To Be Or Not To Be

That is the question.
The answer: That, ladies and gentlemen, I ask of you.
A couple of days ago, I decided to give my friend a call after a long time. So long that she didn't even recognize my voice at first. Of course, a 'long time' in today's world would not be very long, owing to Facebook, Twitter and the likes. But it had been a couple of months.
Anyway, we chatted for a while, then suddenly she sprung the question on me- "Why don't you appear on Facebook anymore?"
That, is the Question.
"I'm not on Facebook anymore."
"Why?"
"Why, It's so boring..."
"It's ok, you can chat with your friends,na.."
"If I had any..."
"But, yaar, you will be so cut off from your old friends...from school..."
"I no longer care."
"What?" -I don't know whether this was disbelief or just me being inaudible.
"I no longer care."
"....."
"Nahi yaar, itna cut-off nahi hona chahiye...If u stay on facebook atleast u'll be able to see what ur school friends are up to..and u can see pics...and u'll remember their names.."
"But I don't want to see what they are upto. I'm sick of that. I don't want to see their pics, and why at all should I remember their names? I do remember their names btw.."
"Ohk, who taught us maths in 6th?"
"Ruchika Sharma."
"7th?"
"Suman Hasija"
"9th"
"ermmmm.................."
"See? You don't remember."
"Madhumita Paul. But why should I remember, what difference does it make??"
I don't quite remember her argument after that because I wasn't really listening. If u're reading this, then I apologize. Though probably you wouldn't be reading this anyway...

There you go. The big fight. Now, you might be thinking I'm being extremely antisocial and uncaring of others.
Well, you're right. Society's made me like that. I had no choice. My attitude towards others is a consequence of how others treat me. Now, if they chose to forget me, why in God's name should I persuade them otherwise? The way I see it, they're not worthy of my attention and time.
The people that I still am in contact with are very few. Two regularly, one more occasionaly. The others  would be once in a few months, if at all. Now, I get to talk with whom I want, when I want. What more should I chase after? A fake projection of myself on a social networking site, just to be 'accepted'? To be popular? To be 'liked', 'tagged', etc. etc. ???
No.
You might think of me as being bitter. You would have been right, had I written this a couple of months ago.
I left facebook because it made me sick. To see others having the time of their lives while I had nothing. To see others wallowing in ecstasy while I trudged on a crooked shit-stained path. To be utterly ignored. I had not received a single notification in over a month before I left.
Now, though, there is no bitterness. Only a sense of detachment. A sense of nonchalant detachment, and knowing that I have no obligations makes me kinda happy.
Ignorance is bliss. Bliss is what I feel now. I no longer crave for company, for someone to hear me out. I am my own comrade, my own mentor, my own messiah.
And that is enough for me. And I am not completely cut off, I still talk to a couple of people, the ones who matter.
For a purely speculative discussion I invite your opinion: Am I right or wrong?
I believe the former.I believe that it's ok to not care for others, so long as you don't hurt them. It's ok to be antisocial if you're really comfortable with it.I should like to hear a CONVINCING argument against it. Not for myself, but just for speculation.
Answer away, people....

How NOT To Travel

The following event is straight out of an idiot's diary- namely, me. I had a great time commuting to Mysore from an undisclosed location and back, I kid you not.
Having made no previous plans, I decided on Thursday night to book a bus for the following morning. I had not known there would be 4 holidays. Anyway, I packed up my stuff in a backpack and a suitcase at night itself and thought, well, it's all set, nothing can go wrong now.Ha,ha.

Next morning,
6:50 am
I wake up, grab a brush and put a little make up(yes, I'm a sissy who likes to wear skirts and be feminine, in a totally non-gay way-I'm Scottish). I take bath, whip up some oats and gulp it down.

7:55
At the bus stop.
Damn.No bus.
Take a share-cab, reach the inter-city bus depot after a huge traffic jam.

8:40
Damn.
Wrong place.
It's a private bus, which is on the other side of the depot, which I conveniently forgot.
By the way, the bus was scheduled to leave at 8:30.
Wheee.

8:50
I reach the private bus depot. I see a girl, asking for the same travel agent. I ask her, "hey what time does your bus leave? I missed my 8:30 bus"
"I had come for the 9:30 bus, but they gave me a boarding pass for the 8:30 bus. You're one lucky bastard, aren't you?"
ohkay, she didn't really say that.....not the last part anyway.
Neither did she ask me to give her a smoochie woochie.
I guess I'm not much of a lucky bastard after all. Still, I got the 8:30 bus.
Woohoo!

9:00
The bus started.The sunlight streamed solely onto my head from the opening above(covered with glass) and made me feel like I was in a spotlight. I took out my book and began to read, getting really engrossed in it. I was quite enjoying myself, until an ear-splitting noise brought me back to the earth.The sound of a speaker.
I looked at the TV screen. They were airing a movie. A Tamil movie.
:|

To ignore it, I fished out my mp3 player from my pocket and drowned out the terrible cacophony.

2:00
 The bus stopped for lunch. The conductor said, "15 min का time है, जल्दी खाके आ जाओ."
What the fuck??
They've got to be kidding.
They weren't. Well, not entirely. I quickly had some fried rice, and the bus left after 20 minutes.

I went back to the bus and slept.

4:20
The bus reached Majestic Bus Terminus in Bangalore, and I got down. I asked the conductor where I'd get a bus for Mysore. He uttered something incomprehensible and pointed vaguely in a direction. I turned and tried to see what he was pointing at but did not understand. So I turned back to ask him again. Only he wasn't there. Nor was the bus. It had left. With my luggage in it.
Wheeeeee!

I took out my boarding pass and dialled the agent's no. He didn't speak english.
I dialled again for the Bangalore branch.No reply. I found out somehow where the office was and headed straight for it. Meanwhile my phone's battery was low and I just had Rs. 3 balance . When I reached the office, I launched into a tirade against the lousy service and great inconvenience caused to me. Then I asked them where I could find the bus. I didn't like the answer. 20 mins later, after reaching the garage on foot, I finally found the bus and got back my bag. Since no autos are allowed in the garage, I had to go back on foot.
Hardly 2 minutes had elapsed, and the handle of the bag, which directed the rollers, broke. I was forced to carry the damn thing for 2 kms to the bus stand. I finally got into a bus headed for Mysore.

My bad luck was far from over. When I reached into my backpocket for the money to buy a ticket, yeah, you guessed it, it was not there. 300 bucks. Whoopsie.
No, my wallet, mp3 player and phone were all safe in the front pockets. I lost 300 bucks, god-DAMN-it!!
The rest of the journey was uneventful.Hehehe. Of course not.

20 minues into the 2nd bus ride, I had an inexplicably full bladder.
Bad news: No bus stops probably for 2 ½ hours.
Good news: That there is no other bad news.

I tried desperately to control the law of nature.I guess you'd like to hear about how I wet my pants at the age of 19. I'm sorry, I'm gonna have to disappoint you. I managed to make myself not pee for 1 ½ hours.I shifted my weight, took deep breaths,suddenly stood up, suddenly sat down and finally slept forcefully. Then came a stop.

RELIEF.
I paid the bathroom attendant 10 bucks extra for my appreciation.

9:30
I reached Mysore.

10:00
I reached home.

The End

Life At School(s)

Hello again.Now that you have an idea of how chaotic my life can be, I shall take you on an odyssey across my childhood, which was weird, to say the very least.Now there are a couple of problems to overcome while i narrate my story, some of which are :

• I have a terrible memory.
• I have a terrible memory.
• I might have said this already, but I have a terrible memory.

KINDERGARTEN:

Now I have no accurate memory of what I used to do in kindergarten.I remember being the topper, and also, voted Sexiest Tiny Totaler.It's a pity I can no longer contest for that title.Anyway, I then resided in Vikaspuri, and did what all kids that age do- hang around with my girlfriends. They happened to be very interested in my archaeological work; they often joined me in excavating worms from the middle of the park.For some reason, anyone passing by would shoo us away and tell us to stop damaging the grass.
It was such an easy world- I could date two girls-simultaneously.... and the only reaction i would get from anyone who saw me at it would be laughter. But, like all good things, it wasn't meant to be.....

My First Break-Up:
It was, alas, a double whammy.One fateful afternoon, she called me over to dig, and i obliged, presuming she found some jurassic era fossils.Boy, was i disappointed.For one thing, her new friend was already there.Secondly, they were finished digging and now playing with some hoops and rings.They said they made a new nickname for me.My spirits rose.But suddenly they raced away on their Harley Davidson tricycle.When they were 30 feet away, they said it out loud:



<drumroll>



TATTI (For non- Indians : This means SHIT )

:|
:|
:|
:|

I was aghast.Heartbroken.My immediate response was, "WAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!"<loud sobs>
Getting over them was hard.Hence started my alcoholism.

KINDERGARTEN CONTINUED

Did I mention I have a terrible memory?Perhaps not......Anyway, I have another flash of a childhood memory.My parents had taken me to a hit movie screening. Starring one of my favourites, Aamir Khan and the lovely Urmila Ma-tond-(kam)-kar, it was titled Rangeela. Of course, being the born pervert that I am, I chose to call it Nangi La.I was very enthusiastically watching when aamir's character was shown in a theatre, placing his feet on the headrest of the unfortunate guy in front.Obviously, it did not take even a fraction of a second for me to follow suit.Unfortunately, my feet did not even reach the back rest.That's when I lost it and gave mommy dearest a Very Hard Time.Criss crossing between seats and often going under them, the second movie drew more attention than the one on the screen, and I pulled off stunts that would put James Bond to shame.But then again, nobody twists James Bond's ears and slaps his bottom raw red for misbehaving.
Since that day, mom has been extremely wary of taking me for a movie in a theatre.
On the bright side, i won a fancy dress competition for coming dressed as 'Munna' i.e. Aamir's character in that movie.Next time I remember going to the theatre was for Titanic.Wow.Good call,mom.A tragedy, it was.
Especially the wolf whistling while I wondered why 3 stomachs complete with 3 bellybuttons were getting so much attention.


Note: Above paragraph may lead one to think that I am mentally unstable.I neither affirm nor deny it.


There was once a time when i was an innocent little piece of shit.Still in kindergarten, that phase ended with the following event.


THE STOREROOM HEIST


It was a boring summer afternoon.The wind lightly played on the five time winner of the Sexiest Tiny Totaler award. He looked extremely handsome in his semi white uniform stained with oil and mud.The girls (and a few homos) letched unabashedly, and they boy quite enjoyed the attention(except from said homos), the Shah Rukh of the Kindergarten wing.It was the last day of summer, before the holidays.School was about to end in an hour.The boy went for a pee-pee.The bathroom was dark, it was always dark, for we were afraid of being seen, engaging in our notorious planning of the most dastardly deeds.The boy was unforunately on the receiving end of the prank this time.as soon as he entered the cubicle, two guys locked the door from behind and ran away, cackling sadistically.While he gently weeped. He quickly finished the annoying business of pee-pee and banged on the door.No response.
It was awesome.The ambience could not have gotten any better.The boy quit his attempts, and sat on the coveted throne.He wondered at the genius who thought of providing ventilation in the throne.Surely, sometimes a posterior should be getting some breeze. He looked at his watch. Half an hour left. Not that he minded being locked in such a smelly cubicle, but he had to say goodbye to his friends, hence he resumed his banging on the door.A peon was fortunately nearby, and let him out. Thanking the peon, the boy rushed back to class, and found out that two boys were missing from class for over an hour. THE BASTARDS.
He sneaked out, peeping into every room on the floor.He could not locate the boys. Something was fishy.
He finally came to the last room, where he saw the back door swinging, and realised who had just knocked his knee into it. he tore after them bastards, but they beat him to the class; he didn't even see them enter it.
Since he couldn't prove anything, he went back to the room, which was known as the storeroom.
All the goodies were stored there. If he could just find out what they stole, and catch them in posession of it, his revenge would be complete....
Entering the storeroom, he opened the shelves in a great hurry, trying to see what was missing.
"Hey, you! What are you doing, opening the shelves without permission??"
The boy turned around in shock, to find the class teacher at the door, looking scandalised.Beside her were the two boys.
"I never expected this of you!You're trying to steal something?"
The boy tried to stammer an explanation...to which obviously the teacher didn't listen..
The poor boy was scolded severely by several teachers for a theft he did not commit.
You're probably wondering what was stolen - a mini monopoly box.
You're also probably wondering why I wrote this whole piece in third person, instead of the usual first person narrative style - I wasn't that boy.
I was the bastard who locked him in.
Felt good.
(He'd bullied me and my friend the day before)
Revenge truly is sweet.
I never took the box home.We threw it out of the bus in a garbage dump.
We're born Professionals.....