A contented little shit

I logged on for the first time today to see what messages people have lovingly left for me. There was only one and it said: I see that you are a little shit. I will start calling you Miss Pissy!

What would my life be without such loving people in my life leaving me such wonderful messages of goodwill and cheer like this one! **sigh** It's so good to be loved.

So today because I just couldn't get enough of the beauty of the Earth, we went walking in the park ignoring the 39 degree Centigrade heat and the toxic amount of ozone we were possibly exposed to. Nothing a good sunscreen and dark shades can't take care of right?

Anyway, it was well worth it, and I took pictures so you all can share in the prettiness of my world :D As a member of the region's fauna, I should and in fact do hate summers, but it's impossible to not love what it does to the flora though...The park was so vibrant with colors and life it just rejuvenates you. Way better than spending the day at an expensive spa.
I'm not sure which flower it came from but I swear the air smelled like honey. I half-suspected these yellow flowers...and I'm frustrated right now because I know (or at least used to) what they're called but I can't remember, been wracking my brains all day but still no divine revelations.
Now this picture below is a perfect example of how being an adult sucks sometimes. Those kids were stealing mangoes! And us, all we did was walk around appreciating trees and flowers and fruits and acted like decent citizens. Just once I want to climb over somebody's fence and climb a mango tree and steal some fruits again. I was a master in that game. And one thing about stolen fruits - the biggest, juiciest most expensive fruit that you can buy in the market will never ever ever taste half as good as that scrawny fruit you stole. That's why I strongly believe that fruits should only be stolen, never bought :-) Yet I've been consistently breaking this rule for the past God knows how many years because I'm a frigging adult!
You can't see it very clearly but see the hazy orange patch on the lawn? Those are orange Cosmos. Such a treat for this Cosmos girl.
And - single pairs of shoes on the roadside always makes me wonder. Who did it belong to? Where's the other pair? How did this end up here? An auto accident? Drunk bike rider? In this particular case, what made the owner pick this one - was it keeping the long term investment in mind? (If so, very good investment I must say!) Or did he pick them for the style and fashion? Did the wearer ever secretly find his treads heavy while wearing them? And so on and so forth...
And, we hitched a free ride back home with an auto-wallah and his family :)
And that ends the day. And yes, I may be a little shit but I'm a pretty okay little shit! :-)

General boringness

Let's chase it away. This picture I took of O a couple of nights back should do it. You have to look at that encircled body part and the magnitude of its size should have you doubling up with laughter. It's just a really weird picture because she's got a perfectly normal big toe but it came out all weird in this picture. At work with Macavity. We complain a lot. We work a lot. We laugh a lot. We dream about Keats and Shelley, zookeepers in Africa, and boring-red-haired-freckled-pale-yet-omg-I-love-him Irish men. We talk about our love for Billy Graham and Ritchie Blackmore equally passionately. And both our other computers are data centers :D Well, my other other computer. My other computer is tucked away in the kitchen shelves making friends with cobwebs.
And lastly - Hellboy!In fact, I actually feel like talking about movies a bit. Very unlike me. But I'm on the topic of Hellboy now, and I love both Hellboy movies. I love that scene in Hellboy II when that flower monster died and all the plant gunk spilled out of it but immediately sprang to life with green plants and white flowers. How beautiful was that! I love all movies with aliens, dragons, strange creatures, and vikings in it.

With the exception of Outlander. When that movie came out, I was excited as hell - dragons, aliens, Vikings, PLUS time-traveling all in one movie!! I thought whoever decided to make it was brilliant. But it was disappointing. The Vikings weren't hot. I know Wulfric was supposed to be, but he just wasn't somehow. He actually looked hot only finally in the end after he died.

And Smriti insisting on calling the Morwens 'Mormons' made it difficult to be serious. I mean you're sitting there trying to focus on the movie, and then Smriti chirps "Wasn't there another Mormon inside chewing up people?!?" She never figured it out till the end, despite us laughing every time she talked about them, she called them Mormons to the very end.

I also saw Watchmen recently. I can't stand what's his name - the Iron man guy..damn it I can't even remember his real name. Some Jr (the only name that keeps coming up in my head is Harry Conick Jr and I know it's not him). Especially with his woman beating role in Watchmen, I prayed fervently that he would die soon. My favorite character was Rorschach, but even he just made me think of Psychology classes in college and my much admired professor - Murthy Madam. It made me remember our Psychology classr0om with cracks all along the concrete wall and roof from a previous earthquake, and how Murthy Madam would say 'Roarrsshach' - always very deliberately.

Sigh. When do we get another movie like..Forrest Gump! There hasn't been any movie that I've seen in the last many years that has ever made a profound impact on me. No wonder I'm not a movie lover.

Please let it stop

Is there any kindred soul out there who knows the pain, the pure torment and the wretchedness of living next to a function hall in India? A function hall used for wedding and engagement ceremonies.

I want to know who in this world thought putting together a band of hyper-muscled, sexually frustrated, testosterone-pumped young men and giving them drums and cymbals and trumpets and all other unpleasant percussion instruments would be a good idea! Why was he not gagged and mummified before he had a chance to voice his idea!

And I want to know how those overdressed, obese, and unhealthy guests can not be under the influence of alcohol or drugs and yet manage to perceive such damaging energy wave as 'dancing music,' even prancing and hopping around several inches off the ground into the air propelled by it - and not out of the torture of having their eardrums blasted by having to endure up close sounds of such horrific amplitude. How those diabetic and sugar-ridden feet accomplish that is just beyond me.

And in this population of horny millions, calculate the odds of that function hall ever being quiet - which is never. Our poor souls! And all of this combined with the dry heat of this land, I have to get down and ask God what I have ever done to deserve this.

Oh! Suddenly for an exultant me, the mad drummers have all been suddenly led away by the Pied Piper I think, to be led to the river where they will deservingly be drowned. And in my room peace has reigned once again! But ssssh! If they hear me hurraying, they might come back again.

And for anyone who currently lives or have or will be living next to a popular function hall and knows what I'm talking about - I want to express my solidarity with all suffering comrades. Let us hope the recession, if we're going to have to deal with it anyway, at least hit us where it matters - people abandoning lavish halls and getting married simply at home to invest the money instead on new hearing aids - would be a good example.

Bozo & Lucky - Best friends come rain or shine

Bozo got pretty big, and also became more and more difficult to leave alone. He barked and howled and yelped everytime we left him alone, which was often. The neighbours complained, the landlord complained, and more than anything I felt bad for him because he wouldn't be so difficult if he was happy. I finally took him to my friend, Lucky's owner and dumped him there. I was initially afraid that Lucky with his bear like paws and claws and fangs would pounce on puny Bozo and kill him - intentionally or acidentally. But they have become the best of friends, and Bozo even bosses Lucky around. They are together all the time, and I'm glad for Bozo, and also glad for Lucky (who was left alone even more often than Bozo was). They are really happy together, and this makes me happy because I love them both. Cute vid of them and us killing the summer heat with our water guns.

Is it a bit weird that when Bozo runs off to play with Lucky leaving me alone, I feel a teeny bit jealous? It's a very embarrassing thing to admit, but god help me, I am jealous of an oversized dog!

Sober thoughts

It's 6:40 am, and I've been up since 5 - reading, writing, praying a little (or at least trying to). It's ironic that throughout the week, I have to struggle to get out of bed when my alarm goes off at 7:30. And long for the weekend to come just so I can indulge in the languoruous luxury of sleeping in late. But here I am - awake and already bored. And it's not even 7 yet.

I woke up and before I was fully awake, a thought entered my head. Why do I wake up each day? What is the purpose of my life? It can't be just about work and fun and shopping. There has to be something else. And like any normal human being, I yearn to make my life mean something, that what I do or don't do can someday make a difference to other people. But wanting to be good doesn't mean being good. And this is what I think of when I wake up every day - is it enough to be happy? Why do I feel like I'm not doing what I should be doing - that I am an underperformer in life?

I work my ass off. I love, and revel in being loved. I laugh and cry - but what does it matter that I laugh harder than anyone else? What difference does it make if I have more fun in my life than the average person? I never feel it's enough. That doesn't make me this something that I feel I have to be.

Will God look at me and think what a waste of time it was that He created me and that He loved me and guided me and that I turned out like this? Will He suddenly decide to take my life away because He thinks it's wasted? I sometimes feel like I'm still living - but on a trial basis. "Okay, here's giving Jerusha some more chance to get her act together. Let's see if she'll ever live up to the reason why I created her." And if I don't prove myself worthy of this life I've been given, what then? Is that when God usually decides to rid the world of useless human beings?

I met a man last night, some fancy business man. We struck up a conversation and I still can't get over it. To keep it simple, he was talking about the purpose of his one day trip to India - some high level business deal. I joked that one day I would like to be invisible and sit in on one of these meetings where they talk about 'billions' of dollars, just to see how different it is from the meetings that I know. He said "It's not about the billions. In the end, there's only one question - are you happy?"

If being happy is all it takes to live a meaningful life, then my life is pretty meaningful. But I'm still pretty sure it's not just about happiness.

This beautiful world that we live in

I took some personality assessment quizzes some days back, all of which told me that I am aggressive and that I intimidate people. I'm shocked and hurt. Me? Intimidating? A gentle, kind, and loving soul such as I?? Quite impossible. Yet, they suggest that I do indeedy do! So anyway, just to prove them wrong, I decided to pay attention to details when I'm with my friends and make little notes and then compare how we deal with things/people so I can at least tell myself "See I'm not any more aggressive than the next person." Or maybe if I found out I was, I could at least work towards mending myself.

And when I started paying attention, I noticed things. There are two instances of note that stand out in my mind:

The first one happened last week. One fine morning Orpi and I were riding on a rickshaw to go grocery shopping when two guys on a bike started following us. Not useful info, but interesting to know - us two girls after climbing out of bed had only brushed teeth and washed faces before climbing in the rickshaw. We both wore old ripped t-shirts and equally unappealing slacks. In fact, I was still wearing what I was wearing in bed. We were that sloppy.

As for our two guys on the bike - they were not handsome, or remotely attractive, but it was obvious that they were men who paid a lot of attention to outward appearances from the way their jeans and their shirts were all embroidered to death with the all the colors of the rainbow, and then some.

Also sported other tell-tale signs - repulsively beauty-salon-straightened hair, fake designer sunglasses, and local gym powered baby biceps. You know - the works. Well except for the shoes. But we all know that that's the norm in our beloved country. Shoes don't matter. Ugly shoes, broken shoes, oversized shoes, undersized shoes, dirty shoes, smelly shoes - they all go as long as your clothes have something shiny attached to them.

Anyway, these two men followed us for about a good 10 minutes before they finally threw a piece of paper at us. Do not forget that we ignored them completely, and this act of throwing paper was done despite us showing absolutely no interest. The paper landed on Orpi's lap, and I knew immediately what it was going to be. Orpi however was quite flummoxed.

I told her if she opened the piece of paper, she would find a very undesired, unwanted, and unasked for phone number scribbled on it. Well, she unfolded the piece of paper - revealing the phone number as predicted (and at the same time my great wisdom). A phone number on lined paper with a pencil. How classic! Anyway, there were several things that I found quite perplexing -

1. Note that all of these happened at around 10 in the morning. That's grossly early in the city on a Saturday morning. I understand a bit of flirting at certain times of the day, but at 10 AM?!

2. Do these men carry pieces of paper and a pencil with them at all times? Or do they have many readymade pieces of paper with their numbers already written and they take several out with them each time they leave the house? Like the way you ensure you have sufficient cash in your wallet before leaving the house...

3. If so, how many charitable contributions do you figure they make on an average day? And has any of these contributions ever resulted in the desired phone call?

4. If so, who are these women who actually call them? And who are their doctors?

5. Us at our sloppiest best and sleep in our puffy eyes. Them with them slick overly straight hair and shaved chests and 'Versase' emblazoned shirts - why were we not simply overlooked? Why were we so graciously bestowed with their phone number? Should we flatter ourselves? Did they find us pretty? Sexy? Attractive? Girlfriend material? Wife material? Sex-slave material?

(I can answer this. Ladies, if this ever happens to you, don't get ideas in your heads. It doesn't mean you've turned into a great beauty suddenly. Chances are you look quite as normal/bad as you looked the last time you looked at yourself or even worse, taking the heat, the dust and grime, the wind in your hair, and the general pollution into consideration. What these men are doing is being smart. They are simply increasing their odds and consequently their chances of winning by showering every girl they see with their little gift.)

The stunned Orpi turned me to me and asked "What should I do? Should I just throw it out?" I told her to do the only thing I would have done if it was my hand that was holding the paper. "Put your hands outside where they can see it and tear it up in front of them."

I can't help it. I didn't and still don't know any better way of handling the situation. It wasn't aggressiveness.

The second incident happened last Thursday. I was with the good Macavity walking down a busy road - full of honking vehicles stuck in a traffic jam when some horrible person threw water at us! It hit us on our backs, drenching us from the neck down. I'm a pretty good sport at things like these during Holi, but it was not Holi or any sort of festival that involves throwing water on people. When we turned round to look, we just saw the endless sea of vehicles with many bored looking drivers and passengers.

I can't explain the kind of rage that engulfs you when something like this happens to you. It's a murderous anger, it's anger that makes wives kill husbands and kids kill classmates. But I'm scared shit of jails :P, and I didn't have a weapon. So all I did was stand and look around, trying to find who the culprit was, looking into the faces of everyone around me trying to detect some sign of guilt. And when I couldn't find any, I did the next best thing I could do. I swore.

"I wish that fucker would die right NOW!"

I normally don't use words like 'fucker' but I was so mad it just came on its own, as smooth and natural as words (:P) like 'Goo' slide up an infant's throat. Then the good, always-in-control Macavity piped in "I don't want them to die, but yeah, I do wish something unpleasant happens to them."

I found it cute. Yet almost ridiculous. I like expletives now and then. They express things so frigging well. Sorry :D! And it was not like I really wanted them to die. I wanted them to die in my speech - that's about all. If that makes any sense. That's like killing someone in a book. Pretty harmless and legal. It's better than throwing water on innocent women walking down the road.

Anyway, if these things make me an aggressive bitch, so be it. I think we can be cute and pink with dogs and babies and mums and a few other loved ones. As for the rest, a little aggression won't harm anyone and will also keep us safe in this very beautiful world with its very beautiful human beings.

RIP Dan Seals

My heart is breaking! Dan Seals died Wednesday. I just heard about it today, now I hate myself for overworking and not even checking up on the news! Just yesterday I and a friend were having this conversation about places where we'd like to settle down. She asked me to pick between Rome and Montana. I picked Montana, and she asked me why because she thought Rome would be a blatant choice for anyone - warmer, and it's not in America :)

I told her -

"Won't you meet me in Montana
I wanna see the mountains in your eyes
I've had all of this life I can handle
Meet me underneath that big Montana sky..."

It's Dan Seals voice singing about the mountains of Montana and the big Montana sky that I grew up with. All my life I've always had this lovely picture of Montana in my head because of this song. Mountains and clear blue skies, and meeting my cowboy under that big Montana sky. And even though I don't know what Montana really is like, picking between Montana and Rome was easy. (And I just Googled Montana, and it looks EXACTLY the way I've always pictured it )

And that was yesterday, and we laughed about it. And now I learn he's dead, and I am just so friggin' sad! :(

I love the man. Dan Seals - his voice, his songs - I don't even know where to start. How many of his songs have I cried to? And I have never grown out of them. I have my iPod here - full of new age, modern music, current hits, and heavy banging songs. And amidst all these, my Dan Seals songs - they're all still there. And I'm never taking them down. They'll rage on. And copying the following from a fan site:

"I think God must be a cowboy at heart He made wide open spaces from the start He made the grass, the trees, the mountains and a horse to be your friend And trails to lead ole cowboys home again..."

The cowboy made it home.

Rest in peace Dan.

I'm balding

It's the end of the quarter and you know how it goes - everyone frantically trying to do or make it look like they did all the work they were supposed to do in the last 3 months. In one word - CRAZY! For many nights, the computer has often been my chosen companion for the night. Enveloped in its warm loving glow I forget how to stop sometimes.

So tonight's been one of those nights. I made an effort to go shopping with a friend, only to make some excuse to cut it short so I could run back to my computer. I've been tapping away happily enough, deeply engrossed when one of my little installed gadget that pops up with wise sayings now and then suddenly popped up a saying by Leo Tolstoy. And guess what it said? It said "In the name of God, stop a moment, cease your work, look around you."

The manner in which it popped up, and the time it picked to pop up made me feel like there was something intense to it, some deeper sign that I should pay heed to. It wasn't easy but I stopped a moment, ceased my work, carefully looked around, my head reeling with deadlines and reviews and revenue figures...

"Hmm, my bedside table and the lamp on it needs dusting...hmm my calendar is still on January, should change...nothing significant, maybe I should just stop listening to Tolstoy and go back to work."

And when I glanced back towards my monitor, I saw a picture a friend had sent earlier in the day that I never actually looked at was still open. A recent picture from a farewell party of a friend who was leaving the country. So I took a look, and took a closer look, and what did I see?Can you see? I'm BALDING! Maybe in spots, but it definitely is there. Terror gripped me! Am I not too old for Alopecia? Am I not too young to be losing hair? And to think I've been walking around, even dancing with this bald spot on my scalp all this time! No wonder people always stare and whisper when I walk by...

And now I can't work, because I'm worried about this very worrisome condition of my scalp. Which I would have been very blissfully oblivious of if only I hadn't listened to Mr Tolstoy. And didn't some other wise person say ignorance is bliss? I mean look at the picture - I was all ha ha-ing, oblivious but worry-free. Now I can hope to get no rest because that ignorance has been taken away from me.

Anyway, the moral of the story is - don't listen when you get random wise sayings by random wise men that are even more randomly thrown at you. Especially if it's by Leo Tolstoy.

Wedding Bells again - not mine again

My little sister is getting married - more blog posts to be made about that, but I'm saving that for the coveted rare Mizo post.

I'm glad for my sister. The guy she's marrying is someone I genuinely like, so no issues there. BUT...can you imagine what it's going to be like for poor "old" me when I go home for the wedding? The pressure and the annoying jokes I'm going to have to face...I dread it. I wish I can not go, I wish I can stay here and send them a nice present and call them on their wedding day to congratulate them. But my little sister is getting married, and I really really want to be there on her special day...

I feel bad that my mom worries about me not 'having a man around to take care of me.' But I don't get why she worries. All my life, for as long as I can remember, I've always been taught that the ultimate aim of Jerusha as a person is to be an individual who will always take care of herself no matter what. Men may die, fathers may pass away, husbands may leave, and you never know when you'll have to stand on your own.

Well they was what I was taught, and now all of a sudden here she is, breaking my heart because I sadden her by being single. 'If I were to die, I'd feel better if I you had a husband to take care of you' she says. I feel bad that she feels bad even if currently I don't think I can have a life any better than I have it now.

But brash people who don't know how not to poke their noses into people's personal lives, or people who genuinely care will say things that hurt me. And I will leave Mizoram with crushed confidence like I always do. It's going to be ugly. Don't get me wrong, it's going to be a beautiful day, but it's going to be ugly for me.

Why can't people understand that people's lives and thoughts are their own and that it's rude to pry or offer too many advices? Or that some people want to be crazy in love with the person before they decide to marry them and not just get married to a socially acceptable person just because they feel they have to get married? And that not everyone buckles under pressure?

And sometimes people do meet people that they do fall crazily in love with but there are things that stands in your way and marriage is just out of the question. It would be so unfair to get married - unfair on me, and unfair for whoever the man is that I marry. Imagine lying in bed with someone who is your husband and thinking about some other man every night! It's going to feel like committing adultery every night. And what's worse, I'm not even sure towards whom my guilt would lie - towards my husband for thinking of another man or to the someone you keep thinking of for having sex with my 'husband.' It's just unthinkable!

And---------------

And no! It wasn't my boyfriend that lied to me.

Jerusha is disillusioned!

My new favorite quote is by Robert Byrne, a man I currently feel a very close kinship to. I'm sure he learned this the hard way too.

"In order to preserve self-respect, it is sometimes necessary to lie and cheat." (Smart man!)

And particularly more so to lie.

And frankly, even when it's got nothing to do with preserving your self-respect, but because even if you don't, people will lie to you anyway. They will find reasons and excuses to lie to you because people have such deep inclination to lie that they will do it even when it's completely unnecessary. And even when there are no major different consequences of telling a lie or the truth, they will still choose to pick the first because it comes so much more naturally to them.

It's stupid to be truthful. It's important to lie to people because it's just plain nasty to lie to people so people who do lie deserve to have the same nastiness back. And why should anyone strive so hard to be truthful anyway? It's obvious that no one can be truthful to you! Why should I make any effort to be real when the world and the people around me are ALL false?

I'm not talking about the occasional 'Oh I have to take my dog to the vet and therefore have to leave work early while I'm really just spending the afternoon with my boyfriend' kind of lie. I'm talking about the kind of lie that has the potential to hurt you because of the simple fact that you are being lied to kind of lie. The really mean and sucky and ugly kind.

I only owe it to God to be truthful, and with that I don't even have a choice because I can't lie to God anyway. And as for the rest, I am henceforth going to adopt a new outlook to life - I will sprinkle a little bit of love and lie everywhere I go. And neither I nor the people I lie to will be none the worse for it. It'll just make things fairer and even. I'm going to turn lying into an art form.

And incidentally - it's so good to not be in school anymore! I know what my English teacher would have said if I had turned this post in as an exam paper. I can just see it -

"Jerusha, how many times does the words 'lie' and 'people' appear in this post?"

(trembling knowing I am in trouble) "I don't know Sir.."

"Count the lies" :P

(I count - but I'm not really counting now - so let's pick a random number - 22)

"22 times Sir"

"Do you think that's alright? Do you think it's okay that you used 'lie' 22 times here? What have we learned about repeated words and using the same word over and over again?"

***mumble mumble***

"What do you think of your paper? Do you think you've done a good job?"

"No Sir"

"Why then did you not try to make it better?"

(Lying) "I was not feeling well Sir"

"Would you like to work on it again and show me you can do better?"

(Lying) "Yes Sir"

"Here, take it back and work on it tonight, and don't come and tell me you were not feeling well again!"

(Lying) "Thank you Sir"

I half wish I was in this situation now just so I can tell him no I'm not really thankful and no I don't want to work on it anymore, and I think it's okay that I used the word 'lie' 22 times and that the same word being repeated many times over doesn't bother me and I'd do it again and I hate Celine Dion and I hate your moustache and even though you think it's unfeminine for schoolgirls to listen to Metallica I still listen to them everyday!

He was okay. School was okay. We learned useful things. But damn, don't you hate it that they tried to tell you what you should like and MUST NOT like, define your tastes in music and clothes and life in general and your overall opinion of people and also try to act as your religious teachers!

They did need a bit of lying to.

Confessions of a pukee

Macavity and I went out for dinner tonight at our favorite restaurant - a professionally constructive dinner where we were supposed to just have a quiet dinner and go through our business plans for the year. We'd just come back from a quick trip to the ladies room, still talking when we passed this 2 men, one of whom looked very ill with his hands covering his mouth. And just as we walked past, something happened - I'm still not sure how the event unfolded. I was still happily talking when I felt this wet spray on my chest, and before I could fathom what had happened, I heard Shirley confusedly scream "Jerusha! What was that!? Did that man just throw up on us?"

We crazedly ran back in and without saying a word soaped ourselves like our lives depended on it. It was only when we went back to the restaurant with wet hair and messy damp clothes that the full reality of what had just happened dawned on me. An ugly, bald, old man who doesn't know how much to drink on a Monday night and who at that age still didn't know how much his system can hold or can't hold had thrown up on us!

It is so disgusting! I just got home and had a proper sterilizing bath but the thought of what happened still angers me. Anyway, that's all. I just thought I'd write about it because you don't get a lot of blog posts about being puked on. I have just being puked on.

Kerala & Tamil Nadu pictures

Okay, here I go on one of my boring travel monologues again! At least I have pictures this time, so they can make up for the lengthy post that will go on and on.

First, as promised, pictures of our swimming forest deities :-) It's not a good picture, but that's okay because I have to be careful about protecting their identities..in case there's a blog-reading girlfriend or wife out there somewhere.
Our first day in Kannur was all about waking up late and hastily phoning reception asking to send someone up to our room to help us wear our sarees since we are both hopeless losers with them. Hectic, half-asleep, pins coming off, strings and threads and what not all over the place...
And despite all this expert help, I was unhappy the whole day because it felt like my sari was falling off. Yet I managed to go for a walk on the beach, get my feet wet, walk around a park for more than an hour, then climbed up and down a lighthouse, all with my sari threatening to come undone all the time!

I like this picture of a smoking Macavity and the groom. Looks all regal and the days-of-the-Raj type :)
Then it was Chambakulam, where all the hustle and bustle stopped, and it was all tranquility and peace and quiet and beauty all around. This is the cottage where we stayed -
Our regular morning traffic - no honking or screeching or burning rubber here!Macavity never smiles like this during breakfast. But here she grinned non-stop - through breakfast to dinner.
Our cottage owner lent us a canoe and a man, who rowed us out to the church, then up to the village market, then to explore the river. And this gallant rower of weak-armed maidens plucked me lotuses! I have been obsessed with lotuses all my life, I only ever see them from a distance, or in pictures. So just holding that beautiful lotus in my hands was exhilirating for me.We also befriended some locals, who invited us to dinner. We sat on the floor, ate with our hands, washed our hands on our dinner plates when we were done, and talked late into the night in this pretty little cottage of theirs.
This beautiful St.Mary's church was only about 5 minutes walk away from our cottage. And it was not tourist infested as the other churches I'd seen, and I could actually pray. It's over 500 years old, and the beautiful murals just take your breath away. (However, Macavity spotted a big painting of a cow and a dragon, and couldn't understand why they were there. I don't think I do either :))
You know what I loved more than all the other flowers there? The Indian Coral flower (Fartuah in Mizo)! For me, they're all about Mizoram and home and childhood. Seeing them blooming so raw and wild in the forest just tugs at and warms my heart and makes me want to cry. It makes me think of days that were good but will never come again.
Local women bathing in the sacred river Pampa -
Then there was idyllic Ooty - It bothered me that people thought it necessary to get tour guides and see all the usual tourist spots. They'd be aghast when we'd said no, that we didn't plan to get ourselves guides nor do we plan to see this or that. They didn't get it that when we have forests like these, we don't need anyone to show us what to do with our time.
So like the good travelers that we are, we veered off all the spots recommended to us by our hotel and our driver and our guidebook, and strayed into the forest, and watched and listened to birds and picked wild berries all day instead. We also ate every plant we knew was edible in the forest. And we ran into a couple of wild jungle fowls. Now isn't that far better than standing in line at some man made amusement park with hundreds of other tourists, waiting to buy tickets for yourselves and your cameras?

Keralite state buses have those really big windows, and you can't close them halfway, it has to be either fully closed or fully open. And the amount of grime and grit that gets on your face is NOT funny! So after my first ride and I swiped the first layer of dust off my face, I decided I had to wear my ninja gear on those buses. At all times. All worth it though for views like this -
Another obession of mine - cashew fruits. Ever since I first saw them some years back, I have always wanted to touch them and smell them and eat them :P And not buy them from a supermarket, but right under the trees. Pluck them out from where they hang so enticingly and bite into them. I mean look at them, aren't they just too pretty!
And the best thing about traveling is that you get to fulfil these little dreams on the way when you least expect it. I saw some local guys knocking cashew fruits off the trees, and asked the driver to stop. I jumped out, and these men welcomed me like they expected me! And it's amazing how much you can do when you can't even understand a word of what the other person is saying. They graciously offered me fruits they'd already plucked, and I also shamelessly picked a fruit from a particular tree (pic above) and they got it for me. They showed me how to eat it too - all without speaking a common language. They spoke only Malayali, while I tried to make do with English & Hindi. But we understood each other perfectly!
Another thing I love about traveling is meeting good people and to find them everywhere you go. People talk so much about the world being full of bad things and bad people, but I don't think it's true. I think mostly, human beings are g0od everywhere. You'll always have some that'll try to help themselves to your money or your things - camera, shoes, butts, breasts, but that's only a very small percentage of the population. No matter where I go, I see more people wanting to be nice and friendly to you and eager to help.We met these two men in the middle of nowhere town of Allapadi. I won't go into details, but they went wayyy out of their way to help us I just wanted to hug them. Traveling makes me thank God that He put so many nice people on Earth.

Another fun thing about traveling - doing things that are not part of the plan at all! The completely crazy, unprecedented ones but the ones that you will never forget. Like sneaking in to a tea estate wearing a tiara :-)And the time and place to ponder over useless things! We love Camelias, but we don't get to see these flowers often. So finding this big tree full of flowers was fascinating for us. We sat under it, looked up at the flowers, and got lost in our thoughts. And good thoughts. I thought about my mother, and how much I love her and miss her. I thought about my cousins, and how grateful I am to have them. I don't think these things often here in my busy, hectic life in Hyderabad where there is always work and it's always somebody's birthday, and there's always a dinner or a party or some other event to run off to and to keep you from thinking....Macavity believes Keats must have sat under a Camelia tree such as this when he wrote some of his poems. I can easily believe that too!

Back home again

Whew! Good to be back but I still miss Kerala! I want to post pictures but it's a friend's birthday and I have to rush home so maybe tomorrow.

During our entire journey in just 7 days - without a single short-cut plane ride - managed to trace this path:

Hyderabad -> Bangalore -> Mysore -> Wayanad -> Kannur -> Ernakulam -> Fort Kochi -> Alleppey -> Chambakulum -> Alleppey -> Palakad -> Silent Valley -> Attapadi -> Palakad -> Coimbatore -> Coonoor -> Ooty -> Bangalore -> Hyderabad

All either by bus or hired cars! Out of 7 nights, we spent only 4 in nice comfortable beds, the rest either on buses or bus stations - in transit from somewhere to somewhere.

It was pretty amazing I must say! And superfreaking tiring! The bus ride home yesterday was the longest and most uncomfortable bus ride ever - wastes and wastes of barren land with the sun schorching down mercilessly on its undernourished inhabitants and on our little bus so by the time I reached home, I was exhausted, had a killer headache, sweaty and grimy and dehydrated, all I could do was stagger into my bathroom and throw up. I think I threw up till I thought I was going to die. But I woke up feeling fresh as a daisy today, and I love being back at work!

I'm also quite happy that I got to cover some parts of Tamil Nadu, even though it was complately unplanned for because I'd never been there. So dayum! I've killed two birds with one stone :)

More love from somewhere else

Okay, Miss Lane now signing in from Pallakad! It has been one of the most amazing trips I've ever had, I've met the most wonderful people...and yet, I know I say that for every trip I take. But Kerala is by far one of the most beautiful states in India. And the people are just wonderful. I think it's the best state ever, next to Mizoram of course :-). It's the lushness and the freshness and the greeness and organic-ness and natural-ness (:P) of the place that just tugs at my heartstrings! The only thing I love more than that is the people. Warm, friendly, honest - this is the only place in India where people are always on time, and they're not out to rip you off all the time.

I'm going to quickly tell you about one of the more interesting things we've experienced so far. So we were in this little tiny village on the edge of the backwaters in Chambakulum. We had a beautiful little cottage right next to the river. And a pretty gazebo right on the river, and then wilderness all around. Birds and snakes and all kinds of interesting things. So all I expected was the trees, the river, the birds, the flowers, the insects, and us.

So one evening we went walking around the paddy fields around the region, and we were heading home, and heading straight towards the gazebo instead of our cottage. And suddenly right next to our cottage, bathing in the river were these two beautful, gorgeous men (half-naked!) :-) I would not have been surprised to see wild animals, but hot men?! Way out of our expectations. And there in the dusky light, and the glimmering rippling river, and the sound of the jungle, these two gorgeous men looked like they could have been the forest's deities. :)

A wave, and a hello, and a pretty fun banter going around soon. I asked them if I could watch them swim even though I knew they were not there to swim. And with childish, boyish zeal, they leaped into the deeper parts of the river and splashed and swam around furiously for our benefit. It made me smile in contentment. It's so good to be a woman. You don't have to be a great beauty, or possess great brains. It's just enough being a woman, and you can make even deities make fools of themselves for you. :)

I can already hear some men furriously typing the 'you feminist!' comments :-) I have pictures to prove that all these indeed did happen. But I'd have to search around to find my cables, so I'll validate all of these as soon as I get back.

Whew! Anyway, it sure has been quite a bit of traveling! Hyderabad to Bangalore, Bangalore to Wyanad to Kannur, a night in Kannur, and then Ernakulum, then a few hours in Fort Cochin. We then hired a car to take us to Kumarakum, it was quite funny, we both fell asleep in the car for almost an hour, woke up and for some reason promptly decided to go to Alleppey instead. We asked our driver if it was too late to go to Alleppey, and he said it was not. So off we went to Alleppey instead.

We've had two accidents so far (both rickshaw related). We both still have massive bumps on our heads, and we look like boxers who've been losing the fight. And we've had one fight so far. But the good experiences far outweight the bad ones. I miss my mom, I've been missing her since the night I had the accident that gave me the bump. You know, no matter where I am or how old I am, or how well I think I can take care of myself, or how much fun I'm having, or who I'm with, when I stub my toe, or I hit my head, or I feel I'm in a situation where I might die, or just experiencing pain - emotional or physical, the first person on my mind, the only one I always want is my mother.

Okay, I talk so much I embarrass myself sometimes. I'm off to sleep. We're heading to Silent Valley to spend a night there and hopefully see some tigers. Then to another forest to spend a night in a treehouse. You're all jealous I can tell. Yeah I'm so lucky! :)

With love from Kerala

Lois Lande quickly signing in from small, tiny internet cafe in some small, tiny town in Kerala! :-) It's a shabby looking  one, and the equally shabby looking young boy minding the place just came over to tell us "Don't use Internet Explorer, please use Chrome" :-)  

I'm here for a wedding, and now wedding's over, and Macavity and I are just traipsing across Kerala. We just got to the bus station to get a bus to some town that we marked on the map, but there was only one, and it was leaving for some other town, so we're going there instead. And we have just about an hour to kill before it leaves and this is us killing some time. 

Quick word of pretense-wisdome for the day before I sign off - I have come to believe that the more I travel, the more I believe the world is eseentially the same everywhere. 

There are 'Fartuah's blooming everywhere. It's beautiful, just like Mizoram. And tons of other Mizoram-type flora. Okay, we're being kicked out. Will sign in soon again hopefully.

Are you going to vote?

I asked the infamous Macavity, and here's what she had to say about it.

"If they keep having these dry voting days and expect me to vote and not drink, or even support the drink, I don't want to vote for people who can't drink! I mean, who can't be broad-minded enough to not send policemen to patrol every single minibar, or bar or restaurant in town, when they could be doing to a million other things. So no, I'm not going to vote."

Makes sense? P

The Serial Comma

I'm just nitpicking as usual, but I'm really curious what the right usage of commas is when used in a series. I go with 'A, B, C, and D.' I'm not sure if this is the correct way to use it, but I must at some point in my life have been taught to do this because I have been using it that way so diligently (even though I have no idea where or who taught me that, way back in school most likely).

However, 90% of the time, I see people leave out the comma before the conjunction - A, B, C and D. All major newspapers, most books that I read use it this way. And just when I start to think I'm wrong in using the comma before the conjunction, I see someone using it the same way I do.

I'm too lazy to research. And besides, I promised myself I wouldn't waste time researching anything to do with grammar :P But I'm still curious. I know it's a trivial issue, every time I mention this, my friends shake their heads and give me this exasperated little look. But every time I see a sentence with the missing (according to me) comma, it screams out at me. I want to make sure I'm not bothered for the wrong reason.

So A,B, and C or A, B and C - what exactly is the right usage here?

I hate beauty mags and gossip columnists!

For everyone who RSS'ed me - I pulled out the temporarily-published post which was supposed to represent my all-important monthly Mizo post. I wrote that half-asleep and it needs to be polished.

In the meantime, can I just talk about how much I hate beauty magazines once again? I know I've mentioned this a sickening amount of times, but I went and stumbled into one again. And I need to let it out. Not so much about how they make you feel ugly, but how they think they should tell you what is in and what is not and what I should and should not wear. They talk like they're this superior, all-knowing race of humans who, in heartless pity and contemptuous humour, have decided to grace us with their fake, glossy, papery selves and dictate to us what rules our drab little lives have to live by.

I hate the way they try to make it sound like their tastes represents the world's. Where's all that talk about beauty in diversity!

It may be a tad funny when they tell you what kind of gifts you should give your boyfriends, but it becomes teeth-gnashing annoying when they tell you what "chic" gifts you should get from men - AND - what you should not get! It's not cool for a woman above a certain age to get teddies and chocolates, they say. The gall! I'll like whatever I want, and I'll dislike whatever I want. If I get fluffy, baby blue teddies with pink ribbon bows from a man I really like at 45, I'll still like them if I like them.

And the season's in things -"This month's color is pink - so girls, what are you waiting for? Swathe yourselves in pink even if pink looks horrible on you and go make big fools of yourselves!" Or, "Black is no longer in so stash away your LBDs" - they'll say. "Kiss your man like this, touch him like this, play with your jewelry like this, glance at him like that this season....."

I mean, who wrote all this? I'd imagine by perfect women who earn top money doing basically nothing, whose boyfriends never cheat on them, and they get expensive lingerie as gifts and it always fits them beautifully, they are unaffected by all earthly womanly defects - like cellulite, and stretch marks, and dark circles, and they also possess the power to set their men aflame with passion with just one kiss. Always! All that besides the superior intelligence.

That has to be it. You can come and tell me these women don't look like goddesses like they sound like, or that they get itchy nipples, or that their boyfriends cheat on them, I wouldn't believe you.

You're probably thinking 'Why is she reading them if she hates them so much?' But in my defense, I'd like to state that I stay away from them when I can, which is almost all the time. But one gets stuck in rooms full of ONLY glamour mags for hours sometimes. Very little that can be done at such times.

It's a good thing most people don't take them too seriously. Maybe everyone's smarter than they think, or just can't afford to live the cool, high-flying (also unreal, fake, empty) life they try to promote. It's still a world of beautiful variety and colorful individuals with colorful tastes. Imagine what it would be like if we were to all take them seriously. We'd walk out into a world where every woman wears the same perfume, same color lipsticks, clothes, and accessories. Likes the same things, same hobby, also kiss the same way, flirt the same way, make love the same way even. Exactly what the month's edition tells them is cool. B-o-r-i-n-g.

Or are they just not serious? They're kidding. None of this is supposed to be taken seriously, is that it? If so, I apologise for being stupid and thinking they are for real.

As for the gossip columnists, all I can say is that I really don't hate them. I'd never want to marry one, but I like them much better then fashion mags - is all I have to say about them.

Bachelorette Party - Update

Our bachelorette party was funnn! (Yes, even despite it being stripper-less.) While we're all glad for our Drunken Buddy, it's kind of sad in a way. I remember Valentine's day last year, about 3 of us in the picture, all in a heartbroken mess, went out for a very expensive self-indulgent dinner to soothe our wounds, passionately declared how much we hate men over several bottles of wine, ordered shitloads of food and ended up eating nothing. And then went on and on about how much we hate Valentine's Day. And it's not just on the personal front, these are also people I've always leaned on very heavily at work as well.

Our boyfriends hurt us, we run to each other. Fights with mom, brothers, sister and you're feeling lost, you run to them. Granted, our soothing solutions and pain-killers are not always the most conservative :-) but hey, they work. Even when you're hurting the most, it's amazing how much comfort you can get from just having your girlfriends around, and their support along with their presence.

And this is why I think marriage is a meddlesome thing. I think it creates more gaps than it does bringing people together haha

And the anonymous volunteer from Mumbai (ahem! Are you a copywriter by the way?) - it's too bad that I only got to see your offer a day after the party :(

And, the bride to be is the one in the red dress :)

Everyone's talking about Obama

Busy, busy days at work. I have no time for absolutely nothing, no quickie breaks for YouTube time, or blogging time. I fear my neck and my wrists will atrophize soon if I continue like this.

But in the midst of all this, with this Obamania going on, I feel compelled to write something about this. And then...I realise I don't have much to say about anything politics-related.

What I can say for sure is that I don't like Obama because I don't like the way his jaws and his lips are set, it makes him look very arrogant. And he's just too smooth, and that coupled with the unfortunate fact that he's a guy AND a politician makes him very, very undeserving of trust. Very non-political reasons as you can see.

The one thing I like about him though is that he collects Spiderman and Conan comics. Very reassuring to know that if I were to meet the President of the United States, we wouldn't wholly be without a common point of interest to have some intellectual discussion about. I know Conan like I know the back of my hand.

And did you all watch the inauguration last night? Acceptance speech - I don't get what everyone's ooh-ing ahhh-ing about. But I sure liked the way Michelle looked at her husband the entire time he was taking the oath. But I thought it was weird how she kept her eyes open and darted her eyes around during the opening and closing prayers.

But what I liked best was Reverend Rick Warren's opening prayer. It touched me so intensely that I broke out in goosebumps. And I think that in the inauguration program, the first item was a Reverend praying to God committing their leader and the country to God was just.so.beautiful. Even though I found it a little funny to see the many thousands of American people who one generally takes to be a godless lot :P - staying hushed and respectful during the prayers.

"When we focus on ourselves, when we fight each other, when we forget you, forgive us.

When we presume that our greatness and our prosperity is ours alone, forgive us."

Just beautiful.

Now if there ever comes a day that something like this happens in India, my faith in the country and our leaders will be restored.

And I also want to report that everything good in the world is happening to me and I don't know why God is so good to me but He is and I'm happy and thankful. But scared too, that when things are just too good, they might just crash? But I really wouldn't mind being stuck in this particular period of my life forever. I think.. :)

Male stripper wanted - update

It's already Thursday, and we've all but given up. It's sad. But when the only strippers you find online are pictureless and have names like 'Pulkapupu,' you know you don't really want to watch that person undress.

One friend graciously offered up her boyfriend who she claimed was really good at stripping, but the boyfriend refused to do it in front of more than 3 women. We begged and pleaded but it was no use.

Everybody's a little desperate now because we really wanted this. Jelly on realising today is already Thursday and that we still don't have a stripper panicked a little and urged me to sacrifice Kal-El who in her own words is a 'hottie' and everybody would love to see him strip. And I never thought I'd be so glad that he's out of town :) Not all girls are all that giving when it comes to their men.

Anyway, we still have a few hours left, and who knows, Lady Luck might decide to smile on us at the last minute. But chances are, this is not going to be the crazy party we planned it to be. I hate India for things like these - why should it be so difficult to find a good looking strappy young stripper!? I believe in other places, it's as easy as running to the store and picking out a good head of cabbage.

But this is it. The end in our search for our naked dancer. Such is life. *Sigh*

I need a male stripper

Yes that's true, and I'm totally serious. I've been searching online, but it seems Hyderabad has a serious deficiency in its male stripper population. For I can find none. All my searches - "male strippers Hyderabad," "male model strippers," "Indian male strippers" - have been fruitless so far. Is there a better way of searching for a male stripper/escort other than by typing those words in in Google?

A member of the Drunken Buddies is getting married, and the girls are getting together and planning the most outrageous, funnest, craziest hen night for her. A super special one. Well, that is by Indian standards. By any other, anything we come up will most likely be considered mild and everyday-ish.

We're not going to plan a night of drunken debauchery, but it still has to have a super wildness factor. So keeping all that in mind, what we have in mind - a day of getting together at one person's place, doing each other's makeup, and go out making sure everyone is overdressed for the night. Good bonding experience, making memories to miss when we're all old and grey.

Then for the really fun part, we'll need - music, Champagne, and a male model. Looks like a pretty simple list, music - check, Champagne - check, male model, male model, male model - now this is where we're stuck.

Are there special ways to look for them? Do we just walk out and look for a guy that looks like he'd be willing to strip for a bunch of girls for some money? Do we approach a guy who looks like a pimp? Are there special sites, sites that don't pop up when you search the normal way? I've never been able to understand how men just know who to approach when they want to have paid sex.

And even if you find one, how much do you pay these men anyway? Since this involves just dancing and not even sex, I'm expecting this to be cheaper than hiring a prostitute. And where do they do the stripping? Do you take them home? If so, I'm sure nobody's going to volunteer their place. I know I'm not going to have a male stripper strip in my living room, or worse, bedroom!

One site that has advice about hiring a male stripper says "Figure that if your city has more than 200,000 residents, there is probably a company near you." Now if I were to consider that, in this city of around 7 million residents, there should be several near me. The only problem is how in the world do you find them??

I'd be more comfortable to have someone I know do this job for us. Can we bribe someone we know? You know, I can actually think of a copyrighter in Mumbai who'd do this with gusto, he may even be willing to pay us instead if we ask him to. And I can think of others in other places. But that's the thing, I can think of no one in Hyderabad. Anyone else interested in applying? It'd be fun, it'll be for a bunch of cute, single girls :P

(Let me confer with the girls as to what the requirements should be. )

Okay, here it is. What we need from you for you to be able to apply:

1. Ability to take off clothes.
2. Ability to dance to 'Get Down Tonight' by KC & the Sunshine Band.

See? Easy isn't it :-)

Special consideration will be given to:

1. Anyone who can rip off one's clothes a la Hugh Jackman-Van Helsing style.
2. Anyone bearing any sort of resemblance to Hugh Jackman.
3. Anyone with a realistic Hugh Jackman silicon mask. NOTE: 'Realistic' - if you turn up with a paper mask, you will be made to feel like wearing your paper mask for eternity.
4. Hugh Jackman.

Last date of application: 2oth Jan '09.

Update: Due to certain members traveling out of town later, we're moving the party closer. So the last date of application is now anytime before next Friday - 16th Jan.

*** Married men and Cricket players may not apply***

;-)

Funny things

It's the new year, and it's starting out great (except for the slight air tickets hitch). Lovely things have been happening and I have so many things I want to write about I can't do it in just an hour. I think for the first time, I want to ponder and write and review a post for days before actually publishing it.

Funny things have also been happening, and seen. One is this guy's comment on some site about bloggers that goes "Most bloggers are hideously fat and ugly with low self esteem. They use their blogs to lash out at others in a desperate attempt to fill the superfluous void of emptyness that exists within their own miserable lives." It made me laugh, there seems to be a certain whiff of truth in it - in a scraggly way. In my case, while the rest of it may be true, the miserable live part is untrue. I have a fantastic life, just that people with miserable lives or just no lives at all say mean things and make me miserable but that's only always temporary so not a big deal.

The other funny thing is kind of rude. But it's still funny so I'm going to write it here anyway. I was reading a news article about a big Indian company whose CEO admitted to laundering money recently, or some such bad thing :P and whose CFO attempted suicide but didn't succeed. One reader had commented - "He was unsuccessful in keeping the company alive and equally unsuccessful in taking his life" which was quite funny enough. But funnier was Macavity's response when I pasted this piece of news and comment to her, she solemnly said "How cruel these press people!" :)

AAARRGGHHH!!

I am possibly the maddest person in the world right now. I landed in Kolkata yesterday to find that all flights to Hyderabad were all booked out, not just for the day but for Sunday and Monday as well! I got a very overpriced ticket for Tuesday, headed to a hotel recommended by a friend, undressed and have just been generally scowling ever since. And with due respect to all Bongs, Kolkata is really not of the places I'm very fond of. I don't think there's anything lovely about it for me to love it.

And why is everyone so amazed that I picked a hotel and not Mizoram house? Why should it be strange that I don't want to be stuck there for 3 days and night? I didn't go to Mizoram house because of the very simple reason that Mizoram house is a shitty dump and I hate it. I can stay there for a night maybe, but 3 days? No frigging way. It's got stained, dirty mattresses, and equally unhygienic looking sheets. And common people like me invariably only end up with some dank corner of the dorm. And last time I was there, we slept on mattresses on the floor. With strangers sprawled all around you breathing down your neck. So I hate it, and I think my hatred is reasonable and justified.

Too mad right now. Will continue later. I have all the time in the world. And I'm going to go find a funner way to kill some of it now.

(And just for the record, I sat next to a huge Sardar army man on my last flight - just to reiterate the fact that when it comes to airplanes, my luck is zilch).

And I feel like laughing now because it's almost funny. I'm sharing a hotel room with a huge double bed with a guy I never knew before. When we got to the hotel, there was only one double room left, and I was too tired to look elsewhere. So here I am, a nice enough hotel room, massive double bed, and a guy I met around 3 PM yesterday haha. But he is a Mizo, and that makes everything okay. Or does it? In any case, I don't give a damn anymore. He sleeps on his side of the bed and I on mine. And all you my gasping friends, you should try it too. I can tell my granchildren some day that grandma liked living wild and that I once spent 3 nights sharing a hotel room and a even a bed with a stranger. While all of you will never have such an interesting story to tell your grandkids and they will forever think you were an old person even when you were young.

Stranger and I are going to see a romantic movie now. hahaha this is sooo funny. The funniness is seeping into the very core of me, and I want to throw my head back and laugh out loud. But you only do that kind of thing with friends. Sigh.

Wish me luck. Or pray that tomorrow just magically becomes the shortest day in the history of the earth.

Dreaming of a not-so-white Christmas!

It's difficult to believe that in a couple of weeks, 2008 will be over! Kinda scary...but I love this season! It's gift receiving time, and I'm such a sucker for all things free and given :-) Just the other day, I got chocolates and super sinful tasty cake from an anonymous gifter. Bozo also got a card and a bone from I'm guessing the same anonymous person.

I'm leaving for home tomorrow, and I look forward to spending some free, restful time at home with my folks. But I am going to miss Bozo enormously :( After all, who else can pee with excitement on seeing me?

On to other things, did you see the news about Bush being thrown a shoe at and his 'size 10' comment? I just loved the man after that comment. And I thought it was such a shame that lots of people including Americans went around saying the man deserved it. No matter what he did, I thought it was just wrong of the thrower to be that disrespectful towards a leader of a country. And Americans not even knowing how and when to stand up for their own president is just sad!

Enough about politics, this is also resolutions making time, and I already have some idea about what my 2009 resolutions should be - learn to swim, see the Valley of flowers, learn a new language. Suggestions are welcome, of course, no promise that your suggestion will be taken seriously :P

We had a quiet farewell dinner already, because we're all leaving this week. And only Bozo and Orpi will be around in Hyderabad for Christmas. Poor things! I'll miss them both, even though I'm going to be away for only a couple of weeks.
Anyway, wish me a safe and happy trip! And have a happy a beautiful, lovely Christmas and New Year!

The language of our dreams

Marian has been frequently talking in her sleep, and funnily, she talks only in English when she does this. But it got me thinking - what language are my thoughts in? Or my dreams for that matter? Are thoughts really processed in words, languages, sentences, and even subject to (God forbid) grammar? Or is thought not restricted to such rules or attributes at all but we just think they are because when they are processed and ready and we get them out they are in the form of words and sentences?

But if it were, are you aware of what language you think in?

And when you dream, even when you remember exactly what you said or heard in the dream, do you ever remember if it was in any specific language the next day? For me, it's always just conversation that I remember, talking, exchanging ideas, communication, but language? I never remember.

There's this one dream I had - a little kid that hung on to my arms and when I told him to let me go, he kept chanting "Not unless you promise to take me home with you!" I told my sister about it the next day, and when I told her that part, she jokingly said "So you dream in English!"

But to contradict this, I had another incident to prove that I don't dream in English. At least not always. I was sharing a hotel room with a colleague, and one night I was sleeping and dreaming (hazy dreams I remember), and my friend was watching TV. I woke up at some point, and asked her what the time was. "What?" she said. I repeated the question. "What??" she said again, I asked her again, to which to again asked me back "What??!" I was pretty mad by this time, and asked her what was wrong with her, and if she'd gone deaf. She, equally angry, shot back "How the hell would I know? You're speaking Mizo!" So I must have been dreaming in Mizo...

I think the way the brain works is so complicated that sometimes your tongue and your dreams can't catch up. I often suddenly use Mizo words with my friends who don't understand a word of Mizo. Some of them are quite used to words like 'Chuan,' and 'Mahse' now. When I talk too fast, I think I mix up words without even realising it. So what's the one failing to catch up? My tongue or my brain?

Then there was that time I was buying something from some small shop in a tiny village in Mizoram, and without thinking asked "Kitna?" :-)

I also had a friend who didn't really speak anything other than Mizo. He was trying hard to study English, French, and Hindi all at the same time and I think his brain worked the same way as mine does now because whenever he wanted to say "My name is Kima" in French, he would always end up saying "Je m'apelle Kima hai" - notice the Hindi hai?

And he was a sleeptalker too, and always talked in English or Hindi when he talks in his sleep. But in his consciousness, he never spoke anything other than Mizo.

Sometimes I think we may be we are more brilliant in sleep than we are awake.

A post of poor taste

Aren't the mornings just so divine these days! They feel almost like my childhood Mizoram winters, just minus the chilling cold. And I love it so much that I go to bed early every night just so I can rise early the next day. And I'd wake up early, and a sleepy Bozo trying to appreciate the morning as much as I do but failing miserably would just melt my heart.

It's such a good thing to wake up feeling so much love I thank God for Bozo because he makes me think good and clean thoughts, and because my day starts so well, in thoughts and in actions, I think the quality of my days and everything else in my life has improved with it.

I also stay in most nights because I'd rather be warm and cosy at home with an adoring Bozo than be out with friends with loud music and loud voices. Bozo is really good for me, I'm an overall better person because of him.I'm only afraid that my friends may start resenting him because they complain about how I never join them anymore and how I stay home all the time, and they know it's because of Bozo. How do I explain that this is what I've always wanted to do but haven't been able to, but that Bozo helps me in achieving to some degree an attempt at self-improvement, that he's not the cause at all? Unfortunately, this part of me hasn't improved too much - my inability to explain me accurately.

Anyway, I was talking about mornings. I think it's because everything is beautiful I feel nostalgic all the time. I miss people all the time - sometimes my sisters and my mom, but mostly Kal-El.

Kal-El, my beautiful disaster, who drowns in his dreams, soft to the touch but frayed at the end and breaks, magic and myth, as strong as what I believe, as damned as he seems but more heaven than a heart could hold, a tragedy with more damage than a soul should see...He's never enough, and still he's more than I can take.....More mostly, he's just never enough.

Corniness overload :P

Back to a different kind of corny, we have a blog for Bozo :-) Please visit it if you have a couple of minutes to kill. I know this sounds kind of disgusting, I hate people throwing little parties for their cats and go crooning 'cho-chweeeet' and make smooching sounds and all that crap. Always made me want to bop them on the head and tell them to shut up. But this I guarantee is not annoying, cheesy maybe, but not annoying!

Bozo's blog is here.

If you think it's annoying, don't forget I tried to warn you on the post title.

And oh, our new video. Our version of M Sailo's Hmeltha sensiar :)