My Affair With A Romance Language

It has been long since I was on blogosphere and I admit that there were a couple of times since I last posted when I started writing but then just gave up. I blame it on multiple factors, but Delhi heat takes the biggest share of blame. I just hate this time in Delhi. The dry and scorching weather gets me into depression, and I should add here, that it really takes a lot to get ME into depression. Going outdoors is suicidal these days, even in evenings. The only places to hang out are malls, and it gets intensely boring to hang out exclusively at malls. With all my social life limited to Facebook and French classes, there was not much to talk about. Moreover, I was in a lazy, introspective phase.

I promised last time that I would blog about my French classes, as they are a lot of fun. They still are fun and I love my time there. The teacher is nice; she gives good material, and teaches well. I have two more students in class with me (both men), so it is a small and intimate class. We get many opportunities to laugh because we keep making silly mistakes that are at times HILARIOUS. One such instance that comes to my mind is of the day when Swati (our teacher) asked me to make a sentence that starts with 'Je voudrais...' (I would like...) It was our third or fourth class and I was still struggling immensely with vocabulary. I started to say something but the sentence that popped out of my mouth was "Je voudrais un bon homme." (I would like a nice man.) Shucks! That was followed by a shocked second and then peals of laughter from everybody including me. The other two students in the class specially laughed loud at that. Embarrassing, I know. But trust me, that's nothing compared to the mistakes that THEY make.

I think it's time to describe the other two students in my class. 'A' seems like a pretty boring guy and he is the one who struggles the most in our classes. It has now got to the extent where the rest of us feel he wastes the time of the class because he just doesn't understand things. Whatever job 'A' is doing, it keeps him busy in some health related seminars these days. He comes to the classes right after work, travelling from CP to Gurgaon. I appreciate his dedication, especially in this weather. He turned up a little late during one of the classes. We looked up as he entered the room to join us. The first thing that I noticed about him on that day was that he was wearing a big, round, red badge, which said "Loose weight now, Ask me how" in shining white letters. Before I could stop myself, I pointed to the eye-catching badge and asked him, "What is that?" His response, "Oh, I forgot to take that off after the seminar." WTF? He traveled all the way from CP to Gurgaon and then walked into the class wearing that. I wonder how many people asked him tips for loosing weight that day.

I call the other guy "My grey eyed Ipod" or The ipod for short (this nick suggested by GO). He has beautiful grey eyes but at times irritating manners. He sings really well, calls me nearly everyday, and hangs up only after singing me a song or two. I know it is funny, but I admit that I enjoy it. I mean how many men these days would sing you songs everyday when you are not even dating them (and nice songs at that). I know he is either too nice or too creepy and I am still trying to decide in which category to place him. He is doing well in class though and I enjoy talking to him, especially when he talks passionately of his career. Like me, he is going to start his MBA program soon but in Canada. He is intelligent, having completed his engineering from a good college and worked for a couple of years, he managed a great score at GMAT and then admission at a decent B-School. I am impressed at how informed he is about his field and at the amount of reading he is doing. From financial accounting to French vocab to oil fields in Canada, he has read up a whole lot. I am always impressed with well-informed people but at times, he intrigues me. He would at times say non-committal but suggestive things, which might mean that he is flirting. I give non-committal responses then but try to make it clear without being too obvious that I am not interested in any relationship or fling (or anything) at all at this point in my life. I just don't like it when men try to play it so safe that they stand neither here nor there; I think that's not being man enough. Of course, I might be wrong with the whole thing, it might be just premature alarm bells ringing in my head, and therefore currently I just brush aside such things and ignore. However, while talking, laughing, arguing, at every imaginable instant, I am watching him to try and understand where he is heading with all his talk (and songs!).

On a different note, I met my best friend Amit yesterday after more than a year and half. Although we could manage less than an hour with each other but it was totally great. I took him to TGIF (my favorite hang out) and we of course had LIITs. I haven't laughed so much in ages as I did in that hour. Friends always make you feel so good. Although Amit and I talk nearly everyday but meeting each other after that terribly long period felt really great. I am glad we could make it because in a couple of months, I would move to Europe and then I don't know when we would ever meet.

Ah! It feels wonderful, now that I have finally written this long post. I wonder why I was putting it off. There will be more to come and soon :D

What It's Like Being Devil's Lil Sister

Finally.... the effing exam thing is over. I partied yesterday with a careless abandon that I had forgotten I was capable of and then slept like a dog only to wake up late and groggy this morning. And yet, where is the feeling of relief??? It just isn't there. I feel like I have stepped from a storm into a tornado. I just hate documentation and paper work and financial statements and running around offices and you know what I mean. However, I have to do it all and do it fast :-(

Meanwhile, something very annoying happened with me. I was getting some anonymous comments on my blog, which I admit initially made me quite curious. I really wanted to know who the anonymous reader was and does anyone blame me for that? I mean, aren't all girls curious about such things? However, after a somewhat sleazy comment from the anonymous reader, I decided to not pay attention or at least pretend to ignore, as it obviously was some prankster trying to be funny. After ignoring for a couple of days, I started wondering why the anonymous reader wasn't commenting anymore. And then, I had this conversation with my sister yesterday

Dido: hey, I read some anonymous comments on your blog. Who do you reckon that is?

Me: Dunno. Some creep, but I have decided to ignore now. Sooner or later there will be more comments and probably I would be able to figure out who that is.

Dido: (Cruel maniacal laughter)

Me: (Stunned but obstinate silence)

Dido: Well, they were from 'Yours Truly'

Me: (Insane maniacal laughter) I knew it.

Dido: Haha.... you didn't and you never would have. Gosh, I shouldn't have told you, it was such fun. I could have carried on more.

Me: Shutup.

Thus I came to know that my sister, in one of her usual fucked-up efforts to provide amusement, had targeted me and pulled one on me succesfully. She did get a lot of amusement from the episode, as she always does when I am her victim. She is devil personified and I have the enviable honour of being devil's lil sister.

Reminiscing about College Days - Part 1

Oh! those were the days. I don't want to sound like someone whose life isn't exciting anymore and keeps revisiting the past to fill the void, because that's so not true. Life has given me bigger and better things but College Days are always remembered, especially when your college buddies were a gang of girls known for being different from other girls. We were 8 girls living together in a flat in our hostel and the flat number was 18A. By the end of our first year, this number held a feeling of notoriety among the girls and warden and one of curiosity among the guys. What's up with 18A??? Why can't they be like the rest???
The simple answer to which was that 18A fortunately comprised of girls with similar mentality and attitude; all of us were thrown together by some strange co-incidence. We were never known for great achievements in studies (though most of us were good at studies and succeded in getting ourselves placed during campus placements). We were known for- untidy rooms, always breaking the curfew timings, loud music, late night parties, being too friendly with guys, never mixing ourselves with other studious girls, and creating other troubles. My hostel days were a lot of fun because of my mischievious friends and especially because of my roomie NV. We managed to spoil each other a lot during the four years of living together. NV was active in keeping the room untidy and I was lazy in tidying up, so the result was a mess to which we got used quickly. The coming of Warden into our rooms was always the time of great frantic activity- stuffing bags and clothes under the bed and in the almirahs, hiding novels and pretending to be in deep concentration over Math books. Once Warden said she would check our rooms before bedtime and we wanted to impress her for once with clean rooms. After dinner NV and I tidied up to the best of our ability and waited eagerly for Warden to come. She came and said, "Your room is very tidy". Both of us smiled from ear-to-ear and said, "Thank you Ma'm". To our astonishment Warden was furious, "Shameless girls, that was meant to be sarcastic" and she stormed out of the room. We looked around carefully, "Shit NV, how could you miss that pile of your clothes visible from under the bed", to which NV said, "And how could you miss the pile of novels on your table with the table-lamp overturned on top of them". To our horror we realized that our eyes had stopped seeing the mess, but we never changed, at least for 3 years.
We shared the same hostel building with male students, which at times caused trouble. Once at night there was a power-cut and instead of studying by the light of emergency lights like the other girls, we were having fun. The weather was hot and we came out of the flat with our chairs and sat there to enjoy the breeze. Our flatmate Plucky was in a jovial mood and started dancing to the song 'Can't get you out of my head' which she was playing on her portable player with batteries. She is a good dancer but that day her moves were particularly provoking and funny, as the light was low and there was nobody around. We watched her as she jumped around, moved her waist, gave arousing expressions and what not. In a few minutes we were laughing hard and as the song ended we heard the sound of clapping from somewhere above us. All of us dashed inside but cautiously came back again out of curiosty. On the floor above us was a bunch of senior guys from MCA and they clapped again as Plucky came out. Plucky was red from embarrasement remembering her dance moves but walked back inside in a dignified manner and slammed the door behind her, following which we heard loud laughter from the above floor.

Kismat Konnection - A Review

Do I need to say that the movie is bad? I guess not, since most of you have probably already read the reviews. Then why am I wasting my time writing a review about it? There are two answers - First, I love movie bashing. Second, an interesting incident took place when I went to watch the movie, which I wanted to share.
I went to the movie with my friend Neelam. We snacked before the movie in the food court and Neelam was adventurous enough to leave behind her cell phone on the table. I, of course, did not notice. As it was my birthday [ :-) I love bringing it up], I was carrying a digicam in my bag, and the PVR people don't allow eatables, shopping bags and cameras inside the hall. I was stopped at the security and was asked to leave behind the camera battery at the baggage counter. We went to the baggage counter, which is 2 floors below the hall, to do as asked. We were late by the time we rushed back to the security and did not check the audi number on our tickets. The first Audi on our right had a moving neon display on top which said Kismat Konnection. We rushed inside and reached our seats smashing the toes of various people. As soon as we sat down Neelam realised she was not carrying her cell phone. After a hurried check into her bag and then mine, she grabbed my cell phone, muttered something about being back soon, and smashed some toes again to rush outside. I now concentrated on the movie which had already started. There was Shahid Kapoor looking crestfallen, Vidya Balan getting engaged to someone and I was not able to understand what was going on. I thought a flashback into the past would soon happen, to clear things. However, I waited and watched but no flashback came. There was a song and many weird characters and other stuff but no flashback. I watched for about 15 minutes till Neelam came back. She said, "Nicky this is Audi 8, we are supposed to be in Audi 6." I responded with "So what, audi 8 is screening the same movie." Neelam watched with me for a minute and said, "I think we are watching the post-intermission movie."
"What!" I gasped. We looked at each other and dashed out of the hall, smashing toes again. I had no time to yell back at people who were yelling at us. We reached audi 6, found our seats and I wondered how come those same seats were unoccupied in audi 8. Providence, I suppose. I felt so bad at missing the first 30 minutes of the movie at that time, but I can safely assume now that the first 30 minutes were not too exciting either, just like the rest of the movie.
It's an illogical, slow-paced movie, with a boring plot and lifeless characters (Ah! so many adjectives). I have seen some illogical movies, which were entertaining (like Om Shanti Om) but Kismat Konnection falls too short of the mark to call even some parts in the movie as entertaining. I always go to the movies to look at good looking people for few hours. I don't want to look at a next-door-kinda-boy (Shahid Kapur) and a next-door-kinda-girl (Vidya Balan) for 3 hours. I see too many next-door-kinda-people in day-to-day life. Vidya Balan lived up to the expectations of dressing pathetically again. Why can't she just give up trying to glam herself up? It makes her look even more, ugh, sad!
The movie revolves around Shahid Kapur who plays the role of a failure who can't do anything right to save his life. In desperation he goes to a seer, played by Juhi Chawla (who seems to have forgotten all about acting), who informs him that he would be aided by someone or something that would make him lucky. Imagine! This someone, turns out to be Vidya Balan. Whenever, she's around he gets lucky - he lands a project, he plays a great shot at Snooker - oh, leave it. He becomes friendly with this girl in order to stay lucky but she's engaged and going to leave the country after her marriage which is going to happen soon. However, she realises her fiancee is a male chauvinist pig and is getting laid by his female boss. There are other things and characters in the movie that don't deserve to be mentioned.
My advice- Don't Watch. And BTW Neelam did find her cell phone, it was with the security people in food court :-)