The Seven Habits of Highly Ineffective Me

Since roshan (aka The Doc) had tagged me in the "seven interesting things about me" department, i am left with no option but to say the least worst things about me cause believe me, my life's no moral science book mates ;)... so here they are without further ado:

1.
i scratch your back, you DON'T scratch mine: I do walk around with this "i am better than thou attitude". So, while i shower my friends with generous dosages of help, i refuse to take help from them. I guess it must be some crazy habit i picked up many years back when memory was vague and foggy. I simply can't explain it. An extension of this strange behavior was when i came down to bangalore in search of a job, my friends suggested faking the resume and taking references, to which i staunchly refused (Ironically, my first I.T. job happened when i caved into the reference pressure. It was either that or going back to live with my parents. Brrrr! ;)

2.
dust particles enter my eyes when i see mushy, makes-you-cry movies: Okay! i admit it's quite embarrassing when i have this urgent need to cry a river when i am watching film scenes involving loss of a loved one or the poignant separation of lovers blah blah blah. I mean, i even cried while watching the animated movie shrek which means i am beyond redemption. When one of my work colleagues came to know of it, she told me that men should never cry. I retorted with "i bet you make the exception for Shah Rukh Khan" and i added "you double standard !@#$%^" not quite aloud.

3.
my smile: during my early twenties, i realized that i had the God-given gift of stopping people in their tracks like forest deers caught in high beam head lights when i smiled at them. I kind of learned of this by accident when i showed my dimples to a girl in the office and she mouthed the words "nice smile". And i was like, whoa! when i tried the same in the mirror :)

4.
i eat implies i read: talk about multi-tasking. This habit's one i definitely don't regret having around since i can get twice the amount of work done if i read something while i am eating. And somehow the food tastes better when i read fantasy like Lord of the Rings or the Wheel of Time series. But my parents insist that its dis-respect to the food when i do this. Hah! i say and i get back to burying my nose in said book and my mouth into breakfast/lunch/dinner.

5.
a gallon of tea, please: my grandma (mom's mom) used to replenish my beer-mug-sized-tea-cup all the time when i used to stay with her. And that's how i got addicted to the thing. And when i ordered my first Rs. 2 half-tea from the authentic tea-shop over here in bangalore, i squinted at the tiny cup (and the even lesser amount of tea) and asked myself: "thats it?"

6.
people open up to me easily: i had heard this urban legend that said that if you had a disability, you will be gifted with some other talent which would more than make up for your deficiency. And since i have the advantage of not taking my ears for granted (courtesy of moderate hearing loss which i am diagnosed with), it came as a very big surprise to me when people started to talk to me about things which they don't usually talk about. After they are done, they usually add the comment "I don't know why i told you this" to which i nod and say, "Its a gift". Must be that i concentrate on the person when they start to speak since i am not so fortunate in the hearing department and this signals to the person that he/she has a captivate audience in this person. I also tend to nod my head like a wise old sage when i agree and/or understand what they had said. Frankly, i don't give a damn about this scientific explanation and just like to think that Listening is my Talent :).


7.
the ABCD aka arab born confused desi: well, i was born outside india for starters (U.A.E. to be vaguely specific and sharjah to be kinda accurate). While i was young, and since both my parents were taking on the big bad world through their careers, i used to be baby-sitted by a goan family where they fed me english as a first language. My parents half-jokingly tell us that they had to learn english because they couldn't understand what their own children were talking about ;). And when i used to go to kerala for the holidays, i used to feel a little odd among my cousins. Defensive action was in order and whenever someone made fun of my accent, i would give them them the same stare of disgust i'd give to someone who said a racist joke and they would sputter into embarrassing mumbles. If someone asked me whether i knew malayalam, i would say that i did know enough to marry a mallu babe ;). Later, i took it in my stride after i had learned to accept myself for who i was (and i was not THAT bad considering my above average intelligence and obvious charm :P).

And since i have to pay this tag forward, the ;) unlucky losers are: reji, reni, hemlyn, pravin, kalpana, georgi, and arnab