Back when we were young

Love was when we were young,
You were seventeen and I, sixteen.
That one moment of the first sight
And the denial in every minute that followed

Evading the looks and shutting my ears to your laugh
I told myself day in and out to get a grip
Until my sleepy eyes would open with your face in them
Washed up on the shores of a sea of dreams

Spring had descended upon me to stay
An irrepressible blush playing on unknowing cheeks
And butterflies flitted in the shadows of silky black strands
That waved when memories came in the scented air

A golden vein of frozen words had come to life
Flowing onto every stray scrap and classroom bench
The love gilded my books with poems
And the songs rung in every pal’s ears

On that rainy dusk years ago, on my long walk home
When we were joyous in the festival of lights
Soft lights had lighted up my way and it was then
I still remember, the air had quivered with your invisible presence

Our paths though had to part forever
And the day came when, under the cherry tree we bade goodbye
My blistered heart thirsted for solace and in vain
I traced your footsteps to catch at least a glimpse.

Years have passed by and we have grown in age and apart
No more do I pine for a comeback, now hopeless
I wish we never cross paths again, for it may be sadder still
If we stand yet again eyes locked, and the rose petals don’t shower

Because my pain, my love
The wide eyed girl and a shy smiling boy are lost forever
And all the love was back then, when we were young,
You were seventeen and I, sixteen.

Long live love!

“Kadalinu karayodiniyum paadaan snehamundo ....?
Mezhukuthirikalaay urukaan iniyum pranayam manassilundo....?? ”

Does that feeling exist in all of its purity or honesty any more? You will need to say a lot to convince me it does .I, for one, am skeptical that love exists – in the full sense of the word where it’s divinely liberating and intoxicatingly uplifting for the soul. I would prescribe music and literature as soul feed instead. Is love even what it is made out to be? I mean, c’mon, is it even that big a deal?

By these musings , I in no way mean to indicate that I have been untouched by the vagaries of romance .Though the story itself is for another day ,I just don’t want you to shake your head sympathetically saying ,”What do you know…” . All I mean is that love is not a very conveniently practical everyday solution. It’s good for the books, for the reminiscences of a slow dusk. In the extreme cases the possibility of future love even makes arranged marriage between utter strangers possible and keeps our civilization going in India. Thanks to this delusional myth for that, cos by the time people realize love is nothing like The love, the illusion has worn off.

The most sublime, uncalculated and in that sense, honest, love happens in the adolescences and mostly in colleges. This feeling has its expiry date set even before it starts for the farewell day of college .The author has seen only too many lovers part ways without the slightest of doubts in their minds. After college, since most people get into jobs and are busy shaping their careers, I doubt anyone pretty much even finds time for love. I have no clue what marriage stands on, since I have already declared that I am a non-believer. If I had to hazard a guess, I would say, the institution of arranged marriage is based on convenience .While choosing a partner in India’s erstwhile AM system, people carefully investigate the social, educational and financial status of prospects, and try to attain a balance as perfect as possible. This could be picturised as the bride and the groom being seated on the two plates of a weighing machine, balancing each other off in each of the above mentioned parameters. Love is nowhere in the picture though. Oh yes, the match making is done all cleverly in the heads of the elders, with love, supposed to just happen since all the parameters have the perfect values required for that chemistry .
I frankly fail to understand how people agree to marry on something as vague as such a prediction . Ah, the myth though still lives ….

Love is a beautiful concept though and is best left unexplained. It’s not supposed to be like anything known before and in that sense, no comparison can ever do it justice .Its most powerful proponents are music and literature, and love finds it’s most exciting expressions in them. For ages now, love has lived in all its truth and vigour, in music and literature and they in return ,have thrived on love .I don’t mind love being a delusional myth , as long as it feeds fire to imagination and creativity ,for, if nothing else, I am a lover of words and songs .

Long live love!

PS- My first post for 2010.Rock the year folks !

Verse Ofcourse !


A curse on my uninviting mailbox
Looks like it's under a hoax
For there's nothing new or fun in there
To make me smile even once in a while!

Cross I am with all those blogs
I regularly visit and turn back disappointed
Cos no new posts have they for me either
To make me think and ponder awhile.

A bolt of lightning on the idiot box
For all the boring shows and thousand channels
Bloodier are the reruns
Of anything nice they might once have had!

Cannot even turn to my all time love
In good stead they have stood me so long
My dearest pals ,my good old books
For I'm recovering from a Coelho overdose.

And so I take a path I've trodden so less
That of verse and rhyming words
As a last resort or escape
This here is what came out as a result.

Hoping someone would read it atleast
And that one wouldn't hate it too much
Mayn't be good but what the heck
That's the best and all that there is for now !!

Stand By Me

Last week was the groggiest one of my life; exactly because I spent the most of it in a state of impenetrable grogginess. Last Monday morning went something like this .I drag myself out of the bed past 7.15 am when I have a bus to catch at 8 am by taking an auto to the pick-up spot. I further drag my sleepy self down the flight of stairs to the ground floor (thank god I didn’t slip and fall and break my neck. Come to think of it now, that would have given me a week off!! ).

Seated in the drawing room sofa I find my younger bro who had risen early like an ideal student ,even taken his bath and reading the morning’s newspaper! Again, thank god he didn’t take after me ..though I keep reminding him, “I was way better than you when I was a student myself ,so don’t give me that sneer!”.So I ask this dude in the process of enlightening himself, “innu bandh-o strike-o vallathum undo dey ??”* He gives me one of his supremely condescending looks, glances at the clock and shakes his head, and goes back to the newspaper.

The long and short of the whole episode is that, the whole of last Monday was like walking around with shackles on your feet .Was very very boring, I tell you. So I let the stupor continue for the entire week!! :PAnd I didn’t wake up till that weekend. Had a blast last Saturday though, aise hi , usual stuff…an exorbitantly expensive haircut! That did the trick of bolting me out of the slumber! And I come back this week with my batteries recharged and a new addiction to keep me beaming through the week.

‘Stand By Me’ by Ben E King. I am absolutely in love with the song right now, and listen to it religiously whenever I get time. My mp3 player is constantly playing that track and must be going nuts in that infinite loop I have put it in .Do check out the song if you haven’t already .It’s wonderfully romantic ! Of course it’s an all time hit number which I have known for a while, just that I finally downloaded it last week, and so all the renewed raving about it.

Wish you a romantic** week ahead!

*Is there a strike or a bandh today? (In Malayalam)

**[The wide implication ;-) ]-- Characterized by strangeness or variety; suggestive of adventure; suited to romance; wild; picturesque; -- applied to scenery; as, a romantic landscape. [1913 Webster]

And darling darling

Stand ..Stand by me ,stand by me ..

When all of your friends are gone .. Wont you stand ..?

Oh...Stand by me ...

Ehsaas…

It’s a typical work day .Me racks brain over a tricky enhancement on a VBA based Excel macro. Misses the first evening bus over it .Tries some more...
An hour later,
An ID card swipes...Beep. Red to green to red...
Reaches early to find the bus near empty and its insides, dark and solemn.
A beautiful cyan lights up the tiny mp3 player’s display and dishes out Atif Aslam’s ‘Ehsaas’. Lets hair loose and lies back on the seat by the window, eyes closed, an irrepressible smile playing on my lips …

Dusk is just graying the sky as I stand on the pavement of a busy road with silent traffic and watch the neon signboards and the bright tail lamps of the cars that flow smoothly
on the wide road.
Steam spews out of fresh cream laden coffee as I lean out of the window, after the rain that has bathed the earth outside. Breeze laden with the aroma of wet soil wafts up as the music grows louder with thumping jazz overtones.
A bright orange coloured hot air balloon moves over the ocean’s blue expanse as I strain my eyes to watch the view shielding my face against the sun with one hand.

The bus is now moving over a bridge over a lake, that lies dark and glittering as we glide over it .A gust of wind tugs at my loose hair strands as I look up to the winking stars in the night sky .

....Manzil paas nahi , kya tu mere paas hai ...

My mind plays with pretty pictures captured from my life, like playing with a kaleidoscope. I see in my mind’s eye the green that stretched away from the road till the end of my sight’s reach, as I traveled on a bus along the inter-state highway that leads away from B’lore.I see the night view at Suicide Point from a college trip long ago , a valley and a vast expanse of land before me with light bulbs that looked like floating luminous yellow liquid floating in the night air .I remember losing my breath at these sights …Each vision, a picture post card out of each point of my life…

‘Hey, you dreaming ? ’
I jolt awake from the trance.
‘No daa.. .’

*sigh* back to life ….

Blogscan

Though my appearances here have become rather sporadic, my blogging isn’t really so. The reason being the company provided blog space populated by numerous enthusiastic colleagues from offices all across India and the world .My other blog with the same name in the company intranet keeps me in touch with blogging, as much as a lazy gal can be .So taking a trip to all the blogs here that I follow regularly ,I came across and liked the following

1.Ram’s photoblog ‘My Dear Memories’ which got me jealous of his SLR !!!

2.A sweet post in PS’s hugely popular blog ‘Just a mother of two’ ,whose answers I am going to give a li’l later here ..

and

3.A candid piece on a very real issue ,something I face day in and day out @ Kochuthresiamma's Pareltank. 'Are Mallu males perverts?'

My answer to which is “yes,yes,yes”[Not all of them ,but most …enough in numbers to ruin my mood every single time that I step onto the streets here ! ]

And now to get back to nicer things , lemme answer PS's questions

I am---lost.

My best friend thinks I am----sweet & sour.

My ambition----to be the best I can be .

I am inspired by---the success I see in the lives of people around me .

If I ruled the world I would----do something about the climate,water especially!

If I had one wish I would---want to meet my knight in shining armour !

Thats all for the time being..adios amigos..

In Love

Aarghh Finally ....

I finally got my very own Calvin n Hobbes gadget (not as in I own it ...)on my very own blog (yea..this one I very much own)!Finally!!!What an achievement ... I feel like I cleared SCJP ;YEssss...So what's all the hype about ?I have been trying hard ,not like in the eyes-glued-to-the-monitor style but like in the slumped-on-the-chair-and-typing-with-one-finger hardwork mode ,for over quarter of an hour to get this thingy added but with each gadget in Blogger's gadget link showing up broken ,or worse giving me the ray of hope by adding without content(showing me a bloody red X!).So finally after traversing scores of Calvin links , I got this one to work !All that hardwork definitely needs to show and thats why I have the gadget right on top ,just so nobody misses it .Does 'nobody' even read my blog ?Duh!

Calvin n Hobbes has caught my imagination and totally enslaved me these days ,just the way J.M.Coetzee did with 'Youth' years ago ,and nothing or nobody has been able to do before or afterwards...Yea ,I guess I am growing up backwards ,but that's alright if its gonna be thiss fun!!!My passions have always been the binge variety ,wherein I taste of it a little in the begining,if it appeals to me I take a second helping and then a third and then forget the rest of the world ,leave the fork and spoon behind and climb into the cauldron and lose myself till I am smug in the satisfaction that I have now chomped down enough to hibernate and gloat till my next love finds me .When my eyes go hazy talking about something , you know that it has been one of my loves.My love affairs till date go something like this (Only those which stole my heart and made me love-sick ,so this is just a teensy-weensy subset)

Since I learned to read till class 5 -Baalarama,Amar Chitra Katha.(Tons of others,but these two where my chart topping infatuations)

Class 5,6-Famous Five(I two timed with Secret Seven!)

Calss 7,8-Hardy Boys(Wonder why Nancy Drew got a step-motherly treatment)

Class 9-Agatha Christie(esp the Hercule Poirot ones.My favouritest AG till date is 'The Mysterious Case of Mr.Quinn'.I am torn between my love for several AG titles actually.)& Ofcourse Sherlock Holmes (This I binged till I read all of SH titles back to back)

Class 10-Erle Stanley Gardner(I still rememeber how I trembled in love for this one!)

Class 11,12-NO Nothing ... :( Every Indian kid knows why .. this was the time when for lack of any extra-curricular book to read,I binged on poetry that was in our ISC syllabii.My first baby footsteps into reading poetry,which I promptly forgot as soon as I got the sligtest chance to get back to anything prose.

College (4 loong years )-Year one saw me wine and dine with Ben Okri .Yea ,I was disillusioned and Okri is better than, and a convenient alternative to ,getting high on grass.The arrangement suited me anyways ...On second thoughts ,college was one long year and three fast ones.The fast three had me addicted to J.M.Coetzee!This is when I felt that I may have finally met the love of my life and felt a sense of reassuarance that I need seek no further.It was just JM and me ...*sigh*until I finished off almost all of his acclaimed works of fiction ...and I was forlorn again..Lest I miss out , I also had a fling with Harry Potter those days ,finally succumbing to pressure from all sides and one lazy holiday with not one other grown-up's book available but the HP3!I can't thank Renjitha,my class 12 mate,enough , for she was the one who kept pleading with me to read HP which the arrogant me had then brushed away with ,'I seriously don't enjoy children's literature anymore,please excuse...'.Guess the punishment for my impudence was the years I spent untouched by HP magic!

At Work(till a few days ago)- Paulo Coelho.This is when I moved from depending heavily on libraries for my romantic indulgences ,and started buying books.Though I had got a bitter first taste of Coetzee with 'Eleven Minutes',I lasted and got hooked to PC with my next sip in the form of 'The Alchemist'(Thanx to my cousin bro for persuading me to give PC another chance!)In PC ,I found someone who asked the same questions that I asked and what's more ,he went on to answer/explain some of those exasperating doubts in his own ways which appealed to me in a huge way.Thus began my scour for anything PC which lasted until a while ago till I had then obtained almost all the popular and talked about titles except for one which has eluded me till now ,'By the River Piedra I Sat Down and Wept'

Now that the pendulum of my love for PC is coming to a faltering halt, I have met Calvin n Hobbes ,both of whom incidentally hate girls !As a sign of how love-struck I am with these two ,Calvin especially (blush..) I let the Calvin gadget adorn my blog's forehead and allow it to sit there staring out at anyone who passes by.I am also attracted to the likes of Dilbert and Garfield,but I guess for now ,Calvin comics is where my heart truly belongs...

For all my pomposity of being single ,this post reveals to the world the secret behind my life long singlehood - I was always in love !Ssshhhh.... "I am single!" .Oh Yeaaaa ;-)

PS to my loves:Forgive if I have missed any one of you.My cobweb of a memory is far insignificant when compared to the true love I have had for you..Rest assured that you are safe in my heart !Cheesy ??? Well,this is just between me and my love ,so please excuse....

Untouched ...
Another time ,another day, I may come forward and kiss your forehead to tell you are the one;today I am too caught up with my life ...
I wanted to stay but can't, because I got to keep moving though I dont know where it is I am going ...
I think I will remember you as one of my charming unfulfilled dreams,but today I shall bid you good bye,again ..


Dediated to the volume of Orhan Pamuk's 'My Name Is Red' acquired by me months ago and yet untouched!

Do you have a similar story to tell ?Well , I'm listening ...

River Of Thoughts
---------------------------------------
A monotonous guitar note kept playing in an infinite loop in my thoughts rendering every thought of mine with a melancholy touch. I looked up at the blue expanse overhead and let the river of thoughts flow unhindered until they would quieten down on their own, for I hoped for some peace at the end of that flood. Sunlight beat down upon my face as I sat there on the low wall surrounding the garden, eyes fixed at an invisible focus above me through the clump of tree leaves.

They tried to bring me back from the madness and kept asking me to come back inside .They seemed concerned for me, but they wouldn’t understand even if I explained. The river has to flow its course; madness is to try to control it or worse, stop it. The river has a will of its own and it’s far beyond my will over my self. The sun, I will have to bear in order to gaze the sky in its eyes.

Birds twittered around me annoyingly; I wish they would stop disturbing me for their noise was drowning the guitar strums my thoughts played on. My breathing turned to heaving as the hot air got heavy and beads of sweat rolled down my forehead. I had to be patient and wait for the tide to roll over. Then I could go back inside into the cool comforts indoors, but not before that. I even wondered what the river was trying to say-but it spoke an alien tongue. I could gather familiar words here and there if I tried hard, but they weren’t coherent.
The river just ran on insanely, spitting condemn and roaring with anger. I feared it may boil over onto the banks and singe me; I hated that I had no control over it and that I just had to watch it flow, with trepidation, from its shores. I also hated its force and its utter unwillingness to obey. If it was up to me , that river would have flown peacefully ,kissing the sands and caressing the stones in its bed and just being pretty to look at like all those rivers are in the pictures, but my private river was turbulent and vicious, crushing the stones and the shells and constantly threatening the shores with menace. It was in a bad mood today, and I was waiting for it to calm down… waiting in the sun till the river ran its course....

[ Written under the influence of 'GoodBye Blue Sky-Pink Floyd'. ]

PS: The guitar finds repeated mention in this blog, cos I prolly am addicted to its sound and can’t think of any other instrument right now. It may well be a momentary love affair, like all others in my life too.

PPS: I have developed a sudden unexplainable liking for the semi-colon!

FIGHT CLUB
Just couldn't resist drooling all over this one, once again!And this time I had to say it aloud!
Soo many kickass dialogues ! Jim Uhls rocks !
Here goes my favourite one -
Tyler Durden: Man, I see in fight club the strongest and smartest men who've ever lived. I see all this potential, and I see squandering. God damn it, an entire generation pumping gas, waiting tables; slaves with white collars. Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don't need. We're the middle children of history, man. No purpose or place. We have no Great War. No Great Depression. Our Great War's a spiritual war... our Great Depression is our lives. We've all been raised on television to believe that one day we'd all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars. But we won't. And we're slowly learning that fact. And we're very, very pissed off.
This post is labelled 'random' precisely bcos of its nature ;its just that a gigantic wave of crazy admiration hit me n swept me off my feet ..Random!! ..I knw..
http://in.youtube.com/watch?v=2QgFWXLN-ug

Letting Go...
It’s early in the morning and an overcast sky clothes the sleepy earth. Wisps of mist hang over the skin of the lake like a half-kiss tempted to touch but held back..The waters are inky grey as though reading the sky’s mind.. A chill in the air and a gust of wind as I stand on the bridge that cuts the lake’s vein. Life hasn’t woken up yet , the sun’s only just clambering out of sleep … stray early birds skimmed the skies ..Picture perfect! I couldn’t have held it back any more. I let the kiss go ..and touch.. the waters .. I am letting go …

CHILL MAADI
#^*(~_)_(%$^#%$#@

Too tired (read bored) with work and craving for some respite, I decided to take a look at the familiar, comforting page of my blog and found a tag there. So there was the outlet for all my pent up emptiness lying neatly in a list of soul searching questions. Still in the hangover, I wrote straight out of the top of my head…Thanks a ton Abhi for this tag – the effortless pressure vent!
Most questions are difficult to answer if its about you .Sometimes you can’t accept the honest answer, some other times you would rather deceive than be truthful …and sometimes...You just don’t know...Plainly, painfully...dont know...lemme see how much I know me...
I am: a dreamer
I think: a lot! Winding, never ending and not-so-pleasant thoughts.
I know: that there has to be some purpose which I am to fulfill with my life .I don’t know what yet!
I want: to know what it is that I should fulfill
I have: tons of energy and enthu; but no direction.
I wish: I never will need to wish,’If I could live my life again....’ Wanna do it right the first time!
I hate: Mediocrity...Though that seems to be the most celebrated thing now.
I miss: Childhood...When you didn’t need a reason to be happy.
I fear: failure?? NO!! I fear not having the guts to attempt what I really want.
I hear: (easy) Pink Floyd mostly these days...
I smell: not! I bath! :-P
I crave: for peace of mind.
I search: for some meaning in life
I wonder: eternally ...’what is my purpose …?’
I regret: deeply, for being too unforgiving to a childhood best mate...
I love: everything and everyone .I am soo mesmerized with this world
I ache: for freedom of expression/way of life/being me
I was not: i dont know this one
I am not: arrogant...Just too easy on myself.
I cry: when I am helpless...And I have noticed that people act kinder to you afterwards .so crying aint that bad...
I believe: in principles .They act as the anchor when life tends to stray.
I dance: from my soul...Dance is an expression of freedom
I sing: -do-
I read: so I may live .Books work like oxygen for me.
I don’t always: shut up and end the argument because I ran out of points .I just realize that we are on parallel plains and will never understand .I don’t believe in winning arguments by force .
I fight: for the causes I believe in .Unfairness is the most common foe.
I write: my heart out in my diary, so that I will always know the thoughts that I thought and the things that I did.
I win: hearts with my smile, and pals with my genuineness.
I lose: heart at obstacles, which I know is very bad...
I never: lie! Unless my life depended on it!
I always: try to look at the brighter side.
I confuse: with numbers a lot .wth.
I listen: attentively and help others unburden.
I can usually be found: with headphones plugged in.
I am scared: of not being the best that I can be in this life.
I need: to be loved and pampered, for optimum performance!!
I am happy: about the world around me; not sure about the world within...
I imagine: a life full of music and sunshine, with purpose and cheer.

Now I invite anyone who needs a respite from life to take up this tag...No formalities here okay .Help yourself and do the tag , or feel at home and leave a comment or two ;whatever you feel like ..Dont let life outsmart you .

Chill maadi !!

7th Heaven

This post is specially dedicated to the impatient gentleman(cm-chap..).Nothing less than an impatient snort could have forced me to come up with this!

My training center -The golden cage

(just in case you are wondering,the girl in the picture is not me!)

The globe multiplex--'mera globe mahaan..'

weekend respite!

Poool.. ..is just soo exquisite..

I am planning to courier this back home

ps:I hope to come back and make some less cryptic posts..if and when time permits..

The Kid Grows UP


I am joining Infy on 29th oct.
My Life-
Starting Phase 2-
...


please bless..:-)

Some pain in the A($$)RM

There’s something good about pain.. like Amitabh Bachan says in one of those ads, ‘Dard main bhi kuch baath hain’, and no, I am not driving at the point that pain is what is felt more profoundly than joy, so don’t go barking up the wrong tree. I am in pain. Oh yes !!I am !!Even as I am typing this, little needles of pain are penetrating through my flesh.. So I halt ..then continue…the pain comes back again, so I decide to type with the right hand alone.. what’s the matter with me ??I had this swelling in the left hand that had to be operated out. It will just take very few days to heal, and to think of the melodrama I threw!!

But ever since we decided to get it done ,life’s been good for me. The day before was spent by my supportive folks giving me pep talks which went something like this.

Mom : Its just a tiny li’l thing ,so there’s not gonna be much pain.. don’t worry..

To that ,I do the ‘I’m a brave gurl’ nod of my head.

Dad : Awwww ,my baby girl….

I want to console him ,but can’t and end up chewing my nails..

Grandma : Tell them, and tell them sternly that you can’t stand any pain. Ask them to give you local anaesthetic lest they forget or something…lacchuuu, its really painful without anaesthetics..

I stagger a bit ,run upstairs , pack my bags and almost abscond.

Brother : Wateva!!

My response : #$#$%

But things go remarkably smooth at the hospital. The surgeon talks on incessantly ..But I know that trick, it’s the oldest trick in the book .If you ever went to a hospital and surrendered yourself willingly to a needle prick ,all the while managing a ‘please don’t kill me, I’m not done living yet’ look, you would know too. Its their own patented style of diverting the coward patient’s attention.

The doc shows me the tiniest needle on earth, just the length of an average nail.
‘These tiny things are specially designed for people as brave as you are.’
Oh yea ,that courage runs in the family.. Once when my father was one of the bystanders while one of his sisters were getting an operation done, he was so courageous that he had to be given a B.P check and was made to lie down, and gave everyone else quite a scare.

On another occasion under a similar situation ,my cousin brother proved his courage. That time, he was asked to give some of his blood for his father’s operation. The brave son promptly obliges, follows the nurse ,and five minutes later we get news that he fainted sighting his own blood, and had to be carried away from the battle-front, I mean the ICU-front!

Courage runs in this family!

I sit there gripping my eyes shut with the right hand and every muscle in my body pulled tense, the left hand stretched out for any hell that was to follow.
So the doc asks me while slitting my skin, ’Are there really benches in companies, where people are seated when they don’t have projects to work on?’
(why don’t you go n look, anyway it’s a bad joke..)

‘No ,I don’t think so’..

And then the doc says ‘tadaaaa, thank you!!’

‘wha??’

‘its done.its over’he says clapping his hands..gawd,that was quick!!

An hour later, I am back home gorging on strawberry ice cream(izz good to forget da pain..mmm..) with dad listening to the gruesome details. He hadn’t come to the hospital saying, ’You and your mom are enough for this, its not anything big so I needn’t come.’

Oh yeaa, I know you are soo brave ,daddy..So we brave gurls, amma and me, went alone.
‘Achaa, the doc was so good that I didn’t know a thing’, I manage to say between mouthfuls as he nods his head looking on lovingly, and helping with the ice cream. Earlier , just as I had walked into the house holding my left arm with my right hand, he had burst upon me ,‘Oh my darling jelly fish daughter, look what they have done to you’.
‘Jelly wha??’ I ask mom, who just walks by smiling..

Since the whole thing had taken just around 2 hours of the morning, amma who lives by the so very boring ‘work is worship’ principle ,rings up office and is told to get to office after feeding me lunch ,by her boss(from hell).Five minutes later, the same boss woman calls back and tells mom that its okay if she can’t come to office ,just in case the 21 year old baby needs intensive maternal care. But I do the brave girl act again (twice the same morn, not any more..),and lets mom go, who returns home just as I wake up after my afternoon nap, and along comes Valyamma (mom’s elder sis..one n only..)with loads more food. I sink into the couch and start on the story –telling again, the doc this, and the needle that ,and the nurse this ,and the syringe that. All refreshments are brought to me at my outpost in front of the telly, where I watch tv some ,narrate my story some ,and eat some, and then eat some more.. Later on, at the noisy and overcrowded sitting room of my cousin’s home next door where the entire joint family(we all live close by)get together for our daily dose of cable tv ,somebody vacates their precious seat for me .Usually we occupy seats on a seniority basis, or at times when push comes to shove ,through fistfights. .In return for the hassle free acquisition of the seat, I entertain them with ‘The story of my hospital visit’ during the commercial breaks.. gory details thrown in for the really small kids.

At home , I have been awarded many a luxuries(for this tiny bandage on my arm) like:-

I am exempted from getting the phone or the door bell.

I am allowed round-the-clock tv viewing.

I don’t have to go to kitchen ,the food finds me..courtesy mommy..

I am not allowed to move even a muscle

Hmmmm… I am loving it!! For me, who stopped being the centre of all attention in this house at the tender age of three ,with the coming of my brother, all the pampering looks fit for a queen. And to throw some statistics, my parents have stroked my forehead more in the last two days than the combined count for all theses years.. that’s something..

But there are downsides too:-

I don’t know when I will be able to ride my two-wheeler again.

Because of that, I can’t go to the library .shit

I can’t go out anywhere on my own, in fact. double shit

And if I can’t go out, I can’t recharge my mobile whose validity expires tomorrow. The dilemma because the other occupants of this house are lobbyists for BSNL headed by mom who is employed with BSNL. So I can’t get help recharging my Airtel SIM. Humph!!But my airtel account will last for another week, hopefully, so no sweat.

So that’s the story of my happy outing with pain!

Pain ain’t all that painful after all huh??.*smiles the serene smile*

Crime And Punishment—Dogged by TAGS

Crime:-I tags Ankit .

Punishment:- It boomerangs!I am tagged back/in return/again/ (take your pick)!

An endless list that reads like the do's and dont's of life..

Friendly Philosopher’s Advice:Don’t read it!!Take the tag,do it yourself,and then come back,if you still feel so..

Here's the rules of this game- Without changing the first word, write a sentence that captures you/your essence... (i.e.whatever comes to your mind..)..Ok,look up those words and get going..

Accept -appreciation (and advice…lol) with grace.So many are total suckers at that.

Break- the rules,only sounds good!!

Create- your own private heaven ,for the times when you need to escape.

Decide –I wish that act was as simple as it sounds.

Explore -your own mind-space and be surprised!

Forgive -only at times when forgetting is better than losing forever.

Grow- and let grow.

Hope –keeps me alive.

Ignore -those crushes that turned sour..

Journey- to the heartlands,where the real people are..

Know -that you are special!

Love - without preconditions and pretensions.

Manage- is only an act ,the thought is in the vision!

Notice- the beauty in others..(people are snobbish enough to pretend not to notice..)

Open- the heart ,let the dreams be your wings..

Play- not with feelings..the scars take long healing..

Question- before you believe.

Relax-try saying that when I am really worked up,and the heaviest object in the near vicinity will make forceful contact with your head..lols..now,i have warned you!

Share -a laugh once in a while,its good for the nerves.

Try -new stuff ..at least to break the monotony..

Use -your creativity..it revitalizes..

Values ….are ..valuable..??lols..i pass …..

Work- for those things that matter to you..and you will be in auto-hard-work mode

X-rays-I wish that would reveal people’s real thoughts..

Yield –only to love and god

Zoom-ahead of the crowd!!

Psssss..You read the whole thing,didn’t you??*shakes head in disbelief* (children grow up and even become sane adults,but never learn to take sound advice..)

And now to pass on this tag..I take no names this time for fear of misspells and serious over-reactions!But everyone’s invited…each and every one of you..

PS:MY employer has given me THE call!!I am thrilled to bits!!

Being Tagged

My impressions on Tagging:

1. Wow!that will be a ready-made topic to blabber about. The job’s half done!!

2. Its a good idea. But who on earth would really want to know all that?

3. Isn't this thing getting repetitive..

4. Whoa .Why doesn’t anybody tag me.??

So here I am !Tagged by my good friend Krish. or do you want me to call you Aparna..

1. Pick out a scar you have, and explain how you got it.

I will tell the story of the latest one.Not a scar exactly,it’s a bite-wound on my ankle,resembling the one that Dracula leaves behind on his victims..wanna guess??...no,not a snake!!Don't give me the creeps just cos I said ‘guess’..but it was Dracula’s blood-sucking cousin and hopefully the last of that species left on earth-leech!(Location:Edakkal in Wayanad ,during the college trip last year).One tiny insect(!),the sight of which stuck to your skin can give you a cardiac arrest out of the shock.Well, it did to me..but I have already thought of a useful use for it!When my children misbehave(that is once I have children..),I will just show them the bite-wound and tell them I got it from Dracula when I was a child myself and had misbehaved!!haha..i am ingenious..

2. What does your phone look like?

Boohoo..there goes my whatchyacallit—‘I am Alexander graham bell’s grand-daughter ‘ego.my phone was the first of the polyphonic colour phone genre from Nokia..don't ask the people at Nokia , they will simply disown me..*sob,sob* it’s a Nokia-3100 .

3. What is on the walls of your bedroom?

Lots and lots of pictures of Lord Ganesha…I am a firm devotee and a bigger fan. Over the years ,we have worked out a fluid and working agreement (‘terms of service’—I behave myself and I get stuff in return)between us…so things are just rocking between the two of us..

4. What is your current desktop picture?

It’s a picture of the frontal elevation of my own recently done-up home taken from my cousin’s new Nokia n73 music edition mobile phone….see..he is the real grand son of graham bell..*sob.sob* (disclaimer:this is no ad for Nokia)

5. Do you believe in gay marriage?

Yes!Hell is for everyone!How can you rebuke their claim?…and then,why play the painful spoil-sport??(I meant the hell only..wipe off that devilish grin..)

6. What do you want more than anything right now?

Tough one

Objectively-my evening’s cup of tea

Philosophically-I want to be able to tell the answer to that question.

Truthfully speaking my mind-I want to be called up by my employer and be up and running, getting my hands dirty on all things IT! These days I feel a film of rust settling on my brains and limbs due to sheer inactivity..sigh…

7 . What time were you born?

I have no idea. I didn’t have my watch with me then..sorry!

8. Are your parents still together?

They are !!and I think they merit Param Veer Chakra awards for that feat!!

9. Last person who made you cry?

Can I pass this one?? I just can’t remember..it must have been while watching some movie..

10. What is your favourite perfume / cologne?

Denim..is soo hot!!

11. What kind of hair/eye color do you like in the opposite sex?

Hair-straight, slightly wavy, cropped short, black hair. Neatly combed.

Eye- jet black.

12. What are you listening to?

‘Ahista.. Ahista..’ from the movie of the same name..

Soulful music and soulful rendering !!and a beautiful story to go with it..

‘teri batein ..teri yaadein…kar gayi woh asar

har jaguh bas tu hi tu hai,..dekhoon mein jidhar..’

13. Do you get scared of the dark?

Not if I am inside my home .or with my folks.But out in the dark,on my own,I get a creepy feeling..like some one is watching me from behind..

14. Do you like painkillers?

Only if they are in the form of jokes..

15. Are you too shy to ask someone out?

No never!I keep asking my younger brother out and he keeps turning me down..

Otherwise ,I have never had to.

16. If you could eat anything right now, what would it be?

Hot n spicy chilly chicken from ‘Open House’.If you ever lived in tvm,you will know..if you haven’t ,it’s a real pity..

17. Who was the last person who made you mad?

My main-project team member!! She thought she could dump her share of work on me just because I worked like a dog on the project..!On the day of the final presentation ,I simply blew my fuse.!(well,if any software engg is reading this,is their a way to deal with people like that..i mean other than blowing one’s fuses??)

18. Who was the last person who made you smile?

1.My buddy from college in Mumbai ,Viji,who’s been there only weeks and is already sick missing home and friends here.Yesterday night ,when I checked my mobile just after a half hour break,there were 15 smses from her(@1 in the night)..surprised,and a bit worried for her ,I replied ..and then we chatted (d sms way..)till I dropped asleep…my friend, who never stayed awake beyond 9,stayed up till 2, sms-ing..paavam..(poor thing) !

2.My best friend,due to the long mails..

I don’t know if anybody’s even gonna bother with reading this.But it’s the first time in my life that I am being tagged,and thanks for that!This will go into my personal list of first-times..

I am passing the baton to aishu,mukesh,ankit and nocturnal poiesis.Enjoy guys!!

Good (Golden) Evening

The lone eagle traces a majestic circle in its solitary heaven .Even higher , the clouds are turning a mellow golden hue. Jarring music thumps at my ear drums. It’s the curse of living in civilization. So , I was thinking…

At the time when man decided to walk the paths of civility and socializing , my ancestors should just have left the herd and quietly walked away in the opposite direction and towards the sunset. Let the people obsessed with progress seek the sun-rise , we are contend watching the sun set over the golden sea waves , breathe the night air , and sigh to the naked stars..at least , we wouldn’t have had to give up on our silences then.

I am sure ,in such a free and open world ,we would have procreated and procreated and would have built a formidable army of our own-of poets, not soldiers! Like the solitary eagle , we should have sought only the purest gold that nature had to offer-the water , the sands , and the air..nothing more complicated than that.nothing less beautiful than that either!

Innumerable evenings have I spent watching the sky grow dark. The clouds , like dreaming feathers floating in the breeze are initially white , like balls of cotton. As the evening starts crawling towards dusk , the clouds change hue many times from white to yellow to baby-pink to gold to red to flaming crimson. At that time , the sun will have reached the sea-line , throwing furious red light on the sea waves making the sea look like molten lava , before quickly drowning itself and turning all my adorable clouds to grey. Losing myself in the show of colour and splendour ,I try to dream of my might-have-been ancestors..gazing at the sunset without a worry in the world..and no jarring music too.hell no!!

Enya-Evening Falls

I am home - I know the way.
I am home - feeling oh, so far away.

I Wish..

I only wanted to leave my mark

Upon the pages of history.

I only wanted to find that path

Upon which thousands would follow me.

I only wanted to make my friends.

Party through the night and into the day.

I only played the naughty pranks

To make friends laugh, but do no harm.

Last year ,the night before the valentines' day

I only wanted to waltz with you.

And every time that you looked at me

I only wanted to tell you that.

Sometimes I wanted to swim in the creek.

Soar and sing in the sky like a lark.

And when the wind blew on my face

I only wanted to let my hair loose and smile.

I only wanted to believe in angels

And that there was one in everyone.

Just that some people let it show

And some covered it up for no reason at all.

Sometimes I wished for the prince on the horse

Who would kiss me awake and fight for me.

Then I realized they were no more

And learned to fight my battles on my own.

Sometimes I wanted to stand in the rain

Let the water wash away all the pain.

How I wish I could laugh out aloud

And have nobody stare at me!

At times I hoped to speak my mind

Before it was too late and all was lost.

I wish I had the courage then

And not have to mourn later on.

I only wanted to reach the sky.

Touch the stars and walk on the moon.

I only want to be as free as a bird!

I only want to break my chains!

But my biggest wish of all

Is to have ten thousand more wishes!

Cos the hope and cheer in a wish

Is in itself worth a wish!

VOILA!Life Is A Song!!(Part One)

The very first lab session of my engineering studies ,anything of any practical purpose anyway, was the Data Structures lab.(DS..Data in Structured arrangement..or so I think..)and it blew my fuse ..big time!!..

In the 4 years of engg studies,the 1^st year is spent learning things you want to forget the moment you are done with the exams.So it’s the 2^nd year ,or the 3^rd semester that life begins for the engineer..and my life was to turn the IT way..and all that I knew about IT was the mallu word for it,thanx to seniors who made sure we knew..and how….’vivara saankethika vidhya’..whew!

The theory sessions came first.The (guest)lecturer for D.S was a very tiny lady,much resembling a rabbit in face and demeanour.She sang to us endlessly about ..I don’t know..I never heard a word anyway..most of our ‘teachers’ at the time were scarcely that.They were fresh B.Tech pass-outs who wanted to kill time ..We learned about lovely names like D.S,D.B.M.S,and O.O.P.S..that last one was my favourite..OOPS stood for object oriented programming,and the S just tagged along like an initial. Coming back to data structures ,now it is a wonderful subject. One of the most important bricks that were to constitute the foundation of our IT knowledge .Once the initial confusion got over and I accepted that the teaching medium was indeed English and not French (Greek or Latin)as it had appeared initially ,I realized ,one fine day, that the rabbit and my more intelligent classmates were wading through a specific type of quicksand called, algorithms .of course, I knew algorithms ..they were a method of writing down the problem at hand, breaking it up into sub-tasks until it cannot be divided up any more. at that point,all your teeny –weeny tasks can be done in one go… sort of ,you had now beaten the living daylights out of the problem ,and its no more a problem for you.I knew that’s what algos were about.. and I liked it too ,I mean, it’s a cool idea ,init ?They taught this in standard 8^th ,I think ,along with some other basics like ,BASIC itself. .my cobweb of a memory tells me ,those days basic used to mean, beginners all purpose symbolic instruction code.. or was it symbiotic now….?

So on that day of my first DS enlightenment, came my way the first problem ,with a capital p so it was a Problem. As is common knowledge ,you start learning English words with ‘A for apple’.. if its a new programming language, you start it with the ‘hello world ’ program.. much the same way ,a course in algos always start with the ’add two numbers’ problem.It struck me immediately ,algorithms start with the ‘start’ and end with the ‘stop’..but whatever went in between remained unknown.. .people around me had started writing ,and I resigned to thinking, and thought and thought ..and then, I came up with a stunner !My first algo in college..

START

ADD TWO NUMBERS

STOP

Lol!! And to think it looked perfectly sane at the time.. !!There I sat with my prize winner ..

But that was the beginning of the end of ignorance, total and complete. .the ignorance ,not the dispelling…By the time I started feeling comfortable around anything algo,we were into stacks and queues.Now stacks everyone knows…a neat stack of books arranged one on top of the other.. ha, everyone knew stacks. .so I gave my ear drums a rest!After a few weeks of theory, when we were just ripe enough to start our labs, they introduced us to the ‘internet’ lab.. where we were to do our DS labs.. Now, row upon row of silent and completely blank faces(computer monitors)is enough to scare someone on a first visit ,but being given a comp terminal all to yourself! Did they want us to handle this machine all alone? Nothing like it would just jump out of its pedestal and run away, but one never knew ..and all the comps were loaded with Linux.. not even the omnipresent Windows ,ya that really helped ..now I was a complete martian landed on pluto..life’s a song,enjoy!

The first lab question to be tackled read like this:-

‘Implement stack using arrays’

A stack of arrays ??Now if they had given a pile of books or something, I could have given that a try.. I could have done up a neat stack ..of books…but arrays.. really? Can u reread that question for me?? And my neighbour read it out to me.. no luck ,the ‘arrays’ stubbornly remained arrays. .hell!

Now, I had carried my note book to the lab, something is better than nothing, especially when you went to a lab ,..for the first time..it struck me then, the algo for this problem was done in the theory class…voila!there was an algo for this! Now, you just had to put it into formal/business like tones.. ya,just do it using the programming language..and life suddenly became a song…

All self respecting stacks in the DS world are expected to do two things,in the least..push and pop..no ,not plop..like onto the floor..its pop..The push thing went fine,you know everybody knows push..but the pop thing got me.It was something new ,and all things new were scaring me that day..pop..pop..see,pop is where the topmost thing on your stack is removed from the stack..On real stacks ,tht would have been easy…but on a DS stack…I mean,there wasn’t even a real stack..the stack was only in your imagination..and people wanted to put things in it..and whats more,they wanted to take out things they had(never)put in..talk about going nuts…

Ya so,when you do a pop,the topmost thingie has to go away..but where is ‘away’ inside the comp..the recycle bin..?or does it just jump outside of the comp itself??Noway I could have made it do that.. I mean,I just was not smart enough for that..Maybe,I could print it out..I eyed the old dot matrix printer ,probably the very first one to be acquired by the department..Cuckoos had started singing in my brain,and I forgot all shame and stammered my question to rabbit..’ma’am,when you do a pop,where does the topmost element go?’She looked confused..I explained,’like.. ma’am ,when you do a pop,where does the topmost element go?’She brightened up at that.’just delete it’.wow!of course!why didn’t I think of it before…delete…I know delete,there is even a key on the keyboard for it DEL..wow,that’s soo easy..’thank you ma’am,for dispelling this cloud of confusion that was eating me up’..that would have scared her away..so I kept my thanks to myself..and beamed at her,she beamed back,all was well..nothing to worry..cool..life was a song..

But there was something wrong with DEL,every time I hit it,the letters of my code on the screen disappeared!..Those precious words of my own precious code just evaporated from the screen..AND they were not coming back either..I frantically searched the keyboard for a clue..no,I was a gonner,those lines of code were gone..lost..for eternity..and what was this bloody DEL anyway?..Can’t even delete a silly thing off a stack..to hell with DEL..you will rot in hell..!!

Close to pulling off my hairs now,I decided to ask again..’ma’am,I don’t know how to delete the topmost…’blah blah..’just write the function and call it’…function..ah yes..I knew functions..but writing a function with just the name delete,and nothing else inside it ,and then calling it when I needed to delete,..will that work?How will delete() know what I wanted done..?mind reading??’ma’am…(me totally flustered now)but what to write inside that function??I mean where does the element go when it is deleted..?what happens then??’Now ..she gave me an even bigger smile..I guess finally she was sure I was an ignorant fool and not trying to show off with annoying questions..’just replace the element with zero and update your flag..’; enlightenment!! light!!!....at the end of the tunnel!!thank you …for that piece of wisdom..now I will rest in peace in my grave…thank you..life was a song..again..

Disclimer:

'rabbit' is a term of endearment in the writer's dictionary.