Thursday, April 22, 2010

Angry young woman

People / things that make me feel very violent these days

1) Mothers who complain about their husbands' lack of house training but insist on baby sitting their 25 year old sons.
2) Media feigning ignorance on the whole IPL drama while anyone who followed it right from the start would know how rotten it was to start with.
3) Young men acting like little boys who can't pull up their own knickers.
4) Mothers who walk up to other mothers and say you are doing a bad job.
5) People who think it is the easiest thing to work from home.
6) Bad customer service at every turn.
7) Bangalore's development.
8) The thought that Miss T might have to spend her adulthood with no trees and no water for the most part.
9) Schools that charge 2 lakh rupees for a pre-nursery admission and Rs 4500 per month as van fees!
10) The heat. Which I suspect is the main cause for 1-9


Friday, April 16, 2010

The momentous post

Last few days I have been feeling like Sachin Tendulkar on 98. I realised that the previous post was 249th one. And so I was going to write the 250th one; which for some reason I thought should be very interesting, or funny or at least about some earth shattering discovery I had made. Well nothing of that sort happened. So here I am writing my 250th post in true blue random style, with unrelated topics :)

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Bangalore has had no water for the most part for the last two days and the situation will continue to be this scary for the next two days. I happened to mention this to one young thing (read 21) and without batting an eyelid she says "oh you took all the water from Tamil Nadu and now you don't have water? Serves you right!" I was too stunned to reply. How early do these parochial mindsets begin?

And as for water situation don't ask, I am living my mother's nightmare. We've got a notice up in the apartment asking us residents to avoid washing clothes and bathing for the next few days for god sake! We are stocking up on wet wipes so that we can follow these instructions!

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I recently started on Twitter (very reluctantly I might add) because of JustFemme I have still not got the hang of all the tweeting ethics and follow and unfollow funda. But I am amazed how many people use it. Not the least because the whole Tharoor-Modi-IPL thing kicked off on Twitter. And the media's blinkered coverage of this whole episode astounds me! No one's asking the right questions. I am no big fan of Tharoor. But my sympathies are with him on this. To say the brazenness of Modi is shocking is an understatement. I am wondering how much dirty linen the guy must be hoarding to be this bold (or arrogant). Nothing will come off this. IPL drama will continue. No murky details will be unearthed or at least made public. And what will happen of Tharoor and the mysterious Sunanda Pushkar, I am not too sure. But I'll say this, if this Pushkar lady wasn't this good looking and glamorous we wouldn't see her pictures so often. I mean how often did we see the ex-wife of Shoaib Malik? No am not being condescending but it is a fact.

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Tuesday, April 06, 2010

Trip down to my school

I have been wanting to do a post on school days for the longest time. Sheer lethargy to type has been keeping me from doing so. But Quill's post has inspired me. Actually quill has a lot of patience when it comes to typing. Sometimes even her sms is as long as some of my posts :)

Now to the post.

I absolutely loved my school time. All 12 years of it. Well almost :) I didn't go to one of those "the" schools in the city. Unless you've studied there you wouldn't know it exists. And the school continues to be a part of my life cos Amma still teaches there and I see most of the teachers often. They even came for my wedding (all 32 of them :) and came in hoards to be my side when I had Miss T. They even promised to tell Miss T embarrassing stories from my student days; which are there in plenty.

I had a rocking time in school. I did very well in all subjects except Maths! (I believe this is a genetic problem. God help Miss T) I didn't fail or anything but never as good as the other subjects. I was also good at sports. So I got away with most bratty things I did as in I didn't get into serious trouble. All through school i wasn't very hard to find me kneeling outside the classroom all the while giggling. Mostly for not doing my homework or talking in the class.

But my friends changed every year. Not because I dumped them but cos they'd move on. I now realise that people were nice to me cos I was a popular kid and a teacher's kid at that. Then it would break my heart when friends changed loyalties. Now it doesn't feel so bad when I look back. I know it sounds very pompous when I say I was the best types. But back then I didn't know that :) I was just having a lot of fun.

The big twist came when I was in Class 7. I decided to stand for school elections. My class teacher didn't want me to. I was told later that if teacher's kid too much attention then they will say school's being partial. Exact words by my class teacher. But I was heart broken. I wanted to be the school leader, lead the assembly n all that. But well.

Anyways I became yellow house leader and won every bloody competition there was that year both individually and as a group. (See I told you I rocked). It was also the year I discovered the importance of boy friends. See the girl who became the school leader wasn't the brightest thing in the class nor was she popular. But she won by large majority. When I dug a little deeper I discovered her boyfriend had bribed and threatened half the school to vote for her. He was a very big guy :) And I started wondering if I should find a boy friend for myself. Enter A.

A was this boy who sat next to me from class 4 to class 10. He owned a VCR (a rare phenomenon) and watched all the movies that could be watched. And then he'd come to school and tell me the stories. We constantly talked through the class hours. Telling each other stories. In Class 7 when half the class was busy being boyfriend, girl friend to each other, A got it into his head that he should marry me. When he walked up to me in the middle of the kho-kho practice and said so, I laughed my head off and continued to play. He got very offended and didn't talk to me for a whole year. I again considered if I should say yes to him cos I missed all the stories.

But like I said, friends changed every year. And I am not in touch with a single soul.

After this the college was horrible for me. It was the worst 2 years. All girls college. All of them either wanting to be a doctor or an engineer AND a wife. No talk of sports. Mention a boy and they'd go oooooh or chhheeeeee. And endless talks of MTv which was a rage just then (I didn't have cable yet) and Mills n Boons. I'll never forgive my parents for putting me in that college. My father's biggest worry was I was behaving more like a boy than a girl. Well, college didn't help cos half the time I climbed over the compound wall and came back home :P

Sunday, April 04, 2010

Life's circles

It has been two years since M's demise and we can't bring ourselves to talk about it without lump in the throat. It is very sad when life's taken away at such an young age. I have been thinking about M for the last few days and today I came across this page for one J Olapally on FB. I didn't know the guy. But reading that page I know I would've liked him. Turns out we had quite a few common friends. He reminded me of M. Not quite the same characters but just that they were loved by all who met them and they both passed away while on a trek and so young.

If there's another world. I hope J & M meet. They'd like each other.

This last week was a reminder of life's circles. on 31st a good friend of mine had a boy baby. On the same day, another friend lost her 7 month old boy to fever. It was heart breaking to talk to the mother. I couldn't let let go of Miss T all day. It rattled me.