MALLUISM again!!!

This post is not to poke fun at a particular community if that's what you anticipate by reading the title.( At least we can be sure of the fact that they are much talked about :P please refer http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/kochi/Being-Mallu-tops-Indian-Twitter-trends/articleshow/11426137.cms )

This is the story of a lifelong plight that a poor 'mallu' might face for ages to come ( ahem..maybe it might be a publicity gimmick..this particular mallu likes being appreciated..ahem ahem..yeah yeah..ok this mallu definitely manages to grab some attention :P)

It has been eons since this mallu, belonging to the fairer sex had written a post on MALLUISM. (refer:http://www.mallikasridhar.blogspot.com/2009/01/malluism.html)

It was a phenomenon coined when she belonged to a different place at a different time. Desperate to shirk it off, she realized that her past caught up with her in an almost similiar form.

Now she just smiles in that same faraway wondering look in her eyes; at times stiffling an embarrassed giggle under her breath for the "way of life".

Poor Mallika; You name means the queen, in tamil ; the jasmine whose fragrance is intoxicating.

But now she is known and identified by definitive traits:

1. If you are lost and staring at free space : well this can only be- Mallu

2. If you can spot someone in close vicinity making a fool of herself : It is has to be- Mallu

3. If you are ocassionally dioriented, existing in a different dimension : It is no doubt- Mallu

4. Anything below the Vindhya mountains (sic) South Indians- Mallus from Malluland ( our Ms Mallu hates this sort of generalization..she likes to be unique :P and throws disgusting looks to those above the Vindhyas –“Dude, there are four states down there!!

5. The people who ask too many questions- Mallu sympathises with the critics,for though it can be a little exhaustive for the Northies,the ones below the Vindhyas uphold the essence of science by reasoning :P

Mallu though happens to fulfill 4 out of 5 of these traits despises to be associated with this particular community which goes to the “gelf” to visit their “ungle and aundy” in “thubaii”. She fights a desperate losing (because she knows in her heart it’s a wonder on earth :) battle with her mother and sister who love the God’s own country.

And so we rest the case here of what ever you wish to coin it– “Malluesque”, “Malluish” or which has become the "way of life" (read: to deal :P )

MALLUISM (we just cant deny its popularity :P)

A "Harry"ed Me - I

1999

A thin lanky child sat in the verandah, with her legs propped up, resting a fat book on them. She was reading the book with wonder and glee. Curious eyes watched her from the depths of the room. The owner of those curious eyes came out into the sunlight looking over the lanky child’s shoulder to get a glimpse of what she was doing. The child was at first taken aback, then found herself staring into the thick glasses of her older cousin. The child’s eyes had a twinkle which puzzled her cousin, a scrawny child with two thick braids reaching her shoulder. She sat down beside her young cousin and listened to her talk about magic and dark wizards and godfather and broomstick ( there was some dragon and a weird sounding creature called hippogriff… Azkaban?? ). Everything sounded very strange to the other child but somewhere she felt an urge to know what magic those brightly coloured books wove on her young cousin. She ran inside with an indignant air. She knew that the books she read were a lot more exciting than those wildly coloured magic books.

Both the girls played and talked at night for a while. The younger girl started yawning and got up to leave. She picked up one of the books and smiled at her sister as she left. The lamp cast dim shadows around. The older one sat there looking at one of the books. It was the thinnest of all those coloured ones her cousin had. She picked up one and looked at it. It had a nasty pink book cover with a boy’s face on it. He had huge round glasses on. He was looking at a bright train puffing pearly white smoke. The back cover had a tall man with a white beard wearing a royal blue robe with stars on it. She opened it after having stared at the book for a long time .Her eyes moved along the first few lines, the first few pages; she had a puzzled look on her face, the sequence of events not making any sense….

She read on and on; her eyes blurred with sleep, read through the last lines of the first chapter…those lines which was going to make her life chimerical..something that she would cherish all her life..which was her childhood…

“A breeze ruffled the neat hedges of Privet Drive, which lay silent and tidy under the inky sky, the very last place you would expect astonishing things to happen. Harry Potter rolled over inside his blankets without waking up. One small hand closed on the letter beside him and he slept on, not knowing he was special, not knowing he was famous, not knowing he would be woken in a few hours' time by Mrs.Dursley's scream as she opened the front door to put out the milk bottles, nor that he would spend the next few weeks being prodded and pinched by his cousin Dudley... He couldn't know that at this very moment, people meeting in secret all over the country were holding uptheir glasses and saying in hushed voices: "To Harry Potter -- the boy who lived!

Those dark rimmed round glasses....Thank you Div for making me see through them...life truly became wonderful:)

Supermen

Dear Men,

( The ones in my family...and yeah all those who relate to it or personally feel this post might ; in some way be a revelation of the sordid truth of their masculinity.)

PS : ( Disclaimer: It is in no way to hurt your towering male egos. No matter what you shall be indispensable :P...And so this is dearly dedicated to all those guys,chauvinists.(pigs??!!) )

I am putting up a very brave front...ahem...I am putting forth in detail whatever I may have muttered under my breath in the history of my 22 years of existence. As much as my fingers ache to type this down as a ubiquitous truth ; I shall only point out my personal observations.

I come from a patriarchal family.My grandfather,a strict disciplinarian also nurtured a huge male ego which of course passed down to his seven sons.For all the men in my relation everything they did and still continue to do; surpass excellence !( and the female species are surely inefficient ).Whether they cook-"God save you! you children will definitely chew your fingers off ! Just wait till you taste my sambhar." followed by the apparent- "your mum doesn't know how to cook... worse.. I taught her how to :P "

OK??!!! so men( ahem... in my family... I don't want to be badgered by the entire male species. I do know of some really wonderful ones outside my own clan :P ) do know how to cook and so goes for cleaning the house , washing the clothes , shopping wisely , operating the banks."Oh here we are - The supermen.Its our forte' ."

" Stock markets; well you won't understand. Why bother?"

"Rock and metal- definitely not for you.Why don't you go and listen to Hillary Duff."

" Die Hard- ahem.. we guys are going out for it.(read: "Excluding you, because of the simple rule-u're a girl ")

" WWE- Whoa no way, its not for dainty ones like you. Even watching it might just chip your nails. "

"Cricket- Please don't ruin my moment of solitude with the television with your lingering feminity."

[ A special mention about my bro Gautam-

PSP and Gameboy: Dude!! you cant learn it..you still happen to be a girl." (Hah!! I dismiss it for teenage turbulent period :P )]

And last but not the least chauvinism unleashed during the act of driving. If the car goes slowly-it's a woman.If the car doesn't pick up at green-it's a woman.If the car doesn't give way- it's a woman.If the car coughs and stops in between- whoa, it's confirmed,it's a woman because men think that women just can't drive as well as them.

And as my dad is confronted about this he dismisses it and comments on how much we woman criticize , crib and gossip( though I hate to admit it albeit it's true when he says " Women,that's your forte' ."Ahaan..there I snigger away to myself... Men, ye know not but ye practice the subtle art of it :D)


PS again : This has been a part of my drafts during my early workings with the blog. It was and still is dedicated to my Mum, my aunt, and my sister who have endured :P. No! , this , in no way means we are complaining. We are just amused at how amusingly amusing you are. To the most important men in our lives ( Sridhar, Vinod, Gautam and Aditya). We love you.

Yours Sincerely,

Not a feminist-"yet if need arises to protest against male-ism mental atrocities" enthusiast.

Chaos

....and they are in constant battle of wills. Its like a funny bumby ride. It makes you a little apprehensive but also gives you the thrill. There is a constant rebellion,something that wages a war on the inside but dreadfully placid on the outside. However the one who resides within is timorous and the other blithe. Its a bedlam out there...and in the din it is heard..

Alterego : Have you seen yourself? Dude!!!.... you are lame...

M : No Dude!! I am bored...

Alterego : Exactly my point!! Ok lets see what are the things that can do you some good.

M : Hah!! you saying that to me? You are a bore...in constant anguish. Oh!! to think of it what makes you fret so much?

Alterego : You man!! you!! I dont understand what is there to grin about all the time? I dont like your smile. Its like painted on your face!! makes me sick..

M : ...and you make me sick with the ravage you create inside most of the time. You are one who doesn't let me be. You, with that lost fuzzy look upon your face, with those distant dark pupils like a fathomless pit, for your eyes. What is it that you keep agonising about ?

Alterego : let you be? you seem to revel in things which are so mundane..to sum it up you seem like a perky, bubbly kid who pursues and craves for all the banal things in life. I am just trying to make you see light.I don't agonise. I am just a lot deeper than you think.

M : Don't talk about enlightening me when you are the one who stays in the dark!!... in gloomy places where you brood all day long. You ponder, you think. No one likes you. Call yourself deep? You are a shadow following me. It gives me a headache.

Alterego : Sigh!! think again man! It shall become extremely difficult for me to reside alongside this. There...There you go again...that's the problem with you. You think with your heart, I with my mind.

M : Don't try to reason with me. You just don't know how to live your life. C'mon!! chill dude!! Live it up . Ok , a li'l bit of this drink now, I am sure that will loosen you up bit.

Alterego : To what? to waste away my life. Do you know what gets me high?? Its the passion to live my life like I want to. To do the things I want to.

M : I am fed up!! That's not true. This is not what you are...this is me!! I am the one who lives my life like I want to!!

Alterego : Ahaan?? correction: you live a shallower version of what you call life. With this cackle of yours whom are you trying to impress? Not yourself for sure. I wonder where you are trying to fit ?

M : NOOOOO!!! just shut it out.. I dont want to hear you anymore.....

The din becomes louder; the hum turning into a chant . The voices getting louder...M was heard...

There was a man who had a face,
It looked a lot like me,
I saw him in the mirror and I fought him in the streets,
Then when he turned away I shot him in the head,
Then I came to realize I had killed myself.


It was foggy around , the lights were dimming.
hazy as it became, a slow rythm resounded in the voice of Alterego.

And I know I’m dead on the surface

But I am screaming underneath

And time is on your side
Its on your side now
Not pushing you down
And all around, no
It’s no cause for concern.

2wards 2orpidity?

4.am

I am lazy (Oh yes! and probably my mum might excitedly add in a few more unpleasant adjectives to it.) but for a start I gave my blog a makeover ( with possibly a hundred delays while surfing randomly through the net and darn!! why on earth does facebook exist? ) and so while I sit down to write( after a very very long time), stifling a yawn ; I contemplate switching off the lights,snuggle into the blankets and procastinate this post for a week( I told you I am ,lets take a better sounding word: nonchalant).

Well this post was planned up for July just after a pretty vapid birthday.

What I expected was far too different from what I got.

A peck on the cheek probably suffices on such occassions according to family elders . The younger brother thinks of it as any ordinary day and broods around in corners with the 'whats the big deal with wanting the whole affair to be so much "wheeee".' ( Ahh!! I am willing to sideline it as teenage problems.)

So as the year comes to an end; I end up thinking how vastly things have changed.

The year has been satisfying on a whole. It started in a great city and might probably end up in a great one too. Both have seen me as different people.

That jump around animated brat is more reticent, demure and as my mother cheerfully puts it, sober. From the 'pack my bags and run off' to the 'laze around in the weekends' sort of a person.

I have had to 'settle' at home again.

Yes the latter part of the year saw me more prudent and probably wiser of the decisions I took in the former and as I sit and muse, all the vivid pictures flash, of another time which was so fast paced that probably I savour it now with all the ruminations.

22? call it torpid. I laugh at myself for turning a lot older in a matter of months. For the better or not is something I cannot fathom but at the moment,the only thing that brings a smile is the awaiting Sunday morning hot oil bath and yapping in the eve with my mum over a bowl of sweet corn soup.

Mumbai Chronicles I - The confessions

After some soul writing, back to the old days ( I wonder why this irresistable urge to write only when exams are round the corner?? As they say an idle mind is a devil's workshop but I feel its utopian, full of those random lucid thoughts...and just then, that circuit diagram floating in front of you reminds you to get back to reality...yes the very reality that makes you curse for the sh*t you got into..yes I would have loved to be a thinker if there is any such occupation) Oops for the digression. For those who think that my posts are just centered around me and probably not a single word on the raging world issues ( as if we dont have enough of the media debates on them the whole day ) I would like to share the little intricacies of life..which maybe becomes quite a mundane affair for most of us.
For the past six months this has been stored in my drafts. I was collecting my observations and I knew I would have more things to add on to it.
I am a little ashamed to pronounce myself as a Delhite. Four years ago this very statement would have earned me proud smiles and a pat on the back by my fellow compatriots, those very ,who initially showed sympathy at my moving out of my home town for my graduation. But as the years trundled along, it saw me admiring a lot of the culture in which I settled in. Yes, Pune was a wonderful experience. I can write a novella on all my exploits there. Its probably shaped me into a different, hopefully better me.
But in my last two years I have had the taste of one of the most enigmatic cities I have come across( Bombay lovers are going to embrace me on this..I expect a few sloppy kisses too ).
I had my apprehensions albeit the fact that there was something about the city that pulled me towards it time and again. It mysteriously romanced me.
As they say " Jo Bombay aata hai.. woh bas yahin ka reh jaata hai "
I dont know how true that holds for me. I am still soul searching it.
It has it all. Among the starry blitz; the common man or the fast paced work culture and yet a calm which is tenacious. Maybe as a child I never got to see the real Delhi but as an adult I got to feel a city so enthralling.
The air which smells of the salt and fish .The first thing that you become aware of are the beads of sweat on your brow and still you look on at that fervent energy around you,trying to infuse yourself with it.
As my days in Pune-Bombay are numbered and before I go back to "rediscovering" the Delhi I left behind , I want to chronicle it. So keep visiting all Mumbaikars...
Till then (from the hit '78 movie, Don) " Yeh hai Bambai nagariya..tu dekh babbua."

With Or Without You

She stopped dead in her tracks. Her eyes stinged and they trickled,hot tears, blurring her sight.Dazed,she looked around at the sea of faces around her. She saw no escape and yet she found her solace in it. Those very faces looked quizzically at her but knew nothing to judge her. She wanted to defy them and so justify to them. Those emotions in which there was a reason to rejoice as well as wallow. She wanted to keep feeling it, desperately trying to hold on to the threads of joy...but why and for whom did she want to engulf in sadness and let it go?
She felt warm and sublime, his eyes on her and yet she made herself cold and indifferent to it. Those doe shaped eyes, wide open or shut saw her, for darkness could not take away the light of her face, her smile which wrinkled her nose. They stole glances at her but wandered off when caught. Those eyes wanted her to know, yet hesitated.
Everytime their elbows grazed, she made it linger for seconds till she jerked it away. She wished time would halt as she felt his shallow breathing on her neck,yet prayed for it to slip away quickly. The more she sidled away, the more she was drawn towards him to drown herself into his arms.
He wanted her arms around his neck, her lips on his, their souls conjoined but found himself distancing away.
He saw those empty faces around him, those questions,but did he care? His pain was sweet but could he take it anymore?
They walked as one,in the milling crowd and yet away from it. Both were afraid to catch the hum in the air and yet a chord struck in their hearts, a harmony so intertwined that they felt blessed and cursed.
So was the dichotomy of love.....