Stuff and Then Throw Up!!

I should've been at my study table now, with a thousand page math textbook, trying my hardest to concentrate on the bleak problems that crowd each of the five or six pages that I must be done with by the end of the evening. But, seriously, its too monotonous to not drift into a dream after I've scribbled the solutions to every few sums. I've somehow managed to respectfully complete a chapter that bored me for three days on end. Now, since I was positive that I wouldn't be able to keep myself awake with math anymore, I laid out my other options. Well, there was chemistry, which definitely has to be mugged up because if I venture to understand anything it will surely be impossible to answer most questions in the exam( these questions would require only the statement of  facts). Or I could try English, which again demanded the rote learning of the answers copied down in our notebooks. Economics permits so little brain activity that it would require neither mugging up nor any understanding. That leaves me with physics. Physics, now, happens to be the most interesting subject to me. At least I get to read books that give me a clear picture of the concepts and most importantly a chance to think in my own way. It feels good to be able to think out a really puzzling problem all by myself.

I feel grateful to my mother for having persuaded me to try and study on my own as far as I could. Had I entangled myself with tuition routines, I would have been in the dark about so many things that I find myself fortunate to have been able to comprehend and lock up in my vault of knowledge because the only doubt tuition teachers or most school teachers seem to be capable of clarifying is "Would you please repeat what you explained?" You utter anything else and your doomed to listen to them rave on about how stupid students like you are the root causes of their grey hair,etc.etc....

Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam believed in dreaming big and I think everybody must give it a try.

Abyss

The devil sucked the life out of her. As the days dragged on, the stronger it seemed to get. Her hair grew more askew and her laugh all the more hysterical. Her voice was louder when she spoke and her mind took turns only towards the negative.
There were people around her but they were akin to trees. They could at most listen. They breathed the air she gave them but couldn't give her back her breath....................

Transience

Everything about life changes.It is like the shape of clouds. You sit down and watch it for a while and by the time you've built up an imaginary story, you have to weave another one. But who has got the time to sit and watch clouds any more? Those leisurely days of coming back from school and rushing out to play on the streets have long been buried.

Fours years isn't long enough to change a person if he is 25 but when you're a teenager, I suppose, a complete alteration in personality is quite normal. But it feels weird, as if I'm talking to someone else. I don't feel like I can manage to treat him/her the way I used to before. The other day I had a chat, over the phone, with  a boy who I haven't seen for almost four years. His voice had become all manly and he talked so seriously and sensibly. There wasn't a hint of his former self in his manner. Even his language was reformed. It was kind of creepy!

In a span of twenty years all my uncles and aunts and my parents too would have grown old. They would look different, talk differently, do things that they never did before. I wonder how it would be then. Fifteen years later, my now innocent four year old cousin would be all grown up and carrying teenage airs. I wonder how I would seem to others then. Would I not be a world different from who I am today? Am I not as different from the five year old me as the sea differs from the cloud?When I was a "junior" at school, I used to look up to my seniors as though they were an ultimate authority. Do my juniors now see me so?

I guess there never is an end to wondering at these things. I am but a river and life is the landscape around me.

December is Here!

This is very silly but, for no reason, my friends and I were keeping a countdown to 1st December. The moment I woke up on the first morning of December, a sort of joyous wind gushed through my heart. I still can't tell why. It was quite an unnatural feeling. I'm hoping I will come around to understanding the reason by and by.....................................

What to write??

I haven't posted something for quite a long time. I don't really have anything very interesting to say. So, this one is about something very silly that I get yelled at for everyday and I still can't change it.

At times while explaining certain things I assume the styles of different people who I've had the pleasure of knowing. Apparently, their company is not pleasurable to my mother. Very annoyingly, of all the styles that I tend to assume, which are those of  anyone I meet for a short while, only one suites my mother. Even more annoying is  the fact that this reproduction of styles happens in front of my parents and in their presence alone.

I kept a track of all the kinds of things I say when I do this seemingly unacceptable thing and discovered a trend. But the funniest part is the fact that I don't realize that I'm doing it until after I've actually sparked off my mother's temper. Then I check myself and a few words into my explanation, I get yelled at again. So much for trying!

P.S. : Trina Didi, your style of talking is the only one my mom doesn't object to. It happens to be sweet. I use it when I'm admiring something. :)

Oh! Some teachers!!

Our Chemistry teacher is a unique person. I will refer to him as RC. The other day I so badly wanted to throw something at his face that I broke a part of my geometry box in an attempt to restrain myself. That was one class I thought I have to record.
He is short and he always walks with his head facing the ceiling. Thus, he strode into our class in his usual way and opened his reference book (the contents of which he attempts to learn by-heart everyday). He stood staring at the opposite wall for a few seconds and then, without moving his eyeballs, began explaining a certain topic from the text book, or should I say narrating. When he begins this routine everyday, he goes on with breathless continuity until the bell interrupts him. But that day he, surprisingly, stopped of his own accord. He borrowed a textbook from a student seated at the first bench and instructed, "Turn to page147, para 2, line6, word5. The spelling of 'liquefaction' is wrong. It is given as 'liquifaction'. It should be 'liquefaction'. Okay. Now, turn to the exercises at the back. Start question number 5.13. I am writing the hints on the greenboard."  Having had his say, he proceeded to copy down the 'hints' from his reference book. This was what he wrote on the board: Try yourself (yourselves):
                                                                        Hint(s):
                                                                                 ...............................................................

  Five minutes after this he proceeded to explain the next topic which was surface tension, vapour pressure and viscosity. He began, "Suppose there is a bedsheet and four students are holding it at four corners. Then what will happen to it? It will become like a stretched rubber membrane. Now if a small child is added inside the bedsheet and he starts pinching it from down, then it will become like concave shape. Now, throw that child and put another child on top of the bedsheet. This child will pinch it from top, no? Then what will happen to it? It will go up. It will become convex in shape. So, this is surface tension if you think in terms of  molecules of a liquid. ......................................................................................................................................................................... Now, when we go to high altitudes, the atmospheric pressure decreases. So the boiling point of water decreases. That is why people in hilly areas need pressure cooker to create pressure and cook, otherwise they have to go hungry. But nowadays new pressure cookers are available which are automatic. You press one switch and the food cooks by itself and then the switch is made off and the next switch is made on.  .......................................................................................................................................................................... You may have seen small small ants swimming in a bowl of water. But actually they don't swim, they walk. When you were small, your mother must have told to take sugar out of its container carefully because many ants will be there, no? Actually when you put it in the milk or tea, the surface of the milk or tea acts like  stretched rubber and the ants walk on it, so you may drink ants also. .......................................................................................................................................................................... Okay. Today I have practical class with you, right? Let me ask you, which do you prefer; hot soup or cold soup? Obviously, as all of you said, hot soup. Why do you prefer hot soup? ...... Yes, it is more tasty, but why can you tell me? .......... Okay, you think about it ha, tomorrow I will discuss."     Thus ended his class. In his usual way he picked up his reference book and walked out with his head towards the ceiling.

If you were sitting there, in his class, wouldn't you feel like tearing his hair off?

As promised, the next day, he resumed his discussion on soups. This was what he said, "Hot soups tastes better because of surface tension. When the soup is hot, surface tension  is less and the soup can spread out  uniformly on your tongue and touch all the taste buds at the same time. So, you will get all the tastes which your taste buds can perceive. But if the soup is cold, then it will not get chance to spread on your tongue  before you will eject it."

:)

The Million Dollar Laughter :)

It was my first day in a new school. I made my way into a 'class 9 A'. With 27 pairs of eyes fixed on me, it took quite an effort to smile and put that easy-going "koool" expression my face. There was pin drop silence in the room. Apparently, nobody had been aware of my arrival. The bell went off and a couple of minutes later the class teacher walked into the room, as usual, with one hand on the stomach and the other hand rather busy tossing the register, head unconsciously tilted towards the ventilators.  Thus began the most boring ritual of having to introduce myself  every 45 minutes (and not to mention, those teachers wouldn't be satisfied until they had every detail regarding my parents' education and employment history and every detail of all the preceding schools I'd been to. Infact, I can't believe how I could have been nincompoop enough to have played along with them like a 'teacher's pet'.)

Nevertheless, I didn't have to put up with this ceremony the first time I told my class teacher what I was to be called. Barely had I uttered the name when the whole class burst into laughter. While I wondered what was so strikingly hilarious about my name, the laughter died out, like wine poured over barbeque burns out, in a matter of seconds. But one girl who had seated herself at a desk parallel to mine continued to shake as a consequence of uncontrolled peals of laughter. The girl and I, as I later discovered, shared the same title. That was the silly reason for the sudden outburst of  laughter.

As the days went on, she became a good friend of mine and I, hers. I realized that her laughter governed her way more than she did her laughter. She had in her the power to make others almost roll about in laughter even in the most strenuous environment. Many a time people used to ask her how much N2O she had inhaled.  As the days further unfolded, I figured that she expressed most of her emotions with smiles of  different lengths and thicknesses. This character of hers had its consequences, especially when a stubborn grin would refuse to budge and she would stare back at an angry teacher.

Once she and I went to IIT Guwahati as a team to participate in Technothlon. There was a hill in the campus which carried on its crown a point that gave a splendid view of the capital city of Assam. We decided , one evening during our stay there, to walk up to the view point and see if  we could take any pictures. There were thickets on both sides of the road and it was almost sunset by the time we had traveled three-quarters of the road. Just then her phone rang. She listened to the person on the other end for a while in complete silence. Then she turned about and took to her heels. Not having a clue as to what spirit possessed her, I followed suit. Only on reaching the bottom did she stop. When I caught up with her she said, "It was ma'am on the other end. She just came to know that a leopard lives on this hill."  Having explained herself, she burst into peals of laughter (apparently at her own childishness). We both laughed till our jaws hurt, speculating about how, ironically, we had commented on this being a tiger reserve just a few minutes ago. 

On 28th September, 2011 she left for Jodhpur  creating a gaping hole in all those school lives which she had enlivened. Now the days drag on and its only memories that come back to taunt.

Cotton Candy

The Autumn sky is a treat to the eye. At dusk, when twilight is breaking and the sun is saying its last goodbyes to this face of the earth, streaks of  crimson rays reflect off the edge of each cloud which, until that moment, appeared to be snow white cotton candies.
At about 5.30 p.m. , the clouds disappear and a bright, beaming moon comes into the spotlight. It presents astonishing new patterns and images every night until the curtains of darkness close and the moon rests for one spooky night, only to reappear with more bewildering patterns. Once it shaped itself into a diya and ironically it chose the diwali night to stage its act.
The north star is the moon's best friend. It seems to me as if the night grins back at me with its one diamond tooth sparkling(the north star) as though it is amused by the reactions of the millions of people whose hearts it has touched.
That's why I like the autumn nights best. :)

R.I.P. recalled

8th October was the last day of my Puja vacation in Shillong. The next day I would be taking the flight back to boredom. So I decided to do something that  I would remember long after I fell back into the monotony of daily life. 

I had to fool my brother,pester my sister, bicker with aunt, etc. etc.........but finally we were off to "the graveyard". I had never  been to a graveyard before. I used to imagine it to be a spooky place where skeletons would grab you by the neck from behind and feast on your soul . But , it was totally the other side the coin. The moment I stepped in I felt so relaxed and at peace that I just couldn't believe such a feeling existed.

We were examining the inscriptions and wondering what kind of  lives they could have led. There were quite a few messages that got me pondering even about the families of the departed. 

There was a freshly dug grave which had the date 29.09.2011. The first reaction to the lettering was my brother's. He said, " Hey, this guy died the day BEFORE my last exam!" Immediately after I exclaimed, "Oh, thank God he died the day AFTER my exam!" By then my sister had gone crazy and she added her bit in.("This guy died ON the day of my last exam!!") End result: we named him 'Exam Guy'. 

A few paces ahead the earth sloped down steeply and prompted me to enquire where the cemetery ended. She replied, "Oh just here.This is dead end." 

But I haven't touched upon the funniest  part of the story as yet. We spent an hour there and made our way back to our dwelling. When my aunt asked how our trip had been, I promptly replied, "Oh, the graveyard was so sweet!" And that, everybody, is why I am a typical GIRL.

Unlocking the door to my thoughts............

My mother read my sister's blog in the morning today and she was just so impressed by entries there that she instantly lectured me into opening one of my own. I wonder what magic potion my sister poured over her words that caused my mother to react as she(startlingly) did! And astonishingly, maybe for the first time in my life so far, I did her bidding without a word of protest. Well, there's one thing she got right. This would be a good writing practice for me. Thanks to CBSE, the last time I wrote something that even remotely contained my thoughts was more or less five years ago!!!! So, break a leg to me!!