Mismatched Socks

I wore mismatched socks all day yesterday and felt exceedingly proud of myself. .It was as if I was telling ‘Aha! I don’t need you’ to all those other pair of socks, earings, shoes, gloves etc that go and hide themeselves just when you most want them. I swear I hear their tittering laughter as I go rampaging round my room upturing drawers, chests and racks and crawl under my bed in search of them.  To confirm my theory, my other black sock has come slinking back into view today as if to say: ‘what’s a little hide and seek among friends?’ Aha!

Also, people in this college are too polite to point out one’s utter lack of colour coordination. The other option of course is they’ve long given up and labelled one as a ‘lost cause’ as far as such things are concerned.

More importantly, December is a mere week away. Exams are like in three days, but that is not the point.

On Being Delusionally Optimistic

There is always a point every semester – during project submissions, end semester exams and other law school trappings when the work from weeks past has pilled up, when deadlines have been stretched out to the extent where they have lost all their linear quality, that I get delusionally optimistic about my ability to get my work done. And then suddenly, I find all the time in the world to do the most inane of things – such as learn Japanese by repeated viewing of Death Note, or read up Wikipedia’s entry on Wikipedia, or write blog posts instead of law review articles…

NAZE??!!!

that’s ‘why’ in Japanese in case anyone was wondering.

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.

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.

Gods Behaving Badly

I had a gift voucher from my B’day left to kill, and to foil the dastardly plan of my friend, who’d got me the gift voucher in the first place and had therefore thought she’d escaped from going gift searching for me, I dragged her along. Ended up spending over two hours rifling through books at Starmark, before I decided on buying this particular book.

The blurb on the cover page of Marie Phillips’ Gods Behaving Badly calls it ‘very very funny and delightfully original’. I wonder how many people buy books because of these blurbs. I mean, it can’t possible say something bad about the book, now can it? like for instance ‘A sad attempt at humour but kids these days they’ll lap it up anyways?’

Ah well, as for me – I picked it up because it seemed to be an attempt at bringing two of my favourite genres – mythology and urban fantasy together. Think about it, greek gods from the past living right across the street or jostling for space with you in a bus. You gotta admit, the idea has potential.

And I have to say, the book ain’t bad. It’s funny in parts, moves at a decent pace, and as a whole is a good read. I love Eros’ conflicting faith in Christianity, love that the mere presence of Ares is enough to stir trouble between two of the most saccharine sweet characters in the book, or even the fact that Apollo tries to break into stardom by acting in a third rate TV show, that specializes in foretelling the future happiness of old women and their cats. Sometimes when it hinted at the greater fears of the gods – about dying, about living forever in bad company, about being too inconspicuous in the modern world it showed real promise.

Then again, there is characterization that is so run of the mill – Aphrodite as the slutty conniving sexy goddess, Artemis as the  uptight goddess of hunting, Hades, Persephone etc etc who don’t seem to have picked up any character since the bygone eras. I am not saying that the intrinsic characteristics that the Greek myths present should be changed but surely they can be developed upon!  Then again, I am not quite sure I like it when she changes things around. for example, when she says that wisdom and clarity don’t go hand in hand when it comes to Athena (who basically is a twenty first century nerd) it doesn’t make sense. Isn’t the whole hoopla about wisdom that it’s about saying the right thing at the right time and being able to get it across which may not be found in intelligence? Weird.

The  human characters in the book Neil and Alice are terribly sweet and terribly in love which can get terribly boring after a while. I get it, you’re trying to show how the average sweet, nice human is just a pawn in the games of the gods, but give the average human some more credit. We aren’t all that nice!

The ending again is a little too concoted. ‘Faith keeps the gods going!’ the revelation lacks punch, it has been said before loads of time in a much better way (Go Read American Gods, Now.)Also, the author stops just when it gets a little more interesting and of course a whole lot more complex. Suddenly you have tons of people believing in the Greek gods again. Now what? Does the Church declare war?Do the aethists societies go dunk themselves? Do the Americans have Artemis endorse their right to carry arms stand? Do the Greeks charge royality for worshipping their gods? Okay, so my suppositions get crazier by the sentence, but that’s the point. I like endless possibilities at the end of a book, I do, but here it just seemed that the author knew she couldn’t tackle all the wacky possibilities and therefore left her readers with an open epilogue. It would have been awesome, I think, if the book had actually begun at its end point and worked its way through all the tangled compex problems that come with having a sudden renewal of mass scale faith in ambiguously intentioned gods.

I liked the book though, mainly because like I mentioned earlier – I love mythology and urban fantasy. Where else, I ask you, will you get to read the following sentence “I’ve got a god passed out on my kitchen floor and I think the world’s about to end”?  Nope. Nowhere else.  Also, I liked the book because it figured Greek gods who are some of my favourite gods; for I have always thought that if you actually believed in them, then you’d never be surprised when bad things happened coz you’ll realize that as gods they’ve got better things to do than bother about your temporary existence. Gives you a wondeful perpective on fate and stuff.

Also, for those interested in worship of Greek gods in modern times: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2006/may/05/greece

A Stirring (albiet late) Ramble on December Love, New Year Cheer? Hah! What Hogwash, & Lame Squad Among Other Things

Come Jan 4th, the snow on my Blog disappears for good and I wanted to write this post before that. I don’t know why they – the wordpress people- can’t let the snow stay (fall?) till late Jan; then again, I see it as one more of those inexplicable reasons why December stands out for me.

I Love December. Passionately. Completely. With all my heart. That’s right, I love… a month. This shouldn’t really come as a surprise. I have, after all, expressed my innate fondness for the Microsoft Office assistant cat, tea, words (my favourites at the moment being ‘Exquisite’ & ‘Slaughter’!) etc which are all borderline obsessive. A love for a month seems saner in some respects, especially when it comes with good reasons.

As any self obsessed kid/human being, my initial reasons for loving December centered on the one and most important fact:  My ‘Happy Birthday’ is in December! I was and continue to be extremely pleased with ‘my being’ and loving December – which bought me gifts and a day when I was fussed over more than usual- came naturally.

One of the earliest memories of my childhood (which is also one of my few early memories not directly connected to food) is that of come December my dad fiddling around with the Diwali lights, usually stowed away under the kitchen cabinet, which we would then put up around our house in Lucknow. They were meant to be Christmas + New Year decorations, but they invariably went up before my birthday, which I always took as a subtle yet obvious indicator of my own self importance! Did I mention I was self obsessed?

Out of the dozen or more schools I’ve been to, a few have been of the Convent variety. This entailed that come December, if you were in the lower grades, you were lined up and taken to the music room and taught to sing carols. By rote. Not that I minded, really. Because once you’ve sung your carols, and done the Christ is Born Play (I was always chosen as one of the Three Wise Kings!) you got to stay at home, for over two weeks! That’s right – Christmas Break! I spent most of that time, glued to the idiot box watching every single glitzy glatzy Christmas special that could be called forth, by the judicious use of a remote control. I loved them all – I loved each and every commercialised moment of it.

At home we usually had our very own fake Christmas tree with fake gifts – little matchboxes and soap boxes covered in decorative wrapping paper.  I never really believed in Santa but I always opened each and every soapbox and matchbox after the decorations came down hoping against hope for some sort of magical transformation. Never did happen (surprise, surprise) but I did it anyway.

I remember last year, before the whole ‘cusp debacle’, having a time pass discussion with a friend of mine on famous people born in the same zodiac as our inconsequential selves. Now my friend was clearly winning – throwing out one name after the other. I was generally wracking my brain for someone so famous, that he/ she would trump all her bigwigs.  Enlightenment hit a few moments later and I blurted out with unparalleled fervour: JESUS CHRIST WAS CAPRICORN!!! He was a freakin’ Capricorn! I won that argument hands down. (Though now that I think of it there are apparently some inaccuracies about his actual birth date and worse, my actual zodiac. Sigh.)

The point of these disconnected vignettes is to merely point out the obvious. I love this month and so, I should be excused from participating in the terribly traumatic end of December that New Year entails. Why, I fail to understand, does everyone count down the last year (and my dear poor month) with such visceral enjoyment?

The truth is, I think, that I am so determined that I must and should love this month that good stuff happens. My results when they come out bang on in the middle of December, turn out to be pretty well decent; being the first year that I am spending December away from home, my dad pays me a surprise visit; as a founding member of the Lame Squad (The Squad can be described at best being well – Lame and is open to membership to all those who can answer this profound question: What is the Lame Question?) I get the best Double Chocolate Truffle Cake possible from them!

A friend of mine, tired of my rhetoric question of ‘How can one not love December?’ told me during Christmas Brunch that she was forced to love the month as I would scream bloody murder otherwise. All I can say to that is ‘see? I seem to rub off December cheer even on people around me!’

I end this long rambling with a little reminder for next…this year. Around the end of this year say December, if you see a girl grinning like a maniac, and humming Christmas carols under her breath and looking way too pleased with life in general. Forgive her for her weird good cheer. You see, she is in love.

Connecting Imaginary Dots

It was the 8^th afternoon of the month of December. Slowly but surely, an entire class attending a lecture on Science, Technology and Law was being put to Death by Power Point. One brave individual, who rallied, was rewarded with a seemingly inconsequential piece of mindless information:

“The International Seabed Authority, under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea 1982 , has a wing to spearhead exploration of the deep-sea bed. This wing is called the Enterprise.”

Perhaps one must congratulate her keen sense of observation. More likely, one must feel pity for the weird wiring in her head, which made this (un) necessary connection:

ENTERPRISE =

Ergo, Dude, some negotiator sitting at a top level UN Convention drafting meeting was a total Star Trek geek! OMG, V. Cool.

Even more appropriately, perhaps, one must pity the fact that in the sum total of the five lectures that day, this minuscule connection was the only thing that made her grin.

Tall Tales On Books – Abandoned And Unread

I like to think, that I am one of those people who read. I also like to think that I am a modest reader. Sure, I was part of the extremely silly (but clearly superior) bunch of idiots who thought they were way cooler than everyone else in class, because they had read the Lord of the Rings before the movies; but, for most parts I know that though I read, there are just too many freakin’ books in the world, for me to make a dent, any time soon.

But here’s the thing. I usually finish the books that I start. Really. Even if, somewhere within the odd first fifty pages – I get the feel that I really do not want to find out what happened between the chic and the groping tentacles, I still finish the book. Force of habit; a wish to be fair; respect for the outrageous amount my dad probably shelled out for the glossy paperback. Call it what you will, but I nearly always finish my books.

Except when I don’t, and then because of my love for lists, I keep track of them, remember why I didn’t and find out why others did. I am not surprised that I can’t think of that many. But here’s what stands out in no apparent order:

1. Anna Karenina by Leo Tolstoy

I bought War and Peace, and Anna Karena together, when I was probably in my eight or ninth grade, from the cute-but-poor-second-hand-bookseller outside my favourite bookshop in Hyderabad. I got through War and Peace not just because of my tenacious will, or because I was full of pity for Pierre whom I couldn’t bear to abandon mid-book/s conflicted and so very puppy-like lost, but also, I admit for what its worth, for the very superficial reason- that I wanted to be able to say that I had read it; that I had read War and Peace. To begin Anna Karenina immediately after that was nearly impossible for me, especially since I knew what happens in the end. I remember talking about Anna Karenina in all-brazen indifference on messenger to my friend once. My exact words are not what I remember. It was probably something very aseptic, Anna Karenina? She dies, right? Or, something akin but I remember my friend’s response and it was, I swear, like I could hear him talk and he said, “she dies, yes” but the sentence didn’t quite end there, as if there was more to that ending that I could…should find out by reading the book. I think I’ll get back to the book…someday, all because of a two lined conversation on it on messenger.

2. Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand

There’s no easy way of saying this. In fact I am slightly scared saying it, considering the fanatics I know who worship this book and call it life altering. But I couldn’t get through it. In fact, it is probably one of the few books that I have chucked away physically because I couldn’t stand it. (Another one which comes to mind is Alcott’s Good Wives which gnawed away on all that was special and precious in Little Women but for the record I finished it and wrote an alternate version of it and my mind rests easy on that account.) Getting back, I don’t really know what it was that pissed me off about the book. It disgusted me for some reason, and I take solace on what someone told me about Ayn Rand’s books. You either love them or hate them. There’s no middle ground. I doubtless fall in the latter category and all the purported wisdom of the books is lost on me. Such is life.

3. Cyclops by Clive Cussler

I don’t remember much of the very little that I managed to read of this. I am not a big fan of the Cold War books – “must stop the Evil KGB” kinda lost its charm after the first few dozen books I read in that genre. (One of the really tongue in cheek lovely pieces set in the Cold War period that I really like is a short science fiction piece by Michael C Clarke featuring bumbling Floridian bureaucrats, fake icebergs, and Russian spy ships but that’s obviously another story altogether). Anyways, I vaguely remember something about the Russians in this one. That wasn’t, however, the reason I stopped. There was something about a colony on the moon, which I am totally okay with. But this colony was called Jersey Colony and I just stopped reading after that, because I don’t care if you decided to name it after the State or the cows but after all the awesome names we’ve come up with for astronomical objects, if you are going to have a colony on the moon don’t you dare call it something so very bland! (And this is coming from someone who was completely okay with Planet Bob in Titan A.E! I have a sneaking suspicion that the fact that it came out in Matt Damon’s voice made it seem like a really good idea at that point of time. )

4. The Mayor of Casterbridge by Thomas Hardy

I had read a lot of Hardy back to back by then. I read Return of the Native, I read Tess of D’Urbervilles, I read A Pair of Blue Eyes, and then I got to The Mayor of Casterbridge. And what can I say, except my will gave out. I am not against unhappy endings per se; sometimes I am appalled by the saccharine sweet endings that are cooked up in books (coughharrypottercough). Perhaps Hardy captures life, as it is in some… most cases, but I couldn’t bear the gloom and doom, okay? My very simpleton needs for some hope and happiness reasserted themselves and I abandoned the book before the really gloomy bits began.

5. This Book I Began But Sadly Could Not Finish

This one I really regret. I was taken to one of my relatives’ home, and as my mum and the aunty gossiped their way into the Guinness books, I sat dour faced while my equally unhappy near aged relative fiddled with her thumbs, yawned and generally wished me long lost and staying that way. At last, desperate for some sort of escape, she sighed and said: would you like to see our books? What can I say? I am sure she had nightmares of the unholy gleam that filled my eyes at the statement.

So I got escorted to what I have to admit was a decent hoard of books and because I had no pretensions (and because really how much longer could my mum gossip?) I chose a thin volume of something, which I have but a vague memory of. Sometimes I think it was a play. Sometimes I think otherwise. It had a girl who was engaged to an unscrupulous jerk of an officer, and there was some rebellious individual who barged into her rooms at night. I know it sounds nearly too overdramatic and reeks of the romantic bug but I remember thinking the girl was pretty cool and level headed. Sadly I got dragged away before I could get much further. Years later, when I was dragged back there, I lurked around trying to find the book, but I was bitterly unsuccessful. Even my desperate attempts to get my near aged relative to divulge the name of the book proved fruitless because, get this, she couldn’t remember! As if! If that isn’t part of some devious dastardly plot to…do something, colour me Purple!

Then again, I sometimes think that it’s a good thing that I never finished it. What if, I had hated it? For now, I am okay with the undone memory of the book in my head. I’ve even nearly forgiven that near aged relative. Because there is something in thinking that someday I will chance upon the book again and I’ll get to read it. It’s just one of the countless things to look forward to in life.

Google Search Love…

Reasons To Love Google: Reason :4678

Try searching for  “What is the answer to life the universe and everything?” and google throws up quite emphatically the number 42. The geeky coolness of it makes me want to grin all day.

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Now playing: Death Cab For Cutie – I Will Follow You into the Dark
via FoxyTunes