chapter 11 perspectives

Perspectives always interest me a lot. to hear two sides of a story is almost always like hearing two different things. it is so interesting to see how opinions and views can alter the way different people perceive the same thing. one important lesson i learned recently is you can never see anyone who is having exactly the same perspective a you have. if some one told you 'exactly what i was thinking'
BEWARE.
they are lying

if someone reacted the way u expected them to i tell you they did that just to satisfy u and in their mind they might have had a good laugh about it.
if someone says 'How True' to something u say please ask them why do u think so too.... most of the time they wouldnt have an answer, or they would simply repeat whatever u said. i know i am sounding a little skeptic. i intent to sound so. i simply dont trust them. my journalism teacher mr frammolino says, 'if your mother says she loves you, ask her for proof'
i am not that skeptical about anything, but i simply cant believe anything because I am sure i am right about people. you might say something very important to someone and be satisfied with the way He/She has reacted, only to find they dont even have a vague recollection of what you said. you might say something very confidentially to someone who vouches secracy only to leave you there and spread the story everywhere. you might tell an incident to someone and think they completely sided with you only to be fooled by them, for they would have formed an opinion about you which is nothing but negative.

and if you find out someone who fooled u like this what do u do?
ignore it and behave naturally?
accuse them of it?
stop having anything to do with that person again?
realise your mistake and never repeat it?
i think the last one is the most feasible solution.

chapter 10 -the likes and dislikes

It all started when i asked my mom on one fine Sunday morning,' what is for breakfast'. isnt that a perfectly innocent question, allowed in all parts of the world. may be 'all over the world' is a bit too much... wat if hitler had placed some restrictions during the holocaust! u never know, well my mom was a little Hitler herself and she completely forbid me frm doing it not in simple words but the following way:

me(sitting sloppily on a couch watching tv on a sunday morning): mom wat is for breakfast?

mom(from the kitchen shouting to be heard above the song being played in a channel): 'idly' and 'sambar'

my mom comes out of the kitchen, which is behind me, to see the song now on TV which is one of her favorites

me(without knowing she is right next to me begins to say): oh every sunday!... (now i notice my mom and most importantly the look on her face which meant if i utter a single word more the entire day would be dedicated to 'dealing' with me and i thought quick and said) afternoon 12.30 there is smrithilayam, my favourite program.

i sat innocently without daring to look at her... the sudden change in the sentence had made my heart to stop and brain, to work hard and i was feeling very tired. sudenly i heard laughter around me. my dad and my sis who where near me had heard me and were laughing at my quick wit to change it that way. and i tell u my mom went back to the kitchen defeated. that was one of my victory days after all!

even now seeing 'idly' early in the morning spoils my day. somehow i dont like idly when it is der in my house...but my mom's idlies are pretty famous... it so soft and smooth that i know people who have already had breakfast having a second one when they realise it is idly for breakfast at my home... but i love to eat idly during occasions... like on the day of marriage, for breakfast they would always make idly and i love to it... it would be as hard as stone and the sambar would be like water and the chutny 2nd rate still i like to have it there. there is a cook near our place. his name is soman. he is called for almost all marriages in our village... he also does the small feasts like the sadya for birthday, 'sanjayanam'(after death ceremony), the sapthaham(bhagavatham read and explained in 7 days) in our temple etc. one particular occasion is the 41. that is during the sabarimala season there are 41 days during which the sabarimala temple remains open. those days even in our temple we have special prayers, bhajana and all that. each day would be sponsored by a particular person. there are some specific days which is the right of certain families. my family is the one who takes care of the 41st day. my father's elder brother take care of it. on that day he would have arranged soman to make idlies for the people who come to sing bhajans. we would all gather in my dad's elder sister's house which is right opposite to the temple and all of us would have idlies even b4 the bhajans. my mom would scold soman saying 'if i throw it at u and it hits u, u will die for sure, it is harder than stone...' and will then turn to me devouring the idlies and stare at me angrily.... she would be reminded of my responses whenever she makes idlies. but soman in his characteristic way, smile and say 'if i make it soft those bhajana people would eat tons and tons, that is why... i know to make it soft but i dont'
my mom would retaliate saying 'we are making this for them to have so y do u have to think that way' but soman chettan will only smile.

the likes and dislikes are so difficult to find out. i wouldnt know wat i would want for myself. i would think for months if i have to give someone a gift. i am sometimes at a loss to find out if people simply dislike me or like me a lot. likes and dislikes change in two seconds. for example when i thought of this post i liked it a lot, but now i think i dont like it at all and that i have not been able to successfully convey my thoughts. well i t happens i suppose

chapter 9 മൂന്നു പെണ്ണുങ്ങള്‍

the three great friends of my life!!!!

I know I know… it has been a long time since I told you I would be writing about the three close friends in my life…
It is an incomparable feeling to have a close friend, a really understanding friend, a friend who can predict what is in your mind, a friend who would be there for you, not behind you, not infront of you, but by your side whenever you look there.

I have had many friends over the year… so many of them, some I still keep in touch, some I know to be doing what though I am not in touch with them directly, and there is another group about whom I don’t know anything. Nothing at all… whether they have changed, whether they have forgotten me, whether they ….. I happily lived in blissful ignorance of my dear friends.

There was a great friend of mine. I studied with her in the same class for 5 loong years. Her name is Rajani. I have never had a friend who was as understanding as she was, and I remember how undemanding she was, I can feel how much she liked me even now as I think about her. And when we parted for me to join a new school she wrote in my autograph book

‘You are my best friend and you will always be…’

Though I felt happy then, I am quiet sure I didn’t know how precious that line was then because I placed her in the back of my mind soon, without even a tinge of guilt….

I regret it… I seriously regret it…

When I look back after 9 years I realize that she is the only person who ever told me I am her best friend. Yes she is the only one who ever told me that… how unthoughtful and how immature it was to not value that and I think I was punished for that…yes I was punished for that not by her but by other friends.

I know where rajani is now, what she is studying etc etc. but I didnt have her contact number and I haven’t talked to her for sooo long that I have a feeling I have lost her…


************

This is a story on how I lost a good friend coz of my carelessness. I am to be blamed for this. No one else had any role in it.
I was shifted from the comfortable place in the fourth bench to the first place in the front bench by Joby sir so that I would talk less, listen more and subsequently get more marks. This is in my 11th standard. Though I didn’t gain more marks nor did I listen more I was now sitting next to Miss Hope!!! Yes! Her name was Pratheeksha. I sat awed looking at her while she solved long math problems in trigonometry, permutations combinations etc. she was very soft spoken and very caring and many other things. I don’t know how to describe people like pratheeksha. They are so down to earth, no show offs and no demonstrations. She just liked me for what I am, never demanding and always comforting me and everything. And I sure needed all the comfortings in the world because life was hell for me at that time. +1 and +2 still haunts me. And Joby sir, physics chem and bio still are the major actors in my night mares.

Pratheeksa … I don’t know where she is now. I don’t know which course she took after her plus 2… I don’t know if she is away from her home… I don’t know if she is also wondering where I am… I have lost my friend in this over populated country and I don’t even have a phone number. I had taken her phone number in my slam book and I have lost it, I don’t know where I have lost that goddamn book.
We use to go to Pala near Kottayam for our entrance coaching every saturday. We were taken in a bus from our school by the management. Pratheeksha, who stayed in the hostel, always got Kerala paratha and egg curry as her lunch. I who was a day scholar had my lunch from home. Both of us hated our respective meals. One day pratheeksha suggested exchanging our tiffin. And from that day we exchanged out lunch. She said she liked to have curd, chutney and ladies finger. So I brought that for her from the next week onwards. At times my mom treated her with fsh fries and all.

I don’t know where she is now. I have asked many of my old classmates, but none of them knows…

I am at a lose to know what I ought to do now.
Any suggestions???



She came to my school the year after I joined that school. I noticed her because of her ‘look’ if I may call it so. She was completely different… totally… before I go on to describe how she was I think it is better for you to know my ‘look’. After I couldn’t fit into frocks I graduated into long skirt and blouse. It is this typical dress young traditional girls wear. It is called ‘pattupaavada’. I think from my 8th standard till my tenth I had only these skirts other than the pinnafore I had as uniform. I didn’t even have many salwars, may be one or two. All my good dresses were those skirts. My hairstyle – one straight line in the center of my head from front till the back which parted my hair into two equal halves… I had very long hair and it would always be full of oil and I take bath everyday wetting my looong hair everyday, liked classical music a looot, listened to only Indian music, was learning classical dance at that time, and continued to learn it for 15 years, was in a short a typical traditional malayalee girl with a lot of convictions about what is good and what is bad.

So there is nothing surprising in the fact that tonks wore jeans and shirt when she was not wearing uniform, she spotted a boycut, had curly hair, listened only English music, had an accent when she spoke English(though I haven’t been able to place it yet) while I spoke English with an excellent Malayalam accent, was a total extrovert, her Malayalam was as good as her English and she my contrast in every sense. We got to know because of our common friends and we got to know better because we had one similar interest. Both of us took part in essay-story-poetry writing competitions in school youth festivals and both of us bagged one of the prizes each. We became friends because of two people- one person from UK and another one from Kerala itself. The former is J K Rowling and latter is Matha Amrithanandamayi. Your first guess would be right… yes we were both fans of harry potter. But matha amrithanandamayi… no neither of us were her devotees. But an essay competition was conducted by the Math and each school was allowed to send two participants. Our school conducted a screening competition and tonks and me were selected. There we got to know each other better. Then again the wait for the potter books to release and debates ranging from who is RAB, who is half blood prince, who would be killed next and so on made us really close friends. Then we ended up in the same class in XI and there we became best of friends and there we started to have problems. Like I told you we didn’t have similar likes and dislikes in most of our ways and I think she found me a nuisance and I got annoyed with her many times may be because I started becoming possessive about her. (this is one particular emotion which is better left alone. I have been very possessive about many people in my life…. My friends, my best friends, my secret lovers, so many of them. But I am proud to say I am cured of that particular illness,.. I will tell all about it one day.)

I am happy to say we are back to our same old selves. I was in a different class in our XII, may be that helped. Then we were in two different states for the next 3 years, that made us really miss each other I guess.

We met after 3 years and we realized we had developed a looot in common over the years and yes I am confident now, I would never loose tonks… she would always be my close friend.


**************

isnt that Beautiful???









the ring!!




wish i was there!!!

i hate technology

A i put the cd into the drive of my PC in my new college i am sure i was spotting a grin. after all i was accesing net after almost 2 weeks and i had a post ready to be posted for a loong time. and i was about to do it now. as the auto play window came i confidently clicked on the chapter 9 file
there i get 3 pages of small squares. i stared at it for a while and slowly realised it happend because of the way i saved it... the word on my laptop and this word were defenitely not on talking terms...n
who suffered?
me!!!!
i am so fed up of this . first of all couldnt post it earlier since my modem at home simply went on strike influenced, i suppose, by the political parties of Kerala and then i couldnt do it on my lap top itself coz it was not connected to the net and now i cant post the damned thing coz 'words' quarrel with each other.... why Gates uncle why? i mean he is so sweet to help but he has complicated the stuf by bringing in newer versions and encouraging squabbles between them.

this man (the guy in the foto) is so sweet to have expressed my thots so nicely. i am afraid few ppl are so understanding. i am getting annoyed coz of the pressures at my college already, and i hav prob with Vodafone who happily offered me national sms for 50 paise and local sms for 10 paise and is blissfully charging me 1.50 paise and 1 rupee respectively. when u call their happy to help customer care, they ask for 24 hours, 48 hours, then again 24 hours and when even that is over they refuse to help... they simply wouldnt connect me to their customer care service.

a friend decided to call me and that is a big thing because this particular friend always forgets to call me. but can we talk properly? no! why ? there is no network coverage.
wow!
where has technology landed us? if there were no such gadgets we would have happily lived without getting crazy when u encouter problems with it...
world would definitely have been a better place t o live in!

hello!!!!

hi all my fan followers.... sorry for not posting for succh a loooong time... i wanted to but didnt have the adequate net connection

well. this is to let u know that i will be posting regularly and do keep checking my blog....
the next post is going to be about the 3 close friends in my life (also called മൂന്നു പെണ്ണുങ്ങള്‍)
not written by M T Vasudevan nair.... but myself
love u loots for reading ma blog
thulsi

chapter 8

On windows

There are so many incidents in my life where I looked out through a window to see something which remain etched in my memory or someone looked at me through a window to remain in the same way glowing in my memory. To look through a window is a unique experience where the shape of the window will seem to restrict the view in that shape from a distance, but on closer inspection we will realize that it is the opening to the limitless world that lies beyond us beckoning us to get out and never ever get in…the world seen through a window is always a different outlook. There is something that prevents us from being with that which is outside the window, also that is the only way which shows what lies beyond.
Once I was sitting on a bus which was just leaving the bus stand and entering the main road. I was sitting in the side seat immediately in front of the door. I am talking about the private buses in Kerala. I had kept my hand on window sill of my window. I could see the colour of my sleeve through the corner of my eyes as I looked out. I was clouds and the sky… blue and white. I was in my ninth standard. It was in December and our school was celebrating Christmas that day…. The last day before Christmas holidays…
As the bus turned into the main road it had to slow down since some people had come up from the other side of the road to board the bus. The conductor who knew them as regular passangers, rang the bell and the bus stopped. I knew two of them very well. As they came walking towards the bus, one of them looked at me, I was already looking at him. He smiled at me, a soft smile, just a smile of recognition, or was it just that? I don’t know… I am not sure… I returned the smile, a happy smile...
My day that day was technically a very bad day coz I couldn’t find a dress to wear. Usually I wear uniform to school and hence there is no tension of what to wear… but that day was Christmas celelbration and we could wear colour dress. In the morning I had tried to wear a dress I really liked and had found that I was too large for it, I tried another one and found that the dress is too small for me…. In the same manner I had tried all the dress in my wardrobe and found out that I couldn’t fit into any of those. I think it would be useless to explain my distress, because it would be stating the obvious.
In the end I found a dress belonging to my sister which she had long abandoned since it was too big for her now. My sister is elder to me but is less than half my size. She had stopped wearing that salwar because a change in trend has made it necessary for her to wear dress that is tight fitting. But I could wear the salwar without breaking the latest trend, my sisters loose dress was tight fitting for me. That was the reason for my bad mood. I had to be satisfied with the old dress of my sister on that special day, when I had new dress in my wardrobe. But what fit me well yesterday wouldn’t suit me tomorrow. I would have become more fat.
What more is required to make me hate the day. And I had smiled a very happy smile at someone I knew, a smile that went out through the window and the smile that came in through the window. The smile was full and came straight from my heart. I had smiled that morning at someone with my full mind, little knowing that, that someone was going to change my life one day…years later…in ways I could never have fathomed. This is a dedication for that someone…

PS: and all these thoughts now because someone looked down from a window and saw me!!!

chapter 7

How did I forget to fall in love? Love had easily come to me… I don’t feel it anymore… I know I love my parents, I know I love my sister, I know I love my friends. But I don’t feel it anymore. But why ?
Love in all form is selfish. We like to love others because of the satisfaction we get when we love someone… there is a feeling which cant be explained, associated with the emotion of love. We like others to love us because of that feeling. It is a beautiful feeling to be in love. Selfishness in it doesn’t poison it. It is beautiful, fascinating and refreshing.
Here, the problem I have encountered is that though I know I love many people I can no longer feel it. I am failing to experience the joy of love.
I have fallen in love many times. Some of it was for moderately long periods as in almost one month. But there was one love which lasted for almost two years. The beauty of it all is that it was always one way. My lover never suspected me of loving him. So it was all very exciting. The little secret, deep in my heart which made me very special for myself, just for myself!!! I treasured it deep inside me. Why did it leave me all of a sudden? It is almost two years now since I fell in love. It startles me to believe it.
I don’t feel the love inside me, the compassion inside me, the pain in me, the anger in me, the disgust in me, the peace in me…the last two years I haven’t even written a single story, a single diary entry which reflects the true me… why?

Am I growing up?
If this is growing up I would definitely have preferred to be made a bonsai.