Meanderings…

Ok, I haven’t updated in nearly nine months but I just came across this blogpost I had written and not published a long, looong time ago… No idea why. So while I continue to neglect paw prints for a while longer, here it is:

I have not updated in more than a month. This does not bother me however, because certain changes in my living arrangements have driven me to distraction. I now live:

1. in a hostel that has a strangely yet appropriately misspelled “Dinning Hall”.
2. in a hostel where not only spellings, but punctuations also suffer and I wince every time I enter the “Girl’s wing” where no “male’s are allowed”. Some noble soul has noticed the misplaced apostrophe in the word ‘males’ and made attempts to remove it but I still itch to have at the “girl’s” bit of it. Argh.
3. with two roommates, only one of whom is human. I have not observed this wonderful human being washing a single item of clothing in all the time I have occupied Room No. 229. And I can’t say I’m particularly surprised by this as I had to do a LOT of cleaning of my side of the room when I moved in, including scraping away for what felt like two years at a piece of chewing gum that was stuck to the floor. And then found two more such spots. Thankfully, these were on the other side of what I think of as “LOC”–her side of the room, HA!
4. with my other roommate, too, Karma Chameleon, aka Cameo aka Unwaba aka Sojakutty, who is, you guessed it, a chameleon. “Sojakutty” was, of course, the suggestion of a mallu friend, after reading a certain mail about the ancient secrets of Mallu Christian naming practices. The names of the two human occupants of the room were shortened and mixed in order to come up with “Soja”. “Sojamon” and “Sojamol” were rejected due to our inability to determine the gender of said chameleon (although s/he DOES seem to enjoy climbing onto my bed. Hmm. Which really doesn’t prove anything.) Anyway, this name also has the added advantage of capturing the somnolent atmosphere of the room (“So ja, munna, so jaaa…”) But I’m still open to suggestions from the gentle reader.
5. in the farthest point from the academic building, with the closest dhaba also a good distance away. This means I have to a LOT of huffing and puffing all over campus to get anywhere. And with most of my friends living in much more pleasantly placed areas, I end up walking at LEAST four kilometers a day. I console myself by thinking about the fact that my jeans are becoming looser and looser

I would like to conclude, at the end of all this, with absolutely NO sarcasm,

I LOVE HOSTEL LIFE!

—-

Interesting to read this old post… I’ve since moved into a new room with really the perfect roommate I do miss Cameo, though! Ah, such is life…

A maddening, sleep-depriving restlessness. Can’t concentrate on reading, music, lose count of sheep counting at 4912 (backwards from 5000). Everyone is asleep or busy or drunk or depressed. Tonight I feel the loneliness. The loneliness of having only yourself. Irutinilae nee nadakaiyile, un nizhalum unnai vittu vilagividum. Nee mattum dhaan indha ulaginilae unakku thunai endru purindhuvidum. (When you walk in the dark, even your shadow abandons you. You realise you are your only companion in the world.) The lyrics that seemed so cynical now begin to make sense. The loneliness of being trapped in yourself–it’s so overwhelming. Maybe that’s why we manage to forget it most of the time, to stay sane. Maybe that’s why we’re so desperate for love, from whoever, in order to forget that loneliness that can gulp you whole.

What do I want? Where is this headed? Why wasn’t I consulted before having life thrusted upon me? There’s a confusion, a sense of utter senselessness in EVERYTHING. I’m a little child throwing terrific temper tantrums, a moody teenager, an angry young woman, an overworked middle-ager, a tired old woman all at once. I suddenly feel over-dramatic and stiflingly repressed. Where do these emotions come from? Do you feel it too? Does anybody?

Where are we headed?

WHO are we?

Well, it’s been a month since my last post. Questions of whether my blog has been abandoned have begun to be asked by the privileged (ha. ha. ha.) few who read it. So here I go…

There’s been so much to write about, ranging from the light-hearted, to the giddy, to the sickeningly depressing. And sometimes, when you have too much to write about, you end up not writing at all. Oh, plus I’m so lazy Anyway, moving on…

Looking back at my last post, I realize how silly we human beings are. We live in a world that is so much our own creation and then have all these huge arguments about who created it, how it should be, who has more power, etc. Now, I’m not talking about anything so profound as whether there is a god or not. I’m talking about the simple fact that our ideas of time and space and all that crap are just that–our ideas, not some universal truth. Ok, take ‘time’ for example.

So, we celebrated the new year, hoped it was a new beginning and life would become wonderful again/more wonderful. But the fact is, time is a human invention, isn’t it? If we didn’t mark it with new years and deadlines and almanacs, it would  just be a huge blob that passes by without our even noticing it. And we know all this! Even if we’re not aware of that knowledge, we know it. Yet, we get caught in that very trap. We hope for “new beginnings” even though nothing is really new. The irony is that, things are just getting older with every “new” year. The same things continue to happen, life still doesn’t really have any meaning other than what we give it, and yes, people still catch colds. Still no cure for the common cold.

And yet we continue to do it, continue to fool ourselves. Continue to believe that the little imaginary marks we make on the huge puzzle that is time mean something real in the world. But then, we human beings are and have always been good at self-deception. I think that’s our greatest strengh. We can believe that we as a species are essentially, “naturally” good even though good/evil is our own invention. We can shut our eyes to truth and reality while claiming to be engaged in an investigation of that very truth and reality. Yes, self-deception is our greatest strength.

It’s why we, the weaklings of Nature, still survive.

Ah. Cheerful.

No, I’m not drunk. But have a nice one anyway.

Home coming is sweet, with bittersweet tinges to add to the interesting experience that it is. When home is a whole city, your joys multiply till you are overwhelmed. You can breathe in and wallow in all that is familiar, those things that were so easy to take for granted but are now so precious. The curl of your mother’s hair, your sister’s silent creeping-out-of-bed early in the morning so as not to wake you. The silence of the night, comfortable and unchanged since when you were thirteen. The feel of the floor, hard and reassuring, beneath your back. The sofas that echo with the assurance of a hundred memories. The tiny bathroom that remembers the yowls that you called singing, your conversations with the taps, your tears that the shower couldn’t drown, your secret phone calls.

–Cooling off in the middle of a darn good temper tantrum!

Come on, we all love a good temper tantrum once in a way. Ok, why the blank look and raised eyebrow? You don’t?! Well, I do! And let me tell you, there is nothing worse that working yourself up to a good sulk or outright tantrum and then realizing you’ve stopped being angry with whatever or whoever it is that gifted you with just that mood. You just feel so… betrayed and let down by yourself, but not enough to inspire another sulk. It’s like being offered a whole bar of chocolate all to yourself and then, when you’re halfway through it, being told that’s all you can have. Oh, the cruelty of it!

Sulk Rating: 8 FF*

– Morning People!

Ye gods! These creatures actually believe in such concepts as “Early to bed and early to rise”, “Humans are not nocturnal creatures”, “Breakfast at 7 am” and even “11 o’clock is nearly afternoon”, for crying out loud! I mean, come on! I go to bed early and rise early too–in the morning and evening respectively! Breakfast at 7? Brunch all the way. And 11 a.m. is the time you crack one eye open and decide to set an alarm to wake you in an hour! And humans, NOT nocturnal? Then how exactly would you explain the reason for the stars and the moon to exist other than to light up our nights?! Hello? Go read up your science. Sheesh.

Ok, having to put up with these creatures’ quaint ideas is bad enough. But to endure their cheerfulness when you’re forced to rise before noon and rummaging about the room (if you share one with them) when you can sleep in, it’s just tooooo much I say!

Sulk Rating: 8.5 FF

–The bus starting just before you get off!

This happens more and more to me these days. I, of course, am always the LAST person to get down at any given stop and the drivers take perverse pleasure in starting the bus when I’m one foot on and one foot off. As a result of which, I step down and have to do an ungainly little dance to the amusement of everyone (including the people in the bus, people on the streets, the snoozing street dog and the lamp-posts.) Foooh! (The sound of steam coming out of my ears)

Sulk Rating: 6.5 FF

–Finding that thing you were looking for for so long! [For for? ]

Ok, you might be puzzled by that. But what your forgetting is that, according to the Holy Murphy’s Laws (which sometimes seem more verifiable and relevant than Newton’s), this can only mean that you’d given up looking for that thing only a few days/minutes ago and bought (or married!) something else… Ah, the look on one’s face then in priceless.

Rating: 8 FF

–ZITS!

I always get a strange, surreal feeling when I think that the whole of my past is just memory. Every moment of pain, wonder, joy, confusion, every crush, every unforgettable feeling of knee-knocking fear, every betterfly in my stomach, every stubbed toe is now not even real or verifiable. Those moments are just grooves in a soft, easily squishable brain, folds in my cerebrum. That friend who betrayed me and who I haven’t spoken to in more than a year may as well be a ghost. She exists as I saw her only in my memory. My uncle, grandmother, aunt, grandfather… even my father… are all just memories now. From a child’s impressions of popcorn and poppins to a young woman’s helplessness at pain suffered, these people, once easily hugged and spoken to, are just memories now.

My life so far could’ve been a wasteland–I’d never know if all that I’ve felt is real or the drug-induced hallucinations of a crazed mind. And tomorrow, my life so far could just be wiped out by a careless blow to the head and then where would I be? Where would you be?

Does this sound like pseudo-Matrix-existentialist crap? Well, once I hit the “Publish” button, how can I even be sure I wrote it?

At the end of this internal monologue, the warden’s son comes and opens the door. He’s gaping at me and goes “You just came in? And the dog didn’t DO anything to you?” I’m shaken, and feeling all alone, scared in the I-want-my-mommy way and all I can do is chuckle nervously and say, “Er, no… As you can see by the lack of missing chunks of flesh on my legs, he didn’t, in fact, take a bite out of me, as he wanted to. And you seem shocked and even… disappointed?… that he didn’t.”

So yes, the summer has been upon us for a couple of months and, unfortunately, as summers tend to be, I have started LEARNING things. Sigh. An unfortunate side-effect of being utterly vetti I guess. It’s most disappointing. I never went about arbitrarily LEARNING things when I was in college! Why should I now, when the days should be spent in decadent wastefulness? Sigh again. Anyway, here are these great lessons:

- Celebrity Crushes Are Fun!
Beside the garden variety everyday crush, which is often painful and almost always embarrassing, there is the Special Realm of the Celebrity Crush (hmm, what’s with the capitals, you ask? No idea!) Now, the thing about the CC is the ridiculous ease of accessibility to the object of your interest/affection/desire/lust (ha!). One google search for certain strangely attractive cricketers and there are about a million pictures to go ga-ga over. One foray of television channels and there’s Hrithik Roshan, bulging muscles, yummy eyes, cute extra digit et al! Now, a few heart aches could be caused by little factors such as… “Oh no, (dramatic hand-to-forehead) Christian Bale is married!” or “Damn that Deepika Padkone, trying to steal my guy!” or “Ah, if only my lowe wasn’t straight…” But overall, your friends tease you and you grin along, safe in the knowledge that you’ll never get caught in THAT trap, at least!

- It’s Possible to Do a Lot of Nothing
Now this might sound like something Garfield would make up, but it’s true! You can pretend to read… while doing nothing. You can pretend to watch television… while doing nothing. You can pretend to be online, doing important things… while doing nothing. Well, you get the drift! It’s a glorious feeling when you look back at a long day of doing nothing. In fact, I plan to write a book about it, Doing and Nothingness. I’m sure it’ll be more popular and… “experienceable” than Sartre’s similar ramblings.

- The Sad Truth about People
It’s a sad truth that people have an endless capacity to deceive themselves. Some (no links here, sorry ) would even sink into melodrama and self-pity rather than admit that they might have done something wrong or work at a compromise. Ah, well, it takes all sorts of nuts to make a fruitcake.

- The Happy Truth About People
You know there’s always another side to the grass but both the less green and the greener sides can be on your own lawn! Ok, ok, I’ll stop talking in metaphors before you throw something at me. It’s just that the happy truth about people is that PEOPLE CAN BE WONDERFUL! Sure, we’re all full of faults and no way is anybody perfect but still, there are people who will understand you and respect you for what you are and bother to stick with you even when you’re being a total loser or completely lame That’s what makes the fruitcake sweet, after all! (Ok, I promise, no more cliched metaphors!)

- Being a Girl is Fun
Yes, yes, we all know it’s a hard world to be a woman in. Men constantly come up with trivial complaints about how difficult life is for men but it’s obviously just men being men. It’s often the case that women wish they were men but at the end of the day, I realise it’s fun to be a girl! I mean, womes are so comfy in fun sleepovers where previously mentioned objects of interest/affection/desire/lust are drooled over, fashion, world affairs and everything else are discussed, clothes and weird hairstyles are tried out, crazy pictures are taken and hysterical laughter goes on for several minutes over nothing. Now, not being a man, I can’t imagine what male sleepovers (sorry, is that an oxymoron? Let’s call it something more MANLY… Hmm, ok BOOZE PARTY!) are like but I doubt there’s any of the emotional sharing that women do. Wow, I’m being so sexist. It rocks! So yeah, go, girlpower!

- Coo-coo-cooking!
Ah yes, I have leanred rudimentary skills at the kitchen. Never thought the day would come when the old family joke about me having to marry a chef could be shelved. Well, I still wouldn’t go THAT far but I’ve learned some basics. Such as how to make scrambled eggs (ahem, the broken eggs and the weird smell in the kitchen will NOT be mentioned, atomic!) and chapati and dosa and rava idli! So yes, I might survive on my own, provided there are convenient Spencer’s Dailies in every corner to buy bread, idli/dosa mav and eggs from. Hehe.

Oh, there’s more but all this writing really is getting in the way of my “doing nothing” campaign. So it’s bye-bye for now

Driving on Chennai roads is an interesting… experience, to say the very least. Forget the roads (which your back never really forgets) and the pollution (which your lungs never forget) or even the congestion (which your vehicle never forgets). There is a whole different aspect of driving in Singara Chennai (named so by someone with a healthy sense of irony, methinks) that is more fascinating… I am, of course, talking about the fellow travellers… Who else but humans could leave such a mark?!

Driving in Chennai, you will meet certain standard “stock” drivers whom I have neatly classified. Unless otherwise specified, these “types” extend to both genders and across all age-groups. I have used the masculine pronoun for convenience:

1. The Overtaker: We’ve all heard of the Undertaker, of course. This type of driver, the Overtaker, is equally lethal. And would probably fit right into the profession of the undertaker, so eager does he seem to send people on their way to the hereafter. The Overtaker’s M.O. involves sneaking up on people unawares, (he has perfected this art to such… perfection that he doesn’t even appear in the rear-view mirror of the Overtakee) then out of nowhere, zip past the overtakee as close as possible, preferably with a (very loud) horn honking in the ear of the poor unsuspecting victim who will promptly jump, swerve, swear or lose balance–or do all of these simultaneously. The Overtaker takes pleasure in these very actions and his helmet probably muffles a chilling, Psycho-like laugh as he zooms away.

2. The Tortoise: The name Tortoise, I believe, sufficiently describes the nature of this driver. As may be expected, the Tortoise is the anti-thesis of the Overtaker. The Tortoise typically drives/rides a large and ungainly vehicle, and seems to believe that it is best driven at 10 kmph and in the middle of the road. While the Undertaker hones his skill into an art, the Tortoise decides to make his skill a science. Thus, through Tortoisology, this type of driver drives in a careful, precise way that ensures that the road is blocked in just such a way that no other driver can overtake him, reducing the traffic to a speed that is similar to the Tortoise’s. The Tortoise is truly brilliant for he frustrates not just fellow drivers, but pedestrian’\s too, who cannot cross the road because the Tortoise has reached that level of acceleration that is completely un-judgeable. And without a means to predict when the Tortoise will pass, the pedestrian is left stranded on one side of the road–forever!

3. The Hunk:
3. The Hunk: This, I’m afraid, in a gender-specific and age-specific type of driver. The Hunk is most often young, male and rather desperate when it comes to members of the opposite sex. The Hunk thinks himself to be more than averagely endowed in the looks and attraction department. (It is also to be noted that the Hunk is typically delusional) The motives of the Hunk are simple: Impress the Babe (more on that later) or any other female driver and show off superior driving skills of self. Due to the extremely eclectic driving style of the Hunk, it is difficult to pin down one Modus Operandi. There are, however, various styles or moves. There is, first of all, the standard Swerve-and-Swoop. To execute this, the Hunk generally speeds up, takes several complicated looking (also lame-looking, but he doesn’t know it) swerves and zigzags around other vehicles, swoops down on the object of his hunkiness and calls out some witty (read: equally lame) remark and zooms off. The Hunk believes that the effect of this maneuver is dual: scare the chick, impress the chick. Unfortunately for the Hunk, this just pisses off the “chick”. Another move I will discuss is the classic Fast ‘n’ Slow. When the Hunk spots an eligible female driver (who is driving confidently and faster than him), he speeds up and zoom pasts her. Then he slows down till she catches up and overtakes him and then zooms past again. This can go on for quite a while. Poor dumb Hunk. I myself have been at the receiving end of the ole Fast ‘n’ Slow and had the indescribable pleasure of seeing the Hunk being stopped in the middle of a Fast Cycle by a cop and screwed over.

4. The Babe: Another gender- and age- specific one. The Babe is the female counter-part to the Hunk. Her driving sense and skills just about equal to that of the Hunk. She has her own theories about what the various parts of the vehicle are and what the road rules mean. The rear view mirror becomes, simply, a mirror in the hands of the Babe. The stop signal is a time to touch up the make up, readjust the clothes and paint the nails (if the signal is, say, Nandanam, she’ll have enough time for said nails to dry and begin chipping). The Babe, however, is mostly harmless in comparison to the Hunk. Her most lethal weapon is the long-winded preparation to driving which goes something like: Open boot of the scooter, take out bottle of sunblock. Spread generous dollops on every inch of exposed skin, take out gloves, jacket, dupatta and begin to cover the self as if a blizzard’s been predicted (“Oh, I don’t want to get all tan!”). The Dupatta ritual is one of the most mystical aspects of the Babe’s routine–a twist, a turn, a flip, a tuck and suddenly only the eyes stare out of the face hidden by the dupatta. Then comes the last, much lamented step: Wear helmet (“Dammit, do I have to?! It ruins my freshly washed, coloured, straightened hair!”) and drive away.

5. The Stickler: The Stickler, aka the Nitpicker, is a truly wondrous and indecipherable species of drivers. The Stickler actually believes in and follows the road rules. The Stickler can read various road signs. The Stickler actually passed the driving test fair and square without bribing various officials. The Stickler carries all his papers with him all the time. The Stickler makes sure his vandi is spic-and-span though it might be 20 years old. The Stickler puts up his hand when he’s at the head of the signal to show that he’s stopped. The Stickler stops at the stop line. The Stickler wore a helmet before it was made compulsory. The Stickler never allows his petrol indicator to touch the red line. The Stickler is often middle-aged. The Stickler is an endangered species. Save the Stickler!

Well, there you go. These are some of the chief races of drivers. There are other categories like The Spitter, Dopey, The Nervous Fumbler, The Honker, Foul Mouth etc. Certain groups like The Autodriver can have whole posts, if not books, written on them. But you would be considered a seasoned Chennai-ite and driver if you have encountered and survived these five basic groups.

Happy Bumping Along!