Familiarity Breeds Contempt ?

I believed for quite sometime that " familiarity breeds contempt ". Today, I was rethinking about it. So I had this tiff with a person from work and then I kept thinking of the others here too. I realised that the more I know of them, the lesser I like them. That is partly why I revised this age old phrase. But then again I wondered about the fact that some people grow on you. Some, are even better, they sort of get sweeter over time, just like wine. Their value in your life, like the wine, also increases. At this point I couldn't decide about which one it is that I'm more inclined to believe in. The debate continued for quite sometime in my mind. Of course, I gave up on the thought at the end, rather I had to as I had to get going with some work. Secretly I know that I'll keep shuttling between the two ideas, I guess more than me the people around me will help decide which one to believe in and hopefully I'll be proven wrong :-)

Memorable quotes ...... Before Sunrise !

I believe if there's any kind of God it wouldn't be in any of us, not you or me but just this little space in between. If there's any kind of magic in this world it must be in the attempt of understanding someone sharing something. I know, it's almost impossible to succeed but who cares really? The answer must be in the attempt.

Sometimes I dream about being a good father and a good husband. And sometimes it feels really close. But then other times it seems silly like it would ruin my whole life. And it's not just a fear of commitment or that I'm incapable of caring or loving because... I can. It's just that, if I'm totally honest with myself I think I'd rather die knowing that I was really good at something. That I had excelled in some way than that I'd just been in a nice, caring relationship. 

Everybody's parents fucked them up. Rich kids parents gave them too much. Poor kids, not enough. You know, too much attention, not enough attention. They either left them or they stuck around and taught them the wrong things. 

I don't know, I think that if I could just accept the fact that my life is supposed to be difficult. You know, that's what to be expected, then I might not get so pissed-off about it and I'll just be glad when something nice happens. 

And of course there are lots more (quotes) that I relate to from this movie. I don't want to fill the blog with too many of them right now (I sense that someone might as well kill me for posting this itself :-P ). I watched the movie a long time ago, when a lot of these lines didn't make sense to me, but when I suddenly recollect some lines it rings this "aaah....so that is what it meant" feeling. There are several other movies that ring similar thoughts in my mind of course, but for some reason I have been recollecting this particular movie several times in the past few days and therefore the enthusiasm to share it :-)

Terminal Retirement of Pilichina Raanantaava ! :-P

I got my first mobile phone around five years ago. It was, however, much later after most of my friends had gotten one for themselves. I remember how I would go searching frantically for songs that can be used as ringtones, play them over and over again to see if the first 30 seconds had no lyrics in them etc etc. Finally, I found THE ONE. The song was catchy, had a good music score and it was (or still isn't) not that bad. Of course my continual usage of the same song has made my friends feel like "thinaga thinaga gaarelu cheydhu" and I always wondered why it couldn't have been "thinaga thinaga vepa thiyyaana". Its unfair that the whole world (which for me is my friends) would gang up on it in such a biased manner ! Unacceptable.

Secretly, I have in fact considered changing it several times myself, but like most human behaviors I got habituated to it, so much so that when I changed the ring tone to something else others had to tell me that my phone was ringing :-/. I used to set it as my alarm as well. Initially for a few years it worked and I would wake up in a split second. My smart brain however got habituated to the alarm as well and it successfully woke people around me on time, while I on the other hand I continued with the sleeping bliss.

If anything, I'm scared of sleeping for my own good. There are times when I stayed up all night just so I don't forget to wake up in the morning on time! Of course, a lot of times I have gotten horrible verbal spankings for the same, and when asked about why I got late I always felt like a fool. What can I say, "oh ...I overslept so ..." khel khatham dukaan bandh would have been the consequences (the fact being I did say that a few times and got bashed up like anything :-S ) ! I feel like Joey in one episode where he is trying to come up with a lie about taking a leave or why he was late and Phoebe is teaching him how to lie. Each time he comes up with this racoon's story, its hard not to laugh at it, especially because I feel like I would have done something similarly foolish too!

In any case, this is to say that I have officially bid adieu to my old ringtone guys ! You can now rest in peace. I honestly don't know how I'll rest though, frankly speaking its like "the haunting" song for me. There are times when I have hallucinations of the song ringing in the bus, or while sleeping etc. Hopefully my habituation fails me and I shall start afresh with the new song :-)

Splendid Visages of Happiness !

Something there is about a happy face. It lights up everything around you and can be contagious too. They look like the dancing gerbras to me, full of bloom, vibrant and full of life ! It instantly puts a smile on my face and I like to think of it as a kodak moment that I have luckily caught on sight :-) The feeling is more exciting when you are responsible for the same in another person. Like the other day, we celebrated one of my friends' birthday who has been feeling listless with the worries of life, she was so happy and surprised by all of it that her ear lobes changed rapidly through several shades of pink to red ! :-D It felt like, roger roger mission accomplished over over, in the end :-D

Leaning tower of Bus-aaaah ??!!

So I have traveled a lot throughout my life. No no, not the fun refreshing waala traveling but rather commuting to "temples" of learning :-P. It all started when I was at the age of three - from school to +2 to BSc to MSc and OMG even now ! So my father smartly bought a place to live which is like five minutes from his place of work. I have no issues with the home or the place(falls under the remote areas) honestly, its just that it is far from the rest of the city or the world even. It takes forever to reach any area of higher urbanization value than our own.  I therefore depend on public transport mostly to get to place I need to go. Lately I have realised that with increasing age the amount of time I spend in traveling in buses has increased progressively :-) .

I kind of like having my own space. I struggle consistently to remain at a spot where I wouldn't endanger another person's life with the possibility that I might fall on them or trample their feet and other issues of the kind given the massive physical built that I have. This is of course when I don't get the luxury of a seat in the bus. The funny yet irritating part is that others don't seem to share the same thought. I do get all icky with people falling on me and I keep moving away but you can only rescue yourself so much beyond which there is nothing that can be done! I try to strike the thought of practicality that "oh the bus is crowded or oh she/he is not doing this on purpose, etc" .

The worst is when people LEAN on you. Like some people find it highly easy to just take support of your body than to stand balanced by themselves at another place in the bus. I personally find it difficult to carry my own weight and body around, leave alone having to deal with others', be it in a bus or otherwise too. Like I mentioned I go easy on people when in a crowded bus whether I'm sitting or standing. But off late I have realised that there is some sort of vicious cycle or call it Murphy's law that has been happening recurrently, rather always ! I see that the conductors are always leaning on the seat against mine, whether it is a crowded bus or an empty one. I feel like I'm rendering some sort of magnetic powers to places where I'm seated or make it seem more comfortable but I honestly hate this activity. I feel like this universal wall or something and I constantly find myself yelling in my head "OMG there are several other seats in this bus, why me, why not that one there, there is more space there, I mean I'm practically leaving no space left to feel comfortable here, hello....the bus is empty why can't you simply sit there and finish writing or counting or whatever it is that you are doing, wouldn't that be more comfortable or nahiiiiiiiiiiiiii not again, not here, please leave me alone and be seated peacefully ! " And suddenly two days ago this sentence rang in my head "Shalu, digest it, you are the leaning tower of bus now! " :-P

A Bug !

There is something about bugging and me. I constantly keep speculating about why some people are bugged easily, why some aren't and even worse some are indifferent towards it and ignore. I was wondering how powerful a person must be, or how buggersome rather, to be able to bug someone who is generally indifferent towards it. Or probably such a person holds a decent position in the other person's life and therefore gets bugged.  After successfully reaching conclusions that might as well be garbage, an evil yet chillar thought arose in my head. I wanted to have such a power over a person ! Yes, such chillar-good-for-nothing wishes also cross my thoughts :-P. I finally distracted myself by calling a friend, and she spoke about how her better-half is patient by nature but she manages to bug him nevertheless :-) I told her that she is lucky to have such a power. After discussing the theory I was thinking about a minute ago she burst out laughing, unfortunately the conversation got interrupted as her boss hovered around her at that very important discussion waala moment ! But I realized later that I do possess this power, I constantly do that to my father, bug him I mean ! hahahahaha .....funny but true :-D

Driving on the pavement !

I find myself bugged every alternate day (yes, literally every alternate day) when I walk in our university's campus. Why bole tho, people have started driving on the pavement. God saved my life literally when this one guy really passed through a hair width's distance the other day. I was playing one of my favourite songs set at the maximum volume in my ears, so I didn't realize that the vehicle was approaching. Now why the hell would I want to look around if someone is going to drive along the pavement of all the places ! Fine, even if I were supposed to be alert at a place like Antartica as well, why the hell didn't you honk you __ __ __ (dash dash dash) ?!!! The worst reply I got for confronting one of the __ __ __ (dash dash dash) for driving there was "madhyala keli vachhina andukay"  !!!! Avakkaiyyara happened :-S

Lost in Narration !

NW says - "you know that is exactly what I think and there is this hmmmmmm(pause)________uhhhhhhhh_______ (longer pause)"

She is wearing a vacant stare on her face which is fixated on the ground below.

She is probably thinking about what to say or frame her words well before uttering I assumed but then my brain waves hit the problem bang on.

I petted her on the head and said " Nnnnnn !!!! You forgot what you were saying didn't you ??!!!! " :-D

We burst out into laughter !

Gees started out with a good story too and stepped into the trivia of how the story started altogether, explaining all the nitty gritty details of the wheres and the hows. She led the conversation pretty smoothly I felt and then abruptly she goes ".......uhhhhhhhhhh______(pause) and I forgot why I was telling you this ! "

o_O :-) :-D !!!!

Time is running out ! 

Have blog for today.

This word time reminded me of the song "Time after time" by Cyndi Lauper. 

Heard it recently in a movie about school friends who meet up accidentally after a long time. I loved the movie. It brought so many memories from school. This partly also explains the reason why I posted my previous blog. Friends are precious. At least for me they are. I constantly find myself missing and longing for them. 

I now wonder why we didn't move around like a fight-club-dada-type gang, fall into trouble or pick up fights with other gangs. But I guess we had fun in our own way in spite of not having such episodes. Mental-thanam in people is what I miss the most. Probably that is precisely what I look for in a person before I decide to be friends with them. Like the saying goes, It takes one to make friends with one :-) 

There is too much sense and logic put into every thing that is said, read or looked at. No room for bakwas and random rubbish anymore. There were times when I felt that I lived with an overload of such things, ironically all I seem to look for right now is precisely the same. I agree completely with one of my friends who quoted " The only privilege of friendship is to talk nonsense, and have your nonsense respected " :-D
 

Making friends seems like a goal far out of sight, taking the initiative to talk to someone new looms like a major sooli in fact. There is too much thought process put into being socially, politically etc correct ! Like she says in this movie "Why do I make everything so complicated?" A friend explained that maybe I have the "foot in the mouth syndrome" !!! Probably she is right, I never thought I would get to where I'm mentally right now in terms of speaking to people in general or at office zones. While I was reading about the syndrome I also found out that I constantly grill myself with - curse of considerate clarification as well ! I'm doomed :-/

There is either a dearth of mad people in general or I have met all the mad ones there could have possibly been in the world and I must therefore remain thankful that I did and not expect to see anymore. Either ways, there is always this hope, keeps me moving forward with some level of optimism and expectation. Aage Bado and You never know(in gees words) basically.

A lot of falthu memories from school seem to have gathered over time.
What fun it was to be around with friends, carrying zero cares of the world, moving aimlessly across the school grounds and talking rubbish (I still practice this one feature :-P). I remember running along the corridors and refusing to take the stairs that led to the terrace. They were rumors of a ghost parading the school. So we would climb three to four steps in gangs, to avoid close encounters-motto in action was united we stand and divided we fall,  and quickly run down yelling "bhooth bhooth!". Probably it was just another random outdoor sport we liked. Also, during the same time, an earthquake hit our city. Now this event only added more "masala" to the bhooth concept. The telugu word for earthquake is BHOO-kampam. Kids spread around the latest addition to the list of rumors that this bhookampam also erupted from the terrace in the school. Basically, the terrace was a big no no (hmmm....makes we wonder if these things were spread about by the school's management to keep us away from the terrace). My memorized list of telugu vocabulary at the time, or any other language for that matter, was on the lower end of the spectrum. I associated this BHOO-kampam as another BHOOth and happily accepted it to be a friend of the already existing bhooth. Such was my evolved brain, har tharaf man maani, kuch bhi suno aur kuch bhi samajh lo offer :-) Hahahhaha.....surprisingly I do so for a lot of words even now, I guess old habits die hard!

After passing out of preparatory school our madness with the bhooth stories got better and more refined. We didn't want to end it with climbing down a flight of stairs, a Fellowship of the bhooth pakdo mania was called into action. We would wait after school hours till the school was almost empty and run through all the buildings in the school. I remember clearly well that we moved around like the penguin spies in the movie Madagascar. Of course, we maintained good records of everything we observed, a daily journal made out of a fresh notebook covered with a glossy brown paper AND a sticker on it was updated regularly. Every rubbish noise or event was a potential poltergeist, theories were developed, inferences from the already collected data were established, spooky stories were recounted to upgrade our fears-just to increase the losing spirits of the members in the fellowship. All the results added to one explanation and one explanation only- the church.....and the graveyard beside it! We speculated that the evil arose from the graveyard and soon would take over the school and haunt all of us because some kids threw stones beyond the wall separating the graveyard from the school. The evil were angered. But how do we prove this? For several days we wandered across the school, tried to sneak into the graveyard - such efforts went futile because our watchmen yelled at us for performing foolish stunts, and other ideas of the kind were implemented. As with most other jobs taken up as kids-attention deficits crept into our lives, basically that "life is calling where are you" happened. Other distracting projects came up and I cant seem to recollect what our precise conclusion was-I guess the starting was neat but the ending was a bungled up job :-P.
But who cared really during those times....we weren't answerable to anyone about it ....we did it out of fun and stopped when it didnt make any sense and therefore stopped being fun.....Sigh.....I wish I could incorporate such an ideology in my current work !