Illusions, Dispelled.

 I was born in 1993, at the cusp of a generational divide. Born into a newly-liberalized India, I lived a life starkly different from what absolutely anyone older than me lived. I lived *with* electronic access to my country’s culture. The family regaled us with stories of life without what seemed like necessities in my life. Every 90s kid will identify.

But it was the regular immersion in literature that was the reason for my self-definition. To this day, I understand my life in the context of Jane Eyre and Raskolnikov, versus Brad Pitt and ‘the Rachel’. In an age of false perspective, where Shah Rukh Khan can appear taller than Deepika Padukone, and where marches are held to stand still, literature helped me gain knowledge in a way that television, or even the internet, never has. 

Books have taken me to places I didn’t necessarily want to go, forced me to confront my prejudices, assumptions, and at the bare bottom, forced me to confront my ‘self’ at an intrinsic level. Words make me vulnerable in a way actions never seem to. For those precious moments, when I’m alone in bed with a book, I don’t feel alone. That fleeting moment, where the author actually connects with the reader, makes me realize that the ability to articulate is a beautiful one. 

I can't believe half of December has vanished. Bombay continues to be a furnace, the morning breeze nothing but an ambush, the evening chill nothing but a glimpse of an actual winter.

Guess what? We got our very first client. (YAY!) I didn't ever imagine my life turning out the way it has.

2011 has been a breathtaking beauty of a year. Personally. Professionally. Every which ______-ally, there is.

I've been excruciatingly happy. I've been breathlessly sad. I've been indelibly excited. I've been morbidly afraid. I've undoubtedly lived.

Within Me A Lunatic Sings.

This song perfectly encapsulates everything I've seen, heard and felt in the past few days :')

Sigur Ros is sheer magic. Nobody can ever convince me otherwise. I love their music and how it makes me feel. :)

A Song for Starlit Beaches.

"There would be birdsong over flooded beach,

and we would be daylight over the shipwreck-sands."

I remember writing a few weeks ago, 'A risk is happiness'. The words echo in my mind, as I return to Mumbai after 4 near-perfect days.

There, the rhetoric of sudden freedom and liberation rings true. Perhaps the sun and sea and the sheer beauty of the place refracts the city gloom out of sight. The laid-back atmosphere there is infectious. I feel a growing sense of calm, something I thought I had grown desensitized to in the past few years, trudging along the corridors of competitive academia and teenage problems.

I feel like something out of a bathing soap commercial. Refreshed. Rejuvenated.
And so I'm back to the daily grind, with no lingering sadness for the sunset on those glorious days.
Perfection, after all, is best enjoyed ephemeral. 

Hitting 7 Billion.

The world's population hit 7 billion today. A number that lasted exactly one second.
The 7 billionth kid is an Indian. Apropos, I think. Gosh, this runaway population growth needs to be stopped in Mr.Plod stopping traffic in Noddy episodes fashion.

FYI: I am number 5, 513,802,182 on this planet.
And here's your number.

'Books' by Dorianne Laux

You're standing on the high school steps,
the double doors swung closed behind you
for the last time, not the last time you'll ever

be damned or praised by your peers, spoken of
in whispers, but the last time you'll lock your locker,
zip up your gym bag, put on your out-of-style jacket,

your too-tight shoes. You're about to be
done with it: the gum, the gossip, the worship
of a boy in the back row, histories of wheat and war,

cheat sheets, tardies, the science of water,
negative numbers and compound fractions.
You don't know it yet but what you'll miss

is the books, heavy and fragrant and frayed,
the pages greasy, almost transparent, thinned
at the edges by hundreds of licked thumbs.

What you'll remember is the dumb joy
of stumbling across a passage so perfect
it drums in your head, drowns out

the teacher and the lunch bell's ring. You've stolen
A Tree Grows in Brooklyn from the library.
Lingering on the steps, you dig into your bag

to touch its heat: stolen goods, willfully taken,
in full knowledge of right and wrong.
You call yourself a thief. There are worse things,

you think, fingering the cover, tracing
the embossed letters like someone blind.
This is all you need as you take your first step

toward the street, joining characters whose lives
might unfold at your touch. You follow them into
the blur of the world. Into whoever you're going to be.

This poem just seems right on this blog. I identify with it on so many levels. Beautiful. :)

Click here if you can't see it.  Comments welcome :)

Happy Diwali, Folks :D

I'm sure I'll be busy eating laddoos on Diwali morning, but I wish all of you a very very very Happy Diwali! :)
Light up your houses and your lives, guys. Stay happy. Stay awesome. (Awesome loosely translates to be eco-friendly).

My man, \Rajni/, says it best. :D 

This One's for the Word-Crazy. :)

It is common knowledge to readers of this blog that I am absolutely, legitimately word-crazy. I admit my knowledge of words is mainly superficial, I am often unaware of their origin. So I'd best classify myself as a word-scavenger owing to my never-ending fascination with all words beautiful. With a word being added to the English language every 98 minutes, English remains a personal favorite for its resilience and flexibility. What interests me are words from languages around the world that are seemingly untranslatable into English. Here are a few I loved :

Pana Po'o-  To scratch your head in order to remember something.
(from the land of hula dances)


Tartle (Scottish)- The act of hesitating when introducing someone because you've forgotten their name.
(Reminds me of my absent-minded dad)


Gummuservi (Turkish)-  Moonlight shining on water. 
(This made me smile :) )

Esprit d' Escalier- The witty comeback that you think of moments after leaving the situation in which you might have been able to use it.
(We've all been there, haven't we?)


Katahara Itai (Japanese)- Laughing so much your stomach hurts. :D


Zhaghzhagh (Persian)- The chattering of teeth from cold or rage. 

Kyoikumama - A mother who relentlessly pushes her children towards academic achievement.
The word originates from Japan. Befitting, I say. :P


Meraki (Greek)- Doing something with soul, creativity and love. 


Luftmench- An impractical dreamer with no business sense.

Plimpplamppletteren (Dutch)- The skimming of a flat stone as many times as possible across the surface of the water.
(There is a word for this. Yes. :O)


Mencolek- You know that trick where you tap someone lightly on the opposite shoulder from behind to fool them? The Indonesians have a word for it. :D
A similar word is Vybafnout of Czech origin, which is to jump out from behind and say boo!


And the most offensive but the one that cracked me up the most IS:


Bakku-Shan (Japanese)- A girl who looks pretty from behind but ugly from the front. 
Hahahahahahahahahaha!


Share your favourites with me :)

That Awkward Moment.

^^ This just happened. And yes, it did freak me out a bit. Happened to you yet?

I also just made this. I'm cool like that. Turning into one of those creative Tumblr-ish people, I am. ^_^

For Life's Not A Paragraph. :')

14th October marked the 49th death anniversary of e.e.cummings. These lines of poetry from 'Since Feeling is First' are breathtakingly beautiful .

"...we are for each other: then

laugh, leaning back in my arms

for life’s not a paragraph

And death i think is no parenthesis."

Gosh, I love those lines. 
Another favourite of mine is his poem, 'who are you, little i,' which goes like this-

who are you,little i

(five or six years old)

peering from some high

window;at the gold

of november sunset

(and feeling:that if day

has to become night

this is a beautiful way)

The innocent sense of wonder and incredulity at natural beauty is stunning. I love his poems, as virginal and unassuming as they are, I love them. :)

Here's To The Crazy Ones.

I don't own a single Apple product, never have, and that's probably why I didn't feel the vacuum created in the wake of Steve Jobs' death. Yet, I've read about him in papers and magazines since I first entered my teens, and unarguably, he was a genius. He was not ahead of his time as much as just right for his time.

This commercial first aired in 1997 was part of the dramatic ad campaign 'Think Different'. What aired on TV was a version facing Richard Dreyfuss, no slouch of a narrator. This, on the other hand, has Steve Jobs essaying the role of narrator and personally, think it's considerably more poignant.

Watch. :)

Spot the Arrow.

Am I the only person who didn't see this instantly?

*eyes wide in amazement*

Old Book Smell :)

Now this explains my favourite smell ^_^

Found on (the harpy)

What Brims With Optimism.

Happiness is an imperative. I retain happiness as one of the few constants in my life.
I don't need a valid reason to feel happy.
I need a valid reason not to feel happy. Happiness is my general state of being.
And I adore the word in itself, and can never find an apt synonym. I've loved it ever since I was a five year old licking chocolate off my fingers.

I often see people settling, compromising.
While literature, cinema, music often helps people soar, routine drudgery and societal norms condition people to believe happiness is a destination; the journey a struggle, a sacrifice.
It is anything but that.

A virginal blank page is a thing of happiness. It brims with possibilities of wording deep thoughts, forging experiences, beautiful catharsis, and creating something out of nothing.

A finish line at the end of a marathon is a thing of happiness. The pride is not in the medal.

The shiver even as the sun is in your eyes on a winter morning. The portion of the song you pause, and play on loop. The favorite something, anything, everything.

When I look back at high school, I often don't recognize the person I was.
But I have thought, I have lived, I have grown. As much as I have transformed into the person I am today, and as much as I am still to learn, let me remind myself to find happiness where ever it may be.

Rationality is happiness. Impulsiveness is happiness. A risk is happiness. Cake is happiness.

Deciphering My Non-Verbal Cues.

This is for anyone who is eager to know a little more about me. (Not that I live a secretive life, considering I have mentioned my entire AND real name on my blog and am easily traceable on Facebook.)
Perhaps you want to know those feelings of mine that I strive to keep hidden. If such is the case, read on, for I have compiled a list of all the non-verbal cues I unconsciously send out.

If I look away or wrinkle my nose when you walk into the room, it means I've begun to associate you with a certain kind of smell. Malodorous, yes. A field of manure or a garbage truck, maybe? Or you may just have put on that perfume I associate all menopausal aunties with, that leaves a weird 'Menopausal aunty was here' smell in the elevator.

If you're talking to me and my eyebrows are raised, it can mean one of two things. Curiosity or impatience. The height of the eyebrows is directly proportional to my level of curiosity or impatience. And since I haven't started threading my eyebrows yet, if you see them disappear into my hairline, do the safe thing and get the hell out of my sight.

If you catch me staring at you, best case scenario is that you're Ryan Gosling from Drive. If you aren't, this may mean you've annoyed me in some way. So, either I am thinking of an intelligent sounding compliment or how I should kick you in the gut. Obviously I don't have the courage to follow through either plan and you know it, hence the smirk on your face.

In case I haven't been able to get out of boring conversation, you may detect a barely audible sigh, a slight shoulder slouch, a stifled yawn or a series of punches to the wall that won't stop till I've fractured all my delicate fingers.

If you find me tapping my feet or drumming my fingers on the desk, I am playing my favourite song on full volume in my head and staring at your moving lips just for fun. I'll probably imitate you in front of friends later.

An interesting feature some friends pointed out is my 'duck face'. This is when I really AM concentrating, and ugly lines appear between my eyebrows and I pout like a petulant baby. Duck face usually appears during examinations when I finally figure out that 25 times 2 is 27, or right now.

If you see a huge smile plastered on my face, I'm actually enjoying talking to you. We may hang out after college at Barista or Candies. (This,however, is a truly hypothetical situation to convince you I am not as antisocial as this post may lead you to believe.)

You may finally, catch me daydreaming blissfully, generally in the middle of Accounts class. Don't interrupt because I am imagining myself one of two survivors in a nuclear apocalypse (the other being Bono, of course), and living the remainder of my days in peaceful seclusion and bloody Sundays. 

Fall Foliage Fun.

October: The season where everyone's an ant stumbling around busily in anticipation of beautiful winter.




Quote: L. M. Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables
Image Courtesy: Mike Bingley's Flickr Photostream

Drive.

'If I drive for you, you give me a time and a place. I give you a five-minute window, anything happens in that five minutes and I'm yours no matter what. 

I don't sit in while you're running it down; I don't carry a gun... I drive.'

Watch it. Watch it now. 

The neon lights. The brilliant soundtrack. The silences. 

Science nerds: This is the white blinding light of magnesium reacting with oxygen, made into a movie.

Girls: If you liked Ryan Gosling after Crazy Stupid Love, you'll love him in this one.

The Things I Think About When I Am Trying Not To Think.

If I had grown up among the Mongols in 1200 or plantation-owners in pre-Civil War U.S.A, would my moral map have been the same?

How some labels lose their sting (blasphemy) while others regain bite (racist).

What are the things I believe in today that will later seem ridiculous? 

How philosophers will deliver patronizing speeches in public when the sewers in the city cease to work.

How people conveniently forget that the Soviet Union also won the World War II, widely seen as the downfall of totalitarianism. 

How comforting it is to live in a city as competitive as Bombay.

How all the streets here end at a wall. 

How I don't remember the last time I saw a rainbow. 

How the night-sky, at the outskirts of nowhere, was flooded with innumerable stars.

How transcending time is characteristic of independence.

How thinking about not thinking means I'm still thinking which is an exercise in redundancy and pointlessness.

(Image Source: Flickr)

Book-Happy.

Yes, I am a book nerd. Pictures of books make me happy.

Why Aliens Will Leave Us Alone. Or Kill Us All.

It's insanity. Absolute lunacy.
I shouldn't.


Nothing can explain my infatuation with people that exist on paper. There is nothing rational about actually caring for a character that I know from the very outset is a figment of imagination. Jane Eyre was the first literary character I ever cared for. Intellectually towering over my sixth-grade self, I got scared with her and for her and recognized her faults as mine as she served as truly beguiling company on damp afternoons. Ever since, I have turned to judging books by the strength of its characters. I want to know about their coffee-stained teeth, their uncontrollable habits and the reason for their slouch.


Conclusion:
Some day, aliens will find me crying over Kathy in Wuthering Heights while not giving a poor beggar change at the traffic signal, and that alone will be warning enough not to land here. Or to wipe humanity off the map.

Joan Didion: On Self Respect

Once, in a dry season, I wrote in large letters across two pages of a notebook that innocence ends when one is stripped of the delusion that one likes oneself. Although now, some years later, I marvel that a mind on the outs with itself should have nonetheless made painstaking record of its every tremor, I recall with embarrassing clarity the flavor of those particular ashes. It was a mater of misplaced self-respect.


.........To have that sense of one’s intrinsic worth which constitutes self-respect is potentially to have everything: the ability to discriminate, to love and to remain indifferent. To lack it is to be locked within oneself, paradoxically incapable of either love or indifference. If we do not respect ourselves, we are the one hand forced to despise those who have so few resources as to consort with us, so little perception as to remain blind to our fatal weaknesses. On the other, we are peculiarly in thrall to everyone we see, curiously determined to live out – since our self-image is untenable – their false notion of us. We flatter ourselves by thinking this compulsion to please others an attractive trait: a gist for imaginative empathy, evidence of our willingness to give. 


It is the phenomenon sometimes called “alienation from self.” In its advanced stages, we no longer answer the telephone, because someone might want something; that we could say no without drowning in self-reproach is an idea alien to this game. Every encounter demands to much, tears the nerves, drains the will, and the specter of something as small as an unanswered letter arouses such disproportionate guilt that answering it becomes out of the question. To assign unanswered letters their proper weight, to free us from the expectations of others, to give us back to ourselves – there lies the great, the singular power of self-respect. Without it, one eventually discovers the final turn of the screw: one runs away to find oneself, and finds no one at home.

Joan Didion, 

a personal icon.

Shedding Monkey Tears.

See Evidence of this travesty.
Let's bow our heads and mourn the death of the English language.

P.S. I made the above. Teehee. ^_^

Where I found the pensive monkey? Adam Foster's flickr photostream

Let Her Fly. :)

CRY truly is one beautiful organisation. Beautiful is the word. 

While it continually makes efforts to ensure a lasting impact in education reforms for young kids here, it realizes that the most effective form of  change is emotional. It allows children never to lose sight of their innocent wide-eyed aspirations. 'Let Her Fly' is their latest effort to empower girls to dream...and believe they can convert their dreams to reality. All they needed to do was scribble down their dream on a bright yellow kite and see it fly.

Context is of importance here- School is the high point in the day for most of these girls.
They come from homes with corrugated tin roofs, sporadic electricity, rationed water and uniformly uneducated parents. After the sun goes down, a profound darkness sets in their dark alleyways. The lack of streetlights in the interiors of some slums, converts busy vegetable markets by day, dimensionless black. One girl told me how she studies in the cozy glow of flickering candlelight.

Well, the kites didn't really take off, there was a scuffle for pens, the corridors were noisy; but as the girls drew batons and blackboards, wrote 'thanks' in erratic cursive handwriting, stretched on their tippy-toes and held up their kites as high as they could....It was a breathtakingly beautiful moment.

These girls want to be teachers. :)

These little ones want to be dancers. ^_^

And these, most courageous of all, want to become police officers.

One girl gifted me an airplane made with myriad shades of marble paper. That, along with the beaming smiles, reassures me that the scenario is brightening for children in the city. :)

Much Ado about Everything.

This picture was first posted on Tumblr 4 days ago. Now I see it has gone viral. And of course, why wouldn't it?
Loved it. ^_^

Lyrics To Live By. :)

Strawberry Fields Forever. 

This song has been stuck in my head all morning, and I made this right now. Newly found fascination. :)

Image Source: Melinda ^.^ Flickr Photostream

I Love Pai :)

Because Suppandi made me laugh till I cried.
Because if all men could carry off a moustache like Shikari Shambu, I would have liked moustaches more.
Because if all crows were as cute as Kalia, I would have been less scared of crows.
Because Ramu and Shamu told me that being naughty was much more fun than being a sincere kid.
Because Kapish's ability to extend and shrink his little monkey tail was magical before I read Harry Potter.
Because every scheming politician in the country has learnt a trick or two from Tantri the Mantri.

Uncle Pai, you may be trending on Twitter because of today's Google Doodle, but I have loved you ever since I first laid hands on a Tinkle comic.Your stories were companions on every long-distance train journey, every night before I slept, every afternoon after The Lulu Show.

I love you and I miss you.
Happy birthday :)

Catalog under: Confessions of a Grammar Nazi

Today is a great day :)

Congratulations! Your LLP: AdHog Interactives LLP is Successfully Incorporated.

Not what you would expect to find in the mail of an 18 year old, but hey, I'm ambitious. 

I, along with brilliant partner-in-crime Kshitij, can now legally start our entrepreneurial venture. 

That's us, laptop and a bag of cookies in hand. 

To the critics who might tell us we are too young/inexperienced I say, we may not be perfect, but perfect is just so boring. We're the quirky company that's anathema to you, and that's alright. We would hate being defined by being in the box, or out of it. We'd like to be defined by our ideas. (Which are going to blow your minds, by the way.)

To those who have encouraged us or will after reading this,  I have one thing to tell you: Sit back and watch us go places. 

My nerves are on edge and my voice is shrilly with excitement.
Here's celebrating a small step into the world of power lunches, and a giant leap for a girl with miniature stature.

This is going to be fun. :)

Academia is not my cup of green tea.

The professor thinks I'm understanding everything and diligently solving every question. 

Oh, these innocent, trusting teachers.,. *head pat*

Here's a secret: This is what I'm really doing in Quantitative Analysis lectures. 

If you can't read what's written above:

1. Get spectacles.
2. Click on the image to see some monster-size handwriting.

The only reason I get marks in examinations is because I have the ability to make gibberish sound like something as important-sounding as 'fiscal consolidation'.
Also, because I am competitive and don't like being thought of as an idiot.
If  people think I study like crazy and have a genuine love for studying, the joke's on them. My class notes are of zero help anyway thanks to scribbly-doodles like these. Last minute clicking through Powerpoint slides (such a first world manner of studying :P) and teehee, I'm done.

P.S. Is anyone else watching Bones on T.V.? Or Masterchef Australia?  (Cheers, maiite)
You aren't? Losers, the lot of you.

Reality: A pain in the bum.

I was this person. I really was. 

Then like half the student population, I got admission into NMIMS. :P

Image Source: herecomesthenoise.tumblr.com

Oh dear god, I LOVE the Dexter Season 6 Trailer.

On The Road.

Eeeee, I just made this all by myself! 

That's Jack Kerouac. 

The line is from On the Road.

And I ordered it on Flipkart. It's on its way to my bookshelf as you read this.

Memories of Sunlight.

For a couple of years, I studied in this beautiful school in Coimbatore as a child. Stanes Higher Secondary School, it was, yet I never experienced the 'Higher Secondary School' part of it. My first grade class teacher was a certain Mrs. Newness, and shouting Good morning Mrs. Newness in an innocent sing-song tone is one of my fondest memories of the place. Where people expect grass or just concrete roads to connect school buildings, the entire school was flooded with sand. On raw, wrung out Monday mornings, it almost seemed like a royal sandcastle standing majestically in the quiet South Indian city. I tricked myself into believing I was queen of the castle. I didn't know then that magic was just tricking the mind.

When the class opened, a musty air accosted us until we finally succumbed to it a few hours later, and did not notice it at all. The room was opened everyday, but gave the air of the unused and untouched. The class was lined with antiquated wooden desks. Each came with a seat designed for two to sit comfortably. As sore as the hard seat made my bum by the end of the day, the desk came with myriad cracks, along with 'Raju was here' scribbled with whiteners, that kept me entertained. I remember the sun streaming into the class room through the large windows to the right, as I fervently memorized the table of five and mugged up the spelling of stomach for a test. All our innocent faces scrunched up as we looked in the direction of the sun. The warmth on our faces was a welcome delight, especially on winter mornings. We loved the sun on our faces. All of us. At that age, we didn't know how to tell time but with the sun to our right and with sharp pencil in hand, we knew the day had really begun. And that recess was near.

Now, I study in a class room where I cannot see the sun, where words are used as leverage and where everyone pretends they are somewhere else.

Who Loves the Sun?, the Velvet Underground ask.

I do.

:)

I hope the sun finds me again soon to remind me that everything will be okay.

I found this really old picture of the school on the Stanes website. I remember that tree! A crow crapped on my head while I stood in  its shade. People told me it was considered good luck. I just yelled Yuck and dashed for the washroom.

My Experiments with Truth... And Mom's Samsung Galaxy S2.

Magic is Poetry wrapped in Jeans, yes? :)

I am no huge fan of Bukowski; that arrogant, anarchist and defiant anti-hero battling the literary elite. He was a dirty, dirty man by all accounts. But the poem in question 'The Laughing Heart' that makes its appearance in the latest Levis commercial is a work of staggering tenderness and innate beauty. 

The Laughing Heart -
by Charles Bukowski 

 your life is your life
don’t let it be clubbed into dank submission.
be on the watch.
there are ways out.
there is a light somewhere.
it may not be much light but
it beats the darkness.
be on the watch.
the gods will offer you chances.
know them.
take them.
you can’t beat death but
you can beat death in life, sometimes.
and the more often you learn to do it,
the more light there will be.
your life is your life.
know it while you have it.
you are marvelous
the gods wait to delight
in you.

Astounding, isn't it? :)

The company has chosen his words as the new anthem for today’s denim wearing generation. 

Frankly, I can't blame them. It is a brilliant idea. 

It seems to enforce the belief that the new definition of cool is to own a pair of jeans that tells the world you believe in Bulowski's view of a better future .'Your life is your life...' does sear through the brains of the impressionable lamb-like youth who own 75 pairs of jeans already.

More Jeans. More Poetry.

The world is a happy place. :) 

Confessions of Roadkill on the Tech Highway.

You won't see me in bluish-green pictures looking like an Avatar reject.
You won't find the iconic white earphones dangling from my ears.
You won't see my eager fingers moving around a sleek touchscreen.
It takes me a few minutes to figure out that when people are discussing Cupcake and Froyo, they aren't discussing what to treat my hungry tummy to, but versions of Android.
And when you say the word tablet, my first instinct is to think Crocin.

This is the truth as I know it.

While I am not inherently excited by technology, as I sat staring at the mail from my grandmom which ended with 'Sent from my iPad', I am more determined than ever to like it. Wait, love it and embrace all that changing technology brings with it.

Give me a crash-course in all things technology, please? :)

Image Source: Ben Heine Photography

In Search of the Perfect Coffee in Bombay.

It has been raining incessantly the past couple of days, and the clouds still look happily full, the way a child looks after a bowl of ice-cream. The weather is just right for it...

I close my eyes and find myself transported to a beautiful outdoor cafe in the middle of a small, busy square. As I sit back and breathe in the aroma of freshly brewed espressos, I look around to see a network of echoing alleys filled with gossiping shopkeepers and enamored tourists. The town appeared to consist of a dozen streets made for hours of mindless wandering. Expensive, spotless establishments gleam at the town's center while beautiful, old-fashioned hotels are hidden away behind wild creepers. I imagine myself reading 'Pride and Prejudice' or some such lumbering classic befitting the serene setting. I sit there for hours in a happy daze...

I awake from my reverie to discover that the cappuccino I had ordered twenty minutes ago has arrived. The waiter at Barista has been kind (or conversely creepy) enough to draw a heart with cream on top. The coffee arrives in a standardized and conspiratorially small mug, designed so the customer has to pay much more than what was deserved while not even keeping the option open of stealing that silly mug. Win-win for the cafe guys. I hardly ever go to Barista unless a friend has a discount coupon. 

Hypocrite, you say?

Who passes up an offer for free coffee, I retort.

The same goes for Cafe Coffee Day(CCD). The Tropical Iceberg which tastes exactly like the Iced Eskimo is alright, though. The fact that the more appetizing items on their menu are always, and I repeat, always missing is yet another capitalist conspiracy against the cafe-going customer, I presume. And the music playing makes me want to weep like the windows on a rainy afternoon.

But there's a whole other reason I dislike The Coffee Bean and Tea Leaf. It tends to have too many people pretending to write novels, and too few people pretending to read novels. It just has this pretentious arty vibe to it that I don't enjoy. Its only redeeming aspect are the adorable tea bags that I'd just like to steal and stash away for a rainy day stuck at home.

This is lamenting the utter lack of cafe culture in this city of dreams.
If the coffee is good, the cafe isn't. Or vice versa.

If you live in the city, do share your perfect coffee haunts.
If the offer of a free coffee and my lively company isn't enough, I promise to tell you about the best ice-cream in the city in return :)

Image Source: Albaflickr's Photostream

18 Going on 80. :)

As part of our grading in the subject Presentation Skills, I had to deliver a 3-minute speech to a class of faces bored with speeches on economic recession, financial reform and the like. I chose to speak on a topic dear to me, and gave a persuasive speech on how reading, though a conventionally unpopular (especially given my age) hobby is a brilliant one. I spoke about how my grandfather inculcated a lifelong love for books in me. I prepared a short Powerpoint presentation that played in the background that elicited a variety of 'awww's and 'so sweeeeeet's. I shared the story due to my firm belief that stories have a more lasting impact than statistics and pedantic facts.

I've put up the slides here. Do take a look. :)