The Monstrous Troubles Of Tenth

• Phew. Tenth sure takes a lot from you. It’s been an appalling year fummi with my mum dissecting my life like a cockroach intestine (she’s very brave you know!) and throwing fits whenever she catches a whiff of the word ‘boy’. She’s got her hopes pinned on me (obviously!) and all that sob stuff but seriously tenth to me reads like Terribly Excruciatingly Nutty Torture for Humans. When I’m done, of course, I’ll put up my button-shaped nose and snigger at all those poor devils who have to burn the midnight oil because their parents want them too. Bully for parents!
  My mums the dragon (obviously!) with numerous heads all pouring fire and steam. Since I’ve become a teen, I can’t do anything right.
  I can’t dress right. My hair resembles the kitchen when my dad tries (and fails miserably) to whip up something supposedly edible. Me opening my mouth (oozing magnificence with its yellow teeth and pink tongue) is the cue for her to shudder and yell ‘watch your language!’ my shampoo isn’t right (your hair stinks!). My music is garbage (you call that singing? It sounds like you shrieking and wolves howling!). And the films I adore evoke feelings of utmost horror (she’s pregnant and not married? Shut that down!). The elite (read girls with slender figures and fair skin) are completely unworthy of my society. Gawky nerds with enormous glasses are suddenly desirable (‘she’s so nice’ is the phrase used to describe Miss scrawny-knees-and-glinting braces). My room bears a striking similarity to the remnants of a particularly devastating hurricane. Oh well.
  
  I recently managed (after FOURTEEN years of extreme hardship) to finally determine what mums really want from their teenaged daughters and the results are, predictably, highly un-encouraging.
  
• Wear a particularly-tight-and-hideously-coloured hair-band that puts the existence of your hair in severe jeopardy.
• Wear clothes that went out of fashion half-a-century ago so that you’re the ridiculed till your dying day about your baggy pants and mismatched socks.
• Nod vigorously every time the astounded-and-baffled teacher opens her mouth to indicate that even her pink-cardigan adorned hair meets your uncensored approval.
• Refrain (how?) from falling asleep when your history teacher suddenly starts mumbling to herself about Vietnam troops and printing presses.
• Religiously remind all your friends the importance of possessing colossal glasses and a pimply face so that you’re kicked out of their group with instantaneous haste.
• Survive the entire year on allegedly nutritious food that tastes like an amalgamation of your smelliest socks and pig breath.
  
  Cheers to life after tenth standard.
  Leaving you all to ponder on my tedious compilation.
  Loads of love and luck.
  Chocoholic

My Tryst With Titanic

Brothers are habitually irritating creatures- thin (how?) and gangly with that customary thatch of spiked hair which they think looks cool but only succeeds in resembling a cross between a tarantula and a particularly hairy chimpanzee. And yup, replete with that extremely silly grin that bares their horrible yellow teeth with glinting steel braces. And the ones that cannot live without a regular supply of Coke and their sisters tormented howls. Oinks!
So when I was informed of my imprisonment (fellow suffers will sympathize wimme!) with this horror for days, I begged, shrieked, screamed, pleaded and even cried, an extremely diverting performance that had my mum yelling the dreaded words “you’re going!”
Bang. Silence.
Just that minuscule sentence to decide my destiny. Boo hoo!
So I got shoved, kicked, jostled, propelled and even winked at as I soundlessly bore (sigh!) the agonies of Indian bus travel – yeah, those colossal fall-any-second structures with peeling red paint. Shudder! A bundle of heaving arms and flailing legs flecked with the occasional blue jeans and red Winnie the Pooh tee, I scrambled down the steel and something edifice and prayed ardently. I was alive. Wow!
Then something happened- rather like the ancient movies in Eastman color where a jumping hunk saves a swooning princess – I saw The Titanic.
Not the ship morons!
The movie Titanic with the oomph-oozing Kate Winslet and chocolate boy Leonardo DiCaprio romancing each other on the enormous iron façade. Yeah, now all you hardened action fans will snigger and the label ‘another mushy female’ will get attached to my extremely-honorable-and-unique identity, but titanic really makes me go- whoa! It’s exceptional, inimitable, unrivaled - the perfect embodiment of the sheer horror and dazed awe which greeted the calamity which befell man’s most exquisite masterpiece. The mystery lingers in the movie- the unknown (undoubtedly terrifying) moments which kept the doomed-to-death victims company when the gigantic structure was swallowed by the unfathomable depths of the ocean. Phew!
And of course, the love story bit. The famous kiss. They all keep you hooked till the rolling credits. And then Celine Dion assaults your senses with a lovely, heart wrenching song. A masterpiece was created. A masterpiece was forgotten.
And yeah, I relived it – the ecstasy, the pain, the separation. Oh well.

***

We all learn stuff from our mum – the nerds and the geeks will spout out the usual – punctuality and discipline and rubbish. But what do we really learn from these divine goddesses?
Find out.


Stuff I Learnt From My Mum
· My mother taught me RELIGION.

You better pray that my-best-and-most-expensive-ring that you lost will come out of the carpet
· My mother taught me about TIME TRAVEL.

If you don’t straighten up, I’m going to knock you into the middle of next week!
· My mother taught me LOGIC.

Because I said so, that’s why.
· My mother taught me FORESIGHT.

Make sure you wear clean underwear, in case you’re in an accident.
· My mother taught me about the science of OSMOSIS.

Shut your mouth and eat your supper.
· My mother taught me about CONTORTIONISM.

Will you look at that dirt on the back of your neck!
· My mother taught me about ANTICIPATION.

Just wait until we get home.
· My mother taught me HOW TO BECOME AN ADULT.

If you don’t eat your vegetables, you’ll never grow up.
· My mother taught me about my ROOTS.

Don’t stuff food like that- what are you- a mouse or something?
· My mother taught me about JUSTICE.

One day you’ll have kids, and I hope they turn out just like you!!
· My mother taught me about STAMINA.

You’ll sit there until all that spinach is gone.
· My mother taught me about WEATHER.

This room of yours looks as if a tornado went through it.
· My mother taught me the CIRCLE OF LIFE.

I brought you into this world, and I can take you out.
· My mother taught me about ENVY.

There are millions of less fortunate children in this world who don’t have wonderful parents like you do.
Now that is kind of universal isn’t it?

Adios!

Travelers never think that THEY are the foreigners.

Err…I’ve kinda been outta touch with mah blog for quite a while but (wide grin) when your mum gives you the old you’re-cuckoo-in-the-brain look, you scurry away and try to be as inconspicuous as a mouse in your mum’s oh-so-clean kitchen.
Since I’ve just landed plonk in the middle of oh-so-scorching Mumbai after ogling at all the muscular dudes (swoon) in Singapore, I’m sadly out of touch with the grapevine (Shreya, of course was prattling on about a Certain Someone but we ARE talking humans here aren’t we?) and this column is dedicated solely to The Loony* who’s excruciatingly bugging company I’ve had to suffer (sob) throughout mah jaunt all over this extremely-sexy-and-magical city.
Assuming of course that this extremely dumb-witted person has gotten the hint, lets come back to good ol’ Singapura- with its awful Indian restaurants, really cute-and-animated 50 year old guides who teach you the Chinese word for ‘pig’, peering-at-your-reflection roads, comfy buses, babes wearing end-before-they-start shorts (guys slowly going green, huh?) and of course, Mustafa.
Once you manage to (unsuccessfully) scrub sand outta all the unwanted places (yeah now STOP sniggering!) Sentosa CAN be pretty fun (if you’re bottom’s NOT a really unpleasant shade of red) and you get to see gigantic, colossal, GARGANTUAN fishes with a couple of sharks thrown in (wink). Yup, and there ARE massive crabs which look like a cross between a cockroach and a spider (delectable yeah?) but for bravehearts like me, its all a breeze (shudder!)
The most-awesome-and-amazing thingy is the Birds of Prey show where this hunk gets out vultures and oh-so-evil looking birds to land plonk on your hand and you try to smile bravely and flash yellow teeth at the paparazzi bulbs.
The laser thingamajig is DEFINITELY not a geeky Losers’ Association for Sniveling Euw Retards or something- it makes 3D movies seem like tame cows to their magnificent lion. Wow!
Yawn! I’m kinda sleepy at the moment and since mah mums yelling in the background ever since an ENORMOUS lump of Hershey’s went missing (evil grin), I’ll call it quits for tonight. Ciao all!
*The Loony – a tall individual with a penchant for insulting 50 Cent and other rap legends by issuing indistinguishable sounds from braced teeth. They can usually be identified by a giant pimple on the cheek and constant tummy aches. Usually referred to as ‘it’ since the gender is unknown and are sought after by the male species for s****l recreation.