Su is getting married!

Update on one of my previous posts: "Su wants to get married"

Su is getting married. which is a good thing because she is getting married to a person who truly loves her. Cynical that I am about marriages and relationships, I firmly believe that love and familiarity are the only right reasons to get married.

It was around 8 months back that she called to tell me that Wisdom had proposed to her. Wisdom had been the topic of quite a few of our animated conversations prior to this, so the date was something that was just waiting to happen. But the sudden proposal was totally unexpected and I remember being as excited as a teen girl watching Robert Pattinson in twilight when I heard the news. But the real confirmation was not going to come for a long long time and everyone, including Wisdom, waited for a good 6-7 months.

Now that the d-day is just 2 days away, I am feeling all emotional and genuinely happy. Quite opposite to me, Su has always loved marriages and kids and happy little families who sing and dance together. And I truly truly wish her dream comes true for her.

And I am not feeling bad like last time when my other friends got maried because after marriage Su will live closer to my house in Mumbai. Fun.

Mugged in Mumbai

Light coffee table banter in office with people from a different team. Normal conversation ensues when suddenly one fellow says

You know, I was mugged in Mumbai?

All my life, I have been shouting from rooftops that Mumbai is the safest city in India. So it was quite an embarrassment for me.

The story goes that the guy gets down at the domestic airport, doesnt take the pre-paid cab, gets into one random cab. The cab driver tells him it will take 45 minutes to reach the international airport (?? The distance is around 15 mins). Then in one alley, he stops the cab and asks this guy to pay up Rs.2500. When our guy says he doesnt have this kind of money they ask him to pay up in dollars (HAHA). And even the inside locks are disabled. Our guy throws the notes on the cab driver's face who is distracted by this. Our guy then pulls down the window, reaches for the handle on the outside and escapes.

Now, the twist. It seems there were 2 guys in the cab. WHY? I mean why would you ever sit in a cab which already has an extra person? Doesnt it smell fishy from the word go? Infact, when I came to Bangalore for the first time, even I took a regular cab. After I sat in the cab another guy came and sat with the driver. I opened the door and told him in no uncertain terms that there can be only one person (other than the driver) in this cab. The extra guy got out. Smart eh?

Reminds me, this was one of the earliest lessons that my mom taught us and drilled it into our heads. Wondering if it really saved me from mugging that day and wondering whether I would have behaved in the same way if this was not there in the back of my head.

A solution for crowded prisons - Send one girl back!

In a TOI report:

"How many of your room mates smoke?'' "Do you drink?'' Pamela could take it no more. Hurt and humiliated, she broke down in the over-crowded court, pleading for privacy in the trial.
[]
The accused, Pragnesh Chhatrada, had come to her apartment to repair a shower. Seeing her alone, he pulled her by the hand and tried to kiss her, Pamela (name changed) told the police.
[]
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What made my blood boil was the remark by the defence lawyer: At one point Prajapati said, "If I were a woman and behaved like her (Pamela), one man would go to jail daily.'' Makes me wonder, what would Mr. Prajapati do that would send one guy to jail daily? hmm... And is it the same person going to jail or different people everyday?

Having said that, even if people would go to jail just by being around Pamela, then they should no? Why blame her?

Dear Salman Khan

Salman Khan is everywhere - news channels, music channels, movie channels, random channels - giving interviews and sound bytes.

Happened to catch one of his interviews on NDTV and (SURPRISE!!) was disgusted at the end of it.

For one question he says that he doesnt care about other people's opinions and what they think of him. he does whatever he feels like because thats "him".

For the next question he says that he imposes a dress code on the women in his life because if someone comments on his girl he'll feel really bad - if he hits them he'll feel bad and if he lets them go he'll feel bad. So to avoid all this he instructs his girlfriends to be covered.

And in the same breath he says that he has no double standards. WTF?

I would like someone to explain to him that doing what you want because thats "you" but not letting another individual do what she wants for whatever reasons is called double standards. Your way of thinking - ofcourse we cant hope to change it at your age. Atleast get yourself a good English teacher.

SC or PETA?

TOI reports that according to a Supreme Court order kicking your daughter-in-law does not amount to cruelty. A divorce threat is fine too. huh?

Now, I am sure, if a dog had gone to PETA and complained that it has been kicked, PETA would have taken up its cause and kicked the ass of whoever kicked the dog.

Just wondering if we can approach PETA? After all, I was taught that human beings are social animals.

Somewhere else came across this quote by Zach Braff on abortion.
"Don't get me wrong, I love the idea of killing unwanted babies, it's just that the idea of letting women make a decision doesn't sit well with me."
He is good looking and funny. He can say that.

history is being written

No No..N Korea is not nuking its beloved friends..I have forgotten my cell phone at home. And I would like to commemorate this historic day with a post.

Since time immemorial, I have been a phone addict. And since I moved to bangalore, the simple device has symbolized great many things in my life, such as - my single point contact to all my fav people, not-so-fav people, my ipod, my watch (I completely stopped wearing watches long time back. As of today, I dont own a single watch!),my trusted alarm, my camera, my repository, my secretary, my batmobile. OK so I exaggerate a bit, but then you get the point.

And today, I am going to go the whole day without it. Its only been an hour and I have already started getting withdrawal symptoms.

While on the topic of cell phones, I have recently got myself an iphone. And I would like to point you to my friend's post on apple products. Little sexist, fun nonetheless.

of honest and not-honest

yesterday was not a good day. As it is there is no love left to be lost between me and the male species. Of whatever little is left, quite a lot was lost yeasterday. I dont have too high an opinion of men, but my friend's husband hitting on me, was a real low point. I havent even met him for more than an hour. And this was a person who appears nice and shy types with a clean image. Makes me wonder, whom to trust and whom not to and if at all, then how to trust? With such disguised creepy guys around.

***

Kaurvika got her exam papers back and got a 9 on the test. Here is her story:
"I got the paper and I had a 10/10. But then I saw that I had done something wrong and mam had overlooked it. So I went and told her that you have not cut my marks for this."

the teacher was really impressed with this show of honesty and told her, and I quote Kaurvika, "honest is good". And then she announced in front of the whole class how kaurvika has done a wonderful thing. And kaurvika was proud of herself.

woww...I hope she learns better as she grows up. Like my dad says so often "hamare bacche kisi kaam ke nahi hain"

***

I would like to believe that the innocent "honest is good" had a special meaning yesterday.

300 words just dont do it

...but unfortunately thats all i get to tell a stranger who has never seen me (and maybe never will) to tell about my past, where i want to go in life and how ISB will help me get there. How is it even possible?

The first draft I wrote had above 1000 words. Then I shortened and got it down to 750. But below that, I had to chop out some serious information. I dont know if I get the point across now since Ive reduced it to 300 words.

If you ever happen to read my earlier posts, you'll know that I am a sucker for rambling. I go on and on like crazy people. People have to come and hand cuff me and tie me down to my bed so that I'd stop writing.

And now I am supposed to describe my 3 distinguishing qualities in 300 words. I say "Im a good girl" and boom! 300 words over.

But then a girl has to do what she has to do. I've finished my first draft. Cant say about the content and the impact though. After all, what will the adcom think of me if I just get to say "Im a good girl"? They'll probably stretch and yawn and say "lady, the world is full of good girls"...and then in the extended stretch, they'll push my application in the dust bin.

Another blow to the fragile male ego!

This time, its the scientists who have landed the blow.

Men are mostly redundant in the current scheme of things. Except for procreation ofcourse, that too, just one of their cells. Get offended for all I care, but I have held this belief for past many years now.

Take a typical urban setting. The woman earns, the woman cleans, the woman cooks, the woman gives birth, the woman feeds and takes care of and raises the child. All this while the man could be sitting and drinking his ass off in a bar. He is redundant. His only role was the ten minutes it took him to provide his swimmers.

And even that is taken away from him now. Sperm cells can technically be generated from stem cells in the lab. Ha!

Ok men can be useful too. A man and woman come together many times. A very small fraction of that is to actually create babies. So there you go.

However, there is a thing about evolution. It phases out the redundant. Body hair, wisdom teeth, sharp canines, claws and suchlike. The man now has no real use. Except being a boy toy. Every woman likes those.

So do the maths yourself. Who is going and who is staying on?

Monkeys and the people who matter

Have you have ever wondered why when a bus full of people falls into a river, we just say "too bad" and turn to some other section of the newspaper? The same people who would be enraged to the point of wanting to kill the teacher who shouted at their sister would be quite okay if a plane full of other people's sisters crashes in mid-air.

Well, if you have wondered, then I have this interesting read for you.

*****
Btw, if I am in your monkeysphere, I have started my mba apps and im getting killed by all the writing i am doing. Its amazing how much time I can spend on finding the perfect word or framing the right sentence. And see, no slang.

child marriage is indian culture. Sex education is not.

Excerpts from an article in TOI:

[]
The Committee on Petitions headed by the BJP’s Venkaiah Naidu is a cross-party group up of nine Rajya Sabha members. The Committee has said there should be no sex education in schools because it promotes promiscuity and India’s “social and cultural ethos are such that sex education has absolutely no place in it.”

[]

Child marriage means huge numbers of adolescent Indians indulge in “legal” sexual activity. Mehra says politicians have long promoted regressive policy on the pretext of culture.
[]
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If you teach someone the use of AK-47, he can very well kill hundreds of people in the streets. Still, you will not send your soldier on the war front without teaching them the use of AK-47, will you?? (unless you really hate the soldier).

Who will explain to these politicians that sex education DOES NOT TEACH YOU TO HAVE SEX AND BE PROMISCUOUS.

The same culture which forces girls to become pregnant at the age of 14, denies them information about what they are getting into. What sort of a culture is this? Messed up and regressive I would say.The reason why i stopped listening to the culture bullshit some years ago.

another one on bangalore weather

if you think its getting a bit too much on the weather then pardon me..im a mumbaiite.

this was a sunday..got up early in the morning and went to buy plants for the home sweet home..it had rained last night and it was still cloudy...no sun. I was driving down 100 ft road.

Now, this road is lined up on both sides by these big trees that hand shake across the road. and quite a few of them are gulmohur which is on full bloom btw. and there were hardly any vehicles on the road.

And then i felt that if blore was not the place that took me away from mumbai, i would have fallen in love with it. i mean how far would i have to drive from my home in mumbai to witness such beautiful weather and roads lined by such trees? i dont know...generally ppl start sweating as soon as they get out of bed in mumbai.

Cat shows and abuse

...all contents of a dance reality show "jhalak dikhlaa ja". I saw the episode this week.
Points to be noted:

Saroj Khan says: "I have seen cat shows" [pause] "in New York"
Point taken. You have been beyond viraar churchgate stretch. Or was that not your point? Also it was quite racist of her. As if our Indian cats are not good enough.

On a serious note:
Sonia Jaffar says: (on abuse in her past relation) "There is a God and he has redeemed me and today I can be here without being ashamed"
Pity we expect the victim to feel ashamed.

Also check out instructions to take care of babies. Will go a very long way in making you the perfect parent.

Damn it!!!

For the fun of it, as I have no work at office, as my boss has asked me to 'look up' AMI and as I have been 'looking up' AMI for past 5 days, I was going through a blog and came acroos this site, which tells you whether you are male or female based on your browser history.

Now, I have known with not much doubt, that im a bit boyish what with my friends telling me things like:

"You are a girl? from which angle?" ..i hope they didnt mean physically, I take efforts to maintain my waist-to-hip ratio.

"I dont like hanging out with girls. With you its ok, you arent a girl anyway."

"How could they make you a girl?"

"very late into the creation process, God changed Her mind and made you a girl. Thats a plausible explanation."

But I was shocked to read the result of the above site:
Likelihood of you being FEMALE is 31%
Likelihood of you being MALE is 69%

Site Male-Female Ratio
google.com 0.98
wikipedia.org 1.08
blogger.com 1.06
indiatimes.com 1.86
orkut.com 1.08

I wasnt expecting a 97% female or something but 69% female would have given me something to argue over next time my friends commented on my 'girl' quotient. There goes the chance. Damn it!!

Im off to searching for manicure tips.

I would like to thank...

Do you know the feeling when the male ego is crushed? by a female. The feeling when men who if put on a level playing field do not even come up to your shoulder level but still feel you are inferior just because you are a girl? (OK the last rhetoric was only for girls) And do you know the feeling when you very personally crush that cloud of superiority that clouds their vision?

I know that feeling, the smug malicious satisfaction and I can safely say, i love it.

Without getting into details of male delusions of grandeur (one day ill write a book), i would like to thank my mom and dad for making me the person I am, for giving me the oppurtunities so that i can get on a level playing field with men, for making me capable enough to compete with THE 'superior' male..capable enough to compete with him and kick his ass.

score card

as i mentioned a post or 2 earlier, i recently completed one year in bangalore...a place i hated to come to..nothing personal against this village but just generally, i hated to leave mumbai and my family..and the power cuts, the 11pm deadline and the fact that i cant go for a walk alone after 9/10 pm didnt help.

And yet here i am 1 year later..in this village. So, now its time to look back and take stock of the situation..what i have and what i have not managed to accomplish in this past year. Ask me why i have decided to write such a post out of the blue. Answer: its not out of the blue. I have just taken my GMAT and this was one of my primary goals when i came to this village. So i decided to take a look at all the other things that i have/havent done.

1. I have taken my GMAT and managed to do pretty well.
2. I got a learner's license for 2-wheelers. I didnt do anything about it though. I was all set to get a 2-wheeler from a friend but the damn thing refused to start and my dad gave me his car, so i forgot about 2-wheelers.
3. I bought a complete catalog of stuff you need for a house: refrigerator, washing machine, tv, cooking gas, every single thing thats in my house with my own money :)
4. I managed to see the trash collection vehicle after one year of staying here. This part sucks about blore..early in the morning, one guy and one gal and their loud speaker teach you the civility of not throwing garbage on the roads and stuff. AAAHhh it sucks!! its the most depressing thing to hear early in the morning. And it took me close to one year to see the source of this wrath. Though they had disturbed my sleep quite a few times.
5. I havent yet managed to go to commercial street..the shopping mecca.
6. I have become a loyal benetton wearer coz the store is really big, spacious, beautiful, and a 2 mins walk from my house. Also, i love the clothes and colors. One of the reasons why i didnt go to commercial street.
7. I havent gone to nasa..the pub. This was the place i went to when i first came to blore in 1997 with su and maggi. But ive discovered some other good places.
8. Power cuts dont pyshce me any more. The first time i experienced a power cut i went into a depression. The second time, i was like what if the power doesnt come back for 2 days. But 1 year in this village has made me more comfortable with power cuts. When at home, I keep my laptop, mobiles charged and you'll never catch me without candles at home.
9. I am done with my trip to orange county, coorg..another one in my to-do list that i made before coming here. and it was beautiful.
10. I am yet to see nandi hills though.
11. I havent started my guitar classes or dance classes.
12. This one takes the cake: I have got (or shud it be gotten...damn you GMAT) used to driving without wearing the seat belt...it has been a real problem for me..i just cudnt go even 100 mts wihtout wearing the seat belt and i could see that here it was absolutely fine to drive without it. But I could never do it..somehow. But one day after almost one whole year of wanting to do it, I suddenly realized that I had been driving without the seat belt for some days without even noticing. So a good habit..given up.
13. I play baddy and TT and carrom now :)
14. I havent gone for a trek.
15. I sat on my terrace in awesome weather (really f**king awesome), listened to great music and had wine. I even drank in the rain. something i cant even imagine doing in mumbai. first the building has 34 floors and i need special permission to go on the terrace..second, the weather is just the opposite of really f**king awesome. i would sweat to death.
16. I saw a rainbow from the door of my house. Again cant even imagine this in mumbai.
17. I often see monkeys from my office terrace.
18. I have never seen such a beautiful night sky from my window like the one i see here. (for that matter, even day sky)

Cheers to one good year!!

pride and insight

its amazing how much insight almost-complete strangers can give you about yourself. Must admit, before this I was never open to other people dissecting me, but now i dont go all mad if you say something a little nasty but true.

I mean imagine a white guy i met on a bus ride to the airport says something like "you have a lot of pride"..and im like "yeah he may be right..just a tad bit but right" see its like it was cold and he ordered hot chocolate and i took something cold to drink and he suggested that i could change my order..then he offered me his drink but nope..moi stuck to my chilly drink in chilly weather.. and then he came up with that pearl of wisdom and i shall repeat for effect "you have a lot of pride" . i didnt have the brains to order a hot chocolate or even a tea, anything hot..on top of that i couldnt even admit that i could've done better.

My friends have tried earlier to make me realize the same thing, but they were like "you have such a huge ego problem" or "you are such an egoist" but i never thought about that..ego was never an attribute i associated with myself..i was like..no im like damn awesome and amiable and cool and friendly and tolerant and i can put up with a lot of things of a lot of ppl. Lets be very clear here that im not denying that im any of that..i am all that with a touch of pride..:P

and to think about it its not too bad to have a little bit of pride, is it? so now when ppl around me say that you have a very big ego i only say..."its not ego..the word is pride/self-respect" depending on the situation. you know what? a little pride is very essential..you have to value yourself before expecting anyone else to value you..and then how can anyone not be proud of what they have grown up to become? I am.

sad anniversary!!

lately i have been very miserable and snappy..i get irritated and dont take even 2% effort not to show it..i snap at people, cut them out, shout at them, tell them in no mean terms where they can go and what they can do to themselves...i really dont know why its happening coz im generally a person who thinks about the other person before saying or doing something and im generally not rude or mean to people (infact never)...like you might be wearing the crappiest shirt but if you ask me how it is you'll always get "nice". i am not going like "wowwwwwww awesome" but i wont even be "ewwww dude! what were you thinking?"

probably the fact that i had been to mumbai and had an awesome 5 days had something to do with it. i was so miserable back here that i was annoyed at everyone around me. but enough sulking. thats not what i want to write.

what i want to write is how i have never been out of india. So now when my lovely su went to London and got back chocolates and i offered them to my dad, all i got was scornful taunts. in his words "all the kids have been around the globe four times but this girl is a frog in a well. she will never get out".. how humiliating. i should have had all the chocolates myself. but whatever. my time has just started..only one year to be precise..

that reminds me that 3 days back i celebrated one year of staying in blore...i shouldnt use the word 'celebrated'..sulking is not a form of celebration :P

im back!!!

yeah baby im back from my 3 week vacation i couldnt stop ranting about..actually its been quite a while since im here but i was going through a bout of depression..you know after 3 weeks with your favorite people staying alone can be killing. its like the walls want to eat you up or do you want to be eaten up by them?

and no, i didnt jinx my vacation by going on and on about it...it was a purely beautiful vacation...but my car for sure is jinxed...that baby stands at the service centre for longer than in my parking lot. but this time it has gone real far. its been lying with those suckers for 1-week now. On monday it just didnt start...simply.. "abhi mood nahi hai" types. So i thought ok, lets give her some rest. I called the service guys on tuesday, they said the fuel is not reaching the engine...that should be fine in any place in the world except for this village. It seems a fuel filter (which is what my car needs to start) is not available in entire bangalore..what the f!@#? Now really..i dont even know if im cursing the village for right reasons coz i really dont trust these guys also.

So long story short, she is idling her time among the blue-overalled men since 4 days and no return in sight..sigh..and to think the weekend is starting and i have no car...aaargh..meanwhile im getting all sorts of ideas such as....

First i thought ill sell her off and buy another. but my dad snubbed me royally (no i was not asking him for permission..i was asking for money). Then i thought forget it ill not sell her.. just send her back to my dad (so that he also has to open his tap o'money for her upkeep) and ill buy a new one myself. Then i thought that this is a very expensive idea and i need to save for my apps and all that and so ill buy a scooty and keep this baby too.

The only problem with the last idea is that im not too comfortable around scooties (if you read the last post). AND im also wondering if ill ever be as good with biking as im with my car. So lets see...for now..all plans are on hold and im praying TATAs make a better and more manageable car next time around so that no one else in the world suffers what i have suffered. amen.