When you watch way too many sitcoms...

..you make useless observations like this :

How every sitcom has this Quirky Couple Who'll Stick with It Till The End. Like Chandler and Monica (Friends) , Carla and Turk ( Scrubs), Marshall and Lily (HIMYM). And all other characters aspire and hope to end up like them ( but instead are painfully tortured by bad relationships till the end of the series).Random episode begins with all characters having relationship issues including our Quirky Couple. Then as the episode proceeds other characters soon realize that they and their temporary(but shush, we're not supposed to know that yet) gf/bf's are not meant to be with each other, they talk it over and at the end of the day decide to split. By contrast, what happens to our Quirky Couple? but of course, the Wife/Husband(or soon-to-be) understands the reason behind the reason behind the reason why the Husband/Wife set fire to the house and then tried to hid that from her/him.All is forgiven and they return to being their madly-in-love-with-each-ot

her-selves (with the charred house in the background).It's like the writers want to give the viewers hope that all's not lost.Relationships may keep falling apart all around(and need to, to bring in new characters and to keep their ratings up till season XX )but awww look! At least the Quirky Couple's doing fine.

Of course, They can't afford to have a Q.C in a Drama Series - Gossip Girl, Grey's Anatomy and such- where the writers need to apply careful Permutations and Combinations to determine who sleeps with whom each episode to keep the series going.

Anyhoo, that's about it.Gotta go watch Scrubs :).

What Mother Goose never told you.

Thus was titled an article M and I wrote for the college mag in our second year. and i suddenly felt the urge to sorta save it in the blog lest i lose the mag.:). It's supposed to be well..humorous.

A long, long time ago, in Far,Far Away Land, at the foot of a very rocky hill, in a very small house, a girl named Jill crept very cautiously out the back door, ostensibly to fetch a pail of water but actually to keep her clandestine meeting with the love of her life(or so she thought), George Paddington Pylus III, affectionately called Georgy Porgy. Little did she know, she was being secretly followed by a boy named Jack, her one and only brother, who suspected she was upto no good.

As she climbed the hill, a chill wind blew and a shiver ran down her spine. She looked up and saw a huge white ghostly form floating on top of the well. Convincing herself she was imagining things, she kept climbing up.As she came nearer to the top, the white form turned out to be none other than the very large, almost spherical, extremely pompous Sir Humpty Dumpty, the closest Adviser to His Majesty the King, sitting on the wall of the well.

Jack, meanwhile, dove into the bushes, a vantage point from which he could conveniently observe both Sir Humpty Dumpty and his sister. He knew something wasn't right, but he couldn't bring himself to believe that Jill and the nobleman had something going on between them...to say he didn't seem her type would be an understatement.

A sudden commotion at the foot of the hill made everyone look down. A man in court clothes was running up the hill as fast as he could, with what looked like all the King's horses and all the King's men in hot pursuit.On reaching the top, the man, in an act of desperation, jumped into the well, knocking Sir Humpty Dumpty clean off, who, owing to his sperical but fragile structure, started rolling down the hill and ended up breaking most of his limbs. The pursuers rushed to his aid, but in vain, for they couldn't put him together again.

Meanwhile, in another part of Far, Far Away Land, Little Miss Muffet, clad in a voluminous nightgown, was eating forbidden (for she was supposed to be on a diet) curds and whey on a particularly comfortable tuft of grass under a tree in the backyard of her house. Suddenly, she heard movement behind her which made her instinctively duck, just in time to avoid the casanova Georgy Porgy trying to grab her.

She hurriedly got to her feet and ran, yelling over her shoulder. " Oh no, you don't! You're not going to kiss me and make me cry like you did with all the other girls!"

Georgy, at first put off, ran in pursuit after her.

The two of them ran and ran until they came to the foot of the very same hill where so many fateful things were taking place that very night. They scrambled up ( Georgy by this time had completely frgotten about his rendezvous with Jill, of course), passing Sir Humpty surrounded by the king's guards, and stopped short when they saw Jill who looked surprised and suspicious at their appearance together.

Miss Muffet blushed furiously and Georgy shuffled his feet, suddenly remembering his prior appointment with Jill.

" Oh Georgy, you're here at last!" exclaimed Jill and then abruptly turned to Miss Muffet saying, " What are you doing here out at this time of the night?"

At which the young lady retorted," Speak for yourself. I was just sitting outside my house when...a large spider -" and here she threw a dirty look at Georgy "- sat down beside me and frightened me away."

Georgy interjected before Jill could ask anymore questions: "Ahem...yes, well...my love..I am here."

" What??!!" exclaimed Miss Muffet " You guys are..I mean...Jill!! YOU!...and...GEORGY?? Do you have any idea___"

"__How dangerous this place is at this time of the night? Let's go someplace else Jill.." finished Georgy quickly looking pleadingly at Miss Muffet.

Before Muffet could reply , Georgy felt himself being forcefully grabbed at the collar by a pair of hands." You're not going anywhere, Mr. George Paddington. We have got to clear some things up, don't we?" said Jack, about to deliver a hard ounch on Georgy's nose. Jill tried to stop Jack by grabbing his hand while Georgy attempted to break free of Jack's grasp. While trying to fight off both, Jack tripped and fell down, pulling Jill along who came tumbling after him.

During this hallabaloo, nobody noticed a spiky-haired figure dart out from behind the bushes (different from the ones Jack had been hiding behind), grab a packet of something off the ground and run down the other side of the hill. This was the notorious trouble-making punk rocker and junkie, Johnny.

He was the reason Sir Humpty Dumpty ever came to the well in the first place, for the not-so-noble nobleman had a secret side business of selling brown sugar to the inhabitants of Far, Far Away Land and Johnny was his biggest customer. The two shady characters had arranged a rendezvous of their own at the well, obviously not predicting the cataclysmic events that would unfold there.

Johnny had watched the whole thing, from start to finish, especially the precious packet falling from Sir Humpty's hands, the only thought passing through his head being "Free Dope!". And now, seeing an opportunity he made away with the goods.

Though he entered his dark house as quietly as he could, a severe voice made him jump.
"Johnny!"
"Yes, papa?" replied Johnny resignedly. " Brown sugar again?" came the acid enquiry from his father, who emerged in a nightgown and cap. " No, papa", said Johnny, trying to sound nonchalent. " you can't fool me, liar" his father shot back.

" I'm not, Papa. Why don't you go back to sleep and leave alone for once, alright? Geez!" And without giving his father time to respond to this hardly satisfactory reply,he disappeared into his room, slamming the door.

The next morning, a lot of things came to light.Jill's secret affair with Georgy Porgy, Georgy Porgy's attempt at mishandling Miss Muffet, Sir Humpty Dumpty's dirty 'Business' and another very shocking revelation: the Queen was having an episode of infidelity with a knave (who was later fished out of the well by the King's men). The whole thing was hushed up of course, with the rather ridiculous explanation that he had stolen some tarts she'd baked or some such.

It was thus that Mother Goose ( the "wise" woman of the Land - that is the only one with any sense in the place) , to preserve the reputation of the inhabitants of Far, Far Away Land, came up with quite a few soppy rhymes twisting these events and putting them forward in a pretentiously innocent manner. She then proceeded to popularize them among children, thereby ensuring that nobody ever thought of questioning them. Until, one day, after Georgy Porgy's demise, someone stumbled upon his secret, secret diary(which he mainly used to write the names of the all the girls he kissed) where he had also recorded that fateful day's events vividly(albeit with spelling mistakes) and sold to the authors of this article.

*Mute*

Ok, fiiiine, i give it to you Oh Mighty Nature. Only you can render me speechless. Literally. Blasted sore throat.

Woops..Wrong Number.

So i was in my first year and I had to call T for doing a group assignment in Mechanics. The God of All Things Mechanics (for us) was Irving Shames who wrote the heavy multipurpose (Buy two and Ta da! Exercise weights!) Mechanics Bible. I search for T in my mobile and ring her up.

Me: Hello? Oh hey! Where are you, T? Come fast with your Shames.

Sometime later, T gets a msg from her sis in Dubai.

T, you're soooo screwed. Who is this Shames? Mum's gonna kill you.

I had called her Dubai Home no.

The Day After Ragam

According to Neethorian Calendar, The day after Ragam* is Cleaning Day. Akin to the day after Christmas being known as Boxing Day (which is so called because of this and not because it's the day when you put all the xmas decorations back into their boxes and pack them away for the next year, as yours truly had previously thought and coined the term Cleaning Day. See how blogging(and reading other ppl's blog) helps you increase your knowledge of the world and all that?). Its origin dates back to the time when Neethi was in her first year and was in the Ragam dance team. The practice sessions which usually start around 3 weeks prior to Ragam extends upto midnight everyday (and during the last few days even 2 a.m) as a result of which Neethi could hardly make it to her room after it (she often used to be able to only make it to the third floor, first room(her room was the third), and flop onto the bed perpendicular to the actual sleeping position. The inmates were usually kind enough to turn her around and wake her up in time for a bath in the morning before college.),let alone worry about how clean it is.Of course, she used to (very)occasionally dust it and all to make sure it was fit for human inhabitation, but could not afford a full fledged cleaning. Come Second year, history repeated itself, save for the reason for being unable to clean being that she was part of PC (Program Committee) for Ragam. And Third and fourth year, it was Drama direction.So the day after Ragam always saw Neethi with a broom in her hand, dettol-ed water in her bucket, clothes being folded neatly and kept back in the shelves etc. Whence was born Cleaning Day. And this year, I broke the sacred tradition. got up mid-morning,went out with friends for lunch, came back late and started blogging. Ah well, there's always tomorrow. was time for a new tradition anyway. and for a new post. A ragam '09 post is also under construction. will be putting it up in a day or two.See,I'm a good girl, I am,lol. :D.

*NITC's Cult Fest

I'm Baaaack!

Yup, done away with sessionals. Can finally push that away as an excuse not to blog.Thing is, I get all these fantastic ideas just when i get down to studying.Actually, more than ideas , i come up with these cleverly-phrased sentences (which i mostly forget when i actually get down to writing the post so don't go all one-eyebrow raised and 'Cleverly-phrased? didn't see 'em anywhere.' and all.) It's like my brain, normally lazy and content with generating random, not particularly clever thoughts(not to mention highly repetitive, like on a recursive loop. 'Makes my job easier. smart,huh?' quips brain.), suddenly faced with it's owner's attempts to actually make it work by Gasp! Studying tries to fight back the only way it could think of : Generating a lightning-quick succession of some awesome sentences all tumbling one after the other, while the dazed owner tries to take it all in. This distracts her for a while, and the brain, relieved(and quite smug), returns to it's comfortable RTG (Random/Repetitive Thought Generation) process. Buuut, you say, surely, generating such a quick succession of sentences, must require the brain to work (esp since they gotta be all awesome and stuff too) which umm..kinda u know, defeats the whole purpose? Aaah, You and I would.Not my brain.See, If you actually manage to study,it goes on to explain, I've got to work continuously and for quite long periods of time, while in the above-mentioned case, I just need to work a few microseconds, generate a few sentences and then repeat this process every couple of hours or so, (have put that on a recursive loop too. Highly efficient, i tell you, though it's applicable only to the Cause of Work Avoidance.) when i detect the owner's eye moving back to them blasted textbooks. And come post-sessionals, no longer faced with such a crisis,I switch off the Creativity button (to conserve more energy of course).
and What's the point of this post? I'm not quite sure myself.A simple 'I'm back.shall be posting more soon.' was all i had in mind. Ah, well, I was never known for my brevity anyway.

Chennai Chronicles- Part 2

This post is especially for Anna. She claimed that bloggers ( and I'm using the word quite loosely to include me in it) who usually bravely publish a Part 1 never write the next part. Ha. So there. This is Part TWO . In all fairness though, if she hadn't challenged me I probably wouldn't have written this post. :)

So, where was I? yes, the magical watch.

6. After that , the gang headed to the Marina Beach, and as they were walking back, they saw a Merry-go-round. Most of them ,like excited li'l 6-year olds, wanted to ride it. Most of them, unlike excited li'l 6-year olds, weren't ready to pay Rs.10 per person to get on it. After quite a bit of bargaining, they managed to wear the poor man down, and got it down to 50 for 7 of them or something. The disgruntled, grumpy man brought a few of them stools to get on the horses and then started the thing. Was huge fun, all yelling their hearts out and all. Only soon, it wasn't so much fun. It started going faster and faster. Uncomfortably fast.N starting feeling slightly faint and had to hold on to the nearby horse to keep herself steady. And pretty soon, it got so fast that she started yelling to stop it. and so did a lot of others.But it kept spinning. It finally came to a stop. All of them got out, some looking quite green in the face (some did get sick later in the night). The man, N noticed, didn't look so disgruntled any more. N suspected foul play. She was (and still is) sure that the man was just getting back at them ( or he may have just wanted them to have a little excitement and thought they could handle the speed. but the other sounds more interesting, so let's just agree with N, shall we?)

7. They went on different autos to City Centre after that, and N and a few others popped into the washroom. And as she was leaving, a girl who looked very familiar entered. She just couldn't place her though, and not wanting to be called rude, was about to say hi ( hoping to figure the name out as the convo proceeded, as she sometimes does) when she stopped herself. She had suddenly remembered where she had seen her. but just couldn't believe it. She had seen her, on several occasions - On Orkut. On her friend's friend list and in photo albums. Obviously, she was completely unaware of N's existence.

8. It was late , City Centre was closing for the day and after they switched like almost all the lights off, the gang decided it was time to leave. Everyone was in high spirits after a good meal from KFC, and was laughing and talking loudly. And while it was nice singing songs and stuff in the middle of the road which was pretty empty by then, it also meant most buses had stopped running. But that didn't stop them from doing all the aforementioned.So they heartily(well, most anyway) decided to walk to the local train station. which had also shut down for the day. After a few more spontaneous songs , some why don't we spent the night here then! Yes, Let's ! Woohoo!'s and some Oooh, let's walk back to IITM! Yes, Let's! Woohoo! 's later, they started walking again until they met a couple of policemen, who suggested they take autos.Finally,all of them squeezed into two super-huge autos and made it back to iitm.

9. N got to attend the salsa/jive workshop! ( To the uninitiated: The Gods of Thoushaltnotlearnsalsa had cast a terrible curse on N, preventing her from ever attending a salsa workshop however much her heart yearned for it. The scheming gods went so far as to get the salsa workshop for Ragam '08 canceled and extended the duration of the Lindy Hop Swing classes back home to a month just when her winter vacation was cut short to less than 3 weeks. Aye, The Fates play such cruel games.) Anyways, 'twas quite fun, although she did find the whole dancing salsa in a circle quite strange and funny.

10. N fell off the local train, as mentioned before. It was time to leave. One by one, they clambered on to the train to reach Chennai Central Station. When just M, N and S were left to get on, the train started moving. M managed to get on, but as N was attempting to do so, the train picked up more speed and she couldn't hold onto the pole. She remembers hitting something and falling flat on the platform and thinking ' Now S and I will have to come in the next train' while hearing a bloodcurdling scream by M and a tall, lean figure which looked like P jumping off the train onto the platform. And sometime during this incident, S pulled N away from the train. Someone, hearing M's scream pulled the chain and the train came to a stop. Apparently, from where M and P were standing, it looked like N was disappearing into the gap between the train and the platform, although there was really no such gap, because the local train sorta bulges outwards. which explains their action-movie style responses.Once everyone got back on the train, there was lot of sympathetic ruffling of N's hair. Some It's alright,k? Are you okay? Sit down for a while's and a lot of looking at N and shaking of the head's. S after a while, began to demonstrate the entire sequence of events to those who weren't present, though P didn't seem too amused at the idea. P and S still occasionally throws in ' I jumped off a moving train to save you.' and ' I saved your life!'. Note to S and P: See now, unless there's some internet recession, and they delete the Least Read Blogs or something, your acts of heroism are recorded in the WWWeb for posterity. You're Welcome. :)

11. S was mistaken again.for a beggar this time. By one of the our own (nitcians). Before you start wondering about his clothes ( and before he tries to hunt me down), the reason for the misunderstanding was his..ahem...flute playing abilty. Basically, he and M were trying on different tunes on the Rs.10 flute someone purchased on the train journey back. As S was playing , S ( Another Guy.Hmm..Strangely,Gossip girl never had the Two-people-with-the-same-initial issue.) who was in another compartment stuck his head in.
'Oh, it was you! We kept waiting for a beggar playing the flute to come and ask for money. was wondering why he was taking so long to reach.' On the upside, the real beggars do play the flute well.

12. This is an All-things-Animal point. There were deer in iitm. And a whole clan of monkeys well-adapted to their habitat. These wonder monkeys know how to eat from unopened chips packets, shamelessly enter the bathrooms in the Ladies hostels to raid the garbage bins and a few of the gang even spotted a monkey making a hole in an unopened coke bottle and coolly drinking it afterwards.The hostel the girls stayed in had a mascot dog with a blue collar who was always sleeping all stretched out in front of it ( until it seemingly couldn't stand M's repeated, almost envious 'This dog is always sleeping! Doesn't it ever wake up?' anymore and moved to the nearby hostel on the last day).

It's 'That's all, folks!' then from me for now. Whew! Thanks again Anna.:)

Chennai Chronicles - Part 1

WARNING: This post , as well as the previous two, are part of my WUPs ( Warm-Up Posts) to get me to start blogging consistently, which in turn is part of my NLP (Neethi learns to be patient) Program, so my apologies for the possibly ill-attempted humour , lack of originality, creativity etc.

So, we went for Saarang (IIT Madras Cult Fest) as part of the whole we-are-final-years-we-are-gonna-have-some-fun idea(my friend and I also had a secret agenda which cannot be disclosed here for obvious reasons. Suppose the whole 3 people who read my blog came to know about it?). Anyways, so here are some of the interesting (to me) stuff which happened while in Chennai (in chronological order) :

1. On the train: S was mistaken for the ticket collector. S was well, in his words, conned, into taking care of the ticket-booking and stuff and also ended up paying for half the tickets so basically, on the train, he was walking around with a long sheet of paper with everyone's (we were 40 odd people) seat numbers which he carried on a rectangular 2 fold pad-like thingy (whose one hinge I managed to break when I fell off a train, but more about that later). S then had to sit down to settle a li'l tiff with a family with three kids claiming( the dad, not the kids) that these were their seats. After that was resolved, S was still poring over the paper intently when this appoopan( old man) in the corner, who was looking all the while at S, takes out his ticket hesitantly and shows it to S. I can't for the life of me remember how S reacted to that ( or whether he noticed it at all ) but N(yup, that's how I'm going to call myself. been watching way too much Gossip Girl these days, sigh) and a few other alphabets had a good laugh over it.

2. On the 'local' train: A few wanted to have an Alaipayuthe experience ( the tamil movie with madhavan and shalini where he first sees her on a local train moving in the opposite direction as his) and hence decided to take one to iitm. We clambered onto it and grabbed on those hanging handles ( You know ones that remind you of those miniature adventure sports zones in the park where you had many of them in a row. You climb up , grab one of them and swing from one to the next till you reach the other end(not that I was ever able to make it that far). I'd be (and so would the others reading this) really grateful if someone could tell me what they are officially called.) M and N wanted to do some sight-seeing so they grabbed the ones near the exit. After a while, a man standing next to them ( a darkish man with 3 strips of chandan across his forehead with a red mark at the centre) started pointing out places and buildings for us. They nodded politely and tried to follow his hands. That's quite nice of him. Then N noticed another guy (younger, dressed in a loose t-shirt and jeans) across him rolling his eyes from time to time. Guy 1 got off the train after a while after which Guy 2 took a step forward. Woah there, have people here taken it upon themselves to show new people around or something ? ' Excuse me, but just thought ill let you know. That guy had no idea what he was saying. I'm afraid he was randomly pointing at prominent buildings and blurting out random names.'

3. So M and N were the unfortunate ones who couldn't get tickets to the Sonu Nigam Show. While they were dejected ( M not so much. N reportedly made quite 'ridiculous' noises and faces whenever SN's voice reached her ears as they wandered about outside the Open Air Theatre ) , they did get to see Monty Python sketches play put up by evam ( a chennai-based theatre group) , generally had a good time just hanging about and got to spend the night at Nut's ( a colg friend in chennai who took pity on us; one letter alphabets are strictly for the group that came along with us, others will be referred to by nicknames or anything else I feel like using to describe them..Muhahaha). They went yeaarly morning to Besant Nagar beach which was pretty cool. Most of the residents had apparently all risen and shone and were playing badminton, jogging or walking along the beach. After that, they had the most amazing melt-in-the-mouth milk pedas and badam kathali from Grand Sweets which Nut said was the best sweet shop in Chennai ( N could smell the ghee from the end of the street. No kidding.)

4. Jam prelims were fun . After which the group decided to explore Chennai, starting with Adayar Film City which according to A, was right around the corner. After walking for like forever ( the sidewalk was nice though. Neat and a nice row of trees planted along the way with a rail separating the road in places, some interesting mosaic artwork along the walls ) and posing every 30 seconds for a pic , they finally reached around the aforementioned corner to find out that Adayar Film City was closed. For almost a year now. They did meet an interesting off-his-rocker beggar who generously posed for the camera unasked with the rest of them , cursed almost everyone that went by and left his scraps and bottles to be run over by a car. As they were walking back , someone turned around to take one last pic of our beggar when he saw him trying to stop a scooter on the main road. As everyone turned to look , the man (middle-aged, in formal work clothes) stopped the scooter, got down, took a fallen twig ( quite long) , plucked off the leaves and began chasing the beggar managing to hit him often. Which needless to say, left everyone shocked.

5. M, S , P and N were arguing over whether the floor was marble or white granite at the M.G.R Memorial at Marina Beach when P saw a couple of people pressing their ear against the top of a tomb. Curious P followed suit. She heard a soft tapping noise and it took her few seconds to realize that a couple of local guys were tapping on the tomb to fool her. P quickly decided to try the trick on M, N and S. While they were arguing (yeah, they tend to do that a lot) with P whether they really fell for it or not, a couple of others from the crowd who were standing nearby went to the tomb, pressed their ear against it , began tapping on it with their fingers and stood there for sometime as if waiting to hear something back! M, N,P and S were elated !They just managed to start a new tradition ! But the Mystery of the Pressing-ear-sans-knocking still remained. They then reached the tomb of MGR himself where they found people performing the same ritual. N mustered up the courage to ask some of the locals, but all she could pick out from what they said was 'Motor. Sound' which led them nowhere (save for a few wisecracks from S). Now others may give up and decide to leave matters unsolved but not our M, N, S and P. 'Twas hard but they finally uncovered the reason - MGR's watch. It was believed to be still umm..ticking and if one strained one's ears enough one might be fortunate enough to hear it. MGR died in 1987.Wonder what make the watch was.

To be continued….:)

Help!....I am stuck..again.

As my Muse showed no signs of returning (for the uninitiated refer: Once upon a Time ) , I thought of resorting to my favorite topic (thus titled coz I never seem to run out of things to write under it) namely, My embarrassing moments. But then I realised that I had already written an article on it in the magazine which wud have been read by my NITC friends and knowing fully well that 99.9% of the people who do visit this blog ( if at all) are my NITC friends ( love u all..hehe) it wudnt be fair on my part , to make them read a repetition of the same ( thus also driving them away forever..:)). I was dejected.I had nothing else to write(curse u,Muse).

And then..out of nowhere, when all seemed lost and I had almost decided to make a quick exit from this cruel(sob..) world of blogging..I heard a voice...no, not from my head this time. It was Dilip's ( the malayalam actor) . from the TV.

'Don't touch me ae'

he said to that girl who was stuck in the lift with him in Mr.Butler ( lovvveee that movie.) I let out a giggle as he proceeded to make that instant biryani on his Wonder Briefcase. Then , memories of all the times I was stuck flooded my mind. Yes! I cud write about all the times I was stuck.


No not like poor old Pumbaa here.
In lifts.in bathrooms.in rooms. Not only have I have been stuck, I have even managed to lock people in too :D.

My earliest experience of being stuck was in the 4th grade. I had just finished Sunday school and decided to make a quick visit to the bathroom. As I was about to close it, I did realise that well..it was one of those doors which drags on the ground ( u know, the kind that is difficult to close or open and leaves marks on the floor. For the readers residing in the lh , like Shane's door!) but then i didn't think twice abt it ( who wud at that time). Afterwards I tried opening it. It wudnt budge. And the door didn't have a handle inside with which you cud pull or exert your strength. Just a small latch. These bathrooms were located at an isolated area. I started knocking on the door.I was kinda hesitant to scream considering it's a church and all and thought I'll wait it out. Somebodys bound to come along.Minutes creeped by slowly.My imagination being as active as ever, thoughts of being stuck here forever quickly overcame any embarrassment I felt ( the not-so-appealing smell helped too ) and I started screaming my lungs out. Soon, I was rescued by a nun, who was passing by. Needless to say , I never went there again( to that bathroom,that is).

My second experience was in 8th grade (I think). My cousin used to live in this old,huge flat in Ajman.( Those were the days. That flat was big, with a long corridor and rooms to the left and right of it and a long balcony connecting the hall, kitchen and the bedroom. We used to play 'vampires of Ajman' and 'ghosts of Ajman flats' there all nite.hehe.more abt that in a later post.) The only problem with old, huge flats is that their lifts ( if they have them) were just as old and creaky.It was in perfect working condition. So, it made a slight creaking noise every time it moved. But it worked.
One day, as my cousins and I were having a great time , having the house all to ourselves ( aunt and uncle both used to go for work.), it was mine and my same aged cousin, Jeethals' turn to go down and replenish our pepsi supplies. She insisted we take the stairs while me, always of the belief that one must conserve one's energy whenever possible, thot we ought to just take the lift inside of going down three flights of stairs. Both of us were in a stubborn mood that day, not ready to give in. So I decided to take the lift and she, the stairs and have a race as to who wud reach the bottom first.
I clambered into the lift hurriedly as the lift opened and pressed level '0' reasoning that that must be the button for the ground floor.I cud hear jeethal's footsteps above. I was smiling smugly to myself as I thot of reaching there first and waiting for her, when the lift suddenly gave a lurch and stopped. I looked at the digital box indicating the level, it showed 1. Wondering what went wrong and irritated at the thought of losing more time, I pressed 0 once more.It didn't move. I pressed again.and again.but in vain. Puzzled,I pressed the open button. Nothing happened.Then with the sudden realisation that the lift was stuck, I started screaming for jeethu. Thankfully, the stairs was near to the lift and she heard my screams. She didn't know what to do either.She tried pressing the button from outside but the lift was stubbornly still.
At last, we thought of calling the watchman. He came out sleepily from his room, calmly listened to my cousin's plea for help, went in, took a bunch of keys,went to the lift and opened it. A breathless, flushed me stumbled out of the lift and looked at the watchman with a new found respect. He gave a smile and said that the 0 level thingy doesn't work anymore. 1 goes to the ground floor. Then why on earth, is it still there??? . The watchman, just shrugged and went back to his room. Of course, after that , the stairs didn't seem all that repulsive to me .

Moving on to being stuck in a room.
Again, I believe this occurred around the same time as the bathroom incident, around 4th-5th grade. I was in another of my cousins' place in balussery for vacation. After spending hours playing hide and seek and other outdoor activities, our parents told us it was time to come in. The guys ( my bro and another cousin) immediately jumped on the comp and started playing dirtbike ( or something like that.) I wasnt interested in computers then and it was a 2 player game anyway. So we girls decided to ahem..choreograph..dance steps for a popular number at the time( cant remember which one). We went into their room and I switched on the music. Before we began, we suddenly came with the idea of locking the room.....to keep away from prying eyes ;). After 45 mins of hard core choreography and practise :), we decided that it was time for a break. I tried unlocking the door. ( again, the structure of the lock becomes important.This time, it was one of those doors with the turning locks. you turn it twice, it gets locked and turn it the other way, it opens). I heard a clicking noise but the door didnt open. I tried again. Then my cousin came and tried. It was no use. This time round, I didnt have to scream, they were all nearby and when we bagan knocking and they came around and started giving instructions on how to open. We tried everything. Atlast they decided to call the carpenter. After two hours of being stuck in the room, he came and said the lock had fallen in or smething and that he wud have to cut out the whole lock area. After what seemed like ages, the door was opened and we came out grinning sheepishly at everyone. That incident didn't stop us from dancing or choreographing anymore, but we were more easy on the privacy thingy :)

And , finally, the time when I locked my mom and my moms friend in their house.
That happened quite recently ( in 11th or 12th). My friend was just explaining to me abt the peculiarity of their front door lock. That it could only be locked from the inside. A half key was stuck inside the outside keyhole. ( This was one of those locks with turning knobs with keyholes). As a result, if the entire family had to go out they had no other choice but to leave the flat unlocked hoping no wud try turning the knob.

Schematic diagram of the kind of lock I was attempting to describe verbally..;).Just remove the head of that key and imagine the rest of the key still stuck in the lock.

So we went out to examine the lock, while our parents were in the living room talking. I looked at the lock and my mind being for quite some time idle, became the legendary devil's workshop and I exclaimed:

" I bet we can lock it with the tip of the pen!" . (Archimedes must felt about the same excitement when he exclaimed Eureka! ).Off I went searching for one and tried locking it. Somewhere in the back of my head , a warning bell resounded indicating this was a bad idea, but I pretended not to hear it and hurriedly tried turning the inside key with the pen. Well, It worked. We could finally lock from the outside. and for a second both of us felt like the Wright brothers and looked on with satisfaction. We then decided to unlock it. I took out The Pen again and tried turning it the other way. It refused to turn. How can that be? This shud work. I tried again. This time the nib of the pen went further into the pen. aaargh! Now what?. By this time, our parents had heard all the noises and asked us what was going on as they tried unlocking from the inside. We looked nervously at each other. I asked to ask the neighbours if they had anything sharp and thin with which we could attempt to turn this lock. Hummphh..Me and my great idea. She brought a compass and I fumbled with it for sometime.Finally I felt the thing turning and then a reassuring click as it unlocked. I never felt so relieved ever. Of course , my relief turned to an embarrassed grin when I saw our parents' face. But then they laughed. Thankfully.

They were more 'I'm stuck' incidents in my life, but they pretty much run along these lines so I shall refrain from writing them down here. Why me? hmm..On the bright side, I guess, I know a lot more about locks now ;).

Once upon a Time...

As urs truly was spending yet another night blog-hopping ( made easy by their inclusion in the orkut profiles of various people) , a series of tiny flashes of light started lighting up my otherwise dark brain.The brain, shocked and taken aback by such unusual,sudden activity nevertheless proceeded to decode the signals...maybe..just maybe..it said...you can start your own blog, neethi!
Are you kidding me?..I..well..signaled back ..and just why do you suppose I should do that?..Im happy now, not needing to employ any of my grey cells which, seeing that they are so small in number, needs to be preserved for far more important things in the future which may require their use..

More flashes of light..
Hmmm...you have a point (emotion decoded: slight dejection)...but I have reasons to believe this might be a good idea...

I'm sure you have..but I'm afraid I do not have the time or the inclination to listen to them...I am currently very busy, dear..umm... flash of light, pondering over something I read in somebody's else blog, trying to make some sense out of 'Mistress of Spices'( I did, btw,yippeee), watching endless stuff on YouTube, trying to break my previous record of sleeping for 14 hours etc..So you see, however valid or wonderful your reasons may be, I simply cannot squeeze a blog into my schedule...Thanku ..tata..bubye...go ahead and brighten somebody else's brain...

But, if you could just hear me through..c'mon, you hate it when somebody stubbornly refuses to do something without even taking the possibility into consideration,don't you? Aha..you are now being hypocritical (emotion decoded: smug)...

Hummphh...k..lets hear it then, you sneaky,manipulative thing...but make it fast...I'm a busy girl...

Hehe..I knew you would come around...( ed: wide grin)..arite, the reasons.
first off, why were you blog-hopping?

well...thats easy...I was bored..3 months is a bit too long for vacns..and after a really hectic sem, it seems even more longer...and as I discovered, some of the blogs are quite interesting to read...

(ed: calm, clear-headed)There's your first reason then : Many are bound to be bored like you...and like u may also resort to blog-hopping...so this is the best time for you to start a blog as the probability of ppl reading it atleast once is more...pluuuusss....here's the second: this would be a good way to keep you from being bored...

Alrite, Ill give you the first one...but as for the second one, I'm afraid you goofed buddy...I have a certain criteria for anything which can be considered as potential boredom-destroyers...that whatever it is , must not involve any kind of effort from my side ...and blogging, my friend, does not fall into this category...which is why I'm bored in the first place..most of the things that can be used to remove boredom requires (shudder) effort ...

Well..granted that it does require a bit of effort ...but not as much you are wont to think...it's the easiest to do on the net..it follows no particular format..there are no rules...you can just scribble down anything you want, whenever you want and however you want..and besides, it'll provide a platform to try out all your newly learnt css and html...you can simply try making changes to the already existing template they provide....

Hmmm...when u put it that way, it doesn't seem like too bad an idea...buuuuuttt....its easy for you to say 'anything u want..blah blah..'..If you're such a know-it-all gimme some examples of 'anything'..(gotcha!)..annd..about css, ha...ten bucks says no one in their right minds will feel like reading the blog after I make 'modifications' to it with my negligible css knowledge(for want of better term)..

Hey..hey..cool it,arite...Im trying to help you here...and about 'anything' (ed:deep sigh)...must I tell you everything?..well..don't you have all these opinions of urs which you always feel is not long enough to actually write an article on?

Yeah....

well..you can pen them down here...then you could maybe write all those incidents in your life which you find really funny (u know.. the ones you slightly exaggerate when you narrate them to ur friends...)..or embarrasing( lol...I can't believe you actually asked at the ticket counter in ekm for a ticket to ekm..you should write about that..)

Gr8....Thanx a lottt :( ...I wasnt exactly planning on writing my embarassing moments...and btw, I DID NOT exagerate those stories..they really happened that way...honest...

(Yawn)...uh-huh..if you say so pal...and abt your css, you have to try it out somewhere, don't you? I'm just saying this is the safest place...

Alrite then..I guess I caaaann start a bl- aha !(triumphant) ..wait a minute...I can't ....

( ed: resignation) What is it this time?

I ...tend to ramble....In case I do get down to writing posts,I have this nasty habit of straying away from the topic a zillion times when something else catches my fancy and can go on to brackets and sub-brackets and then suddenly returning to the original topic ....howsoever delightful I find my rambling, many might find it really tedious and slightly confusing to read...I realised this when I was reading thru an article in wikipedia once...you know how they have links like around 5-6 in each paragragh?each of these links can be thought to be a divertion ...imagine if they inserted the content of these links into the actual topic...its going to run into pages...thats what will happen to my posts..

(ed: deep thought) hmmm...well.....then why don't you solve the problem like wiki did? create links...! I mean whenever you feel like rambling, give it as a link to another post where you can jote down your ramblings..that way you can ramble all you want and only ppl who want to read it need click on them...

yeah...! I guess I could try to see if I can make that work...I never thot i'll say this..but I think I'm beginning to like you...

I knew you would...everyone does...they don't call me 'Muse' for nothin' you know..

That's what you are?? My Muse..?..where were you all this time,huh?..esp when i really needed to write an article or a poem or think creatively?..I take back what I said...you are inconsistent,flighty, flip, mood-

Love to stay and chat, dear,but I gotta go..umm..light somebody else's brain like you said..bye..tata..see ya...mayb...

Wait...You can't just GO!...How am I supposed to write the other posts???....now lissen, you wait rite there mister...

But there were no more flashes...

Welll ...then I guess that ends this intro post ...As you can see, I have no idea when or what the next post is gonna be...that's why I wrote this convo down..so you wont be surprised by either sudden appearance of a lot of posts or if the blog seems to have been forgotten by the owner (just waiting for the muse, folks)...Until next time...toodles...