75. Mahila Samiti Inc.

There has to be some supernatural force acting behind the spam ads I get on my mobile. I am positively certain of it.

Else, why on earth have I been getting ads like the one below for three days now.

"Mega Offer on weight reducing sauna slim belt 999/- only. Direct from company. Reduce upto 10 kgs weight in 45 days. Cal 9360******".

Alright, I get your message. 

In other news, the past week(actually, the week I started writing this post) saw yours truly busily visiting places where a motley crowd of chitthis, perimas, maamis, paattis* and other board members of Mahila Samiti Inc. had assembled in order to look at colorful toys placed on an 'odd' number of shelves, and generally discuss vaira mookuthi and moonu poun necklace**.


Yours truly obviously looked like a complete idiot asking what poun meant, and whether it was poun or pavun or pound, as these were the different phonetic sounds that were produced on usage of the word and understandably, invited wrath and scorn upon herself, what with maamis exclaiming "Kalyana vayasu aachu… poun/pavun/pound na teriyaadha di?"***. Sigh. This insultisation was an expected outcome of yours truly's naivete on such important issues. What happened next was not. "Kozhandhai… oru paattu paaden"****. Cringe. Looked around for help but got only sympathy and eagerly-waiting-to-pounce eyes. Did a quick brute-force-cum-permutation-combination-jumble. What were my options, if any at all? Sore throat? My dog died? Pass the baton to someone else? Much to my disgrace, I realised MS Inc. had been solemnly staring and pining to listen to my crow-like voice all this while. Too late to try any of the above options, I offered a little prayer to the Gods to somehow miraculously make me some classic Indian Idol type singer, just for those 8-10 odd uncomfortable moments. Please, please, God. Blurred images of my mother disowning me after this stint paraded the projector screen of my mind. Decision time. I switched on the electronic tanpura…. Gonnnggggggggg. Started singing standard krithi in Kamala Manohari with standard thappu thaalam*****. Sounds of 'tch tch' reverberated across the room. I would like to believe it was MS Inc.'s involvement into my melodious crooning. Please don't wake me up from my reverie.

Ok, that apart, Chennai has this strange form of untouchability rampant in buses. This morning, I surprisingly got into this bus that wasn't crowded, going by my track record of standing in the bus throughout my way to office. Anyway, that's that. So what happened is that this bus was pretty free, so to speak. Ladies 'partition' of the bus was house full, though there were a couple of vacant seats on the gents side of the bus. But guess what? 3-4 ladies chose to stand instead of going and occupying the empty seats on the gents side, more so if a man was already sitting in one of the two seats. Ok, suit yourself, I thought. I coolly went and hopped into one of those seats. Holy Mayawati! If only looks could kill, I would have been turned into ashes. The entire assemblage of ladies on the now-other side of the bus had started giving me looks like I was travelling the whole of Tamilnadu in a bus wearing a bikini. Ok, yeah, go get up, pick drums and go about the city announcing my persecution.

*  small aunty, big aunty, aunty of aunty, grandmas

** diamond nose ring and 3 poun/pavun/pound(still just as confused) necklace

*** You have attained a marriageable age... Do you not understand even this much?

**** Child, sing a song for us

***** A mismatch between the tune and the beat

73. Akhiyon se goli maare

This stale post was rotting in my drafts folder. Dear post, time for Nirvana. 

Of all the embarassing things I put myself through, this one was undoubtedly an #epic(Thanks Twitter!) case. And ironically, only if it weren't for the absolute side-splittingly humorous element of the story.....

As a part of the 'induction' process into 'another' family, a 'Meet the Parents' session gets scheduled at Pizza Hut with yours truly feeling like a micro-organism under a microscope(minus the methyl blue stains and the slide). Quite obviously, for somebody like me, a quick to-do list meant not to raise voice(like usual) so much so that people across next four streets can hear; sit, stand, etc. in a way that would atleast remotely appear feminine(somehow); not jhapatta-marofy on the food, going by past infamous record between yours truly and the sister; not to trip over and fall flat, thanks to duck-like-gait; try_max to avoid foot-in-mouth syndrome and political incorrectness(and not fail at it like the previous zillion times).

69. Chronicles of Tam-Brahm land

Dear Non-Tamil readers of this blog,
This is a highly Tanglified post. Due to maximum uage of resources like patience and sincerity in a highly productive activity, Farmville, I am currently running out of stock to translate every single tanglified word into inglees. However, due to the deluge of fan mails urging me to do so, and also because this blog is a very unbiased blog and meets the emotional needs of all and sundry, particularly the mentally challenged, since the author can to a great extent relate to them, few important, life-changing recorded events have been translated for the benefit of the readers. The last sentence had 61 words and 6 commas !

From Madras to Tirunelveli to Kallidaikurichi to Madurai to Trichy to Srirangam to Madras - The Almanac

64. Maid of Honour

Who is the most revered lady in Indian households? No, not Pratibha Patil. No, not Rakhi Sawant also. Deepika Padukone? In your boyfriend's room, maybe. Highly unlikely, otherwise. THE MAID. We have had a glorious history of maids who serve just a short tenure. Not everybody gets a good kaamwali bai, you know. The following Vaastu column I saw in the newspaper the other day does just enough to prove my point -

Sir,
I have a unique problem. None of my maids work for more than 2 months. The main door of my house is facing NW direction. The kitchen is situated at SE of the house. The cooking range is situated exactly at SE corner of the kitchen, and the sink is situated on the left hand side of the range, with washing machine in between. What should I do so that my maids serve for longer periods?

To which, the gentleman replied :
Draw 7 yellow lines in front of your kitchen. That should solve your problem.

Nice :| I took the newspaper to my mom and showed her. I think my mom wasn't too desperate. Frustrated, yes. Desperate, no. Or, she was looking at cost-cutting measures available at home. Who, you ask? Me, darlings. So, one not-so-fine morning(as it turns out), I am told to take to the broom and the mop and start work immediately :|
Eh, why me mom?(Some useless protest from yours truly).
So that you can reduce some weight that you are putting on sitting at home. Moms are good at this. They mean something else, but they know what to tell you so you will do what they want you to. The first week it looked like I was helping her out. By second week, it looked like a permanent job entrusted with great hopes and expectations. By third week, I was demanding a promotion in the form of a new broom. :| I am planning on asking her some minimum remuneration for this. After all, she has an educated maid. A maid of honour :P

63. The Fight

As she lay amidst a pool of surgical equipments and beneath pale yellow sheets, Ananya tried to feel the lump that had grown to be a part of her now, but all she felt was a barren territory of skin. There and beyond. She clasped the bedsheets with her fingers after the realisation with a force that could have torn them apart. There was something sordid about those tumbled bedsheets, sprawling blankets and rough pillows. But she didn't remember the last time she slept without them. It was a tough decision, but she had to take it. Life hadn't given her many choices.


                                                                     * * *

She remembered the day when she had discovered this little softball in her body inside the bathroom.

"So you are 5 months pregnant?", the doc said that evening.
"Yes, doctor. This is our first child. I am kinda nervous and excited at the same time.", her cheerful bubbly self unable to control the anxiety within itself.
'Ah, another case of over-hyped eager-to-be-moms I have now.", teased the doctor playfully.
"Why, anything serious, doctor?", she was too quick to ask.
"Oh, no. Lets get you quickly examined first. Relax, you will be through this soon."
A momentary uneasy pause.
"It could be a case of swollen milk ducts. Allow me to get back to you in two days time, Ananya."
"You are sure it is nothing to worry about, right doc?", she asked.
"Have a carefree evening and meet me in two days, alright?", smiled Dr. Kim.

                                                                      * * *

Ananya did not have to wait for too long. At 12.15 pm the next day, her phone buzzed on the vibration mode, stirring the inactivity in her cubicle.
"Can you meet me within an hour in the clinic? Please make it ASAP", the voice on the other end of the phone said.
Sensing the urgency in the tone, Ananya could gauge the gravity of the news concealed. She cancelled her appointments for the day and rushed to the clinic. She glanced at one of the mirrors in the hallway and studied herself. "It couldnt be", she cajoled herself.

                                                                      * * *

"I am afraid I have some bad news, Ananya." She felt a looming shadow of fear surround herself as she heard the medico's words. A cloud hitherto unseen was now hovering over the moon.
"Unfortunately, unlike what I thought, you are diagnosed with breast cancer as per the lab reports." The ground beneath her feet had started to split. She tried gaining back her composure. Despicable tears rejoicing their conquest had welled up in her eyes and strayed upon her cheeks. They came unbidden, the bitter salt touching her lips. She feared the next few words that would come out of the oncologist's mouth.
"We will have to rush you through a series of clinical procedures. Biopsy, chemotherapy, radiation surgery....you can plan it out with your husband as to which one you want to go ahead with first, and let me know by tomorrow morning, better still, if by this evening." So this was it. Like a magician's set of cards, life had laid out the minimal options she had, for cure, or maybe, for survival. She had to pick one. After that another. It was a dismal and shattering finish to her morning.

                                                                    * * *

The next few months brought bigger losses than what she had conjured up in her mental realm. The initial diagnosis now almost seemed innocuous. The chemo sessions had been hard on her, with a conspicuously receding hairline and weight gain due to steroids and fertility medicines. Life had been kind to her though, or so she thought, once her baby girl came into this world. With a cherubic smile that took all of Ananya's gloom along with it, it brought a new joy into her world. Maybe all was not lost. The unflinching support of her husband and the hope that her daughter brought, had made her crack out of her souless, desolate shell. Unhaunted, with no whispers from the past.

The day that lay ahead before her, long no doubt, and fraught with a certain stillness, a dear lull she had not known before. But like they said, men and women emerge finer and stronger after suffering, and that to advance in this or any world, we must endure ordeal by fire. She had won the fight after all.

~ If you lose hope, somehow you lose the vitality that keeps life moving, you lose that courage to be, that quality that helps you go on in spite of it all. And so today I still have a dream. ~



- Martin Luther King Jr.

62. And thou shall be called.........

I have managed to carry off a name like Bhargavi Gopalakrishnan non-chalantly for more than two decades now. Now, THAT is your Iyer label into this world. Why so specifically, you may ask. The feel, my friend. That's how you identify my breed. The name to a great extent gives it away :|

Having a name like that brings a lot of unwarranted problems in your life. More so, if you are a lazy bum person. The first of such attacks came on the day when we had to fill out our Class X forms. You know those sheets that have lots of boxes on it... Fill in you dad's name, mom's name, maid servant's brother-in-law's name.... followed by lots of circles with alphabets printed inside them. So, first you fill out your name in the boxes, and then colour all the corresponding letters in those circles. Imagine yourself with a name as short as mine and sitting beside one N-E-H-A V-E-R-M-A and doing all this. Half of my life has gone into such productive work.

Quite needless to say, we live in an impatient world. No one wants to put in so much time and effort into a fruitless activity. So what do we do? We shorten the name. Madrasis have this popular trend of adding their initials before / after their names followed by a dot. And thus, I became Bhargavi G. (and sometimes G. Bhargavi) to the world. The northern side of the country has a nice way of treating people with such peculiar(atleast to them) names. They mutate it. As a result, I hopped from 'Jai Bhairavi' to 'Bhargavi Jee(G)' to 'G dot Bhargavi. 8 out of 10 times, I am called Bhairavi or Bhagwati within 2 minutes after I have introduced myself to someone. Hmm, ok. Why Anu then? Good question. See, some in our clan have this unique and intelligent custom of giving their kids two names(sometimes three). Why? Dont ask me. Why I was not called this throughout? Solve this and you will solve the mystery of my existence. Obviously some noble soul thought I would do well to be reminded forever that I was named after the proud Bhrugu lineage.

With friends and others, the above funda doesn't work. Which is why we have names like Chi-chi, Bebo, Lulu, Duggu, Guddu, Sussoo still in existence. Following the same line of thought, I have been Jumbo(owing to size), Popat(owing to foot-in-mouth disease), Kinni(owing to lack of reasoning skills of people who named me so), Anu(owing to publicity of the same), Bhari, Bar and the likes(obvious and logically following) while friends with big names were happily being addressed as Ashu, Sid, Abhi, Sri, so on and so forth. :|

What's your story? Have you had embarassing nicknames ever? Funny? Silly? Witty? (A friend 'Abinav' is called "now nau", "now 9" etc. Abhi = now, Nav/nau = 9) :D 

10 secrets about women

So you are here. Good. That title was just to lure you. What did you think? :) I swear on Dominoes Cheeseburst, you wouldn't have come here if you had known I was taking up some tag. Yeah? Obviously. I would have spent that pathetic as-fast-as-a-snail broadband time on something more useful. Like? Arre, your broadband connection, you decide. Why ask me? Anyway, this is a very touching moment for this blog. We(me and my blog) have been tagged by Gils.

Folks, this has been called an award for some really god-forbidden reason by the community. And why it should be given to me is a rhetoric not even my great grandchildren will be able to answer, for the simple reason that what I write doesn't interest even me(Sometimes, I sleep halfway through the post), then to talk about it giving any joy to you.

Anyway, time to walk the red carpet now. (Oscar music at the offset)

10 honest things about myself in no particular order :

1. I love taking digs at Ekta Kapoor's serials. Trust me, I can go on and on. You know those kinds? Sanskaari ameer khaandaan ka beta(good guy from rich family) falls for middle class chhokri, run away, get married. Son dies. Only to come back into serial after 5 years with amnesia. EXACTLY on the day when his wife(?) is ABOUT TO get married to someone else. Family reunites with the main protagonist being replaced atleast 17 times during the entire period the series ran. At one point of time, you lose track of who is who's what. Lovely.

2. I have a highly irritating habit of correcting spelling mistakes during chats. No, I will not ignore it as a typo. I am born with this disease. Don't feel bad. I will compensate with bad grammar from my end.

3. I am averse to any form of make-up. I sometimes 'Tch-tch' at myself looking at all those gifted ladies who  have the poise and patience to colour their nails, paint their face white with compact/foundation/whatever else it is called, bleach and the likes, dab their eyelids with mascara and what not. Don't even get me started about lipstick. I tried the eye-liner once, back in college(if I should trust my power of recapitulation) and ended up looking like the ghost from Ring 2. Look right.

4. In the past, I have wept tears of joyous sorrow(?!!) while watching Karan Johar movies. I know this is a mighty revelation for today and could result in an absolute decline in readership, butttt.. err, sorry, but no compromise with honesty(Yeah, right!)

5. I am usually playing AAAAA(Always-Available-Awesome-Agony-Aunt) when I am not busy hogging on stupendofantabulouslysensational Subway corn-and-peas salads. I am going to charge for such services soon. Readers of this blog get a straight Rs. 5/- discount. Hurry up before offer closes. Of course, the last thing you are allowed to assume from this would be that I am good at resolving my issues too. Frankly, quite far away from it. :|

6. I am constantly on the look out for chances to go to Chennai/Mumbai. No specific reason :) 

7. Till very recently, I did not know how to respond to compliments. If told that I was good at something, I would almost always snap back immediately explaining how 'N' number of people were better at it or how I wasn't good enough to be receiving that compliement. Maybe that was my take on modesty. It did good to me as good as a naught. So I now just smile back with a small "Thank you!" :)

8. Considering my past record, I am very quick in making friends(and losing them too). Of the 3121247 friends that you'll find on my Facebook page, only 3 would hold a special indispensable place in my life. So don't get carried away.

9. One of these days/months/years, one typical Hindi filmy scene at my house will be this :

**********************************************************************************

Heroine(me :P) enters house with a guy(hero).

Heroine(signalling to Hero) : Pitaji ke paon chhuo. (Touch father's feet)

Hero bends down to touch Pitaji's feet. Pitaji moves two steps back.

Pitaji(taking out his gun) : Mere jeeteji aisa kabhi nahi ho sakta. (This will not happen till I am alive).

Heroine : Pitaji, hum ek dusre ko jee-jaan se chahte hain (We love each other with our heart-life)

Pitaji(to Hero) : Haraaamzaaadeyyyyyyy!! Main tera khoon pee jaaoonga!! Teri itni himmat!! Teri aukaad hi kya hai? Ye le pachaas hazaar rupaye aur bhool jaa meri beti ko!! (I'll drink your blood. What audacity!! What's your social standing after all? Take these 50,000 bucks and forget my daughter.)

Meanwhile, heroine's mom who has been watching all this back-stage enters.

Maa(to Hero) : Aao bete, mere paas aake baitho. Khana pakana aata hai?(Come son, sit beside me. Can you cook?)

Hero touches to-be-mom-in-law's feet and coyly sits beside her.

Maa(to Pitaji) *added by a hopeful author* : Suno ji, mujhe toh ladka pasand hai. Mera daamaad yehi banega, keh deti hun. Kitna sundar aur sushil hai(I like the lad. Only he will be my son-in-law. How beautiful(?) and blah blah he is.)

Shaadi music playing. Curtain dropping. Hands clapping.

***********************************************************************************

10. I can't do tags for the love of God.

Phew!! :| Tag somebody? Reading this would have been torture enough for you, why inflict more? Anyway, let the blog set you free. Here's your ticket to the concentration camp : *evil grin*

1. Srivats

2. Avanti

3. Sid

4. Abu

5. Anyone else who wants to suffer.

56. He is mine and mine alone!!

“Deep in my heart I'm concealing things that I'm longing to say. Scared to confess what I'm feeling - frightened you'll slip away.” - Madonna

She eyed him in a clandestine manner as she saw her sister kissing him. She had ached and longed for him, and now it felt like she could take the pain no more. What body, features,elegance..... There was a certain poise around him, she drooled often as she thought about him. She wrote lengthy verbose poems in his longing....



"Day and night I am waiting waiting....
Are you asking for a beating...
Under your love I get fainting, fainting...
And if you die, you'll make me cry...
Your naughty thoughts make me shy..... "

She knew he belonged to her sister...they looked so... so 'perfect' together... She had no right to do this to her sister ; to her own elder sister who loved him like none else. He had brought the much elusive joy into her sister's life. He was much more than what she deserved, she knew. Wherever her sister went, he would tag along, to the extent that it caused severe irritation to public sometimes.

She wished she could steal him from her. This attraction was showing on her studies lately. She knew she had to figure a way out. Spending a few moments alone with him was hardly taking her an inch forward. She was tired of raking up fights with her sibling everyday over him. It was never a pleasant sight watching them pull each other's hair over him, strangle each other's necks. Poor him. All he could do was to be a silent spectator to this cat fight. Everybody around had had enough of all this. Till one day when he decided to move out of their lives. Once and for all. Never to return.

Life had to move on. After fall came spring. The winds had changed direction. There was a fresh smell of grass all around. Had someone stepped in to substitute him?

P.S. Dear sweetheart Microsoft Zune, you are deeply missed. I'll never let you-know-who to meddle with 'us' anymore. For Pete's sake, stop giving me software trouble, will you?

51. Math-o-phobia!

In all these 22 years of useless uneventful existence, there is one thing I can tell you for certain.

                                 My GENES are scared of math.

Its as much the pain and agony that Ishaan Nandkishore Awasthi goes through while finally arriving at 3 into 3 is equal to 3. I am those kinds who switch on the in-built calculator function in the phone the minute after handing the shopkeeper a 500-rupee note for easy day-to-day addition and subtraction. A pain in the posterior end is what Math is to me.

Recently, my good friend SJ aced the QA section in BILLI with a whopping attempt of 12 questions out of 20. For the uninitiated, QA stands for Quantitative Aptitude, Math, Dread(for some mathematically challenged people like me). Now, now. Any Quantophile worth his salt should be able to tell you how decent an attempt his is.

Well, by and large, I am not a huge fan of Ganith. Its like that unknown fear that sometimes grips you tight, gnaws your brain inside out, clawing incessantly at your desire to give it a good fight. Its like the Ghost of Christmas Past, tormenting me everytime I wish to run away from its clutches. I am what you call, the Math-O-Phobic. This, my dear, is not a case of Recently Acquired Mental Deficiency. I have been diagnosed with this Syndrome ever since HE decided to unfetter me into this cruel world of Math lovers, with the skills of Periplaneta americana - the cockroach.

Ironically, and agonisingly, my friends circle and family always consisted of people like SJ and others high on the math-solving quotient. Round table conferences at the canteen would involve serious earth-shattering discussions like,

"A dealer sold 200 quintals of sugar at a profit of 7%. If the ants ate half of it and the hen in the garden gave grey colour eggs, find his total profit and selling price."

Suroo aka Bat-ball, I am sure, will make headlines someday by doing 17-digit multiplication mentally while doing somersaults. Really. And then there a lot many names we will avoid here, just for the fact that their math profile makes me feel lower than a skateboard. You got the drift, right? :| My genetic code did me no good either, what with having a grandma whose hair greyed drowning an entire city in the mesmerising and bewitching pool of hard-core math that commerce had. Some real gene mutation there as you can see.

It was then that movies came to my rescue. Bollywood taught me my elementary math. Ek do teen(1 2 3), Do aur do paanch(2 + 2 = 5), Do doni chaar(2 x 2 = 4) etc. came my way. Life had found meaning. Little did I know of the games God played. "Ek Aur Ek bhi Gyaarah(1 + 1 = 11)" and "Nau Do bhi Gyaarah(9 2 11)". Dont even look at me. I am full of disgust.

Aging brought no wisdom, and life only got tougher. Sample this.

"A milkman sells the milk at Cost Price, but he mixes freely available water in it and thus gains 9.09141345%. If the quantity of water in the 1 litre mixture is 83.33 ml, then whom the bloody hell does he think he is kidding?"

My days of despair had finally come to an end, or so I thought, when I scored a 780/800 in the QA(refer above) in the GRE(Getting Rid of Everything?), comparable to the likes of Devi Durga slaughtering the demon Mahishasura. Little did I know that I had been banished away from this cruel word of number lovers. A woebegone period of upping with the lark to see the numbers dancing in front of my eyes, and all that people had to offer was a, "Ae-chal-chal, hattttta, GRE maths toh, eeeeeeeaassssyyyyyyyyyyy". Whoever said it's a beautiful world. Not cool, guys. So not cool.

Anyway, I am not built of lose-hope metal. So, I continue racking my grey cells(the few that I possess) at this demon, for the love of my life. For the sake of this guy, who has been the sole cause for me still groping in the dark for that non-existent light at the end of the tunnel. Pythagoras. Yes, that's him. I search for shades of him in every triangle problem I come across. He has helped me think straight(read 'look for RIGHT ANGLES everywhere').
He taught me not only 'Sec A' and 'Sec B' but also 'Sec C' :P Thank you Pythagoras, for making life colorful.

You can imagine my plight, in this fair land of ours, where the intellect of every living nematode is judged by - right- MATH. Is there hope?