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 !

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..

I'm broke and I'm Happy about it

I'm just like any other person .. I don't like my purse empty..Oh no I'm not stingy ...Anyway let's not get into that debate...

My day started off like this...Got up quite early by my standards and just imagine, I had to catch three buses to reach my computer class...Having waited in the bus stop for nearly an hour I really lost my cool...So just caught some bus and got down halfway...To my misfortune the bus was a deluxe one ...So that means loosening my purse strings...grrrr...Again waiting, waiting , waiting.....for the share auto...Predictably no share auto ....It was already 9:00 and I knew my class would've started....So cursing everything from MTC buses to Java language , I had to spend 40 rs for an auto to reach my class...Another anit-climax...The class was to start at 9:30..
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Now after the return journey I was left with only 30 bucks..As soon as I got off the bus , I saw this elaneer (tender coconut) shop...So spent 20 rs to buy one... Just when I was enjoying every drop of my elaneer , this old lady near me fainted ..well sort of .. She lost her balance and fell down...She looked really old and withered .. The only few paisas that she had were scattered here and there....I helped her get to her feet...Then she said with this miserable tone "பழம் சாப்டனும்நு ரூபா கொண்டு வந்தேன் மா "... I'd never seen anything so pitiful... asked her if she needed any money but she was so hesitant..Still , I opened my purse to see just one 10 rupee note tightly squeezed in between the leather... She had 5 rupees and I had 10 .. So I bought her an elaneer..I left the shop immediately.. I didn't stay to see the relief in her face but I knew that I'had made someone happy..

Even though it was just 10 bucks , I felt really happy... My crappy day seemed to have atleast one wonderful moment...You know that moment is just priceless....The joy of giving ... Once you've tasted that fruit you'll never want to let go of it...


I walked home with an empty purse.. I was broke and completely happy about it....

Mr and Mrs Spiderman?

I'm not curious about who chand and sultana are nor am i gonna grumble about graffiti in tourists' attraction.. but one thing about this photo made me think seriously.. How did these people manage to write on the ceiling of this height? I guess Chand and Sultana are Mr and Mrs spiderman!?!

Officially a senior!!! Hurray!

!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
I just got my results today ... Oh no don't ask my grades .....The point is, I'm officially a SENIOR!! It's been a memorable year for me .. I'm just gonna summarize this year in this post (which is of course a very hard thing for me to do considering I have to restrain myself from using excessive alsos , anyways and buts)..Okay here I go...

My college started on the 11th of September... Now that's one date easy to remember..My dad accompanied me to the induction programme .. Usually people get anxious about getting accustomed to the new people and college environment.. But there I was dreading to travel in college bus .. I have this motion sickness thing ... But miraculously now I enjoy my bus rides to the fullest.. In my first day bus journey I met this friend who remains to be one of my close friends till date...Hmmm..Anyway , my entire family came to my bus stop ..*Cheesy Mommy-Daddy-Sissy sentiment song*.. Speaking of my first impression of the college , it was a mini-DAV.. I dunno if it was because most of my friends were in the same group of colleges as mine or because the chief guest panel were as boring as the ones that come to my school independence day functions...


So that's it... nothing much about the first day..And then comes the second day.. It was really fine.. More than anything I was so happy about the fact that there 'are' people shorter than me in my college.. That cheered me up.. I was all this over-dressed kid in the college.. (and I still am ).. I hate to say this but during my 1st semester , in the words of Severes Snape I was an Insufferable Know-it-all... .. Okay okay enough about me .. My teachers .. They were a bit of an anti-climax.. Having grown up listening to my sister's snooty-old- professor stories I was really taken aback to see that almost all my teachers were very young ...In fact they were more or less my sister's age...

Now I must definitely say this .. College life is diametrically opposite to school life... For once it was good to enjoy the freedom ... And meeting different kinds of people was altogether a very very different experience..I've never seen these many kinds of people , all under a single roof....At first my friends said that I was a really shy , reserved and calm girl and a bit of a pazham.. Some even insisted me to be a little more open and social.. But I think they regret it coz I've turned into a fully grown chatterbox...Anyway apart from having fun with all my friends I also had some bitter moments... I understood this philosophy that people are not always what they seem to be..For one thing the person whom I believed to be a good friend betrayed me ...It hit me very hard ....*sigh*

Really , sharing lunch , nicknames for teachers , treats for silly stuffs, little fights , hi-fi outings with a very low budget (I will never forget my Skywalk trip with my friends....We were broke .. Just had money enough just to buy cool drinks...but it was fun), the long wait for results and so on...I've had my share of a very good start...All in all my first year was like a tamil masala movie..

When in Rome, do as the Romans do…

The other day I read an article : “Indian,anyone” in The Hindu magazine about Indian dresses becoming more like a costume… How true … One hardly sees youngsters wearing a dhoti or other traditional wear.. I agree, clothes are more about comfort than anything else..But I don’t think people try to squeeze themselves in uber tight jeans for comfort…

Everyone’s trying to fit into the so called “modern ” era by wearing western clothes… Rather than doing that let’s be modern in our thinking and ways…While India always boasts of having a unique culture, here we are trying to copy some westerners and gradually losing our identity in the process…

Okay I do wear western clothes but I don’t ignore our traditional dresses nor do I smirk at those wearing a Salwar or saree.., I’ve seen many people doing the latter..People wearing traditional Indian clothes are branded snobs, ‘pazham’(you what this is of you are a tamil), etc…, Believe it or not this is the gritty truth..

Anyway, the point is next time you go to a party or a function trying wearing Indian clothes.. They’re cool too, you know….

Language – Just a medium

To begin with I love Chetan Bhagat’s novels and enjoy them so much..I think he is a great author.. But my sis doesn’t think so..This often is a topic of debate between us… Unlike my sis, for me language is just a medium for conveying your thoughts and it needn’t be all bombastic. One can convey great things with just simple words..Although it may not be what you call “Literature” material , at least it just indulges people into the pleasure of reading. For instance, I wasn’t a avid book reader or anything until I read Harry Potter. I was one of those people who branded books only for nerds.

It was HP which made me realise that pleasure of reading. I dunno why people don’t understand that books aren’t only about posh words and stuffs.. Take for instance my high school english teacher.. She always said “Books like Harry Potter will just fade into oblivion.. It won’t be a classic”.. Everytime she says that I feel like , “Okay.. What is not there in HP? It’s got a wonderful plot, characterization, allusions, symbolisms and all kinds of stuffs blah blah blah blah”..

One may think I’m obsessed with ‘light’ novels.. Well here comes the reason… I read “God of small things” with a hope that these booker novels will be wonderful..But the book left me in a state of complete nausea and I kinda started hating the person who gave it to me.. (I’m not generalizing)

So, why don’t you give these not-so-much-of-a-literature books a try rather than criticizing even before reading them..

That unfinished drink…

Whenever I see someone shooing off a beggar or insult them I get really furious …But I for one never ever thought I’d do something like that…. In my defence it was a really tiring day and I was in a tetchy mood.. I was coming back from my maths tuition feeling rrrreallly thirsty…But I didn’t have a single penny to my account..With borrowed money (from the person whom I never expected to help me) I bought a Fanta … I enjoyed the drink inspite of the dingy shop I was in… Nothing was worth noticing there except for a pair of ancient biscuit tins… But something (someone) caught my eyes…She was a small girl (visibly not well fed) barely six or seven years…She had a ragged appearance but it wasn’t that which intrigued me… It was that longing look she gave me… or rather at my Fanta…I duuno why but something prevented my giving it to her… Instead I moved away from her sight… I didn’t want those eyes staring at me while I was finishing my drink…But then the realization of what a cheap thing I’d done didn’t let me drink any further… Ashamed at myself I kept it on the counter…That unfinished drink…

Lord of the Flies

It’s been a long time since i read a “good” book…I’m always a victim of crappy “Booker” novels or long boring books in the name of “Classics”…(All right.. I know some bookworms out there are smirking at me)….Anyway recently I finished reading Lord of the Flies by William Golding…woa.. Now that’s what I call a classic….It’s a common phenomenon that people are left depressed after reading this book.. Although the same thing happened to me , it left a huge mark on me…

“Ralph wept for the end of innocence, the darkness of man’s heart, and the fall through the air of the true, wise friend called Piggy.”
That single line gave me a sleepless night…Have you ever wished for a chance to remain like Peter Pan ? or atleast a chance to grow up again? I’m sure you will feel it after reading this book…The protagonist Ralph’s transition from a confident child leader to a crumbling man was the highlight of the book….. The novel subtly brought out the ironic fact that Man forms rules and regulations in the name of a “Civilization” only to end up being miserably wrong..

Anyway I have a lot more to say about this book but right now I’m studying for my class test(duh!) …so bye for now..

P.S: For people who've had the misfortune of reading this blog, please bear with me for using excessive quotes and anyways… This is my first post…

Hello world!

At last it feels like I’m in 21st century ….