Thus Spake The Wussy

1. I will always apologize to people for every small mistake I make so that they know I have good intentions.
2. I will give gifts/presents to as many people as possible (especially women I like) so that they will like me.
3. I will always be "humble" (have low self esteem) so that I won't hurt anybody.
4. I will try to help others by solving their problems so that they will help me when I am in need.
5. I will wallow in self-pity when people reject me. I will think to myself: "what have I ever done to deserve this?.. I helped them so much and look what they did to me now..." and other "feel good" thoughts.
6. I will try to make friends with people on online communities (especially with those girls who have beautiful profile pics belonging to some random actress or model).
7. I will flatter people so that they will do the same to me (which makes me feel good).
8. ...

and ofcourse there are loads of other things which one might do in the same situation but I am fast phasing out and thus finding it hard to remember (wink wink) and capture the perfect example of the nervous, huddling bundle of less-than-nothingness.

PS: There's nothing wrong with helping people out. I still do it. But now I don't associate it with getting something back. The problem is finding the delicate balance between giving your time to someone else and to yourself. I better not give any advice on this since for some people sacrifice is important where as others stress on the importance of self service (and some people like to do both). The only point I would like to make is that if you feel the need to help someone then it would be preferable to "teach them fishing, rather than giving them fish every time they need one."

Home Is... Wherever You Decide It Is

Today, for some strange reason, I started humming the UAE national anthem. After being done with it, I tried to think back and remember whether any thing triggered such "patriotic" feelings. After finding no evidence of the same, I shrugged it off and thought that maybe the memory might have escaped from some inner recess of my subconscious mind and must have found its way to explode... or rather whimper out my vocal chords.

For those of you guys who don't know my history, I was born of Indian-Keralite (yes, they are a different political scenario, altogether) parents in the blazing hot deserts of the United Arab Emirates, in the then, small but rapidly growing, city of Sharjah. It was there, far away from the spiritual motherland of India, that the doctor, upon my silent and dignified entrance into the real world, slapped my butt to get me howling (no wonder we are, one and all, fated to get our asses kicked from that point on...).

Some things, you don't remember learning. You just know that you know them. The anthem was one of those. Must have memorized it while my brains had not yet received their ability to grasp thoughts and keep them. Those recordings are like the morning mists where one finds nothing when they probe into it. My school teachers must have made me learn it by rote before understanding was born between my ears. Another testimony to the power of parrot-like rote memorization.

Sharjah... where I will always find my way back to... Home and not home... but where I desire to be and long to see when rainy days lash out on me...

I Like to Move It, Move It

There was a time when I used to keep my mobile on ringtone mode. It became a thing of the past when the following scene repeated itself until i got the lesson:

me with friends
ring ring
me (oblivious to ringtone): blah blah blah
ring ring
me: more blah blah blah
ring ring
me: blah blah black sheep
ring ring
me notices people checking their mobile phones
ring ring
someone else to me: Rejoy! Your phone's ringing!!!
everybody else except me: hahaha

...me try to melt into the shadows,
cheeks red like a couple of tomatoes...

After that, I started putting the damned thing on silent-but-vibration mode. Of course there are circumstances when I am moving around and its not enough to just have it in my pants in said setting. Sometimes I feel that the perfect place would be to shove the thing up my @$$ to know whether the thing is vibrating when there is an in-cumming er... in-coming call. Fortunately and unfortunately (for my heterosexual ego and my callers respectively), thats never going to happen. I did think of ways to circumvent the issue. What about headphones? I thought. Naah! Too weird. I had been at the providing end of mocking smiles/chuckles when some random guy takes his call using a headphone giving the appearance that he is talking to thin air or worse, looking at me while he shouts at the top of his voice. But then again, there is this eternal debate of getting your brain fried on mobile phone induced electromagnetic waves (for and against). I am tired. You do the homework.