The In-betweener

Closing her eyes to shield them from the bright lights of the room, her mind collapsed while her sub-conscious took over. The fluorescent etching on the insides of her eyelids were slowly fading away into complete darkness as the icy waters that were surrounding her started to numb her senses. This was good, she thought. This was familiar. Cool, damp and dead to kinesthesis, she let her mind dive into the icy waters.

Sensation was slowly creeping back along her skin. The whales of Consciousness and Awakening were pulling her up from those depths of nothingness. They caressed her synapses into working again; coaxing them to connect, stimulate and remember. But there were images now, playing in her head. A long, seemingly endless train of pictures darting across her mind's eye. The stream of pictures suddenly change pace, moving faster, too fast for her recovering cerebrum to handle. No! Stop! Slow down! Her cries are muted by her unmoving lips. But the darkness is taking over her again. Soothing relief lulls her consciousness to slumber. This time the whales let her rest, watching her all the while as they swim across the length of the infinte river before her stretching out like Time. Their movements raise soft waves of cold liquidity that lap against her toes.

It isn't dark, but it isn't light either. Everywhere that she looked, lies a dull blue glow reminding her of twilight evenings on a rainy day. Rain. She couldn't remember the touch of rain on her skin; her nerves simply cannot connect the image of falling drops of water to its corresponding kinesthetic response. This sense of confusion and disconnected thought process was jarring. The whales were now rushing towards her, forcibly trying to push her off the laterite stone that formed her safe haven. The waters part as she frantically tries to hold on to the sides of the river. These depths were where she belonged! This was her home! She could feel her world closing in on her, The fluorescent etchings were appearing again, growing brighter, deeper. It felt like they'd burn the very irises of her eyes.

Her eyes flew open. The light in the room was unnerving, bouncing off the walls of the padded cell she was in.
'She blanked out again Dr. Johnson', spoke the nurse who was on duty that night. 'We've pulled her up way too many times. At this rate, she'll turn into a vegetable. We have to stop'.

The woman named Dr. Johnson could only stare at her patient in the padded cell. Watching her own spitting image standing unnaturally upright, swaying on the balls of her feet, wires connected to her temple and her arms trapped in a straightjacket, Dr. Johnson could only shake her head in response, her expression cold and impassive. 'No', she barks, turning around to face the nurse, she gestures with her finger for her to repeat the electrocution - a small rotation of her immaculately manicured index finger. Her twin was the only connection to the unknown world; to the world in between life and death... or maybe it was death and life. She didn't know what the images were, only that she could see them in real time as they happened to her new-found sister. Nothing was going to stop her from gaining knowledge that was as, ironically, life-changing, as that. Not even the image of herself in another human being writhing in agony. Time to leave, she thought to herself. Her heels click on the floor as she walks out of the asylum.



Wrote this for an exam :). I don't do fiction, so please tell me what you think. The good, the bad, the ugly.

The Simple Royal

On the journey of life that has taken me to places far and wide, owing to the occupational hazard of having a father who was an Officer in the Indian Navy, there is one particular locale that will always bring a smile to my face; even one as I write this.

Titled "Queen of the Arabian Sea", Kochi, or Cochin if you prefer, was where I spent eight years, at a stretch, as I grew up. From the carefree days of Class I B to the first few tentative steps of adolescence in Class VIII A, Kochi, with her (relative) city-charm, steeped in mulled history, with a constant striving to become a metropolitan, holds a special place in my heart. The Chinese Fishing Nets of Fort Kochi that constantly bob up and down from dawn to dusk, to the Bolghatty Palace on Bolghatty Island that still retains its old word charm with the aura of Britsh regalia surrounding it, Kochi may be small, but it still holds the captivating essence of an era gone by.

I remember taking trips down to the Naval beach at INS Dronacharya, being ferried across in motorboats that groaned and rumbled simultaneously; I remember having picnics on the Golf Course inside Katari Bagh, which was the Naval Officers' Residential Enclave, laughing at signboards that yelled "Beware of Flying Golfballs! Flying Golfballs can be Lethal!"; I remember humid, rain stained evenings spent cycling on the wet roads of Foreshor Road, completely oblivious to the fact that we were zooming past the houses of Commodores and Admirals, screaming and shrieking sounds of absolute glee.

Kochi, with her fierce thunderstorms, dense humidity and constant presence of snakes and mosquitoes, could still hold her own among the bigger cities of our country. She may not have had a Spencer Plaza to hang out in, an IMAX for the true movie-going experience (though Sridhar still is very, very cool, I hear), a Juhu Beach to relax (and bird watch) on, or a Metro (though I hear there are plans for it), nor may she have had the fast paced life that the bigger cities boast of; for my innocent and childish mind, Kochi was my favorite place to be. In some ways, I think, it may still be.

Mad Mentoring (Or Something of the Sort)

Of the many hundred of people that I've come across over the past twenty years of my life, there are only a few whom I can call interesting, and only a handful I'd label as intellectually stimulating. From this subset of people, one of the most exciting whom I've met is a man who was both teacher and friend; Hussain Indorewala. With a name that long, you would expect someone who is tall, religious and uptight, but life has funny ways of imbibing in you simple, yet important lessons - one of which being "Never judge a book by its cover".

Standing at (I assume) barely five feet tall, Grandfather glasses on his nose that framed his big eyes, a mouth that was always in a smirk and wavy hair that had tints of gray catching the light, Hussain had the look of a man who was a school-teacher's worst nightmare and the brain of the same teacher's most cherished dream.

Taking a subject that was as vast and rambling as Basic Design and streamlining it to suit an architecture class's syllabus, is no mean feat; yet, he managed to do it with creativity and elan. If you spoke to him about a design that you had in mind, he would encourage you to push it forward, break barriers (including gravity for one assignment that included creating a design based on Jorge Luis Borges' "Library of Babel".), and show you designs made by other architects, that were similar in conception, to yours. With his brow furrowed, his eyes would twinkle behind his spectacles' frame and his smirk would grow as you explained an idea. Yet, for all his idealistic tendencies like refusing to eat meat of animals that were bred for the slaughterhouse; refusing to use even public transport because he believed that cycling thirty kilometers a day instead of using the bus to reduce his carbon footprint; or even simple, whacky ideas of meddling with our naive heads like asking us why we needed a door to define an entrance-way; his sense of mischief and fun was always an integral part of making us learn. Mind you, this included playing practical jokes on his colleagues as well. Such was his attitude to life, wherein having an argument was futile if you planned on winning, but not having an argument with him would be wasted opportunity.

Many others will come and go in my life who will pique my interest and intrigue my gray cells, but Hussain I will always have special regard and respect for, even if he annoyed me to no end.

Sugar and Spice and Chemical X

I wonder if you've ever come across the personified, in-the-flesh human version of a natural disaster. She's a common feature in my household. Glinting with a malevolent little twinkle in them, her nine year old beady eyes constantly dart from one corner to the other, looking for things to put out of place. In a way, she's a blessing in disguise (very heavily disguised). How? Well, let's just say that all the rooms in the house get a good and thorough check up for anything that may catch her eye, be it make up accessories or stationary items. It's almost like Spring Cleaning happened early!

Just like any natural disaster (coincidentally, we've nicknamed her Tsunami), it's the calm before the calamity strikes that brings about the anxiety around us, forcing every member of the family to chip in when it comes to hiding everything breakable, mouldable, edible (saccharine, not savory) and paint-able from her line of sight. Her nimble fingers, wiry limbs, poker straight hair that falls to her chin and skeletal frame quite often make me wonder if she just jumped off of one of the pages from "Oliver Twist"! She's adept at christening anything that finds her fancy, ranging from my eye-liner to my grandmother's watch, as her's, irrespective of whether she was told not to take others' things, or not.

I wouldn't call her a bad child, after all, with a mother who teaches eight year olds for a living, I've come to accept the fact that in the real world, minuscule signs of kleptomania, ADD and destructive behaviour in children, are actually signs of a happy childhood. I wonder if that makes me abnormal... Anyway, I would instead call her just another nine year old girl made of sugar and spice (in the ratio 1:4).

The Littlest of the Lot

I've begun to believe that I don't need external influences for my writing, when the internal ones are downright amusing. What better topic, really, than my own family! They're hilarious, lovable (once they grow on you) and quite fun to watch. So without further ado, I'm going to start a series of descriptive essays on none other than my family. Fair warning though, this will be in random order, so don't expect any form of continuity from one post to the other. The only continuous thread tacking everything together will be the fact that every member is related to me. Happy Reading and please do share along.

Trotting about with his round head held high, my two year old imp of a baby brother brings a delightfully mischievous aura into every room he steps into. Swinging only his left arm as he walks, he can give you the most charming of smiles, with his chipped upper incisor gleaming brightly, to make your anger not only subside, but completely vanish when he has been up to something destructive. His bright red lips seem to reflect the inner workings of his little mind, sometimes pursing and blowing only air out in his version of a whistle and sometimes opening wide and screaming for no apparent reason. His unnatural fear of ants, no matter what the size, colour or amount of life left in them, has proven to be a blessing to his mother and mine. "Suraj! Don't touch that!" makes no difference to him unless it has the word 'oombu' somewhere in the sentence. So now, for all intents and purposes, if he has to be punished or chastised for being a 'bad paapaa', we threaten him with an ant. However, if he's in a particularly stubborn mood, his podgy, caterpillar-sized fingers will clench into a fist while his peanut sized index finger will point indignantly at you and firmly proclaim "NO!". So much for obedience.

My baby brother can be quite demanding if he's hungry; and persistent at that. Rather than screaming for his milk (shrieking 'NANO' a few times just won't cut it for him), he rather chooses to wail and whimper for his 'Nano', as if we've been starving him, torturously so, for weeks. You would think that despite his maddening mischief; running through a list of things to pull down, urinate on, bite through (he has a preference for human flesh), whack, clang together and so on, all in the span of a mere 4 hours, we'd be a little more stringent with him. Alas, all thoughts of curbing his enthusiasm fly straight out the window when he sends you a kiss flying from cherubic little face, straight through your heart.

So, You Think You Can Tell Heaven from Hell?

There's a major dilemma that a lot of people around my age face. We want answers to a lot of uncomfortable questions, and unfortunately, we know that the right people to ask will always react the wrong way while the wrong people to ask will always react the right way. So what do we do?

No, that wasn't rhetoric and I don't have an answer. I haven't the faintest idea of how to tackle the situation either. Most of my questions and statements will make people cringe or admonish me for even saying things like that because it isn't acceptable as per middle class social protocol. So, by that co-relation, I will probably come as close to talking about my friends and boyfriend to my mom and dad as my tongue will come close to touching my nose. A few people can do it, while for me it will remain a struggle of - almost there... YES! I SKIMMED IT!... No, wait, that was just my breath condensing.

Honestly though, pre-teen years were a cinch compared to this whole new world of absolute confusion. Nobody said it would be hard on YOU when your FRIEND got married and dropped off the face of the earth. Nobody said that while having a fairly serious relationship is easy, telling your parents about it is as hard as trying to make a 2 year old understand that he really shouldn't pinch his... um... stuff. Unless it finally dawns on them that the more they try and mould you, the more hurt it does to them, you end up wasting your breath, time and energy.

It's odd how relationships have suddenly changed. Take for instance the 5 hours of "Workshop" that we had on "Ethics and Value Education on Inter-Personal Relationships". When asked about all the relationships that we hold dear to us, the first one that popped up was Friends, followed by Family. I don't know if I can call it a generation gap or if it's simply because we're young that this instance occurred. By this co-relation, Friends trump Family. Oddly enough, I just overheard a conversation between siblings who are extremely close to each other, despite their age gap. Now, keep in mind that the people involved are adults who are well over the age of 18. The younger one among them just moved into a new home, that they've taken on rent, while the older of the two is in the process of setting up their new flat. Had this been in a military situation (which I've personally been through), the older of the two wouldn't have felt any uneasiness to ask a friend if they could be accommodating enough to let the aforementioned person keep a few cartons in their house while the flat is ready and the luggage arrives. However, what's surprising is that, the same person finds it ethically wrong to ask their sibling to do the same. So, does that mean that we now live in a society where the age old idiom "Blood is thicker than water" is invalid? I don't know about you, but I sure think so.

The people around me, I find, are finding it more difficult to keep relationships with their own flesh and blood than with their friends and colleagues. Maybe this is opinion of mine stems from the fact that I'm a single child brought up for the most part of my life in a Nuclear setting, with a sudden exposure to a Joint Family's workings. Everyone thinks they either live in a Utopian scenario or a Dystopian one. Surely there must be something in between? It can't be all black and white, right? From my (limited) exposure to people, I've found that strong bonds are forged regardless of what age you are, where your roots may lie, what tongues you speak in or whether you're connected by a few lines on a family tree or not. I've found that I can sustain wonderful conversations with someone over 55 as well as with someone under 15, provided that their minds are open to to changing ideas. Needless to say, I've had my share of disagreements (and how) with people over 55 and under 15 as well, with one of them related extremely closely by blood calling me spoilt and blaming my behaviour on the books I read and the friends I keep. Yes, apparently to some of us in the world, a voracious reading habit is the curse that befalls all free thinking 20somethings who are willing to explore, experiment and find themselves before they get caught in the rat race.

I apologize for the thinly veiled sarcasm. Sometimes, my frustration slips out without me even knowing (and I don't have the heart to edit the wit out of my work). Of course, this doesn't mean that all my friends have replaced my family. There are too many documents to go through for that to be possible in the least. However, from a completely opportunistic point of view, there are quite a few perks of being bound to people legally. Property being a major factor to keep people, whether they like it or not, together.

But in the end, it all boils down to people. People and their relationships. Whom to ask what about seems pointless when you realize that you're just (wait for it)...

For the Gleek in Me and You

I'm not that much of a music person. I grew up on MTV where Nikhil Chinapa was (and I'd hate to admit it, but still is), in my honest opinion, the BEST Video Jockey on television. However, prior to this very streamlined guidance to music, my first exposure to song was through cartoon... ok, it was anime. Ninja Robots will still remain close to my heart for being the first cartoon to whose theme song I spent time on (trying) to learn the lyrics to.

As limited as my education was, I still stand by this theme song for being the best first steps to music education.

8 years of Carnatic vocal lessons spread over 3 teachers and countless hours of straining my voice to try being a Soprano (when I'm so obviously an Alto), mom's cassettes (ranging from Bee Gees, The Carpenters, ABBA, Cindy Lauper and other technicolor greats) and my own foray into the style of music that I love ( Frank Sinatra, Doris Day, Louis Armstrong, Peggy Lee, Aretha Franklin and the other royals of swing, rhythm and blues, jazz and soul) later, I think I can safely say that though I may not be gifted musically, I sure can appreciate good music. So, you can judge me nine ways to Sunday on this, but I'm glad shows like Glee and Britannia High are bringing music back.


I've gone through a lot 'music phases' in my short life. The Britney Spears phase, the Boyzone phase, the Backstreet Boys and N'SYNC phase, the Falguni Pathak phase, the Avril Lavigne phase, the Limp Bizkit phase, the Guns 'N Roses phase, the Heavy Metal phase and pretty much everything in between. But here's why I think Glee is the best so far when it comes to bridging the gap between music and reality without it being sexed up, melodramatic or misleading.

If you're a Gleek and haven't watched Season 3 yet, here is FAIR WARNING - SPOILER ALERTS BELOW. More like, plot giveaways, but whatever, you have been warned. If you're wondering where I'm getting my information from... I'll have you know that it is very reliable and that's all I can say.

Here's why I think Glee is worthy of being watched by any teenager.

Unlike other shows, it broadens your mind to everything from Van Halen to Destiny's Child when it comes to music and when it comes to the heavy duty, serious stuff, I think they've got it right. It isn't too preachy, isn't too melodramatic and best of all, it's honest. It's honest about things like what young adults REALLY think about. It's honest about how they are treated by their parents and peers.

If you're a parent reading this (Wow. My own mom doesn't read this, unless it's got her in it, but kudos to you for trying to reach out and try to understand how our minds work), LISTEN to your kids when they come to you. If you're telling them to come to you whenever they have ANYTHING to talk about, keep your word. Don't freak out and yell your head off at them. As harsh as this sounds, if your kids are your only retirement fund, make sure ALL lines of communication are open and working at all times and that it's not just a one way road. A one way road also doesn't mean that you're the one who is talking and giving your kid free advice. Neither does it mean that your kid is the only one who gets to talk about their problems. It'll make your kid feel a lot better and boost their confidence if you kept them in the loop about the things in your life, financial or otherwise. Granted they don't need to know the whole picture, but they WILL understand the general sentiment. Involve them in decision making regarding things like where they'll go on vacation or what school they should go to.

Your dreams are not their dreams. If you think it's okay to live your life through you kids, you're wrong. From first hand experience, trust me, when we lean on you for everything, take our first major decision by ourselves and then YOU go and say something like - no, you should do this because it's socially more acceptable - and when we believe you instead of ourselves because it's been drilled into our heads that 'the elders know best', and when that plan fails at such epic proportions that YOU end up eating humble pie, it is not cool for ANYONE involved. Your kid is not going to blame you, if that's what you're thinking. Their going to blame themselves for listening to you and your advice when they should've stuck to their decision. After that, they're sure as hell not going to take your advice seriously anymore. Yes, we're very stingy with our forgiveness and second chances. If your kids blame you for every pitfall in their lives, wake up and smell the coffee, your kid is spoilt.

Where does the Glee spoiler bit come in? Mike Chang has to choose between listening to his dad and pleasing him, making him happy and proud of him, against following his dreams and his passions. To all the kids out there, do your research before you make a decision, because you don't want to be called fickle-minded, nor do you want your dreams to be called a flash in the pan by your own parents, because it will either crush you or make you hate them and moving on from that is harder than you think. Been there, done that.

Not only is it a show that is against violence and bullying, it also actively encourages kids to change their mindsets about people, handicapped or otherwise. I've heard older people around me say - Oh, poor thing, he's gay - and it pisses me off. Being gay isn't a disability you show pity towards. Being a victim of bullying is. If you REALLY want to do something, don't mock the handicapped person, learn more about them and their disability so that you can overcome it and then communicate with them. You may even realize that if you were in a room full of people who knew sign language and you didn't, you'd be the one who felt handicapped, not them. I've been through it, and it opened my eyes to the possibility that if you're looking at artwork created by someone who was special and if that person were communicating with you in signs, you'd be the one who felt like you had a language barrier to overcome, not them.

As I write this, there's news about Green Lantern (Alan Scott) turning out to be gay doing the rounds. He's a fictional superhero, One Million Moms! If you have a problem with anything, have a problem with the fact that your kids are reading graphic novels and not books by authors like Enid Blyton, Carolyn Keene and others. But of course you wouldn't push your little boys and girls to do that will you? Harry Potter was blasphemous enough when it turned out that Albus Dumbledore was gay. You're not sheltering your kids when you declare war on DC comics, you're telling your kids that you'd be ashamed of them if they turned out to be gay.

So it may be a little difficult to digest, it will take time for mindsets to change and it will take longer for the negative connotations surrounding the words gay and lesbian to die out. Glee spoiler, don't turn into Santana's mom and tell your kids to keep it their 'secret' and follow it up with disowning your kid. It takes a LOT of courage to stand up to your parents, and when it's something as huge an issue as sexual orientation, remember it is NOT a disease, NOT a life choice. That's how they were born. You loved them in-utero, don't stop loving them because they've come out.

Finally, trust them. If your kids are touching 14, LET them make mistakes. Studies have shown that having relationships helps kids stay grounded and focused, unlike popular belief that speaks of relationships screwing with your kids' brains and 'tempting' them to 'experiment'. Kids that old are smart. Nobody wants to get pregnant at 14. TALK to them about sex, the good, the bad and the ugly. Talk to them about STDs and how losing their virginity is something that happens ONLY once in a lifetime. Talk to them about how they should strive to be on their own two feet so that if anything unexpected happens, they'll know how to handle it. Also, on a lighter vein, I'm pretty sure that health education videos on the 'joy' of giving birth arent' very joyful. With all that screaming from pain and exhaustion, it could also be your best bet when it comes to convincing your kid about abstinence and celibacy.

I'm pretty sure every Gleek remembers what Quin Fabray went through. Glee spoiler, it's heart-wrenching to watch Quin and Puck trying to bond with their daughter and trying to figure out how to raise her. Babies are expensive no matter where you are in the world.

But I think the best part about Glee is that it's most honest about its core issues like morality and equality. It addresses things like how sometimes the right decision for you isn't the right decision when it comes to a moral standpoint. It addresses things like giving into peer pressure and how to avoid it by just making YOU think of a better way out. But what I love about Glee, is that every single one of its characters can be related to at one point of time or the other.

Global Cooling, Y U NO START ALREADY?

It's 8.26 am as I start writing this. 8.26 am and 32°C or if you prefer, 90°F. Chennai is hot. (If you're expecting me to rant and rave about Chennai Super Kings knocking the socks off of Delhi Daredevils in last night's Indian Premier League cricket playoffs, this one sentence is all you're going to get *whistle*)

It's hot. No, hot doesn't come close to conveying the sentiment I want you to feel. It's so hot that the bottle of water that's been sitting in your fridge for 12 hours warms up in half an hour, and then starts heating up. It's so hot that it burns your eyes to look out your window. It's SO hot that your tiled floor, despite it being one storey up, is warm. All of this at 8.30 in the morning.

I hope you get the picture. It is UNBEARABLY hot.

If that wasn't bad enough, owing to the vast and immense population of our city, (Wikipedia tells me that as of the 2011 census 46, 81, 087 people are residents of the city, while 86, 96, 010 is the population of the urban agglomeration comprising both the city and the suburbs), we not only fall short of water, but now with the daily 2 hour power cuts and once a month 8 hour power cuts, we've even started falling short of electricity. As if that wasn't enough to bear in this woe begotten tale, last night, most of the city faced a low voltage scenario. If you're wondering why I'm wailing over all of this, let me remind you that it is NOT fun IN THE LEAST to wake up at 3am every morning, sweating so much that your pillow and mattress are damp, open out all the windows and then get yelled at for letting all the mosquitoes in. HOW do mosquitoes survive in this heat? PEOPLE die from heat stroke, but mosquitoes, THEY will survive anything. Reminded me of this weird fact from my senior year at school where we learned that a cockroach can live upto a week without its head. Heat resistant mosquitoes and headless cockroaches are going to rule the world when the apocalypse comes. I can feel it in my bones.

It was supposed to rain in April. We're 5 days short of June. So NOW, it's not just unimaginably hot, the so-called April showers that were supposed to come down, never did. To top it all off, even the mangoes weren't sweet this year!!! Do you know why? I'll tell you why. IT WAS BECAUSE IT NEVER RAINED. The local shopkeepers told us that unless it rains, the mangoes won't truly be sweet. I'm going to go with this guy's views, okay, because our learned scientists keep changing their minds about other things ( like how GOOD cholesterol isn't good anymore!! WHY IS IT STILL CALLED GOOD CHOLESTEROL?).

It's so bright outside that everything looks over exposed. Everything looks like it's from an old parched newspaper, yellow, jaundiced, pale and sickly. It's so bright, grey cement blocks look white. It's so bright that the sky looks white EVEN WHEN THE CLOUDS AREN'T THERE.

If this is what Global Warming is bringing, what happened to all the talk about Global Cooling? What happened to cloud seeding?

How to be an Exceptional Troll

Think you're an effective Troll? Think again. DO you know how to successfully "infuriate and induce inflammatory comments"? DO you push yourself to break all boundaries between reality and virtual space by taking the art of successful trolling to all new heights? DO you know how to induce exasperated sighs, frustrated screams, muted groaning/ grunting sounds in your friends even through your Facebook pages?

If you answered yes to ALL of the above questions here's to you. *Chink* (read : sound of the glass of your preferred beverage clinking against mine). If not, here's how to make all the Internet/ Real-Life trolls proud, in an easy-to-understand step-by-step process.

STEP 1 : IF IT'S STALK-WORTHY, IT'S TROLL-WORTHY
Consider this everyday virtual situation. You check your notifications on Facebook and find that two of your friends are having a very serious conversation on each others' walls about Japanese Manga. (For those of you unaccustomed to the previous capitalized words {LOL AT YOU}, Google it.) A good troll would not just read and follow every single one of those posts, but also engage themselves in the conversation, whether replied to or not.

A brilliant troll however, would say something like - I like Alphonso Manga more than Japanese Manga - thereby not just getting a few likes for effective trolling, but also achieving the satisfaction of enraging and annoying Japanese Manga fans.

STEP 2 : IF IT'S GETTING A LOT OF VIEWS, YOUR TROLLING SHOULD TOO

Ah yes, the YouTube phenomenon. That virtual space where anything and everything can be viewed, liked, disliked and, you've got it, trolled. This is where rookie trolls learn from the masters. It is on the most disliked videos that the treasures of ultimate trolling come to light. Phrases like - "Here's proof that the Apocalypse is nearing" and "I knew Friday wasn't the worst thing out there" - are examples of good trolling. But what makes an exceptional troll?

USING a video like

in real life TO troll someone, in this case, YOUR MOM.

Yeah, we trolls be cool lyk tat.

(And the above sentence is a flash in the pan tutorial on how to get all those Grammar/ Spelling Nazis trolled)

STEP 3 : TROLLING CAN GET YOU INTO AWKWARD SPOTS, ALWAYS KNOW HOW TO APOLOGIZE
There's a fine line between trolling and just being a downright annoying abomination. Take for example, this video of The Annoying Orange

Now, I like Annoying Orange, just as much as the next troll, but too many Annoying Oranges around you CAN drive even the Dalai Lama up the wall. For all you know, the person you're trolling, was in fact trolled way too many times that day, and hence is venting out on you. In such situations, calm down, apologize and run away. Far, far away. You don't want someone capable of trolling you at epic proportions.

And so, here ends my tutorial of How to be an Exceptional Troll. Happy Trolling!

Next time's post will be about How to Meme Your Friends, because Epic Meme is Epic, provided I get enough views for this.

To The Light Behind Our Halos

For a change, I'm going to succumb to social protocol (yes, I do indulge my weaker self in a few of its whims and fancies) and base one of my posts on an upcoming tradition - the celebration of Mothers' Day. To top it off, I won't even be sarcastic about how commercialized it's become. No siree, I won't.

BAZINGA! I will!

DOUBLE BAZINGA! No, I'm kidding. I won't.

Got your attention with a catchphrase from a popular (and BRILLIANT) sitcom have I? I'm glad.



Mama. Ma. Mom. Mummy. Mum. Mommy. Ammi. Amma. Amme. Amamalu. Ambula. Mother.

 A lot of m's in that line, huh? That's alright, I've (hopefully) got you to at least smile by the time you got to the end of that first line.
It's a well known fact that I'm not all that great at PDA (all you troll faces out there, yeah, I know, "you don't say"). Hugs are awkward. Kisses are just embarrassing. Holding hands is just too sweaty, to be quite plain. So, typing this post out, filled with gush-worthy ooohs and awwws is just not my cup of tea, implying that if you find this post pretty crappy from a sentimental point of view, the previous few lines should tell you why . FYI, you've just read my disclaimer to you about reading this at your own risk. I cannot guarantee a mushy post. Yet.

Mama. I don't know about yours, but mine is awesome. Awe-frikking-some. Hugs me when I'm low, shoves an over-the-counter paracetamol when she's exasperated with my attempts to let my body get over whatever sickness I have, tolerated my over-enthusiastic ups, melodramatic downs and my unimaginably obnoxious phases, stayed up with me and let me scream into her shoulder watching Paranormal Activity, wrestled with my hair for the better part of my 20 years, cleared the black from the white even when all I saw was gray, taught me how to push myself to be better only compared to what I was a day back, taught me to be independent, came for every one of my swimming classes even when I failed miserably at them, pushed me to stick to the things I loved doing even when it got exhausting because she knew I'd never forgive myself for giving up, signed answer scripts I've done horrendously at and not said a word, listened to me rant and vent, offered advice (that I didn't heed, to my unfortunate capability levels of idiocy) when she knew I needed it, woke up with me through my senior years of school to ensure I kept awake through my physics and chemistry Pradeep textbooks, talked me into giving a new city a chance even when I thought I'd hate it, took my side when everyone was pulling my leg, taught me patience, taught me how to move on and not dwell in the past, taught me how to bake, LET me bake, drilled into me that if you think you've hit rock bottom then there's nowhere to go but up, taught me how to laugh at myself, let me fiddle around with MS Paint when I was 6 years old even when she had work to do, taught me how to love, squeezed my lethargy out of me for good to a point where if I have nothing to do, I drive her mad, taught me how to listen with my eyes, gave me faith in myself when I thought I had none and finally, showed me how it's okay to get angry, but never EVER harbour resentment.


If your mother's anything like this, do add a comment with what you and your mom have in common. If you miraculously find yourself in agreement with this post (or parts of it), share it around too if you can! Maybe it'll bring a smile to your face, or even her's.

PS - Happy Birthday Mamatti. I will always love you, even when we're disagreeing and I'm steaming from the ear.

Touched, Shoved and Assaulted

No, this has nothing to do with my love life. This has to do with my very many escapades in the public domain. The so-called 'real world' that everyone keeps yapping to me about. If you're someone with an attitude of 'things just won't change in this country', here's my two cents for you - if you won't change, don't expect others to do so either.

Let's take a look at teeny tiny issues first, before diving head first into the heavy duty stuff. I'm going to speak from experience here. There are buses in the city. Then you have your crowded buses. And then there are buses that move at 10kmph because of the number of human bodies stuffed into them. No, I'm not kidding. The bus I was in was the CAUSE of the traffic jam that was evolving behind us. You'd think that would be where the worst ends, but noooo. Yeh hai India meri jaan :).

So, you've got 10 people sitting in the place of 6, 8 people squeezed into the place of 5 and about 15 people hanging for dear life from the doors and windows adjacent to them. I've even seen boys as young as 10 and 11 climbing up the bars of the windows and squatting on them for lack of space in the bus. Ah, but does it stop there? Of course not! While you have your normal, average, everyday aam janta vying for space in a grossly overpopulated bus, you've got your abnormal, below average, perverted drunks vying for space to either grope you in all the wrong places or make salacious glances/ remarks towards your silhouette. And all the while, you've got obese old women yelling at you for being bony and ribbing them with your elbows. Yeah lady, it's MY fault you don't have space. It has absolutely NOTHING to do with the fact that you're taking up space meant for 3 people. Sure. Blame it all on the skinny girl. That makes sense.

But it's not all bad. You do get nice people on the roads. People who will let you cross the road in heavy traffic, people who will help a blind lady step over an open drain and even people who will stand up to cheap men who think women are supposed to be ogled at, undressed in their minds and 'appreciated' by being felt. Unfortunately, the moral police in our country will not commend this person for plucking up the courage and standing up for the woman. The questions that will arise in THEIR minds are things like - why did HE stand up for HER? What's going on between them? She must've provoked the men, otherwise why would they have acted that way?

On the same lines, I VERY recently came across a case involving a boy who lost his life, standing up for his girlfriend when certain other guys around her started eve teasing her by sending her salacious messages. Which makes one wonder, doesn't it? We have very sorry figures in male to female sex ratios, which means that people like this boy are vastly outnumbered by illiterate perverts. What impressed me above everything was the fact that this guy who stood up for his girlfriend was a minor whereas the people who eve teased her were, save three people, above 18 years of age. What sort of society are we living in when someone who is YOUNGER than the perpetrators, is more mature and civilized? To make matters worse, these young men stalked him, kidnapped his younger brother and used him as bait to get to the guy. When he showed up at the specified destination the group brutally assaulted him with metal rods and bamboo sticks. Despite the pitiful condition that he was in, when he tried to run, he was pelted with a brick to his head by someone who (as of now, reports say) was in his same class. The icing on the cake? This young boy was left to die in a pool of his own blood while the murderers ran away. As of when this post gets published, twelve people have been arrested, 3 of whom are minors.

In about 15 minutes' time, there will be a rally in support of bringing justice to these criminals and to create awareness about creating safer cities. I reiterate, if you're someone with an attitude of 'things just won't change in this country', here's my two cents for you - if you won't change, don't expect others to do so either. Don't blame 'society' for things that you can AS AN INDIVIDUAL can stand up for. Today it was this boy, tomorrow it could be your mother or sister or best friend or girl friend who gets treated this way, if you're brave enough to stand up for them , be brave enough for this boy. Join and support the cause.

Sources of information :
http://www.ndtv.com/article/india/12-including-three-minors-arrested-for-beating-college-student-to-death-199212
https://www.facebook.com/StandUp4AnshhAgarwal

Rambled Stains , Scrambled Brains

It's exam season. For everyone under the age of 18, exam season just got over, but in general, the city's liberal arts colleges' exam season are in full swing. Which is why my creative juices have begun flowing. It's quite strange really. It's only when I've got a Major paper to study for that I'll feel like baking or writing or even dressing up for the fun of it. Judge me nine ways to Sunday for it, see if I give a neat, fuzzy partition of a rodent's rear end.

So anyway, as I was saying. Exam season. Quite an exciting time, really. On one hand, you've got your 'nose-to-the-grindstone' folk, studying well into the wee hours of the morning, early enough to figure out which New Mother overslept, which street dog it is that you'd like for to be put under or even why the city's going through 2 hours of power outages per day - for the streetlamps of course! How else would the women of our city be safe at night? The Moral police need light of course! On the other hand, you've got your 'I'm-not-going-to-be-able-to-have-fun-when-I'm-40' kind. The ones who for all intents and purposes have realised that if you're not going to get credit for the hard work, you might as well just put in just enough effort to get you over the bar. After all, what's the point in slogging and burning your heart out at 20, when you'll have enough time for that in the next 40 years?


Sadly, both kinds miss out on the lesser pleasures in life. Not that I'm calling myself perfect (yet). I'm sure we've all been in situations when an elderly, less fortunate person's just entered the bus, found herself a seat next to PYT and begun a conversation with the said young woman, about all of the former's trials and tribulations... Oh, you haven't? Well, then, let me enlighten you of one such experience I had just last week.

[Enter old woman from rear door of city's deluxe bus that happens to be empty enough to play musical chairs in. Seated at the window seat of the last row of the bus on stage right is a PYT, minding her own business, looking out of the window, barely noticing old woman get into the bus and take seat beside her]

Old Woman (OW) - Ma, where do you get off? Can I sit near the window? I'm not well and I feel like throwing up.
Pretty Young Thing (me) - [thinking : fine, I'm pretty sure you're faking the whole oh-I'm-a-poor-sick-old-maid routine, but I don't want to get puked on] *XYZ stopping* paati. Come, you can sit here. [moves]
OW- Thank you ma. See, I knew you'd get up for me. You're a girl. Only my daughters are looking after me. I never should have given birth to sons. One's an alcoholic and abuses me day and night, while the other is unemployed with a family and expects me to give him money, because he's under my roof. My daughters are only the ones who are taking care of me...
Me- [thinking : oh great, sob story. Do I look like I'm interested, lady? Maybe if I fake not knowing the language, she'll get it? No, that won't work. I replied to her in the same language when she asked me to switch seats. Dammit. Maybe I'll stare out the window and let her drone on. Guess she needs someone to vent to, more then talk to. Staring winsss!]
OW - ... like that, ma. I haven't had anything to eat and still I'm getting loose motion...
Me - [thinking : Must. Control. The. Urge. To. Laugh]
OW - ... just to see the doctor. All the way from Porur. Yes, ma! All the way from there! I went to the house where I work and the house's Amma scolded me for coming to work when I'm sick! She only gave me thousand rupees, put me in an auto and sent me to the doctor. Yes, ma. I'm working only for that Amma. Her daughters-in-law keep yelling at me. But she defends me and puts them into their places. She only paid my husbands medical bills ma. She trusts me and my family that much. 16 years I've been working for her, ma. 16 years!
Me : [thinking : Awkward. I'm actually listening to her. I feel so petty now, my problems are so... insignificant, compared to what she's going through. Great. More self-loathing. Just what I needed. ARGH. PAY ATTENTION TO LESS FORTUNATE PERSON TALKING TO YOU!]
OW - ...jewels. But she trusts only me with the key. Not even her own children. Only me. 16 years and I haven't stolen a single thing. Not even a nose ring. That's what loyalty is. No matter how hard a situation you're in, once you steal, that's all. You lose all respect for yourself. You can't change that ma! You can't live with yourself. Amma takes me with her even when she goes to Banglore. Not just me! My family also comes with me. We have a separate room, with a television, an attached bathroom and everything. She likes only my food ma.
Me - Her children don't look after her?
OW - No ma. They're busy with their own lives. What to do? Ma, isn't it time for you to get off? Don't miss your stopping, ma. You've been listening to this old woman for so long! God bless you.
Me - [ getting up and moving to rear door, thinking : I hope she does okay. Need to let her know that even a random stranger like me is concerned about her. ] Paati, don't forget your medicine.
OW - [smiles brightly from ear to ear ] Don't worry ma. See, I have it in my saree [points to the makeshift pouch in her saree]. Get off carefully, ma. Look properly, be careful ok? [Waves good bye from the window with the warmest smile]

Needless to say, there was obviously more of this conversation. Unfortunately, I was being too much of a pompous prick earlier on in the conversation to pay attention. I did catch her name though. Kalyani Amma. Wherever she is, she changed my life in the biggest way possible. Maybe someone from the family she works for doing chores will let her know how much she made a difference to the way I look at things now.

Maybe all it takes is to listen to someone wearing clothes bearing rambled stains and a mind that could seem like scrambled brains. Initially.

They're you're Aaaaaaaverage Autorickshaw drivers!

It would make so many people happy if I started this post with the words - DEATH TO THE AUTO-DRIVER! The chant would probably go viral and someone somewhere may even start a song with the chant as it's theme, maybe along the lines of Bhaag, Bhaag, Autodriver! Or maybe that's just me being foolishly optimistic. But let's face it, every person who has traveled in an auto in the city has, in fact, come across nice autodrivers at some point of time.

As I am someone who swears by the Metropolitan Transport Corporation bus service I rarely find the need to use the tiny-taxis to get about, unless I'm late for college or if I'm carrying something unbearably heavy and in my case, that would mean industrial boards and stretched canvases. Haggling with the autodrivers about the fare (because NONE of them, not even the nice ones, believe in using their meters), sizing the autodriver up to see if I'm going to be ogled at from his side view mirror and remembering my mother's strict instructions of - Never trust a standing auto- can get horrendously exhausting to keep in mind without snapping at the poor guy (or girl) at 7.45 am.

So when I do get a nice autodriver (AD from now on, since it's getting cumbersome to type the entire word out) it tends to warm the frozen cockles of a girl's heart quite fast. The niceness I'm speaking of may be routine behaviour in some other cities but in mine, it's a rarity. The nice AD would charge a fair price, not ogle and even drop you off at your exact destination, not across or at the beginning of the road and ask you to cross/ walk the extra distance. Some of them are even nice enough to help you with your stuff without charging extra for it. And a very few of them, probably one in a hundred, are even nice enough to help out an old blind couple get to their destination, help them out of the auto and hold their hand, walking them to where they have to be.

In a day and age where people are too busy running their own lives to notice others in need, maybe it's time that we gave the good guys some credit. Even if they are autodrivers.

Lessons For The First-time Headbanger

There are a few once-in-a-lifetime events that can truly change your perspective on things. For me, one of those events was watching some 100 odd metalheads, headbanging away to glory to some killer beats, mindboggling riffs and insane growls. And I loved every minute. More than anything else, it's the energy and stage presence that these performers have, ALL of them, that simply put, charges up the entire arena faster than you can think of the physics of it all.

From a first-timer's point of view, mind you I haven't the slightest clue what the growls were supposed to convey, though some seasoned veterans tell me that they are actually words, and if you listen really closely and once your ears are attuned to making out syllables, intonations and other phonetic helpers, I do believe that you can get the words. Truthfully though, I did make out a few words being growled out, though I think I have a long, long way to go before I can truly appreciate the good metal from the bad. Either way, you can't deny getting addicted to the continuous evolution of the beats and the riffs within the same song. Before you even know it, I can guarantee that your head will at least start nodding along with the beats if not for your entire body being consumed by the madness of the barely restrained hammering.

But if you don't think that this genre is for you, might I suggest some easier tunes to get your soul stirred and your body freed from its chains of restraint? Songs like "Smoke On the Water" by Deep Purple are classical clichés associated with the initial phases of heavy metal. However, if you do want something fresher and a little bit more comprehensible, you should check out songs by the progressive rock band Karnivool. If the band sounds vaguely familiar, it's because they were trending for a while in the country during IIT Bombay's Mood Indigo 2011, performing at the Livewire Night. Though not technically associated with metalheads, for someone who has always been listening to mainstream pop, pop rock and alternative rock, progressive rock would be a huge step ahead towards rubbing shoulders with, or rather, moshing your self-control out with the metalheads.

So the next time you're at a show around the city and bands mysteriously named Blind Image, Crypted and Totem are playing, take a leap of faith with an open mind. Go for the show. There's a first time for everything and it may even change your life.

*GROOOOOWWWWWLLLL*

Mockery and Mirth

It amazes me of how much havoc Murphy’s Law can wreak in a person’s life. Not just that, it also amazes me about how people react to the situations that they are left in once Murphy’s Law leaves them with the debris of their perfectly scheduled lives. Let’s take, for example, a situation that I was in recently. College cultural events, as most of you know, are in full swing with some of the biggest of those events in the city getting most of the media’s attention. Like every budding performer (get ready for the clichés) I too had a dream of going on stage and dancing to my heart’s content (I told you there would be clichés). Unfortunately, waiting a year out and craving for this opportunity wasn’t good enough for the Gods ruling over my fate.

Now rather than lament about how huge a chance this was and how my spirit is crushed and yada yada yada, I’d prefer to concentrate on the silver lining clinging to the contours of this sullen, woe-begotten cloud. What do you say to someone who has lied to you, when they say, with all their heartfelt guilt, to not “feel bad”? How would you TRULY react to someone who has cut you from the very team that you were hoping would help you go on and live out a dream?

Here’s how I deal with it. I smile and don’t utter a word, while my mind is hurling colourful abuses at them with a few indignant vows of revenge, poignantly marking out their very particular flaws and faults and then consoling myself with an “Oh, never mind. That’s the level of maturity that they will always live with, and there’s nothing you can do about it. Some people are cursed to live in their shallow little pools of self-contentment”. Call me spiteful, call me crude, call me whatever you want. Since all of these thoughts remain in the privacy of my own head, and now, a minuscule speck of that sentiment on this post, I believe that everyone involved is left happy. The person responsible for letting Murphy’s Law run its course through my life, is content thinking that I've defeatedly, accepted my fate, while I am content knowing to whom those colourful strings of words frolicking through my mind were intended towards, unbeknownst to them. And we all live happily ever after, leaving everyone none the wiser.