Quote of the Month. Original.

"One of the good things about living alone is that you can throw stuff around whenever you are frustrated, and nobody would say anything....but the irony is, you yourself gotta pick it all up later and set it right. "

Desktop Shot

I never knew I loved my desk so much.

Am gonna miss not seeing this when away from home :(

Me against the elements

It's been very windy and very rainy here for the past two days. And the weather is deliciously damp and wonderful....adrak-elaichi waali chai, anyone? :D

Cloud break. (The black speck is a leaf carried on the wind.)

The sky always mesmerizes me.
:)

(That white thing is my dupatta being whipped along the wind. And that's my hand trying to pull it away from the front of the lens but guess I didn't do that in time.)

(I clipped this camera cover to the clothesline with my clutcher. Weird inspiration: "Caught by a Butterfly" :D)

So I was trying to catch one of those fickle lightening flashes on the cam and after several missed chances and a lot of oops-there-goes-a-brilliant-photo-op-right-before-my-eyes types moments, I decided there was no point trying to do so. In one last desperate attempt, I said to the heavens : "Look, this is the last time I'm trying for today. There must be a lightening flash just as I press the capture button. And this is a warning."

I pressed the button, and voila! there was lightening. A brilliant hot copper-purple flash that spectacularly split apart the darkness and streaked across the dark ashen sky in a dazzling electric arc. A picture-perfect bolt.

The glitch? It flashed in the direction exactly opposite to where my camera was pointed for supposedly taking a pic of it. :(

Guess the next time I issue warnings to the heavens, it should be with all the necessary conditions attached. :|

I managed to capture just a scintillation.

(All pictures copyright me. Please do not use without permission and/or credits.)

Mission Intro

I don't think the new year has had a really great start for me. I mean, I'm lagging in all my study schedules, am past all the deadlines I set for myself...but no end in sight...And the strangest thing is, I’m not getting pro-active, like I usually happen to do.

Wish someone, something would show me the way, soon. I have the potential; don’t want to be just another wreck.

But I’ve realized that writing or any other form of creative expression is kinda necessary for me. When I don’t do anything creative for a long period of time, it’s like a clot in my head that needs to be gotten out to rid me of the pressure. Not very pretty analogy, I know.

So I think from now on I’ll blog on schedule—say twice/thrice a week at least. Or maybe I should fix a particular day. Yeah, that would be better. Blog on Sundays, Tuesdays; lock myself in a room with books, caffeine, and no internet on Mondays, Wednesdays, Thursdays, Fridays; and finish long-overdue tasks of saving the world on Saturdays. In between all this, teach my kid sister the alphabet and the correct words to “Johnny, Johnny” while trying not to think about little Johnny’s namesake supermodel-actor.
Also wash my little Carrie and supervise the maid while mom’s gone to work. (I found the maid watching The Bold and The Beautiful---just watching, coz she doesn’t understand English---in some of her idle minutes yesterday. :D)

Got to do some self-maintenance as well.

Maybe I should put off saving the world on Saturdays till all of this gets done. :D

So will try to keep you updated about Mission Status as often as possible, and other general randomness. Keep coming back.

(pics courtesy Corbis.com)

Happy 2oo8

A very happy, happy new year. I know I could have been more creative about it, but sometimes simple is the best way to be; and could-have-beens are some of the most futile words on earth, perhaps.

Okay, that was totally random.

No resolutions really for me this year. I've always been unable to really stick to any...so I decided to give it a break this time. The last year was pretty good, so much more than all I dared to hope for, though towards the end it brought me the deep forever loss of no less than three people very dear to me.

Maybe I should just try to sum up all that I learnt this year. In no particular order:

• It's good to stand up for something you believe in, and the world (or the part of it that you are trying to convince) will eventually see your point if it is right.
• "Getting lost doesn't always happen by accident."
• Always remember to back up your data before getting a hard-disk formatted. :/
• People forget your talents/traits unless you keep reminding them. By acts, not just words.
• When mom tells you to do something about some hideous pimples, better do it.
• Falling into reveries before an important exam isn't a very smart thing to do.
• It might be just a little seemingly casual thing/ word that might erode your trust in somebody, or somebody's in you.
• "Each day is the first day of the rest of your life." But you just can't keep starting afresh each day...u gotta begin, then proceed. You get nowhere by just beginning.
• It's easier to not make/ not keep promises. But in the long run, it's better to know in your heart that you made, and kept.
• Nothing is absolute. It's all relative.
• "Be anything but obvious", if you like. But then don't blame people if they interpret you some other way. :)
• However you keep claiming that "The sky is under my feet...", most of the people would still say you are upside down.
• Calling a person's demise "their birthday in heaven" lessens the poignance, but only just a tiny little bit.
• No matter how much you keep saying you don't want any; it's always a great feeling to have somebody genuinely care for you. :)

I have so much to do, prove in this year. To myself, to parents, to other people who matter...And this year I'll be turning 18, like BestFriend reminded me during our conversation last night. Finally, being an adult officially. (He would be 18 too, this month. Though, for him, "getting entry in clubs" is the most looked-forward-to part of the deal :D )

Anyways, I have tremendous expectations and apprehension-mixed hopefulness this year. May The Great Being Up There grant all of us peace, love, happiness, prosperity, strength to pursue our goals. Shalom Aleichem. Have a great new year and thereafter.

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Some of the best moments in life...

Lying in bed listening to the rain outside...
Thinking about the person you love...
A long drive on a calm road...
Finding money in your old jeans just when you need it...
Holding hands with a friend...
Getting a hug from someone who loves you...
The moment you are breathless after a hearty laugh..

Wishing you all these moments plentifully in the New Year and forever...

(feel free to add to the list :D)

About a man, his daughter, and a nonexistent son.

Sometimes I think Dad misses a son in his life. Of course, my parents don't believe in all that super crap about the son being the pride of the family and the parents' "ladder to heaven" like so many people in this majorly sick and prejudiced society of ours do. Me and lil sis are the very cornerstones of their life....they would do anything to see us happy.

Yet, sometimes I think Dad would have liked a son. He never ever hints/mentions anything of that sort, in fact, I don't even think this idea ever crossed his mind in its full realization. But perhaps it's always present in his sub-conscious.

When I was that little girl with short tomboy-ish hair, Dad used to rub them dry for me everytime I washed them. After a point, my hair grew too long for him to manage. That was the end of it. He once hinted at a set of toy cars when the same little girl wanted a new plaything. I made a face and chose a Barbie instead. And that was the end of it. When I was still that little girl, he used to buy denims from the garment store for me. After a point, I began to choose floral prints. That was the end of it too.

You see how it is...

• He won't ever get to hear another masculine voice at home that he can associate with a person in our family.

• Our family holiday album from last year doesn't contain a pic of him playing golf with his son at the Shillong Golf Course.

• We won't ever have an argument in the house about which latest bike to buy.

• I can't go on trekking trips with him all round the month anytime.

• He and mom can never imagine being cared for after retirement by a sweet daughter-in-law, like their siblings can.

• He still has to park both the cars inside the driveway himself every night. [*sigh*.....yeah, I'm still learning the safe parking part...the driveway-cum-parking area is pretty narrow :/]

• He still has to depend only on himself for calling / hassling / bargaining with usually grouchy car mechanics. [Yeah, I can manage the storekeeper / plumber / electrician / appliance servicing personnel...but mechanics are way too much! Plus I know like practically nothing about the anatomy of an automobile...let alone do even some minor fixing myself. Told you I'm learning. Don't label me the insensitive daughter.]

• He himself has to do all the putting-of-strings-of-lightbulbs-on-roof-and-walls at Diwali.

• He has only his voice to drawl along to sad oldie songs on the radio.

• Dad always has to rely on the judgement of the women in his life [mom and me, sis is way too small. :) ] besides his own judgement, in deciding everything from which t-shirts to buy to where to invest.

He is by far the strongest and yet the most sensitive guy I've ever known. Yet, I think he could have done with a little more help in all the everyday stuff. I do help him, but beyond a limit, he wouldn't let me, or would be extra-thankful, thus propelling me back into I'm-Daddy's-little-girl mode. And can you ever help anybody when the other person wouldn't take it, just for the sake of not troubling you, although he needs that help? Yeah, that's my Pops.

Like when I went to pay the phone and electricity bills for the first time, he gave me an extra 100 bucks for the mere fact of having successfully done so! And only yesterday when his car broke down and he called me to pick him up in mine, he said, "Thank God you can drive now..." And I was like "Sheesh, Dad, Don't make it so big...." . These are the times I think he thinks I'm going out of my way to help him, which is not the case. Yet, another day, when I hadn't cleaned up my car for long, he was like "If you drive, maintain the thing as well. See, Mr Y's son does that every weekend..." and I mentally said to him "How can I help it if you don't have a son?"
Now I guess that was wrong of me. I took his words in the wrong sense, he never meant to compare me to a son by his words, was only citing an example.

At 52, perhaps a 16-year-old daughter cannot help Dad as much as a guy could have. I might try to fill the gaps for Dad, but still, none of all the stuff that is the business of fathers and their sons will ever transpire between him and a younger guy. I see him looking fondly, almost-wistfully at my guy-friends, and I feel he misses a son in his life.

Don't worry, Dad. I'll make you proud one of these days. Just wait. And meanwhile, while you wait, just give me this month's bills to pay. And oh, the car mechanic's workshop number too.
I'll learn about automobile anatomy and money-matters eventually in time. But right now, I think we can go shopping for shirts at least.
:)

Well...

Have you ever noticed how sometimes some things just happen, or not happen. The same goes for me and blogging. All day long words, phrases, topics keep floating in my head, about people, situations, anything that can make a good something to write about...but then it just doesn't happen.

Guess I'm having a writer's block right now. It's good, in a way, Now all those huge, thick, hit-on-your-head-see-stars chem and physics books don't gather layers of dust like they used to. Having nothing better to do, I apply my precious creative imaginative mind inside my pretty head to actually think about how infinitely large charged metal plates with a dielectric between them behave and how are the properties of diamminechloridomethylamine platinum chloride different from those of tetraamminechloridonitrito-N cobalt chloride. (Yeah, don't you just love scientific jargon? :D )


Four long hours, actually six from tomorrow, of coaching classes in our supposed-to-be-summer-holidays doesn't really make a good background for being able to write happy-happy, non-crabby blog posts.

Friend since the silly days of eighth, Ank, says one day : "Gawd...life has become so complicated ever since we passed class tenth.. I really wish I could enjoy my present..." (Yeah, she's the type who would much prefer that to all boring phy, chem and math.)

But then, looks like we only have two choices: chill marofy now and suffer later in some tedious boring underpaying job, or slog, slog, slog through the present and shape out a good life for ourselves.

I much prefer the latter.

You just can't put a title to certain things.

My unintentional hiatus from blogging has gone pretty long. But well, life these previous days was all about trying to make peace with boring routines, study, and the general absence of me-time.

I always feel there should be a place you can express yourself in without having to think how it would be interpreted in the light of non-context events...and I'm relieved none of all the people who know me personally , as in like everyday life, have the address to this blog. Except Best Friend, of course, and I don't generally put him in the same category as the other "all the people" . :)

Sometimes things strike you in full, complete realness just when you least expect them to. Drove past Best Friend's dad's office the other day and remembered him telling me they might have to move to another place. And suddenly I felt how really khaali-khaali it would be if that happened.
:(

Certain people are so much a part of your days, your life-- that you begin to wonder how you EVER lived without them, isn't it?
:)

Rara avis

Took this quiz and got this result :

Your Personality is the Rarest (INFJ)

Your personality type is introspective, principled, self critical, and sensitive.Only about 2% of all people have your personality - including 3% of all women and around 1% of all men. You are Introverted, Intuitive, Feeling, and Judging.

How Rare Is Your Personality?

I SO knew it !! :D

Someday

I'm just darn freaked out about this sleepy town I live in. Always so dusty, so hot all around the year..and now it has simply REFUSED to let the winter enter. It's November 13th and still the day is so really hot..argh.
I don't like this place, the dust, the grime, the everything.


My dream-place-to-live-in would be some lovely riverside town, with a quaint and ancient look about it. Promenades along the river, maple-lined streets that turn yellow-orange in autumn, a large cobbled square, warmly lighted storefronts, and lovely weather. Oh, and I would like a suburban villa with lots and lots of trees around it.
And did I mention a red convertible?



Maybe someday I get to live my dream.

How would your dream place look like? Has anyone of you got to live the dreams you had at 16?

Sixteen

So last month I turned sixteen. Nothing much, really. In fact, I was rather sad coz one more teen year had gone by. I obviously don't know how it feels like to be twenty-something, but most of you would agree that teen years are the funnest years, right?
[Heck, there are important-er things than proper grammar, no? :D]

Anyways, you guess what-- Mom n Dad decided to gift me a new car.
Oh yes oh yes *bows graciously to your applause*
*glee*
Actually, here's a confession: I don't know how to drive a two-wheeler. AND I've never rode a bicycle since..um...like ..say..seven years. BUT I learnt to drive a car last year and of course, having no other choice, ahem, I take it along to coaching classes and stuff.

[Now if anyone of you reading this is a trafffic police officer, or the mother's aunt's son's cousin of the second cousin twice removed, or whatever, of a trafffic police officer, please don't come to get me about my drivers' license. Pleeaassse.]

So what I now need to decide is the color of the car, which is going to be delivered in about a week. Shortlisted colors are red and black. At times I have a vision in my mind's eye of myself driving a black car, and at other times a vision of myself driving a red one. These two images change and fluctuate so much that what I now see is myself driving a brown car.

Okay, that was plain silly, but what do u say? Red or Black?