F.R.I.E.N.D.S

No no no... this is not about the amazingly funny, popular, unmissable sitcom that is still being shown in India. Nope not at all. Having said that, I must tell you that I have watched re-run after re-run and would be really happy if they all came back for one more season. I do know ppl think I am quite balmy 'bout the sitcom and U really have to face a kicking, fighting, and screaming me, if you attempt to change the channel. It is usually better to go out for a walk and hope that when you come back the program is no longer being telecast. Thats what most ppl at home do :)

Anyways, this is about my friends in college. We have had funny moments, angry moments, sad moments - in fact, I would classify those four years as a perfect script for a soap. I mean we had showdowns, breakdowns, screamdowns, and what nots. I still feel those were the best years of my life as yet, though at that time, I doubt I thought as much.

We were a gang of five gals who initially started out as part of a bigger gang and then slowly moved out to form our own. We were not really alike or very different either. Maybe the one thing that was common was that we each had quirks, eccentricities and hence were quite understanding of each other. During the course of 4 years, we changed a lot. We all started out as good gals and that did not change much :) Ok Ok.. thts not really true but not too far from the truth either.

I am still not sure how we became friends - I still recall, I was rooming with Usha Kumari. Srivi was rooming with RD and Indu was rooming with Sabitha. Indu and RD were from the same school in Chennai. Binu and Jhunmun were roomies who were adjacent to RD and Srivi... I think.

We spent most of our free time together. We went for movies screened in the Audi together -caught up with each other in the common room after classes - bunked classes and went to Ceeri Bakery - acted as alarm clocks for each other - splooshed exams together - cribbed together -had hot coffee at Connaught place at 10 pm on wintery nites - watched Fash P and other cultural events sitting side-by-side - gossiped a lot - learnt Kathak - did the crossword - completed each other's sentences - ate up Indu's Rava Laddus (which her mom n grandmom lovingly made for her) - fought like crazy ppl - supported each other - travelled together to Delhi, stayed at Binu's uncle's place - shopped like mad and then returned to Chennai; Srivi had to travel further to Salem - conveyed whtever Srivi wanted to Ramchander Bhaiyya in Hindi - got ragged separately but ragged juniors together (until Meenakshi Raman and Meera Bannerjee caught us :P) - took hazaar snaps together - we even attended some classes together... I think (EG, workshop, the other was some Bio course whose name I cannot recall, Prob stats, CPM-I, and maybe others) - teased each other over our crushes and gatecalls - wiped tears when the "amazing romance" went awry - had late nite maggi, and hot amazing chai (which promptly sent me to sleep - no logic) - worked at Akshay Co-op to wile away time and earn money (wht hpnd to all tht money?) and studied, of course.

After college, after "We will be friends forever", most of us moved to different cities, countries - I moved to Bangalore. RD was in Mumbai, in Ghatkoper, I recall. Inds and Bines were in Chennai. I think Srivi was in Chennai or Bangalore. Not too sure. With all that, I am happy to say that I managed to make it for RD's wedding as well as Indu's wedding. I think I also made it to Indu's bro's wedding. I could not make it to Srivi's wedding though I had purchased a lovely golden tinged yellow salwar for the occassion. Srivi made it to my wedding - she came with her hubby and kid - and made my day!

Now, ten years later, I am in touch with three of them, sporadically. One fine day, RD contacted me out of the blue, when I was with HP. Her husband had joined HP and they managed to search for and find me in the Employee directory. I took down her address and phone number and lost the book - now I am not even sure if she is in Bangalore. Indu is in the states - she has two kids - she visits infrequently and I have not seen her in a while. Srivi, I met at my wedding - we call each other on our b'days (we are two days apart) - I am yet to catch up with her - she is busy with her lovely daughter. Bines is in Chennai - she cud not make it to my wedding - we call each other infrequently. Thanks to Gtalk and Orkut - there are more ways to keep in touch... but one must make the time to do so.

Here's to Friends - old, new, fat, lean, sweet, sarcy, no-nonsense, frivolous, and all other types -Happy Friendships to you :D

When a Stranger Calls

It was a boring thursday evening... I had the house all to myself. I wanted to finish reading Helen Fielding's Bridget Jones Diary - hilarious - but I was too hungry. Decided to fix smthng for myself so I could multi-task as in eat n read (Wht did you think?). TV can be a beeg bore what with seeing SRK on almost every channel courtesy - IPL, Kya Aap Paanchvi.., the Krazzy 4 item number, i10 ads, dish tv ads, airtel ads - Oh gawd! Lotsa ppl told me that SRK looked like MJ in OSO item number Darde Disco.. I really cud not make the connection but with the red shirt, holster type weird shoulder accessories and a teeny pony tail - he does look like Michael Jackson - all bones and very un-guy like... Hmmm I almost got distracted from my movie review!

So it was a boring thursday evening... oh you already know that... So I start channel surfing - why? - to see wht movies are playing and ended up seeing a lot of SRK (I told ya) - and suddenly I am looking at the beginning of a scary movie... decide to forget all n make myself comfy... Fridays are when they screen scary movies but I am not complaining. Once in a way the Gods can be Krazzy 4 me. There is something known as the Gore Instinct, which actually has nothing to do with Al Gore, that indicates one's abilities in accurately identifying type of movie (thriller, horror, gory, et al) I think I have it and have honed it to sooper levels and so even though I don't know the name of the movie, I know it is scary.

It starts like a normal teenage movie with a cute looking gal, Jill Johnson (Camilla Bell), who has been grounded (no phone, no car) because she ran up an amazingly huge cellphone bill. She also has to take up baby-sitting to repay her folks. The baby-sitting assignment is at a fantastically architected house which looks like a perfect place to shoot a scary movie. The couple, whose kids Jill is baby-sitting, are on their way to a dinner and are planning to follow it up with a movie. They plan on coming back only by midnight. They show her around the house before they leave and tell her not to disturb the kids who are asleep. They also provide her with a list of phone numbers that she could call, which includes funnily enough - 911. The house has motion sensor lighting which adds to the thrill and a black cat a la Salem from Sabrina the Witch series. The only other person in the house is the maid who will leave in a while.

The best part of this movie was that it did not proceed as expected. The total number of dialogues that the man on the phone utters are 3. There is very little blood and gore in the movie - probably b'cos it is PG-13. In most thriller, scary movies, one tries to jump ahead of the situation and come up with some amazing guesses on who the killer is. For instance the killer maybe:

• Her dad, who wants to kill her so the insurance would pay for the cell phone bill,
• The father of the children, who wants to kill the children as he is one of those serial killers who kill kids
• Jill's boyfriend, who wants to scare her because he wants her to feel bad but the plan turns bad and he ends up killing people,
• Tiffany, who kissed Jill's boyfriend, who wants to kill her because she wants the boyfriend for herself,
• The maid, who wants to kill the children because she wants to marry the father of the children or maybe wants to kill Jill so she can marry Jill's father ,
• The son in the guest house whom no one sees, who wants to kill the kids because his father no longer cares for him and spends a lot of time with his new wife and kids.
• Etc etc...

Only in this movie - that whole guessing game does not work... the killer is some other guy whom we do not meet until the last 20 mts. And just so the guy who played the role does not feel too bad, they have almost a 5mt close-up shot of him and his scar, near the end of the movie. You spend the entire 5 mts wondering if you know the guy, did he have a blink-miss role which you missed but it wasn't. I think the scar was added to his left cheek, in the last minute, to differentiate the murderer from the other male characters who are also seen only for 5 mts.

I enjoyed the movie for exactly these reasons. Also, the ending was very apt... I have grown tired of seeing the villain, bruised, broken, almost dead, but ready to scare you one last time... the ending was handled quite differently and well. Catch it for a non-bloody, scary movie that is maybe not the scariest you have seen but definitely a must-see.

Bandipur

Dreaming 'bout a fundoo holiday was a fav pastime of mine. Whether it was during the holidays when one had a lot of time to dream, or when I was supposed to be preparing for my exams, or when I was supposed to be working - I was forever dreaming of this wonderful vacation that I wud b taking. I believe now that it probably was some deep rooted escapism that I indulged in - 'cos whtever I was doing right then was too boring to hold onto my attention. Anyways, one of my favorite dream vacation trips was this Jungle Lodges thingie for 2 nights n 3 days. I spent a lot of time nagging, cajoling, begging, and even threatening family folks to plan a trip. Of course, I did my best booking for it and came away disappointed as it was also one of those always booked holidays... Grrr!
Finally, this year, after behaving like an unruly, pampered kid, I got my way - we were finally going to Bandipur and staying at Jungle Lodges. The trip was a last minute plan and we were on a shoe string budget but I was jes happy tht we were going. We set out in the morning from Bangalore... we were supposed to start at 6 but yours truly was finally ready only by 7.

The plan was to bike to Bandipur and I did not want to share this piece of info with my folks as they can immediately make my plan into a safe, unadventurous, blaah trip... sorry guys.. you are sweet and nice... but I like doing things my way too, at times. I am sure they are shaking their heads thinking: "Uff.. this gal never listens - Stubborn - All pisceans are stubborn - When has she not got things going her way - I want to know??" Anyways, So I did not tell them. We drove like the wind - I was in the pillion seat and I indulged in quite a bit of back seat driving - I do that a lot especially after my accident - but we made excellent time. We reached Kamat Lokaruchi arnd 9. I was totally zapped!!

We had a lazy and filling breaker and decided not to lose the amazing time we made by lingering at Kamat and started with a bang towards Mysore. I was tempted to buy some of their cute handicrafts but decided not to. We reached Mysore arnd 10:45 and purchased sm essentials and we were totally sore by then - a bike ride is only romantic for that long - after that all you really want to do is: get off - stretch ur legs - and choose another means of transport. We had to check in at the Jungle Lodges at 12 and so we really had to get going but I indulged in a chuntu crib fest.

And then to our surprise, we see coconuts stacked one on top of the other - forming rather looong lines to the sky and we stop. The creative nature of these coconut vendors which they exhibited by arranging their fruits in interestingly different ways was a sight for sore eyes - in our case - a break for our sore limbs. Man ko bhaa gaya. I lapse frequently into Hindi in an attempt to improve my faltering Hindi and also b'cos there are some things best expressed in a regional - ok.. in this case, national language :) I feel seeing those coconuts eased the crabbiness that we felt b'cos of the loong bike ride :P

Finally, we reached the Jungle Lodges resort, not-so-sore, glad at having finally found the place. We were escorted to our cute cottage called "Cheetah". Wondering why all the cottages were names after animals, we walked into a room that had a lovely mural of a cheetah on a branch. The Cheetah looked fantastically real and totally impressive. We were told that lunch would be ready shortly and tea would be served at 4 after which we will go for a safari. I think they were not used to enthusiatic nods as answers and we finally stopped and said Yes - we'll b ready!

The Safari was enjoyable though we did not really catch sight of the exotic animals. Did I hope to catch sight of a real cheetah, or tiger? Actually, No. I have not been to a Safari in a very loong time - probably since we went to the Banergatta National Park to view the lions and the tigers -so looooong ago - not even I know how long ago :D
After the Safari, a film clip which was created on Wild Life in India was shown - we were distracted by: the projector being archaic - too many mosquitos - the mouth-watering snacks-a naughty kid who was eating mud to irritate his mom - and the bonfire that was being built. The film as such was lengthy and we all got the message - I think :)
There was an option to go for a nature walk early in the morning but we opted for a second round of safari - in the vain belief that we may actually see some of the exotic animals. We saw the pug marks of a tiger which we cud not spot, we saw a lot of spotted deer, sambhar deer, elephants, and wild boars. We also saw several cute peacocks and peahens. We also went on an elephant ride and to a museum nearby.

Of course, the guide had to bug me with his "Kabini is fantastic - but you cannot get booking - you must go there" Grrrr.... Is there some law in the Universe that was created especially for me that goes something like this: When you think she is settling into happiness hit her with a statement that will make her go Grrrrr...oowwwwlll?? Anyways for the first time, I did not let it bother me as much.. and came away smiling :P

Test your Creativity -Exercise1

It was a lazy boring day, we had jes submitted to a release and had a lot of time on our hands. We all had finished checkng mails as well. Lunch was also done where we had tasted each other's food and rated them, chatted on all topics outside of work. Now what... some of us were tempted to go home as we had all worked overtime to submit to the last release.
Our manager walks into a conference room with the project leads in tow and we are totally thrilled that they are going to be in a loong meeting and this was so coool when we receive a mail from our manager for an impromptu meeting. We groaned at the prospect of a lengthy meeting that would go on forever.
All of us are seated and looking at each other, one team mate looks like he was sleeping and we disturbed him, some of the gals are giggling nervously, the rest are looking serious and ready to spring into action (I was in this group today - I am usually never in this group btw).
The manager raises her hand for silence and everybody now has the serious look that I had already adopted and she starts speaking. We all groan when she finishes. We have been told that we are going to have an exercise in creativity. One of the team leads will flip a book and drop random words and we should come up with a story using those random words. Following are the list of words that we were stuck with:

• Feature
• Identities
• Configuration
• Library
• Queries
• Good
• New

This was my creative entry:
Loong Loong ago, so long ago that nobody knows how long ago, there was a huge fight in the Library. The fight was between the good books and the new books. Each felt that their identity was superior and believed that the other's was inferior. The other books did not query their opinions and so the fight went on and on.
A new librarian was appointed and she decided to put an end to this never-ending fight. She queried the books on their features to decide which set of books were superior. She made a list of the features and found that there was a major interlap - some good books were new and some new books were good. So there could be no end to the fight.
She decided to configure the library such that the new books were in a different floor to settle the fight once and for all.
Today, everybody knows that the new books are in the II floor of the Library and now, you know why :D

The Ghost and the Darkness

I saw this movie over the weekend on the insistence of various ppl who told me that this was one movie I should not miss. I do not really believe in what ppl think I would like. I believe I am unpredictable and so I was kinda expecting to be disappointed. I have shared that I lowe movies that are gripping, thrilling, fast paced, and have some kind of mystery or old world charm. For instance, I cannot ever explain how I can like Bourne Supremacy, Come September, and Forrest Gump. Then I read the review on the back of the DVD. I knew for certain that the ppl who thought they knew my tastes were grossly mistaken. I mean this was a movie on man-eater lions. I do not like animal movies. I am not one of those ppl who think animal movies are cute or WAAAAOOOW. So, it came as a pleasant surprise that I did not move frm my seat until the movie was over. It had more twists than any plot I can think of at the moment, it was totally gripping, and the tale was superbly enacted by the leads, Val Kilmer and Michael Douglas. This movie was released way back in 1996 and won an Oscar too.
I also found that on further introspection that this movie had layers. It could be compared with the daemons we fight with on a day-to-day basis. These could refer to internal daemons such as laziness, envy, possessiveness, and so on. They could also refer to the ppl with whom we lock horns on a day-to-day basis such as the boss who insists on button-holing you, your spouse who can be cranky, your sibling with whom you always agree to disagree, the auto-driver who refuses to go where you want to, the irritating colleague at work who constantly tries to make you look bad in front of others, and so many others. Maybe the movie actually does not have layers, maybe I added the layers... Tht is interesting :P
This movie has also recd unfavorable reviews. Some critics have compared it to the classic Jaws.Well why not check it out when you have the time, over a lazy weekend and share your views in a comment :)

Attachment

How many times have you felt an inordinate desire to pet a stray dog or to smile at a total stranger or to thank your cab driver who dropped you off at work in one piece... sometimes? Often? Not at all - Are you crazy??.. Well, you are not alone in this world. Sorry guys this is definitely not your unique behavior pattern that must be psychoanalysed by Freud (long dead) or shared with pride. In fact, its not even a behavioral pattern. So, is it all about how you feel today? You had a great day, well, you can be nice to somebody, come on why not? You had a lousy day, well, why should I be nice to anybody?
Did you notice that this select few on whom you bestow your "niceness" are not your family members who live with you day in and day out, they are not your friends, they are not your office colleagues? I am sure you did.
So what do you feel for these other people who spend a lot of time with you, friend, spouse, lover, parents, siblings, and others? Attachment, love, affection, something.. So why is it so easy to be affectionate to your car cleaner while it is so difficult to be barely nice to our close circle?
I call this an Attachment Doppler Effect. The closer you are to a person, the higher the discordancies and vice versa. Then why do we get along like a house on fire with some people and not with others - that does not seem to follow the Attachment Doppler Effect. So what gives?
Thats the topic for the next post ppl.