Happy New Year !

Bombay / Mumbai really is a tale of two cities. One that lives on the central line and one that lives on the western line. The city on the central line is nasty, brutish, rude and forever in a hurry and cares two hoots about stepping on other people's toes, elbowing people in their faces, or shoving them off the train entirely if it suits their purpose. The city on the western line is slightly more soft, has more than a few manners, and even though it too is in a rush is a wee bit slower and more orderly. If it by chance steps on toes, there is always an immediate apology and a genuine effort to not repeat the toe-stepping. And as of my experience, there is almost no elbowing in faces and shoving off trains etc.

Of course this analysis is confined to the fact of my experiences in the women's compartments on the two lines...men I am told are the same species everywhere.

I have discovered that I quite like my own company - for extended periods too. So now I know for sure what I had always wondered.. T.V / books / laptop are all the companions I need for an idyllic weekend. :-)

Experienced winter a wee bit. Just a wee bit.. in the process discovered that the temperature difference between Mumbai and Thane on any given day is at least 5 degrees - easily. My first (and probably only) experience with non-AC induced cold this season.

Now that holiday season is over - was wondering what to look forward to - turns out... am going to Kolkata soon. Yipppeee!!!

Ooohh.. for the first time ever - bought myself a gift. :-) A lovely, super expensive, never-again-will-I-spend-so-much-on-a-pen kind of pen!! + got so many gifts from so many people. Loved it this year!

Read "The Little Prince" recently... really liked it... a profound children's book. If you don't understand what I mean, you will have to go read it. Will be worth it. Promise.

Also, heard the new LG Ad on radio - They ask us to pledge to make Mumbai and Thane 'Green cities' - by tying a leaf at any of the specified outlets in Mumbai. I wonder how many trees will have to die if every single person in Mumbai and Thane decides to make this pledge in this exact way!!

A Diversion.

I was supposed to be writing this post from Bangalore. I was supposed to have reached there last night. Instead am still in Ranchi. Only because Air Deccan did not think it profitable to fly us to Kolkata from where we had our next flight. Anyway, so the plan was such that I would have had a seven hour halt at Kolkata. I was soo excited to be going back to the city 'one last time', to visit friends, go back to college for a while, (maybe even make a face or two at a particular teacher), go 'hang out' again at City Center, have an 'Amul' Mango ice cream there, and what the heck maybe even squeeze in a visit to Mani Square.
Instead I will now be flying via Mumbai tomorrow(Air Deccan willing). Darn!

'Recent' Activities.

Sooo..... I'm BACK! ta..da.. (ok so it does not have the same ring as Terminator's "I'll Be Back!!!" - but no harm trying. what say?) I have had an interesting two months off.... went to Bombay for a second internship, loved it again, changed accomodations 4-5 times in four weeks, got a job towards the end of it all (yaay!!), was back home in time for Diwali!!! (yaay!! again) , went on a mini vacation to Shantiniketan and Bishnupur, saw beautiful terracotta temples there - again loved it, came back to college in time for the girls cricket tournament, got to captain my batch team, had a lot of fun running after tennis balls for two weeks, won the tourney comfortably, played some throwball too, miraculously made it through to the semis, almost got dragged into playing basketball and pittu, am now aiming to play some badminton & hockey, want to join the new gym too (yes winter is the sporty semester in college) want to do a lot more... but am too lazy and now tied up to do even half or any of it, watched 'batch harmony' go for a toss in the course of four tumultous recruitment meetings, have watched it return almost immediately thereafter, and now am in the course of trying to help with the recruitment process in college. Phew!!! 

oh and yes, had a wonderful birthday, saw winter finally arrive in Kolkata, had a fun Christmas with two rounds of collective carols and song singing (one open air and the other in warmer conditions), had a WONDERFUL Christmas brunch and am now waiting for "NUJS Night" on Jan 1st. 

In between, in addition to reading (for updates on which please refer to the 'recently read' and 'currently reading' lists) I have rediscovered my interest in Hindi poetry. Wanted to put up one I really liked... but for some reason, the transliteration feature is not working on my blog. So once I figure out what is wrong, you will be treated / subjected to Hindi poetry!!! :-) till then ciao!

'Twitter Updates'** (with footnotes an' all)

Well, have been meaning to post on a number of issues for some time now. But I blame it on lots of work, unfinished thoughts and general ennui that I haven't actually got around to doing it!. But now exams are done, I've bid farewell to the last monsoon semester in college, am at home and free, so I thought that I must record some of the many things that I have been meaning to post about throughout this very-eventful semester.

Things I Loved: -

1. Few classes and lots of free time.

2. Playing TT nearly obsessively (till even the teacher tired of me and the game), the occassional walks, serious 'netting' (I love this word) and watching season after season of sitcom after sitcom which replaced movies in my list of 'best-ways-to-spend-evenings/nights-in-hostel'.

3. That the monsoons hit us earlier than usual. The recent paving of the college path held up and the days of water logging and wading through knee deep water to college became a thing of the past.

4. The library AC too functioned beautifully, perhaps chilling to the bone people who decided to spend long hours there, but invitingly cool for those like me who 'visited' the library only for small stretches of time.

5. Batch 'bonhomie' as evident CR (non) elections [take a bow, Mallu], in every joint class, The Committee*** (non) elections etc. The friendship that quickly developed between the 9 members who were 'thrown together by force of circumstances' and practically lived in one particular room of the university, that we had gotten through four years of law school without killing each other etc.

6. That we won the most number of medals in Indian Olympic history, including the first gold in.. in don't know... forever!

7. Oh and ofcourse that our very own lovable-know-it-all-who-also-tries-to-be-modest-about-it*** moved back into hostel after a whole year!

Things I hated: - (as a response to each of the above points)

1. I hated that from the last week of July onwards, I had li'l or no time to generally chill. Projects, and presentations, subject vivas and exams all rushed in- with almost no break in between. I have been running headlong into one deadline or the other with hardly a break in between. It could be yet another dispatch or innumerable other follow-ups, or another rough draft or project to submit and presentation to give and finally exams to prepare for.

2. That I slowly gave up the various activities that I had taken up. Also, annoyingly, reading came down. I hate that these days that seems to be a recurring phenomenon.

3. That my umbrella got flicked. And so had to move around with a eye-catchy-red-and-white-(bravery colours) umbrella . Clarification: I am very grateful though for having been lent the umbrella. It was very handy, thank you so much my dear "know-it-all"! :-)

4. That faulty electrical wiring in the college meant that whenever any other AC (in addition to the library AC) in the university was switched on, the power would trip! Also, that not once did the extremely expensive power backup for the conference room work when it was desperately needed.

5. That some things that I had taken for granted turned out to be false. E.g. Had thought people were smart enough to know when it was something that you could control and when it was something that you couldn't. All the abusing and the name calling and the cold shouldering conclusively proved that I was wrong. so...

6. That we as a nation are sad enough to call ourselves the next in-thing in the world and yet celebrate like no tomorrow for the three measely medals that we have won! Surely a nation of over a billion people ought to be expected to be able to put up a better show - at the very least in the opening ceremony even if nowhere else! and NO, it is not a conclusive proof of either (i) that we have moved beyond cricket (we have just stopped winning here too and so it is no longer on the front page all that often) or (ii) that our sports infrastructure has dramatically improved (the three medals were won despite the State and not because of it)

7. Am mildly surprised that dear know-it-all seems to have unlearned all that we had manged to teach her about not HAVING to know everything so as to be in a position to give all exams on a moment's notice!

8. Oh and the realisation that I have only one semester left in college! cha!!!!!!

End notes: -

** This concept was stolen from a feature that I saw and liked, in this blog but was too lazy to add. [This is what comes from acknowledging what you stole from where, over a course of 45 projects - it becomes a habit!]

*** This is my effort towards coding things and people so as to "protect their identity" that I learnt from this blog. Though I must admit that the author of the referred blog is far wittier and much better with nicknames than I will ever be!

P.S: - Since the concept of endnotes itself was stolen from this blog, was beginning to wonder whether anything was original in this post at all! Well at least the list is. I promise.