Facebook For Parents

Dear readers,

I know I know I haven't written forever! But believe me, I had an iron-clad reason not to...you see, working as a Software Engineer has sapped all my creative juices. My activities have been reduced to:

• Stalking people I hate on Facebook
• "Upvoting" answers on Quora
• Ignoring Google+ notifications

That takes up most of my working day. In between, I compile my useless code which, believe me, hardly ever works. But it serves the purpose of taking up enough time for me to go and ping a friend something like "Can you believe - what she was wearing/who she was snogging- on Facebook?".

Quite a few family members of mine are on Facebook. Not very active apart from the occasional wall post on their own walls(really) and mentioning my embarrassing pet name publicly to the delight of my evil friends(seriously). You know where they are really active, though? Matrimonial sites. Yeah, I had the distinct pleasure of gawking, spluttering and hyperventilating in office when I discovered my own profile on one such site. Very loudly, let me add.

With a choice between a sheep, a monkey and a variety of pictures with drinks and food and cartoon characters from my Facebook profile pictures album, they smartly opted for some picture of me in a Saree where I looked pained while flashing a fake smile. A million other invasive details such as horoscopes, star signs, caste and stool samples follow. I stumbled upon the "Personalized Messages" section and that's when I was convinced that I was in the darkest corners of the Internet.

By the end of the ordeal, I was experiencing a weird emotion where the urge to kill someone was greater than the urge to make funny about-to-cry faces. Okay not that weird, considering I have had this feeling a million times before. I am wondering if I should ask my parents to change my occupation to "Potential Serial Killer".

Bitchin' In The Kitchen

For the past year or so, I have been living it up in Bangalore. Oh yeah...I have done some crazy shit. In fact, just the other day I had my curd rice with a side of cough syrup while bundled up in a blanket watching Sex and The City. I know. Naughty.

My bachelorette pad is the shizz. Just a stone's throw away from ten hep places serving dosas to auto guys. But enough about that. The reason I am writing this post is because I wanted to share something with you guys(Hello? Anyone?). It's a little bit of an embarrassing thing to admit but...ah hell, I am just gonna come out with it. I am a bit of a domestic Goddess. Booyah.

You see the symbol on the right? You think it's people in trouble calling Batman, right? WRONG BIATCH! It's actually people who flipped their dosas wrong and now they look inedible. Domestic Goddess got swag.

Enough about me though. I have been receiving a few questions as to how I maintain my general domestic awesomeness and as I love helping people I decided to answer their questions. Let's go!


I just wanted to know what I can do to salvage this curry I made. It's a little bl-

So simple. Just chuck in a pound of masalas. Whatever you have in the kitchen. Everything tastes better with a little brick powder in it.

Hey domestic goddess, my room is messy and I wanted tips on cleaning out the clutter because my mo-

Too many words. It's so simple, honey. Just take all the stuff that's lying around on your bed and throw it into the cupboard. No one is going to look there anyway. DUH.

We have a red ant problem and I don't know what to-

Tch tch not to worry. Just do as I say. Take some sugar and leave a trail leading up to your roommate's room. She will have the ants all to herself and you will have peace.

That's all we have for now folks. Send in your queries and some cookies and I'll think about answering them. Toodles, my water is burning.

Love Guru

Hello dear readers!

Yes yes, I am very much alive, unlike this blog. I was just having a rough couple of days. Deadlines
whooshing by and work stagnating in a half-baked state...not a good turn of events, my friend. Now that
I have realized work is never going to progress, I decided to pour my feelings out on this entertaining
(ahem) page. So, what am I going to be jabbering about today? Ah yes...single-dom and the makings of a
love guru.

I am a single lady. I would like to think it's because I am too 'independent' and 'strong' to be tied
down to some one. But basically it's because I have foot-in-the-mouth AND food-in-the-mouth
syndrome. However, let me clarify that I am not one of those 'Why doesn't he love me!?! I am forever
ALONE!' types. I genuinely have no interest in such shenanigans.

What's interesting is that even though I have never actually been in a relationship, people seem to look
up to me for advice. And I have no idea why. Apparently I give good advice and though it might not look
the case, I do keep my mouth zipped.

So how does one become a love guru?

•     No prior relationships:
  It's just like being a professor in my college...no prior experience and no knowledge about the subject whatsoever. Helps get an untainted perspective.

•     Bucket loads of patience:
  Seriously. Bucket loads. Buckets that can hold the tears shed by all the women in all Ekta Kapoor soaps. Because lets face it...people who are in relationships are stupid and unless you spell out everything for them a gazillion times, they're never going to understand.

•     A sympathetic ear:
  Breakups are inevitable. And once that happens, you will have to sit through a recap of their love story, what went wrong, who was wrong(obviously, the guy) and how the other person was the love of their life(do not point out that they went out for just 2 weeks). Even carbon dating will fall short while determining how long this saga will take.

•     The 'Awww' hormone: 
  Extremely important. He sent you a rose for Valentine's Day? Awww. He started watching Gossip Girls for you(of course, he's not watching it for Blake Lively's legs)? Awww. He said you looked like a Queen(although Queen Elizabeth is as old as a fossil)? Awww. See what I mean?

Damn...if only I got paid for my troubles.
       

Games People Play

Office is boring. Seriously. Most of my work involves waiting. Waiting for a superior to criticize my work. Waiting for lunch time to arrive. Waiting for the distraction that will occupy my team giving me the chance to escape. You get the idea! So, creative people like me find ways to pass time in office. Like:

• How many soggy Monaco biscuits can I pick up in a single draw?
  This game gets me nostalgic, teary-eyed and bad-mouthed because it reminds me of 'The Claw' game in cheesy arcades. I have never ever won anything from that game. That sucker must have swallowed half my pocket money(and my pocket money wasn't much to begin with). At least at office, these expired biscuits are for free.





• Staring at the one hot girl who is on your floor(yay)
  Thank God for small miracles. And by that I mean mini-skirts. Because let me tell you, this girl is hot. Even the women in my office cannot keep their eyes off of her. Yes, when she passes by I feel like I am choking to death because she smells like she took bath with perfume in a bathroom full of scented candles and used a towel made of rose petals, but the view compensates for it.
  Of course it is kinda awkward when your male teammate's eyes and your eyes follow Hot Girl. And unfortunately, your eyes meet and both of you are calling each other "PERVERT" in your mind. I imagine this is how guys feel about making eye contact at urinals.




•  Stalk. Stalk. Stalk. And then stalk some more.
  Stalkers these days really have it easy, I tell you. Facebook has made things so much easier.
  No more following the person around all day to know what they're doing. Your Object Of Desire(OOD) might just check in to watch Twilight:Breaking Dawn with a caption like "Team Edward xoxo"(if you still like her after all this, you suck. Geddit? Geddit? Ah forget it!).
  No more hiding in bushes to see your OOD sleeping. Her Facebook profile picture collection is enough. Who looks good when they're sleeping, anyway?




• Tab switching.
  This should just speak for itself. You can do whatever shit you want in office, as long as you don't get caught. The secret here is reflexes. Also the thumb rule is:
  
  If you want to check out Mitchell Johnson's abs,
  Make sure you have other Wikipedia/Google tabs.
  
  Pretty simple, innit? Discretion is advised in office. And you don't want your manager staring at you staring at that ripped stomach. Droooooooooooooooooooooool.

Slip ups

You know what a foot in the mouth situation is, don't you? It happens when you say or do something extremely stupid and then you realize it a minute later when you see the amused/shocked expressions on people's faces around you and then you just go on to make it worse. Well, yours truly(and my friends around me too) have been involved in many such situations. A small compilation for you to laugh at our expense!

Note: These friends haven't been notified that I am writing this stuff. So I am using initials, like I always do.

1)
Where: Rockfort Train -Trichy to Chennai
When: College, 1st year
Who: Yours Truly
What: I always wake up an hour before the train reaches the destination. You know, what with my luck with travel I figured it would be better not to wake up in the middle of the jungle and have Demento...oh that's a whole other story. Anyways, there I am sleeping and I wake up the entire compartment with my alarm. I decide to take a quick nap. Well, needless to say when I wake up I see "Mambalam" pulling away.
I grab my suitcases and go to the door and see this guy framing the door and trying to give some hero pose. I tell him to move. And he says the train's moving. So I say "DUH! Get out and help me get my luggage down!". And after muttering "Loosu. Paityam." a million times he gets off and starts running along the train. And I threw my suitcases at him. He gets in and tells me I am mad(not a new discovery, buddy). I stood there figuring out at what speed and how long I should run after I jump out the train(Physics genius, man). So I jumped.
One small hiccup...I forgot which direction to run in. I end up running in the direction opposite to the motion of the train and I fell flat on my face. And my uncle who was supposed to pick me up along with half of Chennai were there to see me sprawled spread-eagled kissing the platform. Bummer.


2)
Where: Karate Class
When: College, 2nd year
Who: R, my very close friend
What: This senior guy's teaching us some kicks, right. And he goes on to teach us the groin kick. The barn was really noisy so we couldn't really hear but once he started showing us the kick, we *ahem* knew what it was called. But not R. Nooooooo! The following conversation ensued and I swear to God it's the funniest thing I have ever heard.
R: What is it called?
S(Senior guy): Umm groin kick.
R: Oh row-end kick?(I know. I have no idea how she heard that.)
S: Yes yes groin kick.
R: So the direction of force of the kick is upwards?
S: *Getting increasingly uncomfortable at this point* Yes yes.
R: So it's used to push IT up?
All of us were like "R, WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING DIGGING YOUR OWN GRAVE?! SHUT UP!"
S: Uh yes it is to push it up(looking at the ceiling, floor, anywhere where we girls weren't there)
Needless to say, when we later told R what the name of the kick was, she was suicidal. It was funny for us though :P

3)
Where: My room
When: College, 2nd year
Who: Yours truly
What: You thought that only Apple users have difficulty in typing because of auto-correct? Nokia should feature in that list too, I tell you. We were giddy with power in 2nd year because we could rag juniors now. We weren't the lowest layer of scum anymore..yay! But I took ragging to another level. I was just messaging some junior girl(forgot who...but whoever it is, she must be scarred for life) to ask her to come to my room. So I type "Hey, come to my room."(I know..I'm so awesome I use commas and fullstops while typing) and I send it.
A little background information about me before I go on. People think I am gay. People call me Gay. Guess it's convenient since my name is Gaya and all. So this point is twice as funny. Moving on.
Little did I know that I had pressed the button below the one that contains the letter H. So in the end, the message read "Sex, come to my room.". I think that day I gave the word "ragging" a whole new dimension.

What We Say, What Parents Hear

In case, my parents are reading this: Love you :) :P

1. I am going out with my friends.
   And by friends, of course I mean, lots of boys. So please keep calling every ten minutes.
   
2. There's this guy in my office.
   And the fact that I disclosed the gender, obviously means I am going to marry him very soon. Oh and he isn't even TamBrahm. How's that for rubbing it in, huh?
   
3. Today was such a bad day at office. I just want to stop working.
   Take. Horoscope. Now!
   
4. I'm feeling quite hungry.
   Means I did not have breakfast, lunch and dinner.Don't even think about the most logical reason: I have the appetite of a woolly mammoth. No way, Jose!
   
5. How is she pregnant so soon? She got married less than a year back!
   Don't mistake this as a rhetorical question. I really want to hear you say "You're too small to know such things" to your 22-year old daughter!
   
   
6. I was just watching a scary movie. But it wasn't scary at all.
   Although secretly it was. So scary that now I want you to tell me to pray to God, put Vibhuthi on my forehead, drink warm milk before sleeping and keep chanting Ram Ram.
   
   
7. I got my salary today.
   And I finished spending all of it today.
   
8. Oh my god, Ranbir Kapoor is so hot!
   Please tell me about how he must have slept with a 1000 girls. Yes, that will change my mind. After all, that is what girls look for when they fantasize about hot guys. Gayness Decency.
   
   
9. Ah I have nothing to do. Just relaxing at home during the weekend.
   
   I feel so lonely. Could you please call everyone you know in my city and tell them I am coming to visit even though it takes me 2 hours to just get there? You already did that? Gee, thanks mom!
   
10. *No answer on the phone*
    I am extremely angry with you. No, I am dying. Oh wait wait, I am dead already!
    
    

The Housewife

Quiz: Are you a housewife?

• You are taking a casual stroll in the local supermarket and you see that potatoes are 30 Rupees/kilo. You:
  
  
  1. Push away at least 3 aunties, grab the plastic bag and start selecting spuds in a manner similar to the guy at the beginning of the 300 spoof selecting babies. 
  2. Meh. You can get them later. You don't want to stand behind that weird female who ran towards them like the wind anyways.
  
  
• Your friends make a plan to watch Mere Brother Ki Dulhan and then go out for a pizza. When they invite you, you:
  
  
  1. Ditch them. You don't want to watch Imran Khan on screen and drool because it makes you feel like a pedophile. And pizza has become boring. Besides, you're in the mood for Upma and 90210.
  2. Wish that the movie was in 3D. You also skimp on the popcorn so that you can properly hog the pizza.
  
  
• You pick up a plate from the shelf and you see that the servant has missed a spot. How do you react?
  
  
  1. Wash last night's curry off the plate using half a Vim bar, obsess over it for hours and think of having a talk with the servant(and then chuck it. What if the servant gets angry and leaves the job? Where are you going to find another servant? The horror!).
  2. What spot?
  
  
• You enter the mall and you head off to:
  
  
  1. More/Nilgiris/Any departmental store of course! They have a big sale and you had brought along your Sodexos!! Best day ever!!! Too many exclamation marks!!!!
  2. CCD.
  
  
• There are some old newspapers lying around the house. You:
  
  
  1. Paper your shelves with them and keep the rest for spreading on the table while eating. That way you won't have debris lying on the table. Pretty smart, huh?
  2. Throw them. Or let them be. It's not like they're bothering you. Whatevs.


• Are you actually taking this quiz?
  
  
  1. Yes.
  2. No.

If you selected:
Mostly 1s: You are a true blue housewife. Go now...your sambar is bubbling on the stove.
Mostly 2s: Congrats! You still have a life! Unlike the author of this piece, who incidentally chose only 1s.

Life Relearned in Bangalore

You might have guessed by now that I am a software engineer. Which means I stay in Bangalore. It has been 3 months since I landed here and I have learned a few things, mostly useless ones, about this place.

1. You know how a footpath says to you, "Come hither, pedestrian! Thou shall be safe with me."? Well, in Bangalore it says "GET OFF!!! YOU'RE GOING TO DIE!!!" because motor cycles, bikes and pretty much anything with two wheels+enough  horsepower to kill you will share the footpath with you. So you're safer walking on the road. The traffic never moves here anyways.
   
   
2. Auto drivers are extremely talkative here. This one driver looked at the poster of the movie Force and asked me if John Abraham goes to the gym regularly. Another one asked me if I was on Facebook, where I was from, which area in Chennai, my flat number, and which flat from the adjacent building provided a clear view of me sleeping. Well not the last one, but you get the idea.
   
   
3. The South Indian fare here is extremely different from Tamilian food. For one thing, their sambar can easily be confused with a sweet dish. The different kinds of chutneys available here are white, white, and white. Did I mention white? And their dosas are minuscule. I could pack two of those in a single Ghee Roast from Saravana Bhavan.
   P.S.: Did you know that dosas were invented in Karnataka? Well if they invented it, Tamil Nadu made it better.
   
   
4. My call register has only one number: Amma. My greetings have changed from "Hi" to:
   
   • How do you make sambar rice?
   • Are you sure I cannot put potato in this also?
   • It tastes horrible, Amma!
   
   
5. Wherever I go, I increase the AQ(Aunty Quotient) of that place. Because the girls here are extremely hot. I myself cannot stop staring so I cannot blame the male population of Bangalore for being open-mouthed most of the time.
   P.S.: Recently when I was on the train, there was one kid in my compartment. His finger was permanently stuck in his nose. And then he comes up to me, keeps his hand on my dress and calls me Aunty. I stopped myself from throwing him off the train.
   
   
6. Although I love stepping into puddles, I have stopped doing that with the puddle right in front of my building. The owner downstairs has a dog. And that puddle, I realized, might not be water.

The Big Five Oh!

This is my 50th post at The Pursuit Of Normalcy.

OMFG! I AM SUCH A BIG FAN AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH! Could I please get an interview and a bite mark on my neck?
Interview? Ok. But bite mark...dude! Seriously?

ZOMG! This is the biggest day of my life! Tell me all about your blogging history, oh mighty one!
Shush mortal, shush! I have been blogging for about 4 years, although I seriously started blogging only since last year...I think the numbers prove that! It started of as something I wanted to do because everyone was doing it. But now it has become something much more. It has become an excuse to not work.

So what do you blog about, lovely lovey dove?
So many many things.

• I review useless movies such as Singham. Also, books that I cannot stand like the Twilight Saga. In fact, I started this blog with a review.
• I also write about my family. They're totally lovable. And crazy. Thank god they're crazy. Otherwise, I wouldn't be able to write about life lessons such as Get Pregnant Before 25 Or DIE!, Movies Guaranteed To Make Your Parents Paranoid(more than they already are), and Wedding Drama.
• I write about my college life, crazy friends and of course a beautiful thing called love.

A to the MAZING! So your most popular posts are?
I have noticed people seem to like it when I am frustrated. No wonder posts like this and this became big hits.


Where else do you grace your amazing presence?
Everyone has their hobbies. And my latest one is photography. Check out the pictures here. They were all taken by me *collar-liftings* :)


Although I totally know the answer(and it is "Because I am awesome!!!" which you totally are), why should people continue reading your blog?
Well, I think I am somewhat funny. And other people seem to agree. This blog's readers have grown from 2 to a whooping 22. So thank you, readers. Thank you for reading the random scribblings of a maniac. Big louwes for you.

---

Is this interview over? Because I'd like the 100 bucks you promised me right about now.
Ahem.

A-B-C(Part 3)

Ola! Do read Part 1 and Part 2 before you read any further!

Mess: I know...you must think I am mental. I miss the mess more than anything else. Everything other than eating used to take place...

-> Fighting with the akkas for more food
P.S.: The akkas were extremely smart. While serving chutney, they'd take a ladle-full, pour half back into the container and spread the remaining chutney on your plate so that it looks like a lot.
P.P.S.: I had this friend A who was amazing at fighting with the akkas. Once when the akka put 2 "barely there" cutlets on her plate, A slyly said "Akka, the cutlets are still visible...make sure you make them smaller next time". We all died laughing in the mess!

-> Talking
Everyone will be talking about everything under the sun. The best part? You can tune into as many conversations as you want and ultimately the entire table will end up discussing about something as trivial as the lack of gentlemen and the abundance of cow dung in the college.

-> "Under the table" deals
Sounds weird? It's simple. A likes Gobi and hates Paneer. B likes Paneer and hates Gobi. Exchange and voila! A has 2 Gobi. B has 2 Paneer. Sigh, Math should have been taught like that.


Night outs: Such an integral part of an engineer's life...this. Basically, you stay awake all night. My parents always asked me why I did night outs when there were 24 hrs in a day! The question is best answered by the following pie chart(Click on it to view the font!).

Outings: Trichy's close proximity to Kodai, Pondi, Coorg resulted in a lot of trips to these places. I still remember the time R and I went to Kodai on an impromptu trip. We were bored in hostel and we decided to just get up and go to Kodai. I still remember that weekend as one consisting of excessive good food, lots of chocolate, bike rides around the lake and fun!
And with R and S I went to Pondi. We sat on the beach for hours and watched the sunrise while hot chocolate provided warmth to our hands, providing amazing business to Choco La and talking nineteen to dozen!
Another noteworthy trip was with R and R to Coorg. Fighting with the waiters at Sangeethas, fighting with the guys in the train, laughing till our stomachs hurt...


Parties: I miss the late-night "parties" we had in hostel. Hurried transportation of breakable items, looking out for the warden, adjustment of light fixtures, setting up the music for the mood, lots of dancing and ultimately chugging, screaming, confessing, laughing, crying. Ah memories :P


Quadrangle: This strip of land was the one thing that was used by Opalites for all kinds of phony purposes. This is where girls would walk around and talk to their boyfriends/"just friend" all night. This is where we would give our friends The Placement Treatment. This is where we would regress and run around, chasing a friend. This is where we, as a batch, would assert our dominance during Opal week. This is where we'd fight with the warden to shift roll call. This is where it all happened :)



Ragging: I know people make a big deal of this, but my first year was so much fun because of ragging! Wacky seniors who gave us even wackier things to do made it an exciting experience. Showing emotion in a sine wave manner(you cry first and then gradually build up to a guffaw and then go back to crying...innovative huh?), proposing to random guys, sneaking(behind their backs) to go to the forbidden places, writing assignments for them, guessing names based on their faces...all part of the fun! Although I will add, I did not rag any juniors...at least not badly(I think the worst thing I have done is make a junior sing "Kabhi Kabhi Aditi" in English while dancing around like a snake). And even if I did, I always apologized profusely later :P

They grow up fast!

I have a brother who is 7 years younger than me. However, according to my mom our mental age is pretty much the same. In fact, I might be a little more immature than him, you know. For example, whenever his friends call, I make it a point to scream "Ooooh is that your girlfriend?" or "{Insert bro's name - I cannot defame him in public, you see}, that girl you met yesterday is calling for you on the other line"! Or when he orders a dish in the hotel, I always keep "tasting" food from his plate. Or when he is watching TV/playing on his PSP/PS2(Spoiled much?), I just have to dance in front of the TV or close his eyes so as to block his view. Or when he is completing his record book, I ramble on and on about I am jobless and I am free to do whatever I want. I know, I am such an asshole :P


But one day, you realize that your baby brother isn't really a baby anymore. And it's kind of unsettling...this feeling. You know your younger brother is growing up when:

• He has a mobile phone
  Can you see the dabba phone above? That is my phone. It has a zillion scratches on it. It hangs more than a cool guy from the hood does with his homies. And its display is screwed up. My brother on the other hand has the phone pictured below. It's not just a phone, it's a smart phone. Pfft.
  
  
  
  
• He is part of the community "OMFG Megan Fox is so hot she must have been a part of the sun!!!!!" on Facebook
  I know, right? First of all, how did he even find this community? If he found it by searching for it, were the keywords a combination of the words Megan, Fox and Hot? Scary :|
  
  
• He runs to another room when he gets a message or callYep. Every. Single. Time. And he lowers his voice like he is a top secret government agent! But the best Facepalm I have ever witnessed happened to him the other day. My parents, my brother and me are waiting for the lift. And suddenly, he gets a call. As usual, he runs away saying(with fake irritation and actual expectation in his voice) "Oh my god...who is calling me now!?!". But by the time he could answer the phone, the caller cut the phone. And when he checks the missed calls list, it turns out my dad was calling him. Haha my dad's sense of humour rocks!
  
  
• You need him to retrieve things from the top shelf and not vice-versa
  He is so very tall! I think the last time I looked down at him was when he was in 7th grade! If human dominance could be asserted only on the basis of height, I'd be gone!
  
  
• He takes more time than you to get dressed
  I have written a small algorithm for your benefit.
  
  1. Start
  2. Comb hair till you are satisfied
  3. If outfit already chosen go to step 9. Else step 4.
  4. Choose an outfit
  5. Try on the outfit and stare at yourself in the mirror for 10 minutes
  6. Outfit sucks? Go back to step 3. Else go to step 7
  7. Happy? Awesome! Aww shucks now the hair's all messed up
  8. Go back to step 2
  9. Finish an entire bottle of Axe deodourant
  10. End
   

A-B-C(Part 1)

I am a sentimental person. I get attached to things/people/places. So it surprised me that when we were leaving college, I cried for a grand total of 10 minutes. That is it. A guy later on told me that his friends and he had cried for 2 hours! And I thought to myself: Am I not sentimental about college? About my friends? About my experiences...that I could not cry for more than 10 minutes about them? Let me add here that I know crying isn't the definitive sign of sadness/sentimentality. But the thing is apart from those 10 minutes, I did not for a minute think about/reflect back upon my life in college. Till now that is. So I have decided to compile from A-Z the things I miss about not only NIT, but also the beautiful(I realize it now) city it was located in, Trichy.

Anna/Akka: Those were the magic words. You prefix or suffix them to any sentence and lo behold! Your word will be their command! So accustomed we all were to this word that when I went to Bombay once and I called an auto rickshaw driver Anna he responded with a spiteful "Anna hoga tera baap!"(Your father must be the big brother)...sorry, the meaning is really lost in translation!

Birthdays: Birthdays were celebrated in Opal(the girls' hostel) in a grand fashion. The friends of the birthday girl would go around the hostel inviting everyone to the terrace/stage. Cake would be stored in a room where the birthday girl would never venture. Once the clock strikes 12, cake would be transported hurriedly, matches would be begged for to light the candles, and the birthday girl would be lured to the venue using a phony excuse(In most cases, she WILL know about the party). The strength of the crowd at the celebration depends on the cake. Chocolate Truffle attracts everyone! And of course, once the cake cutting is done, if any cake is left, face-beautifying and hair-nourishing happens. Let's not forget the bumps as well. Close to 12 :30, one can see the birthday girl rushing to take a bath complaining about how she had washed her hair just that morning. With a smile on her face of course!

Class: I miss class. A lot. I miss walking in late to class. I miss sitting in class and passing chits. I miss pretending to take notes in class when the professor looks in my direction. I miss talking away to glory. I miss getting caught by the professor and back answering thus forcing said person to unceremoniously kick me out of class. I miss walking out of class, almost with a slight arrogance, after being kicked out. I miss slipping out of class(conspicuously I may add) when the professor enters. I miss concentrating and actually taking notes(spectacular ones I may add :P) in the very few classes where I actually respect and enjoy the professor's teachings.

Dhaba: The saviour! Bamboos was our(R's and my) favourite. We never experimented. Our order was always the same: 1 Gobi 65(copious amounts of Gobi fried to a crisp), Malai Kofta(spicy with real vegetables...not just stalks and stems and leaves like in the mess) and 8 parottas. With another clique, I used to go to D3. That was where I discovered the joy of kalakki(a messy egg preparation), aloo fry(the desi french fries!) and 90(a delightful concoction of Miranda, Pepsi and Mountain Dew along with some lime juice served in dirty glasses). And of course, the one and only time I went to Sam Fox and had two delightful dosas(the specialty) and chutney laced with insects thanks to the tube light right above our heads. Ah fun times!

Exams: I know it's a weird thing to miss but I miss it nonetheless! I never really prepared for them well unless I liked the subject/professor. I would fool around the entire day spending time making timetables to study. They would change every hour owing to me watching episode after episode of some sitcom. Let's put it this way - people came to me to feel better about how much they had studied. I will always be the last person to come in and the first person to go out of the exam hall. And my scale for grading my performance was "Two digit, good. One digit, bad."! I somehow got out of that with a degree...so yay me!

Friends: An indispensable addition to the list. I made so many friends. I can say proudly that I belonged to many cliques. There was of course R-my closest friend ever, a work of art like me. Another R who I loved and enjoyed with. And there was R, who is the complete opposite of me. I am surprised and I feel blessed to be her close friend! There was S and R who I became friends with later on. I became extremely close to S, who surprisingly was like a twin. And there was A, A, A, K and S. And there was crazy S and M(Haha sounds bad I know :D). Amazing friends and amazing moments with all of them...deep conversations about life, confessions after "parties", laughing for no reason at all, dissection of characters, friendly banter, heated arguments, silent treatments, reconciliations, movie nights, food weekends...the list goes on!

Since this post is going to be a long long one, I will come up with a Part 2 and Part 3 soon :)

Note: Part 2 and Part 3 is here!

Growing Up or Growing Old?

Recently, one of my very good friends, L, told me that I had changed a lot since first year(for the uninitiated, I'm a final year student). I asked her in what way. And her reply just sent me into a spiral of despair; she said I had become more serious, more mature and I laughed a lot less. And, everyone else seems to agree, including me.

I remember the kind of person I was in school. My friends and me were wee bit mental, but that was the fun of it! I mean, we used to laugh at almost everything. We never took anything seriously. Even exams :D

I remember this one time, when we all had hardly studied except Jinx(nerd of our group). I think it was Chemistry and we had like 21 lessons or something. Most of us had studied just 5-6. And that's the truth. So, we are all sitting silently in the class with 10 minutes to go to the exam and suddenly, if I remember correctly, Jass started humming the first line of the song Right Here Right Now from the movie Bluffmaster. And the effect of what followed was almost magical because each one of us - Munch, Jass, Pri and me- started singing, producing a very very good version of the original. Obviously, Jinx was staring at us like we had gone bonkers because we were interrupting her third revision.

Now, my gang loved this song for many reasons:

1) Even the bad singers could take part in the song, that is the Abhishek Bachchan part.

2) We all LOVED imitating Priyanka Chopra and her trying-to-be-sexy-but-failing-miserably act.

3) Pretty models in skimpy clothes + a bed still equals a very very effeminate Abhishek. Only possible in his case :D

Sigh...good times!

Anyways, I have decided to stop mopping around like the entire world is on my shoulders and just be happy!

By the way, the reason this post came up is because last night my brother T and me were laughing till we had tears in our eyes. It has been really long since that happened! Oh, and we were laughing over Malcolm in the Middle...it's awesome. Highly recommended!

New...yet again!

Yeah yeah new template again..I think this new one is a nice fun one :)

Hope my non-existent readers notice...seriously no one ventures into http://thepursuitofnormalcy.blogspot.com/. Is it that hard to remember or stumble upon? :P

A Hairy Situation

Depression makes a person do weird things. Those things may not be entirely the solution to the problem that depresses you in the first place, but hell, it does take your mind of the problem. Even if it's just for a little while.


I recently clawed my way through a really rough patch. I needed something to take my mind off the whole saga. So I walk into the saloon and tell the hairdresser to cut my hair so short that they end where my eyebrows start. Unlike me, she hadn't lost her mind so she salvaged the whole hair affair.


Of course, I was not received with much enthusiasm at home. Note to self: Never, ever get a haircut when your parents and grandparents are together. It's annoying enough when the ladies start sniffing and talking about how long their hair used to be. But my dad was the cherry on the cake. I quote him.

In Tamil:
"Naal mudi thaan irruku. Adhuku nee haircut ku ponaya. Hee hee hee hee hee."

In English:
"You've 4 strands of hair for which you needed a haircut. Hee hee hee hee hee."

Sigh. He still hasn't stopped ragging(Oops I used the word ragging. Probably gotta get ready to get kicked out of the college!) me. My granddad added his contribution by saying, "It's almost gender confusing!". Why!!!!!


Luckily, reactions at college seem to be more favourable. They think it's cute...yay :)

New!!!!!

Oh well, a new template calls for a new post, eh homie!?! Well, I was just watchin the TV and suddenly this advertisement comes on, and I was like "Couldn't they have chosen a better tagline!?!". Anyways the ad was for a very popular shampoo(which I'm not going to mention but hopefully the smart ones will figure out from the tagline) and their tagline was:


"Making heads happier"

Now, THAT leads to twisted thinking ;)