Tuesday, May 15, 2007

I am NOT the guy your mamma warned you about!

My method is to take the utmost trouble to find the right thing to say, and then to say it with the utmost levity.

George Bernard Shaw
Sometime back my brother was playing with a soft rubber ball when he incidentally dropped it towards my father. My father held the ball and refused to give it back. My brother tried to take it away from him forcibly even while he was laughing. I immediately added by asking my father to see how my brother was forcing him to leave the ball. My father asked me to write about it on my blog.

In the evening I met two of my friends at Mehdipatnam. We had to take some photocopies of notes and of course we wanted an excuse to meet. I had to walk a long distance on my way back home. I was in a mood to walk and I did it. My legs are aching now. I woke up after 12 in the afternoon.

Yesterday I reached home after the exam at 2:20 pm. I went to sleep at 4 pm and woke up at 8. This was probably one of the longest of durations I have ever slept during day time. I went to bed in the morning again around 3 am. I had a very sound sleep till 12.

Yesterday I even repaired our old air-cooler. To be precise, repair would not be the appropriate word. I bought a new front-grill and dry grass (I really don't know what exactly it is called as; it is 'khass' here) and fixed it to the cooler. My father did some oiling to the motor and my brother did some cleaning. I was least interested in doing all this, but looking at two of them getting so interested in it, I had to make some action.

Tomorrow I will be going to the passport office. My father said he would take me there. InshAllah this time I will make the application successfully. The last time I went, I understood why India is such an 'India'. I have hardly seen any bureaucracy except for the several months taken by MCH to give us the permission for the construction of 1st floor on our existing house five years back.

I just had a cup of tea. Before that I had honey. I got myself a bottle of that a few days back. I tried it withe milk and sugar but didn't like it's taste that way. I had to add a little coffee to it. I am taking the same combination since then almost daily. It tastes just enough to help me drink it. Some days I tried tasting the fat cream that gets accumulated as a layer on milk. I smelled it first, and I thought it was fine. If I had something in my stomach at that time, I would have vomited it when I tasted that thing.

I have a lot of cleaning work to do at home which I have been avoiding all this time. I even have to wash my clothes which will most probably be done tomorrow. I have to arrange a lot of books and clean a shelf. I know it won't take much time but it is among those things I never feel like doing. Every now and then some scoldings from my mother keep reminding me how lazy I can be. Or probably how lazy I really am.

Saturday, May 12, 2007

Some illusion of unspoken reflections

I’m tired of all this nonsense about beauty being only skin-deep. That’s deep enough. What do you want, an adorable pancreas?

Jean Kerr

My mother left home at 9:50 am. I was half awake then. I had a mango at 11. I was asleep even till 12:30 am. Then I had a lunch kind of meal at 1:50 pm. Along with my brother I left home at 2:20. The previous morning, I slept around 3:30 am. I had a chat with a friend until then. There were some interesting and important topics to be discussed. All along I had 2 to 3 people in my mind - all of them my friends. Nobody else - please!

Today my mother, at her office, was told that she will have to go to Japan for a month to do some study on rural development of women. She rejected outright. She said she is least interested. I wonder what Japan has to offer to co-operative banking. My mother can never think of leaving us for more than a week. Japan is too far.

Yesterday my brother bought a Nokia 6600. My father had not allowed him to spend more than 5000 bucks so he went for a second-hand set. I was barely happy with his choice of a second-hand piece but it was his money and I was there just to give him company. I had called up a friend to help us.

I also finally got to buy new pairs of shoes for me. I purchased them from Shoe Factory at Sanali mall. I had initially thought of making it at Metro but my friend insisted that I try here. I was satisfied with it. I was tired by the time I reached home. But I was awake till 3:30 am.

I have been doing all interesting things I can never really define. I am probably searching for some new idea every single moment I invent on thinking. Until now I was serious about something, and now I am doing trivial things to beat that seriousness. I am doing wonderfully great and I am glad. I am sure its worth it this time around.

I met two of my friend in the afternoon. We had to take some photocopies to study from for the exam on Monday. I got to talk to one of these two friend after we finished our worked. He seems to be lost in something I can call as madness but it also looks closer to foolishness. I cannot define it to perfection. For the record, I trust him only when he repeats things more than once, being at different places. For the rest of his words, only he knows best.

Today I dreamed of deleting my account on orkut.com. I have been thinking about it for a few days now. Some weeks back I thought of deleting my blogs, but later went on to make two of them private. Deleting the account or keeping it happen to be the only two options. There are some people on orkut.com I prefer never talking to via yahoo messenger. So I am still in the thinking bracket. I have also created an account on tagged.com today after getting an invitation from my uncle a couple of days back. I had previously received several invitations but I accepted this.

In my post 'Flawed Simulation' I have described an error in my own being. But I remember simulating several ideas on several occasions. And I have enjoyed them well. In fact I keep doing such things every now and then. There are a few monstrous one I can never forget. One of them being a love-latter I wrote on behalf of a friend. he gave it to his girlfriend. It was written to perfection - no one could ever think that it was not my friend but I who wrote it. I had simulated my existence as my friend's existence by putting myself in his shoes.

Sometimes, I remember, I have taken decisions by imagining myself to be somebody else. It helped me especially when I didn't know what action would be mature or immature. This 'simulation' had put me in some elder person's shoes and had made me think how that person would think if he or she were to be in my place. It helped me. Mostly. And I enjoyed it.

Yesterday while chatting, I told my friend that I was feeling sleepy but didn't want to sleep. I have felt that way before several times. Sleeping looks such a waste of time. But when I go to sleep, something doesn't allow me to wake up again or get out of the bed. Perhaps I am blaming this 'something' which in reality is me. Or it is my laziness. And the laziness belongs to me. It takes a Jihad sometimes!

I am yet to have my dinner and it is already 11 pm. Everybody at home is done with it. I had the lunch after Magrib. I do feel some hunger but I am not much interested in what the food lying on the dining table has to offer. But thats the only thing available. There is some chicken cooked in 'masala' and 'naan ki rooti'. I had the same thing in lunch. I will probably have rice and not the 'naan'. I also want something cold to drink; have to look into the refrigerator. Water won't be sufficient. I thank Allah for everything and more.

Thursday, May 10, 2007

Its just a place

"Tell the believing men that they should lower their gaze and guard their modesty; that will make for greater purity for them; And Allah is well acquainted with all that they do.

And tell the believing women that they should lower their gaze and guard their modesty…" (Quran 24:30-31).

We had some showers here today but that could hardly provide any respite from the heat. All that caused was another power failure. I remember few years back when Mr. Chandrababu Naidu was at the chief minister's office, a power failure used to remind me that something of that kind exists just because it used to happen once in several months. Now a days whenever I start installing some software on my computer or when I am talking something important to somebody through the computer, the threat of power going off keeps haunting me. Power has become the most unreliable of all the commodities. Perhaps that is what it means to the Congress's hand with us!

I finally wrote a post for Flowing Emotions. I don't really know how it is; all I know that I have written and I am happy. I started before dinner, had to take a break for dinner, then had to take a second break to get something from outside, and could at last finish it. Microsoft's Office 2007 seems to be a lot better and more powerful than it's previous version. I can directly publish the posts without having to open blogger.com. Previously there was a separate plugin for this purpose.

Just sometime back I finished taking prints of the marks sheets I have prepared copying the marks of 10th standard students of my father's school. Their results were announced today. Though my father is not completely satisfied, he knows that this is what he can expect the students. These students come from very poor family backgrounds where education hardly means anything. There are many students who study just because my father and my uncle have convinced them and are giving them free education. There are some girl students who flunked in one subject out of the six. When I told my father that they can clear that in the instant examinations, he told me that their parents won't be interested in it. Their parents just want their daughters to get married. This was very saddening. This is how it works my father said.

I hardly did anything today apart from sleeping. In the evening I completed some cleaning, then I wrote this article on the other blog and created marks list in MS - Excel. It was just data feeding. And it was boring. The number of students was just 37 - 15 from English medium and the rest from Urdu. I showed averages to my father and tried to tell him that he should give some 'special' time for teaches teaching second and third languages. I have explained this to him even the last year but this year's performance shows that no much action was taken against them.

I have taken these above verses from the Holy Quran here to take some some time understand how even men have to be careful with their chastity. In fact Allah has ordered men first to lower their gaze and guard their modesty, and then the women. Wearing modest clothes applies to men first. This also means that even men are not allowed to wear tight fitting clothes. It also means that even men have to keep their gaze lowered. These verses mean many things and I can go on for pages.

Wednesday, May 9, 2007

I can never thank Allah enough

Remember that the most beautiful things in the world are the most useless; peacocks and lilies, for instance.

John Ruskin

I was wanting to write so much for today. I wanted write how good the people at RTA office were with me today and how being courteous in language and expressions works in our favor. I wanted to write how I felt when I came to know that being an educated person of 20 years would make no difference to me when it comes to having a passport for myself. Then I also wanted to know how I found a way to make things easier for me.

I was planning something for Flowing Emotions and had already made up my mind to make it into reality after dinner. In fact I had two things and I was happy that I would be writing something for that blog after so many days. I had so much of other material to flaunt and flirt with. But the power played a spoil sport. I had to spend more than 2 hours in darkness - almost 3 I guess. It was very disheartening.

But I asked my father if we could go out and have tea. We went out around 11:45 pm. The restaurant were we usually go was closed so we had to slide ourselves into a small hotel that appeared closed from outside. We had tea standing at the counter - there was no place to sit. I was expecting the power to be back when I came home. But it was disheartening again.

I left home today morning around 8:30 am after waking up at 7. After I reached the passport office, I realized how bad the Ministry of External Affairs in India was doing. I pity those people! I came to know that there is a counter for tokens that shows opens at 5:30 am in the morning and closes at 7. This counter had a tablet saying the timings as starting from 9:30 am. This was interesting. People there asked me to come at 5:30 am.

I had a friend with me and we were discussing that we have been living in Hyderabad for more than 20 years now, we have had schooling at the best schools in the city, we had a good college for our +2 studies and we are going to be engineers in a year from now and that too from a very good college. All this was immaterial here as we had to compete with people coming from rural areas who didn't even know how to fill the applications forms for the passport. I thought it to be unfair. I couldn't believe that there was no other way for people like me.

While I was saying all this, I had in my mind that I was showing some pride ans some sort of superiority complex. But I enjoyed the talk. Then my friend told me that something might be possible online and I noted down the URL that was made available there on some banners. I have tried it and I have an appointment for 16th. I need to be there at 3:15 pm with all the necessary papers and also a print of the form I had to fill online. I even have a file number now. This brought some relief. Now a days they are issuing passports within 35 days.

I was at the college at 10:50 pm. I waited for my friends for almost an hour. It was such a nice sight to see them when they appeared in front me. I simply can't imagine going away from them. They have become an integral of my life playing a role similar to the one being played by my parents and my brother. We spent some time studying for Design and Analysis of Algorithms and we spent the rest of the time enjoying. At 3:50 pm I was at the RTA office near my house.

I finally managed to get my father's newly-purchased two-wheeler's registration card and number. I had to request a few people there to help me and they were good. I couldn't believe they could be so fine. I felt nice knowing that there are ways to get good response even from people who are said to be very annoying and crude. I was polite with them and they responded the same way. I had my lunch after reaching home and slept. I had to do a lot of walking to reach home.

My brother is planning to buy a cell phone for himself. He had narrowed on Nokia 6600 but my parents said enough to clear the narrow area. They asked him to buy something more basic. He is more than four years younger to me and especially when I had taken a phone after coming to engineering third year, he is not supposed to have a phone right away. Somehow my parents have agreed and he is still confused with what he must do. There are chances that he will drop the plan but just sometime back he asked me if I could take him to some shop tomorrow. I agreed.

Tuesday, May 8, 2007

It really don't matter to me now

Around 2:30 pm yesterday I had a mango in my right hand and a knife in the left. I was about to use my hands on the two things when my father arrived home. He asked me to stop immediately and have the vegetable pulao he had brought. He got it from some restaurant named 'Raaga' on him way back home near Rajendranagar. It was nice.

I tried to sleep after that but could hardly bear the heat. My house being on 1st floor with no shadows around, makes up for super-heated rooms inside. The mattress kills. Even though I had hardly slept for an hour the previous night, I slept after 3 am yesterday. I woke up at 10 today.

Sunday night my friend had come to my house late evening and was here till almost 3 am. We studied half of the time and enjoyed the rest. Not that studying was not enjoyable, the other part was a little extra. Yesterday night too one of my friends was here for some time. I had even tried to watch television yesterday, but had to switch it off. Nothing could convince me.

Today at 10:25 am a friend came to my house. We went to PVR Cinema from there. He wanted to buy tickets for Superman 3. He had plans to watch it with his old school friend. Even I had a plan to watch that movie with my other friends, but not at PVR. He didn't get tickets there. We went to Sensation and came to know that there was no advance booking and tickets could be purchased just sometime before the show. We spent sometime at a friend's house, then came back here again.

Few more of my friends joined, we purchased the tickets, and left for Prasad's - to have something at McDonald's. The show was from 3:30 pm and reached home a little after 6. I won't say much about the movie. I watch them so that I could be with my friends and find some entertainment. I never get much into any movies - especially never into a movie with the idea of superheroes. These two days I had thought of several small things I could write on my blog. But now when I try to recollect them, nothing comes up!

I have never seen a greater monster or miracle in the world than myself.

Michel Eyquem de Montaigne

Friday, May 4, 2007

Do I look like something else?

Yesterday evening we had to attend a wedding function - my mother's cousin was getting married. Even while everybody was getting ready, I kept myself at the computer. I simply was reading something when I made up mind that I will stay home. I had no specific purpose for such a feeling - I wanted to stay home. When I told my parents, my mother started with a little scolding.

My father asked me a 'why?'. I said 'simply'. That was the only reason I had. I explained to my mother that there are times when we have to attend such functions and I really feel like attending them but we don't go because she or my father feel the otherwise. She as angry with me. But this was not all.

I was at the computer with my father and mother in the bedroom talking something. I could hardly hear them but I managed my mother's last sentence. She said to my father that she will never search for any girl for me to get married and I will have to do it myself. I was dumb-struck. I simply couldn't get why she had to say such a thing and in what way it was related to me not going to wedding party. But relating to a little past, I knew I had the answer.

My parents are sure that I am into some affair with some girl - most probably some friend. And yesterday they were thinking that I had to talk to that girl and so, I wanted to stay home. Though they never spoke to me on such a thing or never tried to find out anything - as far as I know - the trust my father has in me perhaps tells him that I will let him know whenever I find it appropriate. Only I know I have nothing of that sort that I may say.

I have spoken to my father several times on love-marriages. My mother keeps mentioning about me and my brother getting married and the related kinds of things. On last Saturday she was telling my aunt that she should have enough money to get me and my brother married. My aunt told my mother that she has sons and not daughters and her sons will take care of everything. But my mother said she will do what all she can do. I was sitting next to her behaving as if they are talking about some person I have never met.

Some days back I was thinking how nice it ca be if I could get rid of the internet connection I have with my computer. A couple of days back my mother said that I am not studying ans so there should be no such connection. I didn't say a word but like it happens every month, she gave me the required money I might be needing to clear the monthly bills. I hardly meant what she said. But I could see a mischievous kind of smile on her face expecting me to burst out. She was probably thinking that I would ask her to keep the connection so that I can chat with the girl I am having an affair with.

Please. I am not a part of any such thing. I am not in love with any girl and also I am not aware of any girl having such a thing for me. I can never even think of having any such relationship. I hate the concept of girlfriends. Allah save me. I don't know if I can explain my parents all this. I don;t even know if I really have to clear things with them. The best part is that, even after thinking that I am into something like that, they are not asking for any explanations, nor are they trying to stop me. Alhamdulillah.

Things have always been kept casual and open between me and my parents. I know there are things I had to hide from them but if I compare myself with other people I know, I know that I am more transparent. transparent in a way that makes my parents know about me - as much as I want them to know about me. But now a days, they are making thoughts of their own.

But I feel fine about this. It is not a bad problem to have. In fact I might reconsider terming it as a problem. But if my mother really means what she told my father yesterday, then I can see something bad for me. Now, again I do not know if that can be bad. I also feel like laughing aloud. But I don't know how exactly I must react. Thinking Allah is always the best thing. He has always kept things in my favor - in some way or the other.

Wednesday evening I left for my grandmother's place. My uncle and aunt had to go out to attend some party and my grandmother had to stay home. My mother asked me if I am willing to give my grandmother some company in the evening as she would be alone at home. I agreed. I had the option of coming home back after my uncle arrived, I chose to spend the night there. I spoke and listened to what all my grandmother had to say for a couple of hours - and I liked that. Then I spent the same number of hours talking to my uncle. The next day - yesterday - I went to my college to take a copy of my intermediate mark-sheet. Three of my friends came over and I had some good time with them.

On my way back home I had to check out at the local RTA office for the RC of the two-wheeler my father had bought some weeks back. I was asked to come at 4 pm. When I reached home my father told me that I was stinking. I knew I badly needed a bath but hearing that I was stinking was embarrassing. I took a shower, had my lunch and slept. The previous night, though I had gone to sleep early, I remember being awake till 2 am.

Tuesday, May 1, 2007

I am happiness!

I spent almost all of my evening smiling and laughing sitting in front of the computer. There wasn't much I did today except washing the car but I am happy. Alhamdulillah. I had grilled chicken in dinner and it was heavy. But I feel like eating something more now. I will have some biscuits before I go to sleep. I even had the first of mangoes today - first for me this summer.