Life after death!

I look forward to the last Sunday of every month because I get to meet my best buddies from school… over a meal, movie, bowling or shopping – that is never decided beforehand. We always meet at my place and then decide according to the mood! So there we were, lazing on my couch… chatting about how our lives had turned out, catching up on the new and reminiscing about the old… when I casually asked “What happens when you die?”

Silence prevailed for a few moments. Everyone knows there is heaven and hell, that we are reborn, that we get a human life after many other lives, etc… but we still wanted to know exactly what happens. So we decided to explore… and suddenly became children all over again, dancing with excitement as we had found our agenda for the day!

We jumped into our Tata Safari and set off on our 300 km journey to Souliland. You must be wondering… that if it’s a place accessible to man, the knowledge of life after death must be publicly available. The catch lies here – once you enter Souliland, you become Amir Khan – not literally – but you experience what Amir does in Ghajini. The memory of whatever you see in there is completely erased once you leave. Nevertheless, we wanted to go and get answers to the questions in our minds! 

We reached Souliland at noon. We were very excited! There was a single castle, that looked a little like Hogwarts in the Harry Potter movies. We expected to see something that depicted heaven and hell – may be a sparkling white land on one side and a dark sight on the other. People being treated like kings, with angels all around them... or some being fried in a large cauldron by demons!

I don’t remember what we saw in there, but I do remember what I felt when I came out – as if the Gods had given us a message to take home: These days, both heaven and hell are found on earth itself, you don’t have to wait to die to experience it! If you do good, you get good - you attract good things for yourself for this life and the next… If you do bad, your life will become hell on earth, sooner or later…

We might not have found an answer to our question about what happens when we die… but we did find out how we should live while we are alive… that life is a circle - you will get back what you give :)

Shopping in 2030

I wake up to the sound of my phone buzzing. I have a new notification. ‘Reminder: Alumni meet today.’

Damn, how could I have forgotten the most important event of the year for every girl? A single platform to flaunt your latest size zero figure, your expensive designer outfit, your Gucci’s, your Prada’s, your Jimmy Choo’s and your recent promotion to corporate Vice President. You want to be the envy of every other girl out there, who by the way, is looking to do the same. 

Even though I have a perfectly stocked versatile wardrobe, nothing seems good enough for tonight. I quickly instruct my laptop to switch on; of course it recognizes my voice very well. It springs to life almost instantaneously. 

In this age of electronic cash, all your purchases are made by a single card with a single identity worldwide and webwide. There is a single login ID for every site – your UIDAI number! So eBay knows that you bought a Louis Vuitton from Singapore last month and Flipkart knows that you bought a tee shirt from the store next door last Saturday. More importantly, your purchases over the last decade are no secret! So whenever you login, the stuff that you are most likely to pick is displayed right on top based on your recent purchases from both brick & mortar and online store, worldwide.

So I login to eBay and quickly choose a few outfits. Now I need to decide what looks best on me before I leave for work. How, you ask. With their Virtual trial experience J A 3D representation of the outfit emanates from the screen and you can position yourself in front of the laptop so it looks like you’re wearing the dress. I look at myself on the webcam and I decide that the colour is too dull for me. I pick another outfit and it looks wonderful. 

I purchase it immediately, lest someone else picks it up before I do. It will be delivered by evening. After work, I get dressed and pick out matching accessories. I can’t wait to see everyone’s reaction at the reunion. 

I hear my phone buzzing again. Wait, this time it’s the alarm. It’s 7 am and it’s only 2013! Guess I got confused between thirteen and thirty in my sleep… Right now, the only single identity we have is to login to any site using our Facebook accounts! :D And sssh... no one knows that I splurged on that designer gown even though it was not on sale.. ;)

Interesting phenomenon! :)

You learnt a new word while reading a book. Now, that word seems to appear everywhere!

You randomly read about a certain event last week. Yesterday that very event was the topic of discussion at your team lunch. And today, you've received an email about it from some random source!

You heard about this company that your friend works for, which you had never heard of before. Suddenly, the name of the company seems to be in every article or magazine you read! And to top it all, you realise that you actually cross this company on your way home everyday, but never noticed!

Do these instances sound familiar? Atleast to me, they do! And it's actually a widely discussed phenomenon. (I can't recall the name though!)

Anything new you come across, starts crossing your path again and again! I used to wonder why this happens, and how it's possible! It then struck me, that it's no big deal, it's just got to do with how the human brain works. It's not like you wouldn't have come across the new term earlier, but now that it has come to your notice, you pay attention to it every time you hear or read about it. You would not have spotted it or realised that you had seen it earlier, 'cos you didn't know about it!

The best part about this phenomenon - now that you've read about it, be sure that you'll come across it somewhere else, very soon! ;)

Names changed on request!

You must've have come across this phrase while reading articles in a magazine or newspaper. Usually, when it is a real life story with certain personal or embarrassing details, the actual name of the person isn't divulged and another random name is used. At the bottom of the article there is one single note for all the changed names as the newspapers have to mention it to ascertain it's genuineness. Hence, when you read the article, you go with the flow and you don't care about the names used, 'cos even if the names are common, in all likelihood you wouldn't know the person mentioned in the article. And you don't care.

That makes sense.

But many a time I come across articles where the sentence goes like this.

"Ramya, an electrical engineering student from BITS (name changed on request), was walking back to her hostel after class when..." This would probably be followed by a few other people whose names had been changed and this would be mentioned in brackets for every name changed, all in the same article.

I find this a little stupid, and frankly I don't understand the purpose of mentioning it every time, instead of just writing it once in small print at the end of the article. Somehow I find myself concentrating more on the names of the people than the incident itself while reading the article. And then I start commenting on why they had to use such a weird name, with a pseudo initial as well! There are so many nice and pleasant names, but no, they find the most obscure names on the planet and print it.

Just a random post - I'm just amused that at times, I concentrate more on the names than the actual important content in the article. ;)

Whatever! :(

~ Three of my sandals/slippers have snapped in the last four days. Coincidence? Just plain bad luck? The first, while I was walking towards the library. I had no choice but to carry it in my hand and walk into the library. After borrowing the book I wanted to, I asked the librarian for some tape. My sandals were fine after that, for exactly ten seconds. So I walked from the library to the bus stop holding the sandals in my hand again! About 15 people stared at me, some of them more than once (!), and one old uncle walking towards me looked at me and started laughing! I joined him! The whole thing was pretty hilarious. I was as amused at their reactions as they were about me walking barefoot, sandals in hand. I was wondering why they were so amused.. When their slippers snap, is this not what they do? I feel it is better to walk barefoot with a pair of broken slippers in your hand, than just walking barefoot on the pavement!

Coming to the second pair of sandals, one of them snapped when I was crossing the road in Holland Village, and the other, half an hour later in Clarke Quay! But this time, they had snapped such that a little bit of tape kept the sandals in walkable condition till I got back to campus.

The third - well, my bathroom slippers. All three pairs are lying in some garbage can somewhere! I guess it's high time I went footwear shopping!

~ I've been swimming at SRC for the past few days.I meet Macho Girl at the bus stop outside MPSH and we go to the pool together. I usually take the A1 from PGP, but today I decided to take the A2 since I had to return the book I borrowed the other day from Hon Sui Sen Library. Since I didn't want to keep Macho Girl waiting, I decided to do this: Get off at the biz2 stop, run quickly to the lib, put the book into the 'book drop' machine, run to the Tamasek bus stop and catch the same A2, which would take time to get there coz it would have to go through the business loop, plus I saw it caught in some kind of a mini traffic jam opposite KR. It went off as I had planned, just that I reached the Tamasek stop huffing and puffing. Finally reached the pool, only to realize that I had forgotten my costume!! Everything else was there - goggles, cap, towel, sarong, only my costume was missing. Wonderful. So much for getting almost breathless to catch that A2 and not keep MG waiting! Going to keep her waiting for a day now!

~ We booked seats for HP5 online, and then site then directed us to the online payment section. But somehow, the transaction got cancelled. So we decided to start over. But to our dismay, the seats that we had planned to book (they were good seats) now showed the status 'blocked'!! Blocked by us! But we had received no confirmation ID or anything for us to go claim it again! We felt like such fools. But luckily for us, the site said that seats get blocked if a transaction stops midway, but after 15 minutes if it is still not completed, the seats become available again. Thank God! We finally got our seats back a little later!

~ This post seriously proves the fact that I am a confused soul, doesn't it? :P And when one is talking about me, how can lame jokes not come into the picture? Cookie Monster and me had gone to Macho girl's place for dinner on Sunday. But it started raining really heavily and we were kind of stranded at her place! Haha.. So Macho suggested we stay over at her place.. but both cookie monster and me had the same problem - both of us didn't have our lens solution and couldn't sleep with it on. Macho asked if water would do. We said yes. So she said, 'There you go! We found the solution to our problem!' And immediately I pointed out the lame joke in it, and so did cookie monster.. I guess I'm getting everyone around me to think just like me! :P

Confused me!

My gang of friends in school and me call ourselves "Masskdvj" [Weird name??].. It started off as - you won't believe it.. Sam, Mask, Maskd, Mask Dj, Maskd Vj, Masskdvj!! With the addition of every new member into the gang, the name would change because we would use the first letter of the person's name to add to the group name. Did you realize that I'm the only vowel in there? :P

The point of telling you about 'Masskdvj' this is because we created a community on orkut and we created topics in our little community - memories of school days, good/bad traits about the person above you, 'What I did today', etc.. - these were some of our topics.

[You are still probably wondering what the title of the post has got to do with what I've written.. Well, just wait n watch! :)]

A few weeks ago, in late January actually, there was this series of posts and replies which we had..I was just going through that today.. and I found it really funny, so I thought I'd share it with you. That's where you'll realize why the post is titled 'Confused me!'

Arushi:
What I did today :)
As titled, just post what you did the entire day today.. Don't give details like I got up, brushed my teeth, etc.. hehe.. If you had an exceptionally good/bad day, post it here..so we can join in your joys/sorrows!!! :)

Jenny:
study , or tried to !

Monisha:
its 4 in the mornin n im sitting n doin record...:(

Arushi:
:(Same here Monisha.. I was doing lab report till until 3 30 ish.. a 15% lab report.. ever heard of one report being 15%?? Anywayz I had a meeting at 10 in the morning.. and my lab report deadline was 12.. so basically, last night I had not finished my lab report, thought I would get up early and finish it, go for my meeting, come back n catch up on sleep since today is a holiday here for Eid.. Put alarm for 7 30.. what finally happened was that I got up at 8 30, finished my report at 10, didn't have a bath, reached my meeting my 10 30, after which I submitted my lab report.. then I got a message that I have another meeting at 1 in the same place.. so I am waiting there only.. and writing this.. :) In the middle my aunt who's come from Calcutta called to come and meet her.. so now the position is this.. I have not had lunch, I have not had a bath, I have not had enough sleep.. and after my meeting gets over here, I will go back, have a bath, eat something, have to pass on some stuff to a friend, after which I will go to meet my aunt, on the way I'll probably try to sleep.. coz the bus takes almost 45 mins to reach that place.. was supposed to have vocal also today..Thank God it's cancelled..I was supposed to study with Neha the entire day today.. my day will begin only when I get back at 5 I guess.. :( Anywayz.. basically, Monisha, you're not alone! :(
Engineering!!!!!!

Arushi:
Oh and I just realised.. I lost my lens!
What a day! :(

Arushi:
And guess what.. I found it!!! :D
What a day!! :D :D

Jenny:
phew !( cool for you about your lens !)
have fun

Monisha:
arushi u havn changed a bit...just the usual blabberer...

Arushi:
:D

*Hum Tum*

Yes. You're right. It's the movie Hum Tum starring Rani Mukherjee and Saif Ali Khan that I'm talking about. It might seem stupid but I've watched that movie a zillion times already! And I watched it only in Singapore! Don't ask me why, it just happened. I think I know the dialogues by heart now! Lol!

All my friends find it very weird. Do you? :P

So many times I rememeber a random scene.. I know the scene and what the dialogues are but I don't remember which movie it is from or who the actors are. This has happened to me many times.. and when I asked around and found the answer.. it always was.. hum tum! That's just the effect of watching the movie soooo many times!

Actually the first time I saw the movie, I liked it, but not too much. I found the idea of shuttling between Paris, New york and different cities in India very confusing. Every fifteen minutes it would say "3 months later - Delhi" or "3 years later - Paris".. but when I watched it a few more times, I really enjoyed it!! Especially some of the cartoon scenes with the guy Hum and the girl Tum.This happens to me a lot with songs as well. Very often, when I listen to a song for the first time, I don't quite enjoy it.. but after I listen to it 2-3 times, it becomes one of my favourites! Isn't that weird? Does it happen to you as well?

Okay, this was a pretty random post, but I couldn't think of anything else to write about.. my next post will be on BC [Venmai] and all the things associated with it, I guess. Lets see!
And yes, the next time you want to know anything about Hum Tum, you know who to contact! :)

The pwoer of the hmuan mnid

You msut have seen tihs vrey otfen, etiher in frowrads, or in nwesppaer actirles, etc. Aoccdring to a recrseah at Cmabgirde Uinervtisy, due to the pehnonemal pwoer of the hmuan mnid, it deos not matetr in waht oerdr the ltteres in a wrod are, the olny iproamtnt tihng is taht the frist and lsat ltteer be in the rghit pclae. The rset can be a taotl mess and you can sitll raed it wthiuot a pboerlm. Tihs is bcuseae the huamn mind deos not raed ervey lteter by istlef, but the wrod as a wohle. Aazming isn't it?? Wlel, I raelly fuond it aazming, and hncee diedecd to decidate tihs psot to it!!

So you see, I dno't raelly hvae a tpoic, I jsut wnat to wirte in tihs fshioan. So I geuss I wlil jsut hvae to keep balbbernig [ as I uusllay do! ] soemhintg or the ohter.

But typing for a long time with jumled letters can be tedious, and you also risk losing your spelling sense! That's why I am going to take a break. While we take a break, I want to talk about how certain words will make sense to us, even if certain letters are removed or the spellings are changed. As long as the word is pronounced the same way, we won't have a problem recognising it.For example, the fotografer tuk color fotos! So wat if he had no cloo about ausum locashuns? He stil managed to take sum exelent fotos. Some other words like rondaevoo and sycology cud be spelt just the way they are pronounced. [ U kno, I have a feeling, that by the end of dis post, both you and I wud have forgauten tradishinal english, and wud have eyther becum experts at sms-ing or invented a noo langwedge. ] [Hey! I realy lyk dis kynd of riting more dan the jmubled tihng :P ]

Ok that's enuff of a break already, let's get bak to the pwoer of the hmuan mnid! You konw, wehn you go to get yuor eeys tseted, smitoemes tehy ask you to raed from a bookelt, wehre the szie of the wrods is raelly samll. But scine the huamn mind is so pwoerufl, the eeys hvae jsut to galnce at the frist and lsat lteetr, and you'll know the wrod imediamtely. Eevn if you can't see the rset in the mddile porprely, it wno't meattr! Now taht isn't a vrey aruccate mthoed of eye tseting, is it??

Aaaah, I've had enuff of jmubled wrods, cundensed english and sms langwedge. I think I shud stop hear, befour I mayk u guys fourget your english, or make you confused souls instead!!! :)

Salt container!!

I was just talking about not being able to find enought topics to blog about.. and here I am, writing a post two days later! Hehe.. Actually, what happened with me today was pretty hilarious and so I thought it would be very nice recalling all that happened.

Macho girl, Prina and me decided to meet up at Spencers plaza today and we met there at around 11. We loafed around a bit, and then Macho girl realised that she wanted to buy a birthday present for a friend and Prina wanted to buy an Indian type of wallet.... basically, a wallet which wasn't the usual leather type.. I was looking for a salt container to keep in my kitchen.. [Not that I cook or for that matter visit my kitchen very often..lol..but right now, we keep salt next to the stove in a plastic box.. the kind they give you at take-away counters[!], and I don't quite like the look of a horrible looking plastic box..Hehe..] So we started looking out for what we wanted to buy, and after a while Macho girl decided that she would buy it later and Prina decided Shoppers Stop had better wallets! So we had just one thing in mind.. a Salt container!!

First of all, Macho and Prina were shocked that we kept salt in the open.. in a container without a lid.. what if it got moist or water dropped into it? So they were hell bent on me buying a conatiner with a lid! I agreed momentarily.. but I knew that we were used to having an open salt conatiner.. and even I bought a typical salt container, either it would be put away.. or the lid would definitely go missing in a day or two..
However, Macho and Prina kept picking up containers with lids whereas I kept looking at ones without lids! Both of them were very irrirated and tried persuading me to buy one with a lid.. and here are some of the things they told me..

• Since salt is bad for health, [whenever did that happen by the way??] you better have a lid on.. so you won't use much..
  
• What if the kitchen tap was left open by mistake and the kitchen got flooded?? Then what would happen to the salt?? Oh my god!!
• Buy a microvavable salt container so that even if the salt gets moist, the moisture would evaporate when microwaved.
• [I kept looking out for lidless ones..] Oh forget it, you're not going to listen.. [And they started picking up water jugs instead.. and then they said...] Why don't you buy this.. and persuade your mom to have a big party.. so she'd need lots of salt...?? And it would flow out of the jug.. What say?

There were so many other things we said and did.. the expressions we gave.. the kind of stuff we tried using as salt containers.. it was just too funny.. I had an awesome time.. no prizes for guessing what I finally bought in the end.. A short and wide mouthed glass, made of glass, with pretty green and yellow stripes.. So what if it wasn't the best one .. or wasn't to Macho or Prina's liking? It would atleast serve as a better salt container than a stupid plastic box!!!

Before.. The stupid plastic box..

After.. A much better choice??

What should I blog about? :|

I was pretty jobless and I thought I'd better update my blog before people came home and slapped me :P [Look at Macho girl's comment on my first post and you'll know what I'm talking about!!] Okay.. so I had the time.. and I wanted to update my blog.. so what was the problem..??Well... I couldn't find a topic to blog about!
!!!!
Have you ever faced this problem before? Or am I the odd one out..?? It was so weird.. I sat in front of my laptop for almost an hour, not knowing what to blog about, and thinking of what to post! Then an idea suddenly came to my mind, and I started writing.. I wrote a paragraph or two.. and then deleted it.. why?? 'Coz I was getting a bit too philosophical.. and was wondering if it made any sense! I thought of a different topic.. but again.. I thought that my philosophy would make sense only to me, and so I deleted it!

Well, since I took the trouble to think about, and write a couple of paragraphs on these two topics, I think I better tell you something about them :P !! The first one was about what Shahrukh said to Preity in Kal Ho Na Ho.. "When you look at your life.. you might find that it has a lot missing.. but when you look at it from another's perspective, you might see that you actually have a lot.. a lot that you didn't realise you had.. or appreciate.. what's the use of living this life, if you can't appreciate it and be content with what you have..??
Hanso.. Jiyo.. Muskurao.. Kya pata kal ho na ho...
[Laugh.. live life fully.. you never know if there will be a tomorrow]".. Sounds a lot better in the movie though.. cos the lines were written in Hindi.. and a professional writer wrote it! Anyway, this is one of my favourite dialogues from the movie.. and I thought of elaborating on it.. but as I said.. I was getting toooo philosophical.. and.. :|

The second idea was also from a movie.. Bluffmaster.. Where Boman Irani asks Abhishek Bachchan to bring to his mind the most memorable days of his life.. And surprisingly, Abhishek could not recall more than 30 days in the 30 years that he had "lived".. I really wonder if we do cherish all that we should.. even simple moments that we share with the people we love..

Coming back, I was feeling :| again...and as you see, I decided against it..
And hey, what do we have here? I've created a post out of my topiclessness [!] and also managed to give you a gist of what I wanted to convey!![Minus the boring mini-lecture that would have accompanied it if I had decided to write about it..!]
Now that's cool! :P

Lame Jokes :P

My friend was walking beside me and he kept stamping my foot, by mistake (or so he said!) and after a while I got really annoyed. I told him to walk 5 feet away from me! At this he remarked, "Haha, this is nothing, you don't know what happened when I stamped somebody in Djakarta!".. I coolly replied...”What happened? He got posted?!?"

Scenario 1: You laughed..
Well, I can only say, welcome to the club!! :D
Scenario 2: You smiled...
Hmmm.. a little more effort my child, and you'll be one of us soon!
Scenario 3: You reaction was.."Ohhh myyy godd!!"
Stay as far away from us as possible, cos lame jokes are part of us now!

Cracking lame jokes, and beginning to think lamely..and enhancing our lametivity (In case you are wondering why you haven't ever seen that word before...it's because our Lame king in NUS coined it a few weeks ago!!) has been part and parcel of our hostel life at NUS. We can crack the lamest of jokes, and still laugh at them...atleast at the stupidity of the joke, if not anything else! Most often what happens is that only I laugh at my lame jokes and am at the receiving end of oh-my-god-you-are-so-so-so-lame-god-help-you kind of stares (But that only happens when I'm not in the right company.. when my lame gang gets together, there's no stopping us!!)

Sometimes when I'm sitting alone...or waiting for someone somewhere..I somehow manage to remember past situations where all of us had a rollicking time cracking jokes.. and I cannot suppress my emotions at that moment, no matter where I am! Once, I was in the toilet outside lt 7, and I remembered something funny that had happened sometime ago, and I burst out laughing..There were two other people in the queue there... the one in front of me asked me.."Excuse me miss, are you alright??" Lol!! That was so embarrassing.. Well, that was only a toilet with a couple of people, so it's ok..Once in a Christmas programme, I started laughing on the stage, in the middle of carol singing! I guess that has been one of the most embarrassing moments of my life!!

In fact I was not the PJ queen, but the VPJ (Verrry poor jokes) queen in my class!! But you know, somewhere in the middle of our lame jokes, a good joke comes up, and we actually compliment that person for his or her feat! But that happens very rarely you see....

A few examples of our lame jokes..

Ek gadha ped par chadha.. ped par baithey hathi ne poocha "Tu kyun chadha?" Gadhe ne kaha, "Apple khane.." Hathi ne kaha "Par yeh toh aam ka ped hai.." Gadhe ne jawaab diya - "Toh kya hua, mein apple saath laya hoon!!"

"Hey, from now on call your mom F..".."What!?!!"..."Yeah, coz force F= ma"..

James bond went to a pan shop and had pan. He had to pay four rupees for it, but he paid only 1.50 and said... "Dhai another day!!"

This one's my favourite.. A man was driving his car on a highway when a hare came under his care and died. Being the animal lover that he was, he tried frantically to get it back to life, but in vain. He suddenly remembered something and went to the dikki of his car and came back with a spray can. He sprayed the hare with it. Immediately, the hare came back to life and started waving to the man. The man was surprised!! Then the hare moved away from the man, waved to him..went a little further...waved to him...went further down...waved...
But the man was busy looking at what was written on the spray can...
"Hair spray. Gives life to dead hair. Increases waviness..."

We really have the time of our lives sitting together and laughing over our lame creations...or sometimes over nothing!! Like laughing gas had been sprayed over us! Well, laughter is the best medicine.. and I fully believe in it.. and it doesn’t really matter what makes you laugh, does it? So put on your laughing hats.. and laugh!! Remember, "Life isn't measured by the number of breaths u take..but by the moments that take your breath away.." So enjoy life to the fullest while you can..! And if this reason is not enough, nowadays all Yoga preachers advise you to sit in a group and laugh loudly...laugh over nothing...and laugh so loud that the neighbours hear it..! Well, laughing over lame jokes it better than laughing over nothing, is it not? ;)

And by the way, do you know what Tarzan said when he saw 1000 elephants coming over the hill?
"1000 elephants are coming over the hill!!" :P