Much Ado about Nothing

It’s been exactly four weeks since we moved to Hyderabad and my social life has gone from busy to incredibly hectic. In the last four weeks I have:

•  Met up with friends from my college gang thrice
•  Hung out with S, my best friend from college, about half a dozen times
•  Hung out with Gundu, my best friend from school, about half a dozen times, and     even met his friends here
•  Met KK for lunch
•  Hung out with Mahi, my cousin, quite a bit
•  Spent three Sundays at Pinni’s place, one of which was spent helping organise a suprise birthday party for Babai’s 50^th. Also spent time with cousins and Samee, who came down to Hyderabad for the party.
•  Saw five movies at the cinema – Ala Modalaindi, Rio, Teen Maar, Dum Maaro Dum and Shor in the City
•  Shopped lost – spent one day buying formal wear, another buying a desk and a bookshelf and finally a HTC Desire HD for Nike.
•  Helped the in-laws host a dinner at their place (by help I really mean I made conversation with the guests!). Also attended dinner at Nike’s Maami’s place once.
•  Went out for dinner alone with Nike twice.

Yes, all this in just four weeks. I also managed to see a couple of movies at home and read two books. Far from being tired, I thrive in the midst of so much social activity. On a day when I come home after meeting friends for coffee, I’m hyperactive. On a day when I come home directly from work, I’m all tired and need to take a short nap before I can bring myself to sit down for dinner and make conversation.

Now I have an equal number of friends, if not more, in Bangalore. But my life wasn’t a whirlwind of so much activity there, and generally, Nike and I spent a lot more time just by ourselves than we did with friends. The key difference here is that almost all my friends in Bangalore are married; in contrast I have only one married friend in Hyderabad. And in terms of ‘hanging out’ unmarried friends are much better than married friends, atleast in my experience (Like I keep telling my married friends, I’m just going to make friends only with younger, unmarried people from now on. The first question I will ask people is “Are you under 25 and unmarried”. If yes to both, only then will I consider the possibility of becoming friends with them. Of course, I’m aware that if everyone decided to use these criteria, I‘d be no one’s friend). 


I'm now ending this completely pointless post (because the rest of my posts were educative, informative and inspiring. Duh) here without even editing it because I want to put it up on the blog before midnight so that it shows that I've written TWO blog posts in April. Score!

In Which My Sister Visits Me in Prison

I got back just a while ago from a late night show of ‘The Next Three Days’. The basic plot is that Russell Crowe’s wife is in jail for murder and he plans to help her escape from jail. The first 30 minutes of the movie gives you a sense of the frustration the woman feels, knowing that she’s going to be spending the rest of her life in jail, away from her family, away from everything she loves; while her husband puts his life on hold, waiting for her to come back, and the young son struggles to deal with the whole situation.

That part of the movie was just.so.sad. Luckily, after the first 30 minutes, the actions starts, with Crowe deciding that his wife is going to escape from prison, and sets about planning the escape. It’s good in the beginning – this is just an everyday guy who is in a desperate situation – and he makes mistakes and his desperation and vulnerability and helplessness really come through. It isn’t what I would call a ‘tight thriller’ – there are plenty of holes in his plan, there’s way too much luck involved – it probably falls more into the genre of ‘crime drama’ than ‘crime thriller’, buts it’s a good watch nonetheless.

Anyway, so there is this really weird thing I have: Whenever I watch a movie/ read a book about an ordinary middle class person, especially a woman, being sent to jail for a crime she did not commit, I start thinking ‘Ohmygod! This could happen to me! I could be in jail someday for a murder I did not commit’. And then I start feeling rather uncomfortable and worried.

Then I plan what to do in such circumstances: Should I try to escape? Should I bribe the jailor so I get special treatment? How will I handle the dirty toilets? The awful food? The miserable living conditions? The rats and rodents? If prison guards or other inmates make a move on me, how should I handle it? Maybe I should migrate to Australia, so that if I ever end up in prison, I can atleast have decent living conditions (this after having read somewhere that Australia’s prisons are among the best in the world).

Suffice to say, ‘innocent helpless ordinary person thrown into jail’ storylines are enough to make me lose the plot (hehe!). Since this movie dealt a little bit around the theme (okay, by now you’ve probably forgotten which movie I’m even talking about) without actually focusing on awful jail life, my thoughts after the movie were more occupied with how my family would deal with me being in jail. When I went home, I found my sister online. This conversation followed:

Me: If I was sent to jail for a murder I did not commit, how often would you come and visit me?

S: That depends on which jail.

Me: Vizag jail. And you also live in Vizag.

S: Okay, then I’d visit you every alternate day. Or maybe three times a week.

Me (not expecting her to visit more than once a week): Wow! You’re so sweet Samee. I love you!

S: I love you too Akka.

Sisters! What would I do without one!

P.S: You know those books or movies in which an ordinary middle class person suddenly becomes rich by winning a lottery or getting an inheritance or something? Well, why don’t I ever think ‘Ohmygod! This could happen to me! I could win the lottery someday and become rich!’ and then spend the next couple of hours pleasantly thinking about how to spend the money.

Home!

This week I did (seeing as I am typing this post just a few hours before I am going to go back to Bangalore) a short trip home for my mother’s 50^th birthday. My visit was a complete surprise for her, and as I opened the door, she just stood agape at the threshold, completely taken by surprise. That was so worth it!

I took an overnight train to Hyderabad and then Pinni and I flew down to Vizag. We reached a day before her birthday and surprised her. The day of her birthday was spent cleaning up the house and making arrangements for the surprise dinner party we threw for her. It wasn’t much of a surprise considering how we were cleaning, not an activity you would otherwise catch Samee and me doing for love or for money. But it was a good party, with most close friends and family there, good food, lots of laughter.

I bought her a stove as a birthday gift. I can’t help but wince at the thought of buying her such a boring gift, especially because she doesn’t even like to cook, but that is all she wanted (which I could afford) so I gave in gracefully (ahem!) and bought it.

The day after the party, the whole gang headed out to the farmhouse. It was raining throughout, and the farm was a brilliant green, looking fresh and lovely. We then headed out for a trek to some nearby caves. By this time, the raining was coming down quite heavily, and we voted in favour of doing the trek even if it meant getting drenched. But the heavy rain became a torrential downpour, and even the drive became a pain because of the low visibility so we turned back to a grandmother’s house close by, where we hung around chatting and playing with their incredibly adorable one month old puppy.

After we reached home, we had Ash and Sim over for a while. Ash and I have been friends for over 15 years now. But then, that is part of the charm of growing up in a place like Vizag.....it’s a city where everyone knows everyone, and it’s difficult to not become friends when you end up running into each other everywhere; suddenly you stop and look back and you realise that even though you’ve left home long ago, and gone and made many more friends, some of your dearest friends remain the ones you’ve known all your life.

My friend the Scottish Muscleman (SM) came home too, and after we saw off Mahi and Buns at the bus stop, we went for a long drive by the beach. SM was in low spirits, and he passed them on to me too, so we ended up discussing topics which just depressed both of us. Once he dropped me home, Samee snapped at me while I bore her attitude with calm and patience (truly!), and then went and cribbed to Ma about it, who of course grabbed the opportunity to muse aloud at length on the ills of our generation.

But Sravan served me a huge scoop of Strawberry icecream, and as I type this post while my cousins and (currently) hateful⃰  sister play cards next to me, I feel awful about having to leave tomorrow. It’s like this EVERY SINGLE TIME I come home. I don’t have it in me to leave the day I’m initially supposed to so I inevitably end up postponing my departure by a few days. This time though I decided to stay firm (also, there are no tickets available for the next one week :-p ).

So I’m off tomorrow, and I will see you on the other side of the journey soon. Have a good weekend!

⃰Whattodo! My sister and I have this love-hate relationship. As do most sisters. No?

Already, I feel so guilty about hating her in this post that I want to declare my undying love for her and give her my new pink shoes; though I actually wont of course.....they are PINK shoes!

Sigh! I should have just wished for a brother. Would have made everything a lot less complicated.