47. Abhi tumhari beti zinda hai maa!

Little girls are so cute, I tell you! One such bundle of joy is my sister. I shall fail to do justice to this post if I start writing about her and what she does, and how we argue and bicker, and then laugh and laugh till we cry for no reason, and how we have whispered our deepest secrets to each other that only we could share, and how sometimes(umm.. many-a-times), I feel she is way too mature than I am and could ever be,though I am the elder one and how she always.. always knows when I need a hug, and.. bleh!

Ok, I think I have done enough justice to the profound talent I possess - that of deviating from the point :D

*

A prelude to the narration was deemed required by yours truly and hence, here it is.
#1 : 'The little sister'(wherever mentioned) is a 14-year old who has been learning (and continues to learn) Bharatanatyam for the past 5 years. This story dates to the time when parents of yours truly and 'the little sister' had Arangetram plans for the latter.

#2 : Arangetram(the same as mentioned above), happens to be a slightly costly affair. 'Costly' would be a purely relative term, and hence, 'slightly' costly. It happens to be an event where the teacher is to be gifted 'Pattu Pudavai'(silk sarees) as Guru Dakshina. A major chunk of expenditure on an Arangetram would be the rent for an auditorium, remunerations for the accompanying musicians etc. Round about 2.5 lakhs of raw cash goes into this affair(this is again an approximation; it could get more grandiose).

#3 : 'The little sister' who happened to be listening to all of this planning managed to make mental notes of the same.

#4 : 'The little sister' is given a pocket money of Rs.500 with no fixed scheduling period, which she keeps in a little maroon purse. Apart from this fixed amount, she also accumulates what is given by visiting relatives after 1000 namaskarams that she is made to do.

*

As the story goes, this is what happened one fine day.. Yours truly needed a little money for bus fare to go to a friend's place. It is usually publicly known, adding much to the disgrace of yours truly, that yours truly would any day go trouble her little sister(read monster when it comes to lending money) for a little change than show bus-wallahs 100-rupee notes and earn their innocent sugar-coated replies. At the time of this event, 'little sister' supposedly had (or claimed to have) only Rs.200 in her wallet and hence, blatantly denied the request.

Excerpts of what ensued is produced here :

YT : Yours truly
TLS  : The Little Sister

YT : Tere paas change hai? (Do u have some change on yourself?)

TLS : Nahi. (No.)

YT(poking) : Mujhe pata hai, tere paas hai. (I know you have it)

TLS : Fir kyun poocha? (Why did you have to ask then?)

YT : Please dede. (Give it to me please) *Yes, occasionally we do beg each other*

TLS : Yaar, sorry main nahi de sakti. Main apne arangetram ke liye bacha rahi hun. Mom dad ko support karungi arangetram organise karne mein. (Sorry, can't lend it to you. I am saving all this for my arangetram. I'll support mom & dad for the arangetram with this.)

YT : *no words* :D

 *

The usage of 'yours truly' multiple times in the passage is intentional. The author of this post derives inexplicable sadistic pleasure by irritating noble readers, who would cringe at its usage.

EDIT : Some of you seem to have mistaken the 'support' part of the post. Though I agree in every way that TLS is a responsible child in the true sense of the word, 'support' here was not meant supporting our parents by providing a stable income to the family :D I dont mean to humour such a sensitive thing, but what I had really intended to say was that at that point of time, she thought of lending a helping hand to my parents for the arangetram by saing up herself out of her pocket money. That was really cute! :D

26. Shrinkage

Recession is brilliant if u ask me. I am basking in its glory already.



But any income is better than no income,you would say. Screw you!

Here is a few arbit stuff I could think of:

1. Recession is a time when you get to(replace with "forced to" if needed) look back at your long-gone school acads. There is depressed pay all around. Nothing better than getting back to school and investing the little of it left in education.

2. Vocational jobs. Could be anything. Look at what you are good at.

3. It is also a time when you can foster your childhood fetishes of dropping a silvery metal or two(if you can manage) into your piggy bank.

4. It is time to appreciate the other "finer"... I repeat.. other FINER things in life.... It was "laziness" for me. High time you discover yours. Few things come along just by mere virtue of serendipity.

5. Decide and pen down your list of what to buy once recession ends. :D

6. Get married. No money, no question of dowry, no hullabaloo of a grand marriage. Less people (due to train and flight fares of course), to cater to.

7. Get into cooking mode. Hobby or not, it would help save restaurant bills.

Ok, I can come up with more convincing crap. Just buy me some more time.

10. (Sun)-cinnati!!

I dont know how many of u believe in SunSigns and stuff...
Though I am not too much into it,I like to believe to a certain extent that people by default,inherit a lot of their characteristic temperaments and attributes from their Zodiacs.. It actually helps me take it easy whenever people irritate me at times... So I conveniently blame it on the position of the planets at the time they were born.. :) :) !!

By my troth, I am an Aries(or Arian? Or whatever!)
Well,my problem is not really that.. Its CANCERians.. I really want to know why I have this real huge number of these people in my life... For all the knowledge I have gained after reading Linda Goodman's book of SunSigns, I gather that ARIES and CANCER dont really go well... Huh? There has to be some mistake ere... ALL my best friends are CANCERians..!! Till now,alright. No more. No soul irritates me more than them.... I want to get away from these people.. I want to shay "Shooooo...." to every other new crab I meet... Caring,sensitive,ambitious,I-ll-never-let-u-get-out-of-my-clutches people..... I have had enough of them...... And that I bond(and am supposed to bond!!) really well with LEOs and SAGIs is a different thing altogether :)

p.s NOM to any Cancerian! p.p.s This is the third editing to this post p.p.p.s Sometimes I wonder why I write :D :D Mera Mood: calm Bajaate Raho: Here I am - Bryan Adams

7. Title ka kya achaar daloge?

No really. I don't know if this makes me some kind of a handicapped person but I dont seem to write on some particular topic. I mean, people tell me this blog lacks direction and contains inexpressive and depressing content that would make Mithun Chakraborty look like a philosopher. Ok,that should be something. Presenting to you all the wickedness and trash in the world in a bulletted format. Here, goes!

• One of my pals is planning to buy a bike. After 3 long turbulent years, this sounds like some nice thing coming up. And then there are always people who would suggest buying a car. Err.. My advice would be that unless you have 3 boisterous kids and a wife, who wants you to take her to the big shopping sale(annual), buying a car is like going to an Ashram with Hansika Motwani (Hansika who? You are lucky to not have known yet). Aah, riding on a rain-washed road must be nothing less than bliss.
• Is MTV selling these days? Whats with Splitsvilla(Oh, dont ask) and the Roadies thingy? We've had a 1.0, and a 2.0, and a 3.0, and a 4.0, a 5.0 and now guess what? Roadies 6.0 auditions alive and kicking right up there!(Sign-up now and u'll get a Cheat Code DVD free). What with Splitsvilla ending up(That was some relief). Indian girls. A whole bunchload of gaalis. Bitching. Elimination. And more bitching. And a whole lotta fame and money for yourselves. Indian women-elegant? Hardly. Oh, and I cant stand the sight of pretty angelic Cyrus Sahukar on the screen. Rannvijay was the reason I was watching Splitsvilla anyway.
• Which is noisier? A) A jet plane playing Reshammiya(was that 2 M's? Umm. Even Altaf Raja would serve the purpose) screeching right behind your ears? Or is it B) 3 Sardaar kids in a train playing antaksharee on the seat behind yours? Wait there's more. Their mother emptying dabba after dabba of what might look to be the raashan for the entire month. No dinner for me tonight. Seeing them eat was dinner enough. And for the answer, its usually the descriptive and extra-long-than-needed statement which forms the answer in an MCQ(Deduced this way back in college). And so its B. I trust my intuition and keep quiet in such cases.
• The above was the highest point of the day for a zombie(thats me) who was waiting since eternity for this tremendously anticipated trip to Chennai. I think I am more nostalgic about Delhi's food than anything else it gave me. Ever. Go to the Paranthe-Wali gali at Chandni Chowk and show me a parantha without butter, and I ll show you a deer that watches FTV. And its hardly butter. You might even wonder where the parantha is(Ok, that was sad)
• Talking of accent, I think Shoaib Akhtar would put HBO and Star Movies to shame. Is he from some place called YouAssAye?? Jaanne ke liye dekhte rahiye Sonee Ennertaynmen Chaanayl.
• Steal my laptop if you would please. Hell no, I am serious. My dad wont sell mine and if he doesn't, there are meagre chances I would get a new one and I need a replacement. I can just leave that stupid thing outside the back door, say tonight? Its all dark in the house by 10 itself. Hop in by the garden hedge and pick it up. I ll leave the charger and accessories included.
• So, now the job is here. Man, this is going a little too fast. I might need Pond's Anti Ageing Miracle Cream before the next World Cup. Looks like paying myself for those cute but expensive earrings, those indecent parlour bills, and making kids do math homework from 6-8 pm is closer than it should have been. Rewind a little maybe?
• I miss my Scooty more than anything else right now. Weird how these little things give you a sense of independence. Road rage isn't exactly how it used to be 4 yrs back. But red lights are an empty phase of my life. Useless staring is all one can do. Those myriads of gawdy yellow colour(dirty) signs that say "Road kee Rani/Buri nazar wale tera muh kala/Horn Please OK". You,like many others, can also look into others' cars/vehicles and watch whatever they do. Which is what I do. Oh and then there are lots of those helmetless "Ameer baap ki bigdi hui aulaad" who keep on accelerating their fiery red bikes that speak "Speed Demon" or some "No Fear" sign. Find a Punjabi Daljeet Singh constable and know you know where this guy is. The light is green and we need 40% oil to refuel the tank.

p.s. Sometimes it takes a disoriented occipital lobe(Thats in ur head) and a whole lot of wisdom to come up with something like this. Only insanity comes naturally to me.
p.p.s This is just to add some flavour to the otherwise boring post.
p.p.p.s The above p.p.s was really not necessary.

2. Murphy's Law #104

(I am not responsible if this one already exists!)

On a day when none of your colleagues/gangmates have turned up at work, and you accept fate and embark on your lonesome journey to the food court all alone, manage a seat, and are just about to launch your hardly-in-a-mood-to-gnaw appetite, and you think of calling up someone/anyone just to appear all important, busy or "social"(doesn't even matter if it is your neighbour you remember last having spoken to in 6th grade) to give you company while you hog, one of these is the surest answer you will get :

1)The person will not pick up your call(Thank you so much)
2)Not reachable(I almost expected this)
3)The person will cut your call(Ooh-my,you are oh-so-busy)

The above rule is applicable for as many as 'n' no. of people that you will call during the stipulated period of time.

So, dispel the gloom for every single morsel that you have to eat all by yourself,fighting pangs of misery every now and then.

Well, 5 minutes happily spent in atleast, pretending to be busy. Lunch over. Now, get up and march back to your seat. My advice : Next time on, carry a novel.

p.s. Those who did not find this useful, sincere apologies for such outrageous nonsense.