Yes, I'm blogging after the longest time. NOT like I had nothing to write about. just plain plain lazy. Hmm so last I posted was around the swine flu break. Lots of things have changed!
I've at some points tried to observe 'patterns' in my life. I'd concluded that the happiest things are always the most unexpected ones, the ones which completely take you by surprise. Well, conclusion arrived at was true. :) Touchwood.
I've also firmly concluded that when things are going really, really bad, something really really good is also in store for one. I saw a bit of really really bad. Lol, had this horrendous submission which deserves a post by itself. If it werent for a bunch of stunning friends, would never have submitted. And it ultimately worked out :)
I've also travelled a LOT. As in, for me a LOT. Ok so in the break went to Ahmedabad and Udaipur. Really really nice. Then Bombay (home :)), then back to Bangalore. Then, went to Oxford, London, Cambridge. :) Really really nice. I remember when I came to know I would be going there, it seemed so surreal. I couldnt believe that I was actually going there. I've grown up reading books by English authors (way better than American authors in my opinion), and well it seemed like I already knew the place. All the names seemed so familiar! So I liked London. And Oxford. Cambridge was pretty but preferred Oxford. Simultaneously, missed India a LOT. I never thought I would be this kind of a person. Missing India so much. Nonetheless it's happened to me before, and happened when I went to England too. Missed 'my people'. Everyone seems a stranger abroad. I keep on thinking, so if I fall sick, fall on the road, will anyone here even care? Also it was bloody cold. I can't stand too much cold.
Currently I'm in a daze in re the way the trimester is going. I'm doing something which involves a LOT of work. I like it. Sometimes get motivated and work like mad. Sometimes find it boring or not inspiring enough. :( Plus I'm off almost everything else. Currently I'm sitting in the library and writing this, and it's Christmas. Past two years have gone home for Christmas. Not this year. Sigh. However have met two awesome people courtesy work. So it's all good. :)
Oh yes have completed two and a half years in college. Halfway down hence. Lovely feeling :) I look at my batch and think, wow so much has changed. People have changed. Different relationships, different priorities, different cliques (ok wait latter's remained almost constant for most people).
And I'm listening to new music! My shady new music is always there, yes. However courtesy someone have been getting exposed to awesome new kinds of music, lovely lovely :) And my Secret Santa from class gifted me Wolf Hall, which I've been lusting for for a long time. :)
Things I want right NOW? Watch Avatar, 3 Idiots, settle down to a nice book, watch more movies present on my laptop for the longest time, extermination of pimples (sigh, I NEVER get them usually), and other stuff. :)
Things I aspire for? Getting more work done, a better sleep cycle, more healthy living. Sigh.
Ok so this post has been more of an 'update' post. Generally, concluding observation is that life can be so unexpectedly awesome.
Showing posts with label books. Show all posts
Showing posts with label books. Show all posts
Family Matters
No, this post is not going to be about Mistry's book. It's going to be a random chronicle of observations made on a recent trip to Lucknow (where mum hails from) and Arrah (town in Bihar) where Dad hails from – all being done so that I write something on this blog at the least! It’s not been updated for the longest time.
So though all of my parents’ siblings no longer stay in Lucknow and Arrah (save for one) I have quite some distant family living there. Besides my grandparents and the house in which my dad grew up in is still there in Arrah. So essentially, I was swamped in family and family matters :).
Firstly, trip was overall a LOT of fun! I met tons of relatives and received lots of compliments (:D) and a lot of five hundred and one rupees and hundred and one rupees! So even managed to make a neat haul :D Apart from that, I've realised I genuinely enjoy meeting family. There is ALWAYS so much family gossip! I really understand now why serials like Kyunki Saas were such a major hit. There are also really nice stories about how things were back in some age, how "papa was when he was your age" stories! I also got to see some lovely black and white photographs of grandmas and great grandpas when they were young.
Secondly, I've realised that there's a whole lot of truth to the statement that marriages form the bedrock of society. They also form the core of family gossip. Every, EVERY meeting with some old family friend or member, involved some marriage gupshup. About how X is marrying Y against her family's wishes, about how good or bad the hospitality was at A's wedding, about how B never got invited to his own sister's daughter's wedding because of some fallout.
I also realized that dowry is very very much prevalent in Indian society, irrespective of whether there is a law preventing the same or not. It’s terribly disgusting and abhorrent but is yet a sad reality. So there was a lot of talk about how the boy’s family made the girl’s family give a dowry which comprised, inter alia, 12 lakh rupees, an AC, a car etc etc. An old servant at my grandparent’s place was explaining how the ‘system’ works. Basically, marriages reduce the girl’s family to nothing. It does not matter what the complexion of the groom is, the bride however must be ‘milky white’. If not, pay an additional lakh as ‘compensation’. The man who was telling us, had his generator (a very very essential device in a city where out of 24 hours there is no electricity for roughly 20 hours) lifted away by the groom’s family when they had come visiting. This in addition to the lakhs of money he had already paid. He also told us which profession is valued most in the ‘marriage market’. So it’s the IAS, IPS and the IFS officers who fetch the most dowries in the market. A P.O. (a Probational Officer or some such thing) in a bank is next. While privatization and liberalization arrived in India in the 90s, they haven’t percolated to the marriage market yet. Hence, males in the private sector fetch lesser dowry than the aforementioned. Therefore an engineer is valued lesser than a PO. Lawyers (and here he looked at me with a rueful smile) are at the bottom of the market (here my mum hastily intoned, “In our days, only they did law who could not do anything else”). My grandmother also told me about near relations, who were getting their daughter married. The girl met most of the criteria, except she was a tad too short. So ‘compensation’ was required. The family didn’t have so much money. The brother of the bride then offered to marry the sister of the groom (it’s called ‘gulat’ or some such thing), as that would result in a cancelling of most of the dowry amount…!
Hearing so many stories every day of a six day visit can certainly boggle the mind. Such stories really makes it clear how difficult it is to remove practise of such well-entrenched ‘customs’, legalizing something or ‘illegalising’ something is indeed only the first step. Moving on to lighter things, I saw a wide array of animals on the trip...! My grandparents’s house (I guess I could call it my ancestral house) is HUGE and is extremely open with courtyards in the centre etc. Consequently our house is in a lot of ways a place to take an afternoon siesta or to spend the night in for many varied animals. And I tend to be scared of anything which moves (except most human beings :D) (I use this line too often, I know!). Therefore it was a horrendous time for me when I chanced upon a mongoose (yes), many monkeys (I know), mice, rats (I saw my first rat there right after I read the word ‘rodent’ in some novel!) and baby rats !! Baby rats are the size of a deflated balloon and look like that too. They’re all pink with tiny limbs and one must be careful to not step on them. I felt extremely spooked out after I saw them, I will be frank enough to say that the sight of them made me feel squishy and weird. Sigh. Oh I obviously saw the traditional cow and elephant on the street, and even a camel!
Altogether, nice trip, but I’m glad to be home :) Now before I ramble too much, I’m abruptly ending this post now! I will try to write something better later! I think the holidays have dulled my senses and made my brain cells umm not work :D
Oh random part (if it can get more random) of the post –
1. I’m excited about Vikram Seth’s sequel to A Suitable Boy.
2. THREE of my FIRST cousins are getting married (yay) – but ALL in November, when I will be in law school! I really really want to attend all of them (I have been wanting to go to a family wedding for ages now, the last I attended was back in ’97), however we can only miss three classes in each subject (making that 12 classes in all as there are 4 subjects in each trimester) in a trimester without losing marks :( And the weddings and receptions are all in different places. One wedding is in Udaipur, another in Chennai, another in Chandigarh, and two receptions are in Delhi, and one in Udaipur. And a second cousin might get married too! The wedding will be in delhi, and the reception mostly in Pune! I cannot get over the unfairness of it all:( Apparently, it’s awesome mahurat in November :D However if I had my way, all weddings would be in February when we have hols!
So though all of my parents’ siblings no longer stay in Lucknow and Arrah (save for one) I have quite some distant family living there. Besides my grandparents and the house in which my dad grew up in is still there in Arrah. So essentially, I was swamped in family and family matters :).
Firstly, trip was overall a LOT of fun! I met tons of relatives and received lots of compliments (:D) and a lot of five hundred and one rupees and hundred and one rupees! So even managed to make a neat haul :D Apart from that, I've realised I genuinely enjoy meeting family. There is ALWAYS so much family gossip! I really understand now why serials like Kyunki Saas were such a major hit. There are also really nice stories about how things were back in some age, how "papa was when he was your age" stories! I also got to see some lovely black and white photographs of grandmas and great grandpas when they were young.
Secondly, I've realised that there's a whole lot of truth to the statement that marriages form the bedrock of society. They also form the core of family gossip. Every, EVERY meeting with some old family friend or member, involved some marriage gupshup. About how X is marrying Y against her family's wishes, about how good or bad the hospitality was at A's wedding, about how B never got invited to his own sister's daughter's wedding because of some fallout.
I also realized that dowry is very very much prevalent in Indian society, irrespective of whether there is a law preventing the same or not. It’s terribly disgusting and abhorrent but is yet a sad reality. So there was a lot of talk about how the boy’s family made the girl’s family give a dowry which comprised, inter alia, 12 lakh rupees, an AC, a car etc etc. An old servant at my grandparent’s place was explaining how the ‘system’ works. Basically, marriages reduce the girl’s family to nothing. It does not matter what the complexion of the groom is, the bride however must be ‘milky white’. If not, pay an additional lakh as ‘compensation’. The man who was telling us, had his generator (a very very essential device in a city where out of 24 hours there is no electricity for roughly 20 hours) lifted away by the groom’s family when they had come visiting. This in addition to the lakhs of money he had already paid. He also told us which profession is valued most in the ‘marriage market’. So it’s the IAS, IPS and the IFS officers who fetch the most dowries in the market. A P.O. (a Probational Officer or some such thing) in a bank is next. While privatization and liberalization arrived in India in the 90s, they haven’t percolated to the marriage market yet. Hence, males in the private sector fetch lesser dowry than the aforementioned. Therefore an engineer is valued lesser than a PO. Lawyers (and here he looked at me with a rueful smile) are at the bottom of the market (here my mum hastily intoned, “In our days, only they did law who could not do anything else”). My grandmother also told me about near relations, who were getting their daughter married. The girl met most of the criteria, except she was a tad too short. So ‘compensation’ was required. The family didn’t have so much money. The brother of the bride then offered to marry the sister of the groom (it’s called ‘gulat’ or some such thing), as that would result in a cancelling of most of the dowry amount…!
Hearing so many stories every day of a six day visit can certainly boggle the mind. Such stories really makes it clear how difficult it is to remove practise of such well-entrenched ‘customs’, legalizing something or ‘illegalising’ something is indeed only the first step. Moving on to lighter things, I saw a wide array of animals on the trip...! My grandparents’s house (I guess I could call it my ancestral house) is HUGE and is extremely open with courtyards in the centre etc. Consequently our house is in a lot of ways a place to take an afternoon siesta or to spend the night in for many varied animals. And I tend to be scared of anything which moves (except most human beings :D) (I use this line too often, I know!). Therefore it was a horrendous time for me when I chanced upon a mongoose (yes), many monkeys (I know), mice, rats (I saw my first rat there right after I read the word ‘rodent’ in some novel!) and baby rats !! Baby rats are the size of a deflated balloon and look like that too. They’re all pink with tiny limbs and one must be careful to not step on them. I felt extremely spooked out after I saw them, I will be frank enough to say that the sight of them made me feel squishy and weird. Sigh. Oh I obviously saw the traditional cow and elephant on the street, and even a camel!
Altogether, nice trip, but I’m glad to be home :) Now before I ramble too much, I’m abruptly ending this post now! I will try to write something better later! I think the holidays have dulled my senses and made my brain cells umm not work :D
Oh random part (if it can get more random) of the post –
1. I’m excited about Vikram Seth’s sequel to A Suitable Boy.
2. THREE of my FIRST cousins are getting married (yay) – but ALL in November, when I will be in law school! I really really want to attend all of them (I have been wanting to go to a family wedding for ages now, the last I attended was back in ’97), however we can only miss three classes in each subject (making that 12 classes in all as there are 4 subjects in each trimester) in a trimester without losing marks :( And the weddings and receptions are all in different places. One wedding is in Udaipur, another in Chennai, another in Chandigarh, and two receptions are in Delhi, and one in Udaipur. And a second cousin might get married too! The wedding will be in delhi, and the reception mostly in Pune! I cannot get over the unfairness of it all:( Apparently, it’s awesome mahurat in November :D However if I had my way, all weddings would be in February when we have hols!
On Domestic Violence: The Bell Bajao Campaign
The past year in law school, somehow, I've done / read a lot of stuff relating to domestic violence (DV). My first tryst with anything related to domestic violence was an internship at this place called Majlis, in Bombay. Majlis is an NGO fighting for women's rights in various spheres and was started by Flavia Agnes. It was a wonderful experience, and though it may sound cliched, the internship was an eye opener.
I then did a project on DV in Crim Law I. I also studied it in Family Law I. And roomie gifted a book, Strange Fits of Passion, by Anita Shreve, which is a wonderful insight into what goes through the mind of a victim. In the book, the central character is 'free' in the sense that she at any point does have the liberty to go to the police and report the case. So at times, while reading the book, you would ask yourself - why the hell isn't she doing that? However she is so terrorised of her husband (she keeps on saying, "He'll kill me") that she doesn't. She chooses to flee to another town with her baby and live incognito, but she doesn't report the case. I won't tell you how the book ends, but I would recommend it to you all (thankoo momo :)!).
Domestic violence cases are complex in the sense that they deal with something which happens behind closed doors. I've never come across anyone who I know personally and has been a victim - but something does need to be done about it. So this post is about the 'Bell Bajao' Campaign. Some of you might have seen the ad on TV, which in my opinion is a piece of brilliant advertising work(done by Ogilvy & Mather). Boman Irani's in his house, but he can hear shouts etc from a neighbouring house - one can make out that the woman is being battered. So he goes up to the house, rings the bell. There is silence. Then the man opens the house. And Irani asks, "Can I use your phone?". The man looks sheepish, very. And as far as I can remember, the ad ends. It goes without saying that the ad does have a lot more to it - visual impact etc is awesome :)
So well, while this does not suggest a long term solution obviously, I really think it's a nice innovative idea. To be honest, I've never done much of social work - have always been too lazy to take any kind of initiative. When I saw the ad though, I was really enthused. It's a nice idea which does not require much of one. As DV is a crime which happens inside the house, proving the same is difficult. With the advent of the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, the law has changed dramatically. Nonetheless I'm not too sure whether much has actually changed or not. Also while legal action is one option, a simple ringing of a bell, consequently making the abuser aware of the fact that everyone knows, an action which threatens and corners him and one which should ideally lead to a phone call to the cops, can change things. So I really do hope that I help. And would want you all to too!
The link of the campaign's website is -
http://www.bellbajao.org/index.php
Ok now time for my 'I like' thing. Ok currently, I like my birthday presents :D Birthday was on the 11th of this month, and got some really nice gifts from 'frands'. Sigh. I LOVE birthdays because of this! Yes I'm horribly materialistic and LOVE gifts :D Thank you so much to aforementioned frands and to everyone else for all the wishes (yes yes I LOVE them too, not that materialistic!)!
I then did a project on DV in Crim Law I. I also studied it in Family Law I. And roomie gifted a book, Strange Fits of Passion, by Anita Shreve, which is a wonderful insight into what goes through the mind of a victim. In the book, the central character is 'free' in the sense that she at any point does have the liberty to go to the police and report the case. So at times, while reading the book, you would ask yourself - why the hell isn't she doing that? However she is so terrorised of her husband (she keeps on saying, "He'll kill me") that she doesn't. She chooses to flee to another town with her baby and live incognito, but she doesn't report the case. I won't tell you how the book ends, but I would recommend it to you all (thankoo momo :)!).
Domestic violence cases are complex in the sense that they deal with something which happens behind closed doors. I've never come across anyone who I know personally and has been a victim - but something does need to be done about it. So this post is about the 'Bell Bajao' Campaign. Some of you might have seen the ad on TV, which in my opinion is a piece of brilliant advertising work(done by Ogilvy & Mather). Boman Irani's in his house, but he can hear shouts etc from a neighbouring house - one can make out that the woman is being battered. So he goes up to the house, rings the bell. There is silence. Then the man opens the house. And Irani asks, "Can I use your phone?". The man looks sheepish, very. And as far as I can remember, the ad ends. It goes without saying that the ad does have a lot more to it - visual impact etc is awesome :)
So well, while this does not suggest a long term solution obviously, I really think it's a nice innovative idea. To be honest, I've never done much of social work - have always been too lazy to take any kind of initiative. When I saw the ad though, I was really enthused. It's a nice idea which does not require much of one. As DV is a crime which happens inside the house, proving the same is difficult. With the advent of the Protection of Women from Domestic Violence Act, the law has changed dramatically. Nonetheless I'm not too sure whether much has actually changed or not. Also while legal action is one option, a simple ringing of a bell, consequently making the abuser aware of the fact that everyone knows, an action which threatens and corners him and one which should ideally lead to a phone call to the cops, can change things. So I really do hope that I help. And would want you all to too!
The link of the campaign's website is -
http://www.bellbajao.org/index.php
Ok now time for my 'I like' thing. Ok currently, I like my birthday presents :D Birthday was on the 11th of this month, and got some really nice gifts from 'frands'. Sigh. I LOVE birthdays because of this! Yes I'm horribly materialistic and LOVE gifts :D Thank you so much to aforementioned frands and to everyone else for all the wishes (yes yes I LOVE them too, not that materialistic!)!
Of Summer
Of ice-creams and bricks,
Of cold drinks and rasna in ice to create orange candy,
Of cold drinks and rasna in ice to create orange candy,
Of art class and casio class and once upon a time odissi class,
Of Holi and Mamma's birthday,
Of results and no school and Papa making plans,
Of Kwality in Calcutta and Eden Ice Cream Parlour in Bombay,
Of Mama and Delhi, Mausi and Noida, Baba-Dadi and Arrah, Nana-Nani and Lucknow,
Of pethas and Nani and mangoes,
Of discovering Mother Dairy and Mami's Cold Coffee,
Of dark room and swimming in Asiad and in Lake Castle Club,
Of langdas and alphansoes (or is it alphonsoes?),
Of cotton clothes and getting tanned and fretting over the latter,
Of many showers and beaches, Puri and Bombay,
Of Archies and Tintin and Asterix,
Of attempting to playing water polo and playing the rather simple, polo,
Of soup and Rajdhani,
Of changes in friendship dynamics (:)),
Of Baba and Pepsi,
Of horror movies and lays and Coke and Nitty's house,
Of Goa and tantrums (me),
Of Bhaiya always,
Of exams over and birthday gone,
Of cricket in the colony, and throwball in the building,
Of remembering some and forgetting the rest.
Summer's on the anvil, incessant perspiration is the first indicator. :) I was feeling a little nostalgic, and I was scared I'll forget what summers have been over the years. So here's a little reminder for myself :) Summer holidays are absolutely the best time ever! This time, like last year, I'm going to be in law school, and not at home. While I can't do some of the things mentioned above consequently, summers in law school are not that bad too (for instance there is always Univ Week to look forward to). Also, I just enjoyed 7 fantabulous weeks at home!
I wanted to know - what have your summers been like?
Hmm, ok I like presently - the book When We Were Orphans, by Kazuo Ishiguro. It has this lovely balanced pace to it. I thought that some things were too coincidental, but overall loved the book. Also, if you're reading this please please read Never Let Me Go! Stunning book, imo. Looking forward to reading The Remains of the Day, and picking up The Unconsoled from where I left it.
Endings
This feels like it's going to be a short post. Let's see.
Ok so yes this is going to be about endings. Umm there might be a few spoilers, with respect to some books / films / serials. And yes, I hope to make this a fun post! Let's see :)
So this post is about endings. Not about whether there are happy endings in life or not. It's a little more superficial :D It's about which guy ends up with which girl. No it's not about real life choices (:D), they'll work out eventually. They're about these characters in fiction, and why I always feel someone else should have got the guy / girl! Since I don't think all of you all would have read / watched all of it, so it maybe a little remote, but I'll try to make it more relate-able!
So for instance, I'll begin with this serial called Gossip Girl. It's wonderfully superficial and mindless and a lot of fun. If you think I'm too shallow to watch this, I don't care :P And please do watch it! Anyway, so there is this girl called Jenny. She's been quite irritating and semi-bitchy in some of the episodes, and gets on my nerves at times. Still I want her to end up with Nate (one of the central characters). He had a brief fling with her, but from whatever I've seen till now, he's now with this other chick called Vanessa. So Vanessa's really nice and not bitchy and is probably the right person for Nate. Nonetheless I still want Nate to be with J!
Then there's Dil To Pagal Hai. Why why why cannot Shahrukh end up with Karisma (even though Madhuri is oh-so-beautiful, but still!)? And in Kuch Kuch Hota Hai I can't bear to watch second half as I think Shahrukh was good with Rani only. This however can be attributed to my strange liking for Rani, who by the way, has disappeared. Why?
Then there is Mansfield Park, by Jane Austen. I do not get why Fanny goes for Edmund who only goes for her because his other love (Mary) is too immoral for him. She has the perfectly nice Henry who she does not marry because he was immoral! Apparently, Austen wrote this while she was in Bath, and was in this 'moral' (I don't know how to express this) phase and hence purposely did not let Fanny marry the erstwhile flirtatious Henry.
Then there is The Mill on the Floss, by George Eliot. In this, in a really depressing ending (yes, I cried), Maggie dies in the end along with her brother Tom, in a flood (I think). I hate this ending. Earlier she had had a relationship with this person called Philip, who as far as I can remember, had a club foot. It's sweet. However later, her cousin's fiance, Stephen falls in love with her, and even though she tries to resist it, Maggie falls in love with him too. They eventually elope, with hopes of getting married in Scotland. However the guilt is too much, and eventually Maggie leaves him. He's all sad and terribly broken. She dies finally. Philip's sad. Stephen's sad. Strangely, I think he eventually marries the first cousin.
Yes I know this is wrong (falling in love with cousin's fiance). Still, I really wanted Maggie and Stephen to end up together. I don't know, I just did. And anyway, I don't know why Eliot had to end the novel the way she did. Fine, Maggie could have left Stephen... but she didn't have to die!
And then there is Harry Potter. I did NOT want Harry to end up with Ginny. It's like Rowling was too bored to think of someone else, and there Ginny was all along, and by them marrying Harry, Ron and hence Hermione would have become family too. I do NOT like. Time for big confession here. I secretly wanted Harry and Hermione to end up together. I sense disbelief here.. right? See I like Ron and Hermione together. However I would have loved to see Harry and Hermione together. So this is what I mean when I say that I always want the wrong couple to happen...! I don't know. Some of these instances maybe tried to be explained by the whole the girl always goes for the bad guy syndrome... but I honestly don't think Henry and Stephen are bad guys. While being a flirt might be considered as highly immoral in the time when Austen wrote the novel, Henry had reformed his ways. And with respect to Stephen, yes falling in love with one's fiancee's cousin is definitely not nice (a big no to infidelity, I say), he couldn't help it, he couldn't (so maybe I need to relook my thoughts on infidelity too?).
So that's that. I know there isn't much to this post. It's just about why I don't like the endings of quite a few of my favourite novels / serials / movies... and I do not know why?! Umm I could pshychoanalyse it and try to arrive at some explanation, but am avoiding introspection of any kind right now. I like being shallow. :)
Also, if you want to know if you're falling for the bad guy, please check out http://www.quibblo.com/quiz/7PR8hEL/Are-you-falling-for-a-bad-boy Yes, I'm terribly vela.
So do you fall in love with the bad guy *snicker* *grin*?!
Ok one more thing, I'm going to start this 'I like' thing now. I'll mention in every post one thing I like.
So right now, I like the new local trains in Mumbai (see above).
I really like them. And look forward to travelling in them whenever I can. I love the colours used - purple, orange and white. And the inside compartment, in spite of the crowd, still feels non-claustrophobic. And there finally is an announcement system inside the train, announcing which is the next station. Big help, especially considering that I often get so absorbed in reading / thinking / sleeping that I almost miss my station. Also, the announcement reflects in a way the cosmopolitan nature (which I admit is now in danger, sigh), as each time there are three announcements back to back, "पुडे स्टेशन, विखरोली", (it's actually not spelt like that in Marathi, and not even pronounced like that, but it's the closest i can get to in Hindi), "अगला स्टेशन, विखरोली", "Next station, Vikhroli". It gets irritating once in a while, but is sweet too.
Hmm this wasn't a short post. And was not fun too. Tad boring too. Sorry :( Had to be dispensed from system though!
Post Script - have just been informed by a seasoned traveller that the new trains are not so new! They were introduced an year ago. Sorry! To a first time traveller like me(have travelled before, but not on a regular basis like this time), they seem brand new though :)!
Checklist for the hols!
In case I forget :P. Oh and not in any order of priority.
1. Read!
2. Watch movies and sitcoms and serials!
3. Try to resource episodes of OTH (S. 4 onwards?) and Grey’s Anatomy (S. 3?)
4. Work! (Internship)
5. Exercise!
6. Swim! (special emphasis)
7. Not think about stuff I'm always thinking out.
8. Let it be. Do NOT think.
9. See South Bombay during course of internship (excited here :)).
10. See a play in Prithvi!
11. Learn how to drive (sigh- this is dad induced)
12. Eat healthy (umm, Mum induced)
13. Shop! (Certain essentials - a white kurta, a skirt, a belt)
14. Get pretty chappal repaired (sigh).
15. Meet certain friends definitely - D, Sr, Sa, Sho, GS, RS, Shi. Call them first!
16. Umm start work for eventually getting the desired b'day present from parents (B’day in March - but need to get on the job now itself :D).
17. Ok some B'wood flicks which need to be seen in the theatre - Ghajini, Luck By Chance, Dilli 6.
18. Download new music!
19. Do up room.
20. Be happy!
Post Script - drove today for the first time, I take back my reservations, was awesome fun! It's like playing those racing games in real life (I can hear people going duh - but still!)
1. Read!
2. Watch movies and sitcoms and serials!
3. Try to resource episodes of OTH (S. 4 onwards?) and Grey’s Anatomy (S. 3?)
4. Work! (Internship)
5. Exercise!
6. Swim! (special emphasis)
7. Not think about stuff I'm always thinking out.
8. Let it be. Do NOT think.
9. See South Bombay during course of internship (excited here :)).
10. See a play in Prithvi!
11. Learn how to drive (sigh- this is dad induced)
12. Eat healthy (umm, Mum induced)
13. Shop! (Certain essentials - a white kurta, a skirt, a belt)
14. Get pretty chappal repaired (sigh).
15. Meet certain friends definitely - D, Sr, Sa, Sho, GS, RS, Shi. Call them first!
16. Umm start work for eventually getting the desired b'day present from parents (B’day in March - but need to get on the job now itself :D).
17. Ok some B'wood flicks which need to be seen in the theatre - Ghajini, Luck By Chance, Dilli 6.
18. Download new music!
19. Do up room.
20. Be happy!
Post Script - drove today for the first time, I take back my reservations, was awesome fun! It's like playing those racing games in real life (I can hear people going duh - but still!)
Books!
Someone recently, quite unassumingly, told me that I have limited interests. It wasn’t an accusation or anything… just a simple statement of what that someone believed was fact. So I thought about it. Thought quite a bit, for after all, it isn’t a very nice thing to be characterised by, is it?! I realized that I do have a lot of varied interests… it’s just that they can’t all be put into nice, neat categories. Everything, to put it simply, is quite jumbled up… like the rest of my ‘self’! My room and my cupboard is a testimony to that. My brain functions in a similar way too. Nothing is neat. While this does cause agony at times (recent events will confirm this!)… it’s not a bad thing I’ve kind of realized that it’s fine not to know at times what is it that I want, it’s fine to not know what is it that I want to do in future, it’s kind of ok to mess everything up in the head and in reality (like how!) and hence take things headlong… because well I’m made that way… and so it is fine. Maybe not perfect, but then again, nothing is.
Now coming back to the interests thing. While I am genuinely interested in a lot of things, it would be too tiresome to list all of them down here. The overriding interest, which is what I’m going to talk about now, is my reading. Most of my nineteen years (yes, it has been only so many years :D) has been characterised by books. I don’t remember when exactly it was that I started reading. I know that it was my brother who hooked me onto it though. As a kid, my brother read everything. If there was nothing else to grab onto, he would read the railway timetable and memorise the same (yeah, unreal). When we had a scooter, brother would be standing ahead, while the vehicle was moving… and he would be reading. When my cousin sister got new books, brother would proceed to read them first… and then shred the book to pieces (some weird child psychology I guess). So well you can guess where the interest comes from then.
I’ve not read a lot… as in, there’s still so much more to read! However, what I’ve realized is that a lot of what I do or like has been influenced by what I read. I guess this is a natural conclusion… it’s just that the same has to be asserted again! Before one gets an ‘interest’, one has to be ‘curious’ about it. It’s only when one is curious, and acts upon that curiosity, that one comes to know whether the thing that one was curious about is interesting or not. I think reading provides one of the platforms for such ‘discovery’. One example of this would be how some people who are presently in law school became interested in law because they started reading John Grishams (it’s similar to how I always want to be this hotshot surgeon when I see Grey’s Anatomy or wish I could be a stunning basketball player whenever I see One Tree Hill!). So suppose X reads a Grisham (an author which, with the exception of ‘The Firm’ I have never read… quite a loss I guess), he becomes interested in the law profession. He looks up law related stuff. Decides he wants to get into law school. Gets in. Then studies the law there. Likes it, maybe loves it even. Voila! ‘Law’ is an interest now… initiated through the process of reading :D
Maybe the above example sounds juvenile to you. But it can be true you know! Plus an interest does not mean that you have to know everything under the sun about that subject. It anyway is not possible to know everything…! So when I started reading Isaac Asimov I fell in love with the science fiction genre. Anything related to robotics seemed interesting. I shamelessly admit that I still know nothing about robotics except the three law of robotics and some other stuff what Asimov talks about. But I still have that minimal knowledge… and that is gratifying Another example is my fascination for the field of criminology (ok I know that sounds a little pompous!) I LOVE Agatha Christie and her work. Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple’s various exploits made me interested in the genre of crime, mystery blah I then went on to read ‘Crime and Punishment’ and ‘My Brothers Karamazov’… both fuelled that interest. Sherlock Holmes helped a bit too. So that’s another genre I love.
Then there is humour and there is Wodehouse. There is fantasy and there is Potter, Eragon, the Bartimaeus (or however it is spelt) trilogy. There is school and there is St. Clair’s, Malory (or Mallory?)Towers, Sweet Valley (yes you heard right :D). There is the ‘future’ and there is 1984 and Asimov. There is the classic and there is Austen, Eliot, Maugham, Woolf, Bronte, Dickens, the book Polyanna…and so on. There is even horror and umm, R.L. Stine (I haven’t read Stephen King, and read only one Higgins Clark… so umm, Stine is the only one in the horror genre for me ). There is ‘inspiring’ and there is Roots (Alex Haley, an all time favourite), To Kill a Mockingbird, My Experiments With Truth. There is fascinating and there is Freedom At Midnight and Indira. There are let-downs and there is Kiran Desai (for me, that is), The Gathering, and the 6th Harry Potter book. There is philosophy and there is Sophie’s Choice. There is time pass and there is Jhumpa Lahiri, Chitra Banerjee Divakurni (or however you spell it), Erich Segal, Jeffrey Archer, chick lit, nri lit…and so on! There is self help and there is the Chicken Soup series or the Seven Habits series. There is Bollywood gossip and there is Filmfare, Stardust, Bombay Times, Mumbai Mirror, Bangalore Times. There is ‘chick’ stuff and there is Cosmopolitan, Femina and so on. There is news and there is The Hindu, the Times of India, Frontline. There is fraud and yet pain…and there is Frey and his million little pieces, Kaavya Vishwanathan and her book. To put it in one word, there is life…and there is Rushdie, Wells, Yann Martel, Anita Desai, Ishiguro, Vikram Seth, Amitav Ghosh, Hosseini, Atwood (The Blind Assassin, do read that!), Pahmuk (have I spelt it right?), Tinkle, Ruskin Bond, Amar Chitra Katha, Coelho, Archies, Tintin, Readers’ Digest, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime, R. Mistry, Nehru and his Glimpses, Asterix, Noddy, Champak, Shakespeare, Saki, O Henry, Dahl, Brown, Narayan, Maupassant. There is, simply, just so so SO much that all can’t possibly be listed down here!
Hence, and I know my aforementioned friend also believes the same, reading is not ‘one’ interest. It is a gateaway to so many lovely things. It isn’t about articulating that you know X or Y, it’s simply about knowing something about it, or basically having the ‘feel’ of it When I was trying to assess whether I have limited interests or not, I had done some bit of introspection. Initially there had been some remorse…save for some other things, it seemed to be that my entire life till now had been about reading. However better sense dawned. I realize now that the fact that I’ve whatever I have till now is more than enough. It is only through reading that I know a lot of things, which I wouldn’t have otherwise. So well I’m proud of the fact that I’m a ‘bookworm’. Consequently I disagree quite vehemently with some of those friends back in school who could not fathom why I read so much, when there was already Chem, Bio and Physics to read! So well, that is all.
Now coming back to the interests thing. While I am genuinely interested in a lot of things, it would be too tiresome to list all of them down here. The overriding interest, which is what I’m going to talk about now, is my reading. Most of my nineteen years (yes, it has been only so many years :D) has been characterised by books. I don’t remember when exactly it was that I started reading. I know that it was my brother who hooked me onto it though. As a kid, my brother read everything. If there was nothing else to grab onto, he would read the railway timetable and memorise the same (yeah, unreal). When we had a scooter, brother would be standing ahead, while the vehicle was moving… and he would be reading. When my cousin sister got new books, brother would proceed to read them first… and then shred the book to pieces (some weird child psychology I guess). So well you can guess where the interest comes from then.
I’ve not read a lot… as in, there’s still so much more to read! However, what I’ve realized is that a lot of what I do or like has been influenced by what I read. I guess this is a natural conclusion… it’s just that the same has to be asserted again! Before one gets an ‘interest’, one has to be ‘curious’ about it. It’s only when one is curious, and acts upon that curiosity, that one comes to know whether the thing that one was curious about is interesting or not. I think reading provides one of the platforms for such ‘discovery’. One example of this would be how some people who are presently in law school became interested in law because they started reading John Grishams (it’s similar to how I always want to be this hotshot surgeon when I see Grey’s Anatomy or wish I could be a stunning basketball player whenever I see One Tree Hill!). So suppose X reads a Grisham (an author which, with the exception of ‘The Firm’ I have never read… quite a loss I guess), he becomes interested in the law profession. He looks up law related stuff. Decides he wants to get into law school. Gets in. Then studies the law there. Likes it, maybe loves it even. Voila! ‘Law’ is an interest now… initiated through the process of reading :D
Maybe the above example sounds juvenile to you. But it can be true you know! Plus an interest does not mean that you have to know everything under the sun about that subject. It anyway is not possible to know everything…! So when I started reading Isaac Asimov I fell in love with the science fiction genre. Anything related to robotics seemed interesting. I shamelessly admit that I still know nothing about robotics except the three law of robotics and some other stuff what Asimov talks about. But I still have that minimal knowledge… and that is gratifying Another example is my fascination for the field of criminology (ok I know that sounds a little pompous!) I LOVE Agatha Christie and her work. Hercule Poirot and Miss Marple’s various exploits made me interested in the genre of crime, mystery blah I then went on to read ‘Crime and Punishment’ and ‘My Brothers Karamazov’… both fuelled that interest. Sherlock Holmes helped a bit too. So that’s another genre I love.
Then there is humour and there is Wodehouse. There is fantasy and there is Potter, Eragon, the Bartimaeus (or however it is spelt) trilogy. There is school and there is St. Clair’s, Malory (or Mallory?)Towers, Sweet Valley (yes you heard right :D). There is the ‘future’ and there is 1984 and Asimov. There is the classic and there is Austen, Eliot, Maugham, Woolf, Bronte, Dickens, the book Polyanna…and so on. There is even horror and umm, R.L. Stine (I haven’t read Stephen King, and read only one Higgins Clark… so umm, Stine is the only one in the horror genre for me ). There is ‘inspiring’ and there is Roots (Alex Haley, an all time favourite), To Kill a Mockingbird, My Experiments With Truth. There is fascinating and there is Freedom At Midnight and Indira. There are let-downs and there is Kiran Desai (for me, that is), The Gathering, and the 6th Harry Potter book. There is philosophy and there is Sophie’s Choice. There is time pass and there is Jhumpa Lahiri, Chitra Banerjee Divakurni (or however you spell it), Erich Segal, Jeffrey Archer, chick lit, nri lit…and so on! There is self help and there is the Chicken Soup series or the Seven Habits series. There is Bollywood gossip and there is Filmfare, Stardust, Bombay Times, Mumbai Mirror, Bangalore Times. There is ‘chick’ stuff and there is Cosmopolitan, Femina and so on. There is news and there is The Hindu, the Times of India, Frontline. There is fraud and yet pain…and there is Frey and his million little pieces, Kaavya Vishwanathan and her book. To put it in one word, there is life…and there is Rushdie, Wells, Yann Martel, Anita Desai, Ishiguro, Vikram Seth, Amitav Ghosh, Hosseini, Atwood (The Blind Assassin, do read that!), Pahmuk (have I spelt it right?), Tinkle, Ruskin Bond, Amar Chitra Katha, Coelho, Archies, Tintin, Readers’ Digest, The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime, R. Mistry, Nehru and his Glimpses, Asterix, Noddy, Champak, Shakespeare, Saki, O Henry, Dahl, Brown, Narayan, Maupassant. There is, simply, just so so SO much that all can’t possibly be listed down here!
Hence, and I know my aforementioned friend also believes the same, reading is not ‘one’ interest. It is a gateaway to so many lovely things. It isn’t about articulating that you know X or Y, it’s simply about knowing something about it, or basically having the ‘feel’ of it When I was trying to assess whether I have limited interests or not, I had done some bit of introspection. Initially there had been some remorse…save for some other things, it seemed to be that my entire life till now had been about reading. However better sense dawned. I realize now that the fact that I’ve whatever I have till now is more than enough. It is only through reading that I know a lot of things, which I wouldn’t have otherwise. So well I’m proud of the fact that I’m a ‘bookworm’. Consequently I disagree quite vehemently with some of those friends back in school who could not fathom why I read so much, when there was already Chem, Bio and Physics to read! So well, that is all.
