Archive for September, 2005

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Incoherent Blabber

Had a great day today!
Cleaned a bunch of teeth today!
Made a woman smile through the ordeal….
Ahh dont even ask..I accidently almost pulled a tooth today!

Had a little dream today,
Was with him again today,
And yet I tried to smile through the tears…
When I realized I was not really with him today….

Napped a little longer today,
Wanted to study a lot today,
Ended up doing actually nothing till now
Did not even talk to mommy dearest today….

Made a new friend today,
Invited her over for some snacks today,
A junior student, she wanted help with old material
I can say we are friends from today!

Promised myself to start working out from today,
Start losing the extra pounds from today,
The motivation is not there, and there is no worry
The thin girls can go to hell, I am gonna eat some more icecream today!

I wrote a stupid little poem today,
No rhyme or reason was added to it I say,
says a lot about my will to keep blogging
or maybe I have just lost it up there today!

Posted by Utterly Me on Sep 20th 2005 | Filed in Uncategorized | Comments (19)

Seven Thingies

Tagged by no one specifically…here I go for the kicks of it!

Seven things you plan to do before you die
1. Show my parents that I am capable of making good decisions and be the daughter that I have not been able to be till now.
2. Sky dive and bunjee jump!
3. Get married (i hope!!!) and have beautiful babies with light eyes!
4. Get my DDS and build a dental school or a research center in India in Abad if i can!!!
5. Make enough money to do the that.
6. Help B fulfill his dreams
7. World peace! OKay okay just kidding…but couldnt resist….felt like I was in a miss. world pageant!
the real #7 - See to it that my family and friends are always happy or atleast try my best to do that.

Seven things you can do
1. Laugh real loud and not care and be able to laugh at myself.
2. Be very very fierce about the trust I place in my friends!
3. Blog everyday for 2 weeks and not blog at all for two months!
4. white water rafting and then fallling in the river!
5. Love unconditionally
6. Clean teeth!
7. Sleep like there was no tomorrow!

Seven things you say most
1. oh okay!
2. whatever
3. yea right
4. “how cheap is that” (wink wink)
5. awwwwww
6. oh thats nice!
7. oh shit!

Seven things you can’t do
1. Be nice to someone whos stabbed me in the back.
2. Be fake
3. To go a day without talking to him!
4. Reduce my phone minute usage ( dad, I have tried…i have …i really really have! )
5. To not laugh or atleast smile once!
6. Check my voicemail (hehehehe….)
7. Be mean to a patient

Seven things that attract you to the opposite sex
1. A great sense of humor!
2. The personality
3. the ability to let loose and be oneself without pretence!
4. A good smile ( thats gotta be a criteria in my case!)
5. Respect for self
6. Respect for others
7. Be able to dance without giving a care of what the world thinks!

Seven celebrity crushes
1. Brad Pitt ( okay might move him down to #2 if he is still dating Angelina!)
2. George Clooney - the guy is old but undeniably hot!
3. AB’s Baby — need i say more…
4. Hrithik..I like his eyes the most!
5. Matt Damon
6. Andy Roddick
7. Colin Firth for reasons unknown to me!

Seven Places I want to Visit before I die. ( since we are making lists, i thought id add one of my own!)
1. Bicycle trip through Europe
2. Mt. Everest ( princess and DJ…i m still up for it! )
3. Dubai and shop shop shop
4. Jordan
5. A week in the backwaters of Kerala
6. The Pyramids
7. Delhi! yes yes I have been there but i barely remember and I have to visit the insane place from where all these crazy bloggers come! ;)

Seven people I wanna tag –
Whoever has not done it and wants to do it.

Posted by Utterly Me on Sep 19th 2005 | Filed in Uncategorized | Comments (14)

Angrezi in Mumbai

Now that I have settled down and the hammering has died down to a mere drone, I am back to writing my heart out! And I have realized that so much happened during the trip to India and there is so much I have to say, so I guess the next few posts will be a jist of the things that were.

From walking everyday to the local train station to boarding the train back during rush hour, I have enjoyed the daily humdrum of Mumbai to the fullest in this one month. However, one thing that irked me no end was the constant use of the English language throughout the city. It is not that meri angrezi se koi poorani dushmani hai, or not that I don’t want people to learn English. It is just that English seems to have taken over every aspect. Sure this blog is in English and someone who did not know it might not be able to blog or even read this, but I think it is given way more importance in the city than it should get! And it is not so much the case in several other cities.

Every big store in Mumbai (and in Bangalore for that matter) has more salespeople than there are customers. Thats not the issue though. Was at Shoppers Stop the other day with two of my friends. One of them is a staunch advocate of Hindi! So we are looking at this display of shades at SS and B asks them in Hindi about its specifics and costs etc. The guy replies back in English. Okay no big deal. B asks some further questions in Hindi and the guy replies back in English. OKay again no big deal. But this went on throughout the store. Then all of us purposely talked to salesmen and women in Hindi and ALL of them replied back to us in English! Arre baba pata hai sabko angrezi aati hai but whats this dushmani with talking in HINDI!
At checkout, me with my jhola paid with my credit card. Had a conversation with the guy in Hindi and needless to say he replied back in English. Then when the transaction was done, he looked at the credit card and then at me, then at the card and at me and asked are you so and so? I was like jee haan mera naam hi so and so hai. And he was like “Can I see your ID?” Okay sure….and I said jee ek minute rukiye and then I pull out my license and showed it to him. He seemed to be dumbfounded when he saw a US drivers license. He actually had the nerve to ask me “Aap Hindi main baatein kar rahi thi isiliy” and then he mumble something incoherent! I dont understand! Me and B and this other friend F were just standing there gaping at this guy. I did not know if this was a situation where I would laugh or cry or get angry at this man!

Another instance was when I was in a taxi lost somewhere in Bandra. The taxiwalla asked a rickshawalla at one of the signals “Hill road kidhar se jaana hai” The rickshawalla asked the passenger, who seemed to be a nice man. The three talked in Hindi. The rickshawalla then confirmed the place and I replied in Hindi and then when the passenger talked to me he started in English “where did you want to go?”

The NGO I worked with had a strict English speaking policy for the children. I did a lot of my sessions with the kids in English, using Hindi where they did not understand. The NGO argues that they would prefer teaching the kids Hindi if given a choice but to get by in Mumbai one has to know good English. The goal is to prepare kids to be good professionals and if two people with the same skills come forward, and one of them spoke English fluently and the other one did not but was actually more eloquent, it did not matter!….which is why the kids at the NGO learnt English!

Now, friends have argued with me numerous times saying “What is the big deal? So what? Not everyone in India knows Hindi so they presume that you might know English and thats why they start off that way.” I object! Isn’t Hindi the national language of India? How can you be Indian when you don’t want to use your national language? And for me it is a big deal!

Others have argued that now to work in the international market you need to speak in English. Ya sure! Agreed but thats in the international market. Why is there so much importance given within the city? France, Germany, Russia, China….all of these have huge international markets but the conquest of English isnt noticeable at all in these countries. The French, the Germans, the Russians and the Chinese all know how to speak, read, and write english but they use their language more than any other.

Now this is not a problem in all of india …..but only in Mumbai. Now not all of Mumbai but MOST of Mumbai! I don’t know if I got my point across in this post or if my arguments even came out right, but this is how I feel and had to vent it out. Even on the local trains, I had women replying to me in English. I do not have an accent when I talk in Hindi, I do not look white or american in any way nor did I dress that way…but EVERYTIME i talked to someone in Hindi they replied back in English even though they knew hindi! Just frustrated me a whole lot and had to pen it down.

Does anyone else think this is a problem in Mumbai or is it just me?

Posted by Utterly Me on Sep 18th 2005 | Filed in Uncategorized | Comments (15)

Men!

So yours truly was strutting along during her work hours at the “great” store when she realized that she was the only supervisor left on duty and the only female. So here is little me amidst 8 men..okay okay YOUNG men…some yum looking..some not so much. Anywho, little me is amidst a bunch of guys she works with and guess what, she is also in charge!

Oh, I loved the last few hours when all I did was order men around, asking them what to do and what not to do. Women of the world, wake up take your stand! Your other half is not the only male who will follow your orders….hehhehe..and needless to say, I enjoyed every minute of it. Now don’t get me wrong, I am not a overtly feminist female who will fight the world for women’s rights but I do believe that women have advanced a lot and it felt great then to be the sole female supervisor present at that particular time.

That way, I also think dentistry will do me a whole lot of good once I actually get out there. I mean in what other profession can a woman tell a man when to open his mouth and when to shut it? Okay okay it goes the same for men…

All of a sudden, all my appointments seem a whole lot more fun…”okay open”……**look around with a mirror** “okay close please” **do some more stuff** “okay open again” ***take an instrument and inflict pain*** “okay close!”

Life is good :)

Posted by Utterly Me on Sep 18th 2005 | Filed in Uncategorized | Comments (23)

Permanent Move

Well..atleast till I have enough money to host my own blog. Till then, the numerous blogs I have all over the place survive and I am here!
The template is actually a combination of two templates with a little bit of my own thrown in. The whole code was in CSS so it was too darn hard to figure that out, but I think I eventually did and here I am with something I like! Anyways, being the Gemini that I am, I am sure I will get bored of this template pretty soon and will be whining for a new one. I guess that happens with people like me. Ah well!
I see a nice template and I seem to want it, but I guess for right now, this one shall do.

If you have made it here, congratulations!

You have read the Da Vinci Code or are just too darn smart!
Signing off for now,
~K

Posted by Utterly Me on Sep 16th 2005 | Filed in Uncategorized | Comments (14)

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