Heart-broken

Its official! Google devta is officially miffed at me :'(

First the randomness of gmail - no not in a metaphorical way.
Pings I never received, mails that came in hours later - and no, its not bad internet speed.

Then the blogger.com started playing truant...with the template designer being down for last two days. How is a girl supposed to 'get back' to her blogging? Especially after being told by an ardent follower that the existing template is hideous? Oh, and dont you point finger at me for the font size here. I tried.

I may have worked for Yahoo but I love you, Google. There. I said it.

And I did not cheat on you with this guy here. He was just a minor distraction - nothing more than a rebound relationship. You, on the other hand, are the one forever. The one who stays back even when the party is over. No, not the caterer asking for money. You know what I mean.

Sigh. Just come back.

Of gyri and sulci...

So I read this article today and couldn't help but wonder if life does come easy for a blessed few? While the rest of us toil hard to face our share of hits and misses?
Picture this: A poster boy for shtudness aced through his school life cracking all the Maths & Physics Olympiads on his way. He could name all the moons of Jupiter and recite the period table in a single breathe. Ok, may be he sucked at Social Sciences but then he had real brains, which did not require cramming of useless data like the year of Battle of Plassey or the gory details of Third Battle of Panipat.

And of course he had dreams. Big Dreams. Astrophysicist or Nuclear Scientist. Stanford, MIT and Carnegie meant something to him even at that tender age of 17. He went on to crack the IIT Jee with a single digit AIR. Yes, the digit mattered. A LOT. Not to undermine his hard-work, he burnt midnight oil too..may be even went through short-lived phases of self-doubt and insecurities. But in the end that didn't matter coz he did make it Comp Science at IIT-B. Mom and dad couldn't be more happier and proud. He was the stuff that makes relatives hope their kids would turn into.

Fours years of IIT was a breeze or may be not. But as the guy here says - I generally only study one day before the exam; it is a habit with all IIT engineers. He studied for a day..may be even went through the ordeal of giving a whole of TWO mock-cats and viola! IIM A was pounding at his door.

No, I am not jealous. Ok, I am. Will this guy never get out of his Chronic Over-achiever Syndrome? Will reality never bite him? Where is struggle and that much talked about failure? Obviously he has managed to side-step this stepping stone to success and probably hopped, skipped and jumped on to the latter directly! Where is that depression after 12th? That phase of pain and helplessness to see mock-cat scores dipping and wondering if one will ever make it?

I do realize that such blessed men and women are quite a rarity. But where is the law of averages? Offers from McKenzies of the world probably awaits His Highness on the Day Zero of placements while the meeker folks throw furlong glances singing 'sabse peeche hum khade' to the companies on campus.

This world is such a cruel place. The geek shall and do rule the world. Replace the brains with beauty and the same if utilized efficiently can be an excellent cutting edge tool for success. One cant help wonder if the working definition of all men are equal is "Well, Not really".

Yes, I feel pathetic for myself at this point of time. The fact that I know quite a few guys like this does not help the cause. No fights between CTC and EMIs? These guys are so missing the fun! :| Sarcasm doesn't quite help alleviate this. But what the hell!

Sigh. I guess I am done hating people and the world in general, for the day.
If only one had enough gyri and sulci - the gray matter that matters!

Sukh bhare din beete re bhaiya...

The much dreaded 'Existential Crisis' has finally made its appearance. It reflects itself in a lot of ways and always ends up messing with my mind; resulting in a chaotic haze that simply refuses to leave. I report to work each morning with nothing but a big 'Huh?' registered in my mind and leave wondering, 'What just happened back there???' The situation at home is not very different either. The state of indecisiveness is depressing to say the least coz I was never the one to sit on the fence, but right now decision-making is scaring the shit out of me.

Yes, I know this sounds gibberish...so let me explain.

• The 'Corporate Slave' crisis: Since childhood, middle class upbringing pretty much nails the idea that education is the only means of achieving 'success' in the real world. The problem is nobody ever spells out the definition of 'success' back then. Worse even is that one is never encouraged to explore his/her meaning of success. So of course, one struggles through the oft-trodden path of 10th-12th-Graduation-MBA only to finally land up in 'a nice job in an MNC'.  And do you know what's the funny part in this whole scenario? Only after going through the ENTIRE ordeal does one realize that 'a nice job in an MNC' was not what I wanted and I would have been perfectly happy with a small piece of land and a tiny cottage in some village with a well and swing in the courtyard with a few cattle  and a dog and my own vegetable garden and some hot coffee brewing on the stove and good book awaiting to be read!!

• The 'Conformist' crisis: A girl of 24 yrs needs be gotten rid off. Of course they put it in milder terms. There is also a subset called 'You-are-a-girl-behave-like-one!' crisis which one finds stupid beyond doubt and won't bother explaining. 

• The 'WTF!' crisis: An episode in the recent past has left me shaken to the core. Having immense confidence in my parents and this strong sense of self belief that one has groomed the parents well (:P) I expressed the desire of getting a tattoo done. Not because its cool (Ok, may be a little) but more-so coz I wanted to experiment and experience something new. The reply seemed like a rude wake-up call for someone who thought her family was quite a progressive one! "Why don't you wait for a few years till you are married and then get one if your husband is fine with it?" :O  No words. No argument but a genuine 'WTF!' can beat this one.

If you think post is one big crib against the 'berehem zaalim duniya', well it's not. If you think this post is about parent-bashing, it's not. If you think this is about lending a voice to the feminist in me, wrong again. Its just my thoughts and a few questions I am grappling to find answers to. Trust me dude...these may be one of the most happening years of my life but they are also the most confusing ones!! Give me back those Board exams and late night cramming!! The' 'Chef vs Doctor' arguments with mom! Or even the "Only 90% PCB? God! I am dooooomed" times and I would gladly swap them with these.

Life as I knew is not the same anymore and something tells me its not getting any simpler. Sigh! 

Dusting off the cobwebs...

Dear Blog,

Sorry I completely ignored you for a really, really long time and although so much was happening all around me that needed to be recorded/expressed/vented, I just kept it to myself in a corner of my mind and heart (a corner which I eventually hoped would vanish). But then unexpressed feelings have this funny thing about them, they keep expressing themselves in the weirdest of ways - tears, memories, dreams..

So finally here I am, doing what I should have never stopped doing.

Life has taken a very serious turn lately. Everything I do is SERIOUS. I look serious, I talk serious and worse, I AM serious almost all the time. 'Tom-foolery, where art thou? Those silly jokes? Those insane, utterly meaning-less conversations - why did you vanish? Are you mad at me and hiding in some silly corner?' 

Uff. This post is turning out even sadder than I thought to be. Ok! So time for updates!!

In these few months, there are/were many a firsts for me -
- My first Quarterly Review (and that's all we are talking about it)
- My first Health Check-up (not counting the one just after I said 'Hello! World')
- My first pair of best friends (those shinny lil' things that dangle on your ears, hide behind hair and costs your parents a bomb :D)
- The first wedding of my generation in my family.(!!!!!)

Damn, writing a post in parts is such a bad idea. You lose the flow and never end up saying what you actually started out with. I guess I will stop here. Contrary to popular opinion, I do have a heart, cant torture my single-digit  loyal fan following :|

One last thought - I think this post exactly reflects my current state of mind - sad, confused, lost for directions and without any zing whatsoever.

Information you can live without.

I hate this transitory phase. I am at home currently but would return to my b-school in a week's time. Half of my clothes lie in the laundry bag, a few in the cupboard - all neatly washed n ironed while a few peep out of suitcase. Half of my stuff is still back there in my other home - that lovely hostel room back in MICA...and in all this I feel halved..incomplete..somewhat hanging in between 2 places..neither here nor there. I mean..my post-its are there and important stuff to write about here! My silver earrings here and the matching bangles back there :( I wish I was all in one place..me and my belongings. I feel so incomplete without them..no, not just the clothes, books, jewellery and stationery..but my life! I am not liking this duality - I miss my mirror, my marker pens and my cupboard door full of post-its. I miss evening walks around the campus, the after-dinner walks and that liesurely breakfast full of news and gossips.

I am increasingly irked by my behaviour. I plan a lot, decide on a few but eventually end up doing almost nothing. What else can explain 85 unfinished drafts of blog-posts? Make that 86 - if I give up finishing this one too.

Mindless social networking. Those stupid stupid FB quizzes..going back to them after a few hours to see if any other equally lame homo sapien has bothered 'liking' or commenting. How shallow am I gonna get?

Its been ages since I wrote a poem. A long time since I read a good book..Ok, the last one was 2 weeks back. But 2 weeks of utter joblessness?? Adding the same set of people as friends on Orkut, Facebook, LinkedIn..followed by scraps of 'Wassup? How u doing?' to the same people I didnt even bother talking to back in school or college. Aargh! I seriously dont need this form of active social life.

Thankfully the offline social life is not that pathetic. But yeah, my parents have become increasingly intolerant of my erratic biolgical clock. I am my most active self when they are asleep and just vegetate around the house during the day. Cant blame them but then its too difficult to adopt normalcy now, that too for a few days.

Gastronomically speaking (no updates are complete without this) it has been a blessed holiday so far. Sabudana wadas, khichdi and other such holiday-items are ticked off in the list. The long lost love for cooking was rekindled and I realised once again why MBA was such a bad idea.

Here is the list of what I cooked this week:

1. Vegetable Pulav
2. Jeera rice
   
3. Baingan ka bharta
4. Chocolate brownie
5. Vegetable momos
6. Gobi ke pakode
   
7. Onion-Potato-Chilli Bhajji
8. Pasta in tomato sauce
9. Maggi (some 4 times in one week)
   
10. French toasts (had them after almost 2 years!)

Cooking is sucha stress-buster. So is cleaning the cupboard. De-cluttering is good. Clears the mind. Just what I need right now. But cant :(( Who cooks at 2 am? nd who will eat?? as for cleaning the cupboard...damn! the cupboard here is almost empty :( So here I go..back to my cribbing session. Missing good things in life..getting bored of boredom and lacking motivation to break this vicious cycle.

What a waste I am!

To stop train, pull the chain!

Today was a saturday. I realised that coz we had Pav-bhaji for dinner (yes, I by-heart the Mess Menu Time-table). Another thing I realised...the Ganpati fest is still on! So much for getting senti last week and pouring my heart out over the last post.

Where did the week go? Isn't second year supposed to mucho relaxed? Didn't our seniors laugh at us mockingly last year when we raced for classes? I had avenged to do the same to my junees next year. Then why am I sitting next to this junee in the library when have I should been watching movies and making merry? Why do I see the whole 'academic riguer' (yes ChaCha did exactly what he meant!) giving me rigor mortis?

The 'To do' list is now running into pages...so outrageous that its almost funny.
Not that I had been only slogging my ass off all the time..I did play basketball once this week and ended up breaking my specs :| The next day was fun too...heavenly infact! Played badminton is rains for almost 2 hours. (Plastic shuttle folks!!)

But then why do I feel life is slipping away super fast?
Remember how it feels while traveling in a long-distance train? You want to read the names of those tiny hamlets that pass by..but you just cant. Its that feeling! And some higher intelligence tells me that this train shall never stop! :(

Is it so bad or am I simply cribbing too much? :|

A day in the life of india...

Every morning we let into our homes a crap worth 4 rupees.

It not only pollutes our homes but also our minds and to some extent even our thinking!

It's called the times of India.

"It's just a damn newspaper!"...you would say,

"NO...it's a way of life, it's a culture".

It peeps into our homes in the wee hours of the morning and soon becomes an integral part of our lives.

Now you would ask, "What is your problem, Rutuja??"

Well,here's my answer..."Aren't newspapers supposed to be mirrors of the world, reflecting the happenings of your world and beyond, keeping a neutral and unbiased proposition with a touch of humanity?"

Well then if my definition is correct, then the TOI is certainly not that!

It doesnt start with headlines of the day..but with an ad just below the TOI logo. This is just the beginning of their money-minded attitude. The news are modified to suit the tastes of elitist society. Just when you thought that oil-for-food was the biggest scam of the year orchestrated by "highly respected" certain Singh,it was nicely shoven from the front pages to 'hardly-ever-read' backpages of the daily.And the biggest joke of the year was a word to word analysis of medical report of the BIG B !! We certainly did not need that! especially when we were still recovering from the shocks and gasps of 100 crore scam that Mr.Singh gifted us.

I have seriously began to doubt my knowledge in the queen's language as i cannot find words to describe what i feel about the TOI supplement-BOMBAY TIMES.

Do we, the middle class, really need the daily dose of page 3 culture? the hugs and air kisses?? the sight of skimpily-clad elitists getting drunk and all high??? the fashion and false eyelashes????

I am sure that many teenagers today will face a problem recognising Sudha Murthy but will closely follow the fashion tips by one Mrs. Parmeshwar Godrej!

Once i committed the heinous crime of reading the heading of a strip called "Dr. Mojo". Thank god my conscience prevented me from reading any further!!

Its time we answer these questions ourselves. Who are our role models? Who are the people we look upto? Its for us to decide and to each his own!

By the way.... I really loved, "A day in the life of india...Times of India" ads...quite heart-touching! but so unlike the actual thing!

But you know what?? I'm stuck like dope, on this thing called hope.

So, my new year's gonna begin with "The Hindustan Times".

Happy new year to all!

And Happy reading too!!