Storytime: Untitled as of Now - Part I

Her phone leapt to life with the cheery tune of Malgudi Days. It was nearing 12 in the night and she wondered who could be calling her so late. "Hello, am I talking to Srishti?", the young, deep and slightly accented male voice enquired. She answered in the affirmative her curiosity increasing by leaps and her excitement with bounds. The silence that greeted her annoyed her. "Hello, are you there? To whom am I talking to?", she tried her best to elicit a response. And her efforts culminated in a click on the other side. The tiny thrill that had built up in the past minute disappered and she went to bed after making a face at the phone.

The day dawned bright and clear and by ten she was hard at work. As the custom for the past year, Venkat came to her desk at eleven and they went to get their coffee. Things had taken an awkward turn a few months back, but soon Venkat was back in her life, like a comfortable old shoe and she had let him be.

She pouted all the way to the cafeteria, waiting for Venkat to ask her. And sure enough he did. "Some guy called me up at 12 midnight and then hung up". "Must have been some jerk with a phone calling up odd numbers, and possibly drunk." "No, he asked for me by name and then hung up. He didn't sound drunk, in fact he sounded quite nice." Vankat bristled inwardly. "So why are you moping now, because he called or beacuse he hung up" he asked brusquely. "I am not a despo, waiting for guys to call me up in the middle of the night", she flared up. "Anyways, that number will be there in your call history, so you can avoid him if he calls again". She smiled at the hint of jealousy in his voice. They finished their coffee in silence and left.

Five minutes after she had got to her seat, Yahoo popped up an email alert. It was a mail from unknowndude2005@yahoo.com. The mail read "Hi Srishti, I am sorry for calling you last night and then hanging up. I know you aren't feeling too kindly towards me right now, but tell me frankly, isn't this interesting? Lets enjoy the mystery while we can, after all what's life without adventure? I am dying to talk to you again - so keep waiting for my surprise call. Love, Admirer. P.S. It's not that I don't have the gall to identify myself, but it is more fun this way, for you and me!" She didn't know what to make of it. Normally she hated this kind of anonymous Romeos, but he was vaguely interesting. She decided not to decide or do anything about it right away, but just let it take its own course. For all she knew, it could be some friend trying to pull a fast one on her. She debated whether to tell this to Venkat, but then decided against it, no point in getting him worked up and paranoid. With a slight hum, she continued to decipher the code.

to be contd ...

Why not?

I keep coming across this 43 things in many blogs. Why 43 and why just things to do? There are so many things that I never want to in my whole life. I am sure I never want to abducted by an alien. I don't ever want eat non-veggie food. I am never going to learn Hebrew, just as I won't be tap dancing. And come to think of it I don't care too much for getting a tattoo and I probably won't learn how to write with my left hand. How come nobody is interested in what I don't wanna do?

Just the same case with allconsuming also. I want to tell the world what I am *not* reading or watching or listening to. I want a list of things that I am not consuming. And why spare del.icio.us too? How about someplace where I can list the links that suck which is in My UnFavorites?

Quizilla seems to be the flavor of the day or rather the flavor of these days. I suppose it's fashionable in the blogosphere(eesh what a word!) to announce which Incredibles characters they are, what their true element is, if they are a geek or a nerd or a freak and yada yada yada. In the same vein, how about some quiz to determine which FRIENDS character I resemble the least or what is the most unlikely thing I am likely to do in a situation?

And yes the unky moods. Please I want a caricature of how I will look when I am not hungry or not puzzled or not agitated.

*Some people see and ask why, but some people dream and ask why not*

*Some people see things that are and ask, why? Some people dream of things that never were and ask, why not? Some people have to go to work and don't have time for all that..*
-George Carlin

Pleasant Irony

Your PL chides you for working late and asks you to leave for home, while you are updating your blog! :-)

Lesson learnt - Do *not* disclose blog URLs to people@work! :-)

Acceptance

At the risk of sounding like a high school essay, I say "Man is a social being". I don't understand why acceptance is so important to everyone. In an odd way the society or the people around or whatever you call it, have a say in whatever you do. What is scary is that, the judgement always matters - a lot to most and atleast a little for the rest. The clothes we wear, movies we watch, books we read - everything is influenced. Take the recent attacks on Ganguly for instance - it took just a few critics, a few emails in bad taste to totally pan that man in public. Most of his supporters chose to remain invisible and the few vocal ones chose to sympathetic rather than defend.

I am not sermonising here, nor am I making murky proclamations like "You are not free" etc. I am not denying the existence of free will, I am just wondering at this universal thing. Yes it is universal, I know many people who project a "I-don't-ever-care" attitude - deep inside they crave for approval too perhaps from a smaller clique of like-minded people, but that need is there always. The blogging thing is proof enough for that - why write on the whole wide internet for everyone to see if your objective is only writing? You can't take the people out of the individual - Howard Roarke will stay inside the Fountainhead only!

I can't, So I am Not

Its two weeks since I saw a movie and so I can't post a review

I am not too much into sports and so I can't touch upon the Italian Open

I don't have a boyfriend and so I can't chronicle any sweet nothings

My friends are as dull as I am and so no wicked anecdotes

I don't have a swinging single life (I barely have a life!) so no party secrets for y' all

My head is filled with cotton so I can't think of anything clever

My day has been bad so no cheery soliloquy

And so I leave with a promise to be back with something better tomorrow!

You know..

you are working on a weekend if:

1) You keep all webmail windows open always and click refresh every few minutes

2) You open a slew of sites that you don't open on weekdays just so that people don't think too low of you (eg. imbd, sify movies, this, this and so on)

3) You don't put you mobile on vibrate and take calls at your seat itself

4) You take inumerable coffee, tea, coke and general breaks - all alone!

5) You keep humming a tune

6) You compromise your lunch at the nearest Food World cafe, not having enough gall to lunch alone in a restaurant

7) You get the elavator very easily and to yourself so that it doesn't stop at other floors

8) You keep calling your roomie every half an hour and when she entreats you come back, you mumble phrases like "Loads to do" or "I wish I could, but I can't"

9) You call home just so that Amma and Appa fuss over you working too hard

10) You update your blog before six!

Bad, bad server. No donut for you!

I started thinking about what to blog at about 5ish in the evening and opened my "create post" screen at 5:45 pm. The time is now 6:59 p.m and I haven't typed out two whole lines yet! :-( And the reason - orkut! Orkut by far is the worst time sucker, worse than even JoS and random blog hopping.

(For the orkut uninitiated, it is an online social networking portal. And yeah you can mail me for an invite.)

Some of my friends swear by orkut, they login the minute they get into office and are "active orkutters". This kind is easy to spot actually - their friends' list is bigger than 100, have more than 500 scraps and are a member of atleast 40 communities. And whether or not they keep in touch with the hundred odd friends, they are always on the lookout to increasing their friends list and add even the slightest of acquaintances as friends. This has happened to moi many times, people who wouldn't trouble themselves to even smile at me while in BITS suddenly want me join their hallowed list of friends.

And then the communities. There are about zillion communites about a billion things discussing the trivialest(is it a word?) of aspects. For example, for the sitcom Friends - there are about 8 communities discussing it in general, and then are few fan club communities *each* for all the main characters, and then communities for recurring characters like Janice, and the the regional "Iran Friends", "Friends in Spain" and so on. (Don't even get me started about Joey Fan Club Brazil and the likes!).

So you are asking me why I am a part of this whole thing if I obviously hate it so much - ah you caught me, that was the hypocrite in me who was doing the talking earlier! :-) Orkut is not totally bad actually. Occasional scraps help me keep in touch with the people I am not close enough to mail. And the communities are ok too - I just read a thread about Kamal Hassan's latest venture in his community and that was worth reading. And the occasional profile jumping to find out who is doing what, has provided for hours of lacha and sometimes even a credible means to verify gossip! :-)

(Flame first and praise next - when am I getting a Swiss citizenship? :-) )

My friend's sent me an invite to Gazzag and I am off to join it now! :-)