Tuesday, June 27, 2006

Comm Comm

The population of desperate males has suddenly shot up much like our Indian stock market. And the products of their intellectual masturbation are to be seen all over the sundry Net communities - Hi5, Orkut and now Zorpia. Was dragged into the last one by the Fairy and boy o boy! Is it infested with weird creatures so eager to make "nice friendship".
Sample this: Hi Priyadarshini, How r u Doing. Hope this mail finds U in Great Spirit & Cheerfull mood. I would love to have ur friendship . I am Rakesh, I am from Bangalore, I work as software engineer in Bangalore. I am 5'9" height, well build, very sportive, fun loving, loves to enjoy my life always, loves to appreciate & respect others feelings,I'm jovial, Humurous. I love travelling, beaches, Music, dance. I am basically sports freek, loves to play lots of sports like soccer, tennis & cricket. I am presently staying alone in bangalore. I wnat to convey that UR Profile is really very attractive .I feel U r very creative & passonate abt life, & I am also the same. I am eagerly looking forward to our nice friendship. pls keep in touch, I Hope to have u as my friend . U can also mail me at my personal ID dashingblue007@yahoo.com Keep in touch Priyadarshini. I am looking forward to cherrish every moment of our nice friendship. Pls feel free to call me on my mobile 98453-67225, i would love to speak to u . Take care Priyadarshini. Lots of Luv, Rakesh ( UR Admirer ). Mobile : 98453-67225

Now this is what I call a real gogetter! I have absolutely no clue what makes my profile so very attractive, considering there's no photo and almost nothing said about m'self. And, he feels I'm "creative and passonate"...FREEK[sic]! Where the eff did that come from?
Some dashing dude, this one!


I'm being subjected to another kind of mail, too. I've been invited to join the kay-matrimonial group. Please note kay is a shorter version of Kayasthya. (How keeewwl!) Boy, they've even found out my caste! Says: More Than 25000 kayastha comunity[sic] Marriageable Bio-Data of Brides and Grooms From different kayastha Sections. I mean how do these search engines assume stuff like unmarried or divorcee or married but still interested in an EMA. Talk about intruding my privacy. For those of us happily married, despite all the happiness, I don't think we'd ever wanna go that route again (at least not unless we've settled for a nice fat multi-crore alimony from the present one and signed a contract with the prospective one on the same, before walking down the aisle:P).

But as N argues, look at the brighter side of things. "Even at your age and with your hideous looks, people are interested in you," he says.

Wednesday, June 21, 2006

To Sir, with Love!

Dear JAP,

Your wish is my command. So this is handpicked (ok ok, so it's Netflicked, whatever) just for your boorish pleasure.

Hope much joy comes,

Yours truly.

Tuesday, June 20, 2006

The Narcissist

The face it says a million words
Those eyes, that smile
Camouflage the chronic pain that corrodes the soul
Those lilting words that seldom make much sense
Yet inspire a faint ray of hope.

There's something in that face

that still weaves magic
A twinkle in those moist eyes
that lights a thousand arabian nights
And laughter in that crescent smile
that muffles the inconsolable wails of a widowed dimwit.


That face it still beckons
To share a smile and talk awhile
To dream the dreams that never were
Before saying the final goodbye.

Tuesday, June 13, 2006

Bag It!

Shoes and bags are things I could live and die for more than food and clothes, really. But sadly, I'm in a profession that doesn't allow me the luxury of splurging on designer shoes or bags. So I satiate my desires windowshopping. But hail the internet! The innumerabel options that it has a knack of throwing up. And how thoughtfully so.
Now I don't need to just drool and ogle at those designer bags. Look what I found!
I'm looking fr something similar for shoes too. Watch out for this space!

Brick In The Wall

G started "big school" yesterday. Since she loves going to school and has been a star at her play school throughout the last year, she's really been looking forward to experiencing the "big school". She had remembered one of the kids from the "Admission Day" and having spotted her in the crowd, was only too thrilled to go and reunite with her. They talked shop animatedly while we parents hung around waiting to be called into the respective classrooms. At last when it was time, the motley crowd trouped to the respective sections alloted to our kids. 60 kids per 20x10, accompanied by parents. The chaos is best left to your wild fertile imaginations. G was happy to be lost in the crowd with friend and that kept me happy. Class was dismissed within an hour and we were all relieved to get back to a life of veritable sanity.
Same routine today. Only it's weaning away session. So parents please leave kids at the classroom doorstep and vamoos. Easier said than done of course. By the time G and I reached the classroom I could hear howling sounds. G is most disturbed by such sounds, except when she's doing it herself and despite being an out and out extroverted friendly child, she suffers from stranger anxiety at times. So my super heroine (she was playing ring-a ring-a roses all this while with sundry other heroes and heroines, as we were waiting for assembly to get over and enter the classrooms) gets all jittery with butterflies doing the salsa in her stomach and refuses to let me go. By this time there are 58 of the 60 kids in a classroom bawling inconsolably and G's so perturbed that she thinks that 's the way one has to react. So she joins the choir! But I notice the most dreadful change. The smile in her eyes is replaced by a fear that will take a long brainwashing session. I could empathise with her since my patience was also wearing out as the bawling grew louder. I mean 60 kids, at even 1 decibel each, was way beyond the sound level my eardrums could endure and here there were brats stretching their voice chords well beyond the permissible limits. And there were two middle-aged teachers with an assistant ayah to help pacify the lot. 3 of them for three score? Fat chance!
I didn't know who was more lost...the kids or the teachers.
I just know I was disgusted. And here I thought I was putting my daughter into one of the so-called "good schools" in Bangalore. They were just psyching the kids out in the torture chambers. No wonder the kids start hating school as much as the teachers hate the kids forever. I mean there should be a limit to being greedy and making money. But as a friend rightly points out, there's absolutely no limit to being greedy, even if you are in a supposedly altruistic profession such as teaching.
Why can't they have 20-30 kids in a class which they can manage instead of bundling 60 of them and then dealing with the howling lot as if they were bloody lost kids in a Kumbh Mela? That's because they are born sadists with a mission to traumatise tots. They revel at the sight of tormented souls and take immense pleasure in further tormenting them, mentally if not physically, and psychologically for sure. They'd probably have withdrawal symptoms if they saw the kids happy and laughing from day one!
A friend's daughter told her yesterday she hates going to school because the teachers don't look happy when they come to class. I felt the same today. Why can't they at least have fresh young pleasant looking B. ED graduates, who can gell better with kids, rather than have unsexed, frustrated and sad looking middle aged women to handle more than a handful of grand children? The above might sound sexist, but kids naturally endear themselves to pleasant faces, I know from experience. And most kids these days go to a montessori school before moving on to a regular school. At the montessori, they have about 15-20 kids, each one of whom is paid individual attention and treated like human beings. The transition to a regular school then becomes traumatic for the sheer size and inhuman treatment.
Kids hate being cooped up in a room full of strangers, even if the strangers were all the same size. They should be allowed to mingle in the open and get familiar with each other, before being cooped up inside the four walls. Don't the monsters know? Even if they do, I guess they choose to ignore it, 'cause it doesn't suit their style. Huh?

I asked G after school why she cried, when she was such a brave girl and always liked going to school. Her reply ad verbatim: "Mamma, the silly kids were crying. I got scared. So I put my hand in my ear and I also cried." I did tell her she wasn't silly, so hopefully tomorrow is going to be a better day:)
I knew it was a ripple effect and also know these "experienced" teachers will tide over these teething problems with great panache. But at what cost?
We are helpless mortals. Even if we do raise our voices, and tell the teachers to leave 'em kids alone, we can do precious little to change the system. What's worse, we Indians survive DESPITE our goddamn schools and the education system.
So, we only hope the monsters who suppress our children and turn them into unthinking robots die and go to hell.

Wednesday, June 07, 2006

Restless

A surprise caller. A faint ray of hope. Can I? Shall I? Once again I'm trapped in a waiting game.

I'd stopped asking, wanting, hoping, expecting. Tried to be happy with the small pleasures of life and with my status quo. The call may change all this. Again, it may just be a courtesy call. So maybe I should stop reading too much into it and go on with life. Saturday is still a long way off.