As evident, I have absolutely no regard for word limit.
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When I see anyone wearing hooped or long, heavy earrings I have this urge to pull, no yank it and yank it baaad.
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While listening to my mp3 player, if I come across a song that reminds me of someone (many songs remind me of many people) and in case I have fought with / am pissed off with that ‘someone’ I mutter ‘get lost’ under my breath and immediately go the next song on the shuffle playlist. It gives me a strange kind of sadistic pleasure as if I’ve actually turned away that someone, when they don’t have a clue.
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I have a habit, especially prevalent in my tenure as student at Xavier’s Institute of Communications – when I see familiar people walking ahead of me, I act like I’ve run a long distance and dash the person’s shoulder with mine and then say ‘I’m so sorry’. It’s become so common that when I try such stunts on the usual victims, before I mutter, ‘I-I’m s-…’ they say, ‘Yeah, I know you’re sorry.’
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I laugh/grin a lot, even in public when I see funny hoardings, writings at the back of vehicles and the like. The most recent incident was when I was travelling in the bus and saw a big board of a shop. The board proudly read ‘Shopper’s Spot’. It amused me to no end.
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Whenever I see stray dogs that are cute and look remotely friendly (most dogs in Mumbai are perpetually sleeping, I kid you not, but I will save that for another post), I call out to them like a child that has seen the giraffe for the first time at the zoo, ‘Dawwwgiieee..’ like they’re supposed to know about their origin and nomenclature. 4 out of 10 merrily ignore me, much to my dismay and disappointment, 1 looks at me quizzically like ‘Huh?!’ much to my dismay and disappointment while the other 5 do seem to realize I’m addressing them and look at me with the ‘Yeah, that’s me. So…? (yeah, much to my dismay and disappointment again).
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Two of my compulsive and obsessive habits are:
a) I have to, have to, have to iron my clothes (barring the jeans) and if after wearing them, I think they look even a leetul bit crumpled, I iron them all over again till I’m satisfied that they’re ironed enough. All this, despite knowing that I’m going to be crushed and my clothes (and I) mangled by the ladies in the Second Class compartment of the Western Railways. Please note that this obsession with ironing clothes is one of the causes for me being late, more often than not.
b) I have to, have to, have to have head bath every alternate day and even more often if I get the chance, the water and an assurance that I won’t get late. And the head baths have no fixed timings. At home, in Bangalore, head baths accompanied by loud bathroom singing is not uncommon after midnight. Now you know why I sneeze so much during the daytime, blaming the dust and pollen for it.
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Oh yes, when Maggi becomes too solidified like a cake of soap, I mix it with curd and devour it. Ewww? Get lost! It’s yummy!
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Which brings us to my love for food. When I see anybody eating on TV and if kind souls like my Mom, Dad, Mangu and the good-hearted kinds are sitting at close proximity, I say ‘I waaaannnnttttt…’ Mangu recently reported (after exhaustive calculation) that in a span of an hour, I had expressed great desire (I waaannnnnt...) for at least 8 kinds of foods, ranging from potato wedges to coffee to Pringles, sugarcane juice…well. Her (Mangu's) standard line in self-talk referring to her problem child is ‘Like a child only she acts…I want, I want…evvverything she wants!’
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If anyone points out to me, especially with their finger anywhere near my face, I take their hand, close to my nose, with the finger still pointed out in the Late, Dr. BR Ambedkar style, and say ‘Come, dig my nose’, in rowdy fashion, much to their embarrassment, ewww-ness and cheee-ness.
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Speaking off ewww-ness and cheee-ness, well, I, only I seem to have the good fortune of witnessing utterly sick sights such as phlegm on the road, on the platform, on the footpath...like everywhere! Everybody else in the world seems unaffected. If you think that's bad, analyse this: ladies scratching underarms and picking their noses in the train...let's go a step further..once while sitting at a window seat and generally looking around, I happened to spot the girl sitting opposite me take off the first button of her formal top (oooh, where is this post heading?), putting her left hand (with shabby nails) inside (oh man!), reaching straight for her right underarm and then...she began to scratch away merrily like she was alone in the train.
Why, God, why?!
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I just cannot stand people littering, throwing garbage where they are not supposed to, spitting etc where they are just NOT supposed to. Whenever I see anybody – man, woman or child – throwing plastic covers, papers, tissues etc outside the train window, I feel like holding their hand (just above the wrist) with both mine while they’re still in the act of throwing whatever, and then shaking the criminal, insensitive hand so violently outside the window that they’re so shocked and traumatized that they won’t ever sit beside the window let alone throw anything out of it.
For those with urges of slyly throwing garbage inside the train, I’d like to poke them with a pin/needle or such sharp bearings or execute the aforementioned violent shaking of the hand to their heads in the hope that it might do their brains (if any) some good.
I do wish I had the guts to do it, though or for that matter, guts to just yell at them.
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I am super possessive about the green board in college, (at least in the 3 classrooms that we usually have class in). I have come to believe that it is solely my duty and right to write on it and everybody else (except the professors, of course) who writes on it is a trespasser. So I guard it with all ferocity (yeah, that’s the word) and change the date and day without fail along with smileys (starting from a sad face moving towards a happy one from Monday to Saturday, respectively). On Thursday, 19th February, 2009, I actually wrote on the entire board filling every possible space starting top-left and ending on the bottom-right, reluctantly letting go of the chalk and duster only when I was sure I could not write anymore, anywhere else. What did I write? Well, the questions for the Copy Test that was due the next day and about which, everyone already knew, anyway.
Kind remarks from behind me, from kind classmates went something like this, ‘She’s going to start writing on the walls next..hahahaha!’ and ‘You should become a teacher’ and ‘Ey what did you have for breakfast?’ and ‘You’re writing like there’s no tomorrow!’. Hmmm.
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Now finally coming to the final one (a big Thank You to those who’ve reached this juncture. For those reading from bottom upwards – eyy rascal, read from starting I say!), I am more or less a peaceful non-violent being, except the alleged traits of a bully/rowdy that I display sometimes, just sometimes. Even then, I use only words, (no touching-vuching and all) if I’m bullying someone. But Wednesday, 18th February, 2009 (a day before the board incident), something dramatic took place. No, no, I didn’t bash anybody up. Read on…
I happened to get to college about 15 minutes late (cuz I was making a power point presentation on Careers for my cousin. The presentation turned out to be keek-asss!) but learned after a series of frantic exchange of messages learned that the not so kind professor wasn’t in a good mood at all. I thought there was no point in pissing her off even more so I got down from the cab and instead of going to class, promptly started walking to Marine Lines Station. I typed out a message for Mangu ‘I am on the steps of Marine Lines station, will go help out cousin. Will tell her class got over early if she asks.’ And quickly sent the message – not to Mangu, but to my cousin. Aiyyyooo, what evil sin had a committed that Karma was slapping me so hard today? With no balance- and no will or energy - to justify my message to my cousin, I just caught the train back to Bandra. After sometime my cousin’s message popped in my inbox ‘Hey girlie I think you sent the message for someone else to me’. Wow. I did explain to her later that I had bunked and would get proxy (which I wasn’t even sure of).
I was already pissed off. And when I’m pissed off you don’t mess with me, no you don’t. I was getting off at Bandra station when a bunch of ladies desperate to get inside the train began to push. One girl in particular, in a copper sulphate blue salwar kameez, acted oversmart and said ‘Arreyyy chaloo’ and pushed her way past me. She didn’t know what was in store for her from a formerly pissed off, currently super pissed off victim of Karma. I turned around and just as she was about to get into the train pushed her with four (except my thumb) bony fingers of mine. Believe me, it’s the first time I’ve done it to anybody here (or anybody anywhere for that matter) despite being pushed/pulled umpteen times. By the time she could turn around to see who the perpetrator of the crime was, I had moved away. Even if she had seen me, I’d have told her point blank ‘That’s how it feels when you push somebody, in case you didn’t know’.
Muhahahahaha.
I couldn’t stop laughing to myself after that. I rolled up the sleeves of my big black favourite t-shirt and felt like a totalll rowdy. I felt so good, I cannot describe or quantify how much.
I later learned that I had got proxy for the class I had missed.
Kind Karma.