The Wordsmith

Chennai and me. We have a special story together. A love story. One which began ten years ago on a hot, humid and oppressive day in April 2001. And like all corny love stories it began with both of us hating the sight of each other and it ends with us professing undying love for each other. Oh well, at least me professing my undying love for Chennai.

I was 14. An enormously stupid, extremely immature, fat and lazy kid. The maximum Tamil I knew was 'pasikardhu' and 'naaye'. The former so I could tell relatives whose houses I visited when I came to Chennai that I was hungry and had to be fed and the latter reserved solely for cousins and the sibling when they cheated while playing UNO. Yes. I was painfully retarded, mentally and socially.
I had never felt the need to know more Tamil, and it was a blessing, as a grin and 'pasikardhu' was the maximum interaction I could have with relatives.

When I moved lock stock and barrel to Chennai in 2001, I hated it. With a fervor that would put the hate Jayalalitha feels for Karunanidhi to shame. I hated the weather. (ermm not that I had lived in Switzerland all along but Gujarat is less humid and has extremely pleasant evening and night temperatures). I hated the people. (Oh, what an Amit I was. 'What? People don't talk Hindi kya? abey yaar. kya yaar'). I hated my parents (I was 14 and at that age you are kind of programmed to hate your folks. It's the done thing. I thought since I was adopted my parents wanted to leave me in Chennai so they could live happily with my elder sister in Jamnagar). I hated the school I had just gotten admission in. (Sri Sankara Vidyashramam. 'nuff said). I hated my classmates. (Conversations like, "Hey yenna di. You are brahmin a? Why you are not wearing pottu. Does your father wear a white thread? Ayyo. You should not sit next to boys or talk to them" made no sense whatsoever to me). I pretty much hated life.

At nights I fantasised about catching a train and running away to Mumbai or something and become a blind beggar. "I hope my parents find me and see me begging on Mumbai station one day. That will teach them a lesson," I used to think. In my defense, I was enormously stupid. Really enormously so. I already mentioned that.

It was a slow transition. From a phase of absolute hatred to tolerance to indifference to a perfunctory like to an absolute and unconditional love for you we have come a long way haven't we Chennai? The 2001 me cannot believe that the 2011 me defends Chennai passionately and argues daily with people who say 'Chennai suxx yaar'.

Dear Chennai, You have given me so much I am not sure how I should start thanking you. You have made me what I am today. I have met all my best friends for life here. I have grown, as a person (ermm mentally and not physically). I am more patient, less short tempered and enjoy the heat so much so that if the mercury goes below 20 degrees I whine. I have found love. I have lost love. I have seen the depths of sorrow and the heights of happiness. Won some battles, lost some. Won some friends, lost few.

From not knowing a word of Tamil to saying, “Naan oru nermayaana pathrigayaalar. Yenna yedai poda paakadhenga” I have come a looooong long way. I can even read now. (Still halfway through mariyada raman in mahathaana kadhaigal)

I know you better the back of my hand. It is my modest boast that I know all the buses to all the routes in the city. From Stanley hospital in Royapuram to crocodile bank trust on ECR I know you. I really do. And the more I knew you the more I loved you. I continue to detest the smell of jasmine and the smell of fresh filter coffee but I identify you with that and tolerate it, just as you tolerate my sudden lapses into Hindi now and then, my odd #kogul jokes and my terrible Tamil pronunciation. I know the temples which give the best sakkarai pongal and the temples which give the best puliyodharai. I know the temples which have the lecherous sastrigal and advice people against going there.

It is here that I went from being a staunch believer who visited the temple every week and prayed every single day to an agnostic who was too scared to deny the existence of God to an almost evangelical atheist. From Sankara Vidyashramam, to engineering to information technology to journalism to a reporter not only have you defined my path from fervently religious to blatantly irreligious but also given me all the education which really matters. I feel a sense of stupid pride when I tell people that all the degrees I have, have been acquired in Chennai.

I love your beaches. They calm me down in ways that it is impossible to express. I have spent hours on your various beaches just staring into the sea and never wanting to leave. I love your kotthu parotta. I love your molagga bhajji and proudly took every new comer to the city to the beach so they could taste your mollaga bhajji. I keep telling people that a city without a sea shore is a city without character. In that sense I am glad I am not going to god awful Delhi or Bleaahhhangalore. I m going to a city which closely resembles you geographically but is light years ahead of you in all other senses. Mumbai. I hope you are half as good to me as Chennai has been.

Chennai. It's amazing how you have grown on me. From wanting to go back every single day to never wanting to leave this place it has been beautiful and wholly satisfying love story.
I love you Chennai and I always will. Hopelessly and compulsively. I go to Mumbai but my heart shall always remain with you. I might have an occasional fling with the city of Mumbai but do know that despite my infidelities I love you the most. My relationship with you will probably be the only long distance relationship I will ever have. One day I shall come back to you for I know that I belong in a city south of the Vindhyas and I hope it is you.

So long Chennai and on this lovely, overcast, rainy yet oppressive day in April 2011, this enormously stupid, slightly immature, rotund and still lazy woman bids you farewell. I haven't changed much have I? But, therein lies your beauty. Despite having changed me for the better in so many ways, you left my core untouched. And THAT is why I belong to you and you belong to me.

It’s been so long since I have written anything silly and inconsequential that I fear I may have lost the ability to be stupid, which if you ask me, is tragic. I think every human is defined by the amount of stupidity he/she possesses. Personally I think that a person who can get in touch with their stupid side even after the age of 18 is a person worthy of respect. Anyway I digress.
So I have been doing so much of serious writing that I thought it was time to stop and write about pure truths of life like why does the boss, who is a rather good looking man, not think of trimming hair coming out of his ears. I mean seriously, it’s rather hard to concentrate on what he is saying when you are grossed out by hair in his ears. I mean yeah sure being all hairy is a sign that you are masculine but hair sprouting from your ears is probably a sign that you are not only masculine but also simian.

He is a rather good man – the boss. Somehow all through my career (2.5 years) I have had excellent bosses who have given me a long leash and understood that I function best when left to my own devices. I hate people breathing down my neck telling me what to do when I am quite sure of exactly what I am doing. The boss understands and even listens and nods intelligently when I present rather impossible ideas and gives me leads I can follow up on. He knows I hate staying late in office so always clears my copies very promptly and praises me when I do a good job. I might be earning peanuts now (actually less. Like P says we probably earn less than an NREGS worker in the country) but I like the job, the boss and the working hours.

Talking about P, the other day we were having a serious discussion about our prospects of marriage were. While P maintained that I was hot property because I had done my engineering and was a “techie” as she kindly calls me (If you ask me I think it’s a racist term. Techie. Like calling someone blackie. eww) I thought men would easily be turned on by the fact that she had literature, political science and psychology as her majors. I mean seriously, question to all you guys out there. Would you rather marry a girl who went, “Myself Wordsmith, software developer at CTS/TCS/Infosys. I done my engineering. I can remove viruses from your computer” or someone who says, “Hi. I am P. I am a developmental journalist working with XYZ magazine. My majors include psychology, political science and literature and I think capitalism with the face of socialism is the way for the world to go.” The latter you all would agree is such a turn on that if I were a boy I would instantly marry P. P of course thinks that being a techie has its perks. Like getting paid an obscene amount as salary, having weekends off (I am not even sure what the terms means anymore. I get a measly one day off) and having techie friends, who work in Amazon, who have unlimited access to kindle and e books.

This brings us to J who is such a darling that knowing yourself you wonder if you deserve friends like these. J who works with Amazon (Yaaaas. Awesomely cool friends I possess) works for the kindle team and has generously loaned me his kindle to read books. Now if you know me, for me owning a kindle is my ultimate fantasy. I do not want cars, houses, jewels and private islands. I just want a kindle with unlimited access to Amazon’s e store to read whatever books I want to, whenever I want to. This is pretty much what I am doing right now and I cannot thank J enough. He of course being the loquacious and lucid guy he is always replies with a “Grmm.harrumph.hmmm.” when I gush about how exceedingly grateful I am that he has bestowed a kindle upon me. He is so much like a horse that way. So I have happily been spending sleepless nights reading for at least 4 hours every night to be able to finish as many books as I can

And this, ladeeej and gentlemens brings us to Steig Larsson. *Pause for effect* (If any of you went “Erm. Steig who?”, last heard, mortien is still an effective way to kill yourself.) Steig Larsson defies adjectives. He is probably the awesomest writer and story teller ever and never before have I felt sad about the death of an author. I have been hooked to the Millenium trilogy. The only books he wrote before he died an untimely death in 2004. If you love reading books and haven’t read the Millenium trilogy yet, PLEASE pick up a copy when you go to the bookstore next or mail me at wordsmith.writes@gmail.com and I shall send you pdfs of the book (Yaaaas. Highly scrupulous I yam!). I finished reading all three yesterday and I can’t believe there are no more books Larsson has written. It is such a loss to the world of crime thrillers that I can’t even bring myself to talk about it. After a long time I stayed up three nights in a row to finish all three books. Larsson may your soul rest in peace forever.

Soul reminds me that I have been doing a bit of soul searching. I have never been a very deep or philosophical person. I am rather shallow that way. But every human being has times in life when you start asking questions like, “What is the purpose of life”, “Is what I am doing something I really want to do”, “Is there some job in the world which would give me 100% job satisfaction?” and the likes. These moments are usually preceded by philosophical songs like Blowin’ in the wind, Mehfuz, dying in the sun, I believe in you, and the likes.
Songs have this effect of changing my thoughts. While I am equally capable of listening to “Mai tujhko chura laya hoon tere ghar se..tere baap ke darr se” and wondering about how funny Ponting’s face looks when he is about to lose, at the same time I can also listen to “I don’t believe in super stars, organic food or foreign cars. I don’t believe that heaven waits for only those who congregate.” and go into deep thought about the above questions. And I have realized that………..wait for it…..it’s gonna be……legen….dary (too much HIMYM yeah!)….. that what I am doing right now is also not what I REALLY want to do. I mean sure I am happy, sure I am good at what I do and have some kind of job satisfaction but I still think there is something else out there which I really ought to be doing. Something which probably makes a little more difference to the society than what I am doing right now. Maybe I am being too idealistic (have been blamed of this often) maybe I am the kind of person who needs constant change, maybe I just need to stick around longer than just quit things half way. But like I was telling G the other day what I really want to do right now is go to Nepal or sub Saharan Africa and live there, do some quality journalism, climb some mountains (in Nepal and not SSA), write a book and come back.

I think G and I get along well because we are constantly trying to outdo each other at being stupid and trying to gross the other person out. I am leading right now, by sending THAT video which made G almost throw up his lunch on his keyboard and swear to murder the people in the video. G and I have long discussions about things like, “how would a person who has cold and phlegm and snot coming out of his nose kiss a girl” or “is it better to have accidentally brushed your teeth with shaving cream or moov” or “why French women are much nicer and prettier that Indian women” (Women of India, this was an argument. I defended our brethren! :P). G being in France on an exchange programme is learning the language from a very petite and delicate looking girl and though doesn’t admit it has fallen head over heels with her. How else would you interpret these statements?

“Her eyes are blue man. So pretty and sea blue. Sighhhhhh”

“When she speaks English in that French accent of hers, she is the cutest thing ever man. Sighhhhhhh”

“She looks good in any clothes she wears man. Sighhhh”

“I have nothing to do today so I shall go and teach her some English”

If these, ladies and gentlemen are not signs of a man in love, pray tell me what it is then? :- G being G of course stoutly denies all these claims while continuing to lavish praises on her. The poor love sick puppy. :P :P

Ok. That’s enough stupidity for today. I hope to make this a habit. The writing I mean not the stupidity. That’s inherent. So long then!

So I have joined salsa classes....For people who don't know me the dots were to let people who know me finish laughing and wipe their tears so they can read the rest of the post.
Yes. Given that I have the grace of a hippopotamus wallowing in water, dance would be the last thing people would have expected me to learn. After cooking and singing of course. And java. and coding. and learning to wear a saree. and... ohh i digress

I don't want to say I cannot dance. If Vijaykanth can think he can dance, Sam Anderson can think he can dance (AND act) I can dance yes. And you will agree too, if you are willing to look beyond little technicalities like grace, form, synchronisation, style and rhythm of course.
So it was my first class (and a free class. so yayyy!) and there I stood looking at all the pretty women dancing, their bodies curving at the right places, their hands and legs in perfect synch with the music, a lot of feminine grace and charm and giggling petitely at the boys at just the right place and time.

"Hah, I can do this" I thought. Yes, I can be hopelessly optimistic that way.

Now there is a huuuuge difference looking at someone dance and actually dancing. Its like any other activity. Swimming, Cooking etc. It looks ridiculously easy till you actually start doing it. When you see the girls doing salsa the first reaction is to snort, at the ease with which they move.

Left leg in the front, tap your right leg and the bring your left leg back. That seemed easy and in les than 10 seconds I had done the step three times.

And I would have been an expert salsa dancer, only I am slightly dyslexic. So I cant really differentiate between left and right. No really. I cant. I am the worst pillion rider to have. While I will be saying "turn left" I will be frantically shaking my right hand and vice versa. For the longest time I would imitate my eating action/writing action to actually find out which one was my right hand (I kid you not). And then my cousin, who suffers from the same disease, taught me the perfect way to differentiate between left and right. "Make an L with your forefinger and thumb on each hand. The one which actually makes a straight L is your left hand," she told me triumphantly. And since then thats how I have been finding out which is left and right. Would have worked great in salsa too, if only my partner werent holding my hands.

So this is the conversation between Random Clueless Guy (RCG) who was cursed in his previous life to dance with me and me.

Me: Will you leave my hand already? I cant find out which one is my left leg and which one is right if you keep holding my hand.

RCG: instructor told me to hold your hand

Me: I know. But how do I find out which one is left/right then?

RCG: instructor told me to hold your hand

Me: could you not hold my hand till I get my leg moves right, you retarded hulk of a Brontosaurus.

RCG (almost whimpering): instructor told me to hold your hand

I swear, even if i get married tomorrow there will not be a man who would hold my hand with as much fervor as that guy did. In the words of the wise P G Wodehouse "If I had had to choose between him and a cockroach as a companion for a walking-tour (salsa), the cockroach would have had it by a short head"
So anyway with RCG unwilling to let go off my hand it took me quite a while to figure out the moves. Hardly had I sighed in relief thinking that was all there is to salsa that the instructor materialised and said "Ermm. dont stamp. Just tap your feet and there is no need to run. Just dance the way you would walk" said the not so cute instructor.

I am not sure how many of you have read Asterix (the comics) and know Obelix, who was dropped into the magical potion as a baby and hence has immense strength. Rumor has it that as a child I was dropped into a bucket full of glucose and have had never ending energy, enthusiasm and speed ever since. There is no activity which I can actually do slowly. While most people walk, I run. While they eat, I gobble. While they talk, I shoot. While they dance, I imitate an induction motor.
For the life of me I cannot be slow in anything I do. I finish everything in jet speed and grace, style, delicacy have been my nemesises since my inception. I say inception coz even before I was born I wanted to come out fast and was a premature baby. (yeah yeah. This would be the time to crack those stupid 3rd jokes about premature babies).

So coming back to salsa. Now the main thing about salsa for the girls is the right and left turn. If you think of them as just turns you would be very sadly mistaken and would be in for a rude shock. They involve a lot more than just turning. What with your hand being twisted out of shape by your partner, your legs stamping on each other and the fact that you have to pack in a twirl and a twist along with a stylish movement of the hands in the end, the turning part is probably the most cumbersome in salsa. A stress buster here would be to 'accidentally' stamp on your partner's feet rather forcefully and gasp and say sorry. rather interesting watching his face go from red to purple to green to normal within 20 seconds in his attempt to stop a scream. Ah yes. We live dangerously. :P (Most times it was not even an accident for me. I swear on Mamta Kulkarni.)

So after 3 classes of twisting and turning and stamping and screaming I was told very politely by my instructor that I should practise the steps I had been taught and enter only after I had mastered them, which is a euphemistic way of saying that I cannot enter ever. Sighhh.

But i refuse to give up and have been going left tap tap, right tap tap, left tap tap, turn, twirl everyday much to the consternation of the people around me. Even you would be irritated if someone kept asking you, "Which is left. No No. Not your left. My left. but thats your right. so it would ideally be my left eh?" :P

P.S: If you don't understand this and its relevance to my life..... you are a dork. yes, I am very polite. Thank you very much. Now I will go paint some beautiful lines.

I remember when I was in class 7, in a remote town in the west of Gujarat - yeah my father's job was such that we would go to the remotest corners of the country where my father being a mechanical engineer would build whatever it was that mechanical engineers built and when there was the sign of even a leeetle bit of development my dad would be transfered to the next undeveloped place. My childhood hence was spent studying in a lot of loser schools which had no teachers and mostly no
students - we had this HUGE and beautiful school with lovely classrooms, lots of playground area,
excellent infrastructural facilities, lovely swimming pool and the works but no teachers, because
everyone refused to come and work in such a godforsaken place. So I remember my dad commenting, "Your school is like a beautiful woman....... with no hair". Which was absolutely true coz in spite of the fantastic facilities and all that jazz, we had no teachers. Raavan, I would say is pretty much like that. Breathtaking locales, excellent cinematography BUT no story whatsoever, no logic whatsoever. I was so shocked the whole time I was watching the movie that I could just watch open mouthed and most people thought I was over awed by the movie.

Some random thoughts from the movie.

1. Suhasini's dialogues are EPIC blade! Madam I can barely understand poetic tamil but even i thought your dialogues were terrible. Especially the ones where Beera and Ragini are in front of this huge idol of some God. What the hell were you thinking? "Anyway Mani has taken care of finding a picture perfect sexy location for the scene. So while people Wow at the scenery let me fit in some shitty dialogues"?
The dialogues are so run off the mill and fail to touch a chord except probably the chord which makes u squirm in your seat. JUVENILE dialogues!

2. Some, a teeny weeny bit of credit could have been given to the audience. We are Indians. We KNOW our Ramayan. We KNOW Hanuman was a monkey and that he found Sita. We KNOW Jatayu was the first person to give news of where Sita is and was injured by Raavanan. We KNOW Raavanan had 2 brothers, one full of brains (Vibhishan) and the other full of brawans (Kumbhakarna). We KNOW Raavan had 10 heads.
I do not have a problem with people adapting from epics. Hell, Dalapathi is one of my favoritestest movies ever. The extremely subtle references to Mahabharatha made Dalapathi so beautiful. Which is why I found Mani's in your face reference to Ramayana in Raavan very jarring. And the scene where the policeman pulls Beera's sister's nose and asks "Shall I cut it?". Not.At.All.Suggestive.Of.Any.Epic. Eeeeeks.
And like a friend of mine commented, maybe Priyamani demands that there be a gang rape scene in the movie she stars in or she refuses to act.

3. Ok. So they base the entire movie on the premise that police is searching for Ragini who has been
kidnapped by Beera and taken into the heart of the forest where no one can find her because Beera keeps moving from one place to another etc. And in the end Ragini gets down from the train in the middle of nowhere with deep valley on both sides of the train track and 20 seconds later she is front of Beera. I can understand that they could not have shown her trekking through the jungles up the mountains, across the rivers to find Beera but her face, her pearly white dress show absolutely no signs of having lumbered through deep dense forests to find Beera. She looks like she is fresh out of a bath and going to a temple. :-\

4. And whats with the IRRITATING camera work, Mr.Mani. I do NOT want to see Abhishek Bacchan's left bicep's nerve or Aishwarya Rai's cornea. Neither do I want to know how close can u come to Aishwarya Rai's boobs without actually touching them physically. I am equally uninterested in the brand of sunglasses worn by Prithiviraj and in Ragini's heaving bosoms. I would have liked to see entire humans, walking, talking etc but all I could see was snatches of flesh here and there.

5. And my complete sympathies with Vikram. I am sure he loathed Suhasini's dialogues so much that he decided to improvise and say extremely profound stuff like, "chaka chaka chak chuka bak. dandanakka. danakanaka" instead of mouthing the insipid dialogues. I really cant think of any other reason why such gibberish would be present in the movie.

6. I think the EPIC WTF moment of the movie for me was when Dev tells Ragini, "Are you willing to take a lie detector test?". Eeeeeeeeks. We get it. Ramayan. yes. Agni Pariksha. Yes Yes. WE GET IT. ok? You didnt have to go out of your way to adapt Ramayan to modern times and in SUCH a lousy fashion Mr.Mani.
I had GREAT expectations of you. I am one of the many people who can watch your movies again and again and again and not get tired. But I think that is 3 agains more than what I would employ for Raavan. I have some advice for you - actually one

a. Stop teaming up with your wife. Please! :-

7. A lot of my friends are going, "tch. you just don't know how to appreciate art man. What stunning locales, what breathtaking cinematogrpahy. and the climax. Ooooh! What a place to shoot it". Ermmm. I could get ALL this and MORE just by sitting at home and watching National Geographic or Discovery Channels and plus I get the added benefit of not having to look at Aishwarya Rai's disgusting face. I also do not GET a lot of other things which people are talking about. I see what is there on the screen. I do not try to guess stuff like, "what could Ragini and Dev's relationship before her abduction be". "Whats going to happen after the end of the movie" (I think it was a feat that I survived the movie so I am not going to torture myself further by thinking what could have happened after it). Hell! I GET Mani's movies. I always have. But Raavan. I am glad I did not GET it or maybe my "getting" the movie was lost in Mani repeatedly nudging me saying, "Get it? huh? huh? Ramayan. Get it?"
Enough of "getting" there and I would not surprised if you don't get me! :P

8. In the words of my dad, the wisest man I know and who NEVER watches movies but watched Raavan AND Raavanan by mistake, "Mani Ratnam made Raavanan after he underwent a lobotomy". You can NOT argue with logic like that.

With the family having a veritable baby boom in the year 2000 suddenly the house is filled with a lot of 10 year old children, boys in particular who have arrived from different parts of the world to finally get inducted into brahmin hood by having the upanayanam (sacred thread ceremony). While I believe in things like upanayanams and brahmin hood and sacred thread as much as I believe that India will one day win the FIFA world cup the elderly folks in the house think that unless a thread is worn around a young boy's neck and unless lots of money is spent on feeding already well fed priests the boy will be impure and will be *GASP* considered a non-brahmin. Oh the horror!

Anyway I digress. The one good thing of having inane functions which have about as much significance as Aishwarya rai does in Hollywood is that it helps the family gather and meet and a chance for me to meet cousins after a really long time. It is fun to have cousins over, especially when you are meeting them after a long time and MORE especially (can u say more especially?) when they come to the same house in which you grew up and spent a major part of your childhood summer vacations in. Showing them the secret passageways to the house so they can quiety sneak outside the house and go play after 6 in the evening, the place where paati hides the murukku and home made chocolates and how you can reach it by precariously balancing a stool on a top of a chair. I also taught them how to play a lot of cool games like dark room, earth-water-air etc.

Dark room is a game where you make a fairly big room pitch dark and play hide and seek inside the room. not blind man buff mind you.it used to be one of my favorite games when I was a kid coz at the end of the game there would be at least 5 scraped knees, 1 broken teeth, 2 crying children, a few clumps of hair in each child's hand and some fantastic memories. Similarly it is my modest boast that earth-water-air was a game which i devised when i was a kid. basically there would be one person who would get to shout earth, air or water and the rest would have to move within 5 seconds to earth (the floor), water (any elevated surface like a bed or a chair) or air (suspend themselves in mid air). This usually resulted in the breakage of a lot of rather flimsy furniture and generally put us in the bad books of the adults. Actually till date I don't remember being in the good books of any of the adults in my family. The last time I got even remotely close was when I went to the shop and bought milk for paati, only to be cheated by the shopkeeper who sold 2 days old milk and which resulted in a lot of adults competing with each other to occupy the bathroom the next day.

Though my process of imparting this knowledge to the next generation was frowned upon by the adults, personally i feel that what is childhood if u havent endured a few spankings, broken some furniture and been in disgrace 70% of the times. Though I find it rather disconcerting that kids nowadays do not want to be naughty. This is about as shocking a discovery for me as finding out George Clooney is gay. To say that I would be shocked would be such a gross understatement.So my cousins consider playing on the PSP, watching cartoon network and surfing the internet more fun and interesting than *GASP* my sister and me. Agreed that the sibling is not very interesting but ME??? I am the fun-nest person I know (and nobody else knows! :P). So i got quite a shock when my cousins in their american accent went "You are B-O-R-I-N-G man."

Though it broke my heart when they said that, I had to accept the fact that I had no clue how to operate a PSP (and had no interest in learning), i couldnt recognize a single cartoon that they watched on TV. I don't even remember when i stopped reading Nancy Drews and Sweet Valley High (Shan't mention archies and enid blyton. I still read them voraciously). I am O-L-D. At my age my mother had two kids, my grandmother had 3 and my great grandmother had 4. I am constantly reminded of this fact by my mom when I say I don't want to get married. According to her, women lose their reproductive capacities by 27 and become menopausal after that. My grandmother thinks I have child bearing hips and should get married and have children. The child bearing hips part by the way isnt a compliment. It means you are so round around your waist that it is almost possible that you could be carrying a child.

Man, I ramble a lot. Coming back to what this entire post was all about..Hmmm. So what was the entire post all about? Ah yes. The cousins are here, the relatives are here, loads of family functions are here and the pressure to be married is here again and has reared it ugly head. When you are as old as I am the references to the M word stop being subtle. No longer am I asked "So what plans now" but unknown people directly ask me, "So when is the wedding?" or "When will I get my next kalyana saapadu" (A rather greedy person this. If i married every time my relatives wanted to be fed I would have had to be severely polygamous). One elderly relative even came to me said "See that boy over there? You like him? You can marry him". Oh thank you magnanimous aged relative. You sure are kind. :-\. Of course there is the odd "progressive" relative who comes and says, "Punjabi, Muslim, Malayali, Bengali a mattum kalyanam pannikadhe. Brahmanan a paathuko. Iyengar kuda parvailla". I have learnt the art of evading such questions by acting so busy at family functions that what relatives see, is not me but a blur of green, blue or whatever it is that I am wearing. Faster movements will ensure that the relative does not even recognize your gender and will concentrate on attacking the grape juice in hand.

With that wise piece of advice I shall now leave you and attend to trivial things like work, boss and the likes.

1. So while the rest of the journalist community has been capturing the unveiling of the statue of Sarvajna yours truly and a friend have had the unique distinction of covering the unveiling (Sheeesh!! That’s such an oxymoron. As journalists we "cover" the unveiling :P) of Sarvajna's bum. Yeahh!! You read it right. We have extremely aesthetic shots of his bum and the skimpily clad dhoti covering it. Why? Well because there were so many other "propah" journalists covering it that we students were pushed to a corner and when you are a student with an assignment deadline to submit a story the next day even Sarvajna's backside makes an interesting story. :P

2. I LOVE ALL the lectures at college (with the exception of a series of lectures by the 'N' brothers - N.Ram, N.Ravi and N.Murali of Hindu. It’s amazing how they can be soooo like their newspapers. BORING and INSIPID!! Bah!!). We are supposed to listen to all the lectures and make an "informed" choice about what subjects we want to take as an elective. My problem is I want to take ALL the electives, which is surprising given that when I was doing my engineering I had trouble picking one coz all sounded equally uninteresting. I am not sure if I should take gender issues or environment issues or arts and culture or cinema or urban studies or sooooo many other electives being offered.

3. For the first time ever I cried during a lecture. I mean yeah lectures during engineering made me cry but in a totally different sense. The lecture on environment issues moved me so much that I just sat there on the second row silently shedding tears listening to the havoc which we humans have unleashed on the planet

4. I am perpetually busy, perennially rushed, always on the run and always breathless finishing some assignment or the other or covering some inane activity in some corner of the city and this long weekend (Yeah. we got both Saturday and Sunday off which is like a blessing) comes as a breath of fresh. Two days of laziness - here I come :)

5. Quite surprisingly I don't miss my life in "IT" AT ALL. I thought I would miss my former employer a teeny weensy bit but I don't. I dunno if it’s the lack of time or what but I don't miss one single aspect of that life. A part of me is glad coz I had heard horror stories about how people cannot go back to studies after two years of work but the transition in my case has been pretty smooth and I am extremely happy here but strangely I CAN'T believe that having spent two complete years in a place and having made so many memories I don't miss a single thing. I mean I SORELY miss college (all said and done I liked engineering for the four years I spent in hostel and the friends I made), I still wish I could go back to college but I just don’t miss the last two years. It’s as if they didn’t happen at all. And the best part - I don't even miss receiving a salary at the end of the month coz quite honestly I never knew what to do with all that money and now I am kind of glad I am again living a life of penury :P

6. I am glad that propah Tam-Brahm boys have enough sense nowadays to say No to journalists as wives :P. I am ecstatic because two prospective "alliances" got "rejected" when they learnt that I was going to be a journalist. "Journalist na yengalukku vendaam". In times of recession most boys apparently prefer a working woman drawing a five figure salary and not someone who is studying ughhh journalism. Yayyyy!! I love you guys and thank god I chose to study journalism now :).

7. When I told a not-so-near-but-still-forced-to-keep-in-touch relative that I was doing journalism she said "Journalism??" in pretty much the same tone that someone would say "Syphilis???", "Gonorrhea". :P. It was quite funny when she came to me and asked in a conspiratorial whisper "Have you lost your job?" and probably meant "Have you lost your mind". :D.

The more the number of people who look at me like I have some contagious disease just because I quit a decently paying job to join "Journalism" the surer I am that I have made the right decision! :)


8. Two good friends of mine broke up last week and it makes me question the fickleness of human relationships once again. I don't think I will ever understand relationships. I don't think I will ever understand why people would want to be in a relationship just to get hurt and come out saying "I am hurt but I am at least a wiser, better person". I don't think I ever will. Sighhhh!! H and M - *HUGS*

So the other day two of my friends and I were trudging along carrying a heavy camera rushing to catch the metro at light house after spending a capital time interviewing some hawkers on Marina beach about inconsequential things just to get a decent "story" (That's what journalism is all about by the way!! :P)

Carrying a huge camera bag in one hand and a tripod in the other I agree we were an uncommon sight on a busy road but the following comments by the kids on the street playing cricket were uncalled for :P

Kid 1(pointing to my tripod): Deiii paaruda, AK-47 (heyyy look, an AK-47)

Kid 2: Paatha Pakistani madri irrukanga!! Pakistani a irrupanga da (They look like Pakistanis. I am sure they are pakistanis)

Kid 1 (addressing me): Ayyayo neenga Pakistani a? Please yengla konnudadhanga. Andha bag la yenna bomb vechirukengla? (OMG!! Are you pakistanis? Please dont kill us!! What do u have in that bag? Bombs??)

Kid 3 (the smart kid): Ada chiii. Padam pidika vandhurkanga da! (They have just come to shoot a movie)

Do i look like a terrorist? Do i look like a Pakistani?

No!! wait. don't answer that question!! :-\

1. Wandering all over Chennai, carrying a 6 kg camera bag in search of "news", making and doctoring news when you dont find one, forcing and literally threatening the slum dwellers to lament about their woes is what the whole of last week has been about!!

Me: ungalukku yedhavdhu problems irruka? (Do u have any problems)

Slum Dwellers: Ilenga. yellam nalla dhaan irruku (No. Everything is fine)

Me: Ila. Yedhavdhu prachanai irrukum. yosichu sollunga (No!! You must have some problem. Please think and let me know)

SD: Moonu naala thanni varala!! (Oh well!! We havent had water for the past 3 days)

Me: Super. Adha pathi pesunga (Good. Talk about that)

And then make a story on how the slum dwellers struggle to get water and take their interviews and make it seem like an issue as important as terrorism/global warming and end it as "Along with S and P this is Wordsmith reporting for ACJ news"!! :D:D
I don't know if i am actually doing anything worthwhile but I sure am having fun in the process :-)

2. After class 6th this is the first time in life I am actually listening to class. I mean when you have classes on subjects like "The world of Cinema", "Srilankan issues", "Critical International issues", "Bay of Bengal communities", "Gender Issues" etc. you do tend to listen because for the first time in life i feel like i am actually studying something which is relevant to me and which will be of use to me later in life and I know that this is stuff which i NEED to know.
I have never felt this during engineering when i would study subjects like "Semi conductor physics and opto electronics" or "Probability and Queuing Theory" and wonder why the hell was I studying totally irrelevant and inconsequential things.

3. I feel horrendously stupid and painfully inadequate when I look at HOW much some people have read and how they can hold an intelligent conversation without staring stupidly into space after 10 mins like yours truly. I just realized there is so much out there to read, to know and that reading fiction DOES NOT help. But i can't read non fiction. Sighhhh. we have been given a mile long reading list and none of the books even remotely interest me but I am going to try.

4. I started off my reading "The Age of Kali" by William Dalrymple and I LOVE THE BOOK!! one of the best books i have read it is to india what maximum city by suketu mehta is to bombay. Lovely bit of writing and its amazing how a foreigner can write such an extensively researched book about india. Wow!!! I love the language and the simple style of writing. none of the lah-di-dah stuff for me Thank you very much
Do suggest some good non fiction books!! :)

5. For a campus which is supposed to be "Smoke free", "Alcohol Free" and "Drug Free" I have seen more alcohol and smoke and people in compromising positions in the past 3 weeks than I have in the past 23 years.
I am trying to be broad minded about it :)
Its a new experience and I am meeting all sorts of people and I realise that with age does come maturity. I look at the l'il 20 year olds all excited about being in a hostel one instant, then crying because they are homesick the next instant, jumping up and down in class to answer the questions or to ask questions or vying to be in the professor's good books and i feel like going "Awwwwwwwwwww" :D
But seriously for the first time in life i feel "Whoaaaa!! I AM mature" when I look at the crowd around me.

6. It feels great to be a student again in my favorite city. Not that i was unhappy when i was employed and heyy the money at the end of the month did feel good but it feels great to be irresponsible, be a student, be perenially broke, attend classes, cry about mess food, sit up till 3 in the morning chatting, running around finishing assignments etc..

7. Now that I am not earning I think its a huge advantage that I have friends who earn coz whenever we go out and I have eaten to my hearts fill and take my wallet out to pay they say "Nooo. You arent earning we will pay" and I just pretend to protest and pretend to pay. :P
Ahhh!! Unemployment is bliss if you leave hostel with 200 bucks and come back with the same amount :P
Shameless you think? Oh well sue me :P


8. My last post seems to have triggered quite a furore and would result in the partition of India into north and south india, I think. :P
I have had quite a number of friends calling me and advising me not to fly off the handle and asking me not to generalise and caling me "Racist" and "Really Racist". So much so that I was almost inclined to pull down the post and would have done so, if not for the supporter(s) (one) i had. Thanks Goofy :D
I agree that I have generalised quite a bit and have been irrational at times and have stereotyped northies quite a bit (though not without reason i personally feel :P - Here I go again :P) but i just had to get it off my chest.

So today was my last day at Cognizant. I went to the main office, submitted my id cards, got my relieving letter and experience certificate. Whoever named it relieving letter named it rightly i think. I felt strangely relieved, like a weight off my shoulders but felt suddenly vulnerable and alone at the same time. Mixed emotions actually. Maybe I got into such a comfort zone in Cognizant because honestly getting decently paid every month for moderately challenging work is everyone's dream. So i had gotten into a nice comfortable groove, doing little work, chatting, blogging, trekking and had become resistant to any of kind of change. though realising frequently that my heart wasnt in what i was doing. A strange case of Stockholm syndrome. Hmmm.

So today for the first time I came home at 1 on a weekday had a nice heavy lunch, went home, put on the AC (ok!! all ye proponents of global warming I dont do this often but if you are a software engineer you will know how precious it is to be able to sleep on a weekday afternoon and you want the moment to be perfect) and slept like nobody's business without a care in the world, without worrying about errant java code, about pending work and the faces of anally retentive bosses. I slept as an unemployed person but felt strangely remorseless about it :P:P

Went and saw the college/hostel in the evening and came back with my apprehensions multiplied by hundred times. I know I shouldnt judge people by the clothes they wear and their apperances but as I looked at the girls who looked like they took fashion tips from Kareena Kapoor and Paris Hilton and boys who who showed liberal amounts of skin(???) and undergarments, with loads of gel on their hair and attitude that would put Raghu of Roadies fame to shame I gulped twice and asked myself what i was getting myself into. With my jeans and dirty black shirt I looked like an alien from Mars.

I know I am being unnecessarily paranoid about inconsequential things but heyy this is my blog
:P

Anyway tomorrow my first day at college begins. Orientation. Wish me luck :-)

I love to crib

I am a woman after all. I love to crib at long about the food in the cafeteria, about my boss who cant comumunicate, about my on site co-ord who cant talk, about my life which is taking a course which i soooooooo dont want it to take, about the weather, about too few books to read, about having too many books to read. basically crib about anything that deserves to be spoken about

So maybe someone up there got super tired of my cribbing and decided to make a day in life sooooo perfect that even me, l'il old complain box, unsaisfied with everything except the keyboard - honestly if there is one thing which i truly like about my daily life its my keyboard. its beautiful. nahi sachi. lovely smooth keys, easy to type and in a perfect shape. I mean most people would get turned on by some member of the oppsoite sex (or rather some member of the same sex in cases. it is a free world after all) but i can get turned on every morning just by looking at my keyboard.

Anyway this post isnt about my keyboard. Its about how someone decided to please someone as unsatisfied like me by giving me a day - a complete day which was so perfect from the minute it started to the minute it ended that I was like "If i died right now it would be the best time to die because I would just die happy and contented without a care in the world, a worry in my head"


it was my 23rd birthday (finishing 23 actually. gosh i feel old!!) a couple of days back. Now I love birthdays. I dont know why but given that almost quarter my life is over i am still a sucker for a cake with candles on top a few people singing happy birthday and me blowing the candle and making a wish. It might seem childish to some but I know that the day I dont feel thrilled to see a cake with my name written on top of it that is the day I would probably really age in the true sense of the word

Anyway where was I? Yeah. 23rd birthday.

On the eve of my birthday a docile, l'il unsuspecting me went to bed early with a cold in my head, expecting the usual people to call at 12 to wish me and then crash again to face a looooong day in office attending them KTs

So I slept off at 10.30 after making three futile attempts to read a book and stay awake till 12. When you are holding a book by your favorite writer and yet the words swim before you, you are either drunk or goddamned sleepy. Obviously I was the latter (duh-huh!!) and so went to bed.

I was woken up at around 11.45 by a missed call from a friend followed by a message from her saying "Just wanted to check if your this was the number you were still using. Will call in 15 mins"

Arghhhh I swore and went back to bed.

In another 5 minutes my cousin woke me saying "Come to the hall and close your eyes".

"Whaa" i replied groggily

"Come" she said and dragged me out of bed putting blindfolding my eyes

"Huh" i said as i trudged along with her

"HAPPY BIRTHDAY" approximately 70 voices (or so it seemed) screamed and I first saw J's face lit only by a candle (If you have seen J you will know that his face ummm..looks rather scary when lit by just a candle) holding a camera. HONESTLY i dont think I have ever seen him without his camera. I think he has seen and experienced most events in life only through his camera thereby missing out on the actual event. And the sad part is that unlike Sam who is an excellent photographer J is a rather errrr..ummm (what can i say without hurting l'il J's feelings :P) abstract photographer and it will take you some time to figure out exactly what it is that he has captured using his camera and most times you will be stumped till he actually mentions what he has taken himself. Aw le le le J, aw le le le le :D

Anyway I am digressing

So as I looked around I saw moti, F and H holding the yummiest cake ever with a candle on top
My hair kept bothering me and as i bruhsed it i realized it was Sam standing behind pulling it.

5 friends at 12 in the night of my birthday at my grandmothers place with my cousin as a willing accomplice to the whole plan!! Wow!!!

I dont think words in any language could actually do justice to what i felt that moment.

I dunno how many of you have jumped inside freezing waters
I dunno how many of you have actually held a totally new born baby in ur hands
I dunno how many of you have been to this ride in MGM (the name eludes me. A or M can you please help?) where the ride swings you so high that at one point you are completely hanging upside down, your blood rushes to your head, your arms ache with the pressure of your entire body on them and you cant even scream. the most thrilling ride i have been to.

if you have done any of the above you will know how it is like to be totally out of breath when your breath just leaves your lungs with a whooooooosh and you strive for balance and the whole world kinda swims before you.
Yes! I think thats pretty much how i felt that day and i was quite incapable of saying anything except eeeeeee for quite some time.

I cut the cake in a dazed state, ate it and fed it to everyone (while J continued to take pictures and more pictures in different angles of the cake and us. What ultimately did come out in the pictures was a part of Sam's helmet, a part of F's dupatta, a part of H's face etc and many such equally errr aesthetically pleasing pictures :P)

And then came the gifts

First was my virus free laptop (This is a very profound statement. Right from the summer of 2006 since when I have been having my laptop there never has been a time w hen it has been free of viruses. from the deadliest trojans to brontok, to many harmless worms my laptop had seen it all. No anti viruses worked and 95% of the applications didt work. About a week back i decided that enough was enough and gave it to J to clean it up. Now J is also a geek whose idea of fun involves coding at 12 in the night and he did a thorough and complete job of killing and eating then bugs :P)

Then came THE book. THE book which I have been meaning to buy for ages. THE book whose price i had negotiated in a number of shops, THE book which I have been wanting to read ever since I read one part of it a couple of years back. The BAAP of all funny books.
OK thats enough build up. I got the complete hitchhikers guide the the galaxy - unabridged edition by Douglas Adams

If happiness were pink chaddis I would have been Pramod Muthalik that day
If happiness were silicon I would be errrr Silicon Valley today (hah!! you so expected me to say Pamela Anderson didnt you?:P)
If happiness were false promises I would have been the Indian politicians that day
If happiness were websites I would have been google that day (This geek analogy is for u J :P)
If happiness were food I would have been H that day
If happiness were tripod + camera lens + paneer pav bhaji in sangeetha I would have been sam that day
If happiness were chocolates and lazing around I would have been Moti that day
If happiness were nutty butter scotch with caramel sauce in baskin robbers I would have been F that day

And then we sat and talked for 2 solid hours most of which was spent making of J while he tried his best to a few decent pictures, while F tried her best to irritate J by repeatedly calling hiim baby names (All of us joined her soon. If you know J then 'plizz to send one baby msg to him' like "cooochie cooo", "abloo babloo" etc. He lovves it ya!! :P). just talking meaninglessly :)

After they left at 2.30 I couldnt sleep till 6.30 the next day when I had to get up to go to office. It was as if the molecules in my body were in such an excited state that it took them quite some time to get back to normal state and sleep seemed impossible now. I kept thinking about the cake, their faces, the gifts, the crazy banter for two hours in the middle of the night,aimlessly pulling J's leg while his only reaction was a nod of his head
and a smile.

It was so surreal, so magical, so exciting that it was almost too good to be true.

There are times when I wonder if I really did deserve such an excellent surprise or such amazing friends like these and the words of my favorite song "Edelweiss" from Sound of music ring in my ears
"In my youth or my childhood I must have done something gooooood" to actually deserve all that I got on my birthday

J, Moti, F,Sam and H - I LOVE YOU GUYS :)
You are the besteststststst!!! :-)

Psssst J, inspite of your pathetic photography skills, pathetic defense to most of our barbs, pathetic grasp of things I think you are THE nicest babloo that ever walked this planet. Thanks so much for the collage of my pajamas, H's stubble, S' hand, Moti's hair and F's dupatta and oh yeah the cake too!! LOVED IT :):)

1. On a totally selfish note if there is one good thing which has come out of all these racist attacks by Australians on Indians it is the fact that i can now confidently reject "alliances" from Australia saying "Sheeesh!! Amma would u rather have an unmarried daughter who is safe or a married daughter who has acid thrown on her face" :P or something like that.

2. I dont think I will ever get over my morbid fear of traveling alone in closed elevators. The minute the elevator doors close I dunno why but it feels like I am trapped in a dungeon and suddenly the opening of the dungeon is closing and it will be opened only after millions and millions of years by which time i would be fossil. The old elevators where you could see outside and see each floor didnt rankle me much but these ones give me the creeps. Brrr

3. Talking of elevators yesterday I did an audacious thing. I got into a elevator and just as the doors were about to shut a person who i totally loathe entered it. Now i totally totally loathe this guy for several reasons one of the main ones being trying to get fresh with a good friend of mine.
I didnt react and pretended like i didnt know him. So this was the conversation between us

LG (Loser guy): Heyyy!! You are from ABC aren't u (ABC being the name of a club to which i belong to. LG also was in the same club once and as luck would have it works in the same office as mine. Sheer misfortune. Sighhh)

Me: (putting on the dumbest stupidest expression I could manage): Eh?? ABC? Sorry?

LG: heyy!! Don't you remember that time when the whole group went out to Tada? You and your friend F had come?

Me: (desperately trying to hide my id card so he wouldnt see my name) I am sorry. I think you have the wrong person. I dont know any ABC

and i fled outta the elevator and called F and had a good laugh!! Since F was the one he hit on she was thrilled with my "acting dumb" with LG!! ;)

4. Despite having nonsensical KT sessions every evening from 6-7, one good thing is the fact that the conference room where I sit has there HUGE french windows which face the west and hence you can see the sunset and i have seem some Beautiful, Awe inspiring, Breath Taking sunsets in the past 2 weeks. The vibrant colors, the hues, the clouds, the sky AWESOME all of them. So much better than sitting and listening to something which makes no sense to you!! :-\

5. Finished reading Jeffery Archer's 'Paths of Glory' on Saturday and John Grisham's 'Associate' on Sunday. Two of my favorite writers for the amazing plots they weave. Just awesome. Archer has DEFINITELY written better stuff but I kind of liked Paths of Glory because its about a man who wants to climb the Everest (much like Yours Truly!! Ahem!! :P) and Associate is much like all other Grisham novels with some insight on the kind of life which law school grads and lawyers in general in the US lead. Nice time pass both books :).
Been trying to acquire Sea of Poppies by Amitav Ghosh (Fallen in love with his writings after Hungry Tide and Glass Palace) but finances are extremely poor this month what with the deluge of birthdays. Why oh Why are Amitav Ghosh's books priced at 600 bucks? :-\
Hmmmm. And anyway I have a lot of books which I have bought but still haven't read (Catch 22 and Fyodor I promise you are next on my to read list :P)

6. I find the 140 characters rule in Twitter irritating. I usually have so much more than 140 words to say and being restricted to just 140 seems cruel. More often than not I cross the word limit and only half my tweet is posted. And the worst part is twitter in office doesn't show me the number of character so i just keep typing. For eg. The other day I had tweeted saying "I do not envy the job of security guards in office. Imagine having a job where you have to stare at everyone's chest every morning to see if they have id cards around their neck or not" and the tweet stopped with the word chest and I had everyone asking me what the hell it was that i meant by that tweet!! Gah!! :-\

Ok!!!
I am terribly terribly bored and for a change I have NO repeat NO work AT ALL. After being released from my previous project where eyebrows would be raised if you left at 6.30 (and if you didnt have eyebrows you would raise your entire self and stare stupidly at the person leaving at 7) where I had strict deadlines and where every day was full of defects and bugs and other such inconsequential things I have suddenly been put in a project where i have NO work. And they are KILLING me with KT (Knowledge Transition for the uninformed) sessions

I for one have NEVER been able to understand the need/ use of KT sessions. I originally thought KT stood for Kill the Trainee because ideally thats what is done throughout the "session".

You are locked into a room and bombarded with totally and ABSOLUTELY useless information 99.9999% of which you will NEVER use and the 0.0001% when you will use it, you will actually be doing a reverse KT or in other words vomiting stuff which was vomitted AT you (Ewwwwwww!!)

I mean WHAT is the point. exactly 20 seconds after the KT session I dont remember what was said having happily whiled away time looking out of the window or laughing at the accent of the onsite guy who being Mandairin of origin cant speak English to save his life (The other day at a KT session he said "So..ummmm...when you..ahhh seee...aaaaa..surprise mark...errr..you...hmmmm will know thaaaaaat its ummmm full of errrrrors" and i was like surprise mark?? whoa?? whats that. turns out he was talking about our good ol' exclamation mark!! LOL) and generally trying to supress a yawn and doodle in my notepad. No sir!! Not the way to listen to a KT at all. The whole concept boggles my mind. Not only do they gimme KT but they also bombard me with document after document to read and raise questions during KT. Bah!! The only question that has been raised by me till now is "Is it over?" at the fag end of the KT. Sighhhh

"They dont have candles here man" said L to me on the phone

"No candles? What kind of a shop is it that doesnt..."

"Chil!! I mean they dont have birthday candles. Just the ordinary candles and the number candles and they dont have the numbers 2 and 3"

"Oh well what DO they have"

"Hmm. They have 0. yeah. and 5"

"Ahhh!! Get 0. Given F's 0 IQ and 0 level of maturity and 0 malice in her heart ideally 0 oughta be the right number"

"Heh Sure" said L and hung up.

Its soooo easy to make someone happy. Sooo easy. Soo easy to make someone's birthday a little special. You dont need event "management" skills, you dont need big plans, you dont need money, you dont need candles, hell!! you dont even need a birthday cake. All you need is a huge group of friends who havent met for a long time to go the office of the person whose birthday it is and totally totally surprise her.

I dont think I will forget the expression on F's face till the day i die when she saw the whole group casually waiting to have lunch with like it was THE most natural thing in the world to do.

I dont think the cake which we bought really mattered to her. And Oh yeah!! she did blow the "0" candle (she didnt even ask why 0. Sheeeesh!!) and she did cut the cake and all that but frankly cake or no cake I dont think it really made a difference to her. She was just so glad to see us. (Welll!! This does seem like we were a bunch of super humans or incarnate of God who had come to earth just to have lunch with F the way i keep going she was thrilled to see us but honestly she was :P)

It just feels so great to surprise a really good and totally sweet friend

Happy Birthday F. You are without doubt the nicest and sweetest person I have ever met and u deserved the little surprise we planned for you (I maaaaybe a tad too late with this post but hey its the thought which matters right!! :))

Its been 3 days since my grandmother came back home and I have still not spoken a word to her. No sir!! Not a word!!

Our only means of communication are the wild gestures which my grandmother makes. if she swings her hand in circles above her head and points to a room I am to understand that she wants me to switch off the fan in a particular room. If she turns her fist in a clockwise direction it means i need to switch off the gas, if its anticlockwise it means I need to put it to sim. If she points a hand to her mouth and shakes her fist it means she is asking me if I am hungry, if she point to her head and then to the main door it means she is asking me to wear a cap and go out of the house because its very hot, if she makes a C around her eyes it means she wants me to fetch her glasses and so on and so forth

Before you guys start imagining that she is suffering from some severe disease which has rendered her speechless let me hasten to reassure you that the only disease she is suffering from is chronic talking on the phone caused due to abstaining from talking on the phone for 40 days.

Now my grandmother, the youngest of the 9 siblings of the NI family is THE hub of information of the family. Any kind of information, gossip, news which any member of the 1000 member family wants to know, they know the one person to contact. My grandmother.

The way she keeps tracks of birthdays, anniversaries, deaths, births etc is just astounding. Its a standard joke at home that had she been born 40 years later she would have been in one of those IIMs for the kind of analytical and management skills that she possesses, not to mention her shakuntala devi like mathematical skills wherein she can multiply 2 four digit numbers in her mind and give us the answer in under 30 seconds :O:O

So basically because of not having access to her main office (her house here in Chennai at which at any given point of time she will be seen talking to some random relative) for a month she had missed out on a lot of important family stuff and once she came to Chennai her behavior was not unlike a Somalian kid which has not been fed for 40 days and is suddenly let into a room full of world famous delicacies and the lady who started talking 3 days back has not yet stopped.

Right from the Cheenu mama who is celebrating his 80th birthday, to Lakshmi Maami whose grand daughter is marrying a *GASP* Nair to Babu who lost his job to Meera whose husband has been diagnosed with cancer there is a dizzying amount of information about my family which is right now being processed in my grandmothers head and being stored in different locations in her medulla oblongata. The very scope of the whole thing leaves me breathless. 10 children who in turn gave birth to a minimum of 4 children who in turn married and continued the process of giving birth and generally supplying the world with more of the NI clan, which now makes the NI family a formidable family with a whooping 1000 odd relatives spanning across 4 generations and 5 continents, the hub of information being not yahoo groups, not google groups but a frail old lady about 4 and a half feet high cradling a phone between her ear and shoulder in Adyar Chennai.

So basically for the past three days when she has been so much on the phone catching up with and filling in people that we have still not had a chance to talk about her trip, my mom, my home town and such and I have a feeling I will have to learn sign language if I have to understand her.
Sample this.

The other day I got up in the morning to find her talking to someone (not unusual). I causually picked up my paper, my mug of horlicks and was browsing through the paper when I suddenly saw her gesturing wildly. (not unusual)

Paati (gesturing): moving hands violently in circles, points to her clothes, points to the balcony while nodding her head furiously apparenlty acknoledging the person on the other end (I for one have never been able to understand how the other person would see her vigorous and earnest nodding but she doesnt agree)

Me (thinking): Maybe she wants me to take the clothes in the balcony from the clothes line because its windy

Proceeding to take the clothes (wet) from the clothes line and wondering why paati wanted me to take them off when there is no wind

Suddenly she gestures even more wildly and I stand there with a witless expression on my face while she continues to move her hands wildly. I proceed to take off all the clothes from the clothes line quickly thinking she is irked by my lethargic pace.

Suddenly she asks the person to hold (very very unusual) and says "Yenna di pandra" (what are you doing?)

"Nee yenna paati solla try pandra?" (What are you saying paati?)

"Ayyoo. Nimadhiya phone pesa vida maata. yenna pandra?" (you wont let me talk on the phone in peace. What are you doing?)

"Nee dhaane paati rhombha kaathu adikardhu so clothes balcony lendhu eduthuru nu sonna?" (Well, you asked me to take the clothes off the clothes line coz it was windy)

"Ayyyo, na washing machine lendhu clothes edukka sonnen. Kadavule" (I asked you to take the clothes from the washing machine in the balcony)

*looking extremely sheepish*

"Seri seri. nee phone pesu."

So everyday from now till all the give and take of information from the hub has been done is going to be the same and to make matters worse we have two phones at home and more often than not I see paati running between one phone and another playing her role of a hub to a T.
I am not sure when I will be able to talk to her in next so I am doing the next best thing. I come to office and call her while I am having breakfast and talk to her for about 15 minutes ON THE PHONE.

Yesterday this school friend of mine (from the one school where i
spent the maximum time - 3 years of schooling) messaged me and said
"Heyyy, how come you write about college, work, family but never about
school. It would be fun for all of us to read about school"

And it set me thinking about school (the 6 schools that i have studied
in till 12th) and a wave of nostalgia swept over me!!

This post is a result of that!! Quite a long and mostly boring post
but just felt like writing it! :-)

Life was so much simpler when we were kids.

Ironical isnt it? When i was a kid the ONLY thing i wanted to do was
to grow up as soon as possible and whenever someone asked me what it
was that i aspired to be i would say "I want to be big jaldi se".

But as you grow you realise you were much better off when you were 10
years old, going to school, going to siwmming classes, music classes,
dance classes and tennis classes, playing with friends, homework

when life was soooooooo busy and so full that you didnt have time to
think and were so tired at night that you slept the deepest and most
peaceful sleep and slept off the moment your head hit the pillow or
dozed off in front of the TV itself and had no recollection of appa
gently lifting you and putting you on your bed

When being the star player of the school kabaddi team was the only
thing that mattered to you

When you HONESTLY didnt know what was wrong in pulling down a girl's
skirt accidentally while passionately playing kabaddi (errr...maybe i
shouldnt have used the word passionately)

When you thought boys were icky creatures whose noses ran (oh!! mine
did too but at least they did so daintily), whose shirts were dirty
and socks smelly, whose favorite pastime was to pull the pigtails of
the class girls, whose laugh ressembled the noise which is produced
when you shake a hundred stones in a tin box. BASICALLY ewwww

When getting a 'Very good' on a term paper from a favorite teacher was
ALMOST equivalent to winning the nobel prize. who am i kidding?? it
WAS winning the nobel prize and you smiled and grinned till your jaws
ached

When you sat in recess with four close friends and giggled and *giggle
giggle* 'dekh dekh uski ek ribbon choti hai, ek ribbon badi hai' 'pata
hai usko sirf 16 out of 20 mila test mein' qualified as high quality,
most sought after gossip

When you thought getting up in the middle of class and raising issues
like "Miss, she is take outing my pencil" or "Miss she is put outing
the fan" qualified as speaking oxford certified english

When you had not more than 5-6 dresses besides your school uniform and
you never really cared about how you looked and what you wore

When being friends meant doing "katti" to each other at least 20 times
a day and yet talking to each other in class the very next day and you
made friends as easily as u made trouble in school, when the concept
of best friend was alien to you and every one who came to play with
you in the evening qualified as friend

When saturday meant half day in school, wearing a color dress,
attending art class and messing around with the paints

When the most exciting day of the week of Sunday because you were
allowed to get up a little late, because that was the ONE day when
around 20 kids would gather in the central park and play treasure
hunt, leaving clues, marking direction and confusing the other team
and shrieking like banshees when the treasure was found, because of
the weekly visit to the library to explore a whole world of enid
blyton, agatha christies, richard cromptons, archies, tintins,
asterix, because of the ice cream which we would have after dinner..

And then BOOM!!!

Adolescence hit you like the Hurricane Rita and with a face full of
acne, a mouth full of braces and loads of fat on your self you
suddenly developed inhibitions and a bashfulness alien to you.

Suddenly you only went to swimming classes in special "ladies timings"

Suddenly playing kabaddi and getting yourself dirty were "uncool" things to do

Suddenly the boys didnt seem that icky and you found yourself
uncomfortable in their presence and things like soiling their white
shirts by shaking yoru fountain pen and tying their shoelaces together
in the morning prayer didnt hold much charm.

Suddenly you threw away all champaks and tinkles but started reading
Nancy Drewwwww and Hardy *uvaaack* Boys and everyone who read those
were considered cool!!

Suddenly you found yourself confused troubled angry and egoistic all
at the same time

Suddenly you stopped telling your mother about that girl who pinched
you, the boy who pulled your pigtails and from a person who spoke
incessantly you became a silent quiet and morose person

Suddenly you hated your parents because they didnt let you stay out
after 9 in the night, because they worried about your dropping grades,
because they refused to buy you the 999 rupees jeans saying it was
atrocious waste of money since you d outgrow it in just 6 months

Suddenly you cried for silly things like a good friend not talking to
you for 4 hours.

Suddenly your wardrobe (errrr the one shelf in the cuoboard which was
generously given to you) seemed highly malnourished and you thought
your sister had more clothes than you did

Suddenly you started being choosy about your friends not hanging
around with everyone but a select few

Suddenly, RIGHT in front of your blackhead prone nose life just
changed without asking for your persmission without wondering if you
would be able to handle it.

It was an unwelcome change and you tried hard to come to terms with
it. As soon as you did and were able to handle it you were sent to
college!!

Whoooosh!!!
College!! Freedom!! Hostel!! Friends!! Fun!!
It opened a pandora's box of opportunities.
But that deserves a separate post in itself me thinks!! :)