To life and living ! Cheers!!!

I know that this is going to be life changing.
After 5 hours, I woke up to the pain which reminded me I had lost a lot of blood during the last five hours. My mouth felt sore from the breathing tube that the anesthetist may have placed down my throat.I called out for water, only to realize my lips were hardy moving.

Am I in heaven?

Am I in hell?......

And then it dawned on me as the nurse came into the room to replace the drips..... I am still in HELL............................GAWDDAMMIT.

I'm back, alive and kicking..... :)

Stop and Smell the Flowers

Don't hurry. Don't worry.

You're only here for a short visit.

So don't forget to stop and smell the roses."

Photography by uncanny.

Thank God for the internet

Oh, That’s wat they called it..is it?!?!?!?! bummer!!!

I was in class 4, when I had my first attack.

I started seeing colorful rings rippling out wherever I saw. Anywhere I look beautiful concentric rings just drifting away like a dream., The more I looked at them, the more colorless they seemed. Yet beautiful. I started smelling metal in the vicinity. I wasn’t sure if i was smelling them or if i had coins in my mouth. Something pungent and metallic. Soon my vision went blurred.

Everything went white. Like the TV static you get when the power goes off,except it was all white static or simple put "I went blind”. I was seeing what its like to be blind.

The vien in my forehead popped up so much,I looked like Harry Potter. I started to feel extremely nauseous. Its during this time I prayed so dearly to be in the restroom more than any other place on earth. And then it began, the headache. Pain so much I just wish God had created me without a head.

I was barely 7 at tat time and it scared the heck out of me. I was blind for half an hour and had no idea why not to mention the excruciating pain.

Since doctors aren't usually accessible on a moments notice, and I honestly wasn't sure how to describe what had happened at that time.

Years later after the internet happened, I read a zillion web pages and found a name for what I'd experienced: "Oh, OK: I had a MIGRAINE!!!

Which hardly made it all better, but quite a lot less scary. I hadn't had a stroke, a brain tumor or whatever, and wasn't going to die, or at least not yet. And, Google says, "Between sixteen and eighteen million people suffer from migraines" and this is a known problem that many people live with, apparently successfully. There's some measure of comfort in that.

Thank God for the internet.

Glory in the flower

What though the radiance which was once so bright
Be now for ever taken from my sight,
Though nothing can bring back the hour
Of splendor in the grass, of glory in the flower;
We will grieve not, rather find
Strength in what remains behind;
In the primal sympathy
Which having been must ever be;
In the soothing thoughts that spring
Out of human suffering;
In the faith that looks through death,
In years that bring the philosophic mind.

This is an excerpt from a very beautiful poem, Ode: Intimations of Immortality from Recollections of Early Childhood by William Wordsworth. I'm moved!!!!..no words!

Dont try this at home!!!

Date : Friday,3:51 pm

Location : Office.

Mood : Zzzzzz .........hic-hic.....hic hic.... :)

My workplace looks totally deserted.And I am the only jackass sitting and typing away. Everyone's off taking advantage of the long weekend.

I'm in a state. A state where boredom can really get to you so much......

That there was nothing to eat..So I went to the floor pantry.I made sure no one was looking,I helped myselfand scooped a handfull of coffee beans from the coffee vending machine and promptly came back to my desk...

Now..im all....frizzed and buzzed.... Hic..Hic...Hic.....................coffee can do that to you and I'm lovin it!!!

Mary had a little lamp,

Her father shot it dead.

Now it goes to school with her,

Between two hunks of bread.

Lol...hic..hic...

la...la...la.....lala....

Karupu thaan ennaku pudicha coloru!!!

These HR bozos at my workplace came up with this novel, ingenious idea of expressing our support for the anti-corruption movement sweeping the nation. Everyone has to come dressed in black to work ( room pottu yoschirunga pola iruku !!). I think people are running out of ideas in expressing their support, having done everything in the book…

Fasting, running, marching, mass bunking classes, climbing and sitting on top of hoardings and light poles. I heard celebrities even went topless (no kidding). So wearing black to work didn’t seem a bigger deal to me. The day arrived, And I  liberally clad myself in BLACK.

Black kurtha to go with a even darker black pants, black cut shoes,black hair band and a black back bag. The only thing that was not black on me was my 32 teeth.And so the day went well with some presentation, speech by prominent people saying yada-yada-bla-bla-and more blas, signing building sized posters and everything. The entire thing was a huge success.

So, after a tiring day at work, I dropped myself off the company bus and began my 12-15mins walk to my place. It was a little late on that particular day around 8:30 ish and I was   strolling down this dark-alley kind of deserted street with my ipod plugged in. I’ve walked down this road many a times so nothing weird has happened .Ever…until tonight!!!!

 Ok people…hereon, imagine as u read it…I might add a Manoj-Night-Shyamalan effect to this…

It was an unusually dark evening, given it had rained earlier that day , the air was still damp. There was a chill in the breeze, the one that would give you goose pimples. There wasn’t a soul on the street. But somehow I could feel a pair of eyes on my back. I kept walking totally oblivious to the fact that he has been following me for quite some time now. There was some sort of disturbance in the scene,. Something was amiss. Something was going to be amiss. I kept walking almost half way down the road. This was the part of the street that was the darkest. Tall, lanky sleepy looking rain trees towered on both sides over looking the street. And precisely at that moment my stalker decided to reveal himself and made a grand entry.

He ran past me, did an about-turn in slow mo  and looked me straight into my eyes.Just a couple of arm’s distance separated me and my stalker.I stopped walking and stood my ground .There he was,standing on all fours.teeth bared.eyes narrowed,except for the menacing growl that amplified every second .The dog was as rigid as a rock. And guess what, my stalker was not alone.He brought company,  by the looks of it his girlfriend (don’t ask me how I  know that) another aging mutt growling her  lungs out. And before I could take another step there was another one behind me. The dogs practiced polygamy I thought and giggled to myself. Damn,An untimely  joke that my stupid brain comes up with,instead sending signals to my legs to run for my life.

Its  funny,  street dogs don’t attack innocent-good-looking-medium-height-slim-fairly paid-IT professional-hot-girl….ahem…ok..lets not get carried away...I meant dogs generally  don’t attack normal people. Now whats with these mutts!!!!!!!.Do I look like a rag picker or something.No offence to those people, but they are the once who are often rounded up by street dogs right…

Ahh..that’s  when it struck me. I looked down at myself…all dressed in black with my hair loose in total darkness -  I look like something that walked off a grave yard spreading darkness around or the devil herself from hell. Can’t blame the dogs for protecting their territory. My heart was starting to beat faster as the dogs started rounding me up. Running now was no more an option. Time to time,I have thought about how I would die and It often involves a nice cushiony bed, lots of flowers around and sun light streaming in the room and I would wake up peacefully passing away with a smile on my face. But now, from the looks of it…this is going to be a massacre of sorts.

”In the end, it doesn’t even matter”- linkin park song started playing on my pod. What timing…cha!!!...

Trust me, I just stood there with my eyes closed clutching my bag tightly, and silently cursing the idiot who came up with the idea of wearing black clothes.Whispering…”Muruga, muruga,muruga….” Thinking I AM DEAD MEAT TONIGHT.

And suddenly out of nowhere, like batman in his bat mobile, an auto came zooming to  a crashing halt as I put my hand out,the dogs scattered and broke their rounding up routine.I quickly climbed into  james bond’s auto and zoomed through the darkness…….to live another day.

Fortune favors the brave.Not brave enough to venture into that street again. I now take a round about route, thrice the distance…to walk back home after home…Shabbbbbaaa!!!!

“TYPOS” – A horror tale.

Typos are like the annoying polyphonic ringtone in a meeting room.They are just lurking around waiting to happen , just when you thought nothing can seemingly go wrong……zap…..One of my greatest fears are TYPOS, and rightly so, I realized why I so dearly fear them.

If you’re the kind of person whose mouthpiece is an instant messaging software like the Microsoft communicator, sametime,gtalk,Y! messanger etc…, you tap out probably thousands of keystrokes every day, and it’s almost a statistical certainty that one (or more) will be wrong.And that day dawned on me not long ago.

About a couple of weeks back, I was running like a chicken with its head cut off. More prudent to say,I was a having a mid-week crisis with an ever growing list of pending tasks and having trouble concentrating on one at a time.

One such task involved writing a program during which time my brain conveniently nods off to sleep. You know, one gets into this overloaded mode where everything goes blank and you can’t even spell your own name. I had one such moment…a long moment infact..I forgot how to start the program.So I decided to buzz a teammate( a guy) over the office IM, Below is the conversation we had…

Me: hey, whats the query to do this thing ( the crap thing we do for a living )

Colleague : (smirks and types something)

Me: thanks! You’re a life saver.

Colleague: This also you don’t know ah?

Me : (grrr…thinking to myself)

Me: No Yaar…my mind got jammed for a sec!!

Then, no reply came from his end for sometime.

Did you know the keys x and c adjacent keys on a normal qwerty keyboard.Just then I realized , that I typed the letter “x” instead of a “c” in the last letter of the last word of the last line.Go figure!

When one is bored of getting bored...

Satellite Image of India During Diwali

Not sure if this pic is authentic.Looks very photoshopped to me.

But for some silly reason, it sure makes me fall in love with my country...

A 100th!

How many times have you caught yourself lost, staring down a road taking a wrong turn.

How many times have you caught yourself lost, staring down the same road taking the same wrong turn.

How many times have you caught yourself conscienceously take a wrong turn knowing your going to end up the wrong road.

And they say, "One should learn from their mistakes".

I say "Going back the wrong road is too familiar for me now" :))

Just noticed, this is my 100th post!

Lensoholic - 1

I built castles in air,I know my work is not done.

That is where they should be.

Now I'm putting foundations under them.

I dont know what the future holds.

I dont want to think about the past.

All I know is I'm dreaming BIG and now!!!

Inked for life :)

And then my friend asked, "why did you have to tattoo?"

And then I said, "You know, when you die and you go to heaven, I mean, If you get to go to heaven...God will ask "My dear child,what have you brought for me ?", you know....and then, you can show God your Tattoo and tell him, I've got this beautiful flutterby for you...you know.. and the gates of heaven will be opened"

And then my friend said, "grrrrr.....thuuuuuuuuuuuu".... :D :D :D

BTW, mom still thinks its a boomer tattoo...whoever said, ignorance is bliss....is a genius!

Ta-ta Tagged!

Going through a dry phase when nothing in life inspires you to blog, tags to the rescue!!!!

Thanks R-ambam and RaMmmm for tagging me along

Innocent/Guilty Q&A. Here are the rules..

RULE 1- You can only say Guilty or Innocent.

RULE 2- You are not allowed to explain anything unless someone messages you and asks!

Asked someone to marry you?

Athu mattum than bhaki!!! Shabbbaaaa!!!

Oh, ur supposed to say inncocent or guilty ah?? Gotcha!! Ahem, Innocent then! hehe

Ever kissed someone of the same sex?

If this questions means what I think its meant to mean..then I’m Inncoent otherwise guilty.

Danced on a table in a bar?

Cant even dance on the floor leave alone dancing on tables and roof tops!!! Ufff…

Innocent

Ever told a lie?

Innocent as hell !!! there I go again!

Had feelings for someone whom you can’t have back?

Guilty

Kissed a picture?

People do that for real?? I thought that was only in movies..Innocent!

Slept in until 5 PM?

Innocent…I’m an early bird!

Fallen asleep at work/school ...?

Guilty..Loads of times at work, Fallen asleep precariously on the keyboard!!!!

Held a snake?

Innocent ..But had nightmares though!

Been suspended from school?

Innocent..i was a model student then!

Worked at a fast food restaurant?

Innocent..

Stolen from a store?

If Pondy bazzar platform kadais can be called stores. Yes..Me Guilty

Been fired from a job?

Guilty..Part time job….It wasn’t like a job..But I was coaching a team of school kids on basketball.Just for my love of the game.Until when the school principal fired me a year later… :( Read it here.

Done something you regret?

The question should be rephrased “Done something you never regretted?” hehe

Laughed until something you were drinking came out your nose?

Guilty..

Caught a snowflake on your tongue?

Gulity

It was this time last year ,somewhere north eastern part of india. My cousins and I were trapped in a car with a crazy tour guide who took us way up in the mountains where no eee or kaka existed!!! After 5 hours of ridiculous driving through landslides and torrential rains he reached a point and pointed his finger at the line of sight of his eyes and said “That is China there, that mountain backside”. Precisely at that moment a small spec of snow came and landed on my nose at that point.Our first glimpse of snow.Whatever happened for the next 45mins was history..the running, the stripping , the dancing in the snow….Ahhhh…good times!!!!

Kissed in the rain? Innocent ...Wud be romantic though ;)

Sat on a roof top?

Guilty…on the terrace tank slab!!!

Kissed someone you shouldn’t?

Hey,so many kissing questions!!! I object your honour!!

Sang in the shower?

guilty

Been pushed into a pool with all your clothes on?

Guilty..Not pool exactly..Been ruthlessly dragged by legs from the beach shore and dumped into the waves.

Shaved your head? Guilty ..as a kid

Had a boxing membership? Innocent...Would love to..to kick a few asses!

Made a girlfriend cry? Huh?

Been in a band? Innocent..Imagined many times what it wud be like

Shot a gun? Guilty, that ballon gun shooting @ marina beach

Donated Blood? Innocent . I’m underweight!

Eaten alligator meat?

Innocent..I thought it was the other way around..Alligator eat us! We no eat alligator!

Eaten cheesecake?

Guilty…yuck!!!

Still love someone you shouldn’t?

Complicated..Guilty

Have/had a tattoo?

Have plans to get one by 2010..Gimme ideas pls!

Liked someone, but will never tell who? ... a lot ..Innocent

Been too honest? Guilty…Landed in loads of trouble for that

Ruined a surprise?

guilty.. Back in college “Is, that cake for me???”

Ate in a restaurant and got really bloated that you couldn’t walk afterward? Innocent

Erased someone in your friends list? Happens all the time. Hehe…Guilty

Dressed in a woman’s clothes (if you’re a guy) or man’s clothes (if you’re a girl)? guilty..nansense

Joined a pageant? Innocent….thu!!!

Been told that you’re handsome or beautiful by someone who totally meant what they said?

Mmmmmmmmmmmm…nah!!!

Had communication with your ex? Innocent ........

Got totally drunk on the night before exam? Innocent..no time to study only...ithu verraya!!

Got totally angry that you cried so hard? Guilty

I tag everyone who hasnt picked up this tag yet!!!! Njoy

Confessions of a lensoholic

My name is not meena kumari

My ooru is not Kanya Kumari...

I knew something was amiss with this pic of Gandhi thaatha!!!

I stared at it long and hard after uploading it in the system,

Can you guess what?

No crowshit on Gandhi's bald head and shoulders.

god bless the monsoon rains in chennai! Amen!

Its been over a month since I got this dream gadget of mine-A SLR Cam!!! But when all forces of nature are against you from using it...what can a mere mortal like me do...Like the first weekend after I get the cam, I lose the lens cap within 12hrs from the time of purchase,.only to be blasted like a school kid from the dealer I got the camera from.He literally begged not to take the camera outdoors without the lens cap...grrrr....and so went 2 weekends, hunting for that cap thing that is never in stock in any store in the city...Enough was enough, i got a UV filter (60/-) and fitted on top on the lens. Now the UV filter acts as a lens cap..who cares what happens to the filter..Its Just 60/- bucks....So, 2 weekends gone in all this hungama!!!

Come 3rd weekend..My friends and me were taking a group of 100 odd special kids to a theme park in the city.It was a great photo opportunity especially with the kids and all...I was all set with the camera and gears left home at 7am to draw some money from the ATM. Baamm..my index finger gets stuck against the ATM door hinge and before I knew, there was a lot of blood and I fainted seeing my nail split into two.Of all the appendages of the human body, I had to hurt that one index finger on my right hand that is used for clicking that small button on the camera.

Thats when I knew, there are some forces working against me and my machine!!!

REAL?

Mornings have never been easy.,especially when you wake up with a headache from a very real-to-life nightmare only to realise it wasnt a nightmare but a blast from your own past. As hard and painful it was to live it once,what has one done to deserve a replay of the same.Worst of all is when one has forgotten all the bureaucracies of life,work and all that is in between and your eyelid droops, you start counting those lambs ,slowly falling into oblivion and then the movie begins like a stalker pouncing on his vitim.You toss and turn in your sheets,squeel a soundless cry,reach for that something/someone that is unreachable,you fall a thousand feet through the air into the darkness unto the land of the never-to-return,your heart's pounding and racing,until when you jerk yourself up to realise just moments before your lamb count was just 17.You feel like you lived through that nightmare a hundred years.Like water slipping through fingers, the gory details slowly slip away with time and you realise everything is unreal.,the squeel,the fall,the pain,the faces,the pounding...It was all UNREAL

Except that tiny,single lonely tear at the corner of your eye...is so REAL.

"18,19,20.............."

I got a new Canon EOS 1000D.

I got a new Canon EOS 1000D.I got a new Canon EOS 1000D.I got a new Canon EOS 1000D.I got a new Canon EOS 1000D.I got a new Canon EOS 1000D.I got a new Canon EOS 1000D.I got a new Canon EOS 1000D.I got a new Canon EOS 1000D.I got a new Canon EOS 1000D.I got a new Canon EOS 1000D.I got a new Canon EOS 1000D.I got a new Canon EOS 1000D.I got a new Canon EOS 1000D.I got a new Canon EOS 1000D.I got a new Canon EOS 1000D.I got a new Canon EOS 1000D.I got a new Canon EOS 1000D.I got a new Canon EOS 1000D.I got a new Canon EOS 1000D.I got a new Canon EOS 1000D.I got a new Canon EOS 1000D.I got a new Canon EOS 1000D.I got a new Canon EOS 1000D.

"I got a new Canon EOS 1000D."

I got a new Canon EOS 1000D.I got a new Canon EOS 1000D.I got a new Canon EOS 1000D.I got a new Canon EOS 1000D.I got a new Canon EOS 1000D.I got a new Canon EOS 1000D.I got a new Canon EOS 1000D.I got a new Canon EOS 1000D.I got a new Canon EOS 1000D.I got a new Canon EOS 1000D.I got a new Canon EOS 1000D.I got a new Canon EOS 1000D.I got a new Canon EOS 1000D.I got a new Canon EOS 1000D.I got a new Canon EOS 1000D.I got a new Canon EOS 1000D.I got a new Canon EOS 1000D.I got a new Canon EOS 1000D.I got a new Canon EOS 1000D.I got a new Canon EOS 1000D.

P.s:I got a new Canon EOS 1000D.
P.S.S:I got a new Canon EOS 1000D.
First click...

AMMA

I was watching my mom sleep like an angel, cudnt help but come up with this post today being "Mother's day" and I got all senti!!! hehe

My dad

I'm my daddy's girl.We are more like the prakash raj- trisha duo in Abiyum naanum.I always walk with my hands around my dad's shoulders given my taller stature and Hug him tight during bike rides.Back in college during my basketball days when I had the first of many ligament tears in my knee, my dad came running down the MIT stands took me in his arms and rushed to the college medical centre, with the entire gallery watching a man running carrying his oversized daughter.All through the way i was like "appa, its embarassing..put me down..I'm a big girl"...He jus said "Nee kozhantha thaan ma ennaku"...(feels great to write about it now as much as it was embarassing then. :D )

My sis.

My mom often says.,that my sister would have been my mamiyar (mom-in-law) in my previous birth. She is my younger one.She is the apple of my parents' eye.Responsible-obedient-successful-maska pottufying younger daughter.Everything I am not.We complement eachother in all aspects of life.She specializes in punching department and I in the kicking department.From cat fights to bloody brawls to using english as the medium of swearing and cursing (so, that mom wont understand at the same time, the is damage is maximised.) we are the mambalam sisters. ;) . But for some weird reason we became muted to eachother during her parting last year when she left for her higher studies. Some phemomenon cant be explained. :)))-

My mom.

Motherhood is a complex thing and so is a mother-daughter relationship.My mom and I are the 2 sides of a coin.Or rather I take the side she is not in.I think,act,live my life in every way my mom does'nt want me to(Not particularly proud of ). I'm rebellious only to my mom.I yell and take out my anger on her more than anyone.She's like my sink I dump my frustrations into when I'm having a bad day.My mom and I are from two entirely different worlds.We have nothing in common. For me, my world revolves around things thats totally immaterial to her or anyone for that matter.,which have been the source of very many arguments.I top her "worry" list.I really would like her to stop worrying about me and allow us to connect on a different level - no longer the mother and the child, but the mother and a grown up daughter, no matter how incapable I might be of taking care of myself sometimes..How wrong was I!!!!!

However,there comes a moment in everyone's life.,when you hit rock bottom and your party is over.I had one such moment.It was like standing naked in front of the whole world with all my imperfections.Something my mom tried to tell me all the way through.There were long stretches of time, where i dont remember what I was doing.Sleep deprived,Fell sick.Quit job. When everyone was too held up to even notice it was my mom who saw through me, she never asked Why,What or how? most importantly she never said "I told you so..". Six months on my road to recovery she never left me out of her sight.I'm at loss of words of how much I appreciate my mom for all that i am today.

Happy Mother's Day Amma...

This is one of my favorite songs dedicated my mom and to all wonderful mom's out there....

Sagarika- Maa

Maad-ah Manushan-ah?

1. A man named "Sachin" with 5 stitches in his finger webbing, still manges to score 48

2.A man named "Pollard" gave a scare of the century which lasted 2 longest overs.

Maada Manushangala neenga????? yebbaaaa...

But, Vaada poche!!!!!!

Peepals,PUT IT UP FOR CHENNAI....uuuuhuuuuuuuuu!!!!! CSK Rox!

MONDAY Apr 19th 2010

1.PM calls up on sunday.
2.Asks to go to work early on monday to attend a training.
3.Come Monday,Woke up at 6:20am to catch the company bus due in another 15 mins
4.Missed the bus by 0.3434 secs.
5.Went on a "HIGH*" speed chase down mount road with dad driving.
6.Got overtaken by cyclists and early morning walkers in the process
7.Our super duper vandi* came to a grinding halt at the top of the IIT flyover.
8.Saw the bus vanish before our eyes.
9.Kicked the vandi ruthlessly.
9.Mysteriously,vandi sprang into life in full throttle.
10.Resumed the HIGH* speed chase.
11.Got overtaken by cyclists and early morning walkers.
12.Duppata flies away in high speed action.
13.Dad scolds,Runs to retrieve the duppatta.
14.Resumes the HIGH* speed chase.
15.10mins before my workplace, dad overtakes the bus triumphantly.
16.Bus driver throws dumb look as I board the bus.
17.Reach office,login into system.
18.Check mail.
19.1 mail received - Training postponed to TUESDAY.
20.Banged head on keyboard furiously.
21.Blogging about it now.

VANDI*- Load of junk metals painted in pretty pink and goes by the name scooty pep!
HIGH* Speed - Somewhere between 25kmph to 30kmph.