Tales from skinnystan

What do you do when ...


1. You are graduating soon, and to blend with the culture need a nice, pretty outfit.
2. Every store you visit invariably seems to sell clothes only from size 2 and above.
3. Even the stores which are meant for people like you with weight issues, dont sell anything which suits your taste.
4. When you do find the 'one' you are looking for, is available in your size, but only in distant suburbia, whose names sound like quaint 18th century villages and where the buildings are 3 story high.
5. You decide to compromise and buy an expensive dress which does not fit you and get it altered.
6. Having spent almost a fortune on buying stuff which doesn't fit you, a thought crosses your mind, why all the fuss ? You might as well skip the function or wear something old and Indian.
7. Seeing your dilemma friends, family, random strangers (like the bus driver lady, the shop assistant) start giving you advice on how and what to eat.


It is then, frustrated by the injustice meted out to you for being skinny, that 


1. You decide to make cheese, milk, eggs, bananas, chocolates, french fries and the family, your best friends.
2. Even though its against your conviction, you decide to join gym and work out like crazy. After all you have heard stories of how sylvester stallone became john rambo.
3. You make a resolve to hog till it makes you FAT.


And it is then, that your eyes fall on a random dress in a corner deeply buried below other stuff. It isn't what you wanted but it fits you really well. You decide may be you can accessorize it a bit and it might be the one you wanted!
It is also at this moment that you have an epiphany which tells you, probably its time not to take things just stated above so seriously. Time to take deep breath and chill.


~nightflier ;)

Spectacular !!!

It was my childhood dream. Something I nurtured since I was may be 6.

May be since I got to know the power of eyes and how much they could express. Or may be I was just fascinated.

Whatever may be my tiny brain's excuses then, my wish finally got fulfilled at the age of #^ (Girls don't reveal their 'real' age!! what!!). In retrospect it did take me a lot of years!! Geez!!

Anyways when I finally came out of the doctor's cabin holding my eye check-up report, I triumphantly acknowledged to my uncle 'Yes! Finally, some doctor agrees that I should get spectacles made! And yeah that to numbered ones!'

So this childhood obsession of donning my own chashma, started when my dad got his reading glasses done. I would wear them and ask my parents to click snaps (which they never did :|). After some years came my mom's turn. I used to doll up in her feminine glasses and get pleased when people used to tell me that I looked like a teacher (teacher-teacher is a favorite Indian indoor game for girls!). Then one fine day an older cousin gave me a long lecture on how one's eyesight goes bad because of wearing numbered spectacles, and my obsession became private limited from a public affair. And as I started growing up, mom-dad's spects had started to become less fashionable. As there was no other way of fuelling my passion of trying other people's spectacles, I asked dad to buy me those zero power glasses. I did not quite like the actual buy and hence stopped wearing them. But the little girl inside me who had always loved them, did not stop dreaming. What did she know, that it will take her more than 15 years to fulfill it!

So today I finally went to make the spects (you buy a lens and a frame and ask the optometrist to make it for you). I went to Lawrence and Mayo store first. Well some sale caught my eye. Apparently it was on a specific brand of frames, obviously out of which I did not like any. Then I moved to the lens part. The sales guy there did not take any pain in explaining me anything. So naturally giving him the usual 'budget ke bahar hai' reason I exited.

Then I entered Titaneye+, a tata enterprise. Entry to exit I was made to feel like a person who should be wanting to buy herself a pair of glasses and not hating her doctor for giving her the report! (I was obviously naturally inclined towards 'wanting to buy glasses for her own Sukh, Shanti and Samadhan' (Mind you these are not Rakhi Sawant's prospective better halves)). So I almost tried their entire aisle of 'on display' frames and ate the sales guy's and my brother's head over which frame suited me the most. Both proved pretty useless in the end as they started approving anything random I was trying. After settling down on a slight geeky, less nerdy and more Yo! frame, we turned towards the lens section. Titaneye+ people sell only essilor, nikon and canon lenses. The most reasonable for me were of course Essilor starting from 1800. I gulped. And decided to take off, when my brother pulled me back. The sales guy tested his 'always works' marketing gimmick. He said local vendors might sell you anything under the name of Essilor, whereas here you get guaranteed stuff and also an year's warranty (I felt like blurting out, its of no use as I am not going to be in India, mr. smarty!!). Anyways the next thing he did was open up the big fat lens booklet and give me some jargon. I understood a mere 5%, but I was impressed. I ermed and errrred and finally said yes. Then he also gave me a free eye check up (again!) where their doc told me some really cool eye exercises. Sharing them with you, as I know most of you just cant take your eyes off the laptop :P

1. 20-20-20 rule : take a 20 second break for every 20 minutes work on the laptop. In the first break consciously blink you eyes. In the next break concentrate at your infinity (distant) point. This would avoid your eyes from getting dry and the occasional blurring syndrome will also disappear.

2. tip of the pen exercise : take any pen and concentrate on its tip. Keep moving the pen towards your eyes until you get blurred image of the tip. Do this every hour.

So as I finalized my bill and payment, I was told that my spects would be ready in an hour. My jaw almost fell to the floor. Otherwise I will get a call, as to when I should pick it up. So much attention !! I was mighty impressed.

In a long long time I have had a truly satisfying experience in terms of shopping. I am recommending it to you. Sadly they are not paying me. Yet !

~nightflier :)

10 reasons I love superheroes/movies

My 5 cents on why!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!, I love them.

1. Every superhero has a story, a humble beginning, circumstances which make him/her 'not normal'. That strikes a chord. 

2. They are unsure of their motives and morals. Unsure of their responsibilities. Don't we all face such situations in real life ??

3. They always choose what is right for everyone. They see the bigger picture. I believe we all play the super heroic part at some point in life.

4. They want you to believe in goodness, fairness (not of the skin, duh) of the system.

5. These Hollywood people make the movies so spectacular and larger than life, it's hard to not get affected. Check out the harry potter trailer in my earlier post.

6. And if you rope in a hottie like Hugh Jackman or a cutie like Tobey Macguire, who would not like to die (watch the movie in spite of its craziness or long length) for them ?? 

7. As a personal gain from these movies I see everyone around me as a hero. Remember the incredibles ?

8. At the end there's always something to ponder upon or feel good about. A dark knight leaves you baffled whereas Harry Potter leaves you wiser.

9. Sometimes even with super heroic/magical powers they are as miserable as us. The to be or not to be dilemma ...

10. I finally quote a dialogue from Spiderman 2 here, which pretty much sums up all the 9 points above, 

We need a hero, courageous sacrificing people, setting examples for all of us. Everybody loves a hero, people line up for 'em, cheer for them, scream their names, and years later tell how they stood in the rain for hours just to get a glimpse of the one who told them to HOLD ON a second longer. I believe there's a hero in all of us, that keeps us honest, gives us strength, makes us noble. And finally gets us to die with pride. Even though sometimes we have to be steady and give up the thing we want most, even our dreams. 

X men origins - wolverine releases today. Roger Ebert here smashes the movie (my initial reaction after watching the trailer was not very exciting) but what the heck.. 

To my believes :D

cheers,

~nightflier

 

milk-y way

I get up early in the morning and find to my dismay that my 2% reduced milk is over. Well no problemos, I can borrow it from my roomies'. 

Surprisingly, their cans are empty too. Now that's co-incidence or whatever. Since I have a busy day planned ahead, I decide to skip drinking milk for one day and buy it first thing in the evening.

So in this way I spend my early morning one hour thinking about no milk. I am suddenly restless, anxious, my brain has become super slow and its responses like that of an 8085. It is funny, because the more I think about not thinking, the more I think about it. Are you getting me? The urge to have a mug full of hot chocolate is so insatiable, that I get up and run to the store in my ugliest clothes. OK I do comb my hair.

So here I am. Another year ago if you asked for my 5 cents on drinking milk everyday, I would have given you the famous distasteful look, making you think 'omg, was it so offensive ?'

The same person, today, can not spend a morning without a mug of it. Astonishingly, milk has been one of those things I have been averted to since childhood. Again, I was not one of those over dramatic kids who would puke at the sight of it or pour it in the nearest potted plant or spill it deliberately or even barter it with siblings. But I was definitely one of those fussy kids who did not like the malaai (we call it saay in Marathi), the smell of it, or the prospect of having plain milk without any bournvita. Now we all know the nutritional values of milk, that it contains calcium which is essential for bones and blah blah blah. But its difficult to convince a stubborn ass who is hell bent on believing that the passage of milk from her mouth to her stomach makes it  go through a lot of chemical processes (I could have been really gross there, but I value you as my reader. Anything for few comments :P) reducing the nutritional value to zilch. I even avoided eating milky sweets for the same reasoning.

And since my mother was (she still is) a firm believer in human rights (I owe it to you mommy), she never ever encouraged/scolded/forced me to change my habits or thinking.

Now I am one of those persons, whose day can not start without a mug of milk. Someone who needs a cup of coffee to take care of those long tired evenings. Someone whose reaction to an empty milk can has changed from that of pleasure to horrified disbelief. Have I really become so health conscious or is it just the laziness to eat something else and have a mug of hot chocolate which is easy to make instead ? I think its both. 

So here I am, a 24 year old, addicted to milk. (I know my mother is going to be sooo proud.) 

Sheesh.. I feel so wasted. 

But its fun to walk the milk-y way. I am doing things I thought I would never do or like doing :) 

~nightflier :)

Serial killer

So what do you do when you have to take meals alone, a routine you despise and not used to ?

Call up people ? Well with yours truly in a land across seven seas where 99% of her friends, family did not choose to reside (of course, she was the one who moved out), and the expenses of frequent long distance calling, let us rule this one out.

Don't think about being alone over a meal and invite over some imaginary friends for lunch and dinner ? Again yours truly is not as stupid as she looks. Drop this!

Better still, join unknown people over for meals or invite them over to join you ? Umm.. She is too lazy to randomly talk to anyone. If they don't like what's in her tiffin and sneer at her for eating stuff which they think is full of hocus pocus, she wont like it.

So missy devised a way out of this uncomforting situation. She found the 'n'th usefulness of a television. She started watching television series, soaps, serials, etc to keep the humanly cycles going. On the flip side she does not worry about being alone for lunch or dinner. She looks forward to it. On the down side, she gets addicted to everything she watches. Gets totally hooked on to stupid stuff for that instant. 

So delving into the matter more and even deeper, I was a person of principles once. I never watched any serials/soaps/series back home on principle. I used to find most of the serials stupid and senseless, unless they had some backstabbing, revenge or reincarnation involved. You got to believe that it needs extraordinary imagination to think up something like that. 

Now as I had prohibited myself from following any Indian serials, I could not watch any English series either. This did depreciate my sense of humor amongst friends when they would be cracking famous jokes from friends, referring to characters from ER, heroes or OC. When they would be busy rofling I would be left wondering if they needed any serious medical help. This also affected my ability to start conversations on any damn topic with most of my female friends at hostel. Girls used to follow all 9-11 shows on star plus even after coming away from home by taking updates on phone everyday. I used to be the only loser who knew nothing from that particular area of research of the female psyche. 

(I hereby admit that I have followed one particularly uninteresting serial for my roomies' sake, given mom company while watching the longest running serial in Indian television's history and watched a few episodes of friends and x-files with my brother as a kid.)

So I abstained from all these 'things' on principle.

As torturously explained at the beginning you know how things happened for me. 

Not having a TV was not a deterring factor here. Thanks to broad bands and wi-fi networks here, things work like a stroke of a magic wand. Online viewing is so fun. I make my plate ready and in the mean time shows get streamed. I enjoy my food laughing about stupid things, situations, funny friends, there lives, secrets, and many such trivialities. I am happy about good things happening to them, sad about their stupid fights, and admire their human qualities.

I have finished watching FRIENDS, Heroes, How I met your mother (which is still on btw), Sa re ga ma pa - little champs (I have still stuck to my principle in a way, if reality talent show is considered a series).

Right now I am watching House MD (he deserves a special tribute and a dedicated post!!). I am totally addicted to this one. House's character being inspired from Sherlock Holmes (my childhood hero) is one of the reasons. But House is unique in himself. His arrogance and sarcasm is incorrigible. And so is his medical knowledge and diagnosis. I think I should control my feelings about House in this post.

So moral of the story is, this is the purrfect case of Majboori ka naam Gandhiji (When in discomfort you do something, you least expect yourself to do). But I am not complaining. I plan to shoot down every wee-bit interesting serial available on the net. If you have any suggestions drop in a comment or mail me. In return you get a free meal with an awesome company (me !! duh..) in your side of the world (I take the pleasure of thanking people personally) and have a nice chat about the series you suggested (unless the series you suggested completely revolted me :P) .

Now you know why the misleading title ;)

~nightflier :)

Quarantined !!!

Ex-pectation setting !!

I am in those years of my life, when there are hook ups and engagements and weddings taking place left, right and center, around me. And the perpetual (at least for the time being) question that haunts my dear ones is this - when will we hear about you ?

I am like..What ????? Abhi to main nanhi munni hoon.

sigh..That's not a perfect escape plan. But the actual answer is 'I don't know'. Because I don't know what kind of person I want to be with. I mean you ask me about harry potter, clearance sales, laplace transforms, dc-dc converters, Hindi movies, English movies, where to watch them, cooking tips, I will answer most of the questions right. But this one is a tough nut. Plus the fact that I like to dodge it, is another issue. I mean can we get an exact set of expectations ? I will always want more. I know about myself and I also know that he should complement me. Again no idea, what way. 

Anyways, over the past few weeks, after much deliberation in this direction, some things which came into my mind are:

1. The guy needs to have a madness quotient about him. Not someone who is always talking about how much he knows, how cool he is, trying to impress me. Instead someone, who can take me for a ride in a funny way. So the madness quotient = knack of making me laugh in the most serious and shitty situations.

2. He should have dreams. May be we can sit together one evening and dream for 'US' :) aww..how romantic !! I think dreaming increases the romance quotient. 

3. The guy should respect others. Yeah. Not just humans, but other living beings too !!

4. Bande mein kuch baat ho. The X-factor may be ;)

5. And last but not the least, he should be real !!!

Ok. So that was about the guy. Well, the girl will be his bestest friend, caring wife, super cool girl friend and a companion for life. Who will let him have the remote during cricket and football matches and grab it during tennis matches. Who will just stay calm and may be cry, if they have a fight. A girl who will need total isolation, a retreat once in a while.

Baki I am like every other girl, who can be extremely girly on some sunny days and extremely tom boyish on some grey days. 

A girl who likes to be taken out for expensive dates once in a while and given the princess like treatment. 

A girl who is very nonchalant about her looks, but at the same time can drive him crazy to buy that expensive dress/shoes. 

A girl who is very sensitive, but at the same time can be a rock solid pillar in the face of adversity. 

A girl who does not really care what others think, if she thinks she is doing the right thing. 

A girl who is totally mad too, though at times. 

A girl who can be really geeky and immersed in her books and studies and forgets everything. Even about his supper :P

A girl who will take care of all the important details of his life, if he just carves her birthday in his mind and never forgets to make that day special !!

A girl who is capable of unconditional love.

A girl who knows, any guy who reads this will make sure to keep his distance from her, but who is still writing this.

So as I told you, I just know about myself. Self obsession ka bug, koi dawa asar na kare !!

Again I am not entirely sure if I answered the perpetual question, but at least this is a better come back.

~nightflier :)

P.S. I lied in the post. I had given that 5 point answer, to a question asked by a colleague from office. So that deliberation of thought was a booby trap :P I think I will act on an impulse in these matters :)

OCD

It is true. I have been diagnosed with OCD(obsessive compulsive disorder)! Yeah, the self proclaimed psychologist in me isn't wrong this time.
It's been happening for quite some time. I was under the scanner for days now, only to reveal the most bizarre set of results.

Every time I was let free into a mall without any agenda, I would direct myself towards the stationary section. No kidding! I would walk as if under a spell (well its not as bad as an Imperius curse but more like being possessed, I hope I am making it clear here!!). I would literally march away from everyone to every kid's dream land.

Loads of pencils, pens,colored pens, sketch pens, colored sheets, clip boards, markers, stick notes, diaries, files, folders, dividers, erasers, sharpeners, greeting cards just excited me. Its like every time I entered the store and someone would whisper in my ears, 'Comm'ere my baby..precioussssss'
Or was the AC in the malls set to too low a temperature? Then what could be the reason behind my brain listening to voices ??
WHOA...

AC or no AC, the woe still remains. Its becoming more of a habit now, that too a compulsive.
There were days when I would enter Venus traders on FC road, like a kidnapper and fill my shopping bag with handmade papers,crayons,colored pencils,etc. Here also I randomly handpicked some insertable dividers, the other day. Some other time, a few folders. Today a clipboard, some sheets, and colored pens. This in spite of the fact that, I have got stacks of stationary from home. I have things in abundance. I must have also told you about the fascination for free stationary ? And it doen't end here. I don't let others touch 'my stuff'. I still remember the kid's condition (my looks were enough to petrify him) when he had toyed with my drawing book and colored pens. I was in standard 8. Well he must have even given up any thought of studying further, after meeting a maniac like me, me thinks.

Don't freak out please. Because they tell me for deprived people this is more than common. But hello, I don't come from depressistaan (my name for such a place). I come from somewhere, where every dream of getting educated in a fancy fashion was nurtured. That dream was fueled in all possible ways. Yes, that includes decorating my books with fancy stickers, covering them up with nice colored sheets, colorful charts (alphabets to the periodic table..u bet!!). So is my behavioral pattern plausible ?

May be or may be not. I guess I will have to learn to live with this. Wish me luck folks.

Meanwhile, next time you go to a mall, don't forget to sneak into the stationary section ;) It's a wonderful world!!

P.S. this blog comes after watching FRIENDS episode(season 2, episode 23. bingo!!) about Monica's small,cute obsessions. :)