......

Blog update long overdue.Don't know what it is but just haven't gotten around to doing so.I notice that this space has become like a personal diary of sorts.Nothing along the lines of Bridget Jones though.Finally got my hands on a copy of the second part (The edge of reason).Was worth a read.Entertaining if nothing else.Kinda like those comedy shows on TV which you defintely wouldn't rate as great but you watch it because it makes you laugh anyway.

I'd made a lotta plans for this week since I'm off from work.However, all of them are down the drain along with the rainwater that been collecting from the incessent downpour.Bleagh.This confines me to home and gives my mum an excellent excuse to begin my "cooking lessons".

I'm bored bored bored bored bored.

If I could I'd just pack a backpack, some roadmaps, pile some music into my mp3 player, pick up a digicam, and go on a road trip.Not particularly in need of company.Just by myself.Just travel, explore, take my own time and not follow any hurried schedule.Connect with people who I know I'll never meet again.Read.Not keep in touch with anybody.Not answer any frantic calls demanding to know where I am and what I'm doing.Not be obligated to be at anyone's beck and call.Just coexist with the surroundings and absorb all that I see, hear, smell, touch and experience.Take a break from the noise in my head.All the insignificant worries that clamor over each other like a trough full of worms.I'd try and spend time with kids.They heal as much as they entertain.I wouldn't care how I looked.Wouldn't bother changing into contact lenses everyday, wouldn't line my eyes, wouldn't put on earrings.Just t-shirts, khakis, shoes,watch.Oh and deo (all important).Not care about what anyone thinks or says.Talk when I feel like, withdraw when I feel like.Just do what my gut tells me on a daily basis.Just be.

I see red.

It's a minute past midnight and here I am, sitting infront of my PC because one emotion floods my brain,not allowing me to sleep.That emotion,ladies and gentlemen,is anger.Pure,absolute,unaldulterated anger.

Here's a question.How much shit can a normal individual take in a day?I assume that our Creator endowed us all with the same shit-taking capacities.But how much crap is an individual willing to take?Therein lies the difference,my friends.

This world,I have effectively concluded,is filled up in most part by people who will do anything to get their way,to rub off some of their bad vibes on others,or just proudly display their absolute lack of a long-dead thing called courtesy.They will step on your toes,muck your face in the mud, drown you in a marsh,whatever.As long they go to sleep satisfied every night.

Now when one is a child,one mostly learns to "seek the goodness in everyone",which,by the way,is a complete load of nonsense.When one actually steps into the world and is on one's own,all the extremes of mean,crude,opportunistic,psychotic behaviour can be observed.

But what do people who don't even know each other get out of being downright rude?Please justify to me why a woman should be asked to delay her phone conversation with her fiance by the driver of her cab just because she requested for the volume of the cab radio to be reduced twice?Impertinence?Yes sir!You betcha!And please note that the woman in question had used the words "please" in her request, which had to be repeated only because it the volume was increased to ear-splitting levels again.

Oh and there is also this whole battalion of chauvinists who think its their right to look at and speak to women condescendingly,contempt and irritation punctuating every word they speak.

To say nothing of petty politics people employ to get to the top:"Oh did I trample you into the mud on my way up?So sorry but you know I think the colour of dirt really suits you.Cheer up,you'll get used to it."

People using me for their personal hidden agendas,taking me for granted,treating me like nothing,telling me what to do,bullying me.........I've just had it!!!!!!!!!

The journey to being an adult just chiefly comprises of learning to be as ruthless as the world around you.Period.And I think the last trace of my foolish naive attitude just flew out of the window.

Something I've always wanted to be told :-)

You Are 24% Girly

You are a pretty hardcore tomboy, and a very free spirit. Gender roles be dammed, you like to do things your way.

How Girly Are You?

Hear,hear....!!!

After much pleading and child-like pouting,
I hereby declare The Rainrider's birthday week (12-19 Oct) OPEN!!! :) :) :) The big day,by the way, is on 19 October.

Those who feel sweet enough to wish him may do so via comments to this post :)

Have yourselves a happy week!!!

Mmmmh,it's been a while since I posted anything.Not that there hasn't been anything to blog about.It's just that everytime I started writing,halfway through I'd lose interest and leave it unfinished.Consequently my google documents account has a lot of half-written unfinished drafts.Maybe I should just get clever and put them up as contests-"Finish the draft and win a prize....".Though I can't,for the life of me, imagine who'd want to finish my sentences for me.

Here's a whirlwind of an update:

• Worked nights all of September.It's been an eye-opening experience.I've learnt to value food and a good consistent healthy routine because...
• ...on one fine day,I had one of those dramatic faint-and-fall episodes at home.Result:doc prescribes 3 months worth of vitamin and iron supplements.Bleagh
• Went on a short weekend getaway types to Pondicherry before that with Dad,Mom and Amit.Want to go back again.
• The Mal family and the TamJ family have been exchanging sweets lately...Kaju katli and Nagapattinam Halwa.Sweet Business,that.
• 3 birthdays went by.Amma got two sarees, Dad got Peter England trousers and C-ma was wished over conference call and ended up with confusion about what I was doing with her nephew after a night shift

Yesterday was "catch-up on your chores" Sunday.After a really longish break, I managed to oil my hair before washing it as opposed to the usual run-in-shampoo-condition-run-out routine with Amma's yells trailing behind me accusatorily as I run off to work with wet hair tied up.

Spent some time with T and expressed deep dislike for his maidservant.I must've sounded like Amma when she goes off on her ranting trips about our weird maid with kleptomania;my reasons,however, were completely different and extremely scandalous.

We ate lunch at Subway yesterday.As always,there was one difficult customer making everyone in the queue behind her pull their hair out.Madam arrived in a car,stepped out on her stilettos and firmly ordered her boyfriend to "stay there" while she gets their takeaway.The guy must be stupid or henpecked or both because he actually parked the car and followed her in.Grave mistake if you ask me.He would've realized yesterday how crabby and whiny she can get at the same time.But like I said maybe he was stupid so maybe he's the kind who says stuff like"She's so assertive and aggressive....I love aggressive women you know?" *wink-wink* Bleagh.

Anyway back to our story....not that there is much of one here.Madam placed her orders and gave the already confused new staff an even harder time as she kept complaining in extremely high pitch about how she didn't want olives added, or cheese, or this or that.My God!!!Oh yeah she said that too."Go-hod!" with nose in the air and eyes rolling.Kinda made her look like she was having seizures,that over exaggerated eyeball movement.The S & H boyfriend, meanwhile, stood very close behind her for a while and when she started yelling, quietly went to the nearest chair and sat down.When it finally seemed like the order was getting around to being ready he stood beside her again and sympathetically enqured what happened."They screwed up my sub" was the anguished reply.Stupid woman.

On the other hand, T sweetly assumed his duties of deciding on our orders (he knows I can't order food even at gunpoint) and patiently answered the befuddled questions the newbie staff asked about toppings preferences.What would I do without him.

As we chomped into our respective subs, we watched a little girl who by all means was a dynamite in the making.She entered hand-in-hand with her father loudly exclaiming that he didn't give her time to wash her hair.Jaws dropped."She scares me",T said.Her father ordered and while they waited,the mite ran around her table scrunching up the menu pamphlets and throwing them at her father.The patriarch caught her, grabbed her close and did funny antics to make her laugh repeatedly.It was a really sweet laughter I thought.

"She sounds like a ringtone", T said reaching out to take a paneer cube out of my sub.

When the girl's food arrived, she took one look at her plate and loudly said "Baba I won't eat this!"

"Why dear?"

"Because I don't like it."

"You must finish it, it's good for you."

"Wait till I tell Mummy!"

Somehow, he managed to coax her into eating quietly.T, his sub finished, took a leaf from the girl's book and pleaded child-like for an iced tea.It was a complicated manouevre which involved me leaving my half eaten sub and walking all the way to the counter to get it.A few mock angry glares later, I fetched the drink.The girl had finished her food and was now running around pausing at tables and peering into faces of its occupants.

At one particular table, she gazed at a baby. The baby's grandma smiled at the girl and asked her if she wanted a baby.

"I already have one" was the reply much to everyone's amusement.

Kids are such sources of amusement.They put a smile on your face no matter what.I watched as the baby's father joined their table and bent down to kiss the baby's head gently before sitting down while his wife smiled at him lovingly.I turned away from the intimacy of the moment to look outside.A ragpicker passed by with his baby son in his arms wrapped in a cloth.The baby playfully whacked his nose and squealed.The ragpicker laughed and for that one sweet funny moment he might've forgotten about the miseries of his existence.

Sunday's here.Yay

It's 7:30AM on a pretty nice Sunday morning.As I write this post Elton John's Tiny Dancer plays on Winamp.I'm also downloading some stuff I heard on The Rainrider's ipod.

We went to the beach yesterday morning after my shift got done at 6:30am.I'd lost it the night before, snapping and snarling at every poor soul who dared to cross my path.The victims:Amma and The Rainrider.They understandingly put it down to lack of holiday and stress from doing night shifts.I decided that I just had to go to some place thats open.Nothing more soothing than sitting by the sea quietly, just watching and hearing the thoughts that go round and round in your head.It's almost as if one was taking a step back from the mad melee of life and choosing just to be an observer.Typical of me to like that kind of thing.One can't take rome out of the romans I suppose.

So we went.Him all grumpy and befuddled with sleep and me unable to stop grinning like an idiot because at that time, riding and listening to music seemed to me the best thing in the whole wide world.The wind blew my frshly washed and conditioned hair in all directions and I closed my eyes letting it caress my face.Rainrider's ipod was plugged in my ears and as I listened I realized how much I've come to love Simon and Garfunkel in recent times.Also realized that I miss good music so much that it is almost a physical ache.

We didn't spend too much time on the beach.Hardly any infact.Except for the few minutes that he went running behind couple of pigeons armed with his trusty canon powershot, leaving me to watch a boxing class in progress. I marveled at how one tiny little thing who was just as tall as the master's knee kept going smackety-smack pulling out his punches.Kids are such reservoirs of energy.They'd put a wound up spring to shame.

I woke at 5:30AM today unable to sleep.The night shift is leaving my body quite confused.It is also teaching me to appreciate the little things that I take for granted.Sunrises and daylight make really glad to be alive these days.So does a good restful sleep.

I wrote a little bit after I woke.The morning cool just as the sun rose felt positively delicious.It's nice to be awake when my family's up and about.And like I've said a thousand times before,there's something magical about a sunday morning.The world just seems a lot more relaxed and laid back.Rewinding after a week's worth of work might just be the thing that everyone's most grateful for.

I long for all the sundays from childhood.After waking up I'd switch on the tv and watch "Rangoli" on Doordarshan at 7AM and watch all the hindi movie songs.Amma would have to do much prodding to get me to brush my teeth.Then it would be back in front of the TV with my bowl of Bonny-mix,watching whatever cartoon prgramme my brother would happen to be watching.Shame they stopped manufacturing it.Shame I don't get to spend enough time with those I want to.

I've a couple of things to be taken care of today.Eyebrows need shaping badly,need to buy amma's birthday gift (her birthday's on wed),need to get 'finances in order', need to get around to organizing a weekend getaway.I also feel like making lunch.

Despite a bad headache,I've a feeling it's going to be a nice day.

Morose

It's 3AM and I'm at work, halfway through an eight-hour shift that runs from 10.30PM to 6.30AM.I'm feeling unusually hungry today.But somehow I just don't feel like stepping outside the team area to go to the canteen and eat.First of all, I really can't bring myself to like the canteen food.Secondly, going out now would mean seeing the darkness outside albeit through thick glass windows.For some reason, thats not a sight I want to see now.

The mall that houses my office is all shut down and dark as well.Darkness somehow reminds me that while I'm here, my loved ones are all fast asleep at home, secure in their respective slumbers.Here I am at this obscure time of the night fighting all the anxiety that's knotted in my chest.How I wish I could go back home and crawl into bed and under the covers.It's funny how much I love my bed considering that it's actually a 'diwan' on which two very old foam mattresses have been placed.Infact I think the mattresses are more than a decade old.

A meeting is supposed to happen tomorrow.Not the official kind.I might have preferred the official kind.It's got the significance of being a step towards "building my life" as my mum calls it.And now at the very last hour,I find myself wringing my hands in sheer restless apprehension.Some unexpected regressions in what Fred and I planned are sending us down the road to hysterics.

Also I'm fast approaching a deadline and I've made hardly any progress and I'm really disappointed with what I've managed to do so far.Not like I'm able to make any difference to that either.

Baba once jokingly called Amama "Mrs Vepralam" which literally translates to mean Mrs Anxiety.Looks like that trait has been generously passed down the lineage.

I'm tempted to call the rainrider just to talk.But slumber is such an essential requirement.Especially when one's stressed out and upset.I don't have the heart to wake him.

Also toyed with the idea of calling Amma.That would alarm her.Given the way her BP has been fluctuating like India's performance in international cricket, I'm pretty sure she'll freak out.Especially if I tell her that I called to say I'm feeling kinda lonely.

So I've decided to stick to my desk and chair in the corner and count the minutes.