Birthdays and things giving me warm fuzzies lately: Pt I

 It's my birthday

I'll get high if I want to

Can't deny that I want to

But I'll lie if I have to

(Florence + The Machine cover)

Nothing like a bit of Florence to liven up, angst up things.

 Birthday!!!

Ok, first off I'll calm down. Next, I'll tell you all how I'm not exactly pro-ceremonies. I'm the kind who skips all sorts of ceremonies That includes birthdays. I don't really care about birthdays any more.

ONLY, I have an amazing set of friends and family, {and since recently, one adorable fiance}who have been showering me with birthday wishes, lots of amazing surprise gifts and hugs. Maybe that's why we should get into the birthday spirit. It reminds us of all the people who take the time out for us, spend days thinking what would be the awesomest gift to give us, and in the end? I'm a radiant being, happy and once again reminded of how blessed I am.

Le blessings =)

• I'm thinking I must be a known, certified, chocolate-addict; considering all the chocolate gifts I received. And all I have in reply is, "Yessir!".
• One buddy sprang a surprise on me, giving me an IIMK souvenir coffee mug. Hurray!
• But I must say the awesomest of all the awesome gifts I got was definitely what my techie-minded platonic got me. An app! Designed especially for me! Of my blog!! That's like awesome of epic proportions! You're perfect bro!
• God Almighty was super considerate and for my birthday I had lovely, dark climate, no heat, mild showers. Love.Love.Love. =)
• I've been listing my gifts (aka additional blessings) and I'm STILL going to do this one tiny gripe here, IN SPITE of everything. Beloved everyone in my life, for my next birthday or anything important in my life:
  Gift me books. Books and more books. I can NEVER have enough of books. So.. in case of you find this annoying, you can instead just take me out on a platonic book shopping date. I'm super-easy to please! You don't even have to spend a dime on me! 

Platonic book dates
 And that last thing about platonic book dates reminded me. I just went for one two weeks back with an equally book-crazed soul. That was so much of amazing. We scouted out this second-hand book store. And ohmygoodness. They had piles and piles of great books, popular books, unheard-but-sounds-thoroughly-interesting books all stacked up in rows and rows. The pair of us spent a good part of an hour digging into the mounds of paperbacks and by the end of it, I had decided on 3, he had decided on 2.

• AND I was acknowledged for my talent/knack at finding the better books.

But seriously, it's more of a thing like how desert animals can sense water from anywhere. It's a sense thing. And I'm so not showing off that I have a talent at these things. ;) *wink-wink-nudge-nudge
Haha. Jokes apart, thanks Rahul dude. You're a friend indeed. You got me to overcome my inertia about exploring the better parts of the city where I've spent a whole year doing nothing much but just work.

Anyways, presenting to you, my haul from the adventure. May such fun repeat themselves ever and ever on.

My year at IIM is almost over, so I'mma be returning home. Take at the least a short sabbatical, read, read, read, watch movies, do stuff with friends.
And erm, will be getting legally married by the end of this month.
Hahaha! Was that a total mindf**k hiding subtly in between the lines for you?

My Niqah
But yeah, true. Technically I'll be married on October 31st of 2012 since we're doing the Niqah on that day. But no major change really. No moving-in, no nothing of the sort for now. The wedding will be only next year. So yeah, I'm getting married, but mostly it will be like an engagement period. Even though Niqah is what's important in our faith. Wish me luck for that day though! I'm totally socially awkward, tend to be foot-in-mouth most of the times and occasionally publicly weird as well.

City tripping
Went a bit footloose all over Calicut city (mall hopping mainly), and guess what I found and bought at the mall this weekend?
Jenga!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Ok, for those of you who don't know;

Check from 6.49 mark of the video. This clip is from my ALL TIME favorite reality program "One Night Two Days", a South Korean chunk of awesomeness where 6 celebs go tripping, solving missions, just being them dorky selves and in between- like here: Playing StarCraft like nerds and then, Jenga!!
That's how I wanted to play Jenga and ended up buying a pack for myself.
I know most of the world knows S.Korean pop culture only as Gangnam Style. But seriously, there's a whole alternaverse of friggin' awesomeness in South Korean pop culture.And this clip is one of them being much tamer than they usually are. And they usually are dorks.

-Spoken like a true, devoted fan of 4 years and counting.
Take care!

PS- I definitely need a tag for pop culture.

White, white lie

"Liar".


At first it was just a passing thought. Like a stray hair caught in the wind. Flimsy and with no weight of its own to mean anything huge.


She didn't linger on it. So there she was on the phone, talking about a million different things with Mira, and among them, they eventually ended up talking about her weight.

"Yeah sis, I've heard all this a million times over. You think I don't worry about this? Aren't I freaked about how it might wreck my health?

And J did know how scary things could get. The blackouts for one thing. She was never sure where and when she might fall apart, unconscious. Only to wake up elsewhere with no memory as such of the falling apart or anything.

She could hear her cousin's racked breathing from all the hyper-freaked rant about how J never cared enough about her own health. Mira took a moment to control her feelings; mostly fear and worry; she was close to tears by now. And completely frightened by what thoughts might be going through J's head. With good reason.

J in turn let out an almost ruthless laugh and chuckled the words out, "Hold on didi! I just want to know how much more I weigh these days- is all! God, you sound like mom these days".

Mira calmed down considerably, but she still couldn't tamp down her suspicions.
"It better be so. Or you and I will have words, with a shrink in tow. I'm not even joking anymore."

J dropped the cheery act and snapped back drily,
"Of course. Anyways, class is over for the day. I'm heading home now. Call you later when you're off work."

-"Had lunch?"
-"Yup Mira, with friends from canteen. Bye."
J cut the call with that.

She finally got off the phone and looked around. It was past lunch hour and most of the students were back in their classes. She gathered up her bag to say goodbyes to friends before leaving for home.

And as expected, everyone was lazing around in the computer lab.

"Oi, J! There you are! We already had lunch since you took so long. Wanna go to canteen together?"
"You didn't eat anything na?"
"Where were you anyway?"

Multiple voices yelled at her when she stepped into the lab.

"I'm off to home guys. Mom's expecting me for lunch. So bye!" J replied, collecting the remaining notes and stuff strewn over the place and stuffing them into her bag.

"Girl, you're totally missing out on the fun of eating with friends these days.. In fact, it's been months since we shared lunch together." Runi muttered annoyed.

J gave a taut smile at that and left after a couple more hugs and goodbyes.


...
liar


Liar


LIAR


LIAR

A doomed love

Like I always warn beforehand when I publish poems; this is just figments of idle imagination, so make no further assumption!

Silence.

Unsaid words and unscreamed blames.

Silence loud as anything.

You wouldn't even look my way,

Yet I could feel my world falling apart.

 

[My world fell apart, like this]:

 

Everyone went on living,

Breathing,

Laughing.

            I was the lone change.

Nothing would make sense to me.

Sort of like the sense had left everything.

And everything became one whole cold meaningless entity.

 

I lost my fire,

I lost my soul,

Your absence

Sure has taken its toll.

 

Soulless, I wandered in the black rain.

Freezing, I stumbled in the black snow.

Don't remind me to cry

Don't remind me of my broken heart

It's hard enough, bad enough, sad enough

Without wasting tears on a doomed love.

 

I couldn't even cry;

 

 

With you gone,

Life's just about breathing in, breathing out.

Un-straightened

As you can see below, yet another web comic. This idea was just one compartment of the whole train of thought I had on the topic. I even came up with a micro-story concept relating with GLEE [Glee? you know, right?!]
More on that later.

Here though, I was frustrated with the trouble my very pretty best-friend was having, shaking off an irritatingly persistent flirt. Even the mean swear words she used wasn't much. Thus this idea was born. I'm not sure it was helpful in her case, but I'm hoping it will help someone else with a similar situation!

 

 

Concept and words mine,
Graphics as always by Rahul. =)

Paper Planes in the time of Intonation

This is a li'l post about ''Pen Planes''[not to be confused with the "Paper Planes" track from the SDM soundtrack, which, btw, was a really nice piece] that got transfigured into Fighter Planes when things got unbearably monotonous and dragging in the class. 5 straight hours of accent classes. Come on now! Human mind cannot concentrate for more than 45 minutes at a length, how are we poor souls supposed to keep our minds on intonation, rhythm, stress, supra segmental features and all that jazz for FIVE STRAIGHT HOURS???

Namitha and Vrinda had opted to stay away from class all morning, while me [usually superbly lazy to get my ass off the Main Entrance stone benches and walk up for classes] donned on the "studious" attitude for a change and stepped into class, along with the always-in-class darlings Vinaya, Ragitha and Prajisha.

One hour went along with Vinaya sneakily taking pictures of the class without the sir knowing. And by the third hour our back bench was behaving like a bunch of elementary brats.
Y'know that noise kids make while driving an imaginary car? With the lips they go all
BRRRRR-RR-RRR!
Well, apart from me the other 3 could make the noise puhfectly well. I couldn't admit that I wasn't good at stuff, could I?
So, here I was saying, yeah, you people drive cars and all, but I'm used to flying planes, which is why I made the noise "BWWWWW-WW-WWW!!!"

What followed later was put into a short "war report" by me in the next hour of mundane accenting.
Here it is! Along with the pictures we sneakily snapped when the sir wasn't watching.
*Chuckle!
************************************
PLANES IN THE TIME OF INTONATION
Lieutenant Raphael's missile

that's my missile (Vinaya argued logically that a refill was a missile, it couldn't be a fighter plane)
Lieutenant Raphael's missile has been hijacked by Flight Commander Vinaya. Captain Prajisha has provided Lt. Raphael with a passenger plane to take revenge on Ft Comm Vinaya. The fighter plane pilot Raphael is using the passenger plane at supersonic speed to bombard Ft Commando Ragitha's unsuspecting jet. I had forgotten that my original motive was to attack Vinaya's pen, oooops- fighter plane! All the while Flight Commander Vinaya is texting to Trainee pilot Namitha not to enter war zone III year Functional English. Namitha probably had second thoughts and wanted to attend class. but me and Vinaya felt that it was better to stay away from this mundane and advised her so thru text messages. span class="blsp-spelling-error" id="SPELLING_ERROR_28">M>Trainee pilot Vrindha is accompanying her.
Content of the message; "Terrorist English attacking us. Do not approach".

But Trainee Pilot Namitha seems eager to approach despite warnings.
The war seems near an end, but the enemy was holding us hostage. Ft Lt Raphael grew impatient and, as Ft Commander Vinaya reports,
"there is lack of ammunition and the enemy is holding us prisoners."
We pleaded and begged with sir to let us go with all sorts of reasons and excuses, but our teacher is way
smarter than us, sigh!

After an hour more of weary fighting, the soldiers got a brief respite. After consuming their rations [read, food] the attack resumes. After an initial "rat-a-tat-a-tat!!" soldiers settled into routine fighting. The trainee pilots who hadn't been at the war zone all morning, along with a relative newcomer Faheem have also entered the fight. Though our army is stronger in number, the enemy has the final authority. Which makes a potential rebellion near at hand.


my passenger plane-cum-fighter plane.
or was it Vinaya's?

Meet The Pets

This one was meant to be posted ages,ages ago. Sorry for the delay--
Hope you enjoy meeting my family!

Meet my pets for today.
I had them all set for a photo session, and by the end of it, a story "happened" quite accidentally!

That's The Family.
The snow white one is my eldest. Snuffles. ain't he like smouldering???

And this would be Darcy, the cutest and my darling! 5 years old, and this will probably be my last one I thought, because dad was growing tired of my obsession with soft toys. And I wasn't showing too many signs of stopping my liking for them.

Then three years ago, this gorgeous strut down all the way from China-via-Muscat down to India!! Lacking a better choice in names, I finally named her "Harajuku". Obviously inspired from Gwen Stefani's single "Rich Girl". Don't remember? Then I shouldn't have reminded you!

Yes! Harajuku and Darcy are very much together and happy too, as you can see. Don't they look adorable?


But look at who is approaching this friendly gathering, will you.

That's Padfoot, Harajuku's jealous ex.

The confrontation scene.
Darcy: Leave my girl aloooooooneeeeee!
Padfoot:(ever the bad boy) She's miiiiiine.......
[lots of tension going on with Harajuku clinging on to Darcy.]
{doubt- she doesn't seem to have any hands, how is she to cling onto him??}

That'd be little Yellow [the youngest member. my kid sis gifted it to me when I wouldn't stop whining] watching the whole drama from his house.

I got bored and left. by the time I returned only Snuffles was there being goofy and rolling on the sofa. Turns out Padfoot made Harajuku cry and stormed out.

p.s- you noticed that I'm a Sirius obsessed person, huh?
Ah well, I'm the person who still cries her eyes out every time she reads about Sirius and his death scene especially.

Kabhi Kabhi Phon.E... & Trailor Review II & yak-yak

First off, I want to sing and cheer up my very heart-broken friend Phone.E who's having a rough time,thanks to her oppressive,suspicious boyfriend. All we have to do is to look at her,and we find ALL the reasons as to why-one-should-NOT-fall-in-love.
So,
"Kabhi kabhi Phon.E, zindagi mein yunhi koi apna lagta hain.
Kabhi kabhi Phon.E woh bichad jaye to ek sapna lagta hain.
aise mein koi kaise apna aansuon ko behna se roke,
aur kaise koi sochde, everything's gonna be ok?"
-And the rest of the wondehful song.

Break-up threatenings apart, everyone of our gang wants to really punch the senses out of her guy. He just blackmails her so much emotionally that it's God's Mercy she hasn't not fallen to pieces. Very strong gurl over there, people. For one thing,none of us would have even let a relationship with that idiot, if we could.
Maybe God knows we would have made messy situations even messier,
maybe that's why things are not in our control. Hm.
-----------------------------------

I'm having a bad time trying to convince Vaikhari that I'm actually very grown-up. Like,
Me:"Hey, I am mature and serious!"
Vaikhari:"Says who?"
Me:"Says me!"
Vaikhari: "Say that again with your green parrot pipe and teddy bears in hand."
Me: (inward groaning,since I know she's right there. changes tactics.) "At least I look serious!!"
Vaikhari: "Not a bit".
Me: "An atom?"
Vaik: "No"
Me: "A nano?"
Vaik: "Not even that much seriousness, you ARE too childish!!!!!!!"
Me: (gives up on pleading with small quantities. changes tactics again) "Says you? You are not childish??"
Vaik: (stumped. cos she didn't expect that.) "Huh?"
She's either worse than me or equal to me or a bit lesser than me when it comes to being immature. We give up on the stoopid fight.
*The olive greenish brownish text is fiction. I made that up. The rest of the conversation happened though.
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Trailer review time!!
And the best trailer award goes to........
ROCK ON!!!!!!- Obviously the best of the whole lot. Awesome rock music from Shanker-Ehsaan-Loy. The guys are looking very chilled and born rockstars. And Farhan actually sings quite well! "Socha Hain" and title track "Rock On" plus some other tracks were sung by himself.
The sepia tones give the movie a very stylish look. I'm soooooo looking forward to this one movie!
Ugly aur Pagli- The second trailor I'm really impressed by. And whatte catchy tagline;
"99 slaps, 1 kiss"
Ha ha!
Though Mallika Sherawat is far from what I like,but I love watching her do comedy. And her wardrobe for this movie is pretty cool. The fringe and casual clothes were stuff you find girls wear,unlike her otherwise gravity defying skimpy clothes. And Ranvir Shorey looks exactly like a frustrated,oppressed boyfriend. Music is extreme party genred. "Talli" is so much w.o.w!
And the funky-romantic "Ye nazar,aur ye adayein" is feet-tapping.
The way she keeps slapping him, had me wishing Phon.E had half the wits around her to slap her boyfriend when he asks for one.
Bachna Ae Haseeno- Good music from Vishal-Shekhar. The 3 chicks and the hunk( the wow hunk) look beautiful, great locales, and designer clothes. The movie has EVERYTHING. But does it have a story? plot?Guess that's not very important nowadays,huh?

Well, the other trailer I noticed but HATED was-God,Tussi Great Ho. If you didn't realise it was the Indian version of Bruce Almighty, buzz off! You've NO brains in you!
I didn't feel that any of the rest of the trailers were worth reviewing.

Ah yes,another movie I noticed was "Hijack". not much.Wannabe Hollywood if anything. Terrorists and all, the hero running,jumping and saving lives. Obviously the terrorists had to be with Muslim names who probably keep on saying Arabi once in a while in between their conversations. Pathetic,really. The fact that the movie industry thinks that all goons, terrorists, extremists and bad people are Muslims. Whereas the truth is violence knows no religion.
That's it. I'm taking off.
Bye for now, and keep coming back and responding. You don't know how much I love you people!
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*Post script- Just returned from a friend's wedding. Good food, but no excitement. ie-no wedding songs or anything of the sort.

To my sweet Gryff Vaika, from me-the Ravenclaw

It's too early to get nostalgic.
But what I'm about to post is a fictitious letter I wrote to Vaikhari last summer or so. Based in the wizarding world (oh yes, again) and well...you comment and tell me!

Mount Pleasant June 1,2007
Kent

Dear Vaikhari,
HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!
How are you? It's been a long vacation, right? Got your Hogwarts letter yet? I got mine. And guess what- Iam the new Hogwarts Head Girl!!! Yippee!!! Such joy! I got to know that you've been made the Gryffindor Quidditch Captain. Congrats!
Remember the last time we met each other on the Hogwarts Quidditch Ground? You were Seeker, and I was Chaser for Ravenclaw. It feels great to be on Roger Davies' team. He's a super captain.

The usual at home. Right now I'm at Hartfordshire at my uncle's place. The Weasleys are neighbours. We play Quidditch in the evenings. Its not the same without the twins. Them pranksters sent me a banging telescope last week. Idiots! Hermione and Harry hang out at the Burrow more often now. Bill and Fleur's wedding coming up. Expect the twins to be back by then. Harry seems more serious now and spends most of his time with Ginny.

Missing you darlings! When are you moving in to Vinaya's?

Know the hottest news around the place right now? Our Prajisha is dating the very dashing Mr Darcy! How lucky can you get?
As for Namitha, she's looking for Mr right in Captain Jack Sparrow. Wild choice Nami!
And know what Ragitha is currently busy with? No, not wizards. But a research paper in Muggle Studies on the use of the word "sorry". Very apt,I say!
Silly girl Nimisha won't take my advice. I told her to zap over to WWN(Wizarding Wireless Network) and dump her flimsy muggle fone. (God knows if the spelling is right!) But no, she won't listen. Mph! What's so cool about muggles? No wands,no fun!

But I won't be too hard on muggles. My dad bought me a cute gadget last week. It's called iPod and it can load a lot of songs. It is muggle,but its mighty cool!

Day before yday, I was strolling down Shire square just to spend some time alone. But the walk wasn't as lonely as I had expected. Most of the HU [Hogwarts Union] was present there. And all of 'em, my Ravenclaw mates!
We made a sudden plan to hike to the falls. Tiring out, but what a view! After a splash, we just dozed off. Mind you, all this happened in the morning. Noon-we went for lunch to the food-joint nearby; a very funky one, "The Opa Court", whatever that means. I sent an owl home telling them my plans for the day. Then everyone swung onto their brooms, since I'd walked to the Shire, I sat behind Anshi's broom. Flew straight to the multiplex, watched "Pirates of Carribean 3". Then Sanil bhaiya dropped me home.

Almost forgot. Got to know from them that Vinaya is at St. Mungo's. We visited her there. She's in the 3rd floor-Potion and Plant Poisoning-ward is Healer Stinko. Nothing too serious. You know what kind of girl she is. She and her Science Forum (I forgot you're a member too!) were poking around some plants. Their professor forgot to mention that the place was full of Mandrakes. They pulled out a young mandrake (as a memento of the trip,I guess) and all of 'em get knocked out of their consciousness by its screams. Now all at St. Mungo's. Not to worry, she's almost fine by now. Her healer is a really cute guy, so she doesn't seem to be in any hurry to leave...

Anyway, what news in your place? As it's your birthday, I'm sending you some gifts. Surprise!Some of them mayn't work because of the non-magical atmosphere you live in.
In that case,wait till you reach Hogwarts!

And that last fight we had as regards which is the better House. I hear that Filch is a Gryffindor too! It fits!!
And us? The whole of HU, Head Girl, Head Boy. Avril Lavigne, Keira Knightley, too were Ravens. All my cousins are Ravenclaw. The entire Philosophy, BBA, all the Science streams, one English student(me) are Ravenclaws too. Anyways, enough fighting. We're still friends, no matter which House you're in.

Won't you come for Quidditch World Cup. Everyone else has agreed.
And then we could meet at the Ministry for our license in Apparition.
We'll celebrate yours and Nimisha's birthdays at Hogsmeade.

Happy birthday again!!!
=============================================================
YOUR GIFT BOX CONTAINS:
a) The Invisible Book of Invisibility, Madcap Magic for Wacky Warlocks
b)Wit Sharpening Potion (Gryffindors need that!)
c)Bouncing Bulbs (for your garden; hold on tight!)
d)2 way mirror so you can talk to me
e)A deluxe box of Honeydukes Toffees: Cockroach Clusters, Bloody Lollipops, Acid Pops, Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans.
f)A cute Hungarian Horntail
g)As a pet I'm sending you, Niffler,Cornish Pixie and a Zombie.
h)A 2 year subscription of the Quibbler
i)Patented Day Dream Charms from Weasley's.

Aaaaaah....The best gift box ANY friend could ever give. Right?
I forgot to tell you,
The Banshee will bring the gifts.
And IF you get angry and try to send naughty things to me, the Banshee is there to scream your head out.
You may keep her.
She's as adorable as Kreacher.

*I deliberately cut out a whole paragraph where I insult Gryffindors. I don't want all Gryff enthusiasts attacking me, do i?
*AND I wiped out the How-to-make a Pepper-Up Potion. Too long I thought.