Perfect stranger?

Sunshine, West coast, to a Stranger, I'll toast!
Oh! Drummer on a roll, Will I be floored?
Good Music, fine food and weather!
Here's to a weekend of good times together.

A call at a crazy hour, I glower
Night mares he says and hides under cover
Loss of a loved one, sure leads to depression
Was I too critical and direct, on first impressions?

Goddesses & Goons

I've been to a couple of bachelorette bashes now, and the usual drill is dinner, drinks, and club-hopping downtown. It's pretty much a given that going downtown means meeting odd people, and when the motto of the city you live in is "Keep Austin Weird", people strive to live up to it, like STRIVE.

This experience was like none other. I had kindly accepted to be the "DD" or designated driver, since my friend (who the party was for) needed to get her drink on and man up to face the long, long term of marriage stretching before her. This means I can't drink, I am wonderfully sober, and primed to absorb maximum weirdness.

Dinner was good - Mexican food, can't complain (except about the price), and while me the married loser wanted to go back home and go to sleep and wake up for a workout on Sunday (gotta keep the man focused you see), this thought was quickly banished by a loud consensus of "let's go hit the clubs!".

So off we went..the first one was without incident, and at the second one I was able to wrangle a few free shots off the bartender, so that one was stellar. I'm still wondering where to classify the third.

One of the girls had forgotten her ID. Now, unless you're one of those fortunate 25+ somethings that looks like you are 12 (in which case you will be slapped for complaining about being ID'ed), clubs are usually pretty lax about checking. Of course, we had to go the one club that isn't. So the girl in question said she would wait outside while the rest of us went in and partied because she didn't have a ride to go home. Very nice of her, and we would be total shits if we actually went with this idea, so we didn't. We offered to take turns waiting outside with her. We left companion no.1 with her and went in. 10 minutes later, I walked outside to play 'swap with the companion', and I was waylaid by a slightly tipsy white guy who I figured was either going to ask me for a light, or attempt to use some other obvious line when he said, "Can I ask you something?".

While I braced myself for the inane question, he said..

Is it Navaratri now?

(Between being totally WTFed in my head, and complete curiosity at where this conversation might go)Indeed it is!

So, are you celebrating it?

Well, not now really (mental picture of martini glass in one hand, and sundal kathori in the other) I'm here on a bachelorette party.

Yes, I noticed that earlier.

(AHA! I was noticed..and the married, taken for granted woman in me puffed up in the chest at this admission and maybe even smiled a little. On the exterior I was all steel and business) Oh, okay.

So, which Goddess is it about today?

Right now, the one getting drunk in there!

Haha! That's funny..but no, seriously is today Durga, Lakshmi or Saraswati?

(Double WTF) Erm..actually, that's just the last 3 days, but it's generally about honouring the Mother Goddess.

Oh wow, that's so beautiful.

And before this ridiculous conversation went any further, I said "Thank you! I'm glad you think so. I'm sorry, but I have to go now." (The spouse thinks this dismissal of his carefully crafted conversation was cruel)

Gotta give the white man props for trying though. At least his pickup line was creative. What if I had been an Indian Christian?

I thought that was it for the night, but no! While waiting in line outside the next club, my bachelorette friend and I were hit with "Are y'all from here?" by possibly the shortest guy I have ever seen outside the Guinness Book, followed by "What do you think of all the Tomfoolery going on in thishdhwebejwbbnmm...mumble" which I interpreted as - guy heard himself talk in his head, and couldn't bring himself to continue after tomfoolery, and decided to stop trying. It's a good thing, because I was going to applaud him on successfully using 'Tomfoolery' in a sentence.

Gotta love it..at least gives me something to write about.

A Second Chance?

I've always had trouble sticking to one thing for too long. Apparently, genes don't distribute the same way every time. For as long as I can remember, my sister has been fixated on sports, and computer games.

Now, the sports I envy since I have not one sporting gene in my body. The computer games, not so much. Thus far, it was harmless enough - her fixation that is. Recently, she's got into something called Second Life. That's a creepy title to begin with if you're not a cat. It's this internet based game where you create an "avatar" of yourself, and this avatar of you can basically do whatever you want it to. Meet avatars of other people, dress in designer clothes, buy a monster truck, become a god, learn how to play Mancala, you name it.

One would think that if you really had this second persona, you'd do everything that you couldn't do in your actual life. No, not my sister. Apart from the fact that her persona has extremely skimpy clothing, it watches sports, and talks to other wierdos with online alter egos. And she can do this for hours. I exaggerate not.

I don't know if I should be overly concerned about this clothing situation, or lack thereof. The last time I passed by the computer, I could not stop myself from blurting - "Why is your second skin dressed like a slut?" To which she said.."It's called Second Life." Point taken I suppose.

I was talking to a good friend who works at a computer game company about this bizarre obsession the sibling has, and he said that tons of people do this, and get this - that some people have become millionaires playing this game. I cannot wrap my head around this astounding fact. In fact, I have a good mind to tell my sister to figure out how this happens so all of the time she spends on it could become potentially beneficial to me. Of course I expect a percentage for pointing her in *ahem* the right direction. My Mum is always getting after me to encourage her, and here I am - doing exactly that!

Maybe I should create a Second Life to blog for me. It might have something more worthwhile to say.

S p a c e d O u t

A virtual world in cyber space
To find the one of an Indian race
Random strangers from different places
One click and they are your next door neighbors
Thanks to sites like orkut and facebook
You can tell if they are creeps or crooks

As absurd as it may sound
There is a need in all us to be found
The need to belong and get along
To care, share for each other lifelong

A question arises, I ask you all
Does technology create in us, a stone wall?
Barring us from different culture and races
To smaller groups and only a few known faces
Social networking, now the latest hot trend
Hey Stranger! - Be my new best friend?

Shocking!

Never underestimate the political investment of the average Indian. How does someone die of shock? I thought that happened only in vague horror movies in which something creepy crawls out of the TV and scares the crap out of you. So forgive me for squinting hard at the Daily Times (A New Voice for a New Pakistan) news agency that is claiming that YSR Reddy's death (the now late Andra CM for the out of touch desi) has literally "shocked" over a 100 people to DEATH! To the death! And some 23 who committed suicide. The suicides are sadly more believable, as are burnt buses or a good old fashioned bandh. But Shivaji Ganeshan or even the great NTR were the only ones to have mastered the art of dying from shock and even they were faking it.

So what the holy helicopter crash? Lahore - please not be telling jokes. Please to verify how you determined the cause of death in these 99 cases of death by shock. And please to be telling how you gleaned this spectacular "news" from, well, Pakistan?

UPDATE - Ok, they are citing the Indo-Asian News Service IANS) as their source. http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2009\09\05\story_5-9-2009_pg1_9

But seriously, I am reluctant to believe anything that is "reported" by subcontinental news agencies, since The Onion debacle in Bangladesh. Seriously.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/8237558.stm

Esscuse, what are you talking?

It's been a long week. The spouse has the day off tomorrow, and to douse my burning jealousy, it made me a steaming bowl of blueberry oatmeal. And I had a fantastic workout, so all is forgiven. Maybe I should eat some ice cream to reward my forgiveness. :P

I digress. Something very baffling happened today, and though it was a number of hours ago, my bafflement has not lessened. So, I take Bharatanatyam or South Indian Classical Dance lessons, and we finally finished a long piece we had been learning for the last 4-5 months. At the end of the lesson, my teacher was talking to us about the piece she's going to teach us next, and she mentioned that it was from a bunch of CDs I had written for her. Very proud and specialness feeling came.

But, that apart, a fellow student and friend was asking me about the piece today, and if I could send her a link so she could familiarize herself with the music. Only too happy to comply with this enthusiasm for knowledge, I dug up the link online, and sent it to her.

I'm assuming she listened to it, because she pinged me on Gtalk, and said - "It's so nice..I really wish the song were in Telugu so I could enjoy the words more." To which I responded - "Erm...the song IS in Telugu." Now, I'm no language snob, but when one doesn't recognize one's own mother tongue, it is baffling. She speaks Telugu, her family speaks Telugu, and she ain't even ABCD..so what's the excuse? Hell, my mother tongue isn't Telugu and I know what it sounds like.

Her next message, with tone of much embarrassment was "OMG, I'm so useless. Bad name for Telugu people everywhere." I politely refrained from agreeing. One point here is, the song's first word is 'Sarasijaakshulu'. I mean, which ullu doesn't know that any word that ends with ulu is probably Telugu? (Fine, I named the song only so I could make that joke). BUT, Somayajulu, Keshavulu yetcetra. are names we've all heard. Maybe Somayajulu is a bit more obscure, but ask anyone in Chinmaya Vidyalaya, Taylors Rd. Kilpauk, Madras if they've heard of Keshavulu. Go on, ask. And mind you, it's a BIG school. So, I'm therefore totally justified in saying that we have all heard that name.

Anyway, I then dug the lyrics and meaning up and e-mailed them to her, politely disguising it as an email to the whole group. She pinged me a while later..and said, "Oh yeah, now I'm reading the words, I can totally recognize them." Paravale, small mercies I tell you (or desperate attempt to save face). :P

Alright then, I'm off to catch an episode of Project Runway (so addicted to that show). I just realized, there's a long weekend coming up. OH YAY. See ya after. Goodnight Reader-gaarus! Have it one good weekendulu.

P.S. My friend has been such a great sport about me poking this bit of fun at her. She actually speaks really good Telugu. I only kid because I love! ;)

Designer's Block

Its been a while since I created art for art's sake. Bogged down with the mundane work, I never seem to have enough time to sketch, paint or even doodle. The other day, bored out of my wits I started creating these tile patterns. I am not really good at fine art, but I do like to think that I have a knack for good design.

"Do not feed the Creatives", is a sign that reads on the entrance door of our office. Besides the constant door slams and the sound of ferbles, I deal with a lot of foot traffic as my cube is a few feet away from this entrance. Co-workers passing by usually catch a sneak peek if I am not too quick enough in minimizing the many windows that are open to my design world. Although my department is quite laid back I tend to keep an eye out for nosey onlookers. But there was one instance when I was completely caught off guard, by one of my co-worker who was passing by.

For the longest time, she stood there staring at my screen that I had accidentally left open. And there I was thinking - " Oh my God! I've had it. She is going to suggest I stop slacking off and get my ass back to work!" She paused and after a brief moment of silence she said -" I know its none of my business, but I couldn't help notice what you were designing. These look beautiful!". To my surprise, she was in total awe of my work (which I personally think are nothing great by the way) and was visualizing these prints as a part of a contemporary painting series that she could use to decorate her apartment with.

At the end of the day, although my art didn't give me a sense of mental satisfaction, it sure felt like I had accomplished in motivating a fellow co-worker! Yay! Me :)