It's not you. It's me.

The free time I had towards the end of my second term explains all my movie / T.V. watching episodes. With enough justification of the subject of my latest blogs, I do not want to dilly-dally too much on it.

My recent watch was a series of the American serial ‘Coupling’. A much needed cheap slap stick comedy for our mundane lives here. The very first episode titled ‘Flushed’ was an eye opener. The scene was between a guy and his gal friend.

Guy : It’s over between us
Gal : You want us to split up?

Guy : Yes, it’s over. Look it’s not you. Ok? It’s me
Gal : Then why am I the one who’s getting dumped? You should be the one that gets dumped. (I loved this answer)

‘It’s not you. It’s me’ - From whatever experiences I have heard of so far, this is so TYPICAL of any break up. Or even worse, when people use this polished way of saying ‘SORRY’ to some one. This is heights of timidity. So many things in life are so much beyond logic and rationality and it makes absolute sense for them to remain so. And I never understand how someone tries to attach logic and reasoning to it. All I can say is ‘C’mon grow up. And face the facts’.

Other than the contemplating episode there is something that I am so excited about. I was never good at my grades all thru. And the trend continues in MBA even today. But for a change I got an A+ grade. The best part is I need not write my exam and yet I get the highest grade in ‘Managerial Accounting’. My dean has conferred this grad upon me and am sooooo glad about it that I might not end this blog here. Though I do not want to I am.. ending the blog..

When a pair of sneakers is all that you want

I was watching ‘Children of Heaven’. I do not intend to tell the story or write a critic coz I think it’s a must watch for one and all. But I need to blog about it anyways coz it put my thinking caps on..

The lead role of the movie who is an eight year old lad, with a bright twinkle in his eye, misplaces his lil sister’s shoes. As it happens to all of us, at that age, they were too scared to tell their parents about it. And then comes the silver lining on the dark cloud. Or you may call it icing on the cake, I wouldn’t really mind. The gleam in the eye of the lad grows brighter jus like a sparkle. An announcement on the notice board mentioning a running race catches his attention. What’s interesting is :

First Prize : Two weeks at a holiday camp and a set of sport suits.
Second Prize : Two weeks at a holiday camp and school supplies.
Third Prize : One week at a holiday camp and a pair of sneakers.

With a strong resolve to win THIRD prize, nothing more and nothing else, he enters the race. All for the want of a pair of sneakers. A long and tiring race and he keeps missing the focus in between but he suddenly remembers his sweet lil sister waiting for the sneakers. In the end we see him running toward the finish line and Bingo he hits it. The first line that he utters to his principal after the race : “Did I come in Third Sir?”. His principal explains that he has indeed stood first and there’s a glow on everyone’s face except the lad. He sobs uncontrollably for not getting the third prize and getting the first. Tears start rolling down his eyes. I would presume, you do not have a heart if you don’t cry when he tries to overcome insurmountable grief of winning the first prize and not the third.

After a few minutes, I gave a sheepish smile to myself for I cried too. Infact, may be not for that, I did cry jus like that cute lil fella wheneva I won the 1^st prize coz I badly wanted to bag the 3^rd. May be all of us do without realizing it. Ain’t it? Didn’t we want just a pair of sneakers and instead we got a ‘two week holiday at a camp’? And didn’t we feel so gloomy about it?

India – We are like this only

It was 7 in the evening. Hot pakodas n yummy tomatoe ketchup in our plates, eyes glued to the TV. This was worse than the India Pakistan cricket match. We were awaiting the ‘Ayes’ and ‘Nos’ of the trust vote. It was a nail biting moment and every second seemed like a virtual hour. Bang and the count was announced.

Ayes – 253 Nos – 232 Abstained from voting – 2

There was an awkward silence for a moment. UPA didn’t win the motion but was on a lead. There was some banging the table, hushy bushy walks across the parliament.

Suddenly it was a Eureka moment for Rajdeep Sardesai when he screams – ‘There’s something wrong with the numbers. The votes are not totaling to 541’. Some serious speculations follow. Was it the fault of the technology or the MPs didn’t know how to vote, meaning either they were color blind to identify Green / Red / Amber / Yellow or they didn’t know that they had to press a button. At this stage it gets more interesting.

Our man Rajdeep puts on air people from parliament n they start debating if it was a technology or a people issue. All the while the parliament was too busy to notice this felony. After a much awaited drama, the speaker calls for manual votes of the 54 missing votes. Amidst this confusion, the new 7 young MPs who were sworn in just the previous day should be rubbing their eyes and wondering ‘Are we in the Indian Parliament?’.

As expected, the drama was like a bollywood bubble gummy movie which takes its sweet own time to end. The MPs running haywire across the parliament, not letting the officers count the vote, the speaker imploring the MPs to sit down n let the officers work. Boye! this is ‘Indian Parliament’ for you. Lemme tell you wat Rajdeep was upto during this time. He put on air some political commentator who is a media man as well. This man makes blatant confessions like “The Market value of MPs has come down terribly from 34 crores to 3-4 crores. Mr. Singh has been successful in keeping these prices under control” and then comes our smart news reader who proudly announces – ‘India – we are like this only’. I was baffled and had no thoughts running in my mind whatsoeva.

After a few hours of drama, the speaker announces. “Ayes – 275 Nos – 256. Ayes Win. The meeting is adjourned. Vandemataram please”. He was so scared that he just says all this in 4-5 seconds and keeps the viewers guessing what he just said. I can understand how scared he was.

After the win, Rajdeep continues to brutally interview the party men who accuse rigged voting, technology issue etc etc.. Whateva finally ‘Singh is king’ and more importantly ‘India – We are like this only’

A lovely night

A nice shower after a tiring session of salsa and jive, bet me, is the best you can ask for. I have never enjoyed my showers so much in life, before coming to Chennai. The best part comes as I turn off the lights and lie back to slip into my dreamland - My room is unusually moon lit today; and I see the moon peeping through the window. I wouldn’t mind trading off my privacy now. The cool breezes are better than heaven. How I wish some one sings a lullaby for me now….Probably one of those sweet little nothings of life…

Adios for now coz am gonna become an Alice in the wonderland for sometime as my dream land beckons me… Tata..

Why should boys have all the fun ??

This was the mail I sent to Co2009, calling for an ‘All gals party’, not realizing the repercussions. The intention was to have a simple party with some music, food and drinks and more importantly only for gals. But something left me baffled. Almost all the guys in the class were so keen on a ‘gals party’ that within a couple of hours my inbox was flooded with mails from guys. Does that hint something? Can we get to some generalizations? I would leave it to your choice…

Do you love me or Do you hate me?

While I was a kid I used to accompany my grand mother almost everywhere she used to go. She was nothing less than a ‘Rock Star’; I mean it. On one such occasion I happened to go with her to some spiritual discourse, where there was a famous swamiji dressed in the typical saffron robes and a huge gathering of thousands of people. Being a kid, I was not very interested in the speech but had to accompany my grand ma as the ritual goes. This man has blabbered for sometime on everything under the sun and then narrated something which even today sits somewhere at the back of my head.

The swamiji that morning was on his way to some place and a devotee was taking him in his car. Suddenly someone out of the crowd comes up to his car and abuses him in a very strong tone. The swamiji mentioned that, all he did at that point in time was – ‘He ignored the man’ comfortably and went on with his journey. He admitted to have committed a blunder and he regrets for doing that.

He goes on to explain that the cruelest punishment you can confer on anyone is to ignore them. People wouldn’t mind you even hating them but they wouldn’t want you to ignore them. We, human beings cannot live with this feeling of being ignored and it’s the most miserable state ever. Years down the line, I have realized how true it is. Probably it’s even worse if you ignore someone who cares for you. We all probably have been doing this all thru sometimes unintentionally and some times knowingly…

All I’d want to say is, someday we might be on the other side too…