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Wednesday, January 11, 2006

But waiddadamnedminute! The last few posts have been quite personal, don't you think? This just might be the nail in the coffin. My readers are going to flounce away, knowing way too much about Shrutz than they ever wanted to know!
Hmm, maybe I will take that chance?
Here's an aside to a very good friend of mine who was surprised by some of my revelations in the past few blog posts. She was a bit upset she didn't know those facets in my character.
Okay. Who cares if you didn't know I love stitching, you know everything you need to know and isn't that enough?
Why did I do this on my blog?... Because, she's very special to me and she needs a reminder that she is very special! Here's to you, girl, you better know who you are!

Okay that aside done, let's delve deep into those "bugger alls" that are going to be the talk of the town! The peeves are not as much pet as wild and untamed. So take heed!

1) I can't stand (I really mean it) guys who stand about in groups staring at girls and commenting. Roadside Romeos, as a matter of fact. Funny part is, it doesn't have anything to do with age. Teenagers and Thirty year olds are equally bad! The woman concerned can be 14 or even 60. They just can't let go! I just can't understand the thought process that goes behind that. Maybe it has something to do with their caveman instincts kicking in.

Scene: A Neanderthal cave where humans have just discovered the use of their opposable thumbs and their vocal chords. The former was involved in the first documented permission for a "lift" and the latter... Well, you just got to know!
Neanderthal Man1: (seeing a girl rush past to escape the unwelcome flirtations of a caveman brandishing a club) Urgh... Gnah... Pshh
Neanderthal Man2: (Talking in Neanderthal code just loud for the girl to hear and cryptic enough for her to know they are talking about her) Hmahd... ajspam.... Grrr... Grunt.
(All Neanderthals nod assent as if they have discovered fire) Arghhh...

I still don't understand it.. Maybe, that's because I lack a Y chromosome!

2) People who can't take a hint unless it comes back to them and bites them where it hurts them most!
Have you ever had that weird feeling when you have entered a royal sulk and the person at whom it is directed is least bit bothered or even understands that you are annoyed! Well, what DO you have to do? Attach a signboard that says "In Sulk. You are reason. Kindly make things better. You idiot!"?

3) Bad spelling & grammar. My hand itches to correct it. I know it's rude and I KNOW it's bugging to the other person, but I still do it....

4) Auntyjis & Unclejis who think I have nothing on my mind other than to get hitched to a guy. The conversation usually runs on these lines.
A/U-ji: "So, you are almost done with engineering, eh?" (Secret smile they like to think is very mischievous with a knowing wink & nudge)
Me: (nodding head hesitantly) "Well, yes, in 4 months or so..."
A/U-ji: "Soooo, mole, what are your plans like?"
Me: "Well, I'd like to either do my MBA or work for two years..."
A/U-ji: "Tsk tsk.. What about a nice guy?"
Me: "Well, what ABOUT a nice guy?" (With a weak smile) "I guess there's time enough after my future studies and some work."
At this juncture, Aunty/Uncle-ji turns to Mom and asks her if she has any plans, seeing as they know a nice boy who works in Bangalore....
My mom is well acquainted with my murderous looks at those hapless souls and she's already pitying the nice boy in Bangalore. "She has other plans.. And she's my baby. So, neither of us is in a hurry."
Attagirl, mom!

5) People who eat with their mouths open. No, I don't want to see your molars grinding the chappatis into paste, or do I want to see your canines tearing into the chicken. I'd rather all the activities in your mouth were private!

6) Public displays of affection between guys. I get uncomfortable really quickly. Have you ever seen men walk hand in hand, swinging their oh-so-lovingly clasped appendages as far as they can and with a sweet song hovering around them, till you'd be excused if you thought that there wasn't a sweeter couple in the whole wide world. Of course, any public show of affection scares me; thankfully they aren't too common in Mallu-land!

7) Girls who simper and preen to get things done. Of course, you will have met them. These are the ones that talk in a breathless voice and giggle in a femininely irritating falsetto every opportunity they get.
Damned irritating girl to boy: "Ohh, could you open this bottle for me” *giggle* "I can't get my hand around its lid properly."
Whereupon guy opens bottle through sheer stringy muscle power,
Damned irritating girl to stringy boy: "You're so nice to help such a weak female like me."*giggle* "Thanks a lot..."Inane chatter follows punctuated by many MANY annoying laughs.

8) Most phone-in music shows get my goat. The vacuous VJs hardly make things better. The conversation from either end can hardly be called STIMULATING!
VJ: So, what do you do?
Caller: I am Utpreksha, a student at the Jhumri Thalaiya Higher Secondary school where I am doing my 12^th standard and I LOVVVVVE 'N Sync. Justin Timberlake rules. Woohoo!
VJ: "So, who else lives at home?"
Caller: Mom, dad, sister Anjana, brother Elvis, my dog Rover, my cat Kitty and my parrot….
VJ: So which song would you like?
A teeny-bopper song is named, whereupon
VJ: And whom would you like to dedicate this song to?
Caller: To my best friend Shilpa.
VJ: Okay
Caller: (continuing)...and Tinku, Rinku, Dinku and their friends Laju, Saju, Raju, Kaju, their boyfriends and girlfriends. My dog Rover, my cat Kitty, my favourite teacher Ms. Reena, the bus conductor on my school bus, my mom, my dad, Justin Timberlake... And of course, you. You are SIMPLY THE BEST!
VJ : (Not at ALL red) Sure, thanks, girl. You ROCK!...and so on.

9) Jennifer Aniston as Rachel and David Schwimmer as Ross Geller in Friends. They're too darned irritating. Let's see the story progress
Ross and Rachel get together.
Ross and Rachel break up.
Uhuh, Ross and Rachel get back together.
*blink, you missed it* Ross & Rachel break up.. AGAIN.
Together...
Break up..
In the middle of this mess...The pitter-patter of baby feet. Oh look, they might or might not be together.
Frankly, noone cares anymore!

10) Backstabbers.

11) Linux-based computers in our college lab that take 1 day to boot.

12) Road rage addicts who start leaning on their horns in a gridlock. Apparently, they think that the sonic blasts will
Either 1) magically clear the road ahead for them or 2) enable them to sprout wings and take to the skies in their trucks (or luxury vehicles)

13) Ekta Kapoor and her irritating mega-serials where the woman are always clad in silk saris and the men are interchangeable. Where in a jiffy, the 28 year old heroine has become the 45 year old mother of a teenager who sprouts 2 pigtails and lisps about how great her ma is. For our lil Ekta, it seems to be, "Jab tak mujh mein ek aur saas hain, main serials banaati rahoongi."

Give us a primetime break, Ms. Kapoor!

14) Politicians playing their endless games of strategy. It gets boring very quickly.

15) Any chain-mail forward.

I am unable to get the logic behind If you don't give me 20 pushups and send this mail to 20 others before 12:20 am tonight, you will be cursed with eternal dandruff and hairfall. The more people you send it to, the healthier you hair will be. XYZ got this mail and ignored it, now she is wearing a wig for life, ABC got it, was a believer and sent it to 50 people and now she appears in L'Oreal advertisements. PQR sent it to 10 people and now, half of her head has shiny hair and the other half is bald. She's making a fashion statement, apparently. Of course, I know what has happened to people who got this message and reacted to it before I actually sent it, because I have shiny hair that helps in clairvoyance. Oh yes, and also...I think that shade of red lipstick doesn't really suit you, Mr.Brown.
Exercise your gray cells, exorcise the chain forwards.

I really don't want a forward unless it makes me laugh. No, I don't think if I forward 'If you don't forward this, you don't have a heart', some gift wrapped baby will get one cent, and I know for certain my heart is in its right place… in my rib cage. No, I definitely don't think that Yahoo is magically going to shut down its messenger one fine day and I am sure Jack Russell has other things on his mind!

16) SMSes from unknown numbers that start with "how r u doin, da" for 2 reasons
i) I don't know you
ii)The dictionary and word complete is given in mobiles for a reason. USE it wisely.

17) Writer's block. I can definitely live without it. So can the numerous sheets of paper and chewed pencils!

18) Smokers who, not just content to put an early end to their life, pass on second hand smoke like they are doing the rest of us a favour.

19) Folks, who, knowing that you are invisible on Yahoo for a reason, keep pinging you and sending a million audibles a minute.

20) The fact that inspite of the fact that I seem to dislike so many things, I can't really put TWENTY pet peeves on my tag without spending 3 days on it!

I pass this on to Densel

Copy-write Shrutz :: 6:31 PM :: 10 Sneaky Remarks:

What would you like to do?

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Saturday, January 07, 2006

Close Encounters of the Cute Kind

As a young toddler growing up in the green plains and sarson de khet in Punjab, and later in Nizam's land, Hyderabad, I had the habit of cooing "Cho chweeeeet" at anything that caught my fancy. This has led to most of my Dad's Army pals calling me the "Cho Chweet girl" on seeing me even now.
Yes, I was a very cute kid! And, sorry, no wise cracks, please!
This was the actual reason for the aforementioned phenomenon. Hearing people chant the "so sweet" dialogue to me everytime Mom took me to an Army party, I learnt to parrot it back to the listeners. ("Oh, she is sooo cute and so clever too."gushed the ladies, whereupon I ran around the Mess, looking too cute for the people to have a mind to stop me. Well, maybe being cute had its perks?)
The only person my cuteness didn't work its magic on was a guy called Gorbachev. Well, not exactly Mikhail G. The boy was around an year or so old when I was 3 and was the son of my Dad's second lieutanant. Why Gorbachev, you ask? Well, he had an unusually thick thatch of hair as a baby. Yes, really, I am kidding! To date, I don't know the boy's name. We still refer to him delicately as Gorbachev. Of course, the sentence usually reads, "That Gorbachev really had it against Shruti, nah?"
Yes, he did. Even at this advanced age of 21, I can remember fleeing for my blessed life from a 18 month year old toddler determinedly waving a plastic cricket bat and toddling as fast as he could to, in my mind, hit me on my head with. I ran up the stairs and made faces at him from the comfort of the topmost step.
Back at Trivandrum and in school, I was, as jotted down earlier, a cute little brat. (I soon grew out of two of those three states ;)). Seniors used to pinch my cheeks in the bus, old ladies used to comment about my pudgy hands when I used to travel behind my mom on her Kinetic, hell my classmates used to ruffle my hair. The cutesy bit was definitely getting annoying!
Hands off, people! Shrutz is growing up. The pinches on my "oh so chubby cheeks" didn't stop. But, by the time I was in 12th, they'd subsided to the point where people used to wonder where the cute Shrutz had disappeared. Somewhere along the line, I became the ferocious Shrutz that people know and are scared of. (Muahahaha!)
Well, actually I lie, the one memory etched in my memory is that of my 11th standrad juniors falling me as one, on Teacher's Day (and while I was wearing a sari too!) gushing, "Oh, your cheeks are sooo cute!"
I mean, WHAT is everyone's obsession with my cheeks?!
What prompted this post was a group of 14 - 18 year old girls in our new apartment complex. Individually, we share a smile when I pass them by on the elevator or playing out on our courtyard. But, yesterday, after our New Year's program, I said my kudos and bye. Out of nowhere, (after a hiatus of 3 years!) out came the dreaded "Oh you are so cute" *cheek pinch*
That did it, the four girls overwhelmed me with demonstrations of how much my cheeks could stretch. Unfortunately, all of them were taller than me and standing two steps higher, or I would have... err, I would have meekly submitted to cheek pulling..
I vaguely muttered something about juniors torturing elders nowadays.
One of them actually said "Cootchie Wootchie!"..
That was absolutely the last straw!!!!
NOT cootchie-wootchie, please!!!
I think this is vengeance from all the kittens and puppies that had to endure my over-exuberant demonstrations of affection.
Snowy, Blacky, Dopey, Cat-without-a-name-at-godma's-house, I apologise for all the misplaced signs of love I bestowed on you.
BUT... at least I didn't say "Cootchie wootchie!"

Copy-write Shrutz :: 6:56 PM :: 10 Sneaky Remarks:

What would you like to do?

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Friday, January 06, 2006

If life gives you lemons.....

Make lemonade....?
Wrong!
The lemon in question is the car I keep zipping (or trying to) across the city in!....
It's a Fiat Uno, diesel and no power steering. Yes, it handles just like it sounds.. Like a damned mini truck.
"I don't want to take that car anymore." I whined to my mother. "Can I have the Palio, please?"
"Take that car and feel grateful that your cousin is letting you drive his car around Trivandrum for 3 years...."
"Well I would feel more grateful if it didn't wrench my hands off its sockets everytime I want to turn the car around college. I'd worship it if it had power steering. I would have given it the red carpet treatment inside and out if it's ac and stereo were working..."
"It takes you to college everyday."
I was continuing unabashed ".... of course, it sometimes feels like a bus too.... especially when all the girls pile in!"
"Then you deserve the Uno."
"WHAT?? I have been driving for soooo long! You still treat me like a kid..."
Minor tantrum follows!
"Mom! You never sleep when I am driving. You keep looking at the speedometer and I hear coughs when it hovers around 70-80! You want me to drive like a granny at 55 on the NH!"
I looked around and my mother has vanished into thin air. I picked up the car keys all the while grumbling about my perceived problems.
Before I stepped into the elevator, mom popped out with a final warning "And remember, never switch off the car for a small interval of time. It doesn't start once the engine has overheated.."

The car reached college without thankfully going into its characteristic outbursts(!) of sputters and false starts.
Eighth semester has been a blessing of sorts. After contemplating chocolates handed out by the wayfarers of S8,AE, the girls spent some time playing games and then, realising we need to "shift ho" in the immortal words of Mr.Wooster, did just that.
(If the previous sentence made your head ache, I recommend aspirin!)
Things went swimmingly till the Driving Miss. Crazy crowd reached Overbridge. Seeing 70 seconds on the clock, I switched off the car (to do my bit for the environment!) and began talking to my friends...
At the 50th second mark, I realised that the jig was up and the car wouldn't start! I suddenly realised how a bank robber might feel when his getaway car didn't get away as quickly as he'd hoped he would!
"Err, girls, the car will not start."
My poor friends, they had so much trust in me!
"Nah, Shrutz, we have so much trust in you. The car will start."
I was praying for a miracle of St. Lourdes now. "Please god, you and I have a deal, remember?"
3...2....1....
I shifted the car into neutral and hope the natural gradient of the road was steep enough for it to glide past the bridge and onto some space where I could park.
"Yay! It's working." was on my lips as the car rolled to a standstill on that treacherous piece of land over railways line known to all and sundry as Overbridge.
"Dratted car!!!!", said I.
"PAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRRRPP PARP PARP" went the KSRTC bus behind me.
All four of us were the shade of red that most tomatoes aspire to be.
"Please, let there be a policeman."
And, voila! One materialised and demanded if I didn't know how to drive a car.
I was hoping he wouldn't ask if I was old enough to drive and make a fuss "Err, the car's not starting."
"Not starting? Did you try to start it??"
"No, I tried my new Vedic hypnotism method on it..."
I swallowed of my sarcastic retort and mumbled, "Well, I did." To accentuate my point, I turned the ignition again and stared at the temperature gauge that was steady at 110 celsius.
"Okay, we need to push it!", the policeman took charge.
The girls looked at each other, sighed and climbed out of the car, while I shifted gears into neutral again and disengaged the clutch.
The car rolled gentled along the bridge as the city bus accelerated past with a disdainful puff of smoke that made pedestrians cough and gathered momentum down the incline.
The guys were watching the spectacle of girls pushing a car and I was wishing I was somewhere else, like maybe with them, laughing at spectacle of the girls pushing the car.
People came up with innovative ideas. "Call a mechanic!"
"Duh?"
"Well, the car will start properly once it has cooled down."
"Is this a car or a steam engine?"
"Uhm, I'll ask the Fiat guys?"

All I can say is, parking a steam engine must have been a b*tch!

Copy-write Shrutz :: 5:48 AM :: 8 Sneaky Remarks:

What would you like to do?

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Monday, January 02, 2006

Shades of Shrutz

My name's Shruti. That means Vedic verses. My surname is George... Interesting combination, but hey, it gets me the email addresses I want, without the extra addition of random strings of numbers! My middle name I seriously don't appreciate, because it usually ends with people dropping my surname, as in
"Kumari (!!) Shruti Susan"....
That's Miss. George to you ;)

I am 21 years old. I hate being reminded of that, especially now that toddlers call me "aunty". But I dislike anyone calling me "kiddo", which is how a lot of my family treats me.
"Oh. But she's just a kid. What can she do?"

Then again, I can't believe I am 21. Just 4 years ago, I was the seniormost in school and enjoying every bit of it. 21 seemed like a huge number, an age where things finally made sense and the world would right itself out. It hasn't happened yet!

I am a Scorpio. I am loving every moment of it, if only for the sheer pleasure of being regarded rather warily by people who think I am being sarcastic and cynical most of the time!

"Congrats.."
"Are you kidding me?"
"Nah. You make us proud."
"WHAT??" This is followed by a rapid reassessment of the poor soul's self. "Is there something wrong?"

I laugh a lot. Or, as a friend of mine aptly puts it, "Shruti, why are you gurgling?" Then, sometimes I get into fits of long silences and blank looks that can be pretty unnerving for people. Chill... It's just me giving the brain cells a run.

So, if you do see a slightly untidy looking girl with a big smile on her face and a slightly fast way of speech, that's just me :)

Copy-write Shrutz :: 4:58 PM :: 4 Sneaky Remarks:

What would you like to do?

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