squirrel boy

Time to wake up from the dead, revive the squirrel club and introduce an honorary member, squirrel boy: Eric Schmidt. CEO Google, on the board of directors of Apple, whom the fake steve diary keeps referring to as ’squirrel boy’.

hmm. This might need some explanation. There was a blog written by this forbes guy by the name of fake steve. hugely funny. fake steve poked fun constantly at Eric boy who he called squirrel boy. which is what caught our attention. The forbes guy still writes the blog, hes also writing a fake steve book and also for well, Forbes.

Welcome squirrel boy! (ofcourse squirrel boy knows not about the squirrel club)

Mother was talking today about 20 years ago how the family considered IE as a paper that broke the news first but was ’ all a pack of lies’. The hindu, even if it took a long time, wrote the truth. ‘Is IE still like that?’ heh.  

Sit down to chat in the evenings on an off day and you realise that everyody else is working, and v busy. the deadline is on their head. 5 other days I’d be like that. it is the strangeness of the job. This business is fast, it never stops.

Catching a ride with a drunk guy is one crazy thing I would never do, no?

What happens when appointments or stories don’t work out? nothing. we take ourselves too seriously.

 A poster in my office says ” Being ambitious is just an excuse for not knowing how to chill. Relax.”

I love ‘Snow’. I’ve read only 20 pages of it but I love it. Each time I finish a book, it gives me hope. I think:’there I’ve finished that one, that bug has still not claimed me. I can still finish what I undertake to begin.’

I love the Woodhousean world. Who doesn’t? wrings the oesophagus and the waist. A wodehouse a day keeps the depression away.

We live in an irresponsible world.

Happiness is in a washing machine.

Strange things happen between alertness and highness — in a state of semi drunkenness. In between drinks and strains of bad music. Between the paneer and the tongue. Being the salami or the buttered side in a photo-op. Or when waiting in the lounge for the boarding call. Moments of almost bonding can be nice.

Happiness is in new friendship. It is the strange feeling of ‘wish I’d talked to them before’, knowing very well that I might not have liked them had I bonded before now, but the possibilities of a ‘perhaps’ can be like the rising rum against the coke in the aorta.

prayer

Amoeba is our temple. When I first met Mip in Chennai, that’s what I apparently asked her, ‘Oh so you’re from B’lore, have you been to Amoeba?’ Mip says I asked her about 20 times after that; she exaggerates. On the lane to Amoeba, off Brigade Road, there is a Ganesh Fruit shop. We had mango milk shake. Mip compared it to Gujrati mandal. The aamras there is fiery orange in colour. This one looked like poop, Mip called it — poop coloured turmeric paste. We were drinking a diseased shake.

It wasn’t that bad. Should we compare things in life? It may always not be a good idea. When I first joined JC in Chembur, each person there reminded me of some another; I would compare mannerisms and accents of these new acquaintances with my friends from school and colony. I had never really adjusted. I was longing for brighter mornings. Getting up early and showing up at 7 in college, in dirty mud brown uniform, and studying in a convent like atmosphere was not my idea of college. But it had been my choice. And I think I tried to cope by comparing, all the time. Tough times in life.

After the poop juice, we reached a broken down tomb like structure some twenty paces from Blossoms – the bookstore. Amoeba was not there, instead stood a monster in construction covered in blue and yellow tarpaulin , wooden ladders sticking out at appropriate places. Some renovation, perhaps. We had been walking quite a distance towards our temple and now this wasn’t funny.

Mip was upset. Tired too. She wanted to go home. We decided to skip Blossoms. Nowhere else would the heart go — Amoeba was no more. Or so we thought.

And then we saw a board high up in gleaming electric red. Amoeba. Behind Mainland China. Mip had been mistaken after all. Behind us were a gaggle of Chinese students, and Mip had commented on our way to the demolished monster — how predictable, bunch of Chinese in front of M China and all. And this M China had blocked our view. Unplanned planning. Life had returned. We were in front of Amoeba: temple of first friendships, for more reasons than one. It was here that last year I met two other friends, who were actually acquaintances and friends of a v good friend before we met at Amoeba.

I have a picture of this moment of Amoeba – lost and found again.

v squirrelist

I woke up today to squirrels. It was nearly noon and the uncle and the aunt had given up on me, when the squirrels decided to take things in their hands. Loud keeks. Loud shrill, relentless keeks. When I stumbled to the door, I saw one sitting on the grilled stairway, a live, throbbing alarm clock demanding my attention. Each burst of keek sent its tail shooting up vertically. Did my little ones in M’lapore send an email to B’lore asking this one to wake me up? Did they? Did they not want me to waste time sleeping? (Or Did dear mother call them? )

Such gorgeous creatures. Sigh. Brown, furry, buck teeth, nose hitched up and ears sticking out, eyes peering through invisible eye lids, always scurrying around where humans live with abandon, leaping from one twig to a branch, constantly busy, always always keeking – tireless — sharp intake of breath and short bursts of whistles. Sometimes long, drawn out but relentless. Such happiness. I love them.

(see, squirrels can be rats in so many ways, but so so different they are)

B’lore

I am on holiday in B’lore now. Pretty B’lore, lovely Blore. The only trouble in this house is that besides human beings, cockroaches live here too. Huge, flying, deep shade of brown cockroaches that scare the day lights out of me. I complain each time I come here, but I still come. This place is other wise beautiful. It has only gained in beauty in the last five years.

Summer is here in B’lore but the weather gods seem confused. It rains here quite often, with lightning and thunder that send the night demons into deep burrows. Otherwise bring out the knives and the crazy lines. Kachang!

pearls and squirrels

a couple of strips back, Stephen Pastis of Pearls Before Swine ran a cartoon on the ’sumo squirrels’ . Rat and Pig were jealous of squirrels, and wait! squirrels figured on Pearls! Around this time, squirrelhood acquired a new member; for parody’s sake we’ll call her sumo. Parody cos she’s absolutely not a sumo, she’s the antithesis of it.

But anyway, we take it as a sign. squirrels are getting famous. now we have representation from all streams.

A little sumi about sumo: she’s not sumo at all. and she’s got mallu hair. ( btw,we have too many mallus in this club. except me, everyone else is a mallu. I didn’t know i could get along with mallus. historically, I haven’t. ) plus she is the general secretary of the squirrel club. Mip and I are the co-presidents, ofcourse. Small is the treasurer. We seem to be MRS. so and so.

The thing also is we are all going home in a few days. this may be the last post from here. we’ll be building new nests of love ( not exactly love nests) in different cities — Pune, B’lore and B’bay.

ok then. wee .

kids of the world, unite

Coming to college by bus. Shuffling in between people for some place to stand. I saw a little kid dressed in pink, solemn and moody, on her mother’s arm. The mother did the strange thing of offloading her burden to a sitting woman. As soon as the little pink bundle of cuteness landed on her lap, the sitting woman in annoying green and yellow started baby-talking, coochiecooing and pointing out autos and passing busses on the road. ( as if the kid didn’t know, as if the kid was born yesterday or as if busses and autos were introduced yesterday). the little kid, that probably wanted a little privacy to think out some thoughts before addressing adults, started whining immediately. The woman just didn’t get the hint — all the kid wanted her to do was to shut up– she continued rambling about shops, people on the road, autos and busses in baby language. ( oh, look– an auto, have you been in an auto, before?).

Why do people start talking to kids as soon as they find one. They don’t even bother to find out if the kid wants to talk to them, no polite or dignified behaviour is observed. It is not as if the kids of this world are here to listen to adult banter and drivel, they get enough of it in the womb, thankyou v much.

I have tremendous respect for little ones, they have a wonderful eye for beauty and poetry and a sharp ear for music  before adult hood and life spoonges it out of them.  Pshaw!

bonds

Today I met a South Indian hero. He is actually a student leader and a communist cadre (I think) but he looked like Vijaykanth.
When I thought hard and fast about who he reminded me of, I remembered my Mechanics professor from first year. He was a total bond. He once told me about how he sneaked into his professors cabin, signed on the submission sheet and left for Sangli in the evening without submitting his file, all because the professor was giving him hell; so he decided to return the favour. He said his professor had to send  a peon to Sangli after him. And he nearly encouraged us to do the same thing.  he was the only professor who told my parents that I was a good kid in the whole of graduation.

Our South Indian hero, today, is also a total bond. He was totally thrilled about having been in jail five times for 52 days. He ” really liked it”, it seems.