Cris’s World

I just read from a blog about the courage it takes to be honest. I have been having some thoughts about this. About how, a lot of people have taken to lying so much that it just doesn’t seem to make a moment’s difference.

It surprises me when I see how easy it comes to them, how they don’t have a moment’s hesitation or afterwards a moment’s guilt in lying with a straight face. One thing about being honest was that you didn’t need any doubts about your stand; you could be as loud and as firm as you liked. But that didn’t seem to verify your honesty anymore, considering the liars were just as good. Only place you can expect a difference is when liars forget the lies they once said and later contradict their own stand.

I am not a sports lover. I am not much of a cricket follower. A match on TV on a rare day is all I have to my credit of cricket know-how. So when I read Kumble was retiring, I thought “Guess its about time. Poor Nish wont be taking it good”. Poor Nish is my bro and he has a history of sitting sad over retirements, of people he says are absolutely talented. He did in 1994 when Paaji left the ground. Now is Kumble’s turn.

When you are born you don’t have a reason to live – you don’t think if life is worth living. You don’t know anyone or anything and you go on to live. You learn to like the world, the people. When you go to school you are entering another new world – you don’t know what you will face there. And yet you go on to live. You go on to make friends, relationships.

Another day planned for museum-book-reading and watching on-the-street-folk-songs, not quite successful. Museum turned out to be too hot and full of mosquitoes and folk song singers sang their last line for the day when I reached them. Hmph. Atleast I had my music player on and a long promising walk. During my walk I noticed something. Not many girls did stuff by themselves. What was it with girls and doing things alone? Alright you didn’t have to walk alone for miles, but be it anything – including taking a trip to see a colleague 2 cubicles away – they need company!

I have found a brand new urge to spread the spirit of keeping our city clean. Enthusiasm comes from watching auto rickshaw drivers take a left and then a right – I don’t mean the road turns, I am talking about their habitual ugh spitting. I have tried a few times to tell them “Chetta (Brother) we shouldn’t do it, we should keep our city clean”, but thought better of it, reminding self of certain barking traits they have shown incredible talent of. Besides its not just the auto rickshaw drivers that are to be blamed. I have seen people who study with me or work with me, do the same. I thought it’d be right to start with them first. Their excuse mostly is: so what do I do when I suddenly need to spit?

Another sensitive topic. But a long talk with a friend the other day got me penning this. He argued for a while about food chains and how humans were part of the chain, before he realized I was in fact a non-vegetarian.
The old 5th grade food chain, to refresh memory

Now posting a disclaimer before any terian attack: this is not to prove either is wrong or to promote any isms. As far as I am concerned, that is a completely personal choice. You want to eat meat, you kill animals, you want to eat leaves, you kill plants. So I don’t have a problem unless a vegetarian starts calling me a cannibal. And living a non-veg life, you wont run short of people who call you merciless murderers or cold-hearted flesh-eaters.

Yesterday a chat friend (CF) I have chatted with for 2 or 3 years now made a call. This is how the conversation started:
CF: Hello
Silence.
CF: Hello
Silence
CF: Hello
Me: Gum – attempt at hello

So I am not a talks-person, I am more of a write-type person – grammatically horrendous statement. But years of saying “gum” to people had convinced me that it will do the world and me a lot of good if I just stuck to typing my hellos. Leave the talking to the rest of the world.

Uff took a 2-day long break. Was caught up with a bit of eye trouble. Now back with all the energy gained from Magi noodles and tomato ketchup.

(Not follow-on eye-trouble) Yesterday I happened to see and hear ONV in person and felt quite good about it. Didn’t know the great poet was also a great orator. It was so amazing to listen to his conversation flowing from one thought to another. Mm let me think… what did he talk about? Oh yeah, language. I didn’t think there was such a lot of meaning to language, culture and communication.

Thank-you and Sorry (T & S for short). An acquaintance has been showing increasing aversion to these two words for a long time and told me he was going to blog about it. He has mentioned a smaller version of this in his blog today. And I am too impatient to wait for the big one. So I decided to think and write my ideas about it.

As a kid I guess things were more or less straightforward. So if you got a chocolate, it meant one line of action, namely immediate-consumption. So an elder present in the neighborhood had to do the stare-first-and-kick-next to pass a gentle reminder you were forgetting to say thank you.

The thing I thought I will blog about today was when for an interview, Kavya Madhavan (Malayalam movie actor) said about the old times when young girls had only to worry about kidnappers who in the words of old Grandmothers “kannu kuthi pottikum (poke your eyes)”. And Kavya went on “Not like today, to do these bad things”. She was right. I too had my childhood around the same time. We only feared things like that which happened to Revathy in Kakothikaavile Appoopanthaadikal (Malayalam movie of 80s, where, as a child, she gets kidnapped by a beggar). Not that it was anything holy, but it sounds more human in these days.