Dwell among the clouds

When you have too many things to post about, the post either becomes a blabberation, or becomes too long. I don't know which of the 2 this one is going to become, but i suggest you prepare yourself to face the consequences, whatever the genre ;-) Now... to Ooty, and Kerala.

When your eyes are being subjected to a feast, it feels like your mind is lost in a dream. A mid-day reverie that you don't want to snap out of. And i found that happening to me way too often in the land of mist and rain... of flowers and peaks...of never-ending greenery. Where you live among th clouds...and walk among them, and yet you cant see yourself within them, and thus find it difficult to believe so... but end up feeling it somewhere in your heart, that it becomes true, and makes you believe. Pine forests to arrest your attention, and make your eyes prisoner....In my opinion, not a single pair of eyes would mind an exile there. You just cant stop looking...The rows of softwood...like symmetry came naturally to them!The trees beckon you to them, but the slippery soils warn you of some unexpected fate you might meet if you succumb to the temptations of the pines whose trunks seem like a stairway to heaven... for the sole reason that their highest branches and tips are lost in the mist, and blend with the sky...giving you the feeling that if you manage to climb up and have a little peek, you'll be in a world far away from ours. So here finally, is the place where the land and the sky meet in total peaceful white-ness... unlike the sea and the sky that meet in rich blue, the colour of the world. Its like living in a dream.

And then there are the winds...whose main aim it would seem, is to push you off the nearest cliff, as quickly and forcefully as possible. The wind and the drops of rain get into a conspiracy to slap your cheeks, and every exposed part of your skin so hard that its like anasthesia...makes you numb with cold. And then the chill becomes painful...Like a thousand needles are piercing your skin from nowhere...and you feel white. You feel like if you try to open your mouth, your jaw might just break away from the rest of the skeletal structure and take a nice holiday... :D But, its a great feeling(only if it happens once in a while). Struggling against that wind very simply draws a similarity to life itself... And when you reach your destination against the wind, and the view from the top is breath taking, nothing else matters. And life too, follows a similar pattern...

And the tale that Ooty has to tell moves on... from deep valleys, that seem as bottomless as an abyss, to tea gardens, to flowers of paradise, to lakes and to home-made chocolate (that i regret not tasting!). But we move on... to kerala. You get so drunken with the greenery that you start seeing everything as green...ok, that maybe an exaggeration, but the place is really green...I don't really know about the cities, but the road to kerala was wow. My mother bought something called 'pazham pori' at some tea shop on the way, which was, i think, banana fried in bajji style! It was sweet...and had 'welcome to kerala' written all over it! And then there was guruvayur...with all the lamps and the elephants...the place humbles you so much. Was beautiful. Temples.... :) Nik, you live in a beautiful state.

Thanks to the trip, i had my first tryst with a fireplace ;-) was super cool... i just kept staring at the flame and lugging more wood... And looking at the reflection of the fire in someone's eyes gives you such an eerie feeling! My aunt's eyes literally looked like they were on fire... lol. And we also had this 5.5hour train journey climbing up to ooty... it was the cheapest travel we made i guess. 11 bucks a ticket for such a long journey in a cute little chuc chuc train that kept stopping and whistling and crying its chucchucs...and that is an antique piece that runs on coal! Some experience... :)

The trip cost my dad money...but cost me... some football matches that i very badly wanted to see... but well, now that am back, i can have it all :)

Yours 'Italy into the quarters' ly
Signing off....

When Jose makes your day...

Adidas just made my day... or rather, my brother just did, indirectly. I was supposed to buy something with the money he'd given me for my birthday...still remember his great piece of advice "Don't save it, please spend it, all of it!" And i did just that... spent it on something i've been considering ownership of for quite sometime :D A good pair of sneakers...SHOES! Branded. I don't know why i happened to pick adidas, but i do know now that it was the right decision! I
think it started because there's an 'upto 50% off' sale...and there's such football ambience in that place!!

I stepped in to find David Beckham staring right into my face! Woo hoo! A HUGE poster...2 actually. And rows of football jerseys and shoes and so much more... and the last shelf had... football studs! I stared at them for so long am sure the guy helping us around would have thought i was charmed or hypnotised or something! Well... it wasn't too tough to pick the shoes. Love them :D And my mom picked some t-shirt for my bro and me( and as usual, i ended up pickin my t from the men's section! Never like the ladies secn...i dont think things like this ever change!)... normal stuff. But the big surprise came later...

We were billing...and they had this stand filled with post cards... again, the 'big names' in football... Ballack, Beckham, Kaka, Raul, Riquelme...for free. GRABBED some! LOL! And the guy smiled and walked away... i was stuck in this 'slightly embarassed' state but hell, the quotient of excitement and joy exceeded that of embarassment by a huge margin! And just as we were about to leave... the guy came back, with a poster!!! A poster Goddamit! Of Jose's team! Anyone who's seen the latest 'impossible is nothing' adidas ad on tv with thefootballers would know jose's team... 36 footballers + Jose in the poster! I almost screamed! It felt GREAT! And he smiled again... and with my 'Oh damn am goin to scream' expression, i said 'thanks so much'! And once we got into the car, i DID scream!!!! Loudly... much to the annoyance of my dad who does not
approve of posters because they apparently contribute to peeling of paint from walls :D.... But hell!! We were just leaving... and i spotted the same poster that was in my bag, but a blown up version, as a hoarding outside the adidas showroom. *broad smile*

Thats it i guess... still feels great!

sandhya - You've already made me brand ambassador for odomos, mangoes and helmets.... hope you won't deny me te honour of being brand ambassador for adidas, or better, football itself!!!:D :D

Nil - put up the poster for u... :D its not too clear... but i really couldn do more at 2.00am...do see the full size! :D hope u get one too!

NOTE : I have come to realise that no matter where you go eat in chennai, the best place for south indian dosai, vadai, idli, pongal etc... is Saravanabhavan! No matter how crowded, noisy, dirty...You go there to eat, and you eat among a thousand mamaas and maamis and their kids, and spend the least time you'd spend at a restaurant, and come out happy and full...the taste of sambar still lingering on some part of your tongue :D No wonder my thatha refuses to eat out
anywhere else!

NOTICE : This blog will lack the writer's participation for the next 5 days, as she will be out of town. But please do leave your valuable comments :D Will get back to you on the 27th! Will definitely miss my blog, and your comments ;-) But i'll hopefully come back with a story! And some nice pics i'm hoping...actually, i think am goin to miss the matches more than this!! Damn...nil, u better keep me updated man! Messages free within tamilnadu :)

Yours "I so hope I was Jose"ly
Signing off...

Thumb - Letter - Trap !

The kind of ridiculous beliefs that people have can sometimes get onto your nerves, but there are times, when they can be extremely amusing. Especially if they're being discussed in a group. They're the kind that could bug you to your bones when mentioned by someone like your grandmother, but can make you laugh no end when mentioned by a peer. One such thing is what i'd very truthfully like to call -'The thumb-letter-trap'. There is a higher probablity that girls have heard about this, and have done a thorough check up of their friends' thumbs! For those guys who still dwell in the vacuoles of darkness, here's what it is.

Apparently nature has a way of letting girls know something about their future spouses ( i was thinking its spouse and spice, like mouse n mice or something!). Something that neither a crystal ball, nor the 'jakkamma jaathagam' paati who tries to cunningly get you to show her your palm in marina/besi beach... with this huge pottu on her forehead and something that looks like a chapatti rolling pin in her hand nor the josiar (astrologer) staying in some dumpy old room in a painfully far away corner of the city can tell you! That being... the letter the 'man''s name starts with! Can you beat that. Ridiculous though it may sound, it can be an essentially entertaining time pass to a group of girls who are quite bored, and are crazy enough to make each other drunken with the craziness.

The task of hunting down THE letter between the intricate lines on my left thumb was taken up by 2 friends...Quite a search it turned out to be! From previous experience, it has been discovered that the letter 'H' notoriously appears on every girl's thumb, and thus, the letter H was very conviniently ignored.(H guys, i feel sorry for u!) Any letter beside H would be THE one! After a few minutes of examination, they both came to the conclusion that the letter to which my fate was tied was 'Y'! Sad, but true! Any guys with a name starting from Y? That was the next thing to think about... difficult! After a series of words like Yamma, Yappa, Yes, Yorker, Yorkshire, Yellow, Yogibear,Yuck, Young, Yesterday, Yttrium and other very amusing words, we settled for real names...
The proper names

• YASSAR ARAFAT! (well, am not realy interested in politicians, so OUT!)
• Yuvraj ( he'll be married by the time i decide on marriage, thus, OUT.plus, am not too fond of punjabis)
• Yash (Well, that went back to yash raichand of karan johar's K3G - too old for me ;-))
• Yunis (aah pakistani bowler... am sure he's already married. Am not for breakin happy marriages!)
• Yadav (He happened to be my friend's watchman... well, NO!)
• Yogesh (Name sounds terrible, OUT!)
• Yogendran/Yoganadan (Sounds like a saamiyaar....AAAAAAH)
• Yoshimo (or some kinda crap like that which was a japanese name...Snails not my type of cuisine - reject!)
• Yeman ( i don think am for marryin lord of death n all ;-)!)

Well i guess thats it... but i think they missed one name that just struck me now - YOKOZUNA!(of wrestling fame) Lol...and i am DEFINITELY not ok with him...
Which brings us to the conclusion that there are probablities that am not ever goin to get married ;-) Unless you guys could suggest more Y names ;-)!! Pl do!

NOTE - This has been tested on married women.I personally did it... and well, its turned out right!!!!! So, BEWARE!

UPDATE18/6/06 - Dearest appa... and all the other dads in the world - HAPPY FATHER'S DAY! You're the best!

Yours 'why am i stuck with y'ly

Signing off...

Bend it Like.....

Second time lucky. I can't believe myself. There was this time i chucked David Beckham out of 'favourites' list because he left Man U... he left it for money. He resigned as 'darling' of the club and become 'just another player' at Real (which i have never considered a team. Just a bottomless money pit with a collection of freshly bought good lookin players, who go there to lose form!)...and, he had to change his jersey number from 7, because Raul, the darling of Real, was 7. Then he went out of form for a while... some scandals in his personal life...just lost any interest in him. But today... after watching 2 england matches (in which england as a team didn't play too well)... i can't not like him anymore. I think he has class.... Such accurate crosses! Strikes right on target...and ofcourse, he still looks good :D He's still the King of free kicks and side kicks, the architect of goals, and a brilliant mid-fielder. And if he has proper coordination from his fellow team mates, the strikers in particular, england can do much much better. Its hats off to david beckham, and it feels great to be crazy about with him again! :D Yaaaaaayyyyy!!!!
Dear captain, may you lead england to some good victories, and get back to Man U!
(well this does not mean england's my team for the worldcup...I'm stuck to the azzurris this time! Italy...Yaay! but I think England, a team with such good looking players, should go some decent distance towards the cup!!! ;-))

And... the guy has his wife's name tattoed on the under side of his left arm, in HINDI! beat that! Ain't that so cute? awww....here's proof.

and the commentator today had this super cute commment before he took the free kick...he said "come on david, bend it like Beckham!" Lol...

NOTE : No offence to Johnny Depp...Johnny, You'll always be on the list ;-) Just that its Beckham season now! You'll rule from july 7th! Pirate of pirates... :D

I LOVE FOOTBALL. Next to food ofcourse... :D

UPDATE 16/6/06 - Its so cool that i get to do this on this post... it being a football post, a Beckham post. This is for my Bro....Who i've watched every world cup with, screamed and jumped...cheered for italy... and the photo you see at the beginning of the post, is me in his beckham jersey... So, dear Bro - HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!!!!!!! Ofcourse i am not in a position to give you money for your gift like you did ;-) or rather, not yet! But... you'll get something i can afford!!! Have a great day... :D 3 cheers to football!!!

Yours "In love with Beck all over again"ly
Signing offfffff.............

Ironies in life 2

We take life for granted. We take our health for granted. We take Nature's mechanism of correcting flaws and being almost perfect for granted. At times there are things that wake you up from your trance of 'taking for granted' and show you the real plight that you may go through. Some sort of self realisation...some sort of enlightenment. A feeling that makes you ask yourself whether you're worth this existence... It all happened to me in a single day...

We hardly compare hospitals to indian railway stations. But you will when you see this one. Hundreds of people - with stickers holding numbers stuck to their shirts - sitting, sleeping, standing in a single room...their faces unknown to you, unknown to each other. Yet, they are bound by a single cause - survival. The love to live, to see another sunrise, to see their families extend through generations, to make the best use of their days before the ugly truth of mortality dawns upon them, to distance themselves from wasted mortality - a fate none escape. The Madras Cancer Institute. The battleground for a war between life and death, between hope and despair, between Darkness and light. Strange, how people dedicate their lives to a cause. Strange, how you visit a place for an entirely different reasons from those hundreds of unknown faces. Strange, how the phrase 'We are just a mutation or two away from a disease' can have such an impact on you...like the distance between a disease and your own self, is smaller than an angstrom in your body...just one wrong step in your DNA base pairs, and its gone. And you or me could be the 11 year old girl who walked into the lab today with blood cancer, leukemia, half her hair missing, a mask tied to her face, her parents weeping for the mercy of the Lord, not knowing what to blame this unexpectedly painful fate on. Destiny.

A few hours later, a heavy heart, ghosts of those faces flashing through my mind, the wind whistling secrets of time, vehicles tearing past, the sun fulfilling the only cause it exists for - blazing sincerely - a new feeling slapped my heart. Shaking the heaviness...like a source of turbulence. People moving towards destinations far and high, moving on with life, unaware of the 'faces' that could haunt...its so difficult to believe that there are people who don't know, don't care, about the ones fighting for life...The truth of the world. It seems so ridiculous, so impossible, for a kid to cry about the wrong flavour of chips, when someone may not know what chips means, and someone else may never taste it ever again. The unfortunate truth that you and me are a part of. Its some sort of race that is impossible to win. Its a rat race. Vehicles descending the bridge on that hot afternoon gave me the feel of that rat race. The metaphors we draw out of life could be unbelievably numerous, and sometimes, unexpectedly apt.

Further down the road...that seemed more that of life, than of traffic signals and endless traffic...a little boy skipping happily, singing some tune, walking alone, smiling. He must have had a nice day. And somewhere close by, a long haired old man, talks to himself, or to somone only his eyes have the priviledge of seeing. No smile, no song, no happiness. Just a hollowness in those eyes, a face looking so consumed. The difference...one full of life, the other, a mere existence. This brought into my head 2 words that may hold no connection to the people, but have some vague link - Alone-ness and loneliness. Often confused. One can enjoy alone-ness. One should experience it once in a while, to rejuvenate the spirit and spend time with one's own mind...But loneliness, is more often the companion. Loneliness, that can surround you like a cocoon, and with reference to this post, grow on you like a cancer...loneliness a word that differs by just one letter from loveliness, but has a world of a difference in reality.

Nothing in life is permanent, except change. I've read that a million times...And it somehow paved its way into my head a few hours later...when i watched aeroplanes fly past me, every 4 minutes, on a starless, moon-less night...just a light breeze, and the smell of hot summer in the air. We make the best of things that come our way, and we enjoy the company of a few people. They come, they go, but they are given a little space in some corner of our minds, so full of thoughts. am still waiting for the day they'll report an over-flow! Sometimes i feel like we're all used by one another in a way. Its all the need of the moment...all for a purpose. Nothing in life is purpose-less, nothing in life is insignificant. Everything in life ultimately has a place, an impact and a meaning. And thats what the words on my blog title says...

But there's something beyond people...beyond the words we utter, beyond the beauty of language, beyond mundane routine, beyond the things we do and don't do, and the reasons for that. I'd like to believe there is something beyond that. Some purpose to this existence? A reason to why we are this way...The inner person. Fake.True. Depending on situations...Locked.Open. Depending on the people. Hideous. Beautiful. Depending on the conscience. Disconnected. Involved. Depending on the state of mind. Hurt. Pacified. Depending on the reasons...reasons that are born within, dwell within, and die within...reasons, that never come out. Reasons that stay unrevealed for a reason. The irony that is called life. The irony greater than any... Irony.

Quite a long post. Vinay, dono if its the one you ordered. but if it is even close to that, the bill comes up to - a)person to comment most no.of times on the post. b)Not showing a hint of a smile or a 'feel-good' feeling. c)updating your blog with a decent post regularly!!!

Yours truly
Signing off....

On orbs and wishes and goodbyes

UPDATE BELOW

I thought i won't post so soon... but i wont be doing justice to my loyalty! Its FINALLY 9th of june!!!!!! YAAAAAAYYYY!!!! The world cup is finally here...You know, the feeling you get when you're watching a football match just doesnt happen with anything else! You're running with the players... you're cursing them for a wrong pass and wrong strike and an offside...and it goes on. This post is just to mark the beginning of this event that has been long awaited and that is going to be an international phenomenon...Can't wait!:D :D Waiting for the adrenalin rush!!!! And the JOSH!!! AAAAAAAH!!!

Now that i just finished writing about a round thing thats going to be kicked around and watched by loads of people, there's something else, that may not be equally round,but round all the same, and that may not be watched by the whole world, but has become a part of my eventless life...my new HELMET!!!
Black and shiny and says 'pretty' on both sides - ARGGH! I would like to list out the advantages of wearing a helmet:-

• You get to experience LITERALLY what people call 'whistling of the wind'. Damn the wind really WHISTLES into your ears through the small gaps!
• The noises of singara chennai are very beautifully subdued :D the honks and the curses that are better off not reaching the blessed ear :)
• You get to look all cool and give this 'how can you not wear a helmet' look to the people with bare heads on the road!
• For those of us who can never become astronauts, this is the best chance to look like one ;-) though u don't really get white helmets around the place. Black should do! Be happy with what u have!
• There's no way a crow can shit right on your head :D :D ( i realised this when i saw a shadow of a crow on wind shield of the car infront of me. The crow was flying right above my head!)
• You know a closed helmet is like some kinda enclosed entity...where if you sing, you can hear yourself! So that should help you judge your own voice ;-) and maybe you can be more careful when singing next time! Its a good sign if the helmet doesnt crack!
• The HEAT of the sweet sun never gets to your head directly! Thus, no one can say i got crazy because of the sun... so thats one reason out to 'why divya is so crazy'!
• Lastly, the boring reason people always give - its safe! ;-)

disadavantages - It ruffles your hair up and makes it look like you just got up and rushed to wherever!
Well... so thats abt the 2 'orbs' in my life :D though the former definitely has a more solid ground and is a greater influence, the latter can save my life :) HA! ok...bad one!

Next... to my cousin Visu, whoz having a jolly time in dubai - HAPPY BIRTHDAY!! Have fun drinking semiya payasam da ;-) and carrot kheer!And its so convinient that our kurtha sizes are the same da - am flicking the one we just bought you the minute u get to chennai! :D and to Sathya uncle, in kenya, enjoying the lovely rains, happy birthday to you too!

To karthik and anish - Goodbye, adios, adieu, kwaheri and whatever else! oh, tata ofcourse! Kar, have a nice time at dubai and get back soon!...and anish, good luck with the 'missions' u have in mind for B'lore! Hope it doesnt become mission impossible or something! :D

Just a ferw more hours to that first match!! Go GERMANY!!!!AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!

UPDATE - Forgot one very important thing... the king of pirates celebrates his birthday today too! Damn my cousin and uncle are so lucky to be sharing birthdays with him! To the king of high cheek bones and drunken dialogue, the captain so talented and handsome. To JOHNNY DEPP!! HAPPPYYYY BIRTHDAYYY TO YOU! Cant u treat us on your birthday with the shantaram movie?! Lol... may u act more, and blow me away each time i watch u on screen :D

Yours ' Football = euphoria'ly

Signing offff...........

Crazy Mokkais

There are times when you think there can't be any other person who could get crazier than yourself...but there are other times, when you know that it is true! Maybe i'll just let you guys decide for yourselves after reading this post which is nothing but a collection of text messages i typed out.

I dedicate this post to 3 people.
Firstly, to Vinay. There was this time when he told me "You're getting all mokkai like nil, and nil's getting all philo like you these days..." and i said " All the wrong things are rubbing on...i hope his sense of humour could rub on a bit!" This post will prove that...!
Secondly, to Nil... who has been an influence for the blessed words that came out of my mouth....actually, fingers.
Thirdly, sandhya, who has been the sole victim of those messages at the nick of time, and laughed over them, cuz we shared the same plight! But she was decent enough to refrain from sending such sms'...

There are 3...each one, for the last 3 papers i had - CBT (chemical thermodynamics and biothermodynamics - ignoramus i do agree that long name papers suck!), IMA (Instrumental methods of analysis) and Mol b (molecular biology)...

Here goes - as crazy as crazy can get.

SM1 : IMA
Wow! Am studying with such style,
my liver has no bile,
IMA is as long as river Nile,
Do you remember how to smile?
Am going to open a flunking-record file,
and its going to be a huge pile,
Oh God! Save me from this fate so vile!

SMS 2 : CBT
Hey pal,
What's your haal,
Duniya kitna hai kaal,
CBT is like bitter daal,
yeh padenge hum kitne saal,
kitna bekaraar yeh haal!

SMS 3 : Mol b (personal fave)
Life is an endless chain of xerox,
My brain cells are out of stock,
Mol b stinks like freshly removed socks,
Feels like DNA's giving me the mocks,
Episomes trying the sweet talks,
Feel like changing my door locks,
Lest the microbes come in and change the time in my clocks,
At this rate I'm getting mol-bio-pox!

Even if i want to torture you for longer, i cant...cuz that'd mean i'll have to make up more stuff like that, and it wont happen cuz my exams are done :D Some super natural force definitely saved you!
Can't stop myself from saying this... Look what my poetry's come too!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I know i'm deviating...but there's something else. You know there are not-so-good things we would have done at some point in life... but not every one of them ashames us, except maybe one or two (yes, for the shantaram readers, Didier said that!)...I promised my mom i'd cook her dinner by the time she comes back home... it was this hot-shot deal and i was so happy about it and all... and when she came back, there was nothing on the table... her daughter had just ran to pick up veggies, cuz she totally FORGOT that she had to cook... beat that? How does someone forget to make dinner? SHIT! i told my mom that there will be days when my kids are going to sleep hungry... :D

Yours "Crazy mokkais are fun"ly
Signing offffff......