Who i judge ...

Got tagged by SS to put down categories of people that i judge ... if u know me, ull know this one aint tough :P

So here goes... I judge ...

1. People with a lousy hold over the language they grew up studying ... most people i know studied in English, so that's my biggest crib ... its excusable to shorten words in smses and so on .. but to pronounce 'Opportunity' "oppOrtunity" (u know what i mean!) or make spelling errors in emails or to be unable to string together a grammatically correct series of words in english is to me, totally inexcusable and judgment worthy!

2. Overweight people who wear clothes 2 sizes too small ... tees that show the folds in their back ... skirts that reveal thunder thighs ... tight jeans that make your waist overflow on the sides ... figure hugging party wear that makes you look 19 months pregnant ... sleeveless tops that treat everyone to a view of massive jiggly arms ... i dont judge them for being fat, i judge them for not knowing how to pull it off gracefully ... i know enough and more people who weigh above average and yet look fabulous all the time ... so dont tell me this aint possible!

3. Unkindness for the sake of it ... this is why i never understand ragging ... what pleasure can anyone possibly get out of making someone else squirm in embarrassment in public? How does it add value to anyone's life to make a hapless junior dance to a ridiculous song in front of 20 others? In my world this kinda stuff qualifies as unnecessarily unkind ... just coz u have the power of a mob, to go about asserting your authority is simply cowardice of the highest order. Oft exhibited in the well educated circles that i frequent, its feels simply pathetic! I usually just shut up and walk out of these 'fun' sessions ... but inside im lamenting .. and oh yes! Im judging!!!

4. People who find it beyond them to keep a good house .... this isnt a feminist rant about men ... get that straight! This applies to anyone who feels fine living like a pig ... wet bathroom floors with no bathmats and brown muddy footprints all over ... utensiles piled up in the kitchen sink for over a week ... all sorts of fungi growing right there and flourishing no less! Hair collecting in corners of the living room ... the stench of piled up laundry welcoming you as you walk in the door ... dining tables with remnants of god knows how many dinners that still are uncleaned ... UGH!!!
I can understand if this is a mother of a child struggling without household help ... i DO NOT get 25 year olds who can live like this ... in their world it could be perfectly normal .. in my world ... its shameful ... judgeworthy!

5. People who put objects above people ... they fret over animals ... they carefully tend to the plants in their garden .. and yet they can't find one kind word, one smile to share with the people around them ... where does this misplaced sense of priorities come from?

6. Bankers who crib about how hard they work ... they've made those choices for themselves ... they could just as easily come work where i work, have my lifestyle and be content with the pittance i make ... but they chose the ibanking life .. they chose the big bucks with full cognizance of the invasion of personal time and space it carries along ... so why crib? Be an adult .. shut up and enjoy the moolah as it comes in !!!

7. I judge fanatics .... of any kind ... yes my dear .. india is a wonderful country .. with a wonderful heritage ... but u dont have to carry the national flag around to prove that point ... im exaggerating here, but its so tiring to have people rant about how the city we now live in is drab, dull and all that blah.. while bombay is so full of life and all that blah .. well if u feel so strongly about it .. go live in bombay ... there's tons of people who'd gladly trade places with you ! And yes hinduism is a warm welcoming religion ... but why should that make any other religion any less warm or welcoming??? After all that education if you still are hung up on borders, race and color ... woe be to you!

8. I judge people who make snap judgements on people ... oh she talks aloud and speaks her mind .. surely she's a feminist who will never want to be married ... WTF!!! I've made the mistake myself in the past of judging people too soon ... its such a waste of an opportunity to get to know someone absolutely wonderful .. so i judge anyone who does that now ... pls be warned .. if u stick labels on me after a 10 minute interaction .. ull have a scorned woman to deal with! :P

Surely there's others i judge .. .but im sleepy and tired and completely exhausted from the work and the cooking and the laundry and the .... so ill head off to bed now ... and look forward to kickstarting another day with the calming reverberation of Githams :-)

Oh and i tag Vish, Samesh, Harika, Kinks, Ravi, Nutan and Ketan (Monsieur K) to write about the people they judge! :)

Watta trip!!!!

6 power packed days .. havent had soo much fun in way too long .. :D ... will miss bombay and even delhi badly when i get back to singapore .. bweh .. not looking fwd to it at all :(

At Delhi airport now ... what kind of obsessive blogger gets into an airport and scrounges around for a wireless network .. then FINDS it .. and LOGS on to her blog to write a brief summary of her trip!!! (Yes, yes, im told im this one of a kind namoona, no need to repeat!)

There was the 36 degrees hot Delhi, the meeting almost family type friends after way too long, a 1st ever north indian wedding, a non dancer me dancing to the Sangeet and the Baraat like a woman gone completely berserk, meeting the Madmomma and her adorable kids (yeah that's my pic on her blog - the weekend post with the brat and a barney :D), eating spectacular north indian food after long, meeting parents, shopping for art stuff like paints and sketching pads, a drunken bachelors party for Kunal (if you count 15 tipsy friends in a room singing shady hindi songs mukhdas AND antaras word for word as a bachelor party!!), meeting school friends and the most incredible woman Kavz after a break of 6 months and feeling like we never were apart :) ....

For not just the 1st time, im hating having to go back to Singapore .. for all sorts of reasons ... some specific, some i cant even put my finger on myself ... but for now ill just linger in the memory of one of the best and most awaited vacations that lived upto every expectation i'd set of it (which was practically nil anyway until i landed at Delhi) and look forward to catching up with Harika and Palli and Kinks and going back to a job i really do like atleast for the moment ... doing volunteer work at AWWA, getting back to the library storytelling sessions, singing lessons and painting even if of the most amateurish kinds :) (Yes im becoming a dabbler, whoever thought its a name id give myself someday!)

So long, farewell to everyone who made thevacation as brilliant as it was :) Ill log back in from Singapore tomorrow mundanities of life notwithstanding ... :D

Why the mind always wants what it doesn't have?

Craving the sound .. even noise ..of company on a Sunday morning when alone in a big empty house ... and then craving for the same numbing (now read calming) silence when finally surrounded by the aforementioned noise ....

Weird noh?

Leaving on a Jet Plane ...

All my bags are packed, im ready to go!!!

Ok fine ... not quite so .. the bags are strewn around my little room ... stuff''s lying around waiting to be fitted into one little bag ... and there's toys for the kids im meeting tomm that refuse to fit into anything ... and the saris .. and the slippers ...and the ... (god! i havent behaved like such a 'girl' in ages.. but its my 1st ever north indian wedding so cut me some slack here!) :DDD

And im finally meeting the Madmomma and her adorable kids :) Ive promised to stay put until the kids wake up... and stay put i will .. although i know Kunal will kill me if he reads this :-) Sorry motu.... but will make it in time to ur Sangeet ok!!! Im coming to the reception also .. im allowed to walk in late to the Sangeet! :D

AND AND AND the 1st family of the 2005 batch ... Sohit, Bm, Dush, Kunal, Pa, Ma, Tiny and yours truly .. will finally meet under one roof after 2 full years !!! :DDD Can u blame me if i forget to carry my passport or tickets (crap!!! I seriously havent packed them yet!! I need my moms organizational skills to pull me through this high state of frenzied excitement! :D)

ANDDD meeting mom after 6 whole months :D And seeing Bombay ... and shopping at FabIndia! :D Anddd street food ... and the magic of a long overdue vacation away from Singapore!!!

Im leaving on a Jet Plane!!! (Well its an IC flight but who cares!!!) See ya all Wednesday!! :D

My mum ...

Pains me each time i meet her after a gap of months by telling me how my cheeks have gone from being crests to troughs on my face and how i need to move back in with her so she can feed me and set me back on the path to a 'healthy' shape ... :O

Sad that i only appreciate that feeding on the days that im shivering alone in my wonderful rented condominium, running a 102 temperature, shivering through it all and fantasizing about hot 'molagu' rasam and thick homemade tomato soup ... :-)

Puts me on house arrest everytime i visit home for a few days .. cringes at the thought of me leaving to visit friends outside home and not spending time with her to catch up ... drives me up the wall with her insistence on time that had 'better' be spent with family .. :O

Too bad it only hits me how much i miss her when the walls of an empty house close in on me and the pangs of having been away too long hit me with their vicious force inducing an impulse ticket purchase to Bombay :-)

Sends me shlokas to recite, for peace of mind, for good health, for a good life, for success, to ward off the evil eye and sends me running for the hills each time she talks about her favorite Lord Ganesha and the wonder of seeing an elephant on the road at the precise moment that she needed good luck for a task at hand... shocking me with how traditional she is ... :O

And in the same vein tells me i can choose who i want to spend my life with (color, caste and language notwithstanding), convinces her devout tam bram sister to let her daughter marry a North Indian guy, laments at a 25 year old friend who put up with a husband who beat her up on the 10th day of their married life together instead of walking out on him that very instant... amazing me with how little regard she has for useless biases that passed off as tradition for way too long .. :-)

Is smart, capable, efficient, highly regarded as an asset to her division, induces cheer wherever she goes, is popular with 25 year olds and 55 year olds alike, grew up in mind and spirit with her kids and took all their journeys with them, could've graduated from the best engineering colleges had she had the resources or the support and made it to the top echelons of corporate circles ....
And yet chose to decline promotion after promotion, coz they would mandate transfers away from her children and husband, and disrupt their comfortable lives (the comfort of which she never received any official thanks for jus for the record, no promotions, no recognition, no nothing) and continues to cook breakfast, lunch and dinner every single day and keep in touch with two distant children (one literal, the other figurative)

Wakes up at 5 am, does morning yoga, cooks and cleans before she runs out to her 1 hour journey to work, keeps her train friends entertained with her incredible zest for life and sense of humor, keeps track of all of Mr. Boss' appointments without fail, is there for her sisters and their complicated lives when they need her to be, runs back home, cooks dinner, manages 30 minutes of exercise and an hour of television before she wearily trudges to bed ...
And through all this has the patience to put up with her daughter leading a cushy life far away whining on the phone about her 'issues' and calmly state "don't worry sweetheart, im here for everyone, if u dont tell me about whats bothering you, who will u tell?" ... :-)

If that's not aspirational, i don't know what is ...

You know the wheat from the chaff when ...

You've just had the worst fight of the century with a very dear and old friend. He's hurled his honest opinions at you with all the force he can muster, not to mention the sheer courage (didn't they say friendship isnt an easy thing?) of having to tell you how wrong you are in thinking the way you do. And you've hurled at him accusations of not being supportive, and not understanding what you needed, of being harsh and judgmental. You've ended the already rare online conversation with curt cold words and signed out.

And yet, the only thing you can think of as you lay your head to the pillow is how much you love him for being who is he is to you, and how much you're still looking forward to meeting him and starting off from where the love left off.

(And useless as my friend is, he doesn't read my blogs unless i mail them to him. Ah the pity of it all!)

Saturday mornings ...

(Caution: a JLT post with no particular insights or information. Mostly written coz there's really no one to talk to right now. Feel free to skip.)

- 10 am singapore time ... wake up to a deliriously empty house ...
- As is habit, head straight for the laptop to check email and orkut (what a social phenomenon yes!) .. not sure why though, there's hardly any emails i get apart from warnings to take my pics off orkut and the like!
- Post having established that no one in the world will die without a reply or scrap from me, head out to morning ablutions too sensitive to detail here
- Fix up breakfast of good ol toast, gently reminding myself (for the 137th time in 2 weeks) that the kitchen still needs sooji, vermicilli, poha, ketchup and such other breakfast enabling essentials. Say a silent prayer for the wonderful Rose who put lovely breakfast into my eager Sat morning tummy for the last 1 year :-)
- Browse through Orkut wondering about the people online, what's happening in their lives? Is it worth the bother of mailing them when i haven't even spoken to Shamu in like weeks now? Cut to thoughts of Shamu, how are the people who love her more than i do coping with her sudden absence from their lives? (Before ive sent out any fatal impressions, shes in b school!!) Decide to ditch the emailing for now, tell myself ill do it tomorrow ... or maybe after that... or maybe ...
- Feel incredibly proud of my bro for his term 4 marks ... to be completely discouraged by a sub 60 score in the 1st year and to pull himself up to a 70+ in his second year ... this kid has so much more potential than anyone will ever see :) Remind myself that his kind of success is sweeter than the safe and boring consistency of my erstwhile scores and feel prouder still about what kind of person he's turning into :)
- Get goosebumps at the thought of meeting some incredibly good friends from campus in the next 4 days at Mr Mundra's wedding ... so so thrilled for him and for the chance its giving us all - Dush, Sohit, Bm, Papa, Ma, Tiny and me to meet under a single roof for the 1st time since we left campus :)
- Feel equally kicked about meeting up with the Madmomma at the same time when im in Delhi :DDDDD My 1st ever visit to a blogger friend! :DDD (the ability to vent clearly isn't the only reason i love the blogosphere!)
- Mental note of to do's for weekend: Practice for singing lessons, attend singing lessons, meet a friend for lunch, pick up India tickets, attend to more matters of the self and the house through the evening, send out my overdue draft 1 of WDP (how does my boss put up with me?), pick up Harry Potter tickets for junta here, watch Harry Potter, stock up kitchen, settle accounts for my old house, wrap up last bits of setting up new house before flatmate gets home and flips out at the mess :P, get new pillows that won't have me wake up with a sorrre back every morning, wonder if its worth the trouble to start exercising now or should i wait till i come back from Delhi? Che! so many choices for a little mind to make i tell ya!
- Realize my weekend is probably more packed than i imagined and so shift thoughts to planning next weekend (Ok Kinks, i promise not to plan anymore!!! Dont disown me!).
- Stop planning next weekend :D and decide to give the 'NOW' its due importance as the Art of Living course teaches us to do. (Another post on why i think living in the 'Now' usually just gets you killed or fired and so don't subscribe to the philosophy at all)
- Applaud myself on the pointless post that managed to eat up 30 mins of my Saturday morning and 10 minutes of a hapless reader's time and get down to actually 'doing' vs 'planning'

Cya! Have a wonderful weekend u all ... whether ur in Bombay or Bangalore or Brussels! :-)

Darren Hayes never disappoints ...

Whether I'm right or wrong
There's no phrase that hits
Like an ocean needs the sand
Or a dirty old shoe that fits
And if all the world was perfect
I would only ever want to see your scars
(whatever would make someone say this to another?)
You know they can have their universe
We'll be in the dirt designing stars

Whether I'm up or down
There's no crowd to please
I'm like a faith without a clause to believe in it
And if all the world was smiling
I would only ever want to see your frown
(Seriously ... whatever would ....)
You know they can sail away in sunsets
We'll be right here stranded on the ground
Just happy to be found

I have lost my illusions
I have drowned in your words
I have left my confusion to a cynical world
I am throwing myself at things I don't understand
Discover enlightenment holding your hand
(words fail me .. even me ... :) )

Spent so much time last month lamenting how empty and pointless life is. My inner hero is apparently waiting to fix something very soon, else it'll rot away and fade (or some equally dastardly fatal consqeuence). And look how i found my answer on Sumedha's blog. :-) Have mailed the Singapore junta asking who wants to join, and even if no one does, wtf ... im off to save the world on my own! :D

Sshhhhhhhh .... let me be ..

I've desperately wanted to see the face of this page, this place i usually scribble thoughts into with little regard for who's reading (or secretly judging me from the relative security of their screens). I've craved this interaction with my blog for over 2 weeks now, more than i've craved the company of people, the noises of camarderie with colleagues, the buzzing of my phone with calls and smses ... which is funny considering how in touch i always needed to be with others to simply sustain myself. There was a point i figured id never be able to just be on my own coz the space would scream out and throttle my very existence. Funny that i crave tht very space right now.

And do i know why? Nah .. not really ... although i do suddenly understand what it feels like to suddenly go into anti social mode ... ive never understood it before ... tht completely normal people with perfectly sane normal lives suddenly cut out everyone (even the people they supposedly love most) from their lives and withdraw into a little shell ... maybe its because when the system is plagued by activity overload (read lots of change) this is how it makes time for itself. I can safely say i finally get it ... light has dawned in some sense :)

Then again, maybe its a consequence of time spent in close proximity with guests, as horrid as that sounds. I've been host to 2 people i love the most in the last 2 months, my closest friend and my bro. And wonderful as it was having them around, (i even imagined shedding tears when my little brother left despite having been apart from him for what .. 4 years now?), even the Monica in me admits that being a host is real tiring.

Probably explains why i had such a blast in Chennai last weekend. Being a guest is far easier no? N and V were the ones who had to scramble around making sure i was enjoying .. not to mention G who practically died loooking for the right color and right make of flowers as he had me wait on a busy bylane on a Chennai morning for all of 30 minutes ... ah the guilt of it all .. if any of u is reading .. N or V, G or the wonderful A who ensured he knew what flowers to get me :-) Thanks you guys! A and G probably busy getting engaged right now, and V's on a flight to Europe... but if you guys read this, i owe you one of the best birthdays ive had in yearsss now! :D Love ya all ... (as an aside, Absolut Pear is a MUST TRY!!! :D, Nuts - back me up here!!)

Anyway, im officially done with the moving now ... lugged around boxes and boxes... amidst 9 to 5 all week training, amidst splitting headaches, family emergencies (ah the creative liberty to exaggerate!) and a runny nose .. still don't have a phone connection at home ... stayed the last few days with Palli in her service apartment and had soo soo much fun with her and Mr. Pangal ... Owe the woman big time for the wonderful time i had last week and much more so for putting a basic roof over my head :) Lalsss.... u rock ma! :D

Will start out on officially 'working' on Ariel starting tomorrow. So looking forward to the immense info and 'to do' overload tht im sure i'll be subject to. But totally looking forward to climbing that steep thing they call the learning curve all over again despite the exhaustion and complete lack of time for most other things that it'll bring along.

Home is nice and quiet until the flatmate gets home from her SA tour, the lack of human contact somehow feels ... pleasant, almost a welcome relief ... will probably savor this very unlikely feeling until im ready to go out and meet people, make contact with civilization and usual weekly calls to friends and family back home and here in SG .. until then ... let me be ... :)