Small Talk

There are some people whom you meet and click with instantly. The conversation flows smoothly, you are jumping from one topic to another and you are absolutely enjoying the company of this person. Somehow its like meeting an old friend (whether or not you have common backgrounds). And then there are others... In spite of having some common background (work, school..) you have always had choppy weird conversations with them. You just don't know what to talk them about and frankly you don't want to find out either. And thats when the polite ritual of "Small Talk" comes in. You talk about the weather, movies and random things while desperately planning an quick escape from the location in your head.

Scene : You are at the movies excited about watching the new release featuring your favorite actor (yeaayyy..). Suddenly you spot them and recognition flashes in both your eyes (and hesitation in your minds.. Racking brains .."oh gosh what am I gonna talk abt"..Planning escape.." wud it be rude to turn around and run now..damn politeness"). You walk towards each other and the small talk starts.. " Hey..Long time (and there's a great reason for that).. How are you..me..good..good (c'mon we hardly know each other..its not like I can tell u life sucks..)..Whats happening (not that it really matters)..". You both are staring at each other, pausing and wondering what to say next. One of you starts " the weather has been great/crappy lately..blah blah..". 3 more (or lesser if you are lucky) minutes pass in discussing weather, the movie you are about to watch and other inane things. Then finally "Chal I will get going (Thank god)..We shud meet up sometime (like thats ever happening)..Bye".. and you walk away thinking "man that was awkward".

I always end up feeling weird in the pit of my stomach after one of these fake conversations and pray with all my heart that it is my only one for day.. "Small Talk" is another one of those rituals of adulthood and politeness that I hate but will probably comply with for the rest of my life.

Keeping the good ones

"Everybody Loves Raymond" is one of my favorite shows. Its one of those shows which I can watch anytime and any number of times ( and there are some episodes I have watched like 7 or 8 times).. The show is about this dysfunctional family with an overbearing mother ( Marie), smart alecky uninhibited father (Frank), an insecure competitive elder son (Robert), the whiny favorite younger son (Raymond) and his spunky wife (Debra). The thing I love about the show is that its a family that can laugh at itself and most of us can see glimpses of ourselves or someone we know in the characters. Heres a link to its Wikipedia description - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Everybody_Loves_Raymond

In the episode about Robert's wedding Marie almost sabotages the wedding (by asking Robert if hes getting married for love..yes right in the middle of the wedding). Raymond then tries to put things in perspective in his toast to the couple (a particularly well written dialog). He says " Editing..The key is editing and keeping the good ones (pictures in this case). We will take only certain pictures from the photographer, only the good (happy) pictures. Basically, you will remember what you want to from this day...."

As I watched the episode for the umpteenth time today I realized that most of us " Keep the good ones". In my case when I reminisce of my time in Cincy I think of all the good times like the friday night movie, 2am discussions and hanging out with my friends. I don't think of the cold winter night when my bedroom window got stuck open. When I think of my undergrad I think of the good times, sitting on the katta (stone slab) at Worli Seaface. I don't think of the "Viva" we all thought we would flunk. I guess its not that we forget the bad incidents/memories, but that we probably subconsciously choose to associate the good ones with certain phases or places in our life. Or as "Raymond" said " We remember what we want to".

These good ones are the ones which bring a smile to our face when we think of a certain place or phase on some random day. Well this post is dedicated to my friends and family who helped me create my "good ones". Thanks guys :)

To see or not to see

"You are frantically searching for something. You thought you knew where you kept it (usual spot). But you have not only looked there but also scoured the entire house/vicinity. However the said object seems to have disappeared from the face of the earth. And then finally you give up and decide its gone forever, cursing the object, yourself and the world (not necessarily in that order). Before settling into life without the object you decide to look for it one last time in the place where it should have been ideally. And lo behold there it is in its usual spot staring back at you innocently, driving you to wonder if you are going blind or a little nuts". Sound familiar? ...I am sure this scenario has played in most of our lives at least once. For me this is a part of my everyday.

With me the first part usually plays as I described above. The second part plays as follows...When I do find the object my first thought is.. OK my thought varies per the situation.. If I am alone then the thought is " I wonder if this is work of some evil naughty elves whose only job is to frustrate me by hiding things from me and then bewilder me by placing them in the original spot before I look for the last time"( imaginative me).. If R is home " I wonder if he did it to spite me" (evil me).. In either case my conclusion is the same " Its me..Its me...Its all me..Nobody did anything" (sane me).

In all these years I have not been entirely able to point at the exact reason behind repetition of these fiascoes..as in if it is that I don't look properly in the first place or that my eyes do see it but my brain doesn't register it. The brain registering option is very valid because I have been known to actually "not see" people ( I sooo wish I was exaggerating here). It sounds implausible that my eyes wouldn't see a whole human being, that's where the brain registering option comes in.

During my childhood, my mom's constant response to my accident proneness was " Unakku kalula kannu veikkanum" which translates to " You need a pair of eyes on your legs". Today for the nth time I found some spice on the first shelf, after precariously getting up on my kitchen counter and performing acrobatics to look for it in the top shelves (Yes, I did look for it on the first shelf initially). And I thought to myself " Mom, if the eyes on my legs were to be anything like the pair on my head its a lost cause".

Body Talk

Yes, I am one of the gazillion people whose new year resolutions included getting healthy/hitting the gym regularly. Frankly I am not a stranger to this group considering that I have been a part of this group for the past 4 or 5 years. The big difference this year is that I am actually taking the resolution seriously (never before has the resolution seen any effort on my part). So I have been working out quite religiously for the past 2 to 3 weeks (considering the first 2 weeks of Jan as start up time). Scary proof of my strange dedication, I am up at 7.45 am on Saturday mornings to go a kickboxing class. And I am not a morning person..at all...(my husband is amused and shocked at the same time with this change).

Add my sudden enthusiasm for working out with my previous couch potatoness and voila you have the recipe for severe muscle soreness. So the past few weeks looked a little like this.. Me pleading people not to make me laugh cause even breathing is hurting my abs and stomach right now ( Thanks a lot ab crunches)...Me wincing and going "owowowow" with every step (Thankyou dear kickboxing and spinning classes)... You get the picture.

After I returned from walk/jog around the neighborhood this weekend, a fresh wave of soreness hit me. And I thought to myself "This is crazy... My body should be supporting me in my effort to become healthy. It shouldn't being trying the sabotage this for me with all this stupid pain". I only wish I could have a conversation with my body which would go like
"Listen you need to get along with the program...This is going to be good for both of us...You get healthy I get toned... We both get compliments..This definitely, is a win-win situation here.. And even if I am not going to get your support can you at least try not to dissuade and distract me with the pain.."

For obvious reasons thats one conversation thats not happening.. :)

Not so evil me

About myself- Contrary to my post's title I am quite evil and quite enjoy being so. And frankly me being evil makes me quite entertaining ;) . I am also quite narcissistic (c'mon who better to love u than yourself.. It is hard to find true devotion these days my friend). I do have an overactive imagination ( In my head everything is animated..Believe me it makes the world so entertaining). I am a straight shooter and a staunch devotee of logic. Lack of logic in people or situations rattles me. I am also quite vain (shoes and clothes do make a person :P) .

I love talking, talk a lot(all the people who have even met me once will attest this :)) and actually make sense quite a few times. I have been the poster child for murphy's laws all my life and have been trying to outwit murphy ever since (still trying). I am quite accident prone which makes for some funny stories. "One Life sab karneka" which literally means "One Life Try everything" is a phrase I heard from an amazing friend. It has been my motto ever since ( my personal change to phrase has been the addition of an "almost" before sab :D).

More about me in the next post (c'mon I did say I was narcissistic..)...Hopefully will churn out blogs on things other than me in the near future. Did I mention I have the attention span of a 3 year old..So we'll see how long the era of blogging continues for me :)