Damn this freakin heat!

It's killing me! My little gadget here tells me it's 37 degree Centigrade with 12% humidity right now. It's almost 7:30 PM, and the power's out, I'm home alone in the dark, and I have about 1 hour and 40 minutes of laptop battery time. I will not light a candle, lord knows I don't need any extra source of heat. What I need is electricity.

I'm in bed, melting, really, really melting. Precious water oozing out of every pore, I am melting. I am bored and melting. I know the human body comprises of a hell lot of water, but this much?! I'm afraid at this rate, I will shrivel up and die. I perspire faster than I can drink. When my laptop dies, I will lie still and try to slow down the melting process. But I will not be surprised if when the roomies get home, they find only a puddle of water in my room where I now lie.

This is why I am writing this now - to bid all you good people adieu, in case I melt into nothingness. Oh almost forgot to mention, I have a raging cold. Yes, in this heat. A darned-raging-runny-nose-bleary-eyed cold. And I lit candles. I had to. The house is big and dark and way too quiet and my head is fresh with ghost stories that I listened to weeks ago and I'm scared like a kid. The Gods are indeed cruel!

Lazy Sunday ramblings

Sunday evening, and I'm sitting here with nothing to do, and I love it. I had two tickets for today's cricket match - Deccan Chargers and the Bangalore whatevers. I gave them to Kal-El, the Superman boyfriend - "Here, take this and take your buddy and enjoy yourselves," I said and even meant it. And you know two tickets means Rs 2000 - not a trivial amount.

Don't you think I'm like the best girlfriend ever, and that Kal-El is one hell of a lucky guy. I mean, think about it. How many girls would give their boyfriends free tickets for a cricket game on a Sunday evening for him and his buddies? Because this means giving up your only chance of spending some time with him after working your butt off all week.

Most girls would hog their boyfriends on a Sunday, put up a sky-high fortress between him and his buddies, then coerce them to do things they don't even like doing - like stay in and watch 'Friends' on TV and cuddle, or get them to take them out for an expensive candlelit dinner, or even worse, get them to take them shopping.

But look at me! I am so selfless I amaze myself sometimes (or is it just stupidity?). Kal-El headed off to the matches with his best buddy, with not a thought of me in mind, while I headed off to the church instead like a good girl with my girlfriends.

Really, there's just no denying that I'm this super user-friendly, easy maintenance girlfriend. I'm not clingy, demanding, or unreasonably jealous, I don't really fancy being wined and dined, and to top it all off, I am uncomfortable with men buying me things, especially if it's something expensive. I'm delighted enough with the occasional flowers. See? Easy maintenance.

And that is why Kal-El treats me like a queen when he can, and thinks I'm a saint, he thinks I'm the most selfless and giving person ever and wants to be my slave. Forever. :-)

I'm kidding. He knows I got those tickets for free, and that I wouldn't watch the stupid match if they paid me, and that I keep Sunday evenings for myself, that there is absolutely no sacrifice on my part. But he appreciates it anyway. He appreciates the fact that I thought of him first when I got my hands on those tickets, just like the way he appreciates the fact that I do my own laundry. Even though that's got nothing to do with him.

But I want to be appreciated for the right things, and sometimes I think Kal-El gets pretty close. And all I care about is knowing what his Kryptonite is, which is me. My only purpose is to weaken him. :-)

Abandoning happy subjects, and on to darker things - I fear my hearing may be deteriorating. And I blame Apple. It's their iPod and iTunes that are responsible. On any regular day, I wake up, take 30 minutes to get ready, then plug in my earphones till I reach the office, where I simply switch to headphones and wear them all day, taking it off only for meetings and lunch breaks. Then switch back to the iPod earphones again as soon as I leave till I switch off my lights to sleep, and waking up very often with the earphone cable strangling me half to death. And listening to heavy metal full volume that amount of time..I don't know...I wish I wouldn't have to, but I suspect music. Can I sue Apple if my hearing really is affected by their products?

Anyway, it's time for a shower. Sunday evenings may be for myself, but nights are a different story altogether! :P

For Chaltlang-lians

Unaunu Unreal te leh unau dang ho tan, leh Chaltlang mi ho VL-a hre ve tan pawh ni tho.
VL-a an dan hi, a namai lo, a mak tawp heti em em a mihring leh cartoon character han in an theih. (Horton Hears A Who ami)

How many peacocks can you spot?

I counted five when I was taking the second picture, now I see only two.

It's hot and long walks in the park can no longer be frequent. The few times that I do get out there, I see scary numbers of peacocks. I had a nightmare about peacocks once and I've been a tad afraid of them ever since. But isn't the heat supposed to make them retreat further into the woods, not make them wander out soaking up the sun...?

Gypsy soul?

Even though I made it sound like it was all freedom and fun in Goa, it was not. The first time I went for a dip in the ocean middle of the night, I stood there for a long time analysing my environment.

Is it safe? Am I putting myself at risk? Am I in danger of attack from man, animal, or mineral? Scanned the horizons to see if there was anyone around, what would be the shortest distance from point A to point B if something happened and I had to run?

Scanned the waters - what can be in the water that might possibly harm me? Ruled out jellyfishes and sharks and Puffer fishes (we don't have them in this part of the world I think?). Weirdly, I never think about snakes, I know there are lots of venomous water snakes even in our Indian waters. But I always skip over them.

I have an extreme fear of the Stonefish, and no matter where, as long as I'm in the ocean, there's always a vague fear that I might step on one. But because it's a constant fear, I'm used to it and therefore always dismiss it. If I don't, I would never know the pleasure of being in the water.

After such intense scrutiny, what initially was just the moonlight on the water took on the form of florescent plankton in my mind. I ran back and told my friend. She tsked and shook her head disapprovingly. "Jerusha, that's called a moonlit beach and shimmering waters. Go and put plankton out of your mind and enjoy it" she said.

Our first day there over breakfast, I suggested going home a day early. She asked me why. I told her I was worried Daniel would call.

"Who in the world is Daniel??"

"A client." I saw the look on her face and quickly added "A very important client, BIG agency!" It didn't save me.

"Jerusha!!!"

This one was an explosion :-) I felt she was really losing her temper. She told me to stop thinking about Daniel or Shadrak or Mishak or Abednego. Drawing my attention to a fisherman nearby who had been unfruitfully casting his net again and again in the low tide, she said "Don't you wish you can walk up to him and tell him to cast his net to the right, and see him haul up so much fish that his net breaks?"

But yeah, I finally let myself go. And went walking for hours on the dark empty beach, went for a swim in the middle of the night. This is a little embarrassing but I'll say it anyway. It was so beautiful I cried endlessly - standing there in the water, and the moon and the stars above you. And the foam shining white under the moonlight . I don't even know what I cried about, I wasn't sad, I wasn't unhappy or depressed. But the feeling of it all was so intense the tears came and came and refused to stop.

Being back is good. Here where the bathroom is spotless and sparkling and smells beautiful. But last night, there was a pretty moon out, and I looked out at it through the bars in my window. I walked out to the balcony and looked at it from through the bars. Bars and walls and locked doors. Safe and clean.

I felt like a prisoner.

Happiness & Sunshine & Butterflies :-)

I just got a new promotion! My 3rd promotion in 2 years and a half in this company, and damn, it feels better and better each time! :)

Hard work is so rewarding and satisfying. But what's more satisfying is having your prayers listened to despite being a worthless human being that sins over and over again, having my prayers answered, and receiving blessings I do not even remotely deserve. And I have never asked God for a promotion. Especially this time, I haven't been asking for anything much at all. Just forgiveness.

There's nothing much in this pitiful life that's worth giving to God. But this one is for God. Whatever good is in this, whatever's worth giving, if there's any nobility and a shred of beauty in this, I want God to have it all. There's nothing else me, a sinner, can give.

[Called mom and told her, "Again??" she said. She then handed the phone to my aunt who was with her, who said "Again??" :-). "I'm beginning to suspect that it is really easy to get promotions in that company you work for" she said. That's about the only downside of it getting regular rewards, you work your ass off but after a while, it ceases to impress people unless you work yourself to death!

When they asked me what my new designation is, and I told them, my mom was like "Sartezi??" (Strategist). My aunt just said "Bawihte, a va khirh thei ve awww!" Yet all this endears them to me so much more!]

Wanderlusting

Work's been hectic, and I and Macavity were feeling more frazzled than normal last week,. By Thursday, we were only idly dreaming of running, off to the sea for at least a few days. Friday morning, she called me and asked if I was serious about escaping, and when I replied in the affirmative, we both decided to leave that night. I threw in some clothes, my Bible, my journal, and my favorite book of poetry and I was set.

I will boast that we have fantastic facilities like the best travel agents and the best concierge service in the office, yet nobody could get us tickets to Goa. 'Overbooked for the next several days' they said. We called I don't remember how many travel agents, who all said the same thing. "No buses, no trains." And Macavity's leaving for Sydney in a few weeks and saving money for the trip, so she refused to spend money on air tickets.

But still, despite all that, this is where I was for the past few days :-) (Yeah yeah - I will admit, in such a difficult situation, besides Divine intervention, only a will like mine will get you here! hehe)
Macavity had given up, and making consolidatory party plans for the night. But I refused to listen and dragged her to the government bus station as soon as work was over, asked for a bus to Goa, I was told the last bus to Goa left at 2 PM. I asked for the nearest town to Goa. They sold us tickets to Belgaum. From there, we were directed to Panjim. From Panjim to Margau, amd from Margau finally the beach of our destination - lovely, empty, serene Palolem with its fine white sands!This is Belgaum in the morning when we "landed" in the morning :) Pretty town, lovely weather, clean and clear air -It was almost 24 hours of traveling, but god, it was so good. And all that in non-AC buses, torn seats hard as rocks, no sort of luxury at all. Yet I felt alive, invigorated, rejuvenated, happy, it was good and worth every sore muscle in my butt!

We loved the adventure of it so much that we decided not to book return tickets either and do the random wandering again. This time we went from the beach to Margau, from Margau to some town in the middle of nowhere called Bonda -
Bonda - Belgaum, Belgaum - Hyderabad. This is the bus from Bonda - Belgaum, which took 4 hours. A very long 4 hours! Bus this crammed, full of people who seem to find our epidermal pores so fascinating they stared at us unflinchingly during the entire trip. And people reeking of cheap alcohol. And sweat. And old men with colorful turbans and shawls, with noble, callused hands and dignified mos.

The best thing about this trip is that uit was spontaneous and yet so do-able, and cheap as dirt. Just to show how easy it was, I will give a detailed description of fares and rates below -

Hyderabad - Belgaum = Rs 440/-
Belgaum - Panjim = Rs 85/-

Here, we were exhausted, and decided to stop traveling in buses, and looked for taxis, rick shaws, and motorbikes to take us to Palolem. They all asked for Rs 1000 to Rs 1500. So we looked around, and guess how much we paid when we decided to take the bus -

Panjim - Margao = Rs 19/-
Margao - Palolem = Rs 20/-

And when you get to the beach, there are tons of pretty little shacks along the beach, all you have to do is kick off your shoes and walk along and just pick one that suits your fancy. But since it was just me and Macavity, we decided to play it safe and got a hotel with concrete walls with AC for Rs 900/- a night.

I will always love Maharashtra! Wada Pavs and Shankar Balis and Marathi Hindi - the Hindi I understand and like! And funny incidents, like this one where we stopped to eat a meal, it was kind of dirty and we were both afraid of getting sick from the food but were too hungry to not eat. After the meal was over, we asked one of the waiters where the bathroom was, he said "Just go out to the back into the fields." Food poisoning loomed large in my thoughts for several hours after that.

But we built castles in the sand, went for a dip in the ocean in the middle of the night under the moon and stars, and even got to see a couple of shooting stars, went for long walks, read poetry to each other and cried over the sad ones.....
I would do it all again in a heartbeat.

Beautiful people

I'm not an American Idol fan, I haven't even watched one complete show this season, quick glances when the roomies are watching, one performance on youtube if a friend raves about it. But I was heartbroken to learn that Jason Castro was out, he's such a beautiful human being and he smiles so beautifully and he's got those beautiful, genuine eyes and who'd care if he cackles like a witch! Gime me those eyes and that smile and anything would sound good.
Anyway, I just hope we continue to see him around.

Next - Tom Waits. Sexy, beautiful Tom Waits. I like his music, I've cried over his songs many times, and now I've learned that Scarlett Johansson is making an album of Tom Waits covers. Maybe she sings okay, but I wish she wouldn't, I just have a bad feeling about this. Not that I'm planning on buying the Johansson album, or listen to any of it.

I also found this picture of Marilyn and I love it to bits because she's got such a pretty face and it really shows here..
Plus her thighs are bigger than mine and she still looks great :P

Cock Robin

(*warning* - Zahmawh content)
This is slightly different, you're told the answer, and you guess the question. The question-that-is-the-answer is just a few lines below, but you can try to let your honest side, if you have any, win and try to answer it without looking at the answer, and tell me what your answers were.

So the answer is ---- 'Cock Robin.'

Sohna's first answer was 'Who killed some bird or the other?,' she then changed it to 'Cock Robin is the one that died?' referring to this nursery rhyme. Shirley's one and only answer was 'What was the name of Jack Robinson's chicken?'

Anyway, without further ado, the question is - "What's that you put in my mouth, Batman?!"

:-)

Generally, this should resolve the 'Is Robin/Batman gay?' debate. Forever. (Ref - the last comment on this old post of mine.)

Look what I found!

I've been in a learning mood this past couple of weeks, that mood and the internet makes the perfect combination. I've found so many interesting things so I think I'll share the more interesting stuff I've learned with you all here. Since these were found from random searches and momentary sparks of interest, I'm not going to bother with sources because I don't even remember where I read most of them -

1. P.B Shelley had a doppelgänger. He saw his own doppelgänger on a terrace (spooky!), and it said to him "How long do you mean to be content?" (extremely chilling).

2. Yukio Mishima had his first masturbatory ejaculation while looking at this picture of St. Sebastian.

3. My interest in Yukio Mishima led to an interest in Seppuku - a form of Japanese ritual suicide by disembowelment. It's gory, but I still find it kind of **something** (the word escapes me), romantic maybe.

Part of the samurai honor code, seppuku has been used both voluntarily by samurai to die with honor rather than fall into the hands of their enemies... With his selected attendant (kaishakunin, his second) standing by, he would open his kimono, take up his tanto (knife) and plunge it into his abdomen, making a left-to-right cut. The kaishakunin would then perform daki-kubi, a cut in which the warrior was all but decapitated (a slight band of flesh is left attaching the head to the body). - wiki

Mishima, a three time Novel Prize nominee for literature, in modern time, performed Seppuku. You can see the decapitated head of Mishima here if you're not weak of heart or stomach (it's actually okay, I find it interesting that after performing such an act, there is no expression of pain on his handsome face, in fact, he almost looks happy.) You can watch a staged presentation of how a ritual Seppuku is performed here - again, not gory.

4. According to Gnostic beliefs, and their text the Second Treatise of the Great Seth, Jesus never died on the cross, it was Simon the Cyrene, the guy who helped Jesus carry the cross. Incidentally, Simon has always been one of my favorite characters from the Bible. Simon, and Dimas (the thief on the cross) - I've always thought they're both so lucky.

5. When St. Francis of Assisi died, he thanked his donkey for carrying him during his life, and his donkey cried.

6. In the Quran, the arhcangel Gabriel is called Jibril, and Satan's Islamic equivalent is Iblis.

7. The patron saint of alcoholics is Saint John of God (San Juan de Dios). I guess that would mean he is my friend Macavity's patron saint :-)

8. This bush has been identified by monastic traditions as Moses' burning bush, still alive and green, but no longer burning.

9. Richard the Lionheart, contrary to most young women's imaginations, (I'm 99.9% certain) was not handsome - disappointingly. However, Saladin was, most likely.

10. Magdalena de la Cruz, a Fransican nun, who for many years exhibited stigmatas and was honored as a saint, confessed to faking it when she fell ill, ascribing most of the marvels to the action of demons by which she was possessed - wiki. I have my own doubts about stigmatas in general, but this IS REALLY creepy!

I have a lot more that I want to write about, but it's lunch time and I'm hungry.

Anyway, it's been fun reading up on these things, so once again, thank God for the internet! You understand how once one's attention pounces on something, one is doomed to a state of eternal distraction unless one follows up on it to one's heart's content.

It can be great fun, and sometimes we also like to throw in lies here and there to make it more fun. One time, we dedicated an entire day to reading up on John the Baptist, I started earlier than Shirley did, and all she was thinking about was how handsome she believes John must have been. So I caught her unawares and asked -

"Shirley, did you know that Napolean witnessed John's beheading?"

"Bonaparte??"

"Yeah"

"Wow, really? I never knew that, I wonder why my mom never told me about that!"

All the internet's wiki and info and papers
Could not put Macavity's brains together again :-)

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