The Crooked Tooth

Diary Entry – 33

Mom: We should take you to a dentist sometime.

Me: Why? Is something wrong with my teeth?

Mom: Mmm there is nothing wrong with your teeth but it does not hurt to get an opinion about things from a professional.

Me: Uh? Opinion about what?

Mom: Your teeth of course. I think we can make it look better than what it is now.

Me: Oh you mean get a cleaning? I could use that. I hear women these days are attracted to weird things like manicured nails and straightened hair. Whitening my teeth seems a lot more logical that all that.

Mom: Well I was thinking more in the lines of braces da.

Me: What? Why do I need braces? Is my teeth misaligned or something?

Mom: I think your teeth are a bit crooked.

(I run to bathroom to look into the mirror.)

Me: Oh my god. Mom why did you not tell me this before? I thought normal human beings had teeth like mine. :O

Mom: It is nothing to worry about. We can get it fixed in a few months.

Me: Will wearing braces be painful.

Mom: You don’t have to worry. It will be a little uncomfortable at first but you will get used to it. Also these days they have these internal braces you can wear.

Me: Okay. I want to get this done as soon as possible.

Mom: You can also get your teeth whitened when you are there. The Dentist is my patient so you will get quality treatment.

Me: Hmmm okay.

I go to the dentist. Lie down and get my teeth cleaned and whitened.

Dentist: Your mother tells me that your teeth are crooked and you might need braces to fix it.

Me: Yeah she told me that too. Is it very bad?

Dentist: Exactly the teeth in which jaw does she find crooked?

Me: What? You are asking me?

Dentist: Well I am not sure which tooth she finds crooked.

Me: Why don’t we call her up then?

I call.

Mom: Hello. What happened?

Me: Amma. Which tooth do you have a problem with?

Mom: What? Give the phone to the dentist.

Me: Okay

My mom and the dentist have a small talk and the dentist hands the phone back to me.

Dentist: Open your mouth.

Me: Aaahhhhhh.

Dentist: I think she is talking about this tooth over here. It is slightly crooked.

Me: Can we fix it? Is it very bad?

Dentist: Tell me. What course are you doing right now?

Me: huh? I am doing engineering?

Dentist: You plan to make a career as a model or movie star?

Me: What? No. 

Dentist: Then nobody is going to notice this one crooked tooth of yours. Have a good day.

 When in doubt about how I look, I ask the opinion of the lady who noticed the crooked tooth that even the dentist could not find after examining my mouth. Most of the time she thinks I look great. Nothing can be more reassuring.   

Previous Post - The Boy Friend

The Boy Friend

Diary Entry – 32

When your friend starts acting weird, there is usually only one reason for that. They have a boy friend. When Lulu (name changed) started acting weird, I did not know why. Lulu and I were far from being best of friends but we used to talk to each other a lot and I would like to assume that that was enough for us to be more than mere acquaintances. Then she started acting weird and a few weeks later, I learn from one of my friends that she has a new boy friend.

I first thought it must have been something I said, but I learnt that her other male friends were not getting any special treatment either, so I just let it pass thinking she will come around when her senses return. Three months later, my friend tells me that she put her facebook status which hinted she was going to get married to that boy friend of hers. Dear lord, we thought J Lo (Jennifer Lopez) was crazy. If you do not understand what I am talking about, note how J Lo is getting married with a different man in each magazine cover.

I did not believe my friend when he told me Lulu put a facebook status that suggested she was going to get married and so I wanted to go check this out myself.When I went to her facebook page to confirm what he said, I realized I was not there in her friends list. You may be arch enemies with someone in the real world but they will still be your friends in facebook. Some of my friends got deleted from the friends list by accident and I thought this case was no different. But when I tried to add her back, I couldn’t. So I talked to her –

Me: Hey! Did you delete me in facebook?

Lulu:  No Abhi. Why will I do such a thing?

Me: Lol. Maybe your boy friend hacked your account and deleted me or something. :D

Lulu: No he wont do anything like that. You don’t know him.

Me: Mmmm. I am sorry if I said something wrong. I was just kidding. Your boy friend doesn’t have your passwords rite?

Lulu: Yeah he does. I gave them to him.

Me: WTF?

Lulu: What is wrong with that?

Me: What is wrong with that? What is wrong with YOU? My god. He gets to access your entire personal life? You don’t have any privacy at all.

Lulu: It is all about trust da. Me giving my password shows how much trust I have in him and gives him reasons to trust me.

Me: Oh yeah? So you trust him enough to not misuse it and take control of your life.

Lulu: He will not misuse it in anyway abhi.

Me: I sure hope for your sake he doesn’t. But add me back in facebook. I am not able to add you.

Lulu: Lol I will do it in the night. Facebook seems to have a lot of bugs ever since Google brought in Google+ :D. We should complain.

Me: Lol yeah I guess.

The next day

Lulu: I am really sorry. You were right. My boy friend read some of our chat and felt insecure. He blocked you in facebook. I think he gave report abuse also. That is why you are not able to add me.

 

Me: WHAT? He gave report abuse because I am your friend? HOW IS THAT ABUSE?

Lulu: I am sorry.

Me: How can you put up with this guy? He doesn’t even trust you.

Lulu: He trusts me very much. You don’t know him.

Me: He trusts my ass. Jealousy I understand. But blocking your friends from facebook? :x.

Lulu: You don’t know him. He is not like what you think. He must have thought you were like all guys - a jerk.

Me: If he trusted you so much when you gave him your password, why will he find the need to go through your Gtalk Chat history?

Lulu: He trusts me okay. He just gets very jealous. He doesn’t even like other guys looking at me. He is very possessive.

Me: WHAT? Is he going to make you wear a purdah then?

Lulu: Hehe. No abhi.

Me: Sheesh Lulu don’t you see that your boy friend is everything you women have been fighting against in the last century? I know a feminist who will shoot you down with a machine gun for making him your boy friend.

Lulu: He makes me very happy da. He is like this because he loves me and I love that about him.

(What can I possibly say when she loves that?)

Me: Hmmm. For your sake I hope I am wrong. If you live happily ever after like Cinderella, I will be very happy. BUT, if you break up with him, please add me back in facebook.

Lulu: Okay. I am sorry again. There is nothing I can do. Bye.

Six months later

Facebook

New Friends Request

Lulu

Lulu: Abhi!

Me: Hey Lulu. I guess your boy friend finally started trusting you more huh?

Lulu: My boy friend is an asshole.

Me: (Did I not tell you? :D) Oh! What happened?

Lulu: He cheated on me.

Me: Oh you poor thing. :D

Lulu: I dumped him but he keeps stalking. I want it to stop. Tell me how to change my passwords abhi. Tell me FAST.

Previous Post - Excuses

Excuses

Diary Entry - 31

I know I have not blogged for quite some time now and people keep reminding me that.Some might tell you it is pure laziness that is keeping me away but the truth is, I have been juggling with several things and have not got time for anything else. Apart from the usual college work, I have to apply for MS. When I was preparing for my GRE I thought once I am done writing the exam, everything will be easy and I will be in America climbing the Grand Canyon like Tom Cruise in Mission Impossible. 


I was wrong. Going to America is not that easy. Writing the GRE is the easiest part of the process. Deciding which university to apply to, writing your SOP, getting your LORs and Transcripts followed by filling the long application forms of each university has been keeping me occupied. Writing a SOP requires a lot of introspection. I have given mine none, which is reason to worry. If this was not enough there is this final year project work that I have to do. That followed by exams, assignments, seminars and placements is enough to keep me busy. The little time I have for myself I spend saving the world in video games.And you thought Batman was awesome.

 

I will be back soon. :D

Previous Post - The Fanatics

The Fanatics

Diary Entry - 30

I know the past few posts have been super long. I kept this post as short as possible so that even the lazy reader will read.

I have a lot of Christian friends. But I have had only one friend who was a fanatic. Some try to reinforce their beliefs by having a very low tolerance to other people’s religious belief system. When me and my fanatic friend started talking about religion, I learnt a lot about the Hindu god, Krishna. Krishna stole butter and women’s clothes. He also danced, bathed and did other stuff with the babes of other men. By doing this he had successfully broken three of the Ten Commandments given by god to the children of Israel.

Thou shall not steal

Thou shall not commit adultery

Thou shall not covet thy neighbour’s wife

I was told that worshipping a god who steals and does stuff with women, doesn’t speak very highly of me. I later learnt that the entire thing was a metaphor. (No way I am turning my blog into a place of religious tosh by explaining the metaphors. I suggest you look it up in the internet if you are that interested). When I told my fanatic friend the metaphors in the Krishna story, I was laughed at. Religion has been my least favourite topic of conversation ever since.

Four years after that conversation, I met Krishna in a bus.

I was going home from college. It was a six hour long journey and I was going alone. I was hoping that the movie in the bus was going to help me survive, but half an hour into the journey, the guy tells us the TV is broken. No movie. No company and a 6 hour long journey. My phone had low battery which meant I had no text buddies for company either. And only because I had no choice I spoke to the stranger sitting next to me. His name was Krishna.

I asked him where he was heading. He tells me his name is Krishna and a bunch of other crap that was not the answer to the question “where are you going?” I was a little worried that this guy is going to talk me to death but I actually liked talking to him. We talked about food, women, movies, college and a lot of other crap. Then our conversation went to New World Order and we started to talk about Palestine and Israel. He did not seem to like Muslims much but he seemed to hate Jews more. I was more interested in talking about the politics of the region but he was more interested with the religion. He was telling me how Jewish people were inherently selfish and cunning and how the world needed another Holocaust.

Hello Hitler

I hated it. I for my part did my best to defend the Jews (not because I liked them but because his arguments were prejudiced). I told him about the article I read in the New York Times which attributed the smartness of the Jews to centuries of oppression. Being smart, especially with money, was the only way for them to survive. I told him that the story about Shylock and the jokes about Jewish rabbis fighting for a penny are a result of bias, envy and the kind of oppression they have been facing for centuries. I told him it should not be taken literally like the jokes about Catholic priests fighting for small children. I hoped that the Catholic line was going to make him laugh because the conversation was going Nazi by the minute.  But instead of smiling his face turned so red with rage that I felt he was going to burn in a stake.

To understand why his face turned bright red with rage, let me tell you a little about Krishna. I learnt this  AFTER I cracked the crude Catholic priest joke. Krishna’s family is something like the royal family of England. They name their sons after their grandfathers and their daughters after their mothers. They were a typical South Indian Hindu family, but then the Christian missionary came along and made them change their religion. The missionary however failed to change their names. It resulted in a Christian having the name of his grandfather, Krishna. After the conversation I had with the first Christian fanatic, I sort of took the liberty to assume that people whose names were Krishna were anything but Christian. But this Krishna epitomized the worst of Christian Fanaticism. He was the reincarnation of Pope John Paul II. It turned out to be a tragic irony for me.

Moral – When some people say shit about you or someone else, the best thing you can do is smile.

Previous Post - A Job in Paradise – Part 2