A froggy tale

Once upon a time there was... ‘A king!’ someone will yell in a bored voice and assume that another grumpy fairy tale is about to begin. No readers, you’re mistaken. Once upon a time, there was a frog. Not the kissable type that affably flopped over to some mysterious princess and pleasantly demanded a kiss. I’m talking the green grotesque being that troubles your nightmares. With mottled skin and a nasty croak. Now you’ll stare at the screen with glazed eyes and particularly moronic thoughts like ‘a nerd in the making’ will float across your eyes. Now for the jolt.

Well, the weird thing is, I found a specimen of this ghastly species haunting my room. Do I hear particularly loud shrieks of ‘euww!’ *approving nod*. Exactly the reaction I wanted.
So what did I do? The brave hearts will ask, smirking at the thought of a wimp like me battling against such a gruesome thing. The simple answer is – nothing!*grin*
I just watched as my very brave mum grabbed a stick and proceeded to brandish it at the astounded animal. It got the message however, and began to obligingly hop towards the window. With a last energetic bound, it launched into the air and then plummeted into the mud below with a spectacular thump. Any circus acrobat would have been proud.
Then, of course, the inevitable happened. The old ‘princess kiss the frog’ routine. My brother actually had the impudence to grin at me and got a battered shoe to his face. Now, I think *content smile* he wont ever be able to grin again.

Well, with a few paltry days separating me (and numerous other tormented souls) from my dreaded second unit tests (oh…where have the days gone? The last of exam free hours?), I finally picked up enough courage to blabber my first unit test marks under my parents disapproving, but thankfully shapely noses, which they haven’t bequeathed to me *sniff!*
I’m currently victim to a raging cold, wheezy cough and awful fever *grin* but that definitely didn’t stop my mum from poking my butt awake at five o’ fucking clock (morning morons!) demanding that I stick my bleary eyes into SOME book INSTANTANEOUSLY! (Big word, I know!)
Sadly, The Prodigal Daughter didn’t strike her as an appropriate book to be perused by a 10th standard kid. So, the book’s languishing somewhere (tattered and bedraggled) in the murky rainwater under my window and my HISTORY book (yuck!) is currently serving the post of a very heroic dustbin as I chuck devoured Ferrero Rocher wrappers into it.

My computer (old and scruffy) recently had a nasty attack of viruses, so I caught up on loads of movies I wanted to see and ate all the popcorn I wanted, which ultimately culminated in retching voices issuing outta the bathroom- if u get my gist.
So, clutching my rumbling stomach, I bid thee au revoir.
Lovingly yours,
Chocoholic

A soap opera

This column is a particularly sentimental and sloppy post, so any unruffled reader is earnestly requested to refrain from sneering and casting nasty remarks. Eccentricity shall hopefully prevail tomorrow and this particularly vulnerable moment will pass. With a flourish of my hat (adorned with a pink feather), I invite all the brave ones to continue reading.


Well, I had a fight with my mum and dad today. They’re really grumpy now (which, as regulars will know, is pretty normal). The troubling bit is that I’m grumpy too which makes the fight kind of pointless because my spectacular tantrums are generally the residue of a particularly ugly quarrel with my friends(s). So when all the annoyance finally reaches boiling point – I explode – with really magnificent results. Then, regret manifests itself and I’m left mumbling apologies to my glaring mum. Pathetic.
Today’s ritual had its raggedy origins in the universal irritant i.e. my studying or rather, lack of it. After the shouting had subsided (a source of amusement for our highly fascinated neighbors, rivaling any weepy soap on television), I banged my door shut with a deafening thump. My mum responded by turning up the television volume and subsequently torturing me with the miserable dialogues. Ah well, she’s had her revenge.
And so, as I bang away on my keyboard (occasionally swearing when the keys get stuck), the waves of remorse are already washing away my self righteous anger and sense suddenly dawns with dazzling radiance. So poof! All my pretended dignity vanishes in a flash. I’m back to mumbling apologies. My mum gives a long-suffering sigh and returns to stuffing something that looks horribly like brinjals back into the fridge, brandishing them like a sword to wave me away. I take that for forgiveness and trot away. Mission successful.
And yeah, this ceremony (dreadfully familiar to all teens suffering the agonies of tenth) will persist for the months to come. And maybe, a day will dawn when I’m NOT at fault. When my mum comes up to me, hugs me and says ‘I’m so sorry sweetheart’. No shrieks about my tee stinking. Perhaps only a withering look at my flyaway hair. And an enormous smack on the cheek thrown in. Boy, I’d enjoy that.
Castles in the air, some would say. An impossible dream. An unattainable delusion. Well, I respond to all the sniggering skeptics, ‘every geek has her day’. Bill Gates had his when he contemplated Microsoft. Apple had theirs when the iPod revolution was launched. My flabbergasted teacher had hers the day she managed to shout me down in class. Oh well, I’m patient. Are you listening, God?

Woe Petite!

When you think Lord of the Rings, you think of Peter Jackson, the ultimate master of direction. You think of the incredible hi-tech graphic-artists (or whatever they’re called) who created Gollum. You think (inevitably!) of Orlando Bloom, the amazingly brave elf Legolas something-leafy (is there gal out there who’s NOT blushing?).
And of course, you think of Elijah Wood.
The hobbit.
The SHORT hobbit.
Now I’m not some loony who’s gabbing away to glory.
Maybe at this point I should mention that I’m a diminutive person with an ENORMOUS personality.
Midget, I believe, is the appropriate word (though petite is the one which meets favor!)

• AND I’ve spent fourteen miserable years with people telling me “but you’re so short!”
• And missing out on ALL the awesome-est roller coaster rides because I wasn’t tall enough.
• And meeting teachers with politely incredulous expressions on their faces while enquiring ‘oh, are you in my class?’
• And standing forlorn faced in front of all lines (and getting caught because my shoes weren’t polished to perfection while my taller and infinitely more menacing classmates got away) *enormously long-suffering sigh*
• And being ridiculed by the school elite (read rich, spoilt and *unfortunately* TALL kids).
• And having to scamper over to the children’s section every time my mum decided that my jeans was FINALLY worn out enough (after three years of brutal experimentation with scissors, blades and knives) of to be gifted to our maid.
• And hoping, every time, that my highly intimidating PT teacher wouldn’t notice that I was sneaking out of gym class.
  So I coined an acronym. I wasn’t short.
  I was a Spectacularly Hare-brained and Obdurate (don’t run to your dictionaries- it means stubborn) ever-Ravenous Thing (giggles strictly forbidden!), a creation, which as unfortunate acquaintances will hasten to assure you, suits me to perfection.
  Friends, of course, will say that I’m something much worse.
  Point I’m trying to make is, short DEFINITELY doesn’t mean little.
  It means short - that’s it.
  It DOESN’T mean that I’m an geeky nerd with enormous glasses and skinny knees (umm...maybe not PERFECTLY true) *cheeky grin*
• It doesn’t mean that I’m an invisible person who doesn’t command a farthing of interest.
• It doesn’t mean that just because I’m SHORT, the world won’t stand up and take notice.
  

Through history, pages are littered with numerous names of short people who made a difference. Let’s rewind to the Joan of Arc. Yup, the French peasant girl who led France through the Hundred Years war AND the one constantly invoked by politicians and eager-to-grab-attention bureaucrats. How tall (or rather short) did she stand? A tiny 4'11".

But still, all teens suffering the agony of school (like yours truly) have to (with plenty of groans and mutterings) learn a highly comprehensive account of all the great stuff she did.

• So, I may have to always be curtly informed by astonished teachers that no, I definitely cannot sit with miss-long-and-slender on the back bench.
• I may always have to get all my clothes altered because I REFUSE to wear kiddie tees with ‘Pokemon’ emblazoned across them.
  But, I always get to say (casting a malevolent grin at the unfortunate recipient) “excuse me; I’m short can I please stand in the front?” when I visit shows and parades.
  I get away with paying loads less than what my unfortunately tall friends have to shell out when we visit amusement parks.
  A mini doesn’t look all that short on me because I don’t have enough leg.
  Boy, I’m learning to love being short.
  Because that’s the way I am.
  No regrets there.
  
  P.S. So here’s a particularly raggedy boot in the face to the next loony who dares to sneer at the short populace of the world. Cheers!

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.

Mom Alert!

Since mum’s on the prowl, snipping off all links I’ve got with mah precious Nibbles (Facebook haters, f**k off!) and mah granddad has just well…you guessed! So the atmosphere’s really solemn at home and I’m kissing blog updates buh bye till my mum decides that I’m NOT a bit of cockroach whose life she HAS to dissect under the microscope. Sniff!

So with all the pundits-with-extremely-fat-tummies chanting stuff in the background, (oh yeah! I’m feeling really guilty), I’m waiting for loads of bugging kiddie cousin’s to show up.
I DON’T want people to send me loads of offline messages telling me how sorry they are- its bullshit coz u never knew the person anyways.

Hope you had tons of fun on Holi.

Hating every moment of this inopportune s**t and I’m SINCERELY hoping that I don’t sound like Anu when he’s depressed (shudder!)

Signing out, (sigh)
Au revoir till we meet again!
P.S. I’m terrified of the results!