Love and live

I've decided that it's absolutely ok and in fact not at all uncool to blog about post-breakup things. Especially since said breakup is now ancient history and pretty much most of the world (and especially me) has stopped giving a damn. Therefore, a note on being alone. Somebody once told me that the hardest part of a breakup is the end of an entity you became a part of, the end of an "us". You return to the state of being "me" again, and in the meanwhile, if you've given enough time and energy to the relationship, you've completely lost track of who that is or even how to be that person. Much madness ensues--the inability to be alone, rebound relationships, etc.

Looking back, this seems like a horrifying way for relationships to work. We live in a culture (that includes a frightening percentage of humanity) that prioritizes the collective over the individual--our ideas of democracy, fashion and even society itself. And love just happily skips along into the party. The popular perception of love seems to be a noble giving up of the ego, of immersing your self in something "greater"--as if greater necessarily need be greater in number and not just scope. I'm all for the idea of building something "greater", but it does seem dangerous to give up being something you are just to be part of something else. Rather, I would imagine love to be something that lets you be exactly who you are and embrace something or someone else in all their uncomfortable, wondrous reality. 

And let's face the hard facts--we are all ultimately alone, in body and mind. I'd hardly be the first to point out profoundly that everybody dies alone. Yes, the entire history of humankind, every power struggle and work of art somehow leads back to that fact. We may ignore it or try to erase it by building elaborate fantasies such as happily ever after, true love, and so forth, but there is no getting away from it, really. You are the only one who will ever be there, the only entity, sane or insane, that you will meet all your life. It's nice to have someone along for however long in the ride, but that's all it'll ever be--a little company.

Call me a cynic, but I'd rather face that and hold on to me. And still love and live.

Undone

What if you stood before an enchanting lake on a hot summer day, a cool, enticing lake, and yet don't step in? All you have to do is strip off your clothes (there's no one looking, and you don't care anyway) and plunge yourself into the delicious water and you know you will forget the harshness of the sun, the thirst of your skin, the dust that coats you. You can imagine the water enfolding you in its embrace and you know instinctively that you can trust that you will enjoy every minute of it. Yet, you stand at the water's edge, looking in, looking around, half-longing, yet holding back.

It's not that you're afraid. You know you can probably swim the depths of this lake. Well, you're not really sure, the water has frightened you in the past--always that fear of drowning. Yet you know that you need to try before you know for sure whether you can swim or not. The only way to confirm or disprove your own fears is by facing them. Yet that's not why you hesitate. Sometimes you enjoy facing those fears, there is a certain excitement to that sense of drowning, almost running out of breath, before you break the surface and remember to kick your feet and move your arms and fill your lungs with oxygen, eyes stinging with water, yet unable to close them to the light that proves that you're alive. No, a little fear of drowning could never dissaude you from the rewards of a swim on a summer day.

But the fact is that you would rather stand here and stare at the sparkling water. There is a hint of a quiet breeze rippling the surface of the lake on the otherwise quiet afternoon, but it doesn't touch you--only stillness all around. The sun is beating down and the grass is letting out that hot humid smell of summer green. Insects dance in a huge column in areas over the grass. And the water beckons. And somehow, this moment is enough. It's enough to know that the water is there without having to throw yourself into it. It's enough to imagine the depths of that pool, imagine being deep in its belly and look up to see the sun streaming in, oddly distorted and pretend you're a fish. It's enough to imagine all the pleasures of finally escaping the dreadful, sultry day and giving in to the beauty of the water. Somehow there is enjoyment in knowing that this is all the moment will be, that it will remain unfulfilled. Yes, this is enough, just this feeling of anticipation.

Not everything must reach its logical or desirable conclusion, must it?

The Hostel Mess Cheatcode

Perhaps it’s best to start with explanations. A lot of things in life might be more pleasant if an explanation preceded them instead of us gamboling through events like happy things that gambol (?) blindly and get really confused about why water’s wet, love is just not enough (no matter how much really quite awesome songs may claim otherwise), the chicken crossed the road, etc. Life might be a little more enjoyable if it were a little more like this post is going to be and a little less like trying to learn a game of cards you don’t know by observing a bunch of Bengalis playing (i.e., completely incomprehensible, and just when you feel like you’re maybe getting the hang of it, somebody wins and you realize the goal was the opposite of what you thought, and most of the time, you don’t get what people are saying). So. Explanations are in order. Two fact about me should do, I think.

Fact 1: I am lazy. Like really. Like it pisses people off kind of lazy. But as you shall soon see, laziness is not all it’s cracked up to be. It’s quite a lot of work. So, on to…

Fact 2: I tend to over-think things. This, combined with a slight tendency to geekiness and mild OCD of the pattern-finding variety, makes things interesting.

So the explanations are done. (But I now realize that the whole explanation thing is futile because explanations make less sense than the things they explain before the things they explain unfold. Wait, I think I might have said something profound. Let’s examine that… Ah, never mind, too lazy. So, moving on.)

I live in a hostel that’s built like a pyramid. No, its construction didn’t (exactly) involve slave labour and it’s not full of dead people and fabulous wealth (snort) so the pyramid thing refers to what you first thought it referred to, before I distracted you with irrelevant details–the shape. Each floor is slightly smaller than the one below it. I have no idea what the architectural significance of this is, but since I live in the second floor, this creates many, many puzzles and challenges for me. One of the challenges revealed to me that if I were a civilization all by myself, I’d be in what Douglas Adams calls the Survival stage, for the challenge is, “How do I get to the mess to eat?” This may seem like a trivial question. But this is where I ask you to turn your attention to Facts 1 and 2.

Living in the second floor means I expend a lot of energy climbing up and down stairs. And to have to do this for every meal and water refill creates unspeakable anguish for my lazy side. To reduce the monotony and make myself feel better, I decided to over-think things. Fun. So, there are many ways in which you can reach the mess from my room. Cross the corridor, take the stairs at the end, climb down two floors, exit. Cross half the corridor, take the stairs in the middle, cross the other half at the ground floor, exit. Take the stairs in front of my room, cross the corridor at the ground floor, exit. The last option might sound good because the stairs are right in front of me, but the fact is, this is out because it would involve crossing the whole of the ground floor, which, in the pyramid structure, has the longest corridor. So, the first option? Nope. Wrong again. It IS in fact the shortest route, but there are problems. The staircase at the end of each corridor (except on the ground floor) plays host to a lovely little thing called the common dustbin. This is generally a huge plastic drum, and is often filled with… well, let’s say the cats and flies love it. It’s smelly and quite effective in killing any appetite that dares to pass it without the answer to its impossible riddles and it also has to the power to send any satisfied appetite to go commit suicide. The ancient Egyptians, had they met Mr Dustbin, would not have bothered with pressurized acid and such to keep marauders out of their tombs.

It took me just two weeks to figure it out, and the funny looks I get from other, more unadventurous, weary dinner-time travellers were answered with looks of smug superiority. I had the keen intelligence, the courage, the perseverance to figure it out! All you have to do is:  Take the middle stairs, thus cleverly avoiding the dreaded Dustbin, cross the other half of the first floor corridor (which is still shorter than the ground floor’s, ha!), take the stairs at the end of the corridor, exit and reach your destination, thus achieving high score of sheer genius.

And then, you go eat mess food.

Sigh. Maybe all we do need is love :D

24

It is now down to the last hour of my life at 23. It’s been a funny year, brilliant, breathtaking (in happiness and in sorrow), fun and life-changing. I’ve loved the year but I don’t think I’d be able to survive another one like it. The one thing it’s not been is boring. Friends have come and gone faster than imaginable and ideas changed like lightning. Weight was lost and (unfortunately) regained And all the usual inconseqential things that we call life–dinners, breakfasts (yeah, there were quite a few of those, believe it or not), haircuts, heartaches, hobbies, deadlines, books, songs, poetry, papers, languages, roommates, dresses, parties, trips, weddings, breakups, diets, social networks, hugs, gossip, discoveries, rediscoveries, re-rediscoveries… lots and lots of lessons learned.

The chief lesson has been to never plan too far ahead, and for crying out loud, stop the crying out loud and whinining! And spend less time on Facebook. And party more. And talk to more people. And exercise more. And waste less time. And go see the world, there’s bound to be a lot more to it. And hold on to and HUG the people you love. And don’t change anything about your ice-cream consumption habits. But really, mostly, just to never, ever try to guess the turns and trends. So, 23, here’s looking at you, and 24, looking forward to you.

PS. No, I don’t feel like I’m growing old… Am I supposed to?

PPS. If every year of my life were an hour, then 24 would be the perfect year, my favourite time of the day!

And so...

...life goes on. I come back to this place and look around, at what I created years ago, and filled, in my naivest and most un-self-conscious moments. What brought me back? An email alert for a comment from a stranger on a post I wrote ages ago--he calls me incredibly stupid, this person I don't know from a country I have never visited. My own coldness and lack of reaction to this surprises me. All I really feel is puzzlement, and curiosity. For a few seconds, I stare at the comment, wondering how I should react, what I should feel. Should I delete it? It's insulting and completely unnecessary addition to a space I consider my own. Yet, I cannot bring myself to hit the delete button. I re-read this post, one that seems to me to have been written in a different lifetime, by a different person. It is kind of stupid, I begin to tell myself and then I stop. This is who I was. I'm not going to judge myself, just because this person did so. This person who randomly comments on an old post in the blog of a person he doesn't know and cannot understand. This person who has taken the effort to actually type all that out, only to say something that makes no meaningful contribution to... well, anything. I visit his blog, and realize that even if I wanted to, I could't come up with a vicious retort on his post because it's almost like we're from different species and he's rambling on and on about things that simply don't interest me, the everyday minutiae of his average married (American?) life.

But life does go on. We grow up, we look back, and I, for one, read old comments from friends who are now strangers, strangers who are now friends, and random disturbing people who waltz into your life for short intense periods and disappear forever. We struggle with ordinary, everyday things and we celebrate, we cry, we discover music and we write blog posts. One day, maybe I'll read my own, now juvenile-seeming blog posts and be at a complete loss for things to say. One day, our past selves will be strangers to our present selves. All the pangs we feel for broken romances and broken friendships, the unexpected turns of life, the stomach-clawing excitements, the breath-stealing sorrows, will all just be distant memories and would make about as much sense to our future selves as the blog of this random stranger did to me.

Metaphor

Everything is metaphor. This fact was suggested to me in a course that was called (loosely) Post-structuralism in connection with language, but the more I think about it, the more it seems to apply to everything under the sun. Language, in whatever form, be it music, dance, or Tamil, is metaphor. But so is everything else we do. Advice is metaphor--my life was like this, so life is like this.

The past is also metaphor. It's built up of our ideas of ourselves, of sense experiences and our own memory, which is never too reliable anyway. The past is a memory of our own selves and our world-view. Everything we believe about the past is built up on our narrative, the grand story of our lives. The past is a metaphor that represents us as we perceive ourselves. When that metaphor is jarred by reality, it is a hard fact to reconcile with. But the metaphor is perhaps the most resilient creature in all of creation. It builds itself up again, till all is in order.

*crosses arms, sulks*

I refuse to allude to this silly little event today that everyone else is talking about, especially since it's such a non-event. Talk about humans getting all worked up over a human fabrication, created just to mark another human fabrication (time). Of course, it might be true that nobody but humans are going to get worked up over their own inventions... But still!

See, it's rarely that there is any internal unity in this so-called unit of time. Our life doesn't naturally fall into a pattern and fit into our units. Units are, after all, just arbitrary and if you get enough people to agree that "poop" is a new unit that measures the... er... quantity of bad writing in the world--wham! You have a brand new unit. You would have news reporters saying things like, "In this quarter (there's another annoying unit again!) we've seen at least 45 Poops being generated in one blog alone. That works out to a nearly 65% increase in Poop levels since the last quarter."

So really, what's all this hullabaloo over the-unit-that-shall-not-be-named? Is it really an occasion to be all be all happy and new? Our lives have changed in completely nonsensical ways in these 12... sub-units... (Damn, I'm really beginning to regret having made that dramatic statement in the beginning of this post--the one about not mentioning that thing I said I wouldn't mention!) with no respect for our attempts to order our existence. So you see, I refuse to allude to that silly little non-event.

I will, however, party.

Happy Human Fabrication!

P.S.: Whoever points out that I seem to have spent a considerable amount of time and space not-alluding to "it" will be studiously ignored.

Some more streams of conscious nonsense

Is it truly courage if you do something difficult when you're forced to? If you have no choice in the matter, how is it courageous? I mean, what's the other alternative that you could choose that would be not courageous? I'm not being (very) judgemental of anyone here. In fact, I've been congratulated myself for my "courage" in such situations and I've always found it odd. The situation is thrust upon you and it's either do what you have to or... well, die, I guess. And that's not really an option, is it?

On the subject of courage, why is it that some people always, always prefer to run away from problems rather than face them while some others just can't leave problems alone?

What's really fascinating (and scary) about meeting new people is that you realize how much you don't know. A huge number of facts, to start with, and let's not even get started on life experiences--the other person might just take these for granted but you've probably never even dreamt of them. It's at times like these that you're left wondering how you could ever have believed there's one single, shiny white Truth that you can possibly reach out and grasp.

I seriously can't decide if subjectivity is a good thing or bad. I'm not denying that it's an inescapable fact of life. Even the most seemingly objective things ultimately do have a subjective basis. And subjectivity is wonderful when it comes to any kind of art or sometimes, even the sciences. But when it comes to personal choices, it's a whole different question. Most of our heads have been filled with certain ideals, I think, which depend on being "objective". And when you're forced to make difficult personal choices, do you let go of these and say "Screw objectivity: My life, my views!"? Or do you stick to "objectivity" and feel miserable? Often, it's an uneasy compromise.

The worst part about growing up is that it makes you realize how foolish innocence was... And the worst thing about the past is that you just can't change it, no matter how hard you wish.

Come on, work with me here!

Ahem. So we all need a little bit of change. Life can get so monotonous. Doing the same things over and over everyday... Looking at the same faces, the same books, the same... Ok, ok, I'll get to the point.

See, here's the thing. I like trying new things (not like THAT, you dirty minds!). I mean, new things especially if it is related to technology, the internet, that way. And in my defense, this blog has been going for nearly 3 and a half years now! (Ok, ok, I killed it once in that duration and haven't been too regular either. But...) Everyone needs a change, don't they! (ok, I'm beginning to whine, I know. Time to cut to the chase.)

http://pawpaint.wordpress.com

So there, I said it. The new address. Admittedly, it's still experimental. So you can either adjust your blogroll (if you have me blogrolled) or just keep that in mind. Pretty please?

I wuv wordpress! (aw, I love you too, Blogger. But you know, people change, move on. These things happen... *excuses continue, fade out*)

At the end of the day

Everything goes. It's not depressing, nor cynical, nor greatly philosophical. It's like the wind, the ocean, the million stars.

It just is.

Homecoming...

Home coming is sweet, with bittersweet tinges to add to the interesting experience that it is. When home is a whole city, your joys multiply till you are overwhelmed. You can breathe in and wallow in all that is familiar, those things that were so easy to take for granted but are now so precious. The curl of your mother's hair, your sister's silent creeping-out-of-bed early in the morning so as not to wake you. The silence of the night, comfortable and unchanged since when you were thirteen. The feel of the floor, hard and reassuring, beneath your back. The sofas that echo with the assurance of a hundred memories. The tiny bathroom that remembers the yowls that you called singing, your conversations with the taps, your tears that the shower couldn't drown, your secret phone calls.

Of course, the little bittersweet tinges are there to make sure the sweetness doesn't become nauseating. Those people you miss, whom some part of your illogically expects to find, just aren't there. The little changes that you hardly notice in the beginning make you realise that home is not the static place in your head but is changing, has move on beyond the day you left. That roll-top desk has moved into your room. Your childhood dolls smile down at you from the shelf where they're newly on display. That particular road has a few extra ruts and a whole flyover looms in that familiar horizon.  And you must relearn home, rediscover it so that it's exactly what it was to you: completely familiar.

And then you must leave again.

a slice of time

Riding on the bus on a cold winter evening... The sun has set and it is dark outside. You surprisingly have a seat all to yourself. A jacket keeps you warm and toasty while soft, guitary music plays on your headphones. You slide to the closed window and look out... The world is rushing by in a series of silhouettes lit up in flashes by lights from warm homes and warm windows. You feel a moment of peace and satisfaction as you sit there in the dimly lit bus. With your fellow passengers all around you, the sense of simultaneous comfort and aloneness is heightened, like you're in your own cozy bubble among a million bubbles.

The song ends as your ride ends and you walk smiling towards something like home.

Emptying My Brain

The next time someone tells me that Tamil is a difficult language to learn, I'll thank them and feel flattered. After all, I must be pretty smart seeing that I learned most of this "difficult" language by the time I was four!

How do some people talk literally for hours on the phone?! My roommate holds a Master's Degree in this and just listening to her yak at all times of the day and night exhausts me. Imagine holding a phone to your ear ALL the time. Or talking for hours to someone whose facial expressions you cannot see. Creepy.

It's strange to think that no matter what opinion I express, someone somewhere at some time disagrees with/disapproves of/violently opposes every word. So why this obsession with political correctness and being agreeable?

I feel all weird and eerie if I think about the world getting wiped out suddenly tomorrow. No one would know. There wouldn't even be a question of caring. Even the most self-centred people would not (be able to) give a damn. And even if we whip up a frenzy about the world ending today, when it does, well, all in vain, eh?

I'm sometimes freakishly possessive. I feel like people, books, movies, even SMELLS belong enclusively to me. Hmm. Weird. And creepy again.

We, as a species, are all morbidly (if unconsciously) obsessed with death and yet seem experts at ignoring this fact. Born astride the grave indeed. Existentialists rock!

Vina nooru kanaavum nooru, vidai solladi...

What is aliens are all around us but we have no clue cos we don't have the right kind of senses to... sense them? It might explain a lot of unexplained phenomena. An alien could be reading this right now and pointing at me and laughing. And now reading <--- that and frowning. And reading <--- that and... ok, this can go on forever. I'll stop.

Brain transplants would be, like, todally coo-uhl!

Would I be a wimp if I wanted to wear gloves already? Freaking frozen fingers!

A dimly lit room seems pitch dark as soon as your enter it and in just half a minute you wonder how you ever thought it was dark. I'm sure there's a deep and significant metaphor in there but too lazy to look for it now.

Why is it so hard to stop looking for approval, either peer or societal or parental or familial or whatever-al, even when you know in your head it's stupid and you must be who you are?

Darn mosquitos!

There's something strangely fair in the fact that life isn't fair, you know?

Life is absurd. The sheer absurdity of the fact that I'm sitting here and pressing down on these weird protrusions that in turn produce some weirdly shaped marks on a weird-looking flat surface which stand for some chemical impulses in my head is absurd enough. Add to that the fact that you are looking at these weird-shaped marks and they stand for something in your head which may or may not be what it stood for in my head. Uh.

It's past midnight. No wonder I'm treading the thin line between randomness and sheer nonsense. G'night then.

P.S.: Brain nice and empty now! :)

Things That Were Created Exclusively to Drive Me, yes, ME Absolutely NUTS!

--Cooling off in the middle of a darn good temper tantrum!

Come on, we all love a good temper tantrum once in a way. Ok, why the blank look and raised eyebrow? You don't?! Well, I do! And let me tell you, there is nothing worse that working yourself up to a good sulk or outright tantrum and then realizing you've stopped being angry with whatever or whoever it is that gifted you with just that mood. You just feel so... betrayed and let down by yourself, but not enough to inspire another sulk. It's like being offered a whole bar of chocolate all to yourself and then, when you're halfway through it, being told that's all you can have. Oh, the cruelty of it!

Sulk Rating: 8 FF*

-- Morning People!

Ye gods! These creatures actually believe in such concepts as "Early to bed and early to rise", "Humans are not nocturnal creatures", "Breakfast at 7 am" and even "11 o'clock is nearly afternoon", for crying out loud! I mean, come on! I go to bed early and rise early too--in the morning and evening respectively! Breakfast at 7? Brunch all the way. And 11 a.m. is the time you crack one eye open and decide to set an alarm to wake you in an hour! And humans, NOT nocturnal? Then how exactly would you explain the reason for the stars and the moon to exist other than to light up our nights?! Hello? Go read up your science. Sheesh.

Ok, having to put up with these creatures' quaint ideas is bad enough. But to endure their cheerfulness when you're forced to rise before noon and rummaging about the room (if you share one with them) when you can sleep in, it's just tooooo much I say!

Sulk Rating: 8.5 FF

--The bus starting just before you get off!

This happens more and more to me these days. I, of course, am always the LAST person to get down at any given stop and the drivers take perverse pleasure in starting the bus when I'm one foot on and one foot off. As a result of which, I step down and have to do an ungainly little dance to the amusement of everyone (including the people in the bus, people on the streets, the snoozing street dog and the lamp-posts.) Foooh! (The sound of steam coming out of my ears)

Sulk Rating: 6.5 FF

(And while on the topic...)

--Having to travel half an hour to get to a place that's ten minutes away.

Yes, you read that right. Bizarre, right? Well, apparently the Delhi Transport Corporation and its sister private concerns have managed to bend the laws of time and space. Remember the straight-line-shortest-distance-between-two-points rule? Apparently, there is another law of the universe that overrules this--There can be no direct bus from the abode of this blogger to her university. Therefore, to get to the university, I am obliged to hop two buses--which are timed in just such way that if one arrives on time, I'm sure to have to wait at least 15 minutes for the other and if the first arrives late, I JUST miss the other. Sigh. The relatively low Sulk Rating for this is owing to the fact that I actually enjoy bus travel. Go figure.

Sulk Rating: 4.67 FF

--Finding that thing you were looking for for so long! [For for? :D ]

Ok, you might be puzzled by that. But what your forgetting is that, according to the Holy Murphy's Laws (which sometimes seem more verifiable and relevant than Newton's), this can only mean that you'd given up looking for that thing only a few days/minutes ago and bought (or married!) something else... Ah, the look on one's face then in priceless.

Rating: 8 FF

--ZITS!

Zits are not as innocent as they seem. They have a secret cult for they are all from the invisible 9th planet, Elp-mip. (Pluto, apparently, is not a planet but actually just a huge, infected acne.) This cult has its sinister rules and rituals. Rule No. 1 is... (No, it's not "Never talk about the Zit Cult") Always appear when least expected, i.e., when the Host is heaving a sigh of relief at their clear skin and laughing at "those pimply, awkward adoloscent days". Rule No. 2: Appear in an area most likely to be accidentally scratched or most tempting to scratch. Rule No. 3: Itch. Itch more. Itch like crazy. Then refuse to leave.

Rating: 8.9 FF

--Poor punctuation

Enough said. (And no, learning all about descriptive-not-prescriptive grammar has not changed this is me!)

Rating: 9.98 FF

____________________

*All values in the standard Frowney Face (Metric) Scale of Ten. For conversion, (these calculations must be done on paper only!) to Grumpy Face scale, add 5968, multiply by 4.943608, divide the result by 94, strike the whole thing out and write the original FF value, this time replacing 'FF' with 'GF'. (Calculations suggested by the Gunther & Ames' Moody Society of Cranks)

The "Moment"

Falling in love...

I think the experience has been so publicized and romanticized by everything from poems to movies to novels to endless discussions that we often forget or never realise that falling in love is something so... full of freedom.

I don't mean falling in love sets you free. I mean falling in love itself defies any fetters and is open to everything. Why is falling in love immediately associated with a member of the opposite (or same) sex? Admitted, it's also often the case that we say "I fell in love with that song/painting/poem!" But I believe falling in love can go even beyond that--you can fall in love with a moment or a person in a particular moment, after which you may not be in love with them. You can fall in love with a certain emotion or a particular piece of stone or... anything! You can fall in love with a person who may or may not even exist, as in the case of this poem (which I've fallen in love with.)

And that moment is as beautiful and memorable as falling in love with a person is. Every time you recall the moment, you feel the warmth and the sheer thrill all over again. Would it be too weird if I said that there is a certain almost... sexual satisfaction in it? The moment doesn't happen a lot but it does take your breath away when it does, cliche as that sounds!

A Glitch in the Brain

I always get a strange, surreal feeling when I think that the whole of my past is just memory. Every moment of pain, wonder, joy, confusion, every crush, every unforgettable feeling of knee-knocking fear, every betterfly in my stomach, every stubbed toe is now not even real or verifiable. Those moments are just grooves in a soft, easily squishable brain, folds in my cerebrum. That friend who betrayed me and who I haven't spoken to in more than a year may as well be a ghost. She exists as I saw her only in my memory. My uncle, grandmother, aunt, grandfather... even my father... are all just memories now. From a child's impressions of popcorn and poppins to a young woman's helplessness at pain suffered, these people, once easily hugged and spoken to, are just memories now.

My life so far could've been a wasteland--I'd never know if all that I've felt is real or the drug-induced hallucinations of a crazed mind. And tomorrow, my life so far could just be wiped out by a careless blow to the head and then where would I be? Where would you be?

Does this sound like pseudo-Matrix-existentialist crap? Well, once I hit the "Publish" button, how can I even be sure I wrote it?

Fun Things (and Not-so-fun things) I've Learned In Recent Times

So yes, the summer has been upon us for a couple of months and, unfortunately, as summers tend to be, I have started LEARNING things. Sigh. An unfortunate side-effect of being utterly vetti I guess. It's most disappointing. I never went about arbitrarily LEARNING things when I was in college! Why should I now, when the days should be spent in decadent wastefulness? Sigh again. Anyway, here are these great lessons:

- Celebrity Crushes Are Fun!
Beside the garden variety everyday crush, which is often painful and almost always embarrassing, there is the Special Realm of the Celebrity Crush (hmm, what's with the capitals, you ask? No idea!) Now, the thing about the CC is the ridiculous ease of accessibility to the object of your interest/affection/desire/lust (ha!). One google search for certain strangely attractive cricketers and there are about a million pictures to go ga-ga over. One foray of television channels and there's Hrithik Roshan, bulging muscles, yummy eyes, cute extra digit et al! Now, a few heart aches could be caused by little factors such as... "Oh no, (dramatic hand-to-forehead) Christian Bale is married!" or "Damn that Deepika Padkone, trying to steal my guy!" or "Ah, if only my lowe wasn't straight..." But overall, your friends tease you and you grin along, safe in the knowledge that you'll never get caught in THAT trap, at least!

- It's Possible to Do a Lot of Nothing
Now this might sound like something Garfield would make up, but it's true! You can pretend to read... while doing nothing. You can pretend to watch television... while doing nothing. You can pretend to be online, doing important things... while doing nothing. Well, you get the drift! It's a glorious feeling when you look back at a long day of doing nothing. In fact, I plan to write a book about it, Doing and Nothingness. I'm sure it'll be more popular and... "experienceable" than Sartre's similar ramblings.

- The Sad Truth about People
It's a sad truth that people have an endless capacity to deceive themselves. Some (no links here, sorry :P) would even sink into melodrama and self-pity rather than admit that they might have done something wrong or work at a compromise. Ah, well, it takes all sorts of nuts to make a fruitcake.

- The Happy Truth About People
You know there's always another side to the grass but both the less green and the greener sides can be on your own lawn! Ok, ok, I'll stop talking in metaphors before you throw something at me. It's just that the happy truth about people is that PEOPLE CAN BE WONDERFUL! Sure, we're all full of faults and no way is anybody perfect but still, there are people who will understand you and respect you for what you are and bother to stick with you even when you're being a total loser or completely lame :D That's what makes the fruitcake sweet, after all! (Ok, I promise, no more cliched metaphors!)

- Being a Girl is Fun
Yes, yes, we all know it's a hard world to be a woman in. Men constantly come up with trivial complaints about how difficult life is for men but it's obviously just men being men. It's often the case that women wish they were men but at the end of the day, I realise it's fun to be a girl! I mean, womes are so comfy in fun sleepovers where previously mentioned objects of interest/affection/desire/lust are drooled over, fashion, world affairs and everything else are discussed, clothes and weird hairstyles are tried out, crazy pictures are taken and hysterical laughter goes on for several minutes over nothing. Now, not being a man, I can't imagine what male sleepovers (sorry, is that an oxymoron? Let's call it something more MANLY... Hmm, ok BOOZE PARTY!) are like but I doubt there's any of the emotional sharing that women do. Wow, I'm being so sexist. It rocks! :D So yeah, go, girlpower!

- Coo-coo-cooking!
Ah yes, I have leanred rudimentary skills at the kitchen. Never thought the day would come when the old family joke about me having to marry a chef could be shelved. Well, I still wouldn't go THAT far but I've learned some basics. Such as how to make scrambled eggs (ahem, the broken eggs and the weird smell in the kitchen will NOT be mentioned, atomic!) and chapati and dosa and rava idli! So yes, I might survive on my own, provided there are convenient Spencer's Dailies in every corner to buy bread, idli/dosa mav and eggs from. Hehe.

Oh, there's more but all this writing really is getting in the way of my "doing nothing" campaign. So it's bye-bye for now :)

AtTAGed!

I have been tagged. Sob. Grumble. No, no, no!

Hehe, actually, I'm secretly pleased about the fact that I've been tagged... I've always wanted to be but never have :( The above is the kind of reaction that other people seem to have when tagged so I'm just trying to be all blase. But otherwise I'm happy as a clam! (Hmm... are clams really that happy? Do they just not get depressed? Even with the global warming and the water pollution n all? I see another post forming here so I'll close this paranthesis [I've been notorious for them from my very first blog post :P])

Ok... Where was I? Happy as a clam... So, thanks atomic, crazybugga!

First, the rules:
- Post the rules on your blog.
- Share six non-important things/habits/quirks about yourself.
- Tag six random people at the end of your post by linking to their blogs.
- Let each random person know they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their website.

Hmmmm... There's not much people don't already know about me but here goes:

1) I'm an obsessive punctuation freak... It's a serious illness that could be fatal if allowed to develop. Wouldn't be surprised if I have to seek medical attention soon, especially due to rising blood pressure cause by reading badly punctuated blog posts (hint, hint) :D

2) I can eat any kinda food... And I mean ANY kind... I'm not even averse to trying frogs or snails or even... gasp... tomatoes! A serious foodie.

3) I like knowing how things work... Languages, machines, people, whatever.

4) I wear a belt with jeans. The stupid jean-makers seem to be incapable of making pants that fit me. Either too loose or too tight. Waaah.

5) I catch a cold overnight, every night of every week of every month of every year. These colds generally disappear in the morning about 20 minutes after waking up.

6) I love buying books... Not just reading them but BUYING them, holding them, smelling them. They can be in any state... First hand, second hand, crumbling and falling apart, pirated... It's such a rush to buy them, somehow.

Five People You Will Meet in Hell (aka...)

Driving on Chennai roads is an interesting... experience, to say the very least. Forget the roads (which your back never really forgets) and the pollution (which your lungs never forget) or even the congestion (which your vehicle never forgets). There is a whole different aspect of driving in Singara Chennai (named so by someone with a healthy sense of irony, methinks) that is more fascinating... I am, of course, talking about the fellow travellers... Who else but humans could leave such a mark?!

Driving in Chennai, you will meet certain standard "stock" drivers whom I have neatly classified. Unless otherwise specified, these "types" extend to both genders and across all age-groups. I have used the masculine pronoun for convenience:

1. The Overtaker: We've all heard of the Undertaker, of course. This type of driver, the Overtaker, is equally lethal. And would probably fit right into the profession of the undertaker, so eager does he seem to send people on their way to the hereafter. The Overtaker's M.O. involves sneaking up on people unawares, (he has perfected this art to such... perfection that he doesn't even appear in the rear-view mirror of the Overtakee) then out of nowhere, zip past the overtakee as close as possible, preferably with a (very loud) horn honking in the ear of the poor unsuspecting victim who will promptly jump, swerve, swear or lose balance--or do all of these simultaneously. The Overtaker takes pleasure in these very actions and his helmet probably muffles a chilling, Psycho-like laugh as he zooms away.

2. The Tortoise: The name Tortoise, I believe, sufficiently describes the nature of this driver. As may be expected, the Tortoise is the anti-thesis of the Overtaker. The Tortoise typically drives/rides a large and ungainly vehicle, and seems to believe that it is best driven at 10 kmph and in the middle of the road. While the Undertaker hones his skill into an art, the Tortoise decides to make his skill a science. Thus, through Tortoisology, this type of driver drives in a careful, precise way that ensures that the road is blocked in just such a way that no other driver can overtake him, reducing the traffic to a speed that is similar to the Tortoise's. The Tortoise is truly brilliant for he frustrates not just fellow drivers, but pedestrian'\s too, who cannot cross the road because the Tortoise has reached that level of acceleration that is completely un-judgeable. And without a means to predict when the Tortoise will pass, the pedestrian is left stranded on one side of the road--forever!

3. The Hunk:
3. The Hunk: This, I'm afraid, in a gender-specific and age-specific type of driver. The Hunk is most often young, male and rather desperate when it comes to members of the opposite sex. The Hunk thinks himself to be more than averagely endowed in the looks and attraction department. (It is also to be noted that the Hunk is typically delusional) The motives of the Hunk are simple: Impress the Babe (more on that later) or any other female driver and show off superior driving skills of self. Due to the extremely eclectic driving style of the Hunk, it is difficult to pin down one Modus Operandi. There are, however, various styles or moves. There is, first of all, the standard Swerve-and-Swoop. To execute this, the Hunk generally speeds up, takes several complicated looking (also lame-looking, but he doesn't know it) swerves and zigzags around other vehicles, swoops down on the object of his hunkiness and calls out some witty (read: equally lame) remark and zooms off. The Hunk believes that the effect of this maneuver is dual: scare the chick, impress the chick. Unfortunately for the Hunk, this just pisses off the "chick". Another move I will discuss is the classic Fast 'n' Slow. When the Hunk spots an eligible female driver (who is driving confidently and faster than him), he speeds up and zoom pasts her. Then he slows down till she catches up and overtakes him and then zooms past again. This can go on for quite a while. Poor dumb Hunk. I myself have been at the receiving end of the ole Fast 'n' Slow and had the indescribable pleasure of seeing the Hunk being stopped in the middle of a Fast Cycle by a cop and screwed over.

4. The Babe: Another gender- and age- specific one. The Babe is the female counter-part to the Hunk. Her driving sense and skills just about equal to that of the Hunk. She has her own theories about what the various parts of the vehicle are and what the road rules mean. The rear view mirror becomes, simply, a mirror in the hands of the Babe. The stop signal is a time to touch up the make up, readjust the clothes and paint the nails (if the signal is, say, Nandanam, she'll have enough time for said nails to dry and begin chipping). The Babe, however, is mostly harmless in comparison to the Hunk. Her most lethal weapon is the long-winded preparation to driving which goes something like: Open boot of the scooter, take out bottle of sunblock. Spread generous dollops on every inch of exposed skin, take out gloves, jacket, dupatta and begin to cover the self as if a blizzard's been predicted ("Oh, I don't want to get all tan!"). The Dupatta ritual is one of the most mystical aspects of the Babe's routine--a twist, a turn, a flip, a tuck and suddenly only the eyes stare out of the face hidden by the dupatta. Then comes the last, much lamented step: Wear helmet ("Dammit, do I have to?! It ruins my freshly washed, coloured, straightened hair!") and drive away.

5. The Stickler: The Stickler, aka the Nitpicker, is a truly wondrous and indecipherable species of drivers. The Stickler actually believes in and follows the road rules. The Stickler can read various road signs. The Stickler actually passed the driving test fair and square without bribing various officials. The Stickler carries all his papers with him all the time. The Stickler makes sure his vandi is spic-and-span though it might be 20 years old. The Stickler puts up his hand when he's at the head of the signal to show that he's stopped. The Stickler stops at the stop line. The Stickler wore a helmet before it was made compulsory. The Stickler never allows his petrol indicator to touch the red line. The Stickler is often middle-aged. The Stickler is an endangered species. Save the Stickler!

Well, there you go. These are some of the chief races of drivers. There are other categories like The Spitter, Dopey, The Nervous Fumbler, The Honker, Foul Mouth etc. Certain groups like The Autodriver can have whole posts, if not books, written on them. But you would be considered a seasoned Chennai-ite and driver if you have encountered and survived these five basic groups.

Happy Bumping Along!

WHY

(DISCLAIMER: This is a serious one, so just skip if you're not comfortable with serious things... I'm not going to try to be flippant and humourous. This is important to me.)

Why do most human beings feel this need to impose their will on others? They feel everyone must toe the line of their expectations and opinions. It's such bullshit. What do these people want? Imagine if everyone did conform... Their perfect world of "acceptable" behaviour would be... mind-numbingly boring, with absolutely no variety whatsoever! Imagine if no one thought differently... There would still be oppression based on caste in India and based on race in some other countries... We would still all be forced to conform to a religion, whether we like it or not, or pay for non-conformity. Indians would still be subjugated. There would be no freedom of speech. No freedom of expression. No freedom of thought.

So why are we still trying to get people to do what is acceptable to a certain majority?

I have seen this very often. The minute someone does something different, there's such a huge opposition to it. Ok, off the top of my head... Homosexuality! I can't count the number of people whose reactions to homosexuals range from mild discomfort to wild opposition. I have no bone to pick with the mild discomfort camp. Sure, we've all been trained to think in a certain way from childhood and the idea of homosexuality may make them uncomfortable. Fair enough. Now how about shutting up and keeping your opinion to yourself? What absolutely pisses me off is people who go around saying "It's unnatural!" blah blah blah. Well, it exists doesn't it? That means nature created it so it's NATURAL! And then there are those people saying it shouldn't exist, it's wrong. Oh, wait a minute. I think I missed something... Who died and made you judge of what is right and wrong?

I just don't understand this need to tell everyone how to live. I mean, how does it matter how two consenting adults do their business? Is anyone forcing you to do it? Are they hurting anyone, physically? (I'm not talking about people 'hurting' puritanical sensibilities!) Then, HOW DOES IT MATTER? If you're gonna talk about rape and stuff, tough news, it happens regardless of sexual orientation. So I think it's best to set aside these silly notions that infringe on other people's freedom to be who and what they are... We are all free human beings... But we can't choose our sexuality, it's inborn. And even if we could, why should we choose something just so that society will feel COMFORTABLE?

Oh, I'm not done yet. Another case of stepping outside the norms: Feminism. I have witnessed how people react to feminists, both in real life and otherwise. They are faced with great antagonism in general and in movies they are portrayed as stereotypical male-haters with short hair, either unmarried or divorced. The minute a feminist opens her mouth there's this change in the atmosphere... It gets all charged with self-righteous anger from other people, like she's a freak who's disturbing the peace. Why is it wrong to stand up for rights? I mean, what modern feminism is about is basically individual rights, the freedom to be what you want to be, regardless of your sex. So if I, a woman, want to not have children, am I a freak? Don't I get a say in what I want to do with my own body? If I don't want to cook, clean AND work AND take care of my family... if I would prefer to be the 'conventional' housewife who stays home and doesn't work, can't I be that and still hold on to my individuality? If I am a man who prefers to wear pink and loves flowers, can't I make that personal choice without being judged? Or if I feel I'm not happy with my gender, can't I just change who I am? Or should I slog through life, working to keep society happy (like it can ever be happy!) only to end up being a miserable person?

Why do we all have to toe that invisible line? Why do we have to follow these unwritten rules even when they make no sense?

How many of you are wondering if I'm homosexual or a feminist right now? How many of you are judging me?

...But you know what? I don't care! :)