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Nov 21, '09

We have a Ms Hoity Doity in the family! The type that drops statements like, ‘I shop only at Shopper’s Stop’! ha haaaaaaaaaaa The type that gives ‘snooty’ looks at our homegrown ‘vermicelli’, but eats the same with a pompous flair if it’s given an Italian name like ‘Spaghetti’ or ‘Angel Hair’! A registered member of the ‘brand-o-manics’ club! Lol

Not that I’m averse to a pair of Levis Jeans or Fast Track watches or Revlon Lipsticks! In fact I’d love to shop for quality branded stuff. But that isn’t necessarily synonymous with snobbery! Nor the fact that I buy ‘Sony’ and ‘Canon’ means I scoff at second-in-line brands!

I’m tickled pink by the misplaced brand loyalty of the brand-o-manics; but I don’t feel amicable towards the user-unfriendly brand policies and after-sales service protocol! The training given

to the customer care executives is certainly not the same as the one given to the sales executives!

When you’re on an inspection tour, you’re made to feel like the most important person after God. But once the deal is made, and you’ve spent half a month’s salary, there’s a twist in the tale! No more immediate responses, no more ‘sirs’ and ‘madams’, no more smiling welcome, no more readiness and willingness! You make call after call, register complaint after complaint-----------but all you encounter are inefficiency and indifference!

I’m reminded of an anecdote I heard:

‘A man died and went up. He was allowed to choose between Heaven and Hell. Wow! He couldn’t believe his luck. He was given a dry run - one day in Heaven and one day in Hell. First he was sent to Hell. He was taken aback to see it was not at all the ‘Hell’ that he had read about in stories or seen in movies. He found wine, women and dancing everywhere; uncensored pleasure and unchecked freedom; no holds barred! The next day he was sent to Heaven. Heaven was pretty much predictable; Heavenly, but boring; too serene and sedate; no fun; too good to be exciting! Obviously, he chose Hell. And he went to Hell to stay. But what a rude shock he received, when he stepped into Hell as an inmate! He found the proverbial ‘devils with horns, some humans being fried in huge oil cauldrons, some being whip-lashed, souls screaming in anguish, gore and grime at every corner’! He demanded an explanation; and he got it! ‘Yesterday, we were campaigning; and now you’ve cast your vote’! ha haaaaaaaaaaaaa

Need I say more?

Recently, my laptop met with a casualty! I’ll spare you the ‘how’; the ‘what’ is that the LCD screen cracked and had to be replaced! Not a mean affair! I had just moved on from an old

fashioned IBM ThinkPad to a Dell Inspiron last July. But going by the law of probabilities, my laptop is out of the warranty period! I called up Dell customer care. If ever you need to give examples for ‘smart aleck policies’, you don’t have to look beyond these customer service rulebooks!

I was given two options! 1. Cost of LCD screen + service charges = Rs. 1500; and after payment of such a fancy sum, I had to wait for five to six weeks; of course, they don’t stock exotic things like LCD screens, do they?
2. They have a very ‘professional’ sounding scheme termed, ‘break fix warranty’ by which if I coughed up a sum of Rs. 18200, it would cover damage/accidents and whatever else you could think of, for a period of one year; in which case, the screen would be replaced in two days! The ‘executive’ who spoke to me was very particular to put across that the laptop would be replaced, even if I dropped it from the tenth floor of a building and broke it to smithereens! Looked like she was almost psyching me to do it! Bah! And when I asked if she practised ‘sorcery’ to produce LCD screens under this scheme when they were out of stock under the other scheme, she just mumbled something incomprehensible under her breath!

I did manage to find an unauthorized dealer who gave me a screen off-the-shelf, for a reasonable price and he managed it within a magical time frame of just two hours! And this is

proof of the ‘complications’ behind brands and the simplicity and solidarity behind second or third in line brands!

The moral of the story is that we need to learn by experience and play things by the ear; getting the balancing act together between the ‘brand new’ and the ‘grand old’; branded products are not to be boycotted as a rule; but the ‘when, where and what to buy’ is a different deal from ‘when, where and how to find service and spare parts’!

The serenity prayer might help here I guess; ‘God give me the wisdom to know the difference’! ha haaaaaaaaa

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Nov 08, '09

Finding Love! Finding Life!

A friend challenged me to write a story; and a true love story variety! So, here it is! The result of my imaginative fantasy Tell me guys? Would I pass as a story teller?

Finding love! Finding life!

She came to! Wakefulness crept into her sleep sodden being; slowly bringing in a consciousness of the physical world; gently coaxing her to an awareness of the beginning of another day. Her eyes hadn’t opened; not yet. But she was aware of a wonderful feeling; a strange euphoria that she has been waking up with for nearly three months. She snuggled down deeper into the mattress, savouring the moment; the joy!

In that half-asleep, half-wakeful state, she tried to fathom the source of the feeling; the reason for her ecstasy. And then it rushed to her in wave after tidal wave; the indescribable sensation of ‘love’; of being in love! Her mind, heart and soul were instantly engulfed by thoughts of him. Her ‘him’ as she fondly told herself!

She?

She was a woman who’d come into her own; had carved a niche for her. One of those challenged-in-life, who took the world on its spinning axis when all the odds were stacked against her, and emerged with a doctorate in the journey of life. Following a happy, no-grouses childhood, she got married in her twenties. And like every other typical newly wed, went to live in her new home, her eyes sparkling, her heart singing, her soul dancing and her self trusting!

Alas! The bubbles burst too soon. No different a story from that of many a shattered dream, but when it is not a story you’re reading, or a movie you’re watching, it gets a little too close for comfort! To put it in the form of a précis, it was one of those unfortunate ‘arranged’ marriages, which left the girl’s parents feeling guilty for life! She found herself lost and lonely!

Days of depression, months of crying bouts, years of desolation! One morning she woke up telling herself, ‘enough is enough’! And then moved on; on and on; not a backward glance.

She was by nature a bubbly, spirited, smiling and loving bundle of enthusiasm. She didn’t have to practice at laughing; she was the ‘laughing her heart out’ sort! She hunted down her old friends; made new ones; got a job that was customized for her! She moved on from the state of ‘existence’ to that of ‘living’!

She was happy, no doubt. She was a fighter; an achiever. She loved and was loved in return by all her family and friends. She was a huge success in her chosen profession. She lived life to the fullest; when she smiled, it reached her eyes; when she laughed, it came from deep within her!

Yet----------------------

That niggling feeling of loneliness was a permanent presence in her! She couldn’t understand why she felt the need for a ‘man’ in her life. If it was for love, she had enough love showered on her. But she knew that she needed to be loved, wanted, cherished in a very special way; only the way a man could love, want and cherish a woman!

So the hunt began! Her quest for true love!

Men came; and men went! A few touched her heart, a few her body! But none touched her soul. Each time she fell in and out of a male experience, she was left with a strong sense of deja vu, a so-what’s-new feeling. She felt miserable; let alone finding someone to love her; there was no one willing to accept what she was offering; pure, unquestioning love! The men she came across had little or no need for such intensity!

She gave up;only the hope in men, not her love for life! Her experiences, her past and her undying spirit, all came together to take her to a higher plane of life; towards an evolution of the soul! She wanted to rise above the need; beyond the unceasing yearning for true love, if at all such a thing was!

It was easier said than done. She knew where she was; she knew where she wanted to reach; but the transition wasn’t taking place. The corroding away of her heart, trying to reach out, for a man who’d call her ‘his’, was eating at her insides; each passing day fanning the embers to an unquenchable inferno; scorching her soul in its flaming intensity!

And then she came upon him!

He?

He was a wonderful human being. What drew her to him were his calm demeanour, his subtle sense of humour, and above all his unceremonious attitude to life. She hadn’t realized it, but he’d captured her from within; she couldn’t point at a moment in time when exactly she had fallen in love with him, but she had! And the best part of the sensational story was that he was oblivious of her love for him! He had not the slightest inclination of her deep running feelings for him.

She wooed him for all her worth! She dropped hints; she dropped words during conversations; she dropped clues in his way; nothing worked! Finally, she had to drop her inhibitions; she had to drop her coyness! And blurt it out to him she did! So much for the romantic scenes that had played in her mind!

But providence had it that he responded in style! He accepted her hand, heart and love, wholeheartedly! She found herself going about in a stupor for a while; she couldn’t believe that she had been so blessed; that she had something so wonderfully unbelievable happening in her life!

But it wasn’t to be as smooth as she had believed it would be! He had his own story; his own compromises to make; his own ‘getting used to’ to be worked on. She understood his need for his ‘time and space’ and though she struggled a bit in the beginning, she learnt it; she learnt ‘him’; she learnt to pick up his moods from his tone, his words; even from his silence! She was a quick learner; a willing learner too!

She loved him with all of her being; the fist sized organ of 300 plus grams in her, beat only for him; she was amazed at her ‘teenage’ behaviour, while she had taken pride in her dignified and matured self! She found it unfamiliar, but comfortable and pleasant to forget herself and think of him instead!

What she loved about the experience was that it revealed hidden shades of herself to her! She had had to play the role of ‘man’ and ‘woman’ in her life as the situation had demanded it; the ‘man’ predominating more and more with the passage of time; the ‘woman’ pushed back to a dark corner, out of sight and therefore, out of mind too! But now, she was delighted to let the ‘woman’ emerge again; she enjoyed playing the ‘softer’ role; she was surprised to find herself smiling ‘ear to ear’ at having become his ‘yes’ woman! She loved the total surrender! Wasn’t that what she had always wanted!

And ever since that glorious afternoon he told her in his very matter-of-fact style the magic words, the magic moment had stayed in her heart, her mind, her being. And ever since she had woken up with euphoria in her heart, a song in her soul, a stupid grin on her face and a jig in her step!

There are times when she freezes though, a shiver running down her spine; could a ghost have walked over her grave? A tiny fluttering, somewhere in the lost folds of an unlit part, the remnants of insecurity of a forgotten past! Will he stay with her always? Will he be hers forever? Will he? Well, she believed in her God! He will never let her down! And with the tranquility that thought gave her, she woke up with euphoria in her heart, a song in her soul, a stupid grin on her face and a jig in her step, to face another beautiful day in her life; her life with him! Her ‘him’!

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Nov 04, '09

The Upward Curve!

Is it really so difficult to smile? What do we hope to achieve by being grumpy? Do the facial muscles go on a causeless strike once too often? I’ve truly been baffled by people who can’t stretch their mouths a bit!

The other day, I was crossing the road at a signal and noticed this very serious looking face; ‘grim’ is not the word! He was dressed for work and had a laptop in his hand. I did give him the benefit of doubt; maybe, he was late for an important client meeting, or had an impossible deadline to meet! However many excuses I tried to find for him, I couldn’t for the life of me give him a verdict of ‘not guilty’! Surely, the world wasn’t coming to an end the next day!

As obsessed as I’m with the Queen’s lingo, so am I with that most wonderful expression that God has bestowed only on human beings. The physicality of a smile occurs in animals too,

which is labeled as a ‘snarl’ and implies ‘threat or warning’; in chimpanzees, the exposure of teeth is said to be an expression of ‘fear’. Only the homosapiens have been blessed with the feeling of felicity that’s experienced with a ‘smile’.

I smile; wherever I’m I smile. But I don’t receive a similar response from most. I try smiling at sales agents; shop floor executives; auto rickshaw drivers; street vendors; bus

conductors! Mmmmhhhhhhhhm! People either care two hoots or they raise a quizzical eyebrow rather pointedly at me, that questions my sanity! The air is electrified with discomfiture when you get into a lift. Have you tried smiling at people around you inside the lift? They hurriedly look away, focusing on anything that’s there to gaze at; some start revising numerals, counting the floors one by one! Some concentrate so much on the red arrows at the top of the lift that I wonder if it were some new form of meditation or memory improving technique!

At times I wonder if ‘facial paralysis’ is a common epidemic! The tiny muscles just don’t seem to be able to make those tiny movements!

What a difference a smile can do to your day! Especially the variety where the eyes go all crinkly small and bright! For the genuine smile is the one that reaches the eyes! Whether it’s a wide-mouthed grin, or a mere twitch of the lips, a smile that’s reflected in the eyes is worth the world and more!

Give me a smiley e-con any day to that of the supposedly intriguing smile of Mona Lisa! I’ve never been able to comprehend the world going gaga over that smile! Perhaps, I’m artistically challenged! Siggggghhhhhhhhh

I take the cliché, ‘if you find someone without a smile, give him one’ very seriously; I do try my best to give a smile to as many as possible, but people are just not interested in accepting it!

I find it very amusing when I come across certain professionals who think that smiling is below their dignity. I’m yet to come across a ‘jolly goodfellow’ banker; they are born grim I

guess; is not being able to smile a pre-requisite for landing a job at a bank? ha haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa And you have some professors who are conditioned to believe that the ‘grimmer’ they are, the more respect they get! Government officials may not know how the word is spelt! Some may not even be aware of the existence of such a word or the very action itself! Bah!

Is it such a rare commodity? I’m afraid it’s getting close to being listed under the ‘endangered species’! And like various other ‘saving’ campaigns, should we embark on a ‘save the smile’ drive? We do have a ‘world smile day’ (first Friday of October) that commemorates Harvey Ball, who was the artist of the first smiley face. Oh my! That portends more danger! Everyone would smile only once a year!

Smile oozes confidence. Smile wins hearts; smile wins jobs; smile wins big time. I often ask my trainees, ‘when do we smile’? They reply, ‘when we’re happy’. I tell them (of course with a smile), ‘it’s the other way round; when you smile, you’ll never be able to be sad’!

Research says that a ‘smile’ produces more of what you call ‘fun chemicals’, like ‘dopomine’ and ‘seratonin’ and stimulates the well being of the body. So why miss the opportunity?

Stand in front of the mirror and smile; a beaming, radiant face peers at you, doesn’t it? And makes you feel ever so good, doesn’t it? So what are you waiting for? Go ahead! Forget the frown! Just smile the world to a spin!

Oh! Incidentally, the study of laughing and

laughter is known as ‘gelotology’!

I found a lovely clipping on youtube of Charlie Chaplin and a song on smile. Fropper doesn't allow video uploads. I've given the URL here. Go watch and enjoy--------------with a SMILE!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iu-rLA4POkI

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Oct 19, '09

My One and Only Disagreement with the Bard!

My one and only disagreement with the bard!
Never believed in, 'what's in a name?'

Someone’s calling out to me------‘Saanikaaaaaaa’---I turn, but don’t see anyone. I don’t fret; I just stand there, surrounded by nothingness, a deep sigh of pleasure escaping me! The pleasure is born out of the music of that name! Saanika! And it means ‘flute’! Lovely and musical, isn’t it? As I continue standing there, the name reverberating around me, there’s a sudden flurry of noises that intrude upon my blissful oblivion!

I hear other names as well; from all directions; voices calling out to me; but each one is a different name------------Mrignayani---------Piya---------Anumati--------Angarika----------Jezebel-------sylvia---------Tiya-------Dori---------oh my! My head is now going round and round like a merry-go-round, trying to respond to each call------------faster, faster----------and then---------------------

--------------CHITHRA, CHITHRA---------wake up, will you? I slowly opened my eyes, hearing my name at the highest decibel level possible; coming back to a state of wakefulness from that dream-filled slumber! Oh my! What a dream!

But I’m not surprised! I’ve always had an incurable penchant for fancy sounding names; well, unique sounding to be more precise! And I’ve always whined that my name is as common

as the commonest cactus! My parents haven’t heard the last of it, yet! I grumble till they go sick of it! Today, the names Pavithra(my sister) and Manasa (my cousin) are a dime a dozen too, but way back, when they were named, the names were termed, ‘groovy’, ‘out of the world’, ‘wonderful’ names! So, I used to go on a warpath; and my mom told me that when she named me, even my name was all that and more! Doesn’t sound convincing, does it?

Of course, I do believe that names have meanings, power and vibrations. There are some interesting reads on 'nameology' and stuff. Not that I discount that Chithra means a lovely picture, but too much 'picture perfect' isn't interesting either! ha haaaaaaaaa

If part of my objection was that I don’t possess a fancier or more ethnic sounding name, the other part was that I ran into a ‘Chithra’ wherever I went! Needn’t go further than the family tree; I have one right in the immediate family! I go to work, I find a couple of Chithras; I go to a corporate for training, I find three Chithras; I sign up for a course, I find at least one Chithra there! Boy! I find them by the dozens, by hundreds!

Even when I shop, I buy things that are unique; that aren’t picked up by all and sundry. I have an LG mobile; everyone asked me why I preferred it over a Nokia and I said, ‘the whole world buys Nokia, so I don’t buy’! But so much

for my uniqueness, I’ve been christened with as ordinary a name as ‘common cold’! Even ‘common cold’ has an impressive sounding name, ‘influenza’! sob sob sob

Look at some of the botanical and zoological names; some of them sound erotic, some exotic, some impressive, some royal, some fantastic, some euphonic, some even sound like an attack of diarrhoea! But what I like about them is, they sound unique! No one is going to possess a name like, ‘Bougainvillea glabra’! It certainly is unique, isn’t it?

Apium Graveolens; and that’s celery for you! ‘Abelmoschus esculentus’; can you believe it’s the botanical equivalent for our ‘okra’, ‘ladies fingers’? Even fingers of ladies have such different sounding names, and the lady that I’m h

as the most non-descript name! Sob sob sob I’ve heard of a family, in which the children have been named as ‘Alpha, Beta and Gama’; obviously, their dad is a lecturer of physics!

Judy Grahn, an American poet, has a beautiful verse, from ‘Paris and Helen’:

He called her: mother of pearl,
barley woman, rice provider,
millet basket, corn maid,
flax princess, all-maker, weef

She called him: fawn, roebuck, stag,
courage, thunderman, all-in-green,
mountain strider, keeper of forests,
my-love-rides

Don’t they sound far better than my name; insipid is the word for it?
Sob sob sob

One day I was so thrilled to come across a page on ‘google’; there’s some ‘logical’ or ‘illogical’ way in which synonyms for your names are found, in French, Irish or any other language you like. Of course I chose French and Irish. (they do sound kind of dreamy, don’t they?) You just need to key in your name and give your gender. Irish was a bit kind to me; it gave me an Irish name, ‘Jacinta Healy’! Mmmmm---------not bad, I thought. But French? It said, ‘Anaiis Blot’! Bah! Hrumpppppphhhhhhhhh! BLOT! What a name! I’m jinxed to be blotted out by my names! sob sob sob

And to add insult to injury, I came across this quote somewhere: ‘The beginning of wisdom is to call things by their right names’! Going by that, my wisdom is not even at the beginning stage! Though I did grow and extract a couple of ‘wisdom teeth’ as well! sob sob sob!!! Some are born wise; some otherwise!

ha haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

Glossary:

Why did those names feature in my dream?

Saanika – flute
Mrignayani –eyes like a deer
Piya –beloved
Anumati –consent
Angarika –flower
Jezebel –though it means a woman who’s evil, I’ve always been attracted to the sound of this name; kind of like, ‘jazzy’! ha haaaaaaaa
Sylvia – wooded forest
Tiya –bird
Dory – golden hair

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Oct 15, '09

G God Has Arrived!

G-God Has Arrived!

Don’t we go shopping and get stuck there not being able to choose? Head gong in a whirl at the sheer variety on display? Be they apparels, jewellery, home appliances, electronics, video games, bikes, cars – the range that meets our eyes is so extensive that we go bonkers! We set out with a specific search, but bump into so many diversions that we’re forced to take a digression and momentarily lose our sense of direction!

Just copy paste that entire concept to ‘googling’ too! GOOGLE! GOOGLING! GOOGLED! Noun, verb, present, progressive and past tenses, a word that exists in all forms of grammatical

functions! The word with a slight variation in spelling to the word we were familiar with, ‘goggle’, crept into our lives as a simple, non-descript expression; but the rapidity with which it has grown, the magnitude to which it has blown, the certainty which it offers, the stability with which it has established itself and the commonality with which it is known all over are stupendous!

Google never lets anyone down! There is no information that’s not available on a ‘google search’! Name it and we have it! And while we’re at it, we have so much fun too!

Once we’ve typed in some key words and clicked ‘enter’, the number of URLs that pop up, makes our head spin! Just like a kid in a candy shop, we can’t decide which one to choose first!

And after scrolling through all this, we find options like, ‘click here for more similar links’! Oh boy! That’s like dessert after a seven-course meal! And like the coffee that makes the rear, there are a lot more links given at the end of each page!

At times, when we look up a word in the dictionary, we run into another one that’s equally, if not more unfamiliar, don’t we? Googling too does that to us. We go there in search of specific information and end up with more than we can reckon with! If you want to know what I mean, just type in the word‘God’ and get there! Apart from words like theism and atheism, you’d come across a whole lot of ‘isms’ like, deism, monotheism, pantheism, monolatrism, neopaganism, Satanism, non theism, anthropomorphism, panentheism--------------phewwwwwww! Now we have a handful of words to look up as well! And rest assured that each word we go looking up, we’d end up with more handfuls of words! Like the ‘asuras’ (demons) in mythological movies! Ha haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

When we have a hazy picture of a subject or topic, or a not-so-sure symptomatic condition, or incomplete and insufficient information on something, google is indeed our friend in need!

And such a staunch and loyal friend too!

But it has its whims and fancies too! Wikipedia, at times is not sure of itself; like our ‘weather forecast bureau’, it says, ‘the information given here is not complete; please help by adding reliable sources’ or ‘unsourced or poorly sourced material can be challenged and removed’! ha haaaaaaaaaaaa The benefit of

doubt? Lol

Once I was looking up for some information on ‘flax seeds’; I asked a question, ‘where do flax seeds come from’? And you know what Google God told me? You can’t imagine ever! ‘Flax seeds come from flax’!
ha haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa If that wasn’t ingenious and helpful!

Both, using search engines and programming for relevant URLs to pop up, depend on ‘keywords’. Some just despair that they don’t find the relevant or right information while they

surf the net. It’s just a question of mastering the art of keying in the right word. And then there’s no stopping; the world is at your doorstep. And the world is

indeed an oyster!

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Oct 13, '09

A Cut Above the Rest!

This is an aftermath of Staytuned’s post, ‘Hair Rising Adventures’!
As I read through his ‘cut and dried’ account of how much he abhorred haircuts, several rambling thoughts ebbed and flowed against the shores of my mind!

I wonder if it’s a men’s thingy; hating to get their haircut! Sonny boy hates it too, to this day. In fact, till he turned nearly 7, he used to create a royal ruckus whenever he was at the barber’s! Everyone at home was either incapable of handling him, or too softhearted to hear his crying pleas! So, it was ‘mamma’ CJ who had to bear the brunt of it all; perhaps the only woman who ever entered a men’s saloon! I used to try in vain to be part of the furniture; not possible though, was it, with a wailing siren of a sonny boy! Kids are always prone to Attention Deficiency Syndrome!

Hair cut, ear piercing, injections, first day at school – everything had my son bawling his head off and the family playing hide and seek with each other! When I had to single handedly

take him to the paediatrician for ‘ear piercing’, my 11 and 7-year-old nephews formed my ‘little army’, my ‘black cats’ sans AK 47!

And when my son was all of eight months, it was time to honour the family tradition of taking him to Pazhani(in Tamilnadu), to offer ‘first hair’(tonsure) to the family deity, Lord Murugan! The stricken family couldn’t play hide and seek then, for they had to visit the temple as well! And oh boy! Was it an ordeal!

The little imp of mine was having a field day, crying his lungs out! He was like a slippery eel, an excited poodle, a ready-to-explode bomb, a jack-in-the-box, a battery-operated jumping and rolling ball, all at the same time. Forget the brains, it was a challenge to my brawns! I was sweating, struggling and swearing by the time I managed to hold him in the circle of my arms so that the barber could get some hair off his head!

It was he resisting and I holding and the barber cutting; but once the feat was performed, I looked up to find my in-laws in tears! Oh boy! Oh boy! That made me want to roll on the floor laughing! I for one wasn’t left with any energy or mood to cry! Tears were the last thing on my mind! I was thinking of more comforting stuff, like a cold shower and a hot cup of tea!

Even today, he needs to be coaxed to no end to go for a haircut; nevertheless he goes, for the school is strict about it; or else, I’m sure he would’ve sported long hair!

Another thought too flitted across my mind! Though men’s beauty parlours have come up in a big way, men still prefer saloons; and even if they go to the parlours, they don’t spend as much on haircuts as women do. On a normal, regular cut, they spend a maximum of forty-five to fifty rupees to our minimum of hundred rupees! My beautician takes a hundred and fifty INR for my hairstyle, each time I go to get a trim! ha haaaaaaaaaaaaa We do come with a price, don’t we? No cutting corners here!

And women are the ‘constants’; always in the ‘haircut’ slot; whereas, men are the ‘variables’; at times, some of them at least, move on from

the ‘hair cut’ slot to the ‘hair transplant’! ha haaaaaaaaaaaa

And this is one instance where culture and tradition screw up men’s freedom; down south, it’s a must that a man should go under the shower after a visit to the saloon; he can’t touch anything or anyone till he has done that! Holy anointment! Lol But we are allowed to happily go all over the house after getting our hair cut! I guess it’s so, for in those days, there were no parlours and women never got their haircut! So the tradition doesn’t exist! So we’re saved some agony! A clean cut? Or a cut-off point between men and women? There’s no clear-cut answer to those questions!
ha haaaaaaaaaaa Never mind; come on girls; let’s cut a little celebratory caper on this

unexpected touch of providence!

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Oct 13, '09

Scaling the Heights of Failure!

From the table of the impish twins! The funny side of failures! The tag game------------------------------------

Sistah Dagny has honoured the twins' tag in absentia. Her account of a failure portrayed with a dash of humour!

Scaling the Heights of Failure!

Writing about and around success has turned into an industry. Success is sweet. We all love it... we covet it... we pursue it. The farther it seems from us the more frenzied we get... reading it up... devouring it.... soaking it in our soul. In that frenzy we forget to savor the failures.

Somehow I feel very affectionate about my failures. They are so unassuming and bashful. They don't make a noise and blare from rooftops. They don't expect to be acknowledged or noticed let alone being made a fuss over. Success on the other hand is brash. It wants to hog all the space available. It wants to dominate... it wants to stun... it wants to plunge people into envy.

The biggest failure of my life is in learning to drive a car. I don't know what it is. I ride 2-wheelers well enough... but when it comes to 2 measly additional wheels, I seem possessed of one right foot made of a solid block of cement and nailed securely to the accelerator for good measure. Those of you who DO drive... wipe the repulsive grin off your face. When they said a smile improves your face value, they didn't mean the one you have on right now.

I remember I had a friend who could never master the 2 wheeler. Her dad had to fetch and carry her everywhere she needed to go. The usual victim for such duties is a brother- but hers was too young. Did you mention public transport...? Ha... shows you've never been to Jabalpur. Yes... er... my town is a trifle YOUNG in that quarter. Anyhow, so I was talking about this friend for whom the 2-wheeler remained an untamed monster. You may be sure, the rest of us wheeled missies made fun of her. Every time we saw her cooling her heels unobtrusively behind a tree, waiting for her busy dad to come and pick her up, we'd make it point to pointedly stop by and chat with her.

She noticed of course, but never said anything. Then one day, someone asked her if she didn't hate having to wait. No, it wasn't me. I don't ask fathead questions like that. Ok... don't believe it... as if I care...! Jeez.... how you lead me on to digress...!! The loaded question having being asked, we all gathered around agog to listen to her response. We expected her map to flush with embarrassment. Par kahan...!? There came into her eyes a look of mysterious dreaminess. She pulled herself up to her full height- and she was really tall. We could almost imagine her hair and cape blowing in the wind. She was one proud girl. At the spectacle, our mouths fell open with awe. Then she said, "Oh..! I don't really expect you to understand the pleasure of being driven around like a queen. Driving yourself everywhere.... getting messed up with dirty things..... is soooooo....", she looked at us all pityingly, "....plebian." No, I don't recall what happened next.... but I knew you'd ask.

Going back to my own battle with the wheel, let me assure you, I tried. I mean I really tried. I've always learnt to drive a new set of wheels by taking the bike out at 5 o'clock in the morning for 2-3 days consecutively- and I go alone. I get the feel of the bike and that's it. I tried the same thing with the car. The moment my dad said he will go with me- I knew I was doomed. We reached a picturesque stretch of road.... winding in the hills.... people going for their morning walks. I was at the wheel. I turned a corner and the car went off the road.. guess I didn't turn the wheel around fast enough. There was this portly gentleman ambling along. I ...er.... set the car after him I am afraid. It was only his nimbleness that saved him that day. I am sure he thinks a few extra pounds aren't as dangerous as getting active- and remains house-bound to this day. His angst and the frank passion with which he expressed it is rather irrelevant now. I don't think I need not go into it. This was round one for me.... nearly 15 years ago.

Two years back I got a bee up my bonnet again. New car.... greater confidence... my father's deteriorating health... all made me realize that there has to be one more person in the house who can drive- in case of emergencies. I will spare you the details. Just a brief list of the hits I made.

1. One extraordinarily dirty and ugly pig (ugh..!)

2. Three Cyclists (at different times...)

3. One couple on a bike (Yes, there was blood on the road... )

4. One cow banged squarely across the middle.
I was horribly shaken after the couple. I mean really jittery. Of course they didn't get hurt much... but they could have. In fact I still get nightmares sometimes and see their mangled bodies lying on the road. After the cow, it was over for me. The poor thing gave me such a pained look. I never felt so ashamed in my life.

I know then that the car wheel and I were not meant to be together. You know how it is na....? There are some relationships which are never meant to be. I have accepted it now. I can't speak for the car. I suppose she too has bowed to the inevitable. The next thing I did was to hire a driver and there the matter rests.

Guess who gets to be driven around like a queen...? Not you I know...! He he he...

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Sep 29, '09

The Funny Side of Failures! Life at its best!

THE FUNNY SIDE OF FAILURES!

Life at its best!

ATTENTION!

Here’s to everyone! Stop mumbling at the slightly lengthy post and pay attention all of you! This is a tag game! Call it a contest if you like!

Write about your attempts and failures with a dash of humour! Finding the silver lining!

Everyone on my friends list is hereby tagged! Please share this with those on your lists too. Let’s fun and frolic!

NO ONE IS excused! It’s a MUST write up! Sistah Saz joins me in launching this tag game! So, please humour the impish twins!
ha haaaaaaaaaaaaaa

Dancing is the poetry of the foot! John Dryden

I’d give my eyeteeth for being able to dance my way to glory! DANCE! As in waltzing and pirouetting; dances from our own backyard ---bharatanatyam, kuchipudi, kathakali, mohini aattam; and the imported variety --- tap-dance, salsa, ballroom-dance, ballet, tango, foxtrot, jive, folk dance! Oooooh! To be able to spin, jump, skip and glide; to be able to exercise control on your limbs, muscles and movements!

Siggggggghhhhhhhhh I’ve been trying! I enticed my darling dad that I must do this ‘dance school’ bit! And those were times, when the dance school came to you! So this hapless ‘dance master’, called, ‘sir’, landed in my house; not even his wildest imagination would have let him envision the toughest of his ‘professional challenges’ ever!

I walked in, trying my inefficient best at being demure, and took his ‘blessings’; and looked up to see his ‘petrified’ expression! Boy! Being in the business of ‘fine arts’, had left him bereft of

the finesse of controlling his facial muscles! ha haaaaaaaaaaaaaa His sixth sense must have warned him that he was going to embark on a futile mission!

And then began days of ‘thaiyum thattha’ for me, misery for the ‘sir’ and entertainment for the rest of the household! The first step was the ‘half sitting stance’! ‘Sir’ all but ‘half swooned’ by the time he got me to a posture that remotely resembled dancing! I mean, I did bend my knees and feet; but he all but yelled at me that I was NOT trying to ape a ‘waddling duck’! Believe me, I tried; And I had to tell myself, it’s a ‘half-sitting’ stance, not a ‘half-shitting’ stance! But I remained perfectly unskilled at the art!

The most impossible was that ‘neck movement’! The ‘sir’ was a typical ‘natya vaadhyar’ types; once he entered and sat squarely on his mat, he stayed glued to the place; never once got up to demonstrate any steps! And the first time I saw his neck go from side to side with a pronounced feminine movement, I couldn’t contain a fit of giggle that soon burst into a guffaw! I had to hurriedly turn it into a bout of cough; and ran out of the room at the pretext of getting some water! Oh! And I tried the movement as well! And ended up with a crick in the neck! And we didn’t even have mobiles then to blame it on!

By then, everyone at home, had begun to gather around during my desperate practice sessions! If God hasn’t bestowed me with more feminine graces, can I help it? Tell me, can I? I couldn’t for the life of me grasp how one could jump, sit and stand -------um-----er------gracefully! Not to mention the ‘humour’ that passed around at my cost! Like the day when Dad walked in with a fistful of nuts and bolts, smiling wickedly at me! When I asked him what they were for, he said with a straight face, ‘oh just to fasten the shelves and boards around you, when you dance’! Boy! Was I livid!

The next day, my uncle came to me and said, ‘Chithra, you know, I was talking to Balu, (his friend next door), and he asked me if there was some renovation going on at our house; said, he’d heard a lot of heavy thuds yesterday’!

And don’t you think I should’ve given up? Not me! Why should I face the embarrassment, when ‘sir’ saved me? He decided to quit!

And later, I did try my hand at, sorry, feet at several such attempts! Futility is a word not found in my dictionary!

Years flew by! And I’ve always believed in the statement, ‘life begins at forty’! I had signed up for a course in Kolkata; and all my batchmates

were in their twenties, leaving me the only ‘senior citizen’ there! So they went that extra mile to ‘include’ me in all their ‘youthful’ and ‘nocturnal’ stints! We went to a disco one evening;a Mumbai maiden, an American lass and a London Jack my companions! The guy,

after his numbers with the girls, asked me to dance. I shook my head and told him I didn’t know how to!

He was very kind to me! (read patient with me! ) In a tone he probably used on his baby nieces and nephews, he explained to me that ‘shaking a leg’ is no big deal. He guided me through the floor and taught me a few easy steps. The first few faltering steps were malady; two left feet? I felt like I had twenty! But soon, to my delight I found that I was able to move my limbs in a fairly fluid movement, far better than my initial ‘march past’ style! Or so I had assumed in my newly acquired pseudo confidence! For I had the dancers around me groaning in pain and muttering in barely concealed anger! My arms were ‘hitting’ out in all directions and my feet were on their own ‘stamping mode’! To everyone’s consternation, I brought down the dancing population, indisposing a few; a guy, who ran off the floor, holding his hurting chin, a girl limping away, a woman bent double, her hands on her midriff----

----and many more lightning flashes of disappearing heads and bodies, that I couldn’t take in anymore details!

And so the story goes on; me still at it, whenever the opportunity throws itself at me! Or I throw myself at it! A friend asked, oozing sympathy in her tone, ‘Don’t you feel disappointed? Let down? Not being able to do something you so want to’?

I looked at her serenely and responded, ‘Who said I’m a failure? I always look at the positives in any situation. Now, if you think I’m badly off for not being able to ‘dance’, I feel the people who occupy the apartments in the three floors below me are greatly off! Poor dears! Think what they would do if I danced every day on the fourth floor!’. I gave a dramatic pause and continued, ‘And don’t miss out on my kindness to famous dancers; they wouldn’t be as famous, for had I entered the stage, I would have hogged the limelight, the headlines and the page three status as well’!

Another pause; I ensured the words had sunk in; and then I went on; ‘And how much I love myself too; for if I started dancing regularly, wouldn’t I lose weight? And what would I be left with to throw about?’ She was staring at me with a stricken look! And I finished on a note of triumph! ‘And who told you I don’t dance? I dance to the tunes of luvamalife! Every single

one of his! And he thinks I excel in it! So what more could I ask for? ha haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

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Sep 25, '09

Rain Rain (don't) go Away!

Rain Rain, (don’t) go away!

SPLASH! Wow! I just looked down at myself to find an amazingly new pattern on my outfit; a pattern that outsmarted the most ethnic batik designs! And while women spend a fortune on the ‘tie and dye’ material, there I had it, offered to me for nothing! Welcome to Monsoon in Bangalore!

Uneven roads and potholes may be common features across India, but as a proud Bangalorean, I’d like to believe in all my naiveté that it’s an exclusive affair in our garden city! Come rains, all hells break lose!

I was out today; and I must digress here a bit! I don’t own a car, so I don’t get to honk impatiently at the busy Bangalore signals. I take out my two-wheeler only if my destination is within a five-kilometer radius; anything beyond that, I happily flag down an auto; and by virtue of my long-lasting relationship with these omnipresent three wheelers, I’m known as ‘auto rani’!

So, I was out today; in my default mode of transport! The heavens were at their elements, sending an incessant, torrential downpour; and I had braved the elements to step out of the house as I had some impending business outside!

To say it was raining ‘cats and dogs’ would be an understatement; it would be more appropriate if I said, it was raining, ‘rhinos and elephants’! There were tiny rivulets flowing along most of the roads. Some roads that were at a lower level, had transformed into bigger water bodies than rivulets; the vehicles were doing an oar less rowing against the flowing water.

Whenever there was a passing vehicle, I was never going to miss that huge ‘splash’! And it was not an anointment with water from the holy ganges! I was showered and sprayed in dirty brown, murky, infection-ridden water, covering as much of me as possible; and that’s quite a bit! I guess there’s no point in me getting vocal about the gross insensitivity of the racing motorists; old habits die-hard! The speed with which some of them zoomed past in such weather and road conditions, made me wonder if there was something wrong with their bladder control, and they were in a frenzied hurry to find a rest-room!

The auto eventually came to an under-pass, where some two-wheelers were taking shelter from the rains. That meant there was less room for the moving vehicles; and in spite of the constrained space, the vehicles managed to move in two columns. And that particular stretch was like a rapidly flowing river, all of murky brown liquid! How that bus driver managed to find so much wheel-space to exercise so much velocity would probably remain a wonder for me always; but he did; and as he did, there was this ‘mammoth SPLASH’ again; this time almost as big as a tidal wave; and I realized what an onamatopoeic word it was! And I shrieked and cursed simultaneously; though either went unheard by anyone!

It was still raining; my dress was soggy from top to toe; I was looking like something the cat dragged in; I was chilled to my bones; hands and feet had gone numb; and I was longingly thinking of a steaming shower followed by a cup of ‘garam chai’! Amidst all that, I was reminded of a wonderful nursery rhyme I’d learnt in school. I’ve always wondered why that rhyme never attained the popularity of a ‘twinkle twinkle little star’ or ‘Jack and Jill went up the hill’, for it’s a lovely little verse. And here’s how it goes:

If all the trees were one tree, what a great tree it would be!
If all the seas were one sea, what a great sea it would be!
If all the men were one man, what a great man he would be!
If all the axes were one axe, what a great axe it would be!
And if the great man, took the great axe, and cut down the great tree,
And let it fall into the great sea,
What a great SPLISH-SPLASH it would be!

Had it been today, and had the creator of the rhyme experienced the monsoon in Bangalore, he would have known, what a great SPLISH-SPLASH it would be!

Glossary:

Onamatopoeia: is a word that imitates or suggests the source of the sound that it describes. eg: sizzle, pop, gurgle, bang, clang, hiss, buzz.

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Sep 24, '09

Humer(o)us! The Funny Bone(of Contention?)!

Humer(o)us!
The funny bone (of contention?)!

‘I have a good sense of humour’! How often do we come across this ‘confident claim’ on profiles; at times, it’s not confident; it’s either ‘arrogant’, or ‘mindless’! The enormity with which this expression is taken for granted is at par only with itself!

The imp in me rubs his hands in glee when I see a profile read, ‘I have a great sense of humour’! Of course, it has to be put to test! Once someone sent a message to me asking if we could be friends. On visiting the profile, these words flashed at me like neon lights! After the necessary formalities in establishing a ‘friendship’ thread, I received a message with a question, ‘What do you do for a living’? I responded, ‘I breathe’! ha haaaaaa

Well, in fact, that’s my stock phrase for that question so worded! Some respond with equal impishness; some take offense; some send in a ‘sermon’; some treat it with indifference! And their response measures their ‘true’ sense of humour! At the end of it, it’s said, I have a ‘wicked’ SOH and they have a ‘sick’ SOH! ha haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

Certainly not a statement to be taken for granted! And it takes a certain standard and class to possess a good sense of humour; and a lot more standard and class to appreciate the

subtlety and nuances of it.

Colonel: "Sir, a letter was just sent to us reporting a severe water
shortage at Company Charlie!"

General: "Oh, they're probably just exaggerating."

Colonel: "I don't think so, sir. The stamp was held on with a paper
clip!"
Could that be called a ‘dry’ sense of humour? Literally! lol

Poetry is not the most complicated feature of literature; humour is much more complex; complex in it’s simplicity; which is why students of literature are set tasks on humourous pieces only at an advanced level.

Humour with a dash of wit, is a greater feat to accomplish. Remember the bard’s line? ‘Better be a witty fool than a foolish wit’! The fools of Shakespeare are remarkably clever and witty, though they are called ‘fools’; no fooling around! ha haaaaaaaaaaaaa

The British sense of humour is the best by far! Those of you who have watched the Yes Minsiter series would vouch for it, I’m sure! But one needs to have a feel for the language and have a ‘frequency match’; or else, what appeals as humour to the British is mystifying to those from other nations.

Tourist: Could you tell me the way to Bath please?
Policeman: Well, you first turn on the hot and cold taps and then------------------------------------- ha haaaaaaaaaaaaaaa

A lot of eyebrows would go up quizzically at that, won’t they?

Bernard Shaw is known for his wonderful sense of humour. Having spotted George Bernard Shaw standing alone in a corner during her dinner party, a hostess anxiously approached her distinguished guest. "Are you enjoying yourself, Mr. Shaw?" she inquired. "Certainly," Shaw replied. "There is nothing else here to enjoy."

Subtle, acerbic, wry, dry, tongue-in-cheek! Whatever it may be, to lace it with humour is an art. Many have their sense of humour in place when it’s directed at others; but the acid test of the presence of a good sense of humour is when it’s directed at oneself! How many are able to laugh at themselves? Openly? Sans inhibitions? He who is able to achieve that can be certified and permitted to add to his profile the statement, ‘I have a rocking sense of humour’!

I happened upon a flat where a couple on the ground floor, raised about a dozen dogs. The sign on their door read: ‘never mind the dogs; beware of the owners’! That is what is meant by, laughing at one’s own expense! And that is sense of humour at its best!

I’m sure you feel this post is way too sober! That’s what humour is! It's not mere laughing matter; it’s serious

business. And he who laughs last, laughs long!

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