Part your legs and Push

How I came to be at the receiving end of this instruction is a long and painful story, which I tried to put into fictional form, inventing this wife and husband. It must come across as a surprise to you that I could not, and cannot write a story to save my own dear life. Hence I now attempt to write this in the usual way as such, the Totalliemeh way.

.

Guest posting is NOT an easy task.And I have been bugged, nudged, threatened, blackmailed(emotionally and otherwise) into writing one. The fact that the owner of this blog wrote a kidu GP on my blog, didn't help to put it off for long. The voice of my conscience, which for some weird reason, resembles the blog owner's voice, gave me sleepless nights, I tossed around with this heavy weight on my mind, a debt, and ..er. well, here I am.

I am not fat.

It is a liberating experience to write that on someone else's blog, for a change. I guess this is my primary concern regarding my life, second only to my unemployed state and unknown dark future. Lets just not go there okay? Okay. So where were we?

Yea, Am NOT fat. Nope. No. But Somehow, everyone seems to think so. I was wondering, why is that a problem? Should it be a problem? Surely you will feel that how food is being processed and deposited on my body is none of anyone's business. but it isn't so. Right from the college store lady who inquired about "the baby" to the old classmate who didn't recognize me at the alumni meet, from a best friend who literally starved herself scolding me for taking second helpings, to a brother who called you thadichi, I have had enough of humiliating experiences, which -which prompted me to go join a --GYM.

Ah. Gym was like school. I was excited to go at first, my mother had to drag me to the place the next two weeks, and I accepted my fate and began liking the gym, after a month. But the "I love to work out" attitude was a rather strange journey, which is, am sure, quite clear in the first sentence of this post. The Leg press machine, asks you to put your legs on the press, part it slightly and push. Well, it was a rather strange analogy that the mind cooked up, but it only confirms my fears that the mind is highly perverted.

I liked walking on the treadmill, which I used to spell as threadmill, and I thought it was named so coz life was hanging like on a thread, while you are on it. I loved the machine, I used to walk , watching the tv infront of me, the hands free to use the remote, all was hunky dory till the instructor came along and asked me to increase the speed from 1.5 km/h and actually "run". Then I began to hate it as I drew analogies from my life, to explain the way I felt about the machine. It is a stupid machine, no matter how much you struggle and run you are at the same position and if you stop, you fall and die.

I was never allowed on the exercise bike as I was prone to sleep while I was on it. The dumbbell exercise was a humiliation, I couldn't lift the lowest of weights. I became a child once again who has forgotten her arithmetic while counting the number of push-ups. Abs exercises were an all in one- It was humiliating, exhausting and I was often found nodding off with my legs in the air. 

Don't wonder. I quit gym a few weeks ago. My trainer keeps calling me, even from different numbers and for all your information, I am right now in the States, married. If she asks, stick with this story. 

The profound influence this blog owner's pragmatic nature had, has, have, whatever- on my life should be mentioned now. His philosophy seems to be rather a very simple, well known and a widely followed one. Eat what you want, when you want, avoid exercise if you can help it, and die a happy man/woman. He looks everyday in the mirror and swears he will gain another kilo that day, which, he achieves quite easily, and he is a happy contented man, if there was any. And I am allowed to affectionately call him "Thadiya". and I do. and I love calling him that as well. Oye- don't get slim, ever. I hope you always remain the cushy squishy pudgy self. 

Love,

Chyechu.

                                                                         ***

Ladies and gentlemen,

That was the fabulously magnificient Totalliemeh opening up on a rather touchy issue. This unprecedented exclusive from the elusive,secretive,mysterious woman's pen brought to you by Oldblighter_Vanwinkle productions. Stay tuned for more sensational scoops.cheers.

Antagony

The pestilence of ants has never fully been stressed upon by humanity in general. I don’t know about y’all, but ,if you ask me, nature has this quirky way of giving all those wonderful idioms cooked up by mankind since times immemorial a rather grandiose finger. Take for instance the age old “as wily as a fox”. Now, I cannot claim to be an expert when it comes to foxes, for the simple reason that i am not on first name terms with their ilk, and have certainly not been hobnobbing with them of late.

But what I can say, with a decent degree of conviction, is that the way they carry themselves in the public gaze, is anything but wily and cunning. I mean, my point is this, if you are a wily, slimy, scheming li’l basterd, you are expected to have subtlety as one of your character traits, and if you would care to look at homo sapiens who would fit the aforementioned description, viz. wily, slimy, scheming li’l basterd, one thing that’s immediately perceptible is a rather suave air about them, with a sickening disarming grin meant to put unsuspecting fellow homo saps off their guard, they blend with the group. And foxes? well, if you choose to call a clan that endorses howls as a pleasant mode of communication wily, I’d be inclined to call Mr Saddam Hussein an amiable old blighter.

This brings us to the point I’ve been endeavouring to make: the inherent conflict of opinion between nature and the human race.

Hence, extrapolating this rather convoluted rationale to the topic at hand today, nature saved its biggest, fattest, most meanest finger for its coup de grace: Ants and “size matters”. And we aren’t even talking about those darned orange coloured fury centres crawling along trees ready to unleash their fury on their next unsuspecting victims. We are talking about the puny, unassuming diminutive black coloured organisms often seen plying trade routes with military discipline all over the house. That’s right, house ants, minions of the devil himself. Don’t get fooled by the industrious, diligent task master status often accorded to these dastardly creatures. Behind that façade lurks the root of all evil, a soul so diabolic that Weapons of Mass Destruction are rumoured to have been inspired by these blighted 4 legged(4 legs no?) psychopaths.

Now, detractors of my school of thought might cry hoarse over the rather colourful picture I have painted, and would be inclined to attribute such qualities as harmless and awe inspiring. Well, I admit, there have been times when I have been wonderstruck and left speechless (a little exaggeration never did anyone any harm) watching these “little wonders” at work. But when your grouse against these earthly cohabitants goes over a tipping point, awe and its next of kin go along with it. Oh, and a word of advice to my worthy opponent; try waxing eloquent on how awesome ants really are with a few of them lodged in your dress. The hole that you leave behind in your roof, with a diameter approximately equal to your girth will help you put things in perspective.

The grouse and tipping point thingy I was alluding to earlier refers in particular to two singular occurrences. Events that left a lot of mutilated, squashed corpses in its wake.

Event 1(for want of a better name) involved those infernal invalids raiding my biscuit cabinet and reducing its contents to particulate form. An open packet would have been to me,a source of consolation,but this atrocity was committed on innocent slabs of baked mould(3 packets to be precise) still parked in air tight packets. They drilled through the poly ethylene shroud of resistance in a manner which would have made oil barons sit up and take notice. Clinical,ruthless,diabolic and non chalant. Yessir,non chalant is the word. Minutes before I unleashed my carnage,I happened to have this informal convo with one mercenary whom I had stopped with an intent to interrogate. Well,I aint that big an expert when it comes to interpreting their expressions flawlessly,but the aforementioned convo went thus:

Me: ahoy there.

A:*raised eyebrows*

Me:kindly explain presence.

A:what does it look like I m doing,********?

Me:*sword unsheathed*

A:now if you don’t mind…

Event 2 is something which has perplexed me a great deal. I can understand their affinity to foodstuff,but.. wait,don’t get me wrong here,I said I *understand* their avarice,in that I acknowledge the fact that their infernal antennae almost always spot places where food is kept.. but whats miles beyond my comprehension is what possibly draws them to apparel. You read correct,apparel.. these dastardly creations inserted every inch of their miniscule proboscis into my hapless body making me hop around for atleast 5 minutes before good sense prevailed and I separated body from cloth(yes,dire circumstances as these cloud your judgement). Though unprecedented aggression followed this outrageous guerrilla attack,I must admit it left me shaken. what makes retaliatory ops so difficult is the fact that these,these,boy I ve run out of adjectives,these creatures are so ruddy shrewd,they hide under hemlines and stitches..

Well,before I wind up,a word of advise to shri Anna Hazare.next time you go for one of those mass gatherings,better check your hemlines properly. Cavorting on stage on one leg ala cabaret artistes wont go down too well with censorship crusaders,you know.

Trivandrum Travails:Headbangers' Woe

A disclaimer at the outset:This post is not meant to be a no holds barred hate post directed at Kerala’s capital.Trivandrum might have its share(a rather meaty share,actually) of shortcomings that don’t befit a state capital,but none so drastic to fuel an all out down-with- thiruvananthapuram slur. No sir,not at all.

This post focuses,specifically,on a particular afternoon,a fateful afternoon that planted in my friend S the desire to own a Lamb Of God tee. Oh gosh,I ve got it all wrong. Rewind.

Well the thing with metal,is that it gets to your head. Now we have,in our hostel, been having a major upheaval in music preferences over the past few months..Pink Floyd,Led Zeppelin,Jimi Hendrix,His Own Lamb, have been steadily gaining in popularity.The hair dresser looks at our locks with longing and melancholy writ large on his face.The neck remains perennially sore owing to headbanging of a particularly violent nature.. It is a culture,more than just being a genre of music,and the sense of belonging is particularly intense,making you want to express your veneration for your fav bands by sporting their memorabilia.

Right,so lets cut back to the day in question here.We(me,S and J) are in the city(er,I am being very liberal when I say city) for nadunissi naaygal (super movie btw,totally untrodden path in tamil cinema)..We walk out of the cinema,largely contented,on account of a forty rupees well spent,totally jobless and hours on end to kill. An idle mind is a devil’s workshop,they say.. and it so happened that that day,the devil came to roost in S’s mind. And thus started a wild goose chase around tvm’s apparel shops,for a Lamb Of God tee.

It would be an understatement to classify the afternoon as merely being eventful.It was a laugh riot. We were this close to being branded mentally unstable.I am pretty sure I heard a “yavan aaredey” (what specimen is this,mate?) while walking outta more than one shop. The conversation everywhere was essentially the same:

S:boss,you people have band tees?

Shopkeeper(SK):sure sir,which brand do you want?

S:er,band,mate.. not brand. You have?

SK:bandaa??*incredulous look* er no sir,we don’t.

S:No?i m sure we saw one outside when we walked in. right?*waning confidence*

Me:hmmm lemme try.. dey,you have black tees?round neck?

SK:*face lightens up by several lumens* sir yes sirJ which colour do you want?red pink blue green?

S:dude!BLACK ROUND NECK!!?

SK:*frowns* sir… yes sir..*shuffles around uneasily,looks at colleague,colleague resolutely becomes interested in a speck of dust*

*picks out several tees from the shelf,thankfully black,none matching our description*

J(to a harrowed S):dey,machi,this aint working,our search engine needs better keywords to narrow down the field

J(to SK):boss,you have a black roundneck tee with prints of huge,menacing people on it?vverum jangaa.

SK:*scornful look,contempt writ large* oh,*those* tees.. no,er,sir.. We don’t bring em in these days,moving stock alla.

S:no wonder..*visibly disappointed*

SK:*with great reluctance*anything else,sir?

S:!@@#$%$^$W$%$^

Me:*groan*

The convo has been anglicized,but it was infinitely more side splitting in malayalam.Well,truth be told,we did come across some band tees,but much to our chagrin,LoG was missing.

S has still not got his tee,but like any valiant warrior,vows to strive endlessly till the day he treats his torso to a Lamb tee.. Optimism knows no bounds,I suppose..