Penelope

Twenty winters she waited
Her affections wavered not.
We know now how our eyes might see,
But oh! What a beauty she was!

Eight and hundred suitors there were,
Their pursuit, relentless.
The adoration, though she did enjoy
Her heart, on Odysseus, was set.

A vagrant then did arrive, appallingly audacious
"To marry Penelope, my sole desire."
"One condition," she declared,
"Odysseus' bow thou shalt string- the arrow, pierce twelve axe shafts.
The victor, my mate shall be."
A soft snicker, she settled to watch,
For the bow would yield to none but Odysseus.

The beggar, victorious did emerge
Incredible, though it seemed.
Thus spake he,"It is I, Odysseus, my love.
To thy fidelity, I do bow."

Things that made me smile today.... :)

oh MY this is my 4th or 5th post today...

I AM on a roll :-p

Things that made me smile today:

1.       Watching “Sita sings the Blues”... thanx Bhai J

2.       The most amazing group called “You know you grew up in India in the 90s when...”. for reference, here’s the link - http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=19085481352

3.       The fact that I saw dark clouds outside, opened the window, and the smell of rain just sprinted right in J

4.       Looking up potential buy-able guitars on ebay... although most of the ones that made me smile weren’t quite as kind on the pocket :-p

5.       My on-going status-convo with well, you guys know who you are :-p

6.       The fact that in the last week I’ve gotten in touch with at least 3 people I haven’t talked to in ages!!!

7.       Someone complimenting me on my Blog and telling me that she’s a religious follower........... ( possibly the biggest compliment I could receive right now JJJJ)

8.       The “window-pelters” – yes it’s annoying mostly, but it’s fun and I wish I could do it back!!!! Of course, here is why you would ask why I don’t, and the answer to that, I’m afraid, eludes even myself!

9.       Frasier J

10.   The fact that my best friend’s still “GOT IT”. That’s just cute :-p

11.   The ‘realisation’ that I sleep exactly 10 hours a night( well, mostly nights :-p)no more and no less.

12.   The fact that I called a friend of dad’s who lives in UK, and was actually mumbling incoherently for the first minute of the call just because I couldn’t figure out whether it’s more appropriate to call him “uncle” or Mr......

13.   The guitar solo in “Brown Sugar” by the Rolling Stones – just the part from 0:15 to 0:30!!!!

14.   A phone call from a friend... “ELLLUUUUUUUUUU” – you know who you are :-p

15.   YES, the other friend is NOT forgotten... I love you just as much.. there... I said it, even though you stood me up tonight.. “ OH YEAAA I’ll DEFINITELY come online TONIGHT.”

16.   Another realisation, about an actual pleasure that facebook, and ONLY facebook has made possible – I choose not to elucidate on that!

17.   What? 16 points isn’t enough for you? :-p CIAO!!!

You know you grew up in India in the 90s when......

I did NOT make this list up ( although it is one of the many many things i soooo wish i had!!!)

And i made a point of thanking the person who DID think of this.......

I almost cried( THAT perhaps owing to the fact that being as homesick as I perpetually am, ANYTHING even remotely India-related tends to make me cry :-p)

It is BEAUTIFUL :):):)

1) You know the words to ‘In-pin-safety-pin’ and ‘akkad-bakkad’ by heart
2) Cricket is almost a religion for you, and you idolize at least one of Kapil Dev/Rahul Dravid/Sachin Tendulkar/Saurav Ganguly
3) You have read at least some Chacha Chaudhary or Tinkle comics
4) You’ve watched Shaktimaan on TV at least once in your life. And you can immediately recognize the character when you see him. 
5) You have some ‘NRI’ relatives.
6) You couldn’t wait for it to be December so you could have the Toblerone chocolates your NRI relatives brought you
7) You watched Cartoon Network, and then the late night movies on TNT that came after Cartoon Network ended.
8) You watched corny dubbed versions of Small Wonder, Silver Spoon, and I Dream of Jeanie
9) You were THRILLED when McDonald’s opened in your neighborhood (or even eight kilometers away)
10) Your first burgers were at Wimpy’s or Nirula’s.
11) A visit to Pizza Hut used to mean a special treat
12) You have seen Kuch Kuch Hota Hai and Hum Aapke Hain Kaun at least 5 times each
13) You still remember the theme song to Hum Paanch. 
14) You have played hours upon hour of Pukdam-pakdai, oonch-neech, kho-kho, ‘Doctor, doctor, help us!’, ‘Lock and key’
15) You have played ‘Uma Joshi’ more times than you can remember. 
16) Dog ‘in’ the bone was your favorite co-ed game.
17) Much of your free time in school was spent playing UNO.
18) You collected trump cards of wrestlers, cricketers, and airplanes, and did not quite understand why your younger siblings were obsessed with Pokemon and the other Japanese trends that followed.
19) Your summer vacations were often synonymous with visiting your grandparents
20) Your parents, at some point, told you ‘Dark Room’ was a bad game to play. But you still loved playing it. 
21) Bole mere lips, I love uncle Chips!
22) You know the song ‘Made in India’ by Alisha Chinoi
23) You have seen many many many episodes of ‘Antakshri’ on Zee TV and know the only thing constant in the show is Anu Kapoor.
24) Amy evenings have been spent watching little kids gyrate vulgarly on Boogie Woogie on Sony.
25) You were the coolest thing in class if you had a computer in your house while it was still the 90s. 
26) You learnt LOGO in school!
27) You couldn’t wait to start 4th/6th standard so you could start writing with PENS instead of with pencils!
28) You often use terms and phrases like ‘kutti’, ‘abba’, ‘same to you, back to you, with no returns’, and ‘shame shame, puppy shame, all the donkeys know your name.’
29) You most probably saw Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge at the cinema at least once. You also fantasized about singing songs in mustard fields as in the movie. 
30) You have seen David Dhawan and Govinda movies and laughed at them.
31) You have said ‘haw’ or ‘haw ji ki pwji’ when you saw people kissing in English movies
31) You have seen Titanic at least 12 times. 
32) You thought seeing English movies and speaking English made you the coolest thing ever.
33) You remember the Orissa cyclone, even though you didn’t know what a cyclone was. 
34) You remember the Gujarat earthquake very clearly and could possibly tell everyone EXACTLY what you were doing when the earthquake occurred (yes, this happened in 2001, January 26, 2001, to be exact -- but this group is about the things that Indian kids that GREW UP in the 90s remember and identify with). 
35) Barbies for girls, and GI Joes for boys were the ultimate status symbols. You just wanted more more more and more. And how can I forget Hot Wheels, for both boys and girls? I personally have a collection of over 200 little Hot Wheels cars.
36) You have worn Osh-Kosh B’gosh and United Colours of Benetton clothes while growing up. And you thought ‘imported’ clothes were definitely way better than ‘made in India’ clothes (never mind that a lot of clothes brought from overseas by NRI relatives were actually made in India, before ‘Made in China’ started appearing on EVERY existing thing)
37) You know the words to ‘Posham Paa’, and like it better than ‘Oranges and Lemons’ even though you’d sing the latter to sound cool (see 32 above).
38) At some point or other, cool was your favourite, and therefore, most overused word. 
39) Captain Planet was your first introduction to environmental consciousness.
40) You have tried to convince people around you to not burst crackers on Diwali, and then gone straight back home and burst them yourself. 
41) You have had endless packets of Parle Gluco G biscuits, and of Brittania Little Hearts biscuits.
42) You loved licking off the cream from the centre of Bourbon biscuits. 
43) There were no Nike, Reebok, Adidas, Puma- Bata and Liberty was the way to go for your sports shoes. 
44) You have probably consumed more Frooti in your lifetime than there is oil in Iraq.
45) You watched Baywatch on Star World even though (or because) your parents said you shouldn’t watch it.
46) You bought packets of potato chips for the specific purpose of collecting Tazoa. And you had Tazos depicting everyone from Confucius to Daffy Duck to Daffy Duck dressed as Confucius.
47) For the longest time, the Maruti 800, the Premier Padmini, THE Fiat, and THE Ambassador were the only cars you saw on the road, and the Contessa was cool because it was bigger.
48) You would literally jump up in excitement if you ever chanced upon an imported car (Oh my gosh, is that really a MERCEDES?)!
49) You spent a good part of 1998 drooling over the Hyundai Santro and the Daewoo Matiz , debating which one was better.
50) You used to Fuzen gum. You also chewed Big (big) Babool and/or Boom Boom Boomer chewing gum. They were bright pink and disgusting tasting, but you loved them for the temporary tattoos.
51) Talking of temporary tattoos, you sometimes had contests with your classmates about who had more tattoos on their arm, leg, knee, hand, forehead, wherever. 
52) You thought Mario and Tetris were the coolest things ever invented, especially if you were a boy. 
53) You knew that having the latest Hero or Atlas bicycle would make you the coolest kid on the block. 
54) You can imitate Sushmita Sen’s winning gasp to perfection.
55) You have, at some point of time, worn GAP clothes (real or fake) like SRK in KKHH.
56) Seemingly senseless acronyms like SRK, DDLJ, KKHH actually make sense to you.
57) You have at some point debated who was more beautiful- Aishwarya or Sushmita.
58) If you lived in Delhi, you went bowling at Essex Farms, or Go-Karting at 32nd Milestone and couldn't think how you could get any cooler than that.
59) Baskin Robbins ice-cream was THE thing to have!
60) You know what Campa Cola is. And you also knew that Coca Cola was THE drink. 
61) When you would watch WWF keenly every evening/afternoon and really think that Undertaker had 7 lives and he made an "actual" appearance in the Akshay Kumar- starrer Khiladiyon ka Khiladi.
62) When all backpacks (or 'schoolbags') and water bottles and tiffin boxes had strange cartoon characters that were hybrid versions of seven or eight different characters, and you still bought them, because a green man wih a water pistol, boots, a jet-pack, Johnny bravo hair, a rajasthani mustache, gloves, and underwear (long johns) over his pants, called 'Mr. X' was OBVIOUSLY a status symbol.
63) You remember the Nirma tikia jingle.
64) You remember the Nirma girl.
65) You remember the 'doodh doodh' ad and also the 'roz khao andey' ads.
66) You grew up reading, if you read at all, some or all of Nancy Drews, Enid Blyton books, Hardy Boys, Babysitters Club, Animorphs, Goosebumps, Sweet Valley series, Judy Blumes, and Tintin, or Archie comics. Because naturally, reading foreign authors made you much cooler than reading Tinkle. 
67) Towards the late 90s (1998-99) at least some of us started our Harry Potter obsessions!
68) You absolutely HAD to go to Essel World if you wnet to Mumbai! "Essel World mein rahoonga main, ghar nahin nahin jaaonga main!"
69) You watched the Bournvita Quiz contest on TV pretty religiously. The smarter ones amongst you actually took part in it and had your entire school and your entire extended families watch you on it!
70) "Jungle jungle baat chali hai, pata chala hai. Chaddi pehen ke phool khila hai, phool khila!"
71) Maggi 2 Minute Noodles = ultimate snack (and tiffin, lunch, dinner)!
72) If you grew up in the early 90s, you recall the nation's obsession with Mahabharata on TV
73) In the later 90s, you religiously followed Hip Hip Hooray on Zee. Maybe Just Mohabbat on Sony too. 
74) You eagerly awaited Friendship Day, so you could give friendship bands to all your friends, and get bands from them in return. Then, of course, those with the most bands loved to show them off (and on Rakhi, boys with the most Rakhis loved showing those off too!)

75) This list made you smile. 

......

"Neither a lofty degree of intelligence nor imagination nor both together go to the making of genius. Love, love, love, that is the soul of genius."

                                                                         - Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart

.......

"We are never so helplessly unhappy as when we lose love."

                                                                          - Sigmund Freud

Ramblings of a Well-meaning Fool.....

It’s funny how we take so much of our life for granted. We miss out on the things we should cherish.

We hang on to stuff not worth a second thought.

It’s a nice feeling, missing someone. Don’t run away from it. Enjoy it, rather. Be glad you have someone to miss. A lot of people aren’t granted that luxury.

Being alone isn’t so bad. Enjoy your solitude. It brings out in you, what no other human being ever can. You’ll be glad for it, when you realise how being in a crowd can cloud your senses.

Relationships are overrated, yet they’re not. We live our whole life, trying to forge, or force, bonds that aren’t there. What we DO have, we stow away in a dark corner, considering it a feat already accomplished. We forget, it’s just the beginning. We grow complacent with the support that one relationship has gifted us, and use that strength to look for something “better” or maybe “more”. And while we do this, the only worthwhile thing we ever actually came across, lies in the background of all our muddle, slowly but surely dying away. And one fine day we come across that hollow coccoon, hoping to see a butterfly jump out. But we don’t. We sit in bewilderment, moaning at life’s unfairness. All our “efforts” in vain, our only support now gone. This is when it hits us. We’ve been knocking on the door of an empty house, all along. We tried to bring to life something that had always been dead. And in the process, forgot to feed the one ray of hope life had bestowed upon us. Find your ray of hope NOW, before the sun sets on your life.

It doesn’t matter if you’re 15, 30, or 80. If you think you haven’t lived, you still have your whole life ahead of you.

I consider myself to be an intellectual snob. I judge people. Not by how they look, or what they wear, or how rich or how good-looking, or how stylish they are. I judge them on what they say, how they think, how narrow, or open, minded they are. I categorise people, into ( Thanks Chinks J ) Deservers, and Non-deservers. Mind you, these don’t mean what you think they do( oh now you see the arrogance coming into play eh? ). These categories have nothing to do with Karma, or God, or any of that, ahem, ‘stuff’. It has to do with Me. I impose my opinions on nobody. But i decide who deserves, and who doesn’t. Deserves what, you may ask. Anything I might have to bestow on them. My knowledge, my discoveries, my creations, and most importantly, my belief system.

I do have a rather vague belief system actually. It’s actually precise in its vagueness. i, or my beliefs, do not condemn people for what they do, or how they think, or anything really. It’s their life, and they can do with it anything that they wish to. The catch, however is, that most people do with their lives, not what THEY want to, rather, what they THINK THEY SHOULD. Now that’s where the problem comes in you see.  I see everyone around me, people I love, people I respect, just throwing their lives away. They have lives – lives that reflect anything but who THEY are.

If there is ONE thing in the whole world that you KNOW is yours, it’s your life. Yet, I see the wisest people, the smartest people, letting it go, just because other people seem so important.

In the last few months, I’ve had the liberty of being able to live my own life. Of course, it came at a cost, but in retrospect, it’s nothing compared to the insight I finally gained into who I was, who I thought I was, and who I was born to be.

Any more of an explanation would only bore anyone who’s taken the trouble to come this far.

I’m here, and I’m listening.

The Fool.

......

"I'm not a perfectionist.......

For a perfectionist believes in limits......."

                                                                     - Varnika Kundu

Life is, but a dream.......

I can’t stand straight on the ocean of purple grass. Why do these waves not support me?

I see green and magenta waving me over for tea, but respectfully decline, for I’m not loud enough.

Perhaps I should change one of my legs into a tail.

The bells are coming, and they get bluer every ounce.

There’s a guitar too, but it weighs 17 seconds, and is Far-coloured.

The music makes me smile – What a treat for my eyes!

My right hand fights my hair – Left hand pulls them both out and strokes ‘right’ lovingly.

......

“HOLY CRAP!!! She tore her hand off!!!!”
“Sam? Come watch, the waves like you,” she whispers
“So much for MAGIC shrooms, we’re screwed!”

Spoken like a true psychiatrist......

"What's the one thing better, than an exquisite meal??

An exquisite meal, with one tiny flaw we can pick at all night!"

                                                             - Frasier (the sitcom)