Come as you are
As you were
As I’ve known you to be…

I was listening to it numbly and then it made sense and then I wrote…

The youngest of boys are my best buddies. And the fanatic zeal about the upcoming Durga Pooja means I get to meet my 2-4-6-8 year old buddies every weekend on account of the eating-meetings that go on. `One of them is particularly special - an eight year old almost visibly grappling with his parents’ abrupt untidy divorce. I’m not judging the parents; I know them to be nice people but watching this child breaks you for those few hours. A few years back he was one of those kids who’d just walk onto the stage while a speech was on, buy as many balloons as the people around were willing to give him and talked incessantly. The toning down that has happened in him is immense. The custody settlements allow him to come over just on alternate weekends and even among forty people he was so popular with then, he seems so unsure of everything. Unsure because of many reasons I guess. Kids know when they’re being talked about, kids know when people pat them out of love or otherwise, kids just know. Since I often feel equally out of place at these gatherings for reasons of my own, we’ve reasons to bond. Those reasons also include making crazy rhymes, drawing crazy figures on the computer and talking about his crazy girl benchmate in class who is “not nice” because “she’s a girl and she brings idlis for lunch – everyday!.” Hehe.

Why I was writing about him is hard to figure out for me even. So, it’s my birthday. When I was a baby I’m sure I wondered what the extra fuss was about on my birthdays. Till around four, I always slept with the firmest possible grip on my mum’s hair-like everything else was uncertain. I remember being unsure of whether the yelling I got at the end of my eight birthday was a part of the ritual. It wasn’t. I remember being so sure that the mike will crash on me or I will stumble on my tenth birthday when all I’d do was say thank you onstage. Nothing like that happened. I remember worrying if all the toffees will get over before I managed to offer them to everyone (despite knowing I’d lots extra) in seventh grade.They didn't. I remember worrying if my friends will turn up for my birthday treat in ninth. They did. I remember sensing that the people around me weren’t really around me on a later birthday. Maybe these were normal concerns at the respective stages or maybe I am a nervous person. I rarely am at ease completely. But this night, good or bad, right or wrong, I see myself less prone to evaluate myself in terms of what people around me say or do. Attachment, entrapment, co-dependence - all get quite ugly beyond a point. I no longer look for people to fill the space. I build the space and gaze at what’s around.

And to what, rather to those who are around, I feel like saying thank you.

I’d been pretty uncertain about my writing for a good while till people came up and told me consistently that they felt that I could write stuff that could be read. I needed it immensely at that point and since what I do with words is a vital part of my well-being, Ramya, Vinod and HP, you guys make me very happy:)

To Pooja, Archana and Sneha for all the showtime that Sho gets. I love the attention:P

To the seven friends who turned up on that birthday treat and still would (no treats happening though). Varun will get one just for spreading the laughs:) And Vivek and Jassi can accost some first grade kid on his birthday for toffees:P:)

To my sister, who’s been burning with her “secret” birthday present for me. She’s practically told me everything about it. And my Dad, who’s willing to take me to the Moon if there were good restaurants there. What a pity that his daughter asks only for dosas and apple juice. And my Gran; she’s also “secretly” making kheer for me when I know she does this every single year. It’s not sweet because of the sugar:)

To my Mum, for transmitting some of herself to me in the genes…if it’s showing by the time I’m twenty, things will only get better.

To Atto, who’s currently getting bugged and giving me the why-can’t-you-shut-the-damn-thing-down-and-sleep-bum looks. I’m as human as he can make me want to be:)

To my three first second third cousin(s), for the pink cards I get every year. Maybe they look for girlie-sisterly-pamperly cards for me:)

To Neeraj, for the stable normal warm buddyhood we have. To Zulfiqaar, my doc, for the daily rants that keep my mind alive. To Anupam, because he’ll come alive from a missing persons list to call on my birthday. To Sampad, because we’ve come a long way.

To Chhavi, for guarding my dreams with fragile hands. I do understand. Love you:)

And to my eight year old buddy, I benefit from talking to him more than he does from the constant company he seeks and gets from me in those two hours of forced socializing. I hope someday he begins to feel at home with himself.

Verbatim is a fun word. Here’s why.


Prof in RVCE…

Wait here for one minute, I’ll be back in two minutes.

I want to marry my daughter and study my son.

You maad baaays, why’re you upping down the stairs?

He will take the jig-jag blade and rub it erotically. (erratically)

With one hand you write the answer, with another mouth you give the attendance.

Imagine a ship flying in the Arabian sea.

I will throw you out of the window.



Saving the best for last…

Put yours inside, if I see yours again I will scratch it. (This is to do with some guy writing his record in class)



My math teacher in middle school…

You children are all behaving like rakshasas.

Children, that sum is wrong. (This she said practically each time she couldn’t work a sum)



And this takes the cake and the bloody bakery, bakers, confectioners everything…

Why children, why are you telling kos-chun 17 kos-chun 17 when this yex-ercise has only 10 kos-chuns?



And in dear old MCC…

Girls you can’t have half half men can you? (This was while explaining why the sample size sort of thing couldn’t be 22.5 and was 225)

I can’t say like that no…If I say doing Rostow is enough and Nurkse comes… (This was when someone asked her what theories could be skipped)

And my favourite…

Girls don’t worry we will have more interesting fathers in the next sessions. (This is regarding an excruciatingly boring Bible Scriptures class two dear and unfortunate friends of mine attended…the first class was held by a “boring father” so to speak)


And so, verbatim is a fun word. ROTFL! This post is near completely compiled by Varun:) Also, inputs from Pooja-Archana:)

PS: The comments on this post continue to get better...

Not so long ago, a door I didn't know of opened. I drew the curtains aside and light flooded in. As it rains and storms I hold on tighter to the light-present but suffering. But light can't be held...light is loved but free, the fruit and the tree.

And the moon doesn't knock on one's door twice.

Everyday, every single day, I pack my bag and go to a hybrid between an amusement-park and a circus. And I tell you with immense conviction that it is not amusing – not at all. The circus begins with a prayer which I haven’t been able to mug in four years here. We’re forced to mug enough in college anyway, for instance, in our industrial psychology classes.

These classes operate on certain assumptions. These are –
a) all students are dumb; as dumb as the professors secretly know they themselves are (shhh! It’s a well-kept secret)
b) all students have appalling English skills and need to be told how to spell words like “progressive” and “aind” (and of course, nobody in class knows how to spell aind because only Her Highness pronounces and as “aind”)
c) all students need to be taught like they’re a quarter of a step ahead of third grade i.e. all notes must be dictated by Her Highness and copied down by us, the scribes-in-training. Holding a pen unless you are using it to write the holy words of Her Holiness is pretence and deemed punishable. Thus, do not hold a pen (pun intended). Her Holiness is also hornophobic and while hunger, as a drive, justified a whole semester of “teaching” by her, sex drive was done in an hour of mumbles, blushes aind a real quick quickie.
d) all students must reproduce the material given in class in the test much like animals performing tricks in a circus.
e) all students must leave their minds outside the classroom.
f) all students must always quote our prof’s daughter’s doings as examples wherever possible. Whether it makes sense or not is of no consequence because it’s a circus yaar, if you want sense why come to college?

The way this works-

You show up at the performance i.e. you come to college and get five marks for being bodily present and mentally absent. You learn your tricks i.e. you copy all your notes and perform i.e. regurgitate all that you learn in the test.

You graduate and do not study psychology because apparently, there’s no money in it and come back with a token hubby and your firstborn and then you are the ideal student. I cannot find an analogy for this from the circus-world even and maybe that is because this isn’t even expected out of those animals.

Saturdays have two extra shows like the three theory rides over the week aren’t enough. Yesterday saw us, the animals being locked in the cage of a classroom for we had deeply disappointed our Ringmistress by not copying down the squiggles on the transparencies while she was away. Yes, even that happens here.

Chains are yet to come. Maybe a week from now…