The Voice In My Head…

And just so you know, didn’t dream up this post, was tagged by the dude who calls himself Zoxcleb & blogs at Wall Street.

Necessary introduction being made, let’s cut straight to the main course (not much of a soup or starters person, but that’s just a fact, not something weird) -

(06) I like to sit with my feet crossed over. Some people think I’m into Yoga & doing Padmasana (the lotus pose) or some variation on it. Not at all. I’m just used to it. It’s supposedly the most correct position for the body to be most comfortable in (don’t ask me where I got that from, it’s just something that’s stuck in my head). You’ll find me (depending on how close I am to you) sitting in your house, your car & yes, even your computer chair in this position. Yes, you don’t need a webcam to know I’m doing it right now

(05) I usually don’t talk concise. I usually talk like I’m writing a book. There’s usually a prologue & an epilogue too. I say “usually” because there are times I’m quiet (believe it or not). These are extreme times - when I’m either very sad or very happy. When I’m very sad, I don’t usually talk about it. When I’m very happy, I like to savor the moment without talk.

(04) I can move my nostrils at will. If in a swimming pool with me, you’ll be excused for thinking me the great white shark. Ok, great white sharks do NOT have nostrils, I just thought I’d add that bit because it sounded nicer than just saying “I can move my nostrils”. Did you not read point 05???

(03) I’m very pro-life (& I don’t mean only anti-abortion). I really mean pro-life. I think life is meant to be lived to the hilt, abundantly & full of very good thing (which excludes all things immoral & illegal). Once when I was a little little girl, my sister, a neighbour and I killed a slug in our building garden. We all felt so bad that we found a matchbox, dug a hole & buried it, complete with a little cross on top (made with two twigs we tied together) and prayers at the grave. Haven’t willfully killed anyone since.

(02) I love going to Naturals Ice Cream because they have the best Natural ice creams in Mumbai (& in the world according to some) like Anjeer, Lychee etc etc. The thing is, I go to Naturals & only order the very un-natural Chocolate Chip (Waffle Cone). Everytime, like DHL, without fail. It’s seriously amazing, trust me.

(01) I love to sing. I don’t know if I’m any good at it but I really love to sing. So I’ll sing on the road (even if I’m walking completely alone), sometimes I even move my head in a hip-hop way to the tune in my head (you thought I only hear voices?!). I sing along the music in the car - my sister used to find this extremely annoying as did someone else who was close to me once. I sing in Karaoke clubs - come on, that’s what they’re there for. I sing in church, at parties, at work or “just”. The weirdest thing of all, is that I do NOT sing in the shower. Go figure.

Weird enough to put me into a straight jacket? Some people think so even without reading this list. The epilogue is over.

Meme passed onto:

Dev
Alex
Noojes
Ashish
Reshma &
Apy

Whose names if you look at from top to bottom spell DANARA. Ok, enough of weirdness.

Darn, almost forgot! Meme also passed onto Harsha for getting GOLD twice here already!

So back am back to work as usual, which is great in it’s own way - I think a break is good but too much of a good thing isn’t a good thing anymore.

Got lots of stuff planned for the week ahead… catching up with friends is a big one already almost filled up the week with that! It’s so good to be blessed with great friends around you!

Want to also catch MI 3 & Final Destination 3 -

I loved both the earlier Ethan Hunt films - the first one perhaps being a super duper (lol) favorite in the suspense cat & the second having immense chemistry between the protagonists. Hope the third one has something to rave about - will have to just wait & see though.

As for the FD trilogy; the first movie was pretty cool whereas the second movie was a seemingly waste of time with excessive gruelsome horror death scenes. Hope the 3rd one’s like the first, like MI 3, will have to wait & see too!

What else do I want to do this week? Haven’t been for a swim in ages - was talking to a friend about it yesterday - let’s see, hopefully on the weekend.

Am also going to try & see if I can check out Inorbit Mall. Don’t usually venture out that far into the suburbs but have been hearing terrific things about it, especially the food court (lol) so thought it’s worth a try.

Will fill ya in on what all I actually end up doing. Until then, let me know if you have any tips on what I should do this week! Have a good one yourself

Here is the ‘more’ I promised in my earlier post. Be warned, if you have a strong imagination which enables you to smell smells over the net, it may be safer not to read on.

I stepped off the air-conditioned plane June 8th into a 39 degrees C hot Delhi night. I asked my friend who came to pick me up from the airport how bad the heat was during the day & he said “We’re burning”. Not an exaggeration as I found out myself pretty soon.

And to add to that record heat in the day. Quote from “The Hindu” (edited for brevity):

New Delhi, June. 11 (PTI): The national capital today experienced sweltering heat with maximum temperature shooting up to 43.6 degrees Celsius, the highest in over a month… (which is) four notches above normal during this time of the season…

There is no respite in sight from the searing heat in the coming days with the weatherman predicting the maximum temperature to hover around 44 degrees Celsius.

The high temperatures were further intensified by the fact that the place I was staying at in Faridabad had electricity only about 50% of the time (if that). I spent the first night in utter agony feeling like I was burning from the inside and I may spontaneously combust or something…

You people are spared much pain -I took pictures of the sheet & pillow I was sleeping on - it was a single sheet on a rexene thingie supposed to be a matress - both sheet and pillow were drenched with my sweat. Returning home I find out that my cable (forget what it’s called) to upload the pics seems to be missing. As such you lot are spared the gruelsome sight.

One evening having less work & intense heat, I decided to try out an experiment. I filled a bucket full of water & brought it into the room. I threw the bucket of water on the (concrete) floor at 6.15pm. By 6.19pm there was no evidence that any such bucket of water had been thrown. I also do not know if it made any difference to the heat in the room.

Once I wet a towel and wrapped it around myself on the bed, it dried up before I fell asleep (honest to God). Another night, I was tempted to sleep in the bathroom. The fact that one of my dogs had died of bronchopneumonia after doing exactly this stopped me, but only just.

I came up with some reasoning that probably goes against most sensible sweatologies (or whatever they’re called) and this is it - it’s not that you don’t sweat in Delhi. It’s that it’s so hot, that you’re sweat dries up on your body before you realise you’ve sweat.

The heat also caused me to drink some riduculous number of bottles of water per day (or should I say per hour). I don’t know the effect this has had on my bladder but I doubt it would be a good thing.

But I dwell too much on the negative… The dry heat without sweat is good in this respect - there’s no Body Odour. Anyone who has travelled by local train in Bombay City can understand how positively arduous such a thing can be.

There were may things that happened to me, many experiences I had during this trip. It was overall a mightily blessed trip. Why then do I choose to sit & only grumble about the heat for this long? I don’t know - perhaps I am a sad sorry ungrateful thing - who lives in aircon so much that I don’t really know what the world is suffering like around me.

The poor in our country really undergo such suffering due to the extremities in weather alone (all other thing forgotten at this moment).

Conclusion: I am ever so blessed! I am grateful for any unpleasantness I faced due to the heat which makes me realise how easy my life usually is. And I hope it will remind me to pray for all the souls who don’t have it so easy.

Rain, rain, don’t go away,
Don’t come again another day.
Little Johnny doesn’t want to play.
He prefers to live.

And just in case you’re wondering, I did not pay my good friend Rahul a visit

More later.

Was wondering - My travel blog hasn’t updated with my last holiday yet. I did manage to do two more days, so y’all can check out Penang (Malaysia) & Phuket (Thailand) if any of you like.

The thing is - are any of you inclined to read the travel blog at all??

I know Dev & Ashish read - but I’m not so sure about anyone esle - and it just takes the energy out of me thinking about choosing apt pics from the 1000s I have, then resizing them & then writing the entries.

I still have one more day of the cruise & 10 more days of Singapore to write about, so let me know if any of you really want to read.

May not be able to check in immediately to see you replies, but would appreciate the feedback, merci

Breaking News!! In yet another twist to the whole story, Rahul Mahajan now appears to have applied for Sainthood! Below is the actual copy of a copy of the letter sent to the Pope:

——————————————————————————————————————
Dear Pope Benedict XVI,

Ref.: Application to become ‘Patron Saint of Politician’s Sons’

I know you have a reputation of being somewhat a “strict” pope (especially when compared to the last one) but I do believe you’re an intelligent man, which is why I will state my claim to Sainthood very simply (in a manner even you will not be able to refute) as follows:

(01)I am a Politician’s Son. Ok, granted daddy dear has died. But that doesn’t mean I’ll not have uncles (God bless dear Munde uncle) and secys (ok, he’s dead too now, but I’ll get a new one) and tons of others still rallying around me. I don’t know how familiar you are with Indian politics, but remember for us here it’s: Once a politician’s son, always a politician’s son.

(02)Our Family History is impeccable. Yes fine… I know some people may harp on about the fact that Pravin uncle shot my father in cold blood, but hey – which family doesn’t have these ‘trivial’ family problems?

(03)I am a Holy boy. Why, didn’t you see or read the press coverage about me praying all over town when daddy was in hospital? I even visited your Mount Mary’s Basilica in Bandra and offered ‘prayers’ there. Yes sure, there were tons of press following my every move (it’s easy to court these guys) and who remembers the fact that daddy’s party is against the Catholics? Not me! I still went to the church, like a good holy politician’s son should.

(04)I have a respectable career. Which is what you ask? It’s not the flight training that I flunked out of in America after daddy spent much of the nation’s hard earned money on it. It’s not the software company I started with my friends that also failed. It’s not even the production company I started – it’s the fact that I’m a politician’s son.

Pope, get one thing straight; that is a career in itself. Now that daddy has died, it’s upto me to bear his mantle. Who cares about finding election worthy candidates? Here we just pull out family members and put them into the dead family member’s seat. It’s an age old policy – heck, give the Congress credit where credit is due, they’ve got a patent on this. This is who I am, what I was born into. It’s as if here in India we have a “Political Royalty”. And I’m a political prince. But we’ve already established that, so I’ll move on.

(05)I have clean habits. I don’t drink alcohol (never even held anyone else’s drink in my hand) or smoke or do drugs (perish the thought!). What’s that? You heard some news about me & my dead dad’s now dead secy doing drugs & nearly dying of an overdose together?

Hasn’t being in public life taught you anything?? You should never believe what you read in the press or hear in the news immediately after the event. You should wait until our uncles & other corrupt ‘well-wishers’ have the time to buy off the right people (yes, it does take a few hours) & then only believe what they want you to.

The official version is that there was no drugs in my blood (yippee for corrupt doctors in Delhi) & there was just a “low” alcohol content (give me some more time though, will have that wiped clean too).

(06)I surround myself with good holy friends. What’s this? You don’t believe Sahil Zaroo is holy? How could you not? He has stated openly to the press “I am innocent… forget drugs, I have never had alcohol in my life”. What more do you want?! Come on! Let’s just believe him!

Why look at the facts that drug dealers all over Mumbai and Delhi all say they knew him very well (why should we believe them, they’re drug dealers!) or that his fellow college goers say that he and his friends used to lock themselves in the toilets and do drugs, disrupt college functions etc (don’t believe these either, they’re either Catholics dogs from Xaviers or they’re jealous of his fancy cars, his fancy cellphone & his “striking resemblance to Fardeen Khan” and I don’t mean FK’s sniffing habits).

I say he’s just the type of friend a good politician’s son should have. One who’s available to do my work for me (run simple Rs. 15000/- errands) and one whose daddy can also get him out of trouble (hey, my family can’t do everything for everyone).

(07)Only the best will do for me. I have been brought up with all the ‘right’ values – that if you’ve got to do something, you might as well do it as best as you can. This is why even when I’m snorting cocaine, I only use a 500 rupee note. Only the best will do for me. What happened to the 1000 rupees notes? Come on Pope, I’m no waster.

(08)I have a ‘power’ PR team: Forget all the guys in advertising! The real creative geniuses are in politics. They can make ‘conspiracy’ theories out of clear cut and dry cases. Why isn’t it wonderful – they find the cocaine, they have the dead secy’s body, they have statements of my 3 ‘friends’ and of numerous servants. But in come my PR guys & BOOM! Suddenly, it’s ‘clear’ that I wasn’t even doing drugs, nor was the dead secy – someone was just trying to murder us.

I’d like to state at this juncture, I’m not a Manu Sharma who has murdered in cold blood in front of witnesses or an Abhishek Kasliwal who with his friends has gang raped several women several times. Even if I was to be convicted, the worse thing I could be guilty of is of abusing my own body.

But as we’ve already established due to my ‘power’ PR team, that’s never going to happen. You think you have power?! Even if I did a Manu Sharma or a Kasliwal, I still would be innocent. Now, that’s power!

(09)Here’s my Final Virtue! I come from the land called Hindustan! Better still, from Hindustan’s Political Son’s haven, the capital Delhi! Here we do what we want, when we want & no one dare say anything against us. Here we make parachutes (emphasis on the latter half of the word) of all the “common” people. Most of them are illiterate anyway, just willing to believe anything they are drilled into.

The literate ones who can think for themselves and can understand the bull*^$# we’re doling out, are too scared (and with good reason!) to do anything.

And the few literate ones who actually have some gumption to stand up and try fight - HA, I say! HA! What can those poor #$&^^ do? They’re the most to be pitied. After all, the doctors, the newspapers, the TV channels, they’re all in our pockets. What facts do they have about anything? What in Mother Hindustan’s name can they do? Well?

So to conclude, as the above ‘facts’ very clearly show – I am the ideal candidate for the ‘Patron Saint of Politician’s Sons’ title. True, there are numerous other Politician’s sons in India who have gotten away with hit and runs, rapes & murders, but they haven’t had so much publicity (see, daddy’s death has worked for my good!)

Incidentally Pope, if I haven’t made myself clear, I’d like to have my sainthood with immediate effect. After all, I might just pop off on a cocaine overdose like the night before my dad’s ashes were going to be dropped into a much televised part of a river.

Sorry did I say that? I change that to - I’d like to have my sainthood with immediate effect just in case I almost die “due to unknown reasons” that supposed medical professionals are still baffled about.

Yours etc etc,

Rahul Mahajan (what’s the first step? I become Blessed Rahul Mahajan? Hmmm)