Deewane

A joke? May 17, 2009

I burst out laughing when I read this in the June issue of Reader’s Digest (that reminds me, what in the world happened to my May issue? I swear the mailroom kids are swiping all my good mags, did I mention that I live in the university dorms?). I think I want to learn something from this joke (way to go to make it funnier eh?!?) but can’t articulate at this moment, too busy laughing you see! So here it is:

“Every ten years, the monks in the monastry are allowed to break their vow of silence to speak two words. Ten years go by and it’s one monk’s first chance. He thinks for a second before saying, “Food bad.”

Ten years later, he says, “Bed hard.”

It’s the big day, a decade later. He gives the head monk a long stare and says “I quit.”

“I’m not surprised,” the head monk says. “You’ve been complaining ever since you got here.”

😀

Like a wink and a smile :) May 14, 2009

My taste in music can be described as eclectic, at best, and this is one of my favorite. Hope it makes you smile and dance coz I can’t help doing both! (and how can you not with lyrics as pretty as these)

Now my heart is music

Such a simple song

singing again, the notes never end

This is where I belong

Heartbreak. May 11, 2009

It started like all affairs do – innocently, tentatively, surreptitiously. Yes we had flirted back and forth in the past but somehow it had never amounted to anything, may be it was the inexperience, may be it was the temperamental attitude, may be it was the distance. Or may be it was just fate, fate that brought us together again. We met like all old lovers do, awkwardly! Interacting only when among a group, and then only for a short while, the rest of the evening would be spent far apart from each other, with not even an exchanged glance, there never seemed a need to!

I think it was something I read on-line that made me think of what we had in the past (the internet proved to be my downfall once again).

“One little experiment couldn’t hurt” is what I thought to myself foolishly. After all we had been pretty good together. It was a happy enough beginning, we were rediscovering each other and were having a great time doing so. Turning the heat on was so easy, a caress here, a kiss(french!) there and taking it to the next level seemed like the logical thing to do. We spent many a snowy evenings huddled up together, I could gaze endlessly in those amber, searing eyes. I was like a puppet tied by a string who could never stray too far, and only too happy in my captivity.

Going public wasn’t an easy decision, afraid of the opinions and criticism certain to come my way (given that a lot of people had been burned by my latest flame), but I knew we had each other’s support, that gave me strength and to my greatest surprise our union was declared a hit by everyone. I think it was because everyone could see how happy I was at last! The part of me that felt empty was never going to feel that way again. Euphoric is the word I would have used to describe myself those days, I felt like I could take on the world.

And it is at moments like these in life when you don’t even realize that you have already started falling down from cloud nine. The delirium like state cushions the blow that others can see but you can’t even feel! Only when the people closest to you remark over your battered state, do you take a moment to check in the mirror and not even recognize the person looking back. This is not what I signed up for, I thought. I let myself be lost, unabashedly, in the warmth, the softness and the sweet sweet scents. But I couldn’t keep on lying to myself, if it continued I would die! The guilt, the taunts would consume me completely. But the thought of putting an end to our affair was certain to kill me as well. WHAT WAS I GOING TO DO?

I knew where the answer lied. The one evidence strong enough to steer me in the right albeit difficult direction. The one that hasn’t always been my friend but never done me any wrong either, in fact the animosity between us was the result of the bizarre honesty we shared with each other. So that’s where I turned, to my friend/foe, I unloaded myself completely. And, as always, got the truth, that I was already aware of, but just wouldn’t acknowledge. But this time I had no way to turn, I stood defeated and so so dejected. I had done this to myself, dug my own grave. Everything would happen right in front of my eyes but I had chosen to be unaware of the facts and they had come back to bite me in the butt. Big time!

The scale pointed at 7 lbs more than last time. It was the heartbreak of the worst kind. I couldn’t go on baking anymore. The oven and I must once again be strangers. *sigh*

The Bubble. May 8, 2009

I get hooked and read in awe all the blogs of people who are living in India but are not Indian i.e. expats. I wondered why I am captivated so easily and why does everything sound so fascinating (in both good and bad ways but still something that I’d like to experience) and new. Through their eyes the colors seemed brighter, the people beautiful and the landscape gorgeous (it helps that most of these bloggers are exceptional photographers as well). They all seem to find humor in situations that could easily exasperate a native and tolerate a whole lot of weird (there’s no other word for it) behaviour out of respect for the culture. Aren’t they in a place where I spent the first 22 years of my life? How are they finding out about all these uber cool things to explore? And finally, why did I never see things in the light that makes them seem rosy or atleast quirky?

I am learning so much from these virtual strangers, about… , well, about how to live in a foreign country, how to not blow up in the face of someone with preconceived (and to my horror, as I discover, mostly true) notions about Indians, and how to simply enjoy my time in this beautiful country which is so different from the one I was born in.

My outlook toward life in general will certainly be different when I go back home (it’s been 3 years people!! But seriously I’d take home-sickness ANY day over the heat! I love my home and miss my parents..but not that much :P). I know I’ll appreciate and be thankful of my good fortune more (oh so much more), won’t resent the poor for being poor (does that make sense?) and will definitely stop being the protected, spoilt, little daddy’s girl that I have, sort of, grown up to be, the person who notices things, feels sorry for some and happy about some other and just moves on, without taking the time to soak in and think about what’s surrounding me.

Though I do feel sorry for not experiencing Delhi in all it’s glory, but know that now I’ll find new joy in the same things and places. Will move beyond my 3 miles radius that encompassed my entire world. Which held my school, my college, my friends and my favorite hang-out spots. I still remember the first day I took the bus to go to CP (6 or 7 miles from home, a 30 minute ride), I was 20 and with a friend and with Mom on hold on my cell-phone the entire time (true story folks). We (my friend, let’s call her one of the most awesome people I have met in my life, or umm…Spunky, for short!), Spunky and I were beyond thrilled when we safely reached our destination, obviously the bus conductor* knew we were a couple of newbies and was very kind the whole way. And after spending a grand total of 5 hours (and many panicked calls from Dad about our welfare so-far-away from home, you’d have thunk we were a couple of Americans on our way to have dinner with Osama and make him switch careers to pig-rearing) later we decided to take the 3-wheeler (tuk-tuk) back home. Sure it cost 10 times more than the bus-ticket, sure our non-existent bargaining skill let the guy fleece us more than what he would have charged a “tourist”, but we were too happy and too damn proud of ourselves for having survived the real world, to give a damn. I wish I was embellishing the story for laughs, but sadly that’s not the case. Fortunately, that trip was just the beginning of my 4-more excursions to the part of Delhi where I inadvertently would buy useless but pretty things and had the world’s best garlic bread (at Wenger’s) and Milk-shake (Keventer’s, actually Dad took me to this hole, it used to be his hang-out in his student days). But now I know the things I missed out on, that existed outside of my bubble, the places (and sometimes the people in those places) that on surface made me recoil and rush back to the air-conditioned car to the air-conditioned malls, I didn’t care to be a part of that Delhi, my arrogance didn’t allow me to identify myself with the majority of the people, people who didn’t move in the same circle. And I sort of carried the same attitude when I moved to the US, sans everything that I’d taken for granted back home, I was still in a bubble, but an empty one. An opportunity to burst it and open myself to every new experience (well, may be not EVERY, eg. drugs, still clean Dad, err…but don’t start counting the empty wine bottles in the basement :P). And after reading about people in reversed situations than mine and how they adapt and welcome the changes (sooner or later) brought by India that practically assault all the senses known to mankind, and also a few that are, as yet, unknown, I have to say that I will not crib about everything American (like the lack of public transport my biggest gripe) but will instead go and sit by the lake and enjoy the blissful rural setting of the campus, something that I have been planning to do since the day I came to this school, but haven’t so far, I vow to make an effort and meet more people and stop brooding all the time. I promise to stop converting dollar to rupee all the time and also stop springing for other people when out shopping coz “that’s what Indians do”!

I swear as long as I have the internet I am sure I won’t need therapy 😀

*Bus conductor – guy who, in a bus designed to seat 50 but crammed with 200 people, has the inexplicable talent to spot who got on the bus when and where so he can charge them the correct amount for their destination, and if you have the good fortune of being an attractive female, will somehow find a seat for you in the said bus!

I call bravo sierra! May 7, 2009

All Grey’s Anatomy fans, waiting with bated breath for the bouquet toss tonight, do not read any further!

There’s a fake Mer-Der wedding websiteup for cheessake! And the nuptials are not even gonna happen. And I just wanted to be the first one to call it! It’s the uber-irritating and perpetually self-sacrificing Izzy and “acts like a douche but has a heart of gold” (just your regular good-looking TV guy, you have to balance the handsomeness out somehow) Alex who will end up married!

And you know where you read it first 😀