Parents

Kevin, a 14 year old boy, ducked under his car when his Mom takes him to school and proceeds to go to the school with him to enter her new job there at the Principal’s office. Another time, there is a mock fire drill in the school and he hides behind his friend before his Mom spots him and shouts “Yoohooo hullo Kevin” and smiles. Kevin goes red with embarrassment.

The above lines are from a TV sitcom, The Wonder Years. But then we may, many of us, have gone through similar situations. 

Why do kids, when they grow up, feel embarrassed about parents? Not about what they are or how they are, but just being around them in public places? They feel they are too grown up to be under the eyes and nose of their parents. I remember a few instances. Mom used to take me to school first day of every year. 7th grade came and my class was on the third floor. She took me there, watched the railings and gave me instructions not to stand close to it, along with a few other not-to-dos. I got the same color on my cheeks Kevin did and tried to become invisible. Of course I stayed visible.

Kids get this being laughed at feeling and every eye in this world at them. It could be a common thing. I am not sure. And I have no idea why it should be so. Like Paul (Kevin’s friend) tells Kevin “So she wanted to say hi to you when she saw you. What’s wrong in that?”

Nothing is wrong in that. In fact there is nothing warmer. It is an uncontrolled affection without any care about the whats and whys of the world. It is the kind of affection that only cares for one thing – the child.

[sleeping-child.mp3]

Chetan Bhagat – The 3 Mistakes of My Life

I am not good with reviews. In the past I wrote the whole story when I tried movie reviews. Trying again, this time with a book, since reviewing is a major writer-task expected out of any writer (yes I consider myself a future prospective writer; only I am not sure how good!).
The book – The 3 Mistakes of My Life, the author – Chetan Bhagat.

It was only by coincidence I visited my library the exact same day the book happened to be there. Normally my library would always have given out new books I wanted to read first hand. This time I never heard of a third book coming from this author. I have read his first, but it was too long ago. The story is vague to me now but I remembered the narration appealed to me a lot. That’s what I look for in books. I like them mostly by how they are written, more than what story actually comes out of it. Probably not the right way to go about it, but well, people are different.

So going back to the original purpose, book review. I had skipped the prologue, in the preconception it would give out some story line. I liked keeping myself in suspense. I am the kind who never skipped lines and pages to reach the climax pages even in hyper-tense situations. I held on to each line more closely not wanting to miss the slightest detail while my mind tried to rush me.

This book started off like a good humored pastime I could read munching potato chips without worrying about the next pages. It was simple; it was plain ordinary everyday life, the kind I live. 3 regular friends of different interests, that’s simple. A business aspirant, that’s normal; a cricket aspirant, quite common in India; and a third friend who liked to hang out with the business aspirant and the cricket aspirant, again nothing rare.

And if nature and the people around them just left them alone to mind their own business, they would have continued being simple, ordinary, everyday life leading people. Well maybe even a little more. They might have not struggled so hard through business and cricket and friendship.

But these things do happen. You live with them wherever you go. Nature and people around you are an unavoidable part of life. Sometimes they disrupt your life, but then again, they make it wonderful too. They make it complete.

It is all part of the book. The simple everyday lives going through different stages of life and realities and tense moments that are no ordinary thing. CB has appealed to me with his narration skills again. This guy knew to write like one talked person to person. That’s kind of easy to connect. And there was a real story line attached to the narration. Lot of cricket in too. It will sell in India. But people who didn’t know cricket might find it a little trying. And then again there is a whole lot of politics. People well up with their newspapers could relate to what he is talking about. Its an everyday happening in India. And politics sometimes mixed with religion, another newspaper thing.

So far I haven’t heard any opinions about the book, so this comes as a totally unprejudiced, unbiased opinion. Reading it won’t be a waste of time. Obviously, I am not good with compliments and appreciations and book promotions.

Some part of the book I felt was so unnatural I almost started cursing CB. But well considering it is real life there is not much he could do about it. But no wonder people made that saying long ago. Real life is gigantically stranger than fiction.

Maybe I should just stick to my regular blogging. Reviews are beyond me.

Girls

I don’t know if it is a good idea to talk when you are a little frustrated. Oh well now that I started it, I might as well go on. My problem is not a new one. People have said this all over history and I have fought it all over history – well as long as I started to exist. “Girls never get close to each other like boys. No real intimacy.”

I hate it whenever I hear it, fact that I am a girl having “all” to do with it. And even though I know most other girls hate it too, sadly I have seen very little effort to disprove this notion. Not that this was something to be proven for the sake of proving – this was more about happening, or rather not happening. 

To make my meaning clear it didn’t matter if the whole world called us one big lousy batch, if only we knew among ourselves how wrong they were. But we don’t. And after a point of time, mostly after 17, people stop caring (is that too strong a word now? I run out of vocabulary when emotional breakdowns happen. I run out of vocabulary when no breakdowns happen too.)

Probably the little “gangs” of friends remained little gangs of friends. But there was no spirit of wholesome friendship anymore. I don’t know what I mean by wholesome friendship. Well if I called for an all-girls-I-knew meet for tomorrow, chances are I will go sip a coffee alone and come back. But if a guy called for a 10-guys-he-knew meeting, 9 turned up. Somehow or from somewhere they’d all pop up. 

I hated it when my Mom used to say “You just watch what’s going to happen. All this deep talk and passion of friendship. How long will it last?”

“I will show her”, I thought. Turned out I didn’t.

And there is this other theory. Girls, once they get married, are only concerned about marriage, no more about friends. Well that’s a theory which topped all nonsensical theories! I don’t believe one bit in that. ‘course your home and family was important. So, is there a rule written somewhere there should be only one set of things which are important to you at a time? What are we – people or time-n-people-divided machines I’d like to know! 

Ok the whole thing came up when… well when a lot of things that went around made me realize things change, people change. And probably I will too. But as long as I didn’t, I hated change, if change meant a whole school, class 1 to 12, which was once tied together, brought together at a later point of time, cannot afford to take notice of one another.

Another 2 A.M. story

It seems the 2 AM miseries are becoming a daily thing for me. Maybe I should write a book on them. Today, contradictory to my previous entry, I had a bad vomiting sensation (V-S for future references) which broke out exactly when the clock gave out the 2 AM chimes. If this was a curse, I will have to change my opinion about curses. I always thought them harmless little pranks old witches played on princes and frogs.

“Not anymore they aren’t”, my fancy pal Mr Jim said, apparently walking in from the next room. I must’ve been loud about my curse-protests. I ignored him knowing he wanted me to ask why.

My V-S hung about for an hour. It had somehow a kind of intoxicated effect on me. Quite natural. I felt weak. My mind felt weak. And when we were both weak, me and my mind, we lost grip of things.

Troubles began when I, standing in front of the wash basin, all ready for action, moved my tongue around and got it stuck between my teeth. Problem with moving tongues are, they don’t know how to come out of places they go and get stuck at. I tried force. Ouch. I tried tactic. Double ouch. I screamed. But without the help of my tongue, my scream was as loud as a Jerry-mouse-squeal. Jim offered to play the role of Tom and strike my head with an axe – “shocks are good tongue-releasers Cris”. I said no thanks.

The pain was horrifying. I imagined the prospect of a whole life with a stuck tongue. It was not a good looking future. After a lot of struggle, I was free but I made the mistake of letting out a yelp of joy. It went “Bow Wow Wow Yippie Yo Yippie Yay”. I forgot I lost Jerry’s voice with the tongue loosened. Parents are always unpredictable. One would think they love to see their little ones have fun and do a joy-dance. It wasn’t my fault I had a dancing sensation at 2:15 AM.

Lot of explanations later, I was back in my room and my V-S was still working pretty strong. As mentioned above, it gave a heavy-head feeling. I wanted to sing. And when I sang I sounded like I still had my tongue stuck in my teeth. I chose Bryan Adams. “If you love a woman, zell her zat zees not a woman”

“That’s not how he sang it!”

“Shut up Zim”

“What’s with this Z-thing”

“Zim what was that noise”

“You”

“Zut up Zimbo. Zayer iz a zhief in the house. I am going to get him.”

“There is no thief”

I jumped up on my bed nearly missing the ceiling fan and sang aloud “Bad boys bad boys whatcha gonna do when I come for you”

“Hide is my guess”

“Nobody asked you Zimbo. I am going to make a zpeech”

“Cris go to sleep”. Somehow his line sounded affectionate. This was a touchy thing now.

“Zimbo”. I felt emotional. “Have I ever told you what you are Zimbo”. I sniffed.

“Sigh a lot of times and a lot of names”

“I will tell you what you are Zimbo. You are a goose boy. That’s what you are. A very goose boy”. This time I ejected out an ocean of tears.

I remember I felt very innovative for the next few minutes. I redecorated my room in what I thought was the perfect way. I should have stopped with mine. I also went and redecorated my living room. Mother, it seems preferred the mats on the floor under the table, and not the other way. And there was no appreciation for hiding the ugly looking sofas with my beautiful bed sheets. There is no place for aesthetic sense in this world anymore.

By morning my V-S was gone, my intoxication was gone and I called Jim, Jim. I did not like the happy look on his face when I called him an imbecile.

Life was becoming treacherous after midnight. Today I am going in at 23:59 sharp.

A 2 A.M. story

The time was 2 AM. Everything was settled. The day’s duties were over.

“Ping”

“What was that?” I asked aloud.

My fancy pal Mr Jim emerged from under the bed and offered the answer. “That was a ping”

“Thanks Jim. Nice of you to drop in”

“Ouch”

“Oh no Cris. A ping and an ouch. That could only mean one thing.”

“I am hungry”

Well that was perfect. The clock ran for 24 hours and my intestine system chose 2 AM to run out of provision.

“Jim what do I do?”

“Ehhhhh….. mmmmm….. uhhhhhh”

“Of course! That’s it!”

“Err”

“When you are hungry, you eat. Simple”

“Oh yeah just what I thought”

“Only problem is I should go find food and not wake up my Mom”

We started tiptoeing. Jim offered the Pink Panther song in the background. It went “Paing pa paing pa paing pa paing pa paing… papapapaaaa papapa”

[audio:pink-panther.mp3]

I continued tiptoeing gracefully but my purpose was lost when my clothes made a lot of noise in the act.

And finally we reached our dream destination. The kitchen door. There was only one problem now.

“Jim I can’t open it”. It occurred to me we might find unexpected company inside. And I didn’t like finding unexpected company inside dark rooms.

Jim made a quick movement and tried to hide behind me. “You g-go ahead Cris. Nothing to worry about”

“Gulp”, said I.

“Gulp gulp”, said Jim.

I touched the handle, slowly turned it and before I opened I leaped 2 steps backwards, had my boxing stance all ready for action in case of an emergency. I checked my vocals and they were all tuned fine for a 120 dB screech. Jim and I put our bodies behind and made quick movements with the heads. Left, no thief, right, no monster. Whew….

We found the lights and bingo it was a total no-thief-no-monster zone.

The next step was finding food. We found them inside the refrigerator. All steps brilliantly calculated by a master mind. Mine.
Ice frozen food did not taste good I discovered. The oven of course.

Oven specific vessels were hard to find. Jim went up the shelves, I went down them. Together we found one huge black one and felt proud about it. I dropped the food into it and took it to the oven. That’s when the vessel exposed its flaws. It had an unwanted handle that wouldn’t fit into the oven.

“Oh-oh” said I

“Oh-oh” said Jim.

Back to gloom and despair. We weren’t the giving up kind; especially when there was a growling stomach in the premises uttering a second round of ping and ouch.

Some more sufferings and we had a plate full of lovely food ready. There was only one problem now. I wasn’t hungry anymore. Probably all the hard hard hard (emphasizing hard in case it went unnoticed) work.

I don’t know how it happened. But in a few minutes with food in my right hand and water in my left I dropped down on the dining table and fell asleep.

“Clashhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh”

I woke up. There were a lot of dishes lying on the floor and in the middle of it was my Father. Instinct told me this was an occasion to loosen up and I always listened to instinct. I laughed a little. I laughed a little more. I laughed a lot. All on instinct.

The little, the little more and the lot was a mistake. I should have kept the loosening-up for a future date. Incidentally those dishes were placed in a place-not-to-be by me when I was searching for oven-dishes. It seemed an insignificant point at the moment to be talking about. So I forgot to mention that little detail. I would have continued forgetting it if it weren’t for my Mother who seemed to think that a daughter sleeping on a dining table at 6 AM with food and water was an unusual scenario. Mother, she always thought these strange things. I for one would have no objection to a dining table napper, I might have passed him and said “Howdy ho” and went on to mind my own business. Mothers however never did that, I chanced to learn.

Due to technical reasons, the author would refrain from talking about the next few hours of the day. The author’s friend Mr Jim, it might be mentioned here, slept on the opposite chair through all this. After the critical hours were over, when Mr Jim rose up and said “Ehhhhhh….mmmmm……uhhhhh”, the author threw him to cloud 9999.

Moral of the story: Next time I get a 2 AM ping and a 2:01 AM ouch, I am going to pull my covers over me and start counting sheep.

Humor? Or humor?

I haven’t written a story in a long time. Well I did but not in the blog. Sometime ago I decided to keep all the stories I write unpublished for a possible future book that I keep dreaming I will write! I remember writing stories which people said were too mushy and touchy and seeking teary sympathetic readers. I liked writing humor, but I also enjoyed writing these “mushy” stories, though I wouldn’t call them that. The way I see it, it doesn’t make a difference to me, as long I can connect, as long as I get involved. 

Writing a story when you are in the right mood is like opening the door to a new world and stepping into it. You start with imagination but in a matter of seconds it turns real to you. You run around changing shoes to fit the different roles. Well you ought to. A good writer is meant to. I, however stick to one character’s shoes most often and see and think the rest of the world from her point of view. So I mostly use first-person narratives. 

In the end you have to step out and you feel sad about leaving a whole world you created for yourself. And each time an author goes back to read her stories, I feel she enters that world all over again. Like an old building she once used to go to; maybe her old alma mater. (What is written in the above lines about the she-authors applies to the he-authors as well). 

Last day I read something I used to write back in college and found that I used humor most of the time. When I started stories later on, however I switched to serious stuff, well not particularly serious, but somehow some kind of tragedy crept into all my stories. I ended up killing my girl narrator many times! 

After trying humor in blogs, I enjoyed that too. Being a major Wodehouse fan I knew humor was too good an element to be missed out. Wodehouse says there are 2 kinds of writers. Quoting his words “I believe there are two ways of writing novels. One is mine, making a sort of musical comedy without music and ignoring real life altogether; the other is going right deep down into life and not caring a damn…” 

Now I am not sure if a writer is expected to follow a certain pattern once he has embarked on “one way of writing”. I think I like both. Humor is great and not easy, the other of “going deep down into life” is great too and possibly harder. If I should choose one, I’d choose to make people laugh I guess. But I don’t want to give up on either. Like MJ used to sing once “You’ll be my baby it don’t matter if you’re black or white” 😀

Well he might have used slightly different words. Good ol’ MJ, he does that kinda thing.

Another day, another test. Oh boy.

It’s been an eventful day. I wrote another journalism exam today. There were 2 papers. The morning paper was on English and I’d have said it was not that bad but then I ran out of time. But the events that made it an eventful day came in the second part of the exam. It was on General Knowledge. I was late by 10 minutes. But it seemed the role of “ten minutes” in my life was going to be pretty recurring. I also finished the 1.5 hours paper in 10 minutes. Unexpectedly the GK paper was not an objective one in which case my 10 minutes could have expanded to a decent 20 or a 30. It was a list of questions and like most other lists of questions do, this one was also expecting a list of answers. Huge mistake I would have told it if it wanted any telling.

I might have returned the paper and went to drown my head in an ocean as seemed the only course of action left for a ten-minute-GK-test-taker to do. But when another fellow test taker who seemed to think on similar lines gave the paper and walked out, no doubt for some major ocean-drowning activities, the supervisors did something that made my jaws drop and my eyes bulge – they opened the paper and started reading it. Ocean-drowning, yes, but supervisor-paper-reading was a strict no-no. I decided to stick around and go back to those blank pages once again. Ok they wanted answers, I will give them answers. There is no rule answers should be correct. Answers should be answers; there should not be any discrimination between right and wrong there.

With this thought in mind, I went to questions I didn’t glance a second time at. I had not liked them the first time, but the second time they looked friendlier. It was this new right and wrong theory I established. Everybody, all answers could exist in peace together. No war, no soar. I have been a little up with recent events unlike my old self. Not that I can’t start a day without my newspaper anymore, but some of these happenings were beginning to interest me. I opened the doors I had shut against any kind of general knowledge till sometime ago. I had an open mind and a humongous brain – every piece of information was welcome to live in there for eternity. Problem is, though I might know what happened to that president who did this last month, I won’t remember his name or his country a few days later.

If someone consulted me on setting GK papers after they hear about my new open-mind policies, I should tell them to ask about incidents, events rather than names that made the event 😀

Names are just names. Shakespeare knew that when he made that line about roses. And if Shakespeare knew it a few centuries back, we should know it too. (Being a wee bit fussy about names, I cannot argue strongly against this cause). People are important, but their names are not. So if they want to identify important people, they should have pictures. That’s what! “Choose the right face among the following 5 faces”. Well it’s got to be objective; one can’t be expected to draw pictures of all these faces on a paper.

Anyway I had to spend another hour taking my imagination to its height. Asking my memory was a waste of time. So when they ask who the prime minister of Japan is, I answer “The president of China is Hu Jintao”. The answer was right, the question was just a little wrong. Pretty wise hah?

Am talking too much

I had a couple of serious musings planned to be done on my blog today. But in the process of reading a Wodehouse, my thought processes have taken a major turn and am in no mood for heavy talk.

Talking about that, I actually turn my moods around a bit and my talking manner alters too whenever I come fresh out of reading a novel. It has happened before. Not always. But an Agatha Christie makes me sound like Hercule Poirot or Hastings and a Wodehouse like one of the half-cracked old gentlemen of the 50’s. So at those moments, I will be in perfect form. My speech making skills would be at its best. Problem is I always write my speeches. I do not believe in the tongue speeches. 😀

Saying that, I want to muse a little more on something I touched up on the other day. About talking. People usually like to talk about themselves. And if they find a patient listener they take advantage of it. For me, I have made rules to talk less to people who talk less. I dont know if there is any sense in that but I seldom enjoy being the lone talker in the premises. Today, however the Wodehouse character has brought my talker spirits alive and I am blabbering a lot! In fact I feel like doing a good deed to the world talking so much and in good humour. Like my character says, I wanted to spread sweetness and light around the whole world.

Tomorrow, I will probably regret this exhibition of over friendliness with the whole world. But right about now, I’d probably feel intimate with the next person I meet. “Pour your heart out to me buddy, tell me your problems, we will solve them together”, would probably be the lines I’d use.

Musing on… success

I was talking to my Dad and Mom today about stuff and we came across this point – about success. And then came this deal about how you define success. This was my point. Success was not always measured in money. Success is measured in how far you have reached with your purpose and how far the results of your journey matter to you. Ok that sounds a little unclear. Let me explain.

Say someone set out to make money. Now his intention is getting money in hands. Not how he does it. He may do work he detests, he may try things illegal. None of it bothers him if it gives him money in the end (provided he has a totally absent conscience). Cause his whole purpose was making money.

Now say someone else set out to find love. Let me put it in a different way – set out to get the love of the one he loved. Now this is a tough situation. If his loved one rejects his love, does it mean total failure to him? Did he not have the happiness of loving her? And like people say if his love is unselfish, what matters to him is the loved one is happy whoever she is with. So again the purpose matters. For someone who’d be happy loving her and wanting her happiness, it is still success if he could find happiness there. But for someone who starts hating the same girl who was once his dearly beloved, the day she tells a no-cant-do, success is a whole world away.

For a third instance consider someone who is looking for work satisfaction. For him, what matters should be the satisfaction or happiness he gets out of doing his work. Not money, not anything else. If he gets that, he has met his purpose in life. He doesn’t need millions to show off his success. He is already shaking hands with success every single day of doing his work.

You have already succeeded if you have given your life and soul to your purpose. Well it always needn’t be a life and death deal. I just meant the work and effort you give to get what you want is sometimes enough to make you happy. It’s like seeing your bud bloom into flower – every single stage brings joy with it. And what can define success better than happiness? Debatable point. But I believe success is as good as in your hands if you have done your part and feel happy about having done it before you go to sleep every night.

Talking about talking … err a lot too much!

Today’s Wonder Years was about a funeral and the last lines between the narrator and his Dad were

“Dad?”

“Yea?”

“Don’t ever die ok?”

Dad smiles and says, “Naaa I am not going to die”

And in the background we hear the narrator. “And for now, that was good enough for me”

I am not planning on coming here everyday and quoting the last 2 liners from The Wonder Years. Hmm or maybe I will 😀 – at least the ones that appeal to me.

For today’s topic I want to talk about talking. There were 2 occasions today which made me think of this whole talking business.

On occasion 1, I was a silent spectator as people around me were engrossed in topic 1 to 100. I involved myself in moving my eyeballs left and right, nodding occasionally, giving out an occasional smile.

In the middle however, I forgot about these little courtesies and went on to imagine the floor splitting apart, cutting the red carpet into 2 and a man rising out of the ground. The man dressed in black came and sat next to me first and said howdy. I took a moment to express shock and then look at others for sharing my shock – that’s how you travel from the first step of imagination to the second step of making it seem real.

The talkers talking of topic 59 didn’t notice my eyeballs stopping the rotation act and now doing some serious shock-expressions. The man looking like a tap dancer who came out of 60’s Hollywood, went on to dance on the living room, mimicking talker 1 and sitting on the head of talker 2. I dumped him back to the ground at a later point when my interest was caught in topic 96.

On occasion 2, I was the talker and I attacked a silent spectator. However unlike the talkers of occasion 1, I was not good with single man shows. I needed more interaction from the other side than moving eyeballs, nods and smiles. Else I immediately start feeling a kind of awkwardness to the extent of feeling guilty for overdoing an act. But the harm was already done and I take sure-to-fail resolutions of talking only when required and ahem, admired 😀

On both these occasions, I realized that any talk only needs one major talker. The other(s) could very well play listeners and imagine men growing from floors. I also realized that all people are not interesting talkers. For though I suffer a bad case of wild imagination, I can hold my eyeballs in action without an effort (that’s the best description I can give of paying attention), with certain talkers. My mother for one. And not just cause we share a bond since my birth. She knows to tell things just the right way, stories just the right length. My Dad, on the other hand, well let’s just say he could do better as an eye-ball director 😀

I wish there was a set of rules or guidelines people could keep for reference. Let me make a humble attempt.

1. When you are saying a point, complete it – don’t start a new story before you finish one

2. You are not alone in the act. A good listener makes a good talker. If you see someone moving their lips, close yours immediately and wait for them to tell their point

3. Use as minimum words and as minimum pauses as possible. Make it sound like a beautiful story people would love to hear word by word. I have to research more to give a detailed picture of this.

4. Be pleasant. Indifference is seldom attractive.

5. Different scenarios need different methods of talking. But make sure you take your tone and words from the no-hurt bag. I would talk more on this. Sorry the entry is too long!

6. Don’t waste each other’s time if any of the involved parties show signs of disinterest.

7. Mean what you say. Empty words belong to no place but thin air.

Explanation of tone and words. For instance, some people believe a good scolding calls for rude tone and harsh words; that talking to the bad shoe in the team calls for a hunter’s spirit. But what they have to realize is this – they are doing the talk not for getting the pleasure of hunting, but to have an effect on the talkee. What is your purpose of talking? You want to talk some sense, you want to tell the person this is not the way to run things around here. And in doing that, you want the person to actually change his ways, not walk away to dump his/her sorrows on alcohol or a few good pillows. So hurting words or insults is out of the question. Take the right approach – put yourself in the culprit’s shoes, guess what they would want to hear, make it as easy for them as possible. If you do a good, polite, understanding, caring, kind-teacher, affectionate-mother kind of talk, your chances of seeing change is ton times more than a really bad scolding. Very likely the talkee would walk away, head down, ashamed of criminal prone deeds, resolving to make a few immediate changes in life.

Be concerned about the purpose, about your self and importantly, about the person you are dealing with.

Ok that’s a hell lot of advice from someone who is still learning to say a whole line without inserting 10 gaps and 20 stammers in between. One of these days, I plan to board on a stage and say “What’s up World?” just the way Bugs Bunny used to ask a certain Doc in town 😀