Flashb(l)ack syndrome

I call it “Flashb(l)ack syndrome” … The only person to have experienced this phenomena apart from me is my sister .. Alright here it is.. Whenever my mum/dad or anyone tells a story that happened before 1980 , I can only visualize them in black and white .. The maximum I can do is with dull coloured lighting .. May be that is why I imagine my maternal grandparents as “monochromatic” people (oh no.. not in that way :p)..

So..I’m curious.. Is it just me or have you felt the same too???

Losing battles with New Year Resolutions...

*Clears the dust off the blog*

Yep.. It's been a long time since I've posted .. Lately most of the posts that I write don't make it to the "Publish" button.. This is one of those lucky ones that made it .. :)

Anyway , it is New Year's Eve which means it is ......"DEAR DIARY time" .. Today I picked up my Diary and my glitter pens (That's for colour coding if you must know ) .. But then I noticed the strangest thing ..The diary was only half the size it used to be.. wait.. before you want to know the reason , let me tell you something about me and new year resolutions .. Every year I make one big resolution and many tiny resolutions.. The big resolution is always the same .. That is to stop biting my nails ..But I break my resolution faster than Kim Kardashian filing for divorce .. yep ..Over the years I've come up with a number of strategies to make it work...Last year I set the record for bite-free nails for 2 weeks ! So this year I bought a couple of nail polish so that I don't have the heart to "bite" the pretty colours.. I guess I was hoodwinked by the lighting of the shop that I bought the ugliest colours for a nail polish : pale green and Ujala blue ..

I called them "funky" colours .. Uh ..little did I know that my nails would look like they are growing algae .. For the first two hours after putting them on I didn't want to look at my fingers at all... But I didn't want to remove them either .. So I was having this little battle in my mind... But guess what ? MISSION ACCOMPLISHED ! I didn't want to take my fingers any where near my mouth ...... So where was I ? the diary.. yeah .. I always write my resolutions neatly in a diary .. Halfway or even quarter way through the year if I don't abide by them ,I tear the paper and write new ones.. That is the story of my shrunken diary ..

Here's the moral of the story .. Only if you are planning on strictly following your resolutions write them in a diary .. If not they only remind you of how crappy you were the last year .. So raise your glasses , ( in case of chennaiites filter kapis ) to a wonderful year ahead.. Hope you all succeed in all your endeavours ...


P.S: Once I made a resolution to stop drinking aerated drinks .. In fact I didn't take a drop until last year ... So there's the silver lining that I've been looking for... ;)

Head to Foot...

I bought this really cute (and weird) pair of hairpins yesterday ... Seriously , I'm not going to wear them but my mum was going all "awwwwww... you can wear it with your maroon dress"... Ha! I was just checking out the stalls for some earrings when the 'slippers' caught my eye ..It took me some time to comprehend what it was.. I mean I have never seen a baby with a foot that tiny...

Where do I begin?

See the ipod charge level in the picture? It's half empty ... That's because I played the "Love Story (1970)" theme again and again and again .....and .. again ..Probably over 50 times .. So at one point even after switching off my ipod , I could still hear the song playing in my head..I was quite confused .. was it the ipod ? or my head? .. Anyway ..You know , we all have that one song which makes us feel as though they are composed specially to put us to sleep ...I have a bunch of such "night" songs which transports me to a whole new world ...

1.)"Where do I begin?"- Love Story (1970)

2.)“Speaky Softly Love “ Andy Williams

3.)“I dreamed a dream” - Les Miserables

4.)“Girl” - The Beatles

5.)“Top of the World”- The Carpenters

6.)“Endless Love” - Lionel Richie and Diana Ross

7.)"Greensleeves”

8.)“Ennulle Enulle” - Ilayaraja

9.)“Everybody loves somebody “- Frank Sinatra

10.)“Thoda Thoda “ - A.R.Rehman( Indira)

11.)“Imagine” - John Lennon

The funny thing is that I came to know some of these songs through "Friends" tv show.. Remember Phoebe and Chandler singing "Endless Love"? and "Everybody loves somebody" in the vegas episode .... the male nanny playing "Greensleeves" on his flute?

So what's your song?

When ink & paper came to life...

"He sat back in his chair, slightly ashamed of himself, and
laid down the pen. The next moment he started violently. There
was a knocking at the door."

The ThoughtPolice already !All my pledges to stop biting my nails vaporized within a matter of milliseconds .. I reached for the doorknob even before Winston Smith and ... *trsssssssssssssk* Page 19 was in my right hand :O The force with which I pulled the doorknob , or lack of thereof , perhaps tore that page ...

Whatever..., it wasn't the ThoughtPolice after all. It was just his neighbour .
.This is probably the first time that I felt connected to a character with a mere 19- page acquaintance .. When I read "Heidi" , I did tag 'along' with her to The Alps while 'Lord of the Flies' left me stranded 'along' with the children in the Island .. However , this time I actually put myself in the character's position. I'm sure everyone has a book which sends shivers down their spines. Interestingly , those are not Horror stories.They are rather ghastly "what-if" representations of everyday things.. If only the world was as bad as it had been in '1984' life would be an unsuccessful swim in a swamp ..phew!


P.S: I just half way through the book but I couldn't wait to write a teeny tiny blog on it .. :):)

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 !