Using this space to update on the tidycity.org activities. We are starting off with a museum clean up this Sunday. Details can be found at http://tidycity.org/blog/museum-clean-up-on-feb-1
We are planning to meet at the Museum front gate at 4 p.m. this Sunday and take off from there.
Everyone is welcome to join us :-). Please leave a comment or send an email to mail@tidycity.org
One day without cell phone. Lets see… I think I first started using cell phone by 6th semester of engineering. That’s almost 5 years. I am not sure if I tried going without my phone any day before this. But on Jan 30, Mahatma Gandhi’s assassination day, I went a complete day with my phone switched off. Starting 12 am to – oh I have to go and get it on now. And boy I had to pay lots for it.
One, I miss my morning bus. Warning: all so-what-else-is-new comments shall face severe moderation! I am supposed to get a missed call when the bus reaches the previous stop. Of all days the bus decides to come early today! I stand like an idiot for a few minutes. No you cant use so-what-else-is-new here either!
I have to ask another friend for a lift. Fortunately I remember the number, even after months of not calling. So could use land phone without checking mobile phone book. That’s when you realize – the things you rely on your phone for – everything!
I reach office and remember the customary missed call to Mom to let her know I have survived another day. Mom thinks her absent minded daughter may forget where her office is and take a wrong bus to reach Disney Land – and still not know the difference.
Afternoon comes and I feel like Tom in ‘Sleepy Time Tom’. So I decide to get out and walk in the sun. Actually for once I appreciated self for not having a phone. I might have traded a good walk for a 5-minute wake-me-up-pal call.
Evening comes and I need to make a call to ask someone to take me to Kariyavattom bus stop. A prospective bus-stop-taker has already left five minutes before. So I rely on a local bus. I watch old known faces go by. I look for recognition, I look for smile… to smile back and wave in return. Alas no faces turn to look a second time. Next month, it will be an year on leaving previous job. Funny how few months could take a face off one’s mind. I forget I am in a bus stop and talk aloud “Do they not see me or do they not understand? Or do they just pretend?” A stare or two later I realize the emitted decibels had to be in check. Well, recognition or no recognition, that’s not the phone’s fault. But maybe I wouldn’t have witnessed it if I had a phone to stare at and “decide” nothing else mattered.
I am more than half an hour late for evening class. Would usually leave a message to classmate “I will be late”. Now that I think of it, that’s such a waste! Talk about telling the obvious! On reaching the class, another “I am here Mom” missed call couldn’t be made. Reaching home, my Mom heaved a huge whew.
I usually get at least 3 calls a day from friends I guess. All missed today. And about missing work-calls? No we are here to talk about the negatives.
Night show was slum dog millionaire. Loved it. Didn’t miss phone at all!
Realization: I am living a life full of fortunes. I have education, good food, a home, and people. Heres a shot from the movie –
And some music-
I remember once hoping that I could ditch my cell phone forever. Strangely, after all that happened today, I still hope for the same. The only instance I might hope changing would be to remain absent minded and not notice the unnoticing.
Ok that was the longest break I took since I registered 4sometime back in March. Of all the excuses, the one I hate most is “I didn’t get time”. I don’t believe in that statement one bit. Cause you know that you will always find time for things you really want to do. Blogging is something I enjoy doing, it somehow did not come in the top list, not in the past few days anyway.
4sometime might have died in the meanwhile cause there was some problem with the payment account. I was so who-carish about it that I didn’t respond to 3 or 4 of the warning emails my web-host send me. In the end I rushed things up as usual and finally rescued the domain.
This is a Saturday at home after some weeks. I got around to reading a number of emails I have been keeping off. Even there I might skip most of the lines just so I could count it read and then delete (not personal emails, so friends don’t ban me). Now there is the huge list of blogs to read and 3 stories from friends. I would say the reason why all this is pending is cause of utter laziness. Cause I know that if I start, I will go on and finish it, they are all good writers.
So am not going to bother to find more reasons. This general interestlessness is not a good sign. Its like fever. And I seem to have caught it. I am going to take my medicine – sorting out my priorities and paying attention to those at top. Now somehow the order is not right. Cause the list goes “1. Nothing, 2. Nothing, 3. Nothing”.
I really want to announce that I am back and I shall be regular, but I wouldn’t trust myself to keep my word. I have been toying with some things to write about, hope to do that this weekend.
There are too many of this happening people would think I am making this up. I hope!
This is from yesterday. A teacher in class was talking about the time Emergency was declared in the country. Which, err, due to certain valuable preoccupations I had to miss. So he looks up and asks “But of course none of you were born during the Emergency”
There was a sudden ‘no’ in the class from everyone. And thats when it struck me. I had to respond. So I promptly asked my neighbor “Wasnt the Emergency in 1984?”
She frantically nodded. And then I frantically nodded ending up the only person in class who was there during the Emergency. Our teacher was shocked. “Really you were there?”
I thought, sigh this is happening cause I took the software route instead of coming here straight. Yes I nodded again, like this was an unbeatable feat. So he proceeded “Oh well.”
Coming home, it struck me again. 1984 was when Indira Gandhi expired, the Emergency happened in 1975!! That means I told my teacher I was a 33 year old woman sitting with a bunch of 20 year olds!!! Sheesh sheesh sheesh! It was bad enough I was older than the other kids by 2 or 3 years but this… I am sure I’d be one of the few women on earth who volunteered to give an older age, so enthusiastically!
Hullo,
I am using up a post to tell about a new blog I have started to follow up on my keep-city-clean attempts. Here is the link to it – http://cleancity.wordpress.com. The blog will tell more, its about keeping cities clean and what we, as individuals can do about it. I am a novice and have only the strong desire to see the world we live in clean, to support me. So any suggestions and help in this regard would be really great!
— Cris
Well I didnt think this would go on as a series. But its quite early in the morning and I am already in form
Scene 1:
From office. Conversation between senior journalist and me. He starts.
“Had you been around Patoor yesterday?”
“Panakka?”
“No Patoor”
“Who Sir?”
“You”
“Oh me in Patoor? Err I dont know Sir. I have been to East Fort”
“Yeah? Through Patoor?”
“Err I dont know that”
“Oh??”
Pause where colleague lets it known that me and directions never got along well.
“Ok I saw you there in an autorickshaw”
“Oh..”
Pause for 5 minutes – brilliant brain thinks back
“Oh oh yes yes I have been to Patoor”
Its an old story by now. “Eh?”
“I was there. For my dentist appointment”
Laugh. Hmph.
Scene 2:
Internet connection lost in office. Everyone checks on it. Its fixed within a few minutes the announcement of which I totally missed.
So five minutes later I come up with my brilliant discovery
“Net kitti net kitti” (“we have got Internet, we have got Internet”)
Laugh. Hmph.
Scene 3:
From yesterday. An online friend N came home. No no I was at my charming best and made no mistakes. Unfortunately N remembers one of the first calls he had made
“Hi, Are you busy?”
I assume for some reason that N who had my number stored in his cell would call and ask me if I was ‘Busy’
“No I am Cris”
Cause of course to brilliant Cris’s mind Busy should sound like just another name. My explanation is that I heard it Lissy. But noone would believe me anyway.
Scene 1
We were to have a meeting soon. I had to go out and called my editor to tell that. Ground floor is our company and top floor is a food court.
“Sir?”
“Yes?”
“Sir meeting ine kuricharyan… njan molil poyi”(“Sir I wanted to know about the meeting. I went upstairs”)
“You went upstairs to know about the meeting happening here?”
“Err”
Scene 2
I wanted to tell that I have to leave by 4:30
So I raise 4 fingers of one hand and 3 fingers of the other and say 4, and 30.
“How do you show 4:30 again?”
“Err”
Scene 3
I get a call from a friend.
I answer. “Hi A its me Cris!”
“I understood that”.
The point in case you missed it is – he was calling me, so emm there is a high probability that he knew it.
Have you ever had your dreams coming true?
I dont mean ambitions. I mean the ones you see when you sleep. The usually senseless ones.
Back in school, I had this senior who left school. She was no close friend but she was the head girl. Anyway it was a couple of years since she left school and one day for no reason I dream of her. That she was coming to school that day in a gray dress.
From morning, I wanted to tell it to someone cause I toyed with the idea of it coming true and having evidence that I really did dream it. Unfortunately I told noone and she did turn up! A girl who left school two years ago came on the exact day I dreamt of her. She was wearing green though.
But this really shook me up. Why would I dream of her when I never thought of her??? And on that day in particular. But of course dreams never make sense.
Another time was when first semester exam results were out, and I dreamt that a friend got 1245. And she got 1145. Ok I was wrong by a digit but it still seemed amazing. Why couldnt I dream mine!
There were more. I lost a ring once and searched all places in vain. Nap-dream said I get it from under my desk. I believed it, but turned out it was inside my desk. Still the keyword here is desk.
Ok I admit except the first one, the others are not quite there. Still its something when you feel so real in a dream… you just wake up to follow it!
Yet another deal is when you realize you are dreaming! Oh thats the best! Cause you get complete control of yourself there and you can do what you please! I think I have written about this before – what I usually do is fly. And there is no time to think what to do, cause you only get a few seconds once you know you are dreaming! And then you wake up. So make it fast. Its the most wonderful feeling ever I tell you!
I dont know if its worth a tag. But I’d be happy to hear anyone talking about their dreams coming true.
Story of a lost journalist 