My Birthday!!!

Yay! It is my birthday today. Have turned 19 now. (Whoa! That’s a big number, isn’t it?) Just a year of teenage left for me now.
However, like always, I was more lost in the past than in the present. Was recalling the days of childhood when birthdays were such a big deal. There was always the craze for going to school: not in regular uniforms but in “birthday dresses”, distributing toffees to your classmates after the birthday song had been sung and then proceeding to distributing toffees to the teachers of the whole school by going to each and every class and also the staff-rooms, with your best friend accompanying you. The best part was you got to bunk the first period completely in this “toffee-distribution ritual”, plus you got to choose between all your friends who gets to come along with you, amidst all their pleading requests to be the “one”!
I still remember super-rich kids used to sometimes give away “dairy-milks” and if we were lucky enough they showered us with goodies like pencil, rubber, scale, sharpener, crayons and sometimes even a compass box! Wow! Imagine: giving such things to the whole class would have cost them a heavy amount. Surely, I will never spoil my kids to this extent. Hmm… Though I would definitely pamper them, but I would not tolerate this kind of distribution in his/her friend circle of goodies that they can easily afford. It is more like a show-off. And definitely I know of better ways of making my kids popular! *wink* *wink*
What I am talking now??? This was not I had begun with. So yeah, birthdays! The birthday gusto doesn’t end there. The over-crowded birthday parties at home, the new dress, birthday cake, blowing the candles, the festoons decorations, the yummy food and of course the GIFTS were always thrilling. As a kid, everyone is fond of gifts, however pointless they might be. The excitement of guessing what might be inside the shiny gift wrapper was so wonderful. I remember secretly forcing other kids to bring gifts for coming to the party. Hehehe! Demands, I say. Even then, the demands used to so innocent and straight from the heart. It is not that kids pretend that they don’t want anything when they do want it. (C’mon, don’t you dare disagree- who doesn’t like gifts and surprises. A well thought of and useful gift shows how much one means to the others; though it is not the only way of expressing it) I feel so funny to think I used to ask for Barbie dolls from my mom for each of my birthdays for such a long time.
Yeah! So much of fun for the whole 24hours when you feel that world spins for you and would stop doing so if you command. And it is not just one self’s birthday that a person enjoys. Going to birthday parties was equally fun.
Hmm… birthdays are so much of fun. Your one special day out of the three hundreds. I have had 19 such special days till now and I love each one of them (even if I don’t remember some). Yes! And to think of my first birthday video! Oh! It was lovely. I want to see it again now. When I watched it a decade ago I cried seeing the little me cry in the video when my ears were being pierced. Now I will have two reasons for watching the video: one is to see what my first birthday was like and second is to relive the memory of the day I cried seeing it some years later and screaming “how could you have done this to me? What was the need of piercing my ears? I don’t need earrings to look pretty. I am as beautiful with them as without them! (Who says my conceit evolved just out of nowhere. It was always there!)
So those who still haven’t wished me, WISH ME!!!! How can you be so shameless to get time to read my blog but not wish me.

The trouble of finding myself speechless

First of all, if you by chance stumbled into this site through google, looking for solutions to cure your stammering problem, I am sorry. I am no Baba Khede with miraculous tricks to help you with your stammering problem. I wish I was of any help, but sadly am not. I hope you get over your stammering soon. Thank you for visiting this site, you increased my readership number. You can continue your search.
Hmm… so other regular readers! Hii.. So here is something you all might already have noticed. But here you can find me accepting it. I have a problem, a BIG PROBLEM actually. Haven’t you noticed that I stammer a lot? I know, I know you are nodding. Well, actually it is not what this post is going to about, I didn’t know how exactly to start writing what I was to write. And the stammering thing, well, I am quite happy with it. My mom says those people who stammer are very lucky. And I can easily see it being true!
So to continue (read: begin) about what I was to write, I just wanted to tell that my stammer is not my real problem. The BIG problem I mentioned earlier. The problem is that I am very poor in updating my vocabulary. No, you have definitely got me wrong. It is that I don’t absorb the new words which gradually come out of nowhere and become very popular. I seem to be stuck with the initial set of words my parents or my sisters taught me. Confused na? Let me clear. It is like, for instance, I might use an outdated word to describe a certain thing and not the word everybody would use. Like, when a girl comes all dressed up or when you see a wonderful car, I would end up saying, WOW! You are looking nice! Or WOW! Lovely car!!! You see, plain words: ‘nice’ ‘lovely’. Other people would make it sound fantabulous by adding words like ‘hot’ or ‘sexy’.
And it is not just with such words which make me embarrassed. I don’t even feel comfortable in using phrases like ‘all that jazz’ and all of that. I don’t know why. You might even laugh if I tell you that I was even embarrassed with the ‘pappu cant dance saala’ song. I was like: “Chee, what a silly song!’
And other abuses? Well, sometimes when I get really very very angry, I sometimes try saying one of those “kutta-kameena” within and then feel so awkward using such words that finally end up feeling guilty. And hi-fi abuses! Well, it might amuse you, but whenever somebody uses such words I hardly mind. Why? Because somehow for me those words still haven’t registered in my mind. So those words would be like any heavy-accented language I don’t know. “Je ne mange pas viande” will sound same to me as those words. (yes, in spite of taking French that is the condition. How do they twist their tongues to much? This language sounds absurd. And people call it one of the most romantic languages?!?!!?HUH?!?!?!)
So far so good. But the problem comes when I get no proper words to describe a particular thing and end up stammering a lot before using an inappropriate word. And this is also the reason for my highly animated talks. I mean, whatever I miss with my words, I try covering it up with expressions and actions. Tell, is anything wrong in that? No na? Good! But yeah, people are quite familiar with MY set of words. Right? Why doesn’t everybody start using my vocabulary for Gayatri’s sake! Yeah. Afterall, being me, I should be given such preferences, isn’t it? Afterall, Gayatri is not everybody. For her, it is a big thing to herself only.

I still love u bloggy!

Hey dear bloggy! Here is a little confession. I can’t take the guilt anymore. I have hidden something from you.
Since two-three months you have been doubtful about me being away from you. Yes I have been infrequent in attending you. And the reason was, I have another blog. (Background music?!?!)
(In a high pitched voice): Yes! Yes! Yes! Another blog. Which is why I don’t get enough time to be with you. But you can’t call it cheating on you either. It is legal to have more than one blogs. My only fault was hiding it from you, but the reason was I wanted the other blog to be totally personal. “duniya ke qatil nazaro se bachana tha use.” I share things with the other blog which you are completely unaware about. And I want it to be like that. You must understand why, because you know my family and a few friends and it is hence a little risky to tell you everything. Of course I trust you, but you are quite gullible.
But this still doesn’t mean I love you any less. You are as precious to me as you were before. You are my bitter-brains and the other one is my sweet-heart. See, you are quite different from each other isn’t it? One more thing I want to tell you, or more precisely ask your permission for (without your consent I would not do it) about creating one more blog for my poems. I promise I will be more regular with you from now on and you would never be reminded of my other blogs. I just need your support for that. You have to accommodate other blogs and compromise a bit. Better, you should try treating them like your sister. It will become easier for me then. You see, “saali toh hoti hai aadhi ghar-wali.” We can all stay peacefully and happily this way. It would be so good then. I would almost feel like those ancient kings with countless number of wives. Only that, the world has changed in modern times and it is the queen who enjoys such privileges. (and not wives, I am referring to BLOGS!)

This is the future!!

OMG!!! Congratulate ME!!!! I just noticed that after all the not-so-strenuous, laid-back work, I have finally made half a century of blog posts! Oh my dear bloggy! Happy Golden Jubilee to you! And also Happy New Year!!! I suppose it is a great period for you! So what is your new year resolution bloggy? (You dont like your new name, Ahh... I will change it! How about bloggu? What?? You never seem to appreciate any of the things I do for you) Never mind, the readers will be happy to know about your new year resolutions, why dont you share it with them? Nah! Ohh.. He is too shy of audience. Cant help it, it was me who spoilt my baby! (Now dont you say that you dont approve of this name either?!?! How can it sound so pampered to you? Even so, arent you pampered? You were always a delicate creature. Look at yourself, you arent even confident enough to share your new year resolutions with our scanty audience?)
So anyways, my baby (dont give me those looks) has made a resolution to work harder and complete its century a lot more quicker. And also open up a little bit and make more friends in the blogosphere. I mean other bloggers hardly come to visit him. Never mind.
Anyways as for me, I havent thought of an resolutions yet. I dont stick to year’s end for such things anyways. Many such resolutions are made (though seldom followed) every now and then. For instance, I thought of writing more meaningful posts from now on, but am I doing it? Improving someone as disdainful and pedantic as me is quite a tough job. Oh no! Did you say I am far too perfect for improvisation. Good that you said so, I would not have liked stating it myself.
You by now would have clearly understood that I actually have nothing to write but still doing so. Actually that was to clear off the accusations that I am being ignorant towards my bloggy! (Oh alright my blog)
Hmm... A new year does make you envision your future. How about if I say my imagination went far beyond. I mean, thinking of about two three decades from now or even more. There will be a time (hopefully) a lot more developed than this present day and during such time, I will be reminiscing my days of youth, comparing it with the youth of my grandchildren and telling about the differences. My luxuries would sound merely as days of hardship, difficulty and discomfort to them. Nevertheless, it would rather be amusing. Wasnt it always amusing to hear your grandmother talk of her old days?!?!
Here is how I will go off recalling my golden days. I would say:
“You know in our days, we used to use cycles for transport than for merely reducing weight. Our cycles used to move and were not stationary as they are now.” And those astounded children would be speechless!
“ Internet was a luxury when I was a kid. Only few people had internet with only some of them having it 24X7. In those days, many used to go to the cyber cafes to check their mails.” For that my grandchildren might exclaim with horrified looks.
“In our days, we used to manage with ‘just’ Rs.5000 per month as our pocket money.” They might perhaps faint on hearing this.
“I was given a mobile phone only after I was 14. Some people got it only after joining college! And yeah, earlier there were also mobiles without cameras or music player and sometimes were black and white” I would further explain to clear their unasked question of how I used to communicate with my friends without a mobile and internet by saying “We used to call on landlines meant to be used by the whole family”. They might look at me reverently for being so accommodating and for using a common phone.
“We used to have frequent power-cuts in those days. Sometimes, power-cuts were scheduled for hours together!” and thus enjoy the look of my open-mouthed children, unable to take that fact in.
I would melodramatize it a bit to make it sound a terrible experience and say, “A.Cs were a luxury in our times. Not everybody could afford it. Instead we used to bear the heat with a mere substitute of fans and coolers”. They will surely find it an unfathomable fact!
“In our days a lot of two-wheelers were used and many who didnt have it used to travel in public buses and auto-rickshaws!” I think I shall hear a big and disgusting ewwwwww for it from them.
I shall still continue harking them back to my days and add further astonishing pieces of past saying, “In our country, many did not have a laptop or even a personal computer in their houses or even a whole locality had no access to it.”
“In early times we used to use cameras with reels. Digital cameras came much later for us.” Perhaps they might put up a sympathetic expression for me on such a revelation.
I might even hear a big disagreement or “Really” from them if I tell them that romantic relationships were more often forbidden and children used to hide such relationships from their parents until a reasonable age of marriage. And many a times, parents did not approve of their children’s choice and force him/her with an arranged marriage. Sometimes, in some families girls were restricted from talking to boys too.
They might not even believe that in our times, in some rural areas girls werent literate and were only house-wives. I might even be looked upon as an encyclopedia if I told them about the emancipation of women and related stuffs.
“And you know what! Even in summers we used to wear CLOTHES! Yes, more than just under-garments dear! Long clothes. Ohh not your stringy see-through dress baby! Long clothes which didnt reveal anything. At least not as much. Period. Phew!
“Oh my god! Gays and lesbians were only a joke for us and that too much later in the 21st century. Even then, we used to regard it quite unreal and it was only a source of humour for us. Who knows I would even have to add this “Oh dont give me such rebellious looks boy. I have no problem with your boyfriend.”
“Umm... And you know this language ‘hindi’ was one of the most common language in India and was also our national language.” And with their desperate want to hear me speak the language and much persuasion, I would proudly teach them a few words of Hindi.
“Yes.. Those words which you use in your rap songs like ‘ram’, ‘hare’ and ‘allah’ ‘mary’ were actually considered to be Gods. And we used to have riots everywhere over their faith. For which they would immediately wail, “Oh paati! GOD! Not such superstitions pleeeease!”
“In our generation those flying wings werent invented. The dives of batman, superman or spiderman were for us heroic and something totally unbelievable. As a matter of fact they were done only through animation.
“And yes, we all used to live only in the earth. Living outside the planet was unimaginable to us.”

Well, then a decade later, they wouldnt even listen to any of this. They might say, “Paati,you dont need to tell us all of this. We can go back 40 years back to see how it was if we want!
Well hope this does happen! I know half of it is more than just exaggerated and couldnt possibly happen, but who knows, my successors might laugh at all of us for thinking that it aint possible.

Haye bappi, Hayyeee Papiha!!

Hey!!!! I am such a disgrace to the blogger inside me. Don’t even give her enough time to continue her passion. Anyways, despite the-groggy feeling and the odd hours, I thought it would be unfair not to let her use and utilize this anyways-going-to-be-wasted hour. And actually I do like our shared blog. Feels so much me! She is too good in expressing what I am, aint she?!?!?! But sometimes she does get influenced by other blogs and unknowingly gets to write in other style of writing, like she would in this post too, making several short points rather than her usual essay-type posts, as soon as I let her take over. Alrgiht, she doesn’t like me writing but I had made it a condition to her for letting me write for a while before she proceeds. But cant continue anymore, her constant ranting from ‘within’ being one of the reason. So here on it is SHE who is writing.
UMMPH…….. Hiiiiii hiiii hiiiii… been so wanting to update my blog but didn’t get enough time. Cant help it though. There are many many things going in my mind which I want to write before I forget. So here I go….
• I have (already) started the countdown for my birthday. Yes! It is hardly 5weeks away. But this birthday countdown gives me creeps also each year. I feel terrible, awful and dreadful when I get reminded that I am that many years old. It happens each year. Each year I would exclaim “OMG! I am __ years old. Look at myself. This __ sound soooooo old and mature. __ minus 1 was a perfect age for me. Why one more to it? AHHHHH…… and another worry roots in. what if my birthday is not celebrated as I wanted it. Would I be disappointed on my birthday (which is almost inevitable as I expect higher than reality) which would be the worst thing to happen. This time, I found festoons in the house and am planning to take it to Manipal to spare my friends of its expense for my birthday. But it would look so haughty to offer it to them myself. How will I manage that?
• Here is an extremely good example of being committed to your community no-matter-what. My grandmom, eighty plus who has been living with us for at least ten years now and cannot hear, still prefers to see tamil channels during day-time. It is not as if she would not see dishum-dishum hindi movies but still in the end would invariably see at least 15 minutes of tamil shows as a compulsion. Not because she would understand it better than she would hindi movies (provided she cant hear)and neither because it would keep her in touch with what is happening there as a pretext to gossip among her friends as living here for many years she must have lost touch with them. It is only I feel because it makes her feel as a part of that particular community and feel attached to it despite the distances. :)
• My mom is obsessed with water. Strange obsessions she has in life, keeping in mind her obsession for socks, mobile games, participating in any sort of event, visioning her future in “mother ka aashram”, TUPPERWARE and many other things. Even when she is in office her mind would throughout be in whether there is water in the house or not. MAMMA! And my dad is a smartie. He has brilliant ways of pending away work. What he does is, drink half-way through a water bottle kept in the fridge and then begin with a new bottle (resulting in half-drunk bottles in the fridge, yes he still drinks cold water in this unbearable winter) so that he wouldn’t have to fill the bottles until all the bottles are empty.
• I think I should put my (or other’s) problem of the increasing layers of fat in my tummy (and also other places) in the backseat because I have been devouring excessively on yummy but fatty food in Indore which I cannot resist. Gone are the brutal days of Manipal with frugal meals. But the thing is, why do people have sooo much of problem in seeing me fat? And even if it is a pain to their eyes, why do they transfer their pain to their tongues and express it so blatantly? One of the least soothing words I came across recently were “Aree!!! Your one thigh is equivalent to mine and simran’s put together” so casually said by Shivani. Thanks so much.
• I love Indore. It is only after going to Manipal have I realized that is really strange in many ways. Families roaming late in the city just to have chaat in Sarafa. For non-indoris, sarafa actually opens after 11!!! And there are discotheques where families go for dancing. I got to know that discos are mostly attached to a pub only after going to Manipal. Or was I reluctant to know that basic knowledge? I have never seen Indore roads deserted even when we used to reach Indore as late as 2 in the night and it would not be as if I would see tapporis, but the whole family happy and carefree, going god knows where.
And yes, remembering Vineeth’s statement, I so want my mom and dad to be disco-queen and king! They so much love dancing!
• There have been so many times when I have suffered ego-punctures. That means, I would be more than confidently stating something as if it were true only to know minutes later that I have been quite wrong. Here are two instances. On our fresher’s party last year, I joined Ruhi for dinner and noticed that she hadn’t taken my assumed ‘panner’ ki sabzi and asked her had she not noticed it and proudly adding that it was so hard not to have noticed it. She said nothing but she already knew what I got to know minutes later after putting several chunks of that sabzi in my mouth that it was actually chicken-something and the reason why she hadn’t taken it. Proved that she was more well-aware than what I claimed I was in her comparison. Another such incident happened with Sreya. We like usual were discussing about eyes and lips and ears and cheeks and hair and all of that. It was then I felt amused to see that she had to bring her lower jaw forward whenever she opened her mouth for smiling. I like all other times confidently commented that her jaw is placed unusually and it is quite abnormal for it to go behind the upper one whenever she closed her mouth and said as a matter of fact that the jaws are supposed to stay as they are even when the mouth is closed. And later when I was talking about it with Ruhi, I realized that her perfectly aligned teeth of the lower jaw also go beind when she closed her mouth. I asked her two other room-mates whether it was the same for them and they nodded in agreement, silly me, then got to know, that it was not sreya’s but my jaws that were abnormally placed. Again proved that I was sillier, less perfect than Sreya, contrary to what I had so confidently stated to her. I should seriously give up on mocking. God severely punishes me for that. AHHHHHHH….
• What else?!?!?! Wanted to write so much more… hmmm… hmm… and YES YES YES…. It gives me creeps to think about a multiple identity disorder. My worst fear. I am not such a case. So please ignore what __ told in the beginning. She is MAD. I get utterly scared to think that she isn’t real and she constantly thinks of ways of making me feel so. AHHHH… I hate her…. AHHH…. Hayyeee baapiii haye papiha,… Haye bappi haye papiha… why are you so confused??? It is my way of dealing with fear-singing songs. STOP making Fun of me. Now browse some other blog, I have nothing more to write. Hayye bappi, Haaayee papihaaa….

I like observing people. There are so many different emotions you will come across if you notice properly… here I will be listing some of my favourites. Here it goes:
• The smile on a mother’s face when some other person appreciates her newborn infant. I particularly like it when she feels proud of it and adds from her side that her baby can do many more things and asks the infant to do it at that particular moment. The smile is simply fantastic.
• The glow in a lover’s face when he/she (usually she) tells about her love and explains in detail things like how they met or they started going out.
• The awkwardly happy smile on a person’s face when he is complimented unexpectedly.
• The expression on the face of a person who is trying to avert his eyes from the one he loves to hide the embarrassment, usually when his friends tease him about her. Even the expression of harmless malice on the face of the friends is worth noticing.
• The expression of gratefulness in a person who has been helped out of the blue.
• The immediate tangy sensation you can notice when someone has a mouthful of something sour.
• The alarmed look on a face on the revelation of a secret.
• The look of serenity in wise elderly men.
• The enjoyment on a discovery or seeing a wonder.
• The lost dreamy look in someone who is blushing inside thinking of her lover.
• The winning look on the face of someone who just won an argument.
• The engrossed look on someone looking out for something.
• The guiltily embarrassed look when somebody loses or breaks some other person’s valuable stuff.
• Of a person who is thinking deeply as if analyzing something.
• A hopeful look in a participant anticipating his victory.
• The face of a nervous student before an exam. Quite in contrast you will also find people with confident faces and also those with carefree attitude who don’t bother about the result.
Well that is all I can think of now… suggest me some more na!

Life these days!

Hey there… It has been two-three months and I haven’t been updating my blog as regularly as I used to… Cant even think of excuses… But yes, it takes extra efforts to borrow somebody else’s laptop and if the internet is slow, there are no second thoughts of updating my blog. And the major problem is that whenever I get a laptop, I am out of thoughts and when I am full of thoughts I never have a computer. I do write them in my diary, but because I don’t carry it along everywhere with me, the thoughts go nowhere beyond my diary’s reach.
Hmm… ok… Instead of giving pointless explanations, I should better proceed writing about something else… Hmm… NEWS?? What I have been doing all this semester?
• Well to begin with, I recently read Nishaan Prabhakar’s blog and really liked it, especially his way of writing and sense of humour…
• I have realized I have been eating only this in Manipal more than frequently.
- (At Manipal Juice Center): papaya juice.
- (At Anand Bhavan): plain mysore dosa and orange juice.
- (From Nandini Milk Point): packet Nandini toned milk, mentos lime, kachha aam or melody.
- (At Himalaya Mess): veg-thali, curd and lassi.
- (In a shop near KMC):nariyal pani- meetha pani with patli malai- ahaa… this small shop gives the sweetest coconut water. I am now a regular customer in this shop. Even the uncle (I mean, shop keeper) cuts the coconut so skillfully and looks very gentle-gentle. I like the shop.
- (At Vinayaka): Lime juice and mentos lime, kachha aam or Cadbury shots.
- (At Snack Shack): Death By Chocolate.
- (At Campus Summer Park restaurant in Udupi, which is now my new favourite): Palak soup, dal-khichdi or palak khichdi (palak khichdi depend on whether I had palak soup or not)
- (At parota point): methi parota, muli parota.
- (At Tasty Bites): Rajasthani dal-khichdi
- (At any other eatery): Sweet-corn soup and palak paneer sabzi
- (From the paan shop at TC, sometimes): Meetha paan without supari.

• I hate ants and am extremely allergic to them. And they seem have taken over my room. I mean they are everywhere you can see and everywhere you cannot. Because of those tormenting creatures, I cant keep any food in my room. If I do, I suffer tremendously and keep scratching my body and scalp for the next half an hour and also sneezing. I am always looking of ways to get rid of them and one of the successful ways has been spraying dettol hand-wash on them. They die instantly. I know it sounds cruel, but they are 10 times crueler with what they do to me.
• The next irritating creatures royally lazing around in my room are lizards. Not just my room but the whole flat. I am amazed to see the number of lizards in a 3-bedroom flat. I can easily estimate without even counting that there would approximately be 2 lizards per WALL… yes, easily. And half of them are not any bigger than your index finger. They would suddenly creep out from the least expected places. At least spare the small unavoidable places which can not accommodate a person who finds lizards disgusting and wants to stay as far from them as possible. Please lizards, please, spare the toilets and bathrooms.
• And yes, my room is further uncomfortable as it is in the second floor with no proper ventilation making it unbearably hot. Even I, who would sleep under a blanket without a fan in summers, sweat nowadays. At least I am spared from the power-cuts others suffer of, because of the flat being a part of the MIT hostel.
• I get amused by seeing people brush in the morning. I mean, everybody brushes their teeth (including me) but what amuses me is that some, actually many brush for almost half an hour, with so much of strain and a bored expression as if it is a lot of important work. The funniest thing about this is that they would actually be brushing their teeth in absolutely wrong way- as in different from what dentists suggest.
• I have been realizing that my crush’s and my way of living is quite similar. There have been quite a few coincidences which I have noticed which I am sure nobody knows about. Ha!! I absolutely dote upon my crush. :D:D:D
• And people I will actually harm you if you say I sleep a lot. Paavam I don’t. Last week, I might not have slept more than 30-35hours the whole week. Think of it, average of 4-5 sleep-hours per day. Certainly it is not a lot and less than many reading this (are there any, first of all!??!?) it is just that I sleep at untimely hours which makes you think so.

Achha, I have a lot more to write about, actually a lot more to copy from my diary... Will do it soon... :)
Byee for now... Have to start studying for the mangazine journalism exam tomorrow. WISH ME LUCK!