Oh no, that was not me *straight face*

I never liked filling in those annoying slam books, which were a habit during the ‘bye-bye’ days of school life. Apart from having to answer downright dumb questions like – My first crush, My happiest moment, and the like (which we used to answer with ‘The day I was born’, ‘The day I met you’, and so on, which of course, we never really meant!) One particular question which was constant was – Your most embarrassing moment. I mean, who want to make that public? Characters like me, maybe.

Everybody has moments when they wish they could just disappear. Something like that happened last week. My friend and I were having this only-girls chat, and the brother was in some other room. He is a nice kid; he doesn’t eavesdrop as much these days. Now my friend had read up something somewhere..about..erm, well what the heck, orgasms. So she was animatedly detailing the phenomenon and I knew this was no good. Embarrassing! So I kept going ‘shoo shoo’ and as a last desperate attempt, I nearly yell out, ‘Babe, chill! I KNOW WHAT AN O***** IS! (now it is a freak word) I know more than you think, so give it a break!’

 Pin drop silence.

Then an alien voice that is not supposed to be in the vicinity blurts out, ‘Oh? OH?’

Where did he spring out from? How do you reason something like this with your little brother? As both our lower jaws hit the floor, he gives me this oh-my-god-what-have-you-done look and stomps out.

Of late, I have suddenly developed this affinity quotient that gets me into trouble with, of everybody, the Railway police force.

We were birding near the Velachery Railway station. ‘We’ translates to three juniors and me; as a part of the MNS Bird Race. The Pallikarnai marsh is very close to the Velachery Railway station, so we walked to the marsh, feasted our eyes on the numerous water fowl, whooped and whooped watching a kingfisher dive again and again to, well, fish. Then we walk along the tracks to go back to the railway station when the RPF come running to us, whistles and rifles and all.

‘Terrorist a? Bomb vekka vandengala?? Who are you people??’

I was the oldest of the lot, and I lost my voice, because I felt like bursting into laughter. Yes, I’m shameless. Madhu, next to me, was munching on Chocos and almost offered the gun-man some. Gladys, the youngest, took charge then, and she was like, ‘Students, sir..’. That was it.

‘Suicide panna vandengala?’

Madhu tried, and lost. Loud snort. 

Final straw. They got us to the station, and questioned us again. And again. And again.

Then they realised we might be air headed, but innocent, after all, and let us away.

Thank heavens the place was empty.

Oh, and no bribes there. They are nice, duty conscious people, the RPF.

A couple of days back, a few of us went to the SRM University. It is in some God forsaken place out of the city, and we had to catch a train to reach there. When I was getting back, I had Raji for company. Our legs were killing us, and as the train chugged into the station, we notice the ladies compartment is full, with some passengers standing; but the one next to it is nearly empty. So we act smart and throw our noses into the air and make ourselves comfortable in the empty compartment. 

The train chugs into Tambaram. Suddenly, both of us feel like Pepsi, and we get out for some. Trains are frequent from Tambaram to home, so it was really no problem. There is the Ticket Checker. He had already caught one man who was travelling without a ticket, when he asked us for ours, we proudly flash our tickets to him.

We were good citizens.

‘Ma’am, this is a second class ticket. You have been travelling in a first class compartment. Please follow me.’

Shoot! No wonder it was empty. The train chugs out of the station, and Raji and I contemplate running into it. The man seemed to have heard our thoughts so he gives us this don’t- try-any-tricks look and ushers us into his cubby-hole office. He shows us the rule book and tells us that we have committed a crime that might land us in jail, and we better pay the penalty of around Rs 300 per head.

I cannot fathom why I find all these situations exceedingly funny. It was pointless because I did not have the cash, and even if I did, I wouldn’t pay. Because it was an honest mistake! So the guy shuffles around as we give him our family details, and then he pops the question.

‘Evlo kaasu vechirikenga?’

Now we are experts at this, aren’t we? And I was glad I was carrying a handbag. I dumped all the hundred rupees notes into the bag, and retain only the tens, and hand over the wallet. He counts the coins and notes, opens the portion that contains all my girl-stuff, and still pokes his finger inside and digs around, and finally counts a hundred bucks.

Of course, it is not enough. So he tries again. Leave the ID cards here, go home, get cash in the morning. Or (horror!) spend the night in our railway cell. Raji almost fell for it. She almost gave her ID card away when I kicked her foot. She thanked me for it later.

After some more pleading (Sorry sir, please sir, this is the first time we are coming by train sir) he allowed us to leave at last. ‘At great risk to my position and job’ were his words. Like duh!

What a waste of time and money. Sadness.

Of Swamijis and Media Scoops

Today’s news had more masala than we all could take. One of our very own, revered and respected swamijis had been caught red handed, on a video, doing it, in the ‘swamiji style’. With a once famous Tamil movie actress. She still looks pretty though. Matter of opinion, anyway.

The Nithyananda Swamigal is a well read guy, who spoke a lot of sense. My mum used to read him when she was in one of those ‘religious reading’ phases. I have never read his writings, or heard him talk, though. But he did have a lot of followers...all over the world. I don’t think you can have a lot of followers until you are really good, personally. The question is, really good at what? The point is that, he was a famous guy; now he is more famous than he can ever hope to be. And he has gone underground. Small ironies of life.

The thing is, I really don’t get what the big fuss is all about. Suddenly there is a lot of publicity, and believers who feel they have been fooled, go around his ashrams and thrash everything they can lay their hands on. I mean, come on! He is human, too, and well, he was just trying to get one of his basic physiological ‘wants’ fulfilled! He just looks less perfect now, less God-like. Why isn’t anybody looking at it that way? And that guy, he should be suing who ever placed the damn camera in his bed room for invasion of privacy, and not run into hiding.

Yeah, the previous paragraph is definitely a lot of madness. But hey, don’t we all have better things to do? Prime television time, and a news channel is broadcasting the entire video coverage for a full five minutes, into my living room! My mum is horrified/shocked, my brother roaring with laughter and is texting his gang: ‘Nityananda Swamigalin Thiruvilayadal-Watch Sun News, very interesting fore play tips’ . I was torn between disgust at having to witness near-porn with my mum and brother in the same room and appalled at the channel for having stooped so low to broadcast a catch. They even had an explanation: It is supposed to be a warning for the devotees to not fall into any more such ‘traps’.

Seriously, what crap, man!

I do understand that there is no business as lucrative as a ‘fake swamiji business’, and I also understand that whatever happens, our people, those who will themselves to be charmed by these characters, will always be charmed/harmed by them. There is nothing we can do about it. But that is not reason enough to broadcast porn (to those who have seen the footage, can I classify it as porn? I’m not very literate in that field, you see) into our homes. And yeah, it is a scoop. No doubt about that. (Infact, if an English news channel, one of those that thrive on string operations, had caught hold of this footage, they would have made enough stories out of it to last a week) But hey, let’s face it; haven’t such occurrences become common place now? If the guy was forcing people into it, yeah, he deserves the electric chair. But it was, erm, otherwise, in our man’s case.

What freaks me out is, if this is one famous man, what about you and me? Where is the entire ‘safe in the privacy of my room’ feeling? When I was a kid, and was told in school, ‘God is always watching you’, I did not like it at all. Now, I don’t know who else is watching me, because we are all just so vulnerable, and no, it is not a nice feeling at all.

The good old teaching days...

I had taken a couple of days off to go to Coimbatore on ‘Business’. I like putting it that way, it makes you feel important. Anyway, I was out there on project work, and on my first evening there, I was with Seetha at Gautham’s place for dinner. Gautham’s mum teaches languages and we got talking about her profession. I could relate to whatever she way saying because I used to do some teaching myself, ‘part-time’, for some extra pocket money. Those were the good days, man. Somehow, after I started on the MBA, there was no time to teach, and the vocation just fizzled out.

The first student I took in was Shoaib, who was then in class XI. He wanted help with French, and suddenly, I was a French tutor! Shoaib had his Quarterly Examinations the following week and he did not want to flunk French. But he did not know it too well, either. So we started with the alphabets, and moved on to the conjugations, and Shoaib passed. You have no idea how smug I felt. These classes were a lot of fun, because I was hardly older that the boy and it was not like a teacher-student relation at all. But they say there is strength in numbers, right. We were in a one-is-to-one ratio then, and Shoaib was a good boy. After he passed the darn exam, he became the ‘Boy who passed’, and I got popular overnight, as the ‘Girl who can make you pass French’. Such popularity is directly proportional to increase in the number of students. Soon enough, I had two more minds to ignite- Jason and Vivek. Now it was three-is-to-one, and I was doomed. A typical day would go thus:

Jason (J), Shoaib (S) and Vivek (V) arrive 30 minutes late. I’m not complaining, because I get to catch up on my beauty sleep. They trio saunter in, complaining about the sun or the traffic or football- They were all football players, National or State, I don’t remember.

J-What Gita, its Sunday afternoon, and we have tuition! We had practice all morning too!

Me- And exams next week right?

(More grumbling. I’m grinning, though. I won, right?)

S- Hey, I got a new phone, see.

Me-Whoa! Super cool man! (Anything compared to my camera-less, FM-less, MP3-less Nokia 2600 was considered super.) So, shall we start? What are we doing today? Passe compose? What has your teacher covered?

(At the same time)

S- Hey my sister is getting married in two months!

J- We are leaving to Vellore next week for selections!!

V- Hey, I am doing a solo dance for Farewell!!!

You get the general idea, don’t you? They would follow various strategies, the buggers J If everything failed, they would make up some non-existent boyfriend and watch me blush. But they were such sweet boys, and they did study! Shoaib scored a rank in French too. And then, all too suddenly, two years just flew...And we were done. They were my first ever batch of ‘students’ and they will always remain close to my little heart.

I even tried my hand at teaching Italian for three guys. In this case, they were all older than me. The moment they heard that I was a student, they all had these identical grins, and I knew this was going to be no better than my first batch. These guys were all working professionals, and one of them was even married. Twenty minutes into the first class, one of them, had a doubt.

“Gita, what’s for Fuck you in Italian?”

Now I did not know what was Fuck you in Italian. In fact, I did not know any swear word in Italian. I told them that the swear word session comes much later, not this early into the course.

Phew. It sure was fun too, though. And it was good for the pocket money. And I did learn a lot. These boys were good students too, and asked sensible doubts later into the course. And they gave me a glowing appraisal at the end of the course, and the boss kept offering me courses over and again.

Then the MBA happened, and I was cut off from civilization for two whole years, and did not take up any more ‘teaching assignments’. But every time I think about the good times, I can’t help but grin widely. And if any of you guys are reading this, thank you J You were all just too good! Cheers!

  

Erm. Yeah, whatever!

This might sound excessively school-girlish, and not just me...Most of my friends are also horror struck by this silly behaviour of mine. I mean, if it has come down to me writing a post about it...! One part of me does feel let down, too. By another part of myself. Ugh.
So it finally happened. The unthinkable. Never in my wildest dreams would I have imagined that a movie adaptation of a book would make me pick that book off the racks and read it. It was one night (another insomnia attack)when this harmless DVD lay within reach and though I was never a fan of this genre of ‘young adult’ stuff, I played it nevertheless.
Twilight.
Though I was reading the Bourne series then, and I never abandon books like this, by the noon next day I had all the four books ready and waiting. Now the irony was that I was very anti-Twilight all this while. Because it was simply NOT for people of my age!! My friend Sandya tried the ‘Shame on you’ trick on me but it did not work. Then I get to the books, finishing them off pretty quick, and as always, the movie paled in comparison. But it was this character that got me all hyper. Of course you all know who it is. Almost all the females who have read the series would be fantasizing about this man-vampire -Edward Cullen.

(Sigh*)

Now, I’m feeling disgusted. I assumed I was beyond crushes and everything, especially the ‘fictional’ ones. I haven’t had many of those, anyway. My last stable fictional crush was Ron Weasley, when I was in class nine. If you looked into my copy of Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban, you would find a faint pink tinge over the letters ‘Ron’ through the entire book. No it was not lipstick. Just colour pencil shading. Yes, I was crazy then. And Now!!
It is kind of alarming. Yesterday I was sitting in my friend Badri’s place. He was away on a phone call for two minutes, and when he got back I was ogling at Robert Pattinson in vampire attire, thanks to Google. That guy so perfectly fit the role! And see, just setting things clear, it’s the character called Edward that I like. And Pattinson just gives shape to the imagination..Like, you get it, don’t you? I might be crushing on Ron Weasley, but not the Ron that Rupert Grint plays. Grint is just an adaptaion I’d make do with, when I’m too tired for imagination. And now, there is this collage of Edward Cullen in posing in varied angles which is my desktop wallpaper. And my mobile phone wall paper. And I am feeling very very dumb with myself.
But I think Edward has gotten himself all this fanfare, because Stephanie Meyer has sculpted him that way. The kind of boy that all girls wish for. The understanding, caring, giving in, protective, possessive guy, who would always be there, no matter what. With just the right amount of give-and-take, just the right amount of jealousy, and trust, ample enough to keep them both going. Yeah, I know what the boys would say-If the girl was worth it, the guy would go to any extent for her. It takes two hands to sound a clap.
But what does ‘worth it’ exactly mean? Somewhere, it all boils down to the one word called love right? Now, that noun is an enigma. It might contain all the feelings that I listed in the previous paragraph, but, I believe, there is something more. Something that would make the difference.
And this term called ‘soul mate’. How would you know who your soul mate is? I mean, it sounds all nice and everything. I, for one, have a good idea of what I want my soul mate to be like. He (yes, soul or no soul, it’s definitely a he) should okay with having lots of animals around the place, like long walks and the beach and travelling, and books, and be a little patient and of course, caring, understanding, etc. But that is nothing to do with the soul, right..Anyway, it is just too confusing, too much of unnecessary thinking more like. I guess it would be nice if he was someone whom I wouldn’t have to put an act, to please, someone who could put up with all my crankiness and still call it cute (gross..I’m getting mushy now. Let us stop here for now) So That’s that. Till then, I’d just get back to dreaming about Cullen.

“No sex please, We are Indians!”

Caught you there, didn’t I? HA!

This was a GD topic in one of the many GDs I had subjected myself to, while scouting for a suitable college to do my MBA in. Now the topic could be approached in two ways, one harping on the great Indian culture (Yes, yes we know all about it) and the other talking about how taboo such a topic still is. Enough people have spoken about the first approach. I like the second *evil grin*.

Rewind: Class Eight, Zoology class. The teacher is desperately trying to make a class of 40 girls make sense of the Human Reproductive system.

“So you understand right?”

Uh-huh? Understand what? 

Ovaries. Follicles. Eggs. Lots of tubules with different names. Sperms.

Between suppressed giggles and sneak-peeks at fellow classmates, lots of nagging doubts remain unanswered.

Then one brave heart speaks up. “But ma’am, How.....?”

“Shoo. What child? Whatever you need to know, you’ll know when you have to.”

Lesson: Ask no questions. We will no more treat you like kids who are trying to bite off more than what they can chew.

All right..the teacher (Mum Number 2) won’t tell us. (Mum Number 2, because they are the ones who take care of us for all the time we are not under Mum Number 1’s nose).  Let’s ask Mum number 1.

So I make this list of all the questions I have, to ask her.

1.      Who is a lesbian?

2.      Why did Shiva anna laugh when I asked for a rubber?

3.      Chintu says if I get married and go to the temple and pray I’ll get a baby. Is it that simple?

4.      What is a ‘blue’ film?

5.      What does ‘fuck’ mean? Why did daddy slap thambi for using it?

6.      Why did you shoo me away from that Kamasutra book in Landmark?

7.      How.....?

My mum’s answers to those were:

1.      You are asking too many questions..

2.      That Shiva..I should talk to his mother.

3.      You stay away from that girl. What sort of things you girls discus at this age!

4.      You have bad friends who put bad things into your head.

5.      Promise me NOW you won’t say that word again!!

6.      Next time, you WILL hold my hand and never let go of it when we go book shopping.

7.      Go to bed..NOW.

But the forbidden fruit is always desired the most, isn’t it?

You won’t tell us? We will find out!

And somehow, (I still don’t remember how) we figured out answers to most of those ‘doubts’ of ours. I remember three of us pouring over an Oxford dictionary one rainy day, though. And the Mills and Boon series helped. Oh, and so did Mr Sheldon. That guy is God. Sort of.

But why why why is such a big deal made out of this??!!

I mean, we are going to find out at some point..why not you tell us, and we get the facts right; rather than doing it the tougher, more dangerous way? If you DO tell us, then it will be just another normal thing, instead of something that is hyped up to such an extent!

I don’t know..Maybe they find it kind of embarrassing.

Imagine your kid and yourself:

“So, son, today I’ll tell you how babies are made.”

Ugh . Very weird. But I guess we ought to get used to it. Well, I don’t know! May be it’s all part of ‘growing up’ as the wise say!

F.R.I.E.N.D.S

This is a kind-a mushy post (its been a while :P )
Recent past was not what I would call, a fairy tale. New Year's was lousy. I was home answering calls. Then in quick succession the mum and the bro fell sick, succumbing to Ross River Virus (It has traveled all the way from Australia, I read, and it is a HORSE disease!) Then I failed to get through two dream companies in the campus recruitment. I had this big plan of moving abroad, which crashed down. And more recently, a very very strained relationship with another special friend is adding to the woes.Well, you get the general idea, don't you? Barely twenty days into 2010, and me no liking it at ALL.
But things seem much more bearable and nicer now because of these wonderful people around me, whom we carelessly categorize as 'friends'. It's way too simple a term!

 This post is for all these friends of mine :)

For Hari, who knows things are not okay from the way I 'hello' him on gtalk,  who puts away aptitude test prep and job applications to make international calls to make sure I smile :)

For Roo, who underplayed her I-got-a-job elation, for my benefit and cribbed with me. (yeah we crib and crib and suddenly we feel better)

For Badri, who threw his ego to the winds, and was there when I really needed a shoulder :) (and fuel for the bike) :D

For Ram, who has, as always been the rock :)

For Ragavan, who knew what had to be done to get me all cheery again -Domino's and BR and some snow too! :) (heard of the term 'binge'? In moderation, it actually helps)

For Sandy, my partner in all things good and bad, plotting and scheming, laughs and tears :)

For Ravi anna, who sacrificed a lot of sleep to put some sense into me :)

For Jen, for all the ego-boosts :)

For Arjun, who is currently warring with me. I'm going to miss you, idiot.

And for Chris, for helping me find 'answers'.

Things are actually looking up now!! Landed into what I would call my 'dream project' with Parry ;) Having a lot more time to catch up on my 'reading' ;) . I want to write a book next (heh heh). A few new clothes can do wonders to your morale :D. I guess the first stage had to be traversed to reach this, and I never could have, without you people..You guys rock!
*hugs*
:)

One bike, two cops and a three minute drama.

I drive a Scooty Pep Plus, and it’s like one of my best friends. I love my bike and I don’t know what I would do without it! Yesterday’s paper spoke about global surveys that proved that a woman would rather lose her boyfriend, than lose her mobile phone. I attach about as much importance to my bike. (But of course, priorities would change if the boy friend can buy me a bike himself.) Well, women ARE materialistic. You just need to accept that.
Now I shouldn’t be saying this, but I (like many, many people out there) don’t have my license in hand. I keep filing for an LLR (I’ve done it thrice, already) and wake up only when the validity is over, and then I need to file it again. And I am NOT proud of it. Last week, the insurance papers were overdue too. Vulnerable prey for the cops-hawks.
So my bro and I are on the bike, bro driving (“NO WAY I’m sitting behind when a GIRL is driving!!”) and he happens to be my flesh and blood, so he doesn’t have a license either. Now there are certain things you learn when you drive without a license:
1.Never look scared. If a cop is looking at you, you defiantly look back at him. Then he’ll think you are clean.
2.Signals are dangerous preying grounds. Regulate driving speed and make sure you zoom away when the lights turn green.
3.Always wear the helmet. It’s one reason less for them to swoop down on you.
4.Never break the law.
5.If caught, never act smart. Act sorry; plead (Self respect or bars?) If you are a girl, cry. Or turn on your charm. Whichever you are good at.
6.If you are ever caught, discreetly empty the cash off your wallet and stash it away. Just keep as much as you are willing to donate to the cops in the wallet. Make sure you stash the credit cards away as well. Once, long time back, this cop saw the cards peeking out from my almost empty wallet and drove with me to the nearest ATM and got his due.
7.If you know some big-shot in the hierarchy, you don’t need to worry yourself with the six points stated above. Just make sure that person’s mobile number is always stored in your phone.
I have given this gyan to my bro many times, but one look at the cop’s face, he simply forgets it all. So we are caught in the signal, and bro breaks cardinal rule #1. He gets all sweaty and is like “Iyo..he is looking at us da..I think we are done”. Sure enough, the cop scans all the faces and picks the one that looks most guilty.
“License irruka?”
Blank stare. Metamorphoses into scared stare.
“Va va, oram kattu vandiye.”
Then the cop turns the ignition off and takes the key with him.
Now bro regains his senses, and he is opens the wallet, and takes extra cash out and puts it inside his pant. (snigger*) My wallet now had a fifty, his had a hundred. We pull the bike toward the cops. An equally hassled crowd stands there. Either they are making frantic phone calls or bargaining.
Cop turns to us.
“Enne pa, license illeya? 500 rupees fine. Enne, fine kattreya?”
I think when caught, we should cough up the cash, atleast for the savage satisfaction that none of it would go into the cop’s pocket. But almost always, we never have THAT much dough to spare. And think of all the things that you can do with five hundred bucks.
“Ille sir..avlo money ille sir..sorry sir..” We are taking the road most often travelled.
“Evlo money irukku?”
Then I go enter conversation, “Sir, neengale paarunga sir, only fifty” Thrust the purse into his hands.
“No no, fifty pathadu..two hundred rupees.final.” It was like bargaining on Pondy Bazaar.
Then a senior cop enters the scene. (With a bigger moustache. And an even bigger paunch. I think an increase in these parameters is directly proportional to raise in ranks)
“What is the problem?” He smiles at both of us. We smile back. (The charm, remember?)
I say, “Sir, sorry sir, Fifty than irukku...”
The two cops have a hush hush conversation. Then the senior one looks at us again. Nods. “One hundred and fifty.”
I still have faith that we can get away with fifty, when my bro hands over his hundred.
“Indanga sir.” Idiot.
Then some more hush hush. Then the senior cop says (this is the best part),
“Seri seri, one hundred koduthutu ponga. Inde ponnu naale unne vidren. All educated people. Looking like college students. Get license soon”
(I shall translate : Because this girl is with you, I ll leave you this one time) Haahaahahah :D
My bro gives me one long glance. Sardonic contempt mingled with gratefulness. Signs the receipt. And we are off.
My bro tells me then, “Thank God you were with me. Or they would have put their hands inside my pockets and all and checked for money.”
Jeez!
And we look at the receipt: Crime-Obstruction. Fine:Rs Fifty. So the other fifty is for his generosity.
I mean, we ARE wrong. Maybe if all the motorists out there had their licenses in hand, these guys wouldn’t be able to make a business out of this at all, would they?
So now my mum has put a ban on the bike. We are allowed to use it only after we both get our LLRs. Blah.