Our Funda for...

This post goes out to all the 'Bold and Beautiful' Kochi gals like me and Elza. LoL.

It was one of those ‘non-stop’ chatter days when we happened to discuss our adventures of travelling by the infamous private bus transport of Kochi. For those who don’t know much about the private bus transport of Kochi, I can provide you all a little insight regarding this. These are the red colour buses that you would get to see whizzing past you on the Kochi roads. Travelling in one of these is equivalent to having a roller coaster ride and you would have to hold on to your dear life and pray you reach your destination in one piece. These buses have also interesting nameboards on top of it.

We also realized that we had well-toned arms back then when we used to often travel in these buses. On analysis and further discussion, we came up with a funda….our funda for well-toned hands.

While travelling in these time machine kinds of vehicles (where being transported to the future…a.k.a Heaven is a high probability), holding on to the support bars in the bus is an absolute must. Of course, the opposite sex more often conveniently does not think of the same and tips on how to handle these species shall also be revealed in this post. When the bus takes a sharp turn (without slowing down), you need to hold on to that bar refrain your body from aligning to the direction the bus is turning and keep your feet rooted to the floor (footwear with good sole grip is an added advantage). This will not only prevent you from falling onto another person but also result in quite a bit of strain and stress on your arms. This may be uncomfortable to some at first but after a while, you will get used to it. This helps in strength building of your arms and gradually the arms begin to get the ‘toned’ look. Some may even develop ‘musckils’…who knows.

Now, to handle those male ‘species’ that travel in these buses who do not believe in gravity and think that Mother Earth is just like any other planet with no gravity, you need to always carry an umbrella with you. If you think a guy is standing right behind you, who thinks that falling on you is the only way he can contribute space to the rest of mankind in the bus, then hold on to your umbrella and move it swiftly backwards, ensuring you have hit him hard. The risk factor in doing this would be if the guy genuinely lost balance and fell on you, which would mean that you need to get ready with the most ‘innocent’ look ever on your face and utter the word that the Englishmen invented to get away with anything and everything in life – “Sorry”.

Despite the satirical description of my so-called ‘roller coaster’ experience of mine, whenever I look at my slightly flabby arms nowadays, it’s always these red buses that come to my mind and I say to myself, “God’s own city…here I come!”

'J', 'K' and 'L' …

I guess the response is finally here to all those who have uttered the words 'Howzzatt' whenever my phone used to meet its destiny with the floor. Last weekend my phone had two terrible falls out after the first one, my phone got unconscious (switched off) and then regained consciousness a few minutes later (switched back on again). Very human, don't you think?

I heaved a sigh of relief when it got switched back on and all seemed well. Later that day, I wanted to urgently text my friend, “Busy rite now...wi ca you bac”. Wondering if some alphabets are missing?? Yep... the key on my phone for the 'J', 'K' and 'L' alphabets, number 5, etc has died.

These days I try to come up with synonyms for those words which have either 'J', 'K' or 'L' in them which is just not easy.

On many occasions, I am beginning to realise the importance of these letters....

Friend msgs: “Happy Holi....”

English Department of my Brain at work (EDB): Happy Holi.....will call up later (damn that key!!!)

My msg: Same to you!

Friend msgs: 'Have you read the book “Under the Greenwood Tree”? Finished just today...

EDB: Nope. I am now reading My Name Is Red by Orhan Pamuk (Grrr....that key...)

My msg: Nope. I am now reading My Name Is Red by Orhan (yeah...like he is my cousin or someone )

Colleague: “Hey...what's Jake's number?”

Me: “Just a minute....”. “Oh great...now I have to start scrolling from 'I' onwards to reach J”

Me: What is Salma's number?

Friend: 3426567

Me: Great...I can't dial this number from my phone... (smoke coming out of my head)

One of my friends suggested using the capital letter I as the small letter L because they both look exactly the same. That discovery was a bit of a relief actually. Hope I am making some sense.

For a person like me whose life revolves around sending msgs to people and not calling them up, this has turned out to be a disaster of sorts. I can very well go to a mobile repair shop but I am definitely not looking forward to hearing from them, “Ma'am, why don't you think of getting a new phone?”.

Lost and Found - Screws

One of the few things I have learnt at my workplace is never to tell your colleague that work is getting on your nerves and the fact that you are losing your screws because of it. You cannot imagine to what extent your colleague would go all out to solve your problem. Obviously, I learnt this lesson after actually experiencing the same.

It was just like any other day at work, where my volatile memory was working at its best and I uttered the same to my colleague and blamed it on the work pressure. Unfortunately, I also told him that all this was causing me to lose a couple of screws. :-D

After saying so, the next day, when I arrived at my desk, I noticed a shiny metal object placed right next to the keyboard. Believe it or not, it was a gleaming screw!!!

I was not very sure how to react. I walked to my colleague's desk and gave a questioning look (I tried to raise one eyebrow but yet again I failed). And all I got back was a cheeky smile from him and I saw a lot more similar screws on his desk.

I went back to my desk, quite amused. I am just glad that the screw was a shiny one and not some rusty old one. :-D

Have a look at the screw for yourself...

Yawwwnn...its 2:00am...and a CRASH!!

It was that time of the day, rather at night, …uhhh.... very early morning, it was a time when the world was supposed to be fast asleep except for the Americans, people from other time lagging zones, people on night duty like the watchmen, doctors, nurses, etc and of course, Divya and myself.

I had a tiring day at work, on a Saturday. The whole thought of working on a Saturday itself is tiring. I came back home and wanted to watch some movie, any movie, just so that I could say to myself one of those typical Saturday lines "I watched a movie" "Hung out with friends" or "Partied all night", etc..... hope you know what I mean.

I finally decided to watch a Hindi movie called Kismat Konnection. It was about a guy whose day was filled with moments of pure bad luck....like his car not starting on time, his ATM card not working when most required, almost crashing (note the word CRASH....for future references) his car with another one....etc. Quite an eventful life. Half an hour later, Divya joined me to watch the movie. I filled her in on what she missed so far and we continued to watch the movie. One of her friends called and she got busy chatting over the phone. I lazily shifted myself from my chair and while trying to make myself comfy, I shifted my eyes away from the laptop screen. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. I could see the table tilting, at a very odd angle, everything on the table looked like it was sinking before my eyes. Was this the right moment to say "My world is turning upside down?"

See, this is how my mind works and so by the time I realised that the table was collapsing or let’s say collapsed, all I could hear was a loud glass breaking CRASH. Yep, our worst fears (and sadistic wishes of some) came true, our fishbowl was shattered to more than a hundred pieces, with fish sliding/skidding/water-skiing in all directions, something that they (the FISH) would have not even imagined in their wildest dreams or possibly may be in animation movies.

Coming back to the main scene, my first concern was to save my friend's laptop from sinking into the water. I felt like Jack giving a helping hand to Rose in the Titanic. The whole scene was a mini Titanic minus the romance. Coming back to the main scene yet again, the actual victims who had reached a point in their lives (quite early I must say) where they could have been breathing their last, were flipping out (literally). Divya ran to the bathroom to fetch a bucket crying out "Fish... fish...Fish" while I tried to save the electronic stuff that almost fell into the water (ok, so I am not fond of fish as pets). The next thing I saw was Divya skidding across the hall just like her fish friends with a bucket, they were lucky she didn't land on any one of them otherwise the cat that comes to our kitchen daily at night was definitely in for a treat.

Meanwhile, the sleeping beauties, Smitha and Farha who had retired as usual before midnight, woke up and I guess all they could make out at first was Divya going crazy and skidding and me standing at a very odd angle or rather doing a split to catch hold of the laptop from falling into the water.

Anyways, Divya desperately got the fish into the bucket accompanied by dialogues like "Damn you fish, get into my hands", so with that I guess, the fish had no other choice but to flip into her hands and then be put into the bucket. Just when I thought the drama had come to an end, we realised that the sixth fish was missing. All of us started looking around for it and then I heard a scream of absolute horror from Smitha. I looked at the direction she was looking at and as the curtain moved I saw the sixth fish stuck onto the wall behind the curtain. It was a ghastly (pronounce the word with a British accent, for better effect) sight. I had confirmed that it was time to proclaim its death when suddenly it fell onto the pool of water in front of Divya and started flipping. This is when I wanted to say, "It's ALIVE!!!" just like Victor Frankenstein would have said it when he created the monster. Coming back yet again to the main scene, we all looked intently into the bucket. All the fish were absolutely still in shock and Divya had a feeling a few could die out of shock.

We all got busy cleaning up the place. The floor had water mixed with fish poop all over (don’t say “YUCK” yet). But after cleaning it up, we all realised that fish poop is really a good floor-cleaning detergent. The floor had a shine not seen for many months.

The good thing is the entire fish drama had a good ending: None of the fish died before and after trauma care (bucket). Typical Bollywood style I must say.

So Bollywood story-writers/script writers out there, this is a good chance for all of you to catch hold of an 'Original' script.

Murhphy's Law in action

It’s been quite a while since I have been having a streak of bad luck coming my way. Usually it just lasts for a day or two or maximum for a week. But alas, for the past three months, something or the other keeps going wrong, in a very noticeable manner.

I believe the scientific laws we learn in school are very much in action, but the two laws (irrespective of their scientific relevance) that take centre stage in my life are:

· Law of Gravity
· Murphy’s Law

The first law is definitely true for everyone. I guess the only time that the law of gravity would seem to be not applicable (as long as we are on Mother Earth) is when one gets high after a round or two of drinks ( now let's not debate as to how many rounds….I leave it to the reader’s discretion:-D)

Initially, I thought I would throw some light on some incidents that have happened, but on second thought, its best that I don’t do so. The last thing I want people to say is “Oh, you poor thing. You are having a bad time.” Well, I don’t need such reminders.

Murphy’s Law basically states that if anything can go wrong, will go wrong, at the worst possible time and situation. I guess many of us would have gone through situations like these and said to ourselves, “Why should this happen to me of all the people?” or “Why now of all the possible times?”

For all those who still have absolutely no idea what I am talking about, please do a quick reading on the same: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Murphy

Hope you had a good day!

The March of Confidence

After a lot of introspection, I realise that I appear to be most confident when I am absent-minded or lost in thoughts.

It was a usual morning. I was late to the office. By nature, I walk fast (compared to most girls) and combined with absent-mindedness, you get a very confident gal ready to break any rule on Earth.

Why I say this, is just because of my experience of marching right past the security personnel at the office gate without wearing my ID and paying absolutely no heed to them calling out to me.

I snapped back to reality only when I had to swipe my ID card at the door. I realised I hadn’t worn it and it was still in my bag. Innocently, I turned and asked my colleague, "Strange, how come the security never questioned me?" She said, "For your information, the security did question you but seeing your ‘boldness’ in just walking past them left them totally stunned." Apparently, she tried her best to keep up her pace with me.

On any other day, if I was stopped by the security, I would have meekly stopped, taken out my ID and shown it to them with a sheepish smile.

What’s it with me, Dogs and Stupid Cyclists?

I have always wondered why I get chased by dogs and hit by cyclists. Thankfully both didn’t happen at the same time. But in my case, both did happen on the same day!!

I was in shock after being chased by a dog for the second time (both times didn’t happen on the same day; otherwise I would have died of shock for sure!!!)

The dogs near my place, always get up from their never-ending slumber the moment I am sighted anywhere in their vicinity. At first, I thought I was being paranoid but later my roomies and I realized that these dogs did stir quite a bit when I passed by them.

Incident 1:
I was walking towards home after a long day’s work. The lane was a little dark and I noticed a couple of dogs ahead. All of a sudden, one of them started barking ferociously and charged at me. My spontaneous reaction was to run. Run like mad.

I realized the lane had become pitch dark. In those few seconds, my mind had already formed a picture of being bitten by that mongrel, for sure. Soon I reached the gate that usually never opens at once. Everything happened so fast that I can’t really recall exactly what happened but I think I kicked the gate open this time. I always knew I possessed superpowers in me, somewhere.

Meanwhile, my neighbour tried to shoo away the dog and told me to stop running. Only one thing went through my mind then: “Are you out of your mind??”

I narrated the entire story to my roommates, and they were very amused. I got various advice on how to deal with the same in future:
“Do not run. The dog will not do anything to you”.
“Do not look at the dog” (As if I stared at it and cherished the moment!!!)

Incident 2:
Your day is not a good one especially if you miss the office bus. I travelled to a spot where I knew I could stop office buses and board the same. I successfully managed to catch the attention of one bus driver but he was not able to slow down to the side of the road. He stopped right in the middle of the road!!! Anyway, I decided to cross and board the bus.

All the vehicles slowed down as they saw me crossing, except for an over-ambitious cyclist. Was I invisible to him? Or was he confident of passing by me before I crossed? As luck would have it, realisations hit both of us late. His cycle wobbled like a jelly and the cycle handle hit me hard on my hand. The cyclist and the bus driver exchanged excellent vocabulary (abuse) while I calmly got into the bus. My day has just begun.

Later that day……

I left the office early as I had a high fever. I had bought some groceries and I was walking home.

I was walking fearlessly since it was daytime and I knew no one/animal would feel like chasing me. (Don’t ask me what was the logic behind these thoughts but it’s what I thought then).

As usual, I saw a couple of dogs ahead on the other side of the road. A man passed by them. Seeing that, I thought I was safe.

As I approached in parallel with the dogs, I made sure I looked straight and walked on. But as fate would have it, I heard that familiar ferocious barking of one of them and it started charging towards me. I tried to be calm and did not run, initially. But soon enough I realized it did not intend to stop as it neared me and as usual, I ran. This time I knew it was at my heels and I screamed while I ran. Strangely, I ran in a zigzag fashion. I am still clueless as to what made me run like that!!!!!

There were no shops to run into and hence I had to seek shelter from the very next person I came across. Soon, I saw a man, a total stranger, and ran behind him, pleading, “Please do something, I am being chased by that dog!!” The man clearly guessed that I was not amused by the whole scene that I had created and so, considering my mental state, he made sure that the dog did not come anywhere near me. I thanked him profusely and headed back home not even looking up to the number of people that came onto the streets to hear a screaming girl. I reached home and I realized I was still shaking with fear.

For a change, this time, my roomies felt sorry for me. One of them was quite amazed to hear the zigzag running part of my story. According to her, animals get confused by objects moving in a zigzag fashion. I did not know that and I began to feel that probably, in my past life (if one really existed), I must have been some fast-running animal (prey) always chased by other animals.

After the second incident, I have come to the conclusion that dogs indeed have some age-old grudge against my clan for which they were taking revenge, on me.

Animal lovers out there, if you can solve this mystery as to why I am being chased like this, please share your thoughts on this. (Please do not suggest things like patting on the dog’s head after it runs towards me, singing a song and so on:-D)

My Good Old Cell phone

I remember the onset of the cell phone culture among the students (specific reference to the Great Mallu community). I was in my first year of college and at that time, most of the NRI kiddos had one to flaunt. It was something many of us used to look at with fascination, envy and desire (Of course, not everyone went through all three emotions at the same time!! :-D )

Students in the hostel were the ones at the forefront of getting cell phones by the time I was in my second year. You can guess the point of argument for getting one. "I live so far from home, and I would like to keep in touch with family with no restrictions". Hmm…..no restriction to keep in touch with anyone and everyone is more like it.

I am not being cynical here. I too was part of the bandwagon who wished to have a phone too. But Daddy dearest didn’t really see the point in having one. It was not only because I was a day scholar. I realized that he has an aversion to devices used for communication.

Later on, when contacting me became a hassle because of my hectic college schedules, I ultimately did get a mobile (it belonged to Dad), a high-end one. But no one would believe it. Let’s say, it was a high-end model when I was in the 10th grade in school. Yet again, I gave my pals another reason to pull my leg. I really don’t care what model it was as long as it served the purpose. As usual, I became famous in class for the wrong reasons.

For me, my good old Nokia 6100 was the apple of my eye. It had a double shade which was not a common feature in the latest basic models which others had. It weighed quite a bit like the weights used for weighing vegetables.

I remember the first day I brought it to class. I could read every single mind that saw the phone with an arched eyebrow: "What the hell is that???"

Soon, my phone got nicknames like "Tower", "Bomb" and so on.

"Tower" because it looked like a cell phone network tower thanks to the antenna that was sticking out. Whenever my friends lose network coverage or rather "range", they used to bring their phones close to mine. By some stupid coincidence, they get full coverage thereafter, and hence the name.

Now you must be wondering why it was called a "Bomb". One fine day, just like everyone who accidentally drops phones onto the floor (especially the Nokia ones), I too dropped mine. The only difference in my case was that the sound caused by the fall (thanks to its weight) made every single person in my class turn around and look at me and the source of the "explosive sound" as they put it. It didn’t take them long to realize what caused the explosion. Considering the commotion my friends created, I guess my phone just missed it making it to the newspapers the very next day.

I got to hear a lot of comments like "Hey, you working out with that dumbbell of yours??" Of course, that comment was due to my well-toned hands and yeah, the great phone.

People thought I was part of some police force thanks to the "walky-talky" look my phone had.

Ok, so it was a really big and heavy phone. But what people don’t realize is that at least I didn’t have to treasure hunt for it in a bag like others had to with their "sleek" and "feather" weight ones. You see, the good old charm of thinking simply was just not there in those days. Who am I kidding? Who on earth 'thinks simple' these days.

In the final year, my parents decided to get me a new one. It was a mega transition for me. Most of my friends told me to give off my mobile to a museum to preserve its antiqueness. Even after getting a new one, these people will not end their continuous mockery.

I still have sentimental value for my good old phone. After all, it taught me the basics of how to use one. If you ask me whether I still think about my old phone, the answer is "Yes". Why? Simply because of the endless number of times, I end up hunting in my bag for the present comparatively sleek phone that I currently possess.

For all my friends who used to give me the royal mocking treatment, all have to say is: Get Lost!! (I am being too nice not to use the F word) :-D

Check out its history:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nokia_6110