Friday, May 27, 2005

We've Only Just Begun

Rain is lashing against the windows in office, and sitting with my coffee I can finally blog . My life has suddenly changed direction and no one is more surprised thanI am .I got engaged , earlier this month. It was sudden :- a meeting, a 3 hr chat and a 'yes' settled it. Who knew my prince charming would land up by taking a plane ,travel 11000 miles just to see me and fly back in a week .I keep wondering if he said yes under severe jet lag :)
I always believed that a person instinctively will know when they meet the right person who they will spend their life with. And for once I was right!!!. Opposites in every way - different streams at work , personalities, hobbies , but destiny has her own game to play .

The whole meeting was arranged by a common friend (bless her to eternity :) ) ,who contacted the respective parents and egged both of us till we met. I have developed a great deal of respect for Fathers, his dad and mine, who orchestrated the whole engagement in such speed that they would put the recent papal conclave to shame :)). Right from the hall to the invites ,everything was done in less than 2 days. 140 people in their best turned up fighting the 40C Chennai temperature .Of course the pandit chose the wrong hall and landed up an hr late but that did'nt dampen the buzz that generated through the hall .Though having the video camera trained on me is something I dreamed of , since I saw my first movie, blindness was’nt an option I was thinking about.I now realize why modern women in their weddings still gracefully look down, we cant stand the lights in our faces :).My fiancé on the other hand who was still handling jet lag, the heat, a crowd of people who constantly asked him when he arrived looked as if he would have preferred to run the Bangalore Marathon then standing in front of the camera man, who was pleading with him to smile.

The parents had the biggest smiles on their faces and I for one was really glad that I got someone my parents were proud of.More than us, the friends and family were congratulating our respective parents for finally finding someone for their offspring.That kinda of trouble the parents went through, to get us to say YES!!! to marriage in the first place. A kind of dampner for me was that my sister was not present , as she was in the States, its times like these that every joy needs to be shared and I really missed having her yell at me :) .My exercise for the month was extracted with the falling of the feet of the elders. It was sweet revenge for my mom, who kept telling me to do it all these years under the “boy meeting” pretext and I conveniently kept folding my hands in namaste when it was required. The week passed in a jiffy and only when I came back to work did the feeling really sink in.
With the office ragging ,came the realization that there is someone else to whom I was accountable and whom I was responsible for. That was when I realized everything in my life was about to take a sudden turn. I had to leave my family , friends and every other thing I was accustomed to in 25 years to be with someone ,whom I had a 3 hour conversation with.!!!!!! But the best part of the whole deal is , I am actually looking forward to it… .. so Dame destiny did something right after all ::>

As I sit listening to Carpenters (and so the title :)) and watching the rain … have a lovely weekend all of you


As for the jokes, I found these good..

Actual analogies and metaphors found in high school essays

1. She walked into my office like a centipede with 98 missing legs.
2. Her face was a perfect oval, like a circle that had its two sides
gently compressed by a Thigh Master.
3. He spoke with the wisdom that can only comes from experience, like a
guy who went blind because he looked at a solar eclipse without one of
those boxes with a pinhole in it and now goes around the country speaking at
high schools about the dangers of looking at a solar eclipse without one
of those boxes with a pinhole in it.
4. She grew on him like she was a colony of E. coli and he was room
temperature Canadian beef.
5. She had a deep, throaty, Re: genuine laugh, like that sound a dog
makes just before it throws up.
6. Her vocabulary was as bad as, like, whatever.
7. He was as tall as a six-foot-three-inch tree.
8. The revelation that his marriage of 30 years had disintegrated because of his wife's infidelity came as a rude shock, like a surcharge at a formerly surcharge free ATM.
9. The little boat gently drifted across the pond exactly the way a
bowling ball wouldn't.
10. McBride fell 12 stories, hitting the pavement like a Hefty bag filled
with vegetable soup.
11. From the attic came an unearthly howl. The whole scene had an eerie,
surreal quality, like when you're on vacation in another city and Jeopardy
comes on at 7:00 p.m. instead of 7:30.
12. Her hair glistened in the rain like a nose hair after a sneeze.
13. The hailstones leaped from the pavement, just like maggots when you
fry them in hot grease.
14. Long separated by cruel fate, the star-crossed lovers raced across
the grassy field toward each other like two freight trains, one having left
Cleveland at 6:36 p.m. traveling at 55 mph, the other from Topeka at 4:19
p.m. at a speed of 35 mph.
15. They lived in a typical suburban neighborhood with picket fences that
resembled Nancy Kerrigan's teeth.
16. John and Mary had never met. They were like two hummingbirds who had
also never met.
17. He fell for her like his heart was a mob informant and she was the
East River.
18. Even in his last years, Grandpappy had a mind like a steel trap, only
one that had been left out so long, it had rusted shut.
19. Shots rang out, as shots are wont to do.
20. The plan was simple, like my brother-in-law Phil. But unlike Phil,
this plan just might work.
21. The young fighter had a hungry look, the kind you get from not eating
for a while.
22. He was as lame as a duck. Not the metaphorical lame duck, either, but
a real duck that was actually lame, maybe from stepping on a land mine or
something.
23. The ballerina rose gracefully en pointe and extended one slender leg
behind her, like a dog at a fire hydrant.
24. It was an American tradition, like fathers chasing kids around with
power tools.
25. He was deeply in love. When she spoke, he thought he heard bells, as
if she were a garbage truck backing up.
26. Her eyes were like limpid pools, only they had forgotten to put in
any pH cleanser.


Keep Smiling :)

Anu

Wednesday, May 04, 2005

And the Hero lies in You

Today I was proud of how the Indian women have changed. Finally through the stories of child marriages, dowry deaths has come a ray of hope. I am talking about the Shanthi Mukund hospital case

Here we had a old Hindi movie replaying where suddenly the hero who was the villain for 2.55 hrs of 3 hrs movie, changes heart and marries the heroine whom he had raped. I used to keep wondering, why we put up with movies like that and even make them into hits. Well Kudos to the Real heroine in the above case, she told the court to give him the severest punishment .That my friends was a defining point!!!. We had an Indian women not desolately giving up hope because she has lost her eyesight, and was mentally and physically brutalized. What shocked me though, was the court actually reconsidering/staying their decision till the girl spoke out and of course the Rs.5000 fine that the rapist had to pay. I am not asking for a beheading but something, which will make another human wild animals shake in their shoes is in order. Living in Bangalore, the stories of the Cab drivers raping their passengers and 17 year olds getting mauled is getting common. What is scary is that people don’t even bother to act concerned. What angered me was one of my colleagues commenting, that girls dressing the way they do probably deserved it (the shiv sena attitude).

What is wrong with us nowadays? Values and cultural roadmaps which guarded women are getting torn down .Working late is a requirement nowadays, added to the tension of our anemic, sleepless lifestyles, we really don’t require the scare of a cab or an auto drivers turning psycho on us. The punishments meted out and the logic and reasoning which is tried to justify the crime, really is beyond me. I can’t even imagine the gal of the rapist, who on the day of his sentencing professed his noble intention of marrying the girl who no one else will marry now. I think he degraded the entire male population of the nation with that comment. Men have evolved with women and the equity of balance has been maintained but an attack like the above shakes that balance every day and that leads to an integral trust betweens humans shaken. What we need to reinforce in every human being is the value of another’s life .
Women are getting independence, but I wonder if society is making us pay a cost for it. I think independence is not about having lots of money and standing on your own feet. It’s about fighting for what’s right and I think only now women are starting to realize that. After the initial flush of women’s rights and movements, the hard reality is hitting us . When we venture into the world, there are certain factions which still prefer the dark ages where the source of power for a man came from his humiliations of fellow humans beings.To counter this power we need to draw from internal strength that each one of us has.
Coming back to the Indian women/Girl, Making me even prouder were the young tribal girls, who complained and signed petitions refusing to marry as they wanted to study . That is GIRL POWER, power puff girls must be replaced by these young uns who went against parents and society. For me rebellion consisted of leaving my hair open and long earrings for school. But to tell your parents , that come hell or high water, you will be the mistress of your destiny, is showing a maturity that I didn’t have at their age.We need this wave to sweep through the nation. Waiting for the knight in shining armor is a concept of long ago. Women need to protect themselves, and stop waiting for society to cast its benign eye their way. So to the lady who went through the attack and had courage to tell the court and the nation that she didn’t need her rapist as her security blanket , THANK YOU and BRAVO.

Wow , that was some post.. so to make it lighter.

Out of office replies - "the Best of Dilbert"

1: I am currently out at a job interview and will reply to you if I fail
to get the position. Be prepared for my mood.

2: You are receiving this automatic notification because I am out of the
office. If I was in, chances are you wouldn't have received anything at
all.

3: Sorry to have missed you but I am at the doctors having my brain
removed so that I may be promoted to management


4: I will be unable to delete all the unread, worthless emails you send me
until I return from vacation on 4/18. Please be patient and your mail will
be deleted in the order it was received.


5: Thank you for your email. Your credit card has been charged $5.99 for
the first ten words and $1.99 for each additional word in your message.


6: The e-mail server is unable to verify your server connection and is
unable to delive! r this message. Please restart your computer and try
sending again.'(The beauty of this is that when you return, you can see how
many in-duh-viduals did this over and over).


7 Thank you for your message, which has been added to a queueing system.


You are currently in 352nd place, and can expect to receive a reply in
approximately 19 weeks.


8: Hi. I'm thinking about what you've just sent me. Please wait by your
PC for my response.


9: Hi! I'm busy negotiating the salary for my new job. Don't bother to
leave me any messages.


10: I've run away to join a different circus.


AND, FINALLY, THIS ONE TAKES THE CAKE :


11: I will be out of the office for the next 2 weeks for medical reasons.


When I return, please refer to me as 'Loretta' instead of 'Steve'.

Keep smilin
Anu :)