Monday, March 29, 2004

My right hand has frozen in what I call the mouse-wrap, which results from the hand having been wrapped around the mouse (the thing that comes attached to a computer) for long hours.
With my red-deprived-of-sleep eyes, hair resembling a porcupine and my hand frozen I look like I have walked straight out of a scary movie. 'The Claw'!
Me (pointing to two girls across the road): Oh my God! Doesn't she look exactly like Vaneeta?
She: Which one?

Sunday, March 28, 2004

The housekeeping staff are off on Sundays, which is great of course. Everyone deserves one holiday in a week. Though it does mean that those of us who have to work over the weekend work in filthy surroundings.
How I hate a mess! I am sorely tempted to get a duster and a broom and start cleaning up. But then who would do my work? And I have no intentions of spending more time than absolutely necessary in the office on a Sunday.
Somehow in the busy crazy lives we lead we never really bother about how everything is clean and sparkling when we come to office. How the bathrooms are always stocked with toilet paper and the bottles filled with drinking water.
The housekeeping staff are in reality magical elves, invisible to the human eye, making everyday of our lives a little bit smoother.

Tuesday, March 23, 2004

Today we play a game. This game is for all you morons out there who have nothing better to do.
The name of the game is ‘Spot the oxyMORON’. Like I said, it is for the morons.
The rules are simple, you have to spot all the oxymorons in the passage below and tell me the number. That’s all. The total number of oxymorons in the passage below. Simple. Let’s get started, shall we?

It is safer to act naturally when you find missing resident aliens, however scary they might be. Some of them can be pretty ugly, almost exactly as round as twelve-pound ounce cakes wearing tight slacks. Remember, there should be no reaction even if they are a genuine imitation of the living dead. No ‘Good grief’. Just a silent scream in your head. Hum a song. Perhaps some soft rock. Most importantly, no violence at all, not even passive aggression. Certainly don’t call them names such as ‘butt head’. In fact it might be a good idea to act terribly pleased. To be on the safe side, try not being alone together with the alien. Even a small crowd will do. Look around to see if there’s somebody who can help you. Though steer clear of all Government organizations. They are all involved. Even the Peace Force. Remember we humans have to survive. We will not become extinct life. We will live into the night and the days after. The key is to be prepared. Always carry child proof Synthetic natural Gas masks and plastic glasses. You could also carry a hidden recorder to tape live the whole incident. It can be used as evidence later on. Don’t take this as a joke. Aliens have become a definite maybe. Now, then you’re all set. May the force be with you.
- In South India more men use Fair & Lovely than women.
- A large number of women use Axe.

Sometimes I wonder whether advertising works at all.

Monday, March 22, 2004

I must have stared out of the running train for hours. I looked out blankly through the two thick glass train windows, stained and scratched with time and long journeys to far-away lands. The black shadows of the night stared back at me. An engulfing darkness, interspersed with lights of obscure towns that I didn’t even know existed. The train whizzed by these towns as lovers made love in the darkness, babies slept with their chests heaving softly, troubled men slept a disturbed sleep, women pretended to sleep while their husbands groped them drunkenly and stray dogs walked in the streets barking at the shadows. So many lives, problems and thoughts living in the small towns that hurtled past as the train sped towards its destination.

Friday, March 19, 2004

Whoopy has perfected the art of goose-stepping.
Another bout of illness and an excuse to come back home to my parents. That too in the financial year end.
Damn!
I can't believe that I am feeling guilty about it.

Thursday, March 11, 2004

My dog, Whoopy, has become a cat. No really, it’s true. A surfeit of rats in my parents’ bungalow kitchen, and Whoopy is having the time of her life hunting them. My mother has made no objections so far, though she did scream the house down when she discovered a dead rat on her bed. That, I thought was quite mean on her part. I mean, here she is getting free rat eradication. What’s the big deal with a couple of dead rats on the living room carpet or on the beds?
I am even willing to let that go, but I absolutely cannot condone her confusing my poor doggy. Dogs, as a rule, are not treated as dogs in our house. ‘Kukur boley ki manush noye’ (That’s Bengali, which roughly translated means ‘Just because they’re dogs does not mean they’re not humans.’) is a phrase often heard in my house.
Whoopy has gone through various stages of confusion. When she had first come to our house, she was barely five weeks old. Five-week old pups are not expected to be able to distinguish sexes, are they now? So, she is not to be blamed if she thought that Snoopy (who was a mature four-year old then) was her mother’s substitute. Snoopy’s bleeding balls spoke tales of her confusing them for her mother’s teats.
As she grew bigger, she went into severe depression when she first started barking. I am of the opinion that she had expected that she would talk like we did. It took her a long time to recover from that slump.
Her next phase came when she thought she was an earthworm. That was apparent from the several dug up pots in the house. Her biggest despair then was that she couldn’t live in the soil like the other earthworms did.
This stage was followed by two months of total chaos when delivered her pups. Her instinct told her that these funny things had come out from her body. It was then that she began to accept that she might actually be a dog.
Her dog phase was rather strange. She tried being a Poodle for sometime. She became a proper lap-dog, refusing to sit anywhere other than on someone’s lap. She got into tiffs with Alsatians at the vet’s. That is the time when she was delusional about her size, thinking that she was bigger than the Alsatians she barked at. (She’s a really small and scrawny Dachshund in reality.)
Last year my parents shifted to Raipur. Attached to their huge bungalow are large areas of gardens and excess land. Whoopy in Raipur went into this weird ‘I think I am a monkey’ phase. The phase had already been initiated in our previous house where she would jump up sofa back-rests and what-nots. In Raipur, she made several attempts to climb trees, but finally surrendered to living on land.
Now she thinks she’s a cat. And it’s all my mother’s fault.

Tuesday, March 09, 2004

I just don’t understand why people have a problem with those who read Mills and Boons. I have had people smirking at me, making fun of me, chaffing me just because I enjoy reading a M&B once in a while.
Why is it so hard to believe that I can read Richard Feynman’s (most of the people who make fun of my M&B reading don’t even know who Feynman is!!!) biography or a Sophie’s World and a M&B in the same breath and enjoy both the books?
I like romances ok!! I like predictability. I like ‘Boy meets girl. Girl meets boy. They fall in love. They live happily ever after.’
I like happy endings. Sue me.

Monday, March 08, 2004

I am so high,
I can hear heaven.
I am so high,
I can hear heaven.
Oh but heaven,
No heaven, dont hear me.

(Chorus)
And they say that
A hero can save us,
I'm not gonna stand here
And wait.
I'll hold onto the wings
Of the eagles.
Watch as they all fly away.

Someone told me,
Love would all save us.
But how can that be?
Look what love gave us.
A world full of killing,
And blood spilling.
That world never came.

(Chorus)

Now that the world isn't ending,
Its love that I'm sending to you.
It isn't the love of the hero,
And thats why I fear it won't do.

(Chorus)

And theyre watching us (watching us)
Theyre watching us (watching us).
As they all fly away. (repeat 2x)

~ Hero, Chad Kroeger

Friday, March 05, 2004

There are many who make me smile, but only he can make me cry.