Mission Mehbooba

With all due respect, the Chinese know jack. All that zengaling about contemplation being the zenith of civilization doesn't wash. I've been doing nothing for the past few months, so I know what I am talking about - lethargy annihilates as many grey cells as indirect tax law classes. I haven't had a new thought in aeons... nothing... nada... zero... (see what I mean). Aargh!

Allegedly, the perfect way to snap out of a state of somnolence is to find direction... hence, I hereby announce the launch of Mission Mehbooba... get 3.64 inches off my waist or perish in the attempt.

Ooh... thought! Umm!

Ugh!

I’ve always been a decisive sort of person professionally… the obsessive kinds with a twenty-three year plan (A, B, C and fallback). On a personal level, I’m a mess… I should have been born a decade earlier… then I wouldn’t have to explain why I have an unexplainable affinity towards disco heels, Top Gun theme, Fifth Element and Independence Day, George Michael (yes… I do… deal), the Beanstalk logo, Maurier, Gericault, bubble wrap and high-rises.

And then there’s the fact that I can never shop for anything for myself… and when I do buy stuff for myself, ten minutes out of the store and I already hate what I bought. I could pretend I like something except image consultants are so darned expensive… and let’s face it, until I take over the world, I remain the proletariat. But then, how long can they restrain greatness? I shall bide my time… and meanwhile have disastrous wardrobe days thrice a week.

This is also why I shall be looking like an underage-wannabe-pink-cinderella-in-a-vague-semblance-of-an-evening-dress-thingummy for my farewell.

At least I am passing out of the Uni. And the food’s free.

Loose Ends

Having them - a second disc that doesn't work... last few pages of a book torn... case briefs I work on and can't attend... ad nauseum.

Being at one - nowhere to go... nothing to do... staring at the ceiling fan and attendant chandelier-cobwebs... very whatever, if you know what I mean.

I don't know if I'd rather be braindead of boredom or have panic attacks due to impending change. I don't know what I am now.

Someone please tell me it's just hormones and will soon pass.

Epitaph to Mrs. Amos Pinchot

What are those dime-a-dozen and loopy-rhyming thingummies called Hans? Not sonnets… too mellow. Jingles? No… they’re sung, aren’t they. Not ballads… so intensely prosaic. And limericks, everyone knows, are too short and hardly subtle. Something sillier. Ah… doggerels… that’s the word.

Here it is then… a doggerel… called nothing… inspired from a property law class (hence, you’re not expected to understand)… I’ve always found ennui exceedingly conducive to the Muse.

There was once a man
With a woman next door –
Who had moved in three months back
And they’d never met before.

But as often happens
In cases such as this,
Non-acquaintance didn’t stop them
They often shared a kiss.

Then within a month
Of such last shared kiss,
The lady had a baby
And said that it was his.

The enterprising lady then
Took to court this man,
Poor fellow, he panicked
And to his lawyer he ran.

The lawyer was a huge comfort:
“Suit’ll be dismissed with cost…
Babies aren’t born in four months”
But – goodness! The man lost!

He was declared the father
Made liable for the maintenance
The judge was asked to explain
It just didn’t make sense.

Said the judge: “Family law isn’t my game,
For me, negotiable instrument is much clearer,
And there the principle is my friend,
The instrument belongs to the last bearer.”

P.S. Knock thrice if you understood. It’s easier to aim if the quarry makes a sound

Evil Under the Sun

There is always a reason behind all evil men, women and pigs commit. Mostly fun. Sometimes processes less primal and profound. So I never really mind when people are rude, or insolent, or generally pea-brained. They have their reasons, and that's that.

(Of course I exact revenge... but then that is what I am supposed to do. It's very quid pro quo if you get my meaning.)

But the one thing I can never excuse is not respecting someone else's time. It's like you don't register as a discrete entity. Which is why it is much much more debased than being merely unethical or immoral. It's unprofessional.

So whenever I have to insult you, please believe me when I say that I'll be on time. Even if you are a woolly-brained, lily-livered glob of fat with the IQ of an amoeba who is missing half a chromosome - you matter.

Of Jus ad Bellum, Geneva Conventions and other Assorted Midsem Items of Interest

Few could follow the twists and tantrums of the warring nobility. Most soldiers did not try.

A herald brought news of the new change of allegiance. It was laughable. After three weeks of intense fighting the men within the walls found themselves in the ludicrous situation of sharing the inner walls with a new enemy, while men who had been trying to kill them for weeks were now friends who waited outside with their siege engines. The captains arranged a hasty council to debate the question of who was now attacking what. Some of the troops besieging the fort now wished to defend it, while one group of the defenders – who should now be attacking it – were already inside it. The council meeting went on for five days.

Since no agreement could be reached, the three captains came up with a new solution. All four groups of mercenaries set about undermining the walls of the fort, bringing the old stones crashing down. Hence there was no longer a fort to defend, and they could all march away with honour satisfied

Calling Iago

I told three people I'm writing a book.

And they didn't laugh.

I think I've got a reputation.

Let the games begin! Slainte!

Season's Greetings

Let's pretend I never went away. That done... I spent the entire of yesterday watching christmas movies, reading christmas(y) books and listening to carols (my favourites are Rudolf and the Twelve Days of Christmas... even now). So this side of the screen, 'tis the season to be jolly... on this, the second day of February.

It's not like I like Christmas... in fact, being from a convent school and all, it wouldn't be wrong to say that for ages my sole association of Christmas was with prissy school parties. Later, much much much later , I saw CP in Christmas finery and fell in love.

And the affair endureth... especially post-commercialization-r-us, when it can be Christmas or Valentine's or Apocalypse any lil ol' day... you have to love money... it has so much potential.

So anyway... Merry Christmas everyone... join us tomorrow, same time same place, to celebrate the end of civilization as we know it.

Mid-Year Resolution

It's more difficult seeing people close to me taking blows chin-up than being runover myself... the latter I can handle... I can even revel in the challenge. The former just leaves me wringing my hands with a profound sense of futility... and all I can do is hug the person, play the fool, and hope the day will soon be over.
It's not about taking the bullet for a loved one... it's about having the potential-assassin drawn, quartered, impaled, hung, dragged over shards of glasses bound in red-hot chains, sewn up in a sack and thrown to the crocodiles... until he faints. Waiting till he regains consciousness. Then repeating.


I'm not falling in love with any more people than I already have fallen in love with. I simply lack the courage and the stamina to just stand by. Or the wisdom.

Saving Grace

Excuse the Houdini... I've been riding a wild horse into the sun... the carousel's closed now and I'm back to being my own star in fairy-tale land. All vacancies hereby closed.

Though what intrigued me out of my not-too-pleasant-but-too-addictive-to-actually-give-it-a-conscious-thought-state-of-somnolence was a phone call by a titch for help with social science homework... on genocide. Please take note:

Titch: "Didi... kuch karo... meri teacher ko genocide pe article chahiye... papa ne kaha iska idea sirf aapko best hoga... batayo... jaldi... dus minute main school bus chali jaayegi"

Yours truly: "Ok... apne papa ko bolna ki unse main detail main baad main baat karungi... meanwhie write: Genocide is the systematic repression... that is, s-y-s-t..."

Titch-mentioned-above: "Oho... I know how to write 'systematic repression'... aage bolo..."

Imagine... that pip... couldn't spell "cat" to save his life till the day before... not that I can think of a situation where spelling "cat" would save anyone's life, but the argument remains. I mean... this is the same garden gnome who used to tell me which Pokemon was the most rare and why people threw random cards at each other in some arbit anime show. And now he can spell "systematic repression"!

I'd have faded away into a signature Gericault if he hadn't asked me "is that 'grace' with a c or s?"

At least I'm not rendered entirely redundant... yet. Maybe if I'm extremely nice to him when I go back home, he'll play rock-paper-scissor with me and I can be struthious a while longer.

Letter to the Cosmic Void

Dear Void,

Hello... long time and all... I'd love to stay and be polite but this message is selfish. It's not like I don't love you or anything but I desperately need a favour.

You comprehend the concept of a last fling before tying the knot I assume? This is similar. I want to work with a publishing house/magazine/newspaper/dainik jagran/whatever before I join the teeming ranks of the nouveau lawyers come August 2009. Given that my CV has absolutely nothing to support such an ambition, I'm in, what is often divertingly referred to, as a 'fix'. Hence the SOS call. Being as how you may be into journalism and all, and in any case being the all-knowing-cosmic-void-type-thingummy that you are anyway, can you tell me what sort of internship position I should be applying for? And frankly, though beggars can emphatically not be choosers, I really would prefer sumfing above the level of the chai-wallah. Proof-reading maybe... whatever that is.

Thank you for listening. I shall await your response with bated breath.

Love.

Platonic.

B.F.

P.S. How are you?!? (see... the letter is not entirely selfish... just mostly).

Dear blog readers: Since I do seem to have lost my mind... finally... you're welcome to send in suggestions too... ones that make sense, as difficult as it might be for your sense(s) of moral rectitude. Consider this an official cry for help: "Help".

Let's see how useful this blogging thing can be.

Milestone

Betty Foy is all of one today. It's been a strange year. Mostly a good one, though a little rough around the edges. I have changed... irrevocably perhaps. Betty, though, continues to as irrepressibly trinianed as ever. Thank gawd for constants. So anyway... all together now... a one and a two and a... "yappy burrday".

Good show, everyone.

This Post is Dolphin-friendly

I’ve been keeping busy. Visiting one month old babies in Melbourne and watching butt-nekked men in Sydney can get awfully time-consuming. I’ve also been making random lists for no earthly reason other than the fact that I seem to have become inordinately fond of watching ink-words materialize on rice-paper.

Came up with one while completing my business law assignments. The plural is not deployed ill-advisedly. I figured there is no point wasting time each week so I just upped and finished the weekly assignments due for the next three weeks… and no, that is not a nerdy thing to do. Meanwhile, like I was saying… I love the world. Like my own sister. Which doesn’t mean that it can’t do with improvements. The world I mean, not my sister. Her too of course but I don’t call her “it”. At least not in public. Mostly. So anyway. Here’s my list of things the world can do/not do (dis-do?) with:

• Domestically challenged needs to be recognized as a handicap – physical, emotional, psychological. And legal. The legal regime needs to be sensitized to the special vulnerabilities that can be occasioned by a general inability to cook, clean and do the laundry. More importantly, financial help needs to be provided to the victims of such a syndrome. This need not necessarily translate into extra burden on the treasury. Tax dollars can simply be diverted from other low priority areas. Personally I think either flood relief or education would be a safe bet.
• Baggy, depressing school uniforms in extreme bad taste and redolent with the stench of oppression should be outlawed. I have a niece who quite succinctly sums up the general attitude of the populace targeted by such measures of repression and control: “they stink”.
• Selective extermination of selected specimens would also be a decided improvement. I already have a six-and-a-half page list of names… purely as reference of course.
• Initiate de-stress weeks where everyone gets to act ten years less than the age mentioned on their passports or any other form of identification accepted by the government. The psychiatrists thus put out of work due to the resultant de-stressing can re-harness their skill and channel them towards babysitting kids ten years or less, who during the de-stress week would perforce not exist.
• More proportion: tasty food should be healthy; desirable men should be available; sexy dresses should allow the wearer to breathe (the wearee is expected not to); sitting on grass should not stain business suits; faucets should be marked hot, cold and coffee. Etcetera.
• Pets should have the same life span as the respective pet owners. Lovers and spouses maybe. Pets definitely.
• People should not be named Gilbert. This is emphatically not a pet peeve. Sociological evidence has recently come to light that demonstrates the debilitating effect such a moniker can have not only on the bearer but also on those such a person comes in daily contact with. I mean reah-lly… what was Montgomery thinking?
• Free books and movies should be easier to locate on the internet. Dissent implies upholding capitalism. And if you just said “so?” to that then I’ll just have to pretend you don’t exist… so there.
• A five year mandatory conscription program should be introduced wherein the first year is to be utilized for penning a things-to-do-before-I-die list and the next four years for doing those things. Government funding may be requisitioned for this scheme under the same framework as delineated earlier. The department may require participants to submit one page reports on Paris to ensure answerability. People who don’t have Paris on their list should be shot.

Up with Betty Foy! Betty Foy for President! Long live olimanopsygarchy!

Personal Progression - Projecting for the Future

A. Learn to do nifty things with the camera - start with learning what a viewfinder is and proceed until confident of requisite shutter speeds for a goddamned pinhole camera.

B. Salsa - the dance and the dip. In heels and with tacos respectively.

C. Finally finish reading "The Famished Road"... even if it kills me... a book semi-read for the past 8.5 years does nothing for my reputation.

D. Take up aerobics - for more than two days at a time. Maybe even jujitsu.

E. Blind date. What's life without a psycho or two?

F. Learn French and Spanish. Read Balzac and Marquez. Flaunt having read Balzac and Marquez in French and Spanish.

G. Learn what look works for me. Cultivate it. See if it gels with a tattoo of a griffin.

H. Get a tattoo of a griffin.

I. Find out what a griffin really is.

J. Become a workaholic. Shame my employers into giving me humongous salaries (note the plural). Save. Resign and buy a bookshop.

K. Try to not become a stuttering puddle of saliva when faced with chocolate. Alternatively, marry into the family owning Godiva.

L. Take time out to run through the rain. Buy shoes befitting the same.

M. Learn to make three-tier cakes.

N. Not be obsessed with perfection.

O. Go for regular med check-ups. Find a cute doctor. Purely as incentive.

P. Hug parents more often.

Q. Apologize to P for telling her she is an adopted Martian. One day. Eventually.

R. Take up a pseudo-intellectual hobby. Talk to everyone about it at parties. Revenge is sweet.

S. Learn to drive a bike. Talk about Harley-Davidsons intelligibly.

T. Reduce dependence on artificial stimulants. Convince ISO to classify coffee as a natural stimulant.

U. Become more social. Learn to not scowl at people making small talk about the weather and traffic and Microsoft's takeover bid for Yahoo.

V. Learn swimming. Take psychiatric help to help develop selective amnesia and forget about Jaws. 1, 2 and 3.

W. Accomplish at least one daredevil-type thingummy. Apart from shopping for groceries.

X. Buy red heels. Stilettos. Get accident insurance.

Y. Try and locate people I knew in school. Call them out of the blue and girly-scream.

Z. Invent more alphabets.

Saunters

I just finished reading a book. On the earliest memories remembered and what they mean. I thought long and hard. And my earliest memory is of a kitchen that smelled of… well it smelled tangy and mysterious and not like detergent or food or spices or anything else you’d expect a kitchen to smell like. In fact, now that I come to think of it, it smells like my mother. Sort of. It has grey tiles. Not those dainty, polished ones but the big grainy sorts one finds in government bungalows. The sort that make you want to rub your heel against the floor to feel the slight grate. And I remember there is a shelf… quite low… stone. I firmly believe I don’t remember anything other than the floor or that shelf because I was short. Kids are, you know. So anyway.

This shelf must have had stuff… obviously… mom would consider it criminal to waste space. It’s strange but I don’t remember what she kept on, or rather in this shelf, for at my height then it was more of an alcove. Except for a pink plastic… I guess you could call it a basket for lack of a better word. And she stocked onions in it.
And I remember it so well because the earliest memory of my life is of dawdling in to that kitchen, up to that shelf, painstakingly upending the basket so that the onions tumbled out one by one and rolled into the remotest corners possible, then taking that basket outside and gathering those pink-paper-flowers-whose-name-I-never-knew and putting them in the pink basket. Dark pink against pale pink. And I remember being delighted and happy and pretending I was grown-up and that this plucking of flowers and putting them in the basket had a purpose crucial to the scheme of the world.


What is really strange is that this memory is complete in itself. I don’t remember whether I got scolded for throwing the onions, or for sneaking out without telling anyone or for bringing flowers into the drawing room and messing the place up. I don’t remember being praised for it either or being told that I had amazing resourcefulness for a child who had just learned to walk. It’s just this snatch of memory… on its own… alone.


According to the book, this means I am creative, aloof, sociable, impetuous, fixated-with-family, rootless, calculating, and either good with children or extremely daft with technology… I’ll get back to y’all on the last bit soon as I figure out what page 72 really means.

P.S. Strange how I got the tenses mixed up while reminiscing… and grammar has always been my strong suit. Damn.

Breaking Even

So what, if someone is a stubborn, wilful, misbegotten and childish person who can't see the wood for the trees when his/her temper is up and would seriously consider causing harm to him/herself just to prove a point? As long as he/she has great hair.

And A... you are still a prick... and all those other things as well. I like you regardless.

Job's Comfort

Not counting this post, 'I', 'me' and 'my' occur 79 times on this page. It would appear that everything is always about me. When did I get so self-obsessed?

Ironic. Because this is about me too, isn't it? For today, this makes me a little uncomfortable. Maybe tomorrow I'll love me again. Until then, I'll wish I was home so P could give me a hug.

Until then, I'll dive into chocolates like they are the goddamned Pacific... to hell with Atkins.

P.S. Maybe I am getting maudlin in my old age.

Random Pink Highlights

It pleases me to be writing so prolifically again. It’s not cathartic anymore… it’s a celebration.


After ages, I danced in front of the mirror and made pouty faces. Without music. Just because. And laughed.


I haven’t slept a wink for the past 75 hours… and am still as full of beans as the coffee can in the larder. I have no idea why.


I go out at 5.30 each morning and sit on the steps drinking coffee till the sun comes up.


I have three assignments and one exam due next week. I haven’t even thought about beginning. And I’m not feeling guilty or panicked. Frankly, I don’t give a damn.


I’m having shopping-cravings. I used to hate shopping.


My room is a mess. And it doesn’t disturb me at all.


I heard the Sutta song and remembered that class trip to some random centennial-lecture-nonsense, when the guys sitting at the back in the bus sang the song at the top of their lungs but dropped their voices and merely hummed the good bits while passing conspiratorial glances at each other. It was only when I heard the song later that I realized they were being gentlemen. And I remember being surprised at the revelation. Also the college concert where the crowd conned the lead singer into taking up requests and how everyone insisted on singing Sutta and he turned the mike towards us because he was ignorant of the lyrics. When we hit the chorus, he spluttered… I swear. And when we didn’t stop, he tried to compensate by turning the mike towards the guys and away from the girls. Sexist bastard. The guitarist was cute though.


I have moved on and am now officially over dragons. It’s now witches.


I love being 21. I love feeling alive. It’s exciting. It’s intoxicating. It’s fun.

While I’ve been writing this, I’ve been grinning. Not smiling – grinning. Something has changed. And I haven’t a clue. But I wish stuff just stays this way. As long as I don’t flunk.

Update: I also just won Spider Solitaire with four suits. I am good.

Nicknaming the Rose

Alternatively titled: Why I think Shakespeare knew jack about mothers.

Each time I leave home for a substantial amount of time, dad gives me a hug while my sister stands around shuffling her feet looking uncomfortable. Within a few days, mom calls to tell me my new name. The name she calls me by till I make her angry at me and she forgets. So far I have had seven names. Hand-picked, personalized, delicious monikers. One almost lasted two whole days.

So you see I'm not just a bitch. I'm a lucky bitch.

And if you ever read this mom, then please note that the human brain is not fully developed till the subject in question has attained a reasonably mature age... which is usually pegged to be somewhere around the early 20s. Till then we are all just half-brain-retard-type people. And that mom, is my excuse.

Serendipity

Less than five days back, the fire alarm woke me up at 6... yes, in the morning. Fire drill.

Less then three days back, the flat downstairs forgot to turn the furnace fan on while deep-frying... the smoke tripped the fire alarm again... redundant, but not afraid to make itself heard. Aside. I know quite a few people like that too. Aside over.

Today, there was an actual fire.

I was in class at the time.

My life gains meaning. Again.

Fun facts: Since baring the wailings of my romance-starved soul to the world as of last post, the traffic on inst. site has gone up from 4 visits a day to 17. You, my dear readers, will rot in hell.