Blogging in the Rain - Another Joint Post

After the overwhelming response they got from their beloved fans, Pan and TPF have decided to grace you all with another gem from your favourite teenage bloggers.

In the past few days they have been busy shopping.

Yes, that's right, folks. TPF has never been to India before and instead of sightseeing, she has been keeping herself busy by trying to buy away half the city. Pan, who on the other hand was born in Bombay, is buying the other half.

Today, Pan and TPF bought 12 pairs of earrings, not to mention a ring, for less than 6 Euros. The street vendor thought that he was ripping Pan and TPF off but in reality, what the poor street vendor doesn't know is that Pan and TPF were the ones who had the upper hand in the transaction. They're evil and they love it! [Also, they love exploiting cheap labour]

TPF ruined Pan's morning the other day because she randomly pretended to be sick. The reason for this is that she is an attention-seeking brat. To this day, the reasons for her random 'condition' remain one of the biggest mysteries of mankind. Suffice it to say that once Pan forcibly dragged her to a shopping mall, TPF immediately got better.

[This is all Pan's fabrication. TPF was truly feeling unwell.]

Well, we all know who just typed that out!

The monsoon has officially arrived in Bombay. This was testified to by the copious wading through ankle-deep water under a flimsy, Milanese and shared chatri* that Pan and TPF engaged in this evening.

This of course was nothing compared to the walking around barefoot in a damp-floored temple that TPF had to endure for the sake of cultural awareness. Yes, friends, our darling TPF was seen BAREFOOT in a damp, fungus-ridden public space. Behold the flying pigs.

Pan and TPF cooked. Together. It was ugly. It was bitter. It was war!

Enough said on that.

Throughout all this, Pan and TPF have fallen victim to the infamous leer. The characteristics of this leer include:

1) bared teeth

2) perverted sneer

3) traces of drool

4) dirty mumblings in Marathi

5) touching of private areas, including but not limited to 'the tool' or the 'the wand', as it is known in the wizarding world

Of course, Pan and TPF are hardly blameless in this situation, being the uber-hot chicks that they are. Also, TPF happens to be rather pale compared to the average Mumbaite, and Pan favours clothing that enhances her naturally prominent assets.

Wait till Eris joins them. She's bald, for God's sake.

So for now, TPF and Pan once again leave the blogosphere and hope that you will all survive for a couple of days without their riveting posts, although from the astounding amount of comments they have received on their last entry, it seems as if you shall all live.

*umbrella

Bombay Blogging - A Joint Post

Hello, imaginary following. Today, Pan and TPF shall be joining their already immense wits to create one fun-fest of a post! Buckle up!

We are in Bombay, as you can tell by the title, and we're posting together, as you can also tell by the title (and by the fact that the same post is in both our blogs). We are also fighting over the keyboard, an activity which is definitely in line with our usual bickering and childish banter.

No, we are not married. But thanks for asking.

Moving on.

We have already taken some funny photos which shall be posted as soon as we get back to Italy. Meanwhile, we shall tell you what's been going on for the last two days.

The flight was mostly uneventful, except for Pan's mispronounciation of German (we were flying Austrian Air). You see, she kept pronouncing 'flug' as if it rhymed with 'plug', when the 'u' is actually supposed to be pronounced as something like the the double 'o'in 'book'. Also, TPF mocked Pan for her sentimentalism, which was very very mean of her. Pan sulked and TPF apologized and everything was fine again. We watched a Hindi movie with subtitles - Bluff Master on the plane and marvelled at the uber-cool headphones, which the plane people were kind enough to supply. We also had a Britney Spears marathon on our iPod which was rather cool.

At the airport, Pan got paranoid about our luggage not coming thorugh. Luckily, TPF was there to save the day and make sure Pan didn't hyperventilate. Pan's friends came all the way to the airport to say hi to her, which made her feel like a horrible friend (which she is).

We eventually got home and survived thanks to the aid of ceiling fans. It's pretty hot and humid here, kind of like Turkish summers, which makes TPF feel at home and Pan feel sticky with perspiration. Because women don't sweat, they perspire.

Yesterday, we went out for a walk with a friend of Pan's. Apparently, Pan sucks at road crossing. TPF saved her life numerous times (you can probably tell by now that TPF's writing most of this post whilst Pan is busy twirling her thumbs and talking to her aunt). By the way, did you know that Pan is an auntie? Her cousin has a two and a half year old son called Gops (well, not really. It's a nickname). Gops loves his auntie Pan, but not his auntie Pan's friend, TPF (he can join the bloody club). In fact, Gops thinks TPF is auntie Pan's mummy. Which is very flattering to TPF. Really.

We shall do another one of these joint posts very soon to keep you all in touch with your uber-cool teenaged bloggers. You are advised to leave comments on both blogs, otherwise you may cause discontent and more bickering and we already do enough of that without your help.

Thank you and goodbye!

A trip away from er...home(?)

I'm leaving for India tomorrow morning, well that on this Saturday for people living in different time zones, for just about three weeks. TPF is going to be accompanying me along with Harry who is going to join us on the 5th of June and we're coming back on the 17th of June, just in time for our Graduation Ceremony and Prom.

I was rather excited about the trip until about today because I haven't visited India for about two and a half years now. The last time I was there, it was for my grandfather's funeral, so I guess, it wasn't the best of vaccations. But now that I'm actually leaving tomorrow, I've just realized that I'm terrified and maybe a little apprehensive about the whole trip. I'm terrified to see how different the place is going to from what I was used to, I'm also terrified about how different I am going to be than what I was used to when I was there. I always assumed that once you've spent fourteen years in a place, it ends up becoming a part of your life, but my memories of home there are very blurry, for some reason. All my childhood just seems like a blur of memories and I can hardly remember the details.

The whole trip also made me think of Frankengirl's wonderful post on home that struck a deep chord on my mind. Ever since I was a child, my home had always been Bombay. I don't think my vision of life went beyond the city. I was born there and I always thought my life would end there. I had lived in the same house all my life, until I moved to Italy. So whenever anyone mentioned the word home to me, it always meant our house in Bombay because that's where my heart was. But now I have realized that Bombay is no longer home and it will never be home. Home is here, here in Milan where I presently live, where all my friends are, where my family is and that is what makes it home. It is not the physical house of brick and stone that I had lived in for fourteen years. I've been living here for only four years now and this is my home and I'm sure as time passes that will change, I'll find other places that I'd like to call home depending where I feel the most comfortable.

So my fear arises from the fact that I'm just going to be like any other tourist visiting Bombay for the first time. I don't want to be just a tourist. But oddly enough that is exactly what I'm going to be. I have to admit that in the end, I know we're going to have a great time. It is also the last summer I will probably spend with my friends because we're all off to university in a month's time in different countries, in different continents and so of course we're going to lead completely different lives and who knows where that's going to lead us. Therefore, I'm going to make sure that we have a wonderful time :)

PS: I might be away for a while becuase my aunt's house where we're going to be staying has a dial up connection and you can imagine how slow that is. Also, I don't know whether I'll have a lot of time to actually be on the computer, but I'll try post as soon as I get a bit of free time.

The Holiday Commandments

Squeeeeeeal! I'm sorry I completely apologize for the random squealing I am going to do all through this post, but unfortunately I cannot stop my self. They are finally over. I can't even make myself repeat the 'E' word again, so from now on the 'E' word is going to be known as, well the 'E' word. Although, I must admit, the last day of school was rather anticlimactic. I was expecting the heavens to do something sensational to celebrate my end of the year, but nothing of that sort happened. I didn't do anything special apart from eating lunch at Burger King, watching The Da Vinci Code that TPF has so wonderfully reviewed, getting foot blisters and limping home because of my sandals and washing the dishes of course.

My mother ended my short lived 'end of school' happiness.

Pan: 'Squeeeeeeal, My exams are over'

Mum: 'Oh great, now you can do the dishes tonight'

Pan: 'But, but... mother - '

(silence, mother has already left the room)

I have decided to make use of my time and come up with 'The Holiday Commandments' which I dogmatically plan to follow:

1. Thou shalt read at least one decent book a week.
2. Thou shalt watch at least one movie a day regardless of its language, rating or content.
3. Thou shalt move thy lazy arse and do something useful in the house by helping mum with housework and not sit whinging about the unfairness of the situation.
4. Thou shalt learn the basics of cooking.
5. Thou shalt spend unhealthy amount of time reading fanfiction on the internet without feeling guilty about it.
6. Thou shalt not succumb to peer pressure and go out in the sun and get an unhealthy tan.
7. Thou shalt eat at least one ice-cream every three days without worrying about thy weight.
8. Thou shalt not under any circumstances obsessively wonder about how thou hast done in thy examinations.
9. Thou shalt clear up thy books/files/notes/university prospectus/stationary that are lying around the house for the last two years and organize old files neatly.
10. Thou shalt watch crappy sit-coms re-runs on television and waste time watching the E Entertainment channel without wondering how pathetic thy life is.

And one more, since I like prime numbers...

11. Thou shalt not, I repeat not, get intoxicated before prom in any of the outings thou maketh with thy trashy friends..

There you go. My holiday commandments are done. I'm going to be a good person this summer.

A Tribute to my Fantasy Friends

Since I've been using the same route and public transport to go to school and back for the last four years at the same timings each morning, it is only natural that I've been seeing some other people who have been doing the same for a few years.

I've always been a hopeless ball of fluff. As I've mentioned somewhere previously, I'm the most pathetically romantic person I know. I guess, it must be something to do with the fact I'm an only child and therefore I'm quite used to retreating into my own world and making up fantasy worlds to live in.

It was my favorite hobby as a child. Both my parents worked, so I was quite used to being on my own for long hours. I don't think it was loneliness that brought out my romantic nature, but just a lot of free time. I didn't have the same problems as most of my other friends with siblings which involved fighting for books, toys, television channels and any other thing that one can imagine. Hence, what I absolutely adored doing was sitting on the window ledge of my house, observing people walking on the street in the evenings and thinking about them and their probable lives to a great extent.

My secret pleasure in this little game was that these people who meant so much to me in my imaginary world didn't have any idea that I existed. Most of them had not even noticed a child sitting on a window ledge looking at them going home after a busy day at work or a trip to the market. It was a source of comfort to love these people who didn't know me at all. It also made me wonder whether there actually were other people in the world whose imaginary worlds revolved around me. I know it sounds far fetched now and rather silly, but at that time it made a lot sense in convoluted mind.

I've gotten into this same bad habit for these last few years. This is because of the fact that I keep seeing the same people each morning in the bus. I happen to be rather fond of them, however much some of them might appeal to me or even repulse me to a certain extent.

One of them is a young man. He is a professional from what I know because he wears a suit and a tie to work every day, but this probably has to be his first job because he is rather young. What I adore about him is his green coat, his meticulously combed hair and the way in which he clutches on to his laptop as if its the only thing that matters in his life and he would probably be willing to give his life up in order to save it. He has not only been taking the bus with me for the last three years, but also the metro in the same direction. He probably does not even know that I exist and even if he did know that I existed, he surely is not aware about the fact that I take such a great interest in his life.

Then there is this woman in her late forties who has two adopted children who I see almost every day. One of the kid is about five and the other one is about eight and she takes them to school each morning. I'm not going to talk about how annoying or spoilt those children are, but about the fact that I've never seen any mother in my entire life who loves her children as much as that woman loves her two boys. She doesn't consciously do anything special to show her love for them, but the way in which she looks at them or holds their hands while helping them climb onto the bus or even the manner in which she speaks to them shows how much they mean to her. It just makes me randomly feel like sniffling every time I see her. Sometimes, their father drops them to school and he's really sweet with them too. Those are my favorite 'bus people' and they always make my day every time I happen to see them in the mornings.

Then there is this old woman who goes somewhere every morning. I can't make out where exactly she goes. She's too old to work and looks like a retired, old grandmother, but she's been taking the same bus each morning for the last four years, which means that she is doing something and I can't understand what. This old woman is also the fastest and the most enthusiastic book reader I've ever seen in my entire life. I read quite fast myself and I've not met too many people who read fast in my life, but this woman has a new book every week or sometimes in even less than a week. There has not been a single day when she hasn't travelled without reading and I must admit, I'm rather jealous about her ardent book reading enthusiasm. (hmph, I don't like her taste in books, which automatically according to my deeply prejudiced nature is supposed to mean that I don't like her. I refuse to respect anyone who has read the book, Deception Point because that probably means that they actually liked The Da Vinci Code and Angles and Demons enough to read other Dan Brown books. He has a three-letter name, you're not supposed to read books written by people whose parents were not imaginative enough to give their children names that consist of more than three alphabets and ...er... no offence to anyone reading this who does have a three-letter real name unless you name is Bob, in that case umm... yeah... you can get offended)

There are so many other people that I see every day; an old couple with a crabby wife who is so authoritative and irritating that I feel rather sorry for her husband who seems like a nice person, an irritatingly, friendly woman who likes making random friends with other bus passengers and does not brush her hair, this other woman this put a cigarette in her mouth a stop before she has to get off the bus and lights it as soon as she steps off, a lady with the thick, fur coat that must have killed polar bear, the boy who is always late to school and goes to school with a motorcycle helmet for some unfathomable reason, the silly girl who goes to school with a different bag each day and not to mention the creepy guy who took pictures of me on his mobile phone last year.

There are so many people who have made an impact to my life by just existing and not doing anything special. Most of them don't even know that I actually exist. For some reason this thought would be rather depressing for most people, but I feel strangely comforted by it because I like being the anonymous observer. I'm not going to be here next year to observe them and I doubt that they will notice my absence but I, on my part am definitely going to miss them.

Guess Who's Back?

Clichéd post titles apart, I'm officially out from blog retirement. But my exams are not over yet, I still have exactly 10 whole days, 5 exam papers and 2 full subjects to complete before they do actually get over, but I have finished most of them. Before I actually begin this post, I have to warn people reading this that this post is absolutely subjectless and consists solely of my random ramblings.

The last two weeks have been filled with odd sleeping and food habits, exam pressure and not to mention bad hair. (I always have bad hair during exams, it's some kind of condition that I'm forced to suffer with) I have actual dark circles below my eyes, my first dark circles. I'm not to sure whether to be proud that I'm an adult now because I have dark circles or get wound up like most people about them. I think, I'll wait a few more years before they start worrying me.

I'm not a very 'sitting up late night to study' person. My eye-lids start drooping as soon as the clock touches 11.00 p.m and I just can't keep myself awake, however desperate my exam preparation is. Now because of this terrible 'early to bed' habit I'm forced to set the alarm early in the morning. The problem with alarms is that I have to set the alarm at least an hour in advance in order to get up at a particular time. (The person who invented the 'snooze' button on alarm clocks should win a Noble prize). As a result, I've been setting my alarm at 3.15 - 3.30 a.m in the morning to be up by 4.00 to study the things I haven't finished the morning before the exam for the last two days. This 'early morning getting up' thing has got me into a 'napping in the afternoons' habit. I love afternoon naps. Aren't they the bestest thing ever? (For people who are mentally correcting my bad grammar, I'm quite aware that 'bestest' isn't a word, and that doesn't stop me from using it.) I know, I'm getting into my grandma's habits of going to bed early, rising early in the morning and having afternoon naps.

My desperate examination situation makes me wonder what the hell was I exactly doing for a month of study leave before the exams began. I can't say I didn't know that it was going to be like this. I knew exactly what I would be in for, if I didn't revise properly before the exams, but now I just feel like an idiot. Knowing me, I am well aware that even if I did have a time-turner, like the ones they use in badly written Harry Potter fanfiction, I would have still not revised properly because apart from several other things I also happen to be the queen of procrastination.

I can't believe I'm almost two thirds done with the IB. It used to feel like it was going to last forever and now I'm almost done with it. Suddenly my whole world seems quite empty right now. I remember the psycological torture we had to undergo before we actually started the course with lectures from teachers which went like quote, "You think you're going to do well, but you're all going to fail." unquote.

Under these warnings our disillusioned selves began this course two years ago and I have to agree with most people in my grade. Yep, they've been hell alright, but I guess the satisfaction one derives from doing courses like the IB is that you actually feel well versed in your fields of knowledge and that makes it worth it. It's nice to feel intelligent, isn't it? One doesn't get that feeling too often these days.

My bladder has been running out of bounds these days. I'm sure not too many people over here do care or are interested in my urinary habits, but I shall mention them in any case. I'm telling you, it's gotten out of control. Like today, I had a two hour, writing intensive Economics exam and after an hour, I had to pee and not just pee, pee badly. But I was forced to sit there for another hour and continue writing wildly, while pretending that my bladder was not going to burst out any second. This was when I went to the bathroom right before the paper. I'm not even going to start discussing both my English papers, when I actually forgot to go to the bathroom before the exam began.

You Give Me Fever...

I hope people aren't going to be misled by the title of this post. I'm not going to be talking about a hot, sexy, possible future life partner that Elvis had in mind when he sang this song in this post; but about my upcoming examinations that begin in umm.. less than a few days. They are one of those final-end-of-school-exams-that-your-whole-life-and-career-depend-on kind of exams. I should definitely be more paranoid about them, but I can't be arsed to care. Alright, I'm lying here, I do care.

Last night just less than a week before my Maths exam I realized I can't integrate. Seriously, I have no imagination for calculus, even though I've been doing it for the last three years. I remember a conversation I had in class with my teacher three years ago while he was attempting to teach us the basics of calculus.

Teacher: "Imagine a line on a graph, parallel to the X-axis."

(Now it was fine till here. I mean, I have imagination problems but, its not too hard to imagine random lines floating about on an axis)

Teacher (continues): "Now imagine this line moving around the X-axis, making a cylinder around the axis because it's moving so fast."

(Hmm, this required a lot of effort. Usually it takes me ages to imagine normal three dimensional cylinders. To imagine a moving line making one was and it still is rather difficult.)

Teacher: "Now imagine if I wanted to find the volume of this cylinder."

(At this point, your beloved narrator, Pan couldn't bear to remain silent anymore, her imagination did have some kind of mathematical boundaries after all and she had to speak up.)

Pan: "Why would a line want to revolve around an axis?"

Awkward Silence

Teacher: "So, we were discussing how to calculate the volume then... thanks to integration we have a formula..."

(Therefore, my rather interesting question has remained unanswered ever since and had dreadfully affected my calculus abilities)

Anyways, this is probably going to be my last post for a while because I have exams till the 19th of May. I will still probably be reading all my favourite blogs on my sidebar and commenting, but I don't think I'll have time to post anything new. After all, pretending to study does require colossal effort.

Some days ago TPF and I watched the movie version of The Importance of Being Earnest. I agree, the movie did give the words 'Creative License' a new meaning, but I have to admit, I enjoyed it. Although, I may be highly biased in my opinion because it is my deep and profound belief that anything with Colin Firth has to be beyond brilliant. (Sidenote for Fangirl Rant - Oh my god, have you seen him? I mean, he's not as physically attractive as other Hollywood actors, but that's what makes it so endearing, doesn't it? Plus, he has this mysterious Mr Darcyish aura around him that makes him so very attractive. Anyone would think that this Mr. Darcyish aura would type cast him as an actor in movies (like Hugh Grant for example), but no, he's done quite a varied range of movie roles, ok, I'll just stop now :D) Surprisingly Rupert Everett made quite a good Algy.

Judi Dench as Lady Bracknell was hilarious. She is a very good actress after all. Although, she's very theatrical and therefore, it doesn't always come out well in cinema. The movie changed the order and locations of practically all the scenes of the play, but kept the almost all the language from the original play. Therefore, the humour is not lost. I would recommend people to read the play before actually watching the movie because Oscar Wilde definitely should be read at least once in your lifetime. Its like some sort of a law. Here is a link here to some memorable Earnest quotes.

I have absolutely no idea how I've managed to include Calculus, Colin Firth, upcoming examinations, Oscar Wilde, Maths, Judi Dench and The Importance of Being Earnest in one post, hey, its all in there, isn't it?

New York New York

I can't be bothered to think of something interesting to to write about, so I might as well do another photo post. Last summer I had gone to stay with my cousins in New Jersey, I also happened to visit New York City several times. As a first time visitor to NYC and America itself, I have to admit, I was enamoured. Coming from a developing country and then living in Europe, I can probably say that I've seen a lot of things. But woah, tall buildings and bright lights are something I that hadn't seen either in India or in Europe. I felt like as if I was in a Hollywood movie attracted to the bright Broadway lights. And of course a huge city like New York is full of garbage bins and signs, which hopefully people might know I absolutely adore.

So here are a few ahem.. interesting signs I encountered. I personally agree with the first sign, but that's just I'm terrified I'm going to die of passive smoking you see.

This one below was funny. I'm not sure if everyone can read it, but I must say its innovative.

I found the next two signs on the middle of a crowded 5th Avenue. I must say, the New York traffic control department has an interesting sense of parking humour.

So is 'The Box' an American traffic term I don't understand?

For some reason I found this sign that was put next to Central Park rather sweet. I mean, its got a little, red heart and everything.

Hmm, I'm not sure what this meant, it wasn't a poster but a sign that was put up everywhere on this one street I was walking on. Its a rather interesting psychological technique of overcoming fear.

If people were wondering how expensive this shoe shop was...

And finally just another one I shall leave you with. I liked the 'No Money Available' bit below.

I refuse to put up my garbage box collection from NYC because of the sheer amount of interesting bins in the city available for photography. I have a beautiful collection of Times Square images too. As I mentioned before, I was enamoured, all I could keep on doing every time I visited Times Square is take pretty pictures oh which I'm going to post just one. Growing up in a huge city myself makes me rather fond my big cities. I can completely understand why most other people don't like them too much and how terrible they are to live in, but you have to admit, they have their own charm, that is if you like skyscrapers, billboards, movie posters and large crowds.