Who are you, really?

Can’t believe it’s been so long
Never thought it’d be so hard
Who are you?

It’s not a possession
An obsession, I know
Never thought it’d be so hard
Who are you, really?

Smiles kept pouring in
I thought I was having the time of my life
It was the lull before the storm
How come I could never guess?

It’s a virtual world
Reality still exists
I understand
But at times, I refuse to understand

This is something that you did
When did I learn it from you?
But I told you my influence story
more than once, didn’t I?

It doesn’t matter
It shouldn’t matter
Still it does
Who are you, really?

It was just this-and-that
Or was there something that I didn’t see?
Maybe I did
Couldn’t you figure?

The aquarium –
Fish or water, decide
Fish don’t talk
Water helps breathe

Someone says you’re impotent
I agree but I don’t agree
Confused?

Have started getting that too often

I know the truth
Am just in a daze
Still wish for that one moment -
That one word
That one action
And that one smile

Good if I get it
But I’ve heard that good things come to an end
So I am wishing well
Just retain the smile.

Bheja Fry

A day that started on a hyper note – sleeping at 0130, waking up at 0500 and then setting and resetting alarms every 10 minutes till 0700 to catch just a little more sleep.
So, with just a little sleep I could hear some buzzing in my head just before the exam. Not a good sign, I hardly ever do that to myself the night before an exam, but I had no option.
At 0900 I was handed such a royal paper that I wanted to walk out of the room within 15 minutes ‘coz I was sure that I would have to repeat the paper next year. This had never happened before! I consoled myself by thinking about all my friends who were in the same situation. Made myself sit there and write. There was a fan in the room that was making a lot of noise and I had told Ritika (the girl sitting behind me) before the exam that when we won’t have anything to write, we’ll just listen to it creaking. I did that for 25 minutes. Ugh! Ugh ugh ugh!

Falling and tripping, I think I am growing up to be a clumsy woman (my biggest confession on this blog). So I tripped on an escalator today, thankfully I was still down, and broke my favourite chappal. Had to live with that damned thing for so many hours (and a little bruise too. :( ).

But I am also learning to take care of myself. I’d like to believe that my fight against my moods is going good. So I decided to go for a movie considering that I have a decent gap before the next exam. Today being a Saturday and Ma being home, I could not possibly have gone alone so I put on my favourite red skirt (taking care of a mood, remember?) and took her along. Bheja Fry!

Bheja Fry has one of the best comic duos that India has today. They started with Channel V, if I am not wrong and have featured together several times – Vinay Pathak and Ranvir Shorey. They, along with Rajat Kapoor, Milind Soman (looked hot!) and Sarika made my day. I don’t remember seeing a better movie than this in ages. I don’t know about technicalities but I know that I have never laughed in a theatre the way I did today. It was outrageous! If you think Khosla ka Ghosla was good, I’d say this is three times better. Vinay Pathak is definitely the man of the movie! It’s about him, it’s his. AWESOME! Classic stuff! And the best thing about it is that you don’t have to leave your brains home unlike for the stupid movies that have started coming and becoming ‘superhits’ too. Plain, clean comedy – that’s what it is.
It’s a must-watch for anyone who wants to have a good laugh.

And now I am going back to have some ‘economic development in my sleep’.
Tada!

Khurafati Nitin

There is only one important birthday that I forget every year and that is of my dearie, favourite Nitin!
And what a day this is! A royal exam to write tomorrow, beeping me every moment, here I am waking up early to study and therefore, also managing to tune in to his show. It’s Nitin’s HAPPY BUDDAY! He’s the best thing on radio today. He’s the man who never fails to make me smile no matter what kind of mood I am in. And not just smile, I’ve laughed with him on so many occasions.
He says to me, “chipak ke baitho”, and that’s very hard when there’s shady Himesh Reshammiya and shadier real estate groups’ ads but I still chipko! Anything to listen to him for as long as I can!!

So here’s to the man who makes my mornings and who also looks really cute!
A very happy birthday! Mmuuuaaah! :D

Double Random Yay!

Yes yes...I know that you’ve noticed the change, but I shall still pronounce it. I’ve got a GREEN template!! Yay!!!!

And my dearest cutu Amiya, the creator of the college group on Facebook has made me an officer there and now I am called The Chronicler. Now isn’t that powerful AND fancy? It’s a different matter that I have a little bit of trouble pronouncing it properly. Kinda like a tongue twister. But yay!

So, double yay!

:D

Mixed Emotions

He got married!

I thought I was over him but who was I kidding. One SMS: “just check out all the news channels, fuckin’ yummy he looks in that sehra! :'("
And there I was running to the other room while I had my router unplugged so that I don’t sway and concentrate on studies. But one look and I was floored. That smile was there again. He was dancing! OH MY GOOODDD!!!! “Saw it man! Fuck yummy he is!”
He's maaaaariiieeeed! Uh! I was happy to see him happy. But he is married and that makes me a little sad. I don’t know what to do! I wanna hug him!! :( :(

October Wedding

There was once a very charming PJ king and a very cute girl he knew. He studied science and she studied economics. He rode bikes and she got tattoos and piercings. He loves her and she loves him. They are getting married and I am weirdly, insanely happy for them. To Akash and Michelle! Loads of wishes for them! Mmmuuaah! :D

He Used To Be...

This blog of mine is over four months old now and in all this while I have mentioned him only once. Just ONCE! Abhishek Bachchan – the man I drooled over for so long! Still remember all the posts I dedicated to him on my old blog. Still remember the space I’d given him on my cupboard. Still remember all the pseudo whistles I maroed at him in theatres. I survived the three hours of KANK for his sake. Could not get over his Koffee With Karan interviews for days. Stood up for him when he started sporting long hair and people had weird things to say about him. Dreamed about him too!
But now, things have changed. He will be a married man by this Friday. Not that that status of his is too much of a concern per se but it is certainly having effects. Most importantly, that doll has made him just like herself – cold! I haven’t seen him smile in ages. And forget drooling over, I don’t even like people who don’t smile. Shouldn’t he have known that? I mean, I did not crib about his wedding even once; and this is what I get. No nice fun interviews, no Dus/Bluffmaster type movies with hot dance numbers in them, and no free kisses for me via the TV cameras. Uff! What a bummer!
He sits cold with that shady credit card ad, Dhoom 2, and the new high-on-weirdness Motorola ad and I wonder where that guy I fell in love with went.

So if he’s gonna be this boring, I might as well find a substitute. Any suggestions, people?

Just wanna wish him a happy married life. Get success, do whatever….don’t become fat and at least leave scope for me to say that he was once a man I liked and raved about. It’s the bloody smile that I went bonkers over...WTF!

It Was Negative Energy

A Diary Entry

The day has come when I have started longing for college. I long for those moments. Today, I got one of my last few shots at it. It’s literally a countdown now. Collected the admit card today, will write five exams over the next month. Five days. One week after the last exam, a lot of us are ‘joining’ another place. Felt weird talking about that today. Vidur has always been “I-don’t-know-what-I-am-doing-next” in the past three years. And really, he does not know even an hour before a movie timing whether he is going for it or not. And today he was telling me how he is going to be trading in commodities in the world market. Jay was talking about how he’s gonna have a tough time travelling in the city heat without any conveyance provided by his ‘employers’. Felt like a grown-up. And the first day of college has just passed by, hasn’t it?

“Oh, you’re talking about that guy from DPS Noida? What’s his name again?”

It’s been three years.

So, two friends’ birthdays fall in the coming week and there HAD to be fun. There was a surprise planned. Loads of surprise presents with a significant memory attached to each, surprise cakes, surprise entries by friends who weren’t supposed to be around....and a lot of FUN. Lots of genuine, warm, big hugs. Lot of happy smiley faces. Loads of laughter – laughter that must have made that not-nice Chinese restaurant people wonder who these maniacs are and will they ever order or not! There were the birthday songs, there were the routine jokes, there were Neha Steps. And the film was rolling. There I realised that I love being behind the camera just as much as being in front of it. And it is not easy coming in front once you take hold of the camera unless you go – “main bhiiiii” which is what I had to do today. And then too, it was just my profile for a tiny 5-second thing. Damn! But I have voice. All over the videos! :D

It turned out to be even more special for the birthday boy and the birthday girl who could not stop grinning. Even after everybody left for home. I guess those smiles are worth the sunburn that others got over the past few days looking for presents. Kudos to V and Ami for roaming the streets of Kamala Nagar the way they did!

Oh, one of the compliments that I can never get enough of is about the weight that I have lost. It’s always an incredible feeling when somebody notices and tells you the same. And when someone goes – “no really, you have lost lots and lots of weight”, even if it is not true, it feels awesome. You won’t know what I am talking about if you haven’t experienced it but you can share my joy if you wish to. :P

But then you come back home, switch the TV on and see prime time CNN IBN showing a story where the Sindhi panchayat in Bhopal has banned girls from using cellphones, wearing scarves and riding two-wheelers because one Sindhi girl married a Muslim man, and are left speechless for a moment and then on an abusing spree for the next fifteen minutes. Following that you see their viewer feedback poll divided at almost 50% each for a YES and NO to the question – is this moral policing?. And then you really do not know what to think. Half the nation! You could curse a Bajrang Dal or an RSS but half the people of the country? Ok, half the respondents but even then isn’t it shocking enough? It saddens me.

I come back to my room. The PC is still on. I had watched Snippets - a documentary on college by two girls of the other economics section of my batch - a while back. That probably was the motivation for the opening paragraph of this entry. Again, you might not understand the impact that it had if you have not seen it but it is as if the moments and thoughts of the last three years have been put together in those twenty minutes. It’s an incredible piece of work!

There is stuff to write about one of my obsessions but I am thinking I’ll give it another post. Till then, bbye!
:-)

About My Dad…

An unforgettable and amazing philosophy that he shares with all his brothers – the slower a fan moves, the cooler it makes the room. Yes, you got that right. He thinks that if you come from a killer hot weather outside and sit under a fan that moves at 1, you’ll feel good. At 5, the air just gets trapped near the ceiling. Not forgetting the noise pollution that it creates at such speed. And this is something that ALL Bhardwajs except the brothers laugh at all the time. Non-stop. Really! We wonder who taught them Science. Or maybe philosophy. At least the teacher succeeded in making his students remember the lesson.

And the songs that he sings! I am willing to bet a thousand bucks if someone can figure what song he is singing. They’re all original. Weirdly original!

He has accompanied me for every new thing in my life – admission to college, internship-first days, entrances, interviews, etc. All of it! He’ll make adjustments in his schedules even if Mamma is free to go with me and make sure that he’s the one.
When I had started going to IMS, or was interning and used to reach back home late, he used to have Maggi ready for me in my favourite plate (yes, I have a favourite plate. A favourite glass too. Can we focus on the topic, please?). It was really cute.

FMS was his dream for me. He had temperature but had decided to wait for me outside on the day of the exam. All those hours! I knew that the exam didn’t go well as I walked out the test centre. And told him the same. He didn’t say anything to me but his face gave it away. That moment hurt me more than my disappointment after CAT and MICA results. I wished some miracle happened. But I don’t believe in miracles myself for one to happen.

But oh, God save you if you are at the receiving end of his anger. I know at least I can’t utter a word back. The last time it happened, I did. It got nasty and I hated doing it but I really wanted to do it. Sorry Pa, for creating a scene. Still not sorry for taking the stand that I did. :P

My family has 2 people whose names begin with an S, and two with an R. Pa’s the other R. So Mamma calls us the Bada R and the Chhota R. (Yes, we’re a weird family. Bhai will come across as the sanest but that’s because he talks the least. Anyway, focus please.) - This, for our resemblance in looks and in habits. We can both not tolerate a mess, we both get cheap thrills out of pulling Mamma’s leg, we’re both loyalists for each brand of things that we use, we both stay happy with our standard food (as opposed to the foodies that Ma and Bhaiya are) and we both find it too hard to express emotions at home. No huggie-shuggie father-daughter we are!

When we were kids, 10 o’ clock was the deadline for TV. So if Superhit Muqabla still had the no. 1 song to play, and it was 10 PM already, you know what Papa did? He used to pull the plug out of the main power point. Cruel, I’d say! They were going to play ‘Hum hain rahi pyaar ke’. But no rebuttal. You just went to sleep. Period.
(And I get a creepy feeling that being the Chhota R and being fond of discipline myself, I might just end up doing that to my kids. Hehe... But so what? They’ll turn out to be just as fine as me. Hee!) So yeah, a kind of an authoritarian environment at home while growing up but it’s all cool now. Poor Dad, doesn’t get to do much to his choice anymore. The rest of us force our tastes and wills upon him. We pick his shirts, we pick the restaurants to go to, and we decide that he needs something like surgery. Yeah, he’d kill to stay away from doctors. Horrid time that was!
Anyway!

So Pa, even though we don’t get you a cake every year like we do on Ma’s birthday, Bhaiya and I love you just the same. We’ve got a cake this year. We know you’ll be all awkward cutting it in the morning but chill. Have fun for a change. And have a very happy birthday!!! Too young to maybe say this...but God bless ya. :D

Apologetically...

I have been killing time. And just for the heck of updating, I’m giving you an account of it too.
Firstly, I downloaded Musicmatch Jukebox again which is now called Yahoo! Music Jukebox. A lot of people do not like it for the simple reason that it is 35 MB and more. That’s the reason why I had also uninstalled it. But the thing cannot be matched! I’d say Winamp (and even Media Player) sucks if you compare it to the Jukebox. It’s an extremely neat player. You don’t need to go crazy trying to figure out features. It’s all there. Right in front of you. Beautiful invention. I’m so happy!

I have also been blog-hopping and have come across some good stuff too. That led to an expansion of my list of blogs. Then that meant that I can’t check each blog manually for updates any more. So I went to BlogRolling again. Had registered on it once but never got to using it because it’s one bugger of a site. But now I really needed the service it provides so I let some patience take over. I don’t like it when something makes me feel technically challenged ‘coz I simply am not. Not a pro for sure but waaaaaaaaay better than those bimbos that you know I’m not fond of. So I spent a good amount of time figuring stuff out and bam!...my links are powered by BlogRolling now. Not to forget that Amiya helped big time too. Thanks baby. :-)
So now you can see a double-starred thingi next to the updated blogs. I added tiny descriptions to some blogs too. You can see them if you hover the mouse over the links. Looks pretty cool, I think.

Dreaming, planning and chatting up with Ma are some of my old ways of doing it and I hate these long exam-prep leaves for that. ‘Coz then I just do not stop.

But I have decided. My lifestyle needs MAJOR changes and they will happen after my exams. I’ll make them happen. No kidding this time. Alone I can and I will!

Till then, I’ll keep meeting you. :P

And oh, if you don’t visit Jayant’s blog then please do for this one post at least. It’s a request.

Heart Throbbers

Yes, we’re talking about elevators here. They’re mean!

The main, the most important and the simplest reason is that they make my heart sink. Or maybe it’s my lungs. Or say, the liver? But definitely something that’s above the stomach and below my head.
Could it be something coming up instead of sinking? Ummm...nah! It’s definitely sinking. It goes down and hits the stomach. Everything seems to stop inside me but that bloody thing moves and all the people around me can’t feel a thing! Heartless meanies! :-/
I know I am not claustrophobic. Sure I would prefer a hospital elevator to a 3-storey residential building’s shady one but even then! At least the probability of having another human being with me in that dangerous situation is higher.
Now you would wonder that if I have such issues then why do I resort to one of these damned things at all. Fair enough. But what am I supposed to do when an aunt’s fear of escalators is overpowering (certainly it’s not greater) mine for...ahem...you know what. So the other day she made me climb into one of these at a metro station. And we’ll have to give it to DMRC for this one. It was the smoothest elevator ride ever. I could not feel when it started and when it stopped. I was impressed. But how could the impression last? Its effect was on my opinion of elevators and not of DMRC. One week later, at IGI Airport, thanks to another aunt I nearly got squashed. I mean, there were still people behind me (I always make sure there are. Only so that I don’t get squashed!!!). How could it try to close in on me? Quite obviously, my not-so-tiny feet were anyway at their speediest best. I have no love for the place that I was in. And I’m no Tom Cat anyway that it would turn me into a flat cake and I’ll smoothly come out, jerk my body two-three times and be back to normal form, or am I? No seriously...am I? The heart that was pumping at twice the normal rate could have failed if it wasn't for that God-sent man who stopped both ends of the door like Superman. By the way, did I tell you that my normal pulse rate is way above the normal normal? But nobody cares. Definitely not the elevator at the airport!

And now the next scary thought is about my to-be-office. It’s some TOWER. I don’t know which floor yet but these things in Gurgaon are quite tall, I’ve heard. What the hell will I do? Doing an ‘8 floors by stairs’ once was a moment of pride but doing something like that everyday is not a pleasant thought. I might begin to think that it will help me lose the much needed extra fat but some studies say that climbing up too many stairs is not a healthy thing for the joints. And for crying out loud, I don’t need more problems with my body! I get one generated every day. For free. I could start a business in these rather than in flowers. Humans may not be interested but green-skinned Martians could be. (My friends feel I’m gonna marry one of those ‘coz of my love for the colour. They’ve put it down in my already-prepared matrimonial. See! I’m telling you nobody really cares.)

And then they come up with jokes like this:
An American and an Englishman walk into a hotel. The American suggests they take the elevator (Fool!). The Englishman checks him – “it’s called a lift”.
“Dude, it’s an elevator. We invented it.”
“Sir, it’s a lift. We invented the language.”

By the way, only last year I needed a security man to tell me which button to press in order to get a lift stop at the floor that I was on. I know there is only one button but there are things that look like buttons at that moment. Now I know.

PS – And if you ever find me in an elevator and I look like I am praying, you should know it's just my heart that I am trying to hold on to. You need to not be numb and blank in order to pray too.