Of lost memories and fleeting moments....

This post is dedicated to Harish,Ashwini,Swathi,Aishu,Kritheka,Tejal,Akilesh, Cellin, Aishu,Shyam,Gomathi,Christina,Dharani,Madhu,Srini,Sai Lakshmi,Kishan,Indumathi, Aruna,Upasana, Praveen, Sangeetha and loads of others whose company I treasure.......

Let me begin this post with a small incident that happened earlier this week...I had to go to Erode for a competition...It was initially planned that I travel alone but a lot of revisions later there I was sitting in the back seat of our Verna,squashed between mother and sister...The road trip(though fleeting and super-fun...I wonder why we dont do this anymore:o)is not the crux here...

We met one of my mother's old college senior there..It was seriously a humbling experience..Now let me brief you a bit here...My mom was brought up in a small town called Pollachi near Coimbatore in TamilNadu...People there hold high cultural and moral values(I am taking my mom's word for it)It was way back in the 1980's where boys and girls talking to each other even in a genuinely friendly manner was frowned upon.So I was seriously surprised(Read taken aback) when my mom mentioned him..Plus in all these years I have never heard of my mom mentioning her friends..She had lost contact with almost all of them...After nearly 20 years thy met each other..He and his wife were wonderfully courteous and looked at me like how they would at their own daughter..I seriously understood then what my mother was talking about when she mentioned the enthusiastic welcomed and hospitality...

Pardon me for again this is not what I intend to go in detail about...Forgive me for the deviations here and there....This post is all about the high school memories that we have all lost and the last fleeting moments of our college life....I loved my high school and six girls "GANG" that we had formed...All the innocence and kiddish fights,spoilt brats,fights for benches,the "WHY-DID-You-choose-to-sit-with-her-when-I-am-here?"tiffs,all the "Hey-look-here-comes-your-boy-friend" games,The birthday cakes,birthday bumps,fun trips,treats,"Teasing those oh-I-broke-up-with-him-again girls",all the gossip and rumors that spread like wild-fire,calling somebody Pazham and expecting them to be offended(Yeah I am laughing now :)),arranging the lunch boxes in order and taking a bite outta each one,canteen parotta samosa fights,shirking PT,jumping over benches,getting wet in the rain during lunch hour and sitting dripping in the class,theatre gallatta,nick names,those songs we made up,the BGMs,exam fever,farewell day tears...

Uff!I thought one full cycle was over!After all the goodbyes and promises to stay in touch with each other,pinky-swears of together for eternity,filling of slam books finally it was good bye...And honestly I have managed to keep up only about 5 of those promises....I am in touch with a very few of my school mates....

My cocoon here is about to break in another year where I emerge free yet bearing the burden of having to be separated from another group I was so comfortable with...

My college life would not have been what it is had it been for Harish and what Gomathi likes to call "The spider Gang"(I have no idea where the name came from but it is fun)....I had no idea what was going on and was often the jumping jack but never once did anybody get irritated with me...Be it the orientations or free hours,blank sheet revision exam,IV s we stick to each other.....And Harish,where do I even start?I am going to run out of words and space if I have to talk about him and Ashwini...My pillar of strength...Some shoulder I can always lean on and talk nothing for hours but still you'd understand every single word I was trying to tell you da!Same goes for you too Ash!
And Aishu and Cellin two people I have always liked...No matter whatever happens I know at the end of the day I'd still want to be with you!
Indhumathi is one person who I always respected...I like a lot of people but respect very few...Once I respect someone I never change my opinion about them and she is one person I'd like to support come what may...
Gomathi and Chris are one of my first friends in this place and it is always very special when it comes to firsts...
Ashwini-Again My bestie!She perfectly understands how awkward I get with emo stuff and never expects any thing in return...Love you sweetie!
James,The thala and captain of our class,The Terror :P
Srini and Praveen-My super brilliant friends who believe knowledge is for sharing and not flaunting
Shyam-Can you put him off?I dont think so!Such a sweet and adjusting idiot! :)
Above are those who touched me...I am sure every one of you out there would have had millions who make a difference.....

I might promise now that I might be with these people till eternity and other stuff but I also know that in the wake of reality how these promises go kaput....

But with all sincerity and honesty I do know that wherever I go I carry you all with me...

The relationship will find a way to keep itself alive,I sincerely do hope !


To the lost memories of yesterday,
fleeting moments of today and
the present of tomorrow,


Cheers!

Until The next one,
Gaya!:)

A wedding.3 principle characters who received more importance than the bride and the groom ;).....

This post is dedicated to Aishu who is my first fan,kid sis and one of the most wonderfully weird creatures on this planet..

Let me start with the background story.The wedding here is my chittappa's(Dad's last brother) who is the typical Green-card-holding, 6'3",fair,PhD completed,Landed in one the highly paid brackets in US chammattu payyan...Shouldn't be difficult to find a match right?Believe me,There was.

The scouting for brides started way back in 2004 with the usual "Amma Ennakku ippolam kalyanam vendam"(Mom,I dont want to get married now)which as the days passed turned into impatience"Amma enna achu..Innuma kedaikala?"(Mom..What happened?Are you still not able to find one?)

Harish(Chitapps) has always been more of a friend than the father-figure...He is a wonderful guy.Compulsive cleaner and not a second has gone by where he does not think of his family.And yeah typical my-parents-know-what-is-good-for-me type one.Not that it is a bad thing.

Yeah,lets get back on track.as 2004 slipped into 2005 and 06 still no luck and then due to few incidents we were not able to continue our Bride-huntfor few months.Few dead ends.Few almost deal-closers.
Few no horoscope matches.Dead ends every where.

Nevertheless paati ploughed on and on until finally we landed on Priya.

Now a lil something about Priya.If I call Harish my friend then I should call Priya my bestie...Someone who understands and cares for everyone.One very trustable person and totally chilled out.

Yeah again back on track.So Harish flew down to meet his bride-to-be....Now dont ask me if it was love-at-first-sight...I have no idea what attracted them to each other because in my opinion they are poles apart from each other.After tasting the sojji-bajji us,the younger-lot were thrilled...

The engagement was fixed on the last week of June.June 28th.Our story begins here.
I was pretty much jobless having just then completed my 12th and was waiting for my admissions to begin.I enter the hall and who should I see but some cute guy...(Isnt that the point of attending most weddings?)..The usual mental calculations were on...

Next came the competitors(my sister and cousin) and we started squabbling over who gets him..(Yeah he was not aware of our existence idhule periyaaa rights-claim veraa ;))

Finally not being able to come to a conclusion we decided on Survival of the fittest....All of us hanging around and my sisters were called outside for a few seconds and suddenly Luck decided to cast a bewitching smile on me...Who knew Priya would choose that very second to introduce me to him?There we were discussing various topics for 20 blissful moments before some aunt in "Heavy " makeup called me aside saying I was wanted somewhere(Porrukadhe?)....Grudgingly I said good bye....Meanwhile my cousin who was in the hospitality(read kids bullied in (rather bewitched)to think that they were responsible for the well being of the guests ) got the golden opportunity to pour coffee for him without having a clue about the miles of progress I had made...(It was on!)...Time came when we had to say our good byes and when he waved at me guess who was on fire? ;)It did lead to few uncomfortable moments of probing where I had to explain(Hell yeah!Who cares?)

Harish fried some kadalai for the rest of the week he was here and pretty much phone-fryings were done later(Hopefully :P)

He flew in a week before the wedding and was subjected no less than facials,manicures,pedicures and other blahs but the climax was the Marudhaani..
Traditionally the groom is supposed to have Marudhaani on his hand but to see Harish kick up a fuss like that was rare..We tried to coax him saying it wasnt bad and we all had Mehendi done..Finally we had to do what we had to-Pin the brat down and smear the stuff on his hands..(You were given a choice!)

The wedding was on October 24th..

October 22nd-

I had my internals correctly from 23rd and so to obtain permission from my VP to skip them....Now to make it clear these tests are nothing more than time and paper wasters.But an illusion was created as if these were path-breaking tests.Naturally I was little apprehensive at first but the thought of the wedding and picking it where we left off too seemed fun...So there I am with my letter and an annoyed scorn on his face told me I was not getting anywhere as close to a half day leave even....All the plans came crashing down....I did what any well brought up kid would do...Went and cried to my dad about how mean they were at college(Did I mention well mannered?OOps :D)..There my dad was promising to come and take me no matter what happened...


Now traditional Iyer weddings are stretched over 3 days where

1st day morning-Vradham(23rd)

The bride, groom and both their parents perform this rite praying to god that all should go well and a yellow thread is tied on their wrists meaning they are not supposed to leave the mandapam until the wedding is over.

October 23rd-
I completed my English internals(piece of cake) and was waiting for my dad....I was not able to listen a word of the maths shit that was being taught...Finally he turned up as promised and there was the same VP who was all smiles(sucker!)who asked me to take an extra couple of days......Gloating, I left with dad..We had to stop midway and I used the chance to call my cousin to check if "He" had arrived...I waited with bated breath for her answer...

To be continued..

Click here to read Part II of the story.

Until the next one,
Gaya. :)

A Presentation and those that followed

Of late procrastination has taken a complete toll over me.I've been meaning to get this post out since like a month but well, :D .

I love working with MS Powerpoint (2003,7 bring it on)and making all those presentations.To others they might do it when need arises but I look for opportunities to work with MS PP .

My First presentation was for a competition .The topic was Dances of India and out of the regular aarva-kolaru my friend and I signed up for it without having a single clue as to how a presentation looks like.After a quick tutorial from one of my cousins,the pres was ready.(Yeah I did win a prize and no I am not disclosing which one) ;)
The second one I made was for my cousin about the solar system.I'd worked really hard on it for like 3 nights continuously.It did turn out to be a hit among all the KG kids whose jaws dropped when they saw the moon come out of the water :P
From then on I'd made presentations only for technical computer science paper presentation related stuff.

However the two most useful presentations I have ever been involved with were for two friends-Bala Sundaram and Nitesh Varma.In the former's case it was all ready and I just had to tweak it here and there.It was about a village adoption project.

The presentation that I wanted to write about is the latter one.It was about the sexual harassment of women at workplaces and outside.I started off by making just a couple of pie charts and very soon got to do some background research to get some idea on the subject.

I have always been a feminist and I am proud of that.I don't like people telling me that I am not supposed to do something just because I am a woman.When I saw all those cases of mental torture and unfair judgements it really got me thinking.Are we all actually offered the importance as hyped or touted?

A bill.A reservation of 33% in otherwise a male dominated society has been opposed for nearly 14 years before it has finally been passed.If it were this difficult to merely pass a bill then how difficult would it be for us to secure other rights?
But then again will woman representatives actually come-forward?or get lost somewhere in some brilliantly played political-chess?

Even today a woman is looked down upon with scorn if she leaves her husband.But is the case vice-versa?Nah-ah...If a man leaves his wife then something is wrong with her.Why should the woman bear the brunt of the society on her shoulders alone?

A woman child is considered a burden and killed off before it could see the light of the day.Have these people ever done it to a male child?If yes,let me see that.Yeah my words are oozing with contempt and scorn but the fact that all these are still prevalent makes me sneer even more.

Yeah getting back to the harassment part.In most of the case studies that I came across the woman had refused to surrender to the will of the superior male officer and hence she has been wrongfully terminated or psychologically tortured.We have so many Anjali Guptas and Bhanwari Devis who have not yet spoken out aloud due to the fear of facing the society's wrath.

Who makes up the society after all?Is it not you and me?Is it wrong to ask for a bit of compassion,empathy and humanity?Are we that lost in the materialistic world that we have forgotten the very basic purpose of our existence?

Eve and Adam together complete mankind.

Any appeal that I make now is going to be one among the millions and billions lost in thin air but nevertheless,Guys just stop for one second and close your eyes.Think.If the same were to happen to your kith and kin wouldn't you want to bash the rogue who caused it?So why do you want to become such a rogue who another family wants to bash up?

Those who set a bad example need to be punished,then and there.Not tried for 10 years and then acquitted.
We either need stricter laws or people with more conscience and morals.Until one of these two happens these cases will do continue.


Remember for every woman you destroy,you are destroying a family.


"Like me, you could be unfortunate enough to stumble upon a silent war. The trouble is that once you see it, you can’t unsee it. And once you’ve seen it, keeping quiet, saying nothing, becomes as political an act as speaking out. Either way, you’re accountable.”
-Arundhati roy

P.S-Thanks Nitesh!

Until the next one,
Gaya.:)