Farewell to Sinnerman

This morning, one of my favourite people in the world, Ro (otherwise known as Sinnerman) left the shores of Singapore for good to pursue his dreams.

He is one of those rare souls with whom I have a very special connection. One that's undiluted by the other connections each of us has with other people.

He was supposed to fly off on Saturday morning, but due to some screw-up in SQ's website, the only flight he could get on was on Friday morning. When he told me this, I was stunned. Actually I felt angry. Very angry with him. For no fault of his, but I was.

My crazy schedules gave me no time to spend any time with him during the week. I had plans of a proper farewell party on Friday night, and a proper send-off at the airport on Saturday morning. But everything was moved forward by a day, and I could not do anything other than just attend a rushed farewell party thrown by his other friends on Thursday night. And since I had class and house-signing that night, I reached the party really late. The thought of seeing him only for an hour or so in a big crowd was frustrating.

That's all I get? He just goes away like that? What utter nonsense!

I was getting angrier by the minute. If you're a friend of Sayesha's, you can't just go away like that. I won't let you. That's how I am. Take it or leave it.

And so, as everyone said their goodbyes to him after the party, I had made up my mind. I was not gonna give up without a fight.

So this morning when I woke up, I sent my Managing Editor an sms, telling him I would be taking half-day off. I'd just taken half-day off yesterday, and I knew I was treading dangerous ground just a week before my appraisal, by asking for leave on the very morning of a very important meeting. But I didn't care.

Some things matter so much that others don't anymore.

And so, this morning, two close friends met each other one last time at the airport, and relived the precious moments of the past. As we walked towards the immigration gates, I had his passport in my hand. And just like that, I had a sudden desire to confiscate it. Yeah, I knew I was being stupid. He had to go. I had to let him go. And so I saw him off without a tear, and then went to work with a happy heart, listening to a song both of us are crazy about, and knowing that people who matter will always stay in my heart, no matter where they go.

Farewell, Sinnerman. Friend. Philosopher. Photographer.

And here are three of my favourite photos he'd taken of me.




















Sayesha in a roadside bookshop on the streets of Phnom Penh, Cambodia
















Sayesha at the Red Onion, Port Dickson, Malaysia





















Sayesha on the beach at Redang island, Malaysia

Goosebumps

I was thinking about goosebumps today.

And not just because the air-conditioning in my classroom is set to an extremely low temperature.

When was the last time you got goosebumps at room temperature?

One of my most vivid memories was when I watched the 'aur paas' scene in 'Dil Toh Pagal Hai'. I believe with all my heart that there isn't (and will never be) a sexier scene than that in the entire history of Bollywood. And even now, every single time I watch that scene, I get 'em goosebumps. Bigtime.

How does Shah Rukh do it?? In the scene, you can see the absolute control he has over Madhuri's feelings and actions. (He says 'aur paas' and she can't help but go 'aur paas'!). And at the same time you see in him, the same vulnerability as her. Now that is total goosebump material! Oh man, I'm craving to watch it again now!

And I can't believe I lent my DTPH DVD to my marketing manager this morning. Damn!

I realise this post may earn my blog heavy shelling with anti-Shah Rukh comments.

So here's a message for all you Shah Rukh hating guys: Yes, agreed he hams. But he can turn my knees to jelly with just one 'aur paas'.

You can't.

The little scary ones

When my Managing Editor first broke the news to me yesterday that I had to do a presentation for 160 school kids on how my magazine works, I freaked out. 160 freakin' primary school children! No joke that, I tell you.

And suddenly, I was plummeted back into the days when I was doing relief teaching at a tuition centre.

I remember this one particular class I had to take. The lady who called me said, "It's a one-hour class, but you know how it is. The effective teaching time would be about half an hour." I wondered why. And now I wonder why I wondered why.

The class had about 15 kids. Handling 15 kids is not a problem. Handling 15 hyperactive 7-year-olds is! The younger they are, the more difficult it is to control them and get them to listen. They don't quite have a mind of their own, and yet they do. (Did I make sense there?)

The class was from 12:30 - 1:30 pm. Here's how it went.

12:30 pm
I enter the class. The kids stand up, "Good morning... "
Suddenly they froze as they realised that they were greeting a complete stranger.
"Who are you?" one of them asked.
"I am your replacement teacher for today."
"What happened to Miss Chan?"
"Errr... Miss Chan is getting married. She won't be teaching you anymore."
"But why?"
"Errr... I don't know..."
"Okay."

12:35 pm
I surveyed the classroom. It was not very big. I had a desk and chair to myself, and there was a huge table, around which the kids sat.

"Okay everyone, settle down. I'll take attendance now." I said.
The kids ran around the table for a while.

12:45 pm
The kids finally settled into their chairs. While taking attendance, I called out, "Chester!"
"Present..." came the reply. From under the table!
I peeped under the table, and there was young Chester, grinning away.
"Come out, Chester."
"Why, miss?"
"Because... all your friends are outside."
"Can't I sit here?"
"No, you can't. Come out now."
"Why not, miss?"
I made my way under the table and put on my "stern teacher face". (Yes, I have one.)
"Well, you can't. Come out. NOW!"
Chester meekly crawled out. The others started giggling.

12:55 pm
"Phew!" I went back to my desk. I sat down and looked up. Suddenly the class looked weirdly empty.
"Where are the others?" I asked.
They started giggling again.
One of them pointed under the table.
So I had to go and look under the table again. There they were, six imps, hitting each other with stretched rubber bands.
I pulled them all out.

1:00 pm
They were all in their chairs. Finally.
One boy shot his hand up, "Miss, I need to go to the toilet."
"Ok. Be quick."
"Me too!" Another hand.
"And me!" One more.
"One at a time, okay? One at a time." I said between gritted teeth.

1:05 pm
I started teaching.

1:25 pm
"Blah... blah... blah... and blah. Any questions?"
A hand shot up.
"Yes?"
"May I go to the toilet now, Miss? He is back."
"Okay, you may. So, any questions?"
"I have one!" This fidgety little boy raised his hand.
"Yes?"
"Miss, are you married?"
"Wha... ask me questions about the topic I am teaching, okay?"
"Yes, but are you married?"
"No, I am not."
"Miss, do you have a boyfriend?"
I am sure even if I had said I was married, he would have asked me the second question anyway!
"Okay, ask me questions only about what is written on the whiteboard, okay?"
"Okay, Miss, why does the whiteboard have the wrong date? Today is the 15th, not 14th. Hehehehehe!" Everyone starts giggling. I try not to pull my hair out.

1:30 pm
Class is over. I almost get run over by the herd of galloping kids.

Sayesha slumps into her chair and vows never to teach a class of 7-year-olds again.

A familiar stranger

Today, I met a 'familiar stranger' for dinner and coffee.

Someone I had never seen, spoken to or met. Someone I only knew from my blog.

And suddenly, I was reminded of something I read on a farewell gift a friend gave me just before I left India.

"When you meet a stranger, make friends. Remember, your friends were strangers when you first met them."

Why?

Why is it that when we really miss someone, it's not too bad when we're alone, but when we're surrounded by a big crowd of people, we feel lost and lonely, and miss that person like crazy?

Could you buy me a dream?

A few weeks ago, my friend's little sister came to Singapore. My friend and I decided to buy her the latest Harry Potter book. Apparently she had been dreaming of it day and night. She'd been overheard saying, "I wish I had a rich friend who'd buy it so I could borrow it!" When we gave her the book, just watching the glow of sheer joy on her face filled my heart with instant joy.

I couldn't help but wonder -- sometimes it's so easy to fulfil someone's dream. So easy to make someone happy. Even though the dream that you helped out with was a small one. All you need to do it is buy it. What amazing power and control... To have that ability to simply buy someone's dream for them.

But then dreams get bigger and bigger till they cannot be 'bought' anymore.

Sometimes, I wish that someone could just buy me a couple of my dreams.

Ok, maybe just one.

You know what I dream of? I dream of a world where I am surrounded by everything that is important to me. A vast and beautiful beach, where all the special people in my life live together and happily grow old together. And for some reason, although everyone is single, they are bound to one another by the most amazing connection.

When I close my eyes, I can literally 'see' my dream. There we are, living in tiny little resorts that line the pristine beach, doing nothing for a living, and still having money to spend. Hanging out every evening. If I strain my ears, I can actually hear the jokes, the songs, the leg-pulling that goes on, as the gorgeous sunsets translate the evenings to starlit nights, as we all sit with our toes buried in the cool, fine sand. Never once getting sick of the place.

And everyone I love is there. Friends who're here with me, friends who are from the distant past, friends who have moved on. Friends I made on this blog, who simply make my day every single day! (Yeah, you too, Virdi! You can come along too, we'll just have to put you up atop one of the coconut trees along the beach.)

What a beautiful dream...

One small step at a time maybe?

Anyone for Koh Samui this year?

I've got my eye on you!

Sayesha's a cover girl! Yeay!

Now by cover girl, I don't mean that all of me is on a cover. Only a part. My pupil, to be precise. And by pupil, I don't mean my tuition kid. I mean my eye. My precious kids' magazine (it's my jaan, by the way, one of the reasons why my life is worth living and my job is worth keeping) needed the photo of a good-looking (ahem!) eye for the cover of the latest issue, and after shooting many eyes, the photographer finally chose mine.

Here it is -- my claim to fame.
(Blurred out the rest 'cos I wasn't sure if I could just put my mag cover on my blog like that.)

And oh, did I mention 'Yeay'? :D

The new perfect

When I watch a TV show or a movie, I look for two things:

It should either:

1. make me laugh
or
2. make me think

I need to 'take something home' after watching it. If there's no thoughts for me to take home, I won't watch. Also, the key words are very important. Take 'Desperate housewives' for example. Neither of the key words 'desperate' or 'housewives' evokes any interest in me. Which is why, in spite of my friends going ga-ga over the show, I refuse to watch it.

Ditto used to hold true for SATC. When I first heard about it, I was like, "What?? I won't be caught dead watching it!" (Ok that didn't make sense, but you get the point.) It sounded like a really dumb chick flick. But I happened to watch a coupla episodes for lack of anything else, and slowly I realised that it did have a lot of stuff to 'take home'.

On many levels, yes, it is a soap about desperate women seeking equally desperate men on the streets of New York. But if you look beyond the S, the ATC part has a lot of intelligence and thoughts put behind it. Look beyond the surface and it will make a lot of sense. And though I know lots of guys who dismiss it (just like how I used to) as a frivolous girly show, I know many who watch the show for the characters and the way they deal with the complexities of life.

I'm sure that every girl, who's ever watched the show, has at one point in time, asked herself, "Which character am I?" I've seen girls admitting that they're a Miranda Hobbes, a Charlotte York (never a Samantha Jones though, for obvious reasons) but never a Carrie Bradshaw. And I find it quite strange, because if at all anyone in the show, I am a Carrie. And I am not just talking about the obsession with shoes. I am talking about the Carrie with the flaws. Plenty of 'em, in fact. The Carrie who does not seem to think twice before messing her own life up. The Carrie who so spectacularly portrays the song by Pink -- 'I'm a hazard to myself!'

One of my friends muttered, "She's an idiot. Idiot!" when he (yes, 'he') saw the episode where Carrie tells Aidan she can't marry him. But somehow, to me it made sense. I could actually see myself doing what she did. *Shudder* but it's true. Ok fine, Aidan was perfect. Any girl would be an idiot to turn down a guy like that. That too, without a good reason. But then, maybe he was too perfect. Maybe she did not deserve such a perfect guy. Maybe she deserved someone who was as flawed as her, as ordinary as her. And just like that, she turned him down. No one really understood why. Maybe she herself didn't. But her decision just went on to show that in spite of her fabulous lifestyle and success and confidence and style, she was still that poor little confused girl who screwed up her own heart with amazing regularity. Don't we all do that at times? Aren't we all hazards to ourselves?

As I graduated from being a teenager to an adult, I found all my candy-eyed views of movie characters changing. Perfect became boring. Unreal. Flawed became real. Human. Carrie's flaws are so human. She is so obviously not perfect, and that's what makes her character so believable. And that is why I identify with her. I have uncountable flaws, and I am so not perfect. And yet, here I am, utterly proud of my imperfect self, thriving in the sea of my own mediocrity. I remember I took it as a big compliment when Bonatellis called me a simple girl next door on his blog. I feel that the ordinary, who make mistakes with their lives, live life much more than the perfect who live it up flawlessly.

And here's another one. This one's closer to home. The reason why I felt that Karishma Kapoor (in spite of herself) walked away with the laurels in DTPH was because of her character sketch. Nisha had flaws, and she was open about them. Instead of displaying the perfect behaviour of a typical silent sacrifice by the perfect best friend, she did what a human being would do. She ran. She hid. She resurfaced. And then she went ahead and told Rahul exactly what she felt. Which made that character so much closer to the heart that the perfect Puja.

I just watched the lake side scene for the millionth time, and I still can't get over the absolute perfection of the script.

Nisha says:

"Main achhi ladki nahin hoon, Rahul. Main bahut buri hoon. Tum nahin jaante. Ab dekho na, ek ladka hai, jise main bahut pyaar karti hoon, aur hamesha se karti aayi hoon, aur aaj mujhe pata chala ki woh mujhse nahin, kisi aur se pyaar karta hai, toh mujhe achha nahin lag raha hai. Dard ho raha hai. Gussa aa raha hai. Jalan ho rahi hai. Mujhe aise nahin lagna chahiye Rahul, main bahut buri hoon."

("I'm a bad person, Rahul. You don't know. You see, there is this guy I love, one I have always loved. And today, when I found out that he loves not me but someone else, I don't like it. I feel hurt. I feel angry. I feel jealous. I should not be feeling like this. I am a bad person.")

"Rahul, woh kya hai na, woh ladka sirf mera pyaar hi nahin, mera sabse achha dost bhi hai, aur aaj pehli baar maine uski aankhon mein muhabbat dekhi hai. Jo pyaar main itne saalon mein nahin laa payi, aaj woh ladki le aayi hai. Toh shaayad woh ek doosre ke liye bane hain. Shaayad main uski kabhi thi hi nahin. Shaayad yehi uska sacha pyaar hai."

("Rahul, the thing is -- this guy is not just my love, but also my best friend. And today, for the first time, I saw love in his eyes. The love that I could not bring about in years, is now there because of that girl. So maybe they are indeed made for each other. Maybe I was never his. Maybe this is his true love.")

"Toh dekho na, mujhe apne dost ke liye khush hona chahiye, uski khushi mein meri khushi honi chahiye, par main khush nahin hoon, Rahul, main khush nahin hoon. Main bahut buri hoon."

("So you see, I should be happy for my friend. I should find joy in his joy. But I am not happy, Rahul, I am not happy. I am a bad person.")

(DTPH lovers, if you're yearning already, watch the scene -- DTPH DVD, chapter 30, 02:28:48)

We've all been a Nisha at some time or the other, isn't it? Imperfect. And fabulous. What is the point in being perfect if you're not yourself?

Life is simple. Everyone gets one. You do what you can with yours. There are no rules. People may judge you on how you live it, but at the end of the day, what matters is how you judge yourself.

Move aside, perfect people. Ordinary is the new perfect.

Tanhayee

Stuff in my life has been bothering me now and then for the last few weeks. I decided that I needed some alone time today to clear my head and figure things out. Decided to jog to the beach.

I made my way to a rocky structure facing the sea. It's not easy to find a place on the rock, which, on weekends and public holidays (such as today), is always swarming with lovesick couples and screeching families. However, somehow I managed to find a place for myself far away from everyone else.

The evening was far from perfect. There were no stars. The sea was dirty and polluted. All you could see were the ships, and the oil spills they had caused. And yet, there I was, in the middle of it all, trying to get my peace of mind.

As the evening gave way to the night, my thoughts about my life, my emotions, and the people in my life, became stronger, the breeze did too. The only company my loneliness had. The breeze was the kind that dries your tears before they can leave your eyes. And even if some do escape, it is too dark for them to be visible, and you're too far away from people for anyone to ask you, "What's the matter? Are you crying? Why?" Because if they did, I would have no answer.

A little while later, a girl about the same age as me, came and sat a distance from me. She looked at me and nervously looked away. Then she looked again and smiled. I smiled too. Because even though she was a total stranger, somehow I knew why she was there. She wasn't there to jump. She wasn't there to mourn. She wasn't there to brood over a fight with a loved one. Just like me, she was there for her alone time. And just like that, without speaking a word, we connected. I sat there with her without saying a word for about two hours. Silent. Reflective. At peace with myself and the rest of the world.

It's amazing how one can get such utter peace staring at polluted water hitting moss-infested fake rocks on a starless night, with a baby crab running across one's ankle.

Perhaps this proves that all the peace we need is within ourselves.

To get to that peace, we only need ourselves.

And occasionally, some people around us to love us and to understand why we need our alone time.

Washing Fat Chick 101

I have decided to keep Fat Chick. Not only because Frodo needs company, but because I couldn't get myself to give her away. She was a gift. From me to myself. And so I decided that she's gonna stay.

And that she needed a bath!

Here's the ten-step tutorial on 'how to bathe a fat chick'.

Warning: Some images are very graphic in nature and may not be suitable for weak-hearted viewers.

Step 1: Put her in the washing machine (she's too fat to fit into a tub/bucket) with some detergent and water.



















Step 2: Run the water.



















Step 3: Grab her beak and swirl her around in the soapy water.


















Step 4: Let her soak.


















Step 5: No, I am not strangling her!


















Step 6: She looks clean. Lift her outta the machine, and drain the soapy water.


















Step 7: Rinse her in clean water.


















Step 8: Hang her from the window sill and let the water drain into pink tub.























Step 9: Hang her to dry in the sun.























Step 10: And Fat Chick's ready to party!