Grossery

OH why oh why did I smell the stale cups in the office pantry? It was like smelling a baby's breath 2 hours after its meal. Grooooooooooooooooooossssssssssss! (Some moron actually named a flower after baby's breath! Jeezus!)

Some impulses are just horrible. You dont know why you get 'em; you just do.
Like that time when I stepped right into the wet, squelchy mud despite everyone telling me to step onto the stone...
Or that time I fed a an egg to a huuuuuuuuuge stinky pig...and it just crunched the entire egg in its cavernous open mouth...
Oh oh! The smell of curd rice that's been in a shut box for a while...
And hearing the next door uncle retch loudly and obnoxiously into his sink early in the morning under the pretense of brushing his teeth, but you know he'z actually bulimic and he'z bringing out day before yesterday's half-digested utthappam.
Or vomit
or the aftertaste and aftersmell of vomit..
and the worst? Having to look at yesterday night's vomit in broad daylight, baking in the hot sun.

I do start my days on wonderful notes! I'm sure I brightened all ya'll's days, lunches and coffee-breaks! :D

Look at that floating grossness! Yumyuck!

 

Growing up? Overrated!

The past few weeks, I’ve lived a slightly different life. I’ve done things I’ve been longing to do for a while. I’ve met people and experienced things that I’ve been missing for a long time. It was a great high. I remember those highs. I learned quickly that they come, take you on a giddy pleasure trip and then drop you like a sack of potatoes. This time, though, I knew all the while that these few weeks were going to be just that…a fun time. They were not going to be a permanent fixture or even a relatively longish spell in my life. However, this “groundedness” came in real handy when the crash came. I’m pretty much the same. I am not bummed that it is over. A coupla years ago, I would’ve moaned for a MONTH, if not longer. I am back to my lazy, comfortable life. Ironically, I decided that I would come back.

I know what this is: I’m growing up. It’s not as bad as I thought it would be (at least not right this moment), but it definitely is not all that great. I do miss the wonder and the drama. Being calm and zen about shit is no fun at all. Nothing is a novelty now (I really hope I’m kidding myself, tho! :D). I hope you all are going through something similar. Say you are even if you are not! :P

Yes, even I have an OCD side.

I work with word documents a lot on account of being this really very important content-editor and essay evaluator. Yes, I have to work with very complicated software like MS Word, Notepad, Wordpad and MS Word. Did I mention MS Word?


So, I’ve come to notice a while ago that the way documents come to me can affect my mood a lot. Take justifying text, for example. I am quite obsessive about it. On opening a word doc, I almost automatically drag my mouse to the formatting tool bar, select all text and justify the fuck out of it. There! Finally, the jagged-line-edges on the right have become even. Now, onto the next task.

I hunt for serif fonts quite pointlessly, coz I know I’ve already fixed on one font…Garamond. I hate the Arial font family. Likewise, Times New Roman. To me, it’s quite ugly, actually. Fonts like Helvetica and Impact are anathema to me. UUUUUUUUGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHH! How aesthetically unattractive. How plain and boring, with lumpy shapes. I like Calibri, Cambria, Century Gothic, Palatino Linotype. Nice, compact, elegant.


Do you see the irony tho?
1. Me. OCDing about how a word doc looks even before I read it.
2. Liking the skinny fonts over the big, bold, simple, no-frills ones.

I wonder what this says about me. For those of you who know me, you KNOW I’m nowhere near either of that. Body image issues? For sure! But isn’t this taking it too far? I guess I’ll do the wondering on my own coz you definitely don’t need THAT image. I’ll just leave you with this:

Do our innermost hypocrites burst out in ridiculous absurdities like this?

PS: I've deliberately chosen a sans serif font here on my blog and yes, very very deliberately chose to leave my text unjustified. I'm rebelling against my own good-girl tendencies

Blog crazy!

Ever since I started this blog, I've become a little extra-obsessive. I've added all kindsa "bling" to my blog, as one friend put it. I've cajoled and then threatened people to comment and follow it. I've done all but REALLY write. Thank you for putting up with me. I am really happy today coz I've got 14 followers (thanx Yamee!) and I got a hit from effin POLAND, yo! This is fun. Sorry for being soo nuts. I will grow out of it soon, but hopefully, not out of writing. :)

Wondering why I even bothered writing this "post"? Coz I'm just THAT happy and nuts today. :D

A Love Letter

Dear Hyderabad,

I love you. I am IN LOVE with you. I’ve never even bothered denying it. It would’ve been of no use. You are my first love and everyone knows that first loves stick around for always. Why? I don’t know.

Maybe it was because I put up a fierce resistance and you sneaked up on me anyway.

…bookstalls in Abids…bargaining with fruit sellers…

…chatting in hostel rooms…VC rock…

…walks and train stations…discovering the beauty of dying embers…

…cycling on campus in the darkness…piles of clothes, always PILES!...

Maybe it’s because I put you on a pedestal, being a silly small-town girl that I really am inside. Maybe, it’s because I finally found myself only with you. You were so many firsts. You made me a woman and showed me how to be a girl.

…Peacock lake…Music and OD…

…Long walks and exploring new corners…

…hunting for my own place…creepy real estate brokers…

…dark musty holes that I must call “rooms”…

…deserted roads…maddening hunger…curious neighbors...

…the freedom of dirty rooms…discovering the kitchen…

…the delivery boys who became familiar strangers…an overfull toothbrush stand…

…the thrill of a dining table and a full-length mirror…

Maybe it’s the secrets you shared, all those bits of you that make me cry out with joy and wonder, those tastes that…well…take me places :)

…sunrises and more importantly, sunsets—at the lakes, Sunset Peak, at Golconda, while riding on the MMTS, while lost around Begumpet…

…an autoride from Mehdipatnam to campus…and of course, quarrelling with the auto guy…

…Starless skies and cloud-filled nights…moons that go up and down…

…eat street…Birla temple…tank bund…

…Siddiques! And Temptations!!!...HALEEM!...Qubani ka meetha!...Mint, paan and MORE…

Maybe it’s because I finally found something in you that is just me…and yet not. You make me roll my eyes and smile coz you’re just so adorably infuriating, laugh like a maniac coz only you can say those things…make me livid with unspent anger because as much as you consume me, you are a total shithead, sometimes.

…HCU, all of it, every bit of it…even the most mundane details…

Banjara Hills and GVK One…City Centre…

…Ravindra Bharati…Waterfront…Golconda…theatre and theatrics (ha!)…

…Hyderabadi Hindi? Urdu? Telugu?....Best Books…

……Prasadz…the crowd at Prasadz  …Necklace Road…

…the traffic!!…the ogling eyes(?)...the VISIBLE heat …the mind-numbing cold... the stink…

Maybe it’s because whenever I come to you, even today, it feels like I’m coming home.

…autowallahs…Hyderabadi, just Hyderabadi…Biryani…Hussein Sagar…Prasadz…MMTS rides…

I don’t know all the whys, but the maybes always seem to overwhelm me.

I don’t know you, really. I haven’t seen many sides of you, so many places and things that make you YOU. But the pieces of you that I’ve managed to make my own will stay with me for far too long. I know I should not think of returning, but then, I’ve never been much good at “should NOTs.”

With love and nostalgia,

Me at my lone roof

My Fav Post of 2010

Here is a re-post yo! My favorite piece of my writing from the year that was...

Those Ugly Beings...

I cant breathe clean...nasty nasty...my hungry lungs...i suffocate..i'm claustrophobic...i pant and suck in air greedily...don’t close the door…I want in…its my room…I need space…get the fuck out…just leave me alone…just LEAVE ME ALONE…go away go away go the HELLL away…I want to scream…go away go away…love hate beauty ugly fat cold…oh soooooooooo cooldd coooooooooold….frozen…dirty…crawling all over my skin…grease…I hate you I hate you…how dare you…why do you get to say all those things…and why don’t i…I hate you…you talk you think its okay to say whatever u want wherever you want…and must listen and pretend I don’t hear…I see you everywhere you bastard I hate you I hate you…you are ugly ugly ugly…rotten black goo…powerless weasel snivelling…and I must see you everywhere…man man man…everywhere man…the arrogance…you stink of it…don’t go alone don’t go alone…its not safe…I wanna scream and cry and thrash and hurt and skin and tear and claw…

I’m me I’m me I’m ME…leave me be…I want space…I need air…I need space to run and be and breathe and think and laugh and dance and gaze and love…midnight…biking…freedom…wind..cold cold air…waking up the rage…the anger...the thrill...the mad in me…do you want to be raped…oh mi god she is a slut…look at her clothes…rolling eyes...whispers...sleaze...dizziness...cold cooooooooooooldd…hands...warmth...dirtiness...eyes…oh those eyes that are everywhere...watching watching...always watching…smirking…SEEING...wondering…those eyes that I claw out..,claw and poke…and slap and kick and make you SHUT THE HELL UP…forever…just shut up shut up shut up shut up…I don’t wanna hear anymore…my life my life…its MY LIFE…I don’t need anything anyone…stupid…playing games…why why why why why...my completeness accept…my power my beauty my wholeness…always stepping crushing belittling stamping laughing touching groping feeling breaking spoiling stopping waiting scheming playing…dirty dirty dirty…power…I hate you…disappear…soft and sweet and fragrant mystery…shatter…probing, prodding…plane…angles…squares and circles...away away away…don’t meet…don’t meet...judging always judging…façade…cool cool closed scheming façade…that mask covering your ugly thoughts...cut it off...piece by piece…I hate you

Superlative joys

Happy New Year, ya’ll!

Hope you all began your year on a wonderful, jubilant note. Mine was “nice.” I seem to be describing a lot of things in life like that nowadays. I might be running out of adjectives. I am almost tired of “great,” “cool” and “awesome” too. But those are still the ones that pop into my head and slide down to my tongue at those semi-interesting happy occasions in life.

You thinking of going abroad? Nice…or rather, NAAAAAAAAICE! which roughly translates into “Yay! Good for you. I’m moderately excited for you. I will actively listen for about 10 minutes and even ask you relevant questions, but after that I will tune out coz since it’s not immediately relevant to me; I don’t care a whole lot, really, except that if you are really close to me, I’m going to miss you tons…which really sux baaaaad.”

You are doing great at your job / found the most divine dress while shopping / you had an awesome time with your friends / your boyfriend is acting cutely retarded? AWESOME!!
And I really mean it. I really am happy for you. I understand the joy of actually wanting to wake up and go to the office. I know what having that is like and I know what NOT having that was like. I do get the shopping thing, now that I’ve maybe begun to discover the X chromosome in me. And yea…having had some amazing times with my friends, I know exactly how much that can make your day, week, month. The boyfriend thing is iffy, but well…yea, I can be happy for you, genuinely…as long as I’m allowed to be openly bitchy to your face as well. It’s just that there seems to be nothing I can say that can CONTRIBUTE. “AWESOME” is my vigorous verbal nod and sparkle-eye, wide grin with an occasional chuckle thrown in.

If the occasion is not as momentous, I sometimes use “Great,” although, recently, I’ve been using it exclusively to respond to “How u doings (not the Joey ones)/ How are you’s.” On more than one occasion, I’ve noticed that I veer away from the more subdued “good” and just type in “great,” while I’m oscillating between the two. Notice how we’ve all jumped up by one superlative since the MNCs. Good has become great and great—AWESOME! When we feel AWESOME, we need to get creative pronto, or resort to the violent-sounding happiness of THRILLED TO BITS or MIND (FUCKING) BLOWING or what have you.

Perhaps, this year, I must work on my adjectives. That is a GREAT resolution, don’t you think?

I dont like Hurdle the verb

Before you think I'm a crazy dork who rants about inane words and their meanings, let me say in my defense that I AM a crazy dork who rants about inane words and their meanings.

Dictionary.com is my favorite website and I check it every single day. Another is www.urbandictionary.com because I am obsessed with how the Americans have transmogrified English and confused about why I love their version(s) so much and mostly, I just dont get it half the time. To understand American English, its not enuff to know that colour is color or the lift is the elevator. You're supposed to understand the goddamn cultural meaning of Jeff Goldblum and what Jon Stewart stands for and what Martha Stewart and Oprah really mean, and get obscure references to Star Wars and such. They say things like:

"He’s the Chuck Norris of exercise dancing."

And then, you're supposed to go look up who the fuck this Chuck Norris is. Then, you learn that all the Rajnikant jokes are actually Chuck Norris jokes, and then, you get super pissed off.

I even watched Star Wars just so I could understand what all the goddam references meant and what Fanboys (the movie) was about and what is with all the Princess Leia and the gold bikini references?? Now, I get it....a bit? So yea, I end up looking up words a LOOOOOOOOOOOOT as well.

Then, I learn all these obscure things which tickle me to bits. For example, did you know that "grandfather" is a verb? That pretty much made my day. Recently, I looked up "hurdle" and...guess what...its also a VERB! and I dont like it. I mean, I dont like its "verb" meaning, coz its the exact opposite of its noun meaning and even WORSE, one of the verb meanings is the opposite of the other verb meanings!!!!!! I mean, isn't English confusing enough? Do we really need to assign confusing meanings to the same word to overcomplicate an already befuddling language?

So, I propose a new meaning to Hurdle the verb: May people never confuse you with "overcoming" problems. May you always BE a problem or an obstacle and always MEAN "to have problems, obstacles."

Yes, I'm taking away the little happiness the word has, but its for the greater good. I have no qualms in pulling a Snape. (Dont make me explain this!)

This Christmas...

Christmas was never a big deal for me. Back in my school days, it was just a holiday. The concept of Santa and Christmas did not come through strong enough to register the same kind of enthusiasm I would have for Holi or Deepavali or even Sankranti, despite the carol singing in the school assembly and the Santa giving us candy at school and at the community Club. I guess my lack of enthusiasm was owing mostly to the quality of candy…it was usually the sour kind with an occasional piece of toffee thrown in.

Then came the US years which, ironically, added to my disillusionment of the whole Christmas hullaballoo. The way I saw it back then, it was just a whole lot of shopping, lots of fake sparkly stuff that would stick to you all the time, writing out cards that didn’t really say anything meaningful, feeling left out and not getting the whole drama…and yes, the unbearable cold. The only thing I liked was the snow and, this time, the candy :D By the end of my four years, though, I was sufficiently converted…made a few friends, got into the spirit of exchanging greeting cards, began to understand the romance of the sparkles and the lights and the tinsel and the wrapping paper and the piney, minty scent. A trip to NYC around that time really added to my joy…I still love lit up cities in chilly evenings (Ooooooh! I never get tired of the view of a lit-up Hussein Sagar in the winter evenings). The Christmas tree at the Rockefeller Centre, the people skating at the rink, the brilliant lights at Times Square and the bustling people in that busy corner of the world…and watching all this sipping Dunkin’ Donuts’ Vanilla Chai off of their “Styrofoam” cups…aaah bliss! :D Isn’t it ironic that I’m actually getting nostalgic for my days in the US? Weird how shit works out. 

And yes, after coming back to India, I guess I turned more “American” thanks to finally being able to watch TV! Despite all that HCU did and all the dissecting and analyzing and DE-CONSTRUCTING, all of sudden, today, the Christmas thing did creep up on me. Perhaps it was just the extra bite in today’s chill, perhaps it was just leisurely sipping the morning chai with my parents and talking or maybe it was the unexpected tears at the thought of a colleague moving away, who has managed to become quite dear in only a month and a half…or perhaps it was all this and so much more. But today, my favorite Christmas song is stuck in my head and I’ve been humming it all day. It just about sums up how I feel today…a quite, calm happiness. Merry Christmas, people! Wish you all a wonderful time filled with beautiful moments that give you a lifetime of happiness. 

Indias

I've often wondered about India and what it means. How do you define a country with a gazillion languages that come from 4. FOUR. language families, over a billion people with all kinds of races, with varying skin colours, hair types, eye hues, leg shapes, living over a mass of land that has all kindsa terrain, from snow-throughout-the-year to blazing-hot deserts complete with baked bits of land and colorful tribes with cracked lips?? HOW HOW HOW??

Wondering why I would even bother to define India? I have this overwhelming need to box things/people/ideas/concepts to begin to understand them. Yea, they can meander into deeper meaninglessness later on, but to BEGIN with, I need a basic definition to comprehend it, picture it in my mind.

But with India, as time passes, the picture only gets murkier, more amorphous. My Personal India has evolved and even de-volved, got oversimplified on the rare occasions that it was IN MY FACE in a nasty, ugly way. I'm sure everyone whoz ever even spent a weekend in this country knows what I'm talking about it. India is just like that. Some generalizations fit all the time and still manage to have exceptions all the time too!!?? I can only attempt to break it into pieces and collect as many as I can, stick 'em together and try to look for a coherent image, something WHOLE through these broken bits. I've tried it. But you know, its just like a mirror. When you look at broken pieces stuck together, they dont give you just one reflection. You end up looking at multiple bewildered faces reflecting your own questions, magnifying the uncertainty and chaos.

I've been going back and forth between umpteen different kinds of Indias for over a decade now. I guess my stint outside the country jarred me out of my narrow view of existence. The superimposition of my US years on my puberty is a sick cosmic joke...like I wasn't maladjusted enough in my own sphere of life, as if the hormonal shit wasn't confusing in itself!!! When I was away, I was more Indian than I've ever been my entire life...the good little silent wallflower. And ever since I've been back, I've had this overwhelming urge to be as badass as possible to make up for those lost years. Overcompensating? You betcha! I'm so much more "American" now. I cannot relate to my own parents. Okay, maybe thatz the generation gap. Fine, I dont relate to a LOOOOOOOOOOOOOT of my peers. I dont watch reality TV....lately, I just dont watch TV. I often used to have to pretend humming along to the popular tune of the day. I absolutely never knew which movie, which singer, who the actors were! I actually really do want the life of an average sitcom character (yea, deluded, I know). Recently, when I got excited that my parents were leaving me alone at home (finally!) for a few days, the girls in my office gave me really strange looks. When I half-jokingly said, "I dont even KNOW if I should get married," they winced and tried to hush me down. What, you cant see the scary part of it?? REALLY?? How do I relate to that?

And dont even get me started on the kind of "corporate" India I saw. Its mostly just a lot of young people with too much money at their disposal, working insane hours and partying everyday--can u call it partying if you do it everyday?--and calculatingly making and breaking relationships, seemingly hopping from one air-kissing friend to another. I dont get that crowd either and so many other crowds and so many other Indias...of a BILLION people!

This is the first time I've lived outside my home state of Andhra Pradesh...and let me tell you, its almost like living in another country sometimes. At work, I am again the butt of the translation jokes; I am often just either completely spaced out or end up with springwork-neck that has to move from one person to the other...in an attempt to decipher the expressions and guess at the context. Did u just call me 'bug'?? Oh...ur asking me to 'look'...RIGHHHHHTT (bagh=look in Marathi). What? Udaya(=tomorrow) is NOT morning?? Have I totally misconstrued everything in our conversations? Well, shit. And no, its not limited to the language, of course. There is sooooooo much more than just grammar and vocab that I am clueless about. Its often a whole different culture.

While all this was trying to bubble up to the surface for a long time now, I found fellow wonderers, questioners at HCU who've been just as confused exploring identities and evolving selves and shifting absolutes. And today, it gushed out because I revisited the words of one of my favorite people and her glimpses of India. When I read her words, I've often found myself yelling, "What the hell are you talking about?" or "I cant believe THAT is what you noticed. I've NEVER looked at it AT ALL." although there are many many "True dats" as well ;) It feels as if I'm reading about an India I've hardly ever seen; yet, I recognize the images. Its not my India...its the India of a woman who has set out to "see" India as only an outsider can...someone who has, in the process, become more Indian than us 06HEMAs at least. As greedy as I am for experience, albeit vicarious, can I even begin to imagine all the Indias out there?

The only comfort in this, sometimes, is the hilarity of things lost in translation. Sometimes, it's better when you share a momentary confusion with a fellow lost-soul. On rare occasions, it is amazing because you end up creating new definitions for your particular bits of India, coz it HAPPENS ONLY IN INDIA ONLY TO YOU! :)