Mein aur Meri Tanhayee…! [My loneliness and Me]

Series I

I am transfixed by the sentence, ‘Leave me alone’. Heard this sentence from the days of school and had even wondered what it meant, until I grew up and started confronting with my parents for all the things they asked me to do and I royally reflected back saying, “Leave me, alone…”

These ‘Leave me, alone…’ sessions were so huge that they brought in many activities that later became a latent talent inside this poor soul. These sessions were filled with soul turning music, books of all kinds, geography, history of places, writing poems, short stories, having fun and frolic, chatting with friends, pal friends, and what not. Eventually as I grew, I grew tried of many things and some basic qualities I guess, I possessed stayed back, like writing, reading and music.

Then, it used to be bliss to be alone…listening to good music lying on the bed with the lights off and surrounded by darkness, swinging to the music and enjoying the aura around you. Shutting the words of the parents too early then they start and increase the volume of the song to decibels beyond normal hearing….

Sometimes it was the Sony Walkman or the Sony CD player that used to be companion for long hours and the music used to play for hours together without any intervention when not surrounded by friends.

My grandma, if she did not find me hanging around with the player earplugs on my ears, she used to ask me sarcastically, “Yenge unnoda sevutu, machine? [Where’s your hearing aid?]”
I used to just give her long gawk and then reply angrily, “Ithu onnum sevutu machine, illa. [It isn’t my hearing aid.]”

It used to bring peace within and the surrounding…whenever it played. I used to look forward to such sessions and had great fun listening to music this way rather than play it in a big stereo system. I felt the words were clear and I found the singer close to my ears singing.

Slowly, I was addicted to music and kept listening to different genres of music. I could not be separated from music and whenever I heard a song or music, my ears would be tuned automatically to the sound and randomly scan my brain for the details of the music that is being played. My mind started to acquire data and store them at a rapid pace.

The small talent of mine, [Yes, I call it that way] got into an asset and do not know when people started asking me about the various music genres and the various songs!

I listened to a wide variety of music, chose some of my favorites among the genres, and stuck to them as mud would to water, until today. I became familiarized with not only Indian Music genres but also with International Music; I started with our very own film music. The days of Vivida Bharathi, Chaya Geeth and the Fauji Pasand were some favorite programs that brought the North Indian Film music to my ears.

Being in Tamilnadu, at an age when I could comprehend things beyond the surroundings, and myself. I was exposed to a lot of Tamil film music too. I heard and being an ardent fan of Illayaraja’s Music, listened to his music more! I belong to the period of his towering fame in Tamil film industry where eight movies out of ten that released had music scored by him.
I went on to learn more about music, but stopped after a point, as I could not understand the ragas and their usage. Nevertheless, later when more knowledge poured in I understood them! I had never been crazy about carnatic music and never bothered to listen to music from a raga’s point. I love film music and had been happy grown up listening to it. I slowly listened to ghazals, pop, reggae, disco, rock, soft, love ballads, fast love songs, love songs and listened to them all in my loneliness and they became a companion.

I was motivated to learn music one day that I joined a class of ‘Classical Hindustani’. I was baffled by it and wanted to master it. Alas, it was I, who had to travel from one place to another, this time it was my master who got transferred as her husband was supposed to join his another branch office. There went my taunt at music along with her. I was good at it and even practicsed every day at home, what she taught me. She was surprised and told me, ‘It is amazing at the pitch you are learning things.’ There I guess, the eye of warth fell on it and my venture on music remains unchanged!

Whatever said and done about the roots of the main stream music, such as Hindustani, Hindustani Classical, Carnatic, Western Classical, Western…these all fall sort some way, when it comes to Film Music of our Indian Subcontinent. Indian Film Music has almost all the elements of these various classifications in a right mix and composition!

Film music has played a varied role in our lives and still is we have seen our parents melt at the songs of their period and we at our era and the younger generation at the music of their era.

It seems to enthrall us all….be whatever the period, irrespective of it, was it SD Burman, RD Burman, Bappi Lahari, Anu Malik, Louis Banks, AR Rehaman, Harris Jayaraj, or Illayaraja. We have surrendered our hearts to all the wonderful singers of whatever the era and still feel happy to listen to them and surrender to their voice! We sometimes try to imitate them in their singing attire that we lose our own identity.

We become mad of the lyrics, the music, the voice, the joy in the song and are happy as if it was for us and only us the song sung! Our parents say their era had wonderful soul whirling music and consider their age a golden age, agreed but if I sit back and listen to our era, I feel it is not behind that distinct mark.

Yeah, now, the music is taking a significant change and have gone into more western music and western sounds, but people have changed so is the music, what say?!

Anyways, the golden era and the silver era isn’t behind and we even find many music directors who are trying to recreate the music of these eras for the young people with a dash of western sounds to it!

Washrooms of IT Companies!

A particular act of the masses has been so much levying on my mind for some days that I am not able to come out of it and how much ever I try to rationalize with the act, in vain.

With the advent of civilization came the usage of baths, toiletries, toilets, and places of private usage. But in today’s modern world in the concrete buildings and huge structures of offices in cities, this small enclosure that is used to excreta the human wastes has become more in demand for all the other things than its intended use.

I don’t know if I can generalize this act, but for the line of reasoning and to come to a rationalized necessity, I am generalizing it and using it for both the genders of human kind.

The most private and the enjoyable place of human inventions are the Washrooms, no doubt about it. It is 100% the best relaxing centers, seats of discoveries and salvation’s to everyday problems, OK. You people are getting the point; I can already hear smiles and nodding of heads.

Archimedes, found his theory of determining the object density when he was in his bath, the volume of water displaced must be equal to the volume of the part of his body he had submerged. Such is the worth of that private enclosure.

Yeah, so where we were…that place has so much to offer to us, in return of the SHIT we do there. But, who cares!!!

The toilet seat is the best and the convenient place on earth, none of the comfy sofas and beds would offer us such comfort. We are almost comfortable doing anything from reading a newspaper to magazine, a fiction to a non-fiction writing, doing mathematical calculations, working on our interest rates, the balances in the savings account, pondering over the ever increasing credit payments to be done, recollecting the outstanding bills to be paid, every damn thing we can think about sitting on it, which we can’t process sitting in the comforts of the sofa, air conditioners, the lavish rooms, the personal computers or along the waves of surfing that we do day in and day out.

When it has so much to offer can you give away your piece of heaven to someone or with something that disturbs you. Exactly, I can hear your “No’s”…I sympathize with you.

This is the comfort that it offers anywhere it is be it common place washrooms like the shopping malls, cinema halls, airports, railway stations, highway gas stations, restaurants and our very own offices, we can open our God given personal computers, our ‘brain’ to ponder over all the things that we forget the instant we are out of it, Alas!

I know we come to office for the job that is offered to us. But, at any point of time you can see at least one-fourth of the population, oh! You think it too much, Na…it might be a little exaggeration, but it’s fine, ya. Thank god, there are intervals in people taking their time… Ahem! Let me get to the point…

The point of my rationalization with the act is I find the afore said place is being used for all the other purpose along with the intended purpose.

Let me start with some good introductions of usage-

1. It is a phone booth. You can find all kinds of conversations, I guess the emptiness and the solace of the compartments make people move to it, as if the other places are crowded, anyway, conversations of cajoling, laughter, romance, brotherly, sisterly, mother-daughter, mother-in-law and daughter-in-law, husband, children, boyfriend, one0night stand, newlyweds, newly-engaged, newly- in-love, introductions all kinds of conversations possible.
2. It is a relaxing center with the phone on ears. They comfortably sit on the washbasin stand and that too with stretched out legs and clasped hands, thanks to the ear phones and mikes, you don’t’ even have to hold the phone in your hand. Don’t whom or who is on the other end, you don’t whether they are talking or listening to the silence, who is benefited the ‘Service Provider’.
3. It is a place for all the private talk. This is the most common phenomenon; people come in groups and go in groups. I seriously don’t understand how this is ever possible. And even after they are at the private sinks they don’t keep quite, they continue with the over the door conversations, and if you ever hear you really go mad, at listening to all the code and decodes in the sentences. You never know what they are talking.
4. If you want to pick a fight with your loved ones, this is the place. You can scream at the top of your voice nobody hears and you can also hear the sorry and make-ups to follow.
5. The best part, if you want to have talks about the gossips going about in the office corridors or things like who gives a stare at whom, who is impressed by whom, who gets the most allowances, who is going around with whom, what are the affairs that are legal and non-legal…Oh! what not, a plethora of details and stories, indeed!
6. You can also hear the vivid descriptions of the most happening discount sales and the wonderful collection of clothes and accessories in the town and across the city! The best places to eat, shop, roam and hang-out! You can even catch one or two beautiful reviews of the movies that are running in the town !!! Not to forget you also get a medical help to the several or lighter problems in life which is a mix of all the ‘pathy’ of medicine known to human cure!
7. Last, but not the least, the intended purpose. Hmm…at last peace in using it for the right purpose.

I am not able to understand how they can deny the privacy and the peace of the place and putting it use for the right work. Some people even still talk with the phone on behind the closed doors of the closet. I wonder how they do it!!!

It is very disturbing when you find someone in there talking, laughing, arguing, cajoling, and doing what not. It sometimes feels as if they might be laughing at you, with no purpose. It is so senseless and I wonder, why, they hell they built the washrooms in the first place.

Or sometimes, I am really motivated to write a letter of requisition to the authorities asking for a phone booth area for all the love talk these people want to have or conversations of magical importance to themselves and let me do my work in eternal peace.

But, what should I have the subject line of the mail, keeps me dropping the idea…I feel tempted to say, ‘Allow some peace in the private closets of the Washrooms.’

You can read a detail of a 'Men's Room' here at my friends blog :
http://mota-blogs.com/2009/07/17/my-stint-as-a-sw-prof-part-ii/

Umpteen Ways to Seduce Men, But 10 Best I Know!

Here is my contribution to this blog. I am not saying whatever, I henceforth; say is absolutely right or wrong!

I just felt like saying this after all being spent my life till now in an environment that has been cohesive to both the genders of life. I drive some nonsensical theory to the all accumulated glib about the other gender with whom I spend about 1/3 of my lifetime right through schooling till I finish off with my official duties!

Read on, men folk if you agree to what is being said here, I appreciate your cooperation and the women folk who feel this is a piece of information to follow please, rethink!

1. Behave intelligently, but be Stupid!
The turn on for most men is the intelligent part! If you want to be intelligent then get yourself equipped with the most intriguing subjects and interesting articles. Learn to speak intellectually and if you cannot do that just take care enough to keep yourself of the knowledgeable group. Carry yourself as the most knowledgeable one and put up a fight to every other thing the man says! Do not argue for it turns him off.

Try to tell things in a way you inflate his male ego and put in on a dais that treats him as a man of great unconquerable knowledge! Nevertheless, the tough part is though being so intelligibly, intelligent you have to behave stupid coz, men like being stupid. They need somebody to be as stupid as the concept of ‘rain clouds’. You got to be saying, rain clouds is created by God, who pours them on the town or city which has the maximum number of innocent and good people, like him on earth!

Now, I know that it is an unreachable goal but that is how it is! Try, you can do it! We are women of today’s world we know how to play our parts in the play!

2. Be a Kid, but also be a Woman to lean on!
You got be a kid who does all kinds of tantrums and jumps up with joy at the sight of a Cadbury bar. You must also be the woman who can be the person who should be able to decide when he is lost, which path is correct, which restaurant to go, what food to eat, when to go and come, where are the things…etc, etc…,

3. Be Attractive, but not Sexy!
You should be the perfect woman he flaunts in front of his friends but you should not over do the flaunting. Meaning the flaunting should never turn to flirting even if it is from the other side. The friends should not go up to him and say, ‘What a woman you are!’ Even if the person had said in the rightist sense of the right, sense ever said. This episode will be a crime and will remain etched in his mind even when he is subconscious! Never overdo the liberty given to you or to his friends!

4. Be a Listener and Intimate him about his things!
Now, this is the toughest part and you need odes of strength to do it! You need to be listening to all his crap and never raise a word to him. He will not be able to keep his contacts, he will not able to remember dates, even if it was today, he will not remember where he kept things, he will not know what to do in fever, he will not know how to light a stove, etc.

You have to listen to all that he says he cannot do and agree that it is terribly hard and bad on the nature that his small brain is not capable of doing so many things. In fact, you have to help him learn all this and then even remind him of these in a way that, you do not sound BULLY.

If you do all these things perfectly you are an angel, but when you ask him to remember of help him remember it, for example, you casually tell him, Tomorrow is your mother’s anniversary, it will be a blow on him. He might scream back, or tell you with a grudge that he remembers it perfectly and thanks for the help! You have to tell him things in a way that he recollects things in a unique way out of his small brain! Each brain reacts in a perfectly apt way, so be cautious!

5. Right combination of Homeliness and after Dark!
The woman has to be homely that is very much the girl next-door image that is cute and strongly recommended by the immediate blood relations. That is not what is required here, you need to be also the girl who knows how to shake a leg, make a drink, enjoy a drink, and give the right moves and all that in the dark that is not available in the light! This very hard to describe, being naive are gone with those days, when Hema Malini tried to woo Dharmendra! These are days of Kareena and Saif, Shakira and Baby face! There is lot to do in this small world and limited time, that you try to enjoy everything and end up hanged-up or hangover!

6. A very Normal Person with ‘THAT’ Unique Quality!
Hmm…what should I say about this. Haven’t we seen several movies, Kuch Kuch Hota Hai, Rab Ne Banadi Jodi, and many more? It is not the Quantity that matters here as in the unofficial terms, but the in the official terms the ‘Quality’! You got quality that is it. You are a Boomerang; things keep coming to you, not you going to it! You are the centre of gravity, this quality can be anything ranging from a small slop sided smile to the long painted nails…but you should have Quality man!This quality will make him crave and walk upside down but never let you down.

This quality will set you apart the thousands of attractive people and miss worlds and universes…none comparable to you! You are the world and the world is nothing, it is all that unique Quality, mind you! Quality is the motto of life!

7. Be an expert cook and be a non-professional in cook!
It is said and widely accepted, that ‘The best way to a man’s heart is through his stomach’. Meaning to say, if you cook him delicious food and make him eat, he is almost there for your every peck and call! You need to cook in the perfect taste and color, that he licks the remains of the food without leaving anything for you! You serve him with the utmost patience and love that he feels eating more even if his stomach does not allow him.

Nevertheless, when he gets to cooking he is the utmost adorable person you know! He might not know ABC’s of cooking, but one bite will tell him that there is something missing in it. In addition, that missing you thing you would have added! He might be able to tell you what is wrong with it, but knows for sure that something is missing.

When he gets into the mood of cooking then you need to forget the art of it, coz any amount of telling him will not work! All the ingredients are there without fail and he might have added some more thinking that it might give him that extra flavor that you always missed! Believe me, you feel like a non-professional in cook even after several years of listening him to praise your cooking and adding on those extra kilos!!!

8. Take life seriously and be prepared for unplannedness!
Yes, you got be taking life seriously. After a certain age you cannot be going fun and frolic. There is a time to play and make fun. rest of the time you are supposed be worried about your future, think and plan for your future. Correct your past, learn from mistakes(even though, they don’t!).
You are supposed have a proper plan for everything you do. You got to know things in advance plan for it and not take things for granted. But, when he is ready for a unplanned trip or event then it is all fun and you need to join. Coz, that is how life is unplanned and unexpected. Come on, ya what is the fun doing all the planning. Tell me does it make sense?!

9. Learn to read roadmaps and never ask for help!
Yes, you heard me right learn to read roadmaps. You might not know what is west or north but if you want to impress him, learn it quick and perfectly that even you are lost in Antarctica, you know your way out of the mess with the help of the map!

What holiness it is? You are not supposed to ask a man or a passer-by for the way or help to guide you. You are supposed to take the address of the place with and adhere to the address, it says lane no 3, then it is exactly after lane no.2 even if you don’t find the lane 2, you have to find it to get the lane 3.

Who said you can approach a person, and ask him for guidance? Don’t you have manners? What will he think? You got to know which part of your house if facing which side. North, south or east, west? What you did not read geography and history in schools?

You can get back home even without finding the way and call up your friend and discuss on the phone for long hourts how you went about the same street again and again but missed the exact spot where you had to take the fright turn, but not ask a person who passes-by for the address!
That’s exactly how you read road maps. You don’t know how to read them, now use the technology, use Google Earth!

10. Be a complete woman, but never a Dumb!
Last but not the least the whole thing of being totally a woman in all sides and angle. Don’t forget your curves and angles to be intact for you are out of shape, you have competition and comparison waiting for you!

There are a whole lot of people who come in front of you from all sides and remind you of being a rounded off figure to some extinct territory! Beware, you got be a woman with the ultimate combination but, still be the woman who is a Woman for the Man!

The ultimate combination is ‘Beauty with Brains’, that works all the time, when his is not working and intact! I know your beauty should do all the chemical reactions and the brains should do the talking without hurting the male ego! Oops, did I say that……..na…na…The brains do the talking!!! You get that!!!

Disclaimer: The above written content has nothing to do with the men I know and with the men I might know. It is just an extension of my thinking mind! What to do I am woman inthe whole sense of being a human!

No intended meaning, here. Thank you for taking it in the right sense, possible!

What to write?!

It has been two months since I touched this blog of mine with some good or bad write-ups or even written about my expressions to my life.

There has been lot happening at this side and the world across. I had been also been affected by some two major episodes of life at large in this world.

The big and most devastating news of the 'King of Pop' - he reigns no more!

He was a legend and he made music for the very meager men who knew not about music but knew to copy his dance moments and thought that they could also make fame like him!

I have heard the songs of Michael Jackson, on the outskirts of Chennai city, where English was a language not known to many. I have heard them down south in almost most of the small tea shops on the highway and the houses of the unknown in the villages!

I have seen small boys, trying to imitate his dance and glorify the act to an unbelievable event!

He will live through these small acts of appreciation in years to come! I wonder what about the future generation who will not be able to see him perform in LIVE!

The next thing that affected me was the marriage proposal of Archie Andrews and Veronica Lodge.

How come, Archie could do this to Betty Cooper? How is this possible? What about Betty, then is she getting proposed by Jughead or Ronnie?!

Why the hell did Archie fall for the snob, Veronica?! How could the writers do this?

I was wondering about them as real characters. But they are the characters of the famous comic of ‘Archie’ that still instill the reality in all our minds when we read them!

I am great fan of this one comic book and it is a absolute read during the journeys that you make up and down every now and then....the two companions of my journey will continue to enthrall me as long as I am there, no worries if they don't know me!!!