A thousand tears...

Laila and Mariam have many things in common. To list a few:
They are both the paradigm of a modern Afghan Woman
They love to Live for their children, even if its a day longer
They fight the Taliban, showing stalwart support to Kabul
They are both married, unfortunately to the same (hu) man
It is tough to choose which is more bearable, bombs being thrown like water balloons over their kins, or being beaten black and blue by Rasheed, their husband.
It is my challenge to all my friends who love good books, that this book will make you shed a thousand splendid tears. Yes, A Thousand Splendid Suns by Khaled Hosseini is not as good as the Kite Runner, it is even better. After Shantaram and A fine balance (Rohinton Mistry) this book made my cry, not from my heart, but from my soul. At some places in the book, you feel like giving up your life to end their suffering, curse yourself for being an armchair lady and being so narrow minded to grumble over a job or a missed train or a lost guy or simply over nothing at all. Love is like a silkworm trying to survive every extra second, sacrifice flows like an ocean here and finally you reach a point where you can take it no more and you turn every page hoping Laila and Mariam will wake up to a better tomorrow. The cover page design cannot be better. A lone woman, covered in red, surviving the winds of time, is heading towards a goal, which according to her is a better place to live in, with people to love and respect her, which have become luxuries to her. Food is a rare commodity, hunger, pain, distrust and lingering death her companions forever (?). Will she survive?

TWO STATES ;)

Hey friends, I wish all of you the best in 2010. May you have mannnnyyy boy/girl friends, lots of money and time to buy books, food, movies and clothes :)may married friends be blessed with soft obedient children ;)and yeah, happy new year again :)
I was in Rajasthan for the new year in a thermal power plant. If you really wanna know what it was all about, kindly read my previous rants :)Cut off from people, good food, rice and sambhar for ten days. Thanks to bread and jam. It helped me shed three kgs in ten days. So, this is now size zero rice-less and priceless Preeti for you :O

Then one of my friends was back from the US, remember Jumbili who had night mares about the horse biting him ‘there’(click here for flashback)?? Yeah, that’s the one who has come back for a vacation. So Jumbili wanted to have a ‘feel’ of Chennai and her sister Bangalore (now no wisecracks as to what he was feeling for 20 years at C+B before leaving for MS, that question is beyond the scope of this blog space). So yeah, we travelled by bus from place to place. He was nothing like a typical NRI , who curses the weather as though it were his ex-girlfriend personified(I guess he is still straight, though I have my own doubts as one Mr Adam keeps calling him and talks for :)..anyways..), grumbles about pollution and population and definitely not a mineral water freak.

Scene 1: Chennai, Sunday noon, Mt Road
We were alighting a bus when This Jumbili was standing in a queue to get down . I never really knew what queue meant especially in ticket counters, ration shops restrooms etc and definitely was alien to it in a bus. I guess people feel so restricted, suffocated and deadly inside a bus (people not to be blamed, courtesy weather and temperament of bus driver and conductor) that they want to explode out of it first thing their stop arrives. Its like sperms fighting and finally the king sperm emerges first. Yeah, sperms have random kinetic motion, not in a queue. Jumbili told me he did not feel welcome back here as back in US he had discipline and humanity as the basic qualifications of any person.. Huh, what to say guys?

Scene 2: Chennai bus again
Now here I was bestowed the job of preventing a fist fight between Jumbili and the bus conductor. At a signal , Jumbili asked the driver to switch off his engine for the 120 second long wait. For which he said that diesel is Govt’s money not his. He started giving statistics regarding how his two-minute-engine-on on a continual basis is blasphemous to the environment, financial prospects of India and lots of other above the head concepts. So, the driver rose not-so-gracefully from his seat and rolled up his sleeves. I had to intrude and prevent what could have been a free show and even a bigger hit than 3 Idiots.

Scene 3: Shoe shop, Bangalore
One of the shoe shops said “grab two pay for one” so we tried to do some grabbing and realized anything that we chose was not less than 700 bucks (not branded mind you). Agreed, these are advertising skills or marketing strategies but not all people are so foolish to buy a torn-strap-slipper for a fortune. So Jumbili felt that people are no longer honest to themselves.

Scene 4: Auto man, Bangalore
In Bangalore we have this wonderful meter system unlike Chennai. So the rate is 7 Rs/km. We happened to meet one auto man who said his meter is wrongly calibrated and we should pay him Rs 120 (though the meter cost would have been somewhere around Rs.70 to 80). So Jumbili told him to take Rs 120 but he wanted the meter kept ON to really check the calibration ( A Power Engineer from US definitely cant stand faulty instruments and will go the extent of repairing it, as they feel it is their personal property). So the clever and dexterous auto man switches off his meter at half way through to our home. Jumbili gets irritated and says he wants it on. The.auto man says the battery got discharged and signed a verbal deal with us saying he wont accept a single rupee if his auto does not start working once we reach home. We reached. Meter conked. Auto man stared giving shy smiles. Jumbili said he wont pay. Hell broke loose and finally we gave in, not because 120 Indian rupees meant nothing to him or he wanted peace but because the smell of masala dosa from our home caught him off guard and he wanted to attack it soon.

Then he started all about reckless drivers, lack of lane ethics blah blah blah. But I just said I love my India, however she is and I love my people however they are, as I am no different and very proud.

happie bday Preet :):)

So, its yet another year.. not feeling in the best of health today :( so jus gonna keep it short and simple. I want all of you who read this post to write what you feel towards me/this blog. criticism most welcome. I cant say I love it, since we dont love to breathe :) I want you guys to let me know who I am according to your bonding with me in this online family. so deal?
and yeah, this blog is open to all.. except of course anonymous readers. As I have said many times, there is no err.. secret content out here for you too keep your identity reserved.
ok, will wrap up..hugs to you all :):)

meet the honest damsel ::):)

aww... Sree gave me this honest scrap award.. I am so pleased (happie tears of course, honestly :))..

The rules are I need to write 10 honest things about me ( I assume it can be even 'pure' thoughts I very often have :/) Then I need to tag seven people and pass on this award..

Lemme start...

1. I love to do solitary wrestling with my soul. I choose to be disturbed for no reason, laugh my arse off for again no reason, I drool over guys for no reason (err.. yeah.. no reason:)) and what ever.

2. I cannot talk sense, for continuously more than five minutes. Now no wise cracks saying neither can I write sense, though the author honestly admits that fact too. I prefer bugging a person in person than stick a four inch instrument to my ear. I love to see their irritation and say secretly "gotcha babe/dude, mission accomplished".

3. I have a 'thing' for bold bald men and beer bellied men, preferably old. sheesh.. now that I have said it, I am like whoa.. should I actually be telling this?? but its ok, I am sure some young prince will get instant attraction to my 'honesty' and appreciate the thoughts embedded in these words :)

4. My estrogen starts secreting at the wrong times, and wrong places in front of wrong people. Somehow, I die when I lose a pen or something equally silly but remain a rock when actually someone dies:(:( But that is the way I am, Idiotic as ever :)

5. I am Shenaz-Hussain- hairstyle scared (long for hell-scared) of crossing roads. I never cross it alone, and even if I do, I speak to my mom on phone which doing the act (of crossing the road:P). Just in case I reach hell (remember I am still being truly honest) earlier than other side of the road.

6. I can be elated by small things, say a road side paani puri treat, a greeting card saying you remember, a mail etc. These things will give me more pleasure than getting 10 crores :) Honestly I dont need so much money, because even if I get it, I dunno what next to do with it.

7. If you miss watching Chyna and Stephanie brawling (to ignite the ignorant, Women wrestling) dont worry at all. Come home when me and my sis meet after one month. Amma literally walks out of the house, when we suddenly realise we are famished due to the brawl, and realise further there is no food cooked, and unite against Amma who has committed the crime of temporarily orphaning and starving us.

8. I hate yellow. Be it gold, clothes, wall paints, flowers furniture or what ever, I simply HATE yellow. Given a choice between being with yellow or veerapan (forgetting the fact he has yellow teeth) I ll choose the latter :) Honestly.

9. I love potatoes, form no bar. I can barter a life long supply of potatoes for even Clooney :) I know now two souls will be on cloud nine :)

10.I honestly love my online family. You guys rock.Today and forever.

PS: I tag: Revs, Kartz, Sawan, Vanilla,Jack, Chriz and Matangi :)

I just have to write because I feel like...

Anger

frustration

disturbance

disgust

weakness

helplessness

fear

irritation

hatred

.

.

.

.

.

What do I do if I get all these feelings at once? This is the conversation that took place between me and a security personnel, at the gate some few meters in front of our site office:

He: oye oye oye

Me: (used to such calls from sexually starved men, turned a cold shoulder as usual, not to blame them totally as I am the only yin among 2000 yang)

He: hello hello madam..

Me: madam, this word made me go back to him. Yes?

He: aap kahan kaam kar rahen hain? (where do you work).

Me: XYZ

He: aap ab kahan jaa rahen hain? (where are you going now?)

Me: site office

He; XYZ ka office udhar nahin hain. sach bolo kahan jaa rahi ho? (there s no site office there. tell me the truth as to where you are going).

and here the 'you' changed from plural to singular( this is one point where I love the English language, you dont have to bother whether the person is calling you the singular you or the plural one, it doesnt even matter). This reflected many things like he had an element of doubt regarding my basic character.No, this is not my figment of imagination, there is no circuited reason- I am a Sagittarian, and I cant imagine.Simple as that. I cannot describe the tone with which he asked and sent goose flesh on my skin. I felt so humiliated. Unless you be Me I am sure its tough to feel the magnitude of the issue. But I hope this is making some sense atleast. I mean hope you get the point and intensity of the words uttered by him.I agree, a security personnel's job is to ensure safety to company's property and check everyone's identity. Not talk like a third rated person, who cannot identify the person who's been working at site for a month continuously now. This is not yet another save women rant, never shall i vouch for such feelings, but yeah, I expect people to respect me, as a person, as a human, as an Engineer and at last, as a Woman.I gave a cold look and kept walking saying " get elite, XYZ office has been there for the past one year, unless you have shifted it overnight".

Somehow, I am still disturbed. Why ME?

Preeti, the serial kisser :x

Christopher. Completed 15 revolutions round the sun. Tall for his age. Elegant Tan. Bright eyes. Porcupine hair. Breathed Maths. Imbibed Physics. Photographic memory. One complex equation he never understood was :how the human mind works. Facial expressions bore no meaning to him. He was a neural controlled network and the terms 'feelings' 'emotions' 'eye-talk' were out of his scope of syllabus. This attracted me to him. He never lied. Though sometimes, he white-lied (hiding certain facts which does not quantify as lies, like when your mom asks "what are you doing?" you in turn respond saying" I am sleeping" which is also true even without the latter part of the sentence disclosing your err..companion(s).. hope the term white-lie is perfectly clear now :P). So where was I? Yeah.. Chris. One sad morning he found his neighbor’s dog dead. Rather killed. With a garden fork. Someone murdering a dog?? rather tweedy. More tweedy was Chris went to the dregs of the issue to find the murderer and suitably punish him (yeah.. he also composed an elegy for the death of the dog).
So its all about how he finds the culprit, discovers someone near to him is actually alive and not dead as believed and portrayed by all, how he travels all alone a 1000 miles in search of someone, how he actually loves someone whom he hated and hates someone whom he loved, how he maintains distant proximity with someone and stuff like that..
Guess its all soupy now.. to make things clear, read THE CUROIUS INCIDENT OF THE DOG IN THE NIGHT TIME by MARK HADDON. Now what has the title got to do with this book review? Well, the author has to attract readers for book reviews till the end na.. So gotcha glued (I hope so). And yeah, I white lied too :). I did kiss the book !!:) Any day, given an option between a good book and sex, Preeti solemnly swears to chose the former (err.. no white lies here :):))

HAPPY DIWALI (atleast) to you :/

CAUTION: Rant ahead , with a footnote of Diwali wish (author shamelessly admits the wish is a formality, just typed out and not from her heart).
So, here I am stuck for Diwali in an alien land, infested with contractor and customer shouting into each ear ( thank god for just two ears), without family, without friends ( just a couple of colleagues who got no other choice but to befriend me as they are also lonely souls out here). No crackers, no amma's food, no meeting sister even after six long months, no seeing he ayyan pattasu ad every fifteen minutes, no temple (no regrets there though) and just having loneliness to accompany my shadow which is also full of empty. Let me talk about one good thing of not being at home for Diwali.. No OIL BATH. I shudder at the very thought of that. I am a proud hydrophobic and it really takes a toll on me to scrub myself oil free and my mother will put so much oil on my cute little head that a whole ravenous bunch of 50 people can fry papads and eat for a month (no exaggeration). There should be some statement in kumudham or anantha vikatan ( amma's bible, though the first rank between the two books keeps swapping, in direct proportion to "true" and "unbelievable" facts in them) that applying hair oil leads to cholesterol or something equally sensible (remember this author always talks sense :)).
And the worst part is when I get a call from L and she says:
L: Hey vetti, so having fun at site na? We software people are so busy and life does not give time to breathe.
Me: L, I am with customer, can I get back?
L: I am free on two days before and after Diwali re.. call me then. Good you are in a public sector. You will get so much time for yourself.
Me(getting so aarrrgghhh like when Mallika Sherawat is asked to wear clothes): Please L, its been ages since I forgot what time means, forget for oneself.
L: Yeah I know you always want for more. Remember what you always say,"man is the peculiar of all, who always wants for what is not".
Me; L, shut the gyan up before I freak out.. chal bye.
L: ok ok nautanki.. buh bye
But she is so busy that she ultimately hangs the phone up only after fifteen minutes, when I have already put the phone in my pocket and doing my work. Dah.. do software people love monologues???
Anyways, cutting the crap and rant, I wish you all a very Happy Diwali :):) Enjoy have fun and dont hog too much.. Remember there's this malnourished kid in Bhilai :(:(:(