Simpler Times....

As the traffic signal flashed a vivid red , the vehicles slowly came to a halt..He was sitting all alone in the passenger seat of the car..I saw his lips moving but couldn't hear what he was saying because of the glass windows ..Judging by the book in his hand I concluded that he was reading .. probably for his exams ..Amidst the thick traffic jam ,this chubby little kid was the only interesting object to gaze at ..His eyes wandered here and there unfocused but stubborn not to look at the book. I smiled to myself .. At that moment I was drifted back to my school days ...

We travelled to School by Rickshaw - My Sister and I .. I still remember the Rickshaw-man Kabali .. A very loyal and trustworthy person ...In fact I met him 2 years back .. I must say he hasn't changed one bit .. Only we have grown old.. Anyway ,those Rickshaw rides were one of the funnest part of my school life..The Rickshaw picked us up right in front of our house.. My mum would rush like a thunderstorm packing my lunch and putting on my shoes .. Funnily , she forgot to give me my School bag once.. Ha! Nearly 7 of us travelled in that tiny vehicle.. There was Vidhya who was the tallest and most likeable girl in the gang.. Her cousins Sandhya (the irritable one but still a nice girl ) and Saranya (well I don't remember much about her) ..My sister was in 6th standard I guess .. I was one of the youngest ones in the rickshaw.. At the end of each year all of us would pitch in some money to buy cakes and samosas .. Those dishes were pure bliss....

I wasn't much of a cry baby in classroom ..So I had a lot of fun...Touching a Teacher's saree was considered to be precious .. We waited eagerly for Friday afternoon for the Story telling session by our Tamil teacher .. Library was an amazing place mainly because of the big Cinema Screen .. Sometimes we watched movies or Docus...Moments like these made our day .. Life in DAV was also not bad.. My sister would come to see me during lunch breaks..Or I'd go to her class room to give snacks..In the evening , she'd meet me under the "மரத்து அடி" and we'd walk home together ... The only big worries that we had as kid was to finish a 2 page home work..

With a jerk of the car engine I came back to the present day ..I just thought about the day ahead of me.. I was going to my Sister's house to send her off to US...It seemed only yesterday as if we were walking side by side from School to Home ... No anxieties ..No responsibilities .. *sigh* Those were simpler times ....

An ode to Chennai...

I was quite surprised with myself because I haven't written a single blog entry about Chennai yet( Mind you ! I'm a HUGE Chennai fan).. As the realization dawned upon me, a cluster of thoughts clouded my mind..Squeezing them all into one post isn't very good idea.. So I've decided to do a 4-part series on Chennai .. Do I sound businesslike?? :P

To begin with ... Chennai , according to my opinion is the best city in the whole world... I know many of you out there will "strongly" disagree with me (Especially my Chennai-hating sister) but bear with me coz this post is gonna show some serious Chennai lovee....Hmm.. Anyway ..There is nothing like the feeling when you get down at Chennai-Central station to see the majestic clock tower beaming ....as if welcoming you with its arms wide open... There is so much more to the City than the cliched attributes that it is always associated with like bumpy roads, hot climate or heavy traffic.. It is very much of a "People's place" ...

Speaking of which .... one of the most interesting things that I find about Chennai is its people.. They can be reeally (That's with an extra 'e' ) nosy at times but still they are very friendly.. You see people picking up conversation with total strangers in buses and trains.. Talking about everything from Politics to personal stuff like long lost friends... On a funny note , even a 1-year old knows 2 popular words .. Guess what? Appa (Dad)? Amma (mom)? Nope ! It's Karnaniri and Yayalalitha (Read Karunanidhi and Jayalalitha).. :D I'm not sure whether some of them even know the name of the Prime Minister but they are very much into regional politics....

Popularly known as the 'Land of Idlis and Dosas' , Chennai or rather the whole of Tamil Nadu is famous for these two dishes.. As I type this very sentence mouth watering images of Saravana Bhavan's "14 idlis" and Rathna Cafe's "Bucket Sambhar" come to my mind. aaaahhhh.... Okay .. It's time for me to eat (Can hear my stomach grumbling )...




But stay tuned for the rest !

Little Miss.Longtail ...

Yeah... If you guessed it right, that is a picture of a lizard egg. You can go all "Awww..." or "ewww..." about it. Well, I think a lizard is cute when it is small..Slimy.. I know.. but still cute.. I'm sure my sister wouldn't quite agree with me...

Mommy Mrs Longtail became the dinner of Ms Pussy a couple of days back.. So I guess this one is left to explore the world all by herself ... Well, made up a spicy little story , didn't I? Anyway , let me introduce to the world .......Little Miss Longtaillllll.........................

Technology and Parents!?! Oxymoronic??

One of the creepiest things I've ever seen is not the famous spider-walk scene in "The Exorcist" or Lady Gaga's meat dress or Marlyn Manson (DISCLAIMER :For people who know neither of these things ...well, google them at your own risk!).But it is the image of my mom using Orkut or rather... having anything to do with Technology...

As the word "Dad" usually conjures an image of a serene figure reading newspaper , it is quite hard to digest the fact that he "google-s" and is in Facebook..Topping all that my mum uses SMS Slang... I got a text from her saying "Whn r u comin hme? Hve kept fud 4 u" and for a moment it was difficult for me to comprehend it (I'm sorry I'm quite lagging behind times)...I was not sure whether to be proud of the fact that my mum is so techie or that I'm the 90 year old in the house...

Sometimes it causes more hindrance than any good coz now there's competition for my computer.The funny thing is the other day my dad bought a pen drive for my mum ..She filled the entire thing and not wants an external hard-drive !!!LOL

Anyway on the flip side now they don't need my assistance to assemble the computer or any other device..They are on their own........

Bottom Line : Kalam kettu pochu pa.......Try to live with it........

Feeling too small?

One of the most frequent questions that I get asked is "Why are you so short?" Oh yeah I get it atleast 5 times a day and sometimes from the same person. I got used to being the butt of height-related jokes. I am not gonna lie .. I've felt really bad sometimes and felt really small(literally) but I can't change the way I look.. I'm 5.1 and proud of it.

Just a sample conversation :

Person 1: You know you're short!
Me: Well Yeah..
Person 1: Why?
Me: (*Oh god not again*) umm... I dunno.. Could be genetic...
Person 1: You can drink Complan or try skipping.
Me: (*Like I haven't tried all those , you idiot*) Hmmm okay..


I know many of you out there have endured awkward conversations like this. It is often a stigma that short people are considered ugly .Let me tell you this...in a world where people have tails , the non-tail-ed people are considered to be weird . Likewise in a world of short people the tall ones are considered weird. I'm probably the shortest person in my class and my close friend is nearly 6 feet tall. I hang out with her all the time and people laugh at us. But I don't care what they say.. Only insecure people tend to mock others as a way of hiding their defects. Some sort of defense mechanism I guess...

Some of you may feel I'm making a big deal out of this issue but it is a big deal to some people. I have heard horrible stories about people popping growth-pills and meeting with really bad side effects.To those people all I can say is :" Get a grip" . You can achieve as much as or in fact more than others. Your height doesn't breed your self esteem. There are so many people who have reached great heights in spite of their "heights".. To name a few : Al Pacino , Mahatma Gandhi, Maradona , Yuri Garin ......


So , to sum up ...never ever mock your friends because of their height.Learn to respect them for what they are..As the saying goes , "Moorthi sirisu aanalum Keerthi Perisu" .

The Myth

I've heard these dialogues in films like , "Meterkku mela kasu podu ma".. But in reality has this meter ever worked?Some say it's actually worked at one period of time and some say it hasn't.. But the truth is I've never seen an Auto-meter working in my memory...Namma chennai vazhi thani vazhi!

Curious....

I've always had a fascination for Mount Road...Like Phoebe in the sitcom "Friends" I like things which have a unique history behind them... Having travelled through the Mount Road a gazillion times this shop never failed to catch my attention.. And I really hope I go in there once..