Colour Schemes

At age 13, I was obsessed with black. Clothes, nail paint, shoes...they used to be all black.
From that I progressed to blue. Similar obsession.
After that I started disliking black. And the obsession with orange and green began. Orange was always on the side though. Green was just all over the place. I could not get enough of that colour.
And now, the newest colour that I am beginning to notice everywhere is purple. I have even started enjoying black currant ice creams. Green still remains, but the madness is reducing because it needs to share space with purple. They look good together too. :D
Avan's love for me has increased ever since she heard of this development. She heard of it first because I have never met anyone as crazy about purple as she is. Even her room's walls are purple. So I thought I'll share the 'good' news with her first. :-)


Did I mention here earlier that when I start earning a lot of money I am going to have a HUGE collection of bags? Today, while shopping with Mansi, I came across so many HOT bags that I wanted to steal them all. She did not like ANY though. We just walked for hours and came back home without anything. :-|
BUT I am going to buy lots and lots of bags in the coming years.

I voted !

There had been a campaign going on for the past couple of weeks - the ink on the finger after voting being the new fashion statement. I'm sporting it too!! :P
My picture on my voter identity card makes me look like a convict. And quite a horrid one at that. Today when I went to cast my vote, the people there could not even hide their surprise (actually their laughter) because they could not identify me on their list. One factor that made it harder was that I had my hair short cropped when I got that card made. It was a really funny exchange. :-)

This was the first time I voted for the government. The last time I voted on that machine was for DUSU and college elections in my third year. The guy I voted for did not win. I hope this time the candidate wins.
And I also hope those people on duty at the polling stations see more people through the day. The turnout did not look too healthy.

Mayhem

Mumbai was attacked. Perhaps India's worst ever. It is all over the media. EVERY ONE is talking about it since morning. So am I. As at 2140, I am irritated, frustrated, angry and perplexed. Suddenly everyone wants to not sit back and look at the drama, but stand up against it. Can someone PLEASE tell me what standing up against it means?
I do not want this kind of terror to plague my country either, but I am not in for a Rang de Basanti or a A Wednesday. A moment of extreme disgust does make me want to do something like that too, but on a more practical note... it's stupid, I cannot do it.
What else? Tell me... everybody who is saying 'raise you voice', what do you think should be done? If the authorities are sitting like jackasses and not raising THEIR voice, what should I do to change that? Vote? Yes, I am eligible this time and will exercise my right. Then what? I am sorry I am at my peak of cynicism today... but I really am feeling too helpless and frustrated. Ronak just sent an email and said that it is not the people or the physical loss that bothers him, but the rape of the concept of what a city/country/people represents that offends him. And I think I agree with him. We talk about the victims, but the truth remains that we are only bothered about people we know. Ok, I won't generalise. I'll talk about myself. It is the ideology behind it that bothers me.
And I feel torn. Yesterday I wrote about the dalits. Today I am writing about terrorism. And tomorrow I can write about the crime against women. Where does it end? How does it end? Will it ever end?
I hate to do this, but since morning I have been thinking about a discussion I had with friends in college a couple of weeks back. India is so burning with conflicts right now that we can easily see a civil war in the near future. Just have a bloody look at the pictures of one of the terrorists this time! He looks like one of us. Educated youth. What brainwashing must have gone into making him do what he is doing. The point is, if somebody could give him a reason to do that, can you imagine what people who are being ripped of basics of life can do?

I did recall

25th Nov was my 12th standard English teacher, Mrs Shourie's birthday. It took two days to finally remember who it was. I called her in the morning and talked to her after about two years. I had not wished her last year either.
Her birthday was always a big day for all ex-students. The year she retired, we took a huge cake and lotsa flowers for her. And her favourite sundae too. :) A lot of other teachers did not like the kind of attention she enjoyed, but she was a fun teacher. Very pleasant to talk to and unbelievably pleasant to look at considering her age. And many people stopped visiting school after she left.
It's nice to still be in touch. She sounded happy on the phone. :)

Grossly Evil

"Nineteen percent of households belong to a scheduled caste, 8 percent belong to a scheduled tribe, and 40 percent belong to other backward classes (OBC). Only one-third of India’s households do not belong to the scheduled castes, scheduled tribes, or other backward classes."

How many of these one-third are well-off? And how many of them get the kind of privileges that I get? Bull-shitting around with all the money of the world and weaving frivolous stories around pointless crap!

For two weeks now, I am studying literature on the current state of dalits in India. Living in this country can be such a bloody exasperating experience that I am in a state of disbelief right now. A small example - many dalits convert to Christianity to get rid of the caste that makes their lives miserable. But if they are living in rural areas, it does not make a difference at all. They are still considered to be the scum of the society and are treated the same way. The government denies them of whatever little privileges and benefits that dalits are otherwise eligible for, and does not register any violence against them under the sole Act (Prevention of Atrocities Act) that is made for them. The society does not accept them as Christians, and the government does not accept them as dalits. Running from pillar to post - not to get a bill cleared, but for their identities and an opportunity for a decent living. I mean, even wikipedia has the term 'upper caste Christians' on it! We're quite a unique nation. And these things are so deeply set in our minds that I really wonder if we will EVER be able to get rid of these issues. Suddenly clean drinking water seems like a much more achievable goal.

History never leaves you

-->

History never leaves you. No matter what you do, and no matter how much time passes... it just lingers on and on and on. My feeling for it is close to hatred. Not because I do not like my past, but because my thoughts around it are obsessive and compulsive. The bloody imagination does not stop and it completely takes over every sense. Life in the hills keeps me busy and away from all this. Living these two lives is quite a taxing process. I abhor the idea of surrendering to a set of unproductive thoughts! And I am still doing it. Every day.

It is yet another revelation of gray in my personal life. Experiencing the hating a part of self now. It sucks.

Guess the Sketch

I have been playing online pictionary for the past couple of days on Facebook. It is thanks to Amiya, of course. All such addictions come to me via her. But that's not the point. The point is that I cannot draw to save my life. All those who went to college with me would know. I never used to participate in the pictionary sessions because of the fear of being beaten up by team members. I go out to draw a bear and would end up making something that people would think is a rat. But since it's the virtual world and nobody can cause any harm, I tried my hand at it. And it turns out that I am not that bad. In fact, a lot of times I see others drawing something and feel that I could have depicted the thing better.
Nonetheless, I am still far from perfect. Sometimes I do end up drawing ridiculously funny things. The other day I got the word 'forehead'. Now it wasn't as much my fault as it was the trickiness of the word, but a lot of people felt I was drawing a ninja turtle when I was pointing to the forehead of a simple man. I also quickly drew a car which someone thought was a dinosaur... but what to do! It's a funny game and you have to beat time to score well. :P
But it's too addictive and way too much fun. Do try it out if you're on Facebook. :-)


I am forgetting some friend's birthday today. Just can't remember whose it is!! Hope s/he is having fun and does not kill me when I finally recall who it actually is.

Obsessions

A lot of people suffer from varying degrees of OCD. So do I. My OCD is nearing very high levels. I seem to have no control, and I keep doing/repeating things over and over again. It is pretty scary just as it is, and even scarier to do it while being fully aware of it. Not sure what to do about it...

Good News

In the month of July, my batch was briefed by the faculty about an event that we were supposed to organise in November/December across 21 cities in India and Dubai. The planning started right then. There were arguments innumerable and there were fights that I will never forget. I was in the Delhi team and the event was finally wound up yesterday. We were a team of 25 - default number because there were too many people in the batch who belong to this city, and we had an even larger team of undergraduate students to 'help' us in the execution stage. Now there were a number of spectacular things that we achieved:

• We did not fight after getting to Delhi. Team work in its truest sense. Loser freeriders were not given any importance because we stopped bothering about them.
• We raised sponsorship and we reeeaally raised sponsorship!! Talk to me - I was in charge of finances. :D
• Can't say this for others, but I managed to remain friends with all my friends on the team. Many other teams saw friendships taking a toll because of differences on professional grounds, but we really did sail through. And I'm pally with many more people today than I was with before we started working together.
• The man I hate is just hated more and I could not care less.
• Delhi is not high on an academic kind of culture. Bring Mika to dance and your tickets/passes would be sold-out for sure, but tell people that there is a day-long educational seminar and they'd look right through you. And to manage a housefull (550+) audience till lunch, and have a huge enough number sitting through the entire event is quite a feat achieved.
• Some feedback forms read things like - desperate to be back for the event next year (!).
  

So I wish all my friends in the Hyderabad, Chennai, Bangalore and Kolkata teams lots of luck for their versions of the same event coming up in the next few days! :-)

Another feat achieved in the past week is that I got my old Airtel number finally activated. My brother and I never worked together on anything else in the past the way we did for getting this number. Innumerable trips to various customer centres and innumerable raised to infinity forms that I filled and re-filled and finally a superbly nasty complaint to the nodal officer of the Delhi region worked for me. I got the number after exactly one month of roaming on Reliance which, by the way, also is another pain in the neck. I know that the reason of my death - whenever it happens - will be these telecom service providers.

These were the two main news for this weekend. I'll be back after a short break. Tada!!

Same old

Someone is managing the balance for me. :-)
Some more of 'never expected it to happen' is happening. Part of it is nice and part of it is annoying. Moving along...

Make it quick!

I realised day before that I do not remember when was the last time I had a good conversation with absolutely anyone. And it has been such an unsettling finding that I am now dying to meet some people I like talking to.

I cannot believe I never came across the word 'assay' before. It has such a simple meaning. Not that I read much, but why is this word not common?

Someone please help me see through tomorrow. It is going to be a crazy crazy day!!

I am going for Dostana tonight. Too excited to see Abhishek Bachchan after sooooo long!! Gay or not gay... it does not matter.

My handwriting has gone from bad to worse. Now even if I put extra effort to make it look nice, it fails me. Bloody hell!

My quilt is out. Yes, I am one of those who feel extra cold and need a quilt at 18 degrees. But it is sooo much fun sleeping with it. :D

My vibe/intuition system acts so strongly at times that it borders on being scary. But it's so always correct!

And right now I am listening to non-stop loud dhinchak music to keep myself awake at work. Phew!!

This one goes out to the one with poker straight hair!!

I know two Ruhis and both of them are big time suckers for attention - just like me. They will get bothered if you do not give them time and they both love the mommy way of things. It's incredible how they manage to be fun at the same time.
This post is for one of them. She sent me a shady senti email about how I do not consider her a good friend. Bledy.... these girls, I tell you!!

JHUNJHUNWALAAA..... I knock on your door every time I pass by it to bother you, not your roomie!! :-)
Muah!!

Reezarch

A little bored and sleepy. Right now I am sitting in a building that is yellow in colour. It is the second one - another place where I interned earlier had yellow buildings. The insides of every room are different here, and my room has an orange wall. Other rooms have red and yellow as well. It's niice! :-)
The culture here is different from all the other office places I have been in earlier. Indicus was also informal, but there the intellectual discussions never stopped. Pearson had people so loaded with work that most of them usually cribbed together, or the fire exit lot stayed out with their cigarettes and coffees often. Watson was most 'corporate' and professional. When people worked, there was pin drop silence around. When people were in the pantry, the talks were casual - movies, food, gossip, etc. And since I had my own gang, we always had our own thing happening at all times.
Here, there is no rush for anything. People work, but stay at ease. Lunch is generally quick, so the conversations are also limited. But since I am still new here, cannot comment much as yet.
The problem with research work is that even though the ideas are fun, all the reading and digging for information can really get to you. And somehow I keep coming in contact with some sort of research or the other every now and then. Right now I am working on Dalit issues, and just recalled last night that the deadline for the semester's research paper is less than a week away. Quite screwed if you think about it.

I also opened my personal Outlook account after three years, I believe. There were the corniest of emails from 2005 in it. The good thing is that I was not the only stupid one. There are a lot of emails from Jayant Singh, Amiya Sharma and Ishani Behari too. Hee hee...

Ok, I should get back to work. Will be back soon.

Title dedication to the Research prof who has apparently found a new job elsewhere.


Make that VERY sleepy!!

Edit, 15th Nov - How could I forget to add. This place has a very strong culture of shaking hands and hugging. ALL the time! :)

Moradabad, UP

I spent the past week in a land I find hard to describe in words. I don't know if I am the one living a detached life or if it is the majority of our country that is. The fumes that gave me an asthma attack in 5 minutes are what small kids inhale everyday when they work in brass workshops. And I could not digest how a family of 10 lives on Rs 1000 a month and a single rupee still holds value. I don't want to sound dramatic but it was embarrassing to be carrying a bag worth 2K and wearing a pair of glasses worth another 1.5K in such a place. And I am not even beginning to talk about other things.
At the same time, to see such splendid efforts being made by NGOs like the one I am working with was a totally heartening experience. For two complete days, all I felt was that I am incompetent. There is nothing I know better than those people except this one language. And it does not matter. At all! The kids who are creative are creative beyond imagination. The teaching system functions so well that it can compete with any of our public schools here. I couldn't see how my school was different from the one I visited. And to think that they have limited resources... it's plain sad.

There was an element which was quite pissing off too. The govt takes responsibility of maintenance of the city and even areas like Civil Lines were full of garbage on the streets and open over-flowing sewers. So you can imagine what the rest of the place is like.
Also, the place has heavy traffic but the first traffic signal was put up only last year. Beat it. Kids studying in good schools come home and ask what a zebra crossing looks like. It's pathetic.

Ended up being introduced to an RSS man in the hope we could get some sponsorship from him. Of course, nobody knew of this piece of information. Oh man, it was funny talking to a person from the 'Sangh'! :)

Aaaand you have to live there to see the kind of Hindi that is spoken by the locals. I could not even manage it while writing essays in school. If you and I say, ' आप इस बारे में क्या सोचते हैं', they would ask, "आप के इस विषय पे क्या विचार हैं ?" :O It was tough matching up to their standards.

We live on hopes.

P.S. - I travelled alone. :D :D

Yea, this is new too!

Experiencing a brand new way of life. I do not even eat anything other than the three meals. Nothing. HA!

And oh, the saviour in the evenings is Patrick Dempsey again. :D

Also, I am using my phone such that it is not on roaming, but with all calls free. Bledy!