After The Dormancy, Comes The Activity!

Just as I was entering my password into the box that read 'password', I was worried. I wondered, just for a second, if Sharvari Aai had deleted me from the admin-cum-co-author list. Thankfully, she hasn't, till now.


BTW. The best news in the otherwise dormant (I see I have many dormant things in life, including life itself) season, is that Malhar's coming. Named after the Indian musical scale Malhar, that is seen by musicians and connoisseurs as a harbinger of the rains, Malhar is a big college festival, second only to Mood Indigo, IIT-Powai's festival. It's filled with cool stuff that we unfortunately missed last year because of the botched-up pace of admission to colleges. 


So, the fact is, Malhar is bringing that tingling joy of being able to put together something on a public platter, irrespective of the fact that you may not be able to put a proper cake on your own platter.


Oh, and I forget to tell people that the college canteen has introduced blueberry muffin on its menu, and it tastes like heaven. Umm, they also introduced (not the college canteen   this time the management) a teacher for Psychology, and pleasantly so, she teaches damn well, if you can pardon (and should rightly do so,) her expertly jumping acts on the podium. No, but she is awesome. She does activities. And she knows my name and didn't mispronounce it the first time she pronounced it. THAT makes her awesome.


And anyway, I don't think you can get everything good on your plate. If you do, you are either too lazy or you are too lazy. You can't have your cake and eat it too.


Yikes! What's with cakes and me today? :EI

What's this nonsense?

Life is crazy, really. Especially if you're a teenager and an Indian citizen. If you've read the Da Vinci Code and the Lost Symbol, you'd know people are saying that this is an age of transformation and revolution. Hey, I know we're lucky bitches to be born when we are, because if we weren't, we wouldn't be us. Like if I was born a year earlier, I may have been a great dancer, but not a writer.

When our grandparents were children, the country was being roused similarly, but to fight against outside forces. The country was one, and not many people were criticizing our efforts - except the British themselves, of course. They called it the Indian Freedom Struggle. And today, the country supposed 'leaders' are mocking that revolution. I'm not talking about the politicians - they're crap and everyone knows that - but about the 'for the people' people.

Yeah, about the fiasco on Ramlila and the deal with Anna. A friend of mine talks about this on her blog. Democracy, they say, is the best form of government. Is it? A dictator might clean this up quicker than Satyagraha. Gandhiji gave us a tool, so let's use it. Let's all go on hunger strikes. But dude, Gandhi used it in a different atmosphere, a different setting. And the best part, he was doing the right thing.

Whether the Lokpal bill comes into play is not material. We all know that in India, people enter politics when they have nothing else to do. It's a quick money maker. The media, the government, the public - isn't everyone blowing this out of proportion? Calm down and talk about it! Did no one teach you that? There's only one thing that comes to mind reading the newspaper every day:

What's this nonsense?

Circus

I used to like circuses. When I was a kid, I'd been to this circus tent (I think it was the Gemini Circus troupe) and I had loved the show. I remember a girl feeding meat to a dinosaur. And my dad thinks I'm lying because he says back then, I did not know the difference between a camel and a dinosaur.


I tell him that I knew the difference between meat and grass though. Camels are vegetarians, aren't they? Or are they? :O


Anyway, so, the circus I am speaking about is what has been adorning (that's called irony :P) the newspaper front-pages these days. A man, dressed in orange and hair. Ew.


So, having opinions is a great thing. Voicing them is not going to help keep the baba prancing around on Ramlila ground and obviously not going to help drive him away.


:O The sinner that I am! How could I dare to promote apathy?


It's not called apathy.


If we can actually see animals getting flogged by the ring-master at circuses, we could very well draw a parallel and let the holier-than-not-just-thou-but-every-flexible-thing-in-the-world-and-yeah-I-can-bend-like-paperclips-can't guy handle the show   entertain us.


And God, that guy's really flexible. Like Sharvari. :P

Shrink Training

I feel awesome because for once I'm not blogging from my ghisa-pita home PC or my mom's same old laptop. No, I'm in Pune and I have Internet access here. So, I need not rely on Jai baba to bore the life out of you. I can do it myself.

I have been giving free advice to my friends (when they ask for it, I'm not narcissistic enough to do it otherwise). Advice that works. Jai baba would call it 'shrink training'. I took the privilege of calling it that already. I'm gonna be a good shrink.

Pune's great. It rained a lot on the Expressway. It was the first time that I ever saw lightning actually split the sky in two. Our cab had some technical difficulties but we got where we wanted to safe and sound, owing to my generous luck drawer.

I'm trying to be witty these days. I can't manage it right now because I haven't had enough sleep. Like most things I try, this too works. I stupefied a friend of mine, though I shouldn't consider it an achievement since anyone with a brain can stupefy her.

I'm going to go now. Ta-ta! Have fun with Jai baba.

Pitter-Patter Raindrops

I hear thunder, I hear thunder,
Oh! Don't you? Oh, don't you?
Pitter-patter raindrops, pitter-patter raindrops
I'm wet through, so are you.

Are you?

I was. I was blogging about bromance in the evening (what an utterly interesting topic to post about) when my sister who'd returned from school started acting weirdly and started telling me that it rained. I told myself she surely was a fool to have thought that a few drops of drizzling water from the heavens above could actually be rain.

And then, I turned back.

The tree in front of my house was waving ominously. I could see waves of soil as the wind blew them in layers.

Chuck all that. I wouldn't go into the specifics. The jingle I mentioned above I guess that is an essential part of almost everyone who has been through Kindergarten. And as a younger kid than I am today (I still AM a kid) monsoons, to me, as I hope, to any other Indian kid, meant long raincoats; rain-soaked uniforms; umbrellas.

And today, after I don't know how many years, it's perhaps assumed a more important role in life. It's that lifeline we all live by. And it is also a devastating factor when paired with another lifeline that we live by our Indian Suburban Railways. It's come to mean eating bhajiyas at home and looking out of the window as the rain lashes everything it comes in contact with. And lastly, and most importantly, it has come to mean everything that nurtures, everything that gives birth it's come to mean everything that holds love in it, everything that love holds in itself.

To love,

To craving,

And to the unquenchable thirst to love and be loved,

A happy monsoon, to whomsoever it matters! :)

Of Beer And Bromance

“Even in a drought, a bro flushes the toilet twice.”

-         Barney Stinson.

And I thought all gays hated bromance! Barney Stinson’s straight, but Neil Patrick Harris is gay! (I am at my stereotypical best right now.)

Nothing in the world turns my stomach like bromance does. I swear.

India has had a long tradition of bromance. Fathers decide to speak to their sons about the birds and the bees. Girls are kept in the dark, well, because, umm, I don’t know. Right from Amitabh Bachchan and Dharmendra trying to assert that they won’t let go of their 'really awesome' friendship in Sholay, to today, when there are some defined styles of behaviour in public—in shaking hands and giving those ‘friendly punches’—not much has really changed.

I would say it has got worse. I mean, there’s this mobile service provider ad where guys share underwear. Beat that. *Pukes*

And not to mention the wife-sharing Pandavas.

Dexter and Miguel.

Barney, Ted and Marshall.

But what takes me by surprise the most, is the fact that most men (Yeah, I am not included because I am still a boy! *angryface*) are able to convey what they want to without actually referring to any of it in a serious manner.

I think I better applaud that. J