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Thursday, March 25, 2010

Those Little Girls...

She was so excited about her new school. It was a bigger school so she was all happy that there will be more new friends. Just like her, she thought a lot more girls, they will join their hands with her and play, they sing and learn new songs, they dance with her for the funny songs they sing and laugh, she thought she will be happy. Her old school was small and old. This school was new. Why not, its one of the best schools in town.


The entrance exam was not tough at all. She did it in no time. English grammar questions were cake walk and mathematics was so much fun. She solved that geometry question in a jiffy and beamed with pride that the exam was so easy. Head mistress came to her guardian and told she faired really well and was welcome to the school. She did not know it was a great thing to have got an admission in that school. All she knew was – bigger the school, better the friends will be.

She loved her new bag and the smell of new books. It was also her first new Bicycle. It was only a few days which passed and she was asked to speak English there. It was easy to write English but to speak? She was scared. Scared that she is from a small school where no one spoke English and her first language was a native language. She never knew English was such an important language. Now was the time for her to learn but they already wanted everyone in the class to speak English. She had so many things to say, but only afraid that she would say it wrong and they will laugh at her. So, she kept to herself. Only amused how well the others speak.



One told her, that they didn’t want to sit with her. She asked her to sit down. She wanted to ask why. She was told that she studied in a smaller, native language school that’s why. She cried, Soaked her old school skirt with tears. She sat down and cried again untill the teacher came to the class. Teacher asked her why was she sitting down. She didn’t know how to form a sentence to say, “They want me to sit down on the basis of my old school”. Such a simple sentence she couldn’t open her mouth to say this. She could write but the teacher would not have had the seriousness to read. For the teacher all the kids were same. (That’s what she thought until they too started liking those little girls with good dresses and rich dads) she told the girl in her native language that she will do better than her in the test.

And she did. She fared better than her. And she even told her that she fared better than her. The other little girl laughed and said it was only to make a dumb girl like u study hard, so that you fair better. She believed her. She too was young but not small. She stayed behind all through the years. She could not impress others with her old clothes or oiled hair. Mother always would pour a can of oil and these good kids ran away from her. They were young to see what she was inside. However, she made 2-3 friends and they were the world to her.



After 10 years they all wanted to meet. She wanted to see them what have they made out of themselves. She met them all on ‘the’ day. She saw none had changed. They all saw her so well dressed and groomed so well. Their eyes could not believe and some even said that she had changed a lot. The ones who had asked her to sit down did not acknowledge her. They did not want to believe what she had become from what she was. They are still too young, small they are. . .

Wondering whose story is it? :)  Guess….

Wednesday, March 17, 2010

Aji Sunthe Ho..

Aji sunthe ho.. how shyly the newlywed bride would call her husband. How would he come behind her wagging(exaggeration :P) his tail. I always dreamt about all this, but strongly and strangely was against the arranged marriage rules. I always felt that the guys who are willing for arranged marriage are the ones who are totally deprived of having girlfriend(s), un-handsome(am sure this word is not in dictionary, cos I discovered it!), and DUMB in a nutshell.

Every morning mom would wake me up with a new story of how Premal, Shyla, Sharda aunties are happier than her, for the only reason that their daughters are married to either COMPUTER engineers or EM-BEE-AES. She also wondered how many Tholas (gold is measured in terms of tholas) of gold they had to give in exchange with those computer engineers slash MBAs. On an average she would calculate atleast once a day how much gold we currently have and how much more to qualify to get an offer from any of these creatures belonging to that category. My reaction always was constant for about two years– a silence or a nod, until mom realized the fact that I am the only unwed girl left in the family!! And the volcano erupted!!!!! When she did not find a sign of interest towards arranged marriage in me, afraid that I will marry some guy who might not be our cast and worried about Shyla, Sharda and Prema moushi’s reaction if I marry a non whatsoever caste guy, she started shouting at me. That day I realized ‘maa’ can become ‘kaali maa’ when she is angry…. I got scared and said “software engineer or MBA jaun asska, migel pashi laamb ani handsome aska…haanv Bangalore soaN bhaihiri vachina” (He should either be and engineer or MBA-I have no clue why I set that criteria must be competition with moushis daughters, he should be taller than me and handsome too, I will not go out of Bangalore)

I could hear mom sighing, it was so loud. Guess she was holding her breathe till I finished my talk(Alas!! I should have spoken for another 15 minutes :P)

So many proposals and I liked this guys picture. He wore a black formal shirt, shades which suited him well and he had short hair with spikes on forehead.. I was glad that “some’” guy from the arranged marriage bucket is still handsome, stylish and not married to anybody else yet. (Marriage market is very risky. One always waits for a better deal and repents that he could have waited for longer for a much better deal. Only few lucky ones hit the jackpot.)

He is Samrat(sorry had to change the name for confidentiality reasons :P). The moment I saw his snap i recollected that my mind unintentionally read his name as SMART and I smiled. I saw his photo several times and imagined my daughter Samita (Samrat + Mamta) playing with us in our own Villa, with swings around, the garden, huge SUVs and sedans parked around and a personal swimming pool and the laptops monitor timed out to show me the dumb screen saver which shook me off my dream.

I was excited when he came online for very few minutes to tell me that he wanted to meet me. I wore a simple denim and t shirt just to impress him(or show off that I am also modern- I could have as well worn a salwar). I knew I didn’t dress up too much. After office I decided to meet him in “some” mall. My colleague Sreelatha found me leaving early from office and asked me the reason, I told her. She said “don’t wear jeans when u r meeting an alliance, it won’t create a good impression” her fully-loaded-Malayali- expert- advice…Kaali zabaan, I cursed her. Hoping to spend a better evening with Samrat.


I parked my scooty and called him up. I wanted to see myself in the mirror before seeing him. call got connected and I hear such a masculine voice, I blushed only imagining my dream coming true. I removed the jacket, felt it was too much for a casual meet, brushed my hair, it always is messy whenever I try hard to set it, another layer of lip gloss that he should not concentrate on my stub nose. Aah! Perfect, and I say “I just reached” only to turn back in response to a tap on my shoulder. Its him. or its HIM!! my question conveniently changed to “ WAS IT HIM IN THE PICTURE?!!!” , I don’t know what color my face turns when this kind of situation occurs. Purplish, blackish, maroon shades of faces, that Samrat only can tell. CHEATER I wanted to shout, the little girl in dream, the villa, sedans, SUVs and everything was crashing with the mute on. Now I realized what I should have read his name as – “SOME RAT”

This little guy, who had posted his close-up pic was almost my height (and I am considered short  ), he weighed approximately 15 kilos less than I did and in his oversized shirt looked like a school kid wearing his elder brothers shirt. I pulled an intensely forced smile on my face and wished him. We went inside the mall and sat in “some” restaurant. He found my pink scooty weirdly out of world and swore will never buy his sister a pink “anything”. He also said that I make crazy faces when I speak. I was/am/will be the most expressive person ever, my face turns all shades, shapes and each expression is always accompanied by my eyes, nose, lips and teeth most of the times. When I am explaining certain things my face literally expresses it. He said I look good when I smiled shyly with my lips closed. God forbid, which implies that I should not be talking??? And am sure he barely had any idea that “I” don’t shut mouth even when am asleep!! Yeah I speak even when am asleep, that’s so normal with me.

He noticed my watch. “wow Tommy”… he exclaimed.. amazing! I felt he noticed something nice at least. “My first branded watch” I said, like I had many, this was the only one I had, others were from commercial street, diamond studded, gold plated, 300 bux each. He added he was also thinking of buying Tommy. “Don’t make such face, u look nice when you don’t show your teeth”, he clearly was getting irritated and I embarrassed. Like he sensed it, he jumped out of the seat, his tiny 35 kilo, hairless, brainless, denim shirt clad body (I saw his clean hands – like a girls hand, am sure he was clean all through ;-) ) sprang up like the Tiger character in Winnie the Pooh bear. It made no difference to the sofa, it only looked up to see a tiny posterior rising up and settling back down. I wonder what would the sofa say when I jump up on it like that… It would curse my 4 generations for having borne such a meaty offspring, carrying her 8-9 kilo posterior to the restaurant only to eat and further enhance the same. Nevertheless, he sprang up like the Tiger(google Tiger Winnie the pooh for visual pleasure), and said, “tell me a joke”. Wow, how did he know it was a “joke day” for me today? First joke when I saw this tiny dude while I was shown only top half in the picture, now am here hearing my “review” and then he asks me to tell a joke??!! I said I didn’t remember any, so he conveniently adjusted his bum to place it better and he looked like he is going to disclose the merriest news of his life. But all the enthusiasm was for a PJ which I didn’t even understand and he ended up explaining… I laughed.. laughed at myself, god when am I going home? “ I will tell u another joke”, this time it was even more horrible, but I didn’t want him to explain so I laughed.. “ I will tell u a non veg joke if u don’t mind” , god must be angry on me, “do u mind?” absolutely.. I never thought Jokes needed a disclaimer before told. Do we have to specify the joke genre before telling? I said its ok, am 25 yrs old. He started with a supposedly non veg joke, it was hilarious.. not the joke but this guy who thought it was NON VEG.. I waited for the bill while he continued his series of non veg jokes. Every time he sprang up on the sofa, I felt like hitting him with that electrified bat which kills mosquitoes and flies. Am sure it was enough to electrify him and put him back to the sofa. How would it sound when I hit him with that bat? Pluck! like how it sounds when a mosquito touches it? Or more? Would the tiny hair on his almost bald head get curled? “don’t u know jokes?” he was curious to know. Don’t I know jokes? But I don’t laugh when I see something funny, look at me am not laughing seeing you.. I looked around for fire exit. What If I start shouting fire fire and run towards fire exit? Will he follow me? Or can I take my bag and ask him to excuse me to use the rest room and runaway from there? Not a good idea, he can see the exit. Even better, I will tell him I have a call and save myself? “you don’t know any jokes?? My ex was so humorous, she used to tell me so many jokes”, now I know why is she your EX. She would have ran out of jokes to become ex. I didn’t want to know more. God came in the form of waiter with the bill. He really did look like lord Ganesha to me. I would have tipped him hundred bux after “Some Rat” saw the bill and handed it over to me. “we will share” he said.. good gesture, but it was only a few hundreds, one of us could have paid, “I will pay its ok, I don’t have cash, will pay by card” I said and placed the bill with card, “ok” he said.


Another two months I took to digest the “looks can be deceptive” experience. Beep Beep, exactly after 2 months my phone saw a sms from “SOME RAT”....

“If I have to tell you a fact, you know, even when I speak to my friends about a girl, I talk about moments, the humour, the fun, that I had with you and not that with my ex, BTW I bought a SONY flat screen television with a DVD player and a home theatre system…. “ I found a mosquito killer bat, only the mosquito was not around…

Tuesday, March 9, 2010

Iconnect - International womens day at calsoft

March 8th is International Women’s day. Members of Spectrum-gurlz club at the BG road facility celebrated International women’s day which is commendable. The club was formed in 2008 and has successfully been organizing, participating and volunteering various events past 2 years. A small briefing about the event is as below. Chain of events started with the secret angel game which kick started on Monday, 26th February. Almost all the girls participated and were very sportive in playing the game. Volunteers took up the responsibility to organize Sudoku and quiz event. Swapna G Nair initiated the quiz event, whereas Saritha M D launched the Sudoku event. Of all the participants in quiz, Subhashini and Benazir and got the maximum answers correct. And Mamatha C M got the Sudoku answers right. On Friday 5th March, Rangoli event was held during the morning session. 9 teams / individuals participated and beautiful Rangolis decorated the games room. Mehendi event was also held in the evening, and a lot of enthusiasts actively participated in drawing beautiful mehendis. Scrumptious lunch was organised on women’s Day, at the canopy. All the women enjoyed the lunch and shared the funny experiences while playing the secret angel disclosure. This gave a very good occasion to the ones who newly joined the club to socialise better and make more new friends. Thanks to the spectrum-gurls club for organising and making the event successful.

Click on Gallery To view the pictures.