Ze plot, she thickens.

We had an interview with the Vice-Chancellor of NLUD yesterday.
'Twas weird.

For some reason, they've included six books on "self-improvement" in the bag of things they gave us, all written by some Swami who has a long name I've forgotten but I remember it starts with a P. They're all as thin as a friggin TV Guide and as long as a pocket dictionary. And I really hope we aren't expected to read them. They're full of words like Thou and Thine and Shalt. You know, stuff that sounds cool if used in a couple of sentences at most.

We were also asked to fill in a bunch of forms "promising" that we wouldn't rag anyone. Which is again something I don't get, because I mean, if anybody is to be ragged, it'd be us.
Our college also has an anti-ragging squad, which is good. But they've included two students from each batch, a girl and a guy, on it. Even OUR batch. AND the batch above us. Which is bad.

There's a thick book detailing the digital library and how to exactly use it. And then the prospectus, the first 25 pages of which are filled with details of how stringently rules are applied on campus, like the 6 pm campus curfew, or the 9 pm hostel curfew. And the last page has a few photos titled "Campus Life" which shows students smiling and playing guitar and doing normal things. Perhaps they hoped that the horror of first 25 pages could be undone with a single page full of pictures of mildly joyous kids who have obviously been forced to do "extra-curricular activities" expressly for the purpose of this page of the brochure and have ended up looking like not much more than a bunch of crazed morons.

We were asked to fill in the forms in the auditorium, where a bunch of teachers pretty much grabbed our originals and vowed never to give them back.
Then we were allotted rooms and roommates. The rooms are twin seaters, and they're not too bad in terms of size. There's sufficient bathrooms too. All in all, apart from the hostel not being air-conditioned, which is something you can't really expect in India, I have no complaints.

Our campus is pretty huge, and completely Wi-Fi enabled. The academic block is air-conditioned. The hostels also have gyms and a common room with a television.
There's a lot more to tell, but unfortunately my cousin has now switched on the television and is watching some crappy Bollywood song at maximum volume, which is making it hard to concentrate and not type out, "Tere naina, tere naina, tere naina re."
So the rest shall have to wait. Until the next time.

P.S.: I may not be posting for a long time now. Next week, college starts and there is also a wedding in the family. So I'll be attending classes all morning and ceremonies in the evening. My apologies for depriving you of your weekly"Oh-My-God-her-life-is-crappier-than-mine-I-feel-so-much-better" kick.

A Million Ways to Be Cruel

Sit back, matter of fact,
teasing, toying, turning, chatting,
charming, hissing, playing the crowd.

Play that song again.
Another couple Klonopin.
A nod, a glance, a halfhearted bow.

Oh such grace, oh such beauty
And lipstick and callous and fishnets and malice.
Oh darlin', you're a million ways to be cruel.

I should, I wish I could.
Maybe if you were I would.
A list of standard issue regrets.

One last 80 proof
Slouching in the corner booth.
Baby it's as good as it gets.

Oh such grace, oh such beauty
So precious, suspicious, and charming, and vicious.
Oh darlin', you're a million ways
Oh darlin', you're a million ways to be cruel

Before, after and a movie

So this is the before (top) and after (bottom). I'm sorry about the camera in the bottom photo. I don't trust anyone except myself to photograph me. Scratch that. I don't trust anyone except myself to photograph me WELL. And the only way is a mirror.

I thought I'd do them together to try and figure out how much of a difference 350 bucks made. And I realise that despite all my cribbing (see previous post), it's not all that bad.

I also managed to watch Monty Python and the Holy Grail yesterday. I'd wanted to watch this movie for a long time. It's no. 68 on the IMDb Top 250, with a score of 8.5/10. Rotten Tomatoes gave it a 94%. But I wasn't too sure if I should. I thought it would have a lot of pop culture references, which is fine by me, if the movie is recent. This one, however, is a 1975 release. So I didn't think I would understand most of those references.

I shouldn't have worried. Its humor does not derive from contemporary people/phenomena, but is more universal in its flavor, and I'm sure will appeal to anyone. It is definitely a great movie, I would have given it a 5/5.

Now for the movie itself. It is loosely based on King Arthur's search for the Holy Grail, set in medieval (?) England. It was written, directed and pretty much wholely executed by the Monty Python group. For anyone who is not familiar with what exactly Monty Python is, it was a renowned British sketch comedy group, consisting of stalwarts like John Cleese (of Fawlty Towers fame) and Terry Gilliam. They are perfect examples of the stereotypical British comedy, like BlackAdder, the old sitcom starring the likes of Rowan Atkinson (or Mr. Bean, as most people here in India know him) and Stephen Fry. Another good and very recent John Cleese movie is Rat Race. I watched it until my sides split from laughing too hard. It's what Bollywood calls a multistarrer: Seth Green, Cuba Gooding Jr., Rowan Atkinson, Breckin Meyer, Amy Smart, Whoopi Goldberg, the guy who plays Newman in Seinfeld, and loads more I can't remember.

But I digress (You've prolly realised by now that I'm very easily distracted, so my blog posts will always tread a rather circuitous path). Coming back to Monty Python and the Holy Grail, its tagline goes, "And now! At Last! Another film completely different from some of the other films which aren't quite the same as this one is."

Excerpts:
Minstrels: Bravely bold Sir Robin rode forth from Camelot. He was not afraid to die, oh brave Sir Robin. He was not at all afraid to be killed in nasty ways, brave Sir Robin. He was not in the least bit scared to be mashed into a pulp, or to have his eyes gouged out, and his elbows broken. To have his kneecaps split, and his body burned away, and his limbs all hacked and mangled, brave Sir Robin. His head smashed in and heart cut out, and his liver removed, and his bowels unplugged, and his nostrils raped and his bottom burned off and his penis...
Sir Robin: That's, uh, that's enough music for now, lads.

Frenchman guarding the castle: You don't frighten us, English pig-dogs. Go and boil your bottoms, sons of a silly person! I blow my nose at you, so-called Ar-thoor Keeng, you and all your silly English K-n-n-iggits!
Sir Galahad: What a strange person.
King Arthur: Now, look here, my good man-
Frenchman: I don't want to talk to you no more, you empty-headed animal food trough water! I fart in your general direction! Your mother was a hamster and your father smelt of elderberries! Now leave before I am forced to taunt you a second time!

I would recommend it to anybody who has a bit of time on their hands. And now I shall take your leave. Until we meet again.

Of salons and condescension

I went to get meself a haircut a couple of days back. (For anyone vella enough to actually be wondering what I look like now, you can go to my facebook and check it out. I'm too lazy to put a link up here right now.) It'd been a long time since I'd last been to one of those absolutely loathsome places they call salons, so I'd forgotten how much I despised it. Fortunately, (or unfortunately for me, I suppose) it made all the gruesome memories come flooding back.

First off, the staff has a tendency to cut you short. I suppose they were taught in whatever school hairstylists attend to never let a client finish a sentence. I was directed to a particular room to wait, and whenever I made the grave mistake of opening my mouth, I was told that all further matters would be discussed by the person who would ACTUALLY cut my hair. I had to breathe solely through my nostrils, therefore. Very uncomfortable, that.

After waiting for a period of what felt like eternity, the whole duration of which was spent ruefully thinking how I could have been contentedly watching Whose Line videos or Shane Dawson episodes on YouTube had I stayed home, I was finally beckoned inside, rather patronisingly, by a woman who evidently did not know how to speak, but only to wave her hands and jerk her head rather violently and with a complete sense of urgency, in the general direction of the room where I was now to head towards. Based on the look in her eyes, had she not been doing those movements, I would have hazarded a guess that she desperately needed to pee.

The guy who actually cut my hair did a very good job. The problem was, he KNEW he would do a very good job. This made him arrogant. Very patronisingly, he threw a volley of questions at me, the answers of which were almost always embarassing. Stuff about hair fall, oily hair and the like. I shall not bore you with the details. Suffice it to say that he made me feel the smallest I have almost ever felt.

I was made to exit the premises hurriedly once I had handed over the money, on the pretext that many people were waiting. I promised myself not to go back there for the next three years. At least.

Me, myself and I

This post is solely meant to introduce you, the reader, to me, the writer. Now I know that currently, the people reading my blog are people who actually know me, and hence know already all I am about to say. To them, I would say, get yourself something to munch on before you continue. Or perhaps even better, don't continue at all.

But a girl can hope. Someday I hope to bring in a much wider readership, consisting in part, of people who might not know me that well. It is with such motives in consideration that I introduce myself to you, albeit a little late (It is my third post, after all. Normally, people get over with this sort of thing by the first one itself. But then, such are the ways of yours truly).

I will soon be heading off to law school. More specifically, National Law University, Delhi. The last couple of sentences alone implicate how completely my life will be screwed over within the space of the next five years. Moreover, I would hate for anyone to draw the logical conclusion here and suggest that since I got through the entrance test for NLUD, I am intelligent. Let me make it absolutely clear. I am not. I am merely very VERY lucky. I had been pursuing Med School for the past two years, and had not put in any preparation whatsoever for the law entrances. Which makes it clear to my readers that indeed, all I did was get lucky the day of the NLUD entrance.

As you could have already sensed, I do not have much of a social life either. As if getting screwed academically wasn't enough. And I am sure that with three ten-page papers being handed to us every week once I enter law school, my situation can only deteriorate.

In a nutshell then, my life is pretty boring. And likely to get even more so in the coming days. So if I have not given you reason enough to discontinue reading this blog by cribbing about my life so incessantly within the previous few paragraphs, I would ask you now to save yourself from getting an overdose of my rather crappy life. Run, my friends, run. Arms a-flailing.

P.S.: I also have a very dark sense of humor. As you might have noticed.

And so it begins.

I don't think much (I figure the world is much better off without it).I don't have an abnormally large brain. Ergo, it follows logically that I'm not someone who's very strongly and aggressively opinionated. But whatever opinions I do have, I like to air them. By talking mostly. People who know me well know that 'tis seldom I shut my mouth. People who know me well also know that for precisely the same reason, 'tis better not to listen. But I continue regardless, hoping that someday, someone will really listen. Hang on to my every word. Heed my every command. So far the closest I've come to that is a toaster.

But I digress. My point was, if I remember it correctly, that I like to let people know what I'm thinking, if and when I am. Every minute of every hour of every day of every year of my frightfully boring and sickeningly ordinary life. Lately however, the stream of listeners in my life (even if all they're doing is staring at me with glassy eyes and thinking about what they'll have for lunch) seems to have dried up. I wonder why.

And so I turn to writing. Penning down my thoughts, as it were. I would have said typing, but the former seemed more poetic. Such are the beginnings of this blog.

Fortunately, I also have a lot of time on my hands. You see, I am currently in the twilight phase between school and college. I know for a fact that law school, where I am headed, will fuck me over eternally and irrevocably. Thus, time is something I doubt I'll ever have again. Of course, I shall try my best to update this blog regularly. But I make no guarantees. (This lets me off the hook and anyone who blames me for not posting frequently enough will heretofore be directed to these very lines of this very post and will then be told to eat my shorts.)

I would like to also state at the outset that comments would be highly appreciated. Throwing eggs and/or tomatoes at me in public would however, be not.

"Writing only boils down to stealing what someone else has written and taking credit for it," someone famous had said once. I forget who. So I reason it can't be that hard.

That said, I realise that all possible avenues of procrastination have now been shut. It is finally time to begin.

Things you need to know about me if you're going to be reading this blog regularly

1. I have an affinity for long titles.
2. And lists.
3. Also, short posts.

That's pretty much it.