Bebo main Bebo

"Main aapko starting mein dekh ke socha - 'A.C dibbe mein. Madam akeli itni simple. Zaroor bahut zyaada padhi hongi'."

Once every week, I regret taking up medicine as a career. Because I feel the 10 years I have spent in this hell-hole called Deralakatte have deprived me of the precious joys of life like: 

1. Freedom
2. Family
3. Youth
4. Love
5. Friends
6. Inner peace
7. Health

But because of comments like these from stranger co-passenger men, 

This week - No regrets :-)

Note to self: Please dress up like a babe next time you travel by train. 

I am a kite
Ready to fly
Oh so high

But my string is wound tight
Wound tight
To be freed on a morning bright

I have never known anything
But to fly
I have never wanted anything
But to fly
Fly so high
Fly so that I could touch the sky

My string and me
We have a strange thing
One pulling it up
One pulling it down,
Against the wind.
Both wanting the same thing
But set apart on a whim

But one day
It will be sunny bright
The ships will sail ashore alright
That day my string and me
Wound tight
Will spread our wings
And soar over eyesights

That day the string would
Bend its stand
Only to give me a helping hand.

Shubh Aarambh

Okay.
1 month completed since living independently in a house.
What have to learnt?
What do we know?
#GoGoaGoneHangover

1. There is no shame in calling up Mom 139 times a day with your 'intelligel' doubts
- Maa, what to do with the malai that forms on the milk?
- Maa, this vegetable is not listening to me. Its not getting cooked         
  on the gas since forever. What do I do? (Mom thinking in her   
  brain: Have a panic attack for dinner instead of bhaji, you Loser)
- Maa, recipe is mentioning 'sour curds'. I'm not finding that in   
  Nilgiri AND More megastores. Does Big Bazaar have it?
- Can I use my Bajaj almond hair oil for cooking?

2. Hiding under the table - not cool, Buddy. Not cool at all. Especially if its because rai and jeera seeds (mustard and cumin) are popping in the oil. If you act like a cool dude Ninja in the college, act like one in the kitchen too.

3. Always wear clothes while cooking.

4. Some clothes are going to get burnt. Accept it. So No. 3 gets rephrased as "Always wear clothes that you dislike while cooking".

5. If a grocery item is on sale, check its Expiry Date. Ah-haan!
Ek mahine mein 2 litre soya sauce kaise use karegi tu, meri maa?

6. Laxman-rekha, the insect repellant chalk does not work on all kinds of unwanted animals and humans.

7. The Fridge is your daddy in Mangalore. It 'takes care of everything'. Love and respect it.

8. Don't ever forget that you have applied acid on the bathroom floor. It feels like * * * *ing fire on your fingers.

9. If you like sweets and laddoos, so do the ants. Fight for your rights!!

10. Sometimes Maggi is an acceptable meal.

11. Dont buy 1 kg Vanilla icecream on Tuesday. Coz Wednesday no electricity in Deralakatte.

12. Stealing drinking water from college - Nice job 26 year old lady on a stipend :)

13. Don't fall asleep when you have kept popcorn in the cooker for cooking. Kuch zyaada hi POPPING ho jayega life mein.

14. Day-dreaming while standing at the window and absent-mindedly scratching your butt when you live in a building full of men - Not a good idea. Sure, you will see a lot of smiling faces the next day onwards. But trust me, they are not smiling at you. They are smiling at your gluteus maximus.

14. Last but not the least - If Mumma is unavailable, you can always call up Papa when he is driving the car and ask him for the recipe of how to make rice. The Dear Darling that he is, he will stop the car and explain it to you :)

I'm Always a Stone-throw Away

I was probably 12 years old, i.e. 7th std. My elder sister and I would go to Bharat Natyam dance classes in the evening near our house. 

We could walk via 2 routes to the class: one on the main road with traffic, one through a safe residential quiet lane.

One fine evening for some reason my sister did not accompany me. Maybe she had an exam in school the next day, and I didn't. Who knows?

So I am a girl, all of 12 years, walking through the quiet residential lane in the night back from my class.

When WHAM! 

A stone hits me on my upper back.

It’s obviously come from a precisely aimed shot from one of the homes around. 

Did they want to hit my eyes? My face?

Did they miss and it hit my shoulder-upper back region fortunately?

Why do they want to hit me?

They have never in the past 6-8 years pelted my sister or me with stones when we used to walk hand in hand to class.

So they have actually been waiting all these years to find me alone and hit me?

They hate (only me) so much?

I walked back home. Ashamed. Knowing there is someone out there in this world who doesn't like me. 

For a curious chubby child of 12 years, "I" felt guilty for being hit.

Guilty enough to not discuss it at home nor take any further action.

I distinctly remember the sequence -

Hit by stone --> My head falls down in shame --> I walk back home.

I didn't even shout in general "Aye, kaun hain woh?" (Hey, who's it?). I didn't even look up and squint in the darkness searching for some human figure.

I just walked back home.

Now I'm 12 + 14 = 26 years old.

There is a lane between my college and the watch-making factory beside it.

I live in a building in that lane. In all together another city, another state from my hometown. 

Day before yesterday, I was returning home in the night after giving my Bharat Natyam post-grad exam.

I had a school bag on my back.

When WHAM!

A stone hits me on my shoulder.

Hmmmmmmm…

I don't look up.

I continue walking home.

I'm thinking:

So there is still someone who does not like me. Only me.

And fortunately this time too my face and eyes are saved.

So basically Stone-Throwing-Hater, you work in a watch-assembling factory in the night shift.

So technically speaking you are a manual labourer. 

That makes you a slave in my eyes.

And you want to throw stones at me?

It makes you feel better?

That's fine with me buddy.

I'm always a stone's throw away.

I will walk by that lane daily. 

You can pelt me daily.

I will save my face and eyes daily.

You can hate me daily. 

But you will still be a slave because of your brain.

And I will still be a Smiling Buddha because of mine J 

Report card

Every relationship passes through a test, one or the other day.
And contrary to my over-confident assumptions,
I have failed in each one of them till date.
Including Anatomy.

Now I only hope there is re-test
And I pass that.

Bye bye Carotids

Most of us reflect on our bygone days and recollect fond memories of a glorious past.
Our present is tepid and uneventful. Due to the current circumstances we live in. Ofcourse.
And most of us dream about what a glorious future we will have.

But what if our past is not really as glorious as we think it to be?
What if it truly ever was just a collection of random morbid days with just a ripple here, a ripple there, that too initiated by pebbles of other lands?

What if our future is not as glorious as we assume it to be?
What if all we achieve is a mediocre lifestyle with a closet full of unachieved dreams?

So if our present isn't dazzlingly spectacular,  aren't we basically being self-castrated eunuchs floating on a dull landscape of time?

The nurse could have punctured our carotids right at birth and it wouldn't make a penny's difference to this world.
We are the unacceptable lot.
We would actually be saving Mother Earth some resources.

Who among us agrees that some of us should take the higher road momentarily and puncture our own carotids?

I'm ashamed to be an Indian

I'm ashamed to be an Indian.

I'm even more ashamed to be a Hindu.

And I feel like I'm in a circus when I see a whole lot of Sthanik Brahmins gathered.

I'm ashamed to be an Indian all year through.

I don't need movies like Kai Po Che to remind me so.

But they do.

Movies like these remind me of the GLARING FACT that I'm born in a country called India where one's religion is one's identity and it is stamped on your forehead even before you are born !

I am in a country where a vast majority of people want to willingly vote for a bastard called Narendra Modi to be the next Prime Minister.

Some of these people who want to vote for him are my friends !@#$%^&*@@#$%

My only thought is that - 

He is the modern day Hitler.

Want to vote for him?

Sure!

Want to make him the next Prime Minister?

Sure!

Want to encourage genocide?

Sure!

I'll just remember to wish my non-Hindu (damn, I'm a caste-ist too now?) friends goodbye before he packs them off to their concentration camps.