LifeZamaZing

This is simply fascinating. Came across it when i was stumbling upon things and this really amazed me.

“On a cold Saturday in New York City, the world’s largest train station came to a sudden halt. Over 200 Improv Everywhere Agents froze in place at the exact same second for five minutes in the Main Concourse of Grand Central Station. Over 500,000 people rush through Grand Central every day, but today, things slowed down just a bit as commuters and tourists alike stopped to notice what was happening around them. Enjoy the video first and then go behind the scenes with our mission report and photos.”

(From http://improveverywhere.com)

You can check out the full article here.

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YES!

That is what they are going to be.

Any reason that i put up here is going to be invalid, face-saving and pathetic. But I will still put them up

–> I am reading Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand. Reading it for the third time. And I find it sooooo engrossing that the first thing i do after work is get back to it. Though there are a few scenes in it which i know by heart now but still i find it toooooooo endearing to think of anything else.

–> Bcoz i am reading Atlas Shrugged all i think of are the characters of the novel. Hence i really find no valid topic to write on. Again a pathetic reason.

–> I have been busy with work and family (hahaha… i don’t believe i am writing this)

–> I have run out of topics. (Of course when you don’t think about it, it ought to happen)

–> Writing a blog is insensible. Well its the most sensible thing which requires the attention of your senses and hence I am unable to write

Well, let me be honest. The actual and the only reason is

I HAVE BECOME LAAZZZZZYYYYY

Yes. Now i am talking. No other godforsaken reason.

Ahaa… finally i have started being honest.

And hopefully this honesty shall translate into hard work. Please pray for me and in case you can find some other incentives for me to work on my blog please give them

Amen!!

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Last week a representative of one of the “known” institutes of our city for English Speaking and Communication approached our school. They wanted to address our students about how they can bring about fluency in spoken English. The representative however was not very convincing and moreover, we had exams approaching at that point of time. Hence, I just postponed her hopes and asked her to see me next month. She left a brochure about her institute on my desk before leaving.

The brochure was three-printed-pages stapled up neatly. Somehow luck had it and I was not all that busy that day. To kill time, I started reading through the brochure. And to my dismay and surprise and shock the first paragraph I read had a couple of spelling mistakes. Now the thing with me is, I have got into a habit of playing a spell-checker. I mean, my husband Abhi, uses my language skills in turn for all his computer skills that I use.  So after many years of proof-reading and knowing common errors, I now just glance through to pick out most spelling and grammar mistakes.

Well, but that apart, coming down to our “spoken english institute”. I read further only for the evil pleasure of finding their errors and feeling good about how well we work in their comparison!!

And trust me, the brochure provided enough fun. The entire piece had almost 20 into-the-eye grammar and spelling mistakes like, ‘century‘ was spelled as ‘centuary‘, ‘synonyms‘ was used to mean ‘synonymous‘, ‘etiquette’ had acquired a plural form and was ‘etiquettes‘ (you see if we can have ‘manners’ why can’t we have ‘etiquettes‘??!!), ‘modal‘- the grammar term was spelled ‘model‘ to mean what I really don’t know.

But the crown undoubtedly goes to ‘mam‘. ‘Mam‘- don’t you understand? Well, it is the most common way of spelling ‘ma’am‘ or ‘madam‘!! I am used to ‘mam‘ coming from students but that coming from the brochure of a place that claims to train students in English Language and provide coaching for IELTS and TOEFL?? Now that is what is shocking.

I had a nice time dissecting the brochure and I felt like calling up the representative and humiliating her for being so careless but then I thought better and put it aside. But my mind just doesn’t seem to put it aside. I truly can’t understand how can such phony, filmy institutes claim to teach English?  I mean it hurts. People pay up huge amounts to learn the language assuming it will brighten their job prospects and this is what they learn?? Then they approach schools and seek jobs as teachers!! GREAT so the wrongly learned language continues for God knows how many generations! We now have such a lot of wrong language that the tougher job students face is not learning the language but unlearning the wrong language!

And thanks to mobile, sms and the bollywood it is hard to actually tell, what is correct English and what is not. I am not a die-hard grammar-fanatic but I do like langauge that makes sense. So now we are in an era that not just imbibed Hinglish (Hindi + English) but is heading for Jumblish (Jumbled English). Where each word will mean different to each individual and teachers won’t deduct marks for wrong spelling because you see there will be no right spellings!!

Ahem!!

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Hey, for the past fortnight or more the blog has been giving me a lot of trouble. It was some problem with the server and blah blah blah.

But finally we are through all that. And now hopefully, just hopefully there shall be  no more problems.

Sorry for any inconvenience it might have caused.

And hey, Happy New Year to all of you. May 2008 truly make lifeamaZing!!

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It is diwali and why i love it and how much i love it is something i have already mentioned earlier but now i have one more reason to add.

Diwali means holidays, and holidays mean outings! So, this diwali we are headed to Dev Prayag, Haridwar. Don’t worry I am not seeking salvation or going there for moksha, its just that The Ganges make up beautiful treks and that is what has fascinated all of us.

We are eight of us and will be traveling on 11th and should be back by 16th. Quite a break isn’t it?

Well, a well deserved break or not is something to think about because i work with schools and am on holidays since two weeks. I know many people go green with jealousy after listening to it. But schools have their own advantages. So me is going to make the most of those adavantages and am going on a holiday.

Will post a few pics and whatever interesting stuff I come across.

Till then,

Happy Diwali!!!

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Boring holiday- quite unusual given that people look forward to holidays. And I too look forward to them but today’s holiday was unusually boring. Many reasons to it. One of them was because my dear husband Abhi did not have a holiday. Hence I was the only one holidaying which actually did not turn out to be a holiday at all.

We have holidays so that we can spend time with each other and with ourselves. As of each other, my ‘other’ was busy working for others! And spending time with myself.. ummmm … i think I got bugged with myself today. As such I am an interesting personality but today I turned to be boring. And moreover, I am turning a workaholic with each passing day. My love for work feeds on itself. I think the worst punishment one can pronounce upon me is to do NOTHING all day. Procrastinating is okay for a while but if it continues it gets on my nervous system.

Now this brings me to think about all those people who actually do nothing all day. How impossible would that be! And yes, I do know a handful of such people. Most of them are nouveau riche due to sudden rise in the value of their land (farms owned by their family) as a result of the expanding city. They suddenly have more than enough money to dispense and hence they really do not know what to do with it. They tend to move from here to there all day killing time and killing life. At times I envy them that they have been gifted so much for almost nothing. But then on days like these I pity them. I really really do. Poor them with all that money they still do not have a sense of fulfillment. How sad is that! And trust me you need that sense. You just can’t keep doing something that makes you feel no good. It is degenerating your personality.

Another such fellow is one of my in-laws. A smart, young, intelligent 20ish fellow who just can’t find anything to do. Academics was never his cup of tea and his ego doesn’t permit him to take up a job. He waits for business opportunity to knock his door. Till then he warms the sofa and surveys all the channels on the Television all day!

So, all you so-called-lucky people who get rewards without working your butt out, all I’ve got to say is- Enjoy. For I cannot. And I would not. I would rather work my way up, however hard and long it be. For if I don’t do that, what do I do? Sit back and rot? Degenerate myself into something I would not recognize? Loathe my existence and curse my life? No. You see stagnation is not a choice available to humans. We either evolve or expire. I choose to evolve.

What do you choose? Have you faced such boring holidays when you wished that work was better? Do let me know.

[I had completed the post and then I came across this. This is an excerpt from an essay The Organization Kid by David Brooks. It is about his chance to interact with students of an Ivy League college.

"nowhere did I find any real unhappiness with this state of affairs; nowhere did I find anybody who seriously considered living any other way. These super-accomplished kids aren't working so hard because they are compelled to. It's not the stick that drives them on, it's the carrot. Opportunity lures them. And at a place like Princeton, in a rich information-age country like America, promises of enjoyable work abound—at least for people as smart and ambitious as these. "I want to be this busy," one young woman insisted, after she had described a daily schedule that would count as slave-driving if it were imposed on anyone."

Hurray! I am not the only one who likes to be busy!!;) ]

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6:45 am

Trrrrrrrrnnnnnnnnnnnn goes the alarm or
if it is in the mobile it goes tiiiiiiiiinnnnnnnnnnngggg tiiiiiiinnnnnnnnggggggg tinnnngggggg!

And I am shaken from the midst of deep slumber. Somehow I am the sleepiest when alarm is about to go off. We, myself and my alarm have this strange chemistry- we are simply not fond of each other.

But once it voices its ominous sound, I kick and move and make strange noises and cover myself more with the bed sheet and simply wish that it had not rung this one day. But it already has. So I got to pay attention to it. And then starts the world’s classiest debate between myself and my alter (the well-wisher who tries to wake me up.)

My alter says: Wake up! this is not the first time you have to wake up.

Me says: I knoowwww!! And that’s what I don’t like. WHYYYYY do I have to wake up everyday??!!

My alter says: You lazy bum, come on move your ass! Getting lazier by the day :@ Come on STAND UP NOWWW

Me says: But hey five minutes won’t hurt. Just and justtttt give me five more minutes to sleep. Promise. God promise I will wake up at the 6th minute!

My alter says: Noo hold on, hold onnnnn.!! (The bum is already asleep. Lets wait for five minutes. 1…2…3…4…5…)
Come on five minutes over. Get up

Me says: Seriously? how sad! okkkk i will wake up… aaawwwwwwwwww (the longest yawn that I can manage!!.) But hey it is only 6:55. I have to go for a jog at 7:30… there is an awful lot of time to it. Why r u troubling me!

My alter says: Okk so then keep sleeping. Then don’t dream about reducing weight and looking great. You log.. you sleep here and warm the bed and collect some more fat around your hips! Thats all that you can do.

Me says: nooooooooo i want to look good… Okkk okkkkk don’t get pissed I will wake up. See I am already sitting! What more do you want?

My alter says: Thank you. Now stand up… no .. noo….noooooooooo you are not lying down again. No nothing doing. Wake up now or me is also sleeping off!

And so goes on the argument. At times I listen to my angel alter and at times I make sure it listens to me. But all in all it has always been a gruesome debate that has occupies my mind for quite some time in the mornings! Ahem!

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I am a relatively very healthy girl (at 25 I do qualify for a girl, okk!). I can jog upto 2 kms and eat in good amounts and shift furniture in the house and change the wheels of the car, etc. etc. In short most things that typical ‘girlish girls’ can’t do, I can. And I am kinda happy with my macho-girl image. The reason is that I don’t like to ask for help for every small thing (it is my idea of feminism and all that but I will avoid discussing it here.. will do it in some other post some other time).

Okk, but I too fall ill and I fall ill only in one fashion- allergic cold. I am hyper sensitive to dust and all things unclean (and in India it is not hard to come across such things). And if by mistake my hands reach near my nose after I have touched a surface that is not wiped clean then God help me! Because for the next three days all you will find me doing is S..N..E..E..Z..I..N..G my lungs (heart, stomach, liver, kidneys…) out all through the day in a huge napkin. At times I am even prompted to use a towel but then I control my whims.

So all in all I am in deplorable state physically and everyone around me is annoyed with my condition. But I am not because now I am accustomed to it. I know exactly how many days does it take and when it will subside and all of that.

But I maintain that poise ONLY till my husband, Abhi, is not around me. As soon as I see him somehow a bout of self-pity overtakes me and my mind starts reasoning “Whhhy me, God??:( ” (i never ask that to God when I am having chocolate ice creams) and my behavior forces Abhi to consider that if he doesn’t attend me right away I might just expire. I constantly debate myself saying that I can manage it and I was fine just a while ago and no need to act so childish, blah, blah, blah. But even when I am debating I am actually acting like an attention-hungry-five-year-old.

And then comes the best part about falling ill. He would see my pitiable face and hug me and tell me that its ok and God has no ill-feelings for me and its not the first time that I have fallen ill, and all the other things that I KNEW only until he arrived. And then he would put me to bed and apply Vicks (i know its a brand and that its not the worldwide name for mentholated creams but we Indians are so accustomed to Vicks and Colgate that all OTC medicines related to cold are Vicks and all tooth-pastes are Colgates! ). He would rub it on my chest and neck and on the forehead and even put some INSIDE my nose (the yuckiest part as you would imagine but the most effective nonetheless) and treat me like a child.

And I ENJOIIIIIIIIIIII it to the core. I make sure that I am pampered and I enjoy my overindulgence in Vicks! It is one of the loveliest moments of my marriage and I would not trade it for anything. I have tried a lot of tricks and tactics to overcome the allergic cold for good but honestly have never felt sorry when neither of them have yielded results. I enjoy my small reason for being spoilt even if it costs me three whole days and a hell looooooottttttt of misery!! Thank you Abhi for making me enjoy my illness.

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I know I am too late to write about it but I was too busy all day but am still too much into its trance to write about anything else.

If there is anyone of you out there who cannot make a head or tail out of the title then let me give you a brief history of it. India plays only one game(it plays others but they are not worth mentioning) and that is Cricket. It is India’s religion and cricketers are Gods. Pakistan is its arch-rival and a match between India and Pakistan is no less than a battle. Yesterday India won the Cricket’s twenty20 World Cup against Pakistan in a match that brought the entire subcontinent to a standstill for the entire duration.

Details of the match can be found all around the blog and news world and I am sure there is not one aspect of the game that has not been discussed. And I went surfing all over the web and came across this blog iccworldcup07 that had covered the entire twenty20 world cup in ABSOLUTE detail. My hard luck that I found it after the world cup was over.

But what I want to talk of is the spirit of revelry and joy that swept around the country with the final catch by Sreesanth. As soon as the match was over and the Pakistani captain gave his impossible remarks on “all Muslims around the world” (it has been discussed in good detail at Soul witness ) the entire India was out on the streets celebrating and rejoicing. There we youngsters on the streets S..C..R..E..A..M..I..N..G INDIA INDIA!! And my city, Ahmadabad, has a road called C.G. Road that is the unannounced address for all occasions of joy. People somehow always land up at CG without any invitation. Its as if the entire city has been ordered to meet there. And once the crowd gathers up you find a motley of people befriending strangers at unbelievable speed. It seemed as if everyone knew everyone and all of them were brothers in the sense that our Pledge wants us to.

Coming back to the CG road we had one fellow with the Indian flag dancing ON the car waving at thousands around him. Another one was with a trophy (which is supposed to be a world cup ;)) in his hands on the bonnet of the car and the entire crowd had a smile sooo content that it seemed as if all of them had deliberately forgotten India’s shameful loss at the world cup in early 2007. Bu then that is how it has to be. Life is to forget the scars and celebrate the victories.

I was elated to see the amount of joy a single victory brought us. India is a nation starved of victories and hence when we win, WE WIN!! Nothing about our victory is small or dispensable. It is our pride and we want to enjoy it. So the cynics (if there are any, yet) PLEASE leave us alone. Let us bathe in the glory!!

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