Of cupboards, bathrooms and balconies…

Privacy is something special nowadays. (Especially when one wants to have clandestine telephone conversations…) it’s so sacred and in demand that the things people do are absolutely hilarious…

Take for example my case… in those bitter-sweet days when I was not single I used the balcony from my old room (we’ve shifted now) as my own personal private space. It was quite safe as it was used as a storage area. That is, till someone realised that the stored things (ranging from old buckets and broken water heaters and cycle pumps) were not needed anymore. In one night, my little parlour was gone. Troubled and worried, I talked to my bf for the next two days in that age old hiding place- my bathroom, but still, always in fear of someone overhearing my seemingly one-sided monologue of ‘uhm’s and ‘ah’s and ‘no’s and ‘ya’s…

But then I hit upon the best replacement for my balcony. It was a large built-in cupboard that had a huge hanger space right at the bottom which was used to store extra pillows. I found it very comfortable to sit inside leaning against the pillows, playing with the door and talking to the lodestar of my life (ugh…). Until one day when I negligently forgot to lock my bedroom door and my brat of a sister (she was 3years old then, now she’s 4) sneaked up on me and locked the cupboard. It’s too funny thinking about it now. But I was so mad, then that I almost choked her to death.

Even after we (my ‘beau’ and I) broke up (for the first of many, many woeful times), I liked the cupboard so much I used it quite a lot… contemplate my messy life during my depressing mood swings, have conversations with my conscience, talk to my mom (she lives in Kerala with my sister – my parents are divorced, I live with my dad, my half-sister, my step-mother) and write poetry in my diary.

But that was me- and I am so crazy… so it never struck me as odd that my favourite place in the house was a cupboard! But imagine my surprise when I realised I was not the only nutty cupboard fan… it made me feel so good that there are other loose nuts not unlike me out there in this wide world…

But there are just as many bathroom-ers as well. I can truthfully honestly say that I like both bathrooms and cupboards. In my college, for instance the fourth floor bathroom (my class is on the fourth floor) is a multi-purpose facility… we (I refuse to disclose the names or number of my friends) have, till now, used it to get away from our extremely NOISY class, for many a crying+counselling session, to get away from a stray teacher when bunking classes (our college is really very very small) and to gossip about that girl and this girl.

Another favourite place in college is a verandah, again… that is where we wait for one another when we come early, where we comment-adichify on the various outfits and the people in them, where we sit and talk rubbish, where we’ve burst out laughing so loudly that the floor turned to look at the commotion, where two friends had a ‘serious’ discussion about who was fatter and it almost turned into a catfight, where we use to wait for Sanskrit class to get over when we got back early from French, where I’ve thought so many times how lucky I am to have friends like the ones on either side of me…

I think that’s enough for today’s installment…

Going to sleep. Good night, world.

Promises....

The woods are lovely, dark and deep.
But I have promises to keep,
And miles to go before I sleep,
And miles to go before I sleep.

Promises are very funny things...
They are sweet when you mean them and when you make them, but hard to keep them and even more harder when somebody else doesn't keep them.
What is the dictionary definition of a promise ?
A verbal commitment by one person to another agreeing to do (or not to do) something in the future.
But more than that, it might mean all the world to someone... to the little girl whose daddy promised to come see her dance in the school play... to the housewife whose secret lover promised to come the night her husband left for an official tour... to the young couple who've promised to be together till death do them apart... to the old woman whose son promised to come home for christmas...

Yes... A promise is an easy thing to make and an easier thing to break. It can be made with a tight hug on x'mas, to say 'don't worry, ma, I'll always be there for you'... It can be made with a sweet kiss in the moonlight, to say 'I will never leave you again'... It can be made in a church with elaborate arrangements and prepared vows, to say 'I love you and want to be with you for ever and ever'... It can be a simple thing like a flower or a holy thinglike a 'thali' or a wedding ring.

Promises, promises...
I typed in 'promise' on google. Funny. Not much interesting stuff turned up on the search... at least not on the first page. There were the expected evengelical sites, a company named promise, loads of wedding sites and yet nothing of much relevance. I, using much more sense than I thought I had, searched for images on the web... that turned up a lot... here are a few... They are not all very nice and some i thought were even very cheesy. but i still like them.

THE OLD PAIN

A poem that just popped into my head when i was at college a few days ago...

The rain shimmering falls,
the lake is on a roll,
the water laps the stones,
waiting for the knoll.

And then it rings-the bell,
It sounds very queer,
amidst the shattering rain,
and oh the pain- so dear.

It hurts like an old stab,
in pain, and yet at ease,
if I try to make it stop,
it tends to increase...

Then what do I do ?
I let it stay still,
not touching, not teasing,
but pain - and pain, it will...

its not great... but i wrote and saved it on my phone... you can imagine how spur of the moment it was...

24.12.05
The same poem in french.. My french assignment... :) But its not just simply translated, i worked hard on it...

LA DOULEUR ANCIENNE

La pluie brillante est tombe,
Le lac se plie,
L'eau frappe les pierres,
Ils attendent le monticule.

Et alors il sonne – la cloche,
Il semble très étrange,
Parmi la pluie brisée,
Et… oh... la douleur si chère…

Il blesse comme un vieux coup,
En douleur, mais à l'aise,
Si j'essaye de lui faire l'arrêt,
il augmentera…

Qu’est-ce que je ferai?
Je le laisserai rester toujours,
Ne touchant pas, ne taquinant pas,
Mais la douleur – il fera mal….

An extremely horrible week

i hope everyone out there on the blogosphere had a better time than i have had since my first post....
had a bad week. loads of assignments - surprisingly submitted them all except one... a french article for my coll magazine. shit... its boooooring... starting to wonder why i ever took journalism... but that's not a good thing to start wondering bout. god. i'm just so so so freaked what the hell i am going to do in the future. i can't see myself anywhere stable ten years down the line. sigh.
wish i was a maru. could just be happily married off then.. :) its not funny tho.
but things have been twirling around in my head lately...
ok... little more twirling and i will post another essay on the wicked thoughts, in my head, tonight, hopefully.
c ya..

Blogging, i hope...

Ah… this is NOT the first blog I’m writing. It is however one I intend to continue (hopefully). I’ve started so many blogs before and forgotten the ids and the passwords involved… oh what a mess!!! But this time… I resolve to keep at it. Its not very easy for me… I’m studying and in hostel. Which means not much access to the net. So I have to wait till I come home… which is around once in 2 weeks…and I’m good at making excuses… so… you can imagine how it is…

Anyway I’m not ashamed to admit that I hadn’t the least idea of what a blog was till the year before the last. Even then it wasn’t very clear. The little birdie who explained to me about blogging was blowing her own trumpet… (or should I say beak ? ) she was telling me about how a website pays her for writing stuff. Naturally, like any poor, perpetually penniless student, I perked up. Paid for writing ? wow, I thought. What I didn’t realise was - she was blowing her trumpet a little too loud… sigh… I wish it was so… :-( what a disappointment!!!

So anyway once I started my first blog (the first of many such endeavours…), I wondered… what the hell do I write about now that I have my own free space on the world wide web ??? It was quite a puzzle. I could write about myself…. Making it's kind of like an online journal… but then… I realised I would have lots of stuff to say that would have a better place in my journal and in its deepest pages at that. Talking about journals, it’s funny! I don’t manage to continue a diary for any long amount of time though I’ve started so many times… they (my diaries) end up as rough books or scribble pads with the personal private pages torn up to save them from sneaky peeking eyes. I’ve been plagued by sneaky, peeking eyes and long, sharp eavesdropping ears all my life…Oh here I am rambling about ears and eyes, when I only wanted to talk about blogging…

So since this is my first real blog (the first real blog which I do intend to continue to write for faithfully and earnestly), how about I try and remember all the firsts in my life…

First book - Fairy tales abt elves and pixies… I don’t remember the title. But I will find out.

First day at school - a long long time ago… its been 15 years. Shit. That’s a lot.

First day at boarding school away from my parents- when I was 10 and a half. And I didn’t cry. Not a single bit.

First letter I wrote – to my dad- begging him to take me from ‘the hell that was boarding school’ or so it seemed at that time.

First classic - was forced to read - Oliver Twist

First Sydney Sheldon – The sands of time.

First John Grisham- Time to kill

First Crush- at school in 8^th grade. Cute guy. Now friends. Good friends.

First movie in the theatre with my friends – Tomorrow never dies. We giggled and smirked so much I got cramps in the intermission. We used to rent videos before that, of course.

First movie I watched more than twice at the theatre- tamil movie- ANNIYAN – a whopping 5 times !!!! particularly enjoyed the last song.

First decision I took solely on my own and without my parents’ complete approval- to join journalism at MOP Vaishnav. A decision which I sometimes regret.

That’s enough firsts for now. First tooth and first word an all… I really have no clue. I think my first word was ‘kozhi’ which means chicken in mallu. Figures. ( I love chicken !!! )

So anyway… this is a lot more than I intended writing for my first blog this time!!!!
so, till next time. There will be a next time. I swear.
Ciao.

In case I don’t write before X’mas…
Wish y’all A MERRY X’MAS AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR!!!!