I'M BACK.

I can basically hear a lot(I hope I'm allowed to exaggerate) of you sighing inwardly but yes. I'm actually back. Well technically I wasn't gone so I couldn't be back but you get my point. Er that's it for this post. Yes. I actually decided to NOT rant. I did write a post AND I did save it but I lost it in the depths of Mordor. Sorry. Shouldn't have gone there. My bad. So onward with the blogging.

How I make tea

Tea is something I can’t live without. So I’m compelled to make it 3 times a day. I’ve decided to share with you my tea recipe albeit with some other totally pointless and random stuff that I somehow end up doing. For those of you who are viewing this post in the hopes that I will be giving you the recipe for making tea, I’m going to be a good girl and say that you shall not be disappointed. Just consult an expert first or you might blow up your house.

	How it’s supposed to be done	How I do it
1)	Turn on the gas stove.	Go into the kitchen. Complain about how messy it is but do nothing to make it less messy. Then go the LPG cylinder and turn the knob this way and that and finally figure out the right way . Take the lighter and light the stove (in not less than 3 tries).
2)	Take a vessel. Keep it on the stove.	Rummage through the cupboard and choose the nearest one(pff.Easy).Keep it on the stove lopsidedly.
3)	Pour about 1 ¼ cups of water	Fill 2 cups with water. Spill some down. Curse the world. Recover. Drink the water from 1 cup. Fill it again (not exactly ¼ because how in the world am I supposed to keep track of that? It’s water. Come on)
4)	Put the ‘tea powder’ (about 3 small spoonful) in the water and allow it to boil till the volume of water left is approximately ½ that of its original volume. The aroma of the tea should now fill the room.	Take a spoon. Decide not to use it because it’s too big which will lead to an error in the measurements (10 points for trying). Search for a smaller spoon. I won’t find it. Use the bigger spoon anyway. Spill some tea powder down. It mixes with the already spilt water and becomes even more disgusting. Curse myself now. Allow the water to boil. Curse about how hot the kitchen is. Decide to go stand under the fan. Hear a sizzling sound and realize that I’ve let the water boil for too long, so much so that the amount of water now left is just about a pint. Vow NEVER to make tea again. Ah yes. The aroma. All that I’m able to smell now is my sweat and my frustration.
5)	Turn the stove off and pour about a cup of milk (if you want your tea to be ‘strong’, pour little milk else pour a lot of milk). Use a strainer to remove the tea powder. Put sugar as per your requirement.	Turn the stove off without anymore mishaps. Pour some milk. Taste the tea. Spit it out realizing it’s too hot. Howl for my mother to set things right. She howls back saying “you started it. You must be the one to finish it”. Damn it. Wait for the molten lava to cool. Add sugar. Taste it again. Realize that more milk needs to be added. Add milk. Realize that more sugar needs to be added. Do the usual swearing routine. Add sugar. Search for the strainer and successfully find it. Do the needful. Pour a little bit of it down again.
6)	Your tea ought to be ready now. Enjoy it.	The tea is ready but the kitchen is not. So try my level best to do something. Fail. Accept my life and try to move on. Get out of the kitchen and drink my tea. Realize it’s the sweet nectar of life and heaven. Congratulate myself and wallow in self praise. Decide to break my vow. Hear my mom screaming at me to clean the kitchen. Wallow in self pity.

 P.S. Just so you  know, the tea usually turns out to be pretty good (even by my standards).

Why I don’t(can’t) watch movies.

I can hear you all questioning my sanity(and my honesty) but just hear me out.  My mother tongue is Tamil. I have the option to switch between Tamil films and Hindi films (I don’t mean to brag but I've finished all the Hindi exams and am currently a Hindi pandit. ahem.) and yet I don’t watch films nor have I watched many(now short films are a different story). Now allow me to explain myself.

1) I don’t watch films because I’m too lazy to go the theater.  What’s the point?  Wait for a week and you get to see it in the comfort of your own sweet home. You try going to a theater on the first day release of a Rajini(sir) film and come out unscathed with your hearing and limbs intact.You’ll know what I mean. Trust me. I've tried. I know you want to get the ‘theater experience’ and stuff but you don’t have to ‘experience’ it every time a movie releases right?.Maybe it’s just me. We’ll never know will we?

2)I watch films ONLY if they’re on TV and ONLY if their show timings don’t interfere with my sleep schedule(nap time included). We have a set top box. And this is really bad because you can now choose which channels to not watch. So my parents don’t pay for the English movies channel no matter how much I beg them to(no surprise there). So that’s out.

3) What’s that? Watch videos on the internet? Okay. My internet is as slow as me doing a Chemical equilibrium problem. So if the movie is for 3 hours it takes me triple the time to download it or watch it online (1 hour for the website to load, 1 hour for the link to load, 2 hours for me to decide whether or not I actually want to watch this movie after all this inner and outer turmoil, 1 hour for me to go find my laptop charger and the rest of the time for it to buffer/download. You do the math).All hell breaks loose if my internet gets cut in the middle which, you guessed it, happens all the time.

3) I’m very picky. I don’t like love stories. I don’t like sad movies that make me cry every time I see a character who make it a point to either deliver emotional dialogues every time they appear or need to have very emotional background music every time they appear. I don’t watch superhero movies (they’re too super hero-ey). If I don’t like the movie in the first half hour then I won’t watch it. So my fussiness eventually leads me into rejecting most of the movies they show on TV.

4) If a movie is too serious I’ll skip the middle part. As a result I will be so busy figuring out where these extra characters came from and trying to patch up the story-line with what little information I have that I’ll end up not paying attention to the climax. Sad.

5) Interruptions.  My family has decided that the best time to watch shows on TV is when I’m 2 minutes into a movie. It ALWAYS happens irrespective of the day or time. And when I finally do get to watch it, it’s either finished or a major chunk of it is over.

Now you know why I prefer to stare at a wall than watch a movie. Who can I blame?
But even after all these I did get around to watching a handful of movies in the theater(most of them were Harry Potter movies and the recent one was Tenaliraman.Oops.Too much information). But I’m going to take a chance this time. This time when 'Kochadaiiyaan' releases (if you haven’t guessed it yet, I’m a huge Rajini Fan) I WILL watch it third day itself in the theater. Yes. My left leg isn't too important anyway.

Embarrassing stories part 1

By now all of you might know how interesting my life is. But even I have some (ok ok many) ‘special’ moments where I had wished the Earth would swallow me or that I’d become invisible somehow.
Needless to say the above methods didn't (and don’t) work. So I had to face the consequences of the things my stupid self did.
1) This happened in 7^th. It was social period and we were doing maps. I tore pieces of paper and put it on my neighbour’s head.  After a few minutes my teacher noticed it. I guess he was in a bad mood because he made her stand up and shouted at us asking who did this dastardly act. Come on. It was paper. Sheesh!  Being the badass that I am I didn’t own up. So he took her to the principal(?). Then I saw this guy look daggers at me. He came up and asked me in front of the whole class why I hadn’t confessed. I innocently asked him what he was talking about. Then he said he saw me do it. Then another girl said she saw me do it. Then another. I was speechless. So I ran out of the classroom crying. And now whenever that guy sees me he never forgets to remind me of the ‘bad thing I did in 7^th’. Honestly people.

2) I used to go to this English class when I was in 4^th. One fine day we(me and my cousin brother) went to her house as usual. We knocked and nobody answered. So we thought she wasn't at home and rejoiced at the fact that there was no class that day. So we went to their terrace and started laughing and joking loudly (not to mention running) and then we returned home. The next day she came to our house and told my mom, very angrily of course, that we had bunked class. (bunk? We didn't do it on purpose okay) And she narrated in full detail everything she heard us say in the terrace and let me tell you this-we weren't exactly talking anything good about her or anybody else as a matter of fact. The rest, as they say, is history. Needless to say we never went there again.

3) When I was about 7 my mom enrolled me in some workshop that dealt with matters 7 year olds could not comprehend. I couldn't anyway. The lady was talking about time and stuff and how it was always moving and doesn't stop for anyone (common workshop material I guess). She asked the gathering, numbering 1000, if we had any questions. So I innocently asked her ”maam doesn't time stop when you take the batteries out of the clock? ”(I was a special kid. A weird kind of special kid). Yes. I actually said this in front of 100 kids and their parents (not to mention my parents). Of course everyone started pointing and laughing and the speaker was looking daggers at me(I guess I had ruined her ‘beautiful presentation’).

Well that’s all. So now I shall go to a corner and cry silently reviewing and exaggerating all the above moments and you can slap your thighs ,roll on the floor with tears in your eyes(I’m pretty sure they’re not sympathy tears)  and laugh till your sides ache. And for those kindred souls who have experienced/will be experiencing such ‘special moments’ I feel your pain. And I assure you if you write a blog post about that I will be the first one to read it and laugh heartily.

'Face'book

I’m not going to sing the praises of facebook here. People are paid to do that. I’m not.
My profile picture (a.k.a. DP. For those of you who have no idea what it stands for , let me be the ‘light at the end of the tunnel’ by saying it stands for descriptive picture) is Leonardo Di Caprio. Yes I’m a female. Yes I don’t look like Leo. Meh. Who does?
I am aware of the unspoken rule that people ought to keep a picture of their face (read selfie) as their DP.  Let me elaborate on that. Facebook is for meeting new people(I guess). Now wouldn’t it be enough for a stranger to know your gender and where you’re from (optional) apart from your name? Does he/she have to know how many moles you have on your face or how many hairs you have on your eyebrow?  It’s a stranger for god’s sake. He/she is supposed to know how you look like only if you trust him/her enough to meet in person which I’m sure most of you would blatantly refuse to do. So why trust him/her with your picture? How can you be sure he won’t use your picture in unimaginable (remember that Goundamani joke where they use his picture for ‘aangal kakkoos’ or gents toilet for the less enlightened ones) ways?

"Dafaq am I doing here"?
"I was just giving life advice"
"Huh.Keep doing such important services to humanity"
I'm so funny.

                                             
Okay. Lets talk about friends (read college mates, school mates, colleagues). They see you every day in person. Do they have to see you whenever they log on to check their notifications too? Aren’t you torturing them enough?  Now lets go to group photos. The whole idea of a group photo is(should be, in my opinion) it would be difficult to actually find out which one of the 2(3,4,5...) is you. But this only works if you haven’t tagged people or if this is your first picture. (‘they’ say the ugliest one in a group picture is the person who uploaded the picture but who am I to judge?). So frankly this won’t work for anyone except for people who get this joke.

Haha. Gets me every time. By the way this is Chemistry cat.
No amount of information is too much.

                                                 

On a more serious note, people say "those who cant accept themselves(apparently because they hide behind a celebrity) cannot accept others". Well why would I want to accept people who I don't know? If I really did want to accept them I would just go meet them. Letting people see your face doesn't qualify as acceptance. There are MANY other ways and you're just too shallow to understand them.
Others say "people who don't have their photos on Facebook are ugly.That's why they don't want to show their face". You haven't seen me. Yet you've already judged me. I can't expect people like you who think beauty is having a photogenic(not pretty but photogenic) face AFTER you've edited it to actually understand whatever I tell you. So I WONT explain myself to them.
Let’s face it. We all do it to get likes. Just like how we do a bunch of other stuff on Facebook(don’t deny it). The like button is there for a reason. Yes.

I hope this truckload of likes satisfies your even bigger ego.
Just kidding.Or not.No one will ever know.

                                     
The above paras that I have written after years of research, hard work and joblessness is the reason why I don’t have my pretty(ahem) face as my DP. But let me confess. If I do get the ‘perfect DP shot’(after editing it of course) I shall not delay a single minute (What? How long can one resist the fad?). And I bet you that picture will get 80+ likes. If it doesn’t then I shall remove all traces of its existence. I assure this shall happen when Fevicol ads stop being awesome or when they decide to rope in someone other than Abhishek Bachan for idea ads or when I stop using 9gag. (P.S. they’re not going to happen anytime soon so yay I don’t have to download photo editing softwares).
Everyone’s happy right?

Enough internet for today. Sorry Big B. Couldn't resist.

                             

The almighty blanket

Night-time. Darkness. Eerie , silent darkness. You sense a phantom hand trying to grab your leg. What do you do? Pull it inside your blanket of course. Roll yourself into a ball and cover yourself with that single piece of cloth. Sounds familiar?

This is me. Every night. 

Blankets are the only form of protection against evil beings known to man. Monsters under the bed, the girl from the ‘ring’, Mike Wozawski all have one thing in common. They fear blankets. Every single spirit known to exist quails in the presence of that formidable cotton/woollen cloth. This might come as a surprise for people but the blanket, apart from protecting the wearer from harm, death and destruction, also serves to keep him/her warm. No Really. My current blanket is a woollen one. It even looks scary. But it's big. So I don’t have to twist my body into uncomfortable positions to fit into it. It's summer here in Chennai. And that means I'm always bathed in my own sweat and grime. I can practically HEAR you all asking me why in the freaking world would I be using a blanket then.

Well there's something worse than ghosts here. Mosquitoes. Those nasty unscrupulous blood sucking mutations. Yes. I do have Mortein (it’s a brand that makes mosquito repellent coils and stuff that work as much as I do on a Sunday.).

Here.Have a Mortein.

                                             
I did buy a mosquito bat once. It’s a device that electrocutes mosquitoes so much so that not even their singed mangled bodies are left behind. Pure heaven. But good things seldom last. The bat broke. And this time it wasn't me who broke it. It was my cousin. He's 3 years old. And you know what 3 year olds do. The next thing I know the bat’s broken and the plaster from the wall lay scattered on the floor. Okay so the mosquitoes won that round. Great. And after that the assault started again. They got worse at night. So you see I had no other choice but to cocoon myself inside my blanket and try to ignore the fact that I was feeling exactly like how a cookie would feel inside an oven. But I'm a messy sleeper. So in the middle of the night when my fort(a.k.a. blanket) is broken and my defenses are down, the mosquitoes start their well planned attack. They succeed. I wake up. Squat a few. Then strengthen my fort. It’s a vicious cycle. Ah well. I heard there's this new mosquito repellent card in the market. It promises to kill all the mosquitoes in 2 minutes. Hmm. I wonder how much 200 of them would cost.

The concept of Blogging

I don’t fancy blogs. But I do like the concept of blogging. Blogs are supposed to be online diaries. Which means a blogger MUST blog daily which might prove inconvenient to people who don’t even have time to wash behind their ears.But not to me because I don’t write in my diary daily. I write once a year. That too only if it happens to be an eventful year. And I haven't had many eventful years. So the ‘use blog like a diary' rule isn't going to bother me. Rules never do.  Not even ‘danger zone. Do not enter’. Yeah. I’m a badass.

I'm from India. So my dad gets no less than 10 diaries every year. So I've been associated with diaries right from the time when I was a baby. Of course I had no idea what I was supposed to use them for at that time. And I still haven't figured it out. But that's not the point.

Most of my doodles looked like this

When I was about 5 I learnt to write. And by write I meant join letters. In cursive of course. Those diaries were my solace. I would have hardly written a sentence that made sense but I was 5. Cut me some slack. When I was 7 I stated writing these "description" essays. You know those 'my mom, my dad, my pet, my school etc with crappy text and alignment. (I used sketch pens. What can you expect?) Not to mention the language. Most of the space in the page (including the ones near that day’s date at the top and the all days of the month at the bottom) was filled with doodles and drawings of the thing I was currently 'descriptive essaying'. (The one in ‘my role model’ was super-worse. I had to draw Rahul Dravid. Go figure). When I was 11 my mom used to give me these handwriting practices. (My handwriting wasn't that bad but you know.Mothers.humph!). They were hell. But I used to draw these cartoons and give them these speech bubbles with stupid immature dialogues that were nowhere near funny. (I have no regrets. I was 11.Everything's funny when you're 11).

Then when I was 15 I started to write the 'once in year' diary that I had mentioned. Most of it was teenage drama.(not mine because I was as interesting to people as a beanstalk). I STILL scribbled. I still drew cartoons and gave them speech bubbles. The only difference was the dialogues had the I's and the first letter after the ‘.’ capitalized. Then suddenly when I turned 17 the entire extra 'dad diaries' collection vanished. But that was because I had used them to practice for my 12th boards. Yeah. I was a good student. Meh. Then I decided to write (oops I mean type) a blog. I started with the enthusiasm of a kid who had found his lost power ranger toy.(Tsk.Kids). It was alright for a few DAYS. Then I began to miss those speech bubbles and my awesome font (yeah I have my own font. It’s called my handwriting). I hadn't written a diary. I had typed a paragraph. People do that for their thesis. Not to express their feelings.  I didn't feel the connection. It was all systematically aligned, spaced and justified. I had no idea how I was feeling while I typed that blog because I had no cartoons to guide me. (normally if I was happy my speech bubbles would be like “I have to tell you this joke werky(?).Why did the cow cross the road? To get to the udder side.hahaha.” It's funny.Come on.)

But as always we're programmed to adapt to change. So I will continue blogging. But once my ‘dad diaries’ shelf resumes its full glory, its back to square one. How long can one remain without their speech bubbles? Ah those were the days. And all you people who are going ’Tsk tsk. Doodling on paper? Did she even give a thought to those poor trees?’ , tell that to those teachers that tell us poor students to ‘write spaciously. Write 1 question per page. Oh it’s for 1 mark? So what? You'll get plenty of additional sheets. Don’t show your concern for the environment in your answer paper.’