Alone in the city.

On 15th Oct 2010 I left for Gurgaon, with a feeling of excitement and nervousness. I know its not a big deal, but for me it was, I was going all alone, to a city unknown. When I told people I was coming here, the only thing they had to say about it was how unsafe it was, especially for girls. Well that didn’t do any good to my nervous system, but then what could I do. I hoped for the best and just left.

My family and friends were most worried about me, and they calling me all the time, everyday, made me feel a lot less alone.  :)
 When I reached this place, it hit me bang on. Everything about this place is so different from back home. And one word that hits my head straight when I talk about this place is “HUGE”. The place is majestic (not in a royal kind of way, but just humongous, well, at least when you compare it with Chennai).

I got lost the night I reached here, the cabbie didn’t know the way to my guest house, so that scared the shit out of me.

Alone. Girl. With Cabbie. Deserted place. You don’t really know where you have to go. You don’t really know where this cabbie is taking you. – Recipe for making a me a complete nervous wreck.

At this point in time, all you can do is pray and hope for the best. And ofcourse call the guesthouse for directions, which I did, and then the cabbie found out that he’d been driving in circles all the way around to go to a place which was on the main road. Its funny how you miss these things. Well another thing about the wonderful place I was living at was, there was no name plate to tell you where the place exactly was. So someone had to actually come out and pick us up, so we wouldn’t like go into the wrong building or something. I reached the guest house, thus ended first adventure ride. Alone. (I managed pretty well though)

Inside, the place was again different, the only thing familiar was “TATA SKY”, yes, that totally made my day. That totally made me feel a lot better and a lot less homesick! It was like I was literally singing, “Tata sky laga dala, toh life jinga lala.”

And then I slept.

The next day, took me out, and well, I need to mention this, it was a Saturday morning and I was going to work. I wanted to do something else, like explore the city, like they show on TLC. But that was clearly expecting too much. I had come here for work, and work was all I would do. (While we are on this, my dream job would be a travel show host for TLC(minus the tasting of weird food)).

Well work was fine, but a lot different than back home again. First of all, it was clearly a new domain for me, not something I had done before, so obviously it took time for me to settle in. But then it was all cool. Also another thing about the work culture here is that, its all in hindi! I mean yes, I know hindi and stuff but, numbers in hindi, that’s something I’m not comfortable with at all. It was weird to ask my seniors to repeat the numbers they had just said, in English. Well they looked at me in a weird me and well, all I could get was madrarsi north Indians also don’t know a lot of hindi! (So on your face to all the people who come from the north to work in Chennai and say that they don’t feel comfortable because the clan in South India is so within itself that they forget there is someone else there, well atleast we don’t throw numbers to you in Tamil!!) (Well another elaborate article coming up on that!)

Otherwise also the people are different, from back here. People are like very much on the face types. I mean not that it’s a bad thing, but its just different. Like even your cab driver will talk to you with an attitude, an attitude of owning like half the roads in Delhi, and well, being a busier man than Mr. Manmohan Singh himself.

The buildings here are all larger than life and make you wonder how many people one building alone can hold. Also they exteriors of the buildings are weird, over the top types. I mean the building at which I work, is red and white on the outside, in the day, it looks gaudy, at night, when the put the lights on, it looks a lot better. The building next to the one I am working in is also huge, but it has some weird colored lights on it, which come on and off, you could call them cheap disco lights.

Well, I dint get a chance to go around the city and shop and stuff, which I really wanted to, but such is life, when you are on work, all you gotta do is work.

Well, I don’t really know how the days past, it was time for me to leave.

There was a big confusion before I got to the airport, with me getting out a little late from office, to the cab driver leaving me and going off to pick someone else while I was stranded at office. That was a moment that got me real tense. I called every possible person and just yelled. That was because I really didn’t wanna miss the flight. The customer who the cab driver had left me and gone to pick, was in the cab with me, on the way back to the guest house. I was all panicky and screaming and he was just there listening. After a while, when I got out of my paranoia, he introduced himself, he was a sergeant form the Navy. It was a laughter roll for him watching me get so tense and jittery. Well, now I know that people from the Army/Navy can really keep it cool at any situation. And why wouldn’t he be cool at this almost flight missing experience, he was at the Kargil and survived that too!!

Then battling with traffic I reach the airport, just in time. I check in, get my boarding pass and call my mom. Tell her I’m finally gonna come home. I hear an awesome sigh of relief.

Standing in line, a gentleman strikes a conversation with me. He asked me what I had studied. I told him, and threw the same question back at him. Well he is a Doctor, and an M Tech from IIT. I was in awe, but then I thought maybe he just wanted to show off what a nerd he was. (By the way, in my books, nerd people are good.) He told me he works at a company with R&D for medical equipments; I tell him I don’t like these medical equipments. I mean, the last time I got an Ultrasound, an MRI, an Endoscopy or an X-Ray, I so did not like it. Infact I hated every bit of it. He told me, they would have to cut my stomach open to see what was wrong if there was no endoscopy machine. I was like yeaaa, that’s a another perspective of it. But the thing is, its not the equipments that are intimidating, it’s the hospital. If they had these machines at say theaters or video game parlors, they would be like fun machines, where we would happily go get our check up’s done. Not practical because of the germs and stuff. And not practical also because of the theory which says that everything has a place and time and blah and blah. But if you think about it, it’s a really nice idea. Then we got onto the flight. We are at different seats. We bid goodbye and exchanged cards. (This was one of the times in my working life that I felt like a proper career woman. Felt good.)

The seat next to mine was empty. I was hoping some hot guy comes and sits next to me. And we talk and fall in love and live happily ever after. Okay. Well I took it too far. I was just hoping to have someone who could decent conversation with me while the flight takes off and then let me sleep in peace.

Well since that din’t happen I took out my Cosmo(yes, I am a Cosmo girl, so?) and read that for a while. Food came, I ate, I had gotten bored with my Cosmo, so I took out another book I am reading, Malacom Gladwels, ‘Outliers’ and read that for a while. (it’s a good read btw) And then I slept. I got up when we landed.

While I was getting out of the plane, I thought about the whole trip and how it had made me grow. Made me learn. Made me realize that I am already the independent women I always wanted to be.

And most of all, it has cleared off my writers block. It had given me something I could write about, again. So all in all, an awesome experience.

Boredom.

Special- Just by being there. :)

Well, a friend of mine told me this a couple of days back.
"People don't always become special when they do something, sometimes, they become special just by being there." :)

Its such a wonderful thought. I mean if you look back and see, the most special people of your life will be the ones who have been with you when you were bored, texted you or talked to you through the most unexciting of nights, bunked lectures with you and sat with you talking about anything or even nothing, having chat conversations which go like – “Hi. Hello. I’m bored. I think my nails look best when I paint them pink. Lets call the Zulus, maybe they can entertain us.”, times when you pass notes in class with the caricature of the teacher and basically doing nothing with someone.

One memory I have of is the one where me and a couple of my friends -lets call them K and P- were supposed to catch a one o clock show for a movie called "Quickgun Murgan" (if I remember correctly), and as usual, we dint get tickets- but we did get tickets for a four o clock show. So now there we were, from 12 o clock to 4 o clock - we had lots of time to kill, no energy to go anywhere far and no money to go anywhere fancy. We crossed the road and there was "French Loaf" - Its a nice bakery, nice cakes and stuff.-So, we went there, the three of us were in the muckiest of moods, ordered two pastries-shared them. And then we just sat there, talking about the most nonsensical stuff on the planet, about our lives, about how things would change(and they have), making lists of how we would want out spouses to be, making agreements that one of us would not eat outside unless it was a treat(works two ways: you don't pay and don't put on unnecessary weight).... and stuff like that! We really didn't do anything that day, didn't make any promises to be there for each other for the rest of our lives or any cheesy stuff like that, but I guess that was one of the best times we ever had.

Even now, I mean yes, I do remember the people who were there with me when I was in trouble or I needed someone, but invariably they were the same people who were there for me when I was in the worst of moods and I was no fun at all and all I did was ruin the party.So remember to look beyond words and promises- remember to thank the people who were there for you when you had nothing to talk about. They are special too. :)

Get it out of the system

I thought writing about stuff helps get it out of the system.

I am wrong.

Mood

No I'm not talking about the contraceptive wala Moods but I'm talking about the mood defined as follows.

1.

a state or quality of feeling at a particular time -

2. a frame of mind disposed or receptive, as to some activity or thing

3.

a state of sullenness, gloom, or bad temper.

The thing about this mood thing is that its very transferable - and that also its like really really quickly transfered to one person from another. (Well atleast for me) Also if you know the person who is in a sucky mood - it gets to you even more easily.

Everyone is very positive(well most of the times I am too) but there are times I feel like looking at the harsh realities of life and get out of the bubble of my world. I know its being cynical but to justify myself I would just say I'm in a very cynical mood.

I am actually supposed to be all sunshine and rainbows by the way my life is going but God help me from whatever it is that is spoiling my so called mood.

Yea so coming back - this mood transfer thing. Is there anyway to escape this thing? I don't know any formula for it.

If you know any, let me know(lets see how many people actually get to reading this thing).

Till then,

Signing off,

Moody Me.

I'l be there for you

I'll be there for you
These five words I swear to you
When you breathe I want to be the air for you
I'll be there for you
I'd live and I'd die for you
Steal the sun from the sky for you
Words can't say what a love can do
I'll be there for you 


:D

The Insanity called 'Rahul dulhaniya le jayega'

Wow. Okay for people who don't know. This is like a swayamvar of a guy called 'Rahul Mahajan'.
I'd like to give a little history at this point. Rahul Mahajan came into news when his politician father PramodMahajan was shot by his brother Pravin Mahajan. And then he came on a reality show called 'Big Boss' where he very very openly flirted with 'Payal Rohatgi' (Sorry, but I would call her a B Grade Actress) and 'Monica Bedi' (once actress and most famous because of the Abu Salem Case). Well I don't know what Rahul did after the Big Boss show because as they say, out of sight is out of mind. Then Rahul came back to the Indian Television Scene in his own show called 'Rahul dulhaniya le jayega'.

This show would help Rahul select his future wife and the show had a series of tasks and dates to help him decide who would be the lucky girl who would become is life partner. Well I didn't really follow this show but I know that the show has been quite a rage - my best friend and her mom bond over this show, my grandmother gets updates about this show by reading the Gujarati Newspaper(and I don't know about this till today!!!!!), my neighbor is crazily in live with the show. Come to think of it, I think I missed all the action and I write this blog entry watching the finale on TV as I type.

When Rahul was asked to describe what kind of wife he wanted, this is what he says.
"I want a bride who is mentally strong and intelligent. She should be soft hearted and be able to walk with me
through all my life.Elaborating further on the qualities he conversed, She should be able to handle the situation and respect my people too. Last but not the least she should be tall enough (grins)."

Yes I know this would be a typical description given by anyone if they are asked about how they would want their future partners would be. Reading this description actually made me think. Rahul has only said what he wants of the girl, how she should be able to walk with him for the rest of HIS life. Dude, what about hers?
Sometimes, well most of the times when we are asked to describe our dream boy/girl, we also tend to say things like he has to be like this and do blah for me and be with me thru all the blah I do all my life. Very rarely do we say I want someone who I can love and be with for the rest of my life. Okay, I'm getting off track.

And and and Rahul just choose Dimpy. And i typical Rahul style after he puy the garland on Dimpy, he laughed. His typical(eha eha eha and more eha eha eha). And they exchanged vows and rings. And now they are gonna get married on National Television. I kinda have some work, so I'm gonna slighta miss the wedding now and catch the repeat later. :P

What I want to know now is, this is reality or is this just plain old TV entertainment? I just hope its all scripted beacuse if it was not, I feel really bad for the two other Dulhans(brides) who got shortlisted and had to go back home in all their dulhan attire. I mean it must really pain to come so close and lose. And this brings me
to one more question as to how people agree to be part of shows like these. I mean that guy is like 35, was
involved in a drug case, divorcee, does nothing with his life and has publicly tried to woo two women in the
same reality show(big boss). I would never go on for a show like that. I am no one to judge those girls who are on the show today, I'm sure they're all great, so no offence intended.

So if the show is just plain old TV entertainment, hats off to the Rahul team, there are lots of people who got
entertained and engrossed and it became like an household name.
If it is reality then, what can I say. Love makes people do crazy things. :)

So here's wishing Rahul and Dimpy a lifetime of happiness. (Hope the end of your show does not end up like theRahki Ka Swayamwar end)

PS: Since I mentioned Rahki, do you know about the show called 'Pati Patni aur Woh'?? What was that all about??!!Reality TV I tell you.