the coffee cup overflows.
happens when my mind is somewhere else,
oh why did this evening have to be so beautiful,
the flowers and the scents remind me of you
Saturday, February 28, 2009
The Travails of a Superhero
Ever so often, I go into these phases, where I think I'm invincible and the world can't lay a hand on me. This is often accompanied by long sessions in front of the bathroom mirror, where I'd examine my muscles, keep fantasizing about being the Man of Steel and how I'd fly around the world rescuing damsels in distress. Sadly, it doesn't take very long for these delusions to be shattered. Most times, my nemesis would take the shape of a jam bottle.
Roommate would ask me to open it because I was the one who used it last time, and I'd better get it open for him again. My first reaction is to snicker at his relative weakness, and declare that all I had to do was to focus, stare the bottle down, and it would pop open out of sheer shame. This would be followed by a minute of so of directing all the Jedi power I possessed on that evil thing on the table. It would just stare back with a baleful grin and perhaps even laugh manically at my sheer ineffectiveness. In the recesses of my mind I would hear Yoda's voice at the Jedi Council saying "Jedi, he is not. Weak, in the force he is. For him, bathroom cleaner is better job".
With a blood-curdling yell, that would make Tarzan proud. I launch myself across the room, and the bottle and I would be engaged in hand-to-hand combat across the entire apartment. Nothing in the room would remain untouched. We'd fight on the dining table-top, roll across the floor to the drawing room, bang our heads against the wall, burn each other with a little fire. All the time, I'd have my hands around its scrawny neck, but the bottle possesses the strength of a hundred Hindi Movie Heros. Soon, all my energy would be spent and my ego would be a pale shadow of its former self, while the bottle emerged unscathed. With my head bent in shame and failure, I'd declare that the jam bottle was an adversary with skills way beyond my limited capabilities. Filled with utter dejection, I then hand it over to my third roommate. He would be engrossed in chatting with his million girlfriends, and he'd be like "Can't you see i'm busy???? Stop bothering me." Then with a skill that presaged extensive practice, he'd removes one of his hands from the keyboard, flicks his fingers with one easy movement and .. ta da..., the bottle lays open!! Utterly humiliating to say the least.
Of course, this state of affairs doesn't last too long, Who cares about being the strongest person in the world. Arnold Schwarznegger?? Yeah, but who really gives two hoots about him. I'd trade brawn for brains anyday. So, the next few hours are spent like Dexter. My mind would be churning out inventions that would bring teleportation to reality, flying cars and a quick fix solution to global warming.
uhho!.. I just remembered that I have mid-term tomorrow and I haven't done a blessed thing . My professor obviously doesn't give a damn about all my other inventions.
Darn, The world is so hostile to us geniuses!!
Roommate would ask me to open it because I was the one who used it last time, and I'd better get it open for him again. My first reaction is to snicker at his relative weakness, and declare that all I had to do was to focus, stare the bottle down, and it would pop open out of sheer shame. This would be followed by a minute of so of directing all the Jedi power I possessed on that evil thing on the table. It would just stare back with a baleful grin and perhaps even laugh manically at my sheer ineffectiveness. In the recesses of my mind I would hear Yoda's voice at the Jedi Council saying "Jedi, he is not. Weak, in the force he is. For him, bathroom cleaner is better job".
With a blood-curdling yell, that would make Tarzan proud. I launch myself across the room, and the bottle and I would be engaged in hand-to-hand combat across the entire apartment. Nothing in the room would remain untouched. We'd fight on the dining table-top, roll across the floor to the drawing room, bang our heads against the wall, burn each other with a little fire. All the time, I'd have my hands around its scrawny neck, but the bottle possesses the strength of a hundred Hindi Movie Heros. Soon, all my energy would be spent and my ego would be a pale shadow of its former self, while the bottle emerged unscathed. With my head bent in shame and failure, I'd declare that the jam bottle was an adversary with skills way beyond my limited capabilities. Filled with utter dejection, I then hand it over to my third roommate. He would be engrossed in chatting with his million girlfriends, and he'd be like "Can't you see i'm busy???? Stop bothering me." Then with a skill that presaged extensive practice, he'd removes one of his hands from the keyboard, flicks his fingers with one easy movement and .. ta da..., the bottle lays open!! Utterly humiliating to say the least.
Of course, this state of affairs doesn't last too long, Who cares about being the strongest person in the world. Arnold Schwarznegger?? Yeah, but who really gives two hoots about him. I'd trade brawn for brains anyday. So, the next few hours are spent like Dexter. My mind would be churning out inventions that would bring teleportation to reality, flying cars and a quick fix solution to global warming.
uhho!.. I just remembered that I have mid-term tomorrow and I haven't done a blessed thing . My professor obviously doesn't give a damn about all my other inventions.
Darn, The world is so hostile to us geniuses!!
Saturday, February 21, 2009
Moving Houses!
I have a friend, lets call her Cartoon and she moved house last weekend. Out of the host of the reasons that were given, the only one that I agreed with, was that she wanted to be able to walk to office again. Apparently, ever since she bought her car, her pedometer readings were behaving like the stock exchanges all over the world - plunging downwards and with no bottom in sight.
Her moving sent me on a nostalgia trip on the shifting and transfers that I've had to do. This place I'm staying in now, is number 17 on the list of places that I've called home. Not bad for 26 yrs. Appa being in the Navy, was of course a major factor. But the funny thing is that, at least 40% of all the shifts, were purely due to my movements. The biggest of course, was the one where I had to haul my ass all the way to the US. The most memorable, was the one where we moved from Vizag to Cochin.
Vizag was one place where we spent the longest time - 3 yrs. Most of best childhood memories are drawn from there - huge gang of utterly crazy friends, mindless evenings cycling around Naval Park, learning to roller-skate, gossiping under the banyan, falling in hopelessly in love, and other such crazy childhood stuff. So obviously, I was quite disappointed when we actually had to move.
You could trust Appa and Amma to ensure that the packing was as organized as possible. Boxes were numbered and we knew what numbers mapped to what. Kitchen stuff was in numbers 5-7, the stereo, its huge speakers and the vinyl records in box 13. We even had the keys grouped together. I could tell which key opened which box simply by looking at it. One of the more exciting things about some of the boxes was that, Appa was able to get hold of a few discarded missile cases. I remember getting this huge thrill in thinking that my books were sitting the same boxes that until a couple of months ago, were carrying rocket-heads from Russia.
We decided to drive down all the way to Cochin. Seems impossible that we could have planned a trip without access to stuff like Google Maps and Weather.com, but it was a lot of fun poring over paper maps and tracing out the routes that we would take. We did it over 3 days. Vizag to Guntur; Guntur to Arakonam and the final leg from Arakonam to Cochin. This was in the peak of the Andhra summer and in some ways, was not exactly the smartest thing to do. How Appa and Amma drove through those 16oo odd kilometers, in a tiny Maruti 800 (without A/C mind you), packed to the brim and carrying two irritated kids in the back-seat is still a wonder. The Guntur to Arakonam stretch was horrible. It was searingly hot, no tree cover anywhere and no amount of water could quench our thirst. This is the Rice Bowl of Andhra Pradesh, and if we had the heart, all we had to do was look out the window and gaze upon fields and fields of lush green paddy, offering a stark contrast to the parched brown earth around it. But of course, the heat banished all such thoughts from our minds. The trees started making their presence felt closer to Arakonam and I don't think I'd ever been so happy for the shade. Nevertheless, all this gave the entire trip a totally adventurous air, and when we rolled into Cochin, the feeling of supreme satisfaction was hard to beat.
Our luggage had an even more eventual journey. All the trunks had been sent in a truck, it was supposed to be following the same route as we were, and we did in fact pass it a couple of times along the way. However, on reaching Cochin, there was no sign of the truck. We waited for 48 hrs plus and there was still no news. This was in the days before mobile phones, and we had no idea whether those truckers had just run away all our stuff. Such a situation would be inconceivable now. Appa then got on the hunt, and soon discovered that the truck had broken down in between, and of all things, the axle had broken! Anyway, things were transferred to another truck and for two bored boys, who were desperately waiting for their toys, it couldn't have come any sooner.
Similar performances were repeated every two years, so over time, moving houses wasn't really a big deal anymore. I have my parents to thank for having such a balanced attitude towards this. Sure, you were losing friends and moving into unfamiliar territory, but it would just take little patience and little willingness to adapt, and things would be all hunky-dory again. Nostalgia and sentimental attachment had their place but they were kept firmly in check.
So, all this thinking started with Cartoon moving out and it should be fitting that it should end with a quote from her. I wanted to find out how she liked her new place.
me: so how's the new place ?
Cartoon: still sinking in.
me: oh didnt know that you'd moved into the Titanic.
Cartoon: arghhhh!! *stabbing herself with a huge kitchen knife*
Her moving sent me on a nostalgia trip on the shifting and transfers that I've had to do. This place I'm staying in now, is number 17 on the list of places that I've called home. Not bad for 26 yrs. Appa being in the Navy, was of course a major factor. But the funny thing is that, at least 40% of all the shifts, were purely due to my movements. The biggest of course, was the one where I had to haul my ass all the way to the US. The most memorable, was the one where we moved from Vizag to Cochin.
Vizag was one place where we spent the longest time - 3 yrs. Most of best childhood memories are drawn from there - huge gang of utterly crazy friends, mindless evenings cycling around Naval Park, learning to roller-skate, gossiping under the banyan, falling in hopelessly in love, and other such crazy childhood stuff. So obviously, I was quite disappointed when we actually had to move.
You could trust Appa and Amma to ensure that the packing was as organized as possible. Boxes were numbered and we knew what numbers mapped to what. Kitchen stuff was in numbers 5-7, the stereo, its huge speakers and the vinyl records in box 13. We even had the keys grouped together. I could tell which key opened which box simply by looking at it. One of the more exciting things about some of the boxes was that, Appa was able to get hold of a few discarded missile cases. I remember getting this huge thrill in thinking that my books were sitting the same boxes that until a couple of months ago, were carrying rocket-heads from Russia.
We decided to drive down all the way to Cochin. Seems impossible that we could have planned a trip without access to stuff like Google Maps and Weather.com, but it was a lot of fun poring over paper maps and tracing out the routes that we would take. We did it over 3 days. Vizag to Guntur; Guntur to Arakonam and the final leg from Arakonam to Cochin. This was in the peak of the Andhra summer and in some ways, was not exactly the smartest thing to do. How Appa and Amma drove through those 16oo odd kilometers, in a tiny Maruti 800 (without A/C mind you), packed to the brim and carrying two irritated kids in the back-seat is still a wonder. The Guntur to Arakonam stretch was horrible. It was searingly hot, no tree cover anywhere and no amount of water could quench our thirst. This is the Rice Bowl of Andhra Pradesh, and if we had the heart, all we had to do was look out the window and gaze upon fields and fields of lush green paddy, offering a stark contrast to the parched brown earth around it. But of course, the heat banished all such thoughts from our minds. The trees started making their presence felt closer to Arakonam and I don't think I'd ever been so happy for the shade. Nevertheless, all this gave the entire trip a totally adventurous air, and when we rolled into Cochin, the feeling of supreme satisfaction was hard to beat.
Our luggage had an even more eventual journey. All the trunks had been sent in a truck, it was supposed to be following the same route as we were, and we did in fact pass it a couple of times along the way. However, on reaching Cochin, there was no sign of the truck. We waited for 48 hrs plus and there was still no news. This was in the days before mobile phones, and we had no idea whether those truckers had just run away all our stuff. Such a situation would be inconceivable now. Appa then got on the hunt, and soon discovered that the truck had broken down in between, and of all things, the axle had broken! Anyway, things were transferred to another truck and for two bored boys, who were desperately waiting for their toys, it couldn't have come any sooner.
Similar performances were repeated every two years, so over time, moving houses wasn't really a big deal anymore. I have my parents to thank for having such a balanced attitude towards this. Sure, you were losing friends and moving into unfamiliar territory, but it would just take little patience and little willingness to adapt, and things would be all hunky-dory again. Nostalgia and sentimental attachment had their place but they were kept firmly in check.
So, all this thinking started with Cartoon moving out and it should be fitting that it should end with a quote from her. I wanted to find out how she liked her new place.
me: so how's the new place ?
Cartoon: still sinking in.
me: oh didnt know that you'd moved into the Titanic.
Cartoon: arghhhh!! *stabbing herself with a huge kitchen knife*
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