Love of my life...

As I mentioned earlier this is my blog and here you’ll read of things I have an opinion about. Not that there aren’t much things under the sky I have no comments on.

One thing apart from music that I’m addicted to is books. I read a lot.

I collect books. I have a small family library. Ya right one big cupboard full of books.

Books for all ages. Fairy tales to Nancy Drews to biographies. I have a book for everyone.

I’m only a bilingual, when it comes to voracious reading. English and my mother tongue. Most Indians are multilingual.English, Hindi and a mother tongue.

I have few Malayalam novels. But then I have quite distinguished readers in my aunts and uncles who suggest the best of Malayalam for me.

But now I collect comics’ too.No, don’t giggle. Wait till you know what I’ve collected, you’ll be begging.

I’ve the whole Adventures of Tintin in hardcover. I’ve Asterix and Obelix.Once Calvin and Hobbes joins them I’ll sit back and enjoy. Calvin and Hobbes are on the way to my loving arms via Amazon. GRIN GRIN GRIN!!!

Having said all this, I love lending my books to others. I love the way my cousins come to ask me “Kochechi, ee book nanno?”[Sis, Is this book good?] And I tell them,what I liked about the book and what I didn’t. I never ever ask them not to read a book.I always encourage them to read and come up with an opinion.

Since I no longer stay at my home, I’ve taught my cousins to keep my cupboard in order. And to my astonishment they do it and I love them for it.

I’m proud of them because they never spoil a book. If someone does that I never give them a book again. If you don’t know how to take care of other person’s property, you have no right to borrow.

And if you love books and keep buying them, they are a treasure. Let me give you a tip.

When you buy a book if you don’t plan to resell it, add your initials, date and place from which you bought. Add a note depicting your mood. I’ve books bought years ago and when I read my notes the day comes back to me. Live and fresh, not a minute out of place.

Friday-This is the day,Lord has made

Everyone tells me Fridays are the best days of their lives. Half of the time I agree because I don’t like arguments and other half because it really doesn’t matter to the other person what I think. Either way there is a general notion that Fridays are very popular among humans stuck in a 5-day week job schedule.

This is a Friday and I’m bored. Jumbo bored! I’m in office, I have work. The problem is I’m in no mood to work. Primarily because I have no clue how to go about with this piece of assignment and then because I’m itching to blog.

But on Fridays I’ve found myself working more.

• It’s a dine out with friends which implies no cooking
• I can get back home later and not worry about waking up early in the morning.
• The thought of weekends itself is so inspirational.

So it goes without saying that I do most of the weeks work on a Friday. Yes this includes all the bad, ugly, trashy works too. Sometimes I think it’s my devious mind at work. This one makes me work so hard so that it leaves an impression with my bosses.”Gosh!!That girl! The way she works that too on a Friday!!”

(GRIN!!)That’s the cheesiest grin I can afford now with people sitting around me attempting to work. Now I’ll give you some serious tips on how to act busy without getting any work done.

•  Facial Exercise. It’s on days like this one should learn to control the facial expressions. The act itself is not easy. You need to stare at the monitor, head cocked to one side. It will be nice if you can wrinkle your brows and occasionally pout. REMEMBER, it is very important not to smile at all. You can always make slight noises like “tut,tut,Uff,How could I!!”

• Drink lots of water. It helps to de toxify.The only part of the body which works is our tapping fingers and muscles around our eyes straining to keep them open. We eat like a famine stricken mangy dog and work out like a pig. Drinking water (without any alcohol) helps cleanse the system. You can take rather frequent trips to the wash room. Walking is an exercise .People assumes you are pregnant or you have a bad case of food poisoning or kidney stone. Works fine for me.

• Google is God. Didn’t understand? If you have a net connection(if you don’t have stop pouting and get one!!) type any random word like Aztec,Mayan,Pollution,India and Rhombus etx.You’ll definitely get a result. Conspiracy theories are the in thing. Someone would’ve thought of a bizarre connection. Browse away to oblivion. It will not be harmless to open couple of windows related your field of work in case your boss decides to drop by. Now that you’ve opened make sure it’s about the latest trend in the market. It’s the shortest way to impress someone. Like today I’m learning about Lambda expressions in C#.I like the way it sounds. Sounds exotic.

• Blog-Blog-Blog. Now don’t roll your eyes and tell me that you cannot access blogs. I know, silly you cannot. Most corporate know that their valuable resources would be busy writing nonsense (like this) if allowed. But now is the trick. Listen to me. Write down all you can on word document. Edit it and style it. You have 8 hours to do all this. That’s enough time for a post. Mail it to your personal id with a very generic subject like.” Daily Activity Details-<YourName>”.No one wants to know the details. Go home, check personal mail and post it. Yes honey, you should’ve met me earlier. Well better late than never.

Rome was not built in a day nor is the knowledge behind the content of this blog. The above is the easiest top four tips for beginners. There are more they are not for beginners nor are they free. Feel free to use the combination of above to accomplish greater heights in evading useless work. So till I publish and get myself banned from corporate world its 1-2-3 poof to work!!

[Statutory Warning: The post is just for fun and author personally does not believe in non-commitment toward work in general. But then some days are plain boring.]

BlogAdda and Indusladies are saying ‘Bye Bye to Breast Cancer‘.

I had conveniently ignored the campaign.It's difficlut to face the truth sometimes and it's easier to turn away from it.But today while surfing when I saw it again,I decided it cannot be a coincidence anymore.This was God's way of telling me"Silly,write down about your fears and anxities.Let it go honey."So here I am telling you my story.

This June my grandmother was diagnosedd with malignant growth in her throat.It was cancer and almost around the sametime I discovered lumps on my left breast.Yes I panicked.I knew it could be just some fluid stuff.Everyone knows that some of them are just fluid or dead cell etc etc.I went to my guru Google and searched furiously,trying to gauge how far I havegone.The result came up quickly but it didn't tell me what I wanted to know.
I decided to go to a docter nearby.She did a check up and told me that it's normal to have fluid lumps and some get thick around your time of the month.Nevertheless she reffered me to a doctor who specialised in breast and surgery.I was haunted as I waited for the appointed day.
On that rainy June day I walked into her office.The receptionist smiled at me and took down my details.The moment after I saidmy age,she gave me a look or I dont know if I imagined that.I was asked to wait for a while.women poured in,young and old.All of them had someone with them,I was the only one alone.I refused to be overcome by tears.Tears can wait.

Finally when I walked in to the consultation I was tense.The friendly doctor asked only one question "Any history of cancer?"I replied as calmly as I could,"My paternal garndfather died of cancer and maternal grandmother is doing her radiations"so much for family heritage.I thought I was dead.
The doctor looked at me and smiled."That was a regular question.It has nothing do with whether one should have cancer or not.For your age [26] you just have .01%.But most important is early detection."
She did a scan and we found 4 lumps around 1 cm.She assured me that they are all fluid lumps.I go for check up every 1-2 months.We monitor the lumps.some fade.some new ones come up.Some just stay.

But from what I learned.
1.Keep checking for lumps
2.Make sure the lumps are still prevalent after your monthly periods.
3.If you are not sure,consult a doctor
4.Most of the lumps you feel are usually fluid ones.No worries.

Here the key is awareness.Be Aware,Be Healthy.

The Alarm Clock

Nine years ago,I started using my first alarm clock.Today nine years laterI bought a new one.It's just an ordinary alarm clock,with three hands and a "snooze light".There's nothing new about someone buying an alarm clock.Clocks stop working,you lose them and hence you buy a new one.Now I bought it specifically for a reason.

Nine years ago on this day a 17 year old entered the campus of a very prestigious college in South India.But she had fallen in love with that place years before that.It was the same college her dad and sister had graduated from.A charismatic Mechanical engineer and a brilliant aeronautical scientist had come out the college.She was sure she would make it big in her own.It was her rite of passage,this college.
She looked around and wondered if her dad had walked the same steps up to the classes.If her sister had sit in those classes eyes wide open as she sat today.She knew she belonged there.

With her;had come a tiny blue alarm clock.With seven girls stacked in room,it was absolutely necessary to wake up early if you believed in bathing in the morning (which she did).The little alarm was confined to the room,the owner did not venture out much (lest you get caught by a senior).
But in the second year,the little alarm found her way to main study hall.Now the owner was a senior in her own right and hence she wasn't bothered about getting ragged.Both of them sat through exams and assignments.The little alarm woke up birthday babies at sharp twelve.Some times there were cakes and gifts.Some times it was just a candle and cookies soaked in strawberry jam sprinkled with sugar.

As time moved on mobile phones entered the scene,no one needed a silly alarm clock to tell the time or wake them up.So the little alarm clock was proudly placed in the main hall where students filed in to study.Girls checked her to see if it was time to sleep,call home or boyfriends.And the new kids thought of the alarm clock as a gift from the hostel owner and some silly fresher said that out aloud.The owner of the little blue alarmed stormed out from her den and scolded the fresher for trying to make a blatant statement like that.
Now the alarm clock was never funded by her owner.The only time the owner bought her batteries was just the first time.Later on the batteries too drained to be used for walkman's were donated to the alarm clock..Oh yes the CD's were a new thingand phones still didnt have mp3 player.The first mp3 player we saw, was from KL and was 128 MB memory.Yes,we used walkman's with cassettes.Now there is no previous or next buttons on a walkman.But someone had found an alternative;
press together rewind and play together.Voila!The tape would start playing from the previous track.

I had left the alarm clock at my hostel.My juniors used it and it still sits there on the window sill which over look the road.The little alarm clock which stood by me as I waded (sometimes drowning) through subjects and relationships.Today as I was shopping for some household stuff,I remembered,"Gosh it's 9 years,Almost a decade after life gave my bestfriends;my room mates."This episode is not complete without the girls,they loved the alarm clock almost as much as I did and used it more than me.Somehow buying the alarm clock,I try to bring all those memories together.Rewind and play again thoseepisodes.Preserve those beautiful moments of life,so that every passing second I can cherish them.

If Only We Had No Gods

Human beings believe themselves to be perfect. We are probably the only species which are far from perfect. Not physically. Because that’s god given (lets say not human engineered for the sake of atheists).We hail us as the most intelligent beings that ever walked over earth. It’s the same intelligence that renders us a lot less than perfect. Animals and birds cannot think too much, hence they are not violent like us. The dogs don’t kill each other because some are white, brown and others black. They accept each other. But we human beings, even with a brain to think we are unable to rationalize things. I sternly believe if God didn’t want us to think we would’ve still remained chimpanzees. And why is that we don’t think?

We evolved as creatures that can walk on two’s but it also made us into creatures that are barbarians by nature.

It makes me sick to read about all the murders in the name of God-Only-Knows-What…

Sometimes it leaves me wondering if only we had no Gods; it would’ve saved the life of many a lives...