A friend in need...

Almost two weeks and a Birthday later, I am still trying figure out how certain things work out.

This is post is to rue about a "friend", who incidentally shares my name as well. She was an average kid on wall (yeah like the kayalla purathe thenga), until she decided I could help her to achieve her "dreams".
She was a regular at my room; made it a point to bring all her queries jotted down on a bit of paper, clear them and leave with no fuss. All was fine till she decided, that she needed greener pastures and decided to pursue her further studies away from my place, now her doubts were limited to her phone calls which she made regularly, not to mention once in a while a visit to ask few more questions.

Finally all her effort and my patience and help paid off, she secured an admission, she was all happy and duly forgot to return what was originally mine, my books, my notes and certain important papers. All this while I had been trying to get it from her in vain, she had something that I wanted with her, I had everything she wanted, but the difference between us was that she just took it away, I asked her, but she refused to part with what I wanted.

These kinds of instances make me think "This is the last time, this will happen to me. Never again." But I keep jumping in to help people and this is what I end up in, ruing about something I shouldn't have done.

You are great!

Dear MNC cousin,
I am very happy to know that you have successfully completed 5 years of loyal service, at your very great MNC which has offices across the world; with cubicles as big as a football court in your words. Where people are smart and very tech savvy as you are, who work so hard that they forget they have been working too long and too hard, which meant banishing regular conversation skills to be replaced with lavish usage of technical lingo which sound French to your parents.

I am so happy to know that the management decided against giving you a better cubicle because of your very "decent behavior". Which is currently strategically placed between a row of newly hired bimbos, which gives you the advantage of bragging and cracking silly jokes without moving from your "revolving chair", which can even be used to recline. The same one that has been supporting you for the past 5 years.

I am surprised to know that you couldn't finish riding some of those rides on Disneyland the last time you went there, because too much of those ogling from above made you throw up the idly and sambhar which you had packed from home, special mom made ones which were perfectly round and soft.

I am delighted to know that a complete wall of your apartment of 10x10 wall is filled with mementos from Office which proclaim that you are an awesome employee who never misses the free booze parties and free for all lunches/dinners.

I understand you have worked too hard for the Organization which has decided to honour you with the exceptional last man standing memento last March and also deciding to name a new wing of the Company's car sheds after you.

I am pleased to know that you have changed your "set" (mobile) almost 16 times every time making sure that you got the latest model and at festive offers. I know you took great pains to obtain that Special ring tone for you new set. Yes the new Partner(The movie) one too.

I am pleased to know that you are dropped at your apartment every night in a nice cab which runs on the profits you have been earning for your company. I also know that the cabbie ensures that you always get to listen the radio station of your choice. After all you are a person with maximum experience of having worked with the company's length and breadth.

I hope you understand the dangers of taking your cell while attending nature's call and in remote areas when you are visiting your hometown which happens to be in a remote village in a not so big city where connectivity is an issue, which forces you to scream "shit" every now and then.

Iam so sad to know that you are being forced to stay back because your interaction with foreign clients was so great that the Organization decided against pursuing any business interest in the near future in neighboring areas.

I wish you had bothered to remove the price tag from the fake Gucci watch you have presented to my dad. i think you assumed that we would never turn over and read the "Made as USA" written on the back of the watch. Thank you for the card board box in which you presented it, serves well as as paperweight.

I am so thankful to you for the perfect entertainment you provide when all our cousins meet up, narrating your day to day activities and heroics and near filmy situations with your immediate boss.

Good luck. Hope you stick around.

Hope the company is not plotting to ship you one fine Monday morning to Uganda, where they plan to start a new office and you have been appointed the BOSS!

Regards,
Attributions.

Yesterday...

I have hated this habit of mine. I tried to stop it, mop it and move on. But that feeling of hurt keeps coming up again and again.

Once upon a time not long ago I was sentimental and teary eyed when faced with tough situations, when subjected to some sort of ridicule or even when test paper marks were announced. But that habit faded by the time I was in high school, but it has crept up once in a while, but people who know me would still say that I was a bit too silly to be crying at most stupidest of reasons.

But graduation changed it all, it faded further, till I stopped feeling guilty and sobbing at simplest of reasons.

But last day was different, I went in to a file stacked office, behind dusty files and tables was a lady in an gaudy Kajeevaram Saree, who looked bored, and a little too made up at that time of the day. She nodded a straight "NO" to my request. She looked around gestured to some body on the other end of the corridor to come over. As the Section clerk came over, She demanded that the file that had taken me a whole of 6 months to prepare, be dumped, in a corner meant for Blocked cases.

Never have I felt so let down, and humiliated. With one gesture she had admonished a whole lot of hope, emotions and the energy seemed to seep out. I tried hard but the tears had already rolled down, I made frantic efforts to mop it up and wanted to walk off, but I dont know why I kept standing there, looking at the Section officer lady with a blurred vision, she was laughing. She turned to the other side on her revolving chair, facing away from me.

Not knowing what to say, I said "please". She turned around and kept looking at me from above her specs which were placed lower on her nose. That stare said it all.

I submitted the papers and trotted off to the long corridor which was dark.

While it rained outside, I stood by the corridor, waiting to go home. While on the bus back home I kept thinking of the the reason she had given me for refusing my demands.

I keep my fingers crossed, may her seniors who open the papers, be kind hearted souls who acknowledge and nurture humane instincts.

Playlist - Currently listening to Subcity by Tracy Chapman.

Ever wondered how you could have avoided doing something? Not given in to temptation? Not ventured to do the wrong thing?

While sitting with my cousin sister and her little kid, memories of a similar visit were rekindled. She had dragged me along for a session of beauty treatments, because she was to officiate as the sister in law for a marriage in the family.

I was a quite surprised to find a good number of teenagers waiting for their turn. Back in our times, you weren't supposed to sport trendy hairstyles and nail enamels on your fingers, fearing that squeeze on the nail from the prefect or to be very embarrassingly pulled up on the stage and be announced as one with very less regard for school rules.

Are schools very lenient these days or they just don't care anymore. For the 2 hours that I was at the salon, I saw a steady stream of teenagers running up to the main lady and asking for some treatment which was supposed to be some technique to look good.

The only time time I went and asked for something, was when, I wanted to cut my long hair, I was finding it difficult to manage without my mom and also as a precautionary measure lest I look like a zombie after my arduous journey on the U spl.

So off I went to the hair dresser and asked her to cut it short but of manageable length. The next thing she did was to put a bib kind of thing around my neck and spray some water and khachak khachakk... But all the while she was doing this, she kept me engaged in a conversation, and was pulling at my hair.

After while she said khatam beta, ho gaya...., relieved I shook my hair to get rid of of the cut hair if any that remained clinging to my uncut mane. And slowly I have a feeling that something was wrong, yes it was, she had cut my hair really short and there it was rubbing against my ears.

I felt like i was looking at someone else because, I couldn't do such a thing if I were back home. My grand mom would have blasted me for such an act. My cousins... they all had such great thick manes. In a flash, faces of all those people who would disapprove of such an ghastly act came rushing into my mind. I turned to look at the floor and there it lay in a nice bundle,she had cut off more than what i had asked her for.

I had told the hair dresser of the exact length that I need her to chop off. I gave her a rude look gave her the money, and came back home sobbing. My bro was so shocked that he called up home and told my mom that i was looking weird and got a hair cut which was a little too short.

I decided not to do such a thing ever again, unless it is extremely necessary. So this time as my cousin sister sat with the Mallu hair dresser, she asked if I wanted to cut or colour my hair, I said "no" even before she could finish the question. Once bitten twice shy.

I still vividly remember the look on my grandmothers face when she saw me at the station, disapprovingly she said don't even dream of such a thing in the future. I had to promise her that I wont cut it too short.

So what is it with these kids? Manicure, pedicure, something being rubbed on to their faces and being steamed and then being shown under a light. How do you turn up at school? Like mini starlets?

Iam dazed.

Thou shall ~ be forgiven
Thou shall ~ be forgotten either
Thou shall ~ be a role model
Thou shall ~ escape blame
Thou shall ~ be addressed formally anymore.


You chose to ignore and argue.
You put up lame excuses.
It was all YOU.