Me, myself and you

Scene: Me is sitting staring the the ‘Compose’ window, not typing a word. Other-Me is yapping non-stop somewhere in the vicinity of the brain. Other-Me’s voice sounds strangely familiar. The sarcasm is definitely familiar.

Other Me: So, write something fantabulously awesome that’ll shake the entire blogosphere and bring them all to your blog-step!

Me: Oh yeah? Like what?

Other Me: I don’t know! But something really really cool.

Me: Ice?

Other Me: Funny?

Me: (dejected) No. But it’s irritating when you have to convey something really huge and you don’t find the words!

Other Me: No words at all, eh?

Me: Nope. Nothing. Zero. Zilch. Nada. No. Shoonya. Poojyam. Sunna..

Other Me: Ok ok, don’t go all polyglot-ic on me. How about google-ing for an image. It is equal to a thousand words you know.

Me: You think I didn’t do that already, you knucklehead? Why don’t you just shut the heck up for a while and let me think?

Other-Me: Oh, but I can’t shut up. You know I can’t. You can’t shut up! How can I? Maybe you should just let me do the writing. Like you always do. *smirk*

Me: WHAT??!! HOW DARE YOU insinuate that I pass off your work as mine? How dare you, you..you cheater, pumpkin-eater?

Other-Me: Fine, fine. It’s all your work. Now get to the work at hand. Write something good. But sweetheart, pumpkin-eater? Seriously? That’s all you could come up with?

Me: *through gritted teeth* I will not swear or name-call on this blog, so shut it.

Other-Me: Oh right. Forgot. Did you wash the blog with turmeric and apply kumkum on it today? How about actually using that coconut you bought 2 weeks back? Can I get some camphor?

Me: Leave me alone!!!!!!!!!!!

Other-Me: Can’t.

Me: Can too.

Other-Me: Can too not.

Me: You mean ‘cannot’?

Other-Me: Whatever. *long series of beeps that can’t be typed on a public domain*

Me: Ok!! No point resisting you. Give me one good idea and I swear I’ll treat you like an equal.

Other-Me: God promise? You will?

Me: I will. *fingers crossed behind back – loophole for the promise*

Other-Me: You do realize I can know that you intend to cheat, right?

Me: *giving up* Fine fine fine! Tell me.

Other-Me: Considering the dire straits you’re in, and considering the fact that your mental health is my mental health and considering the fact that I do owe you one from long time ago and considering…

Me: You know, I would like to publish a post on this blog at least before 2080 so…

Other-Me: *Dont-push-your-luck-too-far-or-I’ll-have-to-kill-you look* considering the very obvious fact that your writing skills are fast drying up, I will give you one piece of advice.

Me: Which is?

Other-Me: Just say it.

Me: Er, what?

Other-Me: No big hungama, no party-ish shouting, no fancy pictures from Google, nothing. Just say it. Those few words. Say it.

Me: *bewildered*

Other-Me: What? You got a better idea, chum?

Me: No. This is it.

Other-Me: Then go! Now! Before they all leave. Go!!

So, Me is writing the following in the ‘Compose’ window and hitting ‘Publish’ -

This is my 200th post. I’m happy for me! (going ‘YAY!!’). Thank you, my silent and not-so-silent readers, who put up with everything that I post here and who actually come back (God bless you!) and say nice things about what I write. It’s easy to say that I write only for myself yada yada yada, but the honest truth is, after a point, it gets really lonely writing just for yourself (and the occasional spammer advertising engine oil). It could be no big deal for you leaving a comment, but if you’re also a blogger you’ll know it’s a huge deal to see a comment on something you felt about and penned. And if I’m still here, still writing, still yappin’, it’s because of you. Yes you, right there, reading this line. Thank you. You’ve been great, and I do hope I can keep you interested in Thought Process, at least for a little while longer. And I’ll sincerely try not to get this mushy again. But maybe for my 300th post, no?

Other-Me: See? That wasn’t so bad after all, was it?

Me: *relieved* So now I have to treat you like an equal?

Other-Me: *strutting about proudly inside head* You bet, lady!

Me: In your dreams, you nut! *wicked grin*

Other-Me: Hey!! That’s not…

Other-Me’s voice fades out. Enter Bryan Adams with ‘Summer of 69′.

P.S: 200! Two hundred! 2 followed by 2 whole zeroes. Yippie! Woohoo!!! I did it! I lasted this long! *goes away imagining Oscar statuette in hand, acceptance speech in mind*

Bram Stoker’s Dracula

Jonathan Harker is a real estate agent who has to travel to the mountains of Transylvania to meet Count Dracula to discuss affairs of the latter’s latest acquisition, a rundown castle in England. Harker braves the journey, even though he has his own doubts when the innkeeper (where he stays for a bit) gives him a crucifix and asks him to keep it for his mother’s sake. What follows is a bizarre adventure that starts with his imprisonment by the Count and ends with his escaping the dreaded castle where the dead rise from their graves. He keeps a count of the incidents that occur in the castle, and even when he is finally in the arms of his love, Mina Harker, he is visited by nightmares of the stay with Count Dracula.

Lucy Westenra is a demure English girl, who’s biggest problem at the moment is being proposed to by three very eligible gentlemen. Dr.Seward is a psychiatrist, Quincey Morris is American and is fun to be with, but above these two, is Arthur Holmwood whom she truly loves. But weird things start happening to Lucy when she starts sleep-walking and is, one night, found in a graveyard with a man in a black hooded overcoat. She also has a mysterious wound on her neck which worries her doctor, Lord Van Helsing who has arrived to treat her at the behest of Dr.Seward.

When Lucy dies due to excessive blood loss, her family and friends are none the wiser about the meaning behind it. But Van Helsing has his own doubts, which are proved when he finds Lucy’s coffin empty in the crematorium. What’s even more bewildering is Lucy back in the same coffin during daytime, looking as beautiful as ever, without the slightest signs of being a one week old cadaver.

How did Lucy die? And why does she seem to be regaining her youth after death? And what are those 50 wooden boxes that the Count despatched to England from his castle? What does Mina have to do with all this, other than being Jonathan Harker’s wife? How many more will fall prey to the Count, and become the Un-Dead?

Bram Stoker answers all these and more with his amazing horror story of a book, ‘Dracula’. The book is a set of letters (between the various characters) and diary entries of the Harkers & Dr.Seward and traces the series of events that lead to the revelation of the true identity of Count Dracula and Mina Harker.

The language is pompous, characteristic of prim and proper English men and women, with exaggerated proclamations of friendship and faithfulness. But then, the novel was written in 1897 – enough reason why every sentence written reeks of chivalry! Some of those are so cliched-ly chivalrous, that if it weren’t for the fact that the book is about vampires, it would seem outright funny. It’s set in the England of yore, where women were treated as delicate darlings in the truest sense of the phrase.

The way the author has painted the characters, leaves nothing to doubt. Making the movie must have been a relatively painless affair, thanks to the vivid details presented in the book. What I loved about the narration was the way the author kept the interest going, even though the concept of vampires and Dracula, in general, are very well known these days. The puncture wounds on the victims, the garlic used to keep the vampire away, escaping wolves and a zoophagus mentally-ill patient – we know what it’s all about, but still we can’t wait for the actual words to appear in the book! Now, that’s what I call a page-turner.

What remains now is the on screen adaptation of the book. Something tells me I shouldn’t watch it alone. And maybe I should sleep with a couple of garlic cloves under my pillow!

An excerpt (from the back cover of the book) –

There he lay looking as if youth had been half renewed, for the white hair and moustache were changed to dark iron-grey; the cheeks were fuller, and the white skin seemed ruby red underneath; the mouth was redder than ever, for on the lips were gouts of fresh blood, which trickled from the corners of the mouth and ran over the chin and neck. Even the deep, burning eyes seemed set amongst swollen flesh, for the lids and pouches underneath were bloated. It seemed as if the whole awful creature were simply gorged with blood; he lay like a filthy leach, exhausted with his repletion.

If this cannot get you interested, I don’t know what will!

You can read the book online on Dracula’s page – apparently, the work is now in public domain in the US and other countries where copyrights expire for works published before 1923. (Whatever that’s supposed to mean!)

If you feel the book is just too much trouble, well, you’ll just have to catch the movie. The latest I heard of is the one with Gary Oldman as Dracula and Winona Ryder as Mina Harker (directed by none less than Francis Ford Coppola). But for a true bibliophile, nothing beats the touch and feel of a book. Absolutely nothing. So while you get a tub of popcorn and sit in front of the television, I will snuggle into my bean bag with a cup of hot chocolate and my favorite tome.

Image Source

P.S: The book is a gift from my husband – a souvenir from a church in Whitby, which was Dracula’s home in England.

A dog’s life

No, not talking about my own. Well, at least, not in so many words. The daily commute from home to workplace and back takes it’s toll on one’s body and mind. The most affected, ofcourse, is the mind. Why? Because the mind is constantly on overdrive trying to make sense out of the chaotic surroundings (otherwise known as deathly traffic, arising mainly due to neanderthals under the garb of sophistication, behind steering wheels), and bring a semblance of sanity to the entire journey. It’s not easy, I tell you. As if your self-consciousness was not enough, you also have to keep abreast of the latest styles of handbags, footwear, salwars, jeans and tops that the rest of the office is wearing. When best to do that other than on your commute!

After attire-checking-out-ing (I’ve given up on my vocabulary, bear with moi please), the other hugely popular time pass for someone on a commute is a game of Who’s-Got-The-Most-Yucky-Lanyard. It’s simple enough and enormously time-passy. And this can be played in and around any office space that has at least one other human being other than yourself wearing their corporate ID cards on a lanyard. And as a person who has successfully completed a zillion commutes, I’ve seen the best and worst of them all. So much so, I could write a thesis on it. Pity I ‘m not doing anything even close to a post graduation (or just even education!) which would expect a thesis from me.

Well then, getting to the point, there are a million different types of lanyards. Ok, so not a million. But at least 20,000 types exist. From the completely harmless single string hapless looking one to the 5cms wide yellow colored I’m-a-clown-look-at-my-lanyard one – they’re all there! And some poor soul is wearing one right now (and we convey our heartfelt sympathies to him/her) at the risk of looking like a, well, a cross between a clown and a pet. A lovable pet who goes around with a yellow leash around its neck.

It’s not so much the size of the lanyard that matters. It all comes down to the color, IMHO. Honestly, the I-look-like-a-clown lanyard wouldn’t be so gross if it had been, say, white! Where it could just blend into your shirt. Or you could be wearing a black shirt and completely throw my argument out of gear. Ah well. Happens. One wonders why some corporates insist on blinding colors like lemon yellow, Ferrari red, Fanta orange or candy-floss pink! Whatever happened to human rights?! If I were ever made to wear one of those monstrosities, I swear I’ll quit! (Understandably, that’s a blatant exaggeration. I won’t quit. I’ll come right back to this very blog and post my rant and expect you all to leave me sympathetic comments. Just so you know.)

But what sometimes gets my gall is people wearing these things for their mobile phones. I mean, when you have a choice between looking smart and looking like a dumb fool, what would you choose? Honestly! It’s a pain on the eyes, people! It’s a veritable pain on the eyes to see pink, red and yellow colored ribbons hanging around your necks and if this is your idea of cool, then you’re probably living in the wrong century.

The whole thing reminds me of what my aunt says everytime she sees my ID card – ‘Doesn’t it make you feel like a dog?’. Yes Auntie, it sure does. And that’s why it’s safely hidden inside my purse. (I still have the lanyard mind you, otherwise the poor ID card would drown in the deluge of crap that is my purse.) You wouldn’t catch me dead (or alive) wearing it around my neck. I’m not stupid, ya know. At least not as much as you think.

Image Source

The Bartimaeus Trilogy

I’m no good with reviews. But once in a while you come across this amazing book or movie and it’s just very very hard to not talk about it. Very hard, indeed, to not tell people to read it or watch it. Jonathan Stroud’s Bartimaeus Trilogy may not be in the same league as J.K.Rowling’s Harry Potter series, but if you’re a fan of fanfic – rest assured – you will love these books. The imagination is vivid, the plot is non-complicated and above all this, the hero – Bartimaeus – is absolutely AWESOME! I’m no good with superlatives either, so ‘awesome’ will just have to do.

Remember the genie from Alladin’s lamp? Remember ‘I dream of Genie’? Yep, it’s the same kind of genie, only very cheeky and spelt ‘djinni’. Bartimaeus is around 5000 years old. In his own words -

“I am Bartimaeus! I am Sakhr al-Jinni, N’gorso the Mighty, and the Serpent of Silver Plumes! I have rebuilt the walls of Uruk, Karnak, and Prague. I have spoken with Solomon. I have run with the buffalo fathers of the plains. I have watched over Old Zimbabwe till the stones fell and the jackals fed on its people. I am Bartimaeus! I recognize no master. So I charge you in your turn, boy. Who are you to summon me?”

From ‘The Amulet of Samarkand’

To add to the fun, he also talks in footnotes! The author’s style of narration is the first of its kind that I have come across. The narration is partly through the eyes of Bartimaeus himself, and partly as a non-participant of the story. And since Bartimaeus is such an all-knowing, all-seeing, cheeky-and-witty-as-hell djinn, he tells us a lot more about magic and demons using footnotes. And trust me on this – these books are some of the few books where I actually laughed when I was reading them. Example? Here you go -

Situation: Bartimaeus is currently transformed into a fly, doing some eavesdropping. He buzzes too close to the guy and, whup! he’s hammered by a rolled up paper and is left lying on the floor in a daze. He manages to crawl out of the pub into the open street. And what follows is –

Out in the street I kept the pub door in view, while inspecting my tender essence. It’s a sorry state of affairs when a djinni who _________[5] is laid low by a rolled-up piece of paper, but that was the sad fact of the matter. All this changing and being batted about was not doing me any good. Mandrake…It was all Mandrake’s doing. He’d pay for this, first chance I got[6].

[5] Insert achievement of your choice from the following selection: (a) fought the utukku single-handed at the battle of Qadesh (b) carved the great walls of Uruk from the living ground (c) destroyed three consecutive masters by use of the Hermetic Quibble (d) spoke with Solomon (e) other.

[6] Not that I could not do anything to him in my current state. At least, not alone. Certain djinn, Faquarl among them, had long espoused collective rebellion against the magicians. I’d always dismissed this as so much hogwash, impossible to achieve, but if Faquarl had come up to me with some boneheaded scheme right then, I’d have joined him with much high-fiving and inane whoops of joy.

From ‘Ptolemy’s Gate’

Now who wouldn’t like an adorable djinni like Bartimaeus!

The books in the trilogy trace the series of events that happen between Bartimaeus, the magician Nathaniel (aka John Mandrake) and a commoner, Kitty Jones. Nathaniel (which is the magician’s birth name, supposed to be guarded very dearly but which inadvertantly is learnt by Bartimaeus – thereby forming a different relationship between the magician and the demon) summons Bartimaeus for the first time to steal the Amulet of Samarkand from the wicked power-hungry magician, Simon Lovelace. What follows is a game of cat and mouse, with each wanting possesion of the amulet which has the power to absorb any magical attack and protect the wearer. How the plans of Lovelace are thwarted by Bartimaeus and Nathaniel forms the rest of the plot in ‘Amulet of Samarkand’.

In ‘The Golem’s Eye’, Nathaniel is older and is now a government official looking into the activities of a bunch of revolutionary commoners, headed by Kitty Jpnes. Their aim is to overthrow the tyrannical rule of the magicians and form their own ruling mechanism. Bartimaeus and Nathaniel come together again to find and capture Kitty Jones, but before that to get rid of a crazy Golem. I won’t divulge what it is, so go ahead and read the book.

‘Ptolemy’s Gate’ is the second most interesting of the trilogy, the first being ‘The Amulet’. It starts slowly, but gathers pace soon enough and before you know it, you’re having the most amazing rollercoaster ride of a book! We get to know more about Bartimaeus’ past and his relationship with the boy magician Ptolemy in this book. Kitty Jones plays a bigger role in the events and Nathaniel undergoes a life-changing realization when he sees what he has become in the past years.

I wish I could just write the whole story here, for it’s all so exciting and well, awesome. But I refrain. I’d probably murder it in cold blood (which I have succesfully done to a lot of my own so called stories), and that’s the last thing I want to do to Bartimaeus.

There’s magic, there’s humor, there’s action and some tragedy too. No surprises that the Amulet is to be made into a movie. Remember how they killed the essence of Harry Potter with those movies and their half-baked plots? Apparently, Bartimaeus is not an exception.

And before I leave you in peace, one last witty bit from Ptolemy’s Gate – had me laughing in the waiting lounge of an airport, to curious onlookers who probably thought I’d lost it for good!

Thing was, I knew this mercenary. Both times we’d met we’d had a difference of views, and we’d done our best to resolve it in a civilized fashion. But whether I squished him under a statue, blew him up with a Detonation or (as in our last encounter) simply set him on fire and hurled him down a mountainside, he never seemed to suffer the slightest injury. For his part, he’d come annoyingly close to killing me with various silver weapons. And now, just when I was at my weakest, here he was again. It gave me pause. I wasn’t scared of him, ofcourse; dear me, no. Let’s call it judiciously nervous.

As always he was wearing a pair of ancient leather boots, scratched and worn, which positively stank of magic[1]. Presumably, it was these that had triggered my Pulse.

[1]: In contrast to most of my masters (Mandrake’s) shoes, which just positively stank.

Oh, this is just my kind of literature! And as always, don’t let my review bring down your interests in reading the book – forget the review, remember the book! It’s just that I’m amazingly good with words when I have absolutely nothing to say. And always at a horrible loss for words when there’s something very interesting/good/important/useful/creative/intellectual to be said. Yes, I’m weird in that way. And yes, I was born like this.

TOW The Embryos

Script for ‘TOW The Embryos’ (Season 4)

My favorite part:

Ross: Every week, the TV Guide comes to Chandler and Joey’s apartment. What name appears on the address label?

Rachel: Chandler gets it! It’s Chandler Bing!

Monica: No!!

Ross: I’m afraid the TV Guide comes to Chinandolor Bong.

Monica: I knew that! Rachel! Use you’re head!

Chandler: Actually, it’s Miss Chinandolor Bong.

A Rajasthani affair

We stood before the entrance with an uncertainty that arises when you’re not quite sure you did the right thing by coming there, when it’s vastly different from what you had baselessly imagined. It took 2 whole minutes for that to change, with the re-assurance of a choice well made. We were greeted by trumpets and drums, and by an elderly gentleman who would have made a good village headman in a Hindi movie, holding a plate with the traditional welcome items like rose-water, kumkum, flowers and rice. If you’re also a tourist and are really in the mood for some Indian Maharajah treatment, you will also be honored with a pagdi (a type of headgear) and a chain of pearls!

Welcome to Dhola ri Dhani, the Rajasthani theme resort (for want of a better word) located on the outskirts of Hyderabad. Although the term ‘outskirts’ is hugely debatable, the drive from our workplace to Dhola ri Dhani (hereinafter referred to as DRD owing to the author possessing a high level of laziness in her blood) through non-existent roads and villages sure made it seem like the middle of nowhere. Thanks to an over-zealous taxi driver who was pretty sure he knew what he was doing even when the car had to go over mounds of mud and sand – we could have been in the middle of a river being dug up and we wouldn’t have known!

The ambience in DRD is typical Rajasthani – or so they say. I wouldn’t know ‘coz I haven’t been to the Northwestern Indian state. All I can think of about Rajasthan is desert, a lot of camels, Udaipur-Liz Hurley-Arun Nayar-wedding and Rudali[1]. And BITS, Pilani. And hey, more recently, Eklavya! For a person like that, this is quite an experience. You’re welcomed by Rajasthani folk music blaring from unseen speakers which, although quite endearing in the beginning, starts to get to you after a while and you just wish you could strangle the voice singing it and end the misery once and for all.

We (‘we’ here refers to a team of 15 people who’s only intention in coming to DRD was to have absolute, unadulterated fun. And ofcourse, food. Oh wait, maybe that’s just me!) took a walk around the place, waiting for the rest of the team to turn up. And what we saw left us saying, ‘Hmm..that’s nice’. There was a temple (which we conveniently did not visit), a bit of open lawns with those cots that one would find at a dhaba, lots of mosquitoes and the omnipresent folk song on the speakers. If you’re a kid in body and soul or a kid in soul inside that rough-looking exterior, you could sit on the swing (which was pretty sturdy, I must say) or play see-saw with an equal weighing companion. You could also play a local version of bowling involving 3 golf-ball sized balls and a stack of steel tumblers. You get to pick artsy trinkets if you can unstack all the tumblers. Or you could totally miss all the tumblers, even if you’re standing 5 feet from it. What’s important is you had fun. Fun, ladies and gentlemen, is the essence of living. (I’m shortly coming out with my own Book of Profound Lines, stay tuned!).

I swear the camel smiled!

One of the things we realized about the place is that it can keep you occupied for an entire evening. There is a camel ride, if you like sitting on a moving stinky mountain and feel like royalty, even if its only for 10-15 minutes. And even if the rest of my team does not agree, I really think the camel smiled. Or maybe that’s just the way a camel looks (more probable, isn’t it? Ho hum.).

Mehendi! My hand!

We girls got some mehendi on our hands from the resident mehendi artist. If you’re a guy, there’s nothing you can do but feel left out (or you can go right ahead and get some yourself – whatever makes you happy, chum!). There were puppet shows and folk dance recitals (which we successfully stage-crashed at their invitation) that were really nice, these guys have some talent and it’s a pity they don’t have a larger audience. And if you’re a hindi movie buff, worry not! there is an in-house production of Sholay in nothing less than Hyderabadi Hindi! Get ready to hear Gabbar say ‘Jab tak tumhare pairaan nachte, iski saasen chalta’. I walked out of the amphitheatre (?!!) thanking my stars that they staged only the climax scene. Thank God for small mercies.

Puppet show

The highlight of our trip to DRD were two things that I haven’t mentioned till now. Best for last, you see.

One, the food. Oh. My. God. Three different types of roti (bajra, missi, regular chapati), 4 curries to go with, dal baatis, dahi vadas, the yummiest jalebis, misri, papad and the I-totally-loved-it kichdi made of bajra and rice with ghee and sugar! This is my kind of paradise! ‘Drool drool slurp slurp’ would be a gross understatement. You’d feel full if you just taste the umpteen number of things on your plate. So much so, I didn’t even notice my right leg going numb due to lack of blood circulation for we were sitting down and eating, a la Rajasthani isstyle. Finish the whole thing off with buttermilk, which I should say had a tad too much of coriander leaves and don’t know why, tasted a bit like Hajmola! I guess I need some getting-used-to for the North Indian platter.

The second highlight was the magic show. It was mind boggling! This guy was right in front of us doing the most amazing of tricks, and we were mute spectators to the whole show! Well, almost mute – we did have to shout meaningless jargon, abracadabra and poo-poo (not to be confused with baby language please) and assorted actions that included coughing, sneezing and a certain action involving a ball and a bag between one’s legs. I refrain from elaborating further on that and you’re forbidden to ask me. What mattered, as always, was we had fun! And the last trick of the day? How about rubbing fists with your neighbor and choosing your favorite flower, only to come back with the smell of the exact same flower on your fist! I’m almost on the verge of believing that there is such a thing called magic and, wait for this, Harry Potter could be real! Now that, dear people, is what I call the essence of living!

On that note, also by popular demand from colleagues, presenting…the smoking camel! Apparently, the aforementioned camel can smoke beedis very expertly!

As Jim ‘The Mask’ Carrey would say – It’s ssssmokin’

Photos by Vivek (Thanks!)

[1] Rudali – That beautiful movie which tells the poignant tale of a woman who could never shed a tear but who finally ends up a Rudali – women who are paid to cry at funerals. That movie where we saw a never-before never-after Dimple Kapadia playing Sannicheri. The same movie where Bhupen Hazarika’s songs cast a spell on us, bringing the despair of the sandy desert into our hearts.

Newton and I

Newton’s First Law of Motion:
An object at rest will remain at rest unless acted upon by an external and unbalanced force. An object in motion will remain in motion unless acted upon by an external and unbalanced force.

My Corollary:
A weekend of rest will remain a weekend of rest unless acted upon by an external and unbalanced weekday. A weekend of fun will remain fun unless acted upon by an external and unbalanced Monday.

Right, all I need now is the Nobel prize for contributions to Science.

March 8

It’s that time of the year again. More specifically, OUR time of the year again!

Check out the things being planned by the Blank Noise Project in Bangalore -

This year on International women’s day, March 8, Blank Noise supported by Radio Indigo invites you to WALK THE NIGHT!

We are meeting at rest house road, ( off brigade road) park at 6 30 pm. The walk begins at 7 pm. We conclude at 9 pm. All we need is you and your enthusiasm!

Please email us immediately at blurtblanknoise [at] gmail [dot] com. (Note: Please drop me a line in the comment space if you’d like to have the phone number. I’m a bit wary of putting up such information in a public blog.)

Bring along your friends, family, neighbours anyone, any age group! Fun. Thrill. Action. Guaranteed!

And if you’re not a Bangalorean, then you can do this -

share. talk. inspire. understand. tell. speak. hear. be heard. narrate. voice. throw open.

Last march 8 (Women’sDay), we had a blog-a-thon that asked you to blog stories of street sexual harassment. It began with an announcement on this blog that was picked up by bloggers across India, and soon in different parts of the world. We shared stories we had never shared before, sometimes stories we thought we had long forgotten, stories that we had often wanted to bury. We read each other, we linked to each other and we linked back to the Blank Noise Project blog. We were touched by each other’s stories, moved by them, and, we like to imagine, drew strength and sustenance from the the long, cross-cultural chain of shared experiences.

It’s this strength that we’re asking you to share experiences of, on March 8th, 2007. The baton is handed over right here, right now! Announce this on your blog and on the morning of March 8th, 2007, share with us a story (or two, or five or…) of fighting back?!

When did you flip a situation so you could resist, when did you give back as hard as you got? When and how did you choose to confront? When did you become an Action Hero?

Action heroes have formed the theme of the last few Blank Noise interventions and it’s this spirit we ask you to share and celebrate on March 8 , 2007!

So announce the blog-a-thon, and on March 8, share your action story!

If you are a male blogger and wondering how you fit in, tell us about an Action Hero you know!

You could also be an agent- the one that collects stories of confrontation/ of heroism from your mother, grandmother, cousins, domestic workers, people in your office, the vegetable vendor, the woman bus conductor…anyone!

To participate:
1. announce the event.
2. blog your story
3. email us about it and we will link you right away!

If you are not a blogger, no problem, email us your stories and we will publish them on a new blogsite- www.blanknoiseactionheroes.blogspot.com

Please email us at blurtblanknoise [at] gmail [dot] com subject titled Action Heroes Online.

And if all this is still too much trouble or you couldn’t care less, there’s an even more simpler thing you can do – Hold hands with the woman you cherish most in your life and tell her how much she means to you. Could be your mother, could be your wife or girlfriend or just a friend. Could be your sister or a favorite cousin. Tell her you appreciate all that she has done for you and tell her you’re always there for her, till the very end. If you can’t say it to her, then write to her. Email her. Send her an SMS. Get her a Woman’s Day card and don’t forget to sign it. Send her flowers. Or chocolates. Anything.

Now if you still feel all these are just not your ways, well, then just spend the day with her, spend the day the way she wants to. She’ll understand all those unsaid things.

P.S: Please please please don’t over-do it.

The act of forgiving

Rasiya is a young Muslim woman in a little place in Kozhikode. She lives with her infant child and her father, near the backwaters of Kerala where it rains for 6 months in a year. Her husband, Akbar, works in Saudi Arabia and like most families from the neighborhood, had struggled to go there and is now struggling to save some money and come home soon. But Rasiya’s world crashes down on her when she hears that Akbar has been imprisoned in Saudi on charges of killing another person. The sentence for the crime was death by beheading.

Ganga is a young woman from a staunchly orthodox Palakkad Iyer family. She lives with her in-laws in an Agraharam with her baby daughter. All is well with Ganga, until she receives news that her husband has been murdered in Saudi Arabia.

But all is not lost for Rasiya, for then she comes to know about the only way she can free her husband – if the wife of the murdered man signs a letter of pardon. If Ganga signs a letter of pardon.

This forms the setting in Kamal’s Malayalam movie, ‘Perumazhakkalam’ (roughly translated as ‘Rainy Season’) which sees Meera Jasmine play Rasiya and Kavya Madhavan, Ganga. The narration is poignant, and the ever-present rain in almost every scene of the movie brings out the pain all the more – for isn’t a rainy day a gloomy reminder of how even the weather is not cheerful? The rest of the movie depicts the struggle of one woman desperate to save her husband’s life and another who has already lost her husband and holds in her hand the life of the man who killed him.

This movie got me thinking on this amazing human emotion called forgiveness. It is amazing because it is hard to comprehend from where can a person find it in him or her to forgive someone for their wrongdoing. It can be as simple as a case of misunderstanding between two close friends or as grave as the situation brought about by the story above. What makes the story less complicated, perhaps, is the fact that Raghu dies as a result of an accident, when Akbar was beating up another guy who owed him money. In a scenario like that, we, the viewers, feel that Ganga should sign the pardon and free Akbar because it was not intentional! But Ganga’s words to Rasiya conveys a different pain – ‘You can stand in front of me and cry for your husband’s life. And I might even give it. But if I stand in front of your husband and cry for my husband’s life, will he be able to give it to me?’ The question leaves Rasiya speechless. But her determination in reaching Ganga, more specifically the woman in her who knows what it is to become a widow, does not falter.

I read somewhere that forgiveness is giving up my right to hate you for hurting me. Sounds fair enough. When I’m hurt, when I’m being betrayed, the least I can do is be angry with the perpetrator. The least I can do is refuse to forgive him or her and let the person bear the weight of their mistakes for the rest of their lives. The least I can do is let myself bear the weight of that hatred and anger for the rest of my life. But the best I can do is to forgive. And get it over with. For didn’t the Lord ask us to pray thus? ‘Forgive us our sins as we forgive those who sin against us’. We ask God to forgive us like we forgive others. When God forgives us if we truly repent, why can’t we, humans, do the same? Simple answer – because we are not God! Not even close. Which probably reiterates the notion that to forgive is divine. Because it takes a lot to let go of our anger/hatred and tell the person that we forgive them for their trespasses.

Getting back to the story, the other aspect that the director has portrayed beautifully is the mindset of Ganga’s in-laws. Hearing the news of the death sentence, the father-in-law asks his son to arrange for special prayers at the local temple as a mark of thanksgiving. It actually translates to a state of rejoicing at one man’s impending death. The way the family behaves with Rasiya when she comes to their doorstep asking for Ganga is very realistic, given that she is the wife of the man who killed their sole breadwinner.

Does Ganga sign the letter of pardon, after all? Will her in-laws let her, even if she wants to? Can Rasiya get her husband freed before it’s too late? Well, that forms the rest of the movie!

After watching this movie, I realized that there are a lot of other emotions entwined in an act of forgiveness. There will be doubts in one’s mind whether it is the right thing to forgive and forget. There could be a feeling of unease that once you forgive you give up the last right you had to feel hatred towards the person who hurt you. But then, there will also be a sense of peace to know that you have forgiven and are moving on, a sense of closure to all the pain and anger.

And finally, if it involves another person’s life, like Ganga is faced with, to forgive is, indeed, divine.

Picture: Kavya Madhavan and Meera Jasmine in ‘Perumazhakkalam’

Update: I’m told that Nagesh Kukkonoor (‘Hyderabad Blues’ fame) has used this very same story in his recent Hindi movie, ‘Dor’. Reviews on the www tell me the movie is worth watching, so maybe I will.

I (broken_heart) Coffee

I’ve written about this before, but it’s just so horribly frustrating that I’m going to do it again.

The other time it was tea. Now, it’s coffee. There was a time in days of yore that I loved coffee. The smell, the color, the taste! But all that changed with the advent of the omnipresent coffee dispenser in my normal working life.

Picture this: You have a splitting headache, and you have work to do. What’s the first thing you try? Coffee, ofcourse. And what if that coffee is such an abomination that you start to hate the very beverage? Or maybe I should thank my stars that I’m not a coffee addict because of this! Unlike my parents and friends, I don’t need coffee to keep me going. But once in a while, one does miss the golden brown brew.

The problem is not with the coffee per se. It all boils down to the milk (no pun intended). Milk and not milk powder. I don’t know much about the dispenser settings to control just how much milk powder, sugar and coffee flows into one cup, all I know is whatever is there in the cup finally looks a lot like dishwater. If it weren’t for the fact that I do not know what dishwater tastes like, I would’ve loved to say the coffee tastes like dishwater. (And this is to prevent any smart-ass comment on me knowing what dishwater tastes like. Tell the truth, you did think of that, didn’t you? Ha, gotcha!)

To make matters worse, it’s not just the regular coffee. The options on the dispenser are very very misleading, mind you. Let’s take it one by one – first, there’s Cappuccino. Any resemblance to any coffee, good or bad, is purely co-incidental. And I did the greatest mistake of having cappuccino from an authentic little cafe in Rome, after which cappuccino from even Cafe Coffee Day or Qwiky’s or Barista is nothing short of..well, dishwater! So that just made the whole thing even worse. Second comes Mocha. Again, pretty much a big fat brown lie.

The same goes for Hot Chocolate – it looks all nice and chocolatey, but the moment you taste it, well, it transports you approximately 15 years into the past when your Mom had to run behind you with a huge steel tumbler filled with yucky-tasting Complan. And if you’re trying to calculate my age based on this piece of information, give it up – ain’t gonna work, ‘coz I’m totally lying about the 15 years.

The lesser of the evils in the dispenser seems to be ‘Nescafe’. Don’t let the name fool you into thinking it’s the authentic Nescafe that your parents so hate (because they are staunch filter coffee addicts and drinking instant coffee is a sin by itself) and you so love (because you can’t stand the after taste of filter coffee and the color is so much better for instant coffee). Lesser evil, but evil nonetheless.

So the only other option left is good ol’ hot water. I once tried using them Bru sachets (instantly instant coffee, mix in hot water, add sugar and voila! dishwater ready!), but that didn’t work either. Which brings me back to my original rant – there’s nothing like fresh coffee. And there’s nothing called fresh coffee in some workplaces.

If you’re one of the lucky few who can smell the coffee brewing, sitting right at your desks, count your blessings ‘coz there are a lot of us who do not have that luxury. But ‘us’ are also glad that ‘us’ are no longer coffee addicts, thanks to the omnipresent coffee dispenser.

Now, if only my Mom were here to make me a cuppa! Alas, wishful thinking!

Image Source: That cup of cappuccino scored a full 10 on the droolworthiness scale. So, drool on!