The writing on the paper

To each of us, our very own theories about notes taking. To most of us, a technique is in place. The factors - time of day, subject in question, the crisp new notebook, classmate to the right, color of the chalk, contents of lunch- all twist and tweak the entire experience. But its been a constant, solid, inerasable part of all our student lives and the experience is worth taking a look at.
*Scene: Notes taking*
*Location: Classroom*
*Actor: Self*
Takes:
· Hand races, tries to keep up with mind. Each word heard is spilt onto the book with a loving perfection. “Blood rushes to my head- Perching precariously on the edge of the seat- I am actually in synch with academia.”
· Written with a tired exhaustion. “Is it time or what?”
· Scrawled across lazily. “Incoherent strings of letters on pieces of paper, pieces that I may not ever look back to.”
· Hand writes. Mind dreams. “You can’t get into my head and hold me ransom- heh!”
· Hands off the paper, Prefers to listen and take it in. “Its all about the learning”
· Or prefers to pretend to listen and take it in. “I care enough to pretend”
· Or not. “I don’t!”
There are people who know that their notes are legendary, that those words they write will be caressed by most Xerox machines in and around college. With such pressure and expectation to live up to, they willfully meet their challenges head on and keep writing. There are also people who are aware of and believe with strong conviction that whatever they write will never again be looked at, and relish the “memorylessness” of their white pages. Then ofcourse, there are the bunch of people with their pages of “hard-to-decipher-scrawling” and a handful of white pages thrown in here and there. Like I said earlier, to each, his own.
O, not to forget how the doodling and the notes exchanging, apart from spicing up said activity, present a range of “in her notebook she actually..” and “In that note he sent me..” stories that will outlive the relevance of the notes themselves.
After all, notes do document- apart from the subject- a slice of our lives, our moods and time.

And one fine intel morning

Today we had a quarterly(They should just call it a "frequently". Why limit it to once in three months? :)).
*O and quarterly translates to fun day out from work*
It involved cycling. To me cycling brings to mind, a pink/blue lady bird with preferably flowers on the little basket that we would have fixed in front of the cycle. Clear blue skies, nice green meadows. A picnic basket! And nice melodies in my head. :)
Was i in for a surprise or what! I descended from the bus, already checking off the clear blue skies and green meadows on my wish list. TALL sturdy mountain bikes awaited
us, geared ones- with helmets, hand gear, knee caps et all! Surprised but super excited (Show me one person who wouldn't want to wear all that stuff? Even if they did like
little flower baskets?). I got all decked up and hopped on. Yes, literally hopped on. :) Some more complan way back in 4th std may have helped me out, but that's how tall i am,
and THAT was how tall the bicycle was (Despite whatever G3 says! ;)) For one thing, the cycle was geared, and as much as I love my scooty pep back home, Iv never ridden a
geared two wheeler. So Im trying to process gearing in my head while also trying to rekindle my cycling instincts. The last time I rode one, and I pedalled, it moved!
Today, either physics gave up on me or I am really that big a wuss! I hav a sneaking suspicion that the tire was punctured. At least thats what I'm telling myself! ;)
Well about twenty minutes of that, and I gave up all hope. I walked with my cycle while every one else rode past and tried to make it up to my bruised ego. But then, honk honk, came the truck behind me. With G3, Deepika and some extra cycles riding on top of it! One look at their hair flying in the wind, and the smiles on their faces. Next minute, I was up there in the truck. So was my cycle. So much for cycling. Heh! Well, I'v always wanted to ride on a truck as well.Wish list check!
The truck was just pure bliss. I want to state that the air smelled sweet. Iv only read that phrase in the books, and always wondered how you could smell a taste. Dont ask me
how. It did. It smelled sweeet. Green expanses for as fas as the eye can go, and a random localite now and then, stopping to look at all the excitement. And the green,
what a green! How many greens! And we club all those shades under a single name. Degrade it by adding Light slash Dark against it! :)
That was the upside of the truck. The downside was, well, watching the rest of the gang cycle, watching them pant at stop points, handing out chocolate bars and water (technically G3 did;)) to well deserved sporty people! sighs!At one point, some one mentioned it as being mostly down hill from there, and that brought all of us on the truck back to life.We jumped down, chose cycles and hopped on again. Woohooo! Rising from the ashes it is!
Down hill, it turns out, was not exactly what i had in mind either. I dont even know what i had in mind. Maybe that was the problem :) But Im digressing.
Downhill, turned out to be mountain slopes that were super steep. Steep Mountain slopes whose paths were studded with rocks And on a cycle that followed Einstein's thoughts on gravity. (On second thought, physics din't actually give up on me. Thanks, you!) I was flyyyyyyyyyyyying thud thud thud down hill, with my cycle bouncing up and down the muddy slope,its slushes, its rocks,and its pits. Holding on to the handle bars for dear life as it twisted and turned on the tricky slopes. And me surprisingly on the cycle all the while. Eyes may hav been closed. But on the cycle, all the same. Well, not for long, there was this once, no actually, more than once no of times that i wasnt on my cycle and was seen sitting/lying/between-sitting-and-lying on top of/below/entwined with said cycle.
Not what I had in mind, but one of the best sources of adrenaline rush I have ever had.
And to quote some one I know, "Doing things like this leave you feeling good about
yourself." And it did. :)

All the colorful people, and all their beaming faces.

People have this capacity to leave behind a slice of themselves, their moods. And thats wat makes life so awesome when u run into people. People with big bright smiles. Colorful people. People whose pasted memories got all non-grainy when you saw them. In your head.

Inside a seminar hall. Or outside it. On the fourth floor of M block. Under a tree fiddling with twigs. Or on fourth seaward road, amidst flashes of light and christmassy blankets. An attempt to surprise twice even!

I, btw, am still smiling.

Extolling the virtues of a noise - *gaaaa*

Wikipedia says gaaaa stands for Georgia Alliance of African American Attorneys. I disagree.

I mean, gaaa could stand for Georgia Alliance of African American Attorneys for all the African American Attorneys in Georgia, but for the rest of us non African American, non attorneys not in Georgia- gaaaa is a noise, that does not belong to tamil or english, that my brain conjured up, that other peoples brains can still understand.

Because the noise is the meaning.

Its beauty lies in the timelessness and reasonlessness of its existance, I think- The way it colors itself and sometimes, the entire mangled up sentence that i spew, that its a part of.

When there s nothing to say. When theres too much too say.
When that milk overflows in the cofee mug.
When that street dog is one inch away from your shoe and is flirting with ur shadow.
When you realise you'v actually spent eight thousand all month and not six.
When irctc shows all train tickets booked for one week during,before and after the date that you want.
When you hav a joke about a vacuum cleaner that u want to send to a friend and u dont know how to title the subject.
When you havnt blogged in a long while and dont know what to blog about.

I thank thee, gaaaaa, for making thyself available at all times, in all contexts. For just giving me something to say.

Purple and Gold dance in my eyes~

Its 6 Fifteen PM, The Intel Office seems eerily silent. Most cubes are empty. Those that arent, house people who are intensely into their work. Mine although, is just a lil bit different- 3 dairy milk wrappers lie around me, exhausted from the sheer pressure of being the object of intense temptation. Threading, mutex and python run loosely in my head, interspersed with moments of the earlier chocolate eating experience.

Its one thing to byte into a bar of dairy milk, knowing that you dont have to share it with anyone (*Humour not intended* Chocolates and sharing should not belong in the same sentence *Solemn face*) and Its another thing to get high on choclate!

*Solemn face persists, eyes become dreamy*

One busy week

One trip to club Kabana. One day in the water. Two servings of icecream. One day with amma and deb. Two servings of icecream again. One morning with cold. One afternoon of temperature.One trip to the Intel clinic. One evening of head ache and truely feeling in the dumps. One night when I slept like I din know what hit me. One half day off from work(my first). One afternoon spent again, at the Intel clinic. One anxious nurse. Three unsuccessful attempts at bringing my temperature down. One thermometer that read 102. One apprehensive doctor. One sweet admin. Three friends who dint mind missing work. One visit to the hospital. One look at my Intel tag. One push on the bed- One BP test, One blood test, One blood sugar level check, One pulse check. One bottle of drips. One whiney patient who felt completely healthy and wanted to tear stuff away from her hand and run out. Two angry friends who came visting in the evening. One more bottle of drips, this time refused by the patient. One matronly woman who was hell bent on making the patient stay the night. One sign in a refusal of treatment form. One thousand and five hundred rupees and a pink slip. Six Dolo 650's. One autoride from there. One more day off from work. Twenty seven people asking if I was ok. Five jerkin wearing, cough emitting, icecream-less, pastry-less, coke-less, laddu-less days.

High on drama.

I also know.

I also know now that setting my g-talk status to my blog link gets me more hits.

Cheers to cheap tricks!

I know.

Fifteen days have gone by.
I know the last two digits of my new phone number by heart.
I know my pg address by heart.
I know which bus/intel shuttle takes me to my stop.
I know two complete routes which take me from my bus stop/shuttle stop to my pg.
I know that maadi means take, I know that gothilla means dont know.
I know that my house cleaning lady doesnt like me and my hair (how dare she!), and prefers premi and pranavi to me.
I know that there will atleast be a minimum of 5 stray dogs right outside my pg and somedays if Im lucky, I know that there may be 3 stray dogs + 1 big fat cow slash buffalo on the same road.
I know my intel world wide id number byheart (that by the way is what my existance has been reduced to at intel, a number strung together from 8 digits).
I know how to lock my laptop to the docking station by simultaneously pressing a couple of other buttons and turning a key forward and backward and reciting prayers heavenward, while looking completely laid back like I know what Im doing ( this one took a lot of effort out of me, but I can say now, that iv mastered the look).
I know exactly where i'v gotta place my hand so that the magical tap at work can detect an unwashed hand below its nose and squirt out water.
I know exactly how to make my coffe at the caffe machine, how to make it produce those loud growls that intimidate any 2 week old intern.
I know how to fling my hand into the tissue cabnet and pull one out from its absurdly shaped hole with a flourish instead of emerging with nothing and chosing to use my jeans to serve the same purpose, as had been done during the 1st two weeks.
I know how to write out my own professsional email, regarding doubts about a tool, address it as "hi", send it to a total stranger working abroad and sign it, ahem, "regards, nacha", sounding like I really am sending across my regards to him slash her.
I know that no human being will hence forth come forward to debug my code, and the giant G word is all that I have, and Iv made my peace with it.
I know that conversations at work, will remain mostly either phone conversations(that embarrass you in the dead silence of the office), or instant chats (that still embarrass you because of the tut tut noise from the keyboard while u type) across cubes, direct conversation that involves staring at the walls of your own cube and recieving responses from faceless people across the walls of the cube (that embarrass u even further cus people about twenty cubes around u will be forced to listen to and process the contents of the conversation).
I know that the snacks cube is right next to mine and i have unmonitored access to it. :)
I know that my work at intel is done exactly by 5 everyday, and that I can get on to gtalk and say bbye with this smiley ":P" to every other soul in my class and get sworn at with the choicest of phrases.


Its been a humbling learning experience. Intel rocks.

Masala movie made, released, running successfully!

The past few months have been nothing short of exciting, to say the very least - played out with twists,turns, goof ups and climaxes- life has truely been one heck of a masala movie!
Scene one lazy morning, at the hostel, im lying stretched out on my back, haven showered or breakfasted, wondering if lunch outside would be a viable option.. phone call from weird number * grumble- mumble * pick it up.
Loud chirpy voice- "Is this nacha?"
Still grumbling, I go "Yes, what can i do for you?"
Voice, Louder and chirpier still, "Im bla bla bla from ABC and i would like to interview you for the post of bla bla bla. Do u hav a few minutes on you?"
Jaw drops, hits the ground, bounces back and slams my teeth!

I go "err... err.."
* Inside voices thinking, no dude not now, not now, NOT NOW, give me another day, or two, or a week , or a month, a year even? Ill perfect this stuff and then Ill call U when Im ready!*
Outside voices squeaks in horror- "err.."
*Inside voice wails "You said err already jackass, make a different noise at the very least!!"
Outside voice recognise the truth in the arguement posed by fellow inner counterpart and goes "Umm.." and then mentally congradulates itself on coming up with a different sounding incoherant noise.

By this point loud chirpy voice gets irritated and says "Should i call at another time?"
Inner voices rejoice, and start doing the Joey dance.
But Outer voice stops them with an awkward plus embarrassed "No sir, Now is fine, go on" at which point all of the little people in my head fall silent and stare at each other in horified silence. At this reaction, the Outer voice cringes silently, and hopes the little people would speak out in time for the answering.
The questioning begins, the lil tykes dont disappoint me- somehow that day, I was done with my first phone interview! The first of many to come.

Wooohooo people! Iv my own driving license (4 wheeler, but driving is another story alltogether) - and Iv attended my very own interview- that takes me way too closer to being a fulltime member of the adult club! Twenty is huge! Cheers to all of us twenties!

O and Intel, Bangalore - here I come! :)

p.s: This was NOT the Intel interview, just in case any of u were wondering. For that, I was forewarned! :)

Colour.Brushes.Pencils.Ink.Paper.

Blissful week this has been- sighs! And it was supose to hav been a complete week of prepping for interviews! That, was SO not wat the week was..*Guilt written across my face* Ah wat the hell- unexpected luxuries like this week rarely come by..Its like sumone gave u an extra week on your year - Not jus to you, but to everyone else who had anything at all to do with colleges, even amma had the week off! :)

Although I must admit, midweek, I was kinda dying from boredom, but that kinda death never kills does it? Found time to do most of the things I wanted to - So Yay for me!

This was a rock that i picked outside my house and oil pastel crayon d it! Oil pastels still feel so good in ur palm! :)

And this, was inspired by the angelic baby next door, whom i swear, by far, is the cutest looking represntative of the human race that I have ever laid my eyes on!
Dug deep into my cupboard and found some old stuff that I must hav painted right out of school. Which is why cupboards are priceless, the mystery with which u lose things inside them is totally worth the thrill of finding them back when u least expect to! I remember looking at some bottle of perfume for inspiration for this one with the flowers.

And then some random shrubbery, water colours really rock!
The layers that people can add,its such a rich medium... I guess Im happiest when I watch some one flesh out the entire painting, giving form and depth with every layer- sighs! Now that, would be my dream job, to stand next to a brilliant artist and watch the way the water colors are used, to just stand by and watch a professional's brush strokes.. Sighs! And this one,with the lamps, I remember, was done in total frustration when I went on and on about how there was nothing nice looking to paint in this house anymore, and people at home jus lost it , put these Velakkus in front of me and said here, If u really want to paint stop whining and get to work! :P

And this one, was just after 12th, a week before my Msc. Software interview, I remember, tried to illustrate for one of Devi' s childcraft stories.. :)

Pencil sketching, on the other hand, always holds it charm for me, mostly bcus it involves mainly only a pencil and paper, and does not involve hunting for brushes, the palette or a container for the water.. Also, considering how clumsy I can get, the damaged wrecked by water all over a painting is far more devastating than pencils all over a sketch. On the other hand, pencil sketching means I have to go on a scavenger hunt for an eraser, which I believe to be non existant within the confines of my house, or my room at the hostel. So I tend to not use an eraser, and if it sucks way too much, then I jus pretend I had nothing to do with the sketch ( :P ) - and that seems to help, for now.So one day, I get bak home from Sandhyas place, totally inspired by the stuff she does, and try something along similar lines.. I ended up with these- an attempt at carricaturing Barrack obama that exactly 6 ppl got right, and an extremely sad attempt at the same with Hilary Clinton, and only 1 person recognised her- and that was my sister! :( Work like that, better left to the pro's I guess.. Anyway, carricature watching proves to be way more fun than attempting it and failing miserably- So I don hav any regrets now.. And now, Im in this phase where I pick random faces off the tv or the newspaper and do very rough sketching- and since no one s can compare my sketch with the original, I can only go mua ha ha ha ha! :D

P.S: Don ask me why the pictures all of a sudden, jus that everyone kept saying this space had too much textual content, and I agree, and I was turning purple with guilt cus im here at chennai the past week and I hadnt posted anything at all..

* Relief floods my face as the purple ebbs away and normalcy returns to my guilt ridden heart beat*