Them hormones...

Cupid’s stuck that pointy thing of his, laced with dollops of love, lust and stupidity, in your rear end, yet again. Hell that’s what you attended college for. You float around like an albatross on a summer cloud, with the name of your current love stuck in your head like the omnipresent winter phlegm. That’s where reason deserts you, while you in turn desert classes.

The corridors swarm with more hopefuls like you, hoping to catch a glance of their prospective love interest. Animal Planet says that most animals groom themselves to stand out when they go mate hunting. Male peacocks ruffle up their pretty plumes; felines lick themselves to swanky shininess. The brightest and the shiniest one gets the prize!.Colleges are no different from any African forests. Females dress themselves in bright yellow and oranges, and splash on dollops of perfume, smelling sickly sweet and flick and swish their newly straightened hair, to catch the correct light, which will dazzle the opposite sex to fatal attraction or blindness, whatever comes first.

Males, the hypothetically superior sex, are not far behind. Oh no. They come with pointy shoes; they come with full wallets, even if it means they have to go without their usual liver massacring dose of cigarettes for a whole month, just so that they can take their lady friends to the places which overcharge for fancy lighting. They come with purpose and overconfidence bordering of irritating cockiness, throwing age old pick up lines like there’s no tomorrow.

All in all, its another a normal day at college, which is nothing less than a battle. The fittest shall survive, while the weak ones are forced to retreat into the confines of the classes.

Two different lives...

                                    

I've always wanted to lead multiple lives, not like Hannah Montana multiple, but something like Bruce Wayne multiple. But then of course, that’s not going to happen soon. However, I realized that I, in a weird way, AM leading two lives. One in Mumbai, with the college, and the people. And the other on the weekends, in Pune, with good food and mum and dad and the old friends. Though it might not be the superhero costume, dismembering bad guys, flying off buildings two lives. But in a way, it’s as...contrasting as that.

Mumbai, with its anticipation of what new crap is going to hit you the next day. Actually looking forward to the same. The taste of sweet success...bitter failure. The anticipation. The wonderment of surviving another day. Having to do your own dishes. Realizing that mum and dad had made cooking look so easy, when it actually is the most difficult thing in the world. Meeting completely different kind of people who have completely different tastes and ways from the kind you're used to. Being friends with them. Playing my baby in the wee hours of the morning, thinking that maybe...just maybe, I'll make it.

It's different in Pune. The tranquility, the serious life discussions with my food obsessed family amongst the clatter of dishes...

"Where are you planning to do your summer internship from?...chicken in dinner?......I hope you're studying enough...needs some more salt no?....which colleges are you applying for?... eat! you've stopped eating after moving out....I hope you're being safe in Mumbai....there was this new recipe on T.V with cashews and..."

The reminiscing of the old days with old friends, about how we never thought that we'd be like the way we turned out, doing things we never thought we will, but somehow knew we would. Planning endless trips which we know that are never going to happen anytime soon. Swapping stories of the most recent guy / girl interest. Eventually ending up at someone's place with a bowl of Maggi and that lovely warm feeling spreading to the tips of your toes, knowing that whatever happens they'll always be there with a shoulder and a steaming cups of tea and Maggi.

"I'm livin' two different lives, dividin' my time..."

Oh sweet lord! He can hammer-on!

Sometime back, this friend of mine sent me this video by the College humor guys, who by the by make the funniest videos ever, in which this guy was explaining that how playing or teaching guitar can help you score girls. I saw, I laughed and then disagreed hotly and fed my friend all that crap about how we girls aren't that shallow and how it's the personality we actually go for yada yada. But the fact of matter is that the ugliest of men with a guitar in their hands, get more girls than any college jock with a six pack body can. Sure they can gym and gym and get all those rippling muscles. But a puny guy with a simple strum and a hammer-on can send every girl in the vicinity in a frenzy which no amount of steroid induced packs will. Not drummers, not keyboardists, it's just the guitarists.

Every girl has a type of man she prefers, tall/ short, skinny/ fat, dark/ fair etc. But there's a universal type of men which no girl can resist, the long haired, tattooed, guitar playing type. The type who sit in dark corners of the campus strumming away, seemingly uninterested in what the rest of the world's upto. The type who roam around unshaven, with uncombed and messy hair, in clothes which seem like they've been through a holocaust or two. The type who make you toes curl when they play and sing and still manage to look manly. The type who make you wish that you were the guitar their hands that they're so into. The type who speak though their music and wouldn't even look at you.

One would think that knowing how to play yourself would make you immune to all these things. But sadly, the world doesn't work that way. It's in our genes. The way chocolates and chick flicks makes us go weak, it's an inbuilt primal thing, like bees and honey or kids and poops jokes or superman and kryptonite. But then...who's complaining eh?

Below are the links for the videos. They'll crack you up.

Vol. 1

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F5QCs3PnQBc

Vol. 2

http://www.youtube.com/user/collegehumor#p/u/3/Q0Frja3_q3E

My In between...

My shifting to Mumbai and leaving the dentist behind in Pune, inevitably makes me travel to Pune and back almost twice a month. Now, I really don't like traveling, but in a weird way I have come to look forward to my fortnightly journeys. They are the one thing that is constant in my life. I mean, I know that I will hate the movie they show, I know that I will judge the person sitting next to me by the book he or she's reading, I know that the view WILL take my breath away even though I see it every month, I know that the bus will invariably be late. And that for some reason comforts me.

Somewhere between Mumbai and Pune is a dingy Neeta volvo inn where my bus always stops. It's like any other random Inn, Nobody talks to anybody, they eat and pee and go their own way. It is at that inn I sit with a bottle of pulpy orange, listening to the hardly ever played music on my phone and contemplate on things bothering me the most. The other day as I was telling a friend about it, it struck me about how important the place was for me. It's my in between transition place, where I'm neither in Mumbai nor in Pune, one of those places where there's no cell phone network, one of those places where I'm truly alone without Mumbai or Pune calling me. It's where I've taken the most life altering decisions. Every time I leave that place, I leave as a more collected and happier person. When I went there this time, I had a lot of things bothering me, but as soon as I sat on one of those rickety plastic chairs with my pulpy orange I knew exactly what to do. It's the place where I get my shit back together and that's what makes it awesome.

P.S – Yes, the picture IS of the inn. No, I don't know why I took it.

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I love rock n' roll...And also, chick songs.

                                   

A couple of days ago while browsing through my music, I stumbled upon my long forgotten Chick Songs folder wedged in between Nirvana and Creed. Joan Jett, Britney spears, Avril Lavigne, Rihanna, Kelly Clarkson, Shakira, the works. So my week was spent on Piece of me, Complicated, underneath your clothes et all and I have to say...I was pretty psyched. It reminded of the days when I wanted get that trippy tattoo Joan has (still do), or write clinically depressed songs like Avril and thought I was at the height of cooldom cause I could sing I love rock and roll word to word. Albeit off key, yes, but the point is I grew up on them (along with the boy band association of course) and they've all influenced me in some twisted way or other. Musical finesse was never an issue back then, the trashier the better.

Anyway, I played them all back to back, over and over again and now I can't stand them anymore. It's like you sit next to a cute guy and you're happy and shit, but then you fall asleep and drool all over him. Yeah I know, it's quite a bad simile, but hell it sure is true. They're fun for sometime, you bop around, be happy, but then after a while you feel like throwing babies and kittens off cliffs and watching the Saw series. But I am pretty fond of them. I also have no idea as to why I call them Chick songs, considering I too am, well...a chick. However, you can never really say that you're over chick songs. They're always with you. One moment you're worshiping them, and then suddenly they became lame you're dissing them and then after a time comes a point when you're bored with good music and you put them on and dance along like a crazy octopus.

Oh Lurve!

"I think I'm falling in love with him" she said, in the midst of bopping around to some chick song.

"Eh?" I said. 'Eh?' I thought.

That made me think. A lot.

What is this love all about?

So I wrote a trashy song,

and played it all night long.

How do they know if it's love or plain ol' infatuation?

Why put yourselves in such a sticky situation?

It's all sad poetry and depression,

or just a way to get some action.

I know I can't rhyme for nuts,

cold cuts, huts and walnuts.

Sue me if you dare

And see if I care.

I know people who fall in love twice a week

Their future does look a little bleak.

They thrive on it like centipedes in my drain

Oh lord! Will they ever use their brains!

They mope and dope during fights and break-ups,

but wouldn't have it any other way.

Just some minor hiccups,

with unfailing confidence they say.

It's like food and water to them

Like that omnipresent winter phlegm

Rippling muscles and pretty pouts

What is all that hype about?.

I know people, who love multiple others,

One wonders if they need blinkers.

Desperation?. I think not.

All they need is to smoke some pot.

Without love their hearts are barren,

I'm sure it has its perks.

Here's when I quote Woody Allen,

and say whatever works.

Of the heaving bosoms and enigmatic sheikhs...

                                       

...

I've been dying to write this one, but hadn't written it yet in the fear of losing the pathetically small number of readers that I have. But you know what? Screw it.

My tryst with these books originally started by me ridiculing every aspect of them. I still do. However, curiosity won over too much sappiness induced nausea, and I read a couple of them. Next thing I knew was that the curiosity had turned into a grudging liking. Now, I won't claim to be a romantic, because I'm really not. I'm actually quite a bumbling baboon when it comes to the matters of heart. But that doesn't mean that I do not indulge in an occasional fantasy about running away to Florence and meeting a great guy who will wax endless poetry on my bushy hair and equally bushy eyebrows. But that's another story for another random post.

Harlequin, silhouette, they all have the same basic idea. The heroine, aged 18-20, is somewhat clever, almost always an orphan, which lends sympathy (and frees the woman from family obligations), thin (lithe, petite, athletic, you pick), never has bad hair days, even in extreme humidity, and is possessed with the ability to look stunning in any situation. The hero is significantly older, aged 30-40, enigmatic, 'with cool, soul searing eyes' (for some reason, the hero's eyes are always described in degrees of temperature, cool, warm, cold, you get the idea.), 'strong, rough hands' (to grope effectively? to snap the female's neck if she gets too clingy? break rocks?), he is often the heroine's employer. The couple marry or, if already husband and wife, settle their differences and make a better start.

Also, they have the cheesiest lines ever invented. For example,

"Oh Mitch! Devour me!" Maggi (2 minutes noodles) to Mitch

"I will...only if you promise to devour me first" Mitch to Maggi (noodles? no?)

teehee!

You see my point. They seem like characters from the third world countries, who haven't had a good square meal in days.

But, even with the most horrifying pick lines, hilarious titles (Forcefully married, Ruthlessly bedded...it really exists, no shit) and soporific, predictable plots, they still manage to hook you. You know what's going to happen in the end, but you still can't put them down. You know why?.

It's those happy endings.

Everybody loves happy endings because they seldom occur in real life. Real life's ugly, escapism, good. We read mills n boons and co. not for the story, but for that last page when the hero draws the heroine into his arms and tells her that they're going to be ok. We all want someone to tell us that it's going to be ok, to have our problems solved, to basically have that happy ending.

So yeah, I still read them occasionally, smuggling them inside some critically acclaimed bestseller. You know you do too.