not your day

sometimes, the minute you wake up, you realize that it is not going to be your day. this feeling gets fortified if you have snoozed your alarm for a good 30 minutes and wake up a bit too late. hurriedly throwing away the covers, you rush to brush your teeth, only to find the tube of toothpaste empty...even the last bit squeezed unmercifully out of it. you desperately fight with the tube and manage a quick brush and hurriedly take a bath.

keeping an eye on the clock, you hastily dress up, only to discover that most of your work clothes are either in the laundry basket or needs ironing. you say 'what the hell' and jump into a god foresaken piece of clothing that you had stowed away in the bottom of your wardrobe. and by Murphy's law, you have a bad hair day (of course). having no time to grab a breakfast, you rush to the office. there you find that the meeting for which you had skipped the signals and broke some other traffic rules, got rescheduled to another day. with an air of resignation and an iota of satisfaction that you escaped attending the meeting in a dowdy dress and tangled hair, you proceed to the cafeteria. and there, a 'closed' sign greets you-maintenence.

obeying to the dictates of your growling stomach, you walk in to a nearby restaurent. upon entering, you are pleasently surprised to see your cousin dining there with her kid. your 2 year old nephew rushes up to you with a cry of joy and flings himself on you. 'ah! atlast. something good' you think and lift him up in your arms. a feeling of warmth and wetness spreads on you...leaky diaper. shit! literally. with your appetite ruined along with your dress, you stumble out of the restaurent and sneak out your car from the office car park and drive home.

switching off your mobile and shuckin off your pissed dress, you take a bath...again. then you dial up for a pizza. after an excruciatingly long 20 minutes wait, the pizza finally arrives. you devour it up unmindful of the sinfully fattening cheese and flop down on your couch. the next thing that you are aware of is the scent of wet earth and the relentless pounding of the rain on your window. squinting at the clock, you figure out that it is only early afternoon. you sightlessly stare at the downpour through your window, deliberating whether to make yourself a cup of tea or not. you mentally imagine the pleasure of sitting on the window sill and enjoying the rain while sipping a cup of hot ginger tea. but your body, too comfortable and content, refuses to give up the company of the couch.

after much procrastination, you stagger into the kitchen and make the tea. breathing in its aroma, you sit down at the window sill and take yor first sip. heaven. the next sip. and the rain stops. damn. you totally loose the mood to relish the tea and hurridly swallow down the rest of your cup.

to fill up the entire evening stretching ahead, you call up your friends and try to sell them the idea of going to the latest block buster movie. and as luck would have it, none of them are free. you feel so lonely and depressed that, for a momnet, you even seriously consider the preposterous idea of marrying someone. pushing aside the boringly chiched thoughts of self pity, you roll up your sleeves and start cleaning up your home. afterall, what better way than this to vent out the frustration? done with it, you look at the time. you realize that if you just hurry a bit, you can still catch up the movie. you dress up, grab your keys and drive to the multiplex. you supress a smile at the weird look given by the man at ticket counter when you asked for 'one ticket'. you buy a tub of popcorn and settle down in your seat to enjoy the movie...and you do end up enjoying it inspite of the distractions posed by the young lovers and couples siting on either side of you and infront of you. you leave the theatre and drive your car along the ECR, with the stereos blasting hard rock music and the needle of the speedometer pushing at 100kmph. finally, you turn around and start driving towards your home.

midway, enroute your car grinds to a halt. you turn on the ignition again and again. the car just sputters and dies away. you get out of the car. the road is empty and deserted. the streetlights are non existent. the empty, lonely street is pitch dark and a slow steady drizzle starts. you take out your mobile and make a call to your mechanic. at that time, you hear foot steps behind you. you turn around...and then......





and then you realize that its too late.... you realize that you cant write anymore tonight. you throw away the paper and pencil, switch off the light and go to sleep... dreaming about what will happen next.

get it right

of my four years of college life, not even once have people guessed my course right. by people here, i mean strangers and long lost acquaintances. by looking at the paraphernalia that i am carrying with me they invariably jump into wrong conclusion. let me share with you four of such experiences out of the innumerable.

during the first year, first semester, all we engineers have to carry the drafter. though, apart from mechanical, civil, architecture branches, none of the engineers from other departments will ever glance at an engineering diagram throughout our life is a major fact, god only knows why ALL department students should suffer with that subject. so there i was, lugging the drafter and walking my way home from the bus stop. en route, i stopped at a box shop to get some stuff. the shopkeeper eying my drafter asked "polytechnic eh?" god!!! great insult...asking an engineering student whether she is studying polytechnic. glaring at him, i said "no. ENGINEERING" and huffed away.

the other day during my second year, i got up really late and was rushing up to get ready and leave so as to catch the college bus at time. at the last moment, i remembered my lab coat and having no time to stuff it into my bag, i just slung it over my shoulder and rushed off to the bus stop. there, two middle aged men, on seeing me with the white lab coat, were smugly telling each other that i must be a 'medical student'. wow!! now that felt good i tell you. but then, at that moment, my college bus came. getting into the bus, i looked out at the men from the window and needless to say, they looked at me sheepishly. dear people, here i would like to say that we engineers too use white lab coat extensively through out our four year course. we suffer through 15-20 labs and for that, we must wear the white lab coat.

when i was in my 3rd year, me and my friends, after finishing the model exam headed to the beach from the college. we got into the bus and as we didn't get any seat, we gave our bags to some of the aunties who were sitting. one of them looked up at us, said the name of an 'arts college' which is near our own college and asked whether we were studying there. gosh!! just because we were heading out in the afternoon, does it mean that we are 'art students'?
"hehe, no aunty, we are engineering students." i said. she eyed us suspiciously and asked " but don't you have college till 4 pm? " we told her about the model exam. for that, she just said an unconvinced "oh" and turned away from us.

now, am in the final year, and even yesterday, an acquaintance took a wrong guess. during the final semester, we have to do project and we won't be having regular classes on all five days of the week. so, that day, i was coming home from college and i was just carrying my purse. there wasn't any classes that day in college so i didn't have to carry any books. "hey Aruna!!! how are you? started working eh? where?" the acquaintance enthused. "oh no no. am in my final sem...b.e..." i dragged out. "oh. where are your books? no bag? where did you have your lunch? " she went on. boy!! isn't she considerate? i really was in no mood to explain about project and the final sem class schedule to her. so i just said " my college has a canteen aunty. i had lunch there." and rushed off.

God...will someone, ever ask, for a change "are you an ENGINEERING student?" before i complete my course?

the ladies compartment

traveling by the local train in Chennai is real bliss. no traffic hassles,no break downs, no ticket passing...and the best part is that it is fast and prompt.

ladies compartment in the local train has its own charms. in the morning hours, you can see the working women doing everything-except bathing and relieving themselves, in the train.

some of them dutifully comb their hair...at the extremes even with special lice removing combs. the poor co passengers often sneeze themselves to misery because of this. and you know what is the worst part? a woman combing her hair and a women eating her breakfast sitting next to each other.

talking about eating, Chennai women aren't yet overly comfortable with the concept of using spoon for eating. so, they eat with hand. most often you can see fingers from two to three hands wriggling together in the same tiffin box. so, after eating, they migrate either towards the entrance or near a window, skilfully unscrew a bottle open with one hand and wash the other hand-in a MOVING train. most of the window seat passengers experience a mini drizzle many times in the course of their journey because of this. and for your information, these women also wash their mouths.

another important and indispensable part of the ladies compartment are its vendors...that too the gypsies. with a dress that is half way between a sari and hair that is coloured brown-courtesy the Chennai sun,dirt and lack of oil, these women sell coloured beads,safety pins, clips, bands, key chains and and an assortment of other items which you can buy for rs.5 to rs.20.

with a baby slung on their shoulder, they often makes agile jumps in and out of the train...when the train is about to leave the platform. their arrival is often heralded by a powerfull smell, even before they start hawking their wares. handing out the chosen items to the customers, they dig deep to retrive their money pouch-often placed in strategic places and give out the changes. wow...ultimate shopping experience.

if you feel hungry during the travel and u are not the type to carry tiffin box, dont worry. a wide range of eatables-from popcorn to papaya can be brought in the train. the skins of peanuts, oranges, bananas and a variety of other fruits provide a bright and peppy decoration to the otherwise boring steel flooring of the train. most of the accidents in a ladies compartment occur due to the lethal combination of high heels and banana peels.

but the most testing part of train travel is the way the ladies stand at the entrance...even when there is enough space available to do somersaults in the aisles. with a mini war raging between the boarding and departing parties, where women transform into wrestlers and shove at each to get into the compartment, these stupid,commonsenseless creatures stand at the side of the entrance...happily watching the ensuing commotion with a grimace plastered on the face.

with only 20% of the total breadth available, a great deal of pushing,shoving,stomping, whacking and what not occurs among the pasengers. when you see a dishevelled women with her hair sticking every which way and her dress looking as if it has been just retrived from the drier of the washing machine, please dont screw up your face in contempt. she is a victorius woman who has managed to escape unscathed at her destined station.

ah!! the joys of train travelling are so numerous. you have to accept the fact that travelling by train...that too in peak hours teach you some important survival skills, increasing your ability to face this mad bad world with confidence.