And then came 50...

This is my 50th post.
I unfortunately do not have anything enlightening enough to mark this as an extremely enlightening 50th post.

So I guess it will be just another 50th post.

I am extremely grateful to:
1) Myself
2) My wild imagination
3) My weird ways
I could not have completed this Herculean task without the three of you.

All the followers of this blog – Thank you for taking interest in enlightening yourself.

It gives me great pleasure to know there are at least a handful of people (‘hand’ful of ‘people’?!) who bother about such trivial matters such as enlightenment.

And if you have never commented on this blog till date – please do.
If you are jobless enough to be reading there is no harm in being jobless enough to be commenting.
And I am not judgemental as far as people are concerned
– I know everyone is an idiot.

I ask one favour in return for all the wonderful, awesome, enlightening posts I have written so far.
I know it is very difficult to decide but I would like you to let me know which post you liked best – so far (I am not much into telling the future)

Keep reading.
Happy Halloween.

Mathematics

Mathematics and I always got along well.
And then I turned sixteen.

When I was fifteen, Mathematics and I were inseparable.
I remember crying myself to sleep the day after my Mathematics board exam because I did not see a two mark question and hence did not attempt it.
I ended up getting a 98 on 100 – the two marks being lost on the question I did not attempt thanks to my impaired vision.
And then I changed.
I think hormones had a role – but I am not sure.

Mathematics and I started having horrible fights.
I just couldn’t give Mathematics the attention it was seeking.
We became bitter enemies.
I hated Mathematics and Mathematics hated me.
My twelfth Mathematics board exam was a nightmare.
And thanks to my score in Mathematics my otherwise brilliant score became not so brilliant after all.

I chose Medicine because I thought this would be goodbye to Mathematics – forever.
Apparently I was very wrong.
I have statistics this year in Community medicine.
I thought it would be plain old ‘find the arithmetic mean’ and simple addition and subtraction.
Today I realised my enemy is back.
And it is more monstrous than ever.

But I also realised there are people much worse than me.

My unit mates are among the brightest in the class.
But it seems they are not exactly the brightest bulbs when Mathematics came into the picture.
I am not the only one with Mathematics as a bitter enemy.

3x3 became 6
3+3 became 3
3+2 became 6
9x0 became 9
1/15 + 1/70 became 1/85
One of my friends ‘forgot’ how to divide
Another does not know how to use tally marks
– His six in tally looked like ‘IIIIII’
Half of them do not know what log is – forget using a log book.
The other half does not know how to use a scientific calculator.
The summation symbol looked like an E gone wrong to many.
And at the end of the class one of my ‘brighter’ unit mates asked the professor how many marks statistics accounts for in the final exams.

We are learning to become doctors.
One week ago we were made to re decorate the museum.
I wondered if we were taking an interior decoration course.
Now we are being made to solve mathematical problems.
I honestly do not know what to wonder.

We chose this stream because we were good at science and terrible at Mathematics.
We really suck at it.
As Po (Kung Fu Panda) would say we really 'suck in the history of sucking' – as far as Mathematics is concerned.

It takes me about five seconds to figure out change at groceries and auto-rickshaws (and sometimes I am right).
I can roughly calculate and check whether I will pass or fail after an exam.
I can count in 6 languages (till 10 at least)
I can convert numbers from the Indian (lakhs) system to the Western (millions) system.
I can remember dosages for medicines.
But that is about all I want with numbers in my life.


For the future generation – Dear children, do not commit the mistake my peers and I have already committed. Maintain your peace with Mathematics because no matter where you go, what you do – it will find you!!!

My Ally Mc Beal moments

Those of you who have watched ‘Ally McBeal’ would know what I am referring to as one of her ‘moments’. If you have not – you should!

If you have no idea as to what or who Ally Mc Beal is:
1) It was a series which I watched on Star World about five years back.
2) It is about this weird, extremely single and desperate lawyer – Ally, and her weird friends (I love John, I hate Billy, I love Richard).
3) It was funny – in the weird sort of way.

Now, Ally used to have these moments of extreme weirdness when she hallucinates stuff – mainly visual but also auditory.
Even John used to have many of them.
Here are a few incidents when these have come to play in my life – and I am not making this up!
Do comment if you have had any such incident – I will not be judgemental.


1) The Song.
This is basically John’s hallucination – Ally borrows it.

I had a debate recently.
I have posted the gist of it – ‘Thought for food’
The finals dawned upon us without much warning.
It was seriously an unwelcome surprise.
I do not usually get nervous at public speaking events – I usually have complete confidence in my ‘bullshitting’ skills.
But that day it was different.
I didn’t even know what I was supposed to do – parliamentary crap.
Just before the event began I ran out of the auditorium.
My debate partner must have thought I lost it – but then she already knows I am weird and she is on the weirder side of life herself.
I ran to the ladies room and just stood there in front of the mirror.

And then it began – the Ally McBeal moment.
The music began –
“tuntun tun tuntun, tuntuntun tuntun, tuntun tun tuntun, tuntuntun tuntun”
And then it grew louder.
And I knew I had to start dancing.
I began doing those wonderful moves John does best.
Two minutes of grooving ‘John style’ and I know I am ready.

I walk back.
My partner is not there.
She comes in after a while.
We begin.
We win.


2) The Resonating Bell.
This is John’s hallucination – Richard tries borrowing it.

It was a normal day in class quite a few years back.
We, the back benchers, were not listening – as usual.
It was one of those ‘cricket years’ when we girls were perfecting our unskilled cricket skills. We used to play cricket every recess – using an aluminium foil ball and one of our thickest textbooks as a bat.
I was not bad at it.

During class, one of my friends throws an eraser at me.
Being as ‘into cricket’ as I was, I lift up my text book and *smack*
The eraser goes flyin.
The eraser hits the ceiling fan.
The eraser changes direction.
*smack*
The eraser hits the teacher right on her face.
Two words come out of my mouth unintentionally - “holy shit”.

At first the teacher is confused.
She has no idea what hit her or where it came from.
Being as stupid as she was, I hoped she would think the eraser dropped down from the heavens. Apparently, she was not that stupid.
She asked who did it.

Enter Ally McBeal moment.
In the beginning it was one of those small clanks Richard’s hallucinatory bell made.
“clink clink, clink clink”
And then it struck.
The resonating bell sounded magnificent.
“Dong, Dong, Dong, Dong…”
I knew I had to do it.

I stood up.
I told the teacher my friend was trying to pass me the eraser and it ‘accidentally’ struck my textbook which I was trying to pass to the girl seated behind me. And then it hit the fan which was responsible for the eraser hitting her smack across the face.
She was confused.
I swear, for a second she actually looked at the fan.
She told me to sit down and not to pass my textbook around.
Well, she was stupid.


3) Shrink me.
This incident occurred about two years ago when I was ‘going strong’ with my ex-boyfriend- let us call him X.
This is entirely an Ally hallucination.

As couples usually do, I had a tiff with X – basically because I needed somebody to push around.
I come back to my room and my roommate who is two years senior to me seems very eager to talk to me.
(She is no longer my roommate. She finished her MBBS a year ago.)
I decide to listen – big mistake.

Roommate: I saw X near the library today.
Me: So? (Thinking: what is he doing near the library)
Roommate: He came up and talked to me.
Me: Hmm… (Thinking: You have got to do better than this to make me jealous, bastard)
Roommate: He told me he has never seen me without glasses and the lenses make such a big difference on my face. He told me I have beautiful eyes.
Me: Yeah. You actually do have beautiful eyes. (Thinking: Whatever!)

I decide to irritate him further with this wonderful piece of news.
Another reason to push him around – wonderful!
I type out an SMS:
“Hey so now you are hitting on my roommate. Pretty eyes right?! Get someone your own age!”
And I send it.
But one small mistake – I send it to my roommate instead of X.
I get the delivery report.
I hear the message tone on her mobile.

Enter Ally hallucination.
I want to shrink into the size of an ant and run away as fast as I can.
I bury my face in my pillow and hope I die.

Roommate: You send me the message…
Me: I know.
Roommate: You don’t need to be mad at him because of me.
Me: I was just pulling his leg. It is no big deal. I do this all the time.
(Thinking: Oh lord! Please kill me!)

I call up X to tell him what just happened.
X: Serves you right for trying so hard to fight with me.
Me: Is this what they call karma?

Apparently this is what they call “Instant karma”
I hate it.


4) Fist in mouth.
This happened yesterday.
As far as I know I have not seen this hallucination in Ally McBeal.
It is mine.

One of my unit-mates is from Mauritius.
He has one of those funny French accents – where they say “ave” instead of “have”.
He has a bald head too.
I make fun of people who are normal.
So it is pretty obvious I make fun of him a lot.
He makes fun of me at times.

Yesterday we were supposed to spend an hour in the Community Medicine museum. We were supposed to look at the models and the charts and think of ways to re-decorate the place – I thought we were doing MBBS but apparently we are doing an interior decoration course.

There was this particular model which caught my attention.
It was about family planning.
The students actually made a penis out of polystyrene and got a condom on it – it was brilliant even though the penis was way too long in proportion to the torso and too narrow to be real – the condom had space to fit in a finger along with the polystyrene penis.

I was discussing the proportion with my unit-mates when Mr. Mauritius tells me I am twisted!
Can you believe it? Me – twisted!
I am the most not twisted person I have ever known.
I literally scream at him –
“You think every damn professor is hitting on me! You are the twisted one around here!”
I turn around and come face to face with the professor.
He did not seem pleased with what I said.

Hallucination begins.
I imagine myself hammering my blown up fist down my mouth.
I keep shut for most of the next half hour.
I had caused enough damage.

So, do you have any such moments?
I have many more – this post is too long already.

Blogging lessons

On a wonderful, cheerful and sunny Sunday morning, the 10th of August this year three unusual happenings took place:
1) I was happy in the morning at 9:00 am – which is very remarkable considering myself to be a sleep lover and nothing irritates me more than waking up early on a Sunday. (The reason I was happy was a humongous breakfast.)

2) I realised how totally jobless I was and how I needed to do something which wasted my time (since I was done with the college magazine). I decided to blog about my infrequent thoughts about nothing in particular.

3) I started enjoying writing about nothing in particular more than ever.

Since then my life has been pretty much the same – except now I can re-read my posts every morning and wake up bathed in the glory of the sheer power of intellect and being the enlightened one.
My life has not changed much.

But this blog has taught me lessons about the blog world.
And these are a few I can share.
I cannot share the rest because I have been sworn to secrecy by the rulers of the blog world
– In other words, I cannot share the rest because I don’t feel like it and I don’t think you should get to learn all of it so easily!

1) The first attempt is always good – thanks to the humongous breakfast.

2) After you make all your friends promise that they will visit your blog about half of them actually keep the promise. Out of those who do visit the blog half of them will read the first two sentences, a handful will just look at the pictures (if any), another handful will read half of the post and the rest (if any) will read the whole post. One “might” comment.

3) After three or four posts most of your friends don’t give a damn.

4) Strangers become friends thanks to blogging.

5) Strangers comment more often.

6) You form a new friend circle that consists of ‘loyal readers’ of your blog and realise your disloyal friends who never commented (ever) are just idiots.

7) Never ever post more than one post in a day. Nobody reads the post before the latest one. And no matter how wonderful/controversial/thought-provoking the post maybe you will never ever get any comments. (even though I have come across this rather disturbing lesson more than once, I still continue posting more than one post a day many a times – because I feel like it)

8) Never let the number of comments discourage or encourage you. It is a farce. It is a conspiracy.

9) There are always loyal readers lurking behind shadows – who never comment. They are pieces of modern art – difficult to understand.

10) There are always people who comment just because they saw your comment on somebody else’s blog and want you to read their blog. They are pieces of shit – cunning little devils.

11) Never reply rudely to any comment. They take it to heart thanks to the extreme deficiency of a sense of humour. They stop visiting the blog.

12) There are people, who read your blog and comment because they think you are cute, want to ask you out for dinner and are desperate – get a life!

13) Sometimes you have to sitewhore (put in your url as your status message in every networking site, post it as comments on others status messages, send messages containing your url to everybody on your friend’s list) to get people reading.

14) Not everybody appreciates bragging – because they don’t get to do it as often. Most people don’t appreciate it. I do not blog for ‘most people’.

15) Some people love deep, profound and philosophical posts; some people love crazy and weird posts; some people love lovey-dovey stuff. Even though the last category is impossible to please I try my best to not post for anybody but myself. I do not care what you love – you can start a blog about whatever it is that you love. On my blog you get to read whatever it is I feel like writing.

16) Spacing out the lines and breaking paragraphs helps lengthen short attention spans like that of my own. Long sentences, however, is my weakness.

17) Never put off posting for more than a week. You tend to fall into a delusional state in which you consider yourself to experience some sort of a writer’s block – which is pure and unadulterated bullshit.

18) You learn things you never knew about family and friends you have known all your life – I never knew I shared a common, recurrent nightmare with my mother!

19) Nobody likes to vote on your second polls. The first one might get some attention. The second one – nobody bothers (I have four votes so far!)

20) You might think you will run out of topics one day. But that one day seems very far away every day.

So, these are few among the lessons I have learnt.

Enlightening enough?

Nothing out of Ordinary

This blog has had more than a thousand visitors – excluding my visits.
This blog has almost fifty posts – forty six including this one.
This blog began a little more than two months back – two months, one week and five days to be accurate.

I like statistics – when it is in my favour.
I think this blog is faring pretty well considering the reasons why I began blogging (The beginning)
I wanted to post on the lessons learnt from blogging so far – but I guess that can wait.
Maybe the next post can be on that.
This post is about a thought which happened to flash across my mind about thirty seconds ago.

I wanted one word to express how I felt the whole day today.
The words that came into my mind included:
1) Sleepy – considering I woke up at five in the evening today. But it did not explain much about how I am feeling right now – which is not sleepy.
2) Jobless – but I feel that all the time.
3) Tensed – about the upcoming exams. But that word would probably explain about five seconds of today which was a complete waste of time and totally irrelevant.
4) Ordinary.

Ordinary – as ordinary as ordinary can get.
That seemed almost perfect.
Until I thought of what is ordinary.

According to me and the dictionary in my brain, ordinary is something which is not exceptional or special.

So who defines what is ordinary?
My ordinary will be very different from your ordinary.
1) A homeless man or maybe every other male feeling the pressure down there in the bladder might consider urinating beside a national highway nothing out of ordinary.
But for me, well, my imagination runs wild at the thought.

2) For me, sleeping in class is ordinary.
But for one of those ‘gifted’ ones always seated in the first bench with their faces hidden in their notebooks as they scribble away not just every word but every expression that passes over the boring and expressionless faces of professors, sleeping in class would be a heinous crime committed against the love of bespectacled self obsessed creeps.

3) For Lindsay Lohan, accidental public boob show might be just ‘oops but whatever’ ordinary – if you know what I mean.
But for many girls I know, showing their arm pits in public is totally out of the question (maybe because they are hairy – I frankly have no idea)

4) For me, eating ten slices of pizza and still feeling hungry after three hours is nothing out of the ordinary. If I didn’t feel hungry I would be worried.
But for almost every girl I know, it would be insane to even think about so much food because even thoughts of a sumptuous meal make you grow fatter.

5) For me, washing my feet at least six times a day is ordinary.
But most guys I know consider that insane and definitely an obsessive compulsive disorder.

6) For you talking to your little guy down there might be ordinary.
But for me – even if I did have a little guy (Imagine that!) down there, the mere thought of talking to any part of my body (especially one with a pee hole) is nothing short of extreme nuttiness (forgive the pun)

I may be far from ordinary to you.
You definitely are far from ordinary to me – no matter who you are.

The word ordinary does not mean anything to anyone except the person using it.
It does not convey a description worth any value to those listening.
Precisely – nothing out of the word 'ordinary'.

Do not use the word ordinary if you want to be specific.
Use it only if you are smart

Username

I never forget my password.
It is almost always the same set of nonsensical characters.
But I always had a tough time remembering my username.
This was until I realised how blessed I am to be named what I am named.

I have a unique name.
I like to call my name unique
– Unique sounds better than words like weird, strange and funny.
I know for a fact there is no other living or non living ‘matter’ on this planet which shares its name with me.

I cannot recall a single instance when a stranger has not asked me to repeat my name at least twice before reproducing an almost but not quite exact duplication of what my name is supposed to sound like.
My name does not start with an exclamation mark or any punctuation mark; in fact I do not have any punctuation marks in my name but still somehow the mere possibility of someone being named what I have been named seems difficult to comprehend by many.

There are times when I have wished my name didn’t sound like a detergent, soap, a mouth freshener, an antiseptic or millions of other things it is not.
I tend to make myself believe it is all a work of my wild imagination and there is no similarity whatsoever.
My name has no meaning – that in itself helps me improve my imaginative skills.
I make up a new meaning every time somebody asks.

It is always after you run away from a bane that you realise it was a blessing in disguise.

The internet gave me the opportunity to name myself whatever I pleased.
My only attempt at naming myself before this was when I started writing poems under the alias ‘Shirley Andrews’.
But somehow as days passed by Shirley seemed to sound more and more like a dog’s name to me – no offence to all the Shirleys out there maybe it was just my subconscious mind trying to fight against being referred to by a name other than the usual ‘unique’ one.

So the internet gave me amazing opportunities.
I named myself all sorts of names.
None with punctuation marks though – I still can’t believe I never thought of that.
I faced two big problems:
1) Username already taken – this irritated me.
2) Invalid username/password – this irritated me more.

The first problem always led to the second.
The username being already taken ended up making me use strange combinations of adjectives and nouns – which I always forgot.

The solution I realised was simple.
I started making complete use of my unique name.

I do not need an ‘in.com’ id to get an id with my name.
I can get an id with my name on any damn site – unless I have signed up already.
And I don’t think I will forget my name.
That is a boon not many people are blessed with.
They need adjectives and numbers added to their names to get an id – that is honestly not just frustrating but also depressing.

Hence I came to peace with my name.
You can call me whatever you please.
You can make fun of my unique name.

You are just jealous your name is not as unique as mine.

Silence please

I love silence.
It helps me not think.
The only thing I like more than silence is someone talking sense – but since this is very rare I make do with silence most of the time.

Silence is almost always broken by a fool.
Only fools do not grasp the beauty of silence.
The fools (all of them) are under a common misconception that their ignorant gibberish is more significant than silence.
I do agree – at times listening to this ignorant gibberish does help boost one’s confidence; but more often than not, it irritates the life out of the listener.

When I was sixteen I decided to pursue my further education in my motherland.
I lived in a hostel run by one of the most popular entrance coaching centres here.
For those of you who do not know what ‘the entrance’ refers to, it is a set of exams that apparently decide your future.
Students take, end and live lives for the sole purpose of faring well in these ‘entrance exams’.
It is also referred to as the single most important test any student interested in pursuing a professional course has to undertake.
I think it is pure bullshit.

For the two years I lived in that hostel I believed all the bullshit mentioned above.
I tried to survive with six hours of sleep.
I tried to survive not talking to a single soul for more than twelve hours a day.
I tried to survive sitting in front of books for more than twelve hours a day.
I tried to survive the pin drop silence.
And now here I am – doing what I dreamt of doing and I wonder if it was worth believing all that bullshit.
But I learnt my lessons and I learnt them well.

These are the lessons silence taught me:
1) Girls tend to obey rules without voicing their opinions; boys do so after mumbling their opinions under their breath.
I did not belong to either category.

2) Some people can sit in front of their books and actually study for more than twelve hours a day; others can fake it.
I did not belong to either category.

3) There are people who can sit mum for more than six hours; others always make sure they never get caught talking.
I did not belong to either category.

4) What I have to voice is never insignificant. I always have a point. The authorities never seem to get my point.
It is pointless to try and make them get the point.

5) Boys at the age of sixteen tend to pursue activities classified under mischief, if they do not the girls do. Since both seemed uninterested I was undertook burden of the activities.
You are rarely appreciated for carrying out self assigned duties.

6) No matter what I have an innate attraction to trouble.
No matter what I always get caught.
No matter what the others involved tend to get away with it.

7) It is embarrassing, even for me, to get scolded in a language I find difficult to understand at seven in the morning in front of about two hundred peers and fifty adults.

8) When being scolded always maintain utmost silence – Even if you do not understand what the wonderful adjectives and nouns used to describe you mean.

9) Tears are the only way to shorten the misery of getting scolded at. I cannot cry when I want to – even if I pinch myself blue and black.

10) Life at home may seem boring at sixteen; one might feel the want of adventure. The adventure I undertook taught me more than I expected.
It is horrible to open your eyes to reality what is worse is having them opened for you against your will.

I love silence.
It reminds me of those days.
It helps me not think.
It makes me smile at the lessons learnt the hard way.

So don’t spoil it – shut up.

List of destinies

I am feeling tipsy right now.
And surprisingly it is not because of what usually makes people tipsy.
I just finished eating my first meal of the day.
And since my first meal has been delayed to this hour I tried over eating.
Now I am suffering from the following ill effects:
- My heart is galloping away at a speed which is making me feel like I will have a myocardial infarction any second now.
- My brain is under the false notion that it can take a vacation.
- My vision is blurring thanks to my eyes experiencing the mighty power of gravity Isaac Newton needed an apple to discover.
- My mouth can beat Attacama desert (the driest place on Earth).

So I decided, what better time to post than now.
It is not often I get to this state of being.

I saw Kung fu Panda – again (for the nth time) last night.
I love it.
Among all the dialogues I can remember, here are three which I cannot seem to forget:

“Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery, today is a gift and that is why it is called present”
I have heard a similar version of this many a times – maybe because it is a famous saying by some famous person who says a lot of sayings.
But it was nice to hear it again – especially with the turtle’s way of speech.
I love the way he speaks in that drawn out way of his.
That scene in which he blows out the candles one at a time – I would love to do something like that just to irritate the hell out of somebody who has curiosity eating up their brain.

“There is no charge for awesomeness or attractiveness”
I have been waiting impatiently for an appropriate opportunity to deliver this awesome dialogue.
It is so full of oneself, I know for a fact nobody could deliver it as convincingly as I could.

“One often meets his destiny on the road he takes to avoid it”
This one is pretty deep and profound.
I do not usually like deep and profound stuff.

This dialogue is what this post is going to be about.
I have decided to resume the enlightening process in my blog which I seem to have discontinued quite a few posts ago.

The first time I saw the movie and heard this dialogue I thought it was so true.
But then last night after watching it for the nth time I thought it was not so true after all.
Things that impress you in the beginning are bound to disappoint you before the end – that is my philosophy (bound to copyright)

I do agree the dialogue does sound wonderful and philosophical but if you think about it for a second you will understand exactly why it is disappointing.

I do not believe our destiny is pre-written.
I think each one of us have this list of destinies.
We carve our own path cancelling options one at a time and finally choose our destiny from our list.
This might seem juvenile to you but I think it is what it is.

The world is too random and the human mind too faltering for each one of us to have a fixed destiny.
But at the same time life would not have any purpose if it were not for something to learn or something to be achieved by each one of us – that something which we call destiny.
So the list came to be.
But the problem is nobody knows about the list except the one who made it.
As for the one who made it, I believe it is Nature.

Now we could not possibly go and ask Nature what our list contains – you would definitely not want to look out of your mind talking to the wind, trees, river and mountains (unless Paul Coelho’s Alchemist seems to have inspired you to the extent of complete insanity)

So this Mr or Mrs or Ms Nature does not want to let us know what our list contains, leaving us to decide which path we take and which destiny in our list we finally end up choosing – maybe laughing at the fools we make out of ourselves in the process.

Unless we know our destiny we cannot take a path to avoid it.
And we definitely do not know our destiny because Nature seems pretty adamant about leaving us in the dark.
So the dialogue does not actually make any sense at all –
“One often meets his destiny in the path he takes to avoid it”

You might think people do die in the process of trying hard to keep themselves from dying – true – but this is not destiny.
Destiny is not death.
Destiny is what you achieve before death or with death.
Nobody can avoid their destiny – nobody knows what it is to avoid it.

Except me of course – I know what my destiny is.
Finding Nowhere… that is my destiny.

Is this deep and profound enough for you?
Next post will be more of humour – I promise.

My middle finger

It all began when I was born with two perfectly normal middle fingers.

For twenty years I enjoyed complete use of my middle fingers every moment of every day in my quite illustrious life.
Last year I turned twenty and my middle fingers have not been the same since then.

My palms and soles sweat when my sympathetic system decides to demonstrate how well it works – which is quite often.
They sweat when I am nervous, frustrated, excited and basically – all the time.
Sweaty palms make me further frustrated which makes my palms further sweaty.
It is a vicious cycle.
Last year, during my tenure as one among the ‘chosen ones’ (mentioned in my previous post – Licking ass), the story of my middle finger took a funny twist
– Quite literally.

It was as miserable a day as any other.
We were wrapping gifts for the ‘guests’.
I was frustrated.
My palms were sweaty.
The tape wouldn’t stick because usually tape doesn’t stick once it is wet thanks to sweaty palms.
This made me even more frustrated.
This made my palms even sweatier.
One pedestal fan placed at an isolated corner was supposed to cool an auditorium the size of a football field.
One of my friends was kind enough to move it closer to those who were gift wrapping with sweaty palms.
After about ten minutes of struggling with tape I decided I needed to cool off my palms.
I accidentally stuck my hand into the fan in the process.
My hand went numb and I wondered why.
I will never ever forget the sight I saw next.
My middle finger was not exactly in its usual shape.
It actually looked funny – until I noticed all the blood and realised I was the one bleeding.

To make the long story short at the end of two hours and an elephantine dose of local anaesthetic my middle finger looked ‘enhanced’.



I had a hypertrophied middle finger for almost a month – thanks to the splint.
After which I had a stiff middle finger which refused to bend and stuck out of a fist for two weeks – thanks to wearing the splint religiously.
The scar remained and I thought that was the end of my middle finger story until my exams came up.

I do not write more than a sentence a day usually.
But during exams I was expected to write.
And my middle finger hurt after five minutes of writing.
This was solely because I always hated exercising – even if it was for my finger.
I was forced to do silly, comical and extremely idiotic ‘exercises’ with my fingers and rubber bands for half an hour each day.
I still hate exercising.
But the exercises worked wonders in two weeks time.
I know because I took eleven extra sheets for my first paper – not because I had so much to write but because I wanted to check how much I could write until my finger hurt again.
The result was satisfactory.

Everything was well until today.

I have big feet.
And I am not well aware of how big my feet actually are.
I always wear black nail paint on my toe nails.
This is, contrary to public opinion, not because I am interested in looking like a punk or rock music fanatic or weird.
It is because I keep banging my feet everywhere resulting in ugly multicoloured subungual haematomas (bruises underneath the nail).
And the only thing that can hide these ugly multicoloured patches is black nail paint.

I used to think my nails were brittle but then I realised with the force I keep banging them it is truly a wonder my feet do not fall off.

My fingernails are more normal.
I do not grow them long.
I have done it all – square ends, pointed ends, blunt ends…
None of them interest me anymore.
And keeping my fingernails short gives my professors one less excuse to throw me out of clinical postings.

Today I went beyond my usual ‘bang my feet’ routine.
I broke my already short fingernail – right across the middle.
And it is my middle finger.
For those of you who do not know how it feels, I am not going to spoil the fun describing the pain – You really must try it out yourself.
For nine hours I have been struggling to keep mum and not scream out in agony.
I just dropped a rather heavy textbook of mine over my finger before typing out this post – it felt heavenly.

I am reminded of my hypertrophied middle finger days.
I wonder if my middle finger is trying to tell me something.
Maybe it needs more attention.
Maybe it needs me to show it off more often.
As of now I have no idea what it wants.
And the pain is making me insane – if nothing else.

I wish my middle finger could just open its imaginary mouth and tell me what it wanted instead of calling out for attention in these painfully disturbing ways.

Hope this is the end.

Licking ass

I have always been slightly out of my mind.
But there have very rarely been instances when I have thought twice about my being eccentric.
Last year I made a decision which made me think way more than twice whether I pushed the limit my eccentricity.

I applied for a post among the ‘chosen ones’.

The criteria for being appointed among these ‘chosen ones’ is really quite simple:
1) You have to be exemplary at licking ass.
2) You have to be good at keeping your opinions to yourself.
3) You have to ‘look’ like you are talented.

I have never considered myself good at any of the above mentioned criteria.
In short – I really sucked at it.
But I decided to push the limits of my ‘insane actions’.
I applied for a post – one which I felt I could give a shot at ‘looking’ talented in.

It always is a very controversial nomination.
The competition is always bitter.
Contestants are often accused of showing their ‘true colours’.
I had three opponents – all of them had their special ‘quirks’ which made them way better than me.
I played my games, showed my ‘true colours’ and did whatever it took to get nominated.
I am not very proud of any of it – but I think I paid my price.
I got nominated.

From the very first moment of being among the ‘chosen ones’ I knew I would not enjoy it.
Now do not misunderstand me – all the other ‘chosen ones’ were very easy to work with, the difficult bit was who we had to work for.

Our duties were simple:
1) Keep licking everyone’s ass.
2) Keep our opinions to ourselves because they don’t really matter.
3) Keep ‘looking’ talented.
4) Get used to hearing shit about yourself from everyone.
5) Never expect appreciation or gratitude – it does not exist.

It was bad.
There were eight of us – two of us girls.
Being a girl was a bane because we had an additional duty of looking pretty, ever smiling and lady-like at all the “functions”
– I hated every bit of it.

I hated every bit of it because I was quite obviously very bad at it.
I cannot smile when there is no reason to smile – my face hurts and I end up looking like the cow I mentioned in my post - Smile
In fact I had every reason in the world to not smile.
- I was always dressed up like a mummy in a saree which kept threatening to undress me in public.
- I was expected to smile at people who were too busy to even look at me.
- I was supposed to work my ass off while others could sit and complain.
- And the working my ass off bit is never easy when you are supposed to look ‘lady-like’ at the same time.

There were days when the only sleep I got was crumpled up in a wooden chair.
Food was not always a necessity – it became an option.
These two conditions made my life miserable, if not anything else.

One year did not fly by.
We did what we were supposed to do.
We did it quite well.
I did not enjoy it much.

All the ‘chosen ones’ every year will have the same story to tell.

At the end of it I just have one thing to be grateful for – the ones I worked with.
They made worse seem bad.

Dedicated to the KMC Student Council 2007-08

The Plan

Everything is supposed to be easier if you plan ahead.
Please note the use of the word ‘supposed’ which undoubtedly indicates that it certainly might be untrue.
‘Certainly might’ – does that qualify to be called an oxymoron?
I am beating around the bush – I know it.
Do you know why I am beating around the bush?
It might very well be because I do not have a plan.
Forget a plan; I do not even have the slightest clue what I am rattling away about.
Or maybe I just want you to believe I do not.

I am good at planning
- For others.
The plans I make for myself never work out – never!
But the plans I make for others always work out – always!
I recently read a very nice quote.
It does not have much significance with reference to whatever I am trying to enlighten you with right now but this quote is enlightening in itself – though it is not applicable to the Enlightened one (for those who don’t know who that is – it is me)
‘Always and never are two words one should always remember never to use’
Lovely, is it not?
But as I said - it is not applicable to me.

So my plans never work out when I seem to plan for myself.
But this does not deter me from planning.
I make it a point I plan what I am going to do at least a second in advance.
The earlier the plan is made the more chances it fails.
– That is MY hypothesis and no YOU cannot steal it.
Mathematically speaking (this is hilarious - who would have ever imagined me, of all the six billion people living on this planet, to speak mathematically!)
The duration of time left before the ultimatum is always inversely proportional to the success rate of the plan.

Today I planned out my study schedule for my exams.
My exams begin in the first week of the next month.
I am pretty sure my planned schedule will fail.
This is not pessimism talking, it is experience.
But I planned it out anyway.

I am supposed to read 150 pages a day to finish at least ten days in advance.
These ten days are saved up as my grace period in case I do not finish (which I know for a fact I won’t)
So it is like a plan within a plan.

I have three textbooks – thank God it is only three this year.
These three textbooks had cobwebs on them today until I decided to check out how many pages each of them had.
My friend thinks I lie about not studying.
I wish I was.

Only a selected few ‘elite’ medical students know how it feels to study from a brand new, untouched textbook two weeks before their tests.
It is a miserable feeling as far as I am concerned – because unused textbooks put me to sleep (I think it is the smell).
It takes a week of sleeping over my textbooks - while reading them - to make them look and smell 'used' (I know it sounds disgusting but reality is disgusting)
– that leaves me wit a week to read and ‘reproduce’ 1715 pages of ‘not so English’ English.

I have planned three weeks in advance – which is very early.
And I am going to experiment my hypothesis before publicizing it as my theory.

I do not know what to hope for – if I am right about my hypothesis I will fare hopelessly in my exams and if I am wrong then my hypothesis never becomes a theory.

So I have no hope whatsoever.

Nightmares

Everybody has nightmares.
Some have them when they are asleep.
Some have them when they are awake.
Some live them.

Nightmares – reminds me of mares.
It reminds me of a whole lot of mares running wild at night.
I have nightmares all the time.
I remember very few.

Among all those I can vaguely remember here are some which managed to scare the living hell out of me.

I do not have any delusions of things I can do.
Well, maybe I do but I do know that I can not run fast.
I can run – but I can not run fast.
One of my friends once told me his grand mother could beat me at a running race – I still wonder about that.
This being the state of my running, running downhill would not make much of a difference – I would still be slow.
In my nightmare I am always running extra slow (if that is possible) – downhill – with a boulder in pursuit.
The funny bit is I never ever make it. The mountain seems to go on forever and finally the boulder does run me over.
The nightmare, unfortunately, does not end there.
I, then enjoy a third person view (considering the boulder to be the second person).
I see myself flattened, alive and smiling a flat smile – pretty much like how Tom keeps ending up looking like thanks to Jerry.
It is not a pretty sight.
Not for anyone – least of all me.

Another one that still makes me squirm was not exactly a nightmare.
It was more a distorted dream.
The distorted bit of the dream being ‘exceedingly optimistic’ me.
Do not misunderstand me, I am not a pessimist but nor am I an optimist.
I am strictly in between.
I am pessimistic about pessimism but not optimistic about optimism.
In this dream my hands are being chopped off – but I am very optimistic about it.
I keep telling myself I still have two legs.
And then my legs are chopped off.
I keep telling myself I am still alive.
Then my head is chopped off.
And I am still smiling.
The end.

Writing examinations without preparing for them and realizing I am naked all of a sudden in a public place never really scared me much – I wonder why.
And the only person who is hurt or killed in my nightmares is I – so there was never a question about me fearing the death of a dear one.
The fact that I am the one dying somehow calms me – Is that normal?

Now for the worst of all nightmares – I had this one quite recently.

I am sitting at this huge table and there is this very homely, plump, cute little lady standing by my side.
I have a humongous plate in front of me.
This wonderful lady keeps filling my plate.
And I keep on eating, eating and eating.
The nightmare bit is – I have no sense of taste!
Wonderful, delicious, taunting food all tasting like lumps of... nothing.
It was awfully, dreadfully, horrifyingly, terribly horrible.


It is only when you have nightmares you understand how worse life could get.
I am glad I am not yet flattened by a boulder even though I am a slow runner.
I am glad I am not optimistic enough to smile when I am being decapitated.
And I am oh so glad that I can still taste what I eat even though there isn't much to taste.

Poll findings

For those who have not noticed and will never get the chance to notice again the poll that I began at the very beginning of this blog is finally closed.
I started this poll because I wanted to know how many people out there actually think like me.

Now the results:

53% of the readers chose ‘yes’
This makes me happy.
It is a clear majority.
I should receive a standing ovation for this sort of response.
It is true I do not have any of those fancy awards that you get for blogging, but wtf this is good enough!
53% of the people who visited my blog actually cared about the shit I thought up.
But, unfortunately, this also shows 53% of the people who actually read my blog do not think like me because I would never, ever choose this option if I were you!
I am truly sorry but you are just not like me.

20% of the readers chose ‘no’.
This makes me slightly confused.
As far as I remember, I never threatened anybody into visiting my blog.
If there was no threatening involved and you do not actually care about what is written here then why in the name of sensibility do you read my blog?
I expect answers in the form of comments.
And it goes without saying - I do not like you people!

23% of the readers chose ‘nevermind’.
I actually like you people.
I think you people deserve a pat on the back.
Good going and keep going
– non-opinionated, diplomatic, unoriginal fools.
No matter what – nevermind!

3% of the readers – one reader – chose ‘no because it is the first option and I am too lazy to read further’.
This was the third option.
It is a stupid option.

I would have chosen this.


P.S: I have decided to continue blogging – but at a slower pace.
My exams are round the corner and I really don’t like the junior batch too much – So, I have to pass.

The bad guys

The bad guys are everywhere.
And this is what the ‘not so paranoid’ part of me feels.
Imagine what the ‘paranoid’ part of me feels.

I have been slightly busy lately.
And this is pretty surprising because I always make it a point that I am never busy enough to call myself busy.
What I have been busy with is unfortunately none of your business.

This post is about the bad guys.

The bad guys are always around – some may call themselves your friends while the others just don’t bother to call themselves anything at all.

Everybody becomes one among them at sometime or the other.
I have found myself among them many a times – more than I would dislike.
Recently I have been thinking about these ‘bad guys’.

Now do not misunderstand the term.
What I mean by ‘guys’ is not the male counterpart of the foolish species who call themselves wise. I mean the term in a more general aspect.
General as in it includes everybody.
I shall go down memory lane.

Babyhood…

It all begins in the beginning.
In the beginning everybody is one among them.
Everybody seems to be conspiring against you in a foreign language.
Nobody seems to really understand you.

Childhood…

The teachers are the bad guys.
They seem to want control over your free and spirited life.
Everything you want to do is wrong.
Everything you don’t want to do is right.
Here, the parents come in a close second among the bad guys.
The third place goes to the kid who always seems to know the right answer to everything.

Adolescence…

This is like being back to babyhood.
Nobody seems to understand you.
Everybody wants to tell you what to do.
There are three sorts of adolescents in this world:
1) Those who have already transformed into beautiful swans – they are the ones who go about strutting in high school. They think they rule because they just seem to get the attention everyone seems to seek. Somehow these beautiful swans acquire the right to hurt everyone. I had a couple of them for friends. I do not regret it but honestly it was super lame.
2) Those who transform into beautiful swans after high school – now this category is lucky and unlucky. They are lucky because they did finally make it – a nice ‘in your face’ comeback for all that hurting courtesy ‘the strutters’. They are unlucky because well, it is too late a comeback.
3) Those who never transform. They get used to it - big deal.

The strutters are the bad guys if you are not one among them.
And if you are one among them – you need to get a life.

College…

I shall write about what I feel right now.
The administration of this college is filled with dorks who never had a life in college and want the same for you – they are all bad guys.
The professor who keeps picking on you just because you are not boring is a bad guy.
The hospital is full of bad guys who are waiting to make you look like a fool.
All juniors who know more than you do are bad guys.
All friends who have started studying are bad guys.
All friends who don’t like your blog are bad guys.
All friends who keep asking if it is finally the end of your ‘blogging spree’ when you do not post for a few days, are very bad guys.
The classmate who always asks doubts which seems like Greek and Latin when all you want is to get back to your bed and snore is a bad guy.

Adulthood…

There are so many bad guys out there you seem to lose count.
Your boss is always a bad guy.
The guy who keeps getting a raise is a bad guy.
The person your partner thinks is wonderful is definitely a bad guy.
The in-laws are ‘almost’ always bad guys.
Every person who can afford anything you can’t but would want to; is quite obviously a bad guy.
And finally
God seems to be a bad guy.


The bad guys never go away.
In fact, I think, they keep increasing by the day.
You just learn to not care after a while – if you are lucky.

So - go to hell, bad guy!!!