Update about the past month

Things have happened in my life in the past month, things I haven’t mentioned in my blog. Things of gravity which deserve mention, so here goes.

Around a month and 3-4 days ago, a few days before my final exams I got sick. High fever which refused to come down. The doctor had a hunch that it might be something serious and told me to give a bloodtest. I missed the first exam because I still hadn’t recovered from fever. We got the test reports before the next exam and it confirmed that I had typhoid which meant I was confined to bedrest for atleast 3 weeks. My mother called the school and informed them that I won’t be able to appear for the exams. They said they would consider my marks in the midterms for calculating my percentage. I failed both chemistry and physics in the midterms so basically that meant I won’t meet the passing criteria and that had me worried.

My mother went to school and talked to the vice-principal. She said that I’d have to give a retest once I recover since I failed two major subjects in the midterms. She also recommended that I change streams since I seemed to have no interest in science. Later at home when my mother told me about it I decided this was the best opportunity to try to convince her to let me take Arts. I also told her I hadn’t prepared a thing for the exams and would probably fail the retests too. She freaked out at that but she did seem to be considering Arts. I was happy and hopeful for a while but alas! She backtracked the next day. She discussed it with my dad (who is currently posted in Mumbai) and they decided that I was capable enough of studying science and that Arts is too risky bother with. I was told to face facts and develop an interest in science. I refused to give in and simply told them I’d fail the tests on purpose if they forced me into science. Finally, after hours of arguing they finally realized how opposed to science I am. They gave me an alternative. Commerce. I was told to forget Arts and choose between Science and Commerce. That was tough. I am not particularly fond of commerce either. Ultimately, I figured commerce was the lesser of two evils. That raised another set of questions. Should I repeat 11th? Should I shift to commerce in 12th? If I do so, will I be able to cope? It was decided atlast that I’d shift to commerce in 12th, see if I can cope, if not I shift to 11th in July. So now I had to pass retests for which I was not prepared at all. I found it to be funny that in order to escape the subjects I loathed I had to pass them first.

The school people got in touch with us finally last week and asked me and my mother to go and meet the vice principal. I was a bundle of nerves when I went there. There were all these commerce teachers sitting there with her, teachers I hardly knew. And there was my class teacher too. They asked me if I really wanted to change streams and I said yes. The accountancy teacher then gave me a royal lecture on the difficulties of the commerce stream. I remained adamant because I really wanted to get out of science. Since I had passed maths in the midterms and done well in the maths Unit Test I was told I wouldn’t have to give a retest. Instead, there is going to be a small test in May in accountancy and business studies to see if Im able to cope. Bloody relief. After over a month of endless suspense, everything has been sorted out. I am now officially a 12th standard commerce student!  :D

My school reopened today but the Doctor has ordered me to rest for another week. I’m sick of being confined to the house all day. I’ve gotten so lethargic.

Now for the other important thing. Not really important but interesting nonetheless.

Last Thursday evening I went for a walk in the park. The weather was heavenly, the sky was ominously dark, the smell of rain hung heavily in the air and a gentle wind rippled through the trees. It was irresistable. I had to go out. And go out I did, a pen in my pocket, a small notebook in hand (I carry my pen and notebook wherever I go) and my trusted and beloved MP3 player plugged to my ears. Gerry Rafferty’s Baker Street is a great song for a walk in pleasant weather btw. Anyway, I made my way to the park and sat down on an unoccupied bench, enjoying the climes, observing the kids playing there and grooving to the music. The adults who generally come there to walk had disappeared by then. I tried writing but inspiration kept evading me. Soon it got dark and the wind died down too. There was no rain. I was thoroughly disappointed. And to make matters worse, there were god damn mosquitos everywhere.

A bunch of kids, all around 9-10 years of age, were playing cricket nearby. It wasn’t a pretty sight, they were horrible at it. But what else can be expected of 10 year olds? I was probably even worse at that age. A bunch of guys around my age were hanging out nearby with their girlfriends. They were huge. And they were constantly taunting the kids and interrupting their game in what seemed to be an attempt at showing how tough they were and impress their girlfriends. One of the kids got fed up of it and lashed back at one of the guys. The guy, sensing the threat to his manhood, grabbed the kid by his collar and threatened to hit him. The others kid stopped playing and merely gaped. And neither his friends nor the girls told him to stop. Feeling that things were getting a tad too thick I kind of intervened and told the chap to pick someone his own size.

Sensing another threat to his manhood *rolleyes* he turned on me. I am half his size. Last I checked, picking someone your own size didn’t mean beating up someone who comes to your shoulders and has thighs as thick as your arms. As I said, I am puny and something of a natural pacifist (read yellow). The standard abuses were exchanged and since I have a razor sharp wit (as you can see, I am not very high on modesty) it just made him seem dumber. So he did the logical thing and punched me in the face. His friends then decided to join in on the fun. So there I was, lying on the grass getting punched and kicked all over the place. I think I managed to hit one of them in the groin while swinging my arms wildly trying to block blows. By the time they were done, I was numb with pain, the kids were thoroughly entertained and their girlfriends were significantly impressed.

I remained on the ground for a little longer then got up, picked up my notebook, pen and MP3 player and staggered back home, keeping to the darker parts of the streets so no one could see the bruises. I got home and saw that my mother wasn’t back yet. I went to the bathroom and did a damage check.

a) Beauty of a black eye
b) Splendid bruise on the ribs
c) Busted lip

There are more injuries but they’re really minor ones. Generally body ache, scraped knees and all that rot.

The pain has lessened now but I still haven’t entirely recovered.

Oh and my mother has forbidden me from stepping out of the house for a few weeks. She makes it seem like I messed with the mafia or something. What are those dumbfuck delinquents gonna do, riddle me with bullets from their Thompsons the moment they see me?

 Currently listening to: The Who – Behind Blue Eyes

Imbeciles and Forgotten Debts

Update: I have removed the link to the chatlogs. I wasn’t thinking last night when I posted this, it was nothing to be proud of.
It’s a hilarious chatlog. Not gonna be effed doing the formatting again. Download the word file to read. My true readers won’t mind. ^_^ They shouldn’t rather.

Assholery and obscenity alert, btw.

Download:-

Currently listening to: Shakti – Face To Face

Quotes from Blackadder

Blackadder, a BBC sitcom from the ’80s starring Rowan Atkinson, happens to be my favourite TV show. The following, are some of my favourite quotes from the series.

The quotes have been copied from BBC.com’s Blackadder page as I am too lazy to recall and write every quote on my own. Besides, I have the memory of an amnesiac goldfish.

Black Adder (series 1)

Blackadder: If we lose, I’ll be chopped into pieces. My arm’ll end up in Essex, my torso in Norfolk and my genitalia stuck up a tree somewhere in Rutland.

Blackadder: Let all men who go to don armour tomorrow remember to go before they don armour tomorrow.

Blackadder: Morris dancing is the most fatuous, tenth-rate entertainment ever devised by man. Forty effeminate blacksmiths waving bits of cloth they’ve just wiped their noses on. How it’s still going on in this day and age I’ll never know.
King Richard: Blood! Death! War! Rumpy pumpy! Triumph!
Blackadder(upon being told about his mother’s adultery): Don’t be absurd. Such activities are totally beyond my mother. My father only got anywhere with her because he told her it was a cure for diarrhoea.

The King: If you cross me, now or ever, I shall do unto you what God did unto the Sodomites, understand?

Blackadder: As my tutor, old bubble face, used to say: “make love and be merry, for tomorrow you may catch some disgusting skin disease.”

The Queen: Look at the two love birds!
Blackadder: One love bird and one love elephant.

Percy: Only this morning in the courtyard I saw a horse with two heads and two bodies.
Blackadder: Two horses standing next to each other?

Blackadder (to Percy): You ride a horse rather less well than another horse would. Your brain would make a grain of sand look large and ungainly and the part of you that can’t be mentioned, I am reliably informed by women around the Court, wouldn’t be worth mentioning even if it could be.

King: St Juniper once said; ‘By his loins shall ye know him, and by the length of his rod shall he be measured.’

Blackadder II (series 2)

Blackadder: ‘Yes, it is’, not ‘That it be’. You don’t have to talk in that stupid voice to me. I’m not a tourist.
Flashheart: Thanks, Bridesmaid. Like the beard. Gives me something to hang on to.

Blackadder: We live in an age where illness and deformity are commonplace and yet, Ploppy, you are without a doubt the most repulsive individual I have ever met. I would shake your hand but I fear it would come off.

Blackadder: Bloody explorers, ponce off to Mumbo Jumbo land, come home with a tropical disease, a suntan and a bag of brown lumpy things, and Bob’s your uncle, everyone’s got a picture of them in lavatory.

Percy: Don’t be ridiculous, Baldrick. You know me. I mean, I laugh in the face of fear and tweak the nose of the dreadful spindly killer fish.

Blackadder: The path of my life is strewn with cowpats from the devil’s own satanic herd.
Blackadder: This place stinks like a pair of armoured trousers after the Hundred Years War. Baldrick, have you been eating dung again?

Blackadder: The eyes are open, the mouth moves, but Mr Brain has long since departed, hasn’t he, Perce? (The greatest put-down of all times)

Melchett (very drunk): You twist and turn like a … twisty-turny thing. I say you are a weedy pigeon and you can call me Susan if it isn’t so.

Baldrick: Not to worry my lord, the arrow didn’t in fact enter my body.
Blackadder: Oh good.
Baldrick: No, by a thousand to one chance my willy got in the way.
Blackadder on Baldrick: Kate, he looks like what he is: a dung ball in a dress.

Blackadder: Oh, God, God, God! What on earth was I drinking last night? My head feels like there’s a Frenchman living in it.
Ludwig: You find yourself amusing, Blackadder.
Blackadder: I try not to fly in the face of public opinion.

Blackadder the Third (series 3)

Blackadder: If you want something done properly, kill Baldrick before you start.

George: Now I’ve got my lovely fire I’m happy as a Frenchman who’s invented a pair of self-removing trousers.
Blackadder: Baldrick, believe me, eternity in the company of Beelzebub and all his hellish instruments of death will be a picnic compared to five minutes with me and this pencil if we can’t replace this dictionary.
Blackadder: “Something is always wrong, Balders. The fact that I am not a millionaire aristocrat with the sexual capacity of a rutting rhino is a constant niggle.

George: Why, only the other day Prime Minister Pitt called me an idle scrounger. It wasn’t until ages later that I thought how clever it could have been to have said, “Oh bugger off, you old fart!” I need to improve my mind Blackadder. I want people to say, “That George, why he’s as clever as a stick in a bucket of pig swill.”
Blackadder: You see the ancient Greeks, your Highness, wrote in legend of a terrible container in which all the evils of the world were trapped. How prophetic they were. All they got wrong was the name. They called it ‘Pandora’s Box’, when of course they meant ‘Baldrick’s Trousers’.
French Ambassador: I hate you English. With your boring trousers and your shiny toilet paper and your ridiculous preconceptions that Frenchmen are great lovers. I’m French and I’m hung like a baby carrot and a couple of petits pois.
Blackadder: Am I jumping the gun, Baldrick, or are the words ‘I have a cunning plan’ marching with ill-deserved confidence in the direction of this conversation?

Blackadder: They do say, Mrs M, that verbal insults hurt more than physical pain. They are, of course, wrong, as you will soon discover when I stick this toasting fork into your head.

Blackadder: I’m as poor as a church mouse, that’s just had an enormous tax bill on the very day his wife ran off with another mouse, taking all the cheese.

Blackadder: Baldrick, have you no idea what irony is?
Baldrick: Yes, it’s like goldy and bronzy only it’s made out of iron.
Blackadder: Ha ! I laugh at danger and drop ice cubes down the vest of fear.
Blackadder: The girl is wetter than a haddock’s bathing costume.
.
George: I’m a gay bachelor, Blackadder. I’m a roarer, a rogerer, a gorger and a puker! I can’t marry, I’m young, I’m firm buttocked…

Blackadder: Mrs M, if we were the last three humans on earth, I would be trying to start a family with Baldrick.

Blackadder: A man may fight for many things. His country, his friends, his principles, the glistening tear on the cheek of a golden child. But personally, I’d mud-wrestle my own mother for a ton of cash, an amusing clock and a sack of French porn.

Blackadder Goes Forth (series 4)

Blackadder (to Baldrick): ‘If you were to serve up one of your meals in Staff HQ, you would be arrested for the greatest mass poisoning since Lucretia Borgia invited 500 of her close friends round for a wine and anthrax party.’

George on waiting for orders: ‘When are we going to give Fritz a taste of our British spunk?’

George on being a lawyer: ‘I’m a complete duffer at this sort of thing. In the School Debating Society I was voted ‘boy least likely to complete a coherent…’ erm…’
Blackadder: ‘Morning George, morning Baldrick. Still the striking resemblance to guppy fish at feeding time.’

Blackadder: ‘Everything goes over your head, doesn’t it, George? You should go to Jamaica and become a limbo dancer.’
Blackadder(regarding George’s drag act): ‘Personally I thought you were the least convincing female impressionist since Tarzan went through Jane’s handbag and ate her lipstick, but I’m clearly in a minority.’

Blackadder: ‘Baldrick, in the Amazonian rain forests there are tribes of Indians as yet untouched by civilisation who have developed more convincing Charlie Chaplin impressions than yours.’

George: Crikey, sir. I’m looking forward to today. Up diddly up, down diddly down, whoops, poop, twiddly dee – decent scrap with the fiendish Red Baron – bit of a jolly old crash landing behind enemy lines – capture, torture, escape, and then back home in time for tea and medals.
Blackadder: George, who is using the family brain cell at the moment?

Flashheart: ‘If word gets out that I’m missing, 500 girls will kill themselves and I wouldn’t want them on my conscience – not when they ought to be on my face!’
Red Baron: ‘How lucky you English are to find the toilet so amusing. For us, it is a mundane and functional item. For you it is the basis of an entire culture.’
Blackadder: ‘I’ve no desire to hang around with a bunch of upper-class delinquents, do twenty minutes’ work and then spend the rest of the day loafing about in Paris drinking gallons of champagne and having dozens of moist, pink, highly experienced French peasant girls galloping up and down my – hang on…’
Melchett: ‘If nothing else works, a total pig-headed unwillingness to look facts in the face will see us through.’

Blackadder: ‘I lost closer friends than “darling Georgie” the last time I was deloused.’

Naming eej hard

“Come on Mom!” I yelled as I walked out the front door, a suitcase in hand, backpack slung over my shoulder. Meanwhile Dad was honking the horn impatiently. He hated waiting.

“Just a second, I’m coming…” came my mother’s voice from inside. “Tell your father to stop making an infernal racket!”

My brother was standing beside the car, a look of acute boredom upon his face. he was seventeen that summer and his idea of a vacation did not involve parents. Finally my mother came out, hurriedly screwing on a pair of earrings as she walked. “Suresh, put the suitcases in the boot.” she said to my brother. He ambled off towards the luggage while I ran to the car with excitement only a ten year old can muster.

It’s strange how vividly I remember that day. It’s been over ten years now but the memory’s fresh as yesterday. I don’t remember last week that clearly. My brother dumped whatever didn’t fit in the boot into the backseat. It was a really small car. The boot could barely hold two suitcases and a bag. Dad had bought it some years ago from some guy at work who was moving out of the country. The car had neon seat covers when we got it. And it was dirty as hell. We replaced those ghastly neon covers with nice, decent looking brown ones. It took me, Dad and my brother an entire day to clean it up. Dad and brother did most of the cleaning really. I was too young to help much. It was a fun day though.

Anyway, there we were. All four of us, squashed in the car. Mom and Dad at the front, me and my brother at the back with the bags. Dad had tuned into some oldies station on the radio that I didn’t really care about. He was singing along to it as he drove and my mom joined him soon enough. They seemed genuinely happy. My brother was staring out of the window with that strange scowl on his face. Over the past few months it had become the standard expressin on his face. He thought he looked tough and brooding. He really just looked like a constipated cowboy. I waved at my neighbours’ houses as we drove past them. Once we were past our neighbourhood I took my handheld video game out of my backpack.

That’s how most of the car ride went. My father and mother singing along to the radio. My brother staring outside and me punching away at my videogame. We would talk for a while sometimes, crack jokes, laugh. Other times we’d fall asleep. With the exception of Dad of course.

We got to the hotel sometime after midnight. I had fallen asleep by then. I didn’t even feel my father pick me up and carry me all the way to the room. He used to do that sometimes. It made me feel like a baby and annoyed me but he loved doing that. We went hiking the next day. Even made snowmen. We also had a snowball fight. Me and Dad against Mom and Suresh. We won of course. My mother had terrible aim. Dad had a beer later that evening. Really freaked us out. He didn’t have any more though and we forgot about it soon.

My mom suggested that we make imprints of our hands on the inside of the car roof one day. I don’t remember exactly when. She was always having such crazy ideas. Dad was hesitant at first but gave in. So we bought some paint and made imprints on the roof. We then scribbled our names under the imprints. My mother’s hand brushed against my nose accidentally, leaving a blue spot on it. I rubbed my hand against my mother’s cheek in return, leaving three thick gashes of paint on it. Soon enough all four of us were having a full scale paint fight. Everyone was covered in blue by the time we ran out of paint. People who were passing-by probably thought we were insane but we couldn’t care less. We didn’t even notice anyone, we were having way too much fun. Afterwards, Dad took a picture of the car roof with his camera. For some reason, that’s the only picture we took during our entire vacation. I think it’s still lying around somewhere in my apartment.

On our way back home the car broke down. And after that summer so did everything else. Things changed after that. I couldn’t really understand much of it back then. Mom and Dad gradually stopped speaking to each other. They pretended to be normal in front of me and my brother but the rift was pretty obvious. My brother went off to college the next year and never came back. I don’t blame him. Things had gotten pretty strained at home by then. Some months later Dad’s liver finally gave out from all the drinking. I think I was the only one who cried when he died. Mom didn’t. My brother didn’t even attend the funeral. Mom was different after that. She kept losing her patience and was shouting and crying all the time. Everything ticked her off. It was like she had gone crazy. She died two years ago. My brother called once around three years ago. Never again.

As for the car, we sold it to a mechanic soon after Dad died. It was of no use to us anymore.

(This will probably be the last piece of fiction I post on my blog. I’m going to make pages on my blog for my art, poetry and prose now.)

Tag!

Yeah so both Vasudha; and Nikita tagged me. And I decided to do this quickly before more people do this tag and I run out of people to tag. Therefore, without further ado, here goes!

The Rules:Link to the person that tagged you.Post the rules on your blog.

Share six non-important things/habits/quirks about yourself.

Tag six random people at the end of your post by linking to their blogs. Let each random person know they have been tagged by leaving a comment on their website.

1. I am a compulsive doodler. Give me a pen or pencil and I’ll fill up the closest writing surface with swords and spears and weird looking man things and poorly constructed lopsided buildings and crazy patterns and whatnot. My hands automatically start doodling.

2. One of my truest ambitions is to one day hold a Colt Double Eagle to the back of a bad guy’s head (the bad guy would be threatening a lady) and go “I wouldn’t do that if I were you, laddie.” The scared bad guy will then drop his weapon, I will laugh and say “Wise choice”, holster my gun and begin walking away. The angered bad guy will then pick up his weapon and I will turn around, draw my gun and shoot him all in one fluid motion and then blow at the muzzle of my pistol and go “Mind it!”.

No, really.

3. This one is really hard to explain. I keep dividing phrases and words into parts of 3 characters in my head. Say the word is ‘champion’, then that becomes ‘cha+mpi+on’ but since the last part has two characters it becomes ‘nch+amp+ion’ or else the last letter from the preceding word or the first letter from the succeeding word is added. It’s really weird and fucking hard to explain.

4. I always fall asleep in a moving vehicle if Im seated for long enough and have no one to talk to. Kinda why I’m hesitant to learn to drive. Probably end up killing someone.

5. Lately I’ve taken to admiring and stroking my rapidly growing stubble in front of the bathroom mirror.

6. I am really scared of dogs. I used to refuse to step out onto the street if there was a dog anywhere nearby. It’s not that bad now but whenever there are dogs closeby I become edgy and nervous and my movements become stiff. Especially if the dog is behind me. I can almost imagine it pouncing on me.

My God that was tough!

And now I victimise:
Ishmeet
Amit
Ruhi
Sulz
CJ

That’s it. 5 people. I don’t follow rules. Bad-ass me! Muahahaha…!