UB -- for u

Thank you for you, for who you are,
However far away;
And for the words you send to me,
Near mad for what you say.
Knowing simply that you're there,
Yet thinking much of me,
Opens up my happiness,
Undone for all to see.

Its not very original ... felt nice!

To Goli on his birthday

I love you as my closest, dearest friend.
Boys and girls can be just closest friends.
There is no passion greater than the one
That touches not the body but the heart.

You mean much more to me than someone who
I like and unlike, want and then don't want.
They're the waves, and you are like a shore
Where I can sit and watch them kiss the sand.

I'm sorry I can't be with you today,
When you should rule by virtue of your birth.
Please accept this tribute of mere words,
Poor substitute for all I am and have.

freakin out

" Sometimes I sits and thinks
Most times I sits
And lots of times I goes to sleeps "

This lovely statement is the courtesy of an unknown author. My eyes fell on it recently and I thought how I would fit aptly into it .

"Most times I just sits." That pretty well sums up what I do with a lot of my time, a lot of my free time. But lately I've been going back to the first statement, "Sometimes I sits and thinks." And it's the thinking part which has piqued my curiosity.

Like yesterday I was sitting by the window, watching and observing the passersby during the rush hour of Chicago. For the first hour or so, I just sat, occasionally watching and moving my laptop for different comfortable effects. When I got tired of sitting beside the window, I moved up onto the couch , swangin' the day away . . . and thinking.

I enjoyed watching people, interesting or not, important or not, white collar or blue collar, people who may or may not influence my life somewhere down the road. Immigrants, locals, folks who have never ventured along the road of life who give me a different life perspective. All these people, all these successful and not-so-successful people give various meanings of life, each in their own unique way.

So , did I have a relaxed and enriched life more than anyone else or less than anyone ? But then again, where would I be, who would I be, what would I be if I was like that. Like so many countless thousands, hundreds of thousands, nay, millions of people around this country and around the world, I would simply be a bump in the road, a figment of someone's imagination, a possible ache in someone's heart about a possibility that may never have happened.

"Sometimes I goes to sleep." All of this can be so mind-boggling, so intense, so elusive, so worrisome, I wonder if it's really even worth the effort of thinking about. On occasion I get a headache just thinking about thinking about it all.

And when the thought processes get too heavy, too wide, too high, or even too far out, sometimes I goes to sleep.

:)

I had been toying with the idea of writing a blog since I wrote the first one.

But much like following up on new year's resolutions, we very often need to be nudged to actually get started. For me the nudge came in the form of free time till I start my job, offering to help in setting up everything. So short on excuses to procrastinate any longer, here I am! Here goes my work life...

My first job out of college was at an Aluminum industry.

I partly loved it,partly hated it. Every day was a perfect combination of boredom, excitement ,back pain, rigor to work and complaints from our seniors. The plant was hot in the winter and hotter in the summer. My coworkers were of all ages and my boss was a grumpy old jerk(everybody fondly calls him Ike).Ike was the personality who made my job worthless and boring.Fortunately, the pay sucked and there were no benefits,which were enough to chuck the job. Nevertheless, I needed money and I needed experience. Fast. So, I sucked it up and did the best I could.I spent a year there. And although I didn’t realize it at the time, I actually learned a lot about business, sales, service and life. Miss those times with Pandi,Saranya,Sathish,Jinil, lots of other people and also Goli and UB ;)

Little did i know that I would work at a McDonalds after coming to the ' STATES ', though I had ideas of eating there . A short time at the MD , seemed an eon to me, was actually fun filled with little embarrassment calling out the orders .I got a shift to another food place , AVI and I was so happy. I did miss a few fun times with the people I worked with at the Mc Donalds ( vin n ram) but for the most part was glad to be out of there. Plus it was really nice not to be calling out orders. I learnt a lot about food and now I miss happy lunches with Abhi and Dhee.Then came my stint at my Professor's lab .I didn't feel sick everytime I had to go into work anymore. I wanted to be at work and it had been a long time since I felt like that.

Meanwhile I did some payless jobs like waking up DADDY , reminding people of birthdays , giving some ideas to Anu, cleaning up sinks wherever I go and cooking !!

I am out of school with a Masters degree and no job.Months passed by .... no job . Weeks went by...no job yet . Days rolled over....couldn't I find a job? Yes , found one at SUBWAY and almost started work , then came my INTEL offer kingsize . Looking forward to work in the chippy,processory environment.
Young ladies my age would be on the course of being somebody's wife,So, how could I, a small girl, go all the way to live & work in an alien environment? :)

soaps r too soapy

Of late, I’ve been watching bits and pieces of Ekta Kapoor’s “K” serials (around 10-15 minutes at a stretch is all I can bear.....that too on a forums website). And I’ve noticed strange stuff. No, it’s not the regressive portrayal of women, e.g. all the “good women” are housewives, career women are mainly bitches, nor is it her excessive portrayal of religion, including women fasting for their husband’s health. (I’ve never seen an atheist on her serials)

This is about two techniques used in most of her soaps. Every major dramatic scene is repeated thrice. Mother slaps daughter. Slap. Daughter’s face turns with the impact. Cut. Mother’s hand rises again to slap daughter. Slap. But this is not a second slap. We’re simply seeing the first slap repeated. And for good measure it’s repeated again. I doubt if anyone’s been slapped just once. It has to be slap, slap, slap!

Advance notice is given just before a bitch is about to commit a bitchy act. If it’s Komolika in Kasauti, the soundtrack will belch “Nikalllll.” Only then can the viewer be shown the bitchy act, otherwise she might die of shock. For Mohini in Kyunki the soundtrack moans a longing “Moh-heee-neee” before she swishes her luxuriant locks and does the evil deed. Luckily Amrita Singh escapes the sound treatment in her serial. For her it’s the lights. Suddenly the screen turns green, and hey, you know the bitch is on the prowl!

It’s not that these are tricks shown for effect once in a while. They’re shown every time. But why? I have a hypothesis. Ekta Kapoor thinks her viewers are very dumb. So she dumbs down the content of her serials to be able to reach the supposed mental abilities of her audience. She thinks that unless she repeats a dramatic scene thrice, you won’t get the melodrama. Unless the soundtrack utters stuff or the lights go green, you won’t be able to discern that something not-nice is happening. You’re not smart enough to understand a storyline on your own unless you’re given scene repeats and sound / light clues. It has to be rammed down, rammed down, rammed down.