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Wednesday, December 05, 2007

Thought I'd try my hand at haiku...........

Night swallowed by light
Stars bid a dewy farewell
Rebirth of the sun.

Tuesday, November 20, 2007

A beautiful quote

"Love is the closest thing we have to magic."





Thats a line from the movie Aquamarine, but i thought the line was so profound and so true that i couldn't get it out of my head.

Sunday, November 04, 2007

ARE THEY REALLY COMING???

It's splashed all across the newspapers. Musharraf has declared emergency in Pakistan. Imran Khan is under house arrest. Bhutto says its not emergency...its martial law. India says it's Pakistan's internal affairs but that they are alert. And how does this affect me? Perhaps not much except that the T.V is gonna be stuck on CNN-IBN for a while. But somehow it has unsettled me. I guess it because this is so much closer home. I never felt this way with Afghanistan or Iraq or Darfur....they were all happening in a world far, far away. I remember when U.S invaded Iraq all I thought was this shouldn't interrupt my twelfth board exams(they were starting on the third day of the third month of the third year of the millenium...could it get any luckier). Even Burma didn't have that much of an impact. I was outraged that all these crimes against humanity were happening. But it is the same outrage that one feels when one is watching Hotel Rhwanda in the comfort of one's cosy home. You are angry in a detached way because you know that you are safe....it won't happen to you. And then you switch off the T.V and return back to your life. But this is happening right next door. A country that resembles us the most no matter how much we hate them and their cricket team. Now I am not very politically aware to comment on whether this was a right move or not but I do believe any thing that stands against freedom of speech is wrong. The U.S will as usual look the other way because Pakistan is an ally in the 'WAR AGAINST TERRORISM' and Britain will follow suit. and I think what can I do......I am just a girl....and this doesnt even affect me.....I dont even live in that country. All I can do is sympathise with the poeple who are living there right now and hope this thing blows off soon. As my brother heaves a sigh of relief that the cricket matches between India and Pakistan is not going to be affected by this, a poem by Niemöller comes to mind

When the Nazis came for the communists,
I remained silent;
I was not a communist.

When they locked up the social democrats,
I remained silent;
I was not a social democrat.

When they came for the trade unionists,
I did not speak out;
I was not a trade unionist.

When they came for the Jews,
I remained silent;
I wasn't a Jew.

When they came for me,
there was no one left to speak out

Saturday, November 03, 2007

CARMEN SAYS THE DARNEST THINGS

Carmen and I were chatting away this evening talking of things that never made sense when the topic of threesomes crept in to our conversation.
" I don't know how it can happen", she said.
NO....I wasn't going to be the one to explain to her the delicate art form of menage a trois.
" I mean what does the third person do???"
ROFL......... you just gotta love the kid.

Wednesday, October 31, 2007

ONE OF THE MOST BEAUTIFUL SONGS

Woke up this morning.....was feeling low....it was raining ...couldnt go for a walk... I look at the To-do list for today and my spirits sink lower.....so many things to do...and so little time.... switch on my comp to get cracking on it.....and then I see this song on the list...... I play it.... I smile... I am gonna dance.... :)
I Hope You Dance by Ronan Keating
I hope you never lose your sense of wonder

You get your fill to eat but always keep that hunger
May you never take one single breath for granted
God forbid love ever leave you empty handed
I hope you still feel small when you stand beside the ocean
Whenever one door closes I hope one more opens
Promise me that you'll give faith a fighting chance
and when you get the choice to sit it out or dance
I hope you dance
I hope you dance
I hope you never fear those mountains in the distance
Never settle for the path of least resistance
Living might mean taking chances but they're worth taking
Loving might be a mistake but it's worth making
Don't let some hell bent heart leave you bitter
When you come close to selling out reconsider
Give the heavens above more than just a passing glance
And when you get the choice to sit it out or dance
I hope you dance (time is a wheel in constant motion always)
I hope you dance (rolling us along)
I hope you dance (tell me who wants to look back on the years and wonder)
I hope you dance (where those years have gone)
I hope you still feel small when you stand beside the ocean
Whenever one door closes I hope one more opens
Promise me that you'll give faith a fighting chance
And when you get the choice to sit it out or dance
Dance (time is wheel in constant motion always)
I hope you dance (rolling us along)
I hope you dance (tell me who wants to look back on the years and wonder)
I hope you dance (where those years have gone)
I hope you dance
I hope your dancing
I hope your dancing
I pray your dancing
I hope you dance

BAH! HUMBUG....WAIT THAT WAS FOR CHRISTMAS WASN'T IT

It’s Halloween!!! That’s it. Just another day. Every year I think this might be the year that I might meet my first ghost (more like talk to my first ghost because I think I have seen ghosts in my relatively short life). Now if you are wondering why I would want to meet ghosts then I can’t really give you a logical explanation. I have a mole in my eye and someone once told me that those who have moles in their eyes could see ghosts. Ever since then it has been my obsession to meet a ghost and have a nice long conversation with him or her. And Halloween seems like the best time considering that the dead are supposed to roam the earth and all. However nothing remotely spooky has happened today…am I supposed to wait till midnight to see ghosts or something? I sound all cool now but when I get up in the middle of the night to go pee, if there is even a slight sound I start praying like crazy hoping its not a ghost…. I keep wondering what if I meet a ghost right now…what if there is a ghost standing right behind that curtain…what if there is ghost under my bed…would I scream or would I faint because I know I am not going to be all lady like and say “ hello there Mr. Ghost…on a midnight stroll are ya? Fancy a chat?” I am a brave person…but in the middle of the night when sleep still has its grip on me, I am rather vulnerable to the fear of ghosts…. And nobody likes uninvited guests…. so Halloween is the time I think I can invite them cordially to my home…discuss life and afterlife over a cup of hot chocolate…. and maybe I can do a Melinda and try to find out if there is any unfinished business that I could help them out with so that they could cross over… ok might be a tad bit too much…. so here I wait…another Halloween … I do hope this year is the one…yeah I know what you are thinking…. wishful thinking!

RANDOM THOUGHTS-2

I know you think that I shouldn't still love you,
Or tell you that.
But if I didn't say it,
well I'd still have felt it
where's the sense in that?
I promise I'm not trying to make your life harder
Or return to where we were
I will go down with this ship
And I won't put my hands up and surrender
There will be no white flag above my door
I'm in love and always will be
I know I left too much mess and destruction to come back again
And I caused nothing but trouble
I understand if you can't talk to me again
And if you live by the rules of "it's over"
then I'm sure that that makes sense
I will go down with this ship
And I won't put my hands up and surrender
There will be no white flag above my door
I'm in love and always will be
And when we meet
Which I'm sure we will
All that was there
Will be there still
I'll let it pass
And hold my tongue
And you will think
That I've moved on....
I will go down with this ship
And I won't put my hands up and surrender
There will be no white flag above my door
I'm in love and always will be

It's been a while since I've listened to this song.....I love this song..... I remember how
Malini and I used to go crazy everytime we heard this song. We would sing along with Dido and that meant whoever was around us would have to clasp their ears shut. But today I actually understand what the lyrics really mean. It is no longer that song that i want to sing pretending to hold a mike. Malini is no longer here with me, I am no longer 18 and all that's left is the sadness and incorrigible love of the song. Can't get this song out of my head, can't get the nostalgia out of my head and can't get the pain out of my heart for I am still standing here while everybody else has moved on. I am still standing here.....

Tuesday, October 30, 2007

CURLS' DAY OUT!!!

So I left off wishing for an adventure in my last post. Well I got just that. After I had finished with my post I left for my college and was done with one of my exams and was going in for the other two when I saw Lips’ call on my phone. That’s when it all came to me. As usual in my hurry to get to the exams I had completely forgotten that I had asked him to accompany me to Toli chowki since I had to meet this guy who owed me a lot of money. Now usually I never go asking people back for my money. I am more of the type who just hopes that it might occur to them that I might need my money back and would have the sense to return it. But then this was a different case. I was broke. I could keep praying to God (and these days the communication lines between us seem a little frayed) or do the thing other sensible people would do- confront the guy. So I did just that and he asked me to come to Toli Chowki. Now if you knew me you would know how hopeless I am at directions. I have managed to get lost umpteen number of times in a city that I grew up in. So that’s where Lips came in. I offered him a ride to his friend’s place to get his helmet back (who also happened to live in Toli Chowki) and he offered to make sure I didn’t get lost. I also had to give him the transcripts and stuff like that which I had conveniently forgotten at home. So I call him…he says he is already near my college…I blurt out “ give me one hour…I have an exam now…so just give me one hour and I’ll meet u”…now how in the world was I going to accomplish that? I had no idea…so I go in for my exam…finish my forty min paper in thirty min making sure I get atleast 18 in each paper…I look at the watch…. thirty min to go….I realize I have to take my mum home as well…I call her and let her know I was coming to pick her up……zoom away on my peppy(my purple scooty pep)…reach her office in 3 min…record time….but then comes the hard part…I can’t drive beyond 40kmph with her on the bike…..she would give me a reason to get another titanium jaw…..I reach home after a tedious slow ride….fifteen more min to go……I get the transcripts….and then I look for the form…..can’t find it…I search, furiously aware of the ticking minutes….my room looks like the KGB had gone through it…only to realize that the form was in my bag all along…..I look at the watch…7 min….. I plead with peppy to go as fast as she can, twisting and turning through oncoming trucks and buses…getting a lot of abuses in the process…. one guy screams “Ladki hoke aise chalate kya”…I have half the mind to ask him for a handbook on female driving…but I whiz past him…I reach Lips exactly in 7 min…. I feel my arm ache from all the accelerating and braking…and then we set off for his home to drop off the transcripts…. the trip is pretty uneventful…until I meet his dog…the most adorable little thing who is such a bundle of fun…I could go on and on about her but I’ll leave that for a different post…so we now leave for our destination…him guiding me and at times freaking out at my appalling disregard for my own life (and his)…we meet my friend who very dismally hands me what is mine…. and then we set off for the final task…to get his helmet back….now why would this be such a big deal….because the friend in question hates me…..not like I think he hates me….but he hates me enough to tell me that he hates me….a hatred that makes me tremble in my shoes….and I am scared that if he finds me somewhere near his place he might whack my head off my shoulders… Lips is nervous too…. we are so nervous and our last encounter with his apartment security has been rather unpleasant (they only let people in through the in gate even if the person we are meeting lives close to the out gate), so in our desperate attempt to avoid any further confrontation we go through the in gate of the wrong apartment… when we realize this we burst out laughing…. comic relief to a situation so fraught with tension…. we get to the right apartment…we register at the security with a fake name and a fake flat no( since we have no idea what the flat no was…..we only know the flat by sight ) …as lift goes toward his floor I can feel my heart my thumping…..what if I meet him now?… I shudder at the thought…. Lips walks towards the door while I sit on the stairs, legs crossed, cowering in the most lady like fashion. He gets his helmet. Mission accomplished…. but I am not out of the danger zone yet…. I pray that Murphy was a bumbling idiot who laws don’t hold good at all…we get to peppy…and make sure we go out of the out gate…I rejoice…. I made it…we make our way back home…the tension had loosened its clutch on my nerves and my heart feels light…I zip through the roads …poor Lips…. I am an inconsiderate idiot…we talk and laugh…. and suddenly we notice a car right in front of us which has suddenly decided to turn right in the middle of a flyover…..we were going straight for it….. I tug hard on the breaks…. and swerve peppy with all my strength…I didn’t think we could make it… AAAAAARRRRRGGGGGHHHHHHHH….. We miss the car by half an inch…my cardiac muscles scream in distress…. I’m sure I had had a heart attack…we decide to take it slow…I drop Lips off at his place…he never looked more relieved….I don’t think peppy is going to see much of him for a while…..with his elaborate direction, I set off for home…..and I can’t help thinking what I had posted on the blog the same morning… guess u just have put your wishes out there in the universe and it might just come true….I reach home in one piece…..I think of writing about all this …..But the excitement of the day had worn me out…so I go straight to bed…happy and content…. I did get my adventure after all. It might not be the one George would have called an adventure…but Fatty definitely would have deemed it worthy of that title

RAMBLING THOUGHTS OF AN EXAM- FREAKED MIND

It is a beautiful morning. The sky is cloudy and the temperature is just perfect. I look out of my window and see butterflies flitting around the rose bushes blooming with pink and yellow blossoms. But I am stuck inside; desperately trying to study for an exam that I know is a lost cause anyway. It is really unfair. Days like these aren’t for studying. They are for taking long walks or going out and playing a crazy game of handball or sitting by the lake looking at the ducks dipping their beaks in the water to find food. I still remember that few years ago on a day exactly like today, Malini and I both ditched our classes and took a long walk from Lifestyle to Prasad’s through Necklace road just for the heck of it. I miss doing things for no reason at all. As you grow older, actions are determined by their consequences. But when you are kid, you act to see what the consequences could be. I have sneaked out of the house when grounded as a kid just to test the limit of my parent’s patience. It didn’t take me long to find out my parents weren’t endowed with the gift of patience and tolerance. Or how when I was 10, I cycled all the way to Tarnaka just to explore new places and then got lost and had to find my way back after approaching the police for directions. It was one of my best adventures and the flogging I received after I got home was totally worth it. Somehow lately I seem to have lost that sense of adventure. The days are weary and there is just so much to do and so little time that all these small thing in life seem to pass by in a flurry that you barely get to have a whiff of the excitement they brew. The only adventure I have is to make it to college in ten minutes on highly congested roads. Yet I long for the adventure worthy of The Famous Five or The Five Find-outers. I blame Ms. Blyton for my current state of mind. So I bring to conclusion this incoherent rambling because I have get to college in exactly fifteen minutes or risk missing out on the wonderful experience of examination. Who knows…I might have an adventure today… on a day like today anything is possible…. it is just too beautiful to be wasted away….

Thursday, October 25, 2007

JUST A RANDOM THOUGHT

Wake up in the morning, stumble on my life
Can't get no love without sacrifice
If anything should happen, I guess I wish you well
A little bit of heaven, but a little bit of hell
can't get these lines out of my head.......or Mika'a voice.....i couldn't agree more with these lines.... true words from a broken, bitter heart

MY FAIRY TALE

THIS POST IS EXTREMELY GIRLIE........MACHO READERS ARE FOREWARNED
It was a cool autumn night. The party had just begun. All the men were in their full dress uniforms and the women were in their glittering best. I felt lost amongst them dressed in poofy pink silk. And across the room I saw you. A stranger from a strange land. There you were standing in your impeccable blue suit casually combing the hair off your forehead when you looked straight at me. Your sparkling blue eyes took my breath away. Your gaze never left mine and the whole world was forgotten. We made silly excuses to avoid others as we made our way towards each other. Our conversations were so inconsequential yet nothing could have been more delightful. Under the starry sky, we laughed and talked and time was completely forgotten. But midnight was close by and like Cinderella I had to rush home. We both knew our lovely time together had at last come to an end. It was time for goodbye. You hoped that someday again our paths may cross but we both knew it might never happen. I walked away, climbing one stair at a time while you stood at the foot. I could feel your gaze upon me but I didn’t look back. Then when I reached the exit, I looked back. You stood there with a melancholic look in your eyes and a wistful smile on your lips. I turned and left. We never said goodbye. Maybe we’ll meet someday again for we do owe each other a goodbye. Until then, stranger from a strange land.

Wednesday, October 03, 2007

REALITY????? FANTASY???

A few days ago, my friend and I had an argument. We argue a lot, I agree, but this argument led to me to think about meaningful stuff. He had started it by complaining that I lived too much in fantasy and that I should learn to live more in reality. He then claimed that he too used to live in fantasy but then circumstances made him take a reality check…now he finds reality more exciting (sounds cynical doesn’t he? A line that I once wrote comes to my mind."When we take flights of fantasy, reality is the gravity that brings us crashing back to the ground.") Well here is my question. How do you draw the line between reality and fantasy? How do you know that anything that you see around you is actually real? This is the question that plagues me the most, especially after my accident when I suffered from amnesia for a few hours. Those hours were terrifying. I had no clue of the day or the year it was or how old I was. I just woke up from darkness into the bright lights of the hospital and had no clue how I got there. After that I have always wondered if I had actually woken up that day. What if I am still in a coma and all this is just a figment of imagination? Sounds scary but it could be the truth. What is even scarier is that we have no clue what reality is; we just think we do. What if all our lives, the world we live in is just a figment of somebody’s imagination. Or like in Sophie’s World, we are just characters in a book, born out of a person’s imagination, our lives being directed by the strokes of a pen. But lets leave that aside. Let us assume for a minute that what we think is reality, is indeed so. Then the question I put forward still remains to be answered. How do you draw the line between reality and fantasy? My aforementioned friend believes that there is a clear distinction between reality and fantasy even though he seems to dwell a lot on the phenomenon of psychosomatics. Contradictory beliefs? Personally my motto has always been I am because I think I am. A clear case of psychosomatics, wouldn’t you agree? I am intelligent because I believe I am intelligent. I have always been lucky because deep down in my heart I believe I am lucky. I know I have the powers to make things happen because I have a strong faith in the powers I possess in spite of all the smirks and sniggers. So when what you believe, what you dream can influence your reality, then how can you demarcate between the two. Roald Dahl said, “Those who do not believe in magic shall never encounter it.” Profound words that influence my life the most. In Harry Potter books there is a line that says that muggles will go to any lengths to ignore magic even when its right under their nose. Its all about opening your mind to infinite possibilities, to not restrict your life within the confines of a reality that we are not even sure exists, to look at life through a different perspective….because life is just your perspective of things around you. And fantasy just makes reality more fun, more bearable, even at its horrific worst(as portrayed in the movie Life is beautiful). The thing that we claim is reality is analogous to plain bread and fantasy to raspberry jam. if you eat only jam you are going to get sick and if you eat only bread, well its just boring and quite unpalatable. But to enjoy it the most, you have to mix these two, to have a layer of raspberry jam sandwiched between the bread. Because we have just only life and we have to make the best of what we’ve got. And didn’t Dumbledore say ,” Of course its all in your head but what makes it any less real?” So while there are people out there eating plain bread, I am gorging on jam sandwiches.

Sunday, September 30, 2007

BLISSFUL MUSINGS

Ah! The feeling that comes when you have been completely bowled over by someone, when you begin to realize that you are, indeed, falling in love. When the presence of the object of your affection in the vicinity causes your heart rate to shoot up, make your palms go all sweaty and there is a swooping sensation in the pit of your stomach not unlike the one you get on a roller coaster ride. You begin humming tunes you would otherwise have loathed while doing the most mundane of things and suddenly develop a taste for romantic ballads. You stare out into nowhere a lot building castles in the air. You then jolt out of your reverie only to find that you have been smiling doltishly at your rather puzzled professor for the past five minutes while he has been droning on and on about analysis of short circuit symmetrical faults. Everything around you seems much more beautiful and everyone, suddenly, seem much more nicer. You even find it in your heart to forgive the silly girl (who was previously just a bitch), who has always spread nasty rumors that revolved around you and cosmetic surgery. (After all, she doesn’t have this wonderful feeling coursing through her veins like you do…no wonder she is bitter….the poor thing!) It is pure bliss, this feeling. But as always trouble always lurks around the corner. You wake up one morning and realize that the person around whom your world seems to revolve doesn’t even have an inkling of your existence. That brings to end this blissful journey and you plunge in to the misery of ‘Will he even like me……’ business. So before you make that plunge, HALT! Consider the possibilities- you might go ahead and win this person’s heart and live happily ever after(if there is such a thing) or you might end up having your heart broken and wallow in self-pity for a very long time. So don’t leave the confines of this blissful territory. Savor every moment of it. Let the warmth of this feeling wash over you., because ten years from now you are going to look upon this and cherish the memory of how you fell in love with your soul mate or if things don’t end on a happy note, you’ll smile nostalgically at the romance that almost was….

Tuesday, September 11, 2007

A LETTER TO THE BEYOND


Dearest Jumpy,
I write to you because i miss you and i feel writing is the only thing that can connect me to you. i miss holding you, i miss patting you. i miss the way you sat beside me , a look of pure content upon your cute lil' face, while i brushed you. i miss the feel of your soft fur, the way you smiled when you did something mischievous. i miss the way you used to look at me with pure contempt when i ate without sharing it with you. i miss the way you used to keep real close to my heels when i watched TV. i miss the way you used to climb into my bed to comfort me after i had received a sound beating from Amma. i miss the way you licked my tears away when i cried. i miss the way you welcomed me when i came back from school, how sat beside me and listened patiently to all my woes. i miss the way you always took my side when aju and i fought. i miss the way how you would make me run around the whole house to just give you a bath.we had lots of fun Jumpy kutty, we did. you were always there for me through the good times and the bad. i miss you. i wish somehow you could come back to me again. sometimes i return home and think that you'll be at the door to welcome me. you don't know how lonely i am without you.i need you........ i miss you........


JUMPY was my dog since i was 8. she died at the age of thirteen.

Monday, June 04, 2007

woes of a strange minority

Around the world minoritites suffer from troubles of various kinds-they maybe dying of starvation, their houses may have been bombed, lost loved ones............ the list is endless. But since i live a protected life, to me my suffering is great. I suffer from a bad dose of curly hair. Since the day i was born i have had curly hair. Now this wouldnt have been a problem was i living in the west, but in india, i belong to a minority- people with naturally curly hair. Due to the fact that i belong to this minority, i have had to face a lot of prejudice. I have never been given a part in any of the school plays because of my hair.....afterall which mythological character has curly hair. So i suffered.I was also called names like maggi (as in the two minute noodles) all my life. It was not just the prejudice that i had to deal with but awful questions too. let me give you the top 5:
1.Which beautyparlour do you perm your hair?2. Is your hair real?3. can i touch your hair?4. why do all malayalee people have curly hair?(i am the only one in my huge malayalee joint family who has curly hair)5.why do have to be so snobbish and perm your hair ? cant you be natural?
But it isnt only the questions. When i accompanied a friend to a beauty parlour, the beautician very pointedly told me that I had a very bad perm done because it looked so artificial. Ah!! the miseries i had to suffer.But having curly hair isnt that bad either. There are lots of benefits too. It proves to be a very important tool to understand Watson & Cricks model of the DNA. Also being a minority makes me stand out in a crowd. It is also a nice prop to entertain little children. And most of all it is my crowning glory. It is a part of my identity and no matter how much i crib about it, i love my hair. Now all i need is a handsome curly haired hunk for myself so that this minority doesnt end with me. Anyone?

Sunday, June 03, 2007

IGNORANCE IS BLISS???

Knowledge is power. That’s what we are taught all our lives. But what they forget to teach us is that in life we don’t always have the knowledge of what lies ahead. I, like a lot of other people, was obsessed with the knowledge of future. I wanted to know what would be the end before I even began. I wouldn’t watch a movie without knowing how it ended. The last page of a book was the first page I read. It gave me a sense of power to know what the characters of the book didn’t. This obsession took its toll on my life as well. I wouldn’t begin my day until I read the daily horoscope. I wouldn’t commit myself to any task until I knew what the outcome would be. I even hated surprises. I wanted to know about everything and anything. Then one night as I was stumbling down a dark, unlit street, I had a light bulb moment. I realized life is quite like walking in the dark. One doesn’t know what lies ahead. Each step is filled with the terror of tripping on a stone or falling into a pothole or even stepping on a snake. But there is a great thrill of surviving each step; an excitement that dilutes the terror, a sense of invincibility that makes life worth living. Now I no longer obsess about knowing everything. I let life surprise me. And the last page of the book is the last page I read.