Greedy Pop

Growing up, I was what you'd classify as one among the "awkward" girls. I wasn't in the popular group. I wasn't in the bad girls group. I wasn't in the brainy kids group. I wasn't in the athletic kids group. I was just that - awkwardly stuck between the many many cliques. Even today when people from my school adds me on Facebook, especially if they belonged to any of the above groups, I'm so completely wonderstuck that they actually recognize and remember me. When all this while I thought I'd been invisible.

I wasn't a loner or anything. I did have my group of friends. Every year a different group. Mostly just kids who sit next to me. And their friends. When those kids get shuffled and put into different classes the next year, the walls between us causes us to drift apart. My sisters were part of these really big gang of girls. And they'd tell me the kind of fun they'd have. Though I'd never craved to be a part of a big group, I'd always wondered what it'd be like. And what I'd be like if I were in a big group like that.

I got my chance during one lunch break in 4rth or 5th grade. I was on my way back from canteen. And on my way I passed by one of the biggest gangs of my class. I think it consisted of ten girls or so. All beautiful, popular and/or brainy. One of them beckons me. I walk up to her and is immediately surrounded by the whole gang. She looks at the chicken sandwich (or atleast I think it was a chicken sandwich) in my hand. 

"You want to join our group?" she asked.

Just like that. Do I want to join? I looked at her like I didn't understand what she was saying.

"You want to join or what?" 

In the distance, I can see my two friends waiting. And I'm torn. My mind was whirring.
This is my break. My big opportunity to get into the big gang of popular girls. My folks would be so proud. (Yes, they actually would've been. My dad always wanted me to hang out with the bright and brainy kids so that I get influenced or whatever). My whole life could change with this one minute.What about my friends? Oh, I can still be friends with them and still be in this group. They'd understand!  I should just say yes. Yes, yes, YES!

"Yes", I said timidly.

"What? We can't hear you. Speak loudly."

"Yes!"

"Okay, good. So she is now part of our group now, okay?"

She takes a candy bar. Hobby, I think.

"Here, take this." she said holding it out.

I'm hesitant. 

"No, its okay. I don't want. Thanks"

"Arey, just take it, yaar. We're all friends now."

I'm still a bit reluctant, but I manage to reach out and take the chocolate.

And regretted it a second later. The minute the chocolate was in my hand, all the girls who had been standing around watching the whole exchange started chanting at the top of their voices.

"GREEDY POP, GREEDY POP, GREEDY POP, GREEDY POP"

Okay, Don't ask me what a greedy "pop" is. But I was terrified. And so damn humiliated. I let go of the chocolate and ran away as fast as I could. Not stopping to look back while they continued to chant and laugh at me. I don't remember where I ran to. I remember crying. I remember vowing to get revenge and all that. But I don't think anything happen. Everybody forgot about it and so did I. I never really thought much about it after that. Just a stupid little incident.

It was only after I had grown up, I realised that I had an aversion towards gangs. I mean, don't get me wrong, I have had small groups of friends too. But I've never gone up and tried to become part of an already established gang of friends again. I'd make friends with a person, but when I realise they're part of a group, I'd slowly move away from them, rather than be forced to join in. When introduced to a group of people, I get nervous and fidgety and anxious. And like I want to run away as far as I could as fast as I can. Which is stupid, because its not like they're going to suddenly start yelling greedy pop, greedy pop or anything.  I somehow expect them to pull the rug from underneath me at any moment.
I don't know what the point of this post was. I just suddenly remembered this incident couple of days ago. I had always dreamt of one day becoming rich and famous and driving to my old school in a huge fancy Porshe in front of all those girls and screaming Greedy Pop in their faces. But then here I am unemployed and old with a life that is going nowhere. And most of those girls have got amazing careers and are married with kids and, this is the worst part, have gotten incredibly hot over the years. Ugh. I wish my life was an American teen movie.
But then life goes on. I don't think I hold a grudge against them anymore. In one way or the other, they helped me become the person I am today. And while its not the best person imaginable, its not too bad either. I may not have the dream life that I dreamt of. But I am pretty happy what I've got. I married a fantastic guy, I have a few close good friends and an amazing family. And this blog that all you awesome-sauce people read! I wouldn't trade all that in for anything. Not even a shiny Porshe. :)

Guess Where I Found Zen?



"Everyone needs to find their Zen. What do I mean by that? Zen means peace, meditation, calmness. We are conditioned to stressing and forboding and worrying, it's human nature. It's difficult for us as humans, to focus on the moment and find peace or even want it, but we do however, need peace in our lives."

Everyone has their own ways to zen.

Ross to Phoebe :

No, no don't!
 Stop cleansing my aura!
No, just leave my aura alone, okay

Of cleansing their auras. I love how Phoebe from F*R*I*E*N*D*S does it by.. well.. literally plucking out the yuckies from your aura. But for the saner lot, it's mostly yoga or music or a walk or whatever. I’ve always wondered what my aura-cleansing technique is. Well not just an aura cleanser.. but also a stress-busting, depression-dissolving, life-mending technique.

I used to sing to ease my worries. No, not just randomly sing.. I would take the pains to listen to a song and write down the lyrics.. even though I could just get it off the Internet. I like to write it down myself cos a) this usually happens in the middle of the night when I can’t sleep and I’m too lazy to turn on the computer again and b) when you write down the lyrics, you can write them down exactly how you hear it if you don’t understand what the actual words are. I don't know how thats better. But it is.

Like the song Survivor by Destiny’s Child. I swear, it goes “I’m a survivor, I’m not go-giver, I’m a bus driver, Imma work harder!”, which sounds all wrong and probably is wrong but it cracks me up so I never really tried to find out the real lyrics.

Anyway, singing usually used to work for me until my nose kept getting blocked all the time and I literally lose my breath after half the song and also its no fun when you have to sing it like “Ibha surbhiber, Ibha bhus drivher”.. It doesn’t really make you feel like a survivor.. or a bus driver for that matter.

So after that, I couldn’t figure out what to do to get rid of all those bad/sad feelings.Until I tried gardening.

It was awesome. Everytime you bring that shovel down on the hard ground, you feel like your cracking through the brains of all your murky problems in life. And when I come across a worm- forgive me all animal right-ist and worm lovers – but I squish it. And I feel better. So there I was, digging and squishing, digging and digging more than I needed to dig. With more aggression that I’ve ever felt in my life. Once I was done, I was proud of myself and resolved that this was going to be my solution to dark days forever. I'd found my zen in the mud and dirt. Everything was great until the next morning when I woke up and found that my arms had temporarily stopped function. Well okay, that’s an over-exaggeration. They did function. Except every time they tried to function, it felt like everyone of those tiny worms I squished the day before had cloned themselves to infinity and had magically made their way inside my body to bite into each inch of the little muscle that I had somewhere between all those bones. Apparently worms have got someone looking out for them too.

I had to figure out another way to unwind before I drove myself insane. I thought of yoga which seemed like the obvious way to go. But I didn’t wanna cause further damage than I had already caused. Everytime I tried yoga in the past, I’d require atleast two days of bed rest atleast until I figure out that I’m bending or twisting in the wrong direction.

That is when I came across this awesome cooking blog. I’m not gonna give you the link b'cos I found it and its mine. And you can’t have it...... It’s mine.

I’m very possessive about my blog finds. I “found” the 1000awesomethings blog and a month later, there was an article about it in the Reader’s Digest. Sure, the blog had atleast a bazillion visitors already… but I found it. :-/

So anyway, the cooking blog.. the secret cooking blog was amazing. I started to make something everyday. And wonder of wonders, everything was.. well.. sorta edible. Well ok, it wasn’t repulsive either! I mean, I was actually good at it and got better everyday. Every afternoon, I’d browse the blog and figure out what I want to make, jot down the recipe and get crackin’. It was awesome, apart from an occasional hard-as-coconut-shells biscuits, everything else was scrummilicious. I was in bliss. It went on great until one day I had my heart set on making Banana bread. I don’t even like bananas, but it just seemed like a cool thing to make! And it was simple as hell too! I went to the store and got extra butter and eggs and everything and was all excited to make it. So in the afternoon, I go to the kitchen to make my much-awaited Banana bread. I lay out all my ingredients until I notice one tiny little thing was missing. We were out of bananas.

I swear, it was like my world was falling apart! I just had to had to make it that day itself! I mean, how can we not have bananas!? We always have bananas! My house literally grew on banana trees! I have never been that terribly upset. I was literally in tears. It was like I just missed out on winning the Nobel Prize. After spending hours, mourning on my bed, I considered trying to make something else. But figured, what’s the point? When you’re looking for lemonade, life just hands you one rotten lemon after another(we were out of lemons too :-( )

I listened to sad songs, sat around in the dark and cried my eyes out. After a while, I wasn’t sure if it was about the bananas (or the lemon) anymore. With the little light coming in through the window and tears flowing down my cheeks, somehow it crossed my mind that this would make a great photograph. All artsy and stuff. Still sniffing and sobbing, but without hesitation, I picked up my phone and clicked a picture of myself... only to find that I looked positively ghastly. It made me cry even more and curse stupid actors in movies who look positively angelic while they cry. Bloody nonsense. Oh, why.. why is everything in my life going so wrong! Where the hell is my goddamn zen! Self pity, self pity and more self-pity. Ugh.

Anyhow, crying always makes me want to pee. I don’t know what the connection is. You’re losing liquid…and somehow that makes you want to lose more liquid. Anyway, I stepped into the bathroom. The bathroom was really dirty from all the mud from the garden and just murk in general. I gestured to the empty room and said to myself “This…this is my life….A big disgusting mess...” Silence.

Without a moment’s thought, I grabbed a sponge and some floor cleaner. Down on all fours, I started scrubbing. After I was done, I looked down and still wasn’t satisfied. So I grabbed hold of every single bathroom-cleaning equipment lying around including an old toothbrush of mine and did it again. This time I gave it my all, which means between the tiles and near the clogged drain. By the time I was on the last tile, I was surprised when I realised that I was actually grinning. I’ve cleaned up the “big disgusting mess”. Ok fine so maybe my life hadn't magically cleaned itself up too. But I realized that if I could clean up this great big mess, well, then no mess is too big for me!

No mess is too big for me.  That's my current aura-cleaning methodology now. I'm on my way to Zen. And to think.. of all the places, I looked.. I found mine in the bathroom. :-)

All for a Speck of Happiness

I need a new best friend.

Uh, no...not a human one. Not an invisible one either, got enough of those. I meant the ultimate man's best friend..A Dog!

It's so dumb that the woman's best friend are supposed to be diamonds.. I mean Diamonds are rocks..an inanimate thing...and men get dogs.. How sad does that make women look? Hi, my best friend is a rock. That is just dumb. And so not true. Women's true best friend would be something like....um...chocolate ice creams and discount sales.. ok ok so they're inanimate things too but they're a lot more closer to dog than diamonds are.

Anyhow, I've been watching all these movies with dogs and cats and monkeys and stuff and how people seem so content with life with the whole slow-mo running in the wind and happy kind background music n all.. I want that.. I need a new happy quotient in my life. I figured it'd be fun. It'll be like looking after a little baby and I'm super good with babies. The only difference is not I'm not even a wee bit afraid of babies...like I am of dogs. I'm not thaat scared of dogs.. I mean I could look at them hours.. in pictures or on TV or from a distance. It's just the way they're always moving about.. as in there is no certainty as to what they'll do next. I can't live with the suspense that comes with dogs. And also, the barking. My neighbour's dog is just adorable well.. from this side of the wall. But when it starts barking in the middle of the night.. I mean, again there is no warning. It's like a gun shot. One minute its all quiet and cute and then WOOOOOOFF! Its like a bazillion decibels.. And I swear that is what is going to cause my heart to stop one day. I'm putting that neighbour's dog's name on my death note.

Okaaay.. so maybe dogs are not my best option. I considered cats, but their meow is just so whiny and clingy and yueaack.. Also its not just their meow thats yucky... This one time I was sitting in my balcony staring into nothingness, when I see this cat strolling along on the roof of my house. We make eye contact. I wondered if I should run (ok blah so I'm kinda scared of cats too. I'm scared of anything that has claws.) But then I figured it was at a safe distance so I settle down and decided to have a bit of a chat. It was the most attentive cat, I'd ever met. It never took my eyes off me throughout the conversation. But it was also highly inexpressive which made me feel a little awkward. All of a sudden the cat starts jerking its head back and forth, like a bad dance move. I'm like what the.. and BARF. Bright yellow liquid burst out of the cat's mouth. And so that is how I dislike all insensitive cats who throw up listening to your problems.

And finally it was my sister who helped me decide on my animal pal.. She got me not one not two not three but four best friends for my birthday. Kinds that don't shed fur or slobber or puke on you. She got me Chicken! Three female ones and one male. I was just thrilled. Sure, I've had a life-altering experience with a chicken in the past (too long to explain. will write as a whole different post someday) I decided to let bygones be bygones and welcome these charming creatures back into my life.

We got a little house build for them and painted it and everything. And one of the hens started laying eggs.. and when they hatched, I felt like a mom would when she sees her baby(s) for the first time. My mom said that we'd have to dye them green so as to camouflage them from crows and eagles. Which was great except then we could'nt find them later either amidst all the greens.

This one time one of the little chicks hurt its leg and dad brought it inside the house and me and my sister tried to feed it and everything. And we fixed it a bed inside a box and I sang it to sleep and ran to its side everytime it woke up in the night. It went right back to sleep when I cupped it in my hands. The whole happy feeling the movies showed were coming to life alright..........Until...

They all grew up and turned into.. well.. animals! They'd poop anywhere and everywhere. They do IT anywhere and everywhere with anyone. I swear, there was something really creepy about the way that rooster looked at me sometimes. Brrr..

And the worst of all.. you know how in movies and everything, they symbolize morning with a faint yet refreshing sound of rooster crowing.. and you're all like aaahh and feel nice and warm inside. right? Well, movies are nothing but a loada bull-crap. There is nothing refreshing or warm or nice bout a rooster crowing. Because first of all, my rooster has got its biological clock all messed up. It crows at 12 in the night then at 2 then again anywhere between 4 and 6. Messed up, I tell you. All of the chickens abandoned the nice home we built them and took to perching on the open windows of my bedroom. So when they do the whole cock-a-doodle-do.. which by the way is nothing like that, its like a creepy croak crossed between an agonizing yet blood-thirsty scream. And at that hour, its like a bloody Dolby system. At one point we had two roosters, one at each window. So when one stops the other would follow. Torture.. it was Ultimate torture. Up to a point where I would actually pry my eyelids open, grab a mop from the bathroom and wave it frantically out the window hoping to stick it through their throats. My dad was all like you shouldn't stop them, it's a part of their instincts and nature and blah.. So you sleep in my room then, I retort. Uh-uh no way.. Ha!

Finally we decided to give the roosters away. This lady my mom knew came by the house to pick them up one day. She needed help putting one of the roosters into a large bag. So I helped while the rooster looked at me for not more than a second with those beady black eyes and WHAM, pecked me nice and hard. He had gotten his revenge for all the mop poking nights.

I said goodbye to him then but I still have an ugly dark scar between my thumb and index finger to remember him forever. And ok I admit although I was ecstatic about being able to sleep in late, I missed seeing the lil fellow strut his stuff looking like he owned the place.

Maybe chickens are not the answer to lifelong happiness. They brought that much needed drama back into my life. And I'm grateful to them for that. As for a new best friend... I think I've got one in my fridge right now. A huge tub of chocolate ice cream! Yay! Nothing can beat that kind of happiness! Ta! 

Ready. Get Set. View!

Bird watching, whale watching, solar eclipse viewing, tv viewing and bride-viewing. Ugh.
Bride-viewing. Ugh.

Honestly though, I never really had a problem with the whole process. I thought it was something that everyone just has to go through and it was rather fun when my sisters had to do it. But seriously.. bride-viewing.. ugh..I'm sorry everytime I say the word it makes me wanna say ugh cos it is...just UGH!

Viewing it seems. Like a bride.. is a view.. and why is it bride viewing? The bride "views" the groom too! Why not groom-viewing? Ugh. Ok maybe it the viewing bit that gets to me. Viewing. Yeesh... I just checked the thesaurus to see if there is a better term... apparently it could only get a lot worse. It could be bride-observation or bride-scrutiny or bride-analysis (You gotta admit this one sounds kinda cool though) or bride-inspection. 

Yuck. No matter what you call it, the whole damn process will remain as yucky as ever. For those who are not familiar with the grand process, you could either google it... or I could just tell you since you've been kind enough to read bout it this far without having a clue what I'm talking bout. Bride viewing is when a random guy's mum n dad decides to meet up with a random girl's mom n dad for tea or whateva and talk to each other for say half hour and let the random guy and girl talk for maybe 10 minutes as a result of which they are expected to fall head over heels in love with each other and want to marry each other immediately. 

But the guy falling in love with the girl will be unaccounted for if the mom and dad does not fall in love with the girl first, based on her looks, the number of ornaments she is (read - been forced to) wearing, her posture, her voice, her teeth, her skin colour, her size (now I could be referring to any size..including shoe size), the way she ties her hair, if she's smudged her kohl, the way she makes small talk and the way she smiles and smiles until her cheeks fall off. After which the guy's mom n dad has to fall in love with the girl's mom and dad. And the house. And the furniture. And the car.  And the servant. And more. You would sooo not have found a defnition this apt if you had googled. :-)

So anyways, I kinda thought that it was gonna be fun. I mean if you think of it, you get to check out a random guy head to toe without even having to step out of the house and with your parents permission. How bizzare is that!?

Except the closer you get to actually experiencing it, the more you realise that this is a bad bad idea.
The first guy who came to see me... well I didnt even give the poor guy a chance. I told my dad that I don't think I like the guy right after I read his biodata and saw his picture which I believe he took right after or right before he threw up. I also dug up stuff from Facebook and Orkut about the poor lad that could help me justify why exactly I don't like him. Even then my dad was under the impression that if I "just speak to the guy, I will change my mind" and fall hopelessly in love with him. I didn't think so but whatever. Decided to humor him.

The only thing I was worried bout was everyone making a big huge deal out of it and getting all nervous. I was hardly nervous or excited about it. I was totally and entirely tensed about my driver's license test the next day though. This seemed like a cakewalk compared to that.

 
Things were all good until the relatives show up. I forgot to mention that for these kinda "ceremonies" more often than not, relatives and friends are invited to witness the grand event all and to bug you until you  wanna run off and join a monastery. 

So until then everyone was minding their own business and I was playing with my nephew and the chickens n all. The relatives bug me into changing my clothes and getting ready although it would be hours until the "viewers" would show up. I didn't argue. I went and changed into "very" decent girl clothes and totally did everything they wanted me to and tried my best to turn me into someone I'm not. One of my relatives wanted me to slap on a coupla layers of foundation. That really pissed me off. I mean say I get married to this dude. And the day after I'm married he sees me without the 10 layers of foundation, I wouldn't want him to die of heart failure. I mean in this setting, I'm really not gonna get married to a guy who loves me for my personality or shit. Mite as well marry a guy who likes me for what I truely and honestly look like atleast. So yeah anyway, I swallow my frustration and ignore everything else they have to say.

Anyway to cut the long story short, the guy shows up. And I was busy playing with the chicken. Mom announces their arrival and suddenly I have this incredible urge to laugh uncontrollably. I reaally hoped I wouldn't go stand in front of them and have a giggling fit. Maybe it was then that the ridiculousness of it all sank in. 

I sneak a peek and see the guy who looks up and sees me at the same time. In a normal situation I would've totally gone all la-la-la at this point since I loooove filmy moments like this. Right then it just made my stomach ache. Not in a good way either. I was forbidden from going out there and meeting them until I'm called out. So I'm sitting there in my room, texting my friends and waiting and waiting cos I was really hungry and my folks had got all these goodies and snacks for when these people show up. My sis comes in and tells me that they're eating now. Oh goody now I can go. No not yet, says Sis. Ugh.

 
So I'm waiting and waiting. They finish eating and they still havent called me out. Now I was like oh good, maybe they all forgot all about me and why they came and now they'll just leave and this nightmare will be over! And thats when Mum comes in with the same smug smile she had when she once caught me checking out guys from the window in my room, before I could even deny what I was doing. I'm not sure why she had that smile on now. Anyhow, I step out with a broad fake smile. I totally rock at fake smiles. You can never ever tell when I'm faking it. Its an art that I've perfected. So I'm fake smiling at all these people and I totally check the guy out. 

And the first impression that I have of him is that he's the kinda guy you see in buses. Not the touchy-feely jerks. The kinds that sit in the last seat and stare at you until you get off the bus. I had a feeling I might've even seen this fellow in a bus somewhere. And he was staring at me right then. Yikes.

 
The mom and aunt and whoever that was makes small talk. I smile and talk, smile and talk. I felt like I was acting out the part of decent prospective bride in some B-grade movie.

And as much as I hated all of it and wanted to kill everyone for making me do it, I was obliged to behave. Too complicated to explain why.

 
There were these awkward silences where noone would say anything. They'd just have these huge toothy smiles and they'd all be staring at me. You have nooo idea how freaky that is. You look at them and they're just smiling and staring. Like in psycho movies! So I look at the guy. Who looks away whenever I look at him. Hello! What was with this dude?! He looked extremely uncomfortable and was totally fake laughing too. Well, it sounded fake. And he kept laughing at things that weren't funny at all! I hate having to do that. Smiling is ok. I really can't laugh at unfunny things unless its done/said by a really really Really cute guy. But even that has limits.

Hmm, anyway everything depended on the 5 minutes that I get to talk to him personally. I had even prepared a list of things I could ask him (few of which were totally vetoed by mum). I had the whole thing planned in my head. Either I prove to mum and dad that this guy is totally unmarry-able or I find something or the other to make him seem irresistable. Anything could happen in those 5 minutes.

 
Dad utters the sacred words : Maybe we should let the two of them speak privately.
Silence. Silence. Silence.
Guy (looking bewildered) :  I don't have anything to say!
Me (in my head) :  You've got to bloody kidding me! How the %$*& am I gonna fall madly and crazily in love with you if you don't let me talk to you! Should I say that I wanna talk? Would that be breaking the "decency" code? Do I really want to talk to this guy anyway? Why prolong this process? The sooner they leave, the sooner I can eat.

So I say nothing. Blah. Who cares.

I look at the food sadly. It was all almost over. :-(
I sadly look over at the little boy who came along with these people. He was kicking a ball towards my nephew. *sigh* I could kick way better than that. I wanted to go play with them. Damned bride-viewing nonsense. I look at the guy again who looks away again. Ugh.

When they all finally got up to leave, one of the women who came along with them held my hand and said goodbye. And she wouldn't let go! She was smiling and staring and smiling and not letting go! I freaked! I thought she wanted to take me home right then itself! Yeah sure like I'd go home with the guy who doesn't even wanna talk to me. I really couldnt understand it though. Why didn't he wanna talk to me? And why did he have to look so appalled at the idea of it? I hardly look intimidating. I couldn't even intimidate a lil baby! What was that guy's problem anyway?! Stupid guy missed the conversation of a lifetime. Oh well, his loss.

Before he left he once again did the whole filmy thing and turned around and glanced one last time and stuff. Very filmy. Yeah, can't speak to me but puts up all this filmy shit. Yeah. Okay.Whatever.
Anyhow, that ended and turns out nobody liked anybody very much and that was my narrow escape.
I still think that the custom sucks but its actually fun to think of now. And its given me something to write about.

 
Few more people came to see me after that. But it was all awfully dull. My sister figured I should just give in and marry some guy to put an end to these visits. Yeah, the ultimate reason to get married! I'm sure 'll figure out another way out of this. I've got time until my next bride-viewing session, don't I? Ugh!