Resolutions and the like

This idiotic woman I know, named ‘time’, is popping out a kid every annum!.With the new year around the corner, this is the time when everybody thinks the most of themselves – sheer assumption that a lot of things can be done. So, there is this immense pressure to come up with an answer other than “punch the people in the face who ask such questions” for the “what is your new year resolution then?” question.

Life would have been much simpler if it was the 6-7^th std time.

An old aunty (who always talks in English for reasons unknown to me): What is your New Year resolution, Mathangi?

Me (on an autopilot): To beat Ramesh and become class topper this time.

Btw Ramesh is not the usual Ramesh, Suresh names used in Indian short stories. Class topper Ramesh existed 100%. Met him recently in the train station. He said he is writing CAT. There was this momentary urge to give CAT just so I could beat him. Yeah yeah. Done with the digression.

Around high school, I had to accept the fact that since intelligence is distributed as a normal curve amongst the population; its unity probable that I am not the maxima in the y axis. So, I gave up on the former and tried to instead come up with stuffs like, learn karate or swimming or basketball just to flip out my mom. (Who btw still thinks that it’s better if I have long, shiny, chlorine-unaffected hair than to risk drowning some day. Honestly, I prefer the former too.)

Later in college, the concept of New Year and all was completely ditched because the sem would start on Jan 2 and it used to be freaking -2 or -3 deg. There were more pressing problems like who would get the ‘hottest’ bucket of water from the wing bathroom geyser or unanswered questions like ‘how the hell that girl from the 9^th block gult wing manages to look all pretty and girly with sweaters and shawls clad around? (Actually, for this I got my answer pretty fast – I owned (still own) 3 sweaters, 2 blue and a brown. Both the blues are with tooth paste and Night canteen maggi stains and the brown is 2 sizes larger which I am supposed to grow into. I would have dry cleaned those 2 times in 4 years. So no mystery there)

After graduating, the New Year came with this ‘katchori sized’ fear in the stomach of “Damn. I am growing old. And I am running out of new ways to procrastinate taking decisions in life.”So this year I thought I will do something different and actually plan out 2-3 things which I want to do. One is to write more often. Not bother about the quality of the outcome, but just narrate the eccentric world as I see it. And do it more often. Monthly one post is what I have in mind (I know I know. This is like “I will go to gym every week” resolution which is lasts till Feb mid and then gets converted to one gulaab jamoon every time I pass Anand sweets.)

Another is to travel for pleasure. There are a couple of places in the “I want to visit before I am 40 and mother of two” list. Hope is to check at least 2 places out of them as done. There is another resolution but I don’t want to jinx it by making you read it.I have this weird belief that resolutions don’t last if told to the world. But what the hell. They don’t last most of the time anyways. Might as well make a blog post of it.

Happy new year, everyone!

P.S: A wise stranger I know, once said something like “the problem with the future is that it becomes present quite soon” Vehhry true.

Friday nights

And so, I sat down finally to open the notepad and scribble something. Needless to say, the blog has been idle for all practical purposes for a long time now.It struck hard when there was "Nothing -but-entropy, Life is good, 2 months back" in another blogroll. One can justify it using many reasons but almost always none of them are true. So, skipping all those parts I am going to the so called the main thread. Having become a bangalore resident for over a year now, the trip to home every alternate weekend is kind of getting a ritual that seems to happen by default. Thanks to our railway system that guarantees tickets that get over faster than Anand Sweets samosas kept in the next cubicle for another baby born.

And so, on a typical friday. I like fridays. Those are the days that I start exhibiting time defying properties. I forget my time-space coordinates and the whole day goes in the hope of 5.30 pm's arrival. The frantic dirty clothes packing is an important part. The mere fact that those can be dumped somewhere is a great feeling by itself.

Mom : "Why did u get so much clothes?"
Me : "Eh? Coz I dint wash them"
Mom : "But u said u were washin clothes the other day i had called u"
Me : (Realising "that" was the day with some season finale and hence calls were being mercilessly cut) "Oh! That was previous week's clothes"
Mom : "But you got those last weekend here only"
Me : (Damn!) "Then it would have been the week previous to that!"
Mom : (Now eyeing suspiciously) Do u ever wash clothes?

By that time, I would have gone into a detailed mathematical illustration of what weeks come after what weeks in a chronological order using a lot of numbers. This always works like a charm to get out of any conversation with her. But enough of digression. Coming back to the friday evening. And so, I land up in the station atleast an hour before the departure. This is another pity while going to chennai. The trains normally start just before conventional midnight and reach chennai by my midnight!.Struck up at the station there is nothing one can do except randomly glance at the various other specimens like oneself! Quite often, one does bump into some known person of years back (especially so, when most of the ppl one knows have ended up in engineering) and the conversations are entirely for courtesy purposes

Random familiar face : hey u are mathangi right?
Me : Yes .Hi..How are u? ( Still trying frantically to rem the name)
RFF : Fine.So watsup?
Me : (entire college + work history in a line max). U?
RFF : (Answer in the same format).
Me : So...Hmm...Good... (single words or single syllable sounds one after the
(elongated) other)
RFF : (Realising that there was no need of that enthued Hi)........ ...... ...........Yeah......
(Both simultaneously) : So see u around then?!
(Both simultaneously) : (Relieved) Sure!

Hence, I take extra care not to walk around too much in the platform.There are of course books that are entirely written for reading during Indian railways second class travel but the look that some nerdily cute guy passing by gives while seeing me with such a cover gets really intimidating. Finally the train came and the settling down started after the eternal confusion of upper, middle, lower and the side upper and lower. I always check out the list pasted on the compartment beginning. It kind of prepares me mentally.That day there were these 2 dudes before me checkin out the list.

Dude 1 : Hey look da. Some 22 year old female in your bay.
Dude 2: Yes
Dude 1: If u sleep off early, I will kill you. We are gonna talk late
Dude 2: Hehe

Having the agenda of checking the list mercilessly squashed, I got inside the compartment and looked around to check the other passengers in the bay.Always, actually always, one of those co-passengers would be a baby of not more than a year old. And there it was! It looked at me with a smirk that said "So, u think you can sleep. lets see, how that goes". I gave up the last hope of a decent sleep and climbed up to my berth. I have to mention about how strategically these berths are placed. Whenever the pity mom or the angry dad picks up the cryin kid to get to a standing position, the kid's mouth lands up right next to my ear! I drifted off a little after the tough adjusting of my frame into the berth ( The railways should allot berths according to passenger's height. The 6 year old kid next to me got a nice middle berth to sleep like the Vitruvian man on the cover of Da Vinci while the poor 5 foot 8 inches frame of mine had to fit inside a side upper berth! - Atrocious I say!) and that is the time the baby started off with a mild waaannn. I turned in the hope of increasing the mouth-to-ear distance and still it dint make any effect. By this time the 'mild' in the above sentence turned to 'an intense screamy' and i gave up and conceded defeat. After me staring pleadingly into its eyes for 15 mins (or after it became tired or whatever) it stopped the howling.

I was relieved and started to try falling asleep again. This time there was a periodic sinusoidal noise. Initally for a second, I thought I was having a dream about the resonance frequency experiments of my high school physics lab.But that sounded ridiculous even to my subconscious mind since I had always dreamt through those experiments too. So, I got up to find the source of the noise. It was a well based snoring from a gigantic tummy in the opposite berth (gigantic tummy because, that was all I could actually see). By this time, I was beyond irritation and more towards resigning and accepting the fate. I started observing the crests and troughs of the wave pattern which by the way was intruiging since one seem to come from the mouth and the other from the nose!

By this time, I already got the "Welcome to Chennai, Have a pleasant stay" message from Airtel. Gathering the backpack I step outside. Smelling the masala dosa and filter kaapee from the Saravana Bhavan in Central Station, I somehow felt that it was all worth it! Home is home I say!- whatever may be! :)

P.S : Read somewhere that the title of the blog is the biggest reader attractor - Hence, tried something :P :)