Blog Review : Part I

When I rewind the tapes to the day , I made an effort to create this blog , I am forced to acknowledge the changes I've been through . For somebody who had never even managed a simple "letter to the editor" without an incongruous error, maintaining a blog seemed to be a bluntly out of proportion ambition. I knew, if at all , it would be anything, it could only be a personal diary.

The first semester in college was an elementary introduction to the world outside. Sitting in a corner seat , with a subtle yet unnoticeable sense of observation , my eyes kept taking a 180 degree view of the classroom, something very similar to the iterative movement of your air conditioner duct. I remember telling myself , " this is where it all starts". Social interaction had never been my simple glass of water, my ingenuous cup of tea or my extravagant bottle of wine . So there I was, sitting in the same seat every day , watching people , perhaps waiting for my turn to speak , my shortcut to fame . We all have it in us , don't we? It's only human to accept. I did. Yes, it was something I wanted to be, that I kept hidden from watchful skeptic eyes , though I doubt I was ever given a second look by anybody. I wouldn't say , it bothered me . Going unnoticed , is something I've come to like , more subconsciously over time. The ambition was strong, confidence was high and the notion that there's absolutely nothing to lose was almost indelibly etched in the mind.

In the very first maths class that I attended, it dawned on me , that I've just been thrown from one pool of competition to another. I was still the unaware fish which had switched to a smaller yet deeper pool, while the hunting fishermen had only changed face. I must confess , it was disappointing at the first look. Going with the momentum , or walking with the herd , as it is called more pejoratively, was pretty much apparent. The proverbial hunks with swanky T-shirts would be curtain lifters , show stoppers , trend setters, whatever you may call them. They walked in and out of classrooms with an equally swanky herd of people ,gathering the oomph of the females, and wanted to ridicule anything and anybody at the slightest opportunity. With the benefit of size and weight, I was privileged to be left alone from the usual bullying , and was approached only in circumstances of a dearth of water, food, pen and paper, and I must add, I wasn't even complaining.

It was hard to find people to talk to, and I'd be in constant search of people who suffered from the same dilemma. In retrospect , I always managed to find a few , to have a chat , while I nose dived into my food, a little " over-the-supper" talk , you may call it.

There used to be this one commotion regarding the hostel. Hostel was considered " the " place to enjoy life. Blinded by its word of mouth publicity , I managed to check out the hostel myself . I was left flabbergasted at the audacity of such a claim. Broken windows, broken lavatories , the constant threat of being torn away by some senior or adversary,  I mean , if that was " the " life , I was very satisfied with my " a " life. Apart from a personal tragedy, the first semester was a rather benign period, but it gave me a lot to think about.
 

The women are going dutch these days !

As and when I endeavor to write the post, I have this intuitive tingling sensation ringing inside, telling me that post this post, either I'll be given a rudimentary remark or have a bit of an explanation to do, not that it deters my resolve to introspect this newly found notion in women , the notion of " going dutch". I thought , may be the very mention of my apprehension , could place my intent in good light and obscure me from the post-the-post denunciation.

Unaware of its intended meaning, I was stupefied, mortified and petrified at such an unexpected inclination to the Netherlands. With immediate action, I started emptying the pennies in my pockets , to take critical notice of the financial situation. However, less did my pennies know, that the dutch had intended not to spend, but to save them. A little embarrassed as I was , caught unaware of its more common ( thought highly un-obvious) meaning , I put my pennies back in my little pockets and made a mental note , to make it noticeable on the blog and here I am blowing the trumpet.

While the day started with a sexist article, it's culminating in a sexist post. And for many , particularly women, sexism means "chauvinism" , when put bluntly.

As they say it , times change with changing people. When the women are going dutch , I think men will be more than pleased to let them go. There's obviously no male ego kill here , I mean , with utmost honesty , there's no skin off our nose. But then, of course, women have to make it apparent , it's a convention.

It happens all the time at home , when women ( actually one woman ) in my house undertake a strict resolve to handle all financial exchanges taking place. The men in our house , may outnumber but can never , in all plausible probability , out power the females. In effect and accordance to the feminine resolve to handle finances, all cheque-books, account details are given to them, only to be taken back a week before the end of the month , when the official surrender happens.

A part of the female's male counterpart ( that's my dad) , feels victorious to be in reign again , the other part gives him sleepless nights , for the monkey mess has already been made. We ( my brother and I ) the two sullen souls , sit silently as spectators only to spy on this spectacular spectacle , sporadically sprinkled with such singular speculation. And I must say , that we are formidably entertained.

Like the perfect icing on this cake, I can only recall a message I received from a frustrated guy regarding his dubiety over the fact that, why Mis(s)calculation, Mis(s)interpretation ,Mis(s)timing , Mis(s)anthropy and Mis(s)assumption have always been unmarried females. Though I'm yet to get the logic myself, I don't think it has ever been (Miss)ed nor Mis(s)used. See , at the end of the day, I'm just another Mis(s)ter, how would I know? it's a miss thing.

Lying Gracefully

Strictly in the top three of my mandate for the year 2010 , is "to perfect the art of lying", something that was always on the agenda but never really exercised, for the dearth of exogenous opportunities to lie indiscriminately.

The infatuation to lie started when I was , if I remember correctly, somewhere between the tender age of six and eight, when I saw mummy telling somebody on the phone , that she wasn't at home and was not to be available for the ten days hence. Fed decently with the " jhooth bolna galat baat hai " dose , I could never imagine her lying , and I had all these theories bubbling in my head , " What if she's not really herself ? ".  I know it's hard to imagine how a boy that young can zero in on such a twisted logic, but I guess the idiot box had a subconscious part to play in that.

While a part of me was irked by her ideological hippocracy, the other part was already getting prepared to confront her sacrilegious lie. But alas, before I could exploit this opportunity, I was carefully shown the door and was told to mind my own business. A little appreciative as I was of her ability to lie with such a straight face , with not a single wrinkle on the forehead, it vetted in me this fervent desire to convolute this art , the art of lying  ,irrevocably in my personality. And mind you , this is not a genetic trait, the other members of my family are rather decent and grant me innumerable opportunities to lie , without the slightest inhibition of the fear of being caught.

So , that was that, and I have been in practice mode ever since. Actually , I think , right now, I'm in the middle of this wilderness , where I just might reveal more than what can be consensually considered comely. More appropriately, I'd take a tea break , and return with a rather " sane" state of mind.        

Continued..

It's not as if I have never been lied to or if I'm the most virtuoso of liars myself, on the contrary , my pretentious and far from truth prevarications tend to blurt out their mischief almost peremptorily.

However, as a general phenomenon,  a lie , shadowed well enough in the canopy of pleasing words , has always caught a fraction of my admiration. It'll be hard on my ego to accept , but some of the people I've come to admire the most , are the ones who have managed to make me count my chickens, almost consistently.

I know , after writing all this , my moral integrity would already be in question, but one has to accept , be it reluctantly , that lying sometimes , is a much simpler proposition. A lie for the benefit of mankind , is technically, no lie at all, and therefore all the more unworthy of mention and bereft of excitement. It's the other variety that intrigues me , the much more abominable category of lie. 

So , I was soliloquizing , about what makes a conscious lie all the more potent and hard hitting. Is it just a poker face or a corrupt self conscience? The more sleepy me forces me to conclude that it's both.

On a personal note, if I believe in the institution of lying? I would say : No, I don't. But , come to think of it, if at all I were a "lie evangelist" myself, I wouldn't be telling the truth, would I ?  ;-)

Pregnant with Possibilities

Call it my incredulous imagination , but I couldn't think of a better title. As much as I would like to elaborate on my current trepidations , I'll prefer to keep this outburst lucid and terse.

Even today when I get a call from a curious relative , asking me if engineering is satisfying enough, I pretend that it is. On a rather straight note, why shouldn't it be? It gives me this authority of being called an "engineer", something I'd been craving for all my life.

However, to realise at this point of time , the time when I seem to be a month away from placements , the time I had once fantasized , that I'll have to start over with life all over again in search of another profession is not only grossly ironic but also frustrating.

It's getting a bit too filmy ,and hitherto I have noticed , eventually it always does. Be it Tragically dramatic or Dramatically tragic , it has come to work both ways.

While the not-so-immediate family members keep vigil for an unlimited supply of laddoos , when the news of me getting a job , irrespective of the package and profile , breaks out, my parents feel rather comfortable at delaying such a wasteful expenditure, for I had made my intentions of not taking up a job immediately after engineering transparent and uncompromisable a significant  while back. But then , it exposes me , more inadvertently, to a new variety of inquisitiveness, which tips off with this basic little question : Now What?

Sometimes I think I should be purposefully ambivalent about ambitions. It's safer to do so. Not that I intend to keep my parents curious, but least of all things, it rids me off the burden of giving them a fake hope.

Over an ingenuous cup of tea

There are times , when you write just to know if you can , then there are times, when you write because you're expected to . Finally, there are times when you write , not really knowing why. If I say I'm writing this just for the sake of it , in lieu of passing time ,while my usual ten 'o' clock tea gives off some off its heat to the environment , and makes itself a little more bearable for my tongue, then I'm saying , what is commonly referred to as the "truth". In short, this is going to be random gibberish , which I can assume , any sane soul would/should not only ignore but also ridicule.

I've already talked about the nose here , the nose part-I , if you might recall. Why the Nose Part-II never came by ? Well, I really don't want to tell this , but I guess I need to loyal to my audience :-P. Now , I'm already anticipating the usual " What does he think of himself ?".  I know the word "audience" irks you, doesn't it ? You'd be wondering at my audacity at an assumption of such humongous self vanity. Nowadays, I just can't help my humour going all cold , I think I've been sitting in the AC for too long . Bad one ! Agreed.

Coming back to the reason. Coincidentally , the very day I announced the nose to be an inevitable part of one's personality, I was gunned with a rather rude remark about my own nose , which I should confess, at the least forced me to check its validity in the mirror. With a sensation of sporadic disappointment, I consoled myself , sulked officially for two minutes and thirty seven seconds,  finally stood back in my chair , and wondered at the inevitability of other physical features detrimental in determining one's personality. Eventually, I zeroed upon the tongue.

Why the tongue? Because it expels me to my blissful yesteryears and brings to my memory a certain incidence. I must have been eight , when I was forcefully admitted to the "British School of Table Manners" . The name of the school was rather ironic. The very first day , I went to the school with an expectation of finding teachers only of English origin , and with this malicious desire of making fun of their hindi, if at all they tried their hand at it in front me. Disappointingly , I couldn't find a single Brit , hence the irony. I never really got what they were trying to convey , because then , I stood perpetually confused between right and left. So, no matter how much they tried, they could never convey their point across.   

to be cont..

It's simply different !

First of all things, I should confess to have been thinking of writing about this for over a year  , and now , on a Sunday , when I finally determine myself to push the envelope , I already feel a bit conscious of making public a few thoughts , which I thought were better to be kept clandestine not only from fellow humans , but also to an extent from my own conceivable self. 

As far as my memory buttresses my claim, the word "cliche" entered my vocabulary sometime in the first year of college. Earlier I thought of it as a subsidiary of the word "Touche". It's almost embarrassing to recall instances and conversation where I'd use cliche and touche almost irreplaceably. If only one can exert oneself to imagine , that one may understand how undermining  it would be to proclaim an act , though unintentionally, to be a "cliche" instead of a rightly deserved "touche". But as I am proud to acknowledge , this as a literary faux-pas is not even close to the worse I've been through in misinterpreting english language. My repertoire of misinterpretations has been so enormous that an occasional flip here and there , has been rather run of the mill. Not that anybody so far , has had either the energy or the will to denounce me for such hideous misuse of literal authority.

One may wonder why I seem to be so wordy sometimes , so complex, as it commonly conjectured . When I come to precipitate to an answer to that , I'm caught a bit coughed up. Not entirely because , I've always ostensibly maintained that I'm that "simple middle class guy" .To be honest, sometimes,  I think I'm not, I mean the contradiction is only with the "simple" part, as far as middle class goes, if you'd ever have the pleasure of skimming through my ATM accounts, you'd prefer placing me in a category much below  . But nevertheless, it's an extremely fashionable thing to say about yourself, isn't it ? Most diplomatically correct , as one may say.

It's this simple question I ask myself : Do I really want to be that simple a person ? The question rolls inside my intrepid brain like the little dice rolled over a board game , it rolls and rolls and finally unfolds a mystery of sorts. Well, the answer is: Not Really ! .

What "simple" has come to be interpreted today , goes hand in hand with a boring , cliched existence. The fact that a simple person is transparent, easy to influence and globally manipulatable, an image that ,in the minds of some ,may coincide with that of a glum sycophant. That's not what any guy would have in mind of becoming .

Yet, come to think of it, a complex guy who pretends to be simple has this divine authority to watch the worldly parody around him where people are more likely to assume that he's simple and confined within all the diminutive qualities of a simple person, that I've described above,  is actually,  in a much better position to manipulate things , for the world for him is transparent , people are puppets and their reactions cliche .It's just too simple . No pun intended.

If I'd prefer myself to be called simple? Well, I would rather leave that for myself to answer but not before another year.  

Just Another Something in Shimla

Perhaps, this is an anecdote I cannot but help blurting out. It has this intuitive charm to it , the kind that puts a sub conscious smile on my face every time I tend to recall it.

So, alongside the usual stroll that I had already started getting used to, here on mall road in Shimla, I thought of messaging my newly found female accomplice , just to know her whereabouts. A little apprehensive as I was, I decided to establish myself on a clean green bench on the side of the road, and think of something rather intriguing to write about.

As my mind dwindled between the usual Hi , Hey, Hello, Wassup to choose from , for the perfect start , a little something dawned on me , and eventually, I zeroed upon a cheeky but unconventional ''Oye girlfriend '' to start off, reminiscent of a little joke I shared with her a day before.

It was hardly perturbing , when a little boy, adorning that innocent glee and hair,well oiled and neatly combed, disrupted me for a second and asked me to shift a bit. As courteously as I could , I reduced myself to the paltry one fifth part of the bench , while the boy and his obnoxiously fat mother occupied the rest four-fifth. As the boy sat next to me , sipping his fountain coke with a spluttering sound, I , more by facial conjectures, expressed my dissatisfaction at such a distraction , but it didn't really restrain him from making that sound, perhaps he enjoyed the sound much more than the coke . I can say that because he kept making that sound even after the last drop of coke in his wrinkled plastic glass was exhausted.

As I strived to put in a few words, the little menace kept peeping into my phone screen . May be he's just curious about the apparatus, I assured myself and I let him be. Now, comes the funny part.

Having peeped into my message for a while , he shrugged a shoulder and whispered to his mother : '' Mummy ! Dekho yeh bhaiya hai naa, yeh apni girlfriend ko sms kar rhe hain. '' It was intended to be a whisper, but a good five people around us, including me, could hear it.

With immediate horror on her face, his mother realised the faux pas that her son had put us both in. Half embarrassed and almost apologetically she said to me:'' Bada naughty bachha hai yeh ! ''.

Unaware of social customs , the boy ventured once again to defend his statement , but before he could , his mother volunteered to literally shut his mouth up. As she raised a hand to do so , I replied : It's okay aunty, he's right, girlfriend ko hi sms kar rha hoon. ''

So, as and when I completed writing and sending the message, I moved ahead with my stroll on mall road, with that maniacal smile on my face , wondering how exciting it would be to put this incidence into words.