Small Town Girl

This happened on Friday the 22nd of Jan 2010. It was well past my usual lunchtime. I was slightly apprehensive about having a solitary lunch. I’ve had a lone lunch several times at home, but an occasion when I especially go out somewhere (alone) to have lunch, has never happened. Out of habit, whenever I see a loner having a meal alone or watching a movie alone, I find myself sympathising with that chap and thinking what a sad life it must be. And I didn’t want anyone doing that with me! But I had no choice, so off I went to Dominos. I had been contemplating trying the choco lava cake thingy, for which they have shown several ‘moan groan’ ads on the TV. I took my order and went ahead for the lone lunch, and settled myself at a small three seater table. In due course of time, a kiddie made his way to a nearby table, apparently waiting for his parents to get the grub. With nothing better to do, he started looking around and I suppose I made a perfect specimen for a child’s inquisitive scrutiny. Maybe his gaze had focused on me because of the ‘Patrakaar’ way in which I had dressed up… a collared Khaki (long) kurta with blue jeans and brown sandals. The only thing adorning my face was earrings. Well, at least I didn’t have specs on or a cloth ‘jhola’ to make the perfect journalist. Maybe he thought I would just take a pen and notepad and start asking for his views on Dominos. I would never know. Soon enough a heavily-built-but-trying-to-be-hep-in-western-clothes female came and thudded on to a table (ok, the chair) right across me. Wonder how she managed to fit into those chairs. Like standard pizzas, Dominos has a standard size for chairs too I guess. She had an array of plastic bags, all from the same shop, with a big SALE slogan written on them. She arranged all the bags as a barricade around her mini fortress – her table. I felt like asking her which shop had such a throwaway sale, that she managed to buy at least 12-13 articles from it…but left the idea in my mind as I noticed her grunting under her breath. She was soon joined by another friend of hers and they both took turns at stealing glances at me. Now I know that I am attractive and all that (ahem) but I definitely mind it if I get too much attention (even if it is guys giving me that attention). So I quickly swiped off whatever was left of the pizza and cake thing (Let me mention that it is not at all worthy of that ‘moan groan’ quality that they show on TV) and left the place.

Please say a little prayer for XXX..may he rest in peace.! :(

p.s - i prefer not putting up the name.

Ahoy! All ye amateur/professional astronomers and photographers! Unless you live under a rock you might know that today we witnessed a total solar eclipse. This eclipse was one of its kinds since a total solar eclipse is a rare occurance and the next one in India happens in the next millenium..!! O_o (too bad). I just had soo much fun making the glasses with my kid bro (cousin) last night, n then finally viewing the annular exlipse a.k.a ring of fire from my office. It was pure awesomeness..!! Loved every bit!

-------On friday, the longest Annual Solar Eclipse of the 3rd millennium will be visible from Kochi where the maximum duration of annularity reaches 11 min 8 s. The annularity (a.k.a ring of fire) would be visible clearly. The eclipse will start at 10:15:20 peaking at 12:25:43 and ending at 13:23:14.------- THIS WAS MY STATUS MESG ON FACEBOOK ON WEDNESDAY..

AND TODAY... i saw the ring of fire... YAYY.. :D *super happy*----------

TOO BAD i could not catch a pic of the ring properly.. but i have put up some pics..! life is good. :)

My Nokia cell phone has a mind of its own. Its charger has decided that it won’t charge my cell from any socket except a particular one at home! I have tried it in all sockets at home and numerous ones at office, but to no avail. All this, when I had bought an original cell with guarantee and all! So here I was, in Penta Menaka, on the hot sweltering afternoon (and I thought it was winter!), haplessly looking for an ‘original’ Nokia charger. I soon realised that there’s ‘nothing original about it’. An original charger costs just 50-100 bucks more than a locally made one and it doesn’t have any guarantee! The standard reply which any vendor would give you there, is, ‘No guarantee for any original stuff as it doesn’t need any’!! what?!!

Anyway, I bought a suspicious looking charger, with no ‘Made in XXX’ stamp. After haggling for a while with the vendor about its authenticity, I gave up and satisified myself with a scrap of paper on which that guy had given me a 2 month ‘guarantee’. It had been duly signed by him.

Lets see what the future has in hand for this charger.. and indirectly - ME.

FM has become pretty much a rage nowadays, what with *so* many new channels being doled out on the average auditory senses of a typical Kochite. By “average auditory senses” I mean that the average Kochite does not have an appreciable sense of music or the fondness for it either. So to make FM popular lots of gimmicks have been resorted to, by the various competitors. They have included a lot of “gup shup”, a plethora of ads, information about various events happening in Kochi n ernakulam, the best shopping deals and of course contests to lure audiences into listening to their channels. Yeah, they also throw in some songs at some regular intervals.

The print media viz the newspapers and the hoardings on the streets have not been spared either. On one side of the road would be hoarding boards – all bright red and on the other side, they would all be having a red mirchi drawn on them! The competitors in the newspaper industry are going out of their way promoting their own channel and even launching weird schemes, where one can buy newspapers for the unheard of weird monthly bill of 98.3! Every news daily publishes a photograph of their RJ’s frequently, tangled in a mass of wires and telephones, trying to cope up with the immense traffic that their contests are generating and taking pride in the fact that phone lines and networks are being clogged by this senseless, tremendous rush!

Talking of contests, firstly all channels started out with giving free fuel to vehicles sporting the sticker for the particular channel. Now they have graduated to asking torpid questions which really amount to lured Kochi listeners, numbing their fingers in a bid to get through the phone numbers, being flashed out by the RJ’s. Of course, no one can question the basis on which the prizes are given (the “best” slogans are never read out) or for that matter the authenticity of the names of the prize winners. I wouldn’t be surprised if all names turn out to be bogus and the “so much in demand” phone lines are always off the hook to give that illusion of the “most sought after channel” to the listener.

All said and done, I would stick to good old AIR FM. For one, they aren’t demeaning themselves by going all out on getting one up on their competitors, but then a government owned entity might as well not try to do that. And the more important reason, at least they play *music* instead of doling out the same old hindi chartbusters day after day. For once I don’t have to think 91 times or see 93.5 shades of red or control my body temperature from going beyond a stable 98.3 before I decide that am gonna listen to 102.6!!

I did it again. Am confessing innocently. I played that ‘I got engaged’ joke on yet another poor unsuspecting soul. But I didn’t trouble him much. I have been rather busy the past few weeks (studying for GATE 2010 plus office which takes up 14/7 of my schedule) and had not communicated with him since quite some time. The poor thing asked me where I have been all this time… and I could *just* not resist the temptation to give the ‘ I got engaged’ funda to him. Pssst.. girlies, this is a sure shot way of knowing whether or not a guy is interested in you and if he *is*, then you can have a whale of a time on his expense. Sadistic, I am sure you all think, but it all depends on what the guy feels for you and how you play it up. In case he gets all senti then well and good.. he deserves that for not taking the initiative for that long. In case he doesn’t, you will be able to make out that it’s not really making a difference to him and you might as well never let him on the fact that your engagement never happened.

With the victim here, it was a long distance thing, I told him on mail and then chatted with him for around 10 minutes. He sounded shocked, wish I could have seen his face. Since I had to rush home soon, I anyway told him that I was playing a joke on him. Couldn’t have let him sleep over that. He sounded a little relieved.

I still remember the time I did the same with psycho. I knew he was flirting and he knew I was, but both of us behaved as if nothing was happening. In between, he had to go home for a couple of days. When he got back, we met for catching up. Just a day before we met, I had attended the engagement function of a friend of mine. Dunno what came over me, but just on an impulse I decided I’ll play that joke on him and built the whole thing up with things like, “I have to give you some news” etc. I gave him the “news” with a lot of difficulty. No, I wasn’t feeling guilty or anything like that, I was having a *REALLY* tough time controlling my laughter. LOL, the difficulty with which i controlled my giggles is only known to me. I didn’t have to prepare on any “correct information”. I just rattled out all the particulars of the fiance of my friend. Thank God, I had attended that function, otherwise am sure, I would have looked like a tongue tied, red faced baboon, on not being able to answer things like “Does he have a moustache?”, “Does he wear spectacles?”, “Where is he working?”, “How tall is he?” etc.

I still remember that despair on psycho’s face. In fact it alarmed me to an extent coz I never imagined an otherwise rather unexpressive guy, to possess that ‘I-better-go-and-jump-in-the-pond’ look on his face. That catalysed the bursting of the oversized bubble I had blown. Anyway I was unable to bear the pain in my cheek bones that comes with trying to keep a straight face when your brain is ordering your cheeks to draw and upward curve. I suddenly exploded (I must say, I must have given a heart attack to psycho, the way I did) into laughter and confessed that it was all a joke… The poor thing was absolutely zapped and stood rooted to the spot with a glazed look. “I must say you act rather well”, was all he could muster up. I felt sorry for him. I said so too. But I guess the relief was more than the initial shock and soon we were laughing together wholeheartedly, with him throwing affectionate jibes at me like “You naughty girl, you caught me there”. This episode helped in erasing all uncomfortable boundaries for us. It only confirmed what we both had known all along.

My blog has seen very less or rather NO action in the past one year (unlike my life) . This could also be attributed to my prolific existence in the architecture world. However in the beginning of this year I did write down one post. TO make up for that, i will write down few snippets of 2009 which happened, were blogworthy & never got mentioned on the blog. Sadly I am still mid way in that and that will just have to wait. Regular programming shall hopefully continue :)