seriously, dad....

i was invited by three of my frnds to their houses, and we were gonna be a big gang of 20 or so, house-hopping on sunday. all i needed was permission. hmm... permission... that is the tough part.

wel, i asked, n my dad frowned. "where did u get this habit from, oor-suthifying n all?"

"dad, it is just to my frnd's house, i've been invited for lunch, and so have others. y cant i go, it's a sunday !"

"fine, watevr. u ppl dont study at all. do everything else. i should have put u in satyabama hostel. then we'll see wat u could have done."

well, i got the yes i needed to hear. so i just walked away from there before i screamed and he changed his mind.

i worked to get into this coll... n no matter how much my brother teases me, i dint get in by luck. ye, i've been rotting after i came here, mostly of my own doing, coz everybody else seems to b doing fine. i study alright, i just dont study like them. n i have no idea how to write an exam properly. mayb they mastered both these skills, n this has taken them a long way. me, i've had my tryst with arrears, n hopefully it wont aggravate this sem. (results awaited!) dad thought i was cool with where i am right now. n i thought he was understanding, cheering me on to the next hurdle. problem was, we were both wrong about each other.

but imprisoning me in the dungeons of satyabama, that's a death warrant. their style of disciplining is just to please the parents... aint gonna work with me. u wanna discipline me your way, i'll find another problem for u to fix.

he's got hang-ups. he stereotypes ppl by their outward action, appearance. he thinks i'll b a bad student if i go out to eat, go to movies, or jus anywhere with friends. wherever i need to go, "u jus tell me, i'll take u there". n recently my bro has picked up this line from dad, gives me the same crap when we are in an argument. which only makes me ask him to shut up (somethin i've never said all these years, n my dad wonders if im getting out of control... relax dad, im jus spkin my mind, something i should hav done many many yrs ago jus to clip off this chauvinism that runs in the family)

recently, it was saarang he banned me from attending. well, i've got used to it. 4 years. there is a good reason. it is freakin crowded. every loser in the city drags his ass there. leave alone the good crowd, my friends, and the cute-lookin ones. there is a whole bunch of jerks u'd wish u dint meet. i'd know, coz when i was in school, i knew some of the crowd that went there...drunk. and another thing abt the crowd. i think i border on wat u call agoraphobia, and im definitly not a crowd-lover. mayb that s y i dint persist (the real reason could b that my dad said "odhai vaanguve!!!" in such an intimidating way, i dint know wat to do except run out of his sight).

nowhere to go. now, where to go ?

Idiotic moron of an imbecile

Grrrr..... !!!! That ... That ...

(Damn, i dont wanna get back to the bad vocab, but there are no other words to decribe him)

4 students suspended for allegedly watchin porn. that is wat the paper says. that is wat the vc has told them. that is not wat happened.

here's the story, i heard from a very reliable source.

a day-schi has an argument with parents, leaves home early, reaches coll. given adequate time for classes to start, dude goes straight to the hostel, chills out in a friend's room. his dad calls up hostel, guy argues more n slams down the phone. his dad calls up the associate warden, warden comes to the friend's room. he finds a stack of cds next to the comp, demands that they be opened for verification. now, there were a couple of porno cds among a whole lot of good cds, but as unfortunate as it can get, the first one they open is porno. the two guys are suspended. another guy is called to verify the content on the rest of the cds, n he tryin to b a good samaritan to his fellow mates, switches one of the cds with a blank one. warden finds this out. third guy suspended. warden walks down the hostel corridor, a guy is with a mobile phone. fourth guy suspended.

and still, the paper says 4 students suspended for watchin porn. (oh btw, all cds and the first guy's cpu confiscated - mayb the warden wants a piece of the meat too).

even if they had actually been caught red handed (err.... or watevr....), this would have been an issue of disgrace to the institution, not someth they'd ever want to mention. but nooooo... we have the most brilliant mind heading one of the nation's most prestigious technical universities. any decision he takes is welcomed with open arms and open legs. by parents, staff members, and let's not forget, his favourite community, the students, who in return promise to be incredibly good students and fulfill all his visions for the university, and who pray day and night that he is not gangraped. after all, he didnt become the vc that easily, he paid 50 lakh rupees for it.

so here we are. living happily ever after (read: jus 2 months in this firetrap) life is good. my sarcasm, even better.

n i had 2 hrs of HOD's class the day this news came out. poor man, what can he do but advise ? of course, he had a whole lot more sarcasm up his sleeve. i can't blame him. he doesn't make the rules, he has to enforce them, whether sensible or not.

p.s.: latest update from Nemesis... the flicks weren't even porn !!! one was a decent movie, the other had a few scenes here n there. not the all out bang-from-start-to-end that the press release made it look like. damn they wrote as if all the four were busy doing themselves when the warden walked in !

The latest addiction

Hmmm, addictions... mine vary in phases, especially when it comes to songs. i'd listen to a song so compulsively until i jus couldnt feel the difference from hearing it the last time.

there are two such now... both from a recent tamil movie - kanda naal muthal. which two, it s obvious !

when i first heard to merke merke, i was listening to the tune, but i was more closely following the lyrics. the singers start off "the sun rises in the east... this season, that season", and i go... uh ???
then comes the captivating part "why did the lightning leave me yest ? is it just to unite again today ?"

from there on, it just gets better. two people who were constantly on each others nerves discover there are deeper emotions hidden, and the song is an expression of this unrequited love to each other. the longing to see each other at every instant; the rush of joy, the joy of touch, the touch of love.

the lyrics are quite commendable on another level as well... it has nothing to do with the beauty of the girl. it describes her expression when angry, when tranquil. it describes the complete surrender of their hearts to love. "there is no need for veils any more". it describes the new interpretation of all that around them "will the wind stretch itself like a wing, will the hands immerse in poetry?"

the song is shot on a beach. no skimpy bikinis, no wet saris, no shirtless arnold-wannabe.

the music, during all this, really lets the emotion sink into the mood. no fast beats, no racy guitar riffs. YSR's careful selection and pace of the strings tells that this a special moment for the duo on screen. thank god, the singers were right for the song. else it would have a jarring flow, akin to ghazini (the female lead in suttum vizhi sudare is a classical singer, u can tell it in her intonation, the way she drags the word... signature of a classical singer. also karthik's high pitch voice in oru maalai is a tad bit out of place.)

the beat is slow, not sleepy. the initial stringed chords are a good opener to wats abt to follow. the bass is there, at the same time not there (im not a genius, i have no idea how he did it !) the soulful arrangement is touching. the soft keyboard in the background is a good filler. overall, the song really makes me miss that chemistry !

song two...pani thuli.
now that the couple have found they are more than jus "friends", the relationship gets to other levels ! somehow, had the lyrics been madrasi tamil, no music could have captured the magical essence of that accidental brush between them in the hallway. the lyrics are straightforward otherwise. it openly articulates the raging hormones "lust and shyness are battling"

lost in thought, hit by a strange wave of feelings, searching for each other in the crowd, feeling like in a lonely planet despite being amongst others, having a conversation between hearts, and ending it with an all-revealing silence... i hope it makes the normally prudish "abhishtu-abhistu" cases realize that a breeze of lust running through one is not bad, it is merely human, and sometimes divine. (it's bad when the lust is stranded alone, without even a hint of love, affection, and respect)

the music... mindblowing. except for the occassional chanting of female chorus about the expectant girl. the other vocal chords sensuously set to the context is wow !!! you cant help but wonder at the creative brilliance of the composer in ensuring that the listener is mystified by the aura around the song. the singers again, great choice. KK's high pitch is breath-taking, as was Shankar Mahadevan's in the previous song. Apt. Not desperate.

well, that s my addiction for now. it wil probably last another month. im already hooked to stevie nicks' edge of seventeen. le's see when it takes over.

Pride & joy

I dint think anything could be done about it. it was so rampant, even more than corruption in the administation. it knew no geographic frontiers. all it knew was division of the sexes. it couldn't be stopped, or so i thought. it.... sexual harassment.

boys... dont skip this. read it !

and then i read about a young woman travelling alone on a train, who was subjected to the same disgust. her name is hemangini gupta, n she dint shut up about it.

http://hemanginigupta.blogspot.com/2005/06/train-to-chennai.html

she dint do anyth innovative, she jus did the right thing. reported him to the law.

from that site, it was link after link, and i discovered so much... there really is a provision in the judicial system to arrest this behaviour, there is every subsection and article to ensure that a woman's rights are preserved. wat it takes is enforcement, execution.

i learnt about jasmeen patheja's blank noise project in bangalore...
http://blanknoiseproject.blogspot.com/
(some who read the newspaper frequently might recall her name, there was a huge article in the second page of sunday mag of hindu about her and this project)

it reinstates the fact that this issue cannot afford to be overlooked, despite its banality in today's world. i saw the donate your clothes section. wat women wore when they were teased. it is nice to prove that the self-styled moralists of the male-dominated world are amazingly wrong when they say that women are teased only due to their attire. the site clearly shows it "you did not ask for it".

it was this site that also linked to similar projects in the US...

http://streetharassmentproject.org/
http://www.hollabacknyc.com/

the things you read on the above sites are disturbing. the language used in the US is a dozen times more demeaning and disparaging.

all for one reason. the affected is a woman. it is not her skin, her face, her clothes, her religion, her location. you dont have to be miss world to be whistled at. you just need to have "certain physiological components".

every iota of eve teasing is a blaring statement saying you have no place on the road, you have to either stay where you cannot be touched or you have to submit to me. there is no acceptable behaviour. there are levels. and all of them have to be tackled. because each leads to the next.

we are weak physically, not emotionally. we are outnumbered, but we are the good guys. we cannot do black magic to castrate every molestor. we can take on this disgusting section of society one at a time. we can make a difference to our own self-confidence. we can walk with our head held high and still know we can tackle wat comes our way. because we know deep down within, it is gonna take more than a lecherous prick to take away our pride & joy.

but most importantly, we cant do it alone. we need to work together. and gentlemen, i mean you too.

why mom, why ?

I have an assessment, first thing wednesday morning. Numerical methods. easy, yes, but i wanna ace this subj.

n wat happens when i get home ? mom asks me for help. she needs to research some 20 or more nursery rhymes to find appropriate ones for the primary class textbooks. now im thinking, hey, i can do this. she needs my help coz she cant use the comp. n how many times has she put me on top of her priorities ? cant i do this little thing for her ? i am her daughter, who else will ?

so, i give myself this senti speech n dutifully decide to comply with her request. wat she points to, i click. wat she wants, i copy. i started at 6 15 something... it went on, and on, and on, and on, and on. 24 rhymes. it was 9 45 when i printed them out.

i was supposed to have called pooj at 9, discussed math. called her at 10, finished jus before 11. dad was home during the entire conversation. n he knew bloody well it was math i was talkin abt the whole time.

so, 10 45 i walk thru the hall to the dining room to get my dinner. n im stopped by dad, given a 5 min lecture on not spendin time on phone, questioned on my mannerism of studying on the phone (hey, i was teaching, not studying !!!) and warned that my telephone connection would cease to exist if this happened again. im tryin not to raise an eyebrow, leave alone raise my voice.

n where was mom during all this ? in the same room, having dinner, watching the news. not a word from her. noth saying 'she was doing work for me' or 'she was busy with other things' or 'she is helping her friend' or anyth !

thanx mom, thanx a lot. thanx for pointing out that big tattoo on my forehead which reads : SUCKER

my fault. im not supposed to bring any senti into my thought. n when i do, im corrected by incidents like this. awesome.

Woo.....hooooo !!!!!

After a whole semester of mind numbing depression, and a host of exams that took their toll on me one after another, today was worth living for.

FMS. Ranked on par with the IIMs. Awesome faculty. Even cooler placements. Nonpareil reputation. Just 63 seats in merit-based admission. 600 calls last year. If only i could make it to this year's call list...

Even if not, long live Delhi University for the easiest paper I have ever written. A morale booster (although somewhat dubious). Something to tell me, kidd, don't worry, there are papers you can still kick ass in.

Yeah, yeah, it's all relative. But i'll postpone my conscious awareness of that fact by a few weeks, when the calls do come. For now, I'm just basking in the joy of having done a real exam real good. I made a mockery of the mocks !

I feel like spider-man right now, when he learnt he could climb walls, and looked down at the ground.... Woo.....hooooo !!!!!

"I'm a live wire, gonna set this town on fire !!!"

Me, myself and irrationality

that s me... lil kidd... i could be 28 n still have the moodswings of a 7 yr old. perennially furious, with spurts of light hearted mirth (most of those spurts are confined to the mind) . almost an adult, yet, with the confusions of a pre-teen.

confusions abt my identity, my religion, my choices, my stance, my skill, my ambition, my way. and this confusion has cost me my tranquility. in short, im one irrational act away from being branded a lunatic.

if wat's abt to be typed is dark, then the pages of my journal are darker.

in a desperate attempt to sort out this chaos of the psyche, i drove myself from a "why blog" to a "why not blog", a place for me and my indecipherable intellect.

my journal is for that which i don't dare to share... here, i'd dare alright, as long as my parents don't read it ! my mother worries that i dont conform to "norms and tradition", my father raises an eyebrow when he sees a book of world philosophers on my table.

"Cooler than a body on ice
Hotter than a rollin' dice
Wilder than a drunken fight
You're gonna burn tonight
I'm a live wire !!!"

quoting the gods of rock, AC/DC.