Samayaaniki thagumaatalaadene

This blog is titled after the very famous Thyagaraja keerthana  meaning speak according to the context.

This song takes me through a contemplative phase about how often do we get away with evading the blatant truth in the hope of not hurting others or to rather avoid conflicts? While I was thinking about this I thought it would be nice to trace back my journey through the world of euphemism. 

I think comfortable lies form a major part of our defense mechanism. As a kid I was really good at losing things and it has not changed much over time. And during one of these episodes where my mom started investigating the case of a stolen pencil, my brother came to my rescue with his famous line "Deepthi Mallareddy iduthundaalan" literally meaning it seems Deepthi Mallareddy took it.  This awesome reply from a 3 years old kid turned my mom's exasperated look into an amused one. My brother, who had not even met her till date could conjure up such a creative narrative makes me think that non truths come innately to us, human beings. God bless Deepthi, wherever she is  for entering my brother's imaginative thought process.

This is just one of the many incipient stages to this natural process. I remember when taking one of the may admission entrance exams as a 7 years old, I was asked the question as to "what is the color of the sky?" Unfortunately for me that day it was cloudy and I ended up writing grey. How the hell can the sky's color be a constant one. Apparently I could not make it through the entrance test because for the whole duration of the exam I was still thinking about the same question. After this experience I stopped thinking and started standardizing colors, people and places. 

After many such experiences I ended up in one of the "premier institutions" much to my parents relief. This is where hordes of homeworks, assignments, unit tests, half yearly and annual exams prepared me to become an expert in  creative writing, if not anything. If this is one of the stages of the ordeal, the other aspect comes in where you have to make up words like awesome, fantastic and super to cover up the fatal performances. How can you tell it to those eager and hopeful faces of the parents that  you are putting up a confident facade when you are actually thinking "Is baar pass hogaye toh 108 pakka bhagwaan".

Then comes adolescence, when you are pumped with hormones. You are either hanging the wet clothes to dry for the nth time, preparing for you exams on the terrace or in the balcony or intently reading for your exam when in fact you are either "line marofying" or "day dreaming". For me the latter seemed a much feasible option given the fact that my neighborhood was a mere desert with no oasis.  When you seek for recess, you have your friends to rescue with excuses like "yeah aunty we are dong combined studies" when in truth your so called "study partner" is blushing away to glory over a plate of pani puris with "the prince charming".

 If these rather absurd and funny stories are the primary steps towards adulthood, the latter part of adolescence is marked with deflecting any romantic inclinations from random strangers with all the excuses that Will Smith sums up so awesomely in Hitch. Talking about Hitch, even our very own "chalanachithraalu" add color to our utopian world with witty anecdotes, surreal locations, dhinchak music, rapchik lead pairs coupled with "vetakaram","chamathkaaram"and "mamakaaram" transporting us to 3 hours of virtuality and extended hours of  wishful thinking.

The true-lies  are an indispensable part of our mundane lives. These not only have survival value but also add spice to the survival. 

Not so long ago

I thought I would collect some of the snippets from the poems I had written in that past to give some inspiration.

1.Not so long ago (4 years back I guess) I had to write lyrics to one of our songs and an hour later all I could produce was this. My friend was aghast. All he asked of me was to write something about poverty and ..:P

I open the windows of my thought, to the world adorned with dew,
grave upon thy goal,passing through the streets with many a hue,
palmy roads and barren hatches,act as my conscience's cue,
a bloated belly,a sallow face,a sordid soul, all of them feeding on a single stew,
then after a while i realize  that its nothing new,its just a feeling of deja vu
....whew


2. This was on a rainy day in Hyderabad....God knows what made me write such sentimental crap

with your face with no care but all smiles
through my sojourn to the tranquil skies
It will be your memories spread for miles
In the end when i close my eyes

And then it happened

I had an intuition very deep and strong
that there would be a union craved for so long
the mirthful and the brooding to a symphony dancing along
like two souls liberated on the sound of a gong

the blissful cloud descended on the earth so grave
moistened on its way every thirsty grass blade
painting the world into a beautiful jade
A wedlock to which no soul wished to forbade

A cloud still hung on the earth so low
It turned every crimson into a beautiful mellow
Like nimble hands playing a beautiful symphony on the cello
Like the memoirs of the past chasing away the mundane hollow

Secret confessions of a self proclaimed tomboy ;)

This blog is dedicated to one of the much debated issues of my life......am I a tomboy? I though this really deserved a few KBs of internet world.

Yes, I have a long hair and  I have my own customized "make up" kit. I do dress up for different occasions and can carry a sari with considerable grace. But then I can go on for days with no makeup on. I can  just get out of the bed and go shopping  with my hair undone.Yes, I have pairs of sandals which I have never used and thats because I like to perennially sport my Men's puma Ducati shoes( Poor guy at the store could not get my abnormally large feet into any of the women's puma). Yes, I do like to ogle at the likes of Richard Armitage, Christian bale and Di Caprio  but lets not forget that these are the best of the acting talent we have in the western hemisphere. Yes, I have a substantial amount of pink in my wardrobe  but so are the blues, greys and blacks. Yes I can cry my heart out every time I watch Gangster but I can also laugh my heart out at The Angrez. Kushi,Alaipazhuthey and Hitch are my all time favorite  movies and so are the likes of fight club, Blood Diamond and Departed. I go gaga over British series and love all the protocols associated with the old world charm but I also adore the sloppy indifference of Captain Jack Sparrow when he utters the famous lines of  "why is the rum always gone?".  

I have never understood the need to stereotype people into different personality slots based on appearances. I have always felt every person has a distinct flavor to their lifestyle and looks are just one facet of it. So when did my initiation into the world of "tomboyhood" start? I am guessing with my first reading of The Famous Five just after I turned 10. I loved George and wanted to emulate her in every manner so much so that I insisted on my parents calling me Shreyas and by sporting very short hair. These were granted after much persuasion, but timmy remained a distant dream. Then my brother's  WWF antics led me to watch the likes of Undertakers' and Rocks' so that I could build a  stronger defense against immature replications of "ChokeSlam" and "Lastride". Then from real we turned virtual with Need for Speed, Virtual Fighter and Age of Empires. We would at times miss school just to beat each others records. 

At around when I was 13, it was gully cricket which I would rather call as "Terrace cricket" that turned out to be the my most favorite sport. We were a team of 10 guys and a tomboy. With them I had learnt how to bowl a leg spin and an off spin, jump parapet walls, wreck my mom's much beloved "roof top garden", talk relentlessly about the ninjas and ferraris, gossip about the latest chick in the block and to top it all, whistle at one. There was  brief hiatus to these fun session when I turned 15 as it was time to join the famous "BITS, EAMCET, AIEEE and IITJEE" bandwagon. And during the engineering days the innocent sessions of gully cricket were replaced by bunking classes and hitchhiking on tippers, thanks to the infinite distances one had to travel with no regular modes of transportation except for an occasional RTC bus. In addition to these I learnt how to swear like a true Hyderabadi in three different languages and their myriad slangs. Organizing midnight birthday parties was also a major challenge as we had to research the most unusual places in Hyderabad. Sometimes it was Maisamma temple, Secunderabad Airport runway or the road divider on telugu thalli flyover that became our midnight adda. We were never let down by the road side vendors who at these wee hours always succeeded to cater the  best of bread omelets in Hyderabad. This was the age of Mamas' and Chichas' and we were the invincible, chanting  the "Aisich kaaman karre tho paapular hothe' anthem, oblivious to growing concerns over global warming, inflation and recession . This was also the time when I learnt how to fall in love with myself and continue to do so.   After 23 years, this self proclaimed tomboy called me has learnt to be not only an achiever but also a survivor. 


And until next time....keep saying "Dil pe mat le yaar...haath mein le".