Monday, March 28, 2005

The gender game

I am not much of an observer. Nowadays, I cannot help but look at all the beautiful people around me . Now, now.......I am not a feminist either, nor a masculinist ..... these are just some nothings....

...A boy receives a phone call and the girl who is with him is wondering that there must be another girl who called him. She questions him upon who called and the poor guy tries his best to prove that it was his mother.
Generally women tend to be more suspicious...

He is looking elsewhere , not her.....and she thinks that he insensitive. Now she is looking elsewhere, not him....all he does is just smile at her...
Women, most of the times are over sensitive and too emotional..

He doesnot want chocolate icecream for dessert and she cannot survive without 300 grams of chocolate per day.... Is that a problem??
Most women like chocolates and icecreams......oh, yes ofcourse also the colour pink......who invented this colour anyways??

When he is late home, whether she expresses it or not, she is thinking.......she is thinking why he was late.
Women, as said, think a lot about the 'not so important things'

She promised him that she would be on time...He waits atleast for more than an hour.......
Women are never punctual

He does not remember the day he met her........and "Oh God! That is soo thoughtless of him!!" says the woman. Controvert to that, she knows when his grandmother was born.....and that is too thoughtful of her...

More to go......

Friday, March 25, 2005


These colours.... Posted by Hello

Rang barse

Holi is not a festival that our family is accustomed to. I always wanted to play Holi, so we celebrated it this time. It was not a large scale event but it was nice and colourful. My hands are all still painted green and I hope that I am not looking like 'Feona' from Shrek now......the picture should say everything!
For a long time, the moon too has not appeared as beautiful as today...
Hope you all had a fantastic time.......Happy Holi!!

Wednesday, March 23, 2005

Down the same old street

It was during my school days between 1999 and 2002. I was at high school.....an all girls school, the best in Bangalore....Dad used to drop me on his way to the office and Mi picked me up after school. Once in a week, specially on saturdays [as it was half day at school] she used to buy me Baskin Robbins icecream. Other times we used visit 'Veena Stores' - the best Idli Chutney available. The school still has those pink and yellow flowered trees. I used to wait for Mi under its shade with a couple of gud'ol friends. I remember the day when I stopped speaking to them because of a silly misunderstanding......We had a huge fight and the class teacher too came to know about it. God! those were such kiddish days.....I decided to catch up on them. It came as a surprise/shock to her when I knocked on her door. It had been 4 years and few days since we had spoken.
The first birthday I celebrated away from home, the time we spent chatting by writing messages on a paper while classes were still on, the lunch we had on the steps of the playground, the out of class trips, all these remain a distant memory now......

Tuesday, March 22, 2005

My days here

The way back home was not that terrible afterall! Bangalore's population has doubled ever since I left. The other day when I was at the 'Forum Mall', which is the only decent shopping mall in Bangalore, I felt the floor below me trembling.....the mall cannot handle these many people!! Not many were there to shop. Movies at the PVR cinemas on weekends should be planned a week in advance. Even a flop movie is a sold out on weekends....so I would better resist the idea of going to the forum mall on a weekend. I watched the movie Black, on recommendations made by even the flight attendent.....but nothing impressed me except the little girl's and Amitabh ji's acting. I would not say this movie would go all the way to win an oscar. The script and direction may not contain the oscar winning material. Its just too emotional and sentimental...........

Wednesday, March 16, 2005

At this time of the night

2:21 in the morning and I should have been sleeping, but I'm not! Finished a cup of hot chocolate an hour ago....now I have camomile n honey flavoured tea in my hands which is supposed to bring me sleep. Spilled some hot milk on myself like a kid on top of which the water boiler had to breakdown today :( Afternoon flight from LBA, a total 11 hours of waiting to do in London and Colombo, a total of 13 hours onboard, travel time approximates 24 hours with junk food to eat...nothing could be better. I will be so tired when I reach Bangalore that the last thing I would expect is my mother to tell me "Archana, you look like you are sick" instead of "How are you? Did you have a good journey?".....She said it the last time and Mi, dont repeat it again please!!

Sunday, March 13, 2005

Dual life

On my mind : blank
Music : Yuva....A.R. Rahman

Jitters revolving in my head, the same mixed emotions that I experienced the last time I was leaving for India. I am glad that I am coming to my home country where I always belong but there is a feeling of leaving something behind. It is pretty strange that I miss India when in England and I miss England when in India. England has taught me , in my case, how to live life , whereas India has given me that life. Life is certainly what we make of it and here, I am learning how to be myself. I have a sense of freedom and independence here which would have required another 6 or 7 years in India. A normal family in our society may not send their 18 yr old 'DAUGHTER' out of the country, all alone, to study. I am not saying that my family is abnormal but people around ask my parents, I am told, "How could you send your daughter to study there?? All alone?? Are you not scared??" Hey......scared of what?? Anyways, I am grateful to my parents that they sent me here, though they were skeptical about my idea at first....They knew the 'stubborn me'!!
It is just a vacation of about 5 weeks now, but one fine day, I will wake up in the morning realising that I have achieved what I wanted......and this will be the day that I pack my bags and head home forever.....as I have it in mind, this day should come within the next 4 or 5 years. A very wise friend whom I met here quoted the last time I was leaving for India, "All of us who leave home with an intention to go back have two lives. It is the same for you....you have one life here and you have another life there". This life is temporary, this country is always a second home.....never a first one!

Friday, March 11, 2005

Yayy yayy yippie yippie yayy!!

On my mind : blank
Music : Cloud#9 Bryan Adams

What a fantastic day it has been so far.......two weddings and my tickets!! I have the tickets in my hands right now. Just got them from the reception!!! Spoke to my cousin now and looks like she is getting married :D After a few dark days, the sun is here again and yet again I am on top of the world!! 4 and 1/2 more days to go and nothing more.......I am just more than happy!!!!!!!!!!
Now I have to continue packing. Will write more in the days to come..... :D

Monday, March 07, 2005

From the masterchef's kitchen...

On my mind : coursework
Music : What it is by Mark Knopfler.... He is performing in Bangalore n I missed this one too :( Unable to find his older album 'the ragpicker's dream'.

Its directly from the kitchen, and the food tastes disgusting. My efforts to develop good culinary skills were pathetic. Kitchen is just not the place for me. Tried my hand at preparing mutter paneer....but alas!! Cooking is kind of a science experiment to me. Choose some vegetables and put some spices and salt into it. It is edible as everything is in the right proportion but it still does not taste like it should. Sometimes I get it right and when I taste it, I exclaim 'I am a genius!!' and the other times I tell myself 'I am just not meant for this stuff'. No, I am not interested to learn to cook but God help me!! Give me a husband who is a good cook.....

Friday, March 04, 2005

The last thing that had to happen

On my mind : where are my tickets???
Music : Kehte kehte ruk jaati hain naa jaanay kyun
dono aankhen jhuk jaati hain naa jaanay kyun......from Chupke Se

Yes.........looks like the travel company through which I had booked my tickets ONLINE have lost my tickets or may be they are cheating me!! So much so for my 'feel good' days....My parents dont know about it, days are fast approaching but where do I go without my tickets?? Not only did the company make a mistake by stating my room no. as 3 instead of D3, they also did not send it by the registered mail. Now this is either inefficiency of the company or they are huge crooks. I asked them to reissue the tickets to me and they say that it is not possible because no airline will re-issue the ticket until a week before the departure.....Is it true??Of course I am not going to let them to cheat me.....I will check with the post office tomorrow, I am going to the bank to withdraw my money. Life is so miserable now but I will get out of this somehow.....I have a SIXTH SENSE telling me that everything will be alright........

Thursday, March 03, 2005

Me...in Bangalore!!

On my mind : Medical physiology
Music : Gori teri aankhen kahe.....by Lucky Ali

10 more days and I will be home!!!!! :D Cannot wait to get myself out of the flight as soon as it lands there. Its rather frustating sometimes as it takes a whole lot of time for the flight to reach the terminal after it lands. Well actually its 12 more days, no...its 13 more days, but who cares......I am counting the days down!! I am so happy, so happy, sooo haappppyyyyy....First thing I would do as soon as I get to Bangalore is run home and eat [thats after giving my city some kisses].....Mii's food. She is going to cook something special for me I'm sure!! Started packing yesterday, got some chocolates for my baby sister and nothing for my little brother....he is not little anymore!!
One thing is that I reserved the tickets online and I am quite nervous now that I have not received the tickets yet! Hopefully, I will get them today.....keeping my fingers crossed! ;D Too many things to do, too many courseworks to complete and so less time....

Monday, February 28, 2005

Godse's India

It was an illusion that he thought was true. Should we flip the coin to see the other side of the story? If Godse was alive today, he would regret the very root of his crime.....He was, what I can term, ' unnecessarily and intensely fanatic' about Hinduism. Now this blinded him to see every reason why the Muslims and Hindus hated each other immensely. All he saw was the Muslims killing thousands and thousands of Hindus, but why did he not give a thought so as to why Muslims hated the Hindus? He wanted a better India without Gandhi....Then I would have suggested him to find the cause for all this loathing and kill the very cause instead of Gandhi. Gandhi saw the root of it. He knew that the Muslims had lost all their trust and hope on the leaders as most of them were Hindus....Gandhi was not the cause for the millions of Hindus who died. It was people like Godse who were the actual reason....Godse would lift his sword high in the air to kill a Muslim who killed a Hindu, but yet another Muslim would return to kill Godse. The process would continue and infact it has!! Gandhi tried to put an end to it by advocating "non-violence" and to an extent he succeeded! Come to think of it.....Wouldn't more people die if it was not for Gandhi? An unimaginable number of Muslims and Hindus would have died and India would have been at 'CIVIL WAR'.....And it would take another 100 years for her to recover from a civil war! The dignity in which the British Raj terminated its rule in India would be a hot blooded war if it wasn't for the non-violence mantra....And after the war, India, even if she attained her independence, would be in absolute chaos.

What we need to see first, is that we are human beings. Pakistan was once the same land which we all together called India. Gandhi, for one, did not want India to be divided. He had foreseen the disasters that would prevail between the two nations. And when it was divided, nothing could be changed. People are dying even until today.....We were brothers and sisters once. Should you hate someone just because they hate you? A little patience and some calm minded practical thinking - if Godse had these two things with him, he would have known that his sacrifice was not worth at all! What did Godse achieve by doing what he did? What kind of victory did he bring to the Independent India by assassinating Gandhi? What good did he do for mankind? What peace did he bring? Things are all the same if not worse...

Gandhiji did ask all Hindus to give up their weapons and not to attack their Muslim brothers. On the real side of it, wouldn't Muslims too stop attacking Hindus?? Why would Muslims kill Hindus if Hindus wouldn't kill Muslims?? Somebody has to stop someday.....Or it would never end until the last person in the battlefield took his last breath. Moreover, Gandhi urged the Hindus instead of Muslims because the Hindu mass were large in number and they would listen to him.....He expected his Hindu followers to understand his decision as he himself was a Hindu.

Look at it even today.....Most of our thinking is based on what we read, more than what it is. We are born in India, we become an Indian citizen......But that shouldn't mean that we are ANTI-PAKISTANIS. If we are Hindus it does not mean that we are anti-Muslims, does it?? The same goes for Muslims too. Believe it or not, this is born within us whether we like it or not. The society around us helps us grow up in such a way. Only when we are matured enough, we decide whether the society around us should influence us or whether we should ultimately let truth influence us. "Hey Ram......" - take a look at this world!!

Thursday, February 24, 2005

Words to remember

On my mind : How wrong can I be?
Music : Take me dancing by Sting

I am half way through the book "Freedom at midnight " by Larry Collins and Dominique Lapierre and these are the things I found.....
When India was to be divided into India nd Pakistan, Gandhi woke up at 3:30 in the morning[30 minutes earlier than he used to] and whispered to his great niece Manu, 'Today I find myself alone. Even Nehru and Patel think I'm wrong and peace is sure to return if partition is agreed upon. They wonder if I have not deteriorated with age...Maybe all of them are right and I alone am floundering in the darkness.' After a long silence ,'I shall perhaps not be alive to witness it' he said, 'but should the evil I apprehend overtake India and her independence be imperilled, let posterity know the agony this old soul went through thinking of it.'
I never did have a strong liking for Gandhi and his ideals of non-violence when I was growing up....a lot of it was due to the misconceptions that took birth in my mind.....only an 'old soul'and the lord above could know the truth! Sometimes perception is so far away from truth.....

Wednesday, February 23, 2005

the firealarms again!???!!!!

It is 4:59 in the morning and its too early to wake up for my morning classes which begins at 9 AM. These fire alarms started ringing again and this time I am not happy about it though I got to see Jupiter :( ......No consideration for others at all....I admire that great personality which can smoke at 4:45 in the morning [Dude....you've got some real potential to destroy the ozone over UK!] I will not sleep now....if I do, then I will have to skip my morning classes. I have not slept enough over the last week......I need some serious rest!! and some food....I am hungry!

Tuesday, February 22, 2005

Lost and Found

On my mind : I am too tired to think
Music : Kate nahin raat by Ustad Sultan Khan [99.9 FM]

I have been rather busy lately.....lengthy classes from 9 in the morning, too many couseworks, too much to study, quick run to the supermarket, cooking every evening , a series of mood swings and what not?? It all started when I carelessly forgot to take my Tommy Hilfiger watch from the laboratory. Considering that the watch was dear to me, I was sure that I would find it somehow and so I was not worried...later that day I realised that I had a coursework to complete within 3 weeks....then suddenly, unexpectedly something happened....out of the blue,I heard a voice.....and it was my own.....I was telling myself that I am careless, irresponsible, stupid, dumb and all the things I could think of!! I agree, I am a tiny little bit irresponsible and careless but I was not fair in calling myself stupid and dumb! Today, I found my watch [God, I love you!] and got myself through with the course work!!:D I am one happy person now....what a terrible change of mood that was!! The weatherman too should be very happy...it is snowing... on and off since yesterday. It snows whenever I step out of my flat....wonder why that is :P but who cares.......I love it when it snows on me!!

Friday, February 18, 2005

It was still a surprise!

On my mind : The party should have lasted forever
Music : Jaanam samjha karo by Asha Bhosle

Han, I cannot help this...But once again Happy Birthday and sorry I am mentioning your name...
Do you ever feel this way? You know, when your happiness lies in seeing someone happy, when a smile on your loved ones face can enliven your day.....Han's birthday surprise was still a surprise to her! The look on her face as soon as she entered the kitchen made me realize that efforts pay. She even told us that this was the best birthday she ever had. And listening to her say that, made this day the best day I have had in UK. Han, if you are reading this, I want to let you know that I am satisfied just because you are happy.....We all love you!! [you will not be hearing these emotional words from me for the next few months atleast....Its your birthday...That's why I am being nice to you ;)] Melek, thanks for the help..Couldn't have done it without you!
I will look back on these days for the sweet memories that have rooted in my heart forever. I will turn around to recollect these memories and it will bring a smile on my face every single time. Thank you guys for being the best part of my life so far... Life is so strange and cruel at times. Now the fear is that I am becoming fond of you all. In June, we all have to separate and I am making the situation worse for myself.....

Below are some pictures that I took at the party today

enlighten me with your touch..... Posted by Hello

[Left to Right] Han, Melek, Me, Grace and Shirley.....I wasnt ready for the picture Posted by Hello

emit some light..... Posted by Hello

Thursday, February 17, 2005

Is it the busy season??

On my mind : A sound sleep
Music : Pt. Ravi Shankar accompanied by Zakir Hussain

Why is everyone busy nowadays?? Uuffff.. I have a lot to complain so bear with me for the next few seconds. My friends here in my flat and at the university are busy. It is so sad that I get to see them just once in a day. It has been a month since I lost touch with my friends in Bangalore. Nobody returns my calls, my mails, my messages...nothing...I was thinking of throwing away my phone into a stream nearby..its simply of no use!! My dad has reduced his number of calls to just 1 call in 3 days. Earlier, he alone [except my mum] used to call me atleast 5 times a day :( Amrutha and Bhars....you guys be assured that you are soo going to be killed when I come to Bangalore [grr...I hate you both so much!] And Mohana....kapi, manga, where on earth are you?? Well...thats about it....I will stop now...
Lectures on Manufacturing systems were awesome today though it was for 3 incessant hours. This particular module has brought some gusto into the semester. For the first time, I got to toy around with these wonderfully built huge and intricate machines [the central lathe and the milling machine - both used to cut and drill metals to fit a design] and it was too good of an experience. No wonder I opted for Medical Engineering and no wonder that there are only about 10% girls studying in the entire department.....