Entertainment Pimp. Of Sorts.

Secrets are fun. Particularly when they’re someone else’s and you get to read. Anonymously. *evil cackle*

Most people see it for the harmless entertainment it is and enjoy it - no I don’t want to know what that says about me. Usually, hang ups can be sourced to an unusual (note: I did NOT say stuck up) sense of another’s privacy (make what you will of that…), nasty moods or plain ol’ fatigue. 

The way I see it, if the chump concerned doesn’t mind putting up something that may be ‘personal’, why the hell should we care? Same goes for all revealing blogs. If YOU enjoy reading them, just go ahead and fill MTNL’s coffers anyway. 

One globally popular adda is PostSecret. For some reason, I’m not a particularly big fan of all those pics covered with text, but hey, to each his own.

A few days back I looked up a site that I’ve heard a lot about but never actually visited. Highly entertaining stuff. You’ll find stuff you can relate to in a “Oh shoot, me too!” way. You’ll find stuff that has you hooting and doubling over. Then there’s some that’s essentially sad, you’d hate it if it was happening to you, but because it’s someone else, you pick up on the humour and give a wry smile anyway. Of course, you’ll find posts that do nothing for you, but hey, having you read it does nothing for the post either. 

The site is www.fmylife.com For the anti-abbreviationists out there, that’s Fuck My Life. 

Samples –

• Today, I signed up for an online dating service, a couple of days after my divorce. I got my first batch of matches, and number one was a smiling picture of the woman who had just divorced my ass after 20+ years together. Her profile shows she has to have been active there for months. FML

• Today, in my science class I sat next to my friend Jill. My teacher always gets our names confused calling me Jill & her Liz. She decided to combine our names. I'm now known as Jizz. My teacher clearly has no idea what it means. FML

• Today, I was driving in my car when out of the corner of my eye I notice a car pulling up next to me trying to get past me. I speed up, so as not to let the car pass me. It took me a while before I noticed I was racing against the shadow of my own car. FML

• Today, I yelled while I was sleeping....I was sleeping at a very important meeting with all the customers and my boss. FML

• Today, I lost my cell phone. But found it again! And then dropped it in the toilet. FML

You can post anonymously, answer a spot opinion poll and leave comments. Have a few good laughs, lighten up some, and get back to me with more sites if you know of them. 

Apologies to anyone who expected the post to be along drastically different lines. :P

Cheers

=)

A Couple Of Hours At Most.

You wonder why. You wonder why not. You wonder why you did. You wonder why you didn’t. You wonder why they did. You wonder why they didn’t. You may find the answers. Then again, you may not. Stories come your way all the same.

One orthopedic surgeon, a professor in Miraj, is operated on by another for a minor ligament tear. An arthroscopic surgery, for those interested. A cardiologist withholds the green flag citing possibility of cardiac trouble, proposes postponement of the procedure. The doctor in charge of the anesthesia has been a close friend of the patient-to-be for a while now. 

The team discovers that a well known orthopedic surgeon will be coming down to Belgaum for a visit soon. They fix a date for an OT meet up there in an unfamiliar, hut of a hospital as opposed to in Mumbai, as per prior plans. The patient goes under the knife. 

His brother, a gynecologist in the above mentioned metropolitan, stands guard outside the OT. He voices his doubts about the nursing home chosen. Urges them to reconsider, to pick Mumbai in light of the cardiologist’s warning. Shush, they say. Everything’s at hand. It’s expected to be a smooth show, Sir; a couple of hours at most. 

The warning flag has been disregarded; the whistle blown.

In hindsight, perhaps the cardiologist wasn’t really talking through his hat. Midway, they run into complications. Consulting or informing the sole relative present is ruled out, the procedure carries on. A cardiac arrest ensues. Call it intuition, call it boredom, call it primitive familial concern - within minutes the uninformed doc from the doorway rushes in. 

All that can be done gets done. That the nursing home is as poorly equipped as they come doesn’t help matters. Breach of trust at its worst. The patient is ‘in no condition to be shifted’. How the nursing home provides better facilities than a regular ambulance could be anyone’s guess. 

They try. Cardiac massages, all revival techniques possible put in an appearance. Jolts of electricity shoot through the man. To no avail. The patient loses his life. 

He was unmarried. He left behind grieving parents, and a brother who is now being accused for another’s lack of caution.

The next day, a missing car is traced. 

The anesthetist is found dead in the driver’s seat. He leaves behind old parents, a wife, and a child few months old. 

The post mortem reveals Scoline in his bloodstream. Scoline – a drug that paralyses all muscles until oxygen is artificially provided and that within 4 minutes. Beyond that? Brain death. Police evidence comprises a car locked from the inside, a motionless body and a syringe partnering an empty vial labeled ‘Lethal’. 

Suicide, they label it. For those hailing from a different school of thought, it’s about who murdered who.

Smooth show indeed.

What Did You Wish For?

Fresh after the 10th boards, I was looking to keep my choices open. Why Science? So I can switch streams later. Why biology? So that medicine is always an option. Why Swami’s? So I can switch to their Arts section in the 12th relatively easily, should the desire arise. Why the CET? That way engineering isn’t out. Why Symbiosis? So that BMM isn’t the only thing I can go in for. (And, if you want the truth, to find out just what the entrance test includes.)

But dude, what do you do when on the surface of it everything works out but the core of it is a jumble of randomly picked, conflicting molten metals? 

Be careful what you wish for, dear child, you may just get it.

Without going into much detail (your cue to laugh), I’ll have you know that I want to do that ostrichy, head-in-the-sand, you-can’t-see-me thing. Career confusion has gripped me, and indecision won’t leave me. But hey, it’ll all work out fine. Haha. Nonsense. I’m gonna get hysterical soon enough, I tell you… by the way, I’m awesome company (read- entertainment) when I’m hysterical. And that’s your cue to come tell me how I’m awesome company even otherwise :P

One thing – Symbiosis is out. I could use up an entire roll of toilet paper as notepaper, explaining the hows, the whys and the therefores, so let’s leave them questions alone. Know that I won’t land up in Pune after all. I have this theory that I’d love the ‘college life’ there, so to say. But having gathered a fractionally clearer picture of what I’d be doing once I’m outta there, it’s nopey nope for me. So here’s hoping I’ll learn to live with that decision and have no regrets later. And to apple-cinnamon pies topped with domes of vanilla ice cream. And to me mother. 

Getting things in place for the interview was memorable, to say the least. Which, me being me, won't happen.

The portfolio, bless it once and twice again, was completed sitting in the car, parked bang outside the campus walls, mere minutes before the interview was to begin. And to think I was asked if I joined classes to learn how to make and do up a portfolio. Yay to life in general! A 45 minute car ride from Kothrud to Viman Nagar was spent painting, pasting and repainting chunks of papier mache and strips of cardboard. An all nighter was managed with the help of SMSes and a cold floor, so I could prepare miniature paper mounts for the snaps I’ve taken over the years. Two gullible, unsuspecting friends were dragged to a fishing village, made to wait while I captured masalawallahs, chaatwallahs and then some fishy folks on film.

Good times, good times. Given a choice, I’d do it all over again. I think whatever SID prep work I’ve done will go down as real good fun, but fun that would eventually take me someplace I don’t think I want to be. 

I kinda feel like I’m betraying those paintings and photographs by using them as part of my portfolio, using them to convey my level of art and creativity to the panelists, using them to obtain the final go-ahead and then dropping the idea once it falls in place. It’s just not about whether or not they were deemed good enough by everyone who saw them… it’s simply that I enjoyed working on them, and just for that, they’re special to me. 

So here I am, all maudlin over some paint splattered on paper. Then again, it's paint I splattered. Samples from the portfolio beloved might just show up here.

So long. 

Shoot. I need to stop ending with that. It's like I'm attracting long deliberations and long speeches and long posts and.. long hair? Clearly, sleep is the need of the hour.

Stay well, folks.

Dear Lethargy, RIP.

Dear Lethargy,

We've been friends for close to two decades now. And what a friend! What decades! What a combination, darn it! My mind's tear glossed eyes see delayed replays of the times we walked hand in hand, strolling through the park and picking berries. Okay, so that was a lie. The berries never did quite make a show. You never even moved off your lazy behind, goddamn it! As for the tears... Still. The innocence. The heartfelt disregard for the rats that raced. Excuse me while I mop up this teary mess...

Remember the times when assorted deadlines flew by and all we wanted was to hear the "whoosh!" and see the back of them? When Monday came and Sunday went but everything, from bread to bath water remained unchanged? When the family got B grade movies for dinner because the other counters were too far away? When the bed first developed persistent depressions and consequent lumps?  When the birds overdid the mango tree routine because we chose to be generous? And lethargic, heehee. Sorry.

Some would call us 'chaddi buddies', some 'langotiya yaars' and some... okay, let's not go down that road.

The essence of it all is, you've been as faithful a companion as I could ever have wished for. Never have I felt the slightest trace of treachery or abandonment. You were loyal. You were there. True blue Liverpool style. True red, I mean.

But now... but now! But NOW!!

Okay guys, cut. So we just collectively discovered I can't handle filmy dramas. And Symbi needs me to be a drawer. Artsy fartsy. Whoop de doo, Mumbai it might just be! Coming back to the drama - It's worse when the script demands that first I K-reminisce and then do an about turn and screech "Magar aur nahi... main yeh zulm, yeh bojh, yeh nainsaafi bardaasht nahi kar sakti!". System overload ho jaata hai yaar. 

The general idea was to let it be known that killing off this blog is NOT the plan. I'm gonna get back to writing stuff and regularly. Sometimes there's so much to write about that I put it away for later... other times, there's "nothing to write about".

So I hope to hit up the New Post option sometime tomorrow and give you a well-deserved dose of my gyaan. Okay, so maybe you don't really deserve it.. but whoa, big deal.

This And That. Seriously.

And hello! Plenty of updates on the academic front, none otherwise. Which is why I think this post is going to be shorter and serious-er than usual. 

Here are a few mutually unrelated observations – that’s the most I could summon up the energy to do.

• To touch the tip of an ugly iceberg, I often feel like my time in Swami’s was a waste. I feel, not think. The Iceberg Diaries will resume later.

• Leaving the kid sister behind IF Symbiosis works out will be so so tough… I’m actually considering dropping the Symbi idea entirely on the basis of that. Go ahead, tell me I’m being needlessly sentimental. Or tellingly cowardly.

• Pune is one heck of a city. Well okay, so the only thing in its favour is its dry climate. You may wither and die thanks to the heat, but you won’t sweat. What a place.

• Traffic there is crazy. Drivers go zip zap zoom, bikers are vehemently anti helmet, and pedestrians have collectively vowed not to look up. Lane concepts got bypassed by the time Shivaji arrived.

• It pisses me off that every goddamned thing in Maharashtra has to do with Shivaji or Ambedkar. Didn’t anyone else ever do anything?

• I really want to get out and meet new people. That, preferably not in a pick up bar.

• Colleges have finally figured out that selling maximum possible admission forms is the cleanest way of minting money. Forms were available in SoBo colleges minus the standard glitches. 5 minutes would be the average time. Very impressive.

• I’m getting stressed out at the thought of having to pick a stream, course and college – in that very order – and soon. Come to think of it, there are times I mess up the order prescribed. There’s engineering at one end of the pole, designing in the middle and journalism at the far end. And of course, random ‘possibilities’ keep coming to mind. Why can’t I just do everything? :/ 

• What’s even more stress inducing is that most seem to think I have made up my mind. Haha.

• If nothing else, the declaration of results pushed many people from the past to call. Or send brief, exemplarily to the point SMSes – hey how much did you score? Bugged me at first - After that there were no calls. Point is, it was good to catch up with them.

• I find it weird that people expect me to be jealous of friends who scored more than me in the 12th. Need to bop them over the head and send them off to look up the term ‘friends’. And ‘deserved merit’, if I may add to their tasks.

• Atria, Worli is boring. Give it a miss.

In case you’re still reading, I still don’t know who sent me that bouquet with a “Congrates” card after the Std 10 board results. 

So long.