How to Save a (Social) Life

                Is your right eye twitching? Do you often fantasize about flying squirrels and talking tortillas? Can you see dead people? Just asking.

                Moving on, this note is for those who have been unceremoniously ditched and stingingly disowned by their friends for perpetually having exams. ‘You don’t have time for us anymore,’ they complain and ‘You have turned into such a nerd,’ they whine. Little do they know that in the non-existent recuperation time that we get in between fresh cycles of internals, we (specifically referring to the people who landed up doing science, medicine or engineering rather than some fun course) are burdened with an insurmountable  amount of work in the form of seemingly endless lab records, assignments, seminars, and slave labour. All of this has resulted in the sad demise of any semblance that we had to a social life (having 3200 friends on Facebook and an overly active Wall doesn’t count).

                I, however, like to think that every problem has a solution. In a truly altruistic manner, I sacrificed some sleep during class hours to ponder over this nagging issue. Most parents and teachers in general don’t believe in the concept of a social life. They are living relics from an era where marks were the be all and end all of a student’s life. Never mind something as petty as a social life because, of course, it can wait till after we’re through with college. And once we’re through with college, it can wait till after we find a job (good marks will obviously get us great jobs), get married, make babies, make more babies, and grow so old that even Neanderthals would stir uncomfortably in their graves. You can go right ahead and play by their rules, or you could let me help you.

How to Save Your Social Life:

1.       Pay your friends by the hour to hang out with you - an offer they cannot refuse.

2.       Drop out of college. No college = no exams. Education is just overrated anyway.

3.       Get other people to do your work so that you may go out and party with your friends. This is where being nice and having an irresistible smile help.

4.       Get adopted by extremely wealthy parents by putting yourself on the illegal market. That way you don’t really have to study/work, which leaves you with more time to spend with friends. Paris Hilton makes being a socialite seem like a real job, so why can’t you?

5.       In desperate times, if you think your old social life is far out of reach, start over and create a new one. How? Hang out with your teachers and their families.

6.       If all else fails, create a bunch of imaginary friends who will keep you company.

Run along now, kids. Go out and play.

P.S. The fact that you’re reading this note doesn’t say much about your social life either.

Lights, Camera, Mush!

Chick flicks... y’know, those movies that appeal to prepubescent girls and adult women alike. They can make them weep, clutch their hearts, sigh, look wistfully at the screen, and elicit a series of other similar reactions. Most of them can be deciphered in the first two minutes of the movie (including the time taken for the opening credits).

The general plot: Messed up, awkward girl protagonist meets studalicious dream boy who is way beyond her league. The stud muffin has an evil girlfriend/ex-girlfriend/mother/some woman in his life that deserves to be hated by the general female audience. The said woman’s role in the movie is quite obvious – she plays the antagonist that stands in the way of the true love. Awkward girl is left heartbroken and alone. However, stud muffin ultimately sees the awkward girl’s inner beauty and falls in love with her. Together, they overcome all obstacles in their path and live happily ever after. Oh yes, and there just has to be that final kiss which will turn on the waterworks.

There can be slight variations of this plot:

1.       Cynical guy who doesn’t believe in love meets The One, but doesn’t realize that she is The One until almost the end of the movie. Following this realization, guy chases after her (this scene is ideally set in an airport), miraculously stops her before she leaves and professes his undying love for her.

2.       Two best friends date a multitude of other people, only to realize that what they’ve been looking for has been right in front of them the whole time.

3.       Guy and girl hate each other when they first meet but they somehow end up falling in love.

Mix and match the above plots and voila, you get a few hundred more love stories.

I happened to have the misfortune of watching Sex and the City 2 today. There went three hours of my life that I will never get back. Not only did I fail to see any point in the movie, but I also killed a few million brain cells trying to do so. This isn’t the first time it’s happening to me though. There have been a handful of occasions on which I was forced to watch movies like The Ugly Truth, Ghost of Girlfriends Past, The Accidental Husband, and Twilight. On all these occasions, I sat back with a puzzled look on my face as I tried to figure out what women saw in them. I earnestly tried to list out the factors that could possibly motivate them to watch garbage like this:

1.       The attractive cast

2.       The generous serving of cheesy lines

3.       The predictable happy endings

4.       The apparently-oh-to-die-for shoes, bags, accessories, meh

5.       The soundtracks

What troubles me is that it still doesn’t seem like motivation enough... *scratches chin thoughtfully*

Be Scared, Be Very Scared

When you were a little kid, your parents would have taught you to look left and right before crossing the street. Did they also teach you to scream and run while doing so? No? You have some catching up to do then because I, Devathi Parashuram, now have a valid Learner’s Licence that permits me to sit behind the wheel of any car so long as it has an ‘L’ sign on the windshield.

As of today, I have successfully finished 20 classes at driving school. To say that I can drive now is a blatant exaggeration. I can’t, but I try, and that... that is a scary thought, isn’t it? Devathi trying to drive. I’m putting my ego on the line by writing this, but I figured that a warning had to be issued in public interest.

During those 20 classes, there wasn’t a single day when my instructor didn’t groan audibly when he saw me each morning. Three days down the line, he thought I just needed time to get used to shifting gears while simultaneously maintaining pressure on the clutch and accelerator. Fifteen days later, he had completely relinquished any hopes of my ever learning to drive. “Most of my students get progressively better,” he said exasperatedly, “But you just seem to be getting worse!” Oh well, can’t blame the poor guy.

In my defence though, I get easily distracted by pretty trees, dogs, early morning joggers, puddles, post boxes, bus stands, funny road signs that say HUMP, sports bikes, Sankey Tank, oddly shaped clouds, anything. So you can imagine what a mammoth task it was for me to actually focus on the road ahead and the traffic around me, not to mention potholes, speed breakers, and pedestrians. Harder still was paying attention to his instructions. ADHD and spacing out constantly haven’t ever paid off for me. “Speed limit 20 kmph,” he’d warn me. With my foot on the gas, I don’t think I ever adhered to that. That was when he would start shouting, “It’s my job to not only keep you safe but also to keep everyone outside this car safe!” “Ok,” I’d nod and continue doing everything wrong.

I’d also like to make a special mention of how my instructor never wore his seatbelt until our third class together, after which he religiously strapped himself in and looked nervously at me whenever I got into the driver’s seat. I’d like to think that I taught him the value of life, the importance of living every moment, and all that. What he would have done without me, I wonder.

I’m a creative person. Nobody can deny that. My new venture is road-kill art. I need a photographer to accompany me on drives and take pictures of my artwork though since the canvas isn’t going to be portable. Anybody game enough? Anyone?

54/23/3123

Dear Diary..

A talking Belgian waffle told me today that it was actually from Thailand, so I packed it up in a box, shipped it off there, and ate an alien armadillo for breakfast instead. I decided to fly my paper rocket to work today but didn't get there on time because it rained. I should have taken our pet bison instead. Damn 'em beetle-bladdered clouds! At work, I was told that Alfred had been turned into an alien armadillo by his wife when she discovered that he had wet his bed again. Uh-oh! Hmm.. alien armadillo. Why does that sound so familiar?

I can't recall what happened next. I must have accidentally jumped out of the 18th floor window again and bumped my head against a crow or something. I can't even seem to remember where I put my spare leg. All in all though, I suppose it was a good day. I mean, I can't seem to stop smiling, especially since I can feel myself float above my physical body. This is so cool.

Ok bye.

Baby Showers

Babies – love ‘em or hate ‘em, you just can’t ignore them; especially not when your cousins spawn ‘em little evil cretins in large numbers, making them impossible to keep track of, leave alone recognize as your nieces and nephews.

Why is it so hard for new parents to understand that nobody gives a flying f*ck about their precious little bundle of joy? Of course, the only exceptions to this would be grandparents and perhaps other new parents.

“She can say ‘yousuck’ now... She means to say ‘food’... how endearing!” [With adults going all ‘googoogaga’ and ‘wooshywooshysquishywishy’ on babies, it’s no wonder that it takes them so long to learn how to talk; and even when they do, it’s just misinterpreted]

“Oh, he has a bad nappy rash.”

Really. Who the heck cares? Not me.

Like Manoj Jacob once rightly said, he should start saying “Congratulations!” instead of “Are you keeping it?” When I see my new born nieces and nephews, I inevitably have to make a great effort not to scrunch my nose up in disgust or prod them like dissection specimens on display. What is so charming about babies, I fail to understand. Calling them God’s gift and all is just overdoing it, no?

Babies are babies. They poop, cry, sleep, cry, eat, poop, cry and bite. When they’re parents are done talking about how their babies pooped, cried, ate and slept, they ramble on about all the new things they’ve learnt – saying “woof woof” or crawling or walking or whatever on earth it is that all human babies do in progression. And when all that is done with and their kids go to school, parents are busy showing their kids off – My son is a class topper and gets straight A’s all the time – in an endless rat race to see whose kid is smarter, cuter, more athletic, and what not.

Didn’t I tell you to use condoms? Now look what you’ve done.

Open Wide

Although it’s been nearly 5 years since I had my braces removed, an appointment with the dentist still fills me with a sense of dread and makes me queasy. My tryst with orthodontists began way back when my milk teeth stood firmly rooted to my gums and refused to fall. I had to get all of them extracted since my permanent teeth had started growing right behind them by then. Later, owing to the size of my mouth (apparently the smallest mouth my dentist has ever looked into), my newly grown teeth had to be crammed in and when there wasn’t sufficient space for all of them, I was forced to wear braces followed by retainers. My dad had spent more on my teeth than my entire education up until that point.

Having spent most of my childhood in and out of the dentist’s clinic, you’d think that I’d be used to it by now. However, each visit is as refreshingly unpleasant as the one before. The gruelling process starts in the waiting room, with spotless white tiles, white walls, and neat rows of seats lined up against the walls, all splashed with a blinding white light. Every inch of the walls are covered with certificates of achievement and multiple degrees obtained in universities abroad, which are in all good sense meant to assure patients that they are in safe hands. Instead, what it does is make you realize to your horror that this particular dentist has a whole lot more torture techniques up his sleeves than the average Dr. Muthuswamy down the road. As you wait frightfully for your turn, you see fellow patients crawl out, groaning, moaning, and clutching their swollen cheeks in agony. At long last the receptionist with her satanic smile ushers you in. It’s your turn.

The dentist’s chair - It’s designed along the lines of the medieval Chair of Torture. The dental equipments fitted into the movable tray look distastefully nasty and include a miniature drilling machine with a long and dangerously pointed edge. Now the dentist, with an evil glint in his eye, looks gleefully down at you, his latest victim, and prods away happily in your mouth with a sharp probe.

“Does it hurt now?” *jab*

*groan* “Ooowww.. YES”

*prods elsewhere* “Now?”

“YES!”

*prods again in the first prod-area* “Now??”

“YES YOU RETARD, IT ISN’T GOING TO HURT ANY LESS IF YOU’RE GOING TO CONTINUE PRODDING IT WITH THAT TORTURE INSTRUMENT”

It’s a small wonder then that I bit down hard on my dentist’s finger when he was too busy making conversation with my dad to realize that he was prodding my palate incredibly hard. Take that, you sadistic prick! I swore that I’d never go back to see a dentist again once I was through with my braces and retainers, and I would have kept my word too if it wasn’t for the killer toothache that victimized me two days ago. It got so bad that I just had to get it checked today. My my... all the memories that came rushing back the minute I took my place in the chair overwhelmed me - the blinding light, the smell of antiseptics and some sort of plaster combined, the rubber gloves, the horrid dental instruments, the unbearable pain, all of it. To my good fortune though, it turned out that the toothache was a result of a sinus problem I have and I was asked to consult an ENT specialist, which was probably the best thing I’ve heard any dentist say to me. Phew!

Medusa and Hemlock

It’s time for a new self-centred rant. I know you guys missed them, as much as you would hate to admit it! :D So why prolong your wait? Your misery ends here... behold a new rant about... *drum rolls*... MY HAIR!!

Yes, my hair - the object of ardent admiration and envy, the epitome of all awesomeness. If in the future I bequeath my hair to you in the form of a hair transplant (don’t you dare get any ideas about progeny and shiz), I would necessarily have to include an instruction manual. You see, my hair is just that unique and that awesome. However, for all those curious people who wonder how I manage my hair, I hope this answers your questions.

FAQS:

1. How Devathi, HOW do you comb your unruly hair?

Devathi replies – Dearest love, the Britishers learnt it soon enough while they were trying desperately to rule our country, and parents caught on quickly as well when it came to managing their children – Divide and Rule. Heard of the phrase ‘United we stand, divided we fall’? The same applies to my hair. What I do is split it up into many portions, hold them down with numerous rubber bands, catch hold of one portion of hair at a time and force a comb through it.

2. What do you do to your hair after you’re done combing it?

Oh, I take a light and start an African bush fire in the hope that one of those dreamy firemen will come rescue me (although that doesn’t really apply in India). Not. I use a perpetually changing number of rubber bands and tic-toc clips to stop it from defying gravity all the time. The wind can be a bitch though.

3. What sort of combs or brushes do you use?

Devathi says – Hmm. After a lot of experimentation I discovered that brushes were ineffective and therefore settled for big-toothed combs. I use two combs at a time, one in each hand, while wrestling my hair. Glad you asked.

4. How do you wash your hair? Do you even wash it?!

Devathi: Yes, I do wash it, and quite often at that. My mama taught me personal hygiene, but you seem like you could use a few lessons. As for how I wash it, I apply the Divide and Rule method again. It’s hard to get to your scalp when you have a miniature Amazon Jungle for hair, but I found that the D&R method works better than the tear-your-hair-out-of-your-scalp-out-of-frustration method. So I divide it into portions again and wash each area of my scalp tediously. The rest is relatively easy because all that needs to be done is squeeze an entire shampoo bottle onto my head and lather away furiously.

5. On an average, how long does it take to wash your hair?

Devathi is tiring of the questions but will answer nicely anyway: About an hour, if my hair is in a good mood.

6. Do you use a hair dryer?

When they invent a hair dryer that can actually dry my hair, let me know – mail me at devathip@gmail.com. I dry my hair by head banging to music (it works) or I just let it dry on its own.

7. Do birds ever mistake your hair for a nest?

Yes, crows especially. *orders her personal mafia to kill the person who asked her this question*

8. In what ways do you style your hair?

Oh gee... It alternates between the curly look and the fluffy cotton candy look. I can’t be bothered to do anything more with it. The curly look takes minimum effort since all I need to do is wash my hair (the science behind it: all the cysteine residues form intrastrand bonds again, bonds which might have been broken earlier due to combing). I love the curly look but it comes at a price – combing it later is thrice as hard. As for the cotton candy look, that’s just a result of combing it (and hence temporarily breaking the cysteine bonds).

9. Do you ever get bored of your hair?

No. It’s fun to play with.

10. Does stuff get lost in your hair?

Yes, quite often. Once a friend found a dead spider in my hair... the cause of death appeared to have been suffocation. Among the other things I’ve found are bits of paper and rubber bands that I misplaced. Maybe I should start smuggling weed in my hair... I’d be rich.

11. Why don’t you straighten your hair?

I don’t want to look like everyone else. My hair is unique and I love it. It’s an integral part of my personality and I couldn’t care less if straight hair could make me look better or if that boy I’m crushing on likes straight-as-steel-rods hair. If you’re one of the kazillion people who’ve asked me this question, you should know that you’re on the hit list that I’m sending across to my mafia right now. Beware.

12. Is your hair natural?

Uh. Why don’t you tug on it and see for yourself, retard? Of course it’s natural! Before you ask, my mother and sister have curly hair too, except not as awesome as mine!

A few things that require special mention – I dressed up as Medusa for a Halloween Party once where I let my hair loose and had snakes in it. My hair is instrumental to most of my costumes for various theme parties, like even at the Retro Farewell Party in school where I dressed up as Boney M.

So, there are times when my hair is just absolutely unruly and unmanageable. There are times when I just wanna shave it off or grab it with both hands and scream “Die stupid hair die!”, but for what it’s worth, I LOVE it.

To my hair – I love you! *flying kiss*