Commemorating the Last Day of The Best Summer Holidays Yet...

The fact that I am drawing crazy graphs and pie-charts is enough to prove how badly I'm handling the tragedy of waking up at six thirty tomorrow morning for college.

These vacations have just been the best. :)

Of travelling and exploring,
Beaches, ducks and bunnies,
Working, writing and sleeping,
Friends, movies and reeeeeeeeeeading,
Eating, eating and eating.

I sincerely hope to make this year keeps me interested, curious and busy.

"So kiss me and smile for me
Tell me that you'll wait for me
Hold me like you'll never let me go."

Bye bye holidays. You made me unbearably happy. :)

The Dream.

'I am a wanderer,
Confused by everything lay in front of me.
I am blind,
to the many parallel paths life chooses for me.
I am an abyss,
an unimaginable ditch filled by the depths of endless mediocrity.


I've never made a right decision.


But one.


I see it with pure lucidity,
You're supposed to be the one for me.
I am to spend my life with you,
And dedicate every single breath I take in your honour.
You are mine,

and that is the one thing truly meant to be.'

For You, Badepapa.

Dear Badepapa,

I'm having trouble deciding how to write this letter to you, about you. Nonetheless, I have been planning to write this for a long time now, and here it goes.

Should I start with thanking you for all the yummy Mughlai chicken you've made for me over the years? And how you reserve the leg piece specially for me, every time? Or for the Spanish omelette you whip up?

Or the many wonderful times we have walked in the park where you shared stories of your life that are just incredible on so many levels? Or the times you walked with me to the tiny library nearby that you call a 'dungeon'? 

Of course I thank you for all the above.

But a special thanks is in order for all the stories you have told me as a child. Stories like no other; your manner of delivery made lions pounce around your bedroom. You made words come alive like no one else I've met in my short stint on this dear planet.

Like any other child, I used to love a story. I vividly remember you lying down on the big old bed at 1, C-8, Aasha Apartments for your afternoon nap. The quaint smell of old unused items from the cupboard at the entrance envelopes the room. The curtains provide much required shade from the heat of Calcutta's skies. I would crawl up beside you, and ask in an unassuming innocent manner only children can have, 'Tell me a story'. And how could you deny your very first grandchild the privilege of a good story? You would roll up the newspaper you were reading, hit me on the head with it playfully and ask in a resigned manner, 'Okay, choose two animals'. And the curious crazy child I was with no understanding of the relationship between animal population and climatic conditions, I would think for two minutes and say, 'Hmmm..Yesterday was zebra and tortoise. So today I want a polar bear and a giraffe'. I thought I was very clever for knowing these animals.

Without missing a beat, the story would begin.

 "Once upon a time, in the forest of Congo in Africa, there lived one giraffe. He was very very tall, much taller than all his friends.............  and then they lived happily ever after."

Without doubt, these stories of two random animals in the forests of Congo and Tanzania are the best stories I've heard in my life. You narrated completely new stories every single day, and that never feels to amaze me to this day. In this age of rampant plagiarism, I only need to think of your stories to believe that originality is not a myth that time forgot. You are quite the raconteur, Badepapa. :)

I credit my love for books and my little ability to write to one person: you. 

You inspired me to 'imagine', before I was even formally introduced to that word in textbooks. Thanks to you, I now love to lose myself in the world of a novel, and curl up in the silence of the dark night and dawn, enjoying the deliciousness of a novel.

While love may be subjective, respect can never be. To that extent, you are one of the few men on this planet I genuinely respect. I respect you for having the courage to leave home and set forth on a month-long voyage to London, because you didn't want to be tied down to a government job. That trailblazing attitude has found its way to me, but I sure won't be running away any time soon to prove it! I respect you for raising three amazing, dutiful, responsible sons. Badepapa, you may be short-tempered and stubborn, but you are also wise, kind, forgiving and playful. Many have not seen the playful side of you, but I have, and it sure is wonderful. You sure can take a joke, because I have called you 'Ganju-No-Dattu Patel' a million times as a kid, and you laughed every single time. Not everyone would have. 

Your love for golf and the attention I gave to your every word was proven by an incident years ago. I'm not sure you remember this, but when my kindergarten teacher asked me, 'What do you want to become when you grow up?', I'd confidently answered, 'Golfer'. :)

Of course, I haven't grown up to be a golfer, or pursued engineering or travelled to London, but 2 days ago, I did one thing. I cooked a cheese omelette all by myself, and that's as good a start as any, right? 

I just hope, in some small way, I make you proud. Because I'm more than proud to call myself your grand-daughter.

Love,

Bunny.

P.S. Please start carrying your mobile phone everywhere you go. Please please pleeeeeeease. :)

Critical Mass.

The cryptic shorts that follow are just a reflection of my thoughts in the chasm between sleepy and sleep. It is that innocent portion of the day when t=0. These words may or may not make sense. If they don't make sense, always remember I was half asleep. 

• True humility is almost always preceded by true humiliation.
• Convention will be embraced, even as curiosity will be slaughtered.
• Traffic and vulnerability- the great equalizers.
• Anything can last in a world where marriages and corrupt governments do.
• A certain shade of happiness accompanies the drudgery of life. It's called complacency. 
• The average farmer is more intimately connected with the soil than all those in the field of biochemistry.
• Twitter timelines and Facebook homepages leave you with the eerie feeling of being stalked, and liking it.
• Only children have genuine causes.
• You are tall because I am short. A 'thanks' is in order.

OH MY GOD. Look What Happens When You Wear 365 Days Of Makeup All At Once!

Director duo Lernet and Sander applied a year's worth makeup over 9 hours to the model Hannelore Knuts(what kind of name is that, anyway?).
Why?
"We wanted to apply 365 layers of makeup in one day to see how much is needed to go from a natural look to an outrageous one." they say.


I assure you that:
1. This is pretty messed up.

2. If you try doing the same, you'll resemble Gloppy the Molasses Monster from Candyland. 

You Remember What You See.

1. Listen to the Governor of Hawaii. That's a lovely way to put it, don't you think?

2. And learn a lesson. Never disturb me when I'm reading. Because if you do, I will ignore you the first few times, and pretend to ignore you every other time.

Education is the purported cure of all social evils. 

To me, the true purpose of education is to give students the command over language to figure out the difference between right and wrong all by themselves. 

So, even if it doesn't right all wrongs, at least every educational institution should do strive to do that. 

Review: Bossypants by Tina Fey

Let's get this out of the way, once and for all: Who is Tina Fey?

Saturday Night Live's first ever female head writer. Sarah Palin impersonator. Producer, actor and head writer of 30 Rock. Improv machine. Comic genius. Coined the words "blorft" and "bossypants". This last, along with her perpetually hunched shoulders, are the reasons she has been hailed the 'sex symbol for the intellectual man'. She is also the woman to be held guilty for every time a guy finds out that his straight girlfriend unashamedly has a crush on her.

Also, just for the record, she signed a $5 million contract to write this book, while winning Emmy's, cutting her daughter's fingernails and spoofing Palin.

If you judge a book by how fast you finish it and its 'unputdownability' (how appropriately Fey-ish of me), this is scream-off-your-rooftops-i-wish-this-book-wasn't-just-275-pages good. It's hugely funny, before you even open the book. The spoofy cover is bound to have your simple father innocently inquiring if it's a book about a lady going through a  gender change operation. My dad did, anyway. Advance praise for the book on the back cover includes one by a guy who eats books saying, 'Totally delicious'. :D

Structured like a memoir but more like a collection of funny life experiences, Fey talks about everything from bewilderment with her first period (it wasn't blue fluid like they showed in advertisements), to her journey towards becoming the most influential funny woman alive. It's characteristically peppered with punchlines such as...

• On being asked by a photographer what kind of music to play at the shoot- Just murmur "Hip Hop" or make up the name of a hipster sounding band and then act superior when they've never heard of it. "Do you guys have any Asphalt of Pinking? [disappointed] Really? [shrug] Whatever you want, then."

Basically she makes people who think that women aren't funny (read: Christopher Hitchens) feel stupid. Her kick-ass attitude and feminist zeal light up the book even in parts that seem slightly oddly-placed and irrelevant. She takes a stab at misogyny and clears the air about gender politics with equal elan.
But  the stories conceal more than they reveal. She brings up her scar "but I only bring it up to explain why I'm not going to talk about it." It's a system of deflection and self-defense, that allows her to have the last laugh, and lets us join in as well. 


She is completely transparent and extraordinarily funny on the subjects of body image and motherhood. 
The beauty and ugliness of Photoshop, and the grudging acceptance reality that it's here to stay. 
The pain of breastfeeding, and realising the inappropriateness of watching the sexy men of Entourage talking about sex while she's at it. 
The impossible standards of beauty women are expected to conform to, and that Kim Kardashian has been 'made by Russian scientists to sabotage our athletes.'

The thing that I loved most about the book aren't so much the crazy punchlines. It is that she did not attempt to deconstruct her own success and style of humor, like many expected from this book. Rather, her wit and comic timing is on full display in the pages of this book. Cute anecdotes prove she is hard-working and overworked. Even Oprah thinks so. A chapter that is a tribute to her father Don Fey displays her love for family and knowledge of all things important. Talking about her mentor and boss Lorne Michaels, it is clear that she bossypants her way around by example. 


Read it. :)

A Story of Trial and Triumph: How I now get 22,000 books for free.

Hello yellow fellow.
Say hello to the cool new Blog Manager at The Librarywala Blog.
Yes, now I do have access to 22,000 books for free free free! :D

Here's the latest from there. Tell me what you think. :)
Exclusive Book Review: I Have a Dream

CRY.

This is little baby Sana, a girl of 6 I got really attached to, these past few visits to Ghulam Hussain Chawl in Juhu. What makes her even more special is she shares her name with my little sister. A million hugs and kisses wouldn't be enough for this kid, and the potential she has.

Tomorrow morning, she'll go to school for the very first time. :)
^^That's her and her ABCs.

Volunteering for CRY truly is one of the best decisions I've made. 

What's This Talk of Women's Rights?

1. If you get a chance to look at my closet, you'll see a whole lot of whites, blacks, reds and blues. The occasional pink. The rare violet. The elusive grey.  And deep down, nestled between an old sweatshirt and a t-shirt eligible for pension, you'll find a yellow.

That is the yellow I paired with my dark blue jeans and sauntered off to college in, about a year ago. It had been just a week or so into the academic year, when I was still trying to put names to happy faces. The lecture was Political Science. I'm still unsure how that subject found its way into a course on business administration, but BBA is a mixed bag degree anyway. You learn a lot of something, and not much about anything. It's almost a conspiracy to ensure none of us gets too smart. 

But I go astray.Back to Pol Science.

I have a somewhat permanent seat in a corner, towards the back of the class. And yes, I was dreaming of crop circles and what Jack Reacher would look like, if real. The professor was attempting to liven up his class by creating a debate. The necessity of female reservation. Same old same old. Women require governmental assistance. The word 'empowerment' was frivolously thrown around.

When all of a sudden I realized what a sexist turn the entire debate had taken, and how sexist the professor was himself. For the first time, the girl in the yellow t-shirt spoke up and denounced all such drivel. For quite some time after, class-mates came up to me saying, 'I know you. You're the girl in the yellow t-shirt, na?'

2. A girl was voted in as this year's Roadie(popular MTV reality show) ONLY because she was a girl, when far more deserving candidates(men in this case), were voted out because they were men.

You are sexist if you judge a person primarily on their gender. 

History is peppered with instances of women being treated as second-class citizens. Primarily due to religion, and the orthodoxy associated with the same. Witch-hunting is a widely cited example. Ultimately, it was reason that succeeded and enabled women to demonstrate their ability on equal footing with men. 

The basic premise for all moral evaluation is that we are free-willed individuals with the capacity to reason. It is my belief that a person should be judged by their chosen morals, and actions committed of their own free will. To judge somebody on factors that aren't freely chosen, is to ignore the only valid basis on which another human can be judged. It is completely irrational, and to that extent sub-human. We may be praised ad criticized for our actions, not on our skin colour and gender. Politically, this ideal translates into equality before the law; no discrimination against a person but no special favours granted either. 

While humans are politically equal, they are not physically, intellectually or morally equal. But these are factors not determined by gender, race or sexual orientation, and therefore cannot be equalized by special treatment in terms of the same. Which makes egalitarianism a moot point in the political spectrum. Egalitarians make the point that humans are equal regardless of gender, sex, weight, skin colour. Yet, the practical effect of this is to give special treatment to certain groups over others based on their gender, sex, weight and skin colour. It is self-contradictory and hypocritical. A demand for political equality is turned into a demand for something more, when talk of reservations and quotas come into the picture.

Contrary to popular perception, a right is not an entitlement, rather it is a freedom. A freedom to choose. 

It is the freedom to apply for a job, not freedom to be given a job because the employer wants to create a superficial diversity that looks good on paper.

It is the freedom to give a common entrance examination, and to be accepted into an institution based on your marks, rather than the colour of skin.

It is the freedom to work hard and merit a promotion, not freedom to be promoted to complete an "equality quota."

That is the major issue I have with feminism, the basic premise of which is that women are disadvantaged deliberately on the basis of gender. It conveniently evades the issue the reality that men and women are different; not intellectually, politically or morally, but physically and emotionally. There do exist natural differences between men and women, and denial of this fact is denial of sexual identity. And there are many tasks more suited to one gender than the other, and there does exist a natural preference for some occupations over the other by gender. Feminists do not argue for the situation to be more objective and tolerable for all, rather that women should be given a better shot for being women.

I am not oblivious to the fact that there are certain communities that are not treated fairly in the current system. Women. African Americans. The obese.The treatment meted out to them is far from perfect. Everything from sexism to racism to sexual ignorance is prevalent in societies all over the world, developed and under-developed. 

But these are issues that need to fought ideologically. A pertinent role model who can shape cultured ideas and opinions is the requirement. Over-compensating these people with special benefits is not the answer. A sustained change in cultural mindset is.