Monday, June 18, 2007

Zendagi...Migzara, Smilingly

Life's weird. One longs for free time, but finds more bliss in work, and almost always wants to have something to do once free time plants itself in one's life. Isn't that weird? And here i am...apparently enjoying my holiday. Actually, i am. It's great to have something to do for a major part of the day, enjoy bike rides in the light drizzle, come back home to the people who are my source of entertainment and bliss, my laughs and hidden smiles, and enjoy the few hours of 'fursat'. The weirdness lies in the fact that my holiday is turning out to be much busier than my actual working days in college, but it is also, in some crazy way, more satisfying. Its like working in a true sense, for something whose outcome is definite, for something that you're going to earn, and something you've earned. Its satisfaction that one can only experience in seeing things happen the way they want it to happen. Maybe not quite, but something close to that.

And so time breezes past. Smilingly. Floatingly. Carries one with it, without letting realisation dawn upon the victim. It makes one smile for the smallest of things...laugh heartily for the silliest of things...its floaty bliss. I smile when thatha opens his father's day cards. I smile when paati sings 'kurai ondrum illai' to herself, hoping she means it. I smile when i remove my helmet to see strands of my hair strewn all over my face. I smile when i see the lights of an aeroplane from my bed, every 3 minutes. I smile when my mother calls herself a couch potato and complains about my dad not taking her out to buy groceries. I find those sessions immensely cute. I smile when my cousin calls me kutti divi. I smile when i have in my hand, hot bajjis from suriyas. I smile at paati's smile when she's holding my tea in her hand. I smile at 2 souls savouring orange kucchi ice, those smiles are definitely worth more than the 5 bucks spent on the orange kucchi ice. I smile when i deliberately switch on my parent's favourite songs. I smile at my psychic senses when i predict a power cut. I smile at my friend's craze on receiving her first captain Jack Sparrow poster. I smile at the longing i have for eggless chocolate cake that's baking in an oven thousands of miles away.

Thats alot of smiles :) This has been a different holiday. A holiday in which - i have not been stuck (read : addicted) to the computer - chatting, or watching movies, I havent had a chance to feel alone-ness or loneliness, I've had quite a perfect balance... between work and play, racing against time and floating along, realisations and non-realisations, regretting and being thankful, waiting and forgetting how it feels to be waiting, music...and silence. Maybe this is just the greener side. But hell, its greating just looking at things this way! Jab mile thodi fursat, khud se
karle mohabbat.


Yours "waiting, and forgetting how it feels to be waiting"ly
Signing off...

Tuesday, June 12, 2007

Battle field of sorts!

UPADTE 16/6/07 - Happy birthday, dear bro :) Have fun! Have a great year ahead.

Frankie had come to be an integral part of her home. They bumped into each other in the middle of the dining room, kitchen, and she almost even kicked him once. He scared her a little, but he couldn't really help that. Maybe she scared him too. He had duties to satisfy, he couldn't live without the essentials...they almost always bumped into each other when he was just about to relish his meal. And he'd always succeed in scaring her, making her run and yell. Frankie had his own gang of friends, or brothers should we say? And they believed utterly on healthy competition! Or so it would seem. So she watched, as her home transformed, each night, into something she always detested. Where can one better understand Darwin's concept of 'survival of the fittest'? He was a genius indeed!

Frankie. Blancho. Blackie. 3 names that rule the dining room of our humble abode every night. Maybe you already guessed who they are (some of you already know!). Those 3 names, i bestowed upon the regular dining-room lizards in our house! Yeah, you read absolutely right. Lizards. One of my friends asked me why I didn't hold a naming ceremony, like the one i had for my football (which by the way is ignored so totally at the moment, and he's quite snug behind the television cabinet! God know's how he rolled down to there!). I told her i figured it would be quite difficult to make crowns for lizards, and even more difficult to get them to wear the crowns! So i skipped the elaborate procedure ;-) After all, i dont think lizards are worth pasta, footballs definitely are! The names came spontaneously. Talk about the weird things we do during exams...this is definitely one of them for me! So as soon as i decided the names, i called my mother to the dining room one fated night, when 2 lizards were crouching towards their prey (the coackroaches! sheesh!). And i told her they're going to have names. She gave me the oh-my-God-not-again look, and went back to her bed. The next day when i woke up, the first lines i heard came from her...she said, "Frankie karthala gudu gudu nu tharai la odindu irundhudhu" (Frankie was running across the floor in the morning!). I laughed so hard that moment! And i asked my mother how she knew if it was frankie or blancho! And the description she gave me made me laugh even more...! It all meant that she actually paid attention to me at the casual naming ceremony, where i thought she was wondering what gets into me once in a while. Well, frankie's a shade lighter than Blancho, and is almost translucent! Blancho's bigger, darker and has a fatter tail! There goes!

I always wanted to blog about the lizards at home. They have the most annoying mannerisms! They have no fear whatsoever! They're not even scared of the humans of this house! They have this very very annoying habit of walking right across the floor exactly when one is walking, so that one has to make a significant effort to try to avoid stepping on them! YUCK! And one of them managed to brush against my toes once... :( They have stopped responding to vibrations and reverberations on the floor... which means that even my half-bharatanatyam walk, stamping my foot quite hard on the floor, doesn't make them budge! All it does is invite comments from my mother... "dance kathuka sollumbodhu kathukama ipo yedho thaiyya thakka nu aadindu iruka!" *sigh* Thus be the sad plight of the crazy one who dwells in the land of lizards and coackroaches. Thats what our home is turned into after 11pm everyday. How these creatures have such an amazing sense of time so as to torture only ME and no one else in the family is incredible. How they come out into the open only after the non-lizard-fearing section of the house retires to sleep remains on my list of eternally unanswerable questions!

We now have peacock feathers on our walls. Apparently the reptiles are scared of peacock feathers. It actually worked... thats why the regular liz's came down to 3! Looks like these 3 were the fittest that survived, and perhaps gained immunity to the feathers or something else that's beyond the understanding of my highly irritated brain! Meanwhile, the squirrel returned to our balcony and made me take off the swing for a second time... But well, Zendagi Migzara - Life goes on!

I dedicate this post to Nilesh (haha!) and Lavanya ;-) Who gave me the most entertaining evening in months! Thanks to the lizards. Of course Nil might have a different opinion altogether! I totally understand Nil!

Yours "frankie's got only half a tail now"ly
Signing off...

Tuesday, June 05, 2007

On Ammas, Paatis and mappilais ;-)

UPDATE 9/6/07 - Happy birthday Visu!!! (my cousin) And Sathya uncle! :) Hope you have a great day! And... Happy birthday, Johnny Depp :D We're still waiting for Shantaram, and pirates 4! :P


This post is a little late. But I'm glad i got down to putting it up anyway! It was my Paati's 70th birthday on the 31st of May :) And i so love her! So well, Happy birthday paati!!!! :D For the past few months...I've been realising how easy it is to make people happy, yet we hardly ever do it. Sad thing. So i'm on a 'lets make people happy' marathon, so dont be surprised if i make u smile ;-), and don't wonder why. Just be happy!

My paati is such a sweetheart, she allows me to play around. I put a party hat on her head on her birthday and made her pose for a snap :) Thats what you can see below. On another occasion, i made her wear a santa cap! Its very rare that each time you look at someone you're living with, you smile a nice, wide, happy smile. I don't recall doing it with anyone else but her. Whether she's passing by my room, or calling me for tea, or just happens to look my way from the television, there's always a smile. There are 2 smiles. Its a great feeling when I think about it now. Another thing i find immensely cute - If i keep playing a song repeatedly on the pc, she picks it up and starts humming it. The cutest on the list are Dus bahane, andan kaka kondai kaari and nila kaigirathu! Long live paati! Hope my kids get to relish her kothamalli thoagayal...and rasam! And alot of other things :)

Something that made me laugh no end a while back. I sent my mother a photo of myself and the Capt. Jack sparrow poster at satyam. She said its nice. And then i told her thats her future mapillai and told her he's the one i'm going to marry! Read for yourself, and laugh!

ramansumathi: good photo

Divs: hehe howz johnny depp?

ramansumathi: i am not bothered abt him, i saw only my daughter

Divs: oh but your daughter wants to marry him

Divs: so see your mapillai

ramansumathi: fool

Divs: hehe kaai ko tension mataji, johnny has 2 kids

ramansumathi: mad girl

ramansumathi: dont even say for fun

Divs: mom chillll... apdiye neenga kalyaman panni vechuduvel illai

Divs: ammmmaaaaaa paaaaaaaaaah u cant even take a JOKE?

ramansumathi: i know my daughter

Divs: wat abt your daughter?

ramansumathi: she wont do such silly things

Divs: hehe like wat? marry johnny depp?!

Divs: he's not available mom, he has 2 kids

ramansumathi: ok, leave that now

Divs: amma no tension!!!! pah pah i cant play also with u peacefully

WHEW! it takes quite a bit of convincing! Am not marrying him amma!

Yours "Aint she so cute with the cap?"ly
Signing off....