Why so serious?

It's now that time of the year when I spread some cheer... In the following blog entry, I will radiate optimism and goodwill, enough to put Murphy to shame. So here we go... stuff people won't tell you but I, your best friend, cheerfully reveal... Enjoy!

The fact is:

That thing you’re waiting for so desperately? It’s never going to happen. And even if it does, it’ll never be as great as you imagined it would be.

At the end of the day, everyone is a loser. You might feel good, clever… on top of the world sometime or the other. But you truly are a loser when it’s all said and done. But don’t worry, you have lots of company. As I said, EVERYONE is a loser.

Love doesn’t last. You have to keep renewing it and sometimes you don’t feel like it so it slips away then and may never come back. That’s why humans look for it… because we seem addicted to the futility of it.

You will stub your toe. Again and again and again. Each time it will be the same I-can’t-even-swear kind of agony.

Things keep changing… The bad may change to the good, yes, but don’t fool yourself. The bad’s going to come back and bite you in your behind.

Bad things definitely happen to good people. So unless you can’t help being “good”, why try?

Every time you finally forget that tune that’s stuck in your head, someone is going to hum it. Killing that person, unfortunately, will not change the fact that it’s stuck in your head once again.

You WILL do that one thing you swore you’d never do. What’s more, you’ll enjoy it and then hate yourself for it.

Fairy tales have magic, and happy endings, for a reason—to distinguish them from reality. Take the hint.

There. I'm done... Take a moment and remember to...






SMILE!

You Really KNOW You're Missing Home When...

You keep wrinkling your nose and sniffing beacuse clean air seems... wrong... somehow!

You think fondly of fights involving aruvals and kattais

You salivate at the thought of mom's pavakka which you thought you'd never touch with a stick... (Hmm, on second thought... pavakka? Ok even I'm not that desperate... yet.)

The name of a shop written in Tamil gets you as ecited as the know-it-all kid in class when he wants to answer a tough one.

You suddenly realise that the shower, not the wheel, was the greatest human invention--and the bucket, probably the most cursed!

The beach--which you visited maybe once a year back home--is suddenly the one thing that could set right every problem in your life.

You miss those chatty, know-it-all auto karans who routinely and shamelessly try to rip you off.

You watch the crappiest Tamil movies and songs in the history of mankind just so you can hear the language.

You actually honest-to-goodness DREAM of the Coovum!

You mouth the most galeejana Tamil words in your head cos you're afraid you'll forget them!

A Little Amusement...

Blog comments...


...and laptops




And finally, just cuteness...



Courtesy xkcd.com (check it out, it has some brilliant stuff)

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?

Random Experiences...

Moving to a new city, starting a whole new kind of life, etc., often causes the profoundest, most moving thoughts and experiences. You look back your old life, amazed at the new experiences open to you... you look with wonder at the suddenly wide horizon even as your heart swells with...

Haha, excuse me a minute. I'm laughing too hard to keep that up. Lemme tell you some of the things I've learned, said, thought and wondered about since moving into JNU:

--On the first day, after class, I went to the warden's house where I'd left my luggage, to move into the hostel. Oh, hi doggie. Er... didn't notice you there... Aw, you're a cutie pie, aren't you? Coochie coochie... Hmm your tail isn't wagging. Oh...kay... I'll just ring this bell here and wait for the warden to open the doo--oops! Ok, ok, calm down, no need to stand right next to me and bark at me. Er... nice doggie? Ok... not so nice doggie... Ok, STOP! HAAALP!

At the end of this internal monologue, the warden's son comes and opens the door. He's gaping at me and goes "You just came in? And the dog didn't DO anything to you?" I'm shaken, and feeling all alone, scared in the I-want-my-mommy way and all I can do is chuckle nervously and say, "Er, no... As you can see by the lack of missing chunks of flesh on my legs, he didn't, in fact, take a bite out of me, as he wanted to. And you seem shocked and even... disappointed?... that he didn't."

Ok, I'll admit I stopped at "Er, no," but I swear I wanted to say the rest. And he keeps asking the same question every few minutes. And no, in case your interested, he wasn't cute enough to make such a question more palatable. But he'd just had some kinda minor operation so I couldn't pound on him either. sigh. Moving on...

--Hmm ok... Can't I just give in my own, decent looking passport-sized photo for a buss-pass? All right, fine then. I'll just sit here on this dirty chair and smile at the weird looking web cam... Ah, it's done... Ok, I can wait, it's just a buss pass. La la la la... Hmm hmm hmm... Tralala--AAAARGH! No! That monster in the photo can't be me... Nooooooooooooooooo....

But, as in most of the difficult and life-changing experiences we go through, I had to accept that it was, indeed, me, and now I'm stuck with this wonderful little thing that's going to take me all over Delhi. And NO, I'M NOT SCANNING IT AND PUTTING IT UP HERE SO YOU CAN POINT AND LAUGH!

--Ah, lunch! I could dig into some roti-and-subzi, some dhaal-and-chaval now! Ah, bring it on... Now, what is that thing? Hmmm... Looks familiar! Why, it looks like a--COCKROACH!!

Suddenly, I wasn't so hungry any more...

--Ah, after a long and difficult day of walking about, it's good to kick back and relax alone in my lovely, dark, quiet room. Zzzzz... huh? wha--? Where's that barking coming from? Ooooh-kaaaay...

Sigh. Yes. I had, indeed, been alotted the room just above the warden's house and ole fluffy, my fuzzy, furry, furious feline friend was going to be my constant companion if not in full physical form, at least in voice. (Yes, yes, I know dogs are canine, not feline. But I had a nice "f" alliteration going there [You could even say I was "effing" hehe]. Plus, you know dogs hate cats and this was my sneaky, insulting, degrading revenge on ole Fluffy. Yes, I'm really that pathetic.) Perhaps I could hang outside the balcony on moonlit nights and go "Fluffy, fluffy, wherefore art thou so un-Fluffy?" (For the record, his name's really not Fluffy. That's just my pet-name for him, after his cheerful disposition [Haha, "pet"name, get it? He's a pet so... Ok, you get it.])

Ah, more adventures later. A whole lot to say about clothes turning moldy while waiting for me to wash them, walking about in a campus bigger than a small British colony and getting utterly lost, etc. What fun.

Poyittu Varen...

Leaving chennai. Will be back only in December.

Time only for a quick goodbye.

Bye then.

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 :)

Hairy story

I don't usually upload videos but I thought this was worth making an exception :)

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!