film is like abstract art worthy of Picasso, it could mean different things to different people, sometimes left with no meaning at all. And whatever it meant to Bhansali, it seems like it at least touched one bored heart!

Recession Wisdom

2009-05-03T23:35:00.001-07:00

On the down side, this is only going to certify that I’m painfully addicted to the Reader’s Digest. But on the up side, any addiction that makes you grab a book that’s good for your GK and civic sense had to be good for you.

My cousin Veena, a fresh unemployed MBA (like many others) was reading through RD Feb 09 edition while I browsed through the March one. After a while, we switched, she in particular showing me a wonderful ad about domestic Valentine Holiday packages by Thomas Cook with a twinkle in her eye. No doubt she was missing her boyfriend who lives a thousand kms away.

In reply, I turned a few pages of the RD I was holding and passed it to her with a somber expression. She took one look at the article I was pointing at and gave me a look that plainly wished me a very painful injury. It was ‘Recession Wisdom’ stressing to “…save more, spend less, diversify your investments, and AVOID BUYING THINGS YOU CAN’T AFFORD.”

P.S. Veena would probably like me to tell you that as I absent mindedly got up to go to the kitchen laughing my head off at her expression; I hit myself hard on the centre table. :(

GET UP N GO

2009-05-01T22:00:00.000-07:00

Every morning in Africa, a Gazelle wakes up knowing it has to run faster than the Lion or be killed.
Every morning, a Lion awakens knowing it has to outrun the slowest Gazelle or starve to death.
It doesn't matter if you are the Lion or the Gazelle.
When the sun comes up, you'd better be running!

What's in a name...

2009-04-24T06:50:00.000-07:00

I get surprised when people ask, “What’s in a name?”
I say, everything! Whether you like your name or not, it is what you are going to be remembered as for ever… even when you have a name like ‘Sharvani’ which people remember for it's unusual or not at all.

I’ve always had problems with my name for the kind of confusion it created, whether it was the way that it was spelled or pronounced. If I bother to count, I’ll have a hundred different versions of both. Every time I get introduced to a new person, I always have to encounter a ‘Huh??’ two or three times.
And the disaster of it when it gets mispronounced... especially when my name would get announced during a prize distribution, or some competitions, it would be embarrassing. I mean you can hardly get up from your seat and scream back at the announcer the correct pronunciation of your name. Same goes for the spelling… Of all the certificates I’ve collected till date, only about five have my name correctly spelled. You add ‘Binge’ instead of ‘Pinge’ as the surname, and the picture is complete.

But why go too far? Even half of my friends still don’t know how to say it correctly, and I’ve learned to live with it slowly. I guess that’s how the pet name ‘Sim’ came.

When I was 15, a net friend decided to start calling me Sim since he said it would be simple and easier to type. When I told my friends about it, they all loved it. And it stayed with me for quite some time. Quite a lot of my friends in Pune still remember me as Sim.
Mind you that’s not the only one! For two years that I stayed in Pune, all my hostel mates called me ‘Sheru’. And if you think that’s funny, imagine how it would sound when my roomy Kala would call out to me from the mess on the ground floor so that I could hear it on my third floor room as – Shae – rooooooo…

She is another one with a lot of name trouble. Kala means Art, but judging by the spelling, many would call her ‘Kaalaa’ as in Black. Once she filled up a form for MCA admission, entering her name as ‘Kala Parmeswaran’, she doesn’t have a surname. When the admission list came out, Kala came back saying that her name was nowhere on it. Later she found out that the university thought that there was a mistake in the name, that perhaps the surname was written first, and so it was changed accordingly. Imagine her shock when she saw that her name was up on the admission list as ‘Parmeswaran Kale’ in the Male section.

My neighbour Sharwari is another one who shares all the name problems that trouble me. And to add to the confusion, we have similar landline numbers, with only one digit different than the other, so that we always got calls from people looking for Sharwari and vice versa. When our mobiles came, that problem reduced but now those people who know us both have our numbers saved one after the other and the confusion continues. People always ask if we are related and how it is that we share such a similar name. I tell them that even though they sound almost the same, both names have very different meanings. Sharvani means Durga, a Hindu goddess while Sharwari means Night.

There’s an interesting story behind how I was named too. My grandmother was overtly superstitious about girls name starting with sh – the reason behind Shilpa, Shivangi, Sharvani and Sheetal in my family. But she didn’t readily come up with mine. When my folks were taking 15-day-old me to my Mum’s village for the naming ceremony, they stopped by at a temple on the way. It was the temple of Devi Sharvani, and two days later I was named after her.

Earlier I would always ask mum why she let grandma pick such a tedious name for me. But over the years I’ve grown fond of it. It’s unusual, beautiful and no one else has a name like it. I’ve only met two other Sharvani till date, one who was named after me and another, a student from one of the camps I had organised. But other than that, when anyone around is talking about a Sharvani, I know it could only mean me!

You off your rocker too?

2009-04-20T07:11:00.000-07:00

Sometimes I feel I’m completely nuts!
I talk to myself for hours,
Rehearse lines I’m going to say when I’m anxious,
Enact dialogues from movies when no one is watching,
Stare at myself and do eerie faces standing in front of the mirror,
And do bizarre dance moves while I’m doing chores.

Sometimes I feel I’m losing it…
I sit in one place staring in space without noticing how the time flies.
On bike, I sometimes get so lost in thoughts; I lose complete sense of direction and end up going somewhere without any idea of how I got there.
I get stuck with a song in my head and just like an old record stuck in an even older record player, it keeps playing the same line over and over again.
At times, I even space out and don’t realise that people are talking to me.

Sometimes I feel I’m completely off my rocker…
But when I see others being just as ludicrous, I feel I’m not so wacky after all. I’m just another normal human being with just another average Monkey Mind.

Recession

2009-04-15T19:00:00.000-07:00

One of the reasons why I love my cousin Mru, is for her wildest sense of humour in the unlikeliest of the places. While studying for MBA she promised her Boyfriend a while ago, “When I get my first pay check, I shall buy you a lovely DSLR camera!”

When the market started tumbling, she said, “You already have a camera. So when I get my first pay check, I’ll buy a superb lens for your camera.”

When the situation got worst, she again reconsidered, “When I get my first pay check, I’ll instead buy you a 1 TB hard disk!

Recently out of the business school with no placement, she finally reflected and said, “When I get my first pay check, I will definitely payback the money I borrowed from you!”

'Fan'tastic tales

2009-04-12T23:48:00.000-07:00

The ceiling fan in my room was so old, that lately it did everything except spinning – making squeaking, grumbling, crackling noises, sending off smoke and occasional fireworks. Mum told me it belonged to the 80’s, I told her it belonged in the trash.
With the heat reaching dangerous mercurial levels, it was getting impossible to sleep, study or even stay in my room.
“Why don’t you sit and study in our room?” Mum suggested, “and you can come sleep there too till the end of summer”
Since theirs is the only room with air-conditioning, the suggestion was good.
“Well, I don’t mind studying there with the AC full on, but I cant sleep there please.”
And I really can’t. When people say ‘There’s no place like Home’, I simultaneously believe that ‘There’s no place like my Room’. Just the way you can never find comfort in someone else’s home, I somehow never find peace anywhere else other than my own room.
“Tuza apla kahitarich!” Mum exclaimed.
Roughly translated, it means ‘That’s ridiculous of you!’ I don’t know how she can say that; she never sleeps soundly other than in her own bed.
“I guess it's just the genes…” I muttered to myself.

So after a month of badgering Dad, we finally set to remove it last Saturday. After sweating our tees off for an hour, we got it down and sat to think about its replacement. I was all in to buy a new one.
“No”, dad said, “ceiling fan prices are unnecessarily hiked in summer. We’ll buy one when monsoon hits and prices drop”
“Yeah”, Mum, “when we’ll have absolutely no use left for it!”
I love it when my mum gets sarcastic, I feel that and the raw sense of humour is something I’ve inherited from her.
Dad: Why don’t we just shift the fan from our room to hers?
Mum: And then what are we going to do?
Dad: We sleep in the AC. We hardly use the fan.
Mum: And what about during the day?
Dad: When do we ever shut ourselves in our room the way they do?
‘They’ means my bro and me. ‘Hey, that’s universal Adolescence Syndrome, not something unique to us’ I wanted to say. (And even though I’m not technically an adolescent, I guess I get counted in since I’m still staying with my parents). But instead I slowly back out of the room lest I get dragged into the row.
Finally I hear Dad say, “Her need is greater than our, she’s studying!”
Final weapon – case won!
Trust my parents to belittle everything else in front of my exams. But their 2000’s fan is fitted in my room and I’m happy.

But calamity strikes. At 4am next morning, power shuts down. Sweating profusely and cursing the electricity department we pace around the house trying to find some spot where it could be a bit cooler but without any luck. Dad calls up the department and they say, ‘we’re having some problem with the transformer and we’re trying to fix it. It’ll be done soon, don’t worry’. What it actually meant was, “The transformer has blasted beyond repair – we don’t have a spare transformer to replace it… so we’re calling every other electricity department in Goa to look for a spare – we also suspect that there’s some trouble with the wiring and we have no idea where the fault lies – so don’t expect the power to restore at all today – and oh, this might continue for the next four days.” All thanks to our government’s faulty management and ingenious (?) underground cabling plan.

But that’s another story, something you can follow up in the local newspaper if you care. But finally a spare 220-MWs transformer is fitted and the lights were back at 7 in the evening. But we are warned that it might be unable to take the load so it's just temporary adjustment until a bigger 400-MWs transformer is fitted. So naturally the AC starts giving problems and my folks have to spend the night in the living room.
“This is the reason why we have a ceiling fan in every room, just in case of emergency” Mum says.

Next day as the power shuts down again, I pack up my books and rush to Janaki’s rather than getting cooked up in the heat and my parents get ready to go shopping – for a new ceiling fan.

Destiny

2009-03-26T06:30:00.000-07:00

Seaching for the strength that hides within...
Stoking the fire, not letting it thin...
I'm cruising along the deep in persistent haze...
Eyes on the horizon, never letting it off my gaze...
For there, beyond the ocean of doubt,
Lies my True Destiny!

- by Me.

Fairies

2009-03-15T22:48:00.000-07:00

Just a Really good mail I received a few days back:

A married couple in their early 60s was out celebrating their 35th wedding anniversary in a quiet, romantic little restaurant.

Suddenly, a tiny yet beautiful fairy appeared on their table and said, "For being such an exemplary married couple and for being faithful to each other for all this time, I will grant you each a wish."

"Ooh, I want to travel around the world with my darling husband" said the wife.The fairy moved her magic stick and abracadabra! ... two tickets for the new QM2 luxury liner appeared in her hands.

Now it was the husbands turn. He thought for a moment and said, "Well .. this is all very romantic, but an opportunity like this only occurs once in a lifetime, so, I'm sorry my love, but my wish is to have a wife 30 years younger than me".

The wife, and the fairy, were deeply disappointed ... but a wish is a wish. So the fairy made a circle with her magic stick and ... abracadabra!

The husband became 92 years old.

The moral of this story:
Men might be ungrateful idiots, but fairies are...
FEMALE!

Trip to remember

2009-03-09T05:45:00.000-07:00

Netravali – Kundan – Kumbharwada – Dandeli – & Back.

It was almost after 2 years that we were planning a trip together, all of us cousins, thanks to Chinmay. It was going to be a fun, trekking cum river rafting experience. And it was lots of fun; exhausting, muscle-cramping, sweat-drenching, moral-breaking, pain-in-the-ass kind of mind-blowing fun. 30 kilometres on foot, 9 kilometres in water and approx 300 kilometres in vehicle covered in 2 days has to be ground breaking stuff.

DAY 1 – 28 February 2009: Trek till Kumbharwada, stay at Dandeli
9.00am: Pitch report: Pleasant morning, clear skies, temperature about 30D Celsius – perfect day for adventure! A group of 15 adventure enthusiasts ready to start off. Food – check, water bottles – check, camera – check, asthma patient carrying her precautionary medicines? – Check!
As we started walking from our base, we had a wonderful view of the fields and the village life around us as we slowly progressed towards the towering Western Ghats. The plan was to walk through the jungle and the mountains onto the Deccan plateau on the other side of the Ghats towards Dandeli, the destination for river rafting.

9.15am: Evidently the first ever climb decided to test our stamina and determination. The steep ascent left us pink faced and gasping for breathes. Personally, I was panting like I had just conquered Mt. Everest and my head was spinning. Every breath was sharp in the chest and I was all ready to give up. Among the 15 climbers, I was one of the few who had quite a bit of trekking experience and had boasted liberally of my earlier expeditions. But the very first climb had left me ashen faced and I could feel that my reputation as a trekker was coming crashing around my ears. Sure, I had not done much in the past year and turned into a couch potato, but I had always boasted a strong stamina. But this time, my body was revolting and I had to take notice of the fact that I was perhaps taking myself for granted. Immediately resolving to work harder when I got home, I concentrated on getting there alive with everyone else.

11.00am: After completing the gruelling climb and pushing the first mountain behind us, we took a break for breakfast. Thankfully, we were carrying a lot of water and food with us, and we happily ate our way through Methi parathas and garlic, groundnut chutney

11.20am: After the 20-minute break, everybody was back on their feet, geared up for the second mountain. But being past the initial hump and full of the delicious parathas, we completed this one after much less effort and in much less time.

12.30pm: We reached Kundan; a small village perched on the mountain with straw humps, mud houses and cattle grazing in the dry fields. We also passed a bunch of school kids in blue and white uniform playing outside the recently painted pink school compound walls. There was a tap just outside the village premises where we filled up out bottles once again.

1.00pm: Reaching Kundan meant that the mountain and the steep climbs were over. But it also meant another thing which we learned as we saw what was happening up there. They were building the tar road up to the village and that would mean that the next 19 kilometres till Kumbharwada were on hot mix. Worrying about our joints and knees was pointless, we had come this far and we unanimously agreed to go on.

2.00pm: Approx 5 kilometres into the journey from Kundan, we took another halt near a dried up spring. We quickly took off our shoes and socks and dipped our sore feet and aching toes in the stagnant water for some relief, before settling down for some lunch. By now, the water supply was beginning to run out, although food was plenty. We ate more parathas with mango pickle and bread with cheese and tomatoes and then some chicku.

2.20pm: 20 minutes later, we grudgingly put on our shoes again and started to walk. It quickly dawned upon us that once we had gotten ourselves into it, there was no way out except to keep walking. The jeep that had left for Dandeli with Vandana and Radha (a cousin and her 3 month baby) along with 3 older folks was coming back to collect the 15 of us in Kumbharwada. There was no way to call it up to us as the entire stretch was through thick jungle and there was not a soul in sight, except a few PWD workers and although all 15 of us carried our mobiles, not a single one showed any network. The only way to any communication was from Kumbharwada, 13 kilometres away.

5.00pm: Walking, halting, cursing the shoes, nursing the swollen toes and ankles, all that I could think of was the kilometres left to cover. We were out of water by now and our feet were screaming in protest. And although the scenery around kept changing from tall mountains to thick forests, beautiful springs with small bridges, who in the ruddy hell really had the patience for sightseeing? We passed a majestic dam under construction and also heard some animals move in the dark canopy of the forest. But all that occupied the brain was the time ticking away as we had to somehow make it to Kumbharwada before nightfall.

7.00pm: Kumbharwada! Never thought I’d get there alive. Dragging my feet, somehow trying to summon all the energy and determination from the unlikeliest of the places, I had made it; we all had made it! Every single one of the 15 weary and distended faces was lit up with smiles of relief. We gratefully drank the water from the first general store we came across and got into the Trax waiting for us that took us straight to Dandeli.

8.00pm: We checked into the hotel – got out for dinner – Ravenous, we ate whatever was put in front of us – got back – had steaming hot shower – covered our feet with pain relief sprays and ointments – and dropped off to sleep instantly.

DAY 2 – 1 March 2009: Rafting in Kali River and back to Netravali.
8.00am: When the alarm rang somewhere in the vicinity, I opened up my puffy eyes, grabbed my mobile, turned it off, rolled over and slept again.

9.00am: Someone shook me awake. We had to be at the Jungle Lodges and Resorts by 10.30am, ready for rafting. I staggered to my feet, feeling other blurred shapes emerging out of the blankets. I went through my morning routines with my eyes only half open, and threw on some clothes from the bag.

11.00am: Jungle River Lodges and Resorts!
As the name suggests this place is in the middle of the forest, on the banks of Kali River. Very spacious and comfortable, it’s quite peaceful and the perfect getaway from the strenuous city life. Small cabins and tents are separated by strings of hammocks hanging from trees and the front yard has two tires strung by ropes where we tried a few tricks before it was time to go.

From 11.30am – 3.00pm: As we were being taken to the location of rafting in jeeps bearing ‘Government of Karnataka’ on their bonnets, we had a perfect view of the Kali River. The River with its water volume and considerable width looks slightly intimidating. Although having done rafting there earlier with friends in April 2008, I knew exactly what to expect, but it was fun to watch the other apprehensive faces, especially of those who did not know swimming. Rafting at Dandeli is perfect for amateurs; it's neither too arduous but not any less exciting. For those who have at least done boating earlier, you will find that rafting is not much different, except for the rapids. Just a few instructions beforehand provided by the excellent instructors there and you are set to go. 9 kilometres of sheer fun covered in a little less than 2 hours by the end of which you are only left wishing for more! What more do I say in words? It's something you need to go and try for yourself to know… So do it! And oh, carry lots of sun block!

3.30pm: All too soon we were back in Dandeli, packing, ready to go. We had a hurried lunch, checked out of the Hotel and split in two groups. Those who were going back to Pune and Sangli would be taking a bus directly from Dandeli and the rest from Goa were to return to Netravali. We said good-bye to each other and were back in the Trax enroute to Netravali via Karwar, all the way singing Nursery Rhymes for the benefit of the 3-month-old Radha! :)

At the end of everything, for those willing to try this out, I’ll let you in on some general advice. It will be best to avoid trekking the entire 30 Km as the 19 Km tar road is not meant for trekking after all. Instead you could leave early from Netravali and aim at getting to Kundan before 12 noon and you will be able to catch the only bus that leaves from there and reach Dandeli in less than 2 hours. That way, if you are not willing to stay overnight, you could do rafting in the afternoon and catch a bus in the evening back to Goa. Just make a point to check the Bus Schedule before you leave though!

Nature

2009-03-03T22:08:00.000-08:00

There is a pleasure in the pathless woods,
There is rapture on the lonely shore,
There is society where none intrudes
By the deep sea, and the music in its roars,
I love not man the less, but nature more…

- Lord Byron

Just another Train Journey

2009-02-26T22:09:00.000-08:00

After reading my views in ‘Hello Everybody’, my friend P asked me, "You jumped to the unfriendly-world conclusion just because a bunch of boys behaved like boys? Isme unki kya galti? Have you ever stopped to think how we men are treated by you girls?"
Actually I haven’t! As a feminist, it becomes a hard and fast rule not to think too sympathetically about any guy. And it becomes difficult to do that when we (girls) think that we are constantly undermined in a male-dominated society.
"Unfriendly world... you girls are worst at this!" and we launched in a typical cross gender argument.

P: Girls are conservative... more than necessary
Me: Yes, but like I said there's a reason behind it
P: Which frankly I don’t accept
Me: And you never will until you step in our shoes!

Before you start to think that this is just another long article about the customary boys’ v/s girls’ war, stop! This blog isn’t about that; nor it is a lecture on feminism, it’s about the story that he told me to prove his point.

P: Did I tell you the story about the girl I once met in train?
Me: No, the last time I heard of a girl someone met on the train, was a few years back. And she turned out to be God!
P: What are you talking about?
Me: One Night at the Call Centre by Chetan Bhagat
P: well, this is different. Do u want to hear it?
Me: yes, please!

And so the story began:
Having spent Diwali at my native Kolhapur, I was returning to Mumbai in the Konkankanya Express. As expected the train was jam-packed and after making my way through hundreds of people and thousands of bags, I reached my seat, which was mercifully empty. I heard the last announcement and train started slowly. Appreciating Indian Railway for being on time, I silently thanked Lalu for doing a good job.

Me: I don’t think Lalu alone is responsible for a good system!
P: Is that the point of this discussion?
Me: Sorry, please continue!

Once settled, I took a good look around the compartment. Although my seat was empty, there were around 10 people, plus 2 cranky babies in the compartment meant for 8. Few passengers tried to make casual conversation to guarantee that I had a confirmed ticket, since many of them were on the waiting list and they wanted to secure seats if others didn’t turn up. I also had a little chat with group of four young gutakha-chewing work-searching close-to-illiterate boys from UP, who had general class tickets and wanted few berths to sleep on rotation basis, few already preparing to sleep on the floor. Meanwhile I searched for my earphones, silently wished them good luck and started my favourite classical rock while sipping through a cup of lukewarm, stale and sugary coffee.

An hour later, train pulled up at Miraj, last major station and the already crowded train braced itself to accommodate a few hundred more. It was almost midnight and I was planning to sleep. I had the lower berth and I politely requested others to move up to their respective berths. One fellow showed signs of sitting at the corner of my berth as I slept. I showed signs of ‘I have no problem with that’. I lay down on my seat using my bag as a pillow as few more people rushed into the compartment. One of them was young slim girl checking her ticket against the seat numbers. I was thinking, ‘not a bad company, she definitely looks more civilian than most on the train’. She made way through the crowd and came directly towards my seat.

Me: wow! Looks like your lucky day.
P: Not much…

I was expecting her to tell one of the UP boys to get down. But instead she rounded on me and said in an unusually stern voice, “This is my seat, you go find some other place". Everybody in the vicinity, including a 2-year-old baby turned to look at me. If I was surprised, it was nothing compared to the looks of shock I received from my fellow passengers; they thought I had lied about my confirmed ticket.
Thinking there was mistake, and hoping against hope that it was not mine, I started searching for my ticket. After couple of seconds of nervous fumbling I extracted it from my pocket. Till then several other ticket holders had asked a group of boys and others to vacate their seat. The compartment now contained as many standing as sitting, and the girl in front was furiously tapping her feet expecting me to hurry up and move from her seat. I checked my seat number twice on the berth and ticket – confirmed bogie with other passengers – the date was correct – I even recollected and confirmed the train name. Ensuring I had the correct ticket I demanded to see hers. But she only barked at me in reply, "Koi natak nahi chalega, nikalo yahan se."
By then it had become a matter of interest to everybody in the compartment.

P: After all one young good-looking girl was in crisis. And every Tom, Dick and Harry would play hero for the Damsel-in-Distress.
Me: Normal male tendency!
P: (*an angry smiley*)

Furious, I tried hard to keep my cool. I insisted again to check her ticket, but she refused point-blank and demanded mine instead. Resigned, I produced my ticket and had it examined by every head in the compartment, irrespective of whether or not they could read. Having her doubts cleared, she gave the ticket back to me with an inscrutable expression. And just when I thought I had won my case, she dumped her bag on my berth and settled down saying, “wait for TC to come.”

Me: What?

I couldn’t believe my ears, “Fine! We’ll see…” I thought as I too sat down.

The next few minutes passed in total silence. I could sense many eyes watching us earnestly. I glanced around at the girl to see that she sat clutching her ticket. I wanted to check it, but couldn’t see how I could do it without attracting her wrath again. I knew that it was impossible for a computerized reservation system to issue the same ticket to two different people. Wanting to know more I decided to start somewhere. So I asked her if she had checked the Date. She looked at it and… there it was, the long pause I had expected to see earlier!

Me: Oh shit! Don’t tell me…
P: Yeah… dumb ass!

She looked confused and asked the date. I said, "It is 3rd, but your ticket should show 2nd November as you boarded at 11:55pm". She verified it again... and there was a longer pause this time. I knew what had happened but trying hard to hide an evil grin, I put up a fake inquisitive glare and continued to look at her. After a couple more minutes of silence she finally said, ”Travel agent ne galat date daal di" That was the first normal sentence she had said all night. I was so angry I wanted to lash out at her for ruining my sleep and embarrassing me in front of everyone, but something stopped me from asking her to shoo off from the place.

Me: Yeah, it’s called attraction! Hehehe…
P: It’s called chivalry!
Me: Sure! ;) So what happened to her?

First, she was embarrassed although she never admitted her fault. She requested me to leave a corner of my berth for her to sit. She checked the entire bogie for better place, obviously without any luck. Now she was nice to me and a little too sweet for someone who looked like she could have murdered me earlier. She was nervous, as she had to sit the whole night and also a little worried since there were so many people lying on the floor, she couldn’t keep her legs where they wouldn’t touch anybody else. Now she was the one without a ticket and a fresh ticket and fine combined would cost 850 bucks and she wasn’t carrying even half of the amount. She tried calling her parents for help, but her battery conked off. I felt bit sad for her, but I remembered her attitude and decided keep quiet.

Me: And that is called chivalry?

Anyways ... the night didn’t turn out that bad for her. TC was nice and helpful – he collected fine of Rs. 850 – others pitched in – she got a valid ticket – then used my cell to call her parents and received few during night – boys made place for her on the floor and also put papers below for her to sit. Early morning at 5, I asked her to sleep on my berth and I moved to the door to enjoy the cool air and the spectacular green Sahyadris in soft light. Later as the train emptied, she moved to the top berth where she slept till 10am and I sat on mine reading a half-finished book. When the train reached the Dadar station we both got off, she briskly said ‘Thanks’ and we departed.

Me: How gallant of you!
P: can you believe her? She never once apologized! And she was super cold till the end like it was my fault that she had the wrong ticket!
Me: well, Albus Dumbledore said that people find it far easier to forgive others for being wrong than being right!
P: Do you ever stop quoting?
Me: No, I don’t!
P: Anyways, the point is, I think I would have felt better if she was polite right from the start. I can imagine problems with a girl's security in a crowded train, but not everybody is a jerk! In fact the uncultured illiterate boys helped her the most.
Me: well, maybe she had some bad experience earlier. This kind of attitude could be fueled by a number of occurrences!
P: Yes, maybe! But does that mean that you start taking it out on everyone you meet?
Me: Ok, I agree with you. So she did behave foolishly, and totally inappropriate. But it’s not right to generalize about the entire gender on the basis of one or a few incidences, just like you said! Accepted, its not right on our part to prejudice against all men, so I hope you will not carry the grudge against all girls either. Lets call it a truce!
P: Cheers!!!

2009-02-25T20:34:00.000-08:00

Life is like a cup of coffee. You sit by the window and take a careless sip only to realise that someone forgot to add sugar. Too lazy to go for it, you somehow struggle though the sugarless coffee.... only to see the sugar crystals lying at the bottom.
Thats life, shaken but not stirred!

Law of Usenet Bandwidth!

2009-02-16T04:45:00.000-08:00

Have you heard of the Inverse Law of Usenet Bandwidth? It was formulated by John Barger, the man who coined the word weblog back in 1997. It says, "The more interesting your life becomes, the less your post and vice versa”.

So naturally I figured that my posts should explode with energy and excitement because there seems to be none in my present living condition. My daily routine goes roughly like this; I get up by 11 am, read the newspaper (which means to say that I religiously follow the comic strips and the TV guide and scan roughly through the headlines and the sports page), force down some breakfast (my hunger senses take longer to wake than I do) study, gulp down lunch (because I had a late breakfast), play Age of Empires and curse furiously under my breath because I always lose the Wonder Race, study some more, scream that m starving at 6pm sharp (my hunger senses are most active at this time) , study some more, watch boring Marathi TV serials with my Mum or by-heart my favourite dialogues from the movies stored on the computer, study more, eat dinner and then when the entire world drifts in slumber I’m wide awake. I read, write, study, and scavenge food from refrigerator till sleep catches up with me around 3 in the morning! Next day I again get up at 11, eat, study, play, eat, study, watch TV, do TP (Time Pass for those unfamiliar) on computer, eat, study, eat, study and sleep! And the day after that I again get up at 11, eat, study, play, eat, study, watch TV, do TP on computer, eat, study, eat, study and sleep!

Results: my laziness bug is more prominent than ever, my eating habits are absurdly bizarre; at times I hog, hog and hog some more, other times, I go in the fasting mode (which has nothing to do with spirituality) sometimes I study sincerely, sometimes I sit with the book in my hand while my head goes on the world tour. I don’t remember the last time I had exercise and definitely don’t see when I did something fun!

But on the plus side, I’m sms’ing more, I’m calling people I hadn’t spoken to in months, pampering myself with face masks and hot oil head massages and not complaining about being too busy. I’m even taking bath twice a day just to have something to do with my time. It’s only been 15 days spent in my study jail and already feels like an eternity!

For those who have not understood what I’m on about or where the girl who spent hours online has disappeared to, here's the update: due to inability to clear my CA Final exam answered in November 08, I’m again on a study break, slogging for the next attempt due in June 09. And I have no Internet at home!

So there! My next post is up and I sincerely don’t know whom John Barger was kidding? Going through what I’ve written again, I feel my post sounds every bit as depressing and sad as my life right now! Of course, I’ll be delighted to know if someone disagrees!

Hattrick

2009-01-29T20:33:00.000-08:00

“Again? Sharvani, isn't this like the third phone??" Janaki was asking....

Ok so I've done it, I just lost my third mobile :(

What’s it with me and them? I’m not a careless person, I never lose anything, I’ve never lost anything important in my life... I have a classic condition of hoarding! I keep even the tiniest of scraps of papers, and receipts, and chits and all sorts of rubbish. If u went through my desk, you'll find receipts of dance class I attended 2 years ago, a broken watch, small notepads filled with all the important, not-so-important and even useless stuff. I even have the eye prescription cards of all the years, the very first dating back to 1997, sim cards of all my previous mobiles numbers and all the college and exam ids till date, even broken key chains kept for reasons I do not remember. I store everything, so much that every once in a while I have to throw out a bucket full of junk after scrutinising every little scrap. So what exactly is it with these mobiles? Why don’t they want to last with me??

Year 2004, Nokia 3310, phone number 9890389015, that’s the first cell phone that I lost... actually not lost, stolen!! Stolen from my bag, through the zip, from the bench behind, while I was sitting in the class completing my assignment. I was already having a bad day, and I called my mum before the class started, came back in, kept the cell in my bag, zipped it shut, and sat down to finish my homework. There were very few people sitting in the class. Suddenly I felt my bag move a bit, and I turned around... nothing. The girl sitting behind me was furiously writing away something, and everything was calm. A little suspicious but thinking I must have imagined it, I turned back to my work, and the bag moved again... okay there was no mistaking it this time. I looked back and the girl behind was still pretending like she did nothing. Out of caution I checked my bag and BINGO... no cell! Just like that, within a matter of 5 minutes! And then what followed next was a big drama which included the girl sitting behind me, a couple of friends, the accounts professor who ran the academy and a chase around the building! I’ll spare you the ugly details; it's too much for me to recite anyways. But the end result: she got away n I didn’t get my cell back, but not before the whole academy came to know what had happened! Hats off to her for managing to pull it off and vanish my cell with all the watchdogs I had planted around her.
If you thought that was the worst…. Wait! The worst is yet to come and it wasn’t the drama, nor the fact that I had to threaten and search that girl in vain and not even that I actually screamed myself hoarse at the professor for being unhelpful…. not the worst ever trip to the police station. NO, the worst thing about this entire episode was the fact that it was 10th august 2004...
And next day 11th august……………, was my 18th birthday!

2007 - The next silly adventure... Nokia 1100, number 9423882682. This time I went a little further; stolen once, now it had to be something different! So my mobile this time did the disappearing act with the entire purse... and of course with everything contained in it, money, passbook, driving license, credit card, election card, my glasses... Ouch!! It still hurts to remember!!
It so happened that I was dropping off my brother to his tuitions, and in the hurry, instead of my usual habit of putting the purse in the boot of my bike I gave it to him to hold while I was riding. Once there, he took off leaving my purse on the back seat and I absent-mindedly drove away. 5 minutes later I was at the petrol pump looking for my purse to fill up the tank! “Shit, my bro took it with him...” was the first thought! Another 5 minutes later standing outside his tuitions looking at his puzzled face,”Damn... this is not happening to me" was the second thought. Two more rounds of the area, asking a million people on the way and an empty fuel tank later, I was forced to conclude that it was gone. He left it on the seat as he got down and it fell somewhere on the way! Of course this is all assumption because neither of us really have a clue of what happened to it!

Ok, so the first two times I could pin it on somebody else, like ''come on, I couldn’t really have prevented it from getting stolen that way, and plus I did everything I could to get it back, its just tough luck! Could happen to anybody!" and everybody nodded sympathetically. The second time it went something like, "I don’t know where my brother keeps his head, must have seen some girl and forgot all about the bag" Yeah, that earned me quite a few laughs. But the third time there was no ignoring it, the fact was staring me in my face and I had to mutely accept it!

Year 2009, another Nokia 1100 (won’t give the number this time, I’m still using it). Two week ago, travelling home with my friend Janaki, in her car, I answered my dad's call, telling him I would be home soon. And that’s the last I remember of that cell. What happened next is quite a mystery. We got down just outside my house, went to a cyber café in the neighbourhood, sat there for an hour, and I walked home where my mum was waiting for me with her hands on her hips asking where I was and why I wasn’t answering my phone. One quick search of the bag and I there I was thinking "Oh no, not again!" I ran back to the cafe where Janaki was still sitting and we searched the cyber cafe, we searched the car... but was I really expecting it to turn up??

So, standing with Janaki I was pondering, reminiscing the last two events like they just happened yesterday..... 'Cant believe how much trouble a little rectangular piece of metal and plastic can cause, not to mention all the running around I will have to do to block the card, get my number back and then to figure all the contacts I had to retrieve them!'

And Janaki was asking..... "Again? Sharvani, isn’t this like the third phone??"

"Yes, thanks for reminding, I had almost forgotten!!"

Spirit

2009-01-16T08:26:00.000-08:00

I love this song, speaks a lot that I can't put in words....

I gotta fight another fight
I gotta run another night
get it out, check it out
I'm on my way and I don't feel right
I gotta get me back
I can't be beat and that's a fact
its ok, I'll find a way
ain't gona take me down, no way....

Don't judge a thing till you know what's inside it
don't push me, I'll fight it
never gona give in, never gona give it up, no........
If you can't catch a wave then you're never gona ride it
you can't come uninvited
never gona give in, never gona give it up, no......
you can't take me, I'M FREE.

Why did it all go wrong
I wana know what's going on
what's this holding me
I'm not where I'm supposed to be
I gotta fight another fight
I gotta fight with all my might
I'm getting out, so check it out
you're in my way, yeah, you better watch out....

Don't judge a thing till you know what's inside it
don't push me, I'll fight it
never gona give in, never gona give it up, no.........
If you can't catch a wave then you're never gona ride it
you can't come uninvited
never gona give in, never gona give it up, no......
you can't take me, I'M FREE.

by Bryan Adams
Spirit (animation)

Constant vigilance! .... and its side-effects

2009-01-09T23:01:00.000-08:00

In the aftermath of the attack of 26/11 in Mumbai, we saw the Indian public wake up and speak out their outrage about terrorism. Many blamed our government for not being competent enough to handle this threat, others spoke about the steps that needed to be taken to curb the ever-increasing nuisance and still others thought that it was necessary to be vigilant and alert ourselves. But many of us don't realise that sometimes in the haste to be watchful, some people take it too far. One such incident happened to my cousin.

So on Dec 12 2008, Teju was travelling alone from Mumbai to Goa on the Konkankanya express. She happened to be travelling with a couple sitting right in front of her. Teju assumed they were on their honeymoon because they were embarrassing even to look at. Initially, the train was going packed, but by the time it reached Tivim station in North Goa, a lot of passengers had left. And so, after tolerating the couple for better part of the journey, Teju took advantage of the then almost empty train and moved away from them to take the seat next to the passage window. She took her backpack with her, but left the heavier handbag lying under the seat. There was still time till the train reached Margao station and the evening breeze felt cool, and Teju never realised when she dozed off.

She's not sure exactly what woke her up, but she thinks it was the sound of ripping paper that brought her back to her senses and she turned around to see that her handbag lay open next to this couple while they rummaged around it. Two seconds of ringing silence.... and Teju screamed in shock and leapt to her feet. What was more, she was carrying a beautifully wrapped gift for her new-born niece; and she was outraged to see that the man was holding what remained of the gift paper in one hand and an open box in the other. 'What are you doing?' Teju demanded. 'Oh.. umm... is this bag... yours?' The guy stammered. 'Of course its mine, what are you doing going through it?'

By now, clearly embarrassed and probably cursing themselves for their stupidity, the couple launched a series of explanation. Apparently these two geniuses saw the unattended bag and thought that it must be left there by someone (perhaps a terrorist?) with intentions of foul play. And they decided that the least they could do was to check it out to be sure. 'But why did u open the gift?' Teju asked. 'Well.. um... we thought it would be a clever way to.... you know.... disguise a bomb....' By this time, Teju was trying hard not to burst out laughing. (She later told me that she thought that the couple must have also assumed that the wind-chime inside was a clever new design for a bomb.) Trying hard to keep a straight face, all she managed to say then was 'Well next time, ask around before you do that'. Thoroughly embarrassed, the couple apologised over and over again and helped her repack the bag.

Meantime, the train reached the Margao station and not wanting to be around them any longer than she had to, Teju quickly got off. Waiting at the station I was surprised to see her in a foul mood (she was still angry about the gift). As I helped her with her bag, I asked her what was wrong and a half exasperated and half fuming Teju told me the entire incident and we laughed all the way home.

Later when I thought about it, I asked myself, in their haste to play the hero, did they ever realise that they were doing the exact thing that they are not supposed to do? Assuming that it was a bomb, it would have blasted in their faces when they tried to investigate. Besides, it would have been more sensible to ask around before they opened some stranger’s bag. And if nobody claimed it, then just stay away and call the TC. So its official, common sense is definitely not so common.

So people, next time before we do something like this and embarrass ourselves, let’s keep a few things in mind.
Good intentions alone are not enough, you need to couple it with a presence of mind.
If you do find a bag/box.. etc lying around without an owner, its best to inform someone in authority or simply call the police.
And lastly, do not take matters in you own hand. We know how brave you are, you don't need to demonstrate it.
So let’s keep everyone safe and help make 2009 a terror-free year. Amen!

2009-01-07T02:58:00.000-08:00

Justice is not only the way we punish those who do wrong, it is also the way we try to save them. - Shantaram.

Hello Everybody

2009-01-04T22:37:00.000-08:00

‘Hello Everybody’ reads the title to the article on page 92, Reader’s Digest, December 2008. The subtitle ‘What if, for an entire month, you greeted everyone in your path?’ Inviting enough to read, and tempting enough to experiment with. And so I decided to give it a shot with only one slight modification. I realised that it wasn’t going to be feasible to say hello to each and everyone I meet, so instead I decided to begin with an affable smile.

With the dawn of the next morning, I decided to put the frostiness of the world to test. And with the very first friendly smile to a not-so-friendly neighbour, I realised that this wasn’t going to be any easier. By the time I reached office, a ride that takes approximately 10 minutes through traffic, junctions and parking (thank god no signals in Goa yet), I had collected myself only 3 smiles to boast of…
A woman I helped with her purse that fell off her bike…
The watchman at the gate…
And the doctor who practices next to my office…

Throughout the office hours, I smiled at my boss, my colleagues, clients all of whom smiled encouragingly back. Don’t know if it was me but everyone seemed to be in a better mood, upbeat at being acknowledged and in good spirits. I even gave a wide smile to the postman who blinked stupidly and looked sideways at my colleague as if mutely enquiring ‘is she ok?’ But without letting that daunt my spirit, I continued smiling for the rest of the day. I realised and experienced that grumpiness begets grumpiness, and a cheerful smile cures all moods.

But at 6pm as I walked out of the office, my own friendly resolution was put to a tricky test. Upbeat and elated, I inadvertently gave a broad smile to a bunch of guys relaxing on their bikes. Delighted about a girl smiling at them, the over-friendly smiles and the appalling look that I got back made my own foolish smile falter. ‘Enough with this experiment honey’ I told myself! Isn’t it enough with all the humiliation we otherwise go through as women, without us deliberately inviting some more? And all the lessons we learn as we grow up about being cautious and guarded aren’t really all hollow and empty in a world full of crime, deception and recently……… terrorism. Maybe it was time to reserve the smiles and the greetings only to people I am acquainted with, after all.

And so, as I walked to my bike and put the key to the ignition, I came to an unusual conclusion; it's an unfriendly world out there, but maybe with good reason.

P.S. It does not mean that we stop being friendly ofcourse. How can we forget that one act of random kindness at a time can bring about the change that we want to see in the world. I merely thought that Joe Kita, the writer of the original article, missed an important point.

Original article by Joe Kita : http://www.rd.com/living-healthy/what-if-you-said-hello-to-everyone-in-your-path-for-a-month/article107782.html

2009-01-02T20:13:00.000-08:00

Dream is place where a wish and a fear meet. And when the wish and the fear is the same, we call it a nightmare. - Shantaram

Happy New Year

2009-01-02T19:59:00.000-08:00

Everybody wants to be a master, everybody wants to show their skills
Everybody wants to get their faster, in the way to the top of the hill
Each time we try, gona get a little bit better
Each day we climb, one more step, one more ladder
Its a whole new world we live in,
Its a whole new way to be,
Its a whole new place with a brand new attitude......
But you still gotta catch them all (the dreams) as fast as you can.
Happy New Year......

(Adopted from Pokemon)

Deleto-phobia

2008-12-30T04:18:00.000-08:00

I was going through a blog by an acquaintance earlier and a particular article caught my attention.
She had written about how she was having trouble emptying her phone inbox full with year old messages, wondering "what it is that makes it so difficult for me to press that little red 'delete' button".

It reminded me of how I would go through the exact trouble about once every month, owing to the limited capacity of 70 messages provided to me by our all time favourite 'Made for India' Nokia 1100. And it meant that every once in a while I would sit with my cell going through the inbox over n over again wondering which messages to hold on to n which ones to delete. And at the end of every similar session, it would irritate me to think that what I am doing is nothing different than hoarding, hoarding of countless emotions, little bits n pieces of joy, pain, laughter and troubles.
And then once, in a fit of anger, for the first time in over 4 years, I put to use a little facility that allowed me to 'delete all read messages' at once. I am sure almost every message that ever had the fortune to drop in my inbox passed from in front of my eyes in those 10 seconds while 'deleting' kept flashing on my screen. But when it was done, I felt liberated and light. What else, I saw that the old messages met the same fate anyways when there had to be made space for new messages to hang on....
Similar to cleaning out your old wardrobe really, discarding the old favourites because u want to be up with the changing fashions, changing times. So we forget the old memories and emotions that we once sanctified to make space for the new revered ones!

Won't that be easier if we learnt to deal with life in the same way?

I also have another terrible habit to speak of……… reading Chat history……, good way to re-live good times but terrible terrible facility when the should-be-forgotten conversations don't get shown the 'trash' way. Guess I got to liberate myself once there too, let's see when I find that courage!

All in all, I was definitely relieved to know that I wasn't the only one who goes through silly troubles like these, and perhaps we all have this tendency of clinging to little things that make or once made our lives worth living.

Soul Curry

2008-12-26T22:24:00.000-08:00

I am not a poetic person, but i'm starting my blog with my favourite poem. Its one of the few that have ever truly touched my heart.

After a while you realise the subtle difference between holding a hand and chaining a soul,
And you understand that love doesn't mean leaning and company doesn't mean security,
And you begin to learn that kisses arent contracts and presents arent promises,
And you begin to accept your defeats with your head held up and your eyes open, with the grace of an adult, not the grief of a child,
And you learn to build your roads on today because tomorrow's ground is too uncertain for plans,
After a while you understand that even sunshine burns if you get too much!
So nourish you own soul and cultivate your own garden instead of waiting for someone to get you flowers,
And you realise that you really can endure....
that you really are strong....
And you really do have worth!

Veronica A Shoffstall
(adopted from Chicken soup for the Teenage Soul)