The Jinxability Blog

When you get to a new place I guess, at first, you only notice the bad things about that place. You don't start noticing the good things until you move away perhaps.. 


I've been in Chennai for 8 months now.. And yesterday I was thinking what all the city needed to learn before, for example, some big event came to it's doorsteps.. Like say, the Olympics, or the FIFA World Cup (yeah host nations qualify automatically.. :P)


Anyhow, disclaimer: I DO NOT mean to imply that all Chennaites have character disorders and are total snobs.. I do run into some genuinely nice people everyday. Like the lady at the provision store nearby, who has in all probability never attended school, yet attempts to talk to me in English.. But their charm is overshadowed and shit upon because of what the Snob minority does.. 




So, a few kind words (read constructive criticism) for the Snob population of Chennai:


1. A Red Light usually means stop your damn car. It DOES NOT MEAN:
     a) A game of dodge-the-pedestrians has just started,
     b) That it will change to green if you lean on your horn for two minutes.
     c) That pedestrians are purposefully crossing the road to make YOU late for work


2. A Zebra crossing (I've provided image below for reference) is a place where people CROSS the road. Yes, not everybody has a car like you. Please bear with us. We're trying to get there.




And, at a Zebra crossing, the pedestrian has first preference. You're sitting in the AC comfort of your car, we're out in the sun. At least try to be a bit more considerate, and brake down from 90 to 30. You'll only lose 5 seconds at the most. 


3. Anybody who does not speak Tamil is NOT the Arch Enemy of the Tamil Empire and all the glory that Tamil people stand for. And yes, anybody who does not speak Tamil is also not always a North Indian.. (I don't speak Hindi that well either.)


4. Nope. Mallus don't speak Tamil. 


5. Do make an effort at times to NOT be Obnoxious. Nobody will think you're a sissy if you're nice to somebody. It actually makes the other person feel better. YES, I'm NOT kidding! 


6. When you're talking to somebody who is standing right next to you, try to keep your voice below 120 Decibels. Also a very valid point when it comes to talking on the phone. Especially valid if you're talking on the phone INSIDE a bus! 


7. Try not to shit, spit and urinate EVERYWHERE. If natures calls that bad, find a clump of trees, not the middle of the road. 


This is just some of the things I thought somebody should say to these folks. The Nice people reading this, who are from Chennai, don't be demoralised.. If it weren't for you, and if it was just THEM here, most people woulda packed up and made a run for their lives.. You make this city bearable.. Thank you... :)


(Images Courtesy: lovethatfeeling.com, bloguerrilla.it)

Yes, it's no secret that V-Day can be very irritating and might get on your nerves. Cracked.com's detailed survey and resultant graph are proof of this..

V-Day could also suck because:
1. You might forget.
2. You might not like getting messages all day.
3. You might not be a 'lovey-dovey' person.
4. You might not have a girlfriend/boyfriend.
5. You might have a girlfriend/boyfriend who expects you to send flowers on V-day.
6. You might get married to your sister/brother if you live in religion infested areas.
7. You might not have a credit card.
8. You might have friends who have girlfriends and credit cards.
9. You might get mail forwards that make you wish the internet was never invented.
And of course, my personal favourite:
10. You might live in Chennai and it might not be a cloudy day..

(Image Courtesy: www.nolimits2life.com)

He sits in the ante-room with his head bowed. He can hear the crowd outside. They're loud tonight. He knows he'll do a good job. But one can never truly get rid of pre-show jitters. 


The band which is playing on stage moves on to their last song. "You guys are on in 5 minutes." somebody says. 


He smiles to himself. Daddy said it was a waste of time. Mommy said she was ashamed to tell the cousins what he was doing with his life. 'Friends' asked him to grow up. Grandma kept asking him why he didn't want to be an engineer. 


What if? What if they were just happy for him and told him to go live his life? What if they told him it was alright, as long as he was happy.. What if he didn't have to starve on some days because he could barely support himself? What if he had a trust fund and didn't have to care about anything or anybody else? 


What if? 


He smiles to himself again. If life was so easy, I wouldn't have been this good, he tells himself. 

It's time. He grabs his guitar and walks out. The bright lights and the screaming fans hits him as he steps on to the stage. He smiles to himself. Tonight is going to be a good night.... 






(Dedicated to the man who taught me English by asking me to write short stories. Grandpa.)

Life was all fine until one day my Tweetdeck stopped functioning. For anybody who tweets at least a respectable amount, tweeting from the web is a pain that is desperately avoided at all costs. 


But yet, there I was. Tweetdeck: Not working. Twhirl: Not working. Seesmic: Not working. Web: The Only Option!




Installations, Uninstallations are Reinstallations followed. To no avail.


Defeated and done for, I finally gave up, and tweeted that I was about to unistall Tweetdeck and Adobe AIR once and for all.. 


Then, out of nowhere, some guy called Richard Barley tweets me, and says he can help. His Twitter Bio says he's Community Manager (which is..er..) for Tweetdeck. 


In bits and snatches over the rest of the day, he walked me through step by step of troubleshooting Tweetdeck.


Turns out, Twitter updates fail if Internet Explorer is set to 'Work Offline'. Don't ask why. I just saw it happen with my own eyes. 


This made me realize two things. 
1. The beauty of the Internet and Twitter and how a random person can help you out. 


2. How bad Customer Service is here. Especially Chennai I've noticed. Even shopkeepers here don't smile. Half the time it's almost as if they think they're doing US a favour by 'allowing' us to shop there. 


Anyhow, point is, I used to like using Tweetdeck. But after this, I'm a big fan! I guess that's what you call Atta Customer Service!


(Image Courtesy: wp.appadvice.com)

I realized suddenly that I hadn't blogged in some time. Then I told myself, that's probably due to the fact that you've been travelling a lot. 


Traveled how much? I figured I should find the distance between places and then collate them all together. I was pretty sure I would find some tool to do that online. 


And here are the search results. Turns out, all of them turned out to be utterly useless. 






Why?


1. Google Maps only give you straight line distances, and it's too much of a hassle to actually sit and trace the outline of highways. (Yes, I'm not THAT jobless!)


2. The 'I-make-your-job-easy' place to place distance calculators were good, but for the fact that they did not have two cities I traveled to listed. Mananthavady in Wyanad and Gokharna in Karnataka (towns, cities, what's the difference anyhow?!) But they did have distances for journeys like Cochin - Chennai, Chennai - Bangalore etc. 


In the end, desperate and as jobless as I was, I decided to resort to the one thing that has got me past countless Math exams (barely).


Guesswork. 


So, (drumroll), the final answer would seem to be that I have traveled 3438 Kilometers in the last month. It might not seem much, but it's a first for me anyhow.


To put some perspective on that distance, supposing I was a bird, and at Kanyakumari, if I had flown North, I'd have gone past Kashmir if I had traveled the same distance. (Yeah I know, birds fly South this time of the year, but hey, what kinda bird writes blog posts anyhow!)


(Image Courtesy : wikimedia.org)

What's about being in a deprived group of people? The deprivation brings you closer together I suppose. That was my experience from my 2 years at St. Mary's Poojapura. It was to prove right again.

There were people I didn't like. People I couldn't see eye to eye with (both literally and figuratively) But all that pales in comparison when you remember the nights of fun and alcohol on the terrace.

My roomies, at first, did not seem like very cool people. One looked like a terrorist on the loose, and another looked like he had an obsession with carrying suitcases.

We were the first one to arrive at the Villa. We kept thinking to ourselves that we'd suffer a lot here.

Time was to prove us right. Illness, Hunger, Rain, Wading through muck among other things. It seemed at one point that the folks at the hostel would do their course requirement Covering Deprivation trip by visiting the Villa. But we managed to pull through.

There are heroes of the Villa that I need to talk about. That'll come later.

For now, it's suffice to say that, in life, there are people around, who'll help you pull through every passing day, no matter how hard it gets.

This post is dedicated to the Vociferous Villans. Cheers guys :D

(Image Courtesy: apfn.org)

(Based on Actual events)
No, wait.
(These ARE Actual events)

12:00 am : HAVE to sleep early tonight.. At least tonight. Please God please.

3:00 am: Knock on the door.
"You up?"
"Yeah."
"Great, see you at 4."

4:00 am: At the doorsteps of the first coffee shop to open in Chennai.
Ok, fine, Adayar maybe. But still, first one to open in our vicinity.
"Anna, unda round round i take 4 - unda he take 3, i... "
"Son, I know Malayalam. Don't desecrate Tamil like this please."
"Er, he he.. Ok, sure.. Guys what'd you take?"

5:00 am: Why can't I sleep? Why o why.
It's not like I had coffee or anything.
Oh wait, I did have coffee. (sigh)


NEVER AGAIN! NEVER WILL I HAVE COFFEE AT 4 IN THE MORNING!

07:00 am: Sleep

09:30: Roomie is off to college.
"You dick, class starts at 10. Get your ass out of bed!"
Get up, run into bathroom, run out of bathroom, run out of house, do 20 minute walk in 10 minutes, still arrive too late for breakfast and go straight to class.

10:30 am: Attending lecture. Why did I come? Why? I coulda slept better on my own bed. These damn chairs are half my size.

11:15 am: Quick smoke, quick coffee, back to sleepy oblivion that promises no sleep.

12:59 pm: I hear people clapping. What did I win. As I stand center stage, people come to me and clap me on my back. I'm exhilarated. Wait, stop patting my back so hard, it's starting to hurt.
I turn around.

Must be the Oscars, Tom Cruise is standing there. And he says:
"Dude, wake the fuck up, lecture is over. I have to go to lunch. Move out of my way!"
(sigh) Back to the real world.

1:30 pm: Conversations around me at the table: "How do these canteen people take ordinary food and turn it into bland food?" "I hate these bastards." "We should nuke this place." Headache.

Ugggh.. Bad bad food. Please don't tell me that I'll have to throw this up later!

2:00 pm: Reporting class. "Jithin, where are you on your two stories?"
"I'm making good progress, sir. I got the number for the political leader for that love jihad story and checking out that education fair today evening."
"Good job."
(Gulp. I'm so screwed.)

5:00 pm: Metro station. "Where do I get down if I want to go to Royapettah?"
"Saar, you gyet daun at Trriplikyein."
"Alright thanks."

5:45 pm: Where is this triplicane place? Damn! Will ask fellow passengers.
"Sir, where is Triplicane?"
"Yai, Nva Yinglish. Gva Yewei!"
Er, ok. "Ma'am, Triplicane."
"No stop CaLLED Triplicane beta, the stop were you had to get down was Tiru-bleh-bleh-veli. That was half an hour ago. How funny. Ha ha ha"
Errrr.. Hag! Witch!

6:15 pm: Get down at some forsaken stop. Get on bus to Royapettah.

6:45 pm: Somewhere in Royapettah.
To Shopkeeper: "Anna, where is Hotel Deccan Plaza?"
"Very near. Ten minutes walk. This road."

7:15 pm: Ten minute walk turned out to be half an hour walk.
In front of hotel Deccan Plaza. Is that puke coming up? Yes, it is. Find a tree. Puke under it.

7:20 pm: I don't feel so good. Should I go back?
Disembodied voice from sky says: "A journalist has to work no matter what.. Oooo aaaaahh."
(sigh) Fine!

8:00 pm: Interviews done. On bus back home. Damn! Had to call that politician.
Phone rings.
"Sir, I called earlier today, three times."
"Ah yes, that journo student guy. Hold on.
After five minutes, "Yeah, I'm still busy, call me after one hour."

8:55 pm: Back home.

09:00 pm: Call again. Phone rings.
"Oh, it's you again. Listen, I'm too busy to talk to you. Why don't you talk to some low level guy. Call my assistant, he'll give you some shit and up-coming youngie's number."
"Sir, but.."
Click.

10:00 pm: Talking to "some shit and up coming youngie".
"Yai Fyeel Strangly Yebaut Dees. Pyarpasful, Kaaanspiraashi!"
"Yes, sir, point taken. But I did not ask you anything about Tamil Nadu politics. I wanted to know about your reaction to the.."
"Ah Yeais, Dyat Tvoo, Pyarpasful, Kaaanspiraashi."
Yes sir.

10:15 pm: Damn, forgot dinner. Run out, buy Maggi, come back eat.

11:00 pm: Writing report. I have to sleep early today.

12:00 am: It woulda been so much cooler if Gerard Butler had showed up in my dream. Why did Tom Cruise come. Oh fuck, the report. The report. Yeah, the report.

12:01 am: I must, MUST, sleep early today. At least today. Let's get the hell done with this report. Inspiration, strike me please.

04:00 am: Anna, 1 coffee please. (sigh) And make it extra strong.