payallal

Roadside Sleepers

Today, just as I was walking home, I saw by the road, something that I am so very afraid to do myself.
I saw a man sleeping. No I am not afraid of sleeping, but the idea of sleeping in public horrifies me. What if someone mugs you or steals your money?
I looked at that man, dozing off comfortably in his plastic chair.

If you live in India, you would also be familiar with the sight of drivers sleeping in parked cars while the owners are away shopping or eating or doing whatsoever. If you aren’t, just walk through a parking lot of a local market and you’ll see what I mean.

Now even though I have never been on a public bus, I see them everyday. I see the crowding, and the shoving and also, the dozing off. Sleeping on DTC buses seems like a nightmare. First of all, how can one fall asleep in a place which is so stuffed, that it is possible for people to fall out of the windows!
Secondly, how do you know that the man sitting next to you will not pull out your wallet while you are happily dreaming?

Taking advantage of the situation

And thirdly, how does one wake up when their stop arrives? Is it an instinctual thing to just wake up when you get home or is the driver kind enough to wake you up and drive you back home when he notices that you are the only one who did not get off at the last stop?

All through my 14 years at school, I have never been able to fall asleep in class! Not that I used to be extremely interested in what the teachers were saying, but simply because I was afraid of what hell i would have to go through if I were caught. (And partly because I knew that my friends weren’t kind enough to not take advantage of the situation.)

To all those who feel the same way, welcome to the club! And to all those who are trying to figure out why I’m fretting about sleeping in public, please tell me how you do it.

GYMonomics

With my class 12 exams over, I decided to join the gym in the month of April. Class 12 makes you gain a lot of extra weight, but that’s okay with me. I consider it a good sign. It means you’ve been studying.
Although this wasn’t my first time at the gym, I noticed a lot of things about the place that I had not noticed before. It seems to have it’s own certain ways.

To start with, being a newbie (or a person who out of laziness hasn’t been to the gym for the past 18 months) is like being the amateur of the place. You’re the only person who is seen panting and sweating on the treadmill while walking at a speed of 4 km/hr and you’re definitely the person who comes in the last and leaves the soonest.
But as you become a little more regular and start blending in, certain patterns emerge.

There’s always this one egoistic trainer, who will walk around the place doing absolutely nothing productive. He’s like a parole officer. He will have this proud and dignified look on his face, which by the way means nothing to any of the people there. The other trainers do all the work. One would think he’s coordinating, but there’s nothing much to coordinate in a gym.

There’s the popular girl, who has been coming to the gym for as long as anyone remembers. She’s the one who knows all the trainers, and all the people. She is also the one who can run on the treadmill at 9 km/hr for 20 minutes.

There are also those people who I like to call the kings and queens. These are the people who do not need to lose weight from any angle. They either come to the gym to build their muscles or tone their body or mantain their already perfect weight. These are the ones who are the royalty of the gym. Not that they are treated any differently, but for them, being at the gym is more of a choice than a compulsion.

If any of you have ever been to a gym, you might have come across the inferiority complex. Whenever you’re on a treadmill, walking at your own sweet pace, you tend to compare yourself to the person next to you. If the person is walking at double the speed (running occasionally) you tend to have an inferiority complex. But if it’s you whose faster you tend to think “HAHA. What a loser”

And how could I forget, there are those amazing, gifted and idolized people who carry their own i pod to the gym. That’s a big thing. Believe me. First of all, it is impossible to even hear yourself think with all the loud music in the gym. It’s hard to even respond to a phone call. To be able to hear the music from your i pod is nothing short of a freakin miracle.
Second of all, I have never been able to keep those damned earphones inside my ears. They keep falling off. After some time, that’s all you’re doing. I have often found myself taking it easy while exercising just so that i can listen to my music.

But the best part is that there is a mutual understanding in the gym. Everyone is trying to lose weight or tone their body. So no matter how messed up you look, the gym is one place you can go to and not worry about your appearance. It is one place where your public image does not count. For all you know you could go in wearing the worst clothes out of your closet and no one would give a damn.

The Indian Christmas

Indians don’t like being left out of festivities. And with so many different religions and cultures in our country, there are an indefinite number of festivals to celebrate. We manage to find stuff to do on the Indian festivals. On bigger festivals like Holi and Diwali, we freak out with sweets and parties and crackers and colours. But then come the festivals which one would call miscellaneous or etc, etc (in other words most of us have no clue what their relevance is, but are more than happy about their existence because of the random 1 day holidays that come our way due to them.)

You may think that a day off wouldn’t be much to cherish, but you’d be surprised at how quickly these add up and take away days from our summer break and paid vacation. Normally, on those days, you’ll find people in the malls or at PVR.

But then comes Christmas. And it fits into neither category. And that confuses us Indians.

To the non christian Indians, it has no practical relevance whatsoever.

But still, we don’t want to be left out. So how do we celebrate? We can’t decorate a Christmas tree. Our houses aren’t big enough to fit 2 feet tall plants inside them. We can’t go around giving presents, because we spent all our money on Diwali gifts, and we definitely can’t hang stockings in our living room, mainly because we’d find them empty the next morning baffled by the fact that Santa didn’t turn up.

So here’s what happens. Everyone ends up in the malls. Now the malls know what is going to happen. So they start commercializing, They put up huge Christmas trees, find a santa, decorate the entire area, etc. Last year one of the malls put up a castle right out out of a fairytale in their park.

I happen to live a km away from one of the big malls of New Delhi. And the 5 days preceding Christmas saw the roads leading to the mall so jammed, that everytime I look outside I felt like I’m having a déjà vu, seeing the same set of cars outside my window, until I realized that I am looking at the same thing I saw 20 minutes ago.

So basically everyone is in the malls. It’s too cold to do anything outdoors, so there are anyways few other options. Now the malls are pretty big, but not big enough to accommodate the entire city. So as a result, there is pushing and shoving and no space to walk (or air to breathe) and suddenly, it is so hot, that you feel it isn’t winter anymore! The eating joints are in full fledged business with long waiting lines.

You would think that we’d eventually learn not to end up in the malls like we did last year, but we just CANNOT bear to be left out. We will be shoved and pushed and stuck in a traffic jam for hours at a go.

But there is no way in hell we’ll be excluded from any sort of festivity!

Because if the whole world celebrates, so shall we!

You know winter’s catching on when…

1. You try to fit your entire body into the area in front of the heater, so that it can keep all of it warm.

2. You wear your tennis shoes everywhere you go (they keep your feet toasty warm), including the bath room.

3. You wake up at 11 a.m. and decide to fall back asleep just because it is too cold to get out of bed.

4. The fridge seems useless and you start keeping things inside it in order to keep at normal room temperature.

5. You try to hold the book you are reading in bed with your blanket, because you don’t want your hands out of the blanket.

6. You are unable to move your arms, or any other part of your body, because you are wearing too many layers of clothes.

7. The Delhi Govt, which almost never does things on time (they still haven’t taken off the Common Wealth Games bus boards) , closes all schools for 20 days even before the 20 days begin.

Benefits of turning 18

Yesterday, I turned 18. I was very surprised to find how awesome it is. Ofcourse I have only spent 2 days as an adult, but I like to be optimistic.
I have been told more than once that childhood is the best time of your life, which is why I wasnt exactly *happy* to be turning into an adult.
But when I did, and as I slowly discovered all the benefits of being an adult I realised that for now, its all good!!
Here are a few *awesome* things about being 18.

1. You are no more referred to as a “minor”. Gosh I hate that word. Bloody discriminating.

2. You are taken a little more seriously by your parents (and everyone else) who until now, have been treating you as a “minor”. With the legal benefits you are suddenly in possession of, they begin to take you a little more seriously.

Silence! I’ll sue you!

3. You are officially on your own. No one can adopt you or take responsibility of you or claim to be your ‘guardian’.

4. You can become someone’s guardian. Although I really don’t care to adopt or whatever, being a godmother would be cool.

5. You can drive. Although for most people this might have been on the top of the list, I don’t think being 18 is a matter of concern for the Indian police. With the number of cars on the road, you could be a 9 year old in a driver’s seat and get away with it.

6. You can have your own bank account. No more carrying cash or using mommy’s or daddy’s credit or debit card to book movie tickets. You can flash around your own. Agreed that once in a while the cashier may tell you that you do not have enough money in your account and he/she wonders if you’re carrying some cash. But it is still worth it!

7. If you were very docile and gullibe (and stupid) as a child and entered your real date of birth while making online accounts on youtube, gmail, etc, you will no more be bothered by annoying warnings and restrictions saying that you need to be a certain age to have access to such content. You can finally make a google+ account just to see how good or bad it is.

Wanna see my ID?

8. You can go to adult movies without having to fear rejection at the ticket counter. Infact you can flash them your ID even if they didn’t ask for it!

For all the adults out there reading this and thinking “wait till she gets a job”, suck it up! Being a child might have been fun, but being an adult has its own moments.

Why I hate haircuts

Most females get the shock of their lives at the age of 40 when one fine morning their hair brushes produce a grey hair. I, a mere 17 year old, suffer the trauma every 3 months, when I notice the split ends of my hair.
It means it’s time to get a haircut.

I despise haircuts. I hate those quarterly trips to the beauty salon.

That can be surprising for most of you out there, considering that I am a teenage girl, who should ideally wait for those times. But funnily enough I don’t. Here’s why!

* Layers or Steps?
Deciding which hair style to get this time is a pain. Getting the same one you got last time just adds an element of banality to your life. But getting a new one comes with the risk of 3 months of hair trouble.
I usually let the hair cutter do what he wants. But every once in a while it does not turn out very well.

*Ouch!
Getting a hair cut can be awfully painful when your hair cutter is in a hurry to go flirt with the waxing lady. Although I religiously brush my hair a hundred times before leaving the house for a haircut, the dude always finds a knot or two which he yanks so hard that I fear leaving the salon with a bald spot.
And since he’s busy watching the television or talking to the hair cutter next to him, he does not notice the furious expression on my face that wants to pick each and every hair of that streaked head of his.

*No, I DO NOT want to use your shampoo.
There are some hair cutters who are extremely chatty, while they snip and snap the scissor around your head. While I’d prefer the chatty ones to the ignorant ones, they chatty ones can often get pretty annoying.
In the middle of the conversation, just when you are beginning to alter your opinions on haircuts, the hair cutter starts talking about how you should buy the amazing shampoo cum conditioner that the salon has come up with. It makes your hair smooth and silky and shiny. And guess what! NO chemicals!
When the guy is marketing and cutting your hair at the same time, you do not want to offend him too much. Not at the cost of a bad hair cut!

Sometimes I wish my hair would cut itself. No salon, no hair cutter.
But THAT is something I will just have to leave to the future.

Any other complaints against hair cutters people? Let me know, in the comments below 😉

Show Boys and Girls

As soon as you open the door to my room, a poster taped to the wall on the other side greets you. It says ‘Welcome to my reality’. It’s pink in color which is one of the reasons I bought it as a 14 year old. I remember the day very clearly. I went to an Archies and bought 5 or 6 posters to put up in my room.
It was a trend to have posters in your room with sarcastic comments on them. I bought a garfield poster which said ‘I’m not always right, but I’m never wrong’. I bought another one saying ‘Those who think they know it all, really annoy those of us who do’.

My dad helped me stick them to the wall with double sided tape.

A few minutes ago as I thought about how I had outgrown them and debated about whether I should take them off or spare the risk of making my room look plain with empty walls, I remembered the thoughts that ran through my head as I looked at my new posters after my dad and I had put them up.

I thought of how I would be the person my posters made me. I could keep my room messy so that people would believe that to be my reality. The funny quotes on my posters would make those lines seem like my own. Garfield’s relaxed and egoist attitude would make mine seem the same.

This was the point where the mask started coming into existence. I am not refering to the green coloured mask of Jim Carrey’s from the Hollywood movie, but if you can relat le to that you’ll probably get what I’m trying to say.
Every adult human has a mask. They use it make their friends like them, to seek approval from their bosses, to make the opposite sex want them.

And before they can even breathe in what’s happening, the mask that they try to use to be accepted is not a mask anymore. That’s right, it’s as if you wore a mud pack for so long that now either it won’t come off or either you’ll be so used to it that you won’t notice it’s there!
Until off course death do you part!

The posters in my room suggested that I was a mischievous, messy and a socially outgoing teenager. I was actually the opposite. I was quiet, very organized and super responsible. I was a 9th grader trying to fit in. But I so succesfully convinced myself that I now find I am actually the person I always tried to be.

And that is exactly what happens to more than half of our world population. (the other half lives in poverty)

They make themselves what the world wants them to be, who they want to see in their mirrors every morning. The glamour gets to them.

In other words they are show boys and girls, tuning themselves to please the world. To make everyone who passes by in the streets give them a venerable smile.
But that can’t end well be because even if you manage to please every person on the planet (which is practically impossible considering the kind of bipolar diversity our earth holds ), you will fail to please yourself, which is ultimately the only thing that actually matters.

So much for being a show boy/girl.

Might as well sit in your room of empty walls with a bowl of popcorn and a remote control in your hand and enjoy the world that you create for yourself.

Guards..Guardians? Are you sure?

Every night at 10 I go for a jog in my colony. I know, it’s a funny time to be out trying to lose calories, but thats the only time during my wake hours that there aren’t any vociferous and nimble kids running around or the sunlight trying to reduce my already reduced stamina or cars returning from their long day at their owner’s office’s parking lot henceforth giving me an excuse to stop as I wait for them to pass.
I do however encounter some human presence when I’m out jogging. There are the dog walkers, there are the elders taking their after dinner stroll, AND there are the GUARDS.

This is the critical time for a guard’s job. It’s the time during which the criminals are most likely to strike, with ambitions that the guards hope to crush. But when I pass the guard who sits at the back gate as he merely talks to another nocturnal friend on his phone, I can’t help but wonder, if a potential robber or some other criminal upto no good crosses his path, what are the chances that the guard will be able to do something about it?
First of all, no criminal in the history of crime, ever crosses any human being who is likely to cost them their night of glory with a knife and gun in their hand and with a naughty look on his face. My point is that no thief can ever be caught unless he is found picking the lock of the door he’s trying to open. And chances are that he’ll put all his hope and energy into making sure that doesn’t happen.
The god damnned thief could be someone casually walking in through the gates of the colony, just like the people who live there.
Second of all, even if a thief is caught trying to climb over the protective walls, the skinny guards are not equipped sufficiently to be able to fight them. I’m not trying to be cynical, but chances are that the sticks that they carry around with them won’t do much. Those sticks look more like something they carry around to have a psychological affect on any sinister who tries their luck. My guess is that those sticks are capable of being snapped into pieces if they were ever mistaken for sugarcane.
Alerting the other guards by blowing the whistles which uncertainly hang from their necks seem to be their only hope. But even then, for thieves who are well equipped ( and by that I mean anything from a knife to a rifle ), another two or three bamboo sticks wouldn’t really matter.

My Miserable Tutors

Every class 12 student in India has tutors for atleast 2 subjects. ( not counting the ones who flunk and the ones who are so smart that they might as well drop out of school instead of wasting their precious time )
As I sat on the sofa of my home’s family room, I had an epiphany. The kinds that make you want to become atheists (well, i already am one, but we’ll save that story for later).
I realised that for the past 4 hours I had been finding excuses to not do any work that involves pleasing my tutors.

And it’s not out of sheer hatred, it’s because I hate to disturb their miserable lives.
My Maths tutor for instance, has a habit of getting mad about the smallest of things. Even when I find new methods of doing things, he digests it once he has grumbled over how his way is better.
Taking my accounts tutor into account (that sounds like something he would say), he reminds me of those old women who sit in the sun washing clothes slandering their neighbours and whoever else may be on their facebook friends list (hypothetically assuming that they know how to operate anything that was invented after the light bulb) . Half of my hour long class goes into listening to his complaints and trivial problems that are apparently problems as astronomical as a black hole that I always think about falling into when I’m pretending to listen.
Don’t get me wrong. Both of them are really smart when it comes to teaching their subjects, but it seems to me like they are constantly trying to find things to be unhappy about.
Well, then I guess not doing the home work that my tutors gave me would be an altruistic act on my part and will just give them something new to wine about.

I’d rather climb the stairs

We often see signs and posters and occasionally read health tips on the net, which say “Use the stairs instead of taking the escalator”. But the colourful posters or the very scientific and professional sounding health advice is never really enough to make us follow that simple yet exhausting rule.

When confronted with the options of the self moving stairs and the stationary ones, which require our dog tired legs to do the work, we always end up choosing the escalator, despite that small voice inside that consequently makes you feel all guilty for making the wrong choice.

I didn’t think there was anyway ANYone could make people use the stairs with a beeming escalator in the arena..UNTIL I saw THIS:

The cleverest way of making people opt for the healthier option.

Known by the name of the piano stairs, these stairs are literally what their name suggests them to be. With every step you take on the steps of this staircase, you play a key of the piano.

See for yourself!

Source: thefuntheory.com