Gotta lurve tradition

With most of my friends, especially the Bangalore ones, I've always had traditions. When we meet up we ALWAYS do a specific set of things. Mostly sleepover traditions with tha girlfriends.

So here I am, making another list. Of ALL the traditions. I mean, it would kinda suck if I forgot a tradition, no? So here goes.

1. Ramila and me have like gazzili-milli-trilli-god-knows-what-eth traditions. When we were kids and she came over to my place, we had this game where we had obstacles on my bunk bed. We jumped through holes, hoola hoops, pillow forts and what not. And in the end, we always drank Litchi squash. We used to do this for HOURS together. OMG, and Neopets!!! We had a combined Neopets account and we used to feed and play with our pets so, so religiously. We even went for Faerie quests, fun stuff.

2. When I went to Ramila's place, we had a whole lotta new traditions to cover. She had this World book which was like a suitcase and you opened it, it had dozens of tiny hard bound booklet thingamajigs shaped in the world map. We used read out ALL because they had adorable pictures and cute descriptions of each place. I ALWAYS read out Italy, North America, Australia and India and she always read out The British Isles, Scandinavia and Spain. I love, love, LOVE the World book. Oh, and at her place, it was always tradition to fight with each other. EVERY SINGLE TIME. She never ever believed I kicked in my sleep without knowing. She always thought it was a plot to give her bruises. She STILL says so. Some things just never change. And of course, she sings this song called Walk On Water which is the most beautiful version of that song. Ramila and me have some gazillion traditions and I can't possibly list all out all.

3. Sanju, Swathi, Smrithi and me have spent hours and hours of lazy afternoons with our traditions. We skate. We play with the hoola hoops. We talk about boys for hours. Hah, and we always, always have lunch at Beijing Bites. Though Sanju never eats. But, yes, lunch at BB is a must.

4. All Tanya and me EVER do is talk. If I need to get something outta my system, she's the first one I call. And even when I go to Bangalore, we spend hours talking about stupid nothings. That's our thing, I guess. OH, and to obsess about Star Wars.

5. Namrata and me used to have lotsa traditions. Now we're all for spontaneity, I think. We used to have this Scrap book in which we randomly scribbled lotsa stuff. It was kinda cute but now if we look back, so 8th grade. Hah. Oh, and Namrata and me used to do Neopets too. Damn, I think our pets are, like, dead. Hmm. (The red dragon below was our Shoyru called Thorn.)

6. This is not much of a tradition or maybe it was, I'm not sure. But when I was a kid, one of my friends Sneha who is now, like, 25 (?) and me used to have our Lazy Walk. We used to walk around real slow around the buildings and , this is embarassing to admit, sing our "walking" rhyme. I even remember parts of it. It started out like "dum dum day, dum dum olay olay.. dissee day, dissee olay olay..." ok, I don't remember the rest. But now, it sounds so stupid. I bet we looked like a couple of drunkards stumbling around the society. Exept I was 7 and she was 17. But why quibble?

7. Namrata, Saee, Mihika and me have only one set tradition. We sit on The Protractor. Okay, no we're not crazy. Our school has these jungle gym things set in shaped of math things like protractors, set squares and stuff. So, The Protractor is our place. Our Adda. We sit there all the time and we don't even have to talk. It's our kinda thinking place.

8. Namrata, Vaishnav and me have one tradition, too. We're ALWAYS stuck together. Just the Natural Order Of Things. Somehow, The Three of us are always stuck together and we look at each other and go, "Shit. All of us here. Again?"

9. Aakash, Akash and me. We had loads of things to do. Akash's house was RIGHT next to mine and Aakash's house was one floor below. We were The Terrible Three. Our tradition was simple- Meet. Make trouble. Laugh.

10. This tradition, I almost forgot. Good thing I'm making this list. Ramila, Leila, Aditi and me in the bus. Leila and me used to sit in one seat and Aditi and Ramila used to sit in the one exactly in front of us. This still makes me laugh and Ramila still admits it's cute, Aditi and Ramila used to play "dino". The curled up their finger and claimed it was a dinosaur and made weird crooning noises. Leila and me used to make endless fun of this. We still do, whenever we meet up.

11. Sanju and me. Summer (duh). Locked in my room for hours. No, we weren't doing anything bad, you perverted people. We were just 10. We did our hair so, so colourful. All you have to do is look at this picture.

Yes, we did this stuff ALL summer. Tradition.

So I think those are all of them.Now I'm all happy and nostalgic. :)

PS- My blogging is going to reduce in a short while. You see, I'm a busy and important person, but you can always catch me on twitter.

From the diaries of Her Wickedness, Debby.

[Debby was in an excellent mood on 12th June 2009 so she decided to write her diary entry too. Here it is.]

Pox was quite delish. Especially his insides. Yum yum.

[That is all. I wouldn't let her write more of the atrocities she committed. Comments open for this one too. So if anyone would like to say "DEBBY, You SUCK", go ahead.]

From the diaries of His Late Awesomeness, Pox.

[ Pollux or more commonly known as "Pox" was this awesome worm that Namrata found crawling on her chemistry classwork with his said-to-be best friend Debby. I took Pox and Debby home for one day and when Pox was bored, he took some paper from my table and wrote this diary entry on 11th June 2009. Here it is.]

Mmm... these leaves Biggie No. 2 gave me are quite delish. I will prove it to her by pooing all over the place. That will make her happy.

Today has been fun. Biggie No. 1 cleaned out my world and gave me new leaves. So sweet of her. Debs has been in a bad mood all day. I fought with her a little and that warmed the cockles of my heart. Heart...hmm...do I have one? Must explore.

Anyway, Biggie No. 1 took me to this place where objects with Biggies zoomed about in shiny things. Ro-ad she called it. Next to this place where objects with Biggies zoomed about, Biggie No. 1 handed me over to Biggie No. 2.

DEWD. BIGGIE NO. 2 TALKS SO MUCH.
She seemed quite upset about this Adam Lambert being gay. I tried to comfort her but she was all screaming and teary and upset. And then, I had a brilliant idea. Debs was upset too! These two could have a girl-to-girl talk. So when I told Biggie No. 2, she said OK and poured her heart out to Debby. Then I was all like- WTF, Stop ignoring ME. So she said OK and played Peek-a-boo with both of us.

Then, in this big zooming shiny thing, we reached this place where everyone looked fully mournful. But then they saw me and got all happy. Ha ha.

Then this BIGGIE FROM A DIFFERENT SPECIES WHO HAD HAIR SHORTER THAN THE OTHER BIGGIES took me on his finger. After I got back to the bottle, aka, my world, Debby was mad. She was pissed because I got all the attention. Serves her right for being a Drama Queen. Bhaav khao.

Then Biggie No. 2 took Debs and me to this new place after Biggie No. 1 said goodbye to us. Tearfully, might I add.

I miss Biggie No. 1. She provided us with an amazing world and even let us help her with chemistry! ( Biggie No.1 knew nothing about her chemistry homework. Hah. ) Oh, and she also gave us totally delish leaves.

Anyway, Biggie No. 2 is still working on her chemistry homework. ( Biggie No. 2 on the other hand, knows everything about chemistry) I went to annoy Debby but she warned me that she'll bite my butt off if I come near. Chicks.Will never get how their mind works.

I am happy. I got many Biggies who love me. I got a Debby who loves me very deep inside. I got a leaf to chew on and oh, I got a place to poo. What more could a worm want?

xoxoxoxoxo
[This is the end of Pox's diary entry. Later we found out that Debs meant biting his butt off quite literally because the next day, we saw her chewing on his insides. Disgustment.
RIP Pox...]

Note from Blog Owner : I'm leaving comments open for this one. If anyone would like to say some last words for Pox, please do so in the Comments.

H-ear! H-ear!*

(* Fine, I stole that from Harry Potter.)

[Note: This story is about 99% true with a tad bit of exaggeration. Also note, this incident took place when I was about 9 years old.)

It was a hot summer afternoon. A very hot afternoon. Two girls locked up in a room with nothing to do. One girl is lying down on her bed and thinking about random things in her life, lost in her own world. The other said girl was digging vigorously through a drawer.

Let's call Girl No. 1 me and the other one Sanju.

Minutes passed by and the intense digging continued.

"Eeeeeeeeeeeek!" she squealed.
"What?" I asked, tiredly. When Sanju squealed, it meant something bad was was going to happen. Sigh.
" Are you going to tell me?"
" Look at these earrings! They're gorgeous! You never told me you had them! They're so pretty!"
" Hmm...Yeah. Got them a while ago but never really got around to wearing them. Now where did I get them? Maybe someone gave them to me... Or I think I got them last year...." I sunk into my own thoughts.
" But they're beautiful." she probed.
"Sanju, would you like to try them on?
She snorted, " And take off my earrings? Like I have no dignity. Mine are pretty enough, thank you very much."
"Yes, pretty." I picked a book and started reading.
She jumped on me, slammed the book out of my hands and looked at me with widened, shining eyes.
"I know! You should wear them. They're too pretty to be wasted."
"Haha. Sanj. I don't think so. My ear holes have closed, I think. And I don't wear artificial earrings, however gorgeous. I get infections."

Of course, this is Sanju. She ignored my somewhat weak protest and approached me with with one shiny earring.

"You worry too much. C'mon. I've done this a few million times. I'm practically a professional. Just a slight push. I once did it to my cousin. She said I was fabulous. And even my uncle said I was good at this...though God alone knows why he involves himself with jewelry.... just to embarrass himself, I suppose." she went on.

"Sanju. I really don't have a good feeling about this." I wrestled her approaching hand off me.
" Nonsense. Now stop fidgeting."
I stopped fidgeting.

She put one earring through a hole, very carefully. Well at least she started carefully. And then she pushed a little.

"Ow. Sanju, that hurt."
"Will you stop moving?"
Pushed a little harder.
"What are you trying to do, Sanju? Kill me? That really hurt!"
"Stop talking, will you? You're breaking my fantastic concentration."
"Fine" I sighed.
After a little more pushing....
"Owwwwwwwwwwww!"
"There! It's done. Now, the next one!"
"Are you crazy? I almost died! You stay away from me, woman."
" You overreact. I was fabulous. Fantafabulous, in fact."
"Shuduuuurp." I said, choking in pain.
"Now stay still. Just one more."
I sighed. She'd get her way. There was no point in fighting.

With shining eyes, she started putting the second one in.
"Let's see how fast I can do this one. One, Two, THREE."

"OOOOUUUUUUCHH!!!"
"Oops."
"What did you do? You idiot! You poked a separate hole through my ear! Not through the normal one, no. You made a new hole! Ouch! Oh my god. My mum's going to kill me! Sanjuuuu!"

She looked a little sheepish.
"Hey. They look good on you." she tried.
I glared.
"Fine, fine. Sorry. It won't happen again. Next time, I'll..."
"Next time?" I croaked.
" Okay, so there won't be a next time. But what are you yakking about? You look hot!"
I sighed. It did look kind of good.

One hour later
"Mom, look. Sanju put these earrings on me"
"Aren't the artificial? You get infections don't you?"
"Well, whatever. The look nice. That girl, Sanju. Always looking out for me." I said loyally.

2 months later

"Nidhi, what's that black stuff on your ears" My mom asked worriedly.
"I don't know but my ear's been burning for the last couple of days."
"Then why didn't you say anything?"
" I don't know." I shrugged, " Thought it would pass."

She inspected my ear carefully.
"This is not looking good. You've got an infection."
"Nooo! But I like these earrings!"
"I know but it's no good if it's going to hurt you in the end, is it? Now I'm going to take it off very slowly. It might hurt just a little but don't move, okay?"
Not okay. If a mom said it's going to hurt a little, It's going to hurt a lot.

She slowly started taking one out.
"Aaahhh! That hurt!" I screeched at the first sign of adversity.

She realised that I'm not going to listen to her so she called in the big guns. She called in my Dad. He did a full on inspection of my ears.
Very wisely he said, " I think it's an infection."
My mom banged her head on the table and my eyes started to tear up at the word 'infection'.

Half an hour later.

My mom was holding my, thrashing, arms and legs. My dad had two sterilized tweezers in his hand, trying to yank off the earrings. And me. Me, wailing at the top of my voice. My lungs at their highest and my voice reaching altogether new decibels.

One hour later

They were off. It hurt. My ears were now clean, without a trace of fungus and slightly red. Sanju. She was going to pay.

I went over to her house, to scream at her.
"Hey. You're earrings are off! Dang. They were pretty. Guess what? I know what we're going to do this afternoon! My cousin's over and she has lots of pretty earrings. We can try them on.

I fumed.

" Should I help you with yours?"


~xoxo~


Epilogue

If you must know, I took months to recover from this particularly traumatic experience. Much to Sanju's shock, those earring had to be thrown away. After that, I have never, ever trusted Sanju with jewelry. I still get horrid nightmares. And if you're wondering, Sanju's real name is 'Sanjana'.

But in then end, we all lived happily ever after. Snort.

Go Shorty, It's your Burday. We Gonna Partay like it's your Burday.

Sooo....I'm fifteen.
Running on my sixteenth year. Whoa.
A friend told me that 'Growing old is mandatory but growing up is optional'. That is SO freaking true. At least in my case because I don't think the kid in me is ever going to grow up.

Somehow I don't get why growing older means not screaming out loud when you are excited, or not to hyperventilate when you're stressed. Why does growing up have to mean having complete control over your emotions? It's super annoying to have people say, "Act your age."
Another thing I have a HUGE problem is with people saying, " Hey. You're fifteen. You should stop watching Barney." Aaaargh. Well, excuse me if watching Barney offended you in any way. I happen to like purple and green dinosaurs who sing adorable family songs.

ANYhoo, enough ranting. Now that I'm fifteen, I'm in the mood to make resolutions and oaths (which I know I'm going to break in time).
This year, I'm going to faithfully scoff at all people who say, "Act your age".(feeling the optimism?). I WILL try to act my own age (whatever that means). Oh, and I'm going to try not fighting with my own friends. I have to remember, they are the ones who love me. But, hey, mock fights are totally allowed. I'm not going to turn saint, like, boring.

Oh and duuuuuude. I'm gonna have to stop losing my compasses. Not just compasses, stationary in general. But compasses specifically.
Ooooh! and I need to grow taller! I'm just five foot and 3 and a half inches. Which kinda sucks. I'm tiny. When I was a kid, about seven or eight, fifteen year old girls used to look so tall. But now that I'm fifteen, sigh, I seem so short. All a matter of perspective. Snort.

Another resolution: Keep the sarcasm and eye rolling and the oh-so-witty comments to the minimal. But, oh, I love being sarcastic. It's so hard to keep the fabulously smart comments to myself. Fine, cancel that. Deal with it, people.

Hmm...so I got everything? Yeah. Well thank you, gentle readers. Your listening skills never waver.

Over and out. :)

How to deal with Boredom

Sigh. Boredom. One of the worst diseases to catch. Very contagious and horribly tough to recover from. ANYhoo, here's a list of things to do when you've reached rock bottom and are utterly bored.

> Read books with Happily Ever Afters. When you're bored, you happen to be very cynical. So after you read a Happily Ever After, you have something to roll your eyes at.

>Make weird food combos. Coke and cake icing? Honey and cheeslings (tastes awesome, just so you know)? Be creative.

>Watch a movie that you've never seen before. If the electricity goes before you're done with it (Been there, Done that), imagine you're own ending.

>Call up people. If no one's at home and if everyone's abandoned in your time of need when you're sick with Boredom, make up your own imaginary friends and have fabulous conversations with them.

> Have a tea party with those imaginary friends and be all very British. ("Pass me those scones, will you? Simply splendid tea. Absolutely spiffing, I tell you. Marvelous day, isn't it? Yes, quite lovely.")

>Real friends still not at home? No worries. Count the number of black things present in the room you're in.

> Done with black? That was fast. Now....white.

> Hmm...colours boring you, aren't they? No worries. Hakuna Matata. Have a pillow fight with yourself. Yes. Fun, isn't it?

> Ugh. Still bored. Pour glue on your hand, let it dry and slowly peel it off. Intensely fun, trust me.

>Rock bottom? Still bored? That's it. There's no cure. Oh, fine. Since you insist, one last attempt : Write/blog about 'How to deal with Boredom'.

BLEEEEEEEEEEAAAAARGH!
I'm STILL bored. Sigh.
Over and out.

Dad on a mission

I'm sitting in my room tackling some homework and my dad comes up to me.


"Let's make some chicken. And I want to do something different. Not the same old curry."

"Um, ok. What do you want to make?" I ask.

" I dunno. Any suggestions?"

"Hmmm..... how about making some rolls?"

"No, not rolls. Lets make some chicken pulao"

"Sure" I nodded away. What was the point of asking?

"When do you want to make it?" I asked.

"I dunno. Maybe over the weekend"


3 weeks later.


I'm sitting in my room tackling some homework and my dad comes up to me.

"Let's make some chicken. And I want to do something different. Not the same old curry."

"Um, ok. What do you want to make?" I ask.

" I dunno. Any suggestions?"

"Hmmm..... how about making some rolls?"

"No, not rolls. Lets make some chicken pulao"

"Sure" I nodded away. "Are you having an odd sense of deja` vu?"

"No, why?"

"Forget it" I must have dreamt it. I didn't want to sound stupid.

"Ok....So I'm going to make it right now!" he said with full enthusiasm.

"I'm just going to be a spectator and watch." It was best to make my intentions clear. I was NOT going to help.

With undaunted zeal my dad started checking out recipes online. Looked through a couple and came to back to the room.

"I'm going to make this my own way"

My mom just had to intervene. "Why? The recipes too complicated for you?" she asked innocently.

"No, they just have lots of ingredients which I don't think we have right now"

"Let me check it out"

My dad shows her the recipe.

"But we have everything on the list. What are you talking about?"

My dad, "I'm just saying that we don't have to follow the recipe word to word."

"Why? We have everything on the list!"

"Fiiiiine. We'll make it like the recipe."

At this point, I give up with my homework and join my dad in the kitchen. My mom started getting all the masalas together and poured hot oil in a vessel.

"So should I put the masalas in?" said my clueless dad.

"Not yet! Wait till it's hot!" said my mom while grinding the garlic and cutting the chili. Multitasking is one of the many things my mom is an expert at.


10 seconds later.


" How about now?"

"No!"

5 seconds later.

"Now?"

"It's called patience. You're getting on my nerves. Stop."

"Ok......Now?"

My mom gives one of her phenomenal glares and the atmosphere changes radically. Utter silence in the kitchen and then the oil starts spluttering.

"Now. Put all the spices in."

One by one he started putting the spices in the boiling oil and started frying it.

"Add the onions."

He added the onions.

"Should I add the tomatoes?" he asked, cluelessly, to my mom.

"Wait till the onions are golden brown."

"Fiiiine...."

After some random mixing of some more spices, my dad decides that he should add the tomatoes. And of course, he thinks he's an ultra cool chef so he starts sprinkling the tomatoes like oregano all over the masala. Suddenly there was a loud splutter and my mom runs towards the vessel.

"What did you do?"

An entire box of tomatatoes was in the gravy.

"All of it just fell! It's not my fault! The gravity! Blame the gravity!"

My mom rolled her eyes and tried to fix the red blob spluttering away.

"Great. Now your going to have tomato rice because your dad didn't listen to me. Have fun with it. I'm going to be having my sweet corn soup." she walked out.

Of course, I'm rolling all over the floor holding my sides and trying unsuccessfully to stop laughing.

"It's good that she's gone now. We don't have to follow the exact recipe. We can make it my way."



And wasn't that a great idea.

My dad decided that the recipe wasn't that important. He threw in some other random spices in the red blob and watched it splutter away.

15 minutes later

"I'm going to add the marinated chicken now." he announces.

"Why are you looking at me? I'm no better at this stuff than you are"

"I'm not looking at you. I just made a statement."

"Whatever you say" I roll my eyes.

I walked out of the kitchen to get back to my homework. 15 minutes later, I walk towards the kitchen to see the progress with our dinner. I lift the lid of the vessel and gasp.

"You added all the chicken??? That was, like, a whole packet of marinated chicken! You were only going to make half of it for dinner!"

My dad, rather sheepishly, "Well I though we could just finish the whole thing instead of leaving it over for next time."

That's it. We needed damage control. "MOM!!!!!!!!!!Come here! Now! Uh, please come here, I mean."

My mom walks into the kitchen regally.

"What now?"


"Look at the chicken."

She looked. She raised her eyebrows. She grinned.

"What did your dad do?"

My dad, at this moment, was at the other counter, oblivious to the situation.

"He added all the chicken. He ruined it. We're going to starve tonight. Blame him." It felt good to taddle on my dad.

"Well, it's obvious you can't make the pulao. There's too much chicken. No room for the rice. You're gonna have to make a curry out of it."

My dad suddenly comes closer. He pauses.

"A curry?"

"A curry." my mom confirmed.

She added some water and mixed a lot of other things together and then, finally, came up to my dad. My dad, whose expression, was still frozen.

"Leave it for 10 minutes. I put the rice on the other gas. It should be ready in sometime. And stop gawking."

She walked out. I shook my head and turned to my dad.

"We're just going to be eating a normal curry? I wanted to have something different!"

"Stop cribbing, dad" I said. "It's still gonna taste awesome. Mom cooked it."

"But it's just some normal curry! This is not fair! I wanted something different! See? This is what happens when your mom interferes...she always does this........." He went on ranting about it while I tuned it out. Suddenly, I could smell food. Good food. I turned towards it and started tasting it. It tasted Good.

I grabbed a bowl and put some "normal chicken curry" and rice in it and started hogging. I noticed that my dad was still in the corner mumbling about something. I grabbed a bowl and served him. He took it. Tasted it.

"It's good."

"Isn't it?" I said, while stuffing some more in my mouth.

"Don't tell your mom that."

"My lips are sealed." Technically not. I was still eating. But why quibble?

My dad returned to the living room. With the chicken rice. He started ranting about it only because my mom was there but then kept quiet when he knew that both of us were rolling our eyes.

And Zat, my dear readers, was the story of the "Normal chicken curry". Thank you, thank you very much.




PS- Due to excessive exaggeration, I'd say this is about 80% true. Over and out.