Classified rambling

My best friend hates my blog. She hates it so much that she refuses to read it even on gunpoint. Does it get sadder than this? 'Its impersonal'. ' It doesnt strike a chord'. 'Its just too objective'. Says the girl.

Heres my meek attempt to make her find my blog readable, on gunpoint atleast. I'm going to get personal and un-objective.

The thing about girlfriends is the multiple lives one gets to lead courtesy the lives of ones friends. You could be leading the most bland boring regular life but if your friend is having the time of her life in her relationship it almost feels like so are you. This is not only cos you get to know every single detail of every single moment or cos you shop and plan with her her wardrobe but cos you know that tomorrow the tables might turn or the circumstances may change but what remains constant is how deeply one gets affected when somethin happens for 'one of us'.
I have such friends. Lets call them U, B & S or S, U & B or B, S & U (Phew!). Unlike the JMC girls we dont call each other babe, darling or honey. We dont airkiss everytime we meet. Actually we dont airkiss anytime we meet. When one of us has a fight with her guy we dont tell her how to solve the fight. We just bitch about the guy and tell her to assert the girl-power. When someone cries, we go and have dark temptation at Barista.
All this is not even funny. The funny part is the contrast within a bunch of 4 girls. One says everything available in the swear-dictionary and another storms out of the room if someone says the F-word. One makes words like 'rat', 'bat' and 'ox' during scrabble and another spends 40 minutes determined to make a 9 letter word. Everytime she gets a calculator she writes the word "boobies" and another one does every calculation in her head minus a calculator (Modesty aint my virtue obviously!). One never ever stops talking irrespective of the listener, the people, the sore throat, badi ma sleeping etc. and another never does cos she is too busy giggling. Some have had relationships lasting 6 years and some not beyond a week. Some live on pepsi/coke and some wont touch pepsi/coke with a 10 foot tall pole. Some travel in a bus/rickshaw for hours to meet everyone and some refuse to go to Le Poya cos they they havent had a bath(huh!). Some can windowshop non-stop everyday without cash and some get nightmares about the same. Some have crushes that have lasted 9 years and some have had no crushes but one boyfriend who she'll marry if the kundli-thing works out( Sorry B, plz dont be mad). I really could go on. So i ask U, B & S to add some more in the comments section.

With all the differences and the obsessive compulsive quirks, there are laughs and there are tears and there are celebrations, and none of them go unmet or unacknowledged.

But it Rained

Following are the lyrics of a really beautiful song i heard today which is written by the band- 'Parikrama' in memory of the people who go missing each year and their loved ones never get a chance to say goodbye.(Thanks Nitx!)

BUT IT RAINED

Wrapped in a polythene tucked away safe in my mind

A little goodbye maybe or just a passing smile
The birds fly away to the southern sky searching a home

A bunch of paper flowers or a little boy left all alone

Can somebody hear me I'm screaming from so far away

Morning who will calm you now, the evening is eclipsed again
Well does life get any better

More yesterday than today

How I thought the sun would shine tomorrow

But it rained . . .
They justified the cause for which Daddy might give up his life

It's been so long, so long a time, still I miss Daddy at night

The ache is long gone but the never keeps staring along

The waters in the seas are highand all the sand castles have drowned
Well does life get any better

More yesterday than today

How I thought the sun would shine tomorrow

But it rained . . .

The Good, The Bad & The Weird

Its one of those days when I really really want to write something but theres just too much clutter for me to sort it and find a single thing to write about. Its been a rather eventful day. A perfect bitter-sweet kind. Theres a line in Shantaram which says – “If fate doesn’t make you laugh then you just dont get the joke”!
A lot of new stuff.
- Got gooseflesh after listening to a new song after ages. Don’t know what the song’s called though.
- Felt betrayed enough to hurl out the choicest nastiest abuses.
- Had ice cream and hot chocolate for dinner.
- Got involved in something hopeful & non-cynical.

A friend of mine said to me today that expecting a friend to be truthful is probably too much to ask for. Is it me or has the world really gone weird?
Don’t know what to write. I wanted a post. Here it is.

A parting quote -
"One step on your own... And you walk all over me... One head in the cloud... You won't let go you're too proud... One light to the blind... And they see... One touch on the head... We believe..."
[ Disclaimer: Its not mine. Don’t remember the source.]

Good night!

Gods in the rain

ITS RAINING! The first rain of the season. Its windy and its raining and its damn cold. Rain is my single most favourite thing in the world, sometimes even more than Big Chill ka lasagne. If i could write poetry, all my poems would be about rains. I really wish i had the beauty in words to express how the touch and look of raindrops feels like to me. I can just quote a line from the movie V for Vendetta by Natalie Portman- "Gods in the rain".

Irony-2

White australians alleging that a brown surd is hurling racial slurs on them on their land!

Nasty

A sorta nasty/funny joke doing the rounds: When an Australian child learns to say the word “Mother” for the first time the parents say “Two cheers. Junior has learnt half a word”.

Champions!

Somewhere in our hearts, all or most of us are real true blue patriotic indians. The kind who gets goosebumps when the national anthem plays or when Rahman sings 'Vande Mataram'. The kind who wears blue on the day of an Indo-Pak match during the world cup. The kind who probably doesn't watch tennis or chess but is in awe of Sania Mirza and Vishwanathan Anand. The kind who will bitch about 'the system' in every drawing room conversation but will not stand it when US denies visa to our ministers or a seat in the security council of the UN.

When this picture appeared in Tehelka in October last year, it really brought out every ounce of patriotism or rather the pride that we take in seeing the potential hidden in the nooks and crannies of this huge melting point of a country being recognised. This picture is that of the Indian team (along with the South African team) which won the Under-14 International School Rugby Tournament in London, defeating 10 teams on their way. In the finals, they defeated South Africa by a huge margin of 19 to 5.

The boys are 12 tribal students hailing from some of the most backward districts of Orissa. The team almost didn’t make it to London because the players didn’t even have valid birth certificates, mandatory for passports.The boys are from the Kalinga Institute of Social Sciences (KISS), a residential institution for tribal students in Bhubaneswar, and are among some 5,000 tribal boys and girls who are given free residence and education from kindergarten to post-graduate level here. This institute was set up in the year 1993 by Founder Achyut Samanta.

Looking at the smiling faces of these tribal boys is what victory looks like. Its not just a win in a match, its a win over life and is a lesson to each of us very very very privileged people who unlike these boys dont have the courage to refuse to play in the hands of destiny.