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. :)