All about Cat poop and other Catty crap

So, Kaamu had come home for a weekend visit. I was pissed at her attitude that she threw the last time around, and emotionally distressed about how she ran away like her ass was on fire. I tried to ignore her, we had an "I don't care about you" contest and predictably, she won. Its in her damn blood, she's a cat (For those of you who don't know Kaamu, she's my imaginary pet, if you are loony enough and want more details, go ahead and torture yourself, read this:Of Therapists and Kamakshi the cat ). So I wanted to salvage my lost honour, and at the same time wanted talk to Kaamu. Aaah Honor, isn't it over rated?, so I decided to go ahead and talk.

"So Kaamu..Back to your abode eh?"

She shrugged.

"Is that powder on your face? Are you kidding me? You are a white cat, for fuck's sake? Why the hell do you need powder? Are you crazy?!"

She didn't take this kindly. She made a condescending frown, far exceeding her catly emoting abilities, that reminded me that it was I that was crazy and it was I that was having this imaginary conversation.

"Okay. I give up. I can never win an argument with you. You know that. Fine, why don't you talk now? I am tired of all your bloody ambiguous expressions that I need to decipher, I don't even know if I'm understanding them right, Am I?"

It was that frown again.

"So you are saying that I can make you talk if I want to? Isn't it? Now I want you to talk..Talk, Damn it!"

"Yaaaaaawn! What do you want to talk about?"

"Oh my god, Kaamu! you are actually talking! Will you stay with me forever and for always?"

My mind was going,

"I am keeping you forever and for always,

We can be together all of our days"

"Dream on. I am here only for the weekend 'cos my family is driving me nuts and by the way, I can hear the song you are singing, Despo!"

"I'm not singing any song..Sooo cool Kaamu also has family issues huh? Nice! Care to share with me", I asked nonchalantly, as if I gave a damn about some kantri cat's problems.

"Nope, not interested"

Now I really wanted to know. It was one thing if I, myself wasn't interested in this bitch of a cat's problems and its is wholly another bucket of forbidden shit if I'm denied information.

"Kaaaaaaaaamu, please tell no please..If you tell me I have a gift for you"

As I mentioned earlier (if you'd cared enough to read, it would have saved me this line), Kaamu is bloody greedy.

"Okay, I'll tell you in one line. Mommy cat wants me to marry my Bhava cat (Bhava is mom's brother's son, for ignorants)"

"INCEST!!"

"We are South Indian cats, mind you! It is allowed"

"Eeeew! Okay, whatever. Cats and their family ties, its so much better to be a human being. We have the freedom to do anything"

 

"Hmm okay..Do you have the freedom to poop wherever you want?"

"Emm..No"

"Do you have the freedom to act like you don't care when someone's telling you something? Can you treat people the way I treat you?"

"No..That would just be plain rude!, But I have the freedom to choose whatever career I want, I have the freedom to choose the partner I want, I have the freedom to quit my job whenever I want", I went on passionately with my head held high and suddenly I heard a whiny meow.

Bloody cat was rolling on the floor and laughing.

I can't even fool a cat now!

I passed her the gift I'd got, a new deo for cats "Rats effect" and I took my nose plugs. It was going to be a long day.

Two Agneepaths and One Shapath

I had a lot of time to think while I was watching the movie Agneepath. All thanks to our good producer Karan Johar who presumes that I'm very jobless This is one of the reasons why I admire him. He's so adept at upholding our constitution. How else would you explain the blatant abuse of  "Freedom of expression", He has redefined it. According to him, it means Freedom to express yourself for whatever length of time you want at any cost, (even if it is hurting the collective asses of all dumbasses who come to watch my movies).

I forced my friends to go to the 1:55 PM show thinking that we'll be out by 4:15 max, but thanks to our brilliant Karan Johar who told his new director, "Forget editing, Let them sit and rot in the theatre", I was so wrong.

Before I go blabbering on, let me tell you that I haven't seen the first Agneepath, I must've been 3 years old when it released and still the lunacy hadn't taken off. So, I cannot make any comparisons. All I know is, there are two kinds of movies, those that actually force me to watch, and those in which I can't keep my mouth shut. Agneepath belongs to the second category.

See, I watch all the movies and I hate most of them and people hate me for that. I don't know if I should give credit for my OCD which makes me tend to dissect every part of the movie and obsess about it or to my insanity that forces me to gobble up even movies like Double Dhamaal, Golmaal Returns etc etc and suffer from a never ending hangover during which others get headaches. Most of my friends don't want to watch movies with me anymore, they say that I have spoiled the complete experience of movie watching. I tell them that the movies themselves have spoiled the experience of movie watching, Don't you agree with me? If not, I think I should introduce you to my friends.

Anyway, let me come back to Agneepath. The movie started off with a Masterji, his wifeji and his sonji who we all can predict, whilst nodding off (to sleep), will grow up to be Hritik Roshan. Understandably, Masterji is killed. Then sonji has to take revenge against an almost comedic demon cum villian Kanchaji (Are you getting pissed off? Did you think that Sanjay Dutt gave his career best performance? If you think so, then you may also say that two and two makes five). Let me tell you, this is the best time to take an afternoon siesta, maybe for 30-45 mins. I assure you, you wouldn't have missed much. Just know the characters, masterji, wifeji, sonji who's now Hritik (after you wake up), Kanchaji, lalaji, Sisterji and girlfriendji (I don't know why I'm using 'Ji' everywhere. I swear I cant stop) who runs a Kaali Maata Chinese beauty parlour.

So, this is point where my mouth starts shooting off. I start with lame jokes. Do you need examples? One senti-aunty says to Hritik's sister (who's meeting her after a bloody 15 years, the last time she met senti-aunty was when she was a new born), "Inhi haathon ne tujhe paidha kiya tha..yaad hai beti?" (ROFL moment). So I say to my friend, "Hum hi nahi pehchan sake ise, woh kaise pehchanegi?" Yes, my friend is glowering at me. I warned you that my jokes are lame. This goes on for another hour, by which time my friend has covered my mouth with her stole (For people who're unfamiliar with girlies' fashion lingo, stole is a small shawl, somewhere inbetween a handkerchief and a scarf, which serves no purpose that I can think of, yet most of us cannot leave the house without it) and respectfully warned me to please shut the fuck up. The Hritik fan in front of me who was staring at me like Junior Kancha, was not so respectful though.

Anyway, I'm going off track here, I'm bloody trying to review a movie! So, this and that happens for a while, I know this and that doesn't make much sense, but what can I do? I couldn't concentrate much, I was thinking 'Why did I waste 280 bucks to daydream when I could've done it for free?"

Finally, a point came when I wanted to sit in the space between two seats. This is my way of spending time when watching films like Hey baby, Delhi 6, Hello etc etc. It helps, you must try it sometime. I was just about to do it, when the movie came to its climax. I got excited. It must surely be ending, My thoughts brightened. But it took another nerve racking half an hour for Hritik to breathe his last.

So this is my verdict, if you are planning for a one day trip in the vicinity of your house and you are broke ("broke" as in you cannot afford a trip, but you can afford a movie), you may ruin your holiday by going to your nearest theatre, one of which is playing a fuckin 35 shows of this movie a day.

Enjoy!

At the end, I was singing to myself,

Nahi Dekhne degi Kisiko Agneepath,
Kar Shapath Kar Shapath Kar Shapath

That is why I wrote this review. Isn't it noble of me?

PS: Did you notice that I didn't say any bad things about Hritik? Why would I? He's sooooooooo fuckin hot. Hritik, if you ever come across this review, remember that this movie is not your fault. They are exploiting your innocence

Daily Dabba Journey

What astonishes about the office shuttle is its ingenuity. It looks like its been reassembled from stolen automobile parts somewhere in the gullies of JC Road, yet I prefer its cozy, almost vulgarly dark inside to a super cool Volvo, mostly because it is free. 

My office shuttle is painted white and blue, the royal colours of the corporate world, not too showy, not too laid-back, just the right hues to spread the message of the noble corporate world. The architecture inside is a mechanical marvel, It shines with the sun and pours when it rains, taking us closer to nature everyday.

Before I proceed any further, please look at the pictures below:

Fig 1: Illustrates my imagination of the office bus when I was in college

Fig 2: Readers may assume whatever they want. 

Anyway, coming back to my story.

It carries the same set of people every single day, in varying degrees of droopiness. Some bury themselves in their newspapers, some stick plugs into their ears to drown the noise of the chaos outside, some sleep blissfully, and I have still not decided which group of people I belong to.

 I cannot sleep, I wish I was one of the people who doze like Kumbhkaran's long lost children, but alas! I am all but an owl in the tinted night of the bus. Initially, I used to take a different novel every week and try to read it, I don't remember half the stories. You see, the shuttle makes me semi-inebriated. 90% of the time, it doesn't budge, but when it does it makes sure that we all experience a Mexican wave. This makes reading a little too hard. Also I desperately try and make conversation with the neighbour, most of the time I get grunts in response but sometimes when the fellow-corpo (A corporate employee, inspired from the word 'psycho') also feels like talking, who am I to stop him? And he can't stop me too. So there goes the reading.

My friend advised me to use the time in the shuttle constructively, so I thought I'll meditate. It didn't work. I'm worse than the kid with ADD in Taare Zameen Par, so ahem! we all can guess how that ended. I tried people-watching for a while, but decided its not my cup of tea to watch people with their eyes closed and mouths wide open.

One unfortunate day, I thought I'll look outside the window. That day I remembered my high school physics lesson. I think the concept is called relative motion, I'm not sure. When you are in a moving vehicle, it seems like you are still and the world outside is moving. Strangely, I felt that neither of us are moving. I guess some laws of motion need to be rewritten for the Silk Board-Sarjapur stretch of Bangalore.

Recently, I discovered the joy of calling up some random friends from there. This is how it goes:

"Hello Loose..ellidya?" (Loose is our slang for chaddi buddies)

"You know what? S got married!!"

"Yaaaaa, She didn't invite us only alva?..Ganchali!" 

"Blah blah blah blah blah"

At this point, the uncle in front of me turns back and glowers at me as if I murdered his mistress. Two more uncle type stares later, I grudgingly cut the call.

Tell me what am I supposed to do in the bus?

PS: One girl who was sitting next me one fateful day said this about the abundance of air inside our bus:

"Can you please open the window? It is so "sophisticating" in here"

Citation: I first published this post on another blog that I started, frustratedofficegoer.blogspot.com on 29th Nov,2011.

Why do I do the things I do?

All through my life, I've been a very misunderstood soul. I do things that enrage people or disgust them or make them go, "Why is she doing this? Is she crazy?". So starting today, I want to end it. I am going to explain why I do what I do. I don't care whether you agree with me or not, but I've just gotta do it. I read a blog of a dead girl. Maybe, even I'll die someday prematurely, and somehow my parents, friends or relatives may end up here and then they'll know what a misunderstood genius I was (Probably this idea is a little difficult to implant) and their feet will automatically end up in their mouths, or none of this will happen and I will be as I am, misunderstood or understood, "but who the fuck gives anything about your opinions anyway" or whatever, I don't know I cannot predict the future. I just want to crib now.

Today, I want to tell you something that people around me just fail to understand,

Why do I hate rituals, religion and all things associated with them?

Yes, I have written about this before, but it was long long ago, so it calls for another rant.

If you are an Indian, It's somehow assumed that religion and rituals are as integral a part of our blood, like life saving plasma, and if you are born in a middle class orthodox family that has a 10X10 space as a "Puja room", it's assumed that religion and rituals compose your blood, bones, muscles, pee, puke and other unmentionables.

The earliest memory I have of a festival is my Dad dragging, pleading and yelling at me, to wear a silk langa that he'd lovingly bought for me, while I was wailing away to glory. I'm sure I didn't do it to hurt my dad, as he keeps saying whenever he gets a chance which is very frequent. I hated it, the langa, the gaudy display of gods, the unnecessary dressing up of my mom who didn't look like my mom anymore, the FLOWERS (Btw, I hate flowers, I don't have any logical explanation for that, I absolutely completely loathe them..The only explanation I can come up with is maybe I was mowed down by a flower-truck in my previous birth, I know its nuts, but seriously, I can't stand flowers.), my mom cooking relentlessly in the kitchen after a 5 hr long puja, which I'm sure no one including the purohit could make much sense of.

I don't know why I had such extreme feelings when I was that young, but now, its mainly because of the futility of such rituals which just tick me off. Every festival, the gowri, or the lakshmi or Ganesh Chaturthi or whatever, we just do whatever a greedy pandit asks us to do. I'm generalising pandits as greedy because that's what I've seen. Of course, they are entitled to it. Who would want to live a sad, pious life in this age of ipods, ipads, iphones and what not. I don't blame them, all I ask them is not to preach.

Nowadays, rituals don't make sense to many and if people are just doing it for the sake of doing, all the while thinking about their make up or their saree or their sister-in-law's new necklace, what's the use of doing it?. Most people give spineless excuses like, "Just for the sake of my mom", "What will others think if I don't do this", "I do it because I respect the elders" and loads of shit like that. All they are doing is ignoring their inner voice and trying to avoid confrontation.

These days, people "fear" God. There is no respect. They try to bribe Him with money. I seriously don't know what these temples will do with all the money they've got. A country of extremes, it's got the world's biggest slum, one of the world's richest temples. Why don't they distribute their wealth to people in that slum? Both problems will be solved!

Did God ask these temples to put up VIP queues? Did He tell, "Okay, I want this guy to tonsure his head, I want this woman to weigh herself against coins, or jaggery or whatever crap that she can afford"?

They close temples late in the night, and they open them at some God-forsaken hours so that thousands of hopeless people come and pour out all their troubles. Give Him a break people! Just because you come and cry to Him once a year, doesn't mean whatever shit you did in the past year is forgiven.

Yes maybe, hundreds of years ago, people needed faith, they needed hope to survive and maybe they came up with some rules that were favorable for their time, but now, we have made a mockery of them. We twist and turn those rules in whatever way convenient to us. One guy tells, "Okay, if you come to this temple on thursday, you'll be blessed", Next day, the whole town packs their bags to go to that temple.

I do not judge people who do this. Don't judge me. I want my children to grow in a world free of religion, I want them to be free to follow whatever faith they want, I want them to be free to marry whoever they want, a muslim, a christian whatever without any drama.

You can call me a cynic, a snob, whatever but what I am is a frustrated soul, and nothing else.

PS: I was really pissed off while writing this. I thought I'll not post it, but here it is..

Rat race, cat race, dog race

Yesterday morning, I realised what a lofty place competition holds in our lives.
As usual, I went to the gym (Ahem, Yes, I do it regularly). I was running, and my eyes were constantly on the speedometer on the treadmill next to mine, (In case, you are wondering, yes, the guy was hot, but that's not what we're talking about here, lets focus! ). He was running at 10 Km/Hr speed and I was looking at my measly 7 and thinking, if he can run, why can't I? (I can't, by the way, a painful discovery) Meanwhile, rolu polu uncle on the left side was looking into my speedometer, with an expression so stern, it was almost tragic, I don't know whether it ws because he had a terminally turned neck or whatever, but just for the sake of my post, I'm assuming that he was thinking this,
"This sonkal kaddi can run run at 7, what am I doing at 4.7??"

Competition is always there, isn't it? Atleast in  my case, it is. Through out my life, it has haunted me, never let me live peacefully. Maybe I'm an ego-maniac, maybe I think that the work that I'm doing is so very terribly important, even though at any point in life I've not been sure of what it is that I did, or doing, or will do.

Anyway, what was I saying?
Yeah, competition.

In school, my friend got half a mark more than me in a nonsensical english exam, She was on leave that fateful day, and you know what I did? I dug deep into the paper, chewed on every single word and finally got the teacher to cut 2 marks from her paper. But this was more due to hatred than competittion, She used to piss me off and I didn't want to hear about that half a mark for another half year. My teacher rolled her eyes, and called it, "CP". I didn't understand it, neither did another friend who had a 3 Rs lens in her hand. We can find out more mistakes, she said with an evil mogambo type laugh.

By the way, CP meant cheap pleasures.

Yes, it was due to hatred, but boy, was I happy that I scored more than her! (Yes, I was a little demented)

Before, you go all "Swami Sukhabodhananda" on me, let me tell you that this is the one of the very few nasty things I've done (hahahahhahahaha).

Aeons later, bloody engineering happened, like it happened to ritu, pitu, pinku, rinku and rinku's donkey who successfully got admission in one of Bangalore's top engineering colleges, but refused to go because he had his eyes set on IIT. Anyway, not being as noble as Donkey Genius, I went ahead and enrolled myself. Being good at essay writing, and having absolute zero technical skills, I didn't have a tough time excelling there. I didn't even need to do evil things (I had a few up my sleeve), all thanks to the Indian education system. By the way, congrats on beating Kazakhsthan, Awesome Job!

Then came office. Here, the competition got fiercer. In the first year, what with there being no marks cards and stuff, I just lazed around, wasted time happily. For the first time, I was free from internals, externals, midterms, shit terms and all that. I was basking in it. Then, suddenly god slapped a more horrible thing into my face. It was called, "Rating". Okay fine, I thought to myself, no biggie, I'll do well. Then I did do well, but guess what? I got the worst rating possible, because "work" in office has an entirely different definition. Now, will you please excuse me while I go "talk" to my manager? (I was ignorant and paid a hefty price for it) 

Anyway, all this nostalgia came running down my nose when I read that MLAs in Karnataka were trying to milk Ipad3s from the common tax payer (yea, you and me!) , because MLCs here were given Ipad2s. (My god, What blatant injustice!! shrieked Kamalamma, MLA from Bagewadi)

First of all, will the real slim shady please stand up and tell Kamalamma and her band of jokers that there is no such thing as Ipad3?
May be, they will all write an attested letter to Steve Jobs to release Ipad3 at the earliest. I don't think they know or care that he's dead.

Secondly, this is what I call competition! Ego at its finest. Love these politicians! 

Of Baba Ramdev, Black money and Uncle Scrooge

So I decided to do one world changing thing per day, and started by posting this as my fb status,

"If you have ever peed on the road or in your loo, if you have ever slept in the office or at home, if you have ever helped yourself or others, if you have basically ever done anything other than waste your whole life on facebook, then share this status and make people aware of deadly plague, who knows? It may return again."

Phew! I was a little tired after all this world changing behavior of mine, and I pulled my ass off the bed and came into the living room. Of course, I needed some rest and THE place for that obviously was the vast expanse of my sofa, and the generous comfort of the TV. Well, I was switching channels, and the best News channel in India, which used to carry all the updates of Bigg Boss 24*7 and now suffering from an empty nest syndrome, had caught on to something new (I was happy for them), It was Baba Ramdev. Apparently, a guy had tried to throw black ink at him. Of course, enraged by all "this non-hindutva, corrupt" behavior, Ramdev's supporters had bashed up this poor guy.

Okay, lets slow down a little bit here. This guy as per my ESP was just trying a method that every sixth grader uses to make his ink-pen work, he flops it around till it fountains on any of his neighbouring classmates, which is proof enough that his pen is working. Am I wrong here, or is the sole fault of this man, is that Baba Ramdev was somewhere in his vicinity when he was trying to make his pen work? Poor Guy, wrong place, wrong time. I'm just giving him the benefit of doubt, here.

As my mind was working overtime imagining all this,boom came a voice, from the innards of a black bearded jungle, so booming that even Hazare's camp felt endangered by all the camaraderie and flamboyance (Even Hazaar Hazare's can't compete with the flowing white salwar kameez, can they?). Anyway, coming back to the voice. It was spewing gyan, a dime a dozen. I could catch only a few of his gems, such as,

"It seems that the man was carrying acid" (OMG!)

"I don't blame any party for this"

"Lets ignore it and continue with the anti-corruption movement"

Okay, the last sentence made me go, "Whaaaaaaaaaaaat?"

First, of all, I didn't know the anti-corruption was still going on. I mean, (Lol!) It was a song-and-dance-mela while it lasted, but the party is over, isn't it? I mean, yes, I want the black money to be brought back and distributed among innocent victims like me, me and me. I mean who wouldn't want me to get the money? I've always wanted to swim in money like Uncle Scrooge. I tried doing it once by laying down all my life's savings. It seemed like a pebble path in a 2X2 feet wide algae-infested lake. Before I could lie on it and at least day-dream of swimming in it, my mom came and lifted the 3 Rs to pay the raddiwala. Spoil sport!

What were we talking about? Yes, Black Money! Do you know why the government is against black money and its "physical movement"? See, it is not against the money per se, but the phrase, "Black Money". It's racist, Isn't it?

The government is all up in arms against the social networking sites promoting racism, regionalism, hooliganism, lazi-sm, narcissism(I can't even spell it right) and god knows what other -isms social networking is creating! How dare you, go and call "illegally stashed" money, "BLACK" money?? I mean, it is so insensitive. We are in the 21st century, mind you!
Now, don't go blame the government, first change the name, then the government will do something about it!
How about "Maya money"? or "Sharad Money"? Just a few non-controversial examples.

Coming back to Ramdev, Problem Number two with him is, if he wanted to ignore it, why is he sitting and shitting about it all over national TV?

Anyway, as much as I wanted to sit and listen to India's first and the last surviving orang(e)utan pour out such wonderful pearls of wisdom, I had Big Bang Theory waiting on another channel.

So much for rest, Now my mind is spinning!

Mommy, Daddy and Madness

Of late, I've been writing a lot of posts about Schizophrenia, what can I do? I'm dealing with a lot of such people, including myself. Now, Its my parents turn.

I'm sick and tired of their multiple personalities. One day, they are like, "Kee, yaake? You are not going anywhere with your friends?" They become all Yo-momma and Dude-Daddy and force me to let my hair down and party. And, then I get all excited and keep on partying thinking why should I worry when Dude-Daddy is on my side?

Then one fine day, they go watch some Baghban type movies and realise that they are a family with "values", "aadar" and "culture". They pick up the phone. Meanwhile, I'm jiving to some remix of "I am a disco dancer", trying out all the mithunda steps that I secretly learnt from youtube and acting like I'm a natural in front of all my yo-friends. My phone starts ringing,

"I am a disco- HELLO-dancer!"

"El halagogidya?" (Crude translation: Where are you getting ruined?)

"Friend's house Amma"

"Sul helthya! Shut up and come back blah blah blah"

 and they start yelling like crazy. Suddenly, Daddy is no longer dude, more like Daddy Denzongpa and Yo-Momma now becomes Nirupa Roy Jr.

I tiptoe into the house and Mommy darling, with a serious look (Imagine: Amitabh Bachchan in Mohabbatein. I think he had a severe bout of diarhoea during its making, I mean his expression 
(singular) is priceless )

"What is this Kee? How can girls go out in the night like this? What will Sujatha Aunty think?", says Nirupa Roy Jr, with an almost crocodilishly teary eyed look.

By the way, Sujatha aunty is our neighbour who gapes into our hall from her kitchen window and relays all the information to the rest of our neighbourhood. Very nice lady..

Then comes Daddy Denzongpa's turn ,

"Ninge swalpanadru sense idya..how can you be so irresponsible! Blah blah blah blah blah"

"I'm not irresponsible blah blah blah blah blah"

I'm saying Blah blah blah because I don't  know what Danny-Daddy says after the first sentence 'cos it doesn't matter. Its just a shouting spree. Content doesn't matter, inspired by Bollywood movies, of course!

Anyway, this has been happening from the time I have been a kid.

Before I go further, let me tell you the tragically comic story of my life.

Long long ago, not very long ago, when I was born, my Daddy held me in his arms and thought, 'Oh! my wonderful daughter. She'll grow up to an Adarsh Nari. She will wear silk langa, put big bindi in her forehead, and run around the house with her anklets chiming, and uttering sweet words like, "Ok Daddy, whatever you say!'
Hindi serials were not that popular back then or else he'd have imagined me, at 20,climbing down the stairs while a sad sad music is playing in the background, wearing a cream-colored salwar suit, falling at his feet before going out everyday! Phew!

But god was cruel! He cut a raw deal with him. And Daughter Dearest grew up to be a boxer-short wearing, sight-of-bindi-shrieking, anklets? You've got to be kidding me!, and the only words I utter are, "No No No No No!"

Little does Daddy Denzongpa know that I am an extension of his own super-psychedness. It runs in the family.

Anyway, coming back to the story.

So, yesterday when they yelled at me during my team dinner, I thought I'll put an end to all this fighting. I'll make use of our latest technology and I decided to send a message from my android cell to my Daddy-Danny's reliance phone.

This is what I typed:

"Daddy, I just walked out of my team dinner because you were yelling. I know that I'm sometimes too much to handle, but please understand that I'm a responsible adult and can take care of myself"

Yes, I know its a big time senti message but my Dad is a sucker for it and I know tomorrow morning after reading the message, he'll come, running and hug me, with tears in his eyes, full filmy style.

If they are Daddy Denzongpa and Nirupa Roy Jr, then I'm Don Kee! (In case, it struck you, you are a Donkey, not me!)

After all, Daddy Denzongpa is 90% of the time Baghban ki Amitabh and Mommy Nirupa is more like Johny Lever.

PS: None of the filmy stuff happened. I couldn't control any longer and cursed my mom and dad aloud for making me miss a full course FREE meal.

Aah Well!

Of Therapists and Kamakshi, the Cat

As my derangia was becoming uncontrollable, I decided to visit a mental hookie clinic which gives psycho advice for free and sometimes even pays you for it if you prove to them that you are faithfully following their insane advice. Apparently, its not so easy to convince them, you see, they are schizophrenia veterans. You think you've convinced one guy, he says "brb" and goes to check his account balance to do the transfer, and instead comes back as Sheldon cooper and asks, "For what abominable reason which this terra firma cannot fathom, do I need to give you money?"
Try convincing him! Anyway, thats a story for another day. So, I clicked on this link Mentally yours. (I don't know they must've moved to another link :D)

This is the advice they gave me. Because of all the joblessness and idleness, that I explained to you in my previous post (If you really wanna torture yourself, go ahead I'm not stopping you: Joblessness and Crappiness), my mental sanity is degrading directly proportional to time. In simple, non engineering words, it means that I'm going mad, day by day. So they suggested, I get a pet. I told them that my bank balance is so low that even my uninvited common house mosquito died due to malnutrition. after sucking my blood for one whole hour, how can I afford to feed a pet?

So, my therapist, he thought and thought, then for a while he went into his alter-ego Rakhi Sawant, and
mistook me for Mika. I had to undergo mental abuse and curses from "Jejus", while I unsuccessfully convinced that this is a new haircut that I got in Jawed Habib's studio for 600 bucks! (I can't believe I look like Mika!! 600 bloody bucks!) 
Finally, I had to apologise for smooching a true Bharatiya Nari and pray that he/she came back to his/her senses.
Finally, the psycho-the-rapist (sorry, I'm bad at spelling so I need to split the word) was back.

Lets not go off the topic. Anyway, he thought for a while and suggested that I have an imaginary pet. Many of his patients, including himself do this and it has helped them a lot. Most of them are still locked in the loonie bin, but what the heck, at least now they are not alone. I said, "Hmmm..let me try it"
I didn't want to stay there much longer, as I didn't wanna see alter-ego No.3, Sanjay Dutt coming on. I fled.

I thought of a dog first. Of course, being so non-imaginative, I choose a dog, even when I can have a unicorn for god's sake!
 Then, I changed my mind, dogs are boring to talk to. They just drool around seeking bloody attention from you and well! whatever, I cursed my imagination and decided that I'll have a cat, since I hate cats.

Cats are cunning and they don't give a damn whether you coochie-coo them or not. Suits me just fine. So, next thing, I've got to do is decide how my cat's going to look. Its white, I can tell you that and bloody racist. It's got nothing to show, but puts up its price even on its poop. Its almost garfield-ly fat but thinks that it's a skinny babe. What bloody show off!

So, I get sick of the cat and her over-acting and name it: Kamakshi, the cat..

I was just telling Kamakshi today morning how my mom's cooking antics are driving me off the edge.

"Can you imagine, Kamakshi? She made Pani Puri for breakfast. I mean I know she's excited about her new cooking class and all, but Pani Puri for breakfast?!!"

She yawned.

Bloody cat!

I don't say it aloud, don't wanna annoy her on the first day itself.

"So Kamakshi, what do you do in the night? sly cat and all, you are..hmm what's your type of guy, eh?"

She turns her face and continues to sleep.

Fuck you!


Anyway, I don't wanna give up on her yet.

"So Kaamu, guess what? You are gonna help me get better. I'm going insane, you know. I'll tell you my problems and you be my agony aunt"

At this, she freaks out, jumps from her place and runs away without even turning back, like she's off to save her dear life from a raging rabid dog!

I know I'll never see her again.

Good Riddance!
Hmmm..Time for a new pet!

Guten Tag Germany!

Stop Number 2 on our trip was Frankfurt!

Click here for information on the German leg of our trip:

Guten Tag Germany!

Joblessness and Crappiness

In case you are one of the souls who thought my blog was worthy enough to visit, Hi there! (It seems like I'm waving to myself,well..), and have noticed that from the past week I have been flooding my blog with a cyclone of posts, let me tell you, it is because I'm jobless, as simple as that.

Now, please don't go into an overdrive thinking, "Oh my god! Didn't she mention somewhere that she is software engineer? Are they firing again? Is the RECESSION back??"
Maybe it is, I don't know. I can't make sense of the economic times sheet in the paper, it is the first page that goes under the chapathi-dough in my house. Anyway, the point is I'm on bench.

If you do not belong to the privileged IT-cattle class, I'm sure you must be thinking, "What bench is she talking about? Wooden bench? Why can't she just get down if she doesn't want to sit on it? Doesn't she have a bed or a sofa? What's wrong with this female?" and some such enlightened sparrow-shit, I don't blame you for it. You see, before I was ordained into this wonderful technologically superior community, I always used to imagine people sitting in front of their companies on the same wooden benches, with paper pads to doodle on and the hot sun to sweat in. Thankfully, now I know Bench is only mental torture and not physical.

You may wonder, like scores of my relatives who call up my home at ungodly hours like 1 o clock in the afternoon and when I pick up the phone, ask me suspiciously,
 "No office?"
"No uncle, I didn't go"
"Didn't you bunk yesterday also?"
"Ya uncle"
"How many holidays in a year do you get?"
"I'm on bench uncle, no need to go to office"
"Oh? And you get paid? Oh super maja!"

 If you do wonder like this, then balls to you! Because of this ordeal of mine, those useless people Sanjay, ranjay, ajay, vijay, vijaya, sujaya, gujaya and all those monkeys will get promoted before me and Me! Poor me! will sit here and write shitty blogs which no one cares to read. Everyone'll get a 10-15% hike and me! me! If I ever go and ask them for a hike? They'll tell me sure, go ahead, take one..you don't have any work here anyway.

My friend Sheela asks me "Why are you so bothered about money anyway? You don't know what to do with what you've got". I ask her, "For what godly purpose, other than to make enough money so that someday we can wipe our asses with it, do we work in this holy industry? Please enlighten me". She cuts the call. Its dangerous to talk to me, I open closed doors and drag you inside with me and there'll be an emotional-psychological-chamak challo dance which you won't be able to bear. Now, you'll know better than to ask me such questions.

Yesterday, I looked to the sky and asked the universe questions like, "Why me god! Why me?" while lying on my bed playing angry birds on my phone. My mom threw the newspaper into my room. Not that she wants me to read it, I'm 25 you see, she can't mollycoddle me into reading a billion people's bull crap early in the late afternoon, You see, guests were there in the living room, she follows a cleaning principle that I've inherited.
"Out of sight, into any closet/room/drawer that is open"
You should try it sometime, it really works.

Anyway back to the newpaper, a quote caught my eye:

"When you can see there's a deadend, you'd better turn around"
                                                                                     - Naomi Judd

This is a cruder version of it, but heck! it gives the gist.

So I turned around, and closed my eyes. I slept like a baby after a looong time.

Thanks Naomi, good advice!

Ciao Roma!

Starting today, I will embark on the sole purpose for which I started this blog, and that is to list out all the things that I learnt while backpacking across Europe exactly 8 months ago.

We left on 10th May, Summer, the ideal time to go to Europe. Long hours of daylight, just perfect to pack a zillion things in a day if you are on a tight time leash.


Read more on my new blog..Thebengalurubackpacker

The curious case of Canara Bank and Kadlekai

One day in Canara Bank and yes, the day is done. It is finished, just like that, right before my eyes.

Like any responsible corporate citizen, I realised that "tax declarations" not just meant declaring whatever shit that you've got, but also actually investing them in real time. This dawned on me on the penultimate day, and what would anyone do? Scurry to the bank, that's exactly what I did, but scurrying need not necassarily mean getting things done, especially if the person involved is me, and the bank involved is of course, Canara bank.

Anyway,I enter the bank, with the whole amount that reaches the ceiling limit of the 80C category and walk past a contraption that is meant to issue me tokens, It hasn't worked right from day one. Like how they say, an old patient knows better than the new doctor, similar.

I take the form meant for "Tax saving FD" without looking up. I can fill the form with my eyes closed, haven't tried it though. With my eyes open, I need atleast two tries to get it right.

The woman looks at me, always a woman, she asks "Do you have an SB account?"
I point at the account number written.
"This is DVG Road account, you have to go there only and start your FD"
"Ma'am this is the last day, so please", I smile like a lost puppy.

She tells me I need to wait. I know it, that's why I bunked office.

She does some mumbo-jumbo and tells me If I deposit money in this godforsaken branch, I need to pay a commission of 110 bucks, I just lost it, Are these people freakin' kidding me? They use ledgers to write down things for god's sake!! Am I wrong to assume that with the click of a button funds can be transferred across countries but here, they want 110 bucks to transfer from one goddamn road to another!

What will they do with it?

Maybe they have a Money transfer boy, He comes in his blue-I'm-so-important-I-carry-money, He carries the money in huge sacks, Maybe he's paid 10 bucks per plastic cover to carry the money, maybe he got it from foodworld, I don't know.
Then he takes a rick, "Auto! DVG Road"
"50 Rs"
"Don't fear my boy, I have 110 bucks!, I'll give you sixty"
He settles in the backseat, his legs on the seat, he's paid a fuckin 60 bucks, he deserves to enjoy the ride. In between he sees a kadlekai vendor (groundnut, for the kannada-uninitiated), "Hey stop maga, I love kadlekai"
He goes to the kadlekai dude,"Machi 20Rs give?"
Gets a packetful of steaming Kadlekai, and is on his way to DVG road.
Takes my cash, goes to the cashier, "Aunty take this cash, 20 bucks remaining, I need it to go back home!"

All this is happening in my head, She asks, "Do you want to deposit here??"

"No, I have a whole day to spare, I might as well go there", I tell her bravely.

Maybe I'll have kadlekai on the way. I just saved 110 bucks.

PS: So, I don't get my kadlekai, My mom tags along 'cos she wants to close an account there. And, you know what happens? The woman who checks the "Pass book" actually asks my mom bring the cashier with her to verify something!!
My god! What kind of shit procedure is that?
And how do they write it?
Step1: Blah blah blah
step2:blah blah blah
step gazillion- bring cashier aunty to passbook aunty!
step gazillion+1: lose your mind

Going to Canara bank is to me like preparing to go on a forced-pilgrimage, I need 2 days to mentally prepare myself, I need to make my mind blank on the actual day to undergo the assault, and finally I need another 3 days to get over it!

My Darling Rapist

My dad told me which college I should go to,
My brother told me which guy I should speak to,
My husband told me which friends I should make,
and Now, you, My Dear Rapist, you tell me what I should wear and what I should not,
Wow! What a wonderful life!

Well, Mr.Rapist,
Please tell me what else I should do,
Do you like me slim or do you like me to be a big ass babe?
Oh my darling rapist,
Do you like me to be fair and lovely,
or dark and devastating?
Dear Dear rapist!,
Tell me whether you like me in a Bipasha-esque dress, or
a Vidya Balan-ish saree,
Rapist, Oh! Rapist,
I'll do what you say,
'Cos according to your bloody buddy in the police department,
"Your wish is my command!"

PS: Balls to you, Dinesh Reddy and all the people supporting you!