Sunday, July 31, 2011

Shopping Blues

Diary Entry 22


 

If there is one thing I hate doing with mom, its shopping. But every time I come home, she always manages to drag me along to go shop. She knows, if she tells me that she wanted to go pick up some clothes for the baby who was born in the next street, I will whine and make a fuss. But instead, if she tells me we are going out to eat in a exotic restaurant, I will be more than willing to go with her. Her trick to making me come, is to make it sound as if its all about me and it works every time.

Of course its not all about me. As a matter of fact a very small portion of the time spent shopping is about me. On our way to this exotic place she promised to take, she will say, "Eda, lets pick up some groceries on the way. It will take only 5 mins". So I agree to go to the grocery store only to realize that she has written a book of things she wants to buy and stock up in the house. I grab a part of the list and move around the shop in light speed  and  pick out the things she wrote down. When everything in the list has been placed in carry bags, I do a delicate balancing and weight lifting act and carry everything to the counter for billing. I dont stop there. I help the counter akka to bill, pack and take the bags and put it into the car. Of course the only reason why I am doing all this is because I want to get out of the place and go to the restaurant, FAST. All this is was a part of my clever mothers scheme of getting her things done while stopping me from complaining. She knows if we went to the restaurant first and then went to shop for groceries, I will be snoring in the car instead of helping her. But instead, if she did it the opposite way, she can be a proud mother of the son everybody including the billing akka will look in admiration for being so responsible and caring.

When we finally go to the restaurant I try my best to order everything in the menu. For some reason my mother always watches me when I eat and doesnt touch the food herself. She might occasionally sip some water, when she starts doubting if I am her son. When eating is done and when all the excitement of having food in the fancy Thai restaurant is over, I start seeing through my mother's clever scheme and how she cleverly brought me with her to shop. She told me yesterday that, "We are going out to eat and do a little shopping." But shopping can never be little, can it?


Now that we done everything we can go home right? But there are several clothes stores on the way back and clothes showrooms are like temples. We have to go pay homage to each one of them even if we dont buy anything. So we go to each brand showroom that we see on the way. If I think shopping is hell, then shopping for clothes is like burning in a pit of fire. Its rarely ever about her clothes. Its always my clothes she wants to get which makes it all the more worse. Taking me to shop for clothes is like taking a Atheist to a church, we cant stand every minute we spend in the place. What I dont understand is why we need to stop for clothes after each time we eat in a restaurant? When you are stuffed and when your stomach is so full of food, all you want to do is lie down and fall asleep. But my mother has other plans for me. I have to try on each shirt that they have in the shop and say if I like it. Its my mothers way of helping me digest all the food, I guess. Its like a fashion show, I have to put on a shirt and go pose, then go put on another shirt and then pose again. We dont even buy half of the things I try on (sometimes we dont buy anything at all). Whats the point trying them on in the first place? My mothers argument - "We dont come out often, so lets buy when everything when we can". Sheesh, the other ladies in the family are a lot worse I hear. How much more worse can it get?

 When I came home this time, I was the one who wanted to buy the clothes. I wanted to get some formal clothes so that I could sit for campus placements. We went inside and came out of 5 major brand showrooms but we did not find anything that we wanted. I was told that getting a tie would be a good idea but who would have thought shopping for one single tie could be so hard. The ties available were all too ostentatious for our taste. The flashy ties was not the the least of our problems. All the shirts were too big for me because I was too thin. They would have fit me perfectly, if I had some muscles. Tiered of searching, I tell my mother that we will just get something stitched. My mother on the other hand was still full of energy and gave dialogues like, "I want you to have something polished and ready made to wear for your interview." There are sometimes when I regret being the only son to my parents. This is one of them. When we went into the 4th store, she was as tiered as I was and was more open to the idea of having something stiched. She was so bored with checking out clothes for me that she went to the girls section and started looking at the skirts and frocks there. I go sit in a chair nearby exhausted. Suddenly she turns to me and says, "If only I had a girl". Fed up with the world, I tell her that if finding clothes to wear for a interview is going to be so hard then I dont want a job and will make a living as a Entrepreneur. 

In the end I did not have to take such drastic steps. I finally did get something that fitted me and it also satisfied my mother's baseless requirements of being polished and ready made. The tie was still flashy but we picked the one which was the least gaudy. I come home exhausted. Three hours of shopping and I spend the next 10 hours sleeping. I sleep with the hope I dont have to do this again. But you know what they say - Pain and Pleasure is a cycle.



Previous Post - How the lazy reader was frustrated by Potter, angered by Twilight and mocked because of Chetan Baghat






Tuesday, July 26, 2011

How the lazy reader was frustrated by Potter, angered by Twilight and mocked because of Chetan Baghat


Diary Entry 21 



This post is not meant to offend or criticize. Views expressed in this post are opinions formed by personal experience. Some of you might think I could have had a more neutral opinion but I will be writing lies if I wrote any other way. :)

Most people assume that I read a lot. They think that my English is a product of thousands of hours spent alone in the library reading literature. It is so not true. I read maximum of two books in a year. But there are times when I read more than two books. When Harry Potter came out, every girl I knew was talking about it. I sat down and read all the books just so that I will not look like a ignorant fool every time someone started talking about wizards and magic. When I was done with all the books, I assumed that I will be able to impress women with my newly acquired knowledge about magic. I mean I knew the entire story by reading the book and I saw all the Harry Potter movies released so far. So armed with the knowledge about the fantasy world, I felt confident that I will have something to contribute when the girls took the conversation to Hogwarts. Sigh, it turned out that reading Harry Potter ‘once’ is not enough. If you wanted to have a conversation with them (leave alone impressing them), you had to remember each event that happened in each page in each book along with the page numbers. I tried reading it the second time but the thought that I have to read it several times more made me resign in defeat. I really liked the book but still I felt I should have just watched the movie.

So when the girls left Harry Potter and moved on to Twilight, I got smart. I was afraid that reading the book 'once' was going to be pointless so I thought I will just watch the movie (several times if I had to). When I was told that the movie was about vampire, I got all worked up and excited. I mean, I love immortal, good looking, blood sucking monsters who can seduce and control the minds of beautiful women. Before I saw the movie, I actually thought I should read the book first for a richer vampire experience. When I saw the movie I realised that not reading the book was the best decision I ever made in my life. If you see Twilight you will notice that they have made the Vampires in the movie less vicious and more girly. What has the world done to those poor soulless beasts. Vampires whose skin glitters when they come out in the sun? Really? Sigh, I wouldn’t be surprised if vampires started riding around in unicorns next. I don’t really hate Twilight or anything, but you just shouldn’t deceive people by telling them Twilight is a movie about vampires. Vampires give guest appearances in Twilight. I watched the first movie with my friend and that is one of the reasons why Twilight became one of my least favorate movies. This is what happened:

Friend: Edhavadhu Padam Papome da. (Let’s see some movie da)

Me: What kind of move do you want to see?

Friend: Some action or fantasy movie.

Me: Hmmm. There is this movie called Twilight. It’s a vampire movie. Want to watch?

Friend: (all excited) Seekram podu macha. (Come on. Put it on fast.)

Me: Lol I like vampires too :D.

Half an hour passes

Friend: Are you sure this is a vampire movie?

Me: That is what my friend said.

One hour passes

Friend: Dai *@#^ (abuses in Tamil). I don’t see any vampires.

I open IMDB website in the back.

Me: Look at this da. Its IMDB. Even they say it’s a vampire movie. What the hell am I supposed to do?Not believe the authority when it comes to movies?

Friend: If you wanted to see a award padam, you should have called your grandmother. Did you have to see it with me? You know how much I hate such movies.

Me: Award Padam na enna macha? (What is a award padam?)

Friend: Award Padam is a boring movie that puts everybody to sleep but ends up getting all the awards.

Me: I am sorry da. Everybody said this was a semma movie (awesome movie).

Friend: Yeah rite. They must have said that because it must have got the Oscar or something. :x

Me: It has a 5.4 rating in IMDB. I think most people felt the way you are feeling now macha. At least that is what I think because it has a low rating in IMDB.

Friend: YA. AFTER PUTTING ME THROUGH ONE HOUR OF BORING SHIT, YOU DECIDE TO TELL ME.

Sigh the movie was a disappointment in so many ways and my friend has mocked my taste in movies ever since. Is this not enough an excuse for not reading the book?

Some girls that I know come and talk to me about how awesome the book is. I try to conceal my irritation and tell them politely that I haven’t read the book so there is no point in talking about the book to me. But instead of moving on by talking about something else, they get a big ego and act as if they just read War and Peace. Sigh, if only I could curse them with all the abuses that flood my head. If it were my friend, he wouldnt have held back. I don’t read a lot of novels, so I don’t know about a lot of authors. There was this one girl who kept talking about books, and I thought this girl must have really fine taste in books. I thought since I have never heard of any of the authors she is talking about, she must be really smart and well read. After a couple of months I learned that one of those authors she liked a lot, wrote Twilight.
Photo provided by Araknus (Sunki)
So whenever a girl starts showing off by talking about unheard authors, I ask about the book to one of the two people who have an English far superior to mine. Their English is so superior that sometimes I think it’s best to talk to them in a vernacular dialect so that I will not look stupid. (Thank god we have Tamil). The first one is Toxicpunk. Toxicpunk is her nickname (she is not in any DoTA or Counter-Strike clan). When someone talks to me about some unknown author, I check with her. If she doesn’t know about the book then it’s some horrible book that is being given too much hype. A lazy reader like me picks small books like Sydney Sheldon or Paulo Coelho to read. Its short and its fun. But ever since I met Toxicpunk I have been scared to even claim that I know how to read. Well this is what happened:

Me: Your boy friend is really smart is he not?

Toxicpunk: Yeah I guess. He gets me so impressed sometimes.

Me: He seems to know a lot. He must read a lot like you I guess.

Toxicpunk: Haha he reads my ass. Lol he reads Chetan Baghat and Paulo Coelho. That’s what he reads. Haha

Me: eh huh huh :D (uncomfortable laugh)

Ever teased someone because the only thing they read is Tinkle or Spider man comics? Well Toxicpunk scoffs the same way at anybody who reads Paulo Coelho or Chetan Baghat. She never holds back insults and its best to pretend that you have never heard of Paulo Coelho when she is around. Well I never thought Chetan Baghat was a great author. I thought his first book was a terrible. I read it during my 11nth grade and I couldn’t connect with it. I am in my 4th year of college now and I am having a even more harder time connecting with it. (How is it possible to clear all subjects and still be a 5 pointer huh? It’s impossible.) It took great stamina to go from one page to the next. But still when I was done with the book, I thought it was sort of my reading achievement. Everybody except me liked the book. I did not drop the book mid way even though I was a little bored and that by my standards is quite an achievement. She in a matter of minutes demeaned one of my achievements as a reader. You can’t blame her. She has probably read every book that has ever been published. You probably want to see her now :D. But if I put her picture here, guys will find her extremely pretty and she doesn’t like people raving her looks :D. If I did not have someone like her as my friend, every girl in the block would have made me think that they got a degree in literature from Cambridge.


The second person who has superior English is Toothpaste. When I was told that 90% of the people who took the GRE test got a score lesser than me in English I thought my English was good. Well for Toothpaste the percentage is 98%. That will reflect in her every day conversations. If you know how to read and write Hindi, and if you have ever tried reading the Bhagavad Gita, you will realise you can read it, but you don’t understand what you are reading. Or if you are a Tamil guy and if you have heard the Thirukural being recited, you will know it is Tamil but you can’t exactly understand what is being said (atleast I dont). Well when Toothpaste writes or speaks in English, it’s the same thing. You know what you are reading or hearing is English, but you can’t exactly understand what is being said. I can understand what she says only because I studied for the GRE. You should check out her blog ‘Five Feet Talking’. If you haven’t studied for the GRE or if you don’t read as much as she does, then it will be pretty useful to have a dictionary by your side when you visit her blog.When Toothpaste read my blog she said, “I think you are an obnoxious, chauvinistic, womanizer. But since you are a little funny, I like your blog”. She did not say it in underlined bold :D. Toxicpunk will not be as kind as Toothpaste if she thinks what I write is pathetic. I am doing everything to butter these two people, so that they won’t say mean things about my blog :D. Of course it’s not going to work but it is still worth the try.

Note:

For the reader - I like Harry Potter. But I cannot be called a fan because I have not read the book so many times. I dont hate Twilight. But that doesnt mean I can talk about it in conversations. I like Chetan Baghats Two state but think his other books were only average.

For toothpaste - I gave you a free advertisement here. You better be nice :D

For Toxicpunk – I will get you a blue berry cheese cake if you are nice :D  





Moral of the story :

Have confidence to write. Star your own blog or write your own book.




Previous Post - Fast Forward



Thursday, July 21, 2011

Fast Forward

Diary Entry 20

If this is the first post you are reading in my blog, I suggest you stop and move on to the next :). You can still read this post if you are a first timer, but you must promise to read some of my other posts too :D...

 In college I don’t have as much time as I did at home to write blog posts. I don’t have the time to think about things to write because here time goes in fast forward speed. I wake up and before I realise what happened, the day is over. The only time I can think about my blog is during Plant Engineering classes. A sad man comes to class and talks to himself for an hour. Staring at his face I get all the ideas for my next post. But apart from that I don’t have any time at all. I would write a new post everyday if things were moving at a normal speed but life is moving at 4x at the moment.

But I have not forgotten my blog. I tell everybody I see to read it (and you should do that too :D). When I ask people to read my blog, they always ask me what my blog is about. I have no idea how to answer that question. When I started writing I wanted to write about economics, psychology, politics, science and things like that. But I realised that if I wrote about these things, the ideas won’t be mine. I will simply be restating what I read somewhere else. I did not want that because I wanted to write something that was entirely mine. Also, there are so many political, economics and science blogs these days that when I tell people that I am writing a blog and when I ask them to read it, most of them think "Oh no. Not another Blog. I have read enough about Sonia Gandhi". These things put most people to sleep. I did not want my blog to replace bed time stories like "The Arabian Nights". So for the sake of the children of tomorrow, I stay away from blogging about these things. I don’t know what category my blog belongs to. It’s a blog about me but then again it is not a personal blog. Usually personal blogs are dark, self introspective, depressed writing about a person’s life. There is an urge to write such things, but if I ever write such things, only my psychiatrist will be interested in reading it.  

I started writing last month when I planned to do a lot of things. I wanted to do an intern in Ford. I wanted to learn things like yoga so that I will have flexibility like an alien. But I did none of this. I did not get my intern because I applied really late. I did not learn yoga because all the instructor promised to teach me was how to breathe (and I thought 800 Rupees was a bit too much for lessons on how to breathe).  So since I had nothing better to do in life I thought I might spend the time writing. I did not want anybody to read my blog at first. I showed it to one person who liked my blog a lot. This made me show it to another person and another person and another person and in the end, I ended up sharing my link in face book.

Bloggers have been very kind to me. I got a special mention in some of their blogs. Bloggers like Risha Kalra put up the URL of my blog in her site. These are people I have never seen in my life. Vijay Menon even mentioned me in his post. Though it was a chain post that goes from blogger to blogger, it was still one of those moments that I will never forget. VJ writes about things like politics that I promised myself to not write about and yet he writes in a way that will not bore. So even if politics and sports is not something that fascinates you, I would ask you to go check out his blog.

My greatest moment however was when a friend of mine, who never reads anything other than his girl friendS text messages, read my blog. Not only did he read my blog but he also “loved” it. You would have seen tears in my eyes when he said he that :D. There have also been people who liked my blog but found some parts of it disrespectful or obnoxious. I brought the obnoxiousness level down after that. There are also some who think I am a pathetic writer lol. When I write, I keep in mind people like my womanizer friend, who put his girlfriends aside to read my blog. I don’t write to win the Noble prize for literature. That is why you see a very simple and unsophisticated language in my blog. Not everybody will read my blog if they have to check in with the dictionary after every couple of sentences or if they have to read the post several times like a science journal to understand at least a little. People like my Casanova friend, who is way too busy with so many women will never come to my blog after that. Some of the posts which I wrote before, which was either very serious or too complicated for most people to understand, have been removed for this reason. If you are a Goth who covets depression then my blog is certainly not for you. (If you really are Gothic, please send me a request in facebook. I love you guys, especially your sense of fashion :D)

I love all my followers. If you are a fellow blogger and you are following me, I promise to read all your posts right from the first one to the last when I get the time. I will follow you back right away so that I will remember to read your posts when I get the time. Hugs >:D< . Not following me yet? Click Join this site and use Yahoo/Gmail email or your Twitter account and start following. NOW!!!  (You won’t get any annoying emails :D)

As long as we are saying unconnected things, I might as well say that Gladiator is the most awesome movie ever made (Watch it a hundred times and when you are done watching it, listen to the soundtrack another 100 times.)



Previous Post - We Live to Eat




Saturday, July 16, 2011

We Live to Eat

Diary Entry 19

There are some people who come to me and ask how I manage to stay so thin. They expect me to give them advice. They find it very hard to believe that I am thin because I eat out so often and I eat more poultry stuff than I drink milk. When they see me so thin inspite of all the gluttony they cant help but feel a little jealous.
  

You will see me eating outside and stuffing myself to my hearts content. I never go out alone to eat. I prefer having a food buddy because it serves three purposes. 

1. People wont think I am weirdo who has never seen food in his life when they see me eat (or when they see me go crazy as I wait for the food)

2. I might get over enthusiastic and order too much food. Someone has to make sure that I am in my senses when I order.

3. If I make a large order and it becomes impossible to eat another spoon, someone must help me finish. (Wasting food is not a sin. But wasting chicken is unforgivable.)

Its not easy to recruit eating partners. It is really hard. This is a conversation I have almost every night these days.

Me: Macha Vella pogalama? (Dude shall we go out?)

Friend: Why da?

Me: For dinner.

Friend: Dai we went yesterday. I don’t have the money.

Me: Dai please da. I will sponsor ice cream/cool drinks for you today.

Friend: Paravailla. Nane varrale (Its okay. I am not coming.)

Me: :( (Sad, pavam and hurt face)

Friend: Dai. Its not that I don’t want to come, its just that I don’t have money da. If I come it will surely cost more than 50 Rupees. I need money to go home next week.

Me: Seri. You eat as much as you want. You pay 50 Rupees only. Anything more than that I will pay.

Friend: Hmmmm

Me: Okay come on lets go.

Friend: Dai I haven’t said yes.

Me: Today its the worst food in mess da. My room mate told me he felt like puking.

Friend: Paravailla da. I will eat here itself and you don’t worry about me.

Me: If we go outside we will get egg dosa and half boil da. You know how much you like half boil don’t you?

Friend: Nane varalla macha. (I am not coming da)

Me: Egg dosa 20 Rupees. Half boil 6 Rupees. Twenty six rupees you don’t have ah? Will you rather eat the food here than spend 26 Rupees?

Friend: Hmmm.

Me: Wait let me bring my wallet.

And we go to eat. His bill comes to 60 Ruppees. I pay the extra ten like I promised and buy him cool drinks also.

Me: Now wasn’t that nice?

Friend: You know what? Having you as a friend is more expensive that having a girl friend. In a month, I spend so much money eating outside with you, that I think if I had a girl friend and took her out on dates, I would spend a lot less.

Me: Macha only one more year college da. You wait and see, you will miss all this after that.

Friend: I am not going to miss this. I will be rich if I stopped coming out to eat with you.  

Next day we go out again.


Two questions you will immediately want to ask now.

1. How can you afford eating out so often?
2. How come you are still so thin?

The money that I get from home I spend on nothing but food. Not Books. Not Girls. Not Clothes. Not Movies. Not Drugs. Not Alcohol. Not even for Phone Recharge. Being with my mother I have learnt to spend money only on one thing. FOOD. Now don’t get all smart like Paul Kruggman and give us advice on how to save money. We have money stacked under our carpet to save us in case there was a Nuclear Holocaust. What will we do with money if we are all dead anyway? So eat while your heart is still beating and we live to eat.

To get things straight, I think if someone calls you fat its a compliment. Last summer I had so much food that I added 4 kilos. All in a months time. One Sunday evening when I was checking myself out in the mirror for signs of muscles like Schwarzenegger, my mother walks in and tells me I better cut down on my eating because I was starting to get a belly. When I noticed what she was talking about, I was the happiest person in the world. I mean... me... fat... how awesome can things get. But I was not very fat. My mom gives such reactions because I have looked like a Jewish kid from the Nazi camp, all my life. But to me all that extra weight was a gift from the gods. My Body Mass Index (BMI) was 20.



Then I came to college.

The monks in Tibet and I have only one thing in common. We eat only one meal per day. Please note that I am not a Tibetan Monk when I am in my grandmother place (Thats how I gained 4 kilos at home).
No. I don’t have an eating disorder.  
Yes. I do get hungry.
No. I do not eat even when I am starving.
Yes. I am afraid of getting stomach ulcer.
No. My mother doesn’t know.

So when some guy goes on a hunger strike and the whole world goes ooh haa about it, I sit and laugh. They make a big fuss about it as if its something hard like walking on fire. I stay without eating all the time. (I am not making fun of Baba Ramdev).

My hostel took away the 4 kilo gift I got from the gods and my BMI is now 17. I am scientifically thin. I am a gluttonous pig and a Tibetian Monk, both at the same time. Now you know how I manage to stay so thin.  



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