oneirophobia :)

Once you see the title, you should have fallen in either of the following categories:
1.it is fear of something , let me read ahead...
2. wow, this girl has got a swarming vocabulary (sigh!! wish it were true, I encyclopedia-ed the title word :) )
3. this should be again one of her useless posts, let me raffa daffa ho from this page soon (blessed soul, suit yourself, I wont say you are wrong though:))
4. this should be one of her useless posts , but do I have a choice? Since I am her friend, If not me, who else ?( thanks buddy(ies), love you ever :))


This post is dedicated to a real disturbed friend of mine, in the US, who has new found things like freedom from the watchful and tale carrying Indian society (yes offence intended!!), escape from buzzing neighbours and relatives, solace in getting to breathe in buses and never waiting for eternity in ticket counters, not being able to hear words like 'traffic' and 'pollution' and so on .. But yet, he is not able to enjoy life ... Since he is already disturbed, let me not flaunt of what we have here like good spicy round the clock food (both at home and outside), non-alien looking and speaking people, 24 hours of time which is left to our disposal and not having to dread every second that we are half a second behind schedule for the meeting 2.15 hours and 12 secs from now :), masala puri with friends in beaches, freedom to walk in middle of the road in heavy traffic and flaunting about our Dexter-dodging skills to good looking onlookers and so on and on and on... . Oops sorry mate . India rocks.

Okay, let me come to the point (finally). He has caught the fear of dreams. I am nonplussed as to how to help him regarding this since:
1. I never dream (Sigh!! Kalam Uncle, sorry, I am not a future scientist of India :) ).
2. I never have any long unfulfilled desire to come in my dreams.( because sometimes it takes eons to get fulfilled that I forget about it altogether :))
3. I am the most inartistic and unimaginative person on earth that I cant even draw pictures in the dream.

But I could help in my own special way, will put up his dreams here, so that you guys can help him :):) (yeah, he does read my blog!!)

So Jumbili ( ha.. example of my creativity :)) calls me from US when I am sleeping like an angel *bragging butt smile*and:

Jumbili: Hi ma, what are you doing?

Me: I was zzzstudying online about zzzzshares and zzzstuff in one eye, and taking up an online mock test with the other:)

Jumbili: Oh. Should have known you sleep for four hrs in the afternoon and ten hours at night cha. Anyways, called to say am really disturbed.

Me: Hoping it was some chick- problem and feeling proud that he had called me of all people for counselling and gyan, I chucked the sleep outta my eyes, and tried to focus. Yeah, tell me, am up.

Jumbili: I am having weird dreams. I was riding on a magnificent looking black horse, embodiment of pulchritude and agility, in a dense forest, in moon light. He was a mind reader, reading all my unuttered directions,I just have to think Turn left turn right go straight and stuff. I asked him to turn right after a while. He just twitched his right ear. I again asked him to turn right. He turn his head right. I got so used to his promptness that this sudden mood swing from him got me twitchy and I shouted at him TURN RIGHT , which was such a bad thing to do. In return, he bit me THERE :(:( I buckled up in pain. I can still feel it.

Me: getting visions that he should be really thinking of his THING very often to get it in his dream. And with a horse??ok shut up Preeti, you are hopeless. Ok Jumbili, dont worry, you are fine(and so is your...), just a bad dream. Goodnight, sleep and let sleep :)

Jumbili calls me again today and:

Jumbili: Hi Pre, I had a dream again today. Even you came, we were in a forest (owww.. get out of a forest will ya?) there was a bear looking hungrily at us. My mother had taught me that, on confrontation with a bear, we should act as though dead (sigh, my mother never did! probably, she thought I had some bellicose blood in me, and thought would have come out of the bear menace, sans this fact). But you were breathing and showed us up. It was about to kill us when I woke up and called you (was so tempted to tell him, never to sleep to avoid dreams, but restrained myself with great difficulty as he was sounding genuinely bitter and upset).

ME: Dont worry , I will put an end to this. (more outta selfishness, as this was the second sleep I was shaken out of in two days). Check my blog in a day.

Okay, so guys and girls, my job ends here. I want you people to tell me now, how to cure him of this oneirophobia :):) Cheers!!

Visalam maami !!!

This is a looooooong post :):) think twice before marching southward !!!

It is excellent to be born a yin, having all the parts functional, perfection personified.

It very good to be bred in a Tamil Brahmin family whose members are 180 degrees antiphase with words like orthodox, antiquated doctrines and principles.

It is good to have parents I have wondered many a times as to how two absolutely contrasting personalities gel so well in harmony who have never inculcated the thoughts of arranged marriage sigh they should be knowing from my birth that bridal procedures for me will be a pain!! nor stressed me that I should marry a guy only from my caste sure they will be more than happy so long as its a guy :), that is what they keep telling me, and err.. I have lived upto their expectations :). They have always nurtured the thoughts of preaching the religion of LOVE amma and appa, I love you.




It is not so good live in a society breeding laser beamed outlooks.

It is bad to have a 55+ yr old lady living close by, who has completed her duty of marrying off her children, who has retired from a job and has an over belching bank balance, and is now absolutely free , having 24 hours rusting at her disposal.


It is worse if it is Visalam maami .


It is worser when my amma likes visalam maami whom I detest the most and always behaves politely to her yeah, my genes dont match hers when it comes to visalam maami


Scene 1 : morning 8 I will be a citizen of dreamland then when maami launches her first visit, wearing a pseudo friendly grin

Maami : Endi Meena, konjam kaapi podi kududimma. Avar daily naalu kaapi kudikiraar. seekrame theendhu poidardhu lend me some coffee powder, my husband takes four coffees a day, so running low on it .

Amma: sure maami, please sit down.
I dont have anything against this. After all, just coffee powder na. Then she looks into my room. I pretend to be continuing sleeping, trying to make my sleep postures look more elegant and not like a hippo wallowing in marsh water. She starts the purpose of her visit. Starts her rattle.

Maami: Meena, tcha tcha tcha. Why does Preeti sleep so late? Sun is up and not good for girls to sleep with sun maami, I fantasize sleeping with better... ahem.. forget it :).

Amma: tries to cover up and flops miserably She gets up soon everyday maami. Just that she is tired just today.


Maami: What ever, you should be more strict with her. Else she ll grow up a spoiled brat and stain the family name and we wont be able to show our faces to anyone and end up in blasphemous words from others . dah.. all this shit for JUST sleeping (not having oral sex!!!) in MY home, MY room, MY bed

Amma: seri maami. Maama will be waiting for his coffee. You better hurry up mom I love you for this :)


Scene 2 : twelve noon lunch time visalam maami home for lunch as her husband on some guest lecture, and my amma called her over obviously without my consent so that maami need not trouble cooking for a single person

Maami: sambhar is a bit too sour, rasam is salty, potatoes are fine, though should be half a cm cut finer, yogurt is a little more thicker than the ideal lactometer reading
Want to know the living example of partiality personification, meet my mother.Had I said even half of all this, I would have had the time of my life...would have been so starved that even the kids in deserts of Africa would have won an arm fight with me... sigh..wish I were visalam maami for once...

Amma: sorry maami, will be careful henceforth. AMMA... enough is enough.
I crack a papad with both hands and put the piece in my left hand into my mouth visalam maami gives me a filthy look, as though I relishing a bite on a live cockroach.

Maami : endi Preeti, you dont get up early, you dont help amma in her chores little does she know that amma loves it when I dont help, and feels more than happy when I am never in the vicinity of kitchen and above all you use two hands while eating. What sort of a Tam Brahm you are? yeah, I roam about with a caste tag around

Me: as usual pretending to be deaf and dumb am sure if doordarshan ppl see this, the news job is mine.

Maami: starts her rant about how today's youth are spoilt and rotten like five day old bananas.

Me: turn on the tv and watch zara zara touch me touch me touch me... man... Bips and Kat together... what more can life give you?

Maami: continues her R A N T about half dressed bolly hottie girls, but watches the tv nevertheless.

Amma: watches on helplessly, hoping for the luncheon to get over soon

If you think all this made her have a leash on her appetite, BINGO, you are wrong :) she carries home a fat silver foil wrapped with delicious food for the night for the couple :):)

Scene 3:evening 5 pm

Maami: wow Meena you got wonderful jasmine flowers in your garden. Let me take them home, string them up and give you and your beautiful daughter.

Amma: Preeti does not like plucking flowers maami, she says they look good on plants and not fair to reduce their life span by a day. Anyways, you can take them for yourself if you like. Gotcha!! that is my cooked up reason, actually I dont like the smell of jasmine, and the look of it sticking out of my head, like little white headlights on a black backdrop

Maami: gives amma tips on how to raise children wonderfully and flower-likingly like her

Then appa comes home and am on cloud nine. This means maami wont come till he leaves for office next morning :)

Your Attention Please ISRO!!!

Dear ISRO,
First of all my hearty congratulations to all your wonderful scientists for making Chandrayaan-1 a dream come true, the first ever of its kind. What makes me more happy is that the unfathomable feat was accomplished using only 4% of the allotted budget for the project. That is something to be marvelled at. Now that you have so much money in your kitty, I request you to make one more trip along with the following people and giving them a one-way-ticket to the moon. I do not need them here, not now, not ever :)


1. Raj Thackeray and the likes, who spread the language of goonda gardhi in the name of upholding religion. I know there is not least of grace and humanism present in you, but would really appreciate if you go and bury yourself in the craters of the moon, never ever returning to daub our abode. You (try to) rest in peace, am sure once you are gone with your followers , we surely will :) so ADIEU :):)

2. All the debauch men present who cannot control their sexual crusades. I am telling this with utmost dignity embalmed with fury, do not play with the innocent children, their helplessness and physical inability to fight you. Try to have the dregs of altruism and go to people who are in the profession, catering your needs (not by choice or accord, nevertheless). You should be punished with nothing less than a painful and ever lasting castration.

3. All the University thieves in the facade of answer script evaluators. You dont have the sense to evaluate papers correctly the first time, then ask the poor students to shell out 700 bucks for a single paper to be re-evaluated (for many families losing 700 bucks is ten days of sleeping with wet loin on abdomen) and then, like magic, the marks are increased by 40-50 upon hundred. What is the deal? You dont deserve to be here. Bump your heads on the trenches on moon and let us see if that knocks some sense into your piggy heads.

4. Not breaching trust is like walking on a tight rope over the Pacific, which needs meticulous balance lest we should fall, never to be redeemed again. So all you politicians who play with peoples' trust, good bye forever.

5. Was in Annai Illam (Mother's abode) a few months back. It is a home for the deserted and aged parents, who have been deprived of their property, pride, dignity, love, faith and thrown there, with nothing but a soul with incessant prayers to god to call them soon. Met a judge's wife (65 yr old). She said her son was really magnanimous, even after marriage. After Judge uncle's demise, her son gave her a separate room with attached bathroom, air conditioner, television and all the latest magazines. Food was delivered promptly by the ayyah into her room. The only condition was that she should never ever leave her room, come what may. To the son- Who wants to live a life of luxury? This is not the real comfort to your mother. Get that into your henpecked brains. She needs you by her side to speak to, your children to play with, your wife to ask her doubts while cooking, share family matters, involve her in a evening light meal talks, your attention, your TIME, your LOVE and not your latest gadgets.
Why do some children treat parents like sugarcane? extracting all the juice, sweetness and thirst quenching elixir over and over again, then throwing away the remnants?Good bye to you too. Meet the likes of you at moon and rot there forever.

6. On the lighter side, I want to send Himesh miya for 'acting' in karzzz (a curse). Dude, if you promise to stick to nasal singing, and bid adieu to malodorous acting, I'll tell ISRO to fetch you back!!:)

7. Last of all, ME :)

Sometimes, I tend to commit mistakes, knowing fully well, they are mistakes. The need to put head into the gutter knowing fully well of its contents. Yeah please send me to the moon, for spending a 100 bucks and reading one night @ the call centre. Sree, if you are reading this, I know you'll bury me alive :) But believe me, the book was pathetic. Bhagat Bhai, you cheated me. I expected lots from you after five point someone. Will not read three mistakes of my life, and commit my second mistake!!:)

Thanks in advance ISRO :):)


P S :-Feel free to add the kinda people you wanna pack off to the moon :)

shoo...scat...CAT...you brat!!!

WARNING :
1.This is a 100% bakwaas post, read at your own risk :)
2. This is my perception of CAT and am not sorry if it did not make any sense to you (remember warning 1??).

Ok now ready... go ahead..

This is not about the four pawed animal which drinks milk and eats away your cornetto ice cream, or pukes all over your bed ( err.. my cat did) , or does the walk shaking its bum in perfect harmonic oscillations which irritates me('come on you thing, walk straight!!'). Cat, if you are reading this(!!!),' I Hate You. Please go to your home and stop dirtying my room. Mom does not clean your generous leftovers everyday. I have to do it at times'. :)

OK I was going to talk about the Common Aptitude Test (for the aliens, it is the test that one has to take to get into a good Business school and has to score sky high marks eg:90/100 is way too low:)), the fever that has caught on many of my friends and never leaves them. Yeah they are suffering from CAT fever even during this weekend, not going home for the festival, not eating properly, not having family fun, and CATting and slogging away to glory. Poor souls. They dont have a choice. Many have been given a choice "get an MBA or get married:)"(I wont mind the latter, anyways:)), so you understand the need of the hour slogan of such forlorn friends is CLEAR CAT:)

If only we could write CAT in our seventh or eighth grades when

*Math was our friend

*logarithms made sense (I dont understand why we need log books when we got scientific calculators around)

*we did not stick out fingers and toes for addition


*our blood test results read "Trigonometry positive, algebra count 128593 "

*simple, compound , complex , extra complex interests calculations was enjoyed(at least better than now).

*English grammar and reading speed came to us naturally and we were blessed with a remarkable memory to remember all those grammar rules

*LOGICAL REASONING, supposed to be inherent and comes out of sheer observation, but here, you got to cram two pages full of rules. The whole logic of logic is lost :)

Man..I dont get the whole point. What are the basic qualities required for a manager/entrepreneur(the ultimate target of any CAT taker)?

1. communication

2.sales promotion technique

3. stress management

4.optimisation of the resources at hand and give a satisfactory final product.

5. a proper blend of qualities like intuition, creativity, versatility,discipline and commitment, embedded upon a proper knowledge base.

I feel none of these qualities are tested by CAT. They wanna test our reading and writing skills? why have a verbal section? they can see our blogs (err.. a dumb idea, nevertheless!!).
My CAT friends, relax for a couple of days, have a break, enjoy, freak out and then get back to the moribund and never satiating preparation.

P.S: I am taking CAT too :) and am so thrilled about it.I want Nov 16 soon. Not because I am a well-prepared geek and am yearning to knock doors at IIM B , but because I have my test center at Chennai ( Chennai,I know you missed me for eight months now, but dont worry, I still love you and miss you lots:)) and will get to spend quality time with friends post-CAT :):)

mixed up :)

So I was in Bangalore yesterday, shopping for Diwali.Being a full fledged foodie as already said in my previous posts, I was in one of the newly opened super markets. Ambiance was great, there were ladies (yeah droolable ones, but would have looked better sans the "rakhi sawant ishtyle" lipstick :)) with haldi kumkum in their hands to welcome customers. More than ready directors who eagerly took care of our needs in every section and helped us locate what we needed, saving us the effort of gliding through the frictionless polished marble floor.My mom and I were assisted by one Mr. E(short for enthusiastic guy).

I love jam, any flavour, and would always feel more than happy to taste any new entrants. The conversation went like this (mom was busy checking out offers and freebies in another section)between Mr.E and me:

Mr.E : Hello Madam, how may I help you?

Me : was grinning from ear to ear for being addressed as 'Madam'. Respect never hurts man :) Err.. hi.. was just checking out new flavours in jams.

Mr.E: who was looking down until now as though he was searching for a lost 500-rupee note, suddenly looked up and gave a not-so-okay look. Then gave a sly smile. We just had chocolate flavour jam yesterday madam. New entry in our store. Try it. And do give us your feedback.

Me: I have never been asked for feedback except at college to lie about the wonderful teaching of our professors in the feedback form so I happily nodded my head already tasting choco jam mentally :) Please put it in the basket sir and send it for billing. I'll go catch up with my mom.

Mr.E: still with the same sly smile OK madam, happy to help.

I go away, suspecting nothing, and wait with mom by my side for the billing counter to pack us off soon. Guess what I find in the place of Jam..
A box of cookies ....
No
A Cadbury's Celebrations family pack...
No
A teddy bear ( chocolate colour)
No
come on.. guess...




A BOX OF CONDOMS!!!!!( yeah, err..I suppose chocolate flavour :D).How on earth am I supposed to know that the shop used the code word "jam" for "condoms" ( now dont ask me the connection between the two, if you got any clue, let me know). My mom was aghast and asked "Pre, why do YOU need this? ",(giving me a you-need-more -knowledge-about-eighth-standard-biology-look) . I tried to look less stupid and more mature (I tell you I felt like a combination of George Bush and Mr.Beans on a holiday with Mamta)and explained what actually happened. We both laughed it off later, and asked the super market people to be more careful with their code words. People in search of condoms will obviously help themselves and not be so tawdry about it like me. Another point,not all mothers will be casual, and not all people will ward this off lightly with a sense of humour :).

Yay Yay Yay!!! my sister is home for Diwali. Family of four together for Diwali after four years (all four are in India, South India, just that it never clicked).Will have real fun. You guys and girls also have a super Diwali with family and friends (the ones in US dont worry, have virtual fun!!!)and yeah play safe( err.. with the crackers of course)!!!

'train' of thoughts...

I always prefer travelling in second class day trains. That is where I get a flavour of all the spices garnishing India. In a gutsy attempt to just marvel at nature, observe things and people around me completely, I carried none of my usual companions along (music, books, LAYS, bricks video game, sudoku).

Now can I get luckier than this, the reservation chart reads
S Preeti F 21
Srivatsan M 25

Wow that is some news. I sit waiting for Sri (lazy to type vatsan along,oops i just typed , aww forget it:)) and he boards twenty minutes later. He is Tall and Dark (according to me a guy who is Tall + Dark = HHH (Handsome and Happening Hunk)). Unfortunately he turns out to be way too shy, deliberately makes a fuss of not even accidentally brushing against me and maintains a safe distance of 3 inches (I wonder how he balanced himself as he was in the 'away' seat and was literally fighting gravity). I felt like telling him "dude I am not gonna rape you. Please feel safe". He opened his laptop and plugged in earphones and was seeing DDLJ, thats my favorite movie (Shah rukh and Kajol look magical) and even though I have seen it 59 times, I wont miss a scene when given a chance. So I keep sneaking looks at his laptop, hoping soon enough he would somehow mind read me and share his earphone. "Whhhhhhhaaaaaaaaaaaaaa", a ear splitting sound from
a wailing infant. Wait. Its not an infant, its a girl, no wait, a child...ok, its from an earthling in the age group of 1.5-3 :):) I seriously feel such kids have a pitch higher than Parveen Sultana and would reach professional pinnacles when into classical singing. I wonder why they wail? Perhaps they too want a glimpse of the "ruk jaa oh dil deewane" song from the laptop :) Or want to just get free from the mother shackles and roll around. Or are too wet already. Or What ever. In essence, a wailing infant next to you is definitely not fun.


I then got distracted to supposedly discreet giggles of two teenage girls. A part of the eavesdropped conversation:

G1: You know my boyfriend never finds fault in me, including the two pimples on my lower half of left cheek *freaking hell*

G2: soooo romantic... wish I had one like that. But my guy really likes my hair cut, especially the two strands slapping my face every now and then... *oww stop this mushy gooey shit will you*

This topic was definitely not of my interest so turned towards the middle aged aunty next to me. Now that I have used the word 'aunty' , thats the word I wanna screw out of the dictionary. In my sister's parent teacher meeting, one female came upto me and asked,"aunty, which standard is your kid in? 11th or 12th?", my vocabulary fell short of all the swear words I knew. And I get further kindled when they pronounce aunty as 'anti' Come on you nutties out there, I am just 21. Please try to notice that somehow. Now lets get back to the real aunty in the train :) she was throwing a threatening look at her husband (probably) seated opposite to her who was smoking perhaps the 15th cigarette in one hour. I am not against smokers as such its their personal life and none of my bloody business to ask them to wean away from cigarettes. But would really feel good if they did controlled smoking and felt the cigarette telling them " hey you, I am cinders in a few minutes, but you will follow suit soon buddy, catch you later ".


Was too tired of observation by now, and fell into a beautiful sleep ( did I hear anyone saying thank god :), and by the way yeah I did dream of HHH:))

Tagged :):)

I am back :) And what-a-way to start off . I open my gmail to find that Revs has tagged me :) My first ever tag and I loved doing it. Thanks Revs :):)

The tag:
Two questions in each category answer them and then tag your friends from the blog-o-sphere. (Simple enough right) Leave a comment on their blog letting them know they have been tagged and you are all set.
So here I go... My thoughts unleashed...

Yesterday
Your oldest memories

1. On a serious note...

Date : 16th Dec 1992
Place : Apollo Hospital

I was in the first standard then , carrying an overflowing satchel balanced precariously on my shoulders, two tiny plaits of hair which no longer looked neat and hairs stuck out at random (nowadays, its fashion and people call it 'spikes', but those times, you are bound to get a what-a-sick-girl look from beholders), black shoes covered effortlessly by a thin film of dust, the red tie threatening to fall off my neck any minute, there I stand, clutching my perimma (mom's elder sister) tight, looking through the glass door of the ICU (the nurse wont let us in due to the risk of infection,I did not know what 'infection' meant then), looking at the tiny bundle battling for life, barely visible under the plethora of translucent tubes covering her body,carrying fluids and oxygen, monitoring every single evanescent moment. I look on, hoping to cuddle her, play with her, kiss her and everyday got snapped out of my reverie by the nurses saying "visiting hours are over, please come tomorrow". It was ten dreadful days of struggle in the ICU even before my mother saw her. Alas, she won, life won, we won, my sister came home. Priya, I love you very much. Dont you dare scare us this way ever.

2. On the lighter side...

Place: Maninagar, Gujarat
Date: sometime in June 1993

Dad got transferred to Gujarat. Approached Hebron's school for my admission in second standard.

Dad: Good morning Madam, I am here regarding my daughter's admission in second standard. I know it has been closed, but please do consider as a special case.

HM: Yes sir, I understand but there are no seats available. All seats are full.

Me (innocent yet shrewd): Madam, no problem, I will sit on the floor.

The HM got impressed and gave me admission. My father was boasting about my 'cleverness' and presence of mind. How wrong he was!!!
I sucked at maths. Doing a math problem wrong is perfectly okay, not attending a problem is fine, sleeping away during maths exams is also not-that-bad, but making paper boats of the math question paper the moment I get it is way too much for the teachers to bear :) Somehow, I used to do that only with maths question paper. Then how I got promoted to third standard is a SECRET sshhhh.....

What were you doing ten years ago?
I just entered seventh grade in Trichy ( South India) from Goa. Total cultural difference. Had a real tough time making friends, adjusting to the scorching unrelenting heat, and school timings. Here at Trichy we had school from 8 am to 4 pm. In Goa, they could not hold us in for more than 1 pm. Hindi grammar- I HATE YOU. Tr.Janaki- I dont like you much either :):) Today, all my seventh grade buddies are my closest friends :) sharing silly things, giggling over nothing and swaering at each other for not mailing, calling etc..

Today
Your first thought in the morning
"hmmmm... wonderful smell.. wonder what's mom cooking for breakfast :)", poor soul, she has to use nice smelling breakfast as bait to wake me up :) while in college a few months back my first words "f#$% off you alarm" :)



If you build a time capsule what would it contain?
ever lasting supplies of food, my favorite novels, tinkle, sudoku, good coffee atleast twice a day and my good old scabby. Here's how scabby looks like:

Tomorrow
This year...
contained eveything, both ups and downs, completed my final year project successfully,Priya joined boarding school (you cant expect decent schools here, at this place, which is 30 yrs behind civilisation), my friends left for further studies, quality time with near and dear friends and relatives, I turned into a blog-addict *proud grin* :):) That is all I can think of.

What do you see yourself doing 14 years from now?
I would be 35 then, having an couple of kids ( hopefully twins :)), one husband(!!!), possibly blogging and reading and enjoying life :):)

I tag:

Ram

Kartz

Keshi (if you ve not already done this )

Sreeram (muhahahahaha)

Richa (get started:))

Vanilla

and anyone else who is interested in taking this up :):)