Pride and Prejudice

My favourite book!All time!
But if I tell my guy to read it..he phoo phoos his way out of it.
Now since I love this book so much, I really have to defend it..and I mean HAVE to!
Guys label this classic as a "chick book" and go through life missing out on one absolutely worth-reading-at-least-twice kind of a book.
The story open with a refreshing line: "It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune, must be in want of a wife."
And you know what? most people put it down at this point, thinking this isn't worth my time.....But really, thats where they go wrong, read on my friends, and if you find yourself toiling to grasp the essence of the first chapter, please labour on until you reach the next...By then the story gets your attention, and if you are the sorts who has to finish what they started, well, you'd be glad you started reading the book.
Classics on the whole are looked down upon by our generation, so called new age books take up most of our reading space, if we do read at all that is. But Pride and Prejudice besides being having an entertaining plot, explores the human psyche in an interesting way. Through the character of Lizzy, it probes into the mind of a mortal...a person with desires, wants and yes evil thoughts..And through the book there are phases when you identify with the character. It's the little things in life that add up to the big ones..the feeling you get is if some things could be clarified right at the start, if prejudices did not fog our thinking...a lot of pain can be averted..
But you know what, as I write this, I feel I really don't need to defend this masterpiece of fiction...if only I have attempted to do so, it is a feeble one..I really can't do justice to my favourite book...really my best argument boils down to :If nothing else... it gives you a glimpse into a woman's mind! And trust me it isn't always pretty.

toodle doo

Every once in a while a new word seems to proliferate into the vocabulary of the masses...nothing derogatory about that term mind you, but really referring to the toms, the dicks and the janes..all of them all....suddenly have a new word to exploit....the most recent one being paradigm...a while ago it was holistic and before that some other neurotic reference to delicate minds..i forget what it was...
Really, what is it with people? Why the incessant need to use the lingo of the month?
Me, I am crazy in my own way....either am stuck with four words or really raring to go and incorporate this one word into all my sentences {an all time low was hit when morbid had stayed around for weeks and then made a comeback few months later!}...and if that wasn't enuff...yes, I have this irritating habit to spell words differently or indulge in inappropriate usage...or just invent newer ways to say the same old thing {do not swipe your access card, beep it, or don't shade the options in the OMR sheet but bubble them in}
Bushisms you say...nah i'd rather you compared me with Prince Charles.....

bug bytes

To all of us who live in Bombay, a trip to any part of the city away from where home is, would entail a joy ride in the signature line of Indian Railways - the local trains...and here I was back from a peaceful weekend at a resort where life had moved at a leisurely pace. Now rush hours can bogg even the hardiest down sometimes, but the litle incident I am trying to get at in this longwinded fashion took place in the bright sunny afternoon, when the population is either at work or snoozing at home/office...wherever. Anyways, as I stood in the passage near the door,a little yelp escaped the 30-something on my left...she then pointed frantically at the floor, letting out a string of exclamations which all took some deciphering. Finally on directing my gaze towards the thing she was pointing out, I spied a cocroach - having nothing short of a blast. The poor guy had probably not gotten this much attention in his life and failing to recognize the protocol, he was going around in dizzying circles...Oops I thought...thats the pits, the trains are going to the dogs, look at those poor women trying to fight for legroom while the bug zooms around their feet...and they are so oblivious to the fact{nobody had taken any notice of the yelping}...and then it struck me...I hadn't moved a muscle, not done a thing - wasn't even warning a person....suddenly I was wondering if this was crazy or just weird...I really didnt care, just standing there neither wanting nor actually doing a thing...{see that is not me really, coz if anything, I have to be apart of the action}This was either a hangover of the laziness induced at the resort or my plain antipathy...and I couldn't care less...
All I could do was be glad about the crazy bug not being a crazy lizard....now that would have elicited a response from me! Atleast thats what I think.

Is it okay?

Only recently I realised that no matter how ancient we grow, the one thing that can stop us from growing old is the desire to learn new things all the time. (Not that am an old goat, actually I am at the beginning of the adventure really!)
Freshly out of college, I really didn't really think anybody would want to hire me for any purpose at all, perhaps I would actually have to pay them to give me work. However fortunately some old friend remembered how I had this crazy way of coming up with perfectly useless ideas, (he actually thought it was creative of me) that he convinced his boss to meet me. The bloke worked in a print media design firm, and having no experience whatsoever, I decided this was a great opportunity to find out what exactly it takes to land some paying job.... Well the long and the short of it was that the boss found my perfectly naive notions about business, ambitions and achievements worth investing in....suddenly I was an employed person, and I plunged into my work..learning the basics, asking all the various questions I thought were relevant....and generally making quite an ass of myself sometimes. The work was fun, I really enjoyed haggling with the vendor to lower the per unit price of printing, meeting a hight profile director of a corporate bank {Corp affairs, rather interesting job profile methinks} and exploring my writing skills with corny one liners and 'copywriting'. Well the other people thought I was good at it any way...

Now not drifting any more from my opening sentence{which I had begun to forget by now}, I continued to learn, grow and all that jazz.
But you know, I think somewhere down the line I got tired of conning myself. Eleven months down the line and I wasn't sure I was learning anything new at all.....redundancy, in any form gets to me....and here I was, doing the same stuff day after day....feeling like this empty space within me was just growing....I began to suffer from what I'd term as "creative exhaustion"...really starved for any bright ideas, no scintillating copy flowing out of me...nothing to drive me to work everyday...
By then not only was I feeling my work wasn't up to the mark, but also totally cut off from the world, getting to a point where I didn't care anymore.
Finally I decided to quit my job, look for something else....I now work someplace else, doing something totally different and in the three weeks I have been there, I have learnt a lot....the feeling is intoxicating...picking up new skills always is...it will be a while before I can really precisely describe what I do at work, until then I am happy to just amble along and learn things at a leisurely pace...

Only one thought though gnaws at my heart, how long until I get fed up again? And is it a disease or is it okay to wander along?

Creative exhaustion

well as far back as I can remember, I have always had something to write about, an opinion about everything, an idea (whether good or bad, only time would tell) for every problem that surfaced...Well going about being the usual knowitall, willpokehernose into everything, sort of person. Only now for the very first time in life have I gone without being me....for the longest period. I mean there were always those stretches of time where I was as lost as a frog without webbed toes would be, but this time around it has lasted for a bewildering span....

And the more I think about it, the more the old me evades my outstretched hands....It really bothers me that these days I have morphed into some sort of a zombie, caught up with things that kill any spark there is of life.