Bring me back to life…

Don’t leave me out here in the sun,

The perfect twenty-five degrees burns my eyes.

The trees bend at the heavy breeze,

The freshly fallen flowers prick my feet.

Don’t let me bleed alone,

Of the injuries of missing you.

Raindrops so tiny drizzle down on my cheeks,

Etching it with tears-like scars, and

The soft smell of the quenched earth hurts my insides.

Like a burning that can only be doused

With your breath on my face.

Don’t leave me out here,

In the clutches of beautiful nature,

All alone like a flightless bird looking at the rainbow.

The birds that can fly up to it

Fly, chirping along, having their own

Pretty little conversation in the clouds…

The exquisiteness of it all will kill me.

Only you can kiss me back to life.

Come, bring me back to life.

How time flies!!

Day after day we spent writing ten assignments together, attending 6-hour classes and hoping for things to change. And all of a sudden voila! It is the day exactly one year after the first time we sat in this department, as students of mass communication and journalism. 20^th September 2010, the unforgettable, when it took me an hour to pick out the exactly right outfit and another hour to pack everything I might need for the adventure of first day at college. I remember clearly, I had never carried a heavier bag and never had a happier day….

This year was the most eventful one in my whole life, but there are some highlights. Like the day we all were made to introduce ourselves to our seniors. They tried ragging a little mildly but juniorism prevailed; the juniors ended up ragging the seniors. J

Or.. Like the day we went to a newspaper office at midnight to see the printing process! 

we were all so tired and sleepy....... waiting for the professor to come and guide us inside. but when we entered the place all the sleepiness has evaporated into the smell of newsprint sheets and inks..

hey remember the time we found one of the lecturers wearing two different kinds of sandals??? She did not notice the whole day and we could not take it anymore, so we simply pointed it out!!

Or the first time we noticed that out sir carried a white striped pen holder with him to class every day. 

It is made of cloth and has a small stuffed doggy attached, wearing a matching striped doggy-vest of some sort. It was so cute… When he left the class for a few minutes some of us grabbed the doggy and played with it ;)

There is so much more and I never want to forget any part of it. The last one year was the best in my life, thanks to every one of my classmates, my seniors and of course the professors. Happy anniversary guys!! Same time next year I hope all of us are nearer to our goals and doing something that makes us happy. I wish all my classmates the best of luck!

the girl in blue

Not being a dentist turned out to be a stroke of good luck for Jerry.

Amid the constant rage of Sindey Sheldons, Dan Brown’s and the other fast paced thrillers, I had hardly noticed dainty little book like ‘the girl in blue’ until a friend recommended it. This review is actually pointless; I just read it now does not mean nobody else has read it… so I’m just going to say what I felt about it. Pardon my long winding sentences, for P G Wodehouse is all over my speech and writing.

The comedy in ‘the girl in blue’ written by P G Wodehouse is entirely made up of clever wit and mild sarcasm; it is like actually having a conversation and finding a joke in the situation. The Girl in blue here is a painting that goes missing, believed stolen. Meanwhile Jerry finds himself falling in love with a girl while being engaged to another. To make his love story end well he must find the girl in blue, and return her to the owner. Dialogues like “I have one idea” “I have, too” “You have two ideas?” “Oh, I should have said ‘also’” and a hundred other lines bring some smiles. It was like watching a delightfully funny movie from the last century where chaos is not substituted for comedy and where the success of the film solely relies on the intellect of the viewer.

The story sails like a boat in the calmest of seas, through a few days from the life of Jerry, the love of his life Jane, his rich Uncle Scrope and poor Uncle Scrope (they are brothers). His romance with the lovely Jane can only be described adorable, like depicting a delicate dame holding a frilled hand-fan over face with a gloved hand, and coyly batting her lashes at the man she loves.

The diabolical ‘butler’ Chippendale’s impertinent wit makes me wonder how nobody hits him in the head with a table in the entire book. The girl in blue was a delightful read.

PS. If anyone finds another one from the same author, read it and pass it on! J

???????????????????

“Do you believe in your religion?” Well… it depends. On about a million things. After today’s religious ceremony I attended, one of the near-thousand festivals we celebrate in a year, the dilemma continues.

Today, after constant contemplation for several weeks, my parents coaxed me into attending the pooja for Anantha Padmanabha festival being celebrated in a mutt. For those who don’t know, it is a place where men who never went to gym in their entire lives make it obvious by wearing just a panche, (silk cloth draped around the waist) and insist that all ladies cover themselves head to toe. This is not about feminism and gender equality so I won’t dwell on that issue. I’ll just say frankly, I was terribly bored in that situation. Thankfully I had a book with me; it came to my rescue. Making myself comfortable in a corner of the big hall and stretching my legs, I had just begun to get engrossed when one of the bare-bodied bosses came to me and said, “Fold your legs!” and why? “It points towards God!”(He meant the idol of the deity sitting diagonally opposite about ten feet away).

This reminded me of the popular story almost every Hindu must have heard in their childhood, that of Kanakadasa. His teacher once gave all his disciples a banana each, and asked them all to eat it in a place where nobody is looking (this assignment sounds far more interesting than what we get now!). only Kanakadasa comes back the next day with the fruit intact, and gives the coolest excuse for not completing an assignment “I could not find a place where nobody is looking! God is everywhere!”
Makes sense right?

Maybe years of exposing skin has resulted in them losing this basic wisdom. And at the end of this thought along with being bored, confused and sleepy, I was hungry. Dad had insisted on not breaking the fast until the pooja was over and just decided to have two cups of coffee (“not counted as food”). Here he sat stiffly like he had a healthy meal of oats fruit and milk. My stomach growled. Quietly I slipped out, bought myself a coke and fries from good old McDonalds, sat in the car and munched away.

*sheepish smile*

By the time I returned it was lunch time and more people were undressing (why??.. I don’t get it either!). Some pious wife fished out a large box of pills from her bag and picked out the right ones with her frail, wrinkled hands and held it out for her husband. He obediently swallowed them. I tried hard to picture him stronger after all those pills but I failed. His pills, the bulky necklace of holy beads, smearing of Chandana and other stuff all over his body and the bulky mobile phone falling off his lap took up half of his weight. His wife bullied his from one side, and I sat there wondering, is this where God is? I can’t bring myself to trust religion to bring about anything positive. Yet, we follow.

Again, the dilemma continues……..

PS: this post is not opposing any religion. it is just a contemplation. no offence to believers!!

Baby blogger's day out.....

Shruthi ramachandra feels like a real blogger today, having just attended a bloggers’ meet for the first time.

After I reached home, half-soaked in the rain and decorated with the choicest particles of the Bangalore air pollution, sporting my new IndiBlogger t-shirt and typing a spontaneous post, I feel like.... The boy who stood in his shoes and wondered, and wondered. (not exactly how John Keats says.. a little similar.) I still wonder… about how many bloggers there are, how long they have been blogging and how young I am! (for the record I am only 3 months old! When you comment, pair it with a chocolate for the kid J)

I also wondered about the new Samsung Galaxy tab that was being showed off like a parent showing off his gifted child. Baby Samsung is like a super-baby. Along with singing, dancing, drawing, painting, chatting nonstop and things like that, it can show you the world on a flat screen, and how it does that, I wondered. 

To people who understand technology it may look simple; my skull has technology-barriers.  Moreover, I love my baby, Nokia, the most.

Organizers from IndiBlogger are doing a terrific job organizing these meets and I applaud them for the efforts. For New-comers like me who just jumped into the sea of blogging, it was a tremendous experience. Cheers to the IndiBlogger team!! J

PS: this post is one day late because I had no internet connection! I should probably get a baby Samsung!!