Lesson Learnt

People, how do you protect your pictures? I knew this was going to happen..there was something completely absurd about those hundreds and thousands and lakhs of pictures out there on facebook and the ease with which I could copy anyone's picture onto my harddrive was a bit disturbing and still is.

Incident - album of postcards, not my pictures per se, but that Seriously Awesome series if you remember. Some cow in my class has her status update as her blogpost, so I clicked on it and imagine my surpirse, when there were MY pictures, up there. To be fair, she didn't say she's taken them, it was about how she wants a camera and wants to take pictures like that(would be smug if I wasn't so cheesed off.) Fair enough, but there was absolutey no link back to my page, or creditaion to me and it hit me somehwere in my gut and I went do I even have a right over those pictures anymore? What good is 'owning' them if they'vwe been saved several times over and passed off as other people's own? Ofcourse I called her and told her to take them down ASAP but it's besides the point no?

Let me give my my photo history, as a kid, growing up right through my teenage years I used to absolutely hate, detest, abhor bieng photographed. Maybe I was shy or didn't photograph well or had weight issues or whatever, but most of the snaps are of half my face, my hands covering my face and other such cranky poses. Then round about the time I turned 17 we got a digital camera, and since then, I've been chronicling - family shindigs and the rest, and off late my amateur photography has taken off, in the sense that there are albums and albums or blurry pictures of puddles and birds etc..you get the idea?

Now the thing is, over the past year or so I've been having quite a ball. Just generally, I'm happy wiith who I am and my day to day etc and I think that has a big deal to do with my willingness to pose for snaps now. It really is true the whole, "feel good inside look better on the outside." Even then, it's mostly me taking pictures of everyone else, and I collect them and every couple of months I'll put up an album of say 40 pictures with maybe 2-3 of me.

But now I'm pissed off. It's a primordial thing, to protect oneself, hence I relish the anonymity of the blog. yet, how do I protect the content on this too? On one level, I tell myself not to be so self important, no one's going to borther, but evidently that's doesn't happen not because I'm super interesting but because people are bored and have WAY to much time to spend online, myself included. Pictures DO speak a thousand words, and I've been quietly deleting those albums barring a few.

Am I paranoid? I think not. Becasue I never really took to facebook anyway. It was always a voyeur thing, and only very occassionally a keep-in-touch thing which I'm not that hung over anyway because the people I want to be in touch with I am.

So creative commons I get, but what difference does putting that c on the corner make?The damage would already be done right?

Tangerine, I was her love, she was my queen

EDIT:: spoilt brat alert, all is back to peachy. no harm, no foul. *grins sheepishly*

It's days like this, that bring up all the fuckedupness in me, I forget, I've forgotten actually how shitty life was, how low I can sink, how horrible I let my days get, and its all coming back to me tonight. It's the kind of day when nothing works. Forget hitting the books and getting some studying done, its ok to have slacker days, but I'm reading The Joke and it's blowing my mind because I love Kundera but I can't even do that properly, the red nail polish on my fingers is distracting, I'm not used to wearing any kind of nail paint. I fucking hate getting up post noon, I like my mornings, but I just can not sleep at night, why why why. It's a day when you feels fat and though your hair is clean its clingy and looks like its sticking to your head about to fall off any minute. It's the day when all the fucking light bulb fuse simultaneously - of the loo, the bedroom and the bedside lamp. And laziness and crankiness. and guilt, because I canceled plans with my grandparents, and I feel horrible and want to take it back and probably will. and I'm tired of this home and not being sure and being nineteen and stuck, and I have a plan, I have a plan but I want to fuck that too tonight. I want to talk to someone, share and it can't work somehow, it's years of bad karma, of appearing offline and saying brb and gtg when I don't have to go anywhere, no one is online, no one will chat.

And even chocolate isn't helping. My fucking teeth and screwed, I can't even chew gum, it all blows up simultaneously. I got myself some chips and coke and was watching Milk in the afternoon, but even that didn't cheer me up. My privilege is pissing me off, I don't even have a real problem.

Excuse me it's just that kind of day.

Usually I love the literary world, last night, I was jumping from one article to another, I couldn't get enough of Saligner 90th birthday tributes, and Joyce Maynard who he lived with but who now lives in Guatemala, and Susan Sontag and so on and so forth, and that world draws me in, and I love reading smart critiques and i love xkcd and a asofterworld, and there's not enough time and the world is so big and expanding and then today happens and while we're at it fuck Israel.

so what do I want? right this moment, as exactly who I am, if alladin appeared, surprise surprise, grant you your wish - right here right now:


1. To go to Sundance film festival - freeze, watch as many (new) films possible, blog about it, wear uggs, the whole shindig.

2. Book myself on the next flight to London and live with my sister, while she goes off to work, walk around, go to all the free places/museums and then go out drinking with her at night.

3. How nice it would be, if I could go just 24 hours, just a day without having to talk to my parents, give them tabs on where I am, what I'm doing, to go out into the city, wander, drive around, do what I want and not be responsible for anyone except myself and not have to account for anything or talk to anyone I don't want to. (will I go to hell for this?)

4. Was at the dentists a couple of days back and he gave me two shots of anesthesia, my lips were numb for hours, weird and wobbly and I was wondering what it would be like to kiss someone with those lips, would've liked to try it out.

Take it, take another little piece of my heart.

My sister's birthday is coming and it's as terrific an opportunity as any other to buy books which I want to read and gift wrap for her. Lucky we more or less read the same stuff or rather I bulldoze her into reading what I recommend. Prep by Curtis Sittenfeld, fantastic people, nice little book I stumbled on thanks to fly and I think there's something in its awkwardness that exists in all of us, especially if we dish out a blog post every week or so.

While planning her party, we decided on Chinese food which somehow brought back a memory of this store in Pune from where we'd get Chinese take away frood. I used to be fascinated by this place, it wasn't a restaurant in a market, it was just a take away shop literally in the middle of nowhere. It was so noisy and steamy and small and they'd take your order and pin it up on a rope and it would be ready robotically in minutes. So numbskullsister and me would play 'takeaway' with our puzzle pieces and mix them around in a tokri. The only plausible explanation for a tokri in our house I think could be because we were living in Maharashtra after all. (egad, images of kim sharma as a fisherwoman are coming to me after those 5 horrifying minutes of some random movie which permanently and irrevocably burned some of my brain cells.)

Also donated blood today! Yee haw, did it for the cool red tshirt we all know, and while I was lying there pumping my fist tiredly instead of feeling righteous as I should have, I was like dude, I just have a needle in my arm, someone who needs this is going to have all their bones smashed in . Count your blessings, name them one by one, thank the Lord for what he has done, kept playing in my head.

On a crankier note though, I am being forced to go out to my mothers friends house for dinner. She has this daughter whose a couple of years older than me, looks and dresses like a model, and has had sex several times with several different boys and was caught in school with her bra undone, which is public knowledge to everyone except apparently our mothers and mum dearest insists she's such a nice girl, I should try and be friends with her. Fuck, glad they're all so in sync. I'm sorry, not that there's anything wrong with her but some people I just can't take seriosuly, and she's one of them.

Something I'm really beginning to believe in though is All In Good Time, truly, life eventually calms itself down and things happen in their own time. When I was in middle school, in Bangalore, I always always wanted to become a senior prefect, not head girl becasue that was so passe but house captain, because that meant something, and I loved my house captain, she was so cool man, she'd run the captains relay on sports day, and march with the house flag. She'd sit on the steps of the canteen (for seniors only) with all these boys and I'd always wonder which one she liked. She'd come to my class and ask for me and badger me into taking part in elocution or something which I gladly did for her. It was so cool the way they'd stay back after shcool, and make those charts and practice for house competitions and stuff, and the 11th and 12thies were allowed to come on their bikes and so casually afterwards they'd zip off to some place to eat.

I left though, and I had no idea untill I was away how fucking impressionable I'd been. I got to be house captain of another school though and it meant shite, really it meant nada to me, which is not as awful as it sounds, it just was that way.

*Remember those shiny coloured Add-Gel pens in 1999? They were such a rage and I had a purple one and wrote LP in big bold letters on my arm and walked all over school one day. At band practice after school, Music Captain comes in and after he does his 'duty' and yells at us for not practising hard or long enough, he hangs around to chat and he says, so you're all into heavy rock and metal and all? and I'm like no ya, just Linkin Park, he's like what's the name of their album. FUck! I didnt know, lol, but anyway, Dad took me on a sunday, to music world I think, not the (then) new Planet M on Brigade Road, and I bought Just Push Play (Aerosmith) and Hybrid Theory and on the way back in the car, dad suggested that I play the tapes, and I slowly, delaying it as much as possible, unwrap the flimsy plastic wrapping and Papercut starts up..the sun goes down, I feel the light betray me, I hastily ejected and put aerosmith in which was no better, but thankfully we reached back because then you could actaully drive around in Bangalore and reach places in minutes not hours. Atleast it wasn't Public Service Announcement on the Marshall Mathers LP.

So into Jaded was I that when we came to Delhi on our summer holiday, on the customary annual visit to Dilli Haat, instead of yet another name necklace, I had jaded written with those alphabet beads, and Dad says do you even know what it means? I didn't.

Man, I was quite the emo kid. Today though, I'm somehow very happy to be me.

This years love had better last

Sometimes you get goosebumps about just being alive, and I want to love you, Nothing Man.~Caught a bolt of lightning, cursed the day he let it go.~ Isn't it something? It is Eddie. How can it not be..

Hmm, exhausted is the word I'm looking for. So much work, so many things to do, usually life is happiest when I'm busy but I haven't got 8 hours of sleep in a row in about a month now. At the risk of sounding like a CPM politburo member, the "honeymoon" period with my blog is definitely over.

Met aforementioned friend, such a riot I tell you, some people are just funny, and I got lots and lots of american frat movies with naked boobies and lewd jokes off him, Superbad(ha-HA-Ha-ha), Oldschool, Van Wilder, Eurotrip, Girl Next Door, Blow...you get the gist.

Yes, Andy is engaged. Joy, normally I'd be happy but do you know how he met her? He saw her picture in a Sports Illustrated isssue and had his agent track her down. What a fucking cliche, its like boning your secretary. Gah. As fly says, it's like he picked her out of a catalogue. I mean imagine the call she must've got, hi, erm, there's this guy, who's sorta famous and a little rich and he wants to be in your pants. Sure, that's my twenties taken care of.

Also have become friends with that new boy at work place, even though he's a kid and all, we're pals now. Ha, dropped him to his hindi class today, these firangis types I tell you. Laughed about superbad stuff, and duh, Celtics won(heehaw) and he was all Lakers, na huh, there time had come, it was going to be Celtics, everyone knew that all along.

Read Wild Sheep Chase (Haruki Murakami,) and can definitely see why he's so popular. The story is literally about sheep and you're reading along thinking, man, a whole book about sheep, this should be weird, but it so isn't.

Something I've been meaning to put up here, I can't stress the importance of Zeitgeist enough, seriously folks, go watch it. Tis this really radical left wing documentary type thing, and even if you're skeptical and don't believe everything, STILL, it's stuff that we just have to know, and think about.

catch me if you can

Tag!

I am: his girl friday.

I think: thunk a lot as a kid, now I let it flow.

I know: the capital of every country, go on, ask me..

I want: a perfect body, I want a perfect soul. (~cause I'm a creep~)

I have: it pretty darn good.

I wish: something could have happened with V.

I hate: asshole drivers.

I miss: Bangalore and Meso

I smell: David Beckham Instinct, lol, Buddy and me share it.

I crave: Crackle, yea no fancy phoren chocolates, Dairy Milk does it for me.

I search: wiki since it's the new google.

I wonder: where these dreams go, when the world got in my way.

I love: good days when everything works out and all is well in el land.

I care: about my numbskull of a sister.

I ache: on days like today, for those friends I could've had, the train rides I didn't have, that white sari I didn't wear for Val and those photos I didn't pose for with him..

I am not: the kind to hold a grudge, unless you're my 10th standard history teacher.

I believe: when I fall in love, it'll be forever (damn Stevie Wonder, the song things become a reflex)

I dance: to Joan Jett and Dillagi kudi Gujrat di

I sing: in the car when I'm feeling good, Teenage Dirtbag(first love dies hard)

I cry: hardly ever.

I don't always: talk to mum and dad as much as I should.

I write: hehe, really?

I win: some

I lose: most

I always: reach late.

I listen: always, always, am eavesdropperviking but fucking hate radio ads.

I can usually be found: in the dingy seminar room in college watching subtitled films which I don't even like while Dinesh the peon sits behind, waiting to lock up.

I am happy about: not today hon, not today. ok maybe about blogging in general.

I imagine: there's no heaven, no hell below. and you-OUHHoooo may say I'm a dreamer~

I tag: amdp, Zaphod(if not already since he's quite the ma-uh-n), Arjun and roghan.

Hey Andy, did you hear about this one?

*Blogging about Blogging ~ Right, so dunno how the whole thing started but do know that it's going mighty fine. I was expecting long months of a lonely 0 comments at the bottom of the post, but pipi and zorro were sweet enough to spread some love and left a comment on the first post itself. So if you're forced to read this it's their fault really; I would happily have given up after 4 posts (like one in every 2 bloggers did you know?) It's fun and oddly exhilirating being anonymous though lately I've begun mentioning this little corner of the internet to people I actually know, as in friends and stuff, the response is either - What do you blog about, or else What do you blog about? Search me.

*I'm tired of driving folks. I'm tired of traffic and and having the tank empty every three days and that bloody Sarthak on 95 f.m. in the mornings(don't even bother plugging my ipod in) and being at the beck and call of everyone concerned and I've had it. I'm going to sit at home for one whole week and not go anywhere my legs can't take me.

*Oh oh, I came up with my very own joke! ready?
#1 Darn, I'd give my left leg for an automatic car...haHA(geddit?)


*Finished Something To Tell You, which is every bit as good as expected though it dragged a bit towards the end but it saved it in time, and Charlie Hero and Karim make a comeback in this one, was most excited so see them again.

*Anyway, the best time of the year in descending order July (Wimbledon) September (US Open) January(Aussie Open) and May-June(French Open). Dude the parisian crowd is so droll. They're all suited up and don't clap for anything. The semi final matches are turning out to be fantastic though. Safina, ole ole ole! Except I'm not saying anything because I jinx these things.

It is time then to reveal to you fair folk, my One Great Love. Now this guy is sexy. I know, I know, he's American and boy-bandish and not even close to winning a slam ever again. Infact read this, it'll give ya more fodder. But I can't tell you, just how much I love him without reason. So much so, that people get embarassed when they're watching a match he's playing with me, apparently I can't contain myself. Infact, when this boy, was kinda trying to flirt with me and it was a big maybe between us, he'd watch Andy's matches and then call up after to discuss them and he' keep dissing him to rankle me up, which I happily obliged because we both saw right through it.



There is little that gives one greater joy than having him win a game 40-love with back to back aces and that swagger when he walks back. :grins: He's also very very funny, he's just naturally a charming guy, like when he was runner-up to fedDUHrer in wimbeldon a couple of years back, the interviewer at the presentation said - Andy, you wouldn't be in the mood to talk right now and he says "ya, I'm actually in the mood for a beer," and the crowd claps and cheered wildly and goes all, good fella that one.

Just look at him.

*sigh*

Riders in the storm, into this house we're born

~Gah, everyone is going on and on about their stupid internships but I'd decided to not do any of those. I mean aren't summer holidays supposed to be Riverdale-esque, with endless days of swimming and cold coffee or American Pie like with the partying and summer romances/getting laid-ness? When did this internship tamasha start? Especially if it's not going to help, you know Underemployment right? When 5 farmers can till the field but 7 are employed - that's exactly what internships are - either you have a big fancy contact somewhere and sit around in an AC office or you do some random type work with CSS or something. So got selected for 'Agenda for Survival', a course by CSE but chickened out, not sure why exactly, probaby am just plain lazy.

Anyway, got a little freaked because I'm indecisive and get convinced easily, and I'm starting something tomorrow, more on that later.

~Right, I'm not a rider, I'm a driver - my sister is but what with ferrying her up and down to the club, I sorta learnt as well and let me tell you I do a mean trot, ofcourse on some days the horse will refuse to move. My horse is Viktor (which is probably Victor as in the one that is victorious but I always think Viktor Krum) Anyway yesterday I just didn't feel like and we reached early, so like a true blue driver I took out the yellow kapda and started wiping the windsceen and windows, and then I opened the bonnet and fiddled around. And then, the driver in the Innova next to me took out his yellow kapda and we were polishing our cars together! Would have offered him a beedi and gone on to sit and play cards with him if I hadn't been summoned by the instructor and forced into riding, twas a good ride though.

But their names I tell you - Machinegun, Junglebaby, Topgun, Patience, Dollar, Ceasar, Leader and the Indian divas - Sundari, Usha, Nirmala, Meenakshi, Kajol, Anarkali...What would I name my horse? Zeus maybe, and my twin sons Alexander and Xerxes. You?

I remember vaguely going for horse racing in Turf Club Pune, sitting in those fantastic lawns with white picket fences and betting on horses called Desire and Destiny and fancy stuff like that.

But the ultimate relic of colonialism is in The Jorhat Gymkhana, betting there is like serious business. There's hordes and hordes of people who come for this annual gala - first the horses are kept in a ring and you inspect them and choose your which one you want to bet on, then go to the counter and put your money where your mouth is(just 10 rupeess for me.) The 'horses' are really ponies and the riders were barefoot in shorts. After every race there's a prize distribution and the owner is supposed to come collect the trophy and pose for a photograph. The Maaliks all wear dhotis and go to collect their prize in all seriousness and giggle but look staight ahead for the picture. Ofcourse the genteel society(mainly planters, no one famous sadly) come in hats and sat in the deck on top and have snacks and drinks. Much fun.

See riding is win-win, ek toh it's outside, and it's with animals and you know what they say, if you haven't loved an animal or had a garden, there's a part of you lying dormant that you'll never know. [/sermon]

The 3 mistakes of my life

Wokay, The 3 Mistakes of my Life happened to be lying around and I picked it up to read/flip through. Little did I know that it would give me so, so much joy.

Right, so this dude (Bhagat) is the most loved, most read, best selling vagera vagera author of this country, but what’s more and here I quote from the blurb - “Seen more as voice of a generation than just an author, this IIT/IIM-A graduate is making India read like never before.”

Whew, that’s pretty huge for one guy no?

And this time, Bhagat’s writing about sex yo! No kidding.

An excerpt: ~

************************************************************************************
We slid under the water tank and sat on the floor. She had brought six pink cushions and a rug. ‘I brought them from my room, so we can have a little party here,’ she said and passed a couple to me. Under the cushions, she had a stereo.

‘Music?’ she said, her face pretty as a song.
I nodded.
‘I’ll put on Boyzone, my favourite,’ she said.
I took out the packet of eighteen candles that came with the cake.
‘Let’s light all of them,’ she said.
I wanted to go switch on the terrace light as it had become dark.
‘Let it be,’ she said and pulled my hand as she lit the eighteenth candle.
‘What if someone comes?’
‘Both my parents have bad knees. They never climb up to the terrace. And Ish well there is a match on.’...

A song called ‘No Matter What’ started to play. Like with all romantic songs, the lyrics seemed tailor-made for us.

No matter what they tell us
No matter what they do
No matter what they teach us
What we believe is true

She kissed me like she never had before...her hands came to my shoulders and under my shirt.

I can’t deny what I believe
I can’t be what I’m not
I know this love’s forever
That’s all that matters now

...the music didn’t stop and neither did we.


************************************************************************************

And these two go on to lose their virginity.

Hang on, no I mean hold up, stop the traffic people, boy freaking zone??? Are you kidding me? And this is set in November 2001. 2001 for crying out loud, if it was Slim Shady or Hybrid Theory or even that horrible J. Lo it would be understandable. 2001 is so backstreet boys, even westlife, even Ronan Keating! Because if I remember correctly, Boyzone were broken up then and Ronan was going all I love it when we do what we do blah blah.

But nobody, I mean nobody was listening to Boyzone in 2001, 1995 maybe but NOT 2001.

Diversion, remember watching MTV Select at 4, then Nikhil still looked slightly human and immediately after, MTV Most Wanted in which Shenaz would very sweetly read out those big fancy letters. LAME. But I used to watch both religiously and there was a lot of talk among the bsb(backstreetboys) legions in my class to make a big card and send it to her and but ofcourse request Quit Playing Games, like it didn't play every freaking hour anyway.

Anyway, dude(Chetan), say and write what you want, but a book published in 2008, playing up on the youth factor simple cannot have 2 ‘young’ people having sex to a boyzone song. That’s all I’m saying.

pearls and swines bereft of me

Am in a mega cheesed off mood today. There is only one thing and one thing alone that has the power to make me this miserable - Nero, and ofcourse the harddrive crashing. That happened to me thrice the past year, so I got a nice fancy HDD(External Hard Drive) and then like the genius I am encryted the files just aisai to save space and when the computer crashed again, inspite of having backups I locked myself out of ALL the pictures and movies and music.

Sean(were in the same school but became friends only in college) jokes that the HDD is my boyfriend and he'll tell this story to anyone who'll listen about how I apparently said that I felt as though someone had broken up with me when the computer crashed. haha. Not funny :shakes head:

Basically, I know a little bit about computer stuff, I mean I can dsimantle the jumbo of wires and plug them all back in(not much of an accomplishment, just saying), I know about seeds and peers and torrents(which most people do) and I do stupid things with pictures(which every blogger does) and sometimes while surfing I like to believe that I've caught glimpses of some of the darkest corners of the internet(no not porn you nimrod, something along the lines of what Artemis Fowl did while looking for fairy gold.) But Nero? Makes me want to pull my hair out.

See I don't even use CDs, just keep stuff on the HDD but, in those rare moments when you want to watch something with someone, there arises the need to share. /philosophical, not.

Tomorrow, two of my school friends Kai and Fly are coming over, and we've planned to have a movie marathon(Operation Dinner Out) and I went and bought a stack of blank CDS and a whole bunch of junk food (side note - remember fryums? those bobby type things, which you'd put on your fingers and eat at birthday parties? found em!) Anyway, thought I'd burn the movies onto discs so that we could watch them on the wide wide screen of the TV but oh no, no no, fucking Nero has other plans for me, like saying, due to patent registration issues, mpeg4 decoding is not possible, ARGH, which is just a random arbitary excuse because I've installed most of the codecs for all those fundoo video files and no program has ever created such a god awful fuss before. Done everything I could think of - trawled message boards, uninstalled and reinstalled, tried using it from the laptop but nada.

Oh, Perfidy.