Thursday, October 30, 2008

Mother nature, not one for equal rights?

See, I can fight with Men for equal rights.
But how do I deal with this mother nature,
who specifically decided to give woman's reproductive organ an early retirement age while the men's retire only when they die.
who decided that woman will alone have still fresh mark on them while men have none of it.

Amma, Sarah Palin needs you

As a 6/7 year old, after rote-ing up my sanskrit/hindi lessons, I will pester my mother for one final independent questioning.

My mum* used to annoy me by asking questions in all kinds of order except the way I had written them down. Sometimes, she would ask me the sanskrit equivalent of an english word when clearly i had written sanskrit word = english word i,e i should be tested the other way around. Stick to the book, woman, stick to the book.

See, I was a stickler for perfection:) and I couldn't take such changes. Besides, if you are learning by rote why not all the way with the numbers. Weren't the marks coming out fine with my superior learning skills.

For all such nonsenses from me, She would come up with worthless explanations like it is more important for me that you know what you are learning than what you score in the exam.

Anyhow, as you can clearly see Sarah Palin needs my mum in her team, so mum can annoy her as well by changing the order of questions which might prepare Sarah Palin a bit more than what her team has done now.

Sunday, October 19, 2008

I choose life.

"Choose Life. Choose a job. Choose a career. Choose a family. Choose a fucking big television, choose washing machines, cars, compact disc players and electrical tin openers. Choose good health, low cholesterol, and dental insurance. Choose fixed interest mortgage repayments. Choose a starter home. Choose your friends. Choose leisurewear and matching luggage. Choose a three-piece suite on hire purchase in a range of fucking fabrics. Choose DIY and wondering who the fuck you are on Sunday morning. Choose sitting on that couch watching mind-numbing, spirit-crushing game shows, stuffing fucking junk food into your mouth. Choose rotting away at the end of it all, pissing your last in a miserable home, nothing more than an embarrassment to the selfish, fucked up brats you spawned to replace yourselves. Choose your future. Choose life..."
-from the movie, Trainspotting.

I have never seen the movie but came across these lines few years ago. It immediately resonated with me. It neatly surmises our middle class existence. At that time, I remember I scorned at that mundane existence.

Today, couple of years wiser, I see how hard each seemingly mundane step is to achieve . I don't know about rotting away and being an embarrassment to the brats god-willing I will spawn, but apart from it, I am all for stuffing junk food and watching the mind numbing television.

Picking each piece of furniture after fantasizing about it for years, craving for it and when it finally makes an appearance in my life, feel as if I have achieved Nirvana only to crave for the next piece for dream.. that is the cycle of life as I see it. That is all I want out of life.

labels:teenage angst gone, pooye poochu, i am just one among the billion and i am happy being that.

Tuesday, October 14, 2008

What are you thinking, Mr. Maniratnam?

Dear readers*,
You might not understand my shock if I say Ravi Kishan is acting in a Maniratnam movie, but if I say that that sentence in my head conjures up a Ramarajan acting in a Maniratnam movie, may be you would?

Ravi Kishan has a wikipedia entry and I am linking it up.


*on last count there are six of you:) Such joy.

Monday, October 13, 2008

Borders

If lines drawn along caste, language, race, religion, colour are bad why are the lines drawn along a country considered sacred?

Patriotism, Jingoism.

Short story found

I had come across this story sometime in 2005 and lost the link. I accidentally found it again this weekend. A story named "En peyar chitra" that could be described almost as a short story version of "The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-time" set in a tamil lower middle class milieu.

I did read the Tamil version after reading the English one yet the tamil one remains my favorite. Now, how many times have we been able to say so about any book or a movie which has had an earlier work as an influence? May be it was because the mileu was familiar, may be the author was able to really bring in the emotional differences better or may be he was able to do so because it was a shorter version. Whatever, if you can read tamil, please do read it and LET me know what you think of it.

I also have to admit here that in spite of reading these two stories and several other websites, I still don't have a good gasp of what autism is. I have met couple of kids(one a colleague and another occasional passer by), both the kids 5 year of age. May be both these kids were in the far end of spectrum of autism, I am not sure, but I couldn't really spot anything abnormal in these kid's behavior.

This is from someone who has read a wee bit about it. There are people who are not even aware of it. When my friend's niece was diagnosed with autism, another friend told me that this was the first time he had even heard of the term.

I am not sure but may be by knowing about it better, we might be able to help the parents involved and kids when we bump into them.

Thursday, October 9, 2008

Time is money, anoosashan* is also money

Long long ago, when all the engineering colleges in madras were affiliated to Madras University, yes that long ago, I went to college. I wrote exams. I studied for a day before the said exams. And the rest of the time was spent in backbenches. nothing related to studies happened there.

Some lecturers took it as a personal offence. One such creature cursed as that we will get cups, she called them arrears(such negative terminology) in the exams one day. We sneered at her for she was not aware of the 'no cause to effect rule' of madras university when it came to said marks. The cups did not come but even if it did, it wouldn't have mattered.

What she should have told us instead is that play all you want puppies but one day you will graduate, there is a big bad world out there which will lure you with all the green bucks but it wouldn't have any backbenches.

* anoosashan - 'indi' pandits shall recognize this word as discipline.

labels:money without work, no place to hide at office,