In Which We are a Tad Sappy in the Grand Old Tradition of the Thing

Sometimes,

I wish

there was something between us.

Something…anything…just so that I could look you in the eye

and smile;

just smile, damn it; but we aren’t even acquaintances.

And it hurts; at its corniest, it hurts,

that you don’t know me and I don’t know you

And yet that I wish -

sometimes,

I wish

that I knew you and you me;

just so that I could say hi

and have you say it, back to me.

Momentary Lapses of the Unintelligible

Sitting on one of those Nature Comittee Benches, legs stretched out conveniently, sipping the ‘not too bad’ slightly too sweet hostel tea, some vaguely familiar music playing in the background and watching a couple of second years dribble a football around for no particular reason, and I think quite cheesily…this here is a moment.

Then again, I am quite capable of coming up with them in retrospect…extra time of a slushy rain swept football match, played in borrowed red spiked shoes two sizes too big, then the goal…we’ve all hugging after that and toppling over into the mud… of course when it happened it was all a blur…which in itself is kinda perfect. Though they always need to slow it down in sport movies for the effect.

There are however the really ironic ones that I wish I would not notice – one really bad moot court later, walking back to hostel and from the most inconspicuous of places – the bloody gym, one hear Eminem taunting ‘you get one shot, one opportunity …that’s all you’ve got…” and, I am not making this up…honest!

There are also the ones, that are truly of one’s own making…for example the fact – that every time I am in a metro train, a part of me keeps waiting for the moment – when the ceiling of the train will be ripped open to reveal our protagonists who will then proceed to have a compulsive cool samurai fight across the length and breadth of the compartment. Sigh, I am still sadly waiting for that one.

Moments, when you notice them are nice. As in, the thing with moments…is that they kinda make the clock stop – there is always a ton of stuff floating around in the background of your head but when you see a moment, you go “WoW! Stop, rewind“…and then again “WoW”. I know I am explaining it in a really bad Bill & Ted impersonation, but the truth is I am glad I see moments…real or otherwise.

It’s a mixed up, muddled up, shook up world or Hello, again…

For the past few days, I’ve been feeling a lot like Gordan Way. I don’t remember much about this character from Dirk Gently’s Holistic Detective Agency, but what’s stuck in my head is a description of how he would call up people, preferably being directed to their answering machines, and then talk his heart out as to what all was needed to be done. I don’t remember much about him apart from the fact that he kinda gets killed by an electric monk and his horse – at least I think it was a horse, it might as well have been a donkey- but the more important thing is – I kinda understand his urge to tell people about his elaborate list of Things to Do.

I find myself trusted with responsibility; tons of it. Sure, there might be the tad bit of me that’s pleased with this development but a larger more ‘get me out of here’ part is sick with worry. It’s not that big a deal, except I can’t seem to quit making lists. Also, I might be secretly a tyrant in the making; what’s worrying is how pleased I am by the idea.

I spent twelve hours yesterday and today morning formatting and editing a piece of work, just to realize a moment after I had dispatched it, that I’d forgotten to do something as basic as run it through an MS Word Spell n’ Grammar Check. I’ve most probably over–edited it and most definitely forgotten to add page numbers. I am not quite sure whether I could pass it off as a balancing act.

The LAN connection in College has been tweaked so that certain searches on key words evoke an error message. Considering the Third year First Round Internal Moot Problem is about a gang raped woman whose bisexual husband runs away with her first gay ex-husband, the ingenuity of this tweaking is mind numbing. Ah well.

I wish I could say that I am mooting again for the right reasons; more than the right reasons, wish I could say with a theatrical smirk and a half shrug – ‘Coz I am good at it.’ A lot of people in my batch seemed to have given up on it…at least for this year. I persist because…well, because I don’t want to regret not giving it another shot, because I love the high and the effort that goes in, and even at its worst, there is a delirious part of me that knows that looking back it will all seem funny. I realize the last lines straight from one of those American movies, where the hero/heroine amidst cheery pop music decides to do whatever big thing that he/she had been feeling rather ambivalent about. Chances are, this being the real world and all, if I don’t make the cut, I’ll be bawling my eyes out, but I am, for most parts, certain that, heartbreak or not, I’d still be glad that I did it.

In other news I still do not have a Law and Economics topic. Also, though the ‘geeky coolness’ of saying I am studying Space Law still makes me grin, my project topic on spectrum and orbit leasing might have wooshed over my head, narrowly missing my hair. Not that, technology was ever my forte…have I told you about the time when I crashed not one but two laptops in the space of a week? Oh wait, that was last week! Philip, to whom all my laptop woes are directed, told me he was going to donate to a corpus fund so that he could buy me a typewriter. I went through all the classic symptoms of de-addiction. All I could think of doing when all my friends were listening to music, playing games, watching movies, doing projects – in short hanging out with their own respective laptops was well clean. I dusted my books, regained the surface of my table from piles of accumulated junk, ironed my clothes and when all that could be done was done, I did something more along the lines. Think about it. I spent entire Sundays cleaning! The Horror!

Of course, I am back to my old ways, now that my laptop’s returned. I just spent an entire evening writing this long drawn out rather pointless post…which was the only way I could think off coming out of a really long hiatus. It was either this or one of those mindless ‘you’re tagged’ blog polls. And I used that, the last time

Cooking Up Memories…

I am learning to cook. Well watching my mum cook at times is more like it. Even though there are some primitive notions attached to the whole process (GirlReaching Marriageable Age – Must Know To Cook) I quite enjoy it. Especially when there is this cooking show inspired voice over going on inside my head- “now that you’ve added the onions, stir the contents until golden brown” or “lift up the lid and mmmh the flavour just hits you, doesn’t it?” I’ve got my very own ‘You Can Cook’ going on in my head.

My childhood is polka doted with memories that are connected to food. My first (hopefully made up) memory is being irritated with all the other kids, at my birthday party, for eating my sweets, my memory of leaving Lucknow as a seven year old, is connected to the fact that Anup uncle bought me not one but TWO packets of Lays chips from the railway station and that when I went to the planetarium for the first time in my life I had vanilla cup ice cream. Need I go further?

Reading about food itself for me is terribly satisfying. I am sure one of the reasons I always loved the Enid Blyton books was because of all the food that was spread out. I mean most of the Secret Seven’s started with an inventory of all they could eat at their latest meetings, the Famous Five’s though very dicey about the whole toiletries issues never lacked in food supplies and was there ever a St Claire’s semester when there wasn’t a midnight feast?

One of the quaintest books where book foods have been gone into is What Katy Did Next. She spends her time in England eating all the food that is described in books and surprise! Surprise! not all of it is good! However good or enticing it may sound- sausages pressed into gingerbread do not mouth watering make.

One really cool food book that I’ve got recently is Anthony Bourdain’s Kitchen Confidential. For someone who’s grown up thinking that the genial Sanjeev Kappoor is the archetypical chef the transition to Bourdain’s life of sex drugs and well cookery can be something of a culture shock. His cast of chefs seem more suited to the Mafia than the kitchen, but the love for food and cooking – what matters most- is very evident. I am half way through, and it est good.

Last year, we, in the intrepid editorial board of our college’s rag tag magazine Writer’s Block, scouted the city’s streets and back alleys in search of good food on the excuse that we needed to fill the odd 600 word Restaurant Review column of our mostly monthly rag. Never again, do I think that I am going to be in the company of such, for whom the ability to ingest copious amounts of food is a matter of pride and honour.  Of course our original intention was not forgotten and we wrote about the food and though describing ‘Pancakes at Piccadilly’ in a profusion of food clichés is hardly the literary heights of food writing, it was extremely entertaining.

When I read our very own food reviews now, it’s weird how it’s not the food that I remember.  It’s the subtext that stands out clearly – the stuff we didn’t write about.–– Bhavna singing from the back seat of a mostly empty bus, waiting at a railway crossing for the longest goods train ever to pass, Anuj’s attempts to finish a kula of lassi in one go – the sad realisation that I must never ever be photographed with food ever again.

And suddenly I am glad, that my memories are all connected to food.

Desperate Pleas for Help as oppossed to Do Not Disturb Signs

This notice went up outside my room at approximately 1:30 on Saturday afternoon. Unlike the many, who write DO NOT DISTURB OR I WILL KICK YOUR ASS outside their door, come exams, I approach them with…well desperate cries for help.

Dear Everybody,

Hello and Welcome to another edition of “ This crazy girl has gone mad again!” What can I say except that I have been frittering away my life in wishy washy pursuits. I’ve been editing the magnum opus of the Kick-Assest Issue Ever (Yes, it is called that, yes it is that much Kick-assest); I’ve been reading about the latest p-sets those crazy kids have to do; I am also suddenly and irrevocably in love with Jess from Gilmore Girls…again. (what can I say, there is just enough James Dean in him.)

As a result my studies have been (what’s the right word) rather ‘neglected’. In other words, the time for PANIC is now. The time for action was in all probability two weeks ago. But NO, my delusional mind tells me: there is hope. And this Hope person/ voice tells me that if I know what’s good for me, I will lock myself in my room, throw away the key and study like mad. So if you see me wasting time, Scream At Me; if you hear too much ac/dc playing in my room; Scream At Me. Remind me about prioritizing. Give me Notes and Advice. If All Else Fails, (gulp) as a last resort – Call My Mother.

Love

Me

Ps: by any chance have you seen a key lying around anywhere?

A Serious Discussion on Why Weird Awesome Things Will Never Happen To Us

Darshana and I had today (you guessed it!) A Serious Discussion on Why Weird Awesome Things Will Never Happen To Us. We realized in synchronized ‘enlightenment dawned on her’ moments that we were a little too perfectly wired toward appreciating the weird and fantastical to actually come in contact with anything that could really really fit the description.

What I mean is, imagine one day there is an actual real Zombie Attack…while everyone would run screaming through the city, we’d probably be giddy with delight at the fact that FINALLY it is actually happening. We’d kick vampire butt if ever called to do so, with our knowledge of n+1 ways of killing the bloodsuckers, or if an alien life form were to suddenly appear before me and ask my help to build a Galactotranspositer you can bet you’re arse, I’d be calling up my engineering cousin to enlist his help pronto.

And that is the problem isn’t it? Weird Awesome Things will never happen to us, because we’ve already imagined them happening a million times over. Not for us to see a compulsive cool samurai style fight between the two chaps on the metro, not for us a sudden mysterious blood soaked stranger pushing a dirty torn letter into our hands filled with war time codes. No, none of this is meant for us, because instead of fainting/screaming/going into hysterics/asking what, when, where and a million other questions, we’d be completely in our element and ready to go.

Telling us…me (Darshana doesn’t know I am writing this, though I have been using the collective for a while now) that the Weird Awesome Things …er…um…you see…oh! what the heck…DO NOT EXIST…does not in anyway reduce the gravity of our discussion.

On Recession, Recruitment and Reasons Why

We had a treat last night; one of the fifth years who’d got a job decided to let the whole lot in campus gorge on Rosogollas, and ice cream at his expense. Second senior to do this, in a week; damn sweet, I hope it becomes an instant custom.

Of course getting a job is always a big deal in college – campus recruitment remains one of the most gossiped events of the year – who got in where, who didn’t, how many recruited in percentages and so on, but this year getting a job took on a gravity quite unsurpassed with the oft quoted and much abused phenomena of recession hanging over everyone’s head.

It became quite common to walk into conversations where everyone was discussing statistics – so and so firm promised to take so and so number of people, but they didn’t – the bastards; or so and so college had a better track record with recruitment this year, even though it couldn’t hold up a candle to our college, you get the drift. Most felt sorry for the fifth years- some genuine, some patronizing…some in a way I don’t quite get.

Take one of my friends…she sees the poor track record this year as some sort of threat to her own personal recruitment which is two to three years in the future. She is frustrated by it, angry almost, asking why she should spent five years away from home, doing this back breaking course when in the end it may amount to nothing. She could, she says perhaps not in her strongest moment, have just chosen to study at the tacky place near her home, if in the end this is the only sort of result she is going to get. I snap at her to quit worrying and she quotes ILO’s expected figures of job loss at me. I think of my father and am suddenly, powerfully worried. I quickly perhaps even unkindly ridicule her and the figures and brush it away. I refuse to be worried, perhaps unwisely.

And these sort of odd disconnected snippets go on and on; one fifth year who, when she saw a group of pesky second years staring said with very little heat, quit staring, yes we are unemployed, and another one who I overhead on the phone talking airily about how her dad was worried about her and wouldn’t let her sit jobless at home.

My mum called me up a few weeks ago and because I sounded upset launched into speech on how it didn’t matter much – about recruitment or grades as long as you are safe and happy and it took me almost fifteen minutes to realize that she’d freaked out on my regular petty problems because she’d been reading about some chap who’d killed himself at IIT coz he didn’t get a job, due to you guessed it, recession. I told my mum in no uncertain terms that a) she was crazy and b) she was crazy. I think, strangely enough, she felt much better at being told how ridiculous the connection was.

And that’s what I hate about recession. The genuine effects of it are there for everyone to see and to be worried about- job loss, unemployment, loss of a lifetime of saving, the whole nine yards. But what I hate more is how much it is affecting people – the fears it’s creating sometimes to the point of utter ridiculousness.

I know that you can’t ignore recession, you shouldn’t but I wish it wasn’t turning into everyone’s personal bogey man.

Ramblings On Organised Mess

I’ve been back in college for four days now and over the weekend – I finally overcame my fears and inhibitions, and completed the very very difficult task. That’s Right. I cleaned up my room.

Scoff all you want. But this a months’ worth of accumulated grime and dust that I am talking about. The thing is, we had our semester break and my dear old room has had little airing or dusting in the meantime.

People, who have seen the condition of my room in its various avatars, will find this supposed preoccupation with cleanliness slightly out of character. (In fact, I have a sneaking suspicion that one of my alcove mates’ almost philosophical musings on a messy room in a recent poetry competition was inspired by the state of affairs in my room) A misunderstanding, for sure. There is difference between messiness and cleanliness – subtle yes, but it’s there!

Over time, I have skipped from one lame escuse to another, depending on whom I am giving it to. People who accidentally pop into my room, are always treated to an airy dismissive wave of the hand, as if brushing all the stuff on the floor under the bed – “It’s been one of those weeks” I say with a brave brave smile and the uninitiated are easily fooled.

“Organised Mess” I tell the others stoically; the ones that know that the week, month or even the year has little to do with the condition of my room. They give me hard stares, shake their heads in grave reproach and mumble about ‘pigsties being neater’ under their breath. Some of them are so overcome by it that they look me in the eye and say the dreaded words “think of what your mother would go through if she saw your room”.

All right So I admit it. My room is hardly perfect. But like I said, “messy” and “clean” are different. I keep my room clean, more than some of my More-Books-On-The-Bookshelf-Than-On-The-Floor-Friends and the whole malfunction, as far as arrangement is concerned, is all the Universities fault. There are vile evil days like “submission day”, “due date”, “day of viva” “exam date” that get thrown around with alarming frequency and destroy whatever little “arrangement” my poor room has.

My mother’s sentimentality aside, I have this to say in defense of my room – that my room’s got character – it was allegedly haunted ( never seen nothing, except a an arrow on the wall and “Lick me” written on it now lost under a host of pictures.) It’s weirdly angled so that it looks bigger than the standard hostel room, and miraculously enough it seems to find some place or the other for the copious amount of junk, that I cannot seem to find any use for but apparently can’t live without, I wasn’t kidding about organised mess either, for there is a wacky order in there…somewhere.

Like I said my room’s got character – you just have to look beyond the clutter just a bit.