Daffoldil days are back again!

The main purpose of my trip has come to pass! It's so nice to get out of the darkness of the mines, away from the coals to do our fancy coal miners summit at the beautiful Bondi Iceberg at of course, the stunning Bondi beach.
Bondi Iceberg - pretty isn't it! (In my rustic, poverty-stricken Indian mind, I see Australians as quite spoiled! They have all these blessings, Bondi beach would be a good example. This beautiful beach with such clear, sparkling water, plus two gigantic swimming pools right on the water itself! While back home, in most places we are deprived even of a plastic kiddy pool. But it's something to thank God for that we aren't deprived of happy hearts too. All goes to show, swimming pools and pretty beaches aren't directly proportional to a cheerful heart!)
The happy miners :)

Also took some time out to spend a day at the fabulous Katoomba falls (and frolic with dreamy leprechauns! I know dreamy and leprechauns don't usually go together but I was lucky this day!)And also took the time to spend some time exploring a small town, and wandered lonely as a cloud that floats on high...o'er vales and hills, when all at once I saw...a host of golden daffodils....:)

***Sigh*** That certainly awakened the sleeping Wordsworth in my heart! It made me miss several people, people that are dear to me and to whom Wordsworth and his daffodils are dear. Is it that we simply don't have daffodils in India or we do but I just have never seen them anywhere? Daffodils would definitely help in taking the whole happiness thing to a higher level! That's it! I am coming back with daffodil seeds/bulbs. As many as I can carry with me.

I'm doing this Australian thing properly this time. No more hotels, I'm leaving the Oaks tomorrow to go and stay with an Australian family for the rest of my stay! :P Kidding! I'm leaving for Melbourne tomorrow to spend the weekend with my friend and his family. Quite exciting!

Busy Days

I've been meaning to blog every day since I got here, but it's just been impossible. As you can see, I've been hard at work...
Even now, I have to run. It's after 8:00pm and I am starving and late for dinner. I shall update soon.

And oh, I want to add - I LOVE Sydney because I have been having lovely Mondays - one after the other. And back home, I always, inevitably abhor Mondays! :)

And another quick one - I have to say your prayers must have been very weak because they went unanswered. I sat next to an old business man and a Sardar on my flight to here. So no, I didn't get my Gerard Butler look-alike. (But I found him somewhere else :P)

Back to Aussie Land

Finally got my visa and I'm leaving tonight! I'm going to Sydney for some client meetings and to attend a summit for Account Managers for all Australia and New Zealand. (Yeah, I'm bragging :)) I will be back after a month.

I'm very excited, but at the same time, I'm not very fond of the idea of traveling all by myself. As someone who can never sleep during flights and therefore needs conversation to kill the time, it's going to be a pretty long journey for me. For want of anything better to do, I'll sink into deep thoughts about the littlest things like I always do and eventually end up thinking nonsensical, useless, often morbid thoughts all the way from here to Australia. By the time I land, it might be with the conviction that a giant asteroid will hit Earth and kill us all in the near future! But not a big deal, I will lose that fear after a good meal and a good night's sleep.

I'm excited that I'm going via Bangkok this time. I was not initially because for some reason, I thought I'd been to Bangkok before! I even believed that I once forgot my favorite sweater at the Bangkok airport, but my friends told me that I left the sweater in Hong Kong and not Bangkok :) So I've never actually been to Bangkok at all despite my initial belief. So there you have it, another new place to see along the way!

Wish me a safe trip, wish me God speed, send me your prayers, and also keep your fingers crossed that this time, I get seated next to a Gerard Butler look-alike who is witty, funny, smart, charming and can give killer conversations! :)

Is he really worth lying for?

Shirley was telling us about a guy she liked. I wasn't around when Shirley and Sohna met the guy, so I was just a passive listener as Shirley raved about this guy's hotness. Sohna didn't say much either, she only had one point to contribute - "He's balding."

Shirley's response? "He's not balding!! He just has a nice forehead."

In the end, we were forcibly made to accept that the guy indeed just possesses a nice forehead, where the forehead's owner's wisdom was prominent in the prominence of his forehead :P

This conversation kickstarted a train of thought about how we women. even the ones who are otherwise smart, never stop being stupid about our men. And the lies we tell others and ourselves to defend their honour. Which is quite sad because men will never do the same. If his buddies tell him that his wife is getting old/boring/fat, his first response will be to agree. I'm lying. They may say 'No, my wife is still sexy' but the seed of doubt will be very firmly planted in his mind anyway.

Unlike us stupid ladies, who when we say 'He's got a nice forehead' proceed to immediately believe that he is not balding and that he really does have a nice forehead. Even if he's really balding and that's evident to everyone else on the planet except you.

If he's smart, you tell your friends that you've always dreamt of someone smart, intellectually stimulating and not just a hot bod. If he's just a hot bod, you tell your friends you love the relationship because you don't feel intimidated and never feel like you're under pressure to come up with smart, witty conversations.

If he earns more than you, you admire the man and look up to him and love him better for it. If he earns less than you, your motherly instincts kick in and you want to protect him, help him, you understand the struggle and you love him better for it.

If he's much older than you, you love the warmth and comfort and security he provides and you love him better for it. If he's younger, he drives you to madness with his energy :P and his enthusiasm and you love him better for it.

But most of the time, when we say all nice and glowy things about our men, it's usually half truth and half lie. The only time a woman's ever really truthful about a guy if after he's left her and there's no hope of him returning and she knows it.

Well, I'm exaggerating in all of these points. It's not that extreme. But we women can be really stupid. And this. bugs. me. no. end!

When things get too crappy

These past couple of days have been like something out of a bad dream. Everything's out of sync, work is never ending, and all electronic things die at my touch, and I AM tired. Some nights I even fall asleep with my work clothes on.

What is a woman supposed to do when her laptop's died, her iPod's died, and her phone company just wrongly charged her an extra thousand rupees, and she's got a flight booked for Monday but her visa's only coming on Tuesday, and when it's she herself who has to run around to fix and pay for all of these - all in 2 days?

And on top of all these, people expect her to fix their problems too, or take some part in their problems, and they throw questions at her all day long, wanting to know when to feed the dog, wanting you to talk with someone because they can't stand them, wanting you to take responsibility for something because no one else will, wanting to know why she didn't call, why she missed Church this Sunday, wanting her to talk to the landlord to fix the leaky shower....


At times like these, she will sit back, relax, close her eyes, and listen to this song and she'll feel all better again :)

When people start changing.....

Did I mention that we went to stay with some friends for a month and only just recently moved back in? We packed our bags - Orpi, dog, and I and moved in with some guy friends. You know it was almost like being back in college. We have the two friends, plus any amount of their friends who'd drop in every night, pretty fun. It was like one big party every night.

Anyway, I sensed something different in the air. These friends who are usually rough, hairy, deep voiced, tattooed men behaved a bit differently this time. And definitely looked different.
A friend suggested all of this change is coincidental with the legalisation of gay sex in India. Of course, the guys vehemently disagree the legislation has anything to do with their change in behavior. I wouldn't know, I'm not a Psychologist. But what do you think?

:)

Funny, funny racist us

I'm really sick of reading about racial issues! It's almost like everywhere I go, people have new things to say about it every day - be it the racist abuse Indian students are being subjected to in Australia, or the Mizoram Chief Minister's comment about being a victim of racism in his own home country (and his rather disappointing subsequent backtracking).

But I still feel compelled to put my two cents in just for the heck of it and add some funny to the morbidness of this overdone topic.

First, our Chief Minister's comment - some guy (Mizo guy) was talking about that the other night. He was really angry about it, which stumped me initially because I didn't think he said anything wrong. But I found out that his dissension rose from the fact that he thought it was not the CM's place to say what he did because he probably never actually faced any of those abuse himself. But personally, I don't think he has to personally face any of it. His speaking for the people he leads is justified totally.

Anyway, as a person who've spent years living both in North and South India, and also considerable time traveling in those areas that are neither North nor South :), and also as a person who spends every day interacting with Australians, and also physically spent some months there, I think I can be excused for writing about things like this even though they are actually way beyond my area of expertise.

AUSTRALIA

I spent over 2 months in Sydney, and at work, because I only deal with the Australian market, I have long meetings - casual talks, important video conferences with Australians every single working day. And I loved my time in Australia, I ate out every day, exploring all the little cafes and restaurants, pubs and bars around where I stayed, went walking in every park I found, had long talks with random strangers...

In some places, I was taught how to eat my pork ribs (with my bare hands), or how to order my pancakes (with bacon!), I was taught that I shouldn't order a Victoria Bitter if I don't want to go home smelling like a certified bum, and that a nice young lady like me shouldn't be smoking like the others around me :) - all by perfect Aussie strangers.

I have a lot of good memories but I truthfully can't think of one single time that people weren't nice to me because I was Indian. People I met that I spoke with long enough usually just wanted to know stuff like how many languages I speak, what I studied in college etc after learning of my Indian-ness. I thought it was pretty cool to be Indian, it was amazing how people just expected you to be smart if you're one. That was the only thing I felt about being Indian - maybe it's my shallowness but I felt you were automatically expected to be a whiz at something - Math, Science, computers..one of those, and you had to bring them down to Earth, and that was a bit sad, and that was all.

And that's all I have to say about Australia and its people.

INDIA

Our beloved India. Home. Mother ship. Now when was the last time someone hurled racial abuses at me here in my own home country? Hmm, let's see...Hey it was just yesterday! I and a whole bunch of colleagues had gone out for lunch to a nearby restaurant, and while we were walking back, one guy shouted 'Chinky!' at me, and then a second guy 'Nepali!' (Nothing wrong with being Nepali, just the way the shouter meant it - derogatory).

Not a big deal right? Why should it? Happens ALL the time, even kids that can barely utter words will garble 'Chinky' at you. (The way I see it, there are two ways to look at situations like these - be glad you're not that kid, imagine what kind of adult human being you're going to turn into! OR be glad that you're not the parent that raised that kid. What an explanation you're going to have to have before God for your crappy stint at parenting).

When I was just out of college and looking for a job, I was often asked for my work permit, and one time on a telephonic interview I was politely dismissed because 'they didn't hire foreigners.' Some well-meaning friends have tried to help me avoid such problems - "Why isn't your Hindi more fluent? Why isn't your accent more Indian? You're not trying hard enough to fit in" - All of that makes logical sense. But the constitution of India never stated that speaking Hindi fluently, or speaking Hinglish is a prerequisite to being an Indian citizen. Why should I work to worsen my English speaking accent when it's not good enough as it is just to 'fit in'?! :P

Remember that line from the national pledge? "...I am proud of its rich and varied culture." Proud of its rich and varied culture my ass! We like to make fun of any uncommon 'variety' out here (unless it's white skin). Any sort of anomaly is noticed, and made fun of given a chance. Maybe it's ignorance because some of them (what in the world were they taught in school??) don't even know where Mizoram is, some of them even believe with every fibre of their being that the currency of the obscure Mizos is...of all curencies...the famed 'Dollar'!

So who can blame me when I always feel a certain sense of funniness creeping through my marrow every time I hear a passionate speech about Australians treating Indians unfairly, a look-downer complaining about being looked down upon. So I take sneaky glances to make sure I'm not watched and then I laugh. Evilly. I can't help it.

Oh and before I forget, I have to add that my two closest friends here (Tamil and Mallu) agree with me. They say they are abused more in India than in Australia. On this ratio -

Time range of 60 days
India: Australia = 10 (avg) racial slurs: 0 racial slurs

MIZORAM

Aah! Our own personal tiny little sea of unadulterated racist and bigoted heaven! The problem (pretty much like overall India) is that we vehemently deny that we have an inch of racist bone in our bodies. Maybe because we really believe that we don't have an inch of racist bone in our bodies.

But the thing is, we are. We sang songs in schools that made us believe that we're particularly gifted and blessed - praising our looks, our goals, our land. We take pride in our Mizo-ness...although I have to admit, there's a lot to be proud of :P (darn it, old habits die hard!).

(On a side note, this is why I really feel for Michael Jackson. People accusing him of being ashamed of his race and trying to remove all traces of it from himself. If people accused me of being ashamed of being Mizo, I would get my Ninja gear out IMMEDIATELY!)

In school, we made it really hard for non-Mizo students to fit in (with very few exceptions). How many of us didn't make fun of the red-ribboned, braided hair of the non-Mizos? Or the smell of heavily oiled hair? We made fun of all those because they were foreign to us.

Comparatively, while it was very, very, very difficult for a non-Mizo kid to be popular in an otherwise all Mizo school, it's not as difficult for a Mizo kid in a non-Mizo school/college/group to fit in. Even though strangers may shout 'Chinky,' 'Momo,' etc in the streets, in my own personal environment - classroom, work, I'm accepted, part of the group, member of anything I wish to be a member of. I'm often the person who starts and wins arguments, often the person who talks and laughs the most, and the loudest, who gets all the right invitations to all the right events. Because they unbiasedly let me.

To be honest, I can't see us Mizos being that open to a non-Mizo that they would ever get a chance to take centre stage.

And here's another example, if a 'Vai' got into some minor problem in Mizoram (eg. unfair taxi fare?), would they dare approach the local police? And if they did, unless they got lucky and found an evangelical policeman filled with the Spirit to assist them, I think it would be quite futile for them. Alternatively, if I do that out here, I know the police will listen to me. Thankfully, I haven't required police intervention too often but I have done it twice, both for rickshaw fares, and on both occasions walked away with the problem resolved - in the Chinky's favour.

As for the screamers, the ones that like to shout the nasty racial words, again out here, I have countless times approached and confronted them. They always back away, or apologise profusely, or meekly deny that they said anything bad. In Mizoram, if you scream 'Vai chhia' and that person is stupid enough to come challenging you for it, I'm pretty sure they would be sent away wishing they'd kept their mouths shut.

So that's it, in my opinion, we're equally bad. I think they're horrid out here, I think we're horrid back home. In the same way that they're wonderful out here, and we're wonderful back home. There are people with warm, open hearts here, and back home too. But racism is such a tricky topic because in our heart of hearts, I believe we're all racist assholes.

But you know, with all that's said and done, I am really, really glad that I'm Mizo because in Mizoram, a poor kid can go to the same school as the rich kids, get the same quality of education, a poor person can marry a rich person, a poor person is as welcome anywhere as a rich person is...

And no Mizo will ever deem another Mizo untouchable...

And your skin colour doesn't describe the quality of who you are, and the person you are, not your caste or skin color, still defines your class.

And I know my neighbors will care about me enough to feed and clothe me if I ever find myself destitute.

We're not any better, but I think we're at least pretty good to members of our own race, unlike other races. And that's really something to think about......

So I don't know who the winner is. But oh, the funniness of it all! We human beings are such weird creatures.

But do we all really even care that much? Me, I'm really concerned about the fact that a strap on my shoe broke this morning - at work, and I already made dinner plans for tonight, and for now my only option is to go with my gym shoes. That worries me more than racial issues.

Sometimes I worry about my silliness, then I read the news and realise that I need not worry about being silly because mankind is with me on this one.

I HATE waiting for people!

Bored bored bored! It's funny how I am ALWAYS on time, but most of my friends are extremely tardy. Waiting drives me up the walls. It makes me want to scratch the walls and eat paper and plastic. And also forces stupid thoughts into my head. Like how the invention of email must be a real life savior for cacographic people. I'm kidding. I'm just trying to show off the new word I learned recently. I'm reading a book on Etymology and my vocabulary has increased considerably, but sadly, mostly with words that I really have no use for. It's pretty pointless. But I think I'll be better equipped if I ever feel like being an ass and throwing big words around one of these days.

Just to end nicely - a picture from our office prom night themed dinner with all the beautiful ladies I work with.

Genral Hot Men update :P

I saw Angels and Demons and Ewan McGregor in his priest's habit was so freakingly sexy! I think I've finally uncovered one of the hidden truths that have escaped many a wise man, which is this: The only thing hotter than a Scottish man in a kilt is a Scottish man in a priest's habit :)

I also saw Wolverine and I thought Wade with his mouth stitched up and eyes all surgery scarred was crazy hot in a weird, inexplicable way. Unthinkable, but yes, even sexier than a naked Wolverine.

I worry myself sometimes, I have such sick taste in men.

And the best thing I've heard lately in the world of movies: The ultimate favorite book of my life, Alice in Wonderland, has been made into a movie by my favorite genious movie maker, Tim Burton, and stars my favorite genious actors, Johnny Depp & Helena Bonham Carter. Is anyone else as excited about this movie as I am? Me, I think I'll just hibernate and only wake up when this movie comes out.

BDSM gears from Pakistan?

Did you know that there is (or maybe are..) a factory in Pakistan where women make BDSM fetish clothing and other bondage gears?

I didn't either. I saw it on TV some days back and thought it was report worthy. Of course, I was shocked, but after thinking about it for a while, it just started becoming funny. Apparently, the Pakistani factories are making them for big sex shops in Europe.

This may sound a bit wrong, but I still have to say it because the whole picture if you think about it is quite priceless :) ---------- Okay, think of some trashy racist white people who likes to scream 'Dirty Paki!' at all dark-skinned Dravidian looking people. And then they go home and don their naughty S&M gear made by the same group of people as the one they derisively called 'Paki' that day. And remember, this 'donning' here is not regular donning. It is 'donning' in the most intimate way possible!

And then on the other side, we have a bunch of self-righteous, ultra-conservative group who look on the white man with disgust - all of them lacking in morality, sexually indulgent, does all sorts of unthinkable sexual acts, all bound for hell...

And yet...their own people make with their own 'purist' hands these white people's dirty tools of hedonism! :P

Those hideous leather masks...those leather whips, those sinful collars, leashes, clamps and other equipments used to carry out such *gasp!* unspeakable acts?! Yet, yet...it is so.

If this is like drugs where the person who makes and distributes it is as to blame as the buyer and user (or even more so) - one has to wonder who's really bound for hell.

Anyway, on a more serious note and leaving the funny aside, isn't it astounding how little we know about the world and the people around us? BDSM & bondage gears & Pakistan, our warm & friendly (:P) next door neighbor?! Who would've thought! So many things on Earth that we're not aware of, so many new things to learn every day it's an absolute pleasure :P

What Women Really Want

Now that I've blogged enough about my 'baby' sister's marriage, I've had many questions about when I get to do it (as expected). It's difficult because like Macavity says, all the good men are either married, gay, priests, dead, or Vampires.

See, the thing here is, it's easy for some because the kind of things they look for in a man are maybe a bit more realistic and therefore easier to find (and I mean that in a good way). While there are these unfortunate, stupid few who can't shake their dreams of romance and everlasting love and dancing under the stars and are, therefore, doomed to wander longer, if not for their entire lifetimes on earth. What I mean here when I say what women really want are what those unfortunate women want. I'll tell you what those crazy women want because I'm one of them.

On one of my travels, I met this lovely couple from Israel - Anat & Arieh. Anat is actually Italian and so they love and eat a lot of Italian food. Before her mom passed away, Anat's mom gave all her secret recipes to Arieh instead of her own daughter! "Cook for her" she told him, and they're in their late 50s now and Arieh has been faithfully cooking Italian food for Anat ever since. And that's the kind of story I want for myself.

And what else do I and the rest of those unfortunate women want? Not all that complicated really....

- We don't want you to cross oceans for us. We only want you to swim just two miles across a lake for us. Swim across forbidden lakes, defy governments and house arrests to be with us. (Apparently, someone's been reading the news :))

- Fly across the planet because you suddenly realise the world may end anytime and you think it would be sad to never get to be with me before it ended ;) (I'm winking at you Hellboy :))

- And do small, easy things. Like using my name as your password.

- Love my dog. Or my cat. Or my goldfish. Or my parakeet. Or my pet snake. Not for their sake, but because you love me.

- Write me a poem. Or a song. However crappy it may be. Let the grammar and the syntax be all off, but write me one anyway.

- Strengthen my belief in myself and God. All too often I see couples where the women become increasingly neurotic and insecure as the relationship wears on. And all too often, for some reason or the other, God becomes a distant 'third party' in your lives.

- Make me a better person by treating my family and friends like they're better than you.

- Ask me to dance with you in the rain. Wake me up in the middle of the night to dance with you under the stars.

- Run through the water sprinklers with me on a hot summer day without worrying about looking stupid and what people think.

- Go shopping with me, and pretend you don't hate it so much. Even if you do.

- Write me letters sometimes (not emails, real paper letters). Even if we see each other every damn day.

- And still woo me and read me poetry when I am old and gray and full of sleep...


And I can go on and on...as I'm sure all my similar-feathered friends will have their own inexhaustive lists. But hey, none of them are that difficult are they? Nothing about diamonds or fast cars or fancy homes.

Just real love and real men.

(And don't mention reading too many Mills & Boon novels. I've only read one, or two at the most in my life!)

Isn't she lovely!

Here it is finally - my sister's 'I Do' pictures. I'm happy for her, but it's still a weird feeling when somebody you still can't stop thinking of as your 'baby' sister is now a married woman. But looking at this picture, I see she is indeed a woman now, and she looks lovely!
Someone I know saw the above picture and exclaimed "When in the world did you get married??!" :P
The many kids in our family. Check out the encircled area, that's got to be the cutest little pair of slippers on the most adorable little pair of feet I've seen in a long time :)And I look at this picture of a Kolasib (where the wedding took place) countryside and all I can think of is how much I miss Mizoram right now. I want to walk on those tiny roads and roam the forests and breathe in that good Mizoram air. In fact, I know exactly what that countryside must smell like - fresh earth and foliage baking in the sun. The type of smell that the most expensive perfume makers will never be able to capture in a bottle. The type that makes you remember warm daddy bear hugs and soft mum hands and cute cousin feet :) I haven't missed home this badly in a long time, and I don't think I'm going to be able to wait till Christmas to get there.

And yet more disadvantages

What used to be a 10 Rupee note after Bozo -My iPod speaker cable after Bozo -
Cable that used to connect iPod to laptop after Bozo (the new one cost me Rs 500)
Something that used to be a Rs 250 leash after Bozo -
And now after many, many chewed up pairs of shoes and T-shirts and many other disabled cables (cooler cable, extension cords) later, he's still with us. Also, dog food isn't cheap, he drinks more milk in a month than I would in a year, and doggy toys are as expensive as real kid toys. And I pull out of so many dinners and night outs I feel like a mother who's got to rush home early every night because she's got kids at home. But yes, he's still around, and it's because of moments like these :)

Advantages & disadvantages of owning a dog

Bozo the much loved, spoiled family dog. He is 9 months old but he still thinks he's a month old puppy. And as you can see, his cuteness is overwhelming. Bozo guards my room faithfully. Bozo makes coming home so lovely. Bozo is affectionate and extremely loving. Bozo makes us laugh.
Then he chews up my friends' ciggies when they spend the night here. No room for anyone else's cigarette packs except mine and Orpi's I guess.

Some PhotoFunia fun

Silly, but I still can't stop laughing :)

Here's a sizzling Macavity -
Next, we have a buff Orpi -
And then a Sohna in Depp's clothing -
Then of course, Yours Truly. Couldn't pass up the chance to have Dane Cook all over me :)

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.