gold digger

It's so easy to be a gold digger don't you think? I have my opinions and I have my morals but really, I feel precariously on the edge of each and every one of them. I think I could be a gold digger if only I had the opportunity to be one. The guilt would get to me but like someone said, it would be so easy to brush the crumbs of that emotion under the rug. Just a thought.

I am back in Singapore and I have been offered a job which I have accepted. It's a recruitment agency for health-care professionals in the U.S. My designation: Account Executive. So, technically, it's a marketing job in a HR firm. Fits in exactly with my majors which are marketing and management. Got the job on my birthday.

Yep, I turned 22 a few days back. Was kinda sick so didn't really enjoy the day as such but I do feel good I am turning older. I actually kind of look forward to the responsibility of making money, saving, buying stuff for family.... It makes me happy. This time in Colombo, I realized the beauty of being with family. Privacy issues are always going to be a big negative factor, but we must face it... we can never be alone without being lonely. Atleast in the long term. I miss my family and I miss being irritated with them. This time when I was down in Colombo, I revelled in the company of my mother and sister (and true, I did get fed up with them, but that's what friends are for) and the fact that someone was always looking out for me. True, your friends will do everything they can for you, but they are no replacement for family. Reassurances will never work with family. Self-analysis is tiring and it seems these days that all my MSN conversations are all about self-analyzing or listening to someone else self-analyze...so I shall spare you.

notice.

The previous six entries were written over the holidays but were never uploaded until now. Any intelligent person would have realized that but I just thought I might as well make the clarification for the amazing amounts of morons out there. Also, I am addicted to writing and I needed somethign to write.

cousins in conjunction with the holidays

To be utterly, brutally honest here, I wasn’t too happy when my cousins came down on Christmas day. I think it wasn’t a question of me being unhappy with them, but just irritated that they had taken so long to decide and to confirm their holiday in Colombo. I really wanted to organize our New Year’s Eve plans at this place where we knew where everybody would be going but I couldn’t obviously because they took so long to fucking decide. So eventually when they did decide to make that relatively short air-commute to good ol’ Colombo, all the tickets for this party were sold out... However, I am by nature prone to overreaction and everything just turned out fantastic. I was pretty bummed out that another cousin didn’t come but I play with whatever cards I am dealt.

First of all, an introduction… Rits.. She’s 18 and beautiful. So beautiful it scares me sometimes. Having a beautiful sister of my own, I am well aware of the lecherous looks any pretty girl gets, especially on the streets of India or Sri Lanka and by constant exposure to this frowned upon behaviour I have learnt to tune out a world where women are put through sick, sexual fantasies in some random person’s mind. However, Rits gets way too much attention and that is what terrifies me. I try to look as if I am her boyfriend (breaking all the rules for ‘appropriateness among relatives’ I am sure) but that never stops men from looking at her. Oh well, ego boost to her. She is also crazy!! She will laugh at anything for hours on end with her faithful partner in crime and fellow cousin and crazy loon- Mr.MC. I will come to him later. I appreciate Rits because she’s an intelligent bimbo and laughs at all my lame jokes. And even though one is obliged to love one’s family, with her, I don’t have to try hard at all. The bitch left on the 30^th but I forgive her coz she’s a bundle of fun.

Mr.MC. Like I said before, he’s Rits’s Yin to her Yang (although there isn’t much peace when they’re around). He’s extremely intelligent and ultra-competitive when it comes to anything… academic or otherwise. Even though Mr.MC and I don’t hang out that much, he has the knack for making just the right amount of small talk to help put you at ease!! He is the perfect social lubricant, second only to bloody alcohol. Ha ha. He loves to gamble and from what I have heard, is quite lucky at it!! Some people are just lucky, but Mr.MC is very hardworking and I believe, a celebrity of some sort in the making!! Perhaps a talk show host or a professional Master of Ceremonies…..? Who knows? He’s certainly entertained us in the past with his skills in being the perfect pageant host so here I am, immortalizing how good he is at his thing!

Teens. Come to think of it, all my cousins are beautiful. Now that doesn’t mean they are only beautiful in my eyes and they’re trolls to the outside world. Teens’s 25 (almost marriageable age much to her displeasure) and a complete sucker for anything philosophical! I admire her dedication to what she loves. I also admire her ability to be relatively unaffected by the things that goes around her (a skill I think she learnt from having such a, shall we say, ‘different’ extended-family). Water off a duck’s back. I’ve grown closer to Teens over time and in some way, that has enhanced my life.

Verbosity is my thing. Deal with it.

Also I realize, that if one of the above ever wanted me to write them a testimonial, I could just copy and paste. Verbosity has its advantages.

There were three highlights to their trip. One was going to H2O with them. Yay. H2O is the latest club in Colombo and predictably, the place to see and to be seen. It’s pretty huge, very nicely decorated, very good service, reasonable prices and a decent-enough DJ. We got through the ordeal of being interrogated by the damn adults relatively unscathed but only after pouring out a great deal of honey to placate their wet blanket selves. I realize I still refer to them as adults but that is only because we are still treated as children… I also realize that these are our parents and we will always be their children, but come on, they expect us to provide for and take care of them when they grow old but are not willing to give up their hold on us with regard to certain kinds of behaviour, such as, drinking, smoking (but this, I think their displeasure is justified), love-marriages and pre-marital sex which is of course, blasphemous to the entire Sindhi race and just about rapes the family name…. Oh dear, I have digressed. Anyhow, the night was fantastic. Rits and I rode the wave of a beautiful state of tipsiness and danced on the floor while the rest socialized and made up… Notice I used the phrase ‘made-up’ and not ‘made-out’ , so get your minds out of the gutter! Quite an ordeal to get the three cousins up to their room afterwards but we finally did it and with no problems from the adults! Super night!

The second highlight was when we went down-south. Sri Lanka’s beautiful beaches must be experienced only after dappling in gorgeously illicit substances, which we might or might not have done. Lunch was ravenously eaten and followed up with another taste (of dessert, silly) and we drove home, utterly satisfied. Grains of sand vibrated, one of us felt one with everyone, including the sea and the grain of sand that vibrated… On the way back, we ate some Kandos chocolate (which Rits pronounced as Kandoos) and got home utterly exhausted but in equal amounts content as ever.

The third and final highlight was New Year’s Eve. Myself, sister, Mr. Say-Nothing-Bad-Will-Happen, his sister, Teens and my friend from university went to Trans-Asia. We were put through another ordeal by the adults before going (this one being a little more serious as one of us actually started crying!) but thankfully got there before 12am.As usual we got thoroughly plastered and I have no recollection of anything after 4.30am!! Apparently on the way back, I thought the radio in the car was actually my sister talking to me!! Fortunately, we all had fun and nothing too bad happened except for me losing my blazer and Teens taking a fall which she made worse by dancing with me for…er…god knows how long!!

These were the highlights but hanging out with them was fun too. Lots of family lunches and dinners laced their trip and I am sure they had as much fun as I did!! How terribly inarticulate I sound huh?

Jamba-jungle fun times!!

P.S- Forgive me for the less than mature nicknames I have given my cousins. It's this damn new Blog Search I am afraid of. I know some of the ''adults'' have some rudimentary knowledge of the net and since I am by nature a risk-averse person (some people call it cowardice), I needed to do this.

notions of university

I have officially graduated from the National University of Singapore people! I got my final grades on the 21^st of December and was quite thrilled with them. My results were as follows (I need to gloat a bit even though I feel terribly guilty about it):

Marketing Research A
Business Policy & Strategy A-
Southeast Asia: A Changing Region A
Global Environmental Issues A+

My Semester Average Point is 4.875 on 5.00 and my overall Cumulative Average Point stands at 4.23 on 5. I am very happy about these grades. I have nothing to complain about and I guess there is a God in this world. A God who helps me apply myself, helps me to work hard and to be in control (most of the time). Religion in my life never becomes more apparent than during exam time.

I am quite sure I will miss university life but I haven’t really felt those pangs as yet. Maybe I am in shock? I don’t want to spend time idealizing my notions of university life (especially not after spending gut-wrenching hours typing out assignments or preparing for presentations) but I do need to acknowledge one thing; my friends. These bunch of people have made and will continue to make my life worth living. It’s pretty sad that some friendships didn’t work out in the end but I can’t discount the times when we were friendly and I will cherish (what a fucking corny word) those times forever. So, university is finally over. Chapter closed.

PS. Too drama you think?

good cheer and gossip

For one week there were festivities. A close family friend, who is somehow related to us, got married… His wife was beautiful in a kind of villainous way. She had the characteristic sharp hooked nose and piercing brown eyes and a tendency to flash only half-smiles. Her husband however, was the complete opposite. In true Sindhi fashion, he got tipsy (wasted? Sindhi men hold their liquor well) at every function (the Sindhi wedding spans a couple of days and plenty of booze) and bobbed about everywhere dancing with every aunty and all the other girls there, unmarried or married. You’d think the bride might have got worried or jealous, but she just sat there, serenely watching over her husband and I bet quite glad to have the annoying video cameras and lights away from her for a bit. Imagine the discomfort!!? On her face she literally has layers of make-up, in her hair about a bottle of hairspray all pinned up with about a million pins and on her body, her poor body, feet after feet of heavy, itchy garment wrapped around her. All this effort and expenditure to look good in front of the cameras and the unrelenting, unforgiving eyes of the Sindhi public!

I hate going to weddings unless they’re of a close family member or friend. Even then, I try to excuse myself by any means possible. I try to be out with my friends, I try to feign sickness and I try to tell my mom that I won’t even be noticed therefore pre-empting the lecture on showing up as a mark of respect and courtesy. This time around however, even though staying home seemed like the best prospect, I didn’t bitch too much about going. I don’t know why but I just went along with it. Perhaps I am going soft in the head…. Perhaps I’m growing into my genes… Perhaps I have taken a bit of liking towards my peers? Who knows? Anyway I went.

First of all was a beach party. It was supposed to be a youngster’s only party but inevitably, some adults showed up. Actually I think the adults were a good match for the ‘youngsters’. The booze flowed and the groom went positively mad. I have hung around this guy (I use the term ‘hung around’ loosely) for more than 15 years and I have never seen him so much as step on to the dance floor! He lifted his soon-to-be bride into the air and carried her all over the dance floor. His audience, i.e. us, stood around, smiles frozen into our faces mechanically clapping, hoping against hope he wouldn’t trip up all the while cringing in embarrassment inside. What did I say about unrelenting, unforgiving Sindhis? True to form, I sneaked off for a few cigarettes once or twice while nursing my perfectly made Bacardi Limon and coke with one of my sister’s friends but crept to the dance floor and performed a scary Sindhi dance, which even I didn’t know I had in me! My darling sister had one-half of a drink and became officially, the cheapest drunk alive but I averted disaster by pointing her to the direction of the crowded dance floor where she could shake the worst off. All in all, I made the most of it, hung about with my cousin P, my sister G and her friends and had a pretty good time.

There were other functions we had to attend too but I am quite lazy to recount them all. Suffice to say is that they were pretty much the same. Oh what the hell… I might as well summarize them (for my adoring, I-could-do-nothing-wrong readership)… The next occasion was the Mehendi and Sangeet- a 2-in-1 extravaganza, mainly held together to save shit loads of money. During this function, the bride to be gets especially dolled up with every possible form of make-up and jewellery she can get her hands on and for some symbolic reason I am unaware of, gets her palms and arms painted with Mehendi- a kind of plant paste that when washed away leaves a temporary tattoo on wherever it is applied. Some people even use it on their hair in much more copious quantities to cover up their gray hairs. It’s the organic way of doing things. Fuck L’Oreal! Apparently the Mehendi is supposed to be a girl’s only occasion but because the Mehendi has to seamlessly transition into the Sangeet (this time a musical and booze extravaganza) the guys are given special attendance. Of course the guys don’t mind coz its ogle, ogle and ogle all the way. The modern day hen party can be paralleled with what the traditional Mehendi is supposed to be, minus the strippers, condoms and penis cakes of course.

My sister and her friends- all friends of the groom- did a dance for the couple. It was quite fun to see all of them mess up one by one. It’s all very good fun…gorgeous people, fine clothes, brilliant company appropriately oiled by the cocktails which everyone accepts as their due but secretly thinks it’s the only way they will get through the evening. Fun times!

The next function was quite mellow by contrast. It was held at the groom’s house so it was only a select crowd. My sister, cousin and I went as the family representatives and we trudged up to the sixth floor since the fucking elevator was out of order- a state which was mysteriously fixed by the time we left and we had already come down the million steps. Such a pleasant surprise to see the elevator door open and pot-bellied uncles pop out, swimming in the sweet but dull effects of their evening’s consumption of their life’s manna. Anyway I have just realized I have spent valuable time recounting an inane story about an elevator that’s just menopausal.

The affair itself was quite religious since the priest had come and set up a small fire in which the groom had to throw stuff into at select timings during select prayers chanted by the Maharaj as we all call him. This didn’t stop the uncles from popping open the Johnny Walker mid-prayer while their wives ran about serving food and furtively taking sips out of their husband’s glasses all the while hoping the other wives wouldn’t see. Sigh. Is there any wonder why our parents don’t know much about us? We’ve learnt from the best. In effect, when we get married, we graduate from the School of Deception and go on to another journey of perpetual lies; little white lies or big black ones depending on how good (bad?) your parents were… There is always something to hide. I am probably also going to graduate from the School of Digression if I don’t stop soon… After the prayers were done, a little tradition, also something I was unaware of was enacted. Someone had to strip the groom! Don’t ask me why- it could be some homo-erotic cult group behaviour for all I care but it was fucking hilarious. Our dearest groom had been informed already about this little, sordid tradition and had attached a lock to his belt, thereby preventing any sort of rape that he would have been subjected to.

The wedding reception (I missed the wedding coz a) it was in the evening, just the time I like to chill and b) it was in a temple) was quite dull in my opinion. Apart from being sick of the same old faces by this time, I was also feeling the claustrophobia that sets in when one is around one’s family too long. I had to get out but had no such luck because my familial duties and instincts were too strong. Yes, contrary to popular belief, I do have a heart.

So it all came to an end! And I was still in one piece. I wonder if parents are aware of the fact that weddings are helpful to their agenda of making their children more…er.. Sindhi? I know it made me appreciate it a teeny-weeny bit more. I had made it out to be a superficial mess but while that still exists in a slightly moderate way, the new generation is quite fun, some of them even having the gall to whisper, ‘do you have a cig?’ in my ear! To which I replied, quite delightfully, ‘No! But shall we go look for one??’

veneers

While I was brushing my teeth this morning, I had the most peculiar sensation wash over me. I felt completely alert. No groggy head, scrunched up eyes or slowly receding erection… And best (worst) of all, I could hear everything.

I could hear the inner workings of my system; the rolling of my stomach as I gagged while brushing my tongue; the foamy wishy-washiness in my mouth; my agonized coughs; the servant screaming at crows who were hopping into the kitchen in hope for some juicy morsel of Sindhi food; the men next-door trying to make themselves heard above the growl of their electricity generator; our very own district beggar chanting utter gibberish in very convincing rants; the scream of vehicles slowly gnarling themselves up in a filthy traffic jam and slowly but surely drowning everything out while my alertness drained out was the chanting rolling soothingly out of the neighbourhood mosque. It was surprising how these layers of sounds settled down on me until I could only hear the ritual afternoon prayer. Layers of sounds, layers of complexity, layers of every-day life.

Amidst such amazing and beautiful chaos my insignificance in this world wrapped itself around me and surprisingly, I was glad for it.

moving out=claustrophobia?

Having no choice in the matter coupled with a decent enough set of circumstances results in pretty high levels of content. Iro, Nadeeka and I moved out into our own apartment a few days back and it’s pretty nice. It’s got a view to die for, almost-furnished, great bathrooms and fully air-conditioned. The only sore point is that we don’t have a microwave or a washing machine. It’s a fuck up but not big enough to destroy all the positive feelings associated with moving into a place that looks really great and has a swimming pool to match. You know you’re in a first world country when you can move into what would be called a luxurious apartment in Colombo with such modest finances.

Living with other people is a daunting prospect. Life in university, i.e. campus life, can get very claustrophobic. It’s very strange that it is your friends, the select few you should accept completely if not unconditionally, become the ones who will push you over the edge of tolerance. I think, like relationships, not all friendships work out. Why do people think that fighting for a friendship is so much more important that fighting for a relationship? Why can’t we just walk away? I think we should just accept that some friendships run out of steam and some don’t- just like any old relationship. Anyway, if living in close proximity with people on campus can be so constricting, it must be worse when there’s no canteen, library or class to run into when you want pure, unadulterated isolation (almost)… When you are in your allocated room on campus, some privacy is afforded to you because there is still some physical effort involved if someone wants to visit. In an apartment, even that’s not there; no respite, no escape from anything.

I think we all need some element of sensitivity to our flatmates’ moods; a sensitivity that alerts you to the need of not being overly-cheery when your flatmate is depressed or too nosy when they are extremely private. Considering my lack of experience in the matter of having flatmates I am hardly the person to talk about this but let’s see… hopefully things won’t be as bad as all those episodes of Sex and The City and I paint it out to be. Friendships, however much I’d like to think to the contrary, operate on very fragile ground and it’d be really nice and I would be extremely grateful if they stood intact even after I move out.

acid reflux

My last few days at NUS were anything but ceremonious. These were days filled with severe acid reflux, palpitating hearts, over the top cigarette smoking and coffee intake that would make a New York lawyer who works 130 hours a week cringe with disgust. Preparation for exams was a bitch. I have never been so unprepared in my life.

Usually my exam preparation has two stages; the first stage is right after the mid-semester break where I plan out my schedule and carry out a half-hearted attempt to study and the second stage is about a month before exams where I go into full gear and short notes, all-nighters, coffee and missed morning classes take over my life. The NUS semester is only about 5 months long so based on my description above that means that the latter two and a half months of the semester has me looking for the best places to study, the most efficient sleep schedule, the places that make the best tea/coffee at 7am and pissing my friends off with my lack of interest in the normal and social things in life. I am going to miss that.

This time around unfortunately, the tried and tested method of studying didn’t work out. In fact, it got shot straight into hell or wherever study schedules go to die a long drawn out painful and withering death. I quite literally wasted away my semester with the clubbing, drinking, sleeping, hanging with friends…but….wait a minute!!! I’ve done all that in my past semesters and yet, I have studied as intensely as anyone; what the hell was different this time around? I have a strong feeling it might have been the lack of interest in the modules I enrolled for but it could also have been the feeling that washes over you when it is time to graduate; the feeling that you’ve done this a million times before and you can handle it, it is just no big fucking deal anymore.

Anyway, with whatever little I did as regards preparation, I still expect decent grades. That’s just the way I work. I think, at the very least, an education at NUS has taught me how to study intelligently and I do think, I hope, that my intelligence crept into all the papers I did this semester. Ha Ha. If only intelligence were this separate entity that senses when it is needed and like any self-respecting super-hero comes to the rescue by unconsciously directing your pen to create sentences that have a profound impact on the soon-to-be blown away professor.

Anyway I am finally a graduate. If I don't fail that is. It doesn't feel any different. As usual.