Humpty Dumpty had a Great Fall

Some things in life have to be done.

Like writing this post inspite of the pile of work staring back unblinkingly at me.

I had decided that the next post from me would involve more soul searching - 'Rivers of Blood' or 'Hegemony of the Parrots' (courtesy S.D., thank you!) or some other excruciatingly informational piece, a marked departure from my usual zero-use policy for posts (why does everything have to have a 'use'?!).

To get back to my meandering narrative again, however.

It was late in the night. My mind heavy with the 'smoky', 'marijuana monologues' of Sankalp. The last thing I should have attempted was Badminton. At midnight. After light years. And try playing it with the flair of a three time kindergarten champion (which also I never was). At peak, 'hanging around' time. To an almost full capacity crowd.

Perfect recipe for unforgettable embarrassment.

With a flourish I picked up the racquet. Eyed the approaching shuttle with eagle-like concentration.Worked out complex trignometric-elevation, wind-velocity drag, projectile equations in a nanosecond. And with full confidence and dexterity whacked the plastic out of the shuttle.

Had it been cricket, it would have been a poetic four.

Never one to give up, I got back into position with reinforced determination to prove my athleticism. The shuttle whizzed towards me - silent and sinister. In a split second, my brain decided THE strategy to win this battle was 'shock and awe'. (I wish the brain would stop being so anarchist in its ideology and take my self's feeling and esteem into consideration on such suicidal policy decisions). I found the feet spinning around my centre of gravity in frictionless 'jootis' . Simultaneously, my nimble arms flayed wildly at the shuttle and I found myself diving into a graceless aerodynamic trajectory, ending with a smooth landing by slithering a few humiliating inches on the court. Spin, fly, dive, slide.

If this was a circus, it would have been the most acrobatic and popular act. With all the peeping Toms staring out of Palaash windows, and the laughing hynaes on the courtyard benches, it was instant celebritydom.

Atleast I now have an answer to the cliched interview question - 'What was your most embarrassing moment'. Summer placements? Bring 'em on!

The Lost Race

Schools are a trailer to the movie of life.
And in a fit of a 'Eureka' moment, some sadistic P.T. teacher decided that the best way to prepare the fragile minds of the tiny tots entrusted to him was through races. But then he realized that at the sprightly age of eight and nine, when potbellies are alien and rheumatism of the knees is unknown , running is a joy, not a punishment. And with this realization began a saga of scarring young impressionable minds (yours sincerely starring as yours victimized in the series).

Why could a race never be a simple exercise in running from the start to the finish line? Why did it have to involve inanities like carrying a spoon with a pea between your teeth? Worst, why did it have to involve eating bananas when every Indian worth his tan knows that bananas and Indian summers are inimical? And herein lies the key to why the mess-bhaiya has to suffer a daily interrogation about the state of bananas at breakfast and solemnly swear to their un-rotteness.

I was the fastest kid in the block. I ran like the wind, darted like a bee and braked like a butterfly. If there was one chink in my armour, it was an intestine wringing aversion to rotten bananas. And that is where the PT teacher's creative thinking began. The format of the tiny tots' race : run hand in hand with your partner - of the opposite sex (Sri Ram Sena would be so apalled, this debauchery began in school itself. ) - rush to the finish line, gobble bananas and run back to the start line.

The D-day dawned bright and clear. I chose a sterling specimen, fit to be preserved as the finest, perfectest banana there ever was and clung to it like a drowning man to a shark. Through the crowded bus, i shoved for a shove and scratched for a scratch and though I was much bruised, the banana emerged unscathed. And then in this proud moment of victory, fate played foul and dealt me a deathblow.
All the other bananas lay in a careless heap at the end of the finish line and that is where mine was to be kept too! There would be no chance of finding it in this Everest of plantains! My partner and I sped to the finish line like eloping lovers , but the love turned star crossed at the finish when I jumped head long into the banana pile looking for the much protected one I'd brought from home. Needless to say, people came, people ate and people ran back and I suffered the murderous glare of my partner and the humiliation of being the last one left standing at the finish line. Finally, the school captain asked me to budge and make space for the next lot of banana eaters and suggested that maybe the shoe-lace-tying race would be a better idea. But that is another story and meanwhile if you see me turn pale and look petrified at breakfast, just take the rotten banana out of my hand - that's a scarred psyche for you.

myArt : II

It's beautification time again!
The tremendous fanfare that was enjoyed by my previous artistic publication has prompted me to upload this.
The budding artist has tried to abuse MS Paint as much as it can allow without revolting. :)

Ahem, and the pixelated effect is deliberate and a very time-consuming activity!!

Of the Origins of Poetry

The genesis of true poetry lies in the vituperative, viscid, visceral coils of frustration.

And when I say poetry, to the dismay of perhaps the more regressively maturing part of the population, which also constitues a predominant chunk of my blog readership, I coup-de-graced at the grave risk of alienating them and rendering my uncommon blog forever common in the forgotten realms of obscurity, that 'Roses are red, Violets are blue, O my Dahling, I love You', does NOT count as poetry. Even if you use it to mark the momentous occasion of the first-week-together anniversary with you girlfriend. (I am surprised she hasn't ditched you yet).

And when I say frustration, sleeping on the scorching bed on the first floor of Parijat does NOT count. Even if the foreigners get air conditioners and we 'natives' dont.
Grow up folks! There is more to frustrate a spirit than temperatures imported from supermarkets in hell. Like what? Like lost battles. Like jilted love. Like socio-politico-economic hegemony. Like bankruptcy in a financial crisis. Like a writer's blog err..block. Like existential crises in a pre pubescent, jocund world (courtesy, a recent conversation). Like a never ending conference that begins at 6pm in a software company.
Not in any specific order except that the most poignant, gut-wrenching, heart rending poetry emerges from the last cause on the pathetic list.

And I am sure that all organisms of the fast proliferating species called software engineers would agree. So when you read the lines below, I request you to keep in mind the fact that this was written on a happy day in spring when the bees buzzed and the birds sang; the sun had mellowed to a warm ruddy glow in the distance and the night was riding in fast. And I sat, with a group of other wretched creatures, trying to ignore the insistent, muffled speaking from a Cisco IP phone , battling an AC induced brain numbing draught. The pathos of the situation will melt your frigid hearts.

"And I stand at the horizon,
Watch the Sun set,
At the other end, night creeps in,
At this amalgam of light and dark,
I cross the threshold and step beyond,
Into the lap of eternal sleep,
Beyond any life giving force,
Outside the grasp of life itself,
I embrace the only permanence,
The only change to stem all change,
The only stop to constant transience.
I open my arms and welcome thee,
Take me with you Death, I am ready."

Ah! The pathos!
To all of you reduced to tears, I am much indebted. You may shed sympathetic tears and write warm reviews below.

To all of you inclined to laugh - beware you infidels! Unless you forward this link to 20 more people who religiously leave comments, your lead will call a meeting at 6 every evening!

To all those concerned about my suicidal tendencies and preparing to raid my closet for boa constrictors and rodent poison, R.I.P - I have resigned.

P.S.- If you feel unable to feel sufficiently frustrated to spew out 'deathly' poetry, contact me. I'll lend you my ex-boss.

Coffee at MICA

25th May : The day dawned bright and clear. Young, eager and enthusiastic, we sprung forth with unbounded energy and enthusiasm looking at our future with doe-eyed adoration through baby-pink frosted glasses. Some, on the other hand, like yours sincerely, having blanched at the prospect of 6 hour classes after a year of cozy hibernation, could look only at breakfast as a worthwhile future. My tested belief in a hearty breakfast as the only solution to armageddon being yet un-failed, I proceeded to MICAfe and was overwhelmed to see cornflakes with hot and cold milk. And now I was sure, that at MICA anything was possible. So with this bright belief when I spotted a bowl full of a brown-chocolatey powder, I positively sang out loud. Imagine, I thought, they even give us Bournvita. (Refusal to grow up is not an uncommon phenomenon, specially in circumstances when age stares you right in the face). Heaping two massive spoons of 'Bournvita' into a tiny cup of milk, I sat down to drown my tastebuds in chocolate, only to discover that it was (why in the blazes was it not obvious to me?) - COFFEE!

So with 2 spoons of sheer black coffee pounding through my veins, I stepped into the class and stepped out only after having being asked, not-so-politely by the faculty to zip my mouth, roll my tongue back in and keep my hand firmly out of vertical air space. Coffee can make you hyperactive.

Also, it's 'vein'ophillic. It sticks right in and decides to make even incorrigible shirkers into enthusiastic workers. Want to avoid workaholicism? Avoid caffeine.
Coffee made me determinedly decide to turn my room from a natural bakery-oven to a human friendly habitat. That innocent endeavour ended up sending warning bells to Noah and his Arc, after I successfully drenched all my sheets in water and hung them from the windows. I later happened to see that the room was almost submerged and water was pouring out into the corridor and cascading like a gentler version of the Niagra Falls from the first floor onto the ground floor. Ofcourse I was alerted only by the plaintive cries and frantic queries of an attendant. Coffee also makes you blind to the minor irritants of life.

Coffee is a typical woman - stimulating beginnings, troublesome endings.

Life and Dell!

Life, is tough to live.
Particularly when you live under the constant strain of ensuring that your day involves the much taxing activity of doing nothing and in the midst of doing nothing you have to thwart your parents' frantic and worrisome efforts to make you do something. It is even more stressful to plot and scheme to ensure that days in the immediate future are encompassed in the ruddy glow of that idyll of nothingness. No wonder all this strenuous, creative workout makes the good, ol' occupant of the cranial cavity feel older and wiser than its years and the squirming grey cells exist on the verge of being addressed in the singular, than plural (a lone grey cell?).

Well, this pleasant meditative stupor of my existence was torn asunder on an early May morning when I was pulled out of bed to find myself straddling a rather bulky cardboard box on which was written - DELL!! Yipeeeee! My lappie had arrived, and a glossy, happy red it was!
For many a day I observed it with a veneration that not too many of my electronics inspire or witness. And those of you who saw the individuality I had lent to my MP3 player and cell phone must be eagerly awaiting the baptism of my laptop. You shall not be disappointed :D




Ma Chere - "Cherry" (pronounced 'Sh'erry :P), neighbour's envy, owner's pride, distinctly individualized by the emblazoned 'P.D.'! Thank you, thank you, I know you all love my art :D



And IF anybody feels the need to comment on my need for a cursive writing book, you are as good as dead!

Why God made siblings

So you all think that 'Hum Do, Hamaare Do' is the Indian government's last ditch propaganda to inspire the teeming millions to have fewer babies? To have TWO babies only, to be more precise?

Ha! You are all so very wrong. It is the Indian governments propaganda to encourage the fast turning nuclear families, to not go solo and have ATLEAST two babies, if not more.
It is a conspiracy, deeper, darker and more sinister than any held in the hallowed portals of the Da Vinci code ; a conspiracy to take us away from our innate human nature of competing for survival ; a conspiracy to bring about lasting world peace.

Now I might usually be an ordinary bean, but the logic of this strategy is crystal clear to me. Think of yourself in a real bad day - real bad. You run your bike over your own toe in the morning, get late for office in the bargain and then can't pass the twenty-fingernails-intact identification test and are handed over to the police as an imposter and tresspasser, who then feel you closely resemble the most-wanted convict on their list. Whew! Now how you get out of this situation is upto your imagination, but if you ever do manage do get out, it would be natural to suppose that you would NOT be feeling your peaceful best.

You might want to punch the next person on the road in the face, who might decide to run over his neighbour who might... err be tempted to generally aggravate the situation. The point I am driving at, my friends, is that if for the want of a nail a kingdom can be lost, for the want of control in homicidal tendencies, the next world war can start.

And this is precisely why God made siblings. Because if you simply had a sibling who by the natural course of being a sibling would know the best way to irk you, you would not be tempted to vent your aggression on your neighbour. That privilege would be bestowed fairly and squarely on your sibling, who by now would be an auberginish tint, much to your peace of mind.

So my friends, the only solution to lasting world peace - make sure your progenies have loads of siblings to bully and bash, for that is what God made them for! 'Hum Do Hamaare Do' - at the very least :D.


Editor's Note : Since a lot of questions are being asked about the safety of the author's sibling in her caring hands, she would like to clarify that she does love her brother. And it has been 8 years since she last sat down on top of him and beat him up (mainly because since then, the chances of her emerging out of an encounter looking like an egg plant have increased). And this post was NOT TARGETED AT HIM and she feels a benign sisterly affection towards him at the point of writing this post.