Gratitude...where art thou?

My baby brother (who is fifteen going on sixteen and taller than me already) just went to Agra for ten days to play cricket for the state. He came back this morning and i was all excited thinking he would have brought back all manner of things from delhi and agra. Well he came home all sweaty and tired and frankly terribly dirty. Whatever. But what did he bring back for me???? Nothing!!!!!! He did bring back a turtle thingy in marble for his 'Friend' who happens to be a very pretty girl. And what did he get for himself or any other member of family or friend? Nothing. Just goes to show doesnt it.....

surprise indeed

Today, i realised that im not as big a loser as ive generally perceived i was. And its all thanks to sonme wonderful idiots i call my friends. I turn eighteen on sunday and while ive been freakin out about how im so not ready for such an important transition, ive also been thinking about how ive never had a surprise party. Ever. And also about other things like how i havent achieved self actualization and the world isnt closer to world peace and stuff. But more about the surprise party. Well imagine my surprise when some of the people i care about the most turned up at my place with the biggest cake ive evr seen (along with chips, samosas, coke,chocolates and the works) and huge goofy grins and they actually managed to hide it from me. I was really and truly surprised. Of course i knew something was up thanks to my mom being unable to keep anything a surprise and a couple of the idiots insisting i dont have lunch and dragging me to coffee day and acting all jumpy and spending loads of time having whispered arguments on their phones. Kinda obvious. But little did i expect..well...THIS! It was so brilliant. They even managed to do the whole "SURPRISE!!!!" thing and i got to give the whole "aaaaaagghhhhh" and "oh my goood!" thing. It was beyond cool!
And thank you guys for the pink underwear which says "booty queen". Ill be sure to wear it on my birthday. Oh and the cake had icing in the shape of the toilet with the toilet monster...ive nevr been so touched before.

Well, i havent done a lot of things i wanted to do by the time i turned eighteen...i havent become drop dead gorgeous, i havent suddenly developed a killer wit, im not smart and suave, nor am i charming. Im still kinda awkward, shy around new people, i still make dumb jokes, i still suffer from foot in my mouth syndrome. But i figured if ive managed to hold on to such amazing people as my friends and if they would go to so much trouble to make this so memorable for me, i must be doing ok. in fact, more than ok. It really meant like a lot to me, more than ill ever be able to put into words without sounding supercorny. so heres a huuuuge thank you to you guys from the bottom of my toes. i really do love you guys. You rock.

its wednesday

i hate wednesdays. but on the upside one of my favourite authors is having the launch of his new book today. Yaay and all that.
P.S comments for the previous post may be left here.

Bird brained!!!

It was one of those days when the breeze decided to be kind and the clouds took a break...the sun was puting in a brief appearance and the waves and the call of sundal on the beach were irresistable.
So i jammed my feet into my sandals and headed off to the beach (which happens to be opposite to my house), along with this new(well, ancient actually....it was my mom's when she was doing literature in college) book i stumbled upon under the fridge[how it got there i will never know...one of those eternal mysteries of life i dare say].
I remembered to take some music along and was all set to enjoy some well earned solitude. I found a place far from the roadside romeos and chattering senior citizens and little hyperactive kids running around and lovebirds treating the place as their very own love nest. I indulged in some people watching for awhile and returned to my book, blissfully unaware that my peace was to be shattered too soon for my liking. Out of nowhere, i heard what sounded like a bunch of budgies screeching in a perfect falsetto "hiiiiiiiiiiii!!!!!!! what are you doing here????" noooo...it couldnt be..those falsetto wannabe socialite voices sounded too familiar for my liking at taht moment...i slowly looked up and my worst suspicions were confirmed...it was atttack of the bimbettes!!!!
I considered finishing my mouthful of peanuts and then answering but the thought of them looking at me with their perfect mascara and kohl lined eyes while i ate was slightly intimidating so i sighed, put my book down and said "Waiting for the martians to bring back my lost duck...what does it look im doing you idiots?"
Well actually that was what i wanted to say but i ended up being nice as usual and mumbling out a "nothin much...just...u knw...hanging".
At which the leader of the troupe (the one with the biggest boobs) asked me "whooo are you waiting for u naughty girl??? loooveer boooy? huh?" Well apart from the fact that 'loooveerboooy' doesnt exist, they dont seem to understand the concept of nobody. I repeated slowly " i-am-waiting-for-nobody". Still didnt seem to get through. Sigh.
I like them for the faith they are showin in my ability to hold down secret loverboys but really this was gettin tedious. After quizzing me on my nonexistent lovelife and discussing all my exes and their various merits and demerits (somehow the demerits always seemed to weigh up...), they finally came to the conclusion that i was indeed waiting for 'nobody'.
I then remembered my manners and offered them some of the peanuts to which i got back shrieks of "noooo! im watchin my weight!! ive become so fat do you think this skirt makes my bum look big?" "you are so lucky u dont care about ure weight! u can eat all you want!Dont u worry about not finding a guy?" (a not so subtle hint that i ought to be living on rabbit food like them so i can snare some hot guy who cant hold a conversation for more than 33 seconds) and such like refusals. I knew what was expected of me...i tried my best to resist but conditioning won out in the end..."no u dont look fat...uve lost so much weight...and yea ure right i should watch my weight..."
Crisis solved. They then proceeded to make sense of my book (The moon and six pence by somerset maughm). It was rather amusing to watch extremely pretty but dumb girls in ridiculously uncomfortable clothes and way too much war paint for an evening at the beach try to figure out if there were any dirty parts to the book i was reading. After awhile they gave up and then started to tell me how i should get a life and how they would be happy to introduce me to some 'very nice boys' so i wont have to spend my evenings all alone at the beach (poor me). I was rapidly reaching the end of my rope. I prayed to whoever up there was listening that i would be allowed to get back to my non-life soon before i say something i would later regret. So when they finally ran out of things to say about how the guys were keeping them waiting and how they were going to get annoyed soon, they looked like they were going to move...yes...finally...
at which point one bright pink lollipop screeched "lets wait and give the poor thing company while we wait for the guys!!!!!!"
And another day was spent with chicks(bird brains) taking bird bites.....

Be afraid..be very afraid

Being a psychology student is not easy...most people have this notion that its all about learning how to deal with crazy nuts and you turn crazy eventually (its not) and it has to be th easiest thing ever (again, its not). but the truth being its difficult and theres actually loads to study...and the record work just kills you!
But as i was studying for my end of sems (yes, i actually do crack open the book once in awhile...esp when its the day of the exam) and feverishly trying to jam in the various theories of emotion, i came across this section on how to make a scared looking face...coz u see some idiot said we feel emotion based on our bodily responses ( which include facial reactions).

So i present here for u the three step process to lookin terrified....

Step one : Raise your eyebrows a high as they go and pull them together

Step two : now raise your upper eyelids and make your eyes big and bulging...thats right...good!

Step three : stretch your lips horizontally, back toward your ears...there you go!

You now look petrified!

p.s. DO try this at home and not on the streets...and locking urself in the bathroom would probably be a good idea! Cheers!

Who is the toilet monster

Well ive had a lot of queries about the great and mysterious toilet monster so i shall give all you ignorant people a brief history.

The toilet monster is a monster. A legendary monster. One which hides in the pot and reaches out to grab your gluteal muscle (the butt for the uniniated) when you least expect it...
The legend of the toilet monster has been passed down form generation to generation, especially by nasty cousins who scare the living daylights out of their younger, four year old, extremely impressionable cousins who already have overactive imaginations and who then become so petrified of the loo that they refuse to go anywhere near it and are consequently whacked by their mothers.
Not that it happened to me.
Legends abound about the origin of the toilet monster...experts dont agree on any one version of his origin but we do have conclusive evidence that he can split himself up into a million, gazzillion entities and enter each and every one of our toilets...the one place where we thought we would have some peace....
MY favorite legend is the one which puts the toilet monster as a victim..an innocent victim of fate...who really cudnt help becoming the monster...
It all started on this dark rainy night decades ago when the pot was first invented. It was one of those nights which was filled with headless horsemen, evil pumpkins with glowing eyes, howling dogs and the like. and of course howling wind, window panes banging, trees swaying and a looot of unaccountable shadows. And a huge spooky house which lies in a filled in swamp with creaky doors, loong staircases with rotting wooden floors and cobwebby ceilings. The kind of house where anything can happen. And of course a full moon. and michael jackson lookalikes running around. all nice and happy.

And in that scary house there lived this lonely little boy who had no friends. His name was...um...Toolitomonsotoer...yea...thats it..Toolitomonsotoer. Go figure. His parents were...um...uh...believers of going slightly off the beaten track.
but yea....he was stila very lonely little boy who had no friends to play with...none of the mothers for miles around wud send their kids to play with that weird boy with the weird name in that huge, spooky weird house. Not that it stopped the kids...they wud come regularly to throw stones at the house..at the eerie windows which always had cobwebs sticking to it. And the servants were all spooky too..they were all either escaped convicts or on a rehab program from the local asylum. The butler was a useless shit too...he didnt have any style or panache like Lurch..or Jeeves even...he was a useless night school dropout who was whiling away his time at the spooky house.

And so Toolitomonsotoer was a very unhappy boy. His parents were never around for him...they spent all their time in the top secret lab under the house, where they cut up people and tried to attach wings to lizards and made copious amounts of chemical X. And they also invented the pot so they were trying to get it accepted by the public and assure them that the shit wudnt suddenly come shooting out and wud actually go away down the drain. they also headed a secret organisation which wud later go on to plunder and terrorise the world...it was called The Plumbers Association and they were a worldwide order who took training on how to squeeze people for the maximum money possible. And so they never had any time for poor little Toolitomonsotoer.

So poor Toolitomonsotoer spent most of his time in his favorite room in the house...the bathroom. Back then they used to name all the rooms...stuff like green room and blue room and john galt room...the bathroom was named after their great great grand uncle, Loo Looney...Loo for short (the name kinda stuck).
Toolitomonsotoer used to pretend tht there was an imaginary friend hiding in the pot who would talk to him...who actually liked him and would share oatmeal cookies with him...this thought made Toolitomonsotoer so happy that he spent more and more of his time in the Loo.
So much so that he began to believe that his imaginary friend actually existed...and that he would one day come out of the bathroom and scare away the kids who were always picking on him..and his imaginary friend said...of course i will..ill munch on them for breakfast and make sure they never bother you again.

And Toolitomonsotoer was so happy to hear that. He then wished that every lonely kid in the world had a friend like his...especially the weird ones.....the world aint kind to weird kids.
Those who dont fit in coz they have weird names, hairstyles, clothes not with it, study too much, dnt do drugs, dnt smoke or have wierd and embarassing parents....the shy ones, the stutterers and stammerers of the world...kids who think differently...those who are afraid to stand up for themselves...these are the kids who are always picked on..and they are the lonely ones....

But there was a slight problem with this plan...the fact that this friend of his existed only in his imagination. so wat Toolitomonsotoer did..he decided to wait till he grew up...grown ups always seemed to know wat to do.
So he waited and waited till he grew up. But he was still a lonely adult.
One day, he sneaked down to the top secret lab downstairs when his parents were too stoned to notice what was going on. And there he saw the new prototype of the pot which was to be replicated and go to all the houses in the world. then a really tragic thing happened...he did something involving a beetles head, a lizards wing, the liver of the butler(good riddance) and loads of chemical X....and boom...Toolitomonsotoer became his imaginary friend...he was able to get into toilets the world over and teach those nasty kids a lesson.
He then changed his name to the toilet monster...numerology you see.

The toilet monster will be around as long as there are sad and lonely kids, desperate for a friend....coz u see thats the magic which keeps the toilet monster alive.
The toilet monster is visible only to kids..when they grow up, they stop believing in him...he goes away then. But wherever there is a sad or lonely kid who needs a friend or a nasty kid who neeeds a lesson, you can be sure the toilet monster will be there.
The toilet monster and i became good friends. And we still are good friends. He never disappeared for me....i was a lonely kid while growing up.
The reason he is still with me is coz i still believe...and you never forget your friends...and maybe inside, im still the same old lonely kid i was....I still need my friend the toilet monster to make those nasty kids who pick on me go away.

Well thats the story....hope you kids liked it!!!!



DISCLAIMER : ALL EVENTS, PEOPLE, MONSTERS AND PLACES ARE ENTIRELY A WORK OF THE AUTHOR'S OVERACTIVE IMAGINATION. ANY RESMBELENCE TO PEOPLE,MONSTERS,NAMES,ETC AND ALL THAT JAZZ IS PURELY CO-INCIDENTAL. AND NO ANJALI IM NOT GOING CRAZY AND I DONT HAVE AN IMAGINARY FRIEND!!!! IT IS A WORK OF FICTION...FICTION!!!!!!

Letting go...

Letting go is not an easy thing to do....too many memories, too many of those damned happy thoughts of what might be if we held on a bit longer....
Sometimes its people who hold on to you, makin it impossible for you to let go...most of the times its ur own demons in your head.The past is a happy road we cross every now and then....the sad, uncomfy parts are embroidered over and the good parts seem even better. But nostalgia is not something u want to be your constant companion like ure dog or something...you can drown in it and choke slowly on those stupid happy thoughts. You lose track of who you are and what u really want from life...all you can think of is one god damned thing and it slowly consumes you from the inside. And you need help when that happens! Its like this fungus attack...and u arent aware of it and ull die if pple dont get to you in time...
Luckily for me ive had some very supportive pple helping me get the fungus off. But it doesnt work if you want the fungus to stay...the minute you realise that its no good waiting and hoping it washes off pretty easily. But that realisation takes a shit lot of time and oodles of patience from those around you and a lot of tissue packets are gone through.
But i think ive reached there....finally....hopefully....and its time to say goodbye and pack everything up and move on....to what, i dont know. But i do know that its hopeless to wait.
Like someone said...it was good while it lasted...smile that it happened and all that jazz....ive got a few wonderful friends out of this nasty deal. So alls cool and im ready to roll.
Its a new day and a new chicken on the road and a new sun and im a new person too.....bury the past and all that crap.
If u dont get what im talkin abt, never mind...neither do i but i feel strangely good about myself....

Victorian Etiquette

I was reading an article in Seventeen (btw i suggest everybody buy a copy and read it..its too funny for words...especially the 'how to handle ur boyfriend' articles...) about Victorian Etiquette demystified.....it was supposed to be guide for young men to comport themselves with dignity and charm the skirts off those girls...
For your education, all you young men out there, i have reproduced a few of them here...along with my...ahem...views about them.

rule no one - always always hold doors open for women...they are incapable of doing such physically demanding tasks needing a high level of hand-eye co-ordination which most women lack of course...its quite sad...but of course we have to heed the rules of etiquette...who cares if the girl feels like a pet dog or something, always having things done for her?
Always carry a handkerchief to offer to an emotional lady (i swear this was there in the article)...seeing women are expected to break into tears every two seconds it would probably make more sense to carry a pack of tissues...in fact, buy them in bulk....women cant handle stuff except by crying u see..we need our strong men to carry that huge heavy hanky so we can dry our little teary eyes...
Never let a woman walk through a puddle - always lay your jacket across for her to walk on...God forbid her feet get wet...everybody knows women, like the wicked witch in The Wizard of Oz, will melt if they step into a nasty puddle...wat would people say? Of course seeing the amount of puddles we get on our amazing roads, the guys would probably have to carry two jackets and lay them one after the other so the 'lady' can walk on them...ought to give him some exercise...
Never ever let a woman walk across the room or gasp! the road unescorted...how can they walk across an entire road with all those nasty vehicles zooming by all alone? They are like horses with blinkers you see...cant see either side...wud probably forget where they are headed and wander off somewhere...nope...we need the men..
Always offer a lady your seat...right...they might just faint and fall if they are allowed to stand for too long. And the stupid blokes who got there first are expected to be all noble and give up their hard won seat for a lazy ass girl who cudnt get there on time...fat chance...but of course etiquette says women shudnt be allowed to stand...not when theres a loser of a guy whose willing to give up his seat...
Always pay for the lady as well...this is one thing which really gets me pissed off...its like buying off the girl..i can pay my own bills thank you very much...its really very unfair to the guy...just becoz hes the guy he has to pay for everything.....and we have the privilege of feeling like we owe him something. Of course treats are all fine but expecting him to pick up the tab all the time is just plain...i dnt knw.
Most of these are relly stupid when applied to todays world...but u can still see a lot of people religiously following them...whats the point of being all gung-ho about equal rights and all that jazz if all we take are the good parts and leave out the rsponsibilities?
What do we mean when we say that we expect to be treated on par with men and then expect them to hold open doors and give us their seats? Frankly it makes me feel like a useless lump. This whole issue of womens empowerment is a waste of time if we arent ready to face up and say we dont need preferntial treatment and we can shoulder our own burdens. This is not just for trivial issues but for the big issues as well. Equality loses its meaning if we expect to be treated like china which wud be broken. It really annoys the crap out of me when girls are all pro-feminism and and then get all shocked when the guy doesnt pick up her bill as well.
Im not a feminist...im not ready to burn my bra just yet...but i do believe in not being a hypocrite.
Lets try to create an equal world...for EVERYONE!

Random Rants

Its raining....while that would usually be a cause for celebration in rain starved chennai, its starting to get on my nerves now....its been POURING non stop for the past couple of weeks. Ya sure it was great fun in the beginning...my semester exams got postponed and i got to jump up and down in the rain and all that jazz.
Its getting creepy now...and very very annoying. i cant step out of the house without getting drenched to my skin..which also means that i cant go out anywhere. Its such a waste of holidays!

Im cooped up in this tiny house with my annoying family and everyones tempers are high coz no one can get out...and get away from each other.
I was just thinkin maybe everyones prayers reached god late....too many pple prayin for rain for soo long. Maybe there was a hold up and all the prayers got jammed in the atmosphere on their way up due to the ions havin a fight and not letting anything get across.
The would have fought about who gets to block more uv rays and the they would have said...fine...im not doing it and the other sid ewud have said the same n they wud have fenced that part of the atmosphere. And all the prayers got jammed there and cudnt reach god.
all of a sudden this jobless angel was passin by and decided to let the prayers go through and make the ions make up with each other and get more 'ive-done-a-good-deed' points.
so all thye prayers went up in a bunch and hence god just decided to give us ten years wirth of rain in one go....
im really jobless now. anyway i gotta go to bed...the mad mother woman is givin me the glares.
sigh.

The comparative merits of singledom

For all those lucky singles out there who are bemoaning their fate and contemplating drastic measures like asking someone out, stop right now and enjoy ur luck while u can! U never know when that dangerous armed madman with a grudge against humanity may strike you (Cupid, for the uninitiated) and transform you from a rational being to a delusional, mush spewing mental case who gets weird ideas. Its satan working under the guise of romantic gestures.

I mean, for gods sake, what kind of idiot turns up outside someones balcony at some ungodly hour like 11.30 p.m just because his girlfriend (with whom he has been talking utter nonsense for the past 3 hours instead of doing something productive and fun like sleeping) expressed a sudden, mad desire to see him?

And the whole cards-flowers-teddybear routine is soooo cliched! If ur gonna be dumb, atleast do it in style! Be original!

And those who are in relationships, act with a little more thought on how ur present actions might make u reconsider the state of ur sanity when u have become wiser someday and look back on all this. Worse, what are your grandchildren going to think of you??!!!
If ur gonna set relationship targets, make ur friends rue the day they decided u might not be such a bad person to hang out with, if you notice urself being magnetically attracted to the icky romantic comedies they put on tv from time to time as if to test our strength to endure crap, if the mills and boon kind of books seem suddenly very interesting, if you spend hours talking to yourself and have turned suddenly sickeningly giggly, well my friend u are suffering from moronitis. It is a deadly disease which afflicts those who are low on common sense and whose brains are filled with fluff. Even some normally sane people are known to be afflicted.
So i now choose to spend my vacant hours(read: when i am mindlessly bored enough to write crap like this!) in compiling a list of the merits and advantages of being single. Anyone is welcome to add to it.

1) Your phone bill wont go through the roof due to the endless mindless hours spent talking about inane nonsense to your beloved. This is not meant to be taken as an insult to Mr.Graham Bell, whom as we all know is a great man who worked tirelessly to increase profits for the telephone companies.

2)You can hang out with whom u want for however long u want without having to worry about whether ur beloved would get offended by the company you keep due to the fact that ur present companions best friends ex-girlfriends cousins senior who dated ur beloveds neighbours daughters friend cheated on her(on the neighbours daughters friend).

3)You neednt give up a challenging and inspiring game with your friends after school coz ur gf wants to go watch the new romantic comedy in which Hugh Grant looks sooooooooo cute!! (Ugh!!)

4)Girls are not subjected to long boring mindless hours watching cricket or something equally lame with your guy coz he wants to spend time with you AND watch the all important match.
You cam switch off your cell phone and not give a damn about whether you are gonna miss an important call which may lead to a silly fight which goes something like "You were avoiding me!!" (teary voice) "No sweetie pie of course I wasnt, why would i do that?" "I know its all because of that new girl/boy in your french class, the hot one from Bangalore!!!"(teary dangerous voice) "Of course not, what gave you that idea?" "Oh you think i am stupid, i know u were talking to him/her for half an hour yesterday while u were waiting for your car!" (starting to smoke now) "Well, thats coz i was bored u know and i had nothing to do" "U should have thought about me or something! Why couldnt u do that? I am never good enough for you, am I? U dont love me!!!" (its gonna blowwww!!!!)


5)No need to use 'affectionate' nicknames which might make other sane people consider you with concern over your mental stability. A few of the most common are -------- snugglebum, babe(u know, like the pig!), sweetiepie, cutie, loverboy/girl, darling, angel, Goddess(not kidding about this one), chocofudge, honeybunny, poobear.......etc etc
no need to change your unique personality and ur sense of dressing coz ur gf/bf doesnt like it and thinks that pink is definitely more your colour(barf barf puke puke) and tries to make u wear stuff like wat the backstreet boys wear or Mariah Carey.


ok this is getting a little too much for me. Will be back again with more stuff to add to the list and please feel free to add your own thoughts and ideas to the list!

Travails of turning eighteen too soon....

There comes a point in everyones life (well...except the Toilet Monster's...his is an extraordinary life and not to be confused with that of us worthless mortals...) when you realise that old man time hasnt been idle....while uve been happy in your water balloon fights and puddle-splashing-without-mom-knowing and putting farting bags under teachers chairs, he has been walkin on and on...and it seems he walks faster and faster every year. Soon he'll be competing in senior citizens' olympics.

Im finally going to hit the big bad eighteen...when u have the licence to do a lot of stuff uve been doing without perm anyway....shuts your conscience up a bit in any case! But its not all partying hard and driving past the annoying policeman with a self-satisfied smirk....its got its major downside too! You have to be legally responsible for your actions! You could go to jail!!!!!!

You have to finally face up to the fact that you have grown up....and you cant get away with catfights with your brother(isnt it time you acted more mature?), wandering around doing nothing(u have to look purposeful), tantrums in shops for stuff you really want (pple give you weird looks), walkin around with big blue balloons(damn....i love balloons), falling for huge stuffed pooh bears and insisting ure mother buy it for you so that the happy pooh family u have on top of ur cupboard will be complete (its a sad fact of life....pooh discriminates based on age), skipping around instead of walking(the whole act your age thing again)......it only gets worse. Until of course u get old enough to have kids (scary thought) and u can play all the silly games with them......there has to be an upside to havin kids!!!!

But that still doesnt change the fact that turning eighteen is a really scary thing to do....and though its still two months away...and im getting an ipod(finally) for my bday.....im actually more than a little anxious about the whole thing!