Diet Another Day

Being at home is synonymous to being pampered, it also means people showering their affection, inviting you over for lunch and dinner, and Mom making use of her culinery skills to the hilt.So when I finally wannna have 'simple-ghar-ka-khana' , I'd be tempted to eat all the delicacies of maaru cuisine(which incidently is not true to its name , if it is not dripping with ooddles of ghee). And not just that, theres more to it.

Its not as if hostel food sucks or something on the contrary, we at MICA are the most well fed among our brethren from other B-schools, Mayank is soo right when he says that MICA could adopt Somalia with one-fouth of its food consumption.But Mom's have their own ways to express love.And in my case aunts and significant others too:)

All this when,losing weight by honest admission has been a major pre-occupation for sometime now, home is where I think I can exercise some discretion upon what I am eating,

But aah all in vain...!


P.S.Also after a slew of posts in which I have cribbed my way to glory....I feel there's been some negativity in here .Sowwie for that.

Pesky People

5 questions I don't like being asked.

So is 'Advertising' your passion?

No No No , for once and for all, MICA is not an 'Advertising school

What do you plan to do after this?

I frankly don't know.

Have you taken Media as your specialization in the second yr.?

Better still, they say 'you look media types'...now would somebody come and tell me what is 'media types'.For the record ,I've not taken up media.

Do you have any new gossip?

Who me?

So whats new in life ?

I'd really tell you , but I sincerely can't come up with anything phenomenally new every alternate day.

Meandering Thoughts

Hell hath no fury like a woman who hasn't slept for days.

There is so much ambiguity, I am as blank as ever,I love Mum and Dad, but come to think about it, its a pointless existence,as banal as ever.I might as well not exist.I am not doing much out here anyway...they could've done without me. I frankly don't harbour the romantic notions of 'making a difference'.And neither do I agree with Paulo Coelho, when he says in the the book 'the Alchemist', that no matter in how small a way , but every person alters the course of history, it sounds plausible for once , but to tell you the truth is too far fetched.

Okay just shut up...don't brand me as a pessimist,'coz I am sick of being judged, I am better off without it.Whichever way you look at it, all our lives are so similar, all of us wear Levi's and Nike, want fat starting salaries, a suitable match,want to travel the whole world,see more or less the same movies are exposed to the same media and seek acceptance and affiliation from our respective peer groups.At some point of our lives we've all wanted to do something 'unique' and 'more meaningful'.Well all these are sweeping statements, and when I say all this I am referring to people of my profile,which is not a representative sample at all, if you consider the population of India as the universe, but for all those reading my blog, I think it is representative enough!

At a tangent:

There are only so many choices in life.It is but a limited existence.At the core of our personalities we're all schizoprenics.And as Indians , we're stuck between some obscure ideas of 'traditions' and 'morality' which we're ready to barter at the drop of the hat for 'worldly pleasures'.We are a repressed race, both sexually and intellectually and hence the double standards.We've rationalized the whole thing about the Great Indian Sanskriti and sanskars.I am too bored of the argument that, what the hell do you mean by self-actualization , when whatever percent(any arbit figure...like say 45%) of your countrymen don't have access to safe drinking water, or two square meals a day , or elecricity,roads and blah blah blah.Okay then , what about the rest 55%???I am sick of Maslow's hierarchy of needs, you won't believe it , but I have been studying it every single year , since the last 5 years!!!

And to whatever extent I deny it, I am a Freudian at heart and would remain that.Would read everything from that standpoint, of that of the theory of psychoanalysis.Like using ego-defense mechanisms such as rationalization and diplacement,which are manifested in my actions now at this very moment.The more I dissect his work , more convinced I become.People have this incorrigible habit of jumping to conclusions, when they read Freud literally.In my opinion he should be read as 'the Bhagwadgeeta'.Both the texts , if interpreted literally would not be as profound, or in the former case may sound preposterous and absurd .But as in Bhagwadgeeta , the thoeries of Freud have a grain of truth in it , if read between the lines. I don't think a person could alter the course of Psychology as an art or a science, or an applied field on the basis of sheer sensationalism.All said and done he remains to be the the undisputed poster-boy of psychoanalysis and is among the most influential and revered psychologists of all time.

And that is it, yet another day breaks,at the crack of the dawn this is the last thing I want be doing,insomnia is getting the better of me, and I don't want to resort to sedatives at this stage,there's hope still.This time around, I will see a Doc.I mean a night full of chatting on messengers, orkutting,checking mails and blogging is not my idea of fun.By now I have searched so much about it on the net and elsewhere that I can write a second thesis on it!

Yearning for a good night's sleep, this is me signing off.

Coming Back To Life

Its that time of the year again...most of the major submissions of the term done, except for a few exams from the 19th , life's more livable now, lined up for the week are throwball practices, I played the first match of the season today, while I got the serve right , I'll have to work seriously on my catching. Anyway there's ample time to practice now (yipeeeee!!!).

Also, I am looking forward to watch the play by the Darpan Academy of Performing Arts -'Unsuni' at Natrani tomorrow. Here's the link for the same-http://www.darpana.com/node/454 Natrani holds a special charm for me, hopefully when I am there tomorrow, I’ll relive the Sankalp days. For the benefit of the uninitiated, Sankalp is the Theatre Club at MICA. My best memory of Natrani is rehearsing all night at sub-zero temperatures (okay that is an exaggeration), but it used to be really chilly, especially running backstage, almost on the banks of the Sabarmati river. We literally lived on 'Chai-Biscuit' at that time. What was more harrowing was attending Economics lectures in that benumbed state the next morning, and the heartless professor insisted on having a 'surprise' mid-term exam that year, to add to our woes.People with Economics Textbooks and notes was a common sight on the sets.

Natrani, for sure, holds some charm for me. It gave me a chance to live a queer fantasy of mine, you know when you're working for a production, there's this unique bonding that happens among the unit members, and the play becomes your baby. And everybody starts covering everybody else's mistakes. And when the play is actually staged, the atmosphere is so emotionally charged, it’s not even funny. You have to see people getting hyper and all nerves in the green room. I can't wait for this years production to take shape. I felt so coooool(okay I give myself away with that one, so much for watching the 'Makings' of various movies on T.V. as a child.)

Watching Hrishikesh Mukherjee's 'Khoobsurat' or any Hrishida movie today, after along hiatus was so refreshing. I can safely say that I am an ardent Hrishikesh Mukherjee buff. Chupke Chupke, Khoobsurat,Anand,Golmaal , in that order , are my all time favourites by Hrishida.Although , now I realise that in Khoobsurat , he did push the 'Traditional Indian Bahu' stereotype, and annoyingly so, a bit too far.But his films were much better than most of the mainstream cinema of that time, in my opinion, that is.A welcome change form the tradtional song and dance-running-around-the-trees routine , his films did depict the middle class and simple day to day issues in a manner that it conveyed the message,keeping the humour and the subtlety intact.And since I saw Khoobsoorat today, I'll try to catch Golmaal and Chupke Chupke too , making use of this short break.

Come October, life's gonna be very hectic again. Although I'll be headed home and remain there for the most part, I'll have to make a few trips to Delhi for my thesis. It also means that finally I get to meet Faith Singh, the woman who started Anokhi in Jaipur.Its so intriguing, and disheartening at the same time that the most successful revival institutions(commercial)(if I may call them that, at the cost of oversimplifying ) , Fabindia and Anokhi, were founded by foreigners. I am mentioning this here 'coz I really feel pained by our own neglect of our cultural crafts, or for that matter cultural 'anything'.And that my whole dissertation is on revival and branding of traditional Indian textiles and crafts.I was apalled at the dearth of information available on the same in the libraries of three prestigious instituitions of the city.Two of them being design institutes of repute.It means that much more sweat and toil for me, and running from pillar to post to collect infomation.Anyway, I'd for sure, enjoy every moment of it, 'coz it is so close to my heart.

I was able to defend my proposal well in front of the Dissertation panel, and that for sure gave me a high.All the slogging came to some use , at last.And that marked the end of the 'donkey work' for this term .

Life's good again:)

It's all a lie

And that is all there is...:(

I am creating a mess for myself,

But I know I wouldn't get over the inertia,

Until it engulfs me completely,

There is sadness and pain,

I seem to be taking refuge in it,

The choice is not to make a choice.