"All Routes Are Busy"

This is a well-known phrase to all, what with the ubiquitous cellular phones that rule our lives. On more than one occasions, all of us have heard this line, in the melodious voice of the operator. I'll now tell you the story of a friend of mine-no,...actually it is about her cell phone and its excellent network which makes any caller more than just familiar with the aforesaid operator. Had it not been a recorded voice, the operator would have been a greater friend of mine than my friend herself, as it is her voice that I get to hear more than my friend's.
Whenever I call, or rather try to call, this friend either "all routes are busy" or "the number I am trying to call is currently busy or switched off or not responding". Must say that this is, in any case, better than the operator herself not responding, forcing me to decode the silence on the other end.

This being the case, she has to call me. A strange stroke of (mis)fortune, her phone and network behave their best when she makes an outgoing call. They are apparently allergic only to incoming calls.

Finally, when she calls( she very frequently does....so sweet of her), I tell her of the many futile attempts of mine to call her. Anyone else would have thought that I was fibbing, but not my friend. In that case, she will have to mistrust the entire world population since I am not the only one falling victim to the cruel games of her phone and network. To my complaints, she replies: "Arrey,..you know my phone and its idiosyncrasies. If you really want to talk to me and have endless time and patience, keep trying. Else wait till I call you"

For a while, I decided to be King Robert Bruce and tried and tried and tried. But since there was no spider before me weaving its web, I soon became myself and settled for g-talk. I remember my friend once disclosing to me about the Achille's heel of her phone where incoming calls are concerned. Or we may call it an antidote to its allergy. She had told me that the only person who can successfully call her on the first attempt is her brother-in-law in Hyderabad.
I have now decided to get the number of that lucky gentleman, so that I can rest assured that, in case of an emergency, from Manipal I can contact her in Mumbai through her BIL in Hyderabad.

Stranger is the behaviour of her phone, when it comes to message delivery. No inefficiency here.On the other hand, it is a bit too much of efficiency that causes distress to her and others. It so happened that one evening I got a text message from her saying: "I hv been tryng to cl u fr so mny dys..bt cd nt. cn u cl me?" I was rather confused reading this, quite rightfully so, since we had had a 30-minute long conversation only that morning (she called , of course). This confusion, added to the anxiety arising from the thought of having to call her (I am developing a phobia for unsuccessful phone calls), made me giddy..and I started hyperventilating..gasp..gasp!!!
Soon came another message from her phone( I intentionally, do not say "from her", as I am not sure of that) saying;"Please ignore the last message. That got sent by mistake". This put me to ease...and I knew it was indeed sent by her, since only she will take the effort of typing full sentences without any shortforms. And that reminded me that the first message was one that I had sent her a few days back.
 My relief was short lived. Promptly came a third message whose content was same as that of the 2nd , ie.,asking me to ignore the previous message.
Now, if I act according to the this 3rd message and ignore the 2nd message, then I will have to "unignore" the 1st message which would take me back to square one - in the most perplexing situation- wondering how to call her.
Soon there was an avalanche of messages 1 and 2 in all sequences 1,2,2,1,1,1,2,2,1,2,1,2,1,2,2,1....( I hope she has free messaging plan) leaving me wondering what to ignore and what not to.
With the deluge of messages, my phone started complaining, asking me to empty the inbox, which I was more than glad to do.The next day, when I caught her online, I asked her about all those igno(ra)ble messages and others and she replied "Please ignore all the messages".

She rang me up last Sunday evening, but I missed the call. I saw that she had left messages....3 of them in fact.....all reading the same:"Generally called. Nothing urgent. No need to call back". But why did she send it thrice? To make sure that I will not, under any circumstance, call her back?( Did she really think that her network would allow me to call her? Now, that's what I'll call 'height of optimism')
On second thought, I knew it had to be the network playing villain (or comedian), probably considering me so dense that it felt the message will have to be repeated thrice until I grasp the idea ( no pun intended, Sirjee). In any case, I had only 6ps on my credit balance, so much for calling her back.

Next morning, I got a mail from her saying:
" Hi, I tried to call you last night. It was nothing urgent. A general call. I had messaged asking you not to call back. But the network reported saying 'message sending failed'. So you may not have got it. Hence this mail"
!!!!!!Now...what do you say to that?????
I don't know what to say...all I knew is that I wanted to wish her on her birthday which is 4 days away. Being unsure of whether, I will be able to call her, I typed:
" I'm planning to call u on ur bday. But thnks to ur amazing phone and its network, I'm not sure if I'll be able to. So if u don't get a call frm me till 8pm, pls call me so that I can wish u."

Today is her birthday....and here I am waiting expectantly for her call so that I can wish her.

Happy Birthday Dear Friend....this is for you.

Much Ado About Shoes

Of late, my shoes or footwear in general have been making me think a lot. Not that I didn’t think before. What I mean is that they make me think a lot about them. It was very recently that I noticed that I have some strange abilities or inabilities when it comes to footwear or my style of wearing(no pun intended) or removing them. When I sat thinking about it, I realised that this strange behavioural pattern can be traced back to the time when I started wearing shoes.

I am told (actually I can remember myself) that as a neophyte shoe-wearer, I had an inability to distinguish between the left and the right shoe ( or maybe the left and the right foot, now that I think of it). I know this is normal for toddlers; it’s the elders who help them wear shoes. But I am talking of a time when I was much beyond a toddler.

I remember that even at the age of 7, it was my ritual after wearing shoes to present my feet (with the rest of my body, of course) to any of the elders in the family with the question “thetto sariyo?” which translates to “wrong or right?”. This former handicap of mine is so famous in the family that even today, some aunts and uncles of mine come to me with this question, after wearing shoes. But they are only pulling my leg. They don’t suffer from this symptom, else I would have gladly attributed my inadequacy to some genetic disorder unheard of….maybe,..something  like lymphosarcoma of the feet !!!!

This, among the other footwear disorders of mine, has been eating my head, especially so, when I see kids 3-4 years of age very efficiently wearing the right shoe on the right foot (pun intended) and lacing them too… God!!! How I envy them!!

Finally, I decided to find out more about this problem and as a first step, decided to ask the New-Age –Know-All, Mr.Google. In my preliminary studies, I discovered that the idea of separate right shoe and left shoe was thought of only 2 centuries back( as recent as that).Until then all were like me. I was only taking more time to get adjusted to the new technology of separate left and right shoes. And recently, I purchased a pair of “straight” shoes- the ones which can be worn on any foot regardless of left or right.                            Wow!!! Who said goodwill is dead!!!

Anyway, that was a childhood disease which I have more or less overcome(I guess, one can ignore the singular similar incidents that occur even now, since old habits die hard).

The current problems are more complex and still remain unsolved.  I have noticed that while putting on shoes, as a rule, I have to always wear the left one first. This condition is so acute, to the extent that, if by chance, I start putting on the right shoe first, I remove it to wear the left one. Why this leftist mentality, even after leaving Keralam? The interesting fact is that all other kinds of footwear are exempted from this “left side first rule”.

Even more thought-provoking is the manner in which I remove shoes whether it is at the shoe-rack or at the door or at the foot of the bed. I have observed that I always manage to align them in an antiparallel orientation!!!...that too without any conscious effort.

This, of course, guarantees the cancellation of any magnetic field, electric field or spin associated to my sandals. But several other questions arise.

I have heard that ghosts leave footprints (though their feet don’t touch the ground) in a direction opposite to the direction of their journey. On correlating these facts, I cannot but wonder: Am I a semi-ghost? Or Am I a Vampire?

So troubled, am I that I at times feel my shoes are looking and grinning at me driving me on trips of introspection, retrospection, circumspection and the likes.

 I am not sure if you realise the gravity of my situation. You would, if you were in my shoes!!!

How I disappointed my mother

I know the title gives you the feel that I am going to embark on a voyage down memory lane narrating some dramatic, emotional incident that caused a great deal of discomfort, displeasure, disappointment and distress to my mom. Well, some of these, she must have felt. But to know the extent to which she got affected, read along.

            I have disappointed my mother on 2 occasions (too less, I know). I can understand how much that affected her from the fact that she goes on relating and re-relating those incidents at every possible opportunity. So much, that hardly a fortnight passes without her thinking, and hence speaking, of one of these and that one naturally leads to the other.

            Before I tell you about these incidents, let me give you a background picture. I have never been an obedient, well-mannered, bright, calm kid that my mom wanted me to be. Of course, this is her opinion. My version is that she had been spoilt rot by my elder sister who was always an easy kid with pleasing behaviour, heeding every word that my mom said (frankly, I have often wondered if this species called “elder sisters” was created to set “bad” standards for the younger ones. I mean, why do they have to be so good?).

          

   I, on the other hand, was free-spirited (my mom calls that disobedience), assertive (stubborn, according to her), and carefree (dumb). In other words, I was a normal kid and did not behave as if I was 25 at 5.

            The first event took place when I was in Std III. All I did was stating in a Social Studies test that there are gold mines in Vishakapattanam and ship-building yards in Kolar(a normal thing for any 8-year old-kid to do). But, my very intelligent mom was devasted by this, thinking how a daughter of hers could be so obtuse. Especially so, since she had spent time with me the previous evening (clearly, assuming that I was studying), even explaining about a distant relative of hers who had once worked in the Kolar gold mines. I kept nodding. Obviously, I was misleading her, because she apparently thought that I was registering facts. Unbeknownst to her, I was just giving exercise to my neck muscles without (unnecessarily) troubling my brain. My mind was with my sister and her friend playing outside as their exams had got over a day earlier than mine.

            The second incident occurred when I was in Std V. The scenario is exam again. In one of our Malayalam lessons, there was reference to a quote which says that one tree is equivalent to ten sons(or some other quote about planting trees, I don't remember exactly) . On the eve of the exam, when my mom asked me to write down the name of the person who said this, I couldn’t (again, normal for a 10-year old-kid). I knew the name of course. It was a saint named Sharangadhara who said that. But I didn’t know to write that in Malayalam (have made no progress to date). I felt it was a rather complicated name to write. But she made me write it 10 times (or even more) until I got it correct.

            You can guess the rest of the story. The next day, this question was asked in the exam. The thought of writing that name irritated me (no offense for the great man, only don’t ask me to write his name). I tried writing though, but quit after the first 2 letters, thinking why go through so much trouble for half a mark, when the ultimate goal of education is not scoring in exams, but acquiring knowledge (which I have done) and all-round development of the personality. And no one can argue that, in my case, if not the personality, the person is developed “all round”. Needless to say, my mom was heart-broken at my mal-performance(pun intended).

            These 2 incidents have left my mom emotionally crippled for life. Well, not entirely, only in the domain of emotions connected to “me and exams”. But there is also a lighter or brighter side to it. For the last 20 years, these episodes have been narrated countless times in and out of my house much to the deep contentment of my mom. Whenever there is some remote reference to some ship or gold mine or tree, in some part of the universe, the story unfolds.  At the end of the story, she is invariably elated and amused.

            I myself am so happy and proud of my remarkable performance. With those blunders, I have presented a lifetime-amusement-scheme for my mom. Had I got those answers correct, I would have deprived her of all that mirth and laughter in the years to come. Perfection, I feel, is rather boring. It is the errors that add charm to life. Hence, no first ranks or “10 on 10” s for me, they are too insipid (I hope my sister reads this).

            Now, I may as well modify the title and call it “How I continue to amuse my mother”!

Spicing up

"How can one spice up one's life?"
Now, wait a minute before shooting out answers.....
There are several constraints playing.
I want excitement without too many people around...I can put up with a maximum of 2 and selecting those 2 will itself call for another post on the blog.
So for the time being , I rephrase the question: "How can one spice up one's life on one's own?" (ie., without any foreign intervention).
There are more constraints.
I like to try out some unconventional spicing up, which means no tv,no movies, no mp3, no chatting, no sms, no phone calls.....bored with all this and these are anyway making life bland and not spicy.
So, let me rephrase again: "How can one spice up one's life on one's own in an unconventional manner?"
And did I tell you, I am not much of a traveller... so please don't ask me to take a vacation or go on trekking( I have neither the mind nor the physique for that). Of course, I like taking walks in the moonlight ( actually even the moon can be dispensed with if there are enough street lights). But this is something that I do almost everyday and hence can hardly be regarded as a spicy activity. It would, in fact, be an antithesis for what I need in my life. So strike that out. I am more of an indoor person..so no shoppings either. I guess it's time to rephrase again. "How can one spice up one's life on one's own in an unconventional manner, staying indoors?"
The next option, which I would actually love to indulge in, would be to actually "spice up" things....I mean cooking....yes, some unconventional cooking, spicy and yummy. On thinking again, here I am even ready to compromise on the "spicy" part....desserts are also appealing. Puddings, pastries, icecreams..mmmm....
Wow...I think, finally, I know what to do.
 But then.., wouldn't that fail the purpose of all those hours that I have spent and am still spending in the gym? Already with so many extra pounds to shed, horizontally blessed that I am, why would I spend money, time and effort to make delicious items?....to stare at it? Of course, I can distribute it to my friends or neighbours or whoever needs it.....but sorry, magnanimity is not my middle name. Even if it is, how would it spice up "my" life, if I don't get to taste my exquisite cooking ( my middle name is "modesty").  I am not going to bother rephrasing again..you know what I mean.
Let me remind you that I am neither botanically nor zoologically inclined. So no pets, aquarium, gardening, tissue culture, horticulture, serriculture and the likes ( I have no more "cultures" in my vocab-stock).
And I am a bad collector. Even as a kid, I could never maintain a decent collection of stamps or coins despite the efforts taken by parents and my sister.
The question still remains unanswered, though been rephrased frequently, the latest version being: "How can one spice up one's life on one's own in an unconventional manner, staying indoors and without engaging in any of the activities mentioned above and most of the activities that you are going to suggest( 'coz I am sure that's not going to fit into my idea of spicing up things)?"
But posting this blog makes me feel better. Maybe this is one way, I can spice up my life atleast as long as the novelty of this remains..after that I guess I'll have to rephrase again. So long....