Four things

Four jobs I've had:

1. My first summer job promoting Britannia’s Malai Chaska along with Archi. Just three days of work but a whole lot of fun.
2. My second summer job promoting Acuvue Contact lens. Lasted a month. Used to sit on the steps and gossip for hours with Serena. Hardly did any work. But managed to procure a pair of contact lens for free.
3. A one month internship in ING Vysya along with Pavi. Again, very little work. Would go spend a couple of hours in the allotted cabin. the people out there were quite friendly and would entertain us by showing us all the forwards in their inbox, playing the choicest of music and offering us chai coffee at periodic intervals. We went to office only for 16days and that too, only for a couple of hours each day.
4. All the little things I do for amma in the kitchen.

Four movies I could watch over & over:

1. The LOTR series
2. The Odd Couple 2
3. Alai Payuthe/Saathiya
4. The Sound of Music

And can’t help mentioning this, but the movie I have seen the most number of times is J.Lo’s “Wedding Planner”. One movie that I love to hate but inevitably watch every time it is aired on Zee Movies.

Four places I’ve lived:

1. Chennai
2. Hyderabad
3. TPG
4. Vizag


Four places you've been on vacation:

1. Shillong and some other parts of the North east
2. Musorie, Nainital and Delhi on a school trip
3. Kerala, puthucode, my hometown to be precise
4. Pune

Four websites I visit daily

1. My two email accounts
2. My blog
3. Google
4. The other blogs on my blogroll

Four things I say quite often:

1. Mast (yup sweths, got it from u only)
2. whattu
3. Shaniyane
4. Bloody

Four Random Facts about me

1. I am an agnostic
2. I plan to kill myself when I turn 65
3. I love nature
4. I would like to become a politician someday

Four things I love most

1. family
2. friends
3. Books
4. kids

Four things that scare me most

1. cockroaches and other creepy insects
2. one of my uncle’s
3. a life without books
4. riding pillion when someone is driving real fast and rash


Four bloggers to pass it on to: 1)Swat 2)Nivi 3)Ganesh 4)Naveen

The return of the poetess

Well, this was my very first poem. Entered a poetry competition back in junior college just for the heck of it. The topic was "Peace". This was my entry. Never thought i would even get a consolation. Imagine my surprise when i was adjudged First!!!!

Anyway, here goes:


WAR AND PEACE


All is fair in love and war
Oft I heard that said
But what is fair in war
To think of that, I dread

Children crying, innocents dying
Widows weeping, mothers sobbing
Poor little souls-all mourning
Politicians laughing, commoners suffering


War – ‘tis nothing but a mean game
Which ought to put the politicians to shame
Bloodshed – ‘tis but a waste of blood
Which results in an overflow of tears - a flood


I wish one day would come a bird
A white dove, full of love
And show the way to every man
That murder is not all that he can




--Shilpa Krishnan

Bring home the bookworm

Total Number of Books I Own:

Am not planning to go down to the garage, open the dusty trunk, and take a manual count of my collection. All I have to offer is a calculated guess. Must be ranging from 300-400. This of course includes all the tinkle digests and Amar Chitra Kathas
.
Last Book I Bought:

Dad buys most of the time. Last book I bought was “Kane and Abel” as a B-day gift for S.

Last Book I Read:

“Sex, Scotch and Scholarship” by Khushwant Singh. A collection of some of his best writings. He is one of my all- time favorite writers. Love his “With malice towards one and all” columns.

Currently reading:

“The Great Indian Novel” by Shashi Tharoor. A spoof of Mahabharata set in the late 1800’s and 1900’s, a marriage of Indian mythology and the Independence movement. Quite funny. A definite must-read.

Five Books That Mean a Lot to Me:

The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand. First time I read it, I didn’t quite understand parts of it. The second time I read it, I fell in love with it. The third time I read it, I swore I would one day create a time-machine, and go back in time just to meet Howard Roark.

Razor’s Edge by Somerset Maugham. One book that has changed my life for the better.

The Harry Potter series by J. K. Rowling (mainly the last two and the first four)

Kane and Abel by Jeffrey Archer. An epic novel about the lives of two great men. Superb narrative. Love the sequels to this book as well.

Anne of Green Gables by L.M.Montgomery. Got this one as a prize for standing third in an essay writing competition at school. Grew to admire this little, talkative orphan. Read the book a dozen times. Lent it to someone who failed to return it. Cursed that person to damnation. Please take heart and buy me this book, will ya.


Other books, of course:

A Time to Kill and The Chambers by Grisham,
Not a Penny More, Not a Penny Less by Archer
Animal Farm by George Orwell
Truth, Love and a little malice by Khushwant Singh
Gone With the Wind by Margaret Mitchell
Roald Dahl’s short stories
Amar Chitra Katha series
Five find outers series of Enid Blyton
Mallory Towers series of Blyton again
A Tiger for Malgudi by R.K.Narayanan
Animal Farm by Gerald Darrell
The Wodehouse collections esp. Jeeves
The Day of the Jackal by Frederick Forsyth
The Glass Palace by Amitav Ghosh
Most of Erich Segal’s books except for Oliver’s story.
Angels and Demons & The Da Vinci Code by Dan Brown

My All Time Favorite Characters:

Howard Roark: Of “The Fountainhead” fame. Hasn’t everyone who has read the book fallen in love with him. The ideal man.

Larry Darrell: The protagonist of “Razor’s Edge” by Somerset Maugham. A man on a journey of self-discovery. Can relate to him very easily.

Swami: From Malgudi days. If I have a son, I would want one like him. He’s adorable. The actor in the TV series adaptation does full justice.

The Weasley twins: Fred and George are my favourites in the HP series. Wish it featured more of their adventures and less of the trio’s.

Hercule Poirot: The egg-headed Belgian might not be easy on the eye but he makes one helluva interesting read.

Rhett Butler: The only man who could put Ms. O’Hara in the right place. You can’t help but like his spunk.


A Book that Didn't Mean Squat to Me:

“God of Small Things” by Arundhati Roy. I was all excited to finally lay my hands on the much-acclaimed novel, but it proved to be a damp squib. Definitely, the most over-rated book ever. Ms. Roy should instead have considered manufacturing Banana chips. God alone knows why she got the Booker.


I tag S , G , N

To be or not to be...

Come March, and it is not just the hot Indian summers that greet you. Apart from green mangoes, March is also the season of exams. From final examinations to entrance examinations, the young nubile mind is put through a tiresome series of mind boggling tests. And finally, one is asked to choose from various options. Engineering, medicine, commerce, literature, economics, legal studies, hotel management, pure science, the list is endless.

“So what do you want to become when you grow up?” Now this may seem like a harmless question, but every time it is posed to me, it gives me the jitters. Yes, I am nearing 20 and I still don’t know what I want to become. I am generally quite quick at making up my mind on most issues, but this particular one has proven to be a tough nut to crack. I have played with a lot of ideas and below is the list of career
options I have considered at one time or the other


• Ice-cream wallah: Every child’s fantasy. Mine as well. So at the age of five, if anyone asked me what I wanted to become, I had the answer on the tip of my tongue. However, I began to see the cons of this job. You don’t really get to eat all the ice-cream you want, you have to cycle around all day under the hot Sun and you have to watch at the other kids eating your ice-creams, while you stood there with a watering mouth.

• Engine driver: Yet another childhood fantasy that remained unfulfilled. One trip to the engine was enough to convince me that I did not want to work 24*7 in a hot, steaming furnace covered in grime and soot.

• Teacher: My mother continues to tell me that I will end up as one. Considering the fact that I was born on Teacher’s day, this is quite a possibility. But I have seen the hell that most teachers go through and I am not sure I am quite capable of controlling the unruly kids of these days.

• Detective: Now, these were the days when my diet consisted chiefly of detective novels and more detective novels. So little wonder that I imagined myself as a Nancy Drew in the making.

• Forensic Investigator: Having graduated from the Nancy Drew, Hardy Boys and Agatha Christie’s, I ventured into the realm of modern day science detectives with the ilk of Robin Cook’s and Robert Ludlum’s. I was quite fascinated by the many ingenuous methods of detecting and considered it a worthy career option.

• Marine biologist: Discovery and National Geographic channel opened up whole new vistas of the marine life and I thought it would be quite fun living in the ocean for a larger part of the year.

• Microbiologist: Heard this name in the passing and thought it sounded quite fancy. Considered it for that reason alone.

• Writer: Somewhere down the line, I realized that even I could write. A little further down the line, realized that nobody wanted to read what I wrote. So I wisely blamed it on a prolonged writer’s block and gave up for good. But by the time I turn 80, plan to come out with an autobiography. meanwhile, am planning to equip myself with a degree in literature.

• Lawyer: John Grisham fascinated me and since I loved to argue, I thought this would be an ideal profession for me. One of the only options that I seriously considered and attempted as well. Sadly, missed NALSAR by a meager 10 marks. That was the end of my legal career.

• Journalist: Though am not that great with the words, this sounds like one of the professions that would really interest me. Still considering it.

• Social Activist/Worker: Feel quite strongly about quite a few causes and sure do want to make some changes in this society. Another option I still am considering.

• Civil services: Am tired about people cribbing about how the country is run. Why the heck don’t they try and change things. Well, me sure planning to give it a shot.

• Politician: Might sound quite disinterested in politics but this is one career option I wish to pursue in the later years of my life. So 40 years down the line, if you hear of a politician called Shilpa Krishnan, it might be me!

Poetry time

Prose has become prosaic. Time for some poetry now. Well, this is one of my favourite poems. wrote it on a bus ride(29 C) through the by-lanes of Chennai. So here goes -


INDIAN CROWDS


They smell so weird, you say
They smell so exotic, I say

They look grotesque, you say
They are the epitomes of beauty, I say

They are overbearingly affectionate, you say
They have big warm hearts, I say

They chatter incessantly, you say
They are the most interesting speakers, I say

They are dumb beyond words, you say
They are prodigies and geniuses, I say

They make much ado about nothing, you say
They live each day to the fullest, I say

They celebrate every silly occasion, you say
They celebrate the joy of living, I say

They think not twice before conversing with a stranger, you say
They are the most welcoming souls of all in this world, I say

They know not of a word called caution, you say
In god they trust and to him leave the rest, I say

They have the messiest houses of all, you say
Oh! But the most beautiful homes of all, I say

They poke their noses in everyone's business, you say
They are the most genuinely concerned of all, I say

Oh! But they are perpetually surrounded by murk, you say
Oh! But they are the lotus in the swamps, I say

Damn them, they are but brown idiotic Asians, you say
Hail them, they are the great Indian Crowds, I say


----- Shilpa Krishnan