Springs, fountains and horses.

I am not desperate for a marriage. Not even close. But I wish there was someone to who I could sing "un paarvaiyil or aayiram... " and actually mean the words. I wish there was someone who would write Song of Mr.Perfect over me. Yeah, like the Song of Solomon, but a bit less explicit, perhaps.
Oh I wish there was a wishing well so I could wish all these wishes. *Dear Lord! Did i just write THAT?*

Come on, I am 23, and single, and looking. But maybe I am only allowed to be 23 and single. Maybe the looking part is not meant for me to do. And maybe I should shut up about the whole thing. I mean, my best friends are still single. (That could mean my friends are losers like me, but I shall stick to the point). But they don't go to such desperate depths of blowing their noses on a blogpost about their singletude.

Yeah, so what if most of my college juniors are committed, or the people I've mentally noted as "will never find a guy in this lifetime" are hanging out with Rob Pattinson look alikes? I don't care. Maybe like Chit often tells me, I am a spring shut up.. a fountain sealed. God knows my address and my phone number and if He wants to hear me sing love songs to someone, He himself will send to me the you of Lay my love on you. If God had badly wanted to see my relationship status on Facebook as 'in a relationship', He'd have got me a job with some matrimonial site's web development team, not with this morbid office where I don't like anyone. (The converse of which also holds perfectly true)

So, someday when the prince is supposed to come on his snow white horse, he will. And till then, I am going to shut my mouth, and hold my horses... and maybe not listen to MWS.

Frivolously yours,

Frivolously yours, is going to be a section where I shall ramble shortly about random, stupid thoughts that vroom across the various lobes of my brain which, in real life, none of my friends would care to listen.  Wow! That is probably the longest sentence I have written in 23 years! My writing skills are picking up!!

- Borrowed from Jim, from The Office, and mean every word of it : Because right now, this is a job. If I advance any higher, this would be my career. And if this were my career, I'd have to throw myself in front of a train. 

- I really wish I would learn not to hate work this much. Really.

- Man, this haircut! With the hair in front falling over my eyes, dang, I feel like Hugh Grant!

You name it.

South Indian last names suck. Firstly because there is no concept of last names. Secondly, well, I can't think of anything. So drop that. So what we (huh!) modern South Indians do is use the husband / dad's second given name as our surname (though it sounds like a perfect first name).

I have always been scared of marrying someone with a horrible second given name which would ruin it all for me. Imagine! Mrs. Sharon Selladurai... Mrs. Sharon Jeyasekaran... Ew!

Is there some way I can keep this nightmare from coming to pass? Absolutely! There's this guy at my workplace, karthikeyan. And guess how he tells people to call him? No, not Karthik. Not even Karthi. It is 'Ke-yaan'. Yeah, the same way you would say K'Naan's name. Well, if Karthikeyan could change his horrible name to something as cool as that, Bring it on, folks!!

So what if I marry Thomas Arockiaraj?
This could well be a sentence I would hear often :
                                       Oh Hello there,  Mrs. Ockiar.

Or if it is one Sanjeev Duraisingh?
My son's teacher might just call out 'Leo Ben-Aising'.

Whoa! With such swell last names, I could even tell people my husband's great grandfather was on Schindler's list!

Way to go, self.. Way to go!

P.S : Do you think I am shallow? Then, either you have a cool last name already or you have such bad taste.

Singletude Sorrows

Chit is 44 (And trust me, She hardly looks half her 44 years). I am 23. We both can make a cover version of 'Y-O-U-N-G, F-R-Double E and and and single'. The one big difference between Chit and me is that she is the happiest single woman I have met in life, while I probably am the most griping single woman ever.

Chit never longs for Prince Charming to come galloping on a pink unicorn nor does she listen to Crying over you on repeat. When I ask her how she manages a balanced, non-whining single life, she says it's grace. Oh, no, no way. Chit doesn't Jesus juke. Ever. She has an awesome relationship with God and is almost half as sarcastically humorous as He. So that's absolutely no juke and she fully means it to be true and real.

I on the other hand, kick and scream and complain and sulk about my singletude. (Somebody appreciate my word building skills). I am tired of being single. I tell myself it is time I made the transition from Stuck on you to Gone on my playlist and perhaps choke on some apple and wait to hear horse hooves.

Or should I wait for an old lost love? Everytime I bring up Bruce in a conversation, BeyondMadness quotes Prov 26 : 11 - As a dog returns to its vomit, so a fool repeats his folly.  Maybe she is right, as always. Maybe in the process of clinging to the 'True love perseveres' principle, I am actually returning to vomit (Margin Notes: I pray I never have to write that inside **... EW!). Bruce is under the spell of the wicked witch of the north, and will probably take forever and a day to come back to right senses and me.

In other news, my parents and many relatives I had no idea existed before have concluded that I am of 'marriageable age' now. And that I need to marry ASAP and produce kids before I am 27 or my kids will all have Down's Syndrome! I mean, What on Earth!!

I don't want to marry now, people!! I want to be in love, not marriage! I don't wear eternity on my sleeve and so like all my sane friends advise, guess I need to leave the life and times of Bruce behind and live my own. But, live my own how? I can't seem to find anyone I could 'grow old with'! All those boat loads of love songs there and not a guy to sing one to me? All the people out there whose relationship status is committed and mine is still single? My Pa recharges my phone credit like once or twice a month... All my friends who have boyfriends get theirs recharged once every week... by their guys!

Maybe God hasn't given me the grace to pull through this singletude phase like He gave Chit? Well, God, if so... can you send a guy instead of grace?

P.S. :  Yet not my will, but Thine.

Gentleness... evident, et al.

 If you care to know how irate and fussy I can get, join me when I commute to work by bus. I hate myself when I'm on a crowding bus. I hate everyone around me - the fat lady, the sweaty guy, the beardy old man, the wailing kid. Aaargh! I throw nasty looks at them when someone steps on my foot. I fix my face in an angry-irritated-ugly cast and constantly clench my teeth. I just hate all these people. Just hate them. Won't all these jerks be wiped away from the planet!!
 I was reading Philippians chapter four the other day. I like Paul a lot. Yeah, Paul of the hanky-apron-healing fame... My love for Paul didn't come through years of memory verse reciting in Sunday school. It was much like a tamil movie plot before the interval.  (In case you are dying of curiosity, this is how I came to love Paul )
 Am I digressing? Okay. So I was reading Philippians 4 and this one verse stared me on my face.
    Let your gentleness be evident to all... Phil 4:5

Does that mean I need to be nice and kind and smile-y to the dirty bloke who smells like a 100 tasmac shops? and to the lady who is lavishly sitting on her seat plus 3/4ths of mine?

Maybe Paul, and God, really mean the "evident to all" gentleness business... but maybe there are some reservations.. Maybe on crowding buses, maybe.

For Grampa

I am the kind of person who wouldn't cry at funerals. Or so I thought till grandpa died. Today is the tenth day without thatha at home. The house seems smaller without him. I miss his jokes, his songs and lots of other things. And I think I will miss them forever.
It's not like the 'man, will miss all this' that you tell yourself  standing in the college bathroom on your last day there. You wouldn't really miss it. Even if you did, you can always take a couple of days off of work, go visit your alma mater and use that toilet. But I suppose, when you miss a dead grandpa, you really miss him.You will miss his jokes, his songs and lots of other things. And I think you will miss them forever.

Guess he is up there in Heaven now... probably reading this blog post along with St. Paul or perhaps Job. Or maybe even Solomon, if he made it to heaven that is.

So, well, there's only one thing I can say sitting here in your room, thatha-
     R.I.P... Miss you.

Switch My Foot!

One of my favorite Switchfoot songs is 'Faust, Midas and myself'. I have caught myself singing the lines "what direction, what direction, What direction now?" from that song like 200 times. (Trust me on the stats). That is an awesome band - Switchfoot. Wiki says that Jon Foreman took the term 'switchfoot' for the band from surfing to mean change and movement in life and music.

Well, change and movement are exactly the very things I want in life right now. Only a post earlier I was griping about how i wanted to do something passionately with all my heart. I am almost 97% set to switch careers. And have tried my parents to get to 20%. But what the switching career will be, I have no idea. My parents aren't happy (at all) with my wanting to work with less privileged people, leaving my "IT job". They think teaching engineering students will be a much worthy profession. But, O my soul, that's not where you lie... Sigh.

I don't know what two months after today is going to be. Que sera sera? Or should I gather the guts to learn to surf. and switch-foot.

Whilst I plunge into confused waters again, watch Switchfoot performing Faust, midas and myself with Spanish subtitles.. (This is the best live I could find on youtube)

A beautiful mind... who cares!

I watched the movie, A Beautiful Mind when I was in college and a 100 movies later, it still is easily on my five most favorites. I loved everything about it - The plot, cast, the direction, just everything. I badly wanted to be John Nash. I even pretended to be John Nash. Googled all possible anxiety disorders, and hoped I would show symptoms of atleast one. Almost all geniuses are weirdos, aren't they? And so I badly wanted some autism symptom - Maybe I could be a genius. Maybe I could be in Princeton.

 Actually, I didn't want to be in Princeton so i could write dissertations that would "fly in the face of a 150 years of economic theory". Nah. I just.. wanted to be there. Maybe so I could add 'Princeton University' in my Facebook profile's schools column, i guess.

Where am I going? This is not what I intended to ramble about.
So, I saw the movie again a week back. And it sank in - I am not John Nash. Let's face it. I am not even male! and for the first time, all my thoughts were about Alicia, the wife.
[For all you smartypants who checked wiki for John and Alicia's personal lives - I'm only writing about how the MOVIE affected me, Get it?]
 Okay, now, anyone can bet their, umm, assets that Alicia should have been a real intelligent girl to take up courses at MIT. And she probably had huge dreams, goals and all those terms they use in personality development lectures. I mean, I have dreams. An average, small town, can't solve linear equations for nuts girl... and I have dreams of coming up with some quantum physics theory that will beat Hawking's by a margin of 14 pages. (Interesting trivia:  Fourteen is my favorite number).

That being said, the question is : What happened to all those dreams after marriage? She takes care of her husband, changes her baby's diapers, cooks, cleans and works in someplace that will give her enough time for the other tasks above? You marry, put aside all your fantasies and work for the welfare of the family? And the two shall become one implies that the wife no longer has a self and lives her husband's dream? Is that it?

I don't know why I let a movie get so much into my head. I usually only let cartoon shows go that far.

I don't like Nash's beautiful mind anymore. I don't care about Princeton. I don't know why I didn't just sit back and enjoy the movie. I don't know why I was / am thinking about the fictional life of some lady I will never meet in life. I don't know why I am writing this post.

                           Bottom line, literally : I am getting old.

P.S : I am really sorry you had to read this post.

As much as we...

I remember reading a tweet by Joel Houston sometime back. "i hope people enjoy listening to this album as much as we're enjoying the process of making it..." (http://twitter.com/#!/joelhouston/status/25397624913). 
Reading it and for days after, I was wondering if I could ever, ever in my life say something like that. Can I, in those droning client calls, tell the folks on the other end, "Hope you enjoy using the software as much as we enjoyed making this"? Sigh.

Okay, my work is interesting and all that. But it isn't something I enjoy. I don't wake up thinking how great the day's coding is going to be. I like my work, for say, five - six hours a day. [like as in 'I like eating idlis coz mom's away, I am verrry hungry and that's all grandma made for breakfast']. That's about it. Not a minute more. But then, aren't we supposed to be passionate about what we do? Isn't work supposed to bring out the best in us?

I really want to say something along the lines of Houston. But I know I probably wouldn't as long as i am writing lines of codes for some Jap, or any national for that matter. My heart does not belong with computers and codes and algorithms. It belongs with people, with music... not digits. I want to work with my heart in it.. not just the head. I wanna be there, teaching kids to read, write and draw... I wanna be there, backstage, putting the microphones in their boxes, untangling coiled cables, dancing when the band's performing...

Well, maybe someday, Whatever my hand finds to do, I will do with all my might... coz 'whatever' my hand finds to do will be what I really love to do. Maybe someday, I can use the phrase 'As much as we...' not just as a blog entry title.

Conscience and an Itchy Foot

One of the worst things you can do on a rainy day is stand in a crowded bus. And it was one such worst thing I was doing a few weeks back coming home from work.

 I was irate, cursing my boss, the rain, the bus and my 'fellow travellers', when someone stepped on my foot, lavishly smothering it with the dirty, squishy mud he had managed to collect in his bare sole. *Wow, did i just write three lines without a period? 'Kewl' me.* Anyway, I wanted to yell at him. It felt so uncomfortable to have a lump of yucky mud on my foot and worse still, it began to itch very bad.I couldn't even move - let alone bend down and scratch!  The bus was too full of people. It got too itchy and all I could do was grind my teeth and mutter under my breath.

 The bus kept moving on and it was quite sometime before I realized it wasn't itchy anymore. I didn't even feel the dirt and suddenly revelation came dawning on me. *Wonder why most of my revelations come during bus travels! =/*

The whole smothering -> itching -> no itching sequence of the foot very much resembled sequences in my conscience. When my conscience is clean and sharp, anything alien itched... pricked. It pricked when I lied. Pricked when I gossiped. Pricked when I hurt God and chose a TV show over Bible reading. But when I don't react to the pricks and leave these muddy lumps be, they stay, and soon make themselves at home. And then my conscience doesn't itch anymore. What once was bad and itchy becomes normal and 'perfectly okay'.

Honestly,  I don't want dirt all over my conscience and not even knowing it. I really pray God would take my soiled conscience, once again, and wipe it clean. Wash it sparkling clean... till He sees Himself in it.

Never Alone

Disclaimer: Well, this may be a boring entry, but then this is a 'baseless rant'. What more can one expect!

I haven't replied 'alone'  to a 'How are you?' question in all these years ... Though I have been. Right in the midst of a swelling crowd... of friendly laughter and fun. You play the cheerful part... and desperately try to mingle, forcing an empty smile. You don't want your friends to know. You don't even want to feel it for yourself. But deep down, you can't keep from thinking that the one person you know to stand by you no matter what, seems to be far. Nowhere near.

He's just not around. You can't even cry out to anyone; He's the one you've been crying to all this long. No one else knows you better than Him. And you wonder if He just did leave you... Alone...

Maybe I'm wrong... Maybe I just failed to see. Failed to do what He asked me to - Believe.

I've loved this song from BarlowGirl - Never Alone. Just a reminder that no matter how far He might 'seem' from me, I am never alone.

ProMo - The Proposal Moment.

Someday my prince will come. But not the way his kinfolk have done before for those scores of half-dead-choking-over-a-poisoned-apple or hibernating-from-a-needle-prick princesses. Nah, I don't want it that way coz, it is boring... and coz I'm no princess. :( :( :( Maybe the love-wedding-marriage proposal at first sight by a total stranger on a horse is utopian for trapped-in-a-tall-tower Rapunzel. But for a short haired girl like me, which, by the way, is the only dissimilarity between me and princesses from long long ago, it isn't all that exciting.

Okay, honestly, I want my "Proposal Moment" (ProMo, from now on) to be romantic and "LOVE"ly. What does it even matter without love, come on! So, let's assume one Mr.Perfect and I start out as friends and gradually figure out we could actually get to be a perfect couple. Yay!
[IMPORTANT : Hi Reader, If you are male, and okay-looking with a good sense of humor, a little bit of intelligence and prefer the beauty of the heart to that of the face, I am single. The above was just an assumption.]

So, there sure is going to be a moment when my Mr.Perfect reveals that pretty ring, takes both my hand and me by surprise, looks into my eyes and says - I love you. Will you marry me? and I would probably blush and definitely nod, nod, nod, nod.

Oh man, how beautiful. But, er, I don't really want the same old ring-in-the-champagne-glass setting. Here are three backdrop suggestions for a perfect ProMo. For MY perfect ProMo.

Presumption 1: BM's getting married to a Canadian. We (Mr. Perfect and I) are in North Canada for the wedding. Mr. Perfect, as he is a great friend, had offered to come along. Two is company.
ProMo 1: A quiet evening, a long walk. Maaaan!! The Northern Lights!!! And as it gets Aurora-Borealic, Mr. Perfect instantiates the ProMo! * God, I would die from an outburst of joy.*

Presumption 2: My parents set my curfew at 10 at night for just that day. and I am also allowed to go to the nearby beach with a male friend - Mr. Perfect.
ProMo 2: Dim moonlight. Deserted beach. Racing along the waters and stopping to catch our breaths - an unsuspecting moment and ProMo!


Presumption 3: It's my birthday. Dinner with Mr. Perfect and a free ride back home. Nice weather, slightly cold.
ProMo 3: Me: Thanks for dropping, ---------. (to be filled with Mr. Perfect's                       real name) .
                 Mr. P: Happy Birthday. :)
                 Me: Thanks. Good night. :)
                 Mr. P: Good night. And hey, there's something...

                                  ProMo!!!..... at my doorstep!!!

Well, that makes my top-three sweep-me-off-my-feet proposal suggestions. And I am keeping my fingers crossed.

OKAY, I KNOW, I KNOW. Get real!!

My "knight in shining armor" will come home riding with his obese mother, balding father, dumb-show-off brother and stuck-up sister in an auto. Obese mother will keep whispering to the moustache-has-more-hair-than-the-head father throughout the whole event. Stupid bro and snobbish sister will throw disgusting looks at me - hell, yeah, I will be wearing one of my mom's saris and probably cursing the concept of arranged marriages. Possible Mr. Perfect (who is so not my Mr. Perfect from the dreams :( ;( ) will be aimlessly looking either at the cobwebs in the ceiling or the lizard litter near the fridge.

Obese mother, to my mom: We like your daughter. yada.. yada..yada... Can we announce it in the church, then?

My mom, to obese mother: Oh, we are sooo glad!!!

*Sound of explosion. Ah, yeah, my heart*

So, the ultimate ProMo of my life:

   Soon-to-be-Mr.Perfect's obese mother just did... to my mom.

                        HOW SO ROMANTIC!!! SNIFF. SNIFF. 

Post-Carnaval Trauma

The pre-carnaval-Carnaval-post-carnaval phase of my life feels like an over-twisted Tamil soap opera. The last two months, I've been finding myself in some super-drama plots. Emotional stuff kinda piled up - Betrayal, lonliness, embarrasment, doubts, anger. But the biggest heartbreak came a day after Carnaval.

Okay, Rewind. << .

The Carnaval break was great. Was away in Antonina with Ju's, a beach nearby. Learnt to swim, went fishing, caught a decently big fish, and got to know a cute Brazilian. Seems he was my neighbor but I had never seen him before! He didn't speak English. Well, actually, he didn't speak much. Just a few words when we played Monopoly and fooled around with Portuguese riddles one afternoon. But we wagered on who could stay longer inside the water. (Fine, I lost!! ) Isn't that enough to fall in love? Come on, it is.

So, here's this nice guy I overheard was 24. Was cursing myself for not having noticed him in the last 5 months and he lived just 3 houses to my left. darn me. By the way, his name is Luis. And other than the fact that he had 2 tattoos and a tongue piercing, I pretty much liked him. I thought this was the best Carnaval ever.

I returned to Curitiba, dreaming of Luis and poured out my overflowing heart to tia Sola - a distant relative of Luis' and my neighbor. Was hoping she would help me make my Brazilian future. She gave me the stats. She broke my heart.

Luis is 15. He goes to school.

M.T. : The Misplaced-Terrestrial

If Steven Spielberg has any idea of making a movie like “M.T. : The Misplaced-Terrestrial”, I would do anything to dust it off of his head. Lives of M.T’s are more embarrassing than they are adventurous. Trust me.

The camera zooms in showing, first the universe->solar system->a revolving Earth-> a disfigured Google Earth screenshot-> South America-> Brazil-> Parana-> and finally a road sign that reads “Ben Vindo a Curitiba”. (Oh, well, if Spielberg had graduated from Karunya, I bet this would be the opening scene. The hundreds of presentations they show sort of hardcodes into your brain that any visual clip starts with the cosmic mystery)
And then clearing from a hazy image, you see the protagonist (which would be me), staring back at you – blank and petrified.

Yeah, right, that is how I felt when I landed in Sao Paulo. I had to take a domestic connection to Curitiba from there, and for a really long time I was wishing Portugal had colonized India instead of the British. Nothing here was in English. Nada! Even those airport folks who wore jackets inscribed “Need help?” replied something in Portuguese which I interpreted as “Sorry, we don’t speak English”.I felt like I was stranded. Guess anyone would have felt pretty much the same, specially when you were sent a couple of emails about the high crime-rate and a list of DON’T’S that went upto page 4.. To top it all, I was watching ‘Taken’ on the flight from Dubai to Sao Paulo. Crumbs!! I was wondering how I was ever going to figure out where the domestic terminal was, let alone the flight. Thank God for a Mumbaikar at the airport, who helped me with my luggage and the domestic terminal. Saude, Mr. Alphonso!

Finally in Curitiba! The family that lets me lodge is amazing. A godsend, honestly! But most of our conversations are gesture-talk. And it is more like I start laughing when they tell me about a dead grandmother thinking it was some joke about SpongeBob.

If you think that was awkward, welcome to the new awkward.

It was the first day at office and I’m so grateful for the folks and their friendliness. They invited me to lunch at a buffet place and there were around 12 of us. If it wasn’t for ‘Motorist-Namesake(MN)’, I wouldn’t have known I had to pick my own plate and my own food. MN introduced me to Sushi and man, it was the best Sushi I’d ever eaten in life! (Alright, that was the first Sushi I ever ate). Everything about Sushi was great except that I didn’t know how to use the chopsticks. I plopped a Sushi-unit(Pardon me, I know not what they call it) into Soy sauce and no sleight of chopsticks worked to retrieve it. Thank God no one noticed. Or were atleast courteous enough to pretend like they didn’t. I finally saved it from disintegrating in the sauce with a fork, on MN’s suggestion, for which I was very grateful as it came with no laughter attached. I ate the remainder of the food with fork and knife. Tchaued the chopsticks!

Partly feeling okay and mostly NOT OKAY AT ALL, I was on my way home, and huh! I need to travel an hour and a half, switching 3 buses that are loaded with “English – strictly prohibited” people. Come on, this is the first time I’m travelling back from work, the route is all new and I can’t even pronounce the place I need to get down to take the next bus. And despite it becoming pretty dark when my watch shows just 6:30 pm, I managed to reach the final boarding place and Jitters! Usually the buses are boarded at the front entrance and I religiously did so till I was shoved back and directed (read: pointed) to the mid-entrance of the bus. Seems at stations called “Terminals”, as the one I was standing in, so was the custom. Bah!
Already flushing pink(Okay, I know it doesn’t show on my face), I got inside to hear a group of women LOL and like the instincts of every human, native or misplaced, I thought they were laughing at me..and I went purple(which didn’t show either, duh!)

Next morning, I take the 7 o’clock bus sternly believing morning brings with it joy, and hoping that I find myself less misplaced – this is what I realize. When in school, say 2 of every 10 people are pretty and of course, you’re in the other 8, fervently wishing to be in the minority. In college, 5 of the 10 girls are pretty and cute and you ask God why He never answered your “with-faith-like-a-child” prayer from school. Well, God’s timing is perfect, ain’t it? Now, here in Brazil, He let me receive my answer.. I’m one of the two, and 8 out of 10 are gorgeous! Thanks, Lord!!

People drive on the right side and I so idiotically open the left door of cars forgetting it is the wheel side which immediately commands a “So, you gonna drive? .. Huahuahua..” from my colleagues..and a series of funny comments in Portuguese, and suddenly I’m thankful I don’t understand the language. And I was almost run over trying to cross the road as I carefully checked to the right and a truck vroomed past me from the left. “Oh darn!” I screamed to myself,” That’s the right side” ..and I heard myself – That is the right side! Yeah, perhaps it wasn’t all that thwarting, just that it would have cost me my life.
Well, these are some miseries that I faced, as a fairly level-headed independent major. Guess it would take some more time till I fit in.. Until then, Me. T. , The misplaced terrestrial will have to survive the weird and wonderful ways of the nova lugar(new land, in Portuguese.. ;) ).

The Pond Frog?

Hmmm..I was busy exfoliating my head off of real and relevant issues for the last two months so I could dwell uninterrupted on non-existent, useless debris. Even now, there are pointless stuff floating inside my cranium and guess I’m gonna junk it out the blogger way!
Last week, I happened to spend an evening with Surrender, an acquaintance, now in eighth grade. And I know for sure, if I were in my 8th grade now, she’s never gonna be friends with me. It was almost after a year that I was meeting her and she hadn’t changed much. Last year, when I met her, She was devotedly engrossed in her quest of unearthing all possible reviews on The High School Musical movies from the internet knowledge reserve. This time, it was déjà-vu. Well, almost, except that she was now lookin up Twilight – All genre: Movie, Bloopers, Parody, and Lady Gaga, and a page solely attributed to dissect Robert Pattinson and his private life, Dress-me-up Barbie and some five more tabs.
I tried talking to her about her school, friends and stuff and all that I managed to get from her side was a description of some pool party that she’s been to. There wasn’t much to natter coz there wasn’t anything at all. Anything outside the internet and blingy birthday parties was apparently dull and boring.
I just sat there wishing I had all this cutting-edge frivolity when I was a kid. Reflecting on my school era , Man! My bygone lifetime seemed to suck! You can call it a shame if you want but I got my email ID only when I was in ninth grade..and matter-of-fact, it was accidental. Moreover, it had no real use till I got into college. I still remember the night that I spent sleepless because of the uncontrollable excitement I was filled with from seeing one of the most incredible things on Earth – Yahoo Greetings! God, what an idiot!
Sometimes I wonder whether life would be any different if I had been in some other school, lived somewhere else with resources available at want.. If I had had projects to work on instead of having to write “Dictation words” ten times for homework. If I had had a cool teacher with who I could discuss the Bermuda Triangle instead of having to listen to long winded complaints of her arthritis and the daughter-in-law. If I hadn’t have to wait till next Christmas or Easter to buy a couple of Archie comics at a raddiwalla’s, fulfilling my greatest obligation as a patron.. If.. If.. If.. Would it?
Was I then the frog in the small pond that never knew the ways of the stream or the town? I don’t know. But, even so, I don’t think I carry regrets. My time as a kid was fun in its own way.. So what if I didn’t get to go to pool parties? I enjoyed carrying home water pots from across the street. (A tip: Carrying it on your shoulder is more convenient, trust me. I never got the hip-way hang!) I climbed hills barefoot, I helped burn dead snakes, I’ve had four years of experience, being squeezed and squelched in crowded buses on the way to school and back, I ran around with goats, got stamped a couple of times by calves, I was even taught the clandestine knack of holding the ‘poonthudappam’! .. Man, I can think of a truckload of studd things!! Wow!
Guess, I have had more fun as a kid than Surrender could ever imagine.. and umm..No, I’m not trading it.. Not even for a free-for-lifetime broadband internet service. .

It all mattered.

Hiya! It's been some real long. Hey, No.. Elections / IPL didn't send me into oblivion. Had some stuff happening in my own world - Vacating the hostel, last minute adieus, a hundred hugs (seriously), blah.blah.blah.

Bidding goodbye to the place that I was taught to call my "Second Home" for the last four years wasn't all that dramatic for me. I know I am going to miss some people who taught me so much in life. Some things that made life so exciting. Some incidents that shaped me into what I am now, for better or for worse. But there's really no drama in there.

Alright, I just wanted to thank God first of everything for making it all happen. And thanks to all you guys who really changed a lot about my ownself, my perspectives, my stupidity. I owe you all big time. The blogosphere would not contain if I start off with who's done what. So, Here goes just naming names and pouring out all my gratitude!!

The morning assemblies, The choir, The PC's, The uncensored Hostel fun, The beautiful mountains, weather and the rainbows - For making me rediscover myself.

Paapa, Devaraagam, Calligraphy, AppleRum, Paniyaaram, Bajji, Stepmom, Remix, TutiGirl, Jakkamma, Flowerbed, Avril Wannabe, BabuBoy, SolaiMalar, Mottai, Junior Operator, Carrot Blender, BusBaas, Bin*Bin - For making every bit of my college span total fun.

Mostafa, SRA, The Lamp, PuppyDog, Affleck, VeetuSoru, Gundu, Altitude, Sottai, RSR, No23, Quilon, Bigatha, Hope-Giver, Mani Enna?, Ms.Jackie Chan, Blouse-Stealer, Wings, Piglet, DaVinci, Post-Jan. - For all that you've done, been.


Pink Panther - For shoving some sense into my head everytime I become cranky. For all the fun. For all the secrets.

The Tribe - For the music. For the pranks. For being the sweetest and the stupidest brother ever. You sure can make make me laugh.

Mother Goose - For being the Father-Figure, the Mother-Figure, My Warden, My Boss. I would've lost myself somewhere if you hadn't been there. Honest.

Beyond Madness - For being my Jonathan. Or Perhaps, I am Jonathan, King David. Simply, For a million reasons.

What-Do-I-Name-You? - For the hours, the minutes, the seconds. For Everything. You chaged my life forever.

Between Power and Bliss.

How I wish I never outgrew innocence! How I wish I were ignorant of many things I now know of!
Ignorance is bliss.

Okay, Let's get self-centered, meaning 'Shar-centered' for sometime in this entry. This Knowledge and Ignorance thing is a bit confusing and I'm trying hard to balance them both.
Everyone wants power. To see things, to do things, to change things. Knowledge is Power, Alright. But do I really care? Okay, I agree that the apathy does not apply to the peripheral areas of my life like Math and Physics or Computer science (for the record). Like, when I pour Date syrup in my mug of milk and some of it forms brown patterns on the milk, I 'know' it's because of Surface Tension. And I'm glad that classrooms taught me to 'know' that skyscrapers are tensile, Thanks to Elasticity co-efficient. I understand it would be stupid - tirelessly wondering 'Man! How on Earth does syrup dance on top of the milk instead of happily plunging deep inside'.

Yes, but.. It is even more primitively stupid- eternally answering wringers like 'Why on Earth does Lord Fleeting enjoy every bit of making BBQ with BlackForest? And the meat gets so burnt each time, almost everyday, as they lose track of the grilling time. Lord Fleeting used to love Esmeralda's company. Not any more? Lord Fleeting says he feels so repelled by Esmeralda, why? How far removed Lord Fleeting had become from what he used to be! *Sigh!*

I really wish I never heard the lot of things I get to hear that send me to disappointment mode. Wish I never saw the very many things I get to see that hurt me just too bad. Wish I never had the light of Knowledge shine this bright and intense on the central area of my life.

So, what if knowledge is power? I am maimed, and this power does nothing about it. This power does not change what is happening. This power does not help me from feeling bad. So, then, what use is this power to me?

The only thing this power managed to do was disrupt the bliss! The bliss of not knowing things that make people feel miserable. The bliss of not knowing to see through masks and disguises. The bliss of not having to doubt people. The bliss of trusting everyone completely. The bliss of Ignorance.

Written on some wall : Ignorance is bliss. and right underneath it : I don't know what it means, but I'm happy.