C'est La Vie;That's life

Great title, hah? But, if you think I'm starting a discussion on Einstein's theory or anything remotely sounding scientific.... oops.....you are on the wrong blog. Why? Because I'd have no clue what I'm talking about. That's why. On that bright note, here's the actual quote from the genuis himself - " When you are courting a nice girl an hour seems like a second. When you sit on a red-hot cinder a second seems like an hour. That's relativity." I just wanted to see if this quote can be stretched onto other similar real life analogies. How about these? When you're shopping at the mall, 5 hours seems like 10 mts. Unless your wallet gets stolen, you shout with a maniacal laughter - Yoohoo, Yipee! I wish I had some more time. If you're waiting for a friend at the same shopping mall, a mere 10 minutes, (yeah, yeah, it includes cursing time) seems like a 5 hour cruelty. When your child is performing at a school play, 2 minutes of his/her act seem ...

I'm scared. Butterflies in my stomach jittery. Honestly. About what? Fashion woes, what else? The past few years, it's been a little nerve-wracking whenever I went back to India on vacation. It was odd that even my home city Chennai (whose heightened sense of fashion was somewhere close to stone age) had started changing rapidly. The dresses that I wore which were decently passable in the US, were getting scorned at and forcing deep sighs from all. Some sympathetic relatives even politely offered to buy some new clothes, if I could not afford them. Whoa, that did it. I'm usually not that bright, but something told me that my sense of style should take a huge hike and never come back. I decided that my passe clothes need to be burned right away before they continue to pollute Mother Earth. And, of course, the poor accessories had to be tossed in the bonfire too. I started on a savvy shopping spree, with a burning passion to turn into tres chic . Brand names to buy, fas...

Let me shamelessly admit. I love them all. Harmless tidbits involving movie stars, Tv stars or anyone famous than me (which the last time I checked, shockingly includes most of the adult population) would be great for starters. If you're like me who loves to go through the gossip mags on shelves or even better, browse useless online web sites, but consciously pretend you never ever read them, please raise your hands. Ok, keep up the good work of "Mission TattleTalk" from getting destroyed by those bland non-gossipers. Who by the way, are really leading pathetic, platonic lives. Not even worth gossiping about. Back to juicy sound bytes, there are those personalized ones like getting the latest updates on our relatives and friends back home in India. Where, thanks to a zero-tolerance policy to privacy of life, everyone seems to have a deep, insightful knowledge of what the others around them are doing - who lost their job, who got married and living unhappily ever afte...

There's only a thin, pencil, marginal, fine line between the two. Let me clarify. You see people with a lot of pride in who they are and what they do. These are the ones that not only sound confident, but also act that way in whatever they do. Graceful and giving others a chance to talk. More often, they don't even care what you think of them. You take one look at that them and go....."Wow, I'd kill someone to get that smug, smart look". They are our ideal idols, gurus, role-models....you get the picture. On the other hand, you see the other kind of people. Lots of self-confidence. Check. But wait a minute, what's this tagging along? A nasty overdose of attitude. Hmmph. Now, the scale tips all the way to a different category - arrogance. People who are immediate put-offs and downright annoying. If they are in an airplane seated next to you, jumping off into the troposphere doesn't seem to be a bad idea to you at all. Hey, at least birds don't brag. Get...

Of the world of books, I mean. It's an ethereal feeling to slip into a world weaved in the over-active mind of a writer, completely immerse in that realm for hours together, mesmerized by a story and be one with whatever the characters are playing out that personal drama just for you and you alone and....and....and.... just when you are all wired up and trying to desperately know what happens in the next few lines - one loud, big snap. You have been woken up from your trance and slowly realize that someone is yelling or shouting at you. You have been forced to slip out, into the real, aka boring world. Reason? Maybe lunch's ready or there's yet another mindless chore. Whatever. Point is, you have been rudely interrupted and suspended momentarily in time. But, chill. You can and will always go back as soon at the earliest. And, prepare to embark that special journey all over again. So tell me, are you getting ready to slip in ?

Yeah, just like the Spiderman song, except for missing in action - a super hero sprawling his webbed feet on our windows. Talking about spider man and his neighborhood, here's an unfriendly thought. Ok, he gets bad guys and saves the world, blah blah, but can you imagine opening your curtains every day and peer into a grotesquely-dressed, not even remotely spider-like, eeriely-masked man staring at you? Eeeeek. Back to reality, our neighborhood is a very child-centric, a la Sesame street style. Only a brightly feathered, nasal-voiced yellow bird and an unbelievably over-hyped, shockingly high-priced, ridiculously-talking red moppet are missing from this pretty picture. What? You say, enough with the parental vent and the way too many hyphenated adjectives? Ok, fine. So be it. Strict sentiments from now on. Any given day, you can come around our locale and see children riding their bikes, scooters, roller skates or maybe hop scotch, hide and go-seek. Shrieking voices, chatters, whi...

Our mugs a.k.a faces can be very fascinating. If you think about it, with a finite set of two eyes, one nose, one mouth and two ears, shape of the face and ok, let's throw in two cheek bones too - the permutation and combination of all of the above ends up what's unique to each of us. Forget the science, just aesthetically, it's mind-boggling. Don't you agree? Also, how we identify a familiar face in a crowd, instantly go through our brain's database, recognize that mug along with a name and that too, all under a minute (for most people) is beyond wonderment. For bumblers like me though, sometimes it could take longer than a minute.... or othertimes, how about....it could take, hmmm, maybe never ? Warning: An oxymoronic "funnily-sad", but true story coming up. I can never, ever forget the night of my wedding party. Maybe it was the bright lights or rich food, whatever, but I felt that my grey cells were starting to melt. So much was thawing away that when...