Stuck in a Moment

She licked her lips. Her throat was parched. She thought back to the last time liquid had passed down her throat. It seemed like eons ago. In actuality it had only been two seconds. She saw the jug of water and empty glass on the kitchen counter out of the corner of her eye. She contemplated lunging for it, almost as if it were a final shield, the last wall between her and what was to come. But she couldn't. She seemed to be rooted to the spot.

She could smell her own fear.

She knew she must go in soon. He would be expecting her. She could see a sliver of the room through the door from where she stood. He had dimmed the lights and thrown the room into a complete shadow of darkness. Ingenious, she thought. She had always loathed darkness. It would always seem to envelop her, press on her shoulders like some heavy burden, on her throat like some murderer. She would choke, suffocate in the darkness, tonight. He knew this. And she wouldn't be able to see what he was doing to her, only feel it. Maybe that would be better?

It would be excruciatingly painful, though. She knew that much.

She could make out his silhouette. He had left the door ajar just so that she could see he was naked. He would have no trouble, she knew. He was familiar with her body, just as she was familiar with the pain. This routine was regular. She had been surprised how well he had found his own way around her the first time, though. She had realized only much later that he would have done this to many women before her. When she had, she had been sick. Right into the kitchen dustbin, the very same that was lying a few feet away from her now. Overcome with waves of disgust and abhorrence. It wasn't the fact that he had experience, it was that he hadn't bothered telling her just how much.

The same emotions coursed through her veins now. She could almost feel the steamy waves of her intense disgust coming off of her. Her fear had morphed into hate.

She knew her job. It was simple enough, to say the very least. All she needed to do was go in, quickly strip and lie down. He would take all the work upon himself. But he would be brutal, forceful and rapid. And he would try something different every time. Inflicting pain on her seemed to give him some kind of savage pleasure. His latest indulgence had cost her quite a bit. She would wake up with blue-black bruises all over her arms, legs and torso. Especially legs.
She had had to completely cover her body to go to work, and it was the height of summer. It would always raise uninvited questions.

She knew he would do something similar today. She could feel it.

She realized that she had been standing there too long. She put away her fear, her hate, and braced herself for the pain. When it came to him, what choice did she have? She would get used to it, she coaxed herself.

She knew it was a lie.

She took a step forward.

Port Blair 2010

I like the way the sea glistens in the sunlight, each molecule so radiant that it may blind you.

I like how the sea stretches out to meet the sky, after traveling apart for so many miles, almost as if two rivals agree to let bygones be bygones and come together in a final embrace.

I like the way the leaves shine after the rain. They almost look happy.

I like to know that there is a civilization living amongst these trees, however primitive. That people still dwell in forests, forests so dense that the sunlight barely reaches the ground. That there are still humans who do not bother to cover themselves with cloth, and sustain themselves on the fruits of the trees around them.

I like how the receding wave lessens the impact of the oncoming one, how something so small can impede something so large, if not stop it altogether.

I like to stumble in the water when a large wave completely submerges me, and to lick my lips and taste the salt once it's gone, taste its only remnant and try to remember the sensation for as long as possible.

I like that moment of anticipation when you've seen the enormous wave of turquoise that inundates your eyes and you know it's going to hit you any second now, and all you can do is stand riveted on the spot, mesmerized by its beauty and its magnitude, completely at its mercy, how man ultimately is no match for nature.

I like the vividness of colors that exists in this place, how you can find a deep purple piece of shell on the beach that is excruciatingly beautiful, and yet realize that the color of the sea under full sunlight still tops its beauty.

I like how the rain and sun seem to coexist so harmoniously with each other, one making an appearance barely two seconds after the other has disappeared, how the Sun doesn't even deign to hide its face while the rain pours over the sunlit leaves.

Reading This Will Not Help You In Any Way

Sometimes I think love is a cheat.

Think about it. They meet, start dating, fall in love, get married. Seems simple enough at the surface. But what if we try and probe a little deeper?
The first date. I can't speak for guys, but I know girls will spend at least an hour obsessing over what to wear, how to do their hair, which shoes, and all that bullcrap. Especially if they think the guy's worth it. And during the date itself, they'll make an effort to be exactly the kind of person he wants so that they can be irresistible, or at least as close to that as is possible within the scope of one date. And I think this is true for the guys as well. In short, both of them will want to come off as the ideal girlfriend/boyfriend.

This will go on for many many dates. Once they're certain that the other is pretty close to falling in love with them, they'll let their true colors show, roaming around in sweatpants and a dirty tee, not bothering about the hair or make-up, and putting their characteristic faults and defects on display for the other to see. The world sees this as 'being comfortable with each other' and 'getting to know one another.' But is it really?

Let's see this from my perspective now. Once this side of their character comes out, the other person in the relationship is in so deep there's no way he can get out now. So he convinces himself that it's 'love.' And that love for another person encompasses love for their defects, their faults. That to love another is to love them as a whole, love the good stuff AND the bad stuff. I guess we can thank popular culture for that one.
And so the poor fool deludes himself into believing that he is falling in love with the other. Some more time later, and he is in too deep, so 'in love' with the other person that he won't end the relationship even if almost everything about the other person irks him to death.

Love has played a game on him. And now he's falling into the abyss.

Movies

1. Bride Wars

Cast: Kate Hudson, Anne Hathaway, Candice Bergen
Rating: 2/5

In my defense, I was really bored. A week of vacation, followed by the announcement that our first terms had been merged with the second terms, left me no incentive whatsoever to study. In any case, I somehow find it impossible to study at home. Now I know what the hostelers at school kept talking about.
So even though I knew Imma get ultra-fucked in my second terms because now they have double the marks and double the course, which means a devastatingly vast one, I couldn't find it in myself to pick up a book out of the huge pile I had brought home with the intention and resolve of studying from, and open it, let alone read a few lines of it.

But I digress. The point is, I knew this movie was bound to be an archetypal chick flick, which is one genre of movie I don't like very much. But I figured it would provide some time-pass entertainment at the very least. Besides, both the main protagonists (Hudson and Hathaway) are known to be decent actors.

I couldn't have been farther from the truth.

2. Secretary

Cast: James Spader, Maggie Gyllenaal
Rating: 4/5

This movie follows the story of a mentally disturbed young woman who has just recently been released from a mental hospital but continues to suffer from an extreme case of masochism, which manifests itself in the form of self-injury. She is soon employed as the secretary of an attorney, who is a ruthless workaholic, but also has his own problems of sadism. He is sexually aroused by her submission, as it enables him to be the dominant personality in their complicated relationship.

The good thing about this movie is that it showcases a completely new approach to the subject of sadomasochism. It is neither trying to be overtly humorous (case in point: I now pronounce you Chuck and Larry, which approached the slightly tricky subject of homosexuality with eyeglasses tainted with crass and vulgar humour. Not that there's anything wrong with that), nor overtly preachy. It makes a rather bold statement, but in the subtlest of ways. And the acting on both the main characters' parts is par excellence, especially Gyllenhaal's. This was a major breakthrough for her as an actress, and she has done a good job of proving herself and her skills to the Hollywood community at large.

Tee Hee :)

Cyanide & Happiness @ Explosm.net

Dearly beloved, are you listening?
I can't remember a word that you were saying.
Are we demented or am I disturbed?
The space that's in between insane and insecure.

Oh therapy, can you please fill the void?
Am I retarded or am I just overjoyed?
Nobody's perfect and I stand accused
For lack of a better word and that's my best excuse.

On why I love swine flu

4 people on our campus tested positive for swine flu. May they get well soon.

Our college declared a week's holiday thanks to the scare. And specifically directed the students to "vacate the hostels as soon as possible." The dates for the exams that were to be held this week are yet to be revised and notified.

I have never adored a disease so completely and with all my heart.

Too excited to think of a title for this one

gotselectedgotselectedgotselectedgotselectedgotselected


Me soo haeppppppppppy!!!

Random Shit

Finally saw Inception a coupla weeks back. Fucking awesome. Totally deserves #3 ranking on the IMDb Top 250.

I also recently had the chance to read Haroun and the Sea of Stories (Salman Rushdie) (As you can see, I'm not concerned about my acads at all. And this after I've "promised" both my parents and the VC good results. In rather concrete terms). I liked it. Quite a bit.

Nallud Part 2

There's a couple more quirky faculty members I'd forgotten to write about in the last post. I shall do that here.

English teacher: Calls the girls of the class "May-dum." Has no idea how to control the class. Insists we do not clap or bang our desks after a horrendous experience with the aforementioned activities on our first day. Does not know how to handle excessive participation and involvement in plays. Has no idea what to assign as research papers to us and asks US to come up with ideas instead. Insists we make PowerPoint presentations on pointless topics like what is an adjective and where to use a hyphen instead of a dash.

HLCD Teacher (For those of you not in the know (which I guess would be all of you), HLCD is History of Legal and Constitutional Development): For some reason, is known as Chintu among the students. Is much like the Torts teacher. Is also quite possibly the most boring and soporific person I have ever had the misfortune to meet in my life.

Also, the VC in his interview had asked us to sign on a particular target percentage for the first semester. And warned us that if we did not achieve it, he would be setting the bar even higher for the next semester and "upping the ante," so to speak. I made the mistake of quoting an impossibly high percentage. And here I am blogging away to glory while the first terms are only a week away.

One thing I'm really happy about is my roommate. She shall hereby be referred to as S (for that is the letter her name begins with (obviously)). She has great taste in music, movies, books and pretty much everything else that really matters. Wodehouse fan, ardent admirer of almost all Star World shows, and appreciator of good cinema. The other day she wanted to kill me for not having watched Iron Man. =D

To top it all off, she's responsible. She's got her priorities right. She studies, but not too much (unlike me, who has neglected to even TOUCH a book since college started, unless it's fiction), remembers to clean the room once in a while, and yet finds time to read a lot of fanfiction and watch a movie when she feels like it. I need someone like that. I shudder to think what would have happened had I had a roommate even remotely like me. That is, crazy and irresponsible, and without an iota of room-sense, if you know what I mean. We would prolly have had filthy vermin crawling all over our beds.

Then there's I. She lives across the hall from me, with N. But I, S and me hang out together most of the time. There's nothing extraordinary about I. She's just a loud, fun and big-hearted girl. But what I love most is irritating her with dirty jokes and gross talk. She's not used to such things, somehow. She used to get completely scandalized, but I think I'm growing on her. Now she can even handle it if I drop an F-bomb every 20 seconds.

So since I'm already exceeding the word limit for normal-sized blog posts, I shall stop here. Now that I have a laptop, hopefully it'll be configured soon and I'll be able to post more often. Unless I decide to actually study for the first terms.

But that's not likely at all.

Nallud

That's the name of my college by the way. NLUD. I got sick of calling it that, letter by letter. It's so long and drawn out.
Not that anyone I know calls it Nallud. That's just my own creation.

So in this post I'll be telling you a little about Nallud.
1. VC: Tends to talk sense but also tends to ramble on a bit. During the Orientation, his speech lasted for about an hour and a half. And the few classes he's taken, he's spent the whole 45 minutes trying to explain a concept for which a mere quarter of an hour would have sufficed. So yeah, just a tad verbose.

2. Chief Warden: Is also a teacher of economics by profession. But all she knows to talk about is how we have imbibed all the evil tendencies of Western culture and forgotten our own pure, holier-than-thou "Indian tradition." Even in her economics class, according to what the seniors tell us. Has an extreme aversion to ANY kind of interaction between the freshers and their seniors, which she calls ragging. Insists we call our seniors bhaiyyas and didis. Which pretty much rules out any possibilities of a junior and senior dating. Not that that's happened. Yet.

3. Assistant Warden for the girls hostel: Goes by the motto "I shall only smile in the presence of those members of society who have a penis." Is female. Of course.

4. Boys Hostel wardens: Incapable of facial expressions and voice modulation.

5. Torts teacher: Speaks bullshit just to check if anyone's listening. Which they aren't. Her sentences aren't gramatically correct by a long shot, let alone being correct on points of law. Always ends her class by assigning homework because she knows the students' ears will perk up at this and enjoys the satisfaction of people listening to her even if it is only for a few seconds everyday. Teacher whose class it is easiest to maaro-fy proxy in because she goes by roll number and never looks up from the attendance sheet.

And that's the faculty. The eccentric (for want of a better word) ones, at least.

Of cinematic mediocrity

A coupla weeks back, I decided to go for a movie with a bunch of friends from college. Initially there was only me and my roommate. But we figured we could get some more people to come along. The final list came to something like 14 people.
We had initially planned to watch Despicable Me. Or even Dinner for Schmucks. And I had to go home after, so I was carrying my laptop. Big mistake, in retrospect.

Once we stepped off the metro at the Janak Puri West metro station (this is where the nearest cinema hall to our college, Satyam Janak Puri, is located), half the people stopped to try out chuski (most of them being Southerners, chuski generated rather a lot of interest in them), half wanted to go ahead for the movie as soon as possible, and another half went to the ATM to get money. Oh wait...that doesn't add up. Aah well.

To compound everything, it started pouring. I could barely make out the hall in the distance. We finally reached it, after running through the rain and getting completely drenched, and tried to duck under the awning. But being a Saturday afternoon, the theatre was so crowded with people trying to get tickets we could barely even do that.

It turned out that half the Hollywood movies currently in theatres weren't even playing there. And the ones that were did not have any afternoon shows. I was even willing to watch "Grown Ups." Going by its Tomatometer rating (10%), it was bound to be crap. But at least we could get a few laughs out of it. Or The Expendables (39%), simply for the action sequences. But thanks to the SUCKY hall and its SUCKIER schedule, we had to settle for Bollywood. There was a show for Aisha but most of the people with us had already seen that last weekend. So we settled for......Once Upon A Time In Mumbaai.

One of us had already seen it. She wanted to kill herself. And after the movie, so did I.

Then there was the laptop fiasco. They suggested leaving it with the proprietors, for want of a better word, of the adjacent "Juice Shop." You know, one of those shady stalls that for some reason can be found all over Delhi, where the fat guy sitting out front orders the stick-thin guy who actually does all the work to grab a coupla fruits, stick them in a grinder and make the juice right in front of you, while all he does is take the money and if you're lucky, give you your change back, with a look that plainly berates you, to say the least, for having the balls to demand this complex service of them while they would be completely satisfied sitting around in their shop doing nothing all day. They must have a training school for that look. And I was supposed to leave my precious laptop with them. Yeah, right.

Finally one of the senior clerks relented and lemme put it in his office, but not without making me turn it on and checking if there was any weird stuff in there. Though why he did that beats me, it's not like I was taking it inside the hall. Finally he told me, albeit begrudgingly, "Theek hai madam, isse main apne office mein rakh loonga (Fine ma'am, I'll put it in my office)." I was too grumpy and soaking wet to be grateful.

As regards the movie itself, I have never seen so much average-ness in a movie before. Plot: average. Check. Acting: average. Check. Directing: average. Check. Music: average. Check.

Most traumatic experience I've had in a long time. Do me a favor. Don't go watch it. Even if you're bored to death.

Up

Voices: Christopher Plummer, Ed Asner.

Cute, touching and exceptionally wonderful.
Watch it if you haven't already.

P.S.: Officially my first short post. Yay!

PD

It was to be at 6. When we arrived, they told us they would debate legalising prostitution. What followed was 2 hours of a fucking awesome debate, with mudslinging, personal attacks and basically all the elements a proper parliamentary debate should avoid at all costs. Who wouldn't have been attracted?!

One of the thematic clashes was "Masturbation and Toys versus Real Sex." There was also a lot of talk of the fugliest people easily being able to get some without too much effort. There were all sorts of perverted hand motions and expressions like "churning the butter" followed by "you know what I mean, right?" Like I said, a mindblowing-ly awesome debate. Hackneyed expression, yes. But there really is no other way to describe it.

So far we've debated things like "This House believes that incest is a fun game for the family" and "This House believes bestiality should be legalised." Unfortunately the Proposition lost for both of these. There was even "This House believes that Barbie should be a porn star." But the other two were too good to give up for this one.

The first time I went, I adjudicated. I wasn't too bad. The next day I spoke. It was addictive. I found myself wondering how the fuck I had sat there the previous day and listened to all the shit that the speakers came out with without entering the debate myself and telling them they were completely fucking it up and what they should have been saying instead. We won that day.
In case you were wondering, we were Opposition on "This House believes that extremist parties should be banned from contesting elections."

Unfortunately the next three I lost. I opped on "soldiers should be able to sue the government for negligence," propped on incest and debated one other motion I've now forgotten. Losing three consecutive debated has discouraged me a little. I have a major problem with matter and coming up with proper constructives and elaborating on them on the spot.

I've also decided never to be the prime minister. The one time I tried my speech lasted for a measly three minutes, instead of the required six minutes at least. Seven is even better. The problem is again the lack of sufficient matter. At least if you go later, you have stuff to rebut and that can take up half your time. But as the first speaker on the floor, I failed miserably.
I'd prolly be best as Deputy. Do a little bit of both, you see, rebuttals and constructives. I've always found I fit best somewhere in the middle. And not just in debates.

I can't be Whip either because the whip is supposed to completely demolish the other side's case and I can't be that rude or aggressive to people in a debate. In real life, yes. Face to face, totally. But in front of a lot of other people including a panel of adjudicators judging me, nope. Not really my forte.

Even though I've lost three consecutively and have problems with my content, PD'ing is a lot of fun. I don't see myself quitting anytime soon. I can only hope I get better with time. Until then, every weekday at 6 in the evening, I shall come up to the podium, try not to be intimidated by the seniors adjudicating me and debating with me, and do my best to convince them of whatever motion I happen to be proposing or opposing. More often than not, I have no fucking idea about the motion and my mouth becomes an independently functioning unit spewing out words that somehow manage to form coherent sentences when strung together. So the best I can do is bullshit my way into the adjudicator's pants. After all, that's what everything in life boils down to, right? Trying to bullshit your way into everyone else's pants.

Figuratively, of course.

Gaaaaaaaaaah!

Too much to say. Too less time.

First off, I owe an apology to my readers. I haven't been posting for two weeks. The situation is something like this. The IT guy at my university (read fucked-up-bastard-who-knows-shit-about-IT) couldn't configure my laptop to the NLUD Wi-Fi network. Not only that, but he's fucked up my laptop so that the Wi-Fi at MY place doesn't work either. And then he has the balls to say, "May-dum, isko toh format karwaana padega. Isme aapka koi important software toh nahin hai naa(May-dum, this will have to be formatted. Is there any important software in here) ?"
So basically, my laptop cannot possibly work at my university. Which means I'll have to wait until Mom comes back from her trip, for which there is a month left, take HER laptop, and get THAT configured, which'll take another week. And hope to GOD he doesn't fuck that up as well.
I'm INFURIATED. But you prolly already know that by now, thanks to all the upper-case-ing.

Oh and yeah, since my laptop basically counts for shit now, as far as the internet is concerned, I'm doing this on my Dad's laptop. And he's not even supposed to know I HAVE a blog. So much for privacy.
This also means that the most I can do is blog once a week, if that. I didn't even feel like blogging last weekend, but more about that later. I go to the computer lab everyday, lest my email inbox starts to look like it's contracted jaundice (The "new email" color for Hotmail is yellow). So I comment on a few blogs from there. And keep reading the newest QC comics to retain a smidgenny modicum of my former sanity. Or rather, lesser degree of insanity. But working up the courage to actually post something on mine is too much to ask of my already addled brain. Why is my brain already addled? More about that later.

So I realise I'm already exceeding the word limit for a normal post, and I've been getting requests from left, right and center to keep my posts short lest my readers lose interest halfway through. I was rather happy to hear this in fact, since I had always thought my readers lose interest only a quarter of the way through. But my point is, I have a lot to tell you about college and all the exciting new stuff, but it shall have to wait for next week.

And I tried replying to all your comments on the last post, but the comment that came out was WAY too long to be called a comment. So I shall do it here. However weird and unheard of it may be.

@Nyx and Espera: Thou dost grossly overestimate hostel life. I mean, seriously, just because it's like a party in my room every night...ok fine, point taken.
And yeah, that "pretending-to-be-a-second-year" thing actually happened. This guy has to repeat a few weeks of first year because he was short on attendance, but since all the second years know him, he was allowed to aid and abet the ragging. Ok, I guess that wasn't really pretending. But it's pretty much the same thing.

@Midnight Sun: Because it's INDIA.
And yes. Yes you will. Die, that is. Initially I didn't think it was that bad. But now I actually wait for the tea break every morning to brush my hair just so I can do it in the air conditioned academic block. As a result of which, for the first 3 classes of the day, I look like I've stuck black wires to teh top of my head. In a hurry. And this is August we're talking about. Fucking AUGUST.

@Sahil: The cell phone network within our rooms sucks. I have to hang my torso out of the second floor window to text any of my friends. Feel better?

@Sam: Thanks!
@Disguise: Are you still in school?
And also, good for you, man. But promise me, whatever you do, go somewhere with an air conditioned hostel. Unless you LIKE getting up at ungodly hours in the middle of the night drenched in sweat and having to wash your hair every other day because it stinks of sweat. But I'm guessing you don't.

So there. I bet most of my readers would have fallen asleep somewhere in the middle. I wish I could nudge you awake. But even I, sadist to teh core, would never want to inflict the torture of reading all that on anyone.
And if you haven't fallen asleep, well, all I can say is that you have a high threshold of crap-taking.
Until next week.

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.