25 August 2008

All's right with the world!

- People talk about Madonna and her body. They all seem to think her body is fantastic and that she looks great, they say she's so sexy, she's so hot....bi-da-bi, bi-da-ba...Honestly, I just don't see the fantastic in that body. And to be frank, as imperfect as my body is, I like mine better than Madonna's. I don't want that body on me at all! Despite her fancy trainers and gyms and diets and what-not, and all her money, I still would much rather have my life sans millions, trainers, Rambo-body, hot husband, fame. I'm pretty satisfied with my life (and for some unfathomable reason, this bugs certain people no end).

Something funny - I told this friend of mine this morning that McCain's chosen P.Diddy as his running mate, and that the new McCain campaign slogan is 'Diddy's your daddy!' And she believed me!! Yet she doesn't believe in love. AT ALL. Beats me how one can believe something like that so easily but chose not to believe in love. Gullible enough to fall for almost anything, no matter how insane, except when it comes from a guy.

Me, I'm stupid enough to believe some men occasionally. This may not be altogether smart, but some of the things I believe makes me happy. Sometimes a little stupidity doesn't hurt.

Anyway, while on the much hated topic of the US election, that old guy that Obama picked, doesn't his name sound like some sort of portmanteau (? is that what they call it?) of Bin and Laden. Bi-den. See? Obama has such strong terrorist tendencies.

I used to think I was dealt a pretty rough card when my dad decided to name me Jerusha. But then you get people with names like Biden, and they make the world seem fairer. I mean a name like that, which just mostly makes you think of two things - the most wanted man on earth, and a bidet. I don't know which one's worse.

19 August 2008

War & Peace

I found this picture of a scene from the Georgian-Russian conflict, I've seen tons of graphic war pictures, and maybe it was because it was the morning when the heart is still good and soft that I saw this, but this just went to my heart.

The dead soldier lying in the puddle on the side of the road just breaks my heart. I keep putting people in his place. My dad, my brother, Kal-El, my cousins, my close friends...it'd kill me. I don't know how it would be for someone who loves him to get through the pain of seeing something like this. I know I would never recover.
This is the site where I got the picture from, you can check it out for more images, but I have to warn you, some of those images are REALLY graphic.

Again, I'm just really, truly sick of war and fightings and everything that comes with those. Sick with a capital S.

Okay enough about the war part. It's morbid and morose and utterly depressing and I don't want to think about it anymore unless I absolutely have to.

So now, for some peace and fun :-) Actually I should have captioned this (with all due respect to Mr Tolstoy) 'Peace & Lust.' And here is the Lust!
*sigh* Sinful thoughts, sinful thoughts!

And then, I've also fallen in love. My newfound subject of adoration is this man...
A Persian actor by the name of Bahram Radan. I happened to see one Persian movie called 'Santouri' one night. The movie turned out to be really good, and Radan acted brilliantly. I fell in love, and have been obsessed with him ever since. Now just picture a man with Radan's face and Phelp's body.. mmmmmm :-)

11 August 2008

We had a thunderstorm in style

'Last night we had a thunderstorm in style
The wild lightning streaks the airs,
As though my God fell down a pair of stairs,
The thunder boomed and bounded all the while:"

Been raining continuously for the past few days, and I love it! Of course, the city is so badly equipped for rain that you have to be ready for some chaos, and rain is bad for shoes, and it killed my internet, and the street is full of moldy smelling people, and it messes up your hair, but I still love it. Rain is a beautiful thing, beautiful to look at, and beautiful to feel and hear. I wish we had a tin roof at least only for the rainy season. Well..ONLY for the rainy season to be truthful.

We bought new umbrellas that we love to death. Some of my friends think it's silly and stupid to be carrying them around, but I like them, they're perfect for slight drizzles, and they make people smile.
And as tiny as they are, one can still cover two heads. And that's a lot if one of those is mine because I got a pretty big head.
The night this picture was taken, I was going out for dinner, one of my house mates told me that she liked my dress, my coat, and my shoes, but that I was spoiling everything with the horrible umbrella sticking out of my bag. 'My god! You can NOT be serious, you can't go there with that umbrella!' she said, she said the restaurant I was going to will never let me in with the umbrella. As it turned out, they looked pretty happy to see me and my umbrella and very gladly let us in.

Another good thing about the rain - my flowers love it and just refuse to stop blooming. These are Zennias, my grandma always had different colored Zennias in the garden when we were kids, and we used to call them Sap pangpar and I hated them (bet you thought I was going to say I loved them) :-) I thought they looked plastic, love them now though...
One thing I don't like about the rain - Lucky spends a lot of time playing in it, and with that heavy fur, he smells like a wild animal. I avoid all bodily contacts with him now and intend to do so until the rainy season is over.
I'm lying. I can't keep away from him, so in the end, I end up with muddy paw marks all over my clothes, and smell like a wild animal only slightly less wilder than him.

Also, I don't know if this is just about me, but the rain also has a way of dredging up long-lost memories and images from the past. Does this happen to you? Me, my brain seems to clear out some cobwebs and I start remembering things from so long ago I should not even be remembering them - my dad and I building paper boats, and letting them loose on muddy puddles, and how big and fat the raindrops on the puddles were....

...A nice woman who used to sing me a lullaby '...Kan kawmcharah tuihawk a luang dem dem e (?), a fim hmasa Lalngoi'n thal zo zel e...A khi ah khian lungpui a lo lum dawn e, ka nau-i kha suan khat, suan hnihin suan rawh u..' Who was she?...

...My sister, aged about 5, dressed in a blue frock and running barefoot on a muddy track in the rain...

Another fact about rain I bet you didn't know - when rain falls through dry air and evaporates completely before reaching the ground, it is called virga. Yeah I know, it sounds like mispronounced Viagra :-)

06 August 2008

9 Things I'm frackin' sick of

1. Barack Obama & the US presidential election. But mostly Barack Obama. I want to be able to watch the news and read the papers without seeing his face for once.

2. The Brangelina twins.

3. The Beijing Olympics.

4.
Bollywood. The industry and almost all its actors, if they can even be called that - stuck in a state of perpetual "talentlessness" and idiocy. They're all still in the Stone Age as far as acting and making movies is concerned, and I have a feeling this state is going to be an eternal one. I see no light in the future. (But then, I also believe that the lack of genius in our actors is in perfect equilibrium and harmony with the hopelessness of our politicians and the way the country is being run, so maybe it's all good after all. Balance is always good.)

5. Fuel prices.

6. North Korea and Iran and their little nuclear programs.

7. Mars. Sorry Mars :( You used to thrill me and it's not even your fault but the endless speculation and the crafts that gets sent your way and the hype that goes on and on but you've never shown us even one weensy picture of little green men with antennaed-helmets, or even little wiggly worms. I saw on the news this morning about some more find - perchlorate! Oooh..perchlorate! They found perchlorate on Mars!!! So exciting I could barf! Perchlorate, whateverchlorate, don't give a flying fuck anymore. You're just boring now, except on Longfellow's hands. You know I wouldn't even be sick of you if these media people will just stop reporting 'news' that isn't there.

8. Bombs and bombers. Sick of being scared to go shopping, eat out, go see a movie with friends, do even the simplest things. All because of a bunch of retards who think blowing up poor, innocent people can further their cause or whatever shit they're trying to prove.

9. The ever unsafe, ever filthy Indian railways. I find it amazing that practically nothing's changed in the last decade. In this age when we're talked about not because of our poverty but because of our booming economy and amazing talent pool and power and progress, our trains still have the same stench, same ticketless passengers forcing their ways in, the same cruddy seats, the same Hijras demanding money, the same general chaos...Will there ever come a day when an average Indian can travel cheap, clean, and in peace?! If there is, judging by the look of things now, the moon will disintegrate into little pieces and the sun will die and turn into a black hole before that happens.

John McCain almost made it to the list, but I forgave him and left him out. Why? For being seriously hot at some point in his life :-)

Plus the fact that he's really funny, and not fakey lakey like Senator O makes it easy to forgive him.

And..he's not intent on taking my job away. Very important. :D

Got Milk?


Lucky posing for me for our own Got Milk? ad :-)

01 August 2008

Thil mai mai

Kan naupang ber tun a Bangalore a awm lai mek min rawn biakna hi kan paste mai mai lawk, ka nuihpui nasa em a.

Ama sawi dan in "Anu ka han phone a...inthlarun hmel took in ka trong a. Teh nu...ka hmai hi te tak tein a ron bol vak a...a kaw trek2 bok a. Chuan voiin tlai khan ka va entir a...doctor in skin disease hlauhom dam thei toh lo ania, plastic surgery i tihloh chuan a dam thei toh lo a ti a ka han tia. Chuan.....ka tia ka tho vel hok a. Sing nga a ngai a ka tia. Oi.....a mang ang hmel ltk a, trong poh a ron trong chhuak mai thei ta lo a. Ka khongaih leh ta a, ka han nui vak vak a. A thinrim lutuk a, 'LALZAWM!!!! nangmah leh nangmah anchhia i in loh ange, a bol tak tak mai ang te a ti. Ka han hau let ve leh a, ka rap leh sia....trongthu chhelo ah ti roh ka ti vak2 a.."

Ka nu hneh atrang hian "Nizan chu I nau in min lo phone a 'Hriati I dam maw?' min rawn ti a' tih angreng report hi hriat tur hi a awm reng mai nia, ka nau te pahnih hian an fiam peih bawk a.

Hman deuh ah ka nu mobile phone neih ve hmasak ber ah ka nau bawk hian a screensaver ah animated screensaver, thil bial in vial tep tep, pangang ang deuh chi kha a dahsak a. Ka nu chuan an en kha, a hrethiam ta lo. Ka nau hnenah chuan "Awi bawihte, hei han en teh, a mak lutuk" atia.

Ka nau chuan a en a, "Awi virus anih hi!!" a tih sak a. Ka nu ngaihdan ah ama sawi leh dan in 'virus' han tih khan computer age hma a kan virus hriat pangngai, thil nung, natna hrik chikhat ah a ngai titih ani awm e. A vial tep tep bawk si, vangvat lam te a ang nen, khatia ka nau in 'alarmed' deuh a virus a ti ta kha, a hlau ta lutuk a. A phone chu a paih ta thruai mai, khawih pawh khawih ngam tawh lo chuan, "Awi bawihte, engtin nge kan tih ang?" atia, ka nau lah chuan "Tih ngaihna a awm lo, tikhuan a chhung ah a lut tawh sia.." atia. Ka nu chuan a phone thar chu hal mai a rawt e ati ka nauin :-)

Vawiin ah pawh "Anu zingah khan ka han msg a, 'Hriat have a nice day' ka han tia, 'ka lom e' a ron ti lolzzzzz" a la rawn la ti..

Ho hle si hian, tiang mai mai te hian thih min ti hreh thin..

28 July 2008

Life goes on

And we're still making videos :) This is another martial arts movie with a hitherto unheard-of ancient Chinese dialect with subtitles.

Removing the video, will just leave the link here, I'd rather have comments on the youtube page than on here.

25 July 2008

The sad squid notes

So funny, I just walked in and this one colleague of mine looked at my arm and exclaimed 'Oh, you got a new tattoo!' (Little black flowers and leaves and what-not scribbled down all over my left arm).

Now how do I tell her "No, this is just the result of a very unproductive hour-long meeting." Maybe I can say "Yeah, I got it done by this black guy called Reynolds in one of the meeting rooms."

I don't know what we discussed in there, I don't have little notes, no important points to carry away. Just this pretty graffiti on my arm.

I may have been a squid in my previous life, I rock ink so well! :-)

p.s - How do you like my Deezer track? The song is in dedication to Kal-El, my loving, unattainable hero, who finally left for his home planet Krypton today.

You know one of these days, I think I will take the much-frowned-upon path of mushiness and utter corniness and write about what it feels like to hold and kiss someone when you both know that that's the last time you'll ever get to kiss each other, and all that's on both your minds is how you will never see each other again after this, and there's nothing you can do about it.

Say my name
So I will know
You're back you're here again
For a while....

**sigh**

There's this song called 'Dreidel' by someone I don't remember, Don McLean I think...that's all I've been thinking of today -

I feel like a spinning top or a dreidel
The spinning don't stop when you leave the cradle
You just slow down
Round and around the world you go
Spinning through the lives of the people you know
We all slow down
How you gonna keep on turning from day to day?
How you gonna keep from turning your life away?

Heh! Looks like I'm already treading on the afore-mentioned mushy path. Muchos sorry. But then, this is not even really mush because it's not so much about romantic feelings, but more about the normal sadness any human being of any gender feels at the absence of another human being of any gender. Simply because that human being was very special to them.

22 July 2008

The Gospel according to St.Macavity

Macavity and I are still talking all the time despite the distance - on the phone, online, voicemails, gtalk, yahoo - and before I continue, I should mention that Macavity is a good Christian (good maybe not in our conventional Mizo sense, but better than many of those conventionally 'good' ones).

So anyway, when we talk, one big topic that always reigns over others is God, faith, and being Christian. But we often stray from the main topic and suddenly develop profound interests in a character (one of the disciples, a soldier, a random man whose random act was recorded in the Bible), places, incidents, and we'd do lengthy researches, create pictures and images of these people in our heads and swap them - fun times.

Anyway, the topic of Palestine and Lebanon came up the other day. And I asked Macavity "Did Jesus ever go to Palestine?" to which she vehemently swore "No, never. He never stepped foot in Palestine!"

"Are you quire sure?"

"I don't see Jesus as setting foot in that land.."

"He was born there Macavity!"

"Ooooh yeah, right. Sorry, he was born in Palestine and they chased him out from there to Bethlehem, did they not?"

"They chased him out to Bethlehem - where he was then born.. **long pause** However, if he wasn't born, I don't think the chasing would have been much successful."

"Bethlehem is IN Palestine, they could not have chased him from Palestine to Bethlehem.."

"Oh"

So we finally got it down to Bethlehem, Palestine (which was called Judea), which we assumed was a part of Israel (I still don't know). This perplexed Macavity, how could Palestine have been a part of Israel when they have such history? What kind of history, I asked. All those fighting histories, she said. They fought? I asked. She answered yes, all the time, killed each other all the time.

She said - "You remember back in the day when the Palestinians fought the Israelites? Judea was a part of Israel then, wasn't it? Unless Judea was fighting against Israel and later came to be known as Palestine, which makes no sense. Because back in Genesis and Exodus or the good old books, it says that the 'Palestinians' fought them - written way before Judea was even called Palestine."

"David fought them, Jonathan died to them, so did Saul (not the one that became paul :P). Saul was sorely possesed by demons in the end, even threw something, some cooking utensil at young David, while he was blissfully playing the harmonica."

(Jonathan is her ultimate favorite Biblical character, and she will always find ways to bring his name up no matter what the discussion as long as it has something to do with the Bible).

Anyway, this discourse befuddled me greatly. I asked her who she meant by this 'them' that David fought, and killed Jonathan and Saul. Because it would be so weird for a great Israeli king like David to be killed by his own subjects.

"The Palestinians," she smugly answered.

Then, suddenly a titter, and then
"Oooooh, I think I'm mixing up the Philistines with the Palestinians"

Whew!

Anyway, Lebanon and Palestine and Israel are our current obsessions, one day I asked Macavity to find out what the ancient Biblical cities of Tyre (are they modern day Lebanon?) and Sidon are now called. She researched, and her answer when I came back was this - In the modern world, Tyres are pneumatic ring-shaped parts. :-) Cute.

The reason she finds it so difficult to accept that Jesus was ever in Palestine is because of modern day Palestine and Palestinians - well, let's just say one Palestinian - Samir Kuntar. She just can't accept that our Lord ever walked on the same ground that this monster now treads on.

Because of this new found interest, we read up on Zionism, and downloaded and started reading The Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion. I've never thought much about Lebanon and neither does Macavity, we've got a lot to learn, , but we are pretty sure now that it can't possibly be a great place. A place where they idolise murderers as heroes and role models...nahh, can't be good.

Macavity is still away, I'm never sure where exactly she is - when I think she's in Sydney, she'd call up from Melbourne, and you think she's in Melbourne, and she is in Thailand. I wish she'd come back soon because overseas calls are expensive, and the crazy time zone results in me waking the poor thing up at odd hours all the time.

And she needs to be taken to church and made to sit and listen to one good sermon.

16 July 2008

Oh we the evil sex!

By we, I mean me and all the good women who's got the luck to share the same gender and are reveling in their womanhood, the bearers of the double X chromosome, the soft and beautiful, better-smelling, smarter sex. We are all that yes, but I really do believe that we also possess more capacity to do harm.

Men's lack of general spite, I suspect, springs mainly from the thickness that seems to prevail in their cranial cavities. I'm not saying they're dumb of course. Most of the truly brilliant people I know are all male, but it's also true that I strongly believe (and I'm pretty sure I'm right :D) that I am smarter than most men I've met, while I come across women way smarter than me every day.

(That's just to tick off the men. That's the kind of statement that has high potential to pervade that previously mentioned thickness, and somehow reach the sleeping thing that resides in the cavity, and whisper to it that something has been said that is perhaps eligible for deeper contemplation because it's possibly offensive. Deeper contemplation will take approximately 2 seconds and they will have already lost their temper before those 2 seconds are up).

Other statements of similar potential -
* Let's have sex.
* Oops, I spilled soda on your keyboard.
* He's taller than you are.
* I'm pregnant.

You know, stuff like that. By potential, I mean the ability to kick some of those sleeping neurons into transmitting some sort of chemical signals - the end result is subjective and may vary highly from subject to subject, rage and panic and sexual arousal being one of the more common reactions.

If you want it to resume as it is, you can try saying nothing - always works, or 'Take the trash out,' 'Don't forget to feed the dog,' or even just a simple 'Let's talk.' (I believe peace will reign on earth and in all households if all women can adopt this strategy. After all, didn't someone who must've been pretty smart and who put her brains to good use say something about letting sleeping dogs lie?)

Anyway, I'm straying. What I want to talk about here is how we women can be so much more difficult and vindictive and nasty and....you know, just difficult. I will not even go into the whole animal kingdom stories, we all know those too well already. Let's just try to keep it human(e).

How many stories have you heard about the bride not getting along with her husband's brothers or father? Not a lot, I'll bet. Now, replace the male kinsmen with the female relations. See what I mean? Mothers-in-law are subjects of absolute terror, and the sisters-in-law, at best, seems to excel at frosty dislike or plain indifference.

Personally, putting aside romantic relationships, men have always been my best friends, best comforts, and without fail, make the best company. Because they're easy. Put me in a room full of men and I will be friends with all of them in 10 minutes. Forging friendship with women, on the other hand, is a long, hard struggle for me. Like I said, this may be just personal but I love men that way. I shared a house with 3 guys once, and that was one of the most peaceful cohabitation with more than 1 human being I've ever had.

Another example to prove my point: In my gym, we have two trainers - a guy and a girl. For every set of exercise that I do, my male trainer tells me to do two sets of 10, while my female trainer is never satisfied with less than two sets of 20. And she'd stand and watch me huff and puff, muscles quivering, flesh wobbling, tears and sweat streaming down my face and I would seek her eyes for some sort of sympathy, but it'd only remind me of the villain in the Terminator movie after his flesh burned off and only his metallic skeleton remained, with those two sets of cold, unfeeling, red blinking lights. And I'd think about how she should be in a movie, and how she'd make a good villain, you know those types that carry poison darts in their hair. And blow it on little children for practice.

So I keep wondering why these gentle, warm, peace-loving creatures like us so much, we who have the power to disrupt their peaceful existences, and who would most likely put that power to use - intentionally or unintentionally. Because I think if I were a guy, I'd steer clear of us. And I think I better stop right now and sleep because this is going to lead me back to sleeping cranial cavities and I'd go round and round in circles and never sleep and be red-eyed and mean-assed at work tomorrow.



p.s - Men, don't come accusing me again of being sexist, I love you guys :P It's just the way the thoughts form in my head and my fingers fall on my keyboard :-)

15 July 2008

What do you think of my new tattoo?

Marian made it for me, says it's the best tattoo she's ever made, out of a total of two. The other being this heart she made on my arm for my Amy Winehouse impersonation -

10 July 2008

Meet Lucky - the Persian dog

Lucky is a dog that belongs to a friend of mine. He's a black German Shepherd, and can look absolutely terrifying in the dark, like some creature out of a horror movie. You'll know what I mean from this picture -
But then you know him better and you'll see he's just a big baby, he's just 4 months old, even though he already looks pretty big. He lives with his owner in this big house all by themselves, so I think he gets lonely a bit, and he's so thrilled to have visitors he goes crazy and he'll make you feel like you're the best person in the world ever. I'm mad about him.
He's teething, and he slobbers all over me, it gets messy but it's all worth it for the amount of good loving I get. I can stand a little canine saliva :-)

His owner, who I'll just call Gab, is a good friend of mine, and the funny thing is both master and dog speaks and understands only Persian. But despite the lack of verbal communication, we share a very good understanding of each other and enjoy each other's company.

It's funny how Gab can always sense my sadness when some people I spend hours pouring out my heart to can't. My blue days, he'd know it and he'd offer to come get me, and even when I don't feel like it, I usually end up going in the end more often because of Lucky than Gab himself, but I love them both like brothers.

When it gets late, we just all sit and watch TV, and I feel at peace because I know I don't have to talk or explain myself and that my silence doesn't bother them. We just have to sit and occasionally smile at each other and that's all that's needed. I like the simplicity of their lives and thoughts and the peace that comes with being with them. I want a dog of my own TERRIBLY!

08 July 2008

Books & Writers & More

I was looking at some of my old posts and I find it disappointing that I write a lot about hurting and other negative things, but nothing much about what I like, and what's good in my life. And there is a lot of that. So starting today, I vow to write something about what I think makes life worth living - big or small, as long as it's positive.

And as a first post of this great new attitude of mine :), I will write a few things about the one constant love of my life - books.

For as long as I can remember, reading has been the one activity that I've never stopped enjoying. I liked reading from the moment I learned how to, I remember being a kid in school and going shopping for school books with my mom at the start of each new school year, and then finish reading my entire English books before school even started.

Some facts about books, reading, & me:

* I'm not an intelligent reader, just an extremely emotional one. I never understand the literary analyses and intellectual critics.
* I love poetry and I prefer the classics - Longfellow, Keats, the Bronte sisters, Shelley, and also a few more recent ones like Maya Angelou & Pablo Neruda.
*I also love Russian writers - Fyodor Dostoevsky, Anton Chekhov, Alexander Pushkin, Nikolai Gogol & Leo Tolstoy. It seems Russia used to be full of brilliant men, I wonder what's wrong with modern Russia :P
*I think Dostoevsky's 'The Brothers Karamazov' is possibly the best book I've ever read, that and Lewis Carroll's 'Alice in Wonderland.' These are two books I can read over and over and over again and still want to read some more. I used to hate people who would act like they were intellectually superior because they read Dostoevsky and others like him and they'd talk about existentialism and oedipalism and that kind of shit, but they don't even really like it but do it all just to impress people. But a friend literally forced me to read 'Crime and Punishment' and I realised I loved the book and its author, and I've been reading him ever since.
*
Books I recently read (ie last two months):

1. 'The Kite Runner' - Khaled Hosseini (Kinda late because I never found it very appealing and it took a friend a very long time to finally convince me to read it)
2. One Hundred Years of Solitude - Gabriel Garcia Marquez
3. Angela's Ashes - Frank McCourt
4. Measuring the World - Daniel Kelhmann (Crosswords recommended, didn't like it)
5. Salmon Fishing in the Yemen - Paul Torday
6. Literary Lapses and Nonsense Novels - Stephen Leacock
7. The Girl in Blue - P.G. Wodehouse

* I also am a very fast reader, and a good one in the sense that I remember well the things I read. And also a dedicated one, I don't mind being bleary and puffy-eyed and sleep-deprived the next day if it means staying up all night finishing a good book tonight.
* I want the things I read to make me feel things, evoke strong emotions in me, I want to cry over my books, I want them to make me laugh out loud even when I'm alone and it's 3 AM. And even occasionally give me nightmares. I want them to make me think, and maybe even make me a better person, and also make me forget my eyes burn and that my head hurts.
* I generally hate romance novels. However, I do like some of the classic ones, the one romance novel I've never stopped loving is 'The Lady of the Camellias' by Alexander Dumas jr.
* I like sad writers, and the neurotic ones, the crazy ones, and all their dark thoughts. Poe would be a good example.
* I like ghost stories, but again, only the classic ones. I have quite a big collection of Victorian ghost stories.
* Going home when all my friends are out, and I know I'm going to be alone, and I know I have nothing to do, and worst of all, I know I have nothing to read makes me dread going home.
* I don't like Indian writers, I think they are big show-offs, and are mostly pretentious. I always get the feeling while reading them that they're sitting with several fancy dictionaries while writing, and for every word that they're trying to use, they flip through the dictionary to see if there's a bigger, fancier-sounding, more incomprehensible version of the word that they can use.

So you can see with the amount of time I spend at work, and the amount of time I spend reading, and the amount of time I spend going out, I am not a person that needs a lot of sleep. And the amount of time it takes me to read one book ensures that I spend as much on books as I do on clothes. Maybe clothes are more expensive, but at least I don't have to buy one every few days like I do books.

Currently reading: The Brothers Karamazov :D Yes, again. I found a new translation that I hadn't seen before last week and bought it. Also, I'm out of anything else to read. And I will be going to pick up some new books soon, so I'm open to suggestions.

.

07 July 2008

Only cos I have to

I have maintained some sort of activity on my online blogs, but it's pathetic that I haven't written on my real journals for months, almost a year. I feel terrible, but I've been zombified, and we all know zombies don't feel anything, so maybe it's justified in a way.

You know all that shit that people feed you about the 'first cut being the deepest' ? I've realised that it is not so. It all hurts. But that's okay because surviving difficult times and heartbreaks is not all that difficult. God made us that way. Our entire existence revolves around pain. And the funny thing is that some of the pain actually feels good.

Anyway, it's really selfish of me to talk about my pain when the world as a whole is suffering so much. Good people dying, evil people living forever, bombings, hunger, cancer, AIDS, Mugabe, plane crashes, and many others - my personal sufferings don't figure at all.

Anyway, it was Orpi's birthday yesterday, and look at what we did for her birthday cake. Tina left for San Francisco the night before, so I and Marian were running around trying to make everyone happy. Flowers for Tina, birthday gifts for Orpi, MAJOR grocery shopping, but despite all our crazy shopping, we still forgot the cake for Orpi. So we went the next morning to the closest shop and bought a plain cheese cake, and made do with what he already had in the fridge to make it pretty - which included some cherries and Kiwis, some Gems and a candle, and ta-dah!! -
I felt we did a pretty good job. I think it's prettier than my birthday cake. And it's personalised, so it's special. And here is the birthday girl herself, grinning as broadly as any birthday girl should!

01 July 2008

Always a bridesmaid....

For those of you who wondered where I disappeared to the past few days, or even if no one wondered, I'll tell you anyway - this is where, on this chapel in Bangalore, playing bridesmaid in a friend's wedding. Prettily decorated chapel isn't it?
They tried to do the pretty thing with the 3 bridesmaids as well, with not a lot of success, at least with me. They put so much makeup on me I didn't even feel like I was me, layers of foundations and whatnot, complete with fake lashes. I'm not used to wearing a lot of makeup, and my blinking was out of sync :P So I removed them all, and could finally manage a smile.
It was a really fun wedding, but if I look bored in some pictures, it's only because I'm irrationally sad these days.
Irrationally because I don't know what makes me unhappy, everything's going great and I know I have nothing to be depressed about, but nonetheless, I have frequent bouts of sadness. Fleeting ones, they come and go, but no matter how short they are, sometimes it's so intense I feel like I'm going mad. Hormones I guess.

Other updates:
1. I've been thinking a lot - about God, about life, and I'm filled with more doubts and questions each day. I just can't understand how a God who is so full of love can create something like Hell to punish his own creation, when even a vile sinner such as I would never do a thing like that to my worst enemy.

2. I had lunch with the cutest guy in the world the other day. *sigh* I get a high every day when I run into him and he smiles at me and he says 'Hi' and he makes small talk. It makes me so happy I positively glow. I enjoy this tremendously because it feels like younger days and innocence.

3. Someone left a soft toy and tons of Hershey's kisses on my desk today. I thought it heralded the dawn of a new admirer but it was only Pete finally back from Australia.

4. When I get married, I want to have a dress like that Vivienne Westwood one that Sarah Jessica Parker wore in Sex and the City movie.

5. Are you all as sane as you appear to be?

22 June 2008

Do you believe in ghosts?

It's a lazy Sunday morning, and I don't have anything to do. So I'm going to tell you about some unexplainable experiences I've had. You can decide to believe it was paranormal, or you can come up with a reasonable, logical, scientific explanation. I'm open to both.

It happened some years back while I was a student in Delhi. I with two of my friends had recently moved into this small flat on the 5th floor of a building in Rajendra Nagar. It was a one bedroom apartment, small kitchen, small bathroom with an enormous balcony. We pushed our beds together and all slept together. So it was like this major super king-sized bed where we could all loll around and avoid body contact, which was important in the intolerable heat. It was a crummy place, but we were not exactly rolling in money.

The first incident happened on our first night there. I was asleep when something (I think some movement) woke me up. I opened my eyes and saw a figure in the dark, I thought it was my friend Apuii going to the bathroom so I went right back to sleep. However, something woke me up again later, and I saw the person's silhoutte in the dark, still standing there. Thinking it was still my friend, I was unalarmed and drifted off to sleep again.

Something woke me up yet again, and I looked and saw the person still standing there. I saw it so vividly, even the way it stood. One hand on the waist, one hand on the back of its head, like it was rubbing it. I still thought it was my friend, but I was a little worried now, and wondered why she was standing there in the dark for so long. I thought maybe she was not feeling well but didn't want to wake us up.

I decided to ask her what was wrong, and called out 'Mate' (not the Australian 'mate,' Mizo term of endearment, which was how we always called each other). And the word had barely left my mouth when I saw my friend sleeping peacefully right next to me! Terror gripped me, I moved so fast I don't even know how I did it, but in a sec, I was hugging my friend as tight as I could, no longer mindful of the heat and the sweat - keeping my eyes tightly shut.

I lay like that for a while, but I started thinking, and I was angry with myself for being so afraid. So I finally moved away from my friend and opened my eyes. And saw nothing.

Another incident happened in broad daylight. I and one of the girls, Papi were at home sleeping late. Apuii had left in the morning because she had work. The Delhi summer was at its cruelest peak, and us being all girls, we kept clothing inside the house as minimalistic as posisble. We were sleeping almost naked, when I heard something and opened my eyes, and saw a man's figure standing at the foot of our bed, looking down at us.

The first thought that came to my mind was that we must've forgotten to lock our door, and the landlord must've come and walked in, and seeing us 'unclothed' was feasting his eyes and thinking dirty thoughts. Not that we were any real sight to feast on. lol

Anyway, I just had a quick glance of the man because the moment I saw him, I jumped up, the only thought in my mind to cover ourselves, I grabbed a sheet and threw it over myself and the still sleeping Papi. And then I looked up. And again, no one. I got up, checked the doors which were all locked. There was nobody in the house except us. The man I saw was shirtless, and wore what looked like drawstring pajamas. Kind of heavy looking.

And people always tell me I must have been dreaming when I tell them. But I know I was awake in both cases.

Another incident was one night we had gone to meet a friend and her husband for dinner at the Hyatt. And we were home pretty late. We were still marveling about the rich food and the rich surroundings and the rich people we'd just eaten with, so ghosts were the farthest thing from our minds.

Walking up the small, spiraling, dark stairs, Papi took the keys and walked a little ahead. Me and Apuii had almost reached our flat when suddenly, Papi came rushing down the stairs like she was crazy. She tried to push past us, she was that panic stricken. But we grabbed her and asked her what was wrong. She told us that she'd just gotten the keys out, and was just about to open the door, when she heard very clear, loud knockings on the door. From the inside.

We stood there, all too scared to go up, but not knowing where else to go. We stood there on the stairs for a long time, giving each other pep talks. "Are you going to let a fat "Vai's" ghost scare you?" "We are believers of God, we should not let this scare us like this" and so on and so forth. By the end of which we bravely marched up, our faiths considerably strengthened :) There was no knocking this time. And we slept in peace.

There were a few minor other incidents that were strange and a little scary. But these 3 incidents were the most unnerving, and I remember them best. We moved out after 2 months, and I've lived in many different flats in many different cities ever since. But I've never experienced anything like that ever again. Sometimes we sit together, me and those girls, and talk about those days, and wonder if we'd really lived in a haunted house.

Well, that's the story. I don't know what caused those, or how to explain what happened. But I always brag that I've lived in a haunted house to my little cousins back home. Makes for good story telling times under the blanket on a rainy night.

21 June 2008

Easy Defence Mechanism

Why do lots of us take rickshaws even for short distances which we can easily walk? Because the streets are so full of disgusting, lecherous, fat, smelly, ugly as hell, balding, foul, loathsome, sexually frustrated, despicable human beings. For this reason, I try to avoid walking, because it has ceased to be an activity that gives pleasure, but just a chance to have your ass grabbed. And it gets me all angry and stressed out. Not good for my poor heart.

Anyway, driven by extreme frustration walking home from grocery shopping some nights back, I found out a way to scare them off easy. There was this one car that kept following us, stopping once in a while to ask us "Please shall we gift you lift please?" We said no once, then ignored them altogether, but they followed us, or would run and stop a little ahead, and ask us the same thing again when we walk by.

And on what seemed like their 10th stop, asking us the same thing, I just lost my temper, I'd been taking pictures of random things on the street so I stopped and pointed the camera at them, and it was like a magic wand! They sped away superfast.

But we were still about 10 minutes away from home, and the road is lined with losers, some of who were not fast enough. But I assure you, they all sped silently away after having their pictures taken.
Now why can't they all just peacefully pass out like this nice man here and stop bothering people?
Their lives would mean so much more if they would spend their days and nights in drunken stupors since they don't seem to possess even a shred of decency to respect other human beings who are strangers, or their wives/girlfriends/moms who are waiting for them at home while they are awake and alert.

I'd die of shame if my brother, dad, or boyfriend behaved like this on the streets - leching and leering at girls. And around 50 percent of the lechers look to be around my dad's age.

Anyway, ladies, have a camera with you at all times if you're going to be out. Wouldn't it be lovely if we can figure out how to send the pictures to their wives? Or their moms who has never imagined that their pure, virginal, babied-baby acknowledges the existence of the female sex. That's evil. But I'm feeling evil today. In fact, I've been feeling really evil for a while. I'm keeping a safe distance from everyone so I don't unintentionally spoil relations while I go through this evil phase. Whew. I wish I had a gun. Where can I buy a stun gun? What's a stun gun - I assume it's a gun that stuns, but doesn't kill. I want one.

16 June 2008

Mizo Bruce Lee

I hate to be posting only videos, but since I don't have anything better to write, plus, we have this new funny video that we made over the weekend, I think I can forgive myself for not writing. Anyway, it's not a bad video. It's about Bruce Lee - and didn't we all madly love him at some point in our lives? Or, if not the man himself, one or some of his movies?

How as a young girl I used to dream of rock-hard knuckles that would crack a walnut in the blink of an eye, and heels that were so hardened that I'd smash bricks with it with a mere impact and not feel a thing, and palms that would crush coconuts with no effort.

I would get up with my brother at the break of dawn and run out to find some roadside gravel where we could jump barefoot on. My brother assured me that that was the only path to my dreams. Then kneel and pound the gravel with open fists, so hard that sometimes I'd feel tears welling up. But I was on my way to becoming a great fighter, a true warrior, and real warriors don't cry.

And gravel was the answer to everything. Jump, jump, pound, pound - I was so determined! If that girl could see into the future and see me now - she'd be so disgusted with how I now strive to keep my my heels and my hands soft. All her efforts and all those tears gone to waste. I miss those days - doing Kung Fu with my brother while the world slept. Good times.

Anyway, here's our video. Watch - it's pretty fun. You might get a smile or two out of it.

09 June 2008

The Ring - our version

What do you get when you put a bandh, 3 Mizo girls, a Sony digicam, a fruit facepack, a shiny white robe, and some black kohl together?

It's easy. A Mizo horror movie!

Our main inspiration is one of the original The Ring movies (Ring O Basudei to be specific) which we had been watching that day. This is crazy fun to make, and I think it's pretty fun to watch as well. Here's a still from our new movie -And without further ado, here it is - The Ring in Mizo -


And this is us while making it, you can hear the great directoring here, but I must warn you that the co-director likes using foul language -

03 June 2008

All's right with the world

Macavity left for Sydney last night, I've never dreaded somebody's going away so much. It's just 2 months, but 2 months is 60+ frigging days! It seems at least one person or the other is always going away, gone, leaving, absent - to spoil that perfect time you otherwise would all have together. When somebody comes back, someone else goes away, or they all come back, and you go away, and you go back, and somebody goes away * sigh*

This whole thing made me think of Nirvana - freedom from the cycle of life and death. Now if Nirvana was all about freedom from the cycle of farewells and meetings in this lifetime, it'd definitely be more appealing to me.

Anyway, let's not dwell on murky thoughts. On to the brighter, prettier things life has to offer - check out this summer bloom outside my room -
I can actually see that from my bed, so if my head is facing the right direction, that's the first thing I'd see when I wake up in the morning. It's a very beautiful world to wake up to and I thank God for it. It makes the heat more tolerable.

Macavity & Pete's farewell party. Pete after a long time in India is also finally leaving.
See what I mean? Seems everybody's going away. But the open door here is that Pete #2 from Australia, another great friend, who we thought we had bid eternal goodbyes to, is coming back. There's always going to be a Pete around! Which is a lovely thing, since I'm fond of Petes :-) Also another funny thing is how farewell parties can be so much fun when one really hates having to let those people go. Anyway, as long as it's not like a Final farewell, I guess it's all okay.

And now, last topic of the day. Which will be me being nasty about something. Which is this flat in this apartment across ours. Which, incidentally, is the messiest and dirtiest I've seen. It's the one on the first floor, door partially open. They open that door once in a while, and I can't help but see inside. (Not intentional snooping, if I'm in the kitchen cooking, and look out the window, I see straight inside that flat, whether I want to or not).
It doesn't even look like it's lived in - from the first time I've seen inside, what I always see is a rolled up mat, on top of which is a couple of lumpy cushions, on top of which is a black, dusty as hell bean bag, on top of which is piled several dirty looking cushions again, I've actually even seen someone sit atop this pile! I must admit that the inhabitants are pretty good looking, very, very well dressed, but their house is so dirty (or maybe it's just that one room, but I doubt it) we have a name for the young son - Trawp-a - the filthy one, and the rest of the family members are Trawpa's mom and dad and sister. It's mean. But damn, you should see the house.

In my opinion, only the real poverty stricken people have any right to be dirty - could be difficult if you don't even have enough water to drink or money to buy food, much less soap and detergents. But for the rest of the normal citizens with access to running water, there just can be no excuse. I can never think too much of someone who can't even keep their own living places clean. Have you noticed 3/4 of the average shoe-wearing Indians wears them filthy? Sports shoes, smart shoes, heels, every sort of shoes - all dirty.

But why am I being a bitch and letting the dirt on other people's shoes bother me? Farewells, dirty houses, grimy shoes - whatever. I'll just join Pippa and say God's in His heaven, and all's right with the world!