I can go on and on about this... but crowning glory today...
I must never let anyone borrow my laptop.... it has all passwords saved in some or the other way...a person with the intention can easily defame me, rob me and even write in my blog, if he/she catches hold of my laptop....
My brother, is going to India.... needed to buy tickets... wanted to my credit card details... i don't remember the 16 digits even after 1 full yr of possessing the card and using for a no. of online transactions.
I try to forget my wallet at home so that I can successfully resist the vending machines, cafes, and disappoint muggers...
So, it so happened that I din't have my card on me, and my brother wanted the details immediately... I told him the CVV no... and distracted him by telling him my name, and address... tried to buy time before he would ask me for the magical 16 digits....
He did, and then I tried the next trick... told him the first 4, and the last 4, and asked him to guess the rest... while furiously writing out various permutations to see which looked right... and I did this writing in the square letters, like those on the card, hoping to trigger my visual memory...
He got quite irritated and impatient by now, and understandably so...So I pulled up my last alternative... My roomie, who opened her bank a/c around the same time as me, had the first 9 digits similar... and if she told me, I would be able to remember the remaining 3...
But my "always there for me usually" roomie had another deadline, and asked me to wait... :( :(
And my brother called me up 3 times in the meantime...
My final solution, shocked me, and convinced me why I should never leave my laptop unattended for even a minute...
I went on to greyhound website, selected a random purchase, and went on to the checkout section... I typed the first digit in the box, and... Lo and behold!.... the whole no. appeared in the drop down menu... I copy pasted the no. to my brother's chat window, and felt incredibly stupid... When I feel incredibly stupid, I Blog...
BTW,
I am trying to chronicle my incredible acts of forgetfulness, and I am hoping that most of my readers will have some contributions to make on that front.... :)
I am sure this is the most used title in my blog posts, and has lost all its charms... but to my few loyal readers who say.. "Sruthi stories?? bring'em on...", here goes the latest....
I am overloaded with work this semester, and I can go on cribbing about how many things I am handling at once, but I am sure no one is interested... :) Lets cut to the chase now...
As a research assistant, part of my duties is to procure equipment for the lab. Now this is a painful process, to say the least. Most equipment we need to buy, doesn't come with price tags.... The costs are a carefully and vigilantly guarded secret by the companies that sell them. I know why, but telling it here will spoil my plot...
So now, the websites have quote request forms, which ask you for you name, phone no. and 23 other details, and promise to email you the cost of the equipment "ASAP". This ASAP takes anywhere b/w 2 hrs to 2 weeks, depending on how long it takes for the sales executive of the company to give up trying to pronounce my name.
The email with the quote arrives, and within 5 minutes of it, my phone rings, "is it truthy/hrooty/roothy(and other variations) ?" , I am a veteran at this job by now, and mumble a tired "yes". The enthusiastic sales Exec now introduces himself/herself, and the company and says he/she are calling to follow up on the quote. I am getting tired of being gender unbiased, because it just means a whole lot of extra typing, which doesn't even make for good reading.
I am a graduate student, I can't make a decision on buying a $5k+ equipment, in less than 5 mins. I need to consult my advisor, and talk to my colleagues, I will get back to you soon. Thanks a lot for your call.....
And then there are more calls, and more... they come all day... right from the time the guys on the east coast reach their offices, to the time the west coast guys go back home...
And usually, when we decide to buy, we get 3 quotes on 3-4 different equipment, which unleashes the enthusiasm of atleast 12 ppl on me at a given time.... either they have fantastic memory, or they have notes on me to consult, and I have neither... I get jolted out of sleep by Carol, who asks me if I have decided yet, or do I need more info? Thankfully, I usually am awake enough to not say.. "What's the time? Am I late for class again?"
You get the drift.. they call me all day long, and I struggle to comprehend which company and which equipment they are talking about, and also pretend to understand all the jargon they throw at me regarding the equipment handling and usage.
Last week, I was trying to buy a ball mill. And I had 2 guys calling me about it. One from California, quoting ridiculously low prices, and lowering his voice and telling me how he would love to get my order, and asking me how his quote compared with the others.... The guy from New Jersey was saner though, and his quotes were almost double the price.
I have never had people begging me to buy such expensive stuff, my poverty is self-evident, so all this equipment buying process does give me a feeling of being rich and spoilt for choice.
The prcie differentials in the quotes confused me, also the unnatural levels of interest the california guy was showing, so I consulted my advisor. he got all excited, and asked me to tell both the guys that I was seriously considering the other quote, and if they wanted a chance, they should give us the equipment for trial and evaluation.
He was especially interested in the New Jersey company, saying he would go watch an indian movie, and collect the equipment personally one weekend, since we are just 3 hrs away from NJ.
So I dutifully emailed both the guys about the possibility of trial and testing. To the New jersey guy, I mentioned that we could come over, and test it in their facility itself, so that my advisor could catch his indian movie.
Now Bill called me, and said we could come over for testing whenever we wanted, and I gleefully decided on Wednesday, and started planning the trip to NJ, and googling new Hindi movie releases. Weekdays my advisor would be busy, so I could go on my own, and have some fun... paid trip on a weekday... oh, so exciting....
It is monday night now, and I received an email from Bill, confirming the visit plans for wednesday. And.... Bill.... is... from San Diego!
I forgot to mention one interesting aspect of rains and me...
All girls in Indis have probably faced this... The beautiful block prints and bright coloured kurtis that we so love, they bleed color when soaked in water, which makes washing them a special chore...
Well, what does that have to do with rains? Well, If you decide to get drenched in rain wearing a green full sleeve kurti, there are good chances, you would be walking around with slightly green tinged arms for the next 1-2 days...
:)
Which reminds me of this school group dance... where we were supposed to wear plain salwar-kurti, and a bright dupatta as part of the costume... I used to be a little girl then, and my mother declined to buy me a new dress for a "stupid" dance competition... my friend came to my rescue, giving me her mother's pure white silk salwar kurti, but no dupatta... I actually went door-to-door asking if someone had a red dupatta to go with the outfit... no luck...
Finally we went to the costume rental store, and picked up a red dupatta with all shimmery gold lace.. I wouldn't be caught dead in such a costume today, but childhood isn't about fashion sense anyway..
The dance went off quite well, except that it began to rain when we were on the open-air stage.. we continued to dance and were applauded for our spirit. Our school chairman even announced a cash prize for the group... so far so good...
When I reached home, triumphant and happy, and peeled the wet dupatta off...I discovered that the pure white kurti was botched with red all over...the cash prize and much more money went into repeated dry cleans of the ensemble, and every trick in the detergent trade was tried...
The red refused to give up, and I went with a lot of trepidation and eyes brimming with tears to my friend's house, about a month later. I had the whole set of excuses and apologies ready, but one look at me, and the dress, my friend's mother said..." It could have been my daughter dancing on that stage, would I have scolded her? "
I don't even remember the girl's last name now, but her mother's kindness and affection stands out as an indelible memory.
I totally love thunderstorms... have always loved them...
Right from the days when they struck while I was at school, gazing longingly out of the window, at the grey sky, that prompted the school authorities to switch on the lights in the middle of the day, the flashes of lightning, the rumbling of thunder, and the huge first drops of rain, landing on the window sill. Then arose the wonderous smell of earth, wetted by the rain. As the rain got faster and heavier, it bathed my dusty world, and painted the trees, the grass in a lovely green hue. By the time school ended, rain ended too, leaving behind fresh, crisp air to breathe in, and big muddy puddles to jump in, all the way back home... The days we got extra lucky, we got to use polythene covers to stuff our books and notebooks in to save them from the rain in the pre-expensive waterproof school bags era. We then got to jump in puddles, plus get wet in the rain an ecstasy unmatched by any other in those magical days of childhood. Mid-luck levels meant I had no polythene covers to protect my books, and I had to run all the way home, the thrill of which was not subdued by the fact that the next hour would be spent spreading out the books and notebooks to dry under the fan. Ofcourse, I should not forget to mention that these were the only rare times when I got all pampered after returning from school, being urged to change into dry clothes, dry my hair, and keep from falling sick.
The evenings when it rained, I took my diary/novel, and sat on the stairs next to the airy corridor outside my seventh floor apartment.. Thanks to the high rise building, this corridor had breeze going, through the year. I know about the physics behind it today, but it was nothing short of magic to me, the school kid. The rain with gusts of wind, splattered all over the corridor, and made me feel light, happy and splendid... These times are amongst my most cherished memories from that house...
College days were fun too in the rainy season..since I could give the excuse that my latest artsie jhola was too pretty and too small to have an umbrella sticking out of it, and I could get all dry before reaching home, and not cause all the flurry and concern... but rain Gods proved to as elusive as ever... no rain whenever we wanted it , and were ready to enjoy it... one fine day, I decided, I will tempt the rain into pouring down, dressed up in bad clothes which could handle being rained on, an old pair of sandals, which had not much to lose in way of getting spoilt further, and the artsie jhola... Here I was, in the dark room, with a spectrometer, and a yellow sodium lamp, distractedly focussing and defocussing it...waiting for the sky to turn grey, the oppressing humidity to be washed away by litres of water pouring out of the sky..
Rain Gods were listening in, apparently... as soon as it started raining, about 6 or 7 of us, slunk out of the back door of the dark room, and ran into the middle of the science lawns... It was raining so heavily that we were soaked from head to toe in like a minute...Just standing there.. with hands stretched out wide, facing the sky, feeling the pattering of the raindrops on my cheeks was an experience out of this world... as if each raindrop was infusing me with energy, peace and sheer joy...
Now that the rain drenching was all done with, and one more hour of lab remained to be done, to get attendance, we decided to get off the lawns, and walk in the corridors, drip drying and creating watery patterns all over. We were assuming that this would take about half an hour and we could sneak back in, without the teachers in the front room noticing..
Well, it turns out that there is only one prayer God listens per day... these old sandals I was wearing, had no grip whatsoever, they had sleek, shiny and smooth soles...the cemented corridors in science block din't help my cause, nor the drip-drying... I slipped and fell on my back.. once, twice, thrice.. actually about 12 times in total... after about 6 falls, I was quite shaken... and my friends kinda concerned...two of them held me firmly by one arm each... when one of them loosened her grip, I fell headlong again, causing my one supporter to fall with me, and into the muddy lawns..
We soon realised that the drip-dry idea was not as quick as we thought it would be, and we realised it was almost time for attendance.. and... the back door to the lab had been closed shut from the inside, for some strange reason...we ended up entering one by one,through the front door... where the teacher's desk was located too...the teacher was old, and a big sleepyhead...and everyone managed to sneak in, without him raising even an eyelid... in came I, with my amazingly slippery sandals, which had another interesting property, they squelched and squealed when wet... the octagenarian woke up.. and called out to me... I shamefacedly went and stood by his desk, waiting for the repriamand to come... It dint.. instead, he went like " Child... you are wet through and through, you will catch a cold.. why dont you take my umbrella and go to my house, my wife will give you some dry clothes?" I was dumbstruck at his kindness, and grandfatherliness. I blinked for a few moments, and then politely declined his offer, making some inarticulate excuses. He then said, "you better leave early today, and go home, I will take care of your attendance, dont worry". I was speechless at his magnanimity in forgiving my mischief, which he obviously saw through.
Anyway, I was left off early enough to catch the last USpl that headed out towards home, so off I ran to the bus stop, slippery sandals in one hand, jhola in the other...only to realise that my bus wasn't there, only the mehrauli bus came, and since they have a common route alteast half way, the students waiting for both buses squeezed into one..which wasn't really so pleasant, given that half the ppl had played in the rain prior to boarding the bus and the dry ones din't take kindly to be jostled around with us...DTC buses don't usually have leaky roofs, but they do have broken windows... I was in front of one of these windows, and the blasts of cold air chilled me to the bone... I was glad to get home, take a hot shower and change into dry clothes.. and chronicle this wonderful day in my diary, and toss the sandals into the trash can...
These are all old, treasured memories, that light up my face by their mere remembrance. And it is raining today, just as heavily, and I hold a warm cuppa green tea in my hand, station myself by the window, listen to the sounds of the rain, and finish typing out this entry..
The beauty of light green leaves and yellow-red flowers budding out of trees and bushes that were barren, sad and desolate all winter, the clear blue sky, the daylight that extends till 7.30 pm, the spring colors in clothes, the spring in the step, the resilient grass greening slowly and steadily, the smoke from the backyard barbeques, the loud chattering of students and summer smiles, the little brown rabbits venturing out of their burrows, the dogs at their watching and barking posts inside the yard fences, the bright hues birds, the happy squirrels, the little yellow flowers that peek out from the grass, the purple ones too, the leather jacketed people out on their Harley Davidsons, the beautiful hues of the horizon at the long drawn sunset, and the rose blooming on my windowsill, enchant me and fill me with wonder for the liveliness of spring...
The winter was cold, long and dreary, but the winter experience is what makes the spring so much more beautiful...
I was talking to my roomie today. A slip of tongue, a wrong verb for beard sent me into enumerating similarities b/w a beard and a pet dog. I must say, I did rather well..
People take care of their beard and their dogs, both grow, both need attention, both are prized possesions, but ya.. beards don't bark...
I also realised that these were extremely general similarities, and you can find some similarities in any pair of objects. But, the very next pair of things I conjured, I could not find any similarities or relations. But, I am sure they exist, and I challenge all of my readers to think them up.
Moon and Fork
Book and Broom
Photograph and Beach
Snow and Mayawati
Get going!
Post as comments, don't ping me in Gtalk about it, please... :)
I am from Delhi and have travelled by Delhi public buses extensively for the past 5 years. My college was about 22 kms or more from my house, and there were no direct buses. There were DTC buses, which were very few in number, but offered free and fast rides, and there were private Blueline buses.
Now, I am in a small historic town in New York State, which HAS public transport, which is amazing, given the population of the town. This service is called CDTA, Capital District Transport Authority (hopefully, the right expansion of the acronym).
Buses are interesting places, and offer a unique experience which people driving private vehicles are unlikely to understand or appreciate.
Getting free rides with college IDs in CDTA is quite convenient, except the time when we carry about 8 heavy grocery bags from PriceChopper. We need to keep the ID in hand, to show it as we enter the bus, which means all the 8 bags in the other hand… :(
The Bus Pass for DTC is quite an interesting story in itself, so here it goes…
The Bus Pass costs Rs. 75 for five months, or $1.5 (cheaper than a slice of cheese pizza). If you think Indian currency is way too depreciated considering this amount, let me tell you that this money is peanuts, even when compared to the normal bus fares in Delhi. Rs. 12.5 a month is an investment that starts paying for itself from the second ride onwards. For the records, this fare continues from the time my dad went to college, and attempts to increase the fare are scared off by student protests.
But getting the Bus Pass is quite a hassle or an adventure, depending on your perspective. DTC bus pass office is one office with the least working hours in the world, so if you are looking for a job that is more like a free lunch than a gurudwara langar, and if you are brainless, lazy and inefficient, in addition to being a bad photographer, DTC will hire you.
Now, for some random reason, whichever month or date you get your bus pass made, it expires on exactly the same date as everyone else, ensuring that there are long queues every 5 months at the Bus Pass office.
There is a form that needs your picture, and your college’s seal. The first queue is for the verification of the form, and other docs. The girls’ queue leads to a counter manned by a fellow who is a die-hard Ekta Kapoor fan. He flirts in an unusual way; he invokes the TV Soap which has a character named the same as the girl at the counter. I was asked… “Are you Shruti from Kahaani Ghar Ghar ki?”… My puzzled expression led the kind fellow to hum the title song of the soap for me, and give me a plot outline. Yes, it is THAT random...
Once the form is verified, you need to pay up, and sit on a high chair, to have your picture taken by a “Digital Camera” which probably dates back to the 1970’s, when the first DTC computerized bus pass was probably made… the pictures that camera takes are awesome, everyone looks like a ghost, and everyone looks the same in the blurred black and white pictures it spews.
Doors close in CDTA buses, and the bus is warm in winters. DTC conductors used to claim that it was against the law to close the bus doors, even if we froze to death on seats near the back door.
I was in a CDTA bus, one rainy day, and the roof leaked…Actually, leaked is an understatement, it poured at various spots, almost like a tap. I was unfortunate enough to have a seat right under one of the taps. I got my jacket hood on, and waited for the ordeal to get over. I actually toyed with the idea of opening my umbrella, but I decided against it, because I didn’t want to embarrass my friends, who are in favor of social niceties.
I have actually opened an umbrella in a Blueline bus in Delhi, and provided rain shelter to the crowd around.:)
Change of drivers in DTC involves a chai break, in CDTA it’s a long winded conversation. The chai break is quite vague, since the driver and conductor just walk off without any explanations. They sometimes actually return after chai in 10 minutes. At other times they just abandon the bus, in which case you got to get off, and jostle to get into the next bus on that route, since an entire bus of people have been stranded midway along with you.
CDTA guys usually take about 10 minutes for the changeover, in which the outgoing and incoming drivers exchange gossip, news and trivia, with the bus door open, and passengers freezing. The old driver bids a proper goodbye to passengers, and the new one extends a cheerful welcome, in a route, where the destination is a maximum of 20 minutes away. American Politeness!!!
Route 87 traverses a winded, wiggly route, making you wonder if you passed the same street about 5 minutes ago. Your doubt is well-founded, since the bus keeps going up and down on the same roads in circles, but does manage to help you carry groceries.
Have you heard that the shortest distance b/w two points is a straight line? The route designers at RPI have obviously not heard it. It was bitterly cold and windy one not-so-fine day. I was unhappily trudging along the 10-minute walk to my home from the school. I spotted a RPI shuttle, which has a bus-stop about 4 minutes away from my house. I wanted to be warm, if only for 6 minutes, so I flagged the bus and got on….
It started in the right direction, then took a random turn, and went into some loopy route. Every time I thought I was almost there, another random turn was taken, and I was finally dropped at my stop after 25 minutes.Analogous to the RPI shuttle is the outer mudrika, which does a five-and-a half hour loop around Delhi.
Bluelines race other buses on similar routes, in a fight to get most passengers. This race is more alive and exciting than formula 1, with the conductor hurling victorious abuses whenever his bus overtakes the other, with returning compliments from the other bus in its winning streak. The overtaking is done in centimeter gaps, is exhilarating, but scary too.
The balancing act while standing in a bus is an art that is learnt with practice. Exact position of feet, and best arm holds, can let you read a novel or even sleep while standing in a crowded and speeding bus. I have been there, done that... :)
Bus stop announcement is more alive and interesting in Blueline than any other bus I have ever been in. There is an additional employee called “cleaner” in Blueline buses, whose job description is to thump on the side of the bus and loudly announce the bus route in a sing song to attract passengers.
Only poor students and poor people seem to use the buses in both places, I am thankful to be still in the first category. And I like riding by buses so much, that I might continue doing it, and not fulfill my roomie’s wish by buying a car…
