I want to believe

Prelude: The seed of this post was sown almost a year ago when I saw the famous X-file poster a friend of mine had put up as his display picture in Gtalk. Well, this is what I am talking about.

But aliens and spaceships and X-files were not the first thing to come to my mind at all. Infact, it wasn’t until I actually Googled the phrase that I got to know about the origins of the poster. What stuck on my mind were those four words.

I want to believe.

Right.

I want to believe in fairy tale romances. Stuff straight out of Snow White and Cinderella and Rapunzel. I want to believe in the quintessential handsome Prince Charming riding on his white horse and taking his Princess off to the land of the happily ever after. I want to believe that good always happens to the good and that in the end evil is always vanquished. And that humiliated and hurt, evil doesn’t raise its proverbial ugly head again. I want to believe in happy endings. Always.

I want to believe that someday, life will go back to how it was meant to be. Slow and easy. And I want to believe that when that day comes and when people actually stop to smell the roses, the roses will smell sweeter than ever. I want to believe that someday people will again start caring what happens in the house next door, and neighbors will start lending and borrowing sugar again. I want to believe that someday, kids will learn their ABCs where they are supposed to. In school. And that they will not have to rote stuff and sit for tests and prove that they already know everything before they can even join a school and actually start learning. I want to believe simplicity will be back in fashion.

I want to believe that balancing everything is easy. That a person can juggle his career and his family equally efficiently, and earn lots of money and have lots of time, all at the same time. I want to believe in babies being brought up and pampered by super moms who also zealously nurture their job. I want to believe in a life minus compromises and priorities. In a life where everything is important and nothing is too important.

I want to believe that someday MTV will go back to being just about music. That reality shows will stop being phony and staged and that Indian soaps will stop revolving around extremely improbable family drama. I want to believe that comedy will not just be restricted to stand-up shows and be more like the “Idhar Udhar” and the “Yeh Jo Hain Zindagi” and the “Wagle Ki Duniya“. I so, so want to believe that someday, the characters in Hindi serials will not just be clubbed into angels and devils, and will have shades of grey like all of us do. And that they will definitely stop sleeping in their finest silks decked up in all of their gold. And will at least care to open their shoes before jumping into bed (ah, the filmed horror!).

I want to believe that news channels will stop being about hyperventilating screaming reporters emphasizing and sometimes enhancing an already fragile situation, and be more about calm and hopeful yet realistic assessments. I mean, we really don’t need to be more terrified than we already are, do we? I want to believe someday I will turn on the TV without the so-called “truth” being yelled at my ears at high decibels and glaring at me in brisk flashing sequences. I want to believe television will be about information and entertainment and not meaningless publicity and drama riots.

I want to believe in Harry Potter and his enchanting world in Hogwarts where everything becomes alright with the swish of a wand. I want to believe in flying dragons and magical rings and I want to believe that they are strewn all around us waiting for that right moment to reveal themselves. And I want to believe that the right moment is now. I want to believe in the stories of Gods descending on earth in different “avatars” to save the mortals from the devils’ wrath, and I want to believe that this “Kalyug” of global warming and rising prices and corruption is actually the beginning of an end and that “Satyayug” is just around the corner. I want to believe in my grandmother’s tales of the cycles of eras and I want to believe that the right after the worst is over, the best times will begin. I want to believe that fiction and mythology are tales based on reality, and that what we read is what is true.

I want to believe in undying love. In Coke which doesn’t melt bones and teeth. In matches made in heaven. In artificial sweeteners which actually don’t have sucrose in them. In gadgets that never need an upgrade. In a perfectly innocent childhood. In playtime being about throwing ball in the backyard. In diets that don’t leave you unsatisfied and hungrier than ever. In free lunches. In rolling stones sometimes gathering moss after all. In deals with no asterisks and no fine prints. In a life with no regrets. In friendship with no conditions.

I want to believe in life itself. That even if it takes us places we don’t want to go to, or teaches us lessons we don’t want to, in the end, it knows what is best for us.

So much for random nonsense. Oh, and I want to believe this random nonsense made some sense as well.

PDA: Please Don’t Argue

So a few days back a friend of mine had raised the issue of Public Display of Affection on Facebook, and had invited a debate on whether “love expressed on Facebook can be classified as PDA or not”. The friend of mine further questioned if ‘it defies the basic social norms which have been set by our “society”?’

Most would agree that it is, indeed PDA, and as I have already argued in this post, I agree too, that Facebook, or for that matter, any online social networking site, is not so far away from reality that one must think they have a license to behave in any way that they wouldn’t in real life.

The friend’s post made me think about PDA as a whole, and I did a little research on what has already been debated about it. It seems people still can’t seem to make their mind about whether PDA is really acceptable or not, while most say that given involving parties remain “within predefined limits”, it doesn’t really make any difference. Rule of thumb, in my opinion, should be that, anything that makes people near you go “Aww..look at that, they’re so cute!” is okay, while anything that would incite a nauseous “Ugh! Go get yourselves a room guys!” isn’t.

And although it might be totally unrelated, all I could think of was Lily Allen’s “Who’d Have Known”, and the song’s lyrics. Of course, trust me to find a song for everything. The song’s not that exceptionally great, except that it has these lines which I really like,

“I haven’t left here for days now,
And I’m becoming amazed how,
You’re quite affectionate in public,
In fact your friend said it made her feel sick,
And even though it’s moving forward,
There’s just the right amount of awkward,
And today you accidentally called me baby“

I am sure people who discuss PDA are the ones who have, never, in their life, indulged in PDA themselves. I am sure people who talk about social norms and PDA defying them, have never, for once, held their lover’s hand in public. And I am also sure they have never said “I love you” to their girlfriend/boyfriend in front of their friends. I mean, of course, that would be PDA, right? Saying I love you in public? Then how, I ask, would they understand why a song would be written about how great it feels when someone shows their affection to you in public? How would they understand that in any relationship, being acknowledged in front of friends, is considered one of the first signs of a stable foundation? How would they realize how amazing it is when the one you love, decides to give indulgence to a sudden impulse, a spontaneous outburst of love, and just pops a kiss on your forehead, out of nowhere, while you’re doing something as mundane as waiting for the lift? That sometimes, something as simple as being called baby in front of a group of friends could melt one’s heart?

Well, we keep talking about freedom of expression. Then why is expressing love considered a threat to our culture? People who express feelings of love with friends are not considered “show offs”. Then why are lovers expressing love “show-offs”? I wouldn’t think twice about posting something about my best friend. Then why should I think twice before posting something about my fiance? Friends, family, lovers… these all are relations we have in our lives. Why, then, are only lovers the butt of all debates?

Having said all this, I still maintain that there is always a statute of decency this “society” has agreed upon, and one should stick to that. You are free to do anything you wish, as long as it doesn’t cause discomfort to the people around you. Like I already mentioned that rule of thumb, right?

And just before I wrap this whole thing up, you want to know how “offensive” PDA is? Go ask that dork who scored the campus trophy and loves flaunting her because it is the first time his friends are jealous of him. Go ask that guy who’s doing a jig inside his head right now, grinning like an idiot, because his girlfriend just blew a kiss to him in front of his friends. Go ask that girl who wishes she could throw a party because her “never-express-love-in-public” boyfriend just made a fool of himself in front of his friends and the butt of their jokes because he posted a video of a romantic song on Facebook and tagged her in it. Or maybe go ask that couple who held hands in public for the first time and realized how spectacular the world looks when you’re walking hand in hand.

Leave them be. Let them enjoy. Don’t like it? Don’t do it!

And oh, this is the song. Since I like it anyways

On public wars VS private wars

…and on a similar note, on public affection VS private affection.

Yeah right. Make what you have to out of it.

This post has been triggered by a lot of things happening at the same time. The whole good, bad and ugly. And I have been through all of this, right on.. ah, Facebook. And no, don’t go all “It’s just a stupid social networking site!” on me. Because I have proof that this “stupid social networking site” has made and marred quite a few real relationships. Shallow? Maybe. Irrelevant? Definitely not.

I imagine Facebook to be a big, big fun ball. You put on a nice dress (your profile picture), you enter the huge hall (login on Facebook) and then you look around and see what’s happening. You have stuff to share, you put it up on this huge message board (the Wall) and then people come and see what you have on yours, and talk to you about it, and you go about checking stuff on other people’s walls and talk to them about it. Sometimes you meet someone you know, and you get a table for two and have a nice private conversation (the chat). Sometimes people come up to you to know you better (it isn’t called “networking” for nothing). You find them interesting, you let them know you better. Or you just shut every stranger out of your comfort zone (your profile). Oh, and sometimes you get poked. Funny if it is by friends, very rude if it is by strangers wanting your attention.

You get the drift. My point here is that, it could be a virtual site, but its influences I believe, are quite real. Starting with the good part, I have met people on Facebook who have turned out to be some of the most influential people in my life. In spite of not having met them ever, they are as much a tangible part of my life as my closest friends! And just the other day, when a sister of mine mentioned how much it meant to her to be included in my “family” in my Facebook profile, I realized sometimes these trivial things are not so trivial after all.

So sometimes you meet, say your better half, in this party that I am talking about. Would you refrain from showing your affection just because you have a home to go back to where you can be as mushy as you can be? Or do you act like strangers, and not talk to each other just because, well, you ought to keep personal stuff personal? If one questions about PDA on Facebook, one ought to question PDA everywhere. Because well, to me, if a person loves me enough to openly say it out loud in that party, he definitely fulfills one of those top ten desired traits on my ruthless wishlist (ruthless because it has, like, everything). Overkill is not desirable anywhere, I agree. But once in a while, doing something impulsive shouldn’t really raise people’s eyes, and make them question it, and mumble things like “personal” and “private”. My answer? Go ahead, close your eyes (hide my posts from your wall). But in that case, do close your eyes each time you walk on the streets as well. Or go question them mushy couples on the street too. Be the “social police” if it pleases you so.

So much for affection, and coming to wars. Same concept. Just like you would follow decorum in that huge fun party, you ought to do that out here too. If you wouldn’t diss me in that party, why diss me on a virtual site? You disagree to something that I say in the course of a discussion, refute me all you have to, and I will defend my stand. But you wouldn’t just walk up to me and say something rude just because it is well, a cool thing to do, would you? That would be plain rude. And doing it on Facebook doesn’t make it a lesser evil. The insult, I assure you, is not imaginary at all. Call me shallow all you want, but fact is that I have lost a really good friend because of an open war on my Facebook wall. My logic was simple. The friend said stuff they wouldn’t have said to my face. And because it was out for everybody else to see as well.

My point? If you don’t disregard compliments or friendships on Facebook, you can’t disregard affronts and hostilities out here too. I am not saying Facebook is a reflection of a “real” life. In fact I hate it when people say my life is out here on Facebook, but what I am saying is that it is also not so far from real life that you will do stuff here you wouldn’t do in your real life. How you behave in a Facebook profile does say a lot about how you are as a person in reality.

And for people who go all “Meh!” when it comes to Facebook, my advice: Don’t join the party and sulk around and say it doesn’t matter. You always have the option of showing yourself the door (logout!). If you are “social” enough to join a social networking site, please do play the part, or else, well. You know what to do.

Bring in the law!

As usual, this has been simmering inside my head for a long time now.. Three years to be very precise. But the other day when I was running this idea by a friend of mine who always gives me perspective, I realized it is not as silly or naive as it sounds inside my head. So well, here’s another of my theories, and this time, on our very basic education. I have to admit though that much of the insights have been taken from my friend.

The idea is to make “Basic Law” a subject in school, and to make it an alternative to History.

(Do I hear some “Aye”s here? Even the slightest nod of the head?)

It all started when one day while watching History Channel, I’d realized stuff like this I had never read in text books. That I am not interested in History per se, unless it makes me think beyond the facts and figures, is a different thing altogether. But well, presented to me in a proper way, and leaving enough questions unanswered to make me want to find them, at times I do get excited about the bygones. Don’t get me started on how it is way past the right time the syllabus in our schools in Assam (under SEBA) got a revision, but even then, History has always been drab; with nothing in it that triggered a spark in our intellect. I opted for Advanced Mathematics in school because there was no other alternative to History. I hear now they have Geography as well (I’m talking about my school here, but I know there must be many more like mine). My point is, isn’t basic law much, much more relevant than History? What with the internet being an information goldmine, people who are really interested in history can get anything they want out here. But how many websites teach us how to overcome fear to visit a police station to file an FIR? Or for that matter, on the spur of the moment, will it even occur to us to surf the internet to see if there’s any information on how to file an FIR?

But the gist of the matter is not whether the internet provides information about basic law or not. I believe just like Civics and Geography are a part of Social Studies, Basic Law should be too. Children in school should learn about laws against physical abuse, or even that physical abuse is unlawful. Girls even while growing up should learn about laws related to marriage (I had to call up my lawyer sister-in-law to know how long it takes to get a marriage certificate done), and against domestic violence. Workers and office-goers should have knowledge about corporate laws, and when they can take some matter to law. Everybody should benefit from the confidence that comes from the knowledge that no one can take undue advantage of them because of their ignorance regarding the law.

So while we had a whole chapter on our Constitution and our basic rights and responsibilities, we still didn’t learn about how to file an FIR. Or even what cases bring in the necessity of an FIR. We didn’t learn about what being a witness to a case entails. All that we know about a courthouse from contorted and dramatized depictions in television and movies is that they have stands for criminals and witnesses, and there’s a judge who goes “Order Order!” and in crucial cases the witness could also get threatened. We didn’t learn about the RTI Act from text books. Except for using it to get our answer scripts reviewed, or revealed to us (even that process takes ages) we haven’t made much use of it either. We didn’t learn about the laws leading to reserved quotas and the only time when we even passed a thought to it was that time when AIIMS students protested against the reservation system. How relevant in Tutankhamun’s tomb when compared to these?

Now this part is totally inspired by my friend, and am using his words here because he is too lazy to come up with anything written (or typed) about this. Moving beyond just law, why don’t we learn the very basic life skills while in school? My mother, who has been a teacher for over thirty years now, mentioned that NCERT has made in mandatory for life skills to be included in the syllabus, and there are even textbooks to that affect, but none of it has been really implemented the right way. Simple things, like learning to open an account in a bank, or getting a demand draft done, or how to deposit money in an account; these are the kind of stuff many of us wish we knew before we are standing in the middle of a thick crowd in a government bank, wondering which way to go and whom to approach! How to apply for a driving license, how to get your passport done, how to get your pass certificates done, how to get your PRC done and what are the documents you need for all of these, how to get a visa done.. and most importantly, what are the state-approved fees for getting all of these done, these are things that should not create confusion among us. There is always only that someone we know who knows. I’m not saying this will overnight curb corruption and bribery, but I sure as hell know this will give them officers something to think about.. that we all KNOW.

Well, that’s all for now. With an administrator of a father, and a teacher of a mother, I think this will suffice for tonight’s dinner talk. Oh by the way, I voted today. Though it is sad to see that even though we learnt in school about voting being one of our basic rights and duties as citizens of a democratic country, and history speaks volumes about the struggle for woman suffrage, I don’t know many people my age who actually voted today. Time for a change, I’m sure. In so many more ways than one.

March Monsoon and the Theory of Extant Humanity

I can’t help noticing that last year exactly around this time, (29th March to be very precise) on the day we celebrated Earth Hour, just like we did today, we had rain, just like we are having today, and a day-long power cut, again, just like today, like I mentioned in this post. Kind of makes you wonder about whether everything really is random.

But that is not what this is about. This post is an impulsive outburst, and I attribute it to humanity. To chance acquaintances and instant connections. To the verity that kindheartedness is still very much in fashion.

Cutting down on the effervescence, and coming to the gist of the story. Which starts in a flight from Chennai to Kolkata. After spending three days in Chennai with R, having to check in at the airport for my flight to Kolkata while he stayed back for his international flight later, was embarrassingly tearful. Between trying to remind myself that I was in the airport, of all places, amidst total strangers, and then consoling myself with the fact that they were after all strangers and hence I needn’t bother about the strange looks they kept throwing my way, I managed to board the flight without creating a total scene. Almost. The compassionate woman at the security check tut-tutted at my swollen eyes, and inferred I must be leaving my parents behind. On being informed, through fresh tears, that it was the fiancé I was going away from, all she could say was “Ayyayyo Madam, not to cry no!” I was so sad that even her words made me feel better. I swear.

Ugh. I digress as usual. So I boarded the flight, and true to my habit, kept looking at the people boarding the flight wondering who would be seated next to me. An old woman, accompanied by an old man I assumed to be her husband, shuffled towards me, and just said one word, “Move”. Like the obedient girl I am, I obligingly shifted from my seat in the middle to the window seat. Not that I minded shifting, but part of me wondered if the lady couldn’t have added a “Please?” to it. I was giving up my assigned seat after all. Too occupied with my own melancholy about how the next time I meet my guy would be when I am actually getting married to him, I fixed my gaze at the window, taking in the night view of the city, conveniently ignoring the couple next to me.

Once the vertigo took over though, I buried myself in an Archie Double Digest, trying hard not to think about how the sky looked like a dark blue wall caving in on me. So much that I didn’t notice that the airlines people had opened “shop” already (Ground prices VS. Air prices? Really? Who do they think they are kidding?) Until Grumpy Aunt next to me started shuffling in her seat again, trying to make room for their paid-for on-flight dinners. I took my perfunctory bottle of water and a packet of salted peanuts and went back to my comics, only to be nudged by my neighbor in the arm. Offering me two packets, one of “Mughlai Parantha” and the other “Malabar Parantha“, she smiled and said, “Take one?”. I couldn’t help conceding how Grumpy Aunt wasn’t actually grumpy at all, and I noticed her kind eyes for the first time. I politely refused, saying I was not hungry. She insisted, and kept shoving the packets towards me. After about three rounds of refusal and insistence, I took one, thanking her. Not one to start up a casual conversation based on small talk, I again turned to my comics. Aunty wasn’t satisfied just giving me the dinner packet though. She also passed me the paper napkin that came with the dinner and I couldn’t help giggling this time. Aunty smiled back at me, and just to make her point, caressed my cheek. I can’t think of a sweeter gesture, really. And now that I think of it, I can’t remember a more benevolent face.

Hence passed one hour uneventfully, and just like it always happens to me, the vertigo was back before I was ready for it, earlier than I had expected. I overheard Aunty mention to Uncle that we might be landing, and since I figured they must be frequent fliers, I asked casually in English if we were about to land. Aunty nodded, and asked Uncle in turn, and before I knew it, the three of us were in the middle of a conversation. I got to know they were back from a long trip, having visited their sons and daughter, and I myself revealed more of myself than I normally do to random strangers. Maybe because my gut feeling told me they weren’t random strangers. Sometime mid-conversation Aunty confessed she thought I didn’t understand Hindi, which I found a little strange, hence explaining those awkward one-word sentences. And hence making me realize that sometimes a smile and a caress can say so much more than words do. On being asked as to what my future plans are, I found myself divulging my wedding plans to her, and she was so happy she patted me on my back, as though it were a major achievement to have scored a good husband! She casually asked me if I would invite her to my wedding, and I laughed it off, saying yes, I would.

When we had landed, I couldn’t help telling her that I really, really liked her, and she kissed me on my cheeks, saying she found me adorable. To my surprise though, she seemed to have taken the wedding invite quite seriously, and she asked me, “How are you going to invite me if you don’t have my number?” Although somewhat hesitant to dispense with my number, I saved it on her phone (she didn’t know how to do it), knowing very well that the chances of her using that number were near zero. I took her number in turn, and then helped her get off the flight and in the bus. While we kept waiting for our luggage to come, Aunty kept asking about who would come to pick me up from the airport and where would I be staying for the night, and I knew she was genuinely concerned. Even after I assured her that my Jiju would come to pick me up and I would stay at his place, she told me to give her a call even if I had the slightest problem. I touched her feet before she went out of the airport, and she filled my heart with her blessings, giving me yet another kiss on my forehead.

I repeated the story to everyone I met for the next few days, and could never get her face out of my mind. Each time I would scroll down my contact list in my phone, her name would remind me of her. And today, whole two months later, as I was wondering if I should give her a call or wait for my wedding date to be fixed, I also wondered if she even remembers me. Fearing that I would fail to register myself in her memory, I decided not to.

Which brings me back to my theory of things not being random after all. Serendipity it has to be, but Aunty called me today itself. You can only imagine how happy it made me, to have my faith in humanity restored back to me, nicely wrapped up in a warm conversation. We talked about how we had never forgotten each other, and how it had to be telepathy that she called me up just today. I promised to keep in touch more often, and she promised to book her tickets the day my wedding date got fixed.

Who says people have no time for humanity these days?

P.S. The title is in tandem with the year-old post I mentioned before

Re-writing our rituals, sort of!

This suddenly came to my mind yesterday when I was attending a debate in my university. The topic is irrelevant, but the context is not. In the course of the debate people were discussing about how Valentine’s Day, although being part of the so-called western culture, has now been incorporated into our culture. I guess whether it is a good thing, or a bad thing was what they ultimately ended up arguing about. This, is also a consequence of the Big Bong Wedding Hangover like I mentioned in my last post. After what I feel was a ritual overdose, not very surprisingly, I felt the need to make things simpler, and easier to understand, you know. Rituals we relate to, festivals we know the meaning and significance of… I’d also felt this after having been a witness to the rituals that follow a person’s death, and what the family has to go through after having suffered enough already. But let’s not talk about sad things, eh? Moving on to how we can make things simple.

I guess the very first step would be to have options when it comes to following rituals. And not being looked down upon as being “revolutionary” by the society. “But what will people say if you don’t do so and so…!” should not even arise in the scene. If two people are happy to get married on their own, without involving hundreds in it, I guess they should be allowed to. Fact remains that once the two-three day ceremony is over, only a handful would really want to know how happy the couple is in the conjugal life that follows. The focus should be on the moment and the occasion, and I feel running around getting panicky about how the “muhurat” is slipping away kind of draws attention away from it. I mean, think of how monumental it really is! Two people who realize they are meant to be together for life, actually go ahead and take the first step towards it. It should be something that they would think about later in life and get all warm about after all those years! Instead, I guess the first thing a married man or woman would have to say about that moment would be “God, I had no idea what was happening!”

Moving on to the rituals after the wedding. Our community has the ritual of letting a new bride into the kitchen on the third day after the wedding, and another one where the bride and groom go to the bride’s place on the eight day after wedding. I understand that these rituals are meant to sort of ease the newly weds into the new life… you get used to having new relatives, a new set of parents, and in case of the bride, a whole new house to get adjusted to. But the times when the son and daughter-in-law live with the parents is long gone, no? It is usual for the couple to remain in the parents’ house for a couple of days, visit people like on a holiday, and then fly out of the nest to build a home of their own.

What happens then? What about the “rituals” to help them out then?

I suddenly had this idea of making up totally new rituals… Like maybe the first weekend. The husband takes the wife out on a date, and that is compulsory. To make her realize that she is always the cool woman he would love to hang out with all his life. On the first month anniversary, the wife cooks a special meal for her husband all on her own. To let him know that in this time, she has taken the pain to know what he really loves eating, and that she loves him enough to cook it for him without any help from anyone else. Six months, and the bond gets stronger. So they take a day out and roam around the place like an ordinary tourist would. Appreciating everything like for the first time. Exclaiming on the beautiful sites that they have actually witnessed before. Remembering how it was to experience everything new together for the first time. Once a month, they celebrate “buddies” day. When they sit together and chat and have beer maybe, or watch a movie with popcorn in their most comfortable PJs lounging on the couch, not dressing up for a fancy luncheon or dinner….. and just become the back-slapping pals that they really should be. And these rituals continue in intervals over their whole life.

Oh well, you get the gist. You may say each couple has their own way of celebrating togetherness and I agree. But we all know that the first year of getting married is anyways when they get closest, and experience everything for the first time. All I want to emphasize is on the later years. When it gets a little “been there done that” type, and doing something special for the other half needs a little more effort than before because you know each other so well. Since we all seek comfort in rituals and festivals.. why not make up new ones to make being together special each and every year? Why wait for birthdays and anniversaries and Valentine’s Day…. when men hit the panic button deciding on the gifts and things to do, and women agonize over the surprises that they wish they would be well, “suprised” with? Why not just make a habit out of showing the other person that you love and care through these small rituals? And that you appreciate how life is complete because of their presence…all the time?

Having said this, I know my wedding is also going to be held in the most traditional way people can think of. I, too will be one of those brides obsessing about my make-up and dress and on the guests rather than on the moment. And once I am married, I will too, slowly, start taking my husband’s presence for granted. But for now, it is good to dream. And think of how things would be perfect in those dreams.

Talk about idiosyncratic…!

Weird has its own way of creeping into my life, I tell you. I know everyone has some bit of weird in them, but I take pride in the fact that I have a couple of “unique” oddities. Note the quotes though. Just the other day me and DeD were talking about how we all think we have unique idiosyncrasies but in reality if only we talked about them more often maybe it would turn out they are not that “unique” after all. Now I’m sure not many people would be coaxed into talking about how weird they are; not when all of us crave for normalcy more than anything. But here goes my list of idiosyncrasies anyway. Because I am weird like that when it comes to things like this.

Researched Ringtones: How much time do you need to choose a ringtone? You open the gallery in your phone, skim through the list of available ringtones or the songs you’ve put in your phone, and you pick one that sounds the best at that moment, don’t you? And well, that takes like, five minutes, doesn’t it? Not for me. When it comes to ringtones, I am at my finicky worst. Firstly, it should have a loud, catchy intro (for obvious reasons, because else I wouldn’t be woken up from sleep when a call comes). Secondly, it should reflect my mood at that moment. For the record, right now my ringtone is “Love Like Woe” by The Ready Set. It took me like ten minutes of browsing through my favorite songs. Possibilities included “My Girl” by Mindless Behavior but it starts with spoken words (“Dang! We text each other a lot“) and “Get Gone” by Bei Maejor feat Kid Ink, but even that got rejected for the same spoken word start. And yes, the mood is so hip-hop right now. So far so good. But what really gets me is when I have to choose ringtones for specific people. Even there, firstly, if its a guy calling me up I don’t want a girl crooning to me in the ringtone, because then I would have weird images of him singing those words (shudder shudder!). The upbeat start applies here too, of course. So while for Mom and Dad I have “Section 09″ (Reach for the sun) by The Polyphonic Spree (because of course, that’s what they keep telling me), for the sister and Jiju I have the F.R.I.E.N.D.S theme “I’ll Be There For You” because well, they remind me of that show all the time. Plus, I like the feel of having my sister being there for me always. For DeD, my company for all the life-saving lunches and coffees and long walks, I have Lazlo Bane’s “Superman”, and it is because it was the first song we had listened to together, and loved together. It takes me forever to choose one for R, though. Since he is the person who calls me the most, it means the tone I set for him is the one I get to listen to the most. For him it was a whole series though, starting from Michael Buble’s “Home” (it is *so* him, I tell you!) to “Carousel” from P.S I Love You (this one was in a female voice, so I changed it after a while even though I love the way the song starts) to “All My Loving” by The Beatles (this one made me go all mushy when I would hear it) and right now it is the soundtrack to the latest Airtel ad (alright, I AM obsessed with it, okay?). And then, for the group of my girl-friends from campus who make living here a breeze for me, I have the Glee Cast’s version of “Smile”. Now you know what I mean by personalized and researched ringtones….!

Starchy SMS-es: You know how they coined a whole phrase “SMS language” because of the way people use shortcuts and wrong spellings to type out a text message? Nada. Not applicable for me. I must be the most loyal fan of Microsoft Word, really. So much that even when sending texts from my phone, I insist on proper spellings (“you” never becomes “u”, even if it means extending the message to a two-pager!) AND a space after the full-stop in each sentence. Oh, that doesn’t mean I am sms-illiterate. Send me your shortest, most ambiguous texts, and I will still make sense out of it, don’t worry. But don’t expect me to stop being prim and pro-pah about my texts!!

Scrutinized Scripts: And by scripts, I mean movie-scripts. Now this, so far, is something that I have not heard anyone else do. At least among people I know. The availability of movie scripts on the blessed internet must mean there are others like me who read them, right? But for all intents and purposes, I am the only one among all the people I know who read movie scripts for the fun of it. And NOT because I couldn’t get the dialogues right the first time while watching the movie. Ah, so I have this huge folder in my laptop wherein I keep scripts of the movies I have watched, and sometimes, of movies I haven’t watched, but would love to, someday. AND so sometimes, just like that (mostly it is when I am the most stressed and have absolutely no time for nonsense) I would open one of them, randomly, and scan it, from the first word to the last word. Couple that with a good memory (now this, I have to admit, I have!) and a vivid imagination, and I swear it is as good as watching the movie. A two-hour movie wrapped up in forty-five minutes of perusing its script. Although instructions like *Pause. You can almost hear her getting angry* that come along with the script, kind of make the experience a little spoon-fed, since duh… I am reading what she just said, and I can gather that much at least. But on the whole, I swear by this mode of entertainment. For me its like getting the best of both worlds. I love to read, I love to watch movies, and this helps me combine both!

Scrupulously Selective: (when it comes to music, yes) The music maniac that I am, it doesn’t take me much time to decide if I like a song or I absolutely hate it. Point though, I never hate hate song, unless it is sung by Himesh Reshammiya (it gets beyond tolerance then though). I merely wouldn’t enjoy listening to songs I don’t love. However, what does take time, is choosing which songs to hear! Given my seemingly endless (although my laptop says it is just 65GB worth) music anthology, I can claim to have listened to only 70% of it. So my mind has come up with an ingenious way of choosing which songs to listen to. Over time I have realized that I automatically stay away from songs which have weird names of artists like maybe “something something feat someone someone” with the names having both lowercase and uppercase letters or symbols even. It isn’t even like I consciously do it. Given a compilation of songs, I would invariably start listening to ones with a simple title (that’s how I discovered Pink’s Most Girls, FYI) that “sounds” good. And so far, I haven’t been let down. Much.

I’m sure given some more idyllic time, I would come up with many more such oddities in me. Oh, I am a storehouse of oddities, let me tell you. I stay away from books and movies I have heard people talking about a lot. I wake up in the middle of the night to sing myself to sleep. I’d finished reading Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix for the second time in the tiny screen of the Nokia N70 in one night, tucked inside the blankets (my eyes screamed for mercy by the time it was morning). You get the drift. But for now, let me just wrap it here.

P.S. Found one more. I write exceptionally long blog posts!

My ode to nonsense, honest!

Prelude: I have been fiddling with this one for quite some time now, never finding quite the right words. And not convinced myself enough that it even makes for a blog post. It is, after all, just a random thought. Then again, this is what I use my blog for, right? To put words into stuff that seem nonsensical, and let them all out?

I can’t count the number of times I have shouted at someone because I had been shouted at by someone else. Or maybe just because I was generally pissed and frustrated and was dying to take it all out on someone. And I swear (literally!) that this is the case with everyone else too. Except of course, them saint-like people who simply swallow it all and don’t react at all. They don’t exist in my life, for all I care; I don’t know them, and they don’t make for the majority so anyway they don’t count. But coming back to where I was: It is, in general, the rule of nature that any “bad” vibe being generated by one person is circulated, or diffused in the surroundings. Most of the times some unlucky undeserving person is used as a carrier, but whatever be the mode of conveyance, the swear keeps floating in the scene as a consequence. I mean, doesn’t it always happen like this? I swear at you because my mother yelled at me; you then yell at your best friend who then takes it out on the waiter and he goes swears at the sweeper and blah blah blah, so on and so forth…? What makes me think is, where does all the swearing and yelling and cursing and cussing go? Do they just keep floating around, being passed from one person to another? Or do they get dismissed after a while?

If you really think about it hard (that is, if you have enough free time to waste on useless contemplating like I do) the answer to this would actually solve my perennial doubt: Does a sorry really mend things? Because if it does, then it means that once you say sorry, that tiny little ugly bubble of “bad” bursts into happy droplets and the swear-cycle breaks and once again everything is right with the world. Should have been simple, eh?

Sad to say, not for me, though. You see, I am the kind who would forgive, but wouldn’t forget. From which, follows the fact that if anyone has sworn at me, or yelled at me, and then said sorry later on, I would still not get past the fact that they had sworn at me. Which means the “bad” bubble would still keep hovering around. And I am sure I must not be the only one in this planet who feels this way (can’t be statistically possible, there can be only so many permutations and combinations of traits!) So bear me while I ask yet again, where does it all go? Where does the cycle break?

And now when I think of it deeper, I see myself in a sea of bubbles (speech bubbles, this time) with a nice little juicy swear word stamped on them (ending in exclamations, too). Now and then, one of them breaks with a sigh, but so many more come into being at the same time…! Maybe on sunshine-y days they float off to some far away land, but then they never really go away, you know. All it takes is one gloomy grey day and they are back. I just wish someone would help me undo this picture inside my head, and wipe off that ever-present question mark that I keep seeing inside my brain.

So much more now. There must something like be a legal limit on doling out absolute nonsense on unsuspecting readers and I think I just crossed it. Now go dole nonsense on someone else, if you follow me (wink, wink!) Ciao!

The Birthday Theory…

….of hogwash and gimcrack (nice words, eh? Thought it this post should come with a warning, just in case).

So the birthday blues have come and gone to be replaced with exuberance that borders on being hyper. But what’s the use of being a year shy of my silver jubilee if I can’t play the cute idiot for a little longer? And if there’s anything I have known about myself this many years, it is that I am the happiest when I am doling out random useless theories. Like last year I came up with the letter I had written to my thirty year old self on my birthday, this year it is again a birthday related theory, and just so it sounds all academic and professional I give it the name “Redistribution of birthdays among different age groups to ensure equal distribution of birthday-related happiness among all“. Alright, I didn’t come up with this name. My friend DeD did. But the theory is mine. Swear.

This theory was actually triggered by something my mother had mentioned on my birthday two days ago. She reminded me of this extremely obnoxious and quirky habit I used to have of counting the number of days left to my next birthday right after the day of my birthday each year. And I started wondering since when it got to be replaced by gloom and depression as I sighed and moaned through the whole of my birthday lamenting the loss of another year; bringing me closer to a time when “How rude is that!” would be my only response to anyone rude enough to ask me my age, rather than laughing and saying, “How old do you think I am?” and breezily waving it off because I simply know they think I look younger than what I really am. And that’s when I came up with this brilliant (forgive me for saying so myself) idea which will make everyone, but everyone, happy.

So kids like birthdays. Period. Kiddie birthdays are about birthday cakes in shapes of cartoons and cars, candles which proudly announce just how big they are now, loud and messy games with a free ticket to yell as loud as it is possible without bringing the roof down, and the gifts….Aah!… flashy new toys to be played with incessantly for a week and then to be tossed with the old ones without any regard. And grown ups don’t like birthdays. At all. Grown up birthdays are about worrying as to how much money to spend on the party this time, worrying as to how that dreaded age of 30/35/40 (and so on) seems to be hurtling towards them faster than they can handle it, worrying about receding hair lines and lovers’ handles and laughter lines that somehow appear without even laughing, and everything else under the sun, but basically it is about worrying after all.

And what do we do about it? Simple. We ensure a kid gets his fair share of birthdays when he can enjoy them. Say till a kid is ten, he can have like multiple birthdays in a year. Starting from the age of four (I am assuming that’s when they start understanding birthdays and stuff) they can have, say, four birthdays in a year. Fantastically messy and noisy birthdays. With the guests, the cake, the toffees, and the whole darn thing. And then maybe when he turns seven, we reduce it to three in a year, and so on till he turns ten, and the number is down to two in a year. Or maybe we can let them choose how many birthdays they want. Customized to their own needs, you see. Extremely gratifying.

So when the pre-teens and teens set in, we can have the normal, one birthday a year thing going on. With the exception of sixteen (Won’t it be nice to be “sweet-sixteen” for two years?). And when they turn twenty, we kind of slow down the whole birthday wagon wheel. We could start with a birthday in two years, and after twenty-five, maybe we could make it one in three years. See the beauty? But here’s the best part. One can remain twenty-nine for five whole years. Beat that if you can. “Twenty-something” for more than two decades and a half! And the process of slowing gets slower. So you can be thirty-five for six years if you want to, and forty for ten, and fifty for fifteen. No one thus actually gets to an age where you need to feel really “old” old. Time, for once, will slow down and wait for you to gracefully get used to being of a certain age before you are ruthlessly made older. The line “Abhi meri umar hi kya hain?” would be like the punchline of your life. In short, you will have had your fair share of birthdays, and an even fairer share of happiness. Nice, eh?

With that happy thought… for now..

Samhita’s “Samhita” on Praise

Prelude: I always keep saying I don’t believe in superstitions, and I don’t believe that wearing a few stones on your fingers can change anything except the shape of your finger ( know how a finger looks tapered once you keep wearing a ring for long, and also how there’s a faint mark on that place when you open the ring? ). But yes, I do believe I am a hardcore Leo through and through. All the good, the bad and the ugly; the whole darn thing. Don’t ask me why I feel the date I was born in makes me behave in a typical way similar to millions other born at the same time. I just do. Oh, and note the irony too.

So why this seemingly irrelevant prelude? Because as all Leos would know, praise and Leos go very well together. And being a particularly authentic Leo, I too, am susceptible to praise of any kind, from any quarters. Being exceptionally appreciation-hungry has always been something I have been accused of. So naturally I consider myself to be kind of an expert in the business of praise. Having spent an insane amount of time speculating about it and viewing it from all possible angles, I have thus arrived at what I call my “Theory on the Three Kinds of Praise“. And just in case you were wondering, having a surname like Samhita, meaning theory, does make coming up with theories of my own, sort of a birth-right. Well, obligation, more like. Moving on to my theory.

The First Kind Of Praise: This is the most common one, and in my eyes, the least noteworthy. The first kind of praise is when I praise you in front of you, and when it’s just the two of us. I could come up with a million things people say to each other when they are alone, and in the “mood” to win each other over. Having said that, I am not implying that none of the compliments are genuine. It’s just that it is easy to get your way once you’ve said something good about the other person, and specially if you have done something to offend the other one (praising becomes more of a compulsion then). Only that this kind of praise runs the risk of being conceived as flattery. But then again, a few genuine compliments, thrown in now and then, could actually take you a long way. Just make sure you say the relevant things and not something like “Wow, I love your hair!” when the other person’s going on about a major achievement at work.

The Second Kind of Praise: This is an improvement over the first kind, and in my eyes, to be taken note of more than the first kind. The second kind of praise is when I praise you in front of you, and when we have company. I guess now you get the point. It is not very uncommon to hear praise from someone, but I guess praise of the second kind is a little more difficult to come by. I know how it feels really well, because it is actually so rare for me. I remember once, just once, when my mother had mentioned something good about me to one of her colleagues, and I was standing right next to her. And it had meant to me so much because in my family, we don’t go boasting about each other, you know. We are more the “let your work speak for yourself” types. But yes, praise of the second kind is bound to make that person love you all the more, because then, they know you mean it when you say you are proud of them. And it works so much more than just saying “I am proud of you.”

The Third Kind of Praise: This, in my eyes, is the most precious of all kinds of praise, and I swear by it’s abilities to make someone feel on top of the world. The third kind of praise is when I praise you in your absence, but amidst other company. Of course the glitch in this kind of praise is that you don’t get to know I praised you, but believe me, if ever you do, there can’t possibly be a better feeling than the one ensuing that. The best part about this kind of praise is that you simply know it is genuine. No ulterior motives in trying to impress you, or whatever. This also happens to be the most rare kind of praise, as I have found out. And here, I have to mention the person who triggered this thought in me in the first place. My dear Ji, who absolutely dotes on his wife (my sister, of course), and who is the only person I have known till date to shower her with all the three kinds of praises (the first kind I am assuming he always does). Ji and I, along with a few other friends and cousins had gone out for dinner once, (minus my sister) and it was then that a friend of theirs had called him up. I clearly remember how my Ji had told their friend just how beautiful my sister had looked the previous night, what with her new dress and shoes, and new hairdo and all. And more than that I remember the way I had felt when I heard him say that. I wished someone would praise me like that as well, someday.

It was that very night that I came up with this theory of mine. And since then I have earnestly noticed how each kind of praise works. But the best thing I learnt about them is that the whole essence lies in the genuineness. Maybe these above “kinds” is just about categorizing praise on how genuine it appears to be. Whatever be it. Please take the not-so-subtle hint. Praise people, but not only to praise them, if you know what I mean. Sometimes what the other person doesn’t know could mean so much more to them than what they do know.