Family of crazies

Very often people around me may question my sanity ... I would like to have them know that it is not my fault. It simply runs in the family.

Don't get me wrong, they are all very intelligent and accomplished people but genius has its draw backs like the cuckooness that comes with it.
My father who is a director of an esteemed college and was an armed forces officer in the past, this brilliant man with his love for education and reading, he is like my personal encyclopedia and that is not all! He sings too! and well at that (when he wants) BUT when he sings at home it is usually the worst songs that were ever produced by the film industry and are hardly heard of, these songs are such that one of my age has an issue believing that they ever even existed.
That is not all! He loves singing loopy versions of songs to little kids so that they believe that that is the right way to sing for them till the end of their lives.
Exhibit A - Me, I believed that the famous song "Jeevan ke suffar mein raahi" my dad taught it to me as " jeeTWO ke suffar mein raahi" and I would argue with everyone who would tell me otherwise. Right now he is sitting besides me making direct translations from Hindi songs into various other languages. He also puns non stop and is slightly sadistic when it comes to dealing with male friends of his daughter.

Next person of note on this list is my mother who is an HOD for Biology in an international school, she is also amazingly talented may it be painting, drawing or presentations, her talent has no equal. Her teaching skills are so note worthy that she has students whom she taught 10 to 15 years ago calling her and saying they miss her. As a student I know that this is a huge achievement as I forgot most of my teachers the moment I stepped out of school barring the few exceptional ones.
Now her students might find this hard to imagine but my mommy dearest has multiple tiny tiny tiny OCDs. These go something like this;
1. She must HONK the horn before every turn! Blind, not blind, the road itself turning, doesn't matter... turn = HONK
2. When she starts cleaning NOTHING escapes her sight! The curtains must be clean-ok, but my mom will scrub the curtain rings too, the plants must be brought into the house for beautifying the house-ok, but every leaf must be wiped clean.
3.She makes everyone in the house wash their hands at least 3 times before feeding us and loads of other times during the rest of the day.
4.She believes firmly that people don't understand her instructions clearly ( I blame this on years of teaching dud children-me included) she repeats the instructions at least thrice then she makes you repeat it after which she is usually still unsure and then does it herself.

Now to continue towards my darling brother, man! I don't even know where to begin with this one. He is smart, intelligent and most of all unbelievably creative in his thought process and imagination. He is wonderful in doing the things he wants to do and otherwise he is a lazy lump.
He sits non stop on his table and demands to be served food all the time, once the food reaches him the dishes piled around his desk never reach the sink. He can eat like a glutton and wipes out food meant for the entire family. He is sarcastic and mean and when deprived of food these qualities multiply. A gossip monger if there ever was one this bro of mine blames his love for gossip on the fact that he is just "looking for a story" and "inspiration can strike anywhere".
He also masters the art of Spoonerism eg; He walks into the kitchen to wash a plate, looks frantically for his bike keys to find them clutched in his hand, he can never remember to convey a message or even walk out of the house without forgetting something crucial. He is, as the British would put it, a real work of art.

Now I have a laundry list of defects myself but I don't see a need to get into that right now *grin* because the aim of this article was that I could ultimately say " Hey! can you blame me?"

Mornings.

I don't particularly like mornings. especially till my parents are still at home. There is far too much yelling and hurrying and panicking. It is a general hindrance to society, in my opinion of course.
In my household mornings have a very set pattern which goes something like this :
My mom wakes me up with a scream so loud ( I'm sure the neighbors stopped using their alarms ever since we moved in) that it jerks the living day lights out of me. All this usually because she can't find some thing. eg. a book, her sandles, her bindi so on and so forth.
Then my mother leaves like a whirlwind after disrupting everything. After this episode i manage so snuggle back into bed when my faithful little doggie companion takes it upon himself to take up the job of waking me up. The way he achieves this mission is nothing less than a subtle art. It starts with the thumping of his tail on my wooden bed right next to my head THUMP THUMP THUMP once I push his backside away he changes his tactics and and continues his attack from the front now I have his BIG black nose in front of my face as he pants away to glory, in this strategy he attacks my sense of hearing AND my sense of smell. As this drama unfolds I still try (optimistically) to sleep. I yell, I shove, I beg and I plead and finally my dog grants me the liberty to put my head back on the pillow.
As soon as I do so, its 8 o clock by now, which is the official wake up time in my house, my dad wakes me up and informs me that its late and i should be up and bright and sparkly.

This is how each of my weekday morning begins (weekends? they are even worse)

Anna Hazare and me

Well I keep promising to write my blog regularly with the humorous happenings in my life but this time I write to honor a man who is an inspiration to the entire nation not unlike the original Father of the Nation but only difference is the youth doesn't mind him.

I first came across him along with all my other ninth standard class mates, in our environmental education books. that's right, this esteemed activist which the whole country is currently in awe of was given about fifteen lines of lime light in an environmental course book.

I knew of his humble origins and how he rose from being a truck driver in the army to a man who changed the fate of a wasted village (Ralegon Siddhi). And that is all my text book told me. Yes there was also something about watershed development. It told me nothing about the fact that he had taken people who could barely keep their flesh to their bones due to high level alcoholism, to become voluntary workers building small water check dams and canals e.t.c.

I was never told that he was the one who began the Right to Information movement in Maharashtra which later became the base of the famous Right to Information Act (RTI) which the union Government passed and is seen as one of the greatest examples of peoples right in our country and India's proof of being a democracy.

I was never told that this man, in his relentless fight to give the common man his rights, has done all that our freedom fighters did. It began with reforming the people around him, fighting for the people, being arrested by the 'ruling party' and now the fast unto death. Why should he go through all this when we have already achieved freedom? Well because we have lost our freedom. After almost 64 years of Independence we have been made slaves to the greed of some of those who we choose to call our leaders.

I don't think I need to mention anything about the Lok Pal Bill because all the information is a news channel or a click away but since I titled this piece Anna and I, I should mention where I come in. I remember whining endless times that I wish I was a part of the freedom movement and when I turned the television on two days ago I thought that this was yet another useless protest but I was wrong and I continue to hope I am wrong about that because now I am a part of what I believe is my chance to fight for my country under the leadership of a man I was never told about but has the strength to churn a nation of sufferers into that of survivors.

BAD Blogger award!!!

Yes... and the winner is ( drum roll ) MEEE!!!!!!! (takes a bow)
so after making that wonderful 'blog atleast once a week' resolution here i am blogging after far too long. The funny thing being that a lot has passed since the last time i blogged but putting any of it into words seems rather tough.
So I am going to fall back on my usual way of working ... POINTS!

• Making drastic changes-I decided to change my stream of education. Bold choice, considering the havoc it created at home, large financial loss, the uncertain field I did choose and most of all the lack of what they call "fire in my belly" (sounds really uncomfortable though).
• The welcome ceremony of the fire in my belly - reading the material for my new course, looking into new colleges, talking to a lot of concerned people also giving in my "I'm LEAVING " application.
• Teaching makes me happy - I got an opportunity to teach little children how to draw and I loved it! though it gives my father nightmares because he thinks I'm confusing myself. I'm not. I like it, its a part time thing but I am quiet sure of what exactly I want to do. literature followed by mass communications. But no matter how many times i repeat it my daddy still thinks I am confused. *sigh* he must have his reasons i suppose the "fire" needs a little more raging.
• The fire is here to stay, but wants me to take a trip to France though - I have been punching out articles, scraping them, re- writing them for a while now just to see on how many different aspects I can write on. While I was doing this I realised I can do even more with my time. Like learn french! why french you may ask, well they have excellent teaching faculty, even better exchange programmes, I have to take an additional subject In my graduation and If I manage to learn it well now... guess whose going to ACE graduation!! well atleast a part of it. Also a chance to see France! (that rhymed)
  
• The fire ain't burning calories - I wish it would at least I'd get rid of some amount of blubber but alas that isn't going too well I think I'll have to join a gym now since its beyond the stage of simply bothering me.. its scary now. Also to think my aspired job is probably going to involve a lot of sit-on-chair-go-pling-plong, i think it is time to move that boootieee!
  
• Stuff to do- so basically I have a lot going on and it will turn into a lot more in a bit but I think I'll like that.
  

When I grow up...

No..its not about that annoying and unbearable pussycat dolls song its more about how what we wanted to be changed with our age ...well I dunno if I should use a collective pronoun there because I do have some very focused friends like one who, when asked what she wanted to be when she grew up in lower kindergarten replied loudly " RICH!!" , she still as determined and yells with the same enthusiasm.

In my case however things were different..
3year old me loved the idea of being a boy when she grew up (just like my big brother)

5year old me (after playing a few 'educational' games with her brother) wanted to be a spy!!! the one that sneak attacked and killed the MOST !! YEAA!!

7year old me sobered a little and wanted to be a builder(courtesy logo) or a cook .

9year old me thought 7 year old me was definitely stupid and wanted to do something that would bring honor to the family ...9 year old me wanted to be a doctor. (telling her parents her aim during this phase of her life was the biggest childhood blunder she made,( I like to call it BIG MISTAKE part 1) for her parents held on to this dream till I was 16 and sobbed that it wasn't a reality..my grandmother never did accept it wasn't a reality)

11 year old me became a little more defined and wanted to be a kids doctor ( in my opinion 11 year old me was the stupidest of the lot ... I HATE KIDS)

13 year old me began seeing the lurking dangers of encouraging 9 and 11 year old me and decided the the two of them were nit wits! I just can't study that much OR cut up things that lived ! 13 year old me seriously contemplated being a poet and a song writer (her father collapsed)
15 year old me knew very clearly what she DIDN'T want to do as opposed to what she DID want to do ( welcome to a whole new era) she didn't want to do anything with the sciences nothing AT all so there went the comfort zone of her parents .. no engineering, medical, architecture... nothing "safe" (her mother collapsed)

17 year old me gave everyone (including herself) new hope... I.A.S.officer (Indian Administrative service) BIG MISTAKE part 2 because now EVERYONE expects it. It has gone beyond family expectations its friend's families expectations and their grandparents expectations ...sigh..

Now I am 18 (which is by definition- grown up) ... I have absolutely NO idea what i wanna be... journalism sounds good, artistic fields sound good too, I don't have anything against trying out I.A.S. ,advertising seems nice... did I mention I am studying economics? ya.. I could do something related...maybe management....till then I'll just go back to saying something I heard a 4 year old say recently...when I grow up..i am gonna be BOSS!!!

Everyday Life

There are things in life that are considered "everyday" like being plagued by beggars on the street, climbing stairs to class, texting a friend when bored, eating a hurried breakfast, the list can go on forever...yet all these everyday things that we consider mundane and unimportant shape the life we live..thus are MOST important. I am not saying "we must wake up with a spring in our step and cherish the very breath we take and appreciate the beauty of each flower.. blah blah blah" cause honestly that doesn't happen and if people did it, it would be annoyingly cheerful. can't stand people like that. What I am trying to say is that it is within these very activities that meaningful things happen. Like the one lone man in tatters you might see playing the flute with touching notes, another homeless person like so many we see each day but that one man you can never forget, like meeting someone while rushing up the stairs to class who ends up becoming a friend, like that one random text from someone special that may make your day or simply dad making you breakfast for a change cause you are running late..who says dads can't show emotion? you just have to look for it.
I don't know if I have managed to make my point because my thoughts themselves are rather vague but I suppose i could sum it up by saying - pay a little bit of attention to your everyday life...it is what life is really all about. =)

p.s. would you look at THAT! I CAN be a tad emotional

Pieces of information and...well.. impulses.

Its 3:45 am and lets totally avoid the question as to why I am WIDE awake and blogging. I had this sorta awakening(literally and figuratively) one of those things that hit you in the middle of the night this one is about the two things that make my life one of the best lives to live ...its all about lil pieces of information..knowing facts that would otherwise skip your notice but MUST be noticed.
Like the fact that my dog sits at my door waiting for me when i lock it..the fact that a simple statement made by me can lead people into taking crazy risks (making you feel important in the process). ...the fact that my parents are really sound sleepers (so thankful to the lord above)..the fact that i have a brother who loves freaking people out and has got me hooked to it too..the fact that some people can just calm you down and stop time...And all these other pieces of information that make things so much more amazing.

The second most important thing happens to be impulsiveness - random behavior and risk taking which would normally be considered utter and complete STUPIDITY. but this stupidity is so damn worth it! just to sight a random example completely unrelated to my life...it would be absolutely stupid for a person to sneak out of your own house (risk 1) in the middle of the night (risk 2) and ride on a bike half way across the city (risk3) in the rain (risk4) and THEN sneak into someone ELSE'S house (risk 5), a house with a brother (risk 6) and a dog(risk 7). stay there for just about an hour and repeat risks in backward order... all this just "cause you felt like it" .. this entire situation is of course hypothetical no one would ACTUALLY do that..but if someone were to be amazing enough to do something like that.. you gotta admit..it would pretty damn fun.