Chocolate! Fire alarms! Paris!! Spell!!!

Dear Reader,

I am battling bloggers block and the urge to eat chocolate, a combination that has a tendency to drive a person mad. I get ideas when I am about to be claimed by sleep, and by the time I wake up, poof! All fantastic (at least in my semi conscious state, they seem so) post ideas are gone. So as I sit here before my laptop and wonder what to type, I am struck by random, random thoughts. Should I inflict them upon you, or should I sift through them and pick up one that I could elaborate, tweak and beat into submission, into something that vaguely resembles some coherent flow of thought? I wonder, I ponder and I decide: Blitz Krieg!

In Paris (yes, you lot are going to hear about this place so much, you might as well give in), in Paris, I went to a pub with the group I was travelling with. In the dark pub that was lit only by UV lights, everything became very interesting (anyone remember that Friends episode where Ross whitens his teeth for a date?) Our t-shirts, teeth, eyes glowed a ghostly white and the ambience was seductive. A pianist, super cheerful with a glass of whiskey next to him, played out tunes in a surprisingly accent free voice. People around us were steadily getting drunk, while he sang soulful songs. But after every song, there would be just a couple of people clapping, and as I sat there looking at him, I wondered how he did this job. Imagine sitting there, playing for a bunch of people for whom your music was just white noise? My soul would die a bit each night if I were him. Whiskey would help prop up my spirits too though, I suppose...

You know what technology – text messaging, online chatting, facebook - has done to this world? Besides making us into complete idiots who depend on technology for the simplest of things, it has ruined our ability to spell (mum, don’t laugh, I can spell, ok?). I often wonder what would happen if people (and I don’t mean annoying teenagers, I mean fellow 20+ year olds) type ‘you’ instead of ‘u’? or ‘this’ instead of ‘dis’? it is amaaazzzzzziiiinn dat ppl r unabl 2 typ cmplte wrds. I wonder how much effort it takes to type that odd vowel? I assure the followers of this culture, that contrary to popular belief, those ‘a’s, ‘e’s and ‘I’s are important. Really, they are.

I love fire alarms. Everyone I know and lived with for the past one year in halls greeted them with pure, unadulterated loathing, while I would run out of my room with a huge grin. I consider fire alarms to be a fantastic opportunity to catch up with friends. Others did not agree though. The general hatred towards the alarms was compounded by the fact that it always went off at odd hours, usually between 1 am and 6 am when some fellow creature of the night was burning food or smoking stealthily (and unsuccessfully) in their rooms. In my case, this meant I was wide awake every time, since I don’t keep to human times. Shelby called me a “bloody prophet” because the alarms uncannily went off often on days when I would mention them. “Ooh Shel, love those pyjamas, I hope the fire alarm goes off so that people see them”/ “Sigh. Last days, and no fire alarms. So sad.” Were followed by the ear splitting “teeooooteeeoooteeeoo” of the alarm. I think my flatmates hated me a bit because of this.

Strange and highly disorganised monologue done. Thank you for reading.

Love,

Me.

Family

I am reminded of home by the simplest of things, things I had not thought of for almost a year. My aunt is using her mixer grinder, or as we know it, the Mixie, and that sound just transported me back to my living room in Bombay, where that sound was a fixture on Sunday mornings. Dad talking on the phone, surrounded by every English newspaper published in Bombay, Ma in the kitchen, yelling for dad to come help cook something. if I ventured in there, she’d promptly send me off, telling me she did not have the time to clean up whatever mess I’d make in there, in other words “you are useless, go get your dad to help me”. Dad would go into the kitchen with a long suffering expression, and then relegate mom to the post of a dishwasher, or the sous chef, i.e. cutting veggies while he dumped copious amounts of Maggie tastemaker and every spice he could lay his hands on into what was cooking.

So this post is about my crazy parents, who, I think, are the two most influential people in my life, not to mention the most entertaining.

I often tell my friends that it is a miracle I survived my childhood. From being forgotten in the house as a baby (Ma: Ok, I’m ready, let’s go. Dad: Where is the baby? Ma: Oh right!), to dad’s occasional lack of attention to details (Friend: Oh, so this is your daughter? How old is she? Dad: Four or five. Ma (glaring at dad): She’s four!!) to Ma’s experiments (Ma: Ok, my two year old child, put your head through this oddly shaped window grille here, let’s see if it fits. Me: happily following orders. Ma: damn it! Her head is stuck in the grille!!! Me: happily waving at people walking four floors below us and at birds flying past. Dad comes back home: What the hell happened here?! Ma: Oh she did that when I was not looking. Get the baby oil, we’ll ease her head out of there). Cycling, that is another thing I remember. Dad tried his best to teach me, but while under his supervision, I mowed over a kid who was playing cricket :D

They were cool when it came to religious instruction though. They taught me the basic concepts, you know, God, karma and the ‘thou shall not kill’ rule, brought me Amar Chitra Katha comics so that I would know the mythologies and then pretty much left me to my own devices. ‘Interpret as you please’ was the rule. It never was an issue that I did not pray every day, or that my faith is ambiguous on the best of days. Dad is currently a Buddhist, while Ma finds comfort in the rituals of daily prayer. She also finds comfort in teasing dad when he prays daily, despite his having stated that he does not believe in Hindu rituals anymore. Dad tries his best not to laugh when she starts a hilarious running commentary when he goes to pray.

Unlike a lot of Indian parents, mine encouraged me to make independent decisions from childhood. That, I think, is what I am most grateful to them for. I was not a bad student, so marks never mattered to dad, as long as I learnt something, while Ma was happy that I kept my head out of trouble.

This is most definitely not my best post, but I am posting it anyway. For those two clowns back home. Kisses.

Home!

Its 1.30 am and thanks to the nice cup of black coffee i had earlier today, here I am, bright eyed and bushy tailed, updating my poor ignored blog :D

As most of you know, I am in London, studying (At least supposed to be) at SOAS :) Second week here and it feels great - I have met so many interesting people, from such varied backgrounds and seen...actually not much. Yes, will get down to that soon.

SO anyway, this post is another list of sorts, of things I miss -

Family - Chattering with mom or remote claiming competitions/grocery shopping with dad. My ultra cool grandparents.

Friends!!!!

Dumb Charades, Uno :D

Pani Puri! Pav Bhaji!!

Drums classes, the picnics, the very recent and unfortunately short jam sessions. The long chats with everyone there.

Singing aloud, completely off key > Thin walls here, I freak out every time my alarm clock rings, thinking that my other flat mates will wake up as well! So singing is out of the question.

Btw, news - I have almost completely stopped swearing. Just noticed it yesterday.

Dancing to music playing on the computer > No, no one sees this, its me dancing when I get bored at home. Completely insane :) Unfortunately, if I dance in my room here, I will probably crash into my bed or study table, or knock down a lamp

Normal drinking water!!! Hard water here :(

Kurtas > Need I say more on this?

Vt - Colaba -Fort > Call it whatever you want, that is one hell of a place to wander about in. Asiatic Library.

The Dhobhi :D :D :D Seriously. Ironing my own clothes = not fun.

Sunlight!!!! Marathi! Hindi films, songs, Hindustan Times, Mumbai Mirror (I know, I know), my books, Federer pics.

Diwali > the cleaning, sweets, lights, though they do celebrate it here..

So clearly, I do miss Bombay. And my crazy family and friends... See you in a year!

Success, Success, Success

It really bugs me when people make faces or speak in weird tones when i tell them I'm majoring in history. "History? Why history?" WHY THE BLOODY HELL NOT????
Next question is "What do you plan to do after majoring in history?" Well, don't you know? I'll be dressing up and parading around as Queen Victoria at Prince of Wales museum, bestowing Knighthood upon people like you!!
I often want to tell these people to get off my back. They irritate and anger me endlessly. And that's because I can imagine exactly what they are thinking - What will she do with a history major/ I thought she was intelligent/She has potential to do better than this. Their definition of success involves a degree in medicine, engineering, finance, business, literature etc (in that order) and then a house, car, office, money - lots of it.

Well, guess what? My definition of success does NOT include a huge house, a car that i most probably won't even be able to drive, sitting in a swanky office having many disinterested people working under me blah blah. NO SIR.

If you are happy doing what you are doing, believe me, you are successful. Getting up each morning looking forward to your day means you have made it - you are doing something you like- something you most probably are good at; and that itself is usually the formula for success.
By the way, the formula for success also includes an indomitable will, determination to succeed, a very optimistic outlook and so on, and these you can gather only if you want to succeed in a particular thing... confused? EG: If i had majored in economics (I was unfortunately good at it, I also happen to hate it) I'd have had to look for a related job and then work to be successful doing something i didn't even like in the first place!

OK, enough with success, I've used the word a million times already..this post is just a hug to all those people out there who are majoring in HISTORY, philosophy (poor dogs), geography, Latin, Greek, library science, Zulu ideology etc - Hang in there guys!

Choices?

When i took up Arts after my SSC, I wanted to major in psychology and then go on to attempt the UPSC exams to be an IPS officer. By the time i reached degree college, I abandoned the idea of psychology in favour of political science, with which i was absolutely in love with. Second year, and the UPSC plans go out of the window; i wasn't interested anymore, and anyway, i suspect my initial enthusiasm was a result of too many cop movies and TV series. But a new dilemma by the time i approached the third year : i had begun to really like history.....
My parents, who were kind of mad at me for dropping the UPSC plan and not having any clear(just read any) idea about what i wanted to do after graduation, were not very pleased. After a lot of thinking and asking for advice (useless ones, as it turned out) I finally decided to go for history. And reader, I have not regretted my choice since. I still like politics, btw.