Stuff, part 2

Wow, its been so much fun just thinking about life at Loyola! Here's the second installment :) The more i think about what happened, the more i miss school. I doubt I'll ever stop missing it. College sucks!!! I just hope that PG will be more fun than this. It'd be great if it was anywhere near as fun as Loyola was. I can always hope, though, can't I?

Fourth standard: Wow, this was a pretty wild year. We graduated to using pens from pencils this year, and also, for the first time in my life, I was part of a ‘gang’, if you could call it that. There were 4 of us if I remember correctly - D, K, S (yep, the bloody traitor in the UKG incident) and me. We pretty much remained a gang up until the 7^th. Four years of temporary insanity, that’s what I call it now. It all started in this year. Someone thought it’d be bloody brilliant to create ‘words’ by stringing together random syllables. How bad could it have been? Lets just say it was a la Phoebe (hint: the *Swedish* national anthem! Still don’t get it? How about "Ipan Stripan, Glupi Glabi!" And that is the Swedish national anthem! Thank you for asking! (looks annoyed). Ah, NOW you get it!) I’m not dwelling on that too much.

The greatest disappointment in my life (at that point of time) happened in the fourth. I was a very gullible kid. I didn’t think people would ever lie. We had these tall trees with needly leaves (I think they were needle-leaf pines of some sort). They used to propagate through these small spiky bumpy pine-cone like thingies. I was holding one of them in my hands and looking at it fascinatedly, when a senior came along.

Me: Chetta, ithenthuva? (Bro, wat’s this thingy?)

Him: Ayye, arinjoode? Ithu choodu vellathil ettu manikkoor thaazthi vachal oru kochu squirrel undaakum. (Lol! You don’t know? Just keep this inside hot water for 8 hours and a baby squirrel will come out)

Me: Wow! Really?

Him: Ahaan!

That evening, I ran into my house, all excited, showed ma the pine-cone thingy and told her I’d be giving her a surprise the next day. At night, I heated up some water and dunked the thingy inside it. The next morning, no bloody squirrel! I waited for two more days before I finally gave up. That’s probably a contender for the saddest I’ve ever been in my life :(

I’ve never quite gotten to our PT (Physical Training) sir, have I? Well, his name was…we called him Turkey :) and he was about as pleasant as a cactus up one’s backside. As prickly too! He used to have his own way of punishing people. You’d either get a really painful pinch on your armpit, or he’d lift you up by your two ears. But here’s the thing, if you were really bad, he’d use his finishing move…the nutcracker. Yea, you guessed it! Thankfully, I’ve only been hoisted up by my ears…twice I think. We had PT classes in a roofed part of our football ground, which we called ‘the pavilion’. One day, he called people out randomly and said ‘take the class!’ Brainy little midgets that people were (myself included), one by one, they tried to lift up the pavilion, causing him to shake his head in weary resignation. Then he called up Vishnu M (have to give credit where credit is due here). He strode up to the front of the class, turned around and gave us his commands (Sit down, stand up, jump, right turn, et al.). I think that’s the only time I’ve seen old Turkey smile.

In every bunch of people, there’s always a notorious one. We had our fair share of them, but the outstandingly noticeable one of us was B. Bloody clever he was, too! One fine PT class, Turkey strode over to him (menacingly). Well, by this time, hoisting B up by his ears was a daily routine, so Turkey decided to adopt a different method of punishment. We had a pretty big ground (its circumference was around 200 metres). Turkey surveyed the vast and barren field stretched out in front of him and issued a royal proclamation “Run 3 rounds!!!” While we were all tsk-ing and offering him our deepest sympathies (telepathically of course! Nobody was daft enough to as much as move), B bent his head and ran three rounds around Turkey. We were all dumbstruck by this brazen display of defiance, and stared openmouthed as he announced ‘I’m done!’ Then, we stared openmouthed (with our fists shoved inside as we desperately tried not to laugh) as he was once again hoisted up by his ears and twirled around in mid air.

Library periods started in the fourth. One hour of every week (the second last hour of Monday, if I remember correctly) was dedicated to – as it appeared in our time tables – ‘Lib’. What happened was our class teacher would hand out random books to people. We got to take the book home and had to bring it back the next week, when we’d exchange with some other guy in class. We were all waiting excitedly for our very first library hour. We queued up in front of the teacher’s desk, and she began handing out books. I collected mine, and walked to my seat, after which everyone made fun of me because I had gotten a book with lots of pictures of semi-naked tribal people on its cover (and on the inside). I was blushing enough to become an incandescent light source. The book turned out to be pretty amazing. It was about sound. That book would later make me love physics :)

Fifth standard: We were all tremendously excited as we were moving to another building. The BIG one! We had never seen any of our teachers before, and were quite apprehensive. Plus, we had all new subjects! Social studies gave way to History, Civics and Geography, and Science to Chemistry, Physics and Biology. We still had to study Malayalam and Hindi though. We could go up to the giant library section now that we were seniors, and we had Wednesday morning ‘Assembly’ sessions with the rest of the seniors. I don’t remember much of what happened in the fifth; only that we ran through 3 Geography sirs in the first 3 weeks of class, and ended up with one huge hulking sadistic bear of a guy who used to enjoy thumping innocent kids right between their shoulder blades.

Then there was Math class. We had a pretty intimidating teacher, Mrs. P. A friend of mine, R, used to bring bubble gum to class daily, and, customarily, used to share it with me :) One fine day, Mrs. P was teaching us about triangles. After completing the sums she gave us to do, I – ever the impatient one – turned to R and told him: ‘gimme my share of the gum, man’ and he obliged, albeit with one eyebrow raised. I was rolling the piece of bubble gum in my palms, all the while crooning ‘my precioussssss’ when, all of a sudden, a voice rings out

Mrs. P: Ganesh, what are you rolling around in your hand?

Me: My preciou-huh?

Mrs. P: Bring that over here!

Me: Yes ma’am…

Mrs. P: What is this? (Sniffed it) It smells kinda funny.

Me: Ummm…heh heh (goofy expression)

Some idiot: It looks like clay. Must be that new elastic type or something!

Mrs P: (tries stretching it out and rolling it back into a ball) Its some kind of clay?

Me: Er…its chewing gum

And my precious went sailing out the door and onto the football ground (not the ground where Turkey used to terrorize us, the other football ground) and I was made to stand up for the rest of the period. I never asked R to share his chewing gum with me after that :|

A lot of firsts in the fifth…first inter-class pookkalam contest of our lives was conducted just before our Onam exams. S took charge of proceedings (he was the biggest guy in the class by a long shot). Sometime that day, I got royally pounded by S owing to my clumsiness in the proximity of the pookkalam (nothing actually happened to it!). The first major cricket match of my life took place in this year. It was two houses pitted against the other two – AP (Apollo Pioneers) and GG (Gemini Giants) against JJ (Jupiter Jetsetters) and SS (Sputnik Spacemen). I was in SS, and had never played cricket on such a grand scale (there were around 30 of us playing). I was placed in a fielding position near where S (this guy was B in the UKG ‘butthead’ incident) was located. He turned around to me and said menacingly ‘give me the ball when you get it’. I nodded and took up my fielding stance. The very next ball was hit in my direction. I ran, picked it up, turned back, and threw it at S.

Everyone: @#%*! You @#$&*, why did you @#*% throw the $@#* ball at him instead of at the #%@* stumps?

I turn around to S and look at him quizzically

S: Well, why didn’t you?

Me: You asked me to give you the @#$* ball!

S: Not like this!

And I didn’t play any more cricket for the rest of that year. Instead, the gang and I took up cliff climbing. There was this sheer rock face, sorta like a cliff, with tones of hand- and leg-holds in between, at the very edge of the ground. We became pretty adept at climbing up and down.

Sixth standard: Regrettable behaviour owing to the ‘gang’. This is precisely why I describe it as a period of ‘temporary insanity’. Started playing cricket again this year (I really loved playing the game…couldn’t stay away from it for too long). As in all gangs, ours had its share of internal conflicts. More than the usual gang’s I daresay. It involved one melodramatic situation after another. Here’s the first one…I was busy playing cricket, when S (the blood traitor, duh!) ran onto the field and told me that the other two gang members had turned on him and beat him close to a bloody pulp. And so, chivalrously, I ran to his rescue. I told my teammates ‘I’ll be Bach!’ and ran. Right into a bloody ambush! The other two morons, at this point, tried to push me down a slope. Obviously, it was a steep slope. It also had a lot of trees, so I grabbed hold of one and stopped me from er…tumbling down it. The slow, seemingly never ending split up of the gang started at this point. The future of it involved animated recounting of the dreadful tale that was ‘an attempt at pushing me down a cliff onto a pile of rocks’, in the Principal's office. Yep, we took our fights straight over there. Hey! I was still a kid back then!!! So quit laughing!!! I will SO murder you if you try to shove this in my face.

Sixth standard was when Hindi became much more threatening. Our teacher, Mrs. R, used Hindi which was as appalling as her English. I guess you know all about mallu Hindi teachers. I don’t really need to elaborate here! Me, being the brilliant Hindi student that I was, used to be one of her frequent victims. She harangued me in English, Hindi, Malayalam, and a combination of all three. Apparently, I was so bad that it was the same situation at PTA meetings. But I guess my parents had grown quite used to the fact that I bloody sucked at Hindi, so they didn’t say much.

8 random facts

i am still working on, well, stuff, part 2. it looks like its going to be indefinitely delayed owing to the fact that i am currently way too busy doing my bloody mini project (read as getting high a lot owing to the frustration of not getting anything we connect on the breadboard). so, in order to rescue philip from "the wrath of the blog daivangal for 7 generations to come", our hero (me!) is feverishly working on forwarding the tag chain. all right, so here are the rules

rules:
1. each player starts with 8 random facts/habits about themselves.
2. people who are tagged, write a blog post about their own 8 random things, and post these rules.
3. at the end of your post you need to tag 8 people and include their names. don’t forget to leave them a comment and tell them they’re tagged, and to read your blog.
4. if you fail to do this within eight hours, you will not reach third series or attain your most precious goals for at least two more lifetimes.

and here we go...

1. i hate capital letters. i dunno, i just do. hated it when i couldn't avoid them in academics! i still do hate it that i can't avoid them now. stupid ancient mad scientist guys had to be fucking obsessed with caps!!!

2. i have never ever had a crush on anyone (well, except for salma hayek and kate beckinsale...but that's different). honestly, i haven't!!! (p.s. fuck you, i'm not gay!)

3. i have a very low alcohol threshold. i feel kinda tipsy after just 3 beers :(

4. if there was something called a gkq (general knowledge quotient), my score would be somewhere in the vicinity of minus infinity.

5. i'm obsessed with punctuation marks...i use them extravagantly, and unnecessarily, and, as a result, produce irksome, long-winded, sinuous sentences that don't really lead anywhere in particular, like, for example - hmmm...i can't think of anything right about now; no, wait! - maybe this sentence?

6. i'm a perfectionist...which is to say, i get very very irritated with most things because they just aren't anywhere near perfect. even a whole lot of the things i do!

7. i swear a lot...i don't need any particular reason, i just do it. poor bob jumps when i say 'fuck' (which is every pi seconds). i even got him to swear once...unwittingly of course, but he did. wow, i'm evil!

8. i don't mind being alone. physically i mean. as long as i know there's someone i can talk to anytime i want to. i guess that feeling is enough to get me going. funny thing is, most of the time i don't tell anyone. that's a good thing, i think...

ok, there you have it. 8 facts. as random as i could make them. now i've got to tag 8 people (9 to be on the safe side :D). so here we go! i tag thomas, cain, sharan, gow, shil, nivi, hektor , hari and karthik

Stuff, part 1

I saw a couple of posts on Hari’s blog, on memories and how people tend to forget a lot of them. And I guess that made me dredge up all of those I’m capable of recollecting :) I can’t remember too much about what other people did, sadly. Anyhow, here’s the censored carefully edited version ;)

UKG: I used to be a friendly, kind, caring and helpful kid (emphasis: used to be). One fine lunch break, I walked in on this monstrous guy (B) picking on my best friend (S). I (the puny one) tried breaking it up, but to no avail. So I did the only thing I could do…I ran to our class teacher and told her exactly what had happened and recited the exact word(s) B had called S. I believe he called him a butthead (that’s the rough English translation of it anyhow) which was a pretty blasphemous term for a KG kid. On interrogation, the bloody traitor (S of course) flatly denied the accusations against B and called them baseless. I got a tongue-whipping from the teacher, and later, an ass-whipping from B. I think I started not being that friendly or kind or caring or helpful.

Then there was this *little* incident which people were talking about for a pretty long time. J1 had a bowel movement while class was going on, and found J2s class diary a pretty darn convenient place to go poo-poo :| Even I had an incidence of temporary incontinence, but to my credit, it was in my shorts.

We had this kid named Anto Jose in our KG class. He used to sing, dance and act pretty darn well. Sadly, he left school after that year, and none of us knew what became of him. Apart from the grisly rumours spread by (lets just call him) RumourMan, that is. The rumour was that he lost his life in an accident with an auto-rickshaw. So if anyone knows an Anto Jose (he’ll be around 20 at this point in time) could you please let me know?

This one time, I was climbing up a tree along with some friends. Big, huge senior guy jumps out and scares the living daylights out of me. I fall off the tree and land on a rock, on my head. I don’t remember anything else that happened in the UKG (Duh!)

First standard: I don’t think this qualifies as a memory exactly, because it’s more along the lines of a series of fragmented pictures. I remember that people used to run behind me during interval time, because I had developed this taste for chocolate pastry, and used to have a snack box. Apparently, it was not just me who had a taste for pastry, chocolate or otherwise. The one thing I do remember about the first standard was that we had a classmate who went by the name of John Valiaveettil. He had this big geoid head, and used to speak amazing English. He kinda left school that year as well. All of us used to play with this small toy gun he had (he was a pretty fun guy to be with).

By this time, we had a gang in bus number 1. There were 5 of us, if I remember correctly, including this amazingly funny guy, Donald Don Bosco. As was the tradition, he left school in a year or two as well :( I used to really like the guy.

Second standard: I had to bear the disgrace of receiving zero marks for an English paper. Hey, it wasn’t my bloody fault. Nobody bloody told me that we had to write the paper in bloody cursive! I thought it was just another weird thing that I had to study (albeit in the first standard. I had never really understood the point of it then. They all looked like squiggly lines to me. No, wait! Or was it my handwriting? Ah, I forget!).

Third standard: I was an extremely hyperactive kid, and used to bang some part of my body (my knees, most of all) up every single day. So much so that my aunt referred to my knee as PWD road (I’d like to refrain from commenting on the work ethic of PWD engineers as ma is going to read this at some point of time and shall surely be bashing me up, even for this harmless allusion). I had banged my left knee in around two places and my right knee in around 6. Dabbing warm potassium permanganate solution on both of them was an everyday routine. My aunt, who visited us every day, took up that task (yes, the very aunt who christened my knee). At this juncture, I had cut down on my activities because my dad wrapped my knee in thick gauze every morning to prevent further injury (and hence further frolicking about). Well, it finally healed (to an extent) and I was gauze free. I was happily running around in the playground when this guy J jumps off a bloody tree and lands on my knee. I yelled at him and went back to class trailing blood all down my leg. I went home and told everyone that a guy had jumped off a tree, directly onto my knee. I seriously doubt they bought that explanation. I don’t quite remember now. I do know that I was more careful after that (well, except for a teeny accident that involved my left leg being skin-free from knee to ankle).

We started Hindi in the third. One fine day, my Hindi teacher called up my parents and told them that I’d be flunking miserably in her subject if I was to continue being the way I was. My aunt (not the PWD-road-wali but her sister) decided to take charge of my Hindi lessons. She used to come home every evening and teach me try to teach me try to distract me from the shiny and/or flying object that had transfixed my gaze upon it at that particular nano picosecond. We had this book that had pictures and the Hindi word for the object in the picture written below it. In bloody Hindi!!! Clever kid that I was, I shouted out randomly chosen Hindi words that I had heard in class. I got randomly pinched for that as well. I guess I finally got the hang of it, because I didn’t flunk even a single Hindi paper. Thanks auntie!

Mid-term time! It was an English test. I was already staring out the window longingly as the question papers were being distributed. (At this point, I’d like to point out that we had only ever written two essays…I believe the topics were ‘Myself’ and ‘My Pet’). I wrenched my head away from the general direction of the window and wrote the essay. After the exam, I thought I had done pretty well. Then we got the answer papers back. It seems I hadn’t done nearly as well as I expected. The teacher had royally cheated (I didn’t know the existence of the word ‘screwed’ at that point) me there I thought…until I got back home anyway. Ma took one look at my essay and burst out laughing. I snatched the paper away from her (appalled at her reaction to my painstakingly written essay) and read it. I had written the title pretty neatly. ‘My Cow’ it said.

Me: I have a cow. His name is (I don’t remember). I take him out for a walk every evening…

And it went on, with the exact same words of the essay ‘my pet’.

Me: What’s so funny?

Ma: Read the question!

Me: Write an essay, in not more than 100 words, on ‘The Cow’

Ma: …

Me: @#$&!!!

Ma: *snicker!*

Me (blushing): The cow, my cow, what’s the difference? For all she knows, I could be an actual kid with an actual cow, and I’d treat him exactly like that!

Ma: Honey, a cow’s female.

Me: @#$&!!!

Moving on to less embarrassing memories…we had a really *good* teacher in the third, have I mentioned that? Not our Hindi Miss, but our class teacher. Let’s call her Mrs. S! Extremely austere looking, and with a boy-cut…yea, that about describes her. She was nice…and by nice, I mean the nice Harry Potter means when he says ‘She’s nearly as nice as your mum’ in a letter to Sirius. Yep, that particularly virulent strain of nice! A lot of us had this fad of spouting our extensive Hindi knowledge, which pretty much extended to ‘tumhaara naam kya hain?’ and ‘mera naam (insert name here) hain.’ Every time she heard someone ‘flaunt’ their Hindi, she’d walk up to them and let loose a tirade, in flawless Hindi, starting with a 120 decibel ‘tujhko Hindi maloom hain?’ and it all went downhill after that.

Professors in college sometimes throw chalk pieces to attract the students’ attention. Thankfully, she didn’t throw too many of those at us. She preferred to chuck wooden scales. There was this one instance when some poor bas soul sitting on the bench behind mine got hit with one. We were all shaking our heads and expressing our deepest sympathy, when she called out “sorry, that one was meant for ganesh!”

Thomas' Tag

awrightey, this is a response to thomas' tag. here goes nothing...

1. LAST MOVIE YOU SAW IN A THEATRE
10,000 BC. i'm already in a bad mood so i think i'll play it safe and not comment on it

2. WHAT BOOK ARE YOU READING?
The Great Indian Novel by Shashi Tharoor

3. FAVORITE BOARD GAME
Monopoly, prolly

4. FAVORITE MAGAZINE
Bobanum Moliyum

5. FAVORITE SMELLS
Roasting chicken, ice cream, potato chips

6. FAVORITE SOUND
Right now, nothing

7. WORST FEELING IN THE WORLD
Its subjective

8. WHAT'S THE FIRST THING YOU THINK OF WHEN YOU WAKE UP?
The word 'fuck'

9. FAVORITE FAST FOOD PLACE
KFC, even tho i've only been there once

10. FUTURE CHILD'S NAME
I don't like to get ahead of myself. First let me find someone insane enough to fall for me

11. FINISH THIS STATEMENT "IF I HAD A LOT OF MONEY I'D..."
I'd get myself a really good motorbike...a car too if i get a licence by then

12. DO YOU DRIVE FAST?
How fucking fast can you go on a fucking Kinetic Honda?

13. DO YOU SLEEP WITH A STUFFED ANIMAL?
No! I'm not that desperate

14. STORMS - COOL OR SCARY
The minuscule ones i've been in, pretty cool...i think i'd be scared if a really big one came along

15. WHAT WAS YOUR FIRST CAR?
A yellow pickup...a toy one, obviously!

16. FAVORITE DRINK
Pepsi

17. FINISH THIS STATEMENT "IF I HAD THE TIME I WOULD..."
I have time, and i'm not doing anything much. i doubt things would change that

18. DO YOU EAT THE STEMS ON BROCCOLI?
I've never eaten broccoli

19. IF YOU COULD DYE YOUR HAIR ANY COLOUR, WHAT WOULD BE YOUR CHOICE?
I'd streak it with red

20. NAME ALL THE CITIES/TOWNS YOU'VE LIVED IN
Coimbatore, Mumbai, Trivandrum

21. FAVORITE SPORTS TO WATCH
Soccer, NBA, Formula 1

22. ONE NICE THING ABOUT THE PERSON WHO SENT THIS TO YOU
He can write!

23. WHAT'S UNDER YOUR BED?
A football, dust, cobwebs, a coupla dead cockroaches

24. WOULD YOU LIKE TO BE BORN AS YOURSELF AGAIN?
No

25. MORNING PERSON OR NIGHT OWL?
I have these periods when i can't sleep...even otherwise, i guess i'm nocturnal

26. OVER EASY OR SUNNY SIDE UP
Over easy

27. FAVORITE PLACE TO RELAX
My room

28. FAVORITE PIE
Haven't had pie so far

29. FAVORITE ICE CREAM FLAVOR
Chocolate, butterscotch and pista...can't choose between the three

30. OF ALL THE PEOPLE YOU TAGGED THIS TO, WHO'S MOST LIKELY TO RESPOND FIRST?
I'm supposed to fucking tag people now?

Ok, i tag Hektor, Gow and Sharan