ZOMG! I AM GOD!

Now, till I declare myself as God (shh, there is still time for that), for all practical purposes, I am a human being.  And as a human being, my body is bound to have minor ailments.

One of the most common ailments is headache.  Now, the medical expert in me (lulz) tells me that it is because of cold (yea, have this cold thing since childhood) but despite that I like to Google symptoms, since I don't visit the family doctor, mostly because he doesn't think I'm ill. :(

Now, few years back, I discovered the scariest place on the internet.  WebMD.  At first I was amused and fascinated on how many ailments exist in the world and said a little prayer that I don't suffer from them.  But then, I discovered the Symptom Checker.

Every time I get headache, it is usually accompanied with pain in the neck, or back or sometimes pain in the right profile of my face.  Pop in one combiflam and I'm as good as new.  But then, the first time I entered the symptoms, one of the diagnosis that came up was. Paralysis stroke. :|

Enough to scare me at 3 am and leading me to a sleepless night. Or nights.

But then, it kind of became an addiction of sorts.  Just knowing the worst possible scenario and how that I'm not dying immediately gave me a thrill in a way. (shhh, I don't need to see a shrink, not yet)

And then, since past few days, I was having a pain in the right side on the ribs (i think - i am not that great a medical expert, ok?)  It would pain a little every time I'd yawn or take a deep breath.  According to WebMD, I may have fractured a rib, and might be bleeding internally.  In fact, I think (I'm very intuitive that way) I have pulled a muscle while stretching myself, and I think I'm just gonna spray some relispray and sleep well and wake up feeling as good as new. (yeah, my favourite phrase these days is as good as new. ok, not these days, just for this post)

In the mean time, I insist WebMD comes with a warning of sorts, that the diagnosis is not for the faint hearted, because if they are to be believed, I have already died. Twice.

PS: ZOMG. Just realised this is my 100th post! ZOMG. HUGS TO ALL!

Where top secret meetings are held

How To Pee

It is an unwritten rule, that whenever we girls are out in group, we never go to the loo alone.  Just like men bond at bars, we bond in "washrooms" (because toilet is too dirty sounding word).  In fact, sometimes, even if we don't want to pee, we just go to the loos, because, we just want to chill. 

Some girls discuss how one girl (who is obviously left out from the washroom group) was a bitch, and was wearing wrong kind of footwear, and loud make up.  I once encountered this one girl, who said one girl looking like Rakhi Sawant.  Turns out the girl who got called Rakhi Sawant was the girl her ex was currently dating.  And no, no, I do not eavesdrop loo conversations.  These are just snippets you hear if you keep your ears open.

And how can you forget photographs? According to this made up statistic, 98% of all pictures taken in loo, are taken in public loos.  Because the mirrors are bigger, lights are brighter and some loos in fancy restaurants/hotels are too awesome to not take pictures in.  I wonder how long before people start creating Facebook fanpage of their own "Loo Photography".

Then there are the employees.  Like of the mall.  They are there for their hourly break, because, they can.  Recently, I overheard a conversation which left me little worried.

Lady 1: Tum sab kutti ho.
Lady 2: Hum kutti to tu kutti ki maa.
Lady 1: Main roz idhar kapde badalti hoon.
Lady 3: Tu phir bhi kutti.

They turned to look at me, as I froze in anticipation of a girl fight breaking out, and laughed.

Lady 2 (to Lady 1): Jaa kutti. Madam ko jaane de.

As I turned to leave, Lady 1 said, "byeeeeee" as if she was my long lost friend. :|

But then, there are girls who go to the loo all by themselves.  Like the girl who is out on a date. She'll go in to do some last minute make up patch up, and ensure her hair are well behaved.  And how she looks when she smiles in a certain way.  Mirrors in "washrooms" are magical that way. But this activity is no fun, because you can't spend 10 minutes in the washroom and not get the date suspicious of you taking a dump in a public loo.  Scary shit, literally. HAHAHHAHA.

But most of all, women go to the loo in group because it's just too boring to go to the loo all by yourself.

PS: The above picture was clicked by a friend in a loo in Bangalore. 

The "H" Factor

I have lived most of my life in Ahmedabad. Despite what other people might say about this city, this city is my home, and I love it. I am also not well travelled. I've been to a few places in and around the country, but that's not 'well travelled'. Though I am in love with the idea of "travelling".. For the longest time, Bombay was the southern most part of India I had visited.

All this changed when I visited Bangalore for the first time. There were certain things about the city which fascinated me... people with *really* bushy moustache.. lots of posters/billboards with pictures of these men put up all across the city.. of course, not to forget the full size, and at times, more than 2 times the size, posters of men in lungi.

Now, these could be actors.. or politicians.. or their sons.. or both.. which is a funny thing.. cos just like how certain south indian films remakes in hindi are awful, and are viewed by audience in single digit, most of which are paid to attend the film screening so that they can give review through various mediums, a lot of actors in hindi film industry tried to ape the south superstars and got themselves elected. Unfortunately, that one decision spelled an end of their movie career while their political career never took off (exhibit A - Govinda)

And then there are the cowboy hats for the traffic policement. I mean, really, what's up with that! I know, I say that everytime I visit Bangalore, but then, its just not that easy to ignore it when you see that.. especially when you see two things together, like a moustached goon-like actors poster and the cowboy hat clad policemen.. all this while, a Kannada song is being played on the radio, where the female singer makes #haun-worthy sounds.. ensuring non-kannada speaking public get the meaning across.

But the most fascinating thing about the south indian cities is the love for the alphabet "H". It baffles me completely when they write Sekar and pronounce it as Shekhar, and write Bharathi and pronounce it as Bharati. Why? WHY? why not stick to phonetics? And why add the extra "A" to names like Sankara (notice the missing H too?) or Siva (again, missing H).. ? Reading the name Haris was the weirdest for me.. one H is missing.. while one H is already there.. so how hard was it for them to just add an extra H? On inquiring about it, some people told me that the language doesn't have the hindi letter "ta" and so, they write "tha". as in, Bharath instead of Bharat. Now, nothing against it, but I don't buy the theory.. cos if that's the case, why an extra "H" in other names?

I would've written more.. but I am sleepy now.. its past midnight, and a weekday, so must sleep.

Also, thank you for the love you're giving the blog, especially those who google nirwa mehta and reach here - special love and big kiss to you all :D

TwitterGita

@Arjun

has checked in at Kurukshetra with @LordKrishna, @YoYudi, @B4Bheem, @Sahdevrocks and @lukan

wtf - so thanks to @CrazyDrau, i'm now standing against my cousins. losing morale, @LordKrishna, #help

@LordKrishna

in reply to @Arjun #abbeyaar, told you thousand times, nainam chindanti shastrani, nainam dahati... you're not killing them.

[This page is in Malay, use google translation?]

@Arjun

in reply to @LordKrishna but isn't it a sin to kill people, esp my relatives and the #kvlt gurus?

@LordKrishna

in reply to @Arjun Go ahead, you are a warrior, and you must fight, as that is the path of your dharma. Also, don't worry about fruits, pay attention to karma #rhymes

And just so you know, I'm awesomeness redefined. In short, the best amongst everything.

@Arjun

in reply to @LordKrishna #PontingFace

@LordKrishna

in reply to @Arjun http://twitpic.com/dashavtara have a look #EPIC

@Arjun

in reply to @LordKrishna omg! #SirUMadeLakhs that's awesomeness!

@LordKrishna

in reply to @Arjun so you see, it's all destined. go ahead - surrender yourself to me, I am the ultimate truth.

@Arjun

+1 RT @LordKrishna so you see, it's all destined. go ahead - surrender yourself to me, I am the ultimate truth.

I am now ready to kick some asses.

In the meantime, #followfriday @LordKrishna for his awesomeness!

(ps - no intention to hurt any religious sentiments, and on a personal level, I love the chapter 10 of gita where Krishna describes how awesome He is! :) )

Closure

Some relationships just drift apart. You could be the best of friends today, and you suddenly, for no reason, drift apart, and the next thing you know, it has been two years since you last talked to your best friend and when you do call up your friend, she's pregnant already. (yea, you were not even invited to the wedding)

Like every other thing in the universe, whether being emotional is good or bad, is a highly subjective matter. There is no limit set that being emotionally involved with something or someone is the ideal limit. It all depends on how your brains and heart are wired.

My brain and heart are wired in a very weird manner. I get attracted to all the wrong men in the world. And attracted, not only in the romantic way. It could be purely platonic way, but then, there is this thing about me where I suffer from verbal diarrhoea.

I love to talk. I can talk incessantly and incoherently for hours and still not get tired. In fact, so much of talking and laughing releases all the happy hormones in me and I get a tremendous high and can stay awake for 24 hours straight.

I was introduced to Rajat through a common friend when we were in the last year of college. he was a two years senior to us and we hit it off instantly. We would hang out together in the group and like every other romantic comedy movie, we would hang out together more than the rest of the junta.

Our phone calls lasted till wee hours in the morning, and we would still have lots to talk about. Rather, I would have lots to talk about. All this while, we were great friends. We didn't quite realise when we stopped going out with the rest of the gang, and it was just us at the movies and pizzas and coffees.

And then, suddenly, he stopped answering my calls.

What hurt me more was the fact that I was totally clueless as to what went wrong. It was all going great, we were having fun, laughing, talking, and suddenly, poof! he went out of my life as if he never was!

It took me eight to ten months to get over the pain the very dear friend of mine had given. It also took lots of coffee and 4 am calls where I would call my best friend Preeti and I would cry for no reason and she would patiently listen to me without giving me all the gyaan others would've provided. Now, I'm not sure if she was listening or just sleeping while I ranted my way, though!

World is too small, they say. Very rarely, and only in movies do paths cross again. I never thought of Rajat again.

Today, after five years since I last saw him, I came face to face to him again. Where we both acted as strangers, as if nothing ever existed between us. His parents are looking for a bride for him, he told me.

As we exchanged goodbyes, I somehow, felt liberated. The ghost of the past no more bothers me, and I am ready to move on.

:)

So all you single men out there.. :P here is your chance! :P :P

PS - it is all fiction! :D just written in first person narrative! :D

Bengaluru-Coorg-Bengaluru

I don't remember the last time I visited a hill station. It's as if I had almost forgotten how a hill station looks like.

Last week we visited Coorg, Karnataka. It was also the first time I saw coffee and pepper plantations. And it was lovely. For a change, the drive was as much pleasant as the destination.

/rant begins

Drive reminds me, whats up with the drivers on the karnataka highway? I mean, they seem to be unaware of the thing called rules. Under normal circumstances, on the Gujarat highway, you'd see slow moving/heavy vehicles drive religiously on the left lane and the vehicles overtake only from teh right side. Well, in most cases at least. But in Karnataka, the slow moving/heavy vehicles "choose" a lane where they'll drive at a chosen speed limit too. So those who want to overtake, must zigzag their way around these monuments which seem to be racing amongst themselves at the speed of 2 kmph.

/rant ends

I can write a lot about the pretty, pretty, Abbey Falls (the walk up and down the pathway to the falls can test anyone's shaaririk kshamata) or the super awesome plantations where I thought I could spend days, but then decided I'll get bored of it pretty soon, or the elephant park, which I personally think is cruelty towards animals. I mean, I love elephants.. elephants are my favourite animal and I have a pillow in shape of an elephant too.. i find them incredibly cute and innocent. But elephants are essentially wild animals, and they belong in forests. Not in some random camp where they are "trained" to perform tricks like putting a garland in visitors' neck or playing football. Or even an elephant ride for that matter. I mean, its just cruelty to use animals for entertainment purposes like these. Of course, when you look around the farm and see the giant potty cakes of elephants, you thank god that elephants don't fly. Anyhoo, so to complete the sentence, I could write a lot about these things and sound like a tourism website or I can just say its a place worth visiting and talk about other stuff. :P

But then, I don't have much to say, except for the fact that a co passenger on my ahmedabad to bangalore flight got talking to me and man, he was weird. He was so so so so weird, but seemingly harmless guy. When i casually mentioned this to a friend, she reminded of the movie Taken and dammit, it scared me. It scared me a LOT. Sigh.

Anyway, today is my first day of complete joblessness. No exams to study for (at least at the moment), no office to go to, and basically, nothing much to do. Oh, and there is some kind of weird cold wave condition in ahmedabad and I am freeeeeeeezing. Dammit, its even colder then the hill station we visited. It is VERY cold here, really.

On the other hand, I am thinking I should start looking for a job. Wonder who will hire me.

The customary Diwali post

Every blog will have a Diwali post up today. Also, every twitter-er, even if he is not a regular on it, adn has to click on forgot password to retrive the password, will somehow manage to remember about it and tweet the Diwali wishes. He will also go about wishing the random celebs for diwali. Of course, everyone on facebook will have happy diwali message, and random diwali greetings where all and sundry on their friends list get tagged. No wonder I have so many people on limited profile.

Of course, Diwali also means arrival of the Lashkar E Foiba (foi is dad's sister in gujarati) so my aunt arrives from Surat. When we were young, she and her annoying two kids, would come with two bags full of fire crackers. Unfortunately, I have always been allergic to smoke, and we would always have exams right after diwali vacation (dammit, if I were to get 10 bucks for every exam paper i wrote, i'd be richer than mukesh ambani and have an anthill err.. antilla of my own.) Anyway, so my annoying cousins would burst those noisy bombs and I hated it. Perhaps I hated it because they didnt burst the pretty crackers which go up in the sky and burst into pretty showers. No, these were plain and simple loud bombs.

The the day after Diwali is the new year. The new Vikram Samvat year sets and and that means, all the gujaratis go to their relatives place, especially elders and pay their respects. When I was younger, we'd leave our house at 10ish, and come back by 4ish, and then, other relatives will come over at my place to pay respect do my grandma and all. So it was a day where we just met people, bowed down to htem adn take blessings and money. There was this old relative of mine, who was so rich, but would give us all only FIVE rupees as Diwali bohni. WTF. Now, of course, things have changed, I go to only three houses, my naani and my aunts. I don't go to my parents' aunts and uncles places because I don't quite like them. :P

But the best part of Diwali, which I really like is awesome food, diyas, and rangoli. I'll be doing the rangoli tomorrow, so that will come up later, but rangoli is one thing I really look forward to.

We also have Puja on Chaudas and Diwali. Chaudas is a family puja which is a private affair, and no one else can participate either in the puja or even have the prasad. It's one of my favourite pujas of all times. :D But then, yesterday was also a cousin's birthday. His crazy wife, who's way too far from reality (in matters which I will elaborate in detail some other day) threw him a surprise party. Well, it did turn up to be a surprise for me. It was at this lounge in the multiplex in the city. When I entered the place, an hour after the appointed time (oh, dude, I had puja to attend to, and I had told the host beforehand of my late entry) the whole multiplex complex was devoid of any human being. Only person you could find was this security guard who asked me if I came for a party. It sounded so shady, i almost wanted to turn around and run away. I asked him if the place is shut down, he said, party is on third floor. I've never seen this place look so creepy before. So as I walked alone till third floor, I went into this dimly lit room, which was once a hookah bar (as informed by my well informed younger cousin, and it serves only mocktails, but cocktails to people who are regular here - TMI, i tell you) and as my eyes tried to adjust to the surroundings, I heard a very loud, "ARE YOU WITH MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE". WTF. So they had a "DJ" who played 'peppy' numbers where my cousins and their friends danced. Now, the last time I felt so uncomfortable with so many people was when an elephant splashed water all over me in a zoo in singapore. So, to save myself from being dragged on to the 'dance floor' I took up the most awesomest job ever - photography. I started clicking random photos, and so, the narcissist janta who loved getting photos clicked, left me alone.

An hour into the party, just when the party was getting all happening, I left. I needed some fresh air. Right. Looking for a fresh air on Diwali is like waiting for Arnab Goswami to shut up. The whole city smelt of gunpowder. I went for a drive towards the greener Gandhingar. Sigh. At times I feel I am so weird that I not only do I not like anyone, but am sure nobody likes me either. Except the crazy surd boy who asked me to be his girlfriend when I was in 11th standard. Sigh.

And then, today morning, I woke up with a slight fever. Its not a good feeling, this fever. Because with exams just 2 days away, I dont want to take chances. I want these to be the last exams I take. :D

On that note, I shall go. Foreign Exchange Management Act is waiting to thrill me.

So on this Diwali, go burst all the crackers you want - global warming can go take a dive in the ice it is melting. We're all going to die anyway. :P