Madras Masala n Chennai Chat!!

First off – a very happy madras day to all!! For people from this place this day is about celebrating their rich culture and heritage and the carnatic music and the classical dance and the pride in their lungiz and gajraz and what not but for me its none of that!! Not being originally from here or anywhere from the south the criteria for describing this place would be totally different for me (though gajraz and longiz are a part of it! and come off it! if these two ingredients are missing from your once-upon-a-time-in-Chennai story, dude either your story isn’t complete or the place you are talking about is definitely not Chennai!)

So ya getting back to what Chennai is to me, well to start with it’s a place for me where all my macchaz and macchiz “peacefully” coexist! It’s a place where me along with them have had the funnest and the most terrifical times (I take the liberty to use these non-existent words because I know for a fact that no word in the dictionary can sum up the amount of fun and the good times I’ve spent here) and I do realize that the post isn’t about my diz and daz so moving on to Chennai, it’s a place where a normal Hindi speaking person would get frustrated to the level of pulling his hair out listening to the “ingeda pungede” and what not. Yup talking about the language problem here, but then later these moments of frustrations become one of those jokes where you could laugh your lungs out and slowly words like maccha macchi Avalon become your lingo without you even realizing it!

Chennai is a place where every single soul cribs about the weather but then at the same time the evenings at bessy beach, the coffy and the sundal and the numerous fun games on that beautiful serene beach are to die for! It’s blessed with awesome evenings I say (and sadly m cursed with a 6pm in kurfew time!!)!  

It’s a place which initially gave me a big time superiority complex! People here stare or rather ogle at you with those “brainy eyes” like grey matter oozing out of them and you go all like “I jus wanna cuddle up in a corner in my warm ball of fur” (get the brainest of the person here and jus make four tambram give him “that stare” with those “brainy eyes” trust me he’ll have that deep seated feeling of nothing-ness. There is something about those eyes!) But then this same place gave me immense confidence and made me the person I am today. It’s a place for me where I realized my independence and my freedom, thanks to the Chennai locals. Travelling in them too was a big time problem, details of which I shall not get into, but then jus standing by the door in a fast moving local makes you feel free as a bird!

It’s a place where initially dressing up was like a taboo (not literally) from the scare of “roadside romeoz” {as they are lovingly called by us). But then it was here that I realized that where roadside romeos existed even gentleman-george-washington existed too! It was nowhere else but here where I realized the importance of maintaining my respect and my dignity and that the bravest savior for me was I me myself, and thats how it should be!

Coming to the gajra part, yes I agree the first time I got a terrible headache form the smell of it and imagine a girl wearing that to college, the idea of it was bizarre, I couldn’t believe it! But then I slowly started to accustom to it, then I also learnt how to make it or rather weave it and now I even have a pic in it and yes it my fantasy to have one facebook DP in it! coming to the Lungiz…umm well theres only so much good that can be told about madras and lungiz don’t seem to come it that so much! I give up here!( I mean seriously y would someone wear that! Seriously!)

Chennai showed me pretty amazing time and some not so amazing too. I met some really really great friend whose friendship I know I will cherish throughout and some not so great too (lesser in the later genre) it taught me certain lessons beautifully and certain harshly! It taught me when and what to care about and what not to give a rats ass to! Like it or not, It’s a major part of who I am today and what I believe in! And that’s what I will celebrate about Chennai!

Fairyland??? lost!

Human fantasies dreams and desires are limitless, never ending! We achieve one thing and the next minute find ourselves aspiring for the next. We get a good score, we want better; we win a match, we wanna beat the best and be the best! We get a job we start aspiring for a promotion. You get married; you want a family and a kid. You get a kid you want her to be the best and before you know it the kid starts aspiring for the same things. It’s like a vicious cycle that keeps going around feeding on itself… the bottom line being we all want a fairytale life with a happy ending but with an ever changing fairyland and an end!

The point that am trying to bring home is that as we grow our needs, our dreams, our perception to life changes. I still remember when I was in maybe 1^st or 2^nd standard I was asked to write an essay on “my dream home” at that point of time a house made of chocolates and candies  with a river of chocolates sauce and all that seemed the best place ever. Then I outgrew it. And today (this part was hard to accept but I had to) I don’t even know what my dream house would be of...friends, happy family, prosperity, success or maybe just all of it!

Those days were easier when I knew what I wanted. I had limited choices limited needs and a clear view too! But now the road am on is hard, is hazy. Don’t know what my dream house or my fairyland would be made of. As we grow old we start hiding, things, hiding feelings until a point we ourselves don’t realize the truth and we become masters of disguise!!

Life's what you make it!

At times in life certain things happen, certain sad things that make you realize how important life is and how each day seems not so important but actually how important and valuable those 24 hrs are! Recently I had such experience; a sad one (won’t get into the details). That made me realize how much I still had not done in life, so much still left to do! Wanted to make a bucket list but then I thought what the fun in planning things so I decided to go with spontaneity. Do just what I wanted to and when ever I wanted to. Some aspects in life were missing. I wanted to break open from my small cocoon and fly high, sing for no reason, and dance on no tune, like no one’s watching!

Have you ever wanted to do the craziest possible thing? What are the wackiest things you’ve done? What is the highest point you have climbed (when I say climbed I mean like “climbed” and not flew or taken the chopper to) up to? Maybe the 20th floor of some office, maybe the theists would here counterattack me and tell me about their thrilling and adventurous hike to vaishnodevi or about their thirty thousand steps long hike to tirupati!! And for those of you who were just getting ready to boast about their crazy genes by citing one of their once-upon-a-time-when-i-was-drunk stories, snap out of it guys! Drunk does not equal crazy, so stop hiding your embarrassment of getting high by calling yourself oh-so-cool! Stop cushioning your ego with lame ass examples and for god’s sake accept the fact that that hike was not “adventure”!! Have you ever genuinely just done instantly what your mind tells you to, be it abso-fuckin-lutely insane!?! Just simply live life to the fullest… if you have accepted the answer as no (and no, accepting it doesn’t not make any one a loser) then now is the time when you need to start living your life cause if word of mouth is to be believed, dude 2012 is your last chance!!

So buckle yourselves up and set out on a roller coaster of a ride, push the boundaries, confront your fears and seek the spine-tingling thrills. Start taking chances, leaves things to fate and destiny! Dream big, dream huge! Don’t see dreams while sleeping; see dreams that take away your sleep! See the flowers bloom, get drenched in the rain till you don’t sneeze and cough your lungs out (after all medicines were made to treat us only)! Treat yourself with perfect holiday wrapped amidst the most wanted shopping destinations across the world! Shop till you don’t drop! Shop like your credit card has no freaking limit! Break the rules and don’t regret it! Love is also a very beautiful emotion in life! So fall in love, believe in the person you love! Treat him like a king! Fall asleep just looking into his eyes and on his shoulders, let him softly caress your hair, cuddle you and softly whispers to you “I love you”! Experience that blissful moment in life! Just live life to the fullest! In the end lifes what you make it so make it large! Loose all reasoning and logic, make all your fantasies dreams and the desire to simply indulge and live the moment come alive!