I intend this blog to be anonymous
I apologise for inquiring as to whether you were born an a*** or if you had lost all your sentient parts gradually to disuse atrophy
N yea, nice blog.
to The Others who 'veiw profiles but do not comment' :
Siddhartha does have a quirky, funny way of putting a point forth, so check his blog out :
http://immutef.blogspot.com/
Also, check out this wonderfully rum story i came across:
http://www.terrybisson.com/meat.html
Saturday, November 12, 2005
Half a world asunder
I was talking to Shraddha today when out of the blue came the realization that we have slowly but surely drifted apart. Now that I look back at it, the odd part is that I hadn’t noticed it till now. We used to be the best of friends at that wonderfully innocent age when having a ‘best friend’ wasn’t something too maudlin to indulge in, yet.
We were giggling, cheeky teenagers together and quite insufferable in our delinquency, or so I’ve been told. Anyhow, I thought I’d pander to my rare bout of sentimentality and put up a poem I had written to shut her up when I left for this place. It is quite corny, I agree, but I was 15.
For A Misty Eyed Fairy
‘Tis said each time a fairy cries
A wee lil’ star is born,
That softly spreads its silver strands
Ere the sky is cloaked by a golden morn.
Each trembling tear that leaves her lash,
Down ashen cheek, down quivering lip;
Each little pearl is placed with care
By the raven sky’s own fingertip.
Each silver tear you’ve shed sweet dear
Has traveled down diana’s lane;
Each drop is now night’s sparkling gem.
So grows God’s own daisy – chain…
We were giggling, cheeky teenagers together and quite insufferable in our delinquency, or so I’ve been told. Anyhow, I thought I’d pander to my rare bout of sentimentality and put up a poem I had written to shut her up when I left for this place. It is quite corny, I agree, but I was 15.
For A Misty Eyed Fairy
‘Tis said each time a fairy cries
A wee lil’ star is born,
That softly spreads its silver strands
Ere the sky is cloaked by a golden morn.
Each trembling tear that leaves her lash,
Down ashen cheek, down quivering lip;
Each little pearl is placed with care
By the raven sky’s own fingertip.
Each silver tear you’ve shed sweet dear
Has traveled down diana’s lane;
Each drop is now night’s sparkling gem.
So grows God’s own daisy – chain…
Wednesday, November 09, 2005
I'm 19 for heavens sake !
I realised today that we never do grow up. Not in the true sense of the word anyhow.
I tried, in a most grown-up, uber dignified way to get out of having to drink milk. . At first I simply told mum I didn't want it in an offhand manner and set the glass on the table.. but she saw right thru that one. So I resorted to telling her that it smelled funny (which it did) and then to claiming that it tasted like turnips (which it might as well have considering I dunno what turnips taste like in the first plc). I even considered making faces and looking zif I was choking on it but I realised that that would be getting rather pathetic .
I tried most stunts in the book and then some but mum actually stood there n supervised me..
And for a very real moment i wondered whether she would now proceed to making me recite multiplication tables like she did back when I was 5.
What I'm getting at is that if you want to get out of drinking milk, asking mum is a sureshot way to having all your plans backfire.
..No..
What I'm actually getting at, albeit in a very roundabout way, is that ,well, we never do attain that nonchalant grown-up air where moms are concerned.
I tried, in a most grown-up, uber dignified way to get out of having to drink milk. . At first I simply told mum I didn't want it in an offhand manner and set the glass on the table.. but she saw right thru that one. So I resorted to telling her that it smelled funny (which it did) and then to claiming that it tasted like turnips (which it might as well have considering I dunno what turnips taste like in the first plc). I even considered making faces and looking zif I was choking on it but I realised that that would be getting rather pathetic .
I tried most stunts in the book and then some but mum actually stood there n supervised me..
And for a very real moment i wondered whether she would now proceed to making me recite multiplication tables like she did back when I was 5.
What I'm getting at is that if you want to get out of drinking milk, asking mum is a sureshot way to having all your plans backfire.
..No..
What I'm actually getting at, albeit in a very roundabout way, is that ,well, we never do attain that nonchalant grown-up air where moms are concerned.
Sunday, November 06, 2005
Googlebomb President Musharraf
During a tape-recorded, 50-minute interview with the Washington Post, Pakistan president Gen. Pervez Musharraf said that "A lot of people say if you want to go abroad and get a visa for Canada or citizenship and be a millionaire, get yourself raped." claiming rape has become a "moneymaking concern" in Pakistan. Here is a recording of the quote in the 12th paragraph of the Sept. 12 story. The remark was made in regards to the case of Mukhtar Mai, an illiterate woman who spoke publicly about having been gang-raped on the orders of a village council in 2002.
More about the reactions his comments sparked at the BBC website
The 'insensitive jerk' link is me doing my bit to googlebomb prez Musharraf. Read more about it at Raven's blog.
Here is what you have to do.
Saturday, November 05, 2005
Army Brats
Well, I’m pretty much an army brat n I thought I’d acquaint you with our species.
A typical conversation when two army brats meet for the first time in an unstructured environment (i.e. anyplace outside the cantonment. Schools, colleges, workplaces n their likes are obviously not structured enough to compare) goes loosely along these lines:
First dude/dame: So...what did you say your dad’s (or mom's, of course, though in rarer cases) name was..?
To this the other shall reply stating the rank and name of their parent with carefully cultivated enunciation as if reciting it for a school ceremony. In. that. order. Even the tiniest fledgling shall speak of their dad using first their ranks n then the name (this of course leads to much confusion when the parent gets a new rank which in turn leads to hush-hush parenting sessions to hammer the new ‘name’ in). And they do it in the most reflex, unconscious manner. As a kid I have filled my fair share of forms with ‘Major’ in the blank for my dad's first name.
This exchange is, almost invariably, followed by the query: so... where've you been?
To the unacquainted this would most certainly sound like piffle. A question hardly worthy of a second thought. To be answered with a perfunctory "oh, here and there...”; or at times with a "at the corner chemists. I just HAD to have some valium before I could hit the pub again, or hit the floor with my feet for that matter" if you are the more gregarious kinds.
But, for the quintessential army brat this is the vital part of the conversation. The revelation, if you will. Sine qua non.
To be answered reverently with a list of all the places they've ever been posted to (running backwards from the present, obviously. n when I say "they've been posted” I mean their dads/moms, which is just as obvious, but anyhow.), ending with the Command Hospital they were born at. After which they're thick as thieves.
Another thing, if you ever sass (sass: know, be aware of, have sex with, meet) a typical specimen you'll know what I mean when I say that they're snobs. Just stare at one long enough n you'll see it. That slightest upward angle to the chin, that scrunching up of the nose as if somebody had held a mildly smelly pair of yesterday's socks under it, n of course the utterly condescending way in which they refer to waiters, traffic policemen, bus conductors, roadside scroungers, tramps and the odd guy who is quizzed for directions as 'bahiya' in the same breath. Point this out to a less aware brat n he'll deny it flat out: "Me! Snooty?! You must've confused me with someone else... Why, I even referred to that proletarian serf over there as 'bhaiya', as though he were in some way related to the magnificence that is me ! ". An educated guess would be that this comes from a lifetime of being raised in an atmosphere the roots of which can be traced to the owld british times. Can’t say I condone the attitude but it is so ingrained that it has become second nature. Royalty aside, the only people who can possibly be as militantly elitist as your otherwise unpretentious, self effacing pal who happens to have a parent in the army would be their airforce counterparts. Wait a sec, did I say 'as elitist as'.. I obviously wasn't thinking straight. One airforce brat can put on more airs than half a dozen army ones put together... okie.. make that three. But that, as they say, is another tale altogether.
N.B.: Reading the above might have led you to form the opinion that we consider the word 'so' a conversational gambit of sorts. this inference of course is absurd and totally unsound. So.
To other army brats, if any, reading this: when I say brat I use it as a term of endearment of course. And you really are a brat you know. If you think otherwise, just tell me, what was the last time you picked up your own socks when you came home and put em in the washer, for that matter, have you EVER picked your own socks up?
A typical conversation when two army brats meet for the first time in an unstructured environment (i.e. anyplace outside the cantonment. Schools, colleges, workplaces n their likes are obviously not structured enough to compare) goes loosely along these lines:
First dude/dame: So...what did you say your dad’s (or mom's, of course, though in rarer cases) name was..?
To this the other shall reply stating the rank and name of their parent with carefully cultivated enunciation as if reciting it for a school ceremony. In. that. order. Even the tiniest fledgling shall speak of their dad using first their ranks n then the name (this of course leads to much confusion when the parent gets a new rank which in turn leads to hush-hush parenting sessions to hammer the new ‘name’ in). And they do it in the most reflex, unconscious manner. As a kid I have filled my fair share of forms with ‘Major’ in the blank for my dad's first name.
This exchange is, almost invariably, followed by the query: so... where've you been?
To the unacquainted this would most certainly sound like piffle. A question hardly worthy of a second thought. To be answered with a perfunctory "oh, here and there...”; or at times with a "at the corner chemists. I just HAD to have some valium before I could hit the pub again, or hit the floor with my feet for that matter" if you are the more gregarious kinds.
But, for the quintessential army brat this is the vital part of the conversation. The revelation, if you will. Sine qua non.
To be answered reverently with a list of all the places they've ever been posted to (running backwards from the present, obviously. n when I say "they've been posted” I mean their dads/moms, which is just as obvious, but anyhow.), ending with the Command Hospital they were born at. After which they're thick as thieves.
Another thing, if you ever sass (sass: know, be aware of, have sex with, meet) a typical specimen you'll know what I mean when I say that they're snobs. Just stare at one long enough n you'll see it. That slightest upward angle to the chin, that scrunching up of the nose as if somebody had held a mildly smelly pair of yesterday's socks under it, n of course the utterly condescending way in which they refer to waiters, traffic policemen, bus conductors, roadside scroungers, tramps and the odd guy who is quizzed for directions as 'bahiya' in the same breath. Point this out to a less aware brat n he'll deny it flat out: "Me! Snooty?! You must've confused me with someone else... Why, I even referred to that proletarian serf over there as 'bhaiya', as though he were in some way related to the magnificence that is me ! ". An educated guess would be that this comes from a lifetime of being raised in an atmosphere the roots of which can be traced to the owld british times. Can’t say I condone the attitude but it is so ingrained that it has become second nature. Royalty aside, the only people who can possibly be as militantly elitist as your otherwise unpretentious, self effacing pal who happens to have a parent in the army would be their airforce counterparts. Wait a sec, did I say 'as elitist as'.. I obviously wasn't thinking straight. One airforce brat can put on more airs than half a dozen army ones put together... okie.. make that three. But that, as they say, is another tale altogether.
N.B.: Reading the above might have led you to form the opinion that we consider the word 'so' a conversational gambit of sorts. this inference of course is absurd and totally unsound. So.
To other army brats, if any, reading this: when I say brat I use it as a term of endearment of course. And you really are a brat you know. If you think otherwise, just tell me, what was the last time you picked up your own socks when you came home and put em in the washer, for that matter, have you EVER picked your own socks up?
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