Moving towards the light...

Why is it that whenever he is most upset that he delves into introspection? When the mundane existence he leads is slightly derailed from the perfect track that he tries to build with his every breath, thats when the brain plunges into the mysteries of that existence. The conscious greets the subconscious with more questions than are answerable, seeking, probing and pleading for solutions. And most times the latter replies negatively, leading to further questions. The ultimate question remains- what is his purpose in life? He digs deep only during lugubrious times. When he feels the walls closing in from all sides, his thoughts become his respite, and losing himself in them provides him with a footing, however weak, to claw his way out of the deep abyss. The way out is filled with monsters in the dark; occasionally a light shines to show him he's on the right path, but when it flickers out, the despair grows; he slips and loses the foothold he had acquired earlier and the blackness engulfs him once again. He wishes to ram into a rock with every ounce of strength he possesses, to rip someone apart with his bare hands, to yell until his frustration is expended and even the heavens beseech him to calm down. But in the end, he just weeps, tiny sobs filled with agony and all manliness lies forgotten. He lets out his plea for help. Sometimes it is answered, but sometimes it isn't. He knows that those are the times he has to face the looming walls all by himself, cut off from the rest of the world and strive to regain the foothold and reach the light.

Happy Birthday to me!!

(I know I’m a month late, but better late than never right? :D)

6th August, 2009:
I woke up this morning, dreading the day ahead- classes from 8:30am to 5pm with a lab in between was no joke. The silver lining was that I didn’t have to go through the painful task of which dress to wear – our very own epitome of “dignity”, the khakhi lab dress saved the day. I cycled heavily to class, not feeling very well. I prepared myself for the usual stupor that overtakes me during lessons, taking a break every now and then to respond to smses. At 11:20 am, our prof, feeling he’d seen enough of us for a week, exited, and we heard that our lab had been cancelled too. In one year of having been in the department, I had never heard so much enthusiasm and joy over a news of such magnitude as this. Little did I know that this unexpected canceling of hours wasn’t sitting very well with my benchmates. I went to the juice shop, beaming over this sudden luck, decided to quench my thirst and go to the ATM and wait for a friend for a pre-planned lunch. It was then that all hell broke loose. Vaish and Jans came running up to me and literally dragged me to the Snacketeria yelling something about wanting to show me a sight (or atleast that’s what I guessed). We came to an abrupt stop at the entrance, where I was asked to wait until the ‘scene’ was in position.
And then, lights, camera, action!
I’m not sure which I noticed first – the cake or the biggest crowd I’d ever seen in Snacky. What was even better was that they were all there for me! I stood transfixed, unsure of whether I should order my vocal cord to say “Oh my God!” or “Wow” or whether to just shut my mouth and stop gaping. I sensed that the waterworks were about to start any moment now, so overwhelmingly happy I was. I’m immensely thankful to that intelligent soul that prodded me from behind and asked me to cut the cake; it had been two minutes now and I was still standing dumbstruck.
I blew out the candles abd finally cut the cake and proceeded to feed my best friends, while everyone sang and hooted and created the most musical and beautiful racket I’d ever heard! These so-called best friends, instead of maneuvering their cake-filled hands towards my mouth, directed them at the rest of my face and left me smothered with the chocolaty cream. The most wonderful ten minutes ended with me posing as the birthday girl in a bunch of group photos.
I’ve always thought that using pompous and bombastic words make for an impressive read. But when it comes to something as personal and beautiful an event as this birthday eve of 2009, I honestly have no words. It was all I could ask for, and much much more. Thanks Vaish, Sharadh, Jans, Mahitha, Motu, Panda, Pavithra and Anuk for making my best birthday ever a reality.
Awesomest Maximest 

Lizard lizard on the wall!

Only the other day I was walking to the bathroom after one of my clothes washing sessions, my conscious mind brimming with the events of the day and my subconscious on one of its philosophical trips, when something fell SPLAT on my left big toe. My brain went into an instant overdrive and commanded my leg to shake itself free of the fallen 'object'. No points for guessing, only one thing in this world can fall from apparently nowhere with that atrociously sickening sound - a lizard! Immediate nausea abd disgust welled up inside and I was secretly glad it was to the restroom I had been heading. Needless to say, my frantic shaking of my leg was useless, because the lizard had decided it liked flat surfaces better and I squinted in the darkness to see the miscreant scampering away like a frightened little rabbit. What an irony! If the lizard knew how freaked I was, it would probably have had something to boast about to its friends. In any case, I was glad it was one of the normal coloured, normal sized ones that usually run away in one shooing gesture, and not one of those big, fat, black, lazy ones that sit over tubelights, and refuse to budge, and instead entertain themselves while watching the antics of the frightened and frustrated human trying to scare it away while they return a stare that says "Yawn...you're boring me."

The White Tiger? Puhlease!!

I recently had the misfortune of reading The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga. Never before in my life has a book infuriated me to such an extent. The bloke has very explicitly criticized his motherland for one, and religion for the other. As I proceeded to finish half the book, disgust and contempt for the author welling up inside, I realized that he'd spared not one religion.
Atheism ain't a crime, there are non-believers everywhere; but the offensive language Adiga has used to describe the Gods is an insult to those few, unlike him, who believe in a higher power.
Coming to our country- I don't think even a five-year old is unaware of the antics and monstrocities our nation gets invlved in. There was no call for reiterating the facts in a whole book, if you ask me. I'm guessing he thought he was opening everyone's eyes to the corruption and crimes.
At first, I felt nothing but fury for the man; but then it gave way to pity - pity for the dude who saw nothing better than his birthland in rags, begging and committing crimes to crawl to the top of the ladder. He overlooked her beauty and chose to show the world the dirt instead. (And I realize that maybe I'm being superficial too, in judging the book and the author by the literal meaning and not reading in between the lines; but I'm afraid I dont sense the hidden message.)
I've got to give him credit for the accuracy of some of the incidents described though. The politics for one. The rich oppressing the poor for another. Even then, the latter does not classify as an offense that occurs nationwide. And people these days will believe any crap in black-and-white. By showing that the servant escapes and becomes successful after murdering his employer was the icing on the cake. Really, Mr Adiga, "what a f***ing joke!"

Farewell Mumbai!

The last two months have flown in a flash. It seems like yesterday that I yanked my suitcase out of the train at Dadar, and blinkeed around, absolutely clueless about this city. In just six weeks I saw a lot more of Mumbai than I had expected time to allow.
This is without a doubt THE hangout place. With more malls than I can count, even more McDonalds, gaming zones, go-carting and PVRs, it is no wonder the city is abuzz with lights and music every second of every day. Transport is very efficient and the local trains are no less than a boon. (Apparently no amount of getting squashed and stamped upon and being left even without breathing space will make me discredit these "lifelines".) They are true to their name and keep the public constantly on the move.
Shopping! Bliss!It is a real paradise for females. Amazing prices and even better goods! Experiencing is believing in this case.
The time has finally arrived when we ought to be packing and doing last-minute shopping and start on the long-long-awaited journey HOME. I will not pretend to be glad about leaving this place. On the contrary. I can only hope I come back some other time and enjoy as much as I did these two months and maybe more. (A lot of the credit goes to our student guides at the lab who ensured we had fun both inside campus and outside. A special thanks to them.)
Also, I can't wait to get back to college, even if it is to get teased about my Tamil accent, which I'm 100% sure, has worsened, what with Hindi being my saviour here.
But it goes without saying there's no place like home. Absence indeed makes the heart grow fonder. I'm eagerly looking forward to lugging my even-heavier suitcase up three floors to home-sweet-home.

To be a Thambi in Mumbai...

Every single day I meet new kinds of people, and so my tales of this city continue. My roommate here was having trouble with the new sim she had recently bought for her two months of stay in Mumbai. It is with a great sense of decency that I refrain from saying out loud the name of this "great" telecom company. For reference's sake let us call it X.

And so, after a great many days of cursing, grumbling and frequent trips to the dealers shop, we decided to catch one of the locals (ah! Here we go again!) to the showroom at Ghatkopar and find out what was wrong.

We reached, walked in circles for a bit and finally managed to locate X's showroom. We made our entry, I told the customer help guy of our plight. (Let's call this guy M- he's the HERO of this tale.) M courteously asked us to take our honorable seats, and took his own sweet time trying to track the notorious sim's activity.

And then M drops the most expected answer upon us - that my roomie hadn't submitted the documents. I launched into a Hinglish explanation of how we had, but that it hadn't reached them. So, M says to us,

"You could submit them again now."

We decided it would be best to obey and waited patiently while he copied her personal details on to the necessary form.

I noticed him writing 'CHENNI'; I stared.

M looked up and said, "The CITY is Chennai right?"

We nodded. Form crushed and thrown.

"And which state is that?"

Wrong move No.1.

"Tamil Nadu," we chorused. He took a fresh form and started filling. I hurriedly spelled out the city name for him lest another form be wasted.

I then busied myself in examining my hands, not prepared to tolerate any more of such questions.

"खाना पाना नगर?" M snorted.

Wrong move No.2.

I looked up, surprised, to see what he was blabbering and snorting about.

My eyes read "Kannappa Nagar", and we enuciated it, again in a chorus, at a louder decibel.

M found it increasingly hilarious and kept snorting to himself. Opposite to him, I was getting increasingly irritated with the ignorant idiot and with X for many reasons (all of which can constitute a whole new blog post).

"What's the nearest landmark?" M asked.

"Thiruvanmiyur RTO," my roomie replied.

He blinked, as was expected. I started spelling it out before he asked.

"T-H-I-R-U-V-A-N-M-I-Y-U-R"

"Baap re! Why do you people keep such big names?"

Wrong move No.3!

I clenched my hands tighter around my seat and wanted to yell, and if possible slap him. But I contented myself with giving him one of my famous Vasudha-glares (too bad he didnt get it).

I fumed for an hour even after I left that place, much to my own surprise. Now, I'm a Tamilian, but with north-Indian roots. Nothing can ever change that- I'll always be the girl who was brought up in Delhi, can speak Hindi but cannot speak her mother tongue PROPERLY (as per public opinion). But that day, one thing hit me hard- wherever Iam, be it Delhi or Mumbai, I'll be all those but also one more- I'll always be a Madrasi at heart.

Mumbai meri jaan...

A lot of highrises, a lot of traffic, lots of slums and lots of shopping - a whole lot of expectations from Mumbai. I wasn't disappointed; I saw those and a lot more. Aamchi Mumbai from the local trains- travelling by the local caterpillars is one outstanding experience. The whole rush when you stand by the door, dangling on to the iron-post for dear life (and also for the sheer thrill of it for some) is an adventure of sorts. And speaking of adventures, a real challenging one is to try boarding one of the locals during peak crowd times. I have had the (mis)fortune to do so quite a few times - its strangely hilarious to find yourself being squashed and trampled upon by the crowd. And you needn't even worry about missing the train- the stampede will ensure that you are properly steered into the train; whether or not you're in one piece after it is another question.

It was by one such train that we travelled to Sewri one morning last week to watch flamingoes. The place is located on the shores, near Harbour Line. It has acres of marshlands, and thanks to the innumerable oil/petroleum industries that have set camp there, every inch of these lands is covered by algae. If you think that's bad, thats where nature steps in to prove you wrong. Algae happens to be the favourite food of flamingoes. Their pink hues and long necks provide them with a grace equalling that of swans. Their S-shaped necks and rounded beaks with holes help in easy intak of algae from the marshes. The area is situated among a big patch of mangroves, under whose shade grows meswak - an important ingredient of toothpastes.

(pic courtesy:Moreshwar Hude)

It is sad to note that the industries nearby have killed many of the mangroves and are consequently disturbign the habitat of many species of birds and microorganisms, and hence the ecosystem. The place has been declared an 'Important Bird Site' and steps are on to provide good measures to protect the environment.

The visit was a knowledgeable one and it has made me wonder as to how many nature lovers were left in this world. But I later realized that what I should be worried about was how many of them would actually do something and protect 'all creatures great and small'.