This one goes out to you. And you. And her. And him.

This one's for those friends of mine,

rare finds
who stand out in any crowd.
The ones who've stood up for me,
Held me when I cried,
Hugged me while I died inside.


Made my day 
when it was otherwise so mundane.
Loved me and reminded me
of all the awesomeness I'd forgotten about me.


Yeah,
This post is for those amazing friends
who made my day, week, month and the year.
And off we start 2012.
Belated happy new year fellow-wookies!

Because I love you,

And will stay so,

Things are easy.

Questions are answered to,

Problems solved.

Because I am so,

and can't be helped otherwise,

I'd rather the world understand.

Let me be,

Let me rise.

And now that I know you're hurt the same,

Please don't protest, deny or blame.

Good feelings grow,

They will finally show-

The world's not such a bad place afterall.

Life's worth living,

Hugs happily shared

and smiles easily passed on.

So we'll hold hands,

Roll the roads and rivers

that keep us apart

into nothingness;

and I'll hold your hand tighter-

'cos friends like you

are godsends,

one of a kind,

and were custom-made for me!

Be sad and rich or be happy and footloose?

The things people do and seek out, try out.. all the sake for that very elusive drug called happiness. Really, in the end, when you're asked, "why do you study?"
-"to get a job."
"why do you need a job?"
-"to earn money and fend for myself, stand up on my own feet."
"and after that, what?"

Well what follows is that either you haven't planned that far out into the future, and you're not that into philosophy and the baggage it comes with.

I was just doing a bit of introspection [which really means lotsa thinking when you're bored with nothing better to do, really!] and how I'm faring- now that I'm settled down as a trainee/intern/whateveryouwannacallem- and very happy too-- but with the meagre stipend only. And since I'm lucky enough not to be worried about matters of more gravity like having to substantially provide for family etc, I have the freedom to live off on my own.

And I wondered.

If I were offered a well-paid job as guest lecturer at my former college under that very scary boss. Would I pick that up stat? Or would I rather live light-hearted on a measly stipend off on my own?

Funnily enough, as much as I'd like all the extra moolah I could possibly earn- I would choose the second option. I get the experience of working under one of the awesomest, known-across-library scenario-in the world, nicest boss/Chief at one of the awesomest campus around India. Hey, it's not every day you get to work for a whole year at a campus that resembles a hill station dammit!

YOU check the previous post and THEN you check out the campus I'm at. AND you decide.

Happiness? Or money?

Waving goodbyes, trying not to cry, trying to blot out misery

Omg.
I must have totally lost my mojo. How else do I explain spending over  2 months away from blogging, and still not regretting that?
I've been the laziest bum that ever was let astray on the face of earth and I've been watching; NAY; marathoning dramas, series and movies like the world's ending the very next day. well, it might. but that wasn't my point anyway.

So..
I'm done with my post-grad years. I'm still contemplating research, but not gonna go down that road for a couple o' years anyway.

Thinking back to these last 2 years still makes me feel awfully queasy. or specifically, that week. Uh, yeah i get it that i'm not exactly making sense- but it will when you read on.

All these years as a student- be it at elementary school, high school, college and beyond- i've been one of those goody-two-shoes kind of student. May not have come out first place during school- but I was always loved by teachers. Never exactly did anything wrong, and i was favorite student for quite a lot of my teachers. I'm not kidding when i say that even after all these years, some of them still talk about me with a smile on their face to their current students. ACCEPT IT! I WAS THAT NICE!

Why am I ranting on when it's obviously making lesser and lesser sense?

Hm, let's just say there's someone who feels that way. Ok, i'll just refer to him/her as Someone in this post for now. Someone is temperamental to begin with. Volatile emotions and highly oscillating mood-swings. So one moment Someone is being nice and talking well with me. Next thing I know, I'd called up Someone to confirm stuff about a job offer s/he made to me. Let's just say s/he was planning on making me and another classmate low paid guest lecturers. Like, real dirt cheap. Which was also probably why the call never went the way it should have.

I has said just one sentence to Someone, in English, to keep it polite and formal, unless s/he found me to being rude to their face. Yeah, one has to keep  literally a million things in mind before saying a word to this person. I swear. S blows up right in my face (ear) about how I'm being rude (cos allegedly i spoke throughout the call in English, being distant [WTH? are u kidding me?]), mean, disgusting and to just refuse the job offer if I weren't interested.

Truth is, I'm interested. And S is my teacher. But S didn't even bother answering whether S would be covering for my travel expenses even. Youch. #worstphonecallever
and since he blew out in a rage w/o answering on the pay, my family guesses they weren't gonna pay me much. probably lesser than less.
i cried.

So next time I went with classmates to collect certificates and get the hell outta that place, I knew i'd be facing the wrath of something I knew I didnt deserve. Boy, was I right.

Things said to me:

• I'm the worst student ever in S's entire life.
• I'm mercenary (not the exact word, but all the paragraphs worth of ranting s/he spewed in my face amounts to that word I'd say)
• I should get the hell outta here if i'm expecting same pay scale as guest lecturers.
• etc etc etc painful stuff.

I kind of cried again right there. Yeah, call me out on being softie, but I can't handle allegations that maketh no sense. I know S can be angry and then go back to nice real quick. Not in my case. Not yet anyway. I also know S regularly abuses every subordinate and hurls fierce insults at them in public. Yeah, not exactly a well-loved person in there I'd say.

Good to have finally gotten out of there. There were great friends, good teachers, beautiful memories.. But why did the ending have to be so messy ?

Anyway,
goodbye my pg years, and dept

adieu,

alvida,

annyeong,

and every other way to finally sever ties with that horrid memory.

Waving goodbyes,
I'll Trying to keep from crying
Closing a chapter of life,
Blotted by black memories and white.

{o my! that was so spontaneous! *must work on it}

PS- Gilsha, you're an amazing friend whom I never want to lose. Sorry for all the times I may have been mean to you. Forgive me =)

PPS- and no, i didn't take up that job offer. in case you were wondering. not worth the insults i'd've to face anyway.

And Stanley is a leftie!

How can a story be THIS beautiful, and be heart-warming and

heart-breaking all at the same time?

Oh Stanley and your elusive dabba. You had me, my soul, my all, from the opening credits itself. (Yes adorable mini cartoon, I'm talkin' abt you!)

Stanley ka dabba is one of those rare, Rare, Very rare movies where you get to see the child being-well, a child. I'd grown tired of all those hundreds of movies out there where kids behave prissy, with aggravating know-it-all teen sass. *Points accusing finger especially at the kid in Cheeni Kam who wanted to watch porn {granted she was terminal, but what's with the double-entendre laced inappropriate crushing on your sixty-plus neighbour? Weeeeeeeeird and uncomfortable.} and her ilk.
 On the other hand, the nicer ones include the friends in Paa, Taare Zameen Par and company. But yeah, TZP is practically an Amole Gupte product, so the normal children characters are expected.So, Stanley and his friends are such good hearted darlings like kids normally are, that it's a pure delight just to watch them interact on-screen.

Ooh, and for once, we get to see a deep-rooted stereotype squished. About time too. The rich, fat boy is actually nice and the kind who shares his tiffin!

And coming to the titular tiffin.. There's actually a parallel to Stanley's absent tiffin. Stanley meanie Hindi teacher, of the voracious apetite, Verma sir (Amole Gupte) who doesn't seem to have a tiffin either and shamelessly digs into everyone else's tiffins- students and teachers alike. Thumbs up for such a believable performance Amole Gupte! More so for the utter lack of vanity with which he essays the role. You'll totally want to pull out his hair out cos that's how believable he makes the character.

  

Coming to one of my personal favorite moments in the movie. Every frame of it is a personal favorite for me, but this one's all the more dear cos:
 How not to love the fact that Stanley is a leftie, with all the mundane leftie problems lefties face every day of our lives. Your left elbow constantly hitting your right handed neighbour's elbow just one of the many problems you face in a right-dominated, right-biased world. I'm so familiar with that happening like ALL the time at school. But what's more personal is how effectively the director captures each teacher's reaction to this problem. Must, must, MUST gush about how much I love him for including this detail into the story. So trivial,
and yet so true!
 My sister and myself have this fetish for finding out lefties among celebs. So when we do find one eventually, it's always a thrill and squee when you note a compatriot. "omg, i didn't realize he/she's one of us!!"

To say more would be to kill the fun for ya. But I must say, the first time around I sniffed like a little girl by the end of the movie. The second time round? I bawled my eyes out. Apart from the explicit storyline, Stanely ka Dabba mainly is concerning a universal problem. But i'd be a spoilsport if I were to spill more beans. Considering how this is the core of this heavenly fare.

Alright, happy movie watching everyone. Love you Stanley and all Stanley-friends!