blogging with a vengeance

i swear i'm going to.

love marriage

Alright. So.

I have lost track of the number of times I have had this conversation with people.

Person (to me) - Where are you from?
Me - Delhi
Person - I thought you must be from somewhere in south India.
This statement creates much confusion for me. Mainly because I can't entirely agree with them. How can I?
Me - Actually, my dad is Tamilian and my mother is Punjabi...
Person - Did they have a love marriage?

Okaaayyyyyyyy. When I was younger, this question used to have me in quite a tangle. Of course they had a love marriage. How else are marraiges supposed to be? And then ofcourse, by the time I was about 10 or 11 and I had learnt about arranged marraiges, when people used to ask me this question I would think, yes they did have a love marriage, but how did you know that?

I haven't really got over that one completely even though I'm much older now. I mean, really, who would have thought that giving a person a simple piece of information like where my parents come from would give him or her an insight into such a personal detail of my parents' lives? It makes me uncomfortable.

Is a love marriage that rare and uncommon that it can be immediately spotted from among the other mundane family ties that are forced upon us? And by simply knowing where a couple comes from, if you can map out such personal details of their lives...

What does that say about us as a society?

Hmmmmmmmmm.

There are other conversations too, that I have had with people. And more explaining to do.

Living in Delhi, I'm always getting asked,

How come your Hindi isnt that good?
Me - I don't speak it at home. And also I went to a school where everyone spoke English.
Person - How come you don't speak Hindi at home atleast? What do you speak then?
Me - English mostly.
Person - Even your parents? How come you speak English at home?
Me - My mother is Punjabi. My Dad is Tamilian. It is only fair to speak a language we all understand.
Person - Ohhhh. Did they have a love marriage?

Right. That intimate detail again.

And when I lived in Chennai for a year, I was told....

Your Tamil is really funny.
Me- I have lived in Delhi for nearly my whole life. So ofcourse my Tamil is going to sound funny.
Person - Oh yes, you've lived in Delhi so you must be good at Hindi then. But don't you speak Tamil at home with your family?
Me - Not really. We speak English most of the time.
Person- Really? Why?
Me - My mother is Punjabi. My Dad is Tamilian. It is only fair to speak a language we all understand.
Person - That's interesting. They must have had a love marriage.

Aaah yes. How very kind of you to point out.

because every dead blog deserves a surprise post to startle its readers :-)

...and now that you've read it, you may run back to your eventful lives :D

facebook

Dear fans and avid readers!

The following is an excerpt from an online chat i had with a friend .

I feel it aptly documents the phenomenon of facebook in our modern times.

oof: i am not searchable on facebook, as your search will reveal
kk: ah.
why the elusiveness?
oof: it is far too public for my liking
kk: ah.
oof: more so than real life
kk: certainly.
.
oof:
and how many facebook friends do you have?
kk: currently, 68.
oof: wow
kk: is that an alarming number?
oof: yes certainly
68 close friends
68 people and the friends of 68 people being able to track your every social move
kk: some of whom aren't particularly close... people who i knew back in school but didn't speak too much to.
and stuff of the sort.
track my every social move, yes.
oof: doesnt that do things to your internal systems?
kk: um... not so far.
mercifully.
oof: hhhmmmm
again, wow
kk: it reflects a lack of social moving on my part.
oof: huh?
what?
explain that
kk: the fact that you say wow to my number of facebook friends, and the fact that you say wow to the lack of things being done to my internal system.
logically leads to the conclusion that my social movements are not particularly track-worthy.
oof: lol
but isnt that what facebook is about?
tracking each others social movements
kk: well, yes...
but you can also take colour blindness tests.
oof: 68 people think your social movements are trackworthy
kk: and flunk them.
oof: ah yes.
and also be assigned political identities
i am told
kk: yes, i have been told too.
oof: and also be assinged a best friend based on a similarly answered movie quiz

CONTRARY TO YOUR OBSERVATIONS, THIS BLOG IS STILL ALIVE.

Dear fans and avid readers, (heh)

yes, it is true, this blog is still alive, and so am i. i had retreated briefly to the real world. but appear to be back, if only for a while.

i have made my first ever (second) movie. i have also lost said movie. huh.

in other news, i have befriended an asexual man.

please pray for me, and let us hope there is a god.

Delhi Rose

I swore that when I returned to this blog, my first post would be about her. So here it is.

I met her 3 years back. We became friends. Yes, it is true, her parents actually have named her that. Delhi Rose. As per all official documents.

When the time came for us to part, words failed me. People like her should be preserved. I mean, come on, how often do we run into human beings called "Delhi Rose"? And I might never get to see her again.

Hmmmmmmm. Sigh. Delhi Rose, I will miss you.

She left me her email address. Should I email her? I don't know. We shared the kind of relationship where if we met face to face, we were friends. A couple of smses here and there. But we were never phone friends. And we never hung out together on weekends for fun. Trouble is, I don't know what to say to her when she is not in front of me.

I love Delhi Rose. One of Earth's gems. Very sweet and extremely helpful. Many people don't know this about her, but she also has an amazing, loony sense of humor. I'm glad she shared it with me :-)

We also, made up a special hand-sign, just the two of us. I will remeber it always. Roughly, it looks like this

/\
V

I really hope our paths cross again.

Delhi Rose - I never told you about this blog. But I know that if you are reading, this, you will know who I am. Especially, since I put up our sign :D

my hair smells of cigarettes

and that is a fantastic way to preserve a memory :)