Snatches of Sanity

Tutorial: How to make a balloon drum

2012-01-27T22:38:00.000+05:30

I haven’t done this thing in years. Many of you might have done it in your childhood, and for many it may be a new thing, a new learning. Allow me to demonstrate how to create a simple musical tool, The Balloon Drum.

Materials required: A torn piece of balloon, an empty cup, and a rubber band.

Stretch the balloon piece flat over the mouth of the cup:

Tie down with the rubber band, so it is airtight.

Your balloon drum is ready. Pinch it to make a “Twangggg” sound.

Escape Velocity

2012-01-07T20:37:00.001+05:30

The best thing about a new year, according to me, is the renewal of faith and hope. Well, you can renew your faith and hope anytime, but with the onset of a new year you have this mindset of “New beginning, good start, etc etc”. As if the previous years all faded away and you have begun on a clean slate, all your past mistakes and sins erased and washed away. You have been given another chance and you should be thankful that you are still alive.

You must be wondering about the title. Did you think I was going to write something Physics related? Escape velocity, as we learned, is the minimum velocity an object must acquire to free itself from the earth’s gravitational pull. 11.2 kilometers/second.

Isn’t is funny how our best ideas come at the most inappropriate times? When we are least likely to implement them? I would go for days without updating my blog because I simply do not have anything to write about. No inspiration, nothing. The other day I was at work and suddenly escape velocity just popped into my head. Maybe I read something online that reminded me of it.

All distractions are welcome when you're working, so immediately I googled ‘Escape Velocity”, for want of something better to do. I came across Chris Brogan’s website, where he wrote : My definition of “escape velocity” is “the ability to leave a situation that isn’t helpful or desired”. I was like, wow! So neatly put!

I'm sure that everyone must have been stuck in an undesirable situation at least once in our lives. It may be personal, work related, or community related. And sometimes what happens is that we know the way out, but we are too scared to go in that direction. We are too afraid of what others may think, what our families and friends may think, how we will be able to hold our heads up if we leave that situation. And we tie ourselves down, miserable, but unwilling to change.

An unhappy marriage. A job we hate. Friendship with people who make us live in their shadows. But we have kids. We need to pay bills. We cannot imagine making new friends.

This is when our personal escape velocities come to the test. Are we able to generate that minimum velocity to free ourselves? Are we ready to face an unknown future, take risks and jump blindfolded into the dark? Stop listening to people and do what we want to do? Most of the time we never achieve this escape velocity. We don’t even know it exists. We just accept things the way they are and wallow in our misery.

Sometimes, we know there is an escape velocity. But to reach that takes time, patience, and though it may not apply to all cases, luck. We work our way towards it, slowly, steadily, and prepare ourselves for it. And when we free ourselves from whatever had chained us, that freedom tastes so sweet!

I’d had a good start to the new year, and I hope that things will get better. Nothing mindblowing or anything, but I have this feeling that it’s going to be a good year for me. Just a sixth sense kind of thing. I may even get close to escape velocity by the close of the third quarter, and my life may take a different direction. And no, I'm not getting married.

I guess this qualifies as the obligatory I-will-do-better-in-the-new-year post. Wishing you a good and successful year ahead, and may you acquire your escape velocity and fly off to a better future.

Timepass post

2011-12-10T18:45:00.001+05:30

I'm thinking of switching to Wordpress, but haven’t reallyworked on it (procrastinating, as usual). But I've been on Blogger for so long(officially it’s been four years) that it’s hard to let go just like that. I thinkit must be kind of like having a new phone number and texting the people inyour contacts list “Hey this is me and this is my new number”. Of course if youdon’t say your name your friends may think you are some psycho stalker and hitthe Delete button immediately.

The thing I like about Wordpress is, the Freshly Pressedposts you see when you open it. You discover amazing blogs / blogposts everyother day. Like the one that asked you to “Please describe yourself in the most annoying way possible”, the one that made me laugh out loud, even when I thoughtabout it afterwards –“Christmas Gift Guide: Revenge Edition”, or the “Top Ten Movies I'm Embarrassed I Haven’t Seen”.

Today I discovered a new blogpost, The 1001 Books You Must Read Before You Die list, and the blogger had listed around 1200 books (Yeah I know the title says 1001 books). It is not the definitive list or anything, just one person's opinion, but a pretty good list there I must say. Fromthe list I’d read a few, some I left mid-book, bought but didn’t open, read the translatedversion, watched the movie, and read the comic book and abridgedversions.

I went through the entire list, and here are the books whichI've read. Excluding the abridged, translated, comics and movie versions. Maybe I should make my own list from this - Top 100 books I'm embarrassed I haven't read. (Oh, and try the Wordpress thing. It's much better than wasting your time on Facebook.)

(Only 37? Now I AM embarrassed. Now how many have you read from that list? Not mine you idiot.)

The White Tiger by Aravind Adiga
Half of a Yellow Sun by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie
On Beauty – ZadieSmith
The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time by MarkHaddon
Atonement – IanMcEwan
The Poisonwood Bible– Barbara Kingsolver
The God of Small Things – Arundhati Roy
The Stone Diaries – Carol Shields
The English Patient – Michael Ondaatje
Black Water – JoyceCarol Oates
The Satanic Verses – Salman Rushdie
Beloved – ToniMorrison
Love in the Time ofCholera – Gabriel García Márquez
The Color Purple –Alice Walker
I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings – Maya Angelou
The Godfather – Mario Puzo
One Flew Over theCuckoo’s Nest – Ken Kesey
To Kill aMockingbird – Harper Lee
Doctor Zhivago – Boris Pasternak
The Lord of theRings – J.R.R. Tolkien
The Catcher in the Rye – J.D. Salinger
Cannery Row – John Steinbeck
The Grapes of Wrath – John Steinbeck
Of Mice and Men – JohnSteinbeck
The Hobbit – J.R.R.Tolkien
Gone With the Wind –Margaret Mitchell
Thank You, Jeeves – P.G. Wodehouse
Sons and Lovers – D.H.Lawrence
A Room With a View –E.M. Forster
The Hound of theBaskervilles – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
The Adventures ofSherlock Holmes – Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
The Picture ofDorian Gray – Oscar Wilde
Wuthering Heights – Emily Brontë
Jane Eyre –Charlotte Brontë
The Count of Monte-Cristo – Alexandre Dumas
Pride and Prejudice– Jane Austen
Robinson Crusoe – Daniel Defoe

Just in case

2011-11-19T12:01:00.001+05:30

I was never a Boy Scout. Of course that’s obvious because I'm not a boy. But I was never a Girl Guide either. In high school I was in the NCC but that’s another story, one which I might tell someday.

You know the Boys Scout motto is “Be Prepared”, right? (I personally think Lord Baden-Powell had decided on the motto after his name. B-P. B P). Well, Scout or no Scout, I like being prepared. Anything can happen to anyone at any time. Which is why you will find in my bag, among other things, a bunch of safety pins, a wad of tissues, a few pens, a notepad, keys, various medicines including Zandu balm, two handkerchiefs, purse, coin purse, lipstick and compact, hand lotion, earphones, comb and hairclips. Depending on the weather you might find an umbrella, scarf, a pair of shoes (I wear my rubber shoes when I leave the house and change in the office), cardigan, shawl and socks. Depending on the time of the month you might find, well you know what. Before leaving the house I always check to see I have everything I need. Keys. ID. Purse. Money. Shopping List. Phone is fully charged. I am pretty sure that on the day of the Second Coming when the heavenly bugle sounds I might say “Lord, please give me a minute to pack my toothbrush and moisturiser”.

The other day in the office we ordered mutton biryani from outside, and afterwards I collected the empty polythene covers, just in case we might need it some day. When someone laughed my reply was, “You never know!” I even keep a pair of chappals in my locker, for those days when you discover your current pair suddenly decides to quit without giving notice.

A closely related subject is hoarding things. I come from a family that never throws things away, “we might find a use for it someday”. Old clothes, shoes, textbooks, household stuff, all pile up in various corners of the house. I think one of my father’s textbooks from his college days still lies around somewhere. My school uniform when I was eight years old hasn’t left my possession. A songbook we made in our pre-teens could be found, if you have the time and the interest to dig through all the junk. When my sister was in middle school, in the late 80s, they learned knitting in their Work Experience class. For each design they would knit a small sample, about the size of the palm, and stick it on the page of a notebook, beside the knitting instructions. That book was a real treasure.

We have inherited this hoarding and being prepared business from my father, who is a champion hoarder (ask anyone in the locality) and worrier. People keep popping in the house to borrow tools or something which they thought we might have because nobody else have it. When I was in school I would be given extra pocket money, which was like, five rupees, in case we had to go for some function. Well, in those days we frequently went to this or that competition and we had to pay for our own bus fares. Never having to take the bus on normal days, that five rupees would make me feel so rich!

An old tin used for keeping knick-knacks (a missing button, a Band-Aid, a clothespin, a dead watch) has been in use for the last 22 years. We call it Bur Tawi. So if my mother asks me to get a needle from Bur Tawi I know exactly where to find it. Another strange thing about my family is, we give names to objects, more like identifiers. Fifteen years ago if my father asked if his “Chakai Khawrh Kawr” was clean we knew he was talking about his rust coloured pullover. If I say I am taking Pu Aitawna to bed no one pays me any attention because they know Pu Aitawna is an old black and white blanket. The greatest treasure was recently unearthed. It was in March of this year, I was at home when my mother excavated from the ruins an old X-Ray of my father’s. The X-Ray was dated January 1979. Can you beat that?

A trip to Laknavaram Lake

2011-11-13T01:23:00.000+05:30

“We should go to Laknavaram Lake, they say it’s very beautiful”. We googled the images and we were very happy with what we saw. It was decided that we should go to the lake, which is in Warangal, roughly 220 kms from Hyderabad, about a three hour drive. Aaron has relatives in Warangal and they were ok for us to stay overnight, and everyone was pretty excited.

[A picture of the lake on the internet]

25 June 2011, Saturday. It was a beautiful morning. As usual everyone was late and it was almost 11 when we started. Everyone was in high spirits, and we talked about trivial stuff, but mostly about a person we all know (who we have called he-who-must-not-be-named afterwards) and his psycho family. There was me, Mamta, Aaron, Suman, Francis, Joy and Aijaz.

Off we went, and we had almost crossed the city when we received a call from another friend, Annie. She had been invited the day before but she declined, and on Saturday morning at 11 o’clock she suddenly decided to come. When we learned that it would take her at least an hour to get ready and find us, there followed a heated debate. Some of us wanted to wait, and some of us wanted to say “It’s too late you can’t come now”. I will not say in which camp I was, but let it be known that there were arguments and ‘group discussions’ and threats to leave. We finally decided we could not turn away someone who wanted to join us, so it was with grumbles and complaints that we waited, and waited, and waited for some more time, and it was close to 1 PM when she finally arrived and we inched away from the city.

Things went well, we drove by the beautiful countryside, including the town of Bhongir which is located at the foot of the Bhongir Fort which stands on top a big stone hill. People were no longer hostile, everyone was speaking again, and all was well.

Next stop was lunch. We had passed through many towns, and not a single one of us had thought of buying anything to eat, not even a chips packet, and we were starving. We found a hotel on the outskirts of one town, and stopped. It was a big building, with a separate family section. But the oddest thing was there was not a single soul in sight. The building itself was very dirty, it wore an uncared for look, as if it had not been cleaned in the last 10 years. It must have been a grand place once upon a time. There was an old chandelier hanging very low from the ceiling, and the counters and walls were rather fancy. The chairs, threadbare as they were, were large and comfortable.

[Broken window pane at the Hotel Desperation]

We got seated in the family section, and discovered that they wouldn’t serve alcohol in the family section, because, after all, families come to eat there. Never mind that there was not anybody who even remotely looks like he/she comes with his family. Did I mention that we were the only “customers”? Anyway, let’s cut a long story short and just say that we finally got a couple of cold beer bottles on our table. The food was surprisingly good, and the most amazing thing it was we didn’t have to wait for it at all.

I should have written this post right after the trip, things are becoming blurry now. What a bad autobiographer I would make in my sunset years. But why I did not blog about this sooner, you would soon know. In the meantime, be patient, because the story is just beginning.

Post lunch, everyone’s stomach filled, our moods lifted. We passed a couple more towns. Then we came to Kazipet, a big town. It was then that Annie received a call and she had to return to Hyderabad. So we stopped in the town, and another parliamentary session started, the main points discussed being who will take Annie back and how they will go. Aijaz volunteered, and off they went to the train station. We didn’t even drop them to the station.

Again we went off, it was late afternoon by them, and we crossed another big town (forgot the name!). On the outskirts we saw a biggish lake and we decided to stop. Nothing much to do except stare at the water and take pictures. The place was apparently a grazing ground for buffaloes, so of course the ground was pretty messy. There were a few locals there, who told us that it had rained and the road to Laknavaram Lake was very dangerous, and we would be better off going in the morning.

[Fishermen and fisherwomen]

Mamta and I suggested we turn back to the town, spend the night at Aaron’s relatives’ house, get up at the crack of dawn, go to the lake, and go home slowly. But guys being guys didn’t like the idea of defeat, which in this case meant not seeing the lake on that day. So our suggestion was overruled, we cleaned our dirty shoes, and and we headed for the lake. At this point, it seemed that all we had ever done all day was drive and stop and drive and stop. With a few parliamentary sessions in between.

The lake was at the bottom of a mountain, and to reach it we had to climb up the mountain, up narrow gravelly roads that twisted and turned. The sun had done its share of work for the day and was now heading home, and when we reached the mountain top, where the ticket counter was, he had sunk behind the mountains.

Did I mention that it was June, and that the monsoons hadn’t arrived? That summer was not entirely over? And that we were expecting an overflowing, silvery, glimmery lake, with a few boats here and there? Hahah what idiots we were! The biggest fools who ever walked. Or drove. Or stopped. Or drove. Or Stopped again.

Okay, we had reached the ticket counter, and they had constructed a few steps that led down to the lake. It was that time which they call “the gloaming”, when the sun had set but darkness had not yet covered the earth? A great time to visit a lake, is it not?

And the lake, oh the lake! The reason, the object, the destination of the trip, was nothing but a big empty valley between two mountains! With a big suspension bridge in between. It must have been nice during or after the monsoon when it was filled with water. But at the end of June, oh was there ever a greater disappointment? Tell me, O heavens??

We had come that far, so we climbed down the steps, walked across the bridge, took more pictures for lack of anything else to do, and when we reached the end of the bridge it was completely dark. Then we went back.

We were 200 kms away from home, on a mountain, in complete darkness, and trust me when I say it was scary. Somebody started hearing strange noises, somebody said something about bears being there in the mountain, and trees began to take weird shapes. We cursed Hollywood for giving us movies in which a group of friends get lost or killed or both in the forest/camping trips. We barely spoke until we put the mountain behind us.

Once we reached the road, which was a huge relief to everyone, we talked about which place we would visit in our next trip and such stuff. It was not yet the highway, we still had to drive through small roads near the fields. At one point of time we saw a few men coming home from the fields and asked if they had toddy, but fortunately they had none. Why did I say fortunately? Oh you will soon know. I didn’t tell you that toddy is a very popular drink in that area, did I? Well, we saw many toddy trees on the way, and small shacks which serve as bars. I had never tasted it, and was eager to try it.

We reached the highway and we had only travelled for a few metres when Bam! one of the tyres got punctured. And it was just our luck that the thingummy which was required to fix that was, well, you guessed it, we didn’t bring it. There was only a small pump thingy. We had to stop on the roadside, while the men tried their best to fix it. A few vehicles came, but no one could help us. And then the police came.

Warangal is a Naxalite area, and the police/army patrols the roads at night. I’m not 100% sure on this, but that night they sure did. Seeing us parked on the roadside in the night, they naturally came to investigate. A few guys trying to fix a broken tyre, two girls sitting inside the car, obviously non-locals, they had all reasons to be suspicious. They parked their jeep on the other side of the road, and asked us who we were and what we were doing there. They called Mamta and I over to the jeep, and their boss, or the senior cop, asked us where we were from, what we were doing (again). And guess what, I didn’t have an ID on me. I always have some ID or the other on me, but on that particular day I was like “Why do I need an ID to go to a lake” ? Luckily Mamta had her ID, and that saved us. It was really scary.

While we were being “interrogated” (hahahha), one of the junior cops had checked the car, and he reported to his boss that all was OK. After telling us to be careful, they went off. We thanked the heavens that we hadn’t bought any toddy. It’s not illegal or anything, but well, it still gives a bad impression. A bunch of guys and gals, in the middle of the forest, drinking, doesn’t exactly paint a pretty picture.

By this time the guys had temporarily fixed the tyre, and we set off again. We haven’t gone far when Whoooosh, the tyre was back to its punctured state. But luckily there was a farmhouse nearby, and we knew the town was not so far away now. We somehow managed to stop near the farmhouse. It was about 8 PM, but with no streetlights and being a moonless night, it was very dark. And eerily quiet.

Suman called someone in the city, some garage owner, and this fellow called some other fellow, or something like that, but somehow they managed to get some fellows from the town to come and help us. Around nine guys turned up to help us. They had to go here and there, get the required thingummy, and get the tyre fixed. And all the while we girls had nothing to do. We went to the farmhouse, in which a man and two women lived, and sat on their porch and watched the man beat his dog. The women offered to cook for us but we politely declined (although we were starving).

It seemed like a quiet life. They had two cows and a few dogs, and probably worked in the fields, but they seemed happy. I might find it boring at first, but I think it might be nice to live like that.

We had a pre-dinner snack of Monginis cake and Sprite which were procured from the town. I think it was close to 10 PM when we left the place. I was exhausted. Once we left the place the only thing on our minds was dinner. We reached the town of Kazipet, but every shop was closed. I suggested we go to the train station, some shop was bound to be open. It was 11:49 PM when we reached the station.

There was no food at the station either. It was a shock to us. No food at the station! We used the toilets at the waiting lounge and left. Now our only hope was the highway dhabas which catered to travellers. It was some time before we could locate one dhaba which was open. There was a group of travellers who were just finishing their dinner when we straggled in. The kitchen was closed, of course, and they had some chicken biryani left. It was not enough, but we managed.

Dinner was followed by chai outside the dhaba. And then we ran into another spot of trouble, well, not exactly trouble, because nothing happened. Except that there were a few locals who must have passed some unflattering comments on the female members of our party, and our male friends decided to play the brave shining knights and confronted the locals. We asked them not to, we were used to men passing unflattering comments, and besides it was their turf and we didn’t stand a chance if anything should happen. Nothing happened, a few words were exchanged, and off we went, yet again.

I was extremely tired then, and slept the rest of the way. We had decided against spending the night and when I reached home it was around 3 AM.

What I learned from the trip:

Pictures on the internet are not necessarily trustworthy.
People are basically good, and willing to help complete strangers.
What was the worst trip at the time, becomes the most memorable one afterwards. (We actually laugh about it now).

Lunglen leh a behbawm

2011-11-06T21:51:00.002+05:30

Thlasik a nih veleh a lunglen nghal rikngawt mai hi a mak ka ti. Khawtlang lunglen an tih ang diktak lehnghal hi mawle. Ngaih bik em em pawh neilo, nunhlui pawh ngai lo, boruak awm dan in lung a ti leng ve tawp a ni.

Tawngkam thiam deuh chu ni ila, nisat dan lo danglam ta te, tlema boruak a lo vawh sung dan te, kawrlum hak a lo ngai ta te hi engtin tin emaw ka'n sawi kual vel duah tur a nia le. Mahse han inpuang lawk ila, Mizo tawnga thuziak chhiar hi ka thatchhe em em a, chutah pawh thupui fun deuh hi chu ka la chhiar peihlo lehzual a. Ka chhiar peihloh zingah pawh tawngkam in tih thiam tum lutuk a ziak kikawi vak vak ho hi ka chhiar peihlo fal a. "Tawnni her leh hma loh zawng ar ang ka vai nang ngai reng hian a riangte hi" tih vel ho hi ania ka sawi chu. Hlathu chu ni se ka hrethiam, fiction/non-fiction ah hetiang tawngkam an rawn hman kual duah tawh hi chuan ka chhiarzo lo tlangpui. Fiction an han ziak a thenkhat chuan, mi pangngai ina kan hman ngai reng reng loh tawngkama an han tawng tir ta vak vak mai thin hi chuan a ti lem zo vek in ka hre thin. Fantasy emaw historical novel a nih law law si loh chuan tawngkam pangngai hi hman tir ve hle hle mai tur.

Lunglen chhan hi a mak khawp a. Thlasik lunglen hi pakhat ni ta se, khawtlang lungleng a dang leh (A pahnih hian a khaikhawm theih fo bawk a, tuna ka awm ang hian). Thil mak pui pui, awm lo deuh deuh hian lung hi zuk ti leng thei tlat a. Hmanah kan hostel hnungah hian rel kawng hi a awm a, junction tereuhte a awm bawk a. Zan rei, reh thep thawp tawh hnua rel rawn tlan ri ruai ruai khan ka lung a ti leng tlat zel a nih chu. Zinkawng, haw kawng nen ka inkawptir tlat vang pawh kha a niang e. Mahse ti ila, tunah hian kan in chung zawna thlawhna a rawn thlawh rik dur dur te hi chuan ka ning em em thung a, liam vat vat se ka ti thin. Aizawl-Gauhati pawh bus leh sumo in vawi tamtak ka lo teihawi vel tawh a, bus leh sumo erawh chuan lung a ti leng eih lo bawk.

Hun kal tawh thil min hriatchhuah tir tu te hian kan lung a ti leng ni ta berin ka hria. Kan la tawn miah loh hi chu ngaihtuahna zawng zawng nena tan chiam hnuah tlem te in a rawn leng ve det maithei. Thil maksak deuh ka rilru a awm reng chu, mi kan ngaih hian anmahni mimal tak kha kan va ngai nge, anmahni nena thil kan lo experience tawhna kha kan ngai nge, kan inhre rei tawh lutuk a anmahni ngai em em lo mahila kan nunhlui kha kan va ngai? All of the above hi a nih hmel.

Pakhatna: A mihring kha kan va ngai em em. An felna te, an bula awm nawmna te, min tihhlimna te, an rilru tha lutuk te, a tam mai, an personality kha a nih ber chu, khami khan min ngaihtir ta em em a.

Pahnihna leh Pathumna hi khaikhawm daih teh ang, ka thliar hrang thiam lo: Chutia han inkawmngeih em em pawh kan ni lo a, mahse kan inkawm ve lai khan thil hlimawm tak tak te kan lo ti a, hriatreng tlak tak tak te pawh a niang chu. A hnuah kan inkawm zui ta lo. Inkawm leh ila khati khawp khan kan inkawmngeih leh kher tawh lo ang. Mahse kan nunhlui kan ngaih avang khan a huna laia mihring te pawh kan va ngai tel ve ta.

Ziah leh tur ka ngaihtuahna lamah ka lunglen a bo zo.

Mizoram time leh vairam time hi sawi daih teh ang. North East hi time zone hrana awm tur tih vel kha vawikhat lai khan kan han sawi hlut a, a reh leh ta chu a nia hei. Mizorama han haw hian khua te a lo var hma a, mi an lo tho hma a, time zone hran ang deuhah pawh lo ngai ta ila. In adjust hi a har duh khawp mai. Dar 7 a thawh te chu tho tlai kan ni a, mahse chhungten min hrethiam a min kaitho duh bik lo a. Chaw min lo eisan a, an eikham tawh dawn lamah min rawn kaitho a, midang ruala chawei loh kha chu ni heklo, mumang nen nuaih a chaw han ei kha chu ei tui a har khawp mai. Mahse ni 2/3 hnuah chuan kan in adjust ve mai. Chutah tlai dar 6 velah tlai chaw kan eikham leh vek tawh, zan a rei duh khawp mai. Inkhawm loh phei chuan zanah hian TV en chiah tihtur a awm tawh.

Mi te chuan tlangrama han haw hi a thawventhlak an ti a, kei chuan a thawipikthlak ka ti tlat a nih chu. Aizawl ngat te phei chu a tawt sia, kawng zim te a awm a, lehlam ah kopang, lehlamah inchhawng sang deuh a lo awm uaih a, anih loh leh in leh in inkarah kan kal rek rek a. Ka thaw a ipik thin. Min ti claustrophobic vek zel. Mahse a thawventhlak ka tihna ve chu engmah ngaihtuah a ngailo kha! Chhungte bulah thlamuang takin kan awm der der a, a nuam e! Rawngbawl, gas lak, inluahman pek, bazar, insuk, electric bill pek etc rilru atanga han paihbo hmak kha chu nuam ve tak a ni. Duhtawk teh ang.

Planetary, my dear Watson!

2011-10-30T15:36:00.000+05:30

"Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto are the nine planets that revolve around the sun in our solar system" was what we learned in school. More than two decades have passed, and since then there have been many new discoveries and Pluto has been un-planet-ed. Demoted. As if it could not get enough votes to be a member of the Planets Legislative Assembly. Imagine the billion gazillion gases and floating things in space queuing up to cast their votes, proudly exhibiting the ink mark on the finger afterwards.

Two anti-Pluto gases in conversation:

GAS 1: "I will not vote for Pluto, he has done nothing for us in the last couple of million years. I think I will vote for this new planet BX54U8Y instead, he looks promising."

GAS 2: "Let the name Pluto be erased forever from memory."

GAS 1: "That's impossible."

GAS 2: "And why is that?"

GAS 1: "Well, there's another Pluto, the one that's very popular with human beings."

GAS 2: "Are you saying this Pluto character has cloned himself?"

GAS 1: "No, not exactly. You see, this other Pluto..."

GAS 2: "Who is it? A human being? An asteroid? A black hole?"

GAS 1: "It's Mickey Mouse's dog."

Okay enough about the planets.

Or maybe not. The reason I thought about Mars (not the chocolate bar) and Jupiter (not the Roman god) and other planets and the universe we live in, was because I went out yesterday evening.

It was almost sunset and I was riding in a very shaky auto. We climbed a flyover, and above the buildings and the trees and the power lines I could see this big, round orange sun hanging in the sky. The sky was somewhere between blue and grey and there was not a cloud around, not even a bird. Just this big sun, beautiful and majestic and close, so close you feel you could reach out and touch it. I took out my phone to take a picture but by then we had descended from the flyover and all I could see were buildings above me. At every open space I got I craned my neck upwards to look at the sun. Five minutes later it had sunk very low, and its colour had become pinkish - orangeish.

We all know we live in this big universe, that we are nothing more than a tiny speck of dust. But did we ever actually "feel" that we are a part of it? We live our lives everyday worrying about food and clothing and shelter, but did we ever for a minute take the time to think, yes I live on a planet which revolves around the sun, and there are a million trillion other planets and gases and other space stuff floating around me? Never, is my guess.

In the news we hear about an asteroid or a meteor or something about to hit the earth or collide with the earth. We read/listen to it and think, oh that sounds scary. But we were never really scared, were we? We would be more scared, say if we hear that there is a masked robber terrorising the neighbourhood. Because we relate to it. We don't relate to space stuff. Most of us think all these planets and satellites and gaseous matter stuff is only for the scientists. And I am no exception.

So yesterday I was watching the sun, and I thought, hey the sun looks exactly like the pictures of the planets in our textbooks. To be precise, I thought it looked like Jupiter. Mostly because of its orange colour (see picture below). That's when all these thoughts started invading my head.

And just the other day I read that two scientists captured the birth of new planet on camera. Makes one feel smaller than ever.

Here's a video of the Milky Way taken from the highest mountain in Spain, El Teide.

"If you ever wondered how the Milky Way would look through a Sahara sandstorm, look at 00:32."

The Mountain from TSO Photography on Vimeo.

A beautiful picture of the Milky Way by Thomas Zimmer:

Time after time

2011-10-24T23:57:00.000+05:30

Imagine yourself stranded somewhere remote, without a watch. The movement of the sun is the only way you can tell the time. And maybe the hunger in your stomach. Wouldn't you go a little bit crazy? I would. I always have to know the time. But I hate wearing a watch, and the only watch I have is lying inside some unused bag. Yet I get on nicely without it, what with mobile phones and computers telling the time and you always have one or the other nearby, and in the rare event that you are stranded without either one you can always ask people around you, and in the rarest event that you find yourself alone without anyone around.. well that's a bit unlikely to happen.

You know what comes to mind? Prisoners scratching the dates on prison walls. Count of Monte Cristo specifically. Maybe a little bit of Robinson Crusoe. Yes I know he was not a prisoner, he was marooned; but he still scratched the dates on rocks (I think). Same difference.

Let's assume that it's a Saturday and I am stuck in the house without any means of telling the time. Here is how I would know what time it is (approximately).

Because of the Telangana employees granting themselves holidays, the whole city of Hyderabad suffers from daily power cuts, anywhere between two and six hours. In our area the allotted time is between six and eight in the morning, and then twelve to two in the afternoon.

So on this watch-less day I wake up and find that the lights are still on. I look at my window and find that it's not yet daylight, so I know that it's before 6 AM. I go back to sleep, and when the lights go out and and the fan stops whirring, I know it must be exactly 6.

8 AM and the lights come back, and I can hear the caretaker sweeping the verandah.

The neighbour's baby cries like somebody dropped an anvil on her foot, so I know it's around 8:30 and her mother is giving her a bath. A cold one, no doubt.

This is when the fun begins.

We live in a residential area, and there are no shops in the immediate neighbourhood. So from morning until evening a dozen or so vendors, selling everything from artificial flowers to fresh fish would come along, peddling their wares and shouting in their own unique ways.

The first one to make his presence known is the Idli-Dosa guy. He doesn't come everyday, but I've heard his shout a few times. Maybe it's because there are not many bachelors in the area.

At around 9:53 comes the leafy vegetables guy, shouting "Kotmeer, Palakka", which are coriander and spinach respectively. Housewives drop down their baskets or polythene covers from upstairs apartments and he makes a good sale every morning.

And then comes the most irritating Saturday morning regular. The religious guy. Comes to our colony around 11-ish, drives around in a small van/cart thing, adorned with numerous pictures of his innumerable gods, burning this and that incense and playing the loudest devotional songs. It must be a famous song because I've heard people use it as their mobile phone ringtones.

The power goes off, and I know it's noon. And when it comes back I know it's 2 PM.

At 4 PM the samosa fellows come cycling, after which the next regular event is at midnight when the local watchman patrols the street, tapping the road loudly with his cane. Although you know it's only one man with a stick who's guarding your colony, hearing that tap-tap in the night when everything's gone quiet can be really comforting.

All through the day you have the paper-vendors and the fruit vendors coming through. Then you have the occasional fishman, the artificial flowers ladies, the broom lady, the flowers-you-wear-in-the-hair man, the bedsheets and cushion covers people, and the ice-cream man.

That's about it. A day in the life, a watch-less day.

Nice leh Nice lo

2011-09-22T23:14:00.000+05:30

Nice:

Sam posi fuh deuh.
Sunshine after weeks of damp.
Getting a window seat on the bus and feeling the cold morning air on your face.
Chaw ei loh pawha riltam miah loh.
Remembering something funny.
A long forgotten song playing on the radio [eg East 17's Stay Another Day].
Walking past a bakery and the smell of freshly baked bread and other bakery stuff filling the air.

Not Nice:

Sam pawh ngil hnu lo to kir leh bup.
Bitter chocolate.
Pheikhawk sang bun zeilo deuh.
Rawngbawl laklawh laia gas zo.
The smell of stale cigarette smoke.
Children calling you Aunty.
The neighbourhood ogler.
Thenawmte naute a nu in tuktin a tap tuar tuar khawpa a bual thin.

The list is not finished, not by a long shot. May come up with Part 2, or I may not. Wait and watch.

Chitchat

2011-09-18T15:49:00.000+05:30

Sunday afternoon, two weeks after the last blog post. A warm sunny day outside, with the temperature hovering at the early thirties.

A shopping expedition with a girl friend suddenly cancelled finds me with nothing to do. Well, I could read the piles of books I haven’t touched since they left the store, or I could get up and get dressed and go to church. But you know those days when you don’t feel like executing Plan B once Plan A has failed and you just sit around reading the newspaper cover to cover, read a few blogs that you love and wonder why you spent so much time on Facebook when it’s clear nothing great is going to come out of it and the people there seem to be more and more lunatic? Well today is one such day, in fact a perfect example of it.

Did you ever get tired of all the songs in your playlist? Did you ever repeatedly hit the Next button again and again and there is not a single song that you want to lend your ears to? A quiet afternoon making you feel simply drowsy but you want to avoid a nap because it does nothing good for your ever expanding waistline. Switched on an internet radio station, Smooth Radio London, and forgotten songs like No More I Love Yous, The Most Beautiful Girl in the World and Out of Reach filled the afternoon air. Switched to 1.FM and it was Katie Melua singing To Kill You With a Kiss.

Been six weeks since I went to church. I can see the frowns and the hear the admonishments. I plead guilty, Your Collective Honours. Every good girl goes to church and prays regularly, I can hear you thinking. And especially in a society like ours where your character, your moral and religious goodness, your piousness, everything is directly proportional to the frequency with which you cross the threshold of the church. I am not trying to be sarcastic or mocking, I am just stating the simple facts, which to a degree holds true. And I am not justifying my not going to church. I don’t go because I don’t. Simple as that, nothing to analyse or be subjected to study under the microscope or on the shrink’s couch.

Nelly Furtado up next with Try.

It’s 3:22 in the afternoon, and very soon the samosa guy will come cycling and shout in his flat voice “Samosaaa”, “Samoooosaaa”, and he will linger near my house because I always buy from him on weekends. Small crispy oily samosas at one rupee each, I can easily devour five or six.

Melanie C with Never Be The Same Again. Haven’t heard that song in years. “I thought that we would just be friends, things will never be the same again yada yada yada tukchhit tukchhit….”

I Disappear

2011-09-05T23:35:00.000+05:30

One of the most terrifying things in the world, I think, is disappearing. I don’t mean disappearing as being physically out of sight. It’s more about being forgotten, disappearing from people’s memory, not being remembered, being lost among all the wires and electric signals and forgotten things in somebody’s brain. Somewhat like being stuffed in a box with all the other useless things and pushed to a corner and forgotten and one day someone will discover the box and ask the owner “Who is this person?” and the person will rack his brains and try to recall who you are and why you were in the box and he might say “Oh just someone I used to know” or he might be embarrassed and start lying in all directions but it wouldn’t change anything because you had been in the box all that time.

And so we try to attract attention, in all the ways we know. We dress outrageously, paint our faces, wear flashy watches and shoes and drive noisy vehicles. We talk and laugh loudly and drown everyone with our opinions and play our music right in their faces.

And we go online and tell the world what we did every waking minute of our lives. And not being content with that, we blog and ask everyone to read it.

But after all this, nobody thinks about us as much as we hoped or feared because they are all too busy obsessing over themselves! Hahaha!

Stupid post, I know, now you can go and check out my photoblog at wordpress.:)

How about it?

2011-07-16T17:59:00.001+05:30

I don’t understand poetry much, but I still love the popular ones like “How do I love thee let me count the ways”, or that one by Yeats that goes “ I have spread my dreams under your feet, tread softly because you tread on my dreams”, or any of Pablo Neruda’s bittersweet poems (Because of you, in gardens of blossoming flowers I ache from the perfumes of spring. I have forgotten your face, I no longer remember your hands; how did your lips feel on mine?)

But, I am a big fan of love songs. HUGE fan. Maybe that was one reason why I was so keen on songbooks and writing down song lyrics (and eventually losing the songbook). It could be any song, any love song, sung by anyone, The Eagles or Taylor Swift or John Mayer or Zirsangzela or Maroon 5. If it has beautiful lyrics that makes you want to grab a pen and write down the lyrics, it is good enough for me.

And once in a while you come across lyrics that just blow you away. Completely. Off the seat of your pants. And sometimes the lyrics are not even that sweet or sad or melancholic. Some geniuses have a way of putting together words that just feels so right, so perfect, that you want to write that song down on a chart paper and stick it on the wall beside your bed (Actually I have done this, and I think it was a poem, don’t remember which one, it was millenia ago).

So who is this week’s lucky winner? It is an old song, well, that really depends on when you were born. Do you know that the songs we listened while growing up are now played in the Retro channel? Makes one feel ancient and old fashioned and not-with-the-times, but anyone who knows me knows I'm not really bothered about being hip and wearing the latest clothes and listening to the latest songs.

Romeo and Juliet. Dire Straits. 1980. I will not bore you with the facts like who wrote it and why and who covered it and all that stuff. Google it.

The song is soo soo sad, and, to use a word for the second time in a blogpost, bittersweet. Lost loves and people meeting at a wrong time in their lives. And the Romeo and Juliet title makes it even sadder because we all know that R&J were the personification of true love. In the song Juliet is portrayed as a fickle girl who throws away Romeo’s love. Uses him and leaves him once she tastes success and fame. And poor old Romeo roams the streets singing about the old times and serenading girls who do not want to be serenaded, much less from under a balcony.

The lyrics, oh the lyrics!

When you can fall for chains of silver,
You can fall for chains of gold,
You can fall for pretty strangers
And the promises they hold.
You promised me everything, you promised me thick and thin, yeah!
Now you just say, "Oh Romeo? Yeah, you know I used to have a scene with him".

Juliet, when we made love, you used to cry.
You said, "I love you like the stars above, I'll love you 'til I die".
There's a place for us, you know the movie song.
When you gonna realize it was just that the time was wrong, Juliet?

I can't do the talk, like the talk on TV
And I can't do a love song, like the way it's meant to be.
I can't do everything, but I'll do anything for you.
I can't do anything, 'cept be in love with you!

And all I do is miss you and the way we used to be.
All I do is keep the beat... and bad company.
Now all I do is kiss you through the bars of a rhyme,
Juliet, I'd do the stars with you any time!

And a love-struck Romeo sings a street serenade
Laying everybody low with a lovesong that he made
Finds a convenient streetlight, steps out of the shade
He says something like, "You and me babe, how about it?"

You and me babe, how about it?

What the F?

2011-07-03T22:46:00.000+05:30

It all started when I went home for my annual holiday. Thirty uninterrupted days of not doing anything, not worrying about the rent, or about how well stocked your fridge is, or about how far behind you are in paying the electricity bills resulted in the scale tilting a bit to the right. Everyone remarked how plump I’d become, and I happily laughed along because being thin never really suits anyone, or so I believed.

Wait. I take back my words. It all started before I went home, but another month of inactivity resulted in it being blown out of proportion. Literally. Cheeks, arms, thighs, tummy, even the ankles, everything got blown up. And it is not funny at all.

Changing your clothes ten times every morning is not funny. People thinking you are the mother of your 22 year old niece is enough to send the most jovial of persons into a deep depression from which one can never recover. Discovering your favourite pair of jeans now feels a little too tight can almost make you swear to wear only wraparound skirts, which by the way you think is the world’s ugliest piece of clothing, and roam the earth like someone stuck in the 70s.

I wish I was one of those brave souls who could laugh and just shrug it off and say “This means there’s more of me to love!” I wish I was one of those energetic individuals who get up an hour early and tie up their running shoes and go jogging in the middle of the night. I envy those happy people who accept their extra tyres and heavy forearms and do not care about the additional layers of fat they carry around.

I know, I know, I sound like a whiner, an unhappy unaccepting un-selfloving person. Give me some time, will you? Let me get used to living with my chubby body and fat ankles and triple chin. Let me stop automatically comparing myself with every fat person I see. Let those feelings of happiness stop washing over me when I see someone fatter. Let me slowly learn to love and embrace this F word. Maybe the sun will then shine on me once again.

Thank God my shoes still fit.

A Tale of Two Sisters

2011-06-19T21:04:00.001+05:30

Once upon a time there were two sisters. They had many other siblings but this tale is about the two sisters, so let’s be happy and forget about the other children their parents procreated.

So we have these two sisters, one elder, the other younger. (Obviously, because no mother can give birth to twins at exactly the same time. But wait what about those born via a Caesarean? What is the extracting procedure for twins? Does the doctor just pull out the first baby he sees? How do they decide who is older?)

Okay, so we have two sisters. In fact, if it was a hundred years earlier they would be princesses. Because their mother was a princess, a very beautiful one with skin the colour of ivory and hair like finely spun spider’s web. Our two sisters grew up as ordinary people, and worked ordinary jobs. The elder one married and became a housewife. Her husband was a relatively successful businessman, and they built a house at one of the best locations in town. They were quite well off, and when television arrived in Mizoram they were among the first to get one. I remember their house used to be very crowded, with the whole locality coming to watch any program that was showing. My mother often talked about watching the ’82 World Cup at their place, at a time when Rossi and Zico ruled the football world.

The younger sister got a government job, and was always posted in some far-off town. She bore three children, two boys followed by a girl, but never got married. The girl was slightly older than me, and was great friends with me and my sister. Because of her mother’s job she was always in one boarding school or the other, and we used to write each other, in English, and we thought ourselves very sophisticated because we wrote in English, even though it was never anything more than “How are you I am fine School is fine”.

Fortune didn’t smile on the elder sister, and she and her husband didn’t have any children. So they adopted (informally) the eldest son of the younger sister. They were very good to us (my siblings and I) too. We lived in adjacent houses, and she would, until this day, talk about the days when I was so small I couldn’t cross a small drain that was between our two houses, a drain whose width was no more than a few centimetres.

So the eldest boy lived with his aunt and uncle, and they spoiled him rotten. Gave him whatever he wanted. He had a happy childhood. Then he grew up, and he started mixing with rich boys and developed bad habits. It was the late 80s, and the rich kids had discovered drugs. Our boy too got trapped, badly, and it was very sad to see him decline like that. How his parents must have suffered!

One fine day he brought a wife home. She too was from the rich crowd, a girl who had never worked in her life. His parents were very happy, maybe they were secretly hoping he would mend his ways and settle down. They spoiled the wife, never let her lift a finger and never allowed her to do anything in the house.

Time went on, grandchildren came, everyone became old, and one day the elder sister’s husband died. Everything changed after that. The daughter-in-law declared herself the head of the house, and started treating her mother-in-law like a servant. Well, servant is too strong a word, let’s just say she was barely civil to her. The poor husband never said a word, because his wife was that kind of woman you don’t argue with.

Our elder sister, now almost 80, cooks and washes the dishes every day. Sometimes she would eat after everyone else. Poor thing, she had nowhere to go, and the person she called her son was too scared of his wife to come to her rescue. At an age when she should be enjoying the waning years of her life with grandchildren around her, she spends her days feeling like an unwanted person, an uninvited guest.

The other day my sister went to her house. It seemed she walked into a family argument, and it was very uncomfortable, so she told me. Sis walked in just in time to hear Elder Sister say she wouldn’t allow her bed to be dismantled / removed because it was the bed in which their grandfather had slept. Turned out the family had converted her room into a TV room and she had to sleep in another room.

I feel so disappointed with the human race when I hear things like this. True, no one is perfect and we all have faults and failings and eccentricities, but isn’t respect to elders something we’ve been taught all our life? In fact, it’s something that our common sense, our conscience should be telling us, without anyone having to drum it into our heads.

I don’t know how this story will end. And it is unlikely that a Sydney Carton will come to the elder sister’s rescue. I wish and pray for better happier days for her for the rest of her life.

Pawnfen

2011-05-08T23:29:00.000+05:30

Puanfen an ti emawni, a enge dik zawk chu ka hre lem law. A dik ve ve ah lo ngai phawt teh ang.

Hmanni chu inti nù tawkin office ah pawnfen ka va feng ve ngei a. A hma pawhin fen chu ka tum ve tawh thin, mahse kal dawn tepah hian ka inthlak leh rup rup zel. Chuan ka va feng ve ta a, inthlakna awm ta lo kha chu nileng chu ka daih ve mai a. Mahse ka pawnfen fen berkher kha a lining na nal deuh mai hi a nia, chair ah hian ka tawlh zuk zuk reng mai a, khup chen chauh a nih avang khan uluk taka thut kha a lo ngai lehzel nen, ka hah khawp mai!

Chutia han inhmeh lo em em bik ka nih pawh ka hre lo a, chawnlian ve tak chu ni mah ila ka zahpui lem lo a, bawp te pawh tawi ve terh tawrh hle mahse ngalsang pui pui zingah ka inthlahrung chuang hauh lo. Mahse ka ti mi lo ve tawp.

Pawnfen feng ngai lo chu ka ni bik miahlo ania aw, naupan lai leh tleirawl tirh te kha chuan feng ve nasa alawm. Kekawr hak tuh reng ai hi chuan a nalh zawk pawh ka ti, a nù zaih mai a. Sang deuh slim deuh zeih zawih in an han fen phei hi chuan a mawi lehzual ka ti. Ka chak ve thei lutuk.

Tunlai phei hi chuan Mizoramah lamah te an uar khawp mai lehnghal a, thiante tawi ve teng tawng deuh te pawn an lo feng lawp lawp han hmuh takah chuan ka'n lei ve ringawt a. Feng leh chuang lem hlei lo a, dul lamah harsatna lo thleng ve lehzel bawk nen. Pakhat phei chu thingrem mawngah nalh deuhin ka thlep than. Khaw eng hmuh ni te chu a la nei ve mahna.

Vai ho in a salwar kameez an lo hak nachhan hi ka hre ta. Khawlum deuh ah pawnfen chhing i feng ve tawh em? Chawn vel hi a sa hut hut mai a, khawlaiah phei chuan rei deuh han kalpui ngam hi a ni lo reng reng. An salwar kameez hak hi a lo remchang khawp mai a (hak chu ka ha chuang hauh lo a), nù bawk si, chetvel khawr tut si lo, zahawm lo bawk si lo, a remchang vel vek tawp.

Chutiang bawkin kawrfual te pawh. Hak loh hian an lo thing leh thin. Engpawhnise, zawite chuan kal dem dem dawn chuang lo mah ila, pawnfen fen te, kawrfual hak te hi uar ve deuh tum tawh tur a ni.

Wuthering Heights

2011-05-01T23:03:00.000+05:30

It was with a lot of difficulty that I was able to finish this book last month. I had earlier deduced that I would need one hour every day to read a book in a month. Well, things never go as planned; so there were days when I stayed away from all printed material, and days when I woke up early and sat on the balcony and read. Anyway, I finished the book within the stipulated time, and I'm happy. All’s well that ends well, the ends justify the means, and all that rot.

I am not going to narrate the plot, I'm just assuming you have read it, and if you haven’t, well that’s just too bad. I wanted to put down in writing my views on the book, no I wouldn’t call it a review, let’s just say it’s an opinion.

I've heard a lot about this book, and most of them were about Heathcliff and Catherine and their great romance. I must admit I expected some grand romance of epic proportions, something in the lines of rich-girl-poor-boy-defy-their-parents, a tale about two people overcoming all odds and love being triumphant in the end. I had envisioned Heathcliff to be this tall dark handsome hero with a strong character with strong convictions and an even stronger love for his lady love, and Catherine to be a passionate but defiant daughter who chose to follow her heart.

Turns out the book isn’t about love at all. Sure there is love, but it is unrequited, it is forced, it is scheming, and it develops out of having no one else to love. Although the book ends on a somewhat happy note, it doesn’t leave you with that happy contented afterglow. You wonder if such a character as Heathcliff can ever exist in real life, whose only purpose in life is revenge and who doesn’t appear to have a kind bone in his body. But I don’t hate him at all. He has been wronged his whole life, right from his childhood, and the only person he ever loved chose to marry another man, supposedly for his (Heathcliff’s) benefit. I completely understand his wanting to exact revenge on Hindley Earnshaw. I mean who could endure such humiliation and abuse without thoughts of revenge forming in one’s mind? Add to that the loss of one love’s when the words of love and promise had barely left her lips. If you are the self pitying kind you might wallow in misery and sadness all your life, but Heathcliff decides to take matters in his hands. It was to his favour that Hindley turned out to be such a drunken bum who couldn’t control his estate and was in perpetual need of cash.

But why all the cruelty? I agree you cannot crush your enemies by being gentle and lenient, but where is the need to take out that anger on to your wife, your son, and to the world in general? I often wondered if Heathcliff isn’t insane. Digging up Catherine’s grave, seeing her ghost all the time, refusing to eat for four days, and the way he dies just gives me the chills. Insane or not, I think he is the kind of person who, whatever he feels, feels it very strongly, and does not restrain himself from showing it. At times I hate his cruelty and evilness, but at times I pity him. His life was full of sorrow and injustice and his only reason for living was taken away from him twice, first in marriage and then in death.

Catherine was no saint either. She loved Heathcliff, but still went and married Edgar Linton so that “Heathcliff can have a better life”. Maybe she just wanted to escape from Wuthering Heights and lead a normal life, or maybe she was afraid of being ostracized if she married an orphan like Heathcliff who had no money, no property, and most importantly no social standing. She was also quite the drama queen, once locking herself up in her room for three days without eating. I couldn’t sympathise with her at all. She fancied herself a puppet master who controlled the people around her, playing with their emotions to suit her needs.

Tragedy after tragedy follows, and I turned each page hoping for something happy to happen. It never did, except at the last few pages where we learn that Catherine Linton Heathcliff and Hareton Earnshaw had fallen into some kind of love and had regained their inheritance. I pitied all the characters who were the victims of Heathcliff’s revenge; poor misled Isabella, her sickly son Linton, nurse Nelly Dean who watches her loved ones die one after the other, and the unfortunate Hareton who through no fault of his own was raised an ignorant illiterate person.

Will I read the book again? Not in the near future. Mark Twain was absolutely right when he said “A classic is something that everybody wants to have read and nobody wants to read”.

The Glue

2011-04-16T14:11:00.000+05:30

Have you ever been in a friendship with two or more people, when one of them goes away and the friendship suddenly falls apart? I have. We thought we were a happy bunch of friends until one day for some reason a member of the group has to leave, and for those left behind there was suddenly nothing left to say. All we could talk about was that missing person and the good times we had. And the friendship dies a slow death, until we became mere acquaintances who nod and say hello on the occasions we meet.

The same thing would apply for families, I guess. Someone in the family dies and the other members simply retreat into their own shells. A huge void springs up which nothing or no one else can fill, and each member finds his or her own way to fill that empty space inside them.

You might be thinking, what a load of rubbish, but trust me it’s true. There are certain people who possess this charm, or shall we say charisma, allure, magnetism, whatever you call it, that people just flock to them. They attract people. They are the ones who always have a crowd around them, the ones who make friends without any effort at all, and the ones people remember after the first meeting. I call them the glues. They are the glue that binds friendships, that holds families together, that makes things whole. And we all know what happens when glue loses its stickiness. Things come loose, fall apart, get lost, and finally become forgotten. People drift apart, lose their love and affection, and eventually become strangers.

So am I implying that people are divided into glues and non-glues, and that the non-glues are colourless, boring, uninteresting people who have absolutely no attraction? No! Life is not all black and white. I think most of our lives are spent in the grey area, deciding what to do, which way to go, and who to follow. Sure, there will be people who are charming and attractive, but that doesn’t make you any less charming or unattractive. You will come across people who are magnets, but that doesn’t mean you are a rusty iron rod either. We all have elements of glueyness in us. Each one of us is charming, attractive, interesting in our way. You may sometimes think of yourself as quite ungluey but you never know, for someone you might be the ultra sticky super glue that binds them to you!

A cheesy line – to the world you are someone, but to someone you are the world.

Collide

2011-04-09T12:00:00.004+05:30

I think I was around 2 years old when I collided into a neighbour’s moving Jeep. The issue of whether I crashed into or it crashed into me was never resolved. According to eyewitness reports (my mother’s) I was eating a fruit in the road of the road and did not see the vehicle, subsequent to which it hit me and knocked me down. Multitasking capabilities were not yet developed, evidently. Now I can skillfully dodge a dozen vehicles coming from four directions while speaking on the phone and carrying an umbrella with one hand and a soft drink with the other hand. Ok let’s get back to the story. I got hit, but I don’t remember it at all, maybe because I was not seriously hurt. My mother said I became afraid of all automobiles after that incident, so she spent one whole morning taking me back and forth on a bus ride between Thakthing and Kulikawn. That supposedly cured me, but I don’t remember it either.

Sometimes I’d have this feeling that I would get hit by a vehicle while crossing the road, and I would lie there all bloody and mangled and they would have to identify me from my IDs and it would be very embarrassing if I wear ugly underwear and the casualty staff will have a good laugh at my expense. And I don’t know which one would be more horrible – drowning or being burnt to death. That’s why I'm mighty glad that my ancestors were not in the wizarding profession. I don’t think I would find being burnt at the stakes much entertaining.

Remember the 90s? Before the age of the Internet? When if we want the lyrics of a song we would listen to the song very very carefully, ears glued to the speaker, pause and stop and rewind and play and write down the lyrics? And you know how we remember certain days, certain people, and certain incidents more vividly than others? Well, one such incident was when a friend and I spent a considerable amount of time copying the lyrics of Def Leppard’s When Love and Hate Collide. Beautiful song, I still listen to it now and then, and always think of that old friend.

Can love and hate really collide? Maybe. Otherwise why would so many people write about it in songs and poems and books and movie scripts? But can you really hate someone who loves you? Hate is a very strong word. You may dislike, but hate? Unless that same person wronged you terribly, hurt you and your loved ones, brought about your financial ruin, and destroyed your reputation, I think it must be a very strong dislike we are talking about. We hate our enemies, not people who love us.

You are walking on the road, or in the office/school/apartment corridor, and someone walks towards you. You decide, I will walk past this person on the right, but that person has decided to walk towards his left. So what happens, you both move in the same direction. A second of awkwardness, then you both decide to take corrective action and move together in the opposite direction again. More awkwardness, until finally someone laughs and stops and the other person takes a step forward and you happily turn your backs on each other. And sometimes you turn a corner and suddenly collide into someone and you both say a hasty “Sorry” and go on.

Let me leave you with this song, Howie Day's Collide.

Press 1 to read

2011-04-07T00:20:00.000+05:30

They say you should never write a letter when you're angry. And I suppose they are right. If I have to write a letter to my bank right now, it would drip venom. It would explode upon opening, or at the least burst into flames.

I received a new card from my bank today, with instructions telling me to call them for the PIN. As easy as A-B-C, I thought, and dialled. It was 10 PM, and I figured I would finish the call by 10:15 and could go to bed by 10:30.

Calling IVR numbers must be put up there as one of the most irritating things in the world, along with nosy people and loudmouths. It was the bank I was calling, so before giving me the option to press 1 to do this or 2 to do that, the voice went on and on about the products they’re offering and what phishing is and some other stuff. I wanted to shout “I know all this!!” but could do nothing but wait. Then finally I began the pressing game, starting with what language I preferred and what products I hold and so on. I had to press, I think, 4 numbers in order to reach a person.

First guy I spoke to was okay, helpful, told me to go back to the main menu and press this and that number and finally I would be connected to the PIN people who would then ask me few verification questions and then I could choose my new PIN. He was very anxious about the call, asking me if he was helpful, if he answered all my questions, provided all the information I needed etc etc. I know the call was recorded and that it could affect his salary, so I praised him to the high heavens.

Let’s cut a long story short. There were IVR problems, call transfer problems, being kept on hold for ages until I learnt all the special interest rates they offered for certain periods of time and listened to how patient I was and how the call would be answered shortly by a phone banking officer and how important my call was, and at around 10:30 I finally got through to a girl.

She asked me how she could help; I said I needed a PIN for my new card. First off, I didn’t like her voice, too loud and too flighty. I know I'm being unjust, but let me go on. Asked me for my card number, and when I duly recited it she asked “This is your number ONLY?” I replied yes, it was my number ONLY. Then she told some story that the IVR couldn’t generate my entire card number to their department and had given them only the last four digits so she couldn’t be entirely sure it was the correct number, because there was no authentication from the IVR.

It was funny, really. I had gone through the whole process of entering my card number, and when I finally got through to her she asked me some verification questions which was impossible if my card number was not made available to them. After verifying that yes it was really me she was speaking to, and not my watchman’s wife, she proceeded to tell me that she couldn’t help with the PIN generation because the IVR didn’t provide her the whole sixteen digits. Hurray!!

But, she did offer to transfer me to the main menu, and I could start again from step 1. I said I don’t want to do that because I don’t wait to wait for another 45 minutes until I spoke to someone. She said she understood (which I seriously doubted) and then started to explain the whole IVR thing, that only the last 4 digits was routed to them. I started questioning the security of their banking system. She had no reply and offered to transfer me to the main menu again. I said no. She was at her wit’s end, and said she would transfer me to her colleague who could help me. Listened to irritating music again for a few minutes, and finally someone came on the line.

I discovered, to my dismay, that it was the same girl again, this time saying that she was unable to transfer my call anywhere, not to the main menu, nor to her colleague’s number, because she had some “technical issues” with her phone. Complete bakwaas. I then did what any irate customer would do: I asked to speak to her supervisor.

The supervisor was a soft spoken lady who introduced herself nicely. She said they were trying to sort out my problem but had some telephone issues and blah blah blah. She offered to call me back immediately on my phone and they would connect me to the main menu, I said no. She then asked me to pick the time and said that they would call, and again I said no, I don’t want to receive calls from you. She then started explaining the whole IVR thing again which by that time I was a leeetle bit tired of hearing. I interrupted and asked if there was any other way I could get the PIN without having to waste an hour of my beauty sleep by calling them. She was delighted with the question and said she could send it to me by post. Finally, a solution!

So we followed with the usual I'm-sorry-I-was-rude-it’s-been-a-long-day and we-are-sorry-for-the-inconvenience-caused-to-you-is-there-anything-else-I-could-help-you-with and I hung up. It was 11 PM.

Some people rant and rave and shout and scream when they get angry. I don’t do all that drama. I am the bitterly sulking type. And one reason I don’t scream is I get weepy when I'm angry. Sad, isn’t it? Being wronged makes me weepy, being accused or criticised (even when it’s entirely my fault) brings tears to my eyes. But for that particular phone call I wished I was the shouting type. Then I would immediately forget everything and wouldn’t have to write this sad post and make you remember all your bad IVR experiences.

It is 12:15 AM.

A book a month

2011-03-26T13:00:00.003+05:30

The title says it all; I don’t have to explain much. Read a book in a month. It’s going to be very very difficult, a Herculean task indeed, and I will feel like giving up. Being a world champion in procrastination and a record holder in unfinished projects, it will take a lot of determination and struggle and sweat and of course lots and lots of free time, which I somehow never have. But trudge on we must, till we reach the promised land, till the mountain is conquered, till the great river is crossed, etcetera etcetera.

So how do I propose to achieve this feat? A simple mathematical calculation follows:

Let x = average number of pages in a book = 400

And y = number of days in a month = 30

Hence number of pages to be read in a day = x/y = 400/30 = 13.33

Let’s round it off to 15 pages in a day.

In order to answer to the question “How much time will be required to finish 15 pages in a day?” I conducted a simple experiment. I opened the book I am currently reading, Wuthering Heights, and selected a page at random. It took me approximately three minutes to read that page, something about Catherine throwing some keys into some fire.

Which means it would require (15*3) = 45 minutes in a day. Let’s round this off again to one hour.

Sounds easy on paper, doesn’t it? All it takes is an hour a day, and at the end of the year I can cross out twelve books from my “Books unfinished” list. But life is anything but predictable, and I am anything but sticking-to-the-plan type. Last minute changes are my specialty, and I don’t know how this thing will turn out. But anyway, let’s not put ourselves down, let’s wear our chainmails and pick up our swords and shields and charge into the battlefield.

a little action

2011-03-19T13:42:00.000+05:30

race with me
run by my side
let's see who wins this
crazy love marathon

walk with me
put on your shoes
match your steps with mine
'til we reach the earth's end

jump with me
through ups and downs
let's reach for the stars
and hold them in our hands

stay with me
never let go
all we need is faith
we know we can make it

Aizawl haw

2011-03-13T10:30:00.002+05:30

Kum khatah vawikhat ka tlawh a, chu pawh a rei berah thla khat te a nia, mahse "zin" ni lo hian "haw" hi a ni tlat tho. Mahni in awmna ni miau hek, chhungte leh thiante awmna ni bawk. Mahse a chang hi chuan "zin" pawh hi ti ila a inhmeh ve tho ang em aw? ka ti thin. Mikhual duk chang hi a awm fo. Khawpui a lo thang a, in thar leh dawr thar a lo tam a, bazar an lo siksawi a, bus fare a lo to a, Treasury Square te pawh a lo two-lane tawh bawk si (hahaha). Temple bula traffic point lah veilama i hel loh chuan fine a ni a, Zodin leh Chanmari ah chiah a in U-turn theih a, taxi fare a to uchuak bawk. Khawlaiah han chhuak ila hmelhriat hmuh tur reng an awm lo. Vengchhungah naupang te te an lo nula tlangval a, thianten pasal neiin hmun dangah an lo awm bo a, inah hian kawm tur nei lemlo in kan awm ruk ruk thin.

Mahse hrehawm ka ti lem lo. Thian han kawm dur dur chi hi ka ni lo a, ina awm mai mai hi nuam ka ti zawk fo. Unaute nen kan inkawm mai a, chhuah a ngaih leh min chhuahpui mai a. Tun tum ka haw phei chu ka pi kum 85 mi Champhai atangin a lo chhuk a, zing chaw ei khamah hian inchung ni lumah te kan mu vel thin. A mit zai turin a lo kal a, tarmit dum hi a bun raw zel a, "Man in black" kan ti a kan nuih vak vak zel, a ni pawh hrethiam lem hleilo in a nui liam ve mai mai.

Ka birthday March 4 kha Chapchar Kut a lo ni hlauh mai a, lammual grass phah lawm nan leh huau huau kal ve hrim hrim nan tiin kan va thawk chhuak ve a. Kan tleirawl lai a lammual khu lutuk tak kara hnam lam kan va tih ve thin te a ngaihawm rum rum duh nia. Vawikhat pawh inkawibah ah kan tel ve a, kan tumpui te kha an lo fet nasa, an pen hlawk bawk si. Kan han fet ve a, pen mai pawh duhtawk lo in a zuan ten kan zuang vel. Kan chak chuang lo.

Chapchar Kut denchhena a painting/photography exhibition leh flower show ah pawh ka va kal a, a nalh hlawm hle a, mahse chu aia hmuhnawm ka tih chu fire engine a chhak lawka lo ding kha a ni.

Ka thil hmuh khat deuh ka han hmuh chu zana arsi pe tuar kha a ni. A va han mawi tak em! En rei poh khan an tam poh emaw tih mai tur kha a ni lehnghal, kan mit kha a lo in adjust a arsi tereuhte te pawh kha kan hmuh belh tial tial ni in ka hre ber. Tlai ni tla tur pawh kha a mawi thei khawp mai. Reiek tlang chungah a sen rum a, bial lian deuh in, a hniam tial tial a, a tawpah chuan a pilbo a, mahse a chhehvel boruak chu a tisen phut reng tho a.

Sawi tur vak a awm lo. Kuhva ei hmel hmuh tur an tlem sawt in ka hria a, thil tha tak a ni, ha sen seng sung a hma ang em em kha chuan an tam tawhlo. Mahse meizial zu chu kan la tam. Amaherawhchu pawisa nawi a vang a ni! Ka va han vei em he thil hi chu, misual.com ah pawh ka post phah hial. In chhiar vek tawh maithei a, mahse lo la chhiar lo in awm palh tak hlauhin va chhiar teh un!

Guess what?

2011-02-18T22:26:00.001+05:30

No, tell me straightaway. I don’t like to be kept guessing, and most definitely do not like surprises. But I read suspense novels without reading the last chapter first, and I refrain from watching the last few minutes of a thriller while I'm halfway through. Self control, baby! OK OK, I know there’s nothing to be proud of, that was just me heaping junk on you.

So why do I not like surprises? I don’t want to say I hate surprises, because sometimes good surprises are well, good. But that doesn’t mean I am a big fan. No, sir, I'm not. Surprises are embarrassing. They catch you when your guard is down and your fortress is easily accessible to the barbarians. They sneak up from behind and scream and jump at you and your un-madeup face. Not that I always have layers of makeup on my face, but you know what I mean, don’t you?

I think I am becoming more and more of a perfectionist. I've always hated perfectionists, their strict adherence to rules and regulations, their insistence on doing everything right and perfect, the way they have everything neatly planned and executed. But, horror of horrors, I am becoming one!

I cannot sit and relax if I have loads of housework to do. I always go shopping (even if it’s at the local kirana shop) with a list of things to buy. When I have something important to do I always make a checklist to make sure that nothing is missed. This is top secret, but I’m making an exception now, just this time, and sharing it to you – I even make a spreadsheet of my monthly bills and their payment dates. Isn’t that a tad too much?

The reason I don’t like being surprised, I guess, is because I do not like not knowing things. No, I am not a know-it-all (though sometimes I tend to act like one), and I do not know many things under the sun (in fact I know very little, and am extremely thankful to Google and Wikipedia for making me sound like I know a bit).

Let me be specific here. When I say I do not like not knowing things, I mean relevant things. I don’t need to know what the national animal of East Samoa is. I think I will survive and breathe easy if I do not know how many litres of beer are consumed annually by Indians. And I don’t think I will be classified “ignorant” if I am blank when asked where the last KTP General Conference was held, and in which year, and how many packets of condoms were sold during the conference.

So what do I want to know? What are the relevant things that I so badly want to know? Actually, I don’t know that myself. I think I just hate it when things, situations go out of order, where it gets to the point where I cannot control it. That’s it! I'm a control freak! Oh joy, oh happiness! Ok now you can stop snickering and go to the comments section.

My love-hate relationship

2011-02-08T13:55:00.000+05:30

Well, Valentine's Day is just around the corner, and what will we write about, if not love? Stores are chock-a-block with red heart shaped thingies, sale (and price) of roses and chocolates are sure to skyrocket, Shiv Sena faithfuls will pounce upon young lovers in parks reprimanding them for abandoning the Indian culture of chastity and purity and for embracing the filthy Western culture (by sitting together in parks and/or holding hands). (How one billion Indians are brought into this world is a subject not relevant at this time and anyway should not be discussed at all, you dirty minded weirdos). Anyway, love is love (lou is lou), and hate is hate.

Did you see the title? And wasn't your interest immediately aroused by it? Did it make you want to scroll down, skip a few paragraphs and see what this love-hate thing is all about? Who is the unfortunate victim? Me or the other party? How many were killed? Were there any survivors? Was the body recovered? What was the cause of death? What were the autopsy results? Was it a quick death? Was it buried or cremated? Or did it go to heaven on a chariot of fire?

I am a kindhearted person, hence will not prolong your suffering, I will try to answer your questions as quickly and as precisely as possible. I am the victim, the other party is not even aware that we are in a love-hate relationship, and no one has been killed (so far). The relationship still continues, and will most very likely continue throughout my life. Everytime I go out shopping it is there, and I see its cousins everyday, in fact several times a day. I cannot imagine living without it and its extended family.

But I do not despair, because I am not its only victim. Many women are in the same relationship. We hate it, but cannot live without it, and everyday our gazes fall upon it most lovingly. We love it so much we carry it everywhere we go, and seek it out wherever and whenever we have the chance. They are a fragile lot, hence we treat them with utmost care, afraid they might break in our hands.

The smarter ones among you might have already figured out what this object of my and other women's collective affection is. In case there are some of you whose thought processes run a bit slower than the average person (and I know there are, as sure as day is day (except in Norway)). Thus being the benevolent, generous, kind, noble soul that I am, let me proceed to tell you what this thing is: It is the mirror. To be precise: the dressing room mirror in shops.

I was out shopping the other day because it is the sales season and there are sales wherever you go, and what is shopping without picking up a dozen items and trying them out and hating them and yourself and not buying a single thing leaving scowling shopkeepers and dressing room attendants behind you?

I went to one shop, picked up a couple of jeans, and made my way to the dressing room. So far, so good. Locked the door behind me, admired the doorknob and the hooks on the wall where you hang your bags and clothes and such ("Good quality steel"). Excellent progress. Removed shoes, and pants. Uh-huh. From there it was downhill all the way (Is it my imagination, or do I use this phrase a lot - downhill all the way). Whatever. Anyway, there I was, standing in a small cubicle, pantless, surrounded by mirrors on three sides. Not good, not good at all. Confidence level skydived. Where did that pillow of a stomach come from, and that too such a fluffy one? And are those thunder thighs? Heavens above, is that a stretch mark on the back? Have I been roaming around with that messy hair? Let’s look at ourselves sideways, maybe we will feel better. Wrong wrong decision. Side view even worse than front view. Sucked the stomach in, but it didn't help. Flat stomachs and lean thighs became a hazy memory from a distant distant past. Looked at the new jeans dubiously. (I don't think those will fit me... What was I thinking, taking them into the dressing room?) Hesitantly reached for the first one, and cautiously inserted one leg, then the other. The jeans were small, waaaaaay too small, so tight I couldn't even pull them up beyond mid-thigh. Hastily removed it. Tried on the other pair. Same result. Threw them down in disgust. Reached for my normal jeans and was welcomed with open arms. Walked out of the cubicle. Left the jeans with the attendant and sulked out of the shop. No wonder those jeans were on sale, who would fit into those tiny things, I consoled myself and went to try my luck at the next shop.

So there you are, my relationship with dressing room mirrors and their numerous cousins. I love mirrors, but hate their frankness, their brutal honesty which sometimes borders on cruelty. And I'm starting to have suspicions that dressing room mirrors are specially manufactured so that everyone will look fat and ugly when in fact it should be just the opposite. Mirror manufacturers and shop owners should work together and produce mirrors that make everyone look slim and pretty so that it’s a win-win situation for all. Except maybe for gullible folks like us who will then buy ill-fitting clothes and wear them proudly and our friends will be embarrassed to go out with us but they will anyway and if they are real friends they will tell us the outfit makes us look worse than a South Indian heroine and we will then change into something slightly better but not so wow-inducing what I mean is a slightly more tolerable outfit and I don’t know how to end this post so I think I’ll end with a lame “Time to look in the mirror.”

Everyone is fat and balding

2011-02-03T12:45:00.000+05:30

If you read this, then you must be having an Internet connection.
If you have an Internet connection, then you must be on Facebook.
If you are on Facebook, then you must have Facebook friends.
If you have Facebook friends, some of them would be new friends, some of them would be people you’ve known for more than ten years.
If you have Facebook friends, then they would have uploaded some pictures.
If your Facebook friends have uploaded pictures, then your friends of more than ten years would surely have uploaded unflattering embarrassing pictures from the Stone Age.
If Stone Age pictures of you and your friends surface in Facebook, then you must have gone “oohh-ahhh we were so young and so innocent”.
If you had oohed-aahed at your old pictures, then you would also have noticed how slimmer everyone was back then, and how everyone had more hair.
Which leads us to the conclusion: everyone is fat, and balding.

Elementary, my dear Watson!

Grave matters

2011-01-30T03:42:00.000+05:30

I promised myself I would write a happy post, but as Confucius said, “He who makes a promise is a liar”, so I'm not entirely to blame for any sad words that may follow.

Death. It’s so certain, yet it still remains the most uncertain part of our lives. It’s there, waiting for us. Most of us don’t want to die, and probably never imagined ourselves as dying, gone from the world, all the hard work we had done in our lives, all the riches we accumulated, all the hatred and love we carried inside, all gone in that instant when our hearts stop beating.

I have been extremely lucky in that I haven’t lost anybody close to me. My father’s mother died when I was four, his father died when I was twelve. I have vague memories of my grandfather, he lived in Champhai and we would exchange letters, and he would visit us occasionally. But I clearly remember the time when he was hospitalised, and I was in the next room when he breathed his last in that small hospital room. I didn’t cry, and I don’t remember being sad. My parents went to Champhai for the funeral, and when they returned I joked that now that his parents were dead, my father was now an orphan and maybe he should live in an orphanage. It was mealtime, and everyone laughed. But now I realise it was a very crude and insensitive thing to do, and not in the least funny. I never understood how lost and lonely my father would have felt after losing both parents. I still cannot imagine how that would feel like, because thankfully both my parents are still alive. I have seen people losing their loved ones, have seen them cry and mourn, but I cannot truly sympathise with them because it’s something I have never experienced.

My mother’s father died four years back. He too lived in Champhai, and we rarely saw him. So when he passed away I didn’t really mourn as one ought to mourn for one’s deceased grandfather. I know I seem callous and insensitive here again, but to tell you the truth it’s really hard to feel the loss of someone you hardly know, no matter how closely related you are.

So when I say I haven’t lost anybody close to me, I'm talking about the people who are close to my heart, related or otherwise. You make your own relations in life; your ancestry is just a part of it. As you grow up and make friends, you decide who to love and who to remain close to, you choose the people you’d mourn with all your heart and soul should you ever be parted by death. And all of us are going to go through it, we don’t have a choice, life gives us no choice.

I think I've made you pretty sad by now. And I haven’t even got to the point of this post. I used to have a friend who would skirt a topic for hours until you tell him to get the point. I hope I'm not becoming like him.

Death is unavoidable, we all know we are going to die, our loved ones are going to die, and nobody knows whose turn will come first. We wait, and in the meantime try to have fun and collect riches. But how often do we think of death? The seriousness of it, the everlastingness of it, the inevitability of it all. We fall sick now and then, but we never think of dying. Our loved ones fall sick, and we just assume they would get well again in a few days. No matter how ill someone is, the human mind still clings to that thin thread of hope that everything will be all right, that things will all work out for the better.

My cousin’s wife has been diagnosed with brain cancer of the 2nd stage, and she now lies in a hospital bed waiting for surgery. It is at that stage where it can be cured or it can turn aggressive. We all pray and hope for the best. Please remember her in your thoughts and prayers.

Sometimes I feel God put pain and suffering in this world to wake us up, to shake some sense into us, and to remind us not to take anyone or anything for granted. I know this may sound like a cliché, but cherish every minute life gives you, because you don’t know when it will be taken away from you.

Khirh

2011-01-23T18:44:00.000+05:30

Pathianin nungdama min la zuah zel te anih chuan engtik hunah emaw chuan kan lo tar ve ngei dawn sia, ka peihlo lawk! Ka peihloh nachhan ber chu thalai te nun ka man loh lutuk dawn vang pawh ni lo, kawm tur an awm dawn loh vang pawh nilo, ka khirh dawn lutuk ber hi! Tu leh fa te kan la nei ve ngai te a nih chuan min ning thei ngawt ang. "Ka pi hi chu phunchiar si, thil awmzia a hrethiam si lo,a ninawm ngawt mai" min la ti ang a, an nu te khan "In pi neihchhun a nih hi, duat rawh u" kha an lo ti bawk anga. Pasal te kan neih loh tak leh unaute bulah kan khawsa ang a, "In ni hi duat rawh u, duattu tur fa te a neih ve loh hi" an ti ang a.

Mahni kan inhriat ai daih leh kan rinai daih hian kan thlahtute hi kan lo chhun thin. Mizia ah te, chezia ah te, ngaihtuahna thleng te pawh a niang chu. Kan seilenna leh kan lehkhazirna, hnathawhna, chenna hmun te hian kawng tam zawkah chuan min influence mahse kan mizia tamtak hi chu kan thisen ah hian a bet hi ka ti ve tlat.

Ka nu te lam hi mi ngaihsam, thil pawh pawm zel thei mai an ni a. Ka pa te lam ve thung hi chu khirh ve angreng, phunchiar ve angreng, taima bawk si an ni a. A khawilam hi nge maw ka chhun le, ka ti thin. Ka ngaih kha chu a sam ve thei khawp mai, hoh pawh kha ho ve thei tak ka ni. Ka thiante leh min hre tute in zawh chuan mi ho ve angreng, thutak pai lemlo, thawveng ve tak ni thin in min sawi ang. Mahse chuti chung chuan khirhna lai te kha ka nei leh thin, ka ngei zawng leh ka ei loh deuh te kha chu polite taka han tuar hram hram mi kha ka ni ngai lo. A chang chuan tawngkam ngeiawm tak tak te pawh ka lo chhak chhuak thin.Thawveng bawk si, khirh bawk si ka ni thin anih ber chu.

Mahse kum te a han liam zel a, khirh lamah hian ka kal ta telh telh maiin ka inhria nih chu! A va han buaithlak em! Nula senior khirh an tih zawng zawng hi ka qualify zo dawn. Nula senior jokes hi kan sawi teh fo a, mahni thu a ar talh ngam ngat chuti khati kan ti a, a hmingin sum tlemte kan lo thawkchhuak ve a, nu leh pa ten min lo duat ve tho sia, ar pawh kha lo talh pawh ni ila enge maw in lo buai le? Mahniin torchlight (cell 3) pawh nei ila enge maw in nuihzat viau le? Tunge thimthamah indap du du peih? Sawi thui lo teh ang.

Tichuan, khirh lam kawng chu ka zawh chho zel chu a nia. Hmanlai anga thawveng taka awm kha chu la chak tho mahila a theih tawh loh. Nu leh pa te sum kha kan ring a, eng lem mah kha kan engto lo a, engpawh kha lo thleng se "A fel leh vek mai ang" kha kan ti liam puat thin a. Mahse tlema lo fin ve deuh tawh hi chuan a theih tawh miahloh. Hna han thawh ve tawh phei hi chuan kan uikawm em em a, kan sum neihzat hi kan hre kar mai a ni. I nuih hma khan han inngaihtuah chiang teh, nangpawh i sum neihzat chu i hre kar a ni lawm ni? Kha daih kha asin.

Khirh in a a ken tel tlat chu strict hi a ni. Strict hle mahila, sual nih chu ka duh lo ve fan tho. Mahse strict nge nge chuan mi kan lo hau zing deuh a, mi kan lo hauh zin deuh chuan min lo ning a, sual nih hi kan lo hlawh leh mai thin. A va buaithlak lehzel em! Thangthar zawk te hi ka rilru ang pu tur chuan ka beisei hauhlo, anmahni ang rual ka niha ka hoh zia leh thawven zia pawh ka hre vek, an rilru tur pawh ka hrethiam vek. Mahse ka lo hau leh thin tho.

Mahse fel thut emaw khirh loh thut emaw chu ka tum chuang lo. Khirh hmasa ber pawh ka ni lo a, khirh hnuhnung ber pawh ka ni dawn chuang lo, tih hi inhnemna nep tak ni mahse tun atan chuan lo inhnem ve der der nan hmang rih teh ang.

All we ever do is say goodbye

2011-01-16T01:44:00.000+05:30

One of my best friends is getting married next month, and I will not be there to witness the happiest day of her life. I am extremely happy for her, but at the same time I feel sad because I am losing a friend of twenty years.

If I have to arrange my friends in the order of best-friend-ness, the ones I've known the longest will have very good chances of topping the charts. Not that I am not good friends with relatively new friends, but there is something, some bond with your childhood friends that you can never experience again with other people. You have been with each other since you were eight-year-olds running wild in the neighbourhood, have played endless games, the kinds of games slowly changing as you grow older. And you don't have to make any effort to create an atmosphere of friendliness when you're with each other, you don't have to grope for suitable topics of conversation. You can simply lie on a bed on a Sunday afternoon, listen to an old song and be happy. It doesn't matter if you don't keep in touch for months, when you see each other again you are still the same best friends, and the months just melt away.

When my parents and other elders talked about their old friends from forty fifty years back, it amazed me that they still remembered people from so long back. And at times they would talk about certain events from their youth as if it happened last week. But now I know forty or fifty years can seem not so long ago when it involved people you cared for. My friend and I have known each other for twenty years, yet I still remember clearly the day we first became friends.

Such is life. We meet, became friends, and eventually all of us have to say goodbye at some point of time. It could be because of a hundred reasons. People moving away, people getting married, or simply losing touch, and sometimes we have nothing in common anymore so the friendship just dies. And one fine day, when we shed our earthly existence, will be the final goodbye.

Hair Colour

2011-01-13T15:35:00.002+05:30

If you are female, you would have coloured your hair at least once, is my guess. The female sex is fairly obsessed with hair colour, yours truly being no exception. I bet even Cleopatra and Marie Antoinette must have done something with their hair. Not only hair colour, we are obsessed with painting our faces. When Jezebel was surrounded by Jehu she arranged her hair, painted her eyes and looked out of the window from where she was subsequently thrown down (2 Kings 9:30). She must have known she was about to die and wanted to look presentable in death. And whenever we think of Cleopatra the first image that comes to mind is her dramatic eye makeup. So don’t pass judgment on young girls with eye makeup that made them look like they have been punched in the eye; they are just following a centuries-old tradition.

So what’s with the hair? Colouring hair is fun, easy, and puts you in a good mood. A newly coloured hair makes you feel good about yourself and you secretly wait for others to notice it and shower you with compliments, and who loves compliments more than us females? Can’t afford pricey colouring at salons? No worries, there are hundreds of do-it-yourself packs at affordable prices, and there’s always good old henna.

I was born with fine thin brownish hair, and have been constantly colouring it ever since I was maybe fourteen/fifteen. There were no fancy colours back then, and my mother would apply black hair dye for me and I would roam about with unnaturally black hair which was still better than a sad brown. Then came the henna phase. Henna mixed with oil, coffee, tea, eggs, lime juice, beer, everything which was recommended. Henna makes your hair dry, but I find it very cleansing. And I love the smell.

Nowadays we have all kinds of colour available to us. I have tried chocolate, burgundy, cherry red, metallic red, and an almost blonde light brown. I used to curse my natural hair colour because it made me look like one of those raggedy light haired street children, but now I consider it a blessing. Why so? Well, since it is such a weak colour, any hair colour you apply on it will immediately overpower it and the result is beautiful glorious crowning glory. I’ve had friends who are unfortunately born with jet black hair, who no matter how many bottles of hair colour they apply their hair still remains black. True, natural jet black is beautiful, and sometimes I’d envy them, but I've learnt how to be happy with what I have and work towards improving it.

But the biggest drawback, or should I say disadvantage, of colouring hair is the obvious difference in colour when hair starts growing and ugly roots show up. As much as I love colouring my hair, I have always been lazy in the touch-ups department and so my hair is always a kaleidoscope of colours. Not to worry, I can always go for another round of colouring and bring it to one solid colour.

The Apple, The Banana and The Onion

2011-01-05T13:34:00.001+05:30

Don’t you think the title should belong to one of the Narnia movies/stories? The Chronicles of Narnia: The Apple, The Banana and The Onion.

The other day I discovered a long-lost apple in the fridge. It must have been there for a couple of weeks, but it still looked good enough to eat. I felt it, it was still firm, and so I decided to eat it. Washed it, and cut it open. What I saw shocked me. The inside was completely black and rotten. So this is how "Rotten to the core" looks like, was the thought running through my head. Well, served me right for keeping it in the fridge for so long. I don't like apples very much and that particular one had been pushed to the corner for quite some time.

If I can't have an apple, at least let me eat a banana, I said, and took one banana from the kitchen shelf. The skin had started to turn black, and that put me off, slightly. But I peeled it and found that the banana was still good, no blemishes or any rotten parts to be found. It was delicious.

It was yet another day, I was cooking lunch/dinner what I don’t remember, when I noticed that some of the onions we bought had started to sprout. It was strange. They didn’t see sunlight, nobody watered them, they remained in the basket with all the other onions; but these three little onions had decided to change for the better and had sprouted.

So which one are we going to be? Looking good and perfect from the outside but rotten inside, like the apple. Or look imperfect and spoiled but with a heart of gold, like the banana. Or would we all take our lives in our hands and decide that whatever happens to me I will get something good out of it?

Famous last words

2010-12-28T23:07:00.000+05:30

Blink and it’s gone. That’s how I would describe this year. Okay you can stop blinking now. Snap! It’s over. Three more days and we would be sending New Year greetings to friends and family and people we barely know. And by the time you finally come round to reading this, it may be many days into the new year already.

It seems the older we grow, the faster time flies. And if you spend one year doing the same thing every day and nothing exciting or extraordinary happens, everything blends into one day, and when you look back at the end of the year all you remember is going to work and coming home and doing the same household chores.

Did you ever wonder why we remember our childhood so vividly, while we struggle to remember what we did this time last year, or last month, or maybe yesterday? Why do we remember our first teacher’s name, our first schoolfriends, our first kiss, or the first day at our new job? There may have been dozens of other people or other days afterwards, but why do those firsts remain in our memories? The reason, I have deduced, my dear Watson, is that when we were young and our minds were open, everything was new and exciting and therefore it was burned into our memories.

As we settle down in life and our transformation into a worker ant is complete, there is no more excitement left in us, and so we readily embrace the yoke and go about it everyday because we have to keep our stomachs full. And that is why we look forward to going on holidays because we hope to experience new things and hopefully resurrect those dormant feelings of excitement and enjoyment and of generally having fun.

Well, I hope I didn’t get you feeling all blue and sad. It was not my intention to write all that stuff when I started writing this post, but you know how it is. You write something and that leads to something else and then some other thing and at the end you discover you have strayed very far from the path.

So, the new year will soon pounce on us, and everyone around us will me making resolutions and newspapers will be full of celebrities promising to do this and quit doing that. I have never been a supporter of resolutions because I am a terrible resolution-keeper. Why make a fool of myself, has always been my policy. Oh I know I am always too guarded and too careful and should be reckless once in a while and throw caution to the winds and make resolutions and shout from the rooftops, but you cannot expect me to change overnight, can you?

I hate people who don’t keep their words and promises, and I know that I will just heap guilt on myself if I announce my resolutions and break them (even if nobody knows or cares) and I am not exactly famous for sticking to resolutions.

While I am anti-resolutions, there are three things I would like to see myself doing more of in the new year.

Read more: I have piles of unread books on my shelf. The half read books, the brand new books, all yellowing and gathering dust, waiting for me to give them a chance. Yet all I do is dust them once in a while and then forget their existence. A friend asked me how I liked the book she gave me on my birthday, and I replied with a vague “It was very interesting” when the truth is I didn’t even start reading it. I'm hoping to avoid these kinds of situations in the new year.

Write more: Last year (2009) I wrote 52 posts, one every week, and that was because I made an effort to do so. I have written 36 posts this year, including this one. I told myself I was uninspired, was too busy etcetera etcetera but at the end of the day they are nothing but excuses. It doesn’t take more than an hour to write one blog post, so I think I should be able to find that one hour out of the one hundred and sixty eight hours in a week. And the only way to improve your writing is to write more and also read more.

Read the Bible: Oh I know I should be ashamed for writing this, but I am very lazy when it comes to the Good Word. Again, same old excuse, “I don’t have the time.” If you really want to do something, my opinion is you will make time for it.

Another year over

2010-12-20T13:11:00.004+05:30

My favourite time of the year is not Christmas, or my birthday, or the day I got my bonus. My favourite times of the year are winter afternoons and summer mornings. Growing up in a house situated on the western side of a mountain, we never get to see the winter sunshine until late morning or noon and we would try to catch as much sun as we could, sitting on the verandah or going up to the terrace. Then living in a hot city for more than a decade where the summer is brutal and everything burns, you learn to appreciate that little window of coolness the mornings offer. You toss and turn the whole night, sweating in your sleep, and in the morning you jump up and take a refreshing shower.. ahh that is one of life’s little pleasures.

The year is almost over, and I realised I haven’t written my customary I-hate-winter-because-it’s-cold post. Don’t worry darlings, I am not going to bore you this year.

Shoes! Tell me, which woman doesn’t love shoes? We of the XX-chromosomed are all Imelda Marcos-es in our own way. You know, if I was the wife of a corrupt country leader with millions to spend I might do the same thing. I don’t blame her at all for buying shoes, how she gets the money is another story which is not relevant right now.

I used to buy lots of shoes, wear them once and then keep them in the box until they go out of fashion or until I give them away. And everyday I would step out in my boring black flats. My mother would go tsk-tsk when everytime I go home I go out and buy shoes. This summer I bought a beautiful pair of high heels, and my mother said to my sis-in-law “If you wait a bit, she will give you this pair”, and her words came true because a few days back I sent the shoes to my sis-in-law. I didn’t wear them at all.

For Christmas this year I am reinventing an old pair of shoes. I bought them four years ago, and the last time I wore them was in September 2007. I loved the animal print design, but as it grew old it started peeling off. So I completely removed it, and painted it red with a fabric colour.

See the white patches on the right pair? That's because I painted it white first, then decided to go Christmassy and switched to red. Hopefully it will not show when I wear it on Christmas. Then maybe I will switch to black, or green, or whatever the colour of the moment is. Forgive me for not being glamorous.

Thisen Thisen

2010-12-08T01:36:00.002+05:30

Chutia han damlo na em em pawh chu ka ni chuang lova, mahse kar khat vel chhung khawsik deuhreuh, hritlang bawk si hian ka awm reng a, nimin chu ka va inentir a. Doctor chuan min lo check a, viral fever a nih dawn hi a tia, damdawi min chawh kur ngei nguai a, "Malaria te a lo nih tak hlauhin" a tia thisen test tur in min tir a, test chi thum ngawt mai tih a ngai a.

Hmankum deuha ka damloh in ka hrawk hi a vung vak mai a (pharyngitis) a natzia chu na tak hi a ni ringawt, chil lem dawn pawh hian inngaihtuah fe a ngai. Khata tang khan ka khua a sik a ka inentir tawh hi chuan pharyngitis damdawi hi min lo chawh tel ngei ngei. Tuna ka doctor pawh chuan "I aw te a chhang em" a tia, "Tlem chuan chhang deuh a, mahse a zia tawh" ka tia, a hmet a hmet a, a lo vung aniang chu min chawh lehpek.

Tichuan thisen test na roomah chuan ka va thu ve ta ran a. A test tupa chuan test tube tereuhte te pahnih hi a la a, "Ehe lak tam i va tum ve" ka ti rilru a. Thisen test lohna hi a rei tawh lutuk a, enge a procedure pawh ka lo hre tawh lo a ni ber. Kan naupan lai te kha chuan kutzungtang hmawr kha an vit thi ser ser a, thisen kha glass slide ah an nuai pherh a, a ro hnu ah solution eng engah emaw an chiah hnuah microscope ah an en thin kha ania, kan hmu ve kur zel an tih vel lai pawh. Chutiang chu a lo ni awzawng tawh lo mai. Ka thil hriat ve dan kha a lo hlui lutuk tawh tlat, khawvel in min lo changkansan daih tawh.

Ka kiu chungah hian torniquet nghet tawkin a rawn suih phawt a. Eheu hei chu drugs timi inchiu tur te pawh ka va ang ve, tih rilru ah a rawn lang a. Ka kut chu sek taka hum turin min ti leh a, ka han inhum sek leh a. Chutah syringe te lem lo tak hi a rawn la a, a hmawrah chuan test tube pakhat chu a vuah a. A hip a hip chhuah na tur a nih vang pawh aniang a hriau kua chu a lian kher mai. Dawihzep deuh chu ni ila ka hlau khawp ang le.

Vein a duh ang a hmu thei lawk lo a, a hmet kual a hmet kual a. Kei intibengvar ta reng reng chuan ka vein hmuhtheih ho kha ka lo kawhhmuh vel, "A pan lutuk" a ti daih. A doctor loh thlak khawp mai. Mahse a hmu ta poh a, syringe a vih luh lai tak chuan a thip ve deuh. Thisen a hip chhuah khan na deuh vang vang turin ka lo ngai a, mahse engtinmah a awm lo. Test tube a thisen tling khawm chu hmuhnawm ti deuhin ka en reng ringawt. Hawkdak min ti ngawt ang. Test tube chu a chanve vel a khah hnu chuan a dang chuan a rawn thlak a, chu pawh chu a chanve vel thleng a la a. A lak zawh vek hnu, ka ban hrenna pawh a phelh hnu chuan test tube chu ka lek kual ka lek kual, "Hei hi ni maw ka thisen chu" ti hmel ka pu ngei ang.

Thisen hi vawikhatmah ka la pe ve ngai lo. Kan office ah hian kumtin Blood Donation Camp hi a awm ziah a, ka pe ve ang ka ti kumtin a mahse pe ngai lem hlei lo a. Taksa tan pawh hian a tha e, an ti.

Thisuk nei hi an khawngaihthlak, an duh reng vang a ni si lo a. Ka nau mipa hian a nei a. A nei tih pawh kan hre ngai lo, vawikhat kan naupangchhia lutuk tawh lo, a kut hi a zai a, a en vung vung a, a tlu ta rup mai a nih chu. Kan thenawm doctor a lo len lai tak kha a ni hlauh a, a bawihsawm nghal vat a. A rawn harhchhuak ve leh mai a, mahse tun thleng hian kan la sawi bang thei lo.

Ka ziak tui laklawh, ziak zel ang. Naupan lai chanchin rilru ah a rawn lang. Kohhran kan hlim deuh kha chuan naupang pawh kha a hlim ber ber, lam nasa ber ber kha kan lo ni ve thin a. Sikul chawlh lai a nih phei chuan thiante inah hian kan awmkhawm a, khuang vua in kan zaikhawm thin a. Mi lamruih dan te zirin kan lamrui der thul. "Thisen hlu thisen hlu, thing kraws chunga luang khan..." tih te kha kan sa nasa thei khawp mai. Vawikhat chu tuemawni hian "Isu I thu ka ngaihtuahin" tih kha a rawn thlang a, kan khuangpu (khatih lai khan kum sawm vel awrh a ni ang) khan hla a rawn la a "I thu I thu ka ngaihtuahin" a rawn ti chiah chu kan nui zo vek. Tunah chuan KTP ah pawh an tangkaipui ber a ni tawh. Hmanlai an chang zo ta... ti mai teh ang.

Brainy stuff

2010-11-20T05:11:00.002+05:30

It’s precisely nine minutes past three in the morning, Saturday morning, but since I haven’t slept yet it is still counted as Friday night. Okay so here I am at three in the morning on a Friday night, tired after a long week at work, eyes about to pop off, backache reaching the point of no return, a small headache marching from the back of the head to the eyes and then back, but yet I stay awake. Because it’s Friday night, silly, and you are forgiven for staying up late because the next day is a holiday and you can sleep right through lunch and have your breakfast at four in the afternoon.

Am I the only one, or is there anyone out there who is also afflicted by this Friday night staying up marathon? And nothing important is done in these extra hours. Chat with some friends online, read a few blogs, read the morning newspaper, listen to some old songs, drink an extra cup or two of tea, stand in the balcony and watch the street below, etc.

Today on the way home from work I told a colleague I would forget about the office for the next two days. And that is exactly what I will do, and what I always do, not only on the weekends but during the weekdays too. Maybe I have compartmentalized my brain in such a way that it only processes the events that are happening at that particular moment. When I am at home I don’t even think of the office until I actually reach the place, swipe my access card and step inside the building. And I forget all about my pending bills and landlord visits and blocked drains until I climb the three floors to my apartment and open the door again.

I did a google search on compartmentalizing the brain and the results led me to the differences between male and female brain. I did some more searches and found a lot of scientific explanations and psychological stuff which I'm sure you wouldn’t want to read because I too didn’t read them since they contained big words and scientific terms and three in the morning is no time to wipe the dust off your fat dictionary.

But I found this, it is an easy read, so here goes-

• The male brain is highly specialized, using specific parts of one hemisphere or the other to accomplish specific tasks. The female brain is more diffused and utilizes significant portions of both hemispheres for a variety of tasks.

• Men are able to focus on narrow issues and block out unrelated information and distractions. Women naturally see everyday things from a broader, "big-picture" vantage point.

• Men can narrowly focus their brains on specific tasks or activities for long periods of time without tiring. Women are better equipped to divide their attention among multiple activities or tasks.

• Men are able to separate information, stimulus, emotions, relationships, etc. into separate compartments in their brains, while women tend to link everything together.

• Men see individual issues with parts of their brain, while women look at the holistic or multiple issues with their whole brain (both hemispheres).

• Men have as much as 20 times more testosterone in their systems than do women. This makes men typically more aggressive, dominant and more narrowly focused on the physical aspects of sex.

• In men, the dominant perceptual sense is vision, which is typically not the case with women. All of a woman's senses are, in some respects, more finely tuned than those of a man.

• Pornographers incorporate male/female differences into the design and marketing of their wares. Just because something might not appeal to a man doesn't mean that a woman won't be attracted to it and vice versa.

My further wanderings took me to the left brained – right brained subject. There are again loads of stuff on the subject, plenty of tests available online, a few links below. Let me know your results.

http://www.intelliscript.net/test_area/questionnaire/questionnaire.cgi

http://www.wherecreativitygoestoschool.com/vancouver/left_right/rb_test.htm

http://similarminds.com/brain.html

Right Brain Inventory		Left Brain Inventory
Visual, focusing on images, patterns		Verbal, focusing on words, symbols, numbers
Intuitive, led by feelings		Analytical, led by logic
Process ideas simultaneously		Process ideas sequentially, step by step
Mind photos' used to remember things, writing things down or illustrating them helps you remember		Words used to remember things, remember names rather than faces
Make lateral connections from information		Make logical deductions from information
See the whole first, then the details		Work up to the whole step by step, focusing on details, information organized
Organization ends to be lacking		Highly organized
Free association		Like making lists and planning
Like to know why you're doing something or why rules exist (reasons)		Likely to follow rules without questioning them
No sense of time		Good at keeping track of time
May have trouble with spelling and finding words to express yourself		Spelling and mathematical formula easily memorized
Enjoy touching and feeling actual objects (sensory input)		Enjoy observing
Trouble prioritizing, so often late, impulsive		Plan ahead
Unlikely to read instruction manual before trying		Likely read an instruction manual before trying
Listen to how something is being said		Listen to what is being said
Talk with your hands		Rarely use gestures when talking
Likely to think you're naturally creative, but need to apply yourself to develop your potential		Likely to believe you're not creative, need to be willing to try and take risks to develop your potential

By the way, I am left brained.

Untitled

2010-11-07T04:02:00.000+05:30

Then there were the in-between friends. You know them, the friends I made in the time between our separation and eventual reunion. I was pretty sad then and you could see that in the friends I made. Carefree, wild ones, party animals who only cared about where the next party was. I wouldn't say I was like them. Sure I went to the parties, I did many stupid things, even hooked up with a few forgettable faces, but deep down inside I was always the same person. The same sad lonely person who missed you in a room full of people, the same lost soul who cried for you every night and never forgot you even during all those years. But I never had hope, I always thought you and I were a closed chapter, a forgotten time in the history of our short lives. I mourned for us, for our lost love, for what I thought could be a great thing. But all we did was fade away. Until the memory of your face becomes hazy, until I could no longer remember your voice, until I forgot how your hands felt on mine.

I was fine. I went on with my life, made peace with myself and tried to bring some order to the chaos I had created. I was happy, life was good, and there were days when I didn't think of you. I dropped my in-between friends, severed connections with all our common friends, threw away all your things and listened to our songs without crying. In fact, I sang along.

And one fine day, you came back into my life. You just walked in and said hello and talked about the weather and decided to be my friend. No apologies, no explanations. You returned with your beautiful smile and mesmerising eyes and suddenly all the memories that I had locked away came loose. For a moment I was unable to speak, I just stared at you, but you didn't notice that, did you? You looked at my playlist and laughed at some of the songs, added your own songs telling me they were beautiful and how had I lived this long without listening to them? You acted as if you see me everyday, as if the last three years never happened and it was yesterday since we last met. You borrowed my books without asking; you know very well I never lend my books to anyone. You knew you were the exception. You didn't have to say anything, and I knew better than to say anything. You left, and we both know you would be back.

On Writing

2010-10-31T04:56:00.001+05:30

Via Kuku's blog I found a site called Since She Left, and in one of the posts the blog owner answered a question from a reader as below:

What aspect of writing do you enjoy the most?

Do you want an honest to god answer? The attention writing something good brings. Because sitting still for hours isn’t fun. Looking out a window on a beautiful day isn’t fun. Typing for hours isn’t fun. Listening to boring music that’s stimulating yet not distracting isn’t fun. Fact checking isn’t fun. Only completion is fun. Of course the hard work is its own reward, but even sometimes the process of getting something that’s weighing on your soul out, and down isn’t enough. It’s always for the attention. Writing isn’t like other forms of art, like painting. You can take two seconds and look at a painting. But if you want to read 1,000 words on friendship and a night out drinking you have to really invest yourself to read that. It’s time consuming, you have to agree to give me your attention.

Writers, or the ones I know are lonely people, myself included. It happens when you spend the majority of your time alone reading and typing. So when you complete something that you like and others like it it’s really nice to be the center of attention, even if it’s for a brief period of time. You sit up, take a breath, smile at yourself and put your head down and keep typing.

I guess that pretty much said it for me.I am a person who likes my privacy and spend most of my time with my nose buried in books, or typing some nonsense most of which never see the light of day. But when I decide to publish something, I must admit it's all for the attention. The attention you give me, to my writing, the time you spend here reading my posts, it's all about me stealing your time. Each and every one of us, no matter how much we dislike being in the public eye, we all enjoy being praised for our work. There is a certain satisfaction, a smugness which fills you up and blows you away. It's better than money or other material things. It stays with you forever.

Praise is the greatest motivator, the greatest inspiration. But in the same way, a single negative comment can completely wash away all the praise and commendation that was heaped on you. I think it's very important to know how to balance the good with the bad, how to receive the criticisms in a positive way and learn something out of it. But most of all, we should never stop writing, if not for others' at least for our own pleasure.

Pearls of Wisdom

2010-10-16T21:35:00.001+05:30

One day, you and I are going to die. There’s simply no avoiding it. The last person who went to heaven alive was the prophet Elijah and it’s not likely to happen again. So you will die, and your family and friends will mourn you and say nice things about you which they never said when you were alive. Then they will move on, Maybe they will remember you all their lives, but you will still be one more person who passed through their lives. Your photos will become old fashioned, your belongings will be distributed or thrown away. The books and pictures that you valued so much, the clothes that you hoarded in case they come back in fashion, the music you treasured, the little knick-knacks you collected will become junk, a dead person’s belongings. And it’s not likely that you will become a world famous celebrity so there’s no chance of your stuff being auctioned off for millions. Your loved ones may cry seeing your things, but the tears will dry. Slowly, you will be forgotten.

And what legacy will you leave? What will you be remembered for? Will your footprints be easily blown away in the wind, or will you leave a mark that’s forever embedded in everyone’s memory? And if you have children, what pearls of wisdom will you pass on to them?

Anyway, why are pearls of wisdom called “Pearls of wisdom”? Why not Rubies of wisdom, or Diamonds of wisdom? I guess it’s because pearls are very difficult to collect and not everyone can do it.

I don’t know when death’s cold hands will reach out for me, so here are a few drops of wisdom, just in case, you know.

Don’t stand in doorways and chitchat with other people, you are blocking the way.
If you are going to the first floor, take the stairs.
Treat public toilets as your own.
Yes I know I am overweight, I have warts; I don’t need you to tell me.
People are not really interested in knowing your state or mind, or body; they are just polite. Don’t answer with a paragraph what you can say in a sentence.
Don’t ever lend books. You may be called selfish but at least you won’t lose any book.
Don’t smoke while people are eating.
Hate your job? Quit complaining, simply quit!! You are not a slave or serf, you will find some other job that you love.
Be nice to people. You never know when you may need their help.
Don’t call someone stupid or ignorant just because they don’t know something that you do. There will be something they know about which you are totally clueless, and where does that leave you?
Don’t make fun of old people. You too are going to be old someday.

A trip to Nagarjuna Sagar Dam

2010-10-13T03:36:00.003+05:30

Nagarjuna Sagar Dam is the world's largest masonry dam built across Krishna River in Nagarjuna Sagar,Nalgonda District of Andhra Pradesh, India. It is downstream to the Nagarjuna Sagar reservoir with a capacity of up to 11,472 million cubic metres which is the world's largest man-made lake.

Once in a while it’s fun to play tourist and go sightseeing. So there we were last Saturday, eight of us from work, starting out at the ungodly hour of nine in the morning. The dam is approx 160 kms from Hyderabad, about a three hour drive, but what with the stopping for breakfast, the photo sessions along the way, and the getting lost (only one person knew the way) we reached the place at around 2 PM, just in time to get on to the last launch.

Before reaching the launch station, we stopped at the bridge which was built across the river and is the main thoroughfare. The dam was amazing. They had opened only half of the 26 gates but it was still a breathtaking view. There you have this big structure, and water was flowing from the gates, crashing into the river below and you could see the white foam rising, forming a spray of white cloud at the base. And if you turned around you could see the river stretching as far as the eye could see, a beautiful sight. It was a humid cloudy day and I wished for blue skies so the river would look more beautiful.

We took the launch, which was a big old boat, and off we went cruising on the Krishna River. It was a slow ride and we went crazy taking photographs and videos. It was a very calm day, and since we were moving at a very slow speed you could barely see the ripples on the surface. There we were, in the middle of the river, and all around us was the sky and water and jungles. It was very quiet and peaceful and made you marvel at the wonder of creation. I remembered a poem about the poet wishing to go down to the sea, and I think I knew how he felt. Being surrounded by all that calm, with no worries and no cares in life and where time doesn’t matter, what more could a man want?

The launch took us to a small island called Nagarjunakonda where you could find a Buddhist museum. But we didn’t visit the museum because time ran out on us. After lunching on the island it was time for the last launch to leave and we hastily packed our stuff and went back to the mainland. The sun was setting as we sailed towards the launch station, but I was too tired I fell asleep and didn’t take the sun-setting-over-the-river photos.

It was almost dark by then, and we had one last stop to make. Ethipothala Waterfalls which is about 11 kms from the dam. By the time we reached the falls it was completely dark and so we just viewed the illuminated falls from the viewpoint above it.

(picked up this photo from the internet)

Then we finally headed for home, a long and exhausting drive after roaming about for the whole day and sleeping for just a few hours the previous night. It is Navratri, so we stopped at a temple on the way and our Hindu friends went inside for prayers. It was eleven when I reached home.

There are guest houses and motels near the dam, and my friends tell me the river is beautiful in the morning, and I'm sure watching the sun rise over the river would be a memorable experience.

Here is the poem about the poet wishing to go down to the sea –

Sea Fever – by John Masefield:

I must go down to the seas again, to the lonely sea and the sky,
And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by,
And the wheel's kick and the wind's song and the white sail's shaking,
And a grey mist on the sea's face, and a gray dawn breaking.

I must go down to the seas again, for the call of the running tide
Is a wild call and a clear call that may not be denied;
And all I ask is a windy day with the white clouds flying,
And the flung spray and the blown spume, and the sea-gulls crying.

I must go down to the seas again, to the vagrant gypsy life,
To the gull's way and the whale's way, where the wind's like a whetted knife;
And all I ask is a merry yarn from a laughing fellow-rover,
And quiet sleep and a sweet dream when the long trick's over.

140 characters

2010-10-02T03:06:00.000+05:30

My story is out at Nanoism. It's 140 characters including spaces (not 140 words like I said in the previous post), below is the screenshot. (I know I am going overboard here but hey it's my blog :D)

By Your Side

2010-09-26T22:28:00.003+05:30

Once upon a time I could not go to sleep without reading something. I would keep a book under my pillow and read a couple of pages before hitting the snooze button. Sometimes I’d finish a whole book that way, read only at bedtime.

Not so long ago the bedtime reading was replaced by diary writing. My diaries are always normal notebooks without any dates. I don’t like the restricted space offered by regular diaries, because my entries sometimes go on for pages while sometimes it could be just a sentence, and if I get bored in the middle of a sentence a doodle here and there.

Nowadays the trend is listening to music before sleeping. Not exactly lullabies, because lullabies are songs used to put children to sleep and I never fall asleep in the middle of a song. If it gets to the point where I lose track of the song then I switch it off and fly off to dreamland.

One of my current “lullabies” is Sade’s By Your Side. Actually this post is just an excuse to tell you how much I love this song.

Oh when you're cold
I'll be there
Hold you tight to me
Oh when you're low
I'll be there
By your side baby

Bonus track: Lullaby by Dan Seals. Lovely, lovely song.

Sleep, lay me down, hold me closely in your arms
And I will close my eyes
Please, promise me that when I wake up from my dreams
You'll be there by my side
Love, if you say you won't slip away
Then I can go dreaming of forever more
But I won't rest until
I know that you will be here in the morning by my side
Here in my reach
I can see the one that I have waited for so long
And deep in my heart I'll know the arms that hold me now
Will hold me from now on
I dread the dawn I awake and find you gone
Please tell me you will stay.
Then sleep will come, I know my love has found a home
In your arms all my days.

One small step

2010-09-20T11:19:00.001+05:30

I opened my inbox this morning and there was one mail which I know will cheer me up the rest of the day no matter how bad things go.

Have you ever heard of twitter fiction? Yes, stories that do not exceed 140 words. You might be thinking how you can possibly fit a story under 140 words, but believe me, it's possible.

Nanoism.net is a website for twitter fiction. People submit their stories and the guys who run the show publish the stories they like. And of course I too submitted a story, way back in June.

Nanoism is an online publication for twitter-fiction: stories of up to 140 characters. Shorter then traditional flash fiction, it’s both a challenge to write and quick as a blink to read. Call it nanofiction, microfiction, twiction, twisters, or tweetfic—it doesn’t matter: It’s the perfect art form for the bleeding edge of the internet revolution.

So dear friends, I received an email this morning saying my story is going to be published on October 1. Isn't that great? I know it's only 140 words and not a book deal or a movie deal, but still, somebody out there likes it and wants to publish it for the whole world to see.

I know I should have waited until October 1 before writing this post but I am overexcited and I know I cannot sit still for eleven more days without sharing this with you.

lamentation

2010-09-08T12:23:00.000+05:30

and here we are
two lost souls
unable to comfort one another
holding close, yet unconnected
trying to love, but the past keeps us apart
who said love conquers all?
we can forgive, but can we ever forget?

Fashionably yours

2010-08-22T12:41:00.004+05:30

Not me, that’s for sure. Not that I'm a fashion disaster or a walking catastrophe, I just don’t go crazy with clothes, is all. Nothing wrong with being fashionable, in fact I would encourage it. If you can afford it and are comfortable in it, I don’t care if you wear a beehive, or papier-mâché, or antlers à la Lady Gaga. But the point, ladies and gentlemen, is you should afford it.

Yesterday I went hunting for a pair of shoes for my niece. Found the thing, and since it was still a bit early decided to look for something for myself. Visited a couple of shops, even picked a few items, but being a Saturday there were zillions of people and at the trial room there were at least ten people in front of me. And you know how it is with the fairer sex and trial rooms. A female walks in with an armful of clothes, and everything she tries on has to be inspected and approved by her friend/sister/mother who is waiting outside. And poor you who is waiting for her to finish is so tired of it all that you want to shout “Nothing looks good on you and why in heaven’s name would anyone ever manufacture that atrocious thing in the first place?” and you dump all the stuff you have chosen in the basket they put outside trial rooms, much to the delight of the person behind you who is happy to move forward to try on her hideous selection.

So I ended up buying one scarf for myself because I could try it on right there at the display without anyone raising any disapproving eyebrow. And went to Crossword and there was a sale going on, so bought the latest Dan Brown and two other books and an illustrated Sherlock Holmes for my brother’s kids.

The strange thing with me is, everyday when I look as my dismal wardrobe I would say “I have nothing to wear, must go shopping and buy something nice.” I would then go to the store, look at all the beautiful things that fall within my price range, try them on and my thoughts would run like “Do I need this? I still have that black & white top I have worn only a few times” and again would leave the store empty handed. I see people wearing beautiful things and when I go to the store to buy the same thing somehow it never works out right for me. Maybe the good Lord didn’t intend for me to be the next Jackie O.

Every year when I go home to Aizawl and see the beautifully dressed citizens my dormant fashion sense would wake up and what follows is a mad shopping spree - from the expensive stuff at Millenium Centre to the second hand stuff at Electric Bus Stand. If it is winter I have to buy some warm clothes and wear them once or twice, and that would be the end of it. It would see daylight again only after a year, and by then it would be outdated. This summer I went home and everyone was wearing skirts so I too bought two of them, and I am yet to wear them even as I write this. I want to wear them, I do, I want to look and feel feminine and dainty, but I guess that’s just not me.

The other day as a part of the Independence Day celebrations at work the women were all required to dress up in saris and the men in dhotis, and I dutifully participated, with a lot of help from my friends. Everyone oohed and aahed and it felt nice wearing something different. But it wasn’t long before a friend said “Walk a bit more graceful, why are you stomping as if you are wearing jeans?” Well I guess some of us are just not meant to be fashionistas.

Tutorial - How to wear a scarf on your head

2010-08-15T00:19:00.000+05:30

If, like me, you live in the plains, then you would have seen young girls travelling in bikes, in autos, or walking, with their heads completely covered up with scarves. I always wondered how they did it, because I've tried it and always had to readjust the scarf every two seconds because it keeps slipping off my head. A couple of weeks ago a girl friend showed me how to tie it properly and it was very easy, and very simple. Allow me to demonstrate:

Step 1: Take a longish scarf, and place it on your head.

Step 2: Pull it tight over the forehead, and tuck it in behind the ears.

Step 3: Take one end of the scarf, and fold it back so that it covers your face from below the eyes.

Step 4: Tie both ends together at the back of your head.

Now this is how you will look.

Step 5: The other end of the scarf can be used to cover your shoulders, or can be wrapped around the neck.

And voila!! Now you can travel in bikes and autos without having your hair blown in ten different directions. But most importantly it protects you from the sun. You can thank me after you've tried it. Oh, and the anonymity it gives you is surprisingly exhilarating (if that's the word I want).

Gleefull

2010-08-09T04:15:00.001+05:30

OMG it’s past four in the morning! I watched eleven episodes of Glee and although I am in no way done (eleven more to go) I gotta sleep now because tomorrow I have to set out and earn my livelihood.

At first I dismissed it as some teenybop thing, a lengthier version of High School Musical (which I haven’t yet seen but Zac Efron is cute). Today I was watching some videos in Youtube and somehow came across the Glee songs, gave them a trial listen, liked it and so I ended up watching eleven straight episodes, taking only a dinner break.

Plotwise, nothing new. American high school kids, football (the American version), cheerleading, teen pregnancy, a school singing group hoping to win some competitions. But what makes it different is the singing. And the songs are familiar. Can’t Fight This Feeling – REO Speedwagon, Single Ladies – Beyonce, Keep Holding On – Avril Lavigne, I’ll Stand By You - The Pretenders, Somebody To Love – Queen, and much much more. It’s a treat for the ears.

Thus, for your listening pleasure here is the cast of Glee singing “Alone” by Heart. Enjoy.

Who do you write like?

2010-08-02T00:33:00.000+05:30

So, who do you write like, you wannabe novelist? Whose writing do you particularly admire, you closet writer? How many times have you read books and said if this can get published then surely I too can get published? You’ve lost count, haven’t you, you secret book critic?

Look what I found - a program that reads your work and compares it to the work of famous writers. Found it here: http://www.dailywritingtips.com/do-you-write-like-stephen-king/
“Created by 27-year-old Russian blogger and software developer Dmitry Chestnykh, the site operates with an algorithm similar to a spam detector. The current version is based on the English texts of 50 authors including Agatha Christie, Dan Brown, and H.P. Lovecraft. You paste an extract from your blog or current fiction project into a text box and hit Submit. An instant response gives you the name of an author whose style your submission resembles.”

I know it’s a computer program and in no way could be trusted. I fed it different paragraphs from different blog posts and apparently I write like Charles Dickens, James Joyce and Margaret Mitchell. Ha! I haven’t read any Dickens, I mean a proper one, the only ones I read being illustrated and children’s versions and of course I watched the movies. I know James Joyce and his Ulysses but never even went near it, and other than Gone With The Wind how many Margaret Mitchell books do we know?

Anyway, this is purely for fun, and a little bit of ego feeding.

And, I took the liberty of checking out whose style you resemble. Yeah I actually went to your blogs and selected texts and fed it to the program and look what results it gave me (I know I know I have nothing else to do).

mesjay - Arthur Conan Doyle
illusionaire – Cory Doctorow
diary – Kurt Vonnegut
Calliopia – David Foster Wallace
blackestred – Stephen King
Mosa – George Orwell
kuku - Vladimir Nabokov
Jerusha – Dan Brown
Mimi – James Joyce
OpaHmar –Robert Louis Stevenson

In case you’re not happy with the results, here’s the link, go do it yourself. http://iwl.me/b/8ccf5154

You're It

2010-07-18T18:02:00.004+05:30

Nowadays it seems everyone is picking a random topic, writing something about it and tagging their blogger friends. I don’t want to be left behind so here I am doing it. But after much racking of the brains and beng-sik-ing I cannot come up with a brilliant and/or entertaining topic. It is always like this. When you want to write something and are all ready to make history with your genius, nothing would come to mind. The brain refuses to cooperate. Then you forget all about it, and later when you are in the middle of work, or when you are in bed and are just about to fall asleep you would suddenly think of something great which you’re sure everyone would like. You promise yourself you would write about it as soon as you are free/awake, but the moment of inspiration is gone and it never comes back.

Okay enough with the intro. Let's talk about something which has been discussed a zillion times on this planet by almost every living person. The kind of girl or guy that you would go for (doesn’t matter if you're married, engaged, or committed, put them down anyway). Here I go:

I would choose geeky brainy guys over muscled macho types any day. Peter Parker over Spiderman, Clark Kent over Superman, you get the idea.
Beautiful eyes. I don’t know if they are windows to the soul, but beautiful eyes are so irresistible. Long eyelashes, eyes that sparkle when he laughs… ahhh…mesmerising…
Handy with tools, like fixing little things around the house. I am quite the handyman myself and I couldn’t stand the guy who doesn’t know his tools.
Not the “I am a guy and you are a girl so I'm superior” type, okay maybe I'm being a bit feministic here but I simply don’t like being labelled second best without any concrete evidence in hand.
Optimistic. It can get pretty depressing when all he does it bitch about his life, his boss, his ex-girlfriend. I am not your shrink and will lose interest fast if all you do is complain.
I love animals, so it’s a big plus if he doesn’t see dogs as food or picks up a stone on seeing a cat.
Honest.
Ambitious. Wants to be the best in whatever he does.
Not needy or clingy but not controlling either. Lets me have my independence.
Beautiful hands and feet. I know this is something beyond your control but it would be nice to touch them.

So there you have my list (for now). Shall we hear yours? It’s your turn to blog about it.

Tumblin' in

2010-07-17T19:12:00.000+05:30

Today is one of those lazy Saturdays when you have loads of work but are simply not in the mood so you waste the entire afternoon sitting in front of the computer doing nothing useful. I signed up at tumblr, yet another blogging site. Found an article about it that explains everything.

http://www.fastcompany.com/blog/chris-dannen/techwatch/what-hell-tumblr-and-other-worthwhile-questions

Tumblr is a blogging platform that makes it easier to post video, audio, words, social bookmarks, photos, and even other people's blog posts into your blog, and share it with other people. Instead of having to upload things to YouTube, Delicious or Flickr, or create your own WordPress database before posting things, you can put your media directly into Tumblr from your computer or mobile phone. It's blogging, the way blogging was meant to be.

There's a "like" button, which lets other users express their approbation, and the ability to follow and be followed by other users; there's also a "reblog" feature that lets you embed other people's posts in your blog, as a way of pointing people to stuff you like. That's the makings of true Internet virality--in other words, it encourages you to encourage others to add content.

So I went, signed up, and after getting lost for a while put up a post. Please go and check it out.

http://aduhi.tumblr.com/

Changes

2010-07-04T17:52:00.000+05:30

days of
colourful slippers
rainbow nails
midnight escapades
weekend getaways
bandanas and frilly summer dresses
holiday flings
rebellion and disobedience
are now replaced with
paying rent and bills
being responsible and in charge
trying to be a good example
saving when I could be spending
weekends at home
being a grown up and accepting mistakes
and learning from them
and trying to be a better person

Amazing power of the brain

2010-06-29T15:41:00.000+05:30

Let this be a follow-up to my previous post, Earworms. In my previous post I talked about songs being stuck in the head, random songs that come out of nowhere and play endlessly in your head. I thought a lot about this, and came to the grand conclusion that it’s all thanks to the brain and its amazing power of retention.

I am no expert on the human brain, have never dissected it or studied it, have never even read articles about it except for the snippets seen here and there in newspapers and magazines. The only thing I know is there is the cerebrum, the cerebellum and the medulla oblongata. Stuff I learned fifteen years ago in school. The brain retained that particular piece of information, don’t know why. The brain is a very picky organ, is all I can say, remembering some things and blocking out others.

You all must have childhood memories you remember vividly, while at the same time forgetting something your friend said a minute ago. I still remember the old school building in our locality, with its low windows and wall-less classrooms all merged into one. I remember the day when we played in an old well and one of our friends got a nasty cut on her leg and the bleeding wouldn’t stop. If you ask me the Bible verses I learned in Sunday School twenty years ago, I would still be able to recite most of them. But again I can’t remember simple things like where I left my spectacles before I went for my bath, the name of the real estate broker I hired, forget to call friends who are mad at me for not staying in touch. Can it be that the things we learned when we were young remain longer in our brain? This is true, I guess. As we age the brain also ages and loses much of its retaining power. There was an instance just a couple of weeks ago. A friend asked me to pass a message to another friend, and when I saw the other friend (the intended recipient) I completely forgot what the message was. I still couldn’t remember it even today.

What about senile old people we see now and then in Mizoram? Do you think those are cases of Alzheimer’s or some other ailment with a fancy name? In Mizo we call these people Tar â, literally translated as old people who had lost their minds. You see them all the time. They don’t recognise people, and the only things they remember are events that happened fifty years ago. They mistake you for their siblings, their childhood friends, and sometimes their spouse. I guess there must be scientific explanations for this.

The thing I cannot figure out is why the brain remembers some things more clearly than others. You could be working, or reading a book, or watching a movie, or just lazing around when you suddenly remembered something that happened to you. There need not be something that triggered this, it just came to you all of a sudden. All of sudden, something someone said came back to you, and you don’t know why. You thought you had forgotten that conversation but it came out of nowhere and hit you in the face.

And what about dreams? Do you ever see the same people over and over again in your dreams? I do. I see my uncle and his son, both of them long gone, in my dreams all the time. Sometimes they are alive, and sometimes I’d be aware that they are dead and would wonder “why am I seeing them when they are dead?” all in the dream, of course. Maybe I missed them much more than I am aware of. Sometimes in my dreams I’d be seeing something and would say (still in the dream) “hey haven’t I dreamt of this before?” Weird. And dreaming in dreams. There was one childhood superstition that went “if you dream three times in your dream then that means you are dead.” Lol. And nobody has ever proved that, kind of like the horned cat which lives in some mountain, seeing which meant certain death but nobody has seen it yet.

Oh, and the best thing. Déjà vu. I am at a loss for words. How in the world can you explain the feeling that this particular moment had happened to you before? The same people saying the same things and behaving in the same manner in the same settings. I know it’s entirely impossible but we all have felt it. Isn’t the human brain simply amazing?

Earworms

2010-06-20T23:27:00.003+05:30

To begin with, let me quote from Wikipedia:
Earworm, a loan translation of the German Ohrwurm is a portion of a song or other music that repeats compulsively within one's mind, put colloquially as "music being stuck in one's head."

Urban Dictionary says: A song that sticks in your mind, and will not leave no matter how much you try. The best way to get rid of an earworm is to replace it with another. Be prepared to become a jukebox.

Assuming you read the above two paragraphs, which look boring at a glance but once you read it would make you say "Hey this happens to me all the time, you know what, just the other day I couldn't get a Justin Bieber song out of my head", I don't think I need to give a lengthy scientific explanation of what an earworm is. But, let me get back to boring once more. Wikipedia also says - Earworm may also refer to the Helicoverpa zea (corn earworm) or the musician DJ Earworm. Not to be confused with the creature depicted in Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan.

I am least interested in worms that live in the ear, or a certain DJ, and I have never liked Star Trek. Star Wars I like, but sorry, not Star Trek. So since there is nothing else to do, let’s talk about earworms and songs that play inside one’s head.

Actually, I have no idea how to start. Conversations are not my thing. I could say “Studies have shown that there are certain songs which for some unknown reason tend to get themselves embedded in the frontal area of the brain which controls blah blah blah…” and I could look up and see my audience staring into space with a faraway look embedded on his face. If I say “Have you ever experienced that thing, you know, when you sing the same song over and over again in your head and sometimes you change songs without knowing it?” my listener would probably say a curt “Yes” and I’d be left with nothing to say except “Me too!!”

And sometimes you sing under your breath. This one is really weird. You are doing something, and at some point you suddenly realise that you have been singing for a while now, and you have no idea how you came to sing that particular song. It could be any song; it could be a song you listened to just an hour ago, a song you sang in church when you were a kid, or a song that your roommate plays all the time. You don’t even have to like the song. You have heard it so many times it has pitched a tent in your brain and set up camp there. Permanently. And once you look up from what you are doing and realise that you are singing, you immediately become self conscious. Hey why am I singing this song? Don’t I always wince and make a face whenever my roommate plays it? Then you stop singing, or change tracks. Kind of like the cartoon character who walks off a cliff but doesn’t know he’s walking on air until he looks down and sees nothing but air below him, and immediately crashes to the ground.

Love and War

2010-06-09T17:21:00.000+05:30

The first Anne Tyler book I read was The Amateur Marriage, and I must admit I bought the book because the cover was pretty. There is this girl in a bright red overcoat kissing a soldier who was leaning out of a train window. A goodbye scene. Love in the time of war. How romantic! There is something urgent, something undescribably romantic, something real and true about war romances.

When I was a young girl I read "Battle Cry" by Leon Uris, in Mizo no less, and my heart went out to the young couple who were torn apart by the Second World War. Recently I listened to the song "Travelin' Soldier" again, and once again it left me feeling blue and sad. The lonely young soldier who had no one to write a letter to,the young waitress who waited for him and quietly cried when she heard of his death.

I know there is nothing glamorous and romantic about war in real life. All that pain, destruction, suffering, wastage, is something we could all do without. Blame Hollywood and authors for romanticizing it. But still, I love war movies, not that I've watched many, but I'm quite happy with the ones I've watched. And don't ask me which one is my favourite, because my answer would be "All of them." The Last Samurai ranks pretty high on the list, Saving Private Ryan, Enemy at The Gates, Lord of The Rings, Letters From Iwo Jima, The Longest Day, Braveheart, The Deer Hunter, Apocalypse Now, The Patriot etc are all very good. The best ones are the ones with a hint of romance in them. The English Patient, Pearl Harbour,Casablanca, Gone With The Wind (although there wasn't a single battle scene in the movie - as per Google search - it still ranks as one of the best war movies. Haven't seen the movie, but read the book ages ago).

I haven't seen the old ones like All Quiet on the Western Front, The Bridge On the River Kwai, From Here to Eternity, The Great Escape, Where Eagles Dare, etc, but will try to see them in the future. Haven't seen The Hurt Locker either. This post is turning out to be a list of the war movies I am yet to set my eyes on.

And the songs! I wish I could go on and on about the love songs about a soldier going off to war while his girl pined for him, but as I write this not a song comes to mind. The only song that surfaces is Green Day's 21 Guns, and I don't know if it classifies as a war song, it's more about the war within, methinks. How about you share the songs and I listen to them?

Mishmash

2010-05-30T15:49:00.001+05:30

Friday night - went to bed with the most terrible headache ever known to man. You know the kind, it starts from your eyes, slowly moves up to your forehead before winding its way to the back of your head, right at the spot where your neck meets the skull, can you feel that little groove there? yes, right there. That’s the spot that hurts the most. You have this throbbing pain that feels like someone had planted a bomb in there and it is going off repeatedly, sending painwaves all over your head, the deadly tentacles reaching to every cell in your body. You can feel a stinging pain in your eyes, not just your ordinary eyeball-hurting kind of pain, but actual physical pain that feels like someone had pinched the inside of your eyelids. You feel dizzy and weak, like you are going to throw up any minute but you don’t have the strength to get up and walk to the bathroom. I thought I was having a migraine attack. I’ve been plagued with headache all my life, but all the doctors I've consulted always assured me it wasn’t migraine. Take rest, pop a few pills and you’ll be okay.

Saturday morning – woke up hoping to feel refreshed and clearheaded but to my dismay found that traces of headache still lingered. Got up, took the newspaper inside and went back to sleep until noon. Got up again, but was too lazy to do anything, ate lunch, and decided to read in bed. I know reading is not the best solution, but there was nothing else to do. Opened the latest Chetan Bhagat but before I could read a sentence closed my eyes and found myself drifting off…. Ouch!! That could only be an ant stinging my leg. I reached down and found the offender and crushed him. Is that something crawling on my stomach? Another ant, no doubt. Groped a bit, caught the scoundrel before he could make his escape and sent him packing to ant hell. Or heaven. I don’t know if he was a good ant or bad ant in his lifetime, so he could go either way. Another miscreant stung me on the arm, and I found myself committing another murder. Sleeping was out of the question now.

Got up, removed the bed sheets, and started The Hunt. The best way to go about hunting is clean your room inside out, crawl on your knees and inspect all the corners, making sure all squatters are evicted. And when you are finished the room smells of insect spray, a far cry from your regular room fresheners, but you are alone in the room again and that was the goal, wasn’t it?

Speaking of ants, have you noticed that they are most active in the summer? Makes me think of the story of the ant and the grasshopper. You know, the ant working in the summer while the grasshopper sings away and in the end the ant was the guy with all the food while the poor grasshopper could only watch with envy and a hungry stomach. No, I think he died. Make hay while the sun shines and all that rot. But if it was today’s world the grasshopper would be the richer guy (and with a fuller stomach) because we all know how much money a good voice could bring. If you are still unmarried I would strongly recommend you find someone who could sing, thus ensuring children with beautiful voices and their future taken care of, purely because of their heritage. But if they end up with your voice you could only pray that they are smart and good in studies. But still, there’s a 50% chance of them being born with a good singing voice. Life (and marriage) is all about taking chances.

And when is this temperature planning to go down? Of all the hot summers I've lived through, this year seems to be the worst. Met officials say monsoon will hit Kerala on May 3l, that’s tomorrow, but I'm not living in a fishing boat in the backwaters of God’s Own Country, am I? So it’s probably another two weeks before the much awaited rains, showers of blessings, so to speak. Then maybe I could write about happier stuff.

Estha

2010-05-24T14:44:00.002+05:30

Estha occupied very little space in the world.

Estha had always been a quiet child, so no one could pinpoint with any degree of accuracy when (the year, if not the month or day) he had stopped talking. Stopped talking altogether, that is. The fact is that there wasn’t an ‘exactly when’. It had been a gradual winding down and closing shop. A barely noticeable quietening. As though he had simply run out of conversation and had nothing left to say. - The God of Small Things.

Sometimes I’d wish that I could be like Estha. Stop talking altogether. Wouldn’t it be rather nice, in a weird way? If you don’t speak and hence do not reply to people’s irritating questions, people will gradually stop talking to you and you could live in your own world but at the same time not unaware of things going on around you. You are not deaf and can still understand what people say, and there is absolutely no expectation or obligation to contribute your two cents worth on anything, anything at all. (Anything a-tall). The world is too full of people blabbing endlessly about things you don’t want to hear, things you are least interested in, things you don’t care about. Like the new flat screen TV they bought, the boyfriend’s name of a friend of a friend, your cousin’s sister-in-law’s niece who has her own flat blah blah blah….

I think I am deceitful. If we go by the theory “Birds of a feather flock together” then I ought to be outgoing, talkative, friendly and annoyingly cheerful. But I am not, while I seem to collect friends who possess the aforementioned qualities. While I might exhibit those qualities some of the time, there are times when I have been called boring. To my face, yes. And I have been asked why I keep quiet all the time, why I am so unfriendly and unapproachable. Maybe I don’t like you, maybe I have nothing to contribute to the subject being discussed, or maybe I always find myself short of words. Maybe I don’t feel like talking, maybe I am preoccupied with something more important than what you are saying. Maybe I have run out of conversation and have nothing left to say.

Russian Roulette

2010-05-17T11:53:00.002+05:30

A crazy game invented by a bunch of crazy people looking for fun and adventure. Supposedly invented by Russian prison guards who were probably bored out of their skulls and decided to place bets on who among the prisoners would be the lucky winner to get the bullet in the head. Notice that the guards didn’t play the game themselves. How cruel is that? And the game came to be played by fools who saw it as some kind of bravery test. How stupid can one get? If you want to die, kill yourself in some other way where there are no chances of failure. I wonder what the player must be thinking as he put the gun to his head. Lord please don’t let the gun go off, but I have to do this because I don’t want to look like a weak person. Remember The Deer Hunter, where the players were drugged out of their senses and made to play the game? Very sad movie. I hoped that Christopher Walken’s character would not die in the end, I wanted him to get up and walk out, but he played and lost. Very disturbing scene.

Why do people commit suicide? Did they completely lose faith in themselves, in others and in the world? Did they just get tired of living? Some people kill themselves because they wanted to hurt their loved ones, the people closest to them. And I guess some did it to escape the shame and disgrace, to save face. Whatever be the reason, suicide doesn’t solve anything. You take your own life and in doing so booked yourself on the direct train to hell and eternal damnation; you hurt your loved ones and make them ask “What did we do wrong?” There is nothing glamorous in it. And I think it is a cowardly act. Things go wrong, you become sad and depressed, you think life is not worth living and that nobody cares about you. It happens to everyone, we all go through times like that. But look at the bright side, there is no place to go but up. Things can only get better. If you think that nothing will ever become right again, you cannot be more wrong. Give yourself time, be patient, and sooner or later the sun will shine on you again.

This and that

2010-05-14T14:31:00.001+05:30

I love playlists. You could add only the songs you want to listen to, arrange them in the order you want, remove a song from the list if you get bored of it, create a new list any time you want, and permanently delete a list. If only life was like a playlist!

I am not the type to rant and rave but I do have my share of things that irk me no end. One of them is newspapers not folded properly. Finicky, you say. Maybe I am. I hate it when I try to read a newspaper and find that it is messily folded, and that too somewhere in the middle page. How much time does it take to return to the first page and then fold it? And another thing I don’t like in newspapers is the single sports page they inserted at the very last page. If you are like me and read a newspaper back to front, you open the back page and immediately this loose sheet falls out, every time!!! Not good, not good at all. Causes hairfall and scratched scalps, and induces hatred for sports.

Another thing that really tests my patience is those cellotape things bread people use for tying up a pack of bread. You know what I mean, twist the polythene cover into a spiral, run the cellotape around it a couple of times, and paste a small piece of paper on the ends so the tape doesn’t stick to everything around it. A grand idea, but not so grand when it comes to the opening part. Yes, I've heard of scissors, but what I want to do is tear off the tiny itsy bitsy piece of paper, and then unravel the tape. Not as easy as it sounds. And definitely not fun.

Traffic police. One job I hope I never apply for, no matter how tough times get and even if I fall into the lowest pit of desperation. Why is that so? Firstly I don’t think the neon jackets would look good on me. Secondly I cannot stand for long hours. Thirdly I don’t like being in the public eye. Fourthly I don’t think I could remember whose turn it is to go and may add mayhem to the existing one, which is the best way I could describe our Indian traffic. But don’t get me wrong. I respect the police and I admire traffic policemen. They are very important and one can only imagine the chaos that would ensue on the roads if all the traffic policemen quit. Half of the traffic signals don’t work and you know how Indian drivers are. Give me a half inch of space and I would move forward. Other drivers coming from the other three directions? No worries, if I am the first to occupy that half inch I would be the first to leave this chaotic scene. Only problem is, the other three drivers think the same way. The rest I leave to your imagination.

There is something else I want to write, but I cannot remember what it is. Oh well you can’t win them all.

Fun at 40+

2010-04-27T15:15:00.002+05:30

The first thing you notice is the dryness. Your skin and hair dry up, unreachable spots start itching, and the degree of itchiness is directly proportional to the number of people in your vicinity. Your skin burns all the time, but you feel cold inside. No matter how many glasses of liquid you pour down your throat, your thirst is never quenched. People annoy you, and it always seems like you are surrounded by people who wouldn’t keep their mouths shut when all you want is some peace and quiet. The atmosphere buzzes with activity, the traffic sounds seem to be much louder than before, and the cry of the vendors much more irritating. All of a sudden it seems like the world is doing its best to make you cry out in frustration and make you want to shave your head and run around naked, but you remind yourself that you are still a normal sensible adult, and you hang on to every tiny shred of sanity you could find. You tell people how you feel, but nobody seems to be listening - they have their own worries and problems. You wanted to give it all up, but deep down inside you know you must fight this to the end and will emerge victorious. So, day after sweltering day, you turn on the ceiling fan, the air cooler, the air conditioner, drink gallons of water and immerse yourself in buckets of bath water, waiting for the day when you will be able to say “It’s raining!”

Life sure is fun at 40+ degrees.

The Other Woman - Saihmingi Speaks

2010-03-27T15:42:00.001+05:30

The wife is always the last to know. And I was no exception. I was too confident, too secure in my marriage that I didn’t see that like any other marriage ours could also fail, and I didn’t know we had to work on it to keep it alive and keep it growing. I just assumed that after marriage people lived happily ever after; maybe I was influenced by all the love stories I read growing up where the hero and heroine overcame all the obstacles in their way and got married. We never knew what happened afterwards, and we didn’t care because the lovers were united and all was right with the world.

When I first heard that my husband was having an affair with one of his colleagues I didn’t believe it. This was Zamtea we were talking about, my best friend of more than twenty-five years, the person I knew better than anyone else. It was my sister who first told me about the affair, and we had a big argument because of it. She was very sure of it, she had heard about it from one of the students who lived in her neighbourhood, and I got mad at her for not believing in my marriage and listening to silly rumours. I even demanded to know the identity of the student who was spreading lies about my husband. “Zamtea had many female colleagues and cannot be blamed for having friends,” were my exact words.

Then I heard it from my neighbour, a busybody who poked her nose into everyone’s affair. I never believed anything she said, but when she spoke about my husband and his sudden interest in teaching and going to college the seed of doubt was planted in my mind. It was common knowledge that Zamtea wanted to quit teaching and become a professional photographer. But we had two small children, I didn’t work, money was tight, and giving up a good job was a risk we didn’t dare take.

One day my sister came visiting. It had been a month since our last discussion, and she came to my house to “shake some sense in to me.” I didn’t need any shaking. I had observed Zamtea for the past few weeks and noticed that he always came home late, took his phone wherever he went, was extra conscious about his appearance, and never talked about college anymore. We hadn’t made love in weeks; he would stay up late and I never knew when he’d come to bed. My two daughters kept me very busy, and most nights I was asleep by nine o’clock. My sister came prepared to fight, and was surprised by my easy surrender. She told me everything she knew; the girlfriend’s name was Mahriati, the affair had been going on for about five months now, and the whole college knew. She said they tried to hide it but there are some things you cannot hide.

I had my doubts, but turning those doubts into belief and then accepting them was harder than I imagined. The first emotion I felt was anger. How could he fall in love with another person? Was I not good enough for him? Did I not love him and was I not a good mother to his children? How could he do this do me? How dare he do this to me!

If my sister had not been with me that day I'm sure I would have packed my things and went off to my father’s house. I even tried to burn his clothes but my sister stopped me, physically held me down, and told me to act like an adult. I was not easy to calm down. Was I not Saihmingliani Sailo, descendant of a famous chief? My ancestors were known for their greatness and bravery, and was I just going to sit there and let a man cheat on me and make me look like a fool? How people would have laughed behind my back! How could I ever show my face in public again? Everywhere I go pity whispers would follow me. Now I would be forever known as the wife who drove her husband into some other woman’s arms.

The sight of my two daughters with their surprised and scared faces calmed me down. They had never seen me like this before. I was always hot tempered, but marriage had turned me into a gentler person and I didn’t remember shouting at them any time. I loved them more than anything else, and I wasn’t going to let them grow up without a father. People could make fun of me, but no one was going to hurt my babies, no one was going to laugh at them because their parents were divorced. I would fight to keep my husband, and I would fight to keep my marriage alive.

My sister offered to wait with me for Zamtea to come home, but I sent her home. This was between my husband and me, and although I appreciated her concern and would welcome her support I did not want her to be around. I was a grown woman, capable of sorting out her marital troubles.

Zamtea came home, and although I’d promised myself that I would not get angry, seeing him made me lose control again. I screamed and shouted at him until I ran out of words. He kept quiet and waited for me to finish, and when he spoke he was full of remorse. He didn’t deny anything, but said he would stop seeing her and would even try to move to a different college. I was prepared for war, and this time it was me who was surprised by his easy surrender.

I forgave him. After all, he was my husband, the father of my children, and I still loved him.

The Other Woman - Zamtea's Story

2010-03-19T14:33:00.002+05:30

“If you get someone pregnant then you will have to marry her,” my mother used to say to me and my brother, and to my sisters she said “If you become pregnant then you will have to marry the baby’s father, I don’t want my grandchildren to be illegitimate children.” Sure enough when I was twenty-nine I got my girlfriend pregnant, and I became a husband and a father just after I turned thirty. Secretly I wished the baby would share my birthday, or at least my birth month, but she was born three weeks after my birthday, in another month. I loved my wife very much, and the birth of our daughter made our love even stronger.

I met my wife when I was eight years old. We were the two smallest kids in our class, and so naturally we sat together on the first row, just in front of the teacher’s desk. My first memory of her is when she dropped her lunch box and the teacher asked me to share my lunch with her. She didn’t remember it though, and said I made it up because I wanted to make her cook for me as some sort of payback. The argument still stands unresolved. She is a very strong person, full of life and energy, always active and very sure of herself. My friends sometimes joked that she should have been born a man, and to tell you the truth, I don’t disagree. But she was a good friend, a good girlfriend, and now a good mother, and she loved me more than anything; what more could a man want?

I had never had another girlfriend; in fact I never looked at other girls. Saihmingi was more than enough for me. And when we took our vows to love and cherish each other for better or worse, I meant it with all my heart. I never even thought that I would be unfaithful to her and love another woman.

Mahriati was everything Saihmingi was not. She was soft spoken, had flowing long hair and the most beautiful skin. She had this vulnerability that makes you immediately want to reach out and protect her from the world. Her hair was the first thing I noticed about her. It was straight and long, covering her breasts, always clean and shiny, and I wanted to touch it and feel it slide between my fingers. Saihmingi had cut her hair just after our second daughter was born because she didn’t have time to care for it properly. I would often fantasise about Mahriati wearing nothing, her hair covering her breasts, and I would imagine how it would feel to run my hands down her hair, touch her breasts, that smooth skin, well you know. Thinking about her made me feel guilty as if I was already cheating on Saihmingi. I was happily married and was not supposed to let sinful thoughts invade my mind, but I couldn't stop myself from thinking those things.

To cut a long story short, Mahriati and I soon got involved. I loved her, but not in the way I loved my wife. She was smart and knew how to make me feel good. No she didn’t shower me with praises or act like a small helpless child, but she had this quality, this thing about her that when you were with her everything seemed possible. She made me feel strong and manly, kind of like her knight in shining armour, but at the same time she didn’t expect anything from me. She loved me just the way I was.

But as much as I loved Mahriati and she loved me, we knew that our relationship was doomed. It had no future. We both knew it would end someday and we would have to say goodbye forever. Knowing that we had very little time together made me love her even more, made me want her more than ever. It was a very happy time for me but a very frustrating time at the same time. I couldn’t show my love for her to the world, I could not tell anyone about it and we always lived in fear that we would be discovered. I would look at the young lovers walking in the campus and I would be filled with envy. I wished I could throw everything away, forget about what the world would say and shout to the world that I was in love.

I wanted to leave my wife and be with Mahriati, but she wisely said no. She didn’t want us to feel guilty for the rest of our lives, she said I had made my vows to my wife to love her forever and I should keep that vow. But she didn’t put an end to our relationship and continued to love me just as before. I knew I should stop seeing her and be a good husband and father, but I couldn’t bear the thought of losing Mahriati, couldn’t bear not to hear her voice late in the night, and I guess what I feared most was the thought that she would find some other man and would belong to some stranger. I knew it was going to happen, some unknown man was going to love her and marry her, he would hold her hand and she would laugh at his jokes, and she would bear his children. How I hated that man, and how I wished it was me instead! I cursed fate for its cruelty, for bringing her so late into my life, for giving me a taste of heaven and then taking it away from me.

One day I went home, late as usual, and one look at Saihmingi’s angry face told me that she knew.

The Other Woman

2010-03-10T14:30:00.012+05:30

If you really think about it, her family had always been unlucky when it comes to marriage. Mahriati was fourteen years old when her father divorced her mother and took in a new wife. She was too young to understand the complications of love and marriage, but old enough to be embarrassed by her father’s behaviour and definitely old enough to resent her stepmother. She didn’t address her stepmother for one year, didn’t call her “Mother”, and when she finally addressed her she called her “Nu Rammawi”. There was no way she was going to address Rammawii, the shameless home wrecker as Mother. She only has one mother, her precious mother who had to go back to her father’s house and live with her elder brother and his family. What she didn’t understand was that her stepmother, who was all of twenty-six years, was just a girl herself, full of insecurities and anxiety, eager to be loved and accepted. Her mother didn’t work, which meant she could not go and live with her in her uncle’s house, so Mahriati and her elder brother Maruata lived with their father and stepmother.

As far as stepmothers go, Rammawii was not so bad. She behaved more like an elder sister, never admonishing them for their teenage tantrums and pretending that all was right in the house when in fact the two children hardly spoke to her. To them, she was still the evil woman who was the reason for their mother’s departure. She tried desperately to win their approval, buying them clothes and little gifts, but all she got in return was a sarcastic “I know you spent my father’s money on this, if I want clothes I can ask him money myself.”

After Mahriati finished her Class 10 exams, her father sent her to Shillong where she spent the next seven years studying. Living away from home made her forget her hatred for her stepmother, and when she went home she was cordial to her, but you cannot say she was friendly. She accepted her father for who he was, and realised that whether she liked it or not her stepmother was always going to be a part of her life. Maruata had gone to college in Aizawl, and at the age of 20 had got married to a classmate, and had a son. The child was barely a year old when his mother ran off with another man, leaving the baby in the care of his father. Maruata had no idea how to take care of the baby, and so it was Rammawii who raised the child. She was delighted, not having a child herself, and enjoyed every moment. The baby changed their lives. He became the centre of their world, and brought the much needed peace in their home.

Mahriati came home with a post graduate degree in Mathematics, and after successfully clearing the NET exam, worked as a lecturer at Pachhunga College. It was there that she met Zamtea, a lecturer in the Mizo Department. She didn’t pay much attention to him in the beginning. They were colleagues and were polite to each other, and they never spoke to each other except for the Hellos and How are yous.

It could be rightly said that they became friends on the day of the staff picnic when he dropped her home. They lived in nearby localities and so when he offered her a ride home she gladly accepted. They talked about the college, the student unions, the professors, and both were surprised at the ease they felt being around each other. There were no awkward silences, no groping around for suitable topics; it was like they had been friends forever. They exchanged phone numbers, and a friendship began that soon blossomed into love.

She would lie in bed and think about him. It was amazing, really, the way they connected. Sometimes it felt like she could read his mind and he could read hers. They could look at each other across the crowded staff room and know what the other person was thinking. A look was all that was required to communicate. They tried to keep their affair a secret, because it would set the gossip mills churning into overtime, and it was not encouraged by the college. Lecturers and professors were supposed to keep a clean image, and should always keep in mind that they were influencing a hundred young minds. It was very tiring, always hiding and pretending not to notice each other. Sometimes she wondered if her colleagues noticed how she never spoke to him in public, how she sat far away from him. She would look at him from a distance and feel her heart bursting with love. She longed to be with him all the time, ached to touch him and just be with him.

Mahriati looked at her reflection in the mirror. She had never felt, happier, more beautiful than she did now. She knew she didn’t have much time. It wouldn’t be long before people discovered their affair, and her reputation would be ruined for ever. She had had a few boyfriends before, awkward boys who didn’t know how to carry a conversation, young men who often expected everything and gave nothing in return, but Zamtea was different. He was ten years older, knew how to make her laugh and feel loved, and knew when to push and when to stay away. He respected her as a woman and didn’t feel threatened by her intelligence, her profession. To him, she was an equal.

She knew that very soon they will have to part ways. Because Zamtea was a married man, married for the last five years to a woman he had known all his life. Though she wanted to be with him forever, she didn’t want to come in between Zamtea and his wife. She didn’t want Zamtea’s children to suffer the way she and her brother did, didn’t want to be the person who divided a family into two camps. She knew all about the anger, the resentment and the bitterness. But for now, she wanted to have him, at least for a while. She was ready to lose, ready for the embarrassment and disgrace that was to come. Didn’t someone say “It’s better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all”?

She thought about fate, and how we really have no control over it. She looked at her reflection once again, and realised that she had become the person she once hated. She had become The Other Woman.

The Cure - 4

2010-02-24T15:24:00.004+05:30

I was devastated. Completely crushed and shattered. It was like my mother’s death all over again, only this time there was the added shame and the humiliation. People talked, and asked my family embarrassing questions. My family didn’t say anything, and I was glad not to hear the accusing “I told you so” from anyone, but I could tell that it was in their hearts. My colleagues tried their best to act normal, but it was very awkward for them too. Because I never talk about my personal life to anyone they didn't know how to react, they all knew what happened but since they didn't hear it from me they were not sure what to do. I knew that the mothers wanted to console me and the younger unmarried ladies wanted to discuss their boyfriend problems and commiserate with me, but nobody knew how to approach me and how to bring up the subject of lost love. I was my normal quiet self, did my work perfectly, came to work on time, and as far as appearances were concerned I acted exactly the way I used to. But inside I was hurting, and cried myself to sleep every night.

Two months after I left Makuka I discovered I was pregnant. When I missed my period the first month I thought it was due to stress, but when I missed it again the second time in a row I became suspicious and bought a pregnancy kit and tested myself. Positive. I took two more tests, and they all turned out positive. It was like fate had slapped me in the face; I didn't expect it coming, and it stung. I became angry because it was all so unfair. I didn't want the baby, I didn't want a reminder of the most painful experience of my life, and I definitely didn't want to bear the child of a person who stopped loving me and will most likely never love me again.

I thought of aborting the baby. I had never known anyone who has had an abortion, and I wasn’t sure how to go about doing it. Did people go to obscure clinics, or approach doctors who knew them well? If they go to a big hospital what was the procedure? Who do they consult? Did they see a normal doctor with some lame excuse and suddenly announce they were pregnant and wanted to get rid of it? I thought about the dangers, I knew full well the risks involved. I'd read about women dying because of botched abortions, of some unfortunate ones never being able to have children again. I thought about the social stigma that came with it. I hadn’t told anyone about the pregnancy yet, but bad news always finds a way to reveal itself somehow, and there’s nothing more entertaining than a scandal that involved sex and badly behaved women.

I called Makuka many times, intending to tell him about the pregnancy, but somehow our conversations always veered into how he had cheated on me and what a control freak I was. It always ended with someone hanging up the phone. The fact that we couldn’t have a proper conversation like two grown up adults made me angrier and more determined to cut off all connections with him, including his baby. I stopped calling, and he never once called back.

The idea of dying then came to me. If I die, the baby would also die. No more heartaches, no more anger, no more tears. I wouldn’t have to see any more sympathetic faces and hear the gossip about me. I could sleep forever, and it would be so peaceful.

I looked at the pile of pills on the kitchen table. There was no way I could swallow all of them. So I crushed them till I got a nice little mound of white powder in front of me, and took out my favourite tea cup from the kitchen cupboard. It was ironic, really, I was going to die after drinking from my favourite cup. I wondered if it would be painful, and it was then that my mother came into my mind. She died in her sleep; did she feel any pain, or did she simply drift off and wake up in heaven?

I decided to take one last look at my mother’s face. I took out her album which my father had carefully preserved, and studied the photographs closely. Here she is with her school friends. Out on a picnic in the fields. With her younger brothers, dirty little boys, my uncles. I laughed out loud. Her wedding picture, she looked happy. With her first child in her arms. I turned the black and white photograph over, and behind it was written in her spindly curvy handwriting, “Laldinliani, 2 months, September 1974.” And below it, “My baby, my life.”

I had never seen that before. I was her baby, I was her life. And now that she was dead, I was living for her. She lived in me, through me. I must have stood there for what seemed like an eternity, although it could not have been more than ten minutes. I read the words over and over again.

My baby, my life.

And here I was trying to end my life over a love affair that ended in tears, not knowing that if I die my mother would once again die, and a part of her that lived on in my baby would die too. The enormity of what I almost did hit me, and I lay on my father’s bed and cried and cried until I could cry no more. My baby should live, I should live, and my mother’s legacy will continue. Here I was, pregnant, not knowing that I was the only hope for my family’s blood to live on. Kimteii wanted to have a baby but fate had decided otherwise, and I who had been blessed was planning to end it all.

I got up, walked to the kitchen, threw the powder into the sink and washed it all away, and then scrubbed the sink until it was sparkling and spotless. I felt cleansed, redeemed, and forgiven.

I put my hands over my stomach, and smiled.

My baby, my life, my legacy.

The Cure - 3

2010-02-15T15:30:00.004+05:30

It was a terrible mistake, and it was my idea. Eloping was the last thing on my mind when I set out to go shopping with Makuka on that fateful December day. It was Christmastime, schools and colleges were closed, and people flocked to the market. Laughing friends, sulking children, harassed mothers, siblings, lovers, everyone had come to buy something for Christmas. There was an air of festivity all around, and everyone seemed so happy and content. I was suddenly overcome by a sense of emptiness, a feeling of aloneness. It was then that the idea of eloping formed in my head.

Makuka and I had discussed marriage before, but never finished a conversation. It was as if there was something blocking us, preventing us from being together; something unknown, unseen, unspoken. After two years of us seeing each other my family still wasn’t convinced, ticking him off as someone I would soon get bored of, a mad phase in my life. They were still waiting for me to find a ‘real’ man. On that cold winter day as I looked at the people around me I felt like I was the only one who would be alone that night. I could not bear the thought of going home and eating a silent dinner with my father and then sleeping alone in my cold empty bed.

I called up one of my colleagues who had recently moved into a new house with her husband. They didn't have children, and their house was in an isolated part of town, so it seemed like the perfect place to go. She really didn’t want to be a part of the plan but I persuaded until she said yes. Makuka too was not very enthusiastic, said it wasn’t proper behaviour for two sensible adults. But I was adamant, saying it was now or never. So we spent the first night of our elopement on the living room floor of a colleague who wasn’t even a good friend.

Eloping was supposed to be fun, and romantic, but what we did was far from fun and romantic. There was nothing grand or wonderful about it; it was cold and we were so worried that we barely slept. I called Kimteii and told her to inform my father, and Makuka called his parents and told them we would be returning the next day. I spent the whole night waiting for one of my uncles to burst in through the door and yank me home, but no one came. I waited for my father to call me, but there was not a word from him. I was edgy, nervous, cold and uncomfortable. It was nothing like I had expected or imagined, but even then I didn’t want to change my mind and go home. I still believed everything would be fine when morning comes.

The next morning we woke up at the crack of dawn and went home to Makuka’s house. His parents were still asleep and we had to wake them up. They were very nice to me and made me feel very welcome, but it was a very embarrassing moment. I had met them before, but suddenly turning up at their doorstep as their new daughter-in-law was a completely new experience for me as well as for them, something for which I was totally unprepared. I still wore my clothes from the previous day, my hair was unkempt, and with no makeup on I was far from the beautiful bride they would have envisioned for their youngest son.

And so I was married. Even though we didn’t have the wedding ceremony yet we were considered to be husband and wife, as is the Mizo custom. My father wanted me to come home, but Makuka’s parents said there was no need for that, I was their new daughter now and would live with them and one fine day when the date was fixed Makuka and I would get married in church. My father reluctantly agreed.

They say you never truly know a person until you have lived with him or her. How true that was! Makuka was like a small boy at home. He stayed up late, woke up late, and was often late for work - by then he had got a job at one of the private middle schools. He lived like a dirty schoolboy, and I spent one whole weekend cleaning out his room. Because of our sudden elopement there was no time for his parents to make a new room for us, so we slept in his small bedroom which was full of rock posters and dirty clothes and shoes. I threw out all his old clothes, took down all the posters, and rearranged the furniture to make some space. A few weeks later the wall between his room and his brother’s old room was taken down and we then had a new big room.

I tried to be the perfect wife, the perfect daughter-in-law, and was determined to make our marriage a success. My father had generously given me quite a large sum of money which was lying in my bank account. I spent most of that money buying new furniture for our room, and new clothes for Makuka and for his parents. I knew it would have looked odd, the new daughter-in-law buying new stuff with her money, but I consulted my in-laws and they were okay with it and we needed the new stuff.

I didn’t see the signs. I thought our marriage was, well, if not perfect at least satisfactory. Makuka stopped going out at nights and his parents were happy, I was happy because I was with the man I loved, and even though we were not yet legally married it seemed so like the real thing. We spent each night at home; I watching TV with my in-laws, Makuka shut up in our room, playing computer games or interacting with his online “friends”. I considered it harmless, he was at home, and he went to bed every night with me. I didn’t even imagine that he would leave me for a college girl he met on the Internet. Sometimes he would stay up very late, and I’d drift off to sleep without waiting for him because I thought he was playing online games and it would take forever to end. Only that I didn’t know the kind of games he played behind my back, literally. And on the days when he came home very late from work and said he was held back at school giving tuition to the kids I had no reason to doubt him. I knew about the pressure teachers put on children in order to gain a good reputation for the school, and I was secretly proud of him for being so committed to his work. If only I knew that he was committing himself to a girl who was almost half my age!

So dear reader, you can imagine my shock when after fourteen months of living together as husband and wife Makuka told me to pack my bags and return to my father’s house because he was in love with someone else. He said I was too much for him, too controlling, suffocating and too clingy. Words that I once used to describe him. He said I forced him to get married before he was ready, and that he didn’t like the way I tried to take over his life and tried to change him. I cried, I begged, I pleaded, I promised I would change and do whatever he wanted, but he wouldn’t change his mind. I didn’t even ask about the other girl; I didn’t want to hurt myself more with the details. His parents too wanted me to stay, but what could I do when my “husband” himself had told me to get out?

And so I returned to my father’s house; rejected, brokenhearted, disgraced, and pregnant.

(to be continued…)

The Cure - 2

2010-02-06T04:12:00.006+05:30

Love at first sight is something that happened only in movies and in books, has always been my opinion. But Makuka, the hopeless romantic that he is, claimed that he fell in love with me when he saw me at the reunion, and that his belief was confirmed when he saw my pictures in the camera I forgot at his place. He wasn’t a classmate, but the younger brother of Siami’s husband, the one who we thought stayed put in his room that reunion day. He and his parents came out for dinner, and he claimed he saw me then and “his heart beat a thousand times faster” as he put it. Of course I was easy to spot - at five feet six and a half inches I towered over all the other girls and some of the guys. Quite tall for a Mizo girl. Tallness runs in the family, Kimteii is five six, my mother was five-five, and all my uncles on my mother’s side are well above five-ten.

Makuka got my phone number from Siami, and came to my house to return my camera. It wasn’t long before he was a regular visitor. He proclaimed his undying love for me every day, sending me cute text messages and calling me every night before he went to sleep. At first I thought he was not serious, but as time wore on I realised that that was just the way he was. He was very sentimental and not afraid to show his feelings. I liked him very much, he was funny and made me laugh, but I wasn’t sure if I loved him because love was something I had never truly experienced. What I liked most about him was that he was different from the other men I knew. It didn’t worry him that at 27 he was four years younger than I was, and not once did he mention my height which was quite a relief after a lifetime of hearing people always telling me how tall I was. He was of average height, not good looking, but had the most beautiful smile. When he smiled his eyes twinkled and his whole face lit up. How I lived for that smile!

I would often inspect myself in the mirror. What did he love about me? I am not beautiful – my eyes are too far apart, my forehead too wide, my hair too curly. I am not clever or funny, I am terrible at conversation. Yet he remained true. He said he loved my innocence, and my truth. How could one argue with that? If I’d only known that he would break my heart and cause me so much pain I would never have given myself to him. It took me a year before I finally opened up and admitted my love, but he waited patiently. If I’d only known that he would hurt me so much to make me want to give up my life I’d have made him wait forever.

When I was with Makuka I felt young and alive, as if I had just recovered from an illness and the air was buzzing with life and activity. It was as if the world was made just for us, for us to live in and to be happy.

But there were times when he scared me with his intensity. He felt everything deeply, strongly, passionately. I was his greatest love, the best thing that had ever happened to him, the answer to his prayers. He said I meant more to him than his siblings, his parents, his friends, that he wouldn’t survive the day if he didn’t see me or hear my voice. I thought nobody ever actually said those words, but Makuka said them to me (“When I don’t see you or hear your voice I feel empty, incomplete”).

And there were times when I felt suffocated, smothered by him. He was like a faithful and loyal puppy, eager to please and desperate for attention, sometimes too protective and possessive. He’d call me, send me text messages, come to see me everyday; he wanted to know everything, what I ate, what I did, whom I saw, what I thought. I'd never had anyone so interested in me before. It was an unbelievable experience – being in love was the most incredible thing I had experienced in my life.

My family and friends didn’t approve. My aunts said he was after my money (What money, I asked, the money that my father accumulated with unfair means, or my monthly salary?) Though my father didn’t say it out loud I could tell from his behaviour that Makuka wasn’t exactly the kind of man he wanted as a boyfriend or husband for his daughter. He probably preferred someone who was gainfully employed, someone God fearing and a regular church-goer. My friends claimed to know all about him, telling me he was a no-good person who drank alcohol and who never attended church and didn’t participate in any of the social activities. Hearing them talk you’d have thought Makuka was a criminal who was only a few steps away from prison and eternal damnation, who didn’t deserve a church-going government-job-holding God-fearing girl like me.

They were right. He was unemployed and wasn’t the most popular person in town. But he made me happy. He made me believe that I was the most wonderful, most beautiful person in the planet. I truly believed that love would conquer all and that we’d live happily forever. All my life I had followed all the rules, colouring inside the lines, always doing the ‘right’ thing, and never once strayed from the path. Being with Makuka made me feel bold and adventurous, made me feel brave and daring. I felt free, and alive.

I will always remember that day- 12th June 2007, a cloudy Tuesday. My father had gone to Calcutta with Kimteii and her husband. After nine years of marriage they were still childless and it worried everyone. They had consulted a stream of doctors, seen healers and evangelists and pastors, and prayed every day for a child. My father too desperately wanted a grandchild; the baby born of his special child. I was my mother's child, and since childhood Kimteii was always my father's. He gave her everything she wanted. So when Kimteii and her husband heard about a fertility clinic in Calcutta with very high success rates, my father immediately announced he would bear all the costs. They called the clinic, made an appointment, and were off. I took the day off from work and went to Lengpui and waved goodbye to my family.

It was the first time I was alone in the house. All by myself. I called Makuka and invited him to dinner. He had never been invited to eat at our house before, what with my family not thinking too highly of him. I felt lightheaded and delirious, as if I was suddenly set free. I didn't remember what we ate or what we talked about. But I can still picture vividly the expression on Makuka's face when after dinner he took my hand and led me to my bedroom and closed the door behind him.

Six months later, we eloped.

(to be continued....)

The Cure

2010-01-26T13:44:00.003+05:30

I've always had trouble swallowing pills. I have this feeling, this fear that it would get stuck in my throat and choke me. When we were children my mother would crush the medicinal tablet into a fine powder, add some sugar and water to it and make us eat the whole concoction. It was awful, and left behind an unwanted bitter taste that lingered on your tongue for a long time. I was a sickly child and was constantly under one medication or the other; yet I cannot really master the art of swallowing pills.

Now as I stared at the small pile of pills I had collected, the first thing that came to my mind was how on earth I was ever going to take them all. Crush them again, I guess, and make myself a strong drink. There were pills for headache, cold, fever, stomach ache – the kind of pills you can easily get without a prescription. I had spent the last one week collecting them, going to unfamiliar localities where no one would know me. It was not easy, and there were days when I couldn’t bring myself to approach the store. I would stop my scooter near the store and sit there for a long time, not moving, simply staring in space while a battle raged in my head. People must have found me very strange, a grown woman sitting on a scooter for a long time, looking lost and bewildered. It was uncomfortable. Sometimes I’d pretend to call someone and would say loudly into the phone “If you are not here in five minutes I am going without you.”, but that meant I had to leave within five minutes. In spite of all the cold feet and the change of minds, I’d still managed to amass a good amount of painkillers of all sorts, enough to kill a person.

You see, I had decided to kill myself. I was too scared to slash my wrists or hang myself, so I thought overdosing on pills would be the easiest way. I was tired of the anger, of the fights, and the hurt that lived deep inside. All I wanted was to sleep and never wake up.

I thought of my mother, God bless her soul, dead for twenty years now. I suddenly wanted to hear her voice, suddenly wanted her help, her sound advice. She was the kindest person I ever knew, and died too soon. She was forty-six, a happily married woman with two daughters when one Wednesday morning she didn’t wake up. Nobody knew why. She was in perfect health, had a job she loved as a restaurant owner, had a husband and children who adored her; she had every reason to live for. I was fifteen and my sister Kimteii was twelve; we were devastated. My father, who was three years younger than my mother, was simply lost. He didn’t know how to live without her. I didn’t go to school for one year, and he hardly noticed.

Because I was sick so often I spent a lot of time at home, following my mother wherever she went. Her death was something I could not accept. I woke up every morning expecting to hear the sound of her cooking in the kitchen, her singing along to the radio, and would wait in my bed for her to come and wake me up. But she never came. All that was left behind was an emptiness, a silence that filled every corner, a meaninglessness that invaded our lives.

He had to feed his children, so my father continued going to work. But he didn’t know or care if his children went to school. My teachers excused me for a week, but when I didn’t appear for the second week the principal sent a note to my father asking when I would return to school. My father never saw the letter because I tore it up into pieces and threw them out of the window. My aunts and uncles then slowly realized that I wasn’t going to school, but by then it was too late. Half the school year was gone, and I was not willing to leave the house for any reason. I feared that if I left the house, my mother’s spirit would leave the house with me and fly away; I still liked to believe that she was still with us. I stayed indoors for a year, and even though I was perfectly able to do all the housework (my mother had trained me very well) a cousin came to live with us.

I went back to school the next year, a year older than most of my classmates. Everyone had heard of my tragedy, and they were all very kind to me. I was in Class 10, board exams ahead, and my father, finally recovered, was terribly worried that I might not make it through. But I passed the exam with flying colours - a nice 62%. My father wanted to send me away for further studies, but I flatly refused. How could I leave the town where my mother had breathed her last? How could I survive a day if I didn’t see my little sister who was turning out to look more and more like my mother? I was not ready to move on. So I finished my pre-university and college in Aizawl, and because my father had friends in high places I easily secured a government job as a clerk. It was not a bad job, not too exciting either, but it was an easy job and I soon became very good at it.

Ten years went by in the blink of an eye. Kimteii married a boy she had known since childhood; they were both twenty-one when they got married, and in my opinion too young. But she was happy and it was all that mattered. My father refused to get married again although there were plenty of widows and divorcees trying to hook him. Marriage was something that never entered my mind. There was a man in our office building who expressed his interest in me, said I was not like the other young girls, said I was sincere and responsible etc etc. He often came to visit me at home, but I couldn’t like him at all. He was five years older and when he laughed his nostrils would flare up. I guess that was the reason I couldn’t bring myself to like him; the flared nostrils came in the way of romance. After a year of visiting me he finally gave up, and he is now married to a hairdresser who opened shop in the building next to ours, and they already have two kids.

It was in August 2005 when I got a call from an old classmate.

“Hello, is it Dinteii, Laldinliani?”

I didn’t recognize the voice, and so I cautiously replied yes indeed it was me.

“This is Lalrinsiami, your classmate in Class 10, do you remember me?”

Of course I did, everyone knew her.

Lalrinsiami was the most popular girl in our class – funny, smart, and polite. She was now a doctor and lived in Lunglei with her doctor husband. She was in Aizawl for two months and thought it would be fun to have a class reunion; after all it had been fifteen years and not a single reunion so far. I was surprised, it was so sudden, and I hadn’t really stayed in touch with any of my classmates. But I was intrigued – wouldn’t it be nice to go? To see how everyone was doing, how they turned out, who got married and who didn’t.

“It sounds like fun, yes I will come.”

“Good. I have some more people to call and will let them know you are coming.”

“OK, and Lalrinsiam, where are we having the reunion?”

“I will call you back and let you know, but it’s most likely to be at Zoremmawia’s place, I will call you back.”

“Okay.”

“And Dinte, one more thing..”

“Yes”

“They call me Siami now.”

“Oh I see. So long then Siami.”

“Bye.”

We hung up.

The reunion was a success. Around fifteen people turned up from a class of about sixty, not a good turnout but we had fun nonetheless. Zoremmawia’s wife had recently given birth and so the event was held at the house of Siami’s husband’s parents’ house. It was a big old house in Vaivakawn, only the parents and a younger brother was at home, and they tactfully stuck to their own rooms.

Seeing people after fifteen years was strange. Some people had changed completely, some remained the same. We talked about the school, about the teachers – Brother Philip and his high singing voice, Sir Rammuana and his old noisy bike, funny incidents, and mostly about ourselves. Where we studied, who we married, where we lived now. We talked about the people who didn’t come, why they couldn’t come, how some people had vanished, and who was doing what where and how well. We complimented each other on how beautiful we turned out, and the girls of course talked about our clothes and hair and where we bought what for how much. Someone brought some old photographs and we laughed at our ugly faces and at our clothes that looked funny now but were considered stylish fifteen years ago. After dinner someone suggested singing, and we sang the school anthem and some school songs we could remember.

The party broke up at around ten. We exchanged email addresses and phone numbers, and everyone promised to keep in touch. We even suggested having a reunion every year, although we knew at the back of our minds that it really wasn’t possible.

(to be continued.......)

Bookends, photographs and memories

2010-01-18T14:42:00.001+05:30

Time it was, and what a time it was, it was
A time of innocence, a time of confidences
Long ago, it must be, I have a photograph
Preserve your memories, they're all that's left you

Short and sweet. Deep and beautiful. Bookends are defined as heavy, often decorative, objects placed at either end of a row of books on a shelf or table, to hold them upright.

I guess what the song is trying to say is memories are like bookends. They hold us upright, keep us sane, keep us together, and sometimes memories are the only thing we have left of people, of a place, of a certain time in history. And pictures and photographs make memories clearer, more vivid, and bring them to life. What good is a photograph to you if it doesn’t hold memories? It becomes just another picture floating around in the world, in cyberspace. It becomes as meaningless to you as it does to a stranger.

Simon & Garfunkel released the album Bookends on April 3 1968, almost 42 years ago. Back in the days before digital cameras and photo sharing and before anyone can click a photograph with his or her mobile phone. Back then each photograph was taken with care, with love, and they were precious and treasured. Go through old photos of your parents and you could see for yourself. You may laugh at the funny poses and the serious faces, but take yourself back to those times. They don’t get photographed every hour like we do, and so they make the most of every opportunity they get. Sit with your girlfriend, put your arm around her, and look to the distance as if you dread the day you will be parted. A family picture? Make sure everyone is present - children, parents, uncles, cousins, grandparents, even a neighbour who happens to be around. A group photo is often accompanied by a banner or something declaring the time and the occasion and who the people were. And if you take a look at the back of those old black and white photos most of the time you would find the place and date and names of the people who appeared in the picture.

I love going through the black and white photos of my parents. And I love the old fashioned album in which they are stored, you know the kind where each photo is held in place at its four corners by triangular wedges of stiff golden paper, and a delicate soft white paper is inserted between the pages to prevent the photos from sticking together. And seeing your uncles and aunts in their youth make you realise they are more than the cranky old people they are now. They were young once just like you and me, and enjoyed their lives as best as they could.

Preserve your photographs and your memories; they may be all you have left someday.

Strictly for the nerds

2010-01-10T12:31:00.000+05:30

My travels around the web brought me to this piece which I have shamelessly copied, word by word. Don't be under any illusion that I wrote this myself. This is one of those posts which I put up just to fill up the empty space. It's already ten days into the new year and I haven't got any ideas, so here I am starting the new year with something to leave you dizzy and make your head spin with confusion.

Spoon
A spoon is a hand tool used for transporting food to the mouth. For convenience, in this Entry, the material to be transported will be called the stuff.

Structure
A spoon is made up of two parts, the bowl and the handle.
The handle is designed to allow the user to support and move the bowl in comfort, and so is usually reasonably rounded and of a size which is easily held in the hand. Some spoons have their bowl and handle made out of the same material, eg wood or metal. Many use different materials, as the differing desired characteristics of bowl and handle can often be best met by two different materials.

The bowl is a structure designed to provide a local area of reduced gravitational potential, surrounded by a closed loop of greater gravitational potential. If used in a gravitational field the bowl thus constrains the content to remain within it unless the user imposes a force on the content such as to produce an acceleration large enough to overcome the gravity well. Increasing the potential difference between the bottom and sides of the bowl (by deepening the bowl) allows the user to accelerate the spoon more rapidly in a direction perpendicular to the applied field without spillage. This modification of the bowl (as well as a change in bowl/handle relationship, and often in the size of the bowl) can be seen in a related specialised tool, the ladle.

Method of Use

The stuff to be transported is introduced into the bowl of the spoon using different methods depending on its physical state. Liquid stuff is usually put in the bowl by keeping the bowl horizontal, and moving it down into the body of the liquid until the surface of the stuff is above the outer rim (the lip) of the bowl. The bowl referred to here and throughout this Entry is the bowl of the spoon, not the vessel used to hold the liquid. At this point, the liquid will flow into the bowl down the resulting gravitational potential gradient, displacing the air from the bowl as it does so. When full, the spoon is lifted out of the liquid. The liquid cannot flow out of the bowl, due to the gravitational potential well imposed by its shape. Some liquid may be lost on the way to the user's mouth, but this is usually only a small proportion of the content of the bowl.

Solid stuff is usually introduced into the bowl by rotating the spoon along its long axis, lowering one side of the bowl. This reduces the gravitational potential gradient and physical barrier presented by the side of the bowl which prevents stuff from easily entering it. Deft manipulation of the spoon, sometimes in conjunction with the use of another implement or a piece of bread can then bring the stuff inside the lip of the bowl, and returning the spoon to an axially horizontal orientation traps the stuff in the bowl.

Spoons can carry liquid stuff to a volume equal to the volume of the interior of the bowl, plus any remaining stuff that adheres to the external surface of the bowl. Granular or powdery solid stuff are intermediate cases, as they can flow under gravity or under the influence of acceleration.

Once at the mouth, the spoon is usually emptied in one of two ways:
The slurp - this is most effective for liquid stuff. The lips of the mouth are opened slightly and the bowl of the spoon, still held horizontally, is brought up very close to or touching the lower lip at the gap between the middle of the lips. The user then inhales rapidly. The pressure drop caused by the movement of the air (the Bernoulli effect) causes the stuff to flow upwards into the air stream and enter the mouth, where it is caught when it bangs into the tongue. This is usually accompanied by a rotation of the spoon along its long axis, towards the mouth, introducing more stuff into the air stream. The bowl is often introduced into the mouth at the end of this procedure to remove any remaining stuff. The slurp is particularly useful if the bowl contains hot liquid stuff, as the creation of fine droplets of stuff in the moving air tends to make it loose its heat very rapidly to the relatively large volume of air, preventing burning of the mouth.

The placing of the bowl of the spoon in the mouth - The lips are closed around the bowl and used to retain its content in the mouth when the bowl is removed.

Spoons vary in their shape and capacity depending on their intended use. They are generally low maintenance tools, having no internal moving parts. New materials continue to extend the possibilities of spoon design.

Copied from: http://www.bbc.co.uk/dna/h2g2/A352739

50 Ways To Leave Your Lover

2009-12-28T16:04:00.005+05:30

Oh no I’m not telling you to leave your lover. Or how to. That's the title of a 1975 Paul Simon song which I find quite amusing. The song is about a mistress telling her lover to leave his wife, and some of the ways to do it. I don’t particularly like the song but the lyrics I find very entertaining.

You just slip out the back, Jack
Make a new plan, Stan
You don't need to be coy, Roy
Just get yourself free
Hop on the bus, Gus
You don't need to discuss much
Just drop off the key, Lee
And get yourself free.

Doesn’t that make you laugh? I did some Googling and came across a funny article posted in one e-newspaper, The Morning News. It said that while the song title says “50 Ways To Leave Your Lover” Paul Simon listed out only five, and then proceeded to list out the other forty-five, and called it 45 Additional Ways to Leave Your Lover. Find below the forty-five points, I bet you will laugh out loud. Find the whole article here.

45. Push him out a tree, Bree

44. Feed her to a shark, Mark

43. Harvest his kidney, Cindy

42. Make him all porous, Doris

41. Feed him some ricin, Tyson

40. Get kvetchin,’ Gretchen

39. Chop off his organ, Morgan

38. Throw her down a gorge, George

37. Punch her with an awl, Paul

36. Fake your own death, Beth

35. Hire Chaz Palminteri, Mary

34. Don’t let her fool ‘ya, Julia

33. Drop an anvil on his dick, Chick

32. Toss him off the seventh story, Laurie

31. Pulp his scrotus, Otis

30. Bury her alive, Clive

29. Run him over with a trolley, Molly

28. Feed her to the capitalist sharks! Marx!

27. Make her write a will, Bill

26. Chisel off his knees, Louise

25. Switch to the whip, Chip

24. Give her a double-barreled hug, Doug

23. Bake him in a tureen, Doreen

22. Cement him in a well, Mel

21. Bump her off a ridge, Midge

20. Start erasin,’ Jason

19. Select her sister for a mate, Nate

18. Try to poke her mom, Tom

17. Slip her a mickey, Dickey

16. Make her whip corn, Rip Torn

15. Subtract a limb, Tim

14. Make it hard for him to piss, Kris

13. Set fire to his hair, Blair

12. Hit him with a mace, Chase

11. Cook her in a stew, Llew

10. Drown him off your yacht, Dot

9. Chomp on his penis, Enos

8. Fit her for a spear, Dear

7. Staple him to the bed, Fred

6. Drown him in the Seine, Le Glen

5. Smother her with malice, Alice

4. Drop him down the flue, Sue

3. Apply the hurt, Burt

2. Amputate daily, Haley

1. Change your name to Hannah, Diana

Funny, isn’t it?

A different Christmas

2009-12-25T18:33:00.000+05:30

On account of it being Christmas and the church programme starting at three in the afternoon I woke up early this morning. I sent out a “Merry Christmas” SMS to friends and family, and my eldest brother who works and lives in Lengpui with his family sent me a reply saying they were in the middle of a “Chhangban ruai” and wished me “Happy Id.” He has a weird sense of humour which he displays only to family. Off I headed to the kitchen and started preparing lunch. I was almost done when my niece got up and announced her tummy hurt badly and she didn’t sleep much because of the pain and didn’t think she would be able to go to church. She had complained of that since the last two days and it looked like something serious. I asked her to wash up and get dressed and then we dashed out to see a doctor.

The Telangana activists had graciously called off today’s bandh because it is Christmas, but the streets were pretty empty and some stores had downed their shutters. I hailed a passing auto, and on hearing our destination the driver immediately asked for almost twice the regular fare. I wasn’t in the mood for any argument or bargaining and so we set off.

Falling sick is such a sad event. And as if to aggravate us more we tend to fall sick at the most inappropriate of times, although it could be rightly said there is never an appropriate time to be sick. I fall sick every time I go home to Mizoram, sometimes bedridden for days and sometimes a cold and the occasional fever

We went to one of the best hospitals in Hyderabad, and I was very impressed with the way things went. Smiling, helpful, friendly staff, clean surroundings and maybe because it was a holiday no long queues, the sterile hospital smell not too strong though I am sad to say it was not completely absent, all in all not a bad experience. The doctor asked us to go for this test and that test and we were in the hospital for quite a while. In between waiting for tests we watched Telugu serials on the mounted TV’s - not something I’d care to do again, sent a hundred text messages with my clumsy thumbs, and passed comments on the people around us which was fun because they didn’t have a clue what we said. It was past three when we finished all the tests and were able to go home. We bought a Christmas cake from a nearby bakery where the owner wished me a cheerful “Merry Christmas” – that was one of the best and most genuine Merry Christmases I’ve ever received. The auto driver kept talking on his mobile phone all the way home, and when he didn’t have change ( auto drivers never do) I didn’t make him check all his pockets or get change from a nearby shop, I simply walked away without demanding for my change. It must have been the Christmas effect, or the hospital effect, or the joy of being alive without any aches or pains.

Some of the test results will be out tomorrow, and that means another trip and another examination. The bandh has been moved to tomorrow which is something quite ridiculous and could happen only in

India

. I just hope we would be able to go out safely amidst the encircling gloom… well not quite, amidst the rioting stone throwing buses burning suicide threatening separate state demanding “fasting” unto death “patriots”.

A Christmas movie

2009-12-13T03:24:00.008+05:30

I have just finished watching the Christmas movie Joyeux Noël, about the truce between the German, French, and Scottish soldiers on Christmas Eve of 1914. It is based on real occurrences of which many of us would be aware.

An Internet search reveals the truce began on Christmas Eve on 1914, when German troops began decorating the area around their trenches in the region of Ypres, Belgium for Christmas. In 1915 there was a similar Christmas truce between German and French troops, and during Easter 1916 a truce also existed on the Eastern Front.

Okay I am not going into details, if you want to know more you can google it. This is about the movie, a tearjerking heartwarming sappy Christmas movie. Even though it takes place during the war, it would be wrong to say it is a war movie. It has romance, friendship, family, religion, and of course the war. It makes one realise the futility of war and that no matter how much you have been taught to hate your enemies, at the end of the day they are also people with families, somebody’s son with mothers and wives waiting for them back home.

Like I said, the movie has many elements. You have the opera singer who was drafted and on Christmas Eve when he went to sing for the Crown Prince with his girlfriend, who was also an opera singer, she persuaded him to take her to the front where she sang for the troops. The soldier was then arrested for disobedience, and rather than risk being separated the lovers surrendered to the French. Then there was the young Scottish boy whose brother was killed, but he kept writing letters to his mother from both of them. The French lieutenant whose wife was pregnant and since nobody could communicate with them he had no idea what happened to her or whether he had a son or daughter. The Scottish priest who went along with the recruits from his parish, who held “the most important mass of his life” on that Christmas Eve, to a congregation of French and German and Scottish soldiers. The young French soldier who longed for his mother and her hot coffee, his house was only an hour away from the front and on Boxing Day he disguised himself as a German soldier and went home. When he came back he was spotted by a visiting Major (who was quite angry about the truce) and gave orders for him to be shot. Before he died, his lieutenant came to hold him and with his last breath the soldier whispered about his mother and delivered the news that the lieutenant had a son.

Alfred Anderson, the last survivor of the Christmas Truce of 1914 died on 21 November, 2005 at a nursing home in his native Scotland. He was 109 years old.

On 11 November 2008, the first official Truce memorial was unveiled in Frelinghien, France, the site of a Christmas Truce football game in 1914.

If you have the time, do watch this movie. Although the incident took place almost a hundred years ago, it will restore your faith in humanity.

‘Tis the season to be nostalgic

2009-12-04T14:17:00.002+05:30

Wouldn’t you agree? Is it the cold, or is it the Christmassy feeling that hangs in the air, is it because people are packing their bags left right and center and going home? All of the above, I guess. This year seems to be colder than other years, and last night I took out a pair of warm socks which I wore to bed. But not before having a good laugh. My mother bought that particular pair for me the last time I was home, and it was one of those long socks which go until the knees. Whenever I wore it my brothers would ask me if I was going to play football and remembering that made me laugh out loud.

The sun is not too hot anymore, and the afternoons are lovely. The sun’s warm golden rays stream in through the window, fall on my bed, making me wish I could just lie in bed and enjoy the warmth. But alas, afternoon is when I go to work, and on weekends the weather turns cloudy as if the gods are scheming to deprive me of my sunshine. The light is just perfect to take a picture, so if you’re naturally ugly or hopelessly non-photogenic, afternoon is the right time to get your picture taken.

With the festivals following one another since September there is an air of festivity all around. Every shop is having a sale, each one more outrageous than the next (Buy 2 get 10, buy 1 get 1 free etc). Very soon the Santa caps will be out on the streets, with hawkers wearing and selling them at traffic signals and busy street corners. The big malls will again put up their beautifully decorated Christmas trees. The stores selling Christmas stuff will be opened once again.

Back home, the month of December will be packed with activities. The markets will be unbelievably crowded, the shopkeepers will be super busy selling their overpriced wares and people will still be buying them because we are a fashion crazy tribe who do not know what we can and cannot afford. Okay I am not going down that route. The schools will be closed and kids will have the times of their lives roaming about playing with friends (or stay at home playing computer games), Christmas Carols, Santa Claus Nites, this-and-that concert in aid of so-and-so, a flurry of weddings will be seen, singletons will run around in a tizzy looking for someone to spend Christmas and New Year with, and people will be travelling to go home to be with their folks.

I will not be going home this Christmas. My eight-year-old niece couldn’t understand why. She wants me to, not because she missed me greatly but only because she wanted the gifts which I always bring for her. I saw right through her. Whenever we speak on the phone she always asks when I’ll be home, so when I told her I would be home only in April or May she was very disappointed. "But that is so far away," she said, and counted the months (this conversation took place some time in October) .

"Six months! But why are you not coming home for Christmas?"

I told her I had to work.

"But you always come home for Christmas!"

Six months will go by very quickly, I said.

"But still..."

She wanted a remote controlled Barbie which I always promised to get her next time, and of course next time never comes.

Three weeks to go. I am not really looking forward to it. Christmas has lost its shine and glamour as we grow older; it has become just another excuse to shop and spend money. I envy the innocent children for whom Christmas means new clothes and toys, fun and excitement; it is at times like these that I wished I was a child again.

Three weeks to go.

Time

2009-11-28T10:35:00.004+05:30

Time flies when you're having fun, so the old saying goes. But time also flies when you're having a miserable time, when you're not doing anything great, or if life is so-so, or if you're just doing everyday things and achieving nothing in particular. That's one thing about time that will never change: it flies.

It's hard to believe that it's already the end of November. Another month and this year will be over, and before you know it the new year will be upon us, hurtling us towards middle age and then old age and wrinkles and senility and gray hair and eventually death. Scary, isn't it?

A few days ago I played a game on Facebook called Social Interview where FB asked me 21 random questions. One of the questions was "Have you learned anything this year?" I didn't have any answer to it. I didn't learn anything new, I didn't learn how to play the guitar (which I've tried but I'm hopeless at), didn't learn how to dance, or paint, or play chess better. I didn't learn how to be a better person, how to communicate better with others, how to improve my social skills, or how to be more forgiving and not hold any grudges. I didn't learn anything new about the world around me, I didn't read about Greek mythology which I find quite fascinating but about which I know very little. I started reading Ramayana but other books interfered and I am still somewhere on the first one hundred pages. I didn't finish reading The Bible, didn't even finish reading my Daily Bread. To cut a long story short: I was lazy.

If there's anything I hate, it's laziness. I hate people who are inefficient and unproductive and incompetent. More than that, I hate people who don't try. And here I am being everything I hated, being everything I detested. What is the world coming to? Am I spiralling down towards complete inefficiency and slowly turning into a lazy lout? Is my life without purpose, without any goals, am I just drifting along?

This new year I wrote that I wouldn't be making any New Year resolutions. Because I never keep them. And so I didn't, and here I am now at the tail end of the year, doing exactly the same thing I did eleven months ago, my daily routine the same as ever. Would I be better off if I had made some resolutions when the year began? Would I have made some changes in my life if I had promised to do so? Maybe yes. Resolutions are like goals, like reminders, you need to work towards achieving them. They fill your life with purpose, with objectives, and give you a sense of fulfillment when you keep them. And in some way keep you from being lazy.

Have you ever noticed how one day goes so slowly but the months and the years just fly by? Everyday we go to work hoping the month would end so we can get paid, and one fine morning we wake up and realise that a whole year had gone by waiting for the month-end. Every new year I'd always write how I wished it would be a better year, a more productive and more fruitful year, but somehow somewhere along the way I guess I must have lost track because I always end up in the same spot when the last day of the year rolled around.

So will I be making resolutions next year? I don't know, maybe I will, only time will tell.

Comics

2009-11-19T01:47:00.015+05:30

To be precise: comic books, as Thompson would have said (that’s Thompson with a P, as in pneumonia). We have always referred to comic books as comics, hence the title. Not to be confused with those funny men who make people laugh, although in the true sense they are the real comics, but we didn’t know that when we were kids, did we?

I have always enjoyed reading comics. And I guess you do too. Comics are easy to read, funny, easy on the eyes, entertaining and sometimes educating. Which child doesn’t love reading them? I bet most of you would have grown up reading the occasional comic book. Even in this day and age I still read them; they bring out the child in me along with wonderful memories. Before I fell in love with books, I discovered comics and the love story continues unto this day.

My cousins were as mad about comics as I was, and we would spend hours raiding each other’s collections. One cousin in particular had a huge collection and I think his collection was always the worst hit. My mother would tell us about the day when we were very young when he came to our house. It seemed he sat in the sitting room all by himself and would laugh out occasionally. So when my mother went to investigate what was making him laugh so much it turned out he was reading Sudden Muanga.

Phantom is always the first character that comes to mind when discussing comics. The Ghost Who Walks, The Man Who Cannot Die, living in the skull cave and tirelessly fighting crime and making the word a peaceful place to live in. And that famous opening line “For those who came in late….” And of course any Phantom fan would be familiar with the old jungle sayings – “Phantom moves faster than lightning” “You never find the Phantom, he finds you.” “Call the Phantom anywhere, and he will hear.” Find more Old Jungle Sayings here. And how can we forget Hero and Devil, his faithful companions, and his two rings, and the Bandar, Old Man Mozz, Rex, Diana, Guran, the deep woods, the skull throne, the list could go on and on.

I looked up Phantom and was amazed to learn that the first Phantom comic strip was published in 1936. Its creator, Lee Falk, also created Mandrake the magician, another favourite. Mandrake was first published in 1934. We were amazed by the many magic “tricks” performed by Mandrake, although many times it was explained that it was hypnotism. Lothar, his companion, his girlfriend Narda who lived in Xanadu, his many enemies, most famous of all the group 8, whose leader the mysterious Octon who was never seen and always addressed the members from behind a curtain, or was it through a speaker? I’m not so sure anymore. One story I can never forget is that of the Invisible Man, who it turned out had worn a special kind of fabric that deflected light or something like that making him invisible. Mandrake sprayed paint on him and he was revealed.

Thanks to Indrajal Comics these wonderful comic books found their ways into our homes and our hearts. Other comics which I can remember were Flash Gordon and his many adventures in space, his partners Dale and Dr Zarkov, and good old Bahadur - the man with the muscle, Rip Kirby the detective, and Timpa. Do you remember Timpa and his grandfather? Although he never had a comic book dedicated to him, the adventures of Timpa were often seen on the last few pages of the regular comic books. And then there were Garth and Dara, but I didn’t read them much.

Next stop –Archie. Ah now I can see the smiles on your faces. Who doesn’t read Archie comics? My favourite character is Jughead, followed by Mr. Lodge. Then there were other comics like Katy Keene, Richie Rich, Disney comics, and Famous Five. There was a time when I was mad about MAD, that was the time before the Indian edition came out, and I would buy secondhands. I bound all my MAD magazines in one fat book, and a nephew borrowed it and that was the last time I ever saw it. So if you ever come across something like that, with my name written on it, please keep it safe for me.

Do you remember those girls comics? Black and white, always about a young girl, and the name of the comics would always be girls’ names, like Bunty, Mandy etc. They were also very popular, and you also have the romantic comics of the same type. Oh and also Blue Jeans, the ones with the photographs in it, somewhat like Photoromance. Ahh Photoromance, Kiss… I think every girl growing up in the 70s-90s must be aware of them. Before we started reading the M&Bs they were our staple diet, our only source of romantic stories. A google search tells me that they were published from Lancio in Rome, Italy from around 1975 to 1991. No wonder all the actors were Italian.

Westerns and Commando. Small, black and white, but very interesting and very informative. Cowboys and their lives fascinated us. The Commando books were almost always about World War II, and of course the Germans and the Japanese were always the villains. But those comics taught us a lot about history. I wish I could read them again. If I’d known they would be so precious and valuable I would have kept them safe and never lent them to anyone. But that’s the thing with comics. They are continuously circulated. We would have a trunk full of comics, but none of them would be ours. And if you go and check out other people’s collection you would probably find the same thing, and many of the times your own comic books.

A couple of weeks ago I bought a few Tintin comic books. Tintin is easily one of my most favourite comic books. There is mystery, adventure, international conspiracies, and Captain Haddock is there for the fun element. And also the Thomson twins. But my favourite character is not Tintin or the Captain, it is Jolyon Wagg, the annoyingly cheerful salesman who always turns up at the most unlikely places and could never get a hint.

If Tintin comes, can Asterix be far behind? The small Gaul hero with his faithful partner Obelix. I love Asterix as much as I love Tintin. The best thing about the Asterix series is the names, my favourite being Unhygienix the fishmonger. Vitalstatistix, Getafix, Cacofonix, Impedimenta, Fulliautomatix, Geriatrix etc – all the names are suited to their occupation and personality. And the Roman soldiers are extremely funny, one common dialogue among them being “Join the army they said, it’s a man’s life they said” (usually just before or after they are beaten up by the Gauls). Asterix turned 50 recently , on 22 October 2009. For this occasion Albert Uderzo has created an album of Asterix short stories - Asterix and Obelix's Birthday - The Golden Book.

Calvin and Hobbes is a recent favourite. The imaginative six year old boy and his stuffed tiger that comes alive only when no one is around. Do you know that the last Calvin and Hobbes comic book was published in 1996? I’ve tried collecting them but they are too expensive, but I’m still hoping to have all the books in the series.

Oh boy this is turning into one long rambling post. But I’m not yet finished. I mentioned Sudden Muanga earlier, another character that never failed to entertain us. Of course I’m talking about the old Sudden Muanga, when he was still a skinny cowboy without a care in the world, before he turned political and religious and became boring. His horse Daii, his sidekick Hleizuama, his lady love Tumsangi, and his love of Saum.

I still read comics. The first thing I read in a newspaper is the comics section. I have recently taken up collecting comics again, but this time I will not lend them to anyone, no matter how much they plead or beg or grovel.

Passing the Purple Hat

2009-11-11T14:46:00.005+05:30

A friend sent me an email, one of those chain mails, titled "Passing the purple hat." I don't know how to describe it, so let me just paste it here:

"In honor of women's history month and in memory of Erma Bombeck who lost her fight with polycystic kidney disease after undergoing a kidney transplant at the age of 69. Here is an angel sent to watch over you."

I was shocked. Erma Bombeck is one of my favourite authors. I never knew she was dead; I just assumed she would be still alive somewhere and would be a funny old lady. She'd died in 1996, much before I'd ever heard of her. I obviously didn't do my homework and looked her up.

"Erma Louise Bombeck (February 21, 1927 – April 22, 1996), was an American humorist who achieved great popularity for her newspaper column that described suburban home life humorously from the mid-1960s until the late 1990s. Bombeck also published 15 books, most of which became best-sellers." - Wikipedia.

I was introduced to Erma when I read an article of hers in Reader's Digest; I think it was around 2002-03. The article was short, but funny, and could be about any family anywhere in the world. As was most of her books. She wrote about family life, mostly her family. She had two sons and a daughter, and like any family they had their arguments, fights, eccentricities and funny moments. It was written from a housewife's point of view, but besides being funny her books always have a good message at the end, like how much she loved her family no matter what happened, how lucky she was to be blessed with three beautiful children etc etc.

Any mother reading Erma Bombeck’s books would instantly identify with her, in fact all of us could in some way or the other identify with some character or the other in her books. After all, we were all teenagers once, and most of us would have grown up with a couple of siblings and would know a thing or two about sibling rivalry and the usual petty fights. Socks that don't match, children fighting at the dinner table, children fighting to see who would get the window seat in the car while travelling, the joys and travails of having a dog / any other pet, children doing homework at the very last minute, children avoiding household chores, couples fighting, exercising, varicose veins, advice from mothers, and other thousand everyday situations could be found in her books. I simply love the way she writes, for example –

Ever since I can remember, our home has harbored a fourth child - I.Dunno. Everyone sees him but me. All I know is, he’s rotten.

“Who left the front door open”?

“I.Dunno.”

“Who let the soap melt down the drain?”

“I.Dunno.”

“Who ate the banana I was saving for the cake?”

“I.Dunno.”

Frankly, I.Dunno is driving me nuts.

See? How can you not love her? How can you not identify with her or with the situation? So go to your nearest bookstore and pick up all the Erma Bombeck books you can lay your hands on. Satisfaction guaranteed. She also has a lot of funny quotes, look them up, I assure you they will leave a smile on your lips.

Coming back to the email I received – it went on like this –

IF I HAD MY LIFE TO LIVE OVER - by Erma Bombeck

I would have gone to bed when I was sick instead of pretending the earth would go into a holding pattern if I weren't there for the day.

I would have burned the pink candle sculpted like a rose before it melted in storage.

I would have talked less and listened more.

I would have invited friends over to dinner even if the carpet was stained, or the sofa faded.

I would have eaten the popcorn in the 'good' living room and worried much less about the dirt when someone wanted to light a fire in the fireplace.

I would have taken the time to listen to my grandfather ramble about his youth.

I would have shared more of the responsibility carried by my husband.

I would never have insisted the car windows be rolled up on a summer day because my hair had just been teased and sprayed.

I would have sat on the lawn with my grass stains.

I would have cried and laughed less while watching television and more while watching life.

I would never have bought anything just because it was practical, wouldn't show soil, or was guaranteed to last a lifetime.

Instead of wishing away nine months of pregnancy, I'd have cherished every moment and realized that the wonderment growing inside me was the only chance in life to assist God in a miracle.

When my kids kissed me impetuously, I would never have said, "Later. Now go get washed up for dinner." There would have been more "I love you's." More "I'm sorry's."

But mostly, given another shot at life, I would seize every minute...look at it and really see it, live it and never give it back. Stop sweating the small stuff.

Don't worry about who doesn't like you, who has more, or who's doing what.

Instead, let's cherish the relationships we have with those who do love us.

Let's think about what God HAS blessed us with. And what we are doing each day to promote ourselves mentally, physically, emotionally. I hope you all have a blessed day.

The Long and Short of it

2009-11-06T04:47:00.001+05:30

Of hair. A hairstyle goes a long way in defining how you look; it can make you or break you. No wonder all of us our obsessed with it. Well, obsessed may be a tad strong, maybe concerned, or worried. I think I swing between obsessed and concerned, that’s how worried I am about my hair and how it makes me look. Lord knows I am no beauty queen and I need all the help I can get from my hair to make me a little more presentable and look-able. And so I am constantly chopping off my hair in search of the perfect hairstyle so that I can hopefully come close to being a sight for sore eyes, not that I harbour any illusions that I will end up looking like a movie star.

As kids my sister and I longed for long flowing hair, but my mother would have none of it. And my sister was quite unfortunate in that she went to PC Girls School, the prescribed haircut there being hair should be so short the tip of your ears should be visible, and no hair falling on the eyes - the eyebrows should be clearly visible. In short, the helmet hair. She endured nine years of that. Even though I went to a different school I sported the same style. We would take a bedsheet or shawl or long piece of cloth and tie it around our heads so that it falls down on our backs and we’d pretend it was our hair. And during the corn season we would take the golden coloured corn hair and put it on our heads and for a while feel very good about ourselves.

I sported the helmet look until I was sixteen, when my mother finally allowed me to grow it long. It was supposed to feel good, to feel grown up, having long hair, but I discovered it really was no big deal. It was the same hair which I’d had for years – thin, brown, fine, albeit a little longer. I duly wore it long for about four years, until I yearned for hassle free hair that doesn’t need combing and doesn’t stick to your neck on hot summer days, so I cut it short. Very short. Big mistake. I looked like a schoolboy. A boy friend said I looked like a madman. It took a couple of years for my hair to get back to normal. By normal I mean shoulder length. I then patiently let it grow, trimming the edges now and then. But the grass is always greener on the other side and quite a few times I had gone over and tried something new, but never anything as drastic as the schoolboy look. Currently I am somewhere between the schoolboy and the shoulder length, you know one of those short-at-the-top-but-a-bit-long-in-the-back kind of thing.

All said and done, I still like short hair. Sure, long hair is beautiful, it makes one feminine and graceful and your crowning glory, men are crazy about it etc etc, and I love long hair, but not on me. When I see girls with long smooth hair I’d go “Wow it’d be nice having hair like that” but the moment my hair goes past my shoulders I strain my neck looking for the nearest place where I can chop them off.

Short hair is confident, it is sexy, and it is self-assured. But long hair is embedded in our minds as the symbol of beauty, fertility and whatnot, even in our stories the beautiful maiden always has long flowing silky hair. You’d never hear of the heroine in a helmet haircut waiting to be rescued from the dragon, or the bald beauty locked up in a tower waiting for her prince, or the strand of shoulder length hair that impressed a king so much he sent his men looking for the maiden to whom it belonged.

Men are hairier than women. They have hair in places we don’t. So I think it is only natural that they should be the ones with long hair and we women should all go tonsured. Then they can talk with their men friends about shampoos and conditioners and colours and styles and hairbands and hairclips. And women can talk about head polish and head cream and head lotions and head perfume and head makeup. It’d be fun.

But that is just a theory. A figment of my imagination. I hate men with long hair. Men with long hair should be punishable by law. Men don’t look good with long hair unless they are sportspersons or rock stars. The average guy on the street who thinks he looks real cool with his slick ponytail or gelled shoulder length hair makes me want to go on a hunger strike. Not to mention it makes him look like the guy in a porn movie. And adds years to his face. So if you want to look like an aging B grade actor, go ahead, avoid that barbershop. And if I see you the streets I would pretend not to know you. It'd be fun.