Yet another bird brained day!

Just when I thought I had all the bird related situations behind me, another funny thing happened to me this week. The incident happened two days ago, after I wrote my entrepreneurial development exam. (Improvement exam for the first year ,where I got only 55% though I was one of the three boys who even passed the subject. But I wanted a higher overall percentage so decided to take it.) Me and most of my friends walked out of the exam hall just half way into the exam. I would have got lesser mark than my first attempt for sure; the question paper would have been tough even for the guy who wrote our text book. And after the disastrous exam I was talking to the girl who sat behind me in the exam hall, telling her how she can tell the answer out loud when the professor is not in the class. Then a friend of mine ran to me took my helmet and then ran under a tree where a lot of people were gathered.

worth the risk...... but pic of the rescued baby!!!!!

                                           

                               I went over to investigate, and found that there were holding a plastic cup with a baby bird, (which fell off its nest) and they were trying to put it back in the nest. The helmet came into the story because the mother bird was sitting on a branch and pecking anything that comes close to the nest. That’s when one guy jokingly asked me, “suraj are you scared of birds?” I replied (mustering all my macho sense) “no, why do you want me to put the baby in the nest?” everyone said almost in a chorus “yes”. (On hind sight, it was not one of my "brightest" ideas.) So I put on the helmet and took the cup, I reached for the nest which was not too far off the ground. I almost reached the nest; I could have jumped a little bit and tilted the cup for the baby to fall in the nest. But before I could move a muscle the mother bird flew in a started clawing my hand. I dropped the cup and ran away, so did everyone gathered around. 

                                                

                                           We made so much noise that one teacher in a nearby class came out to see what happened. She saw what the problem was and asked us to take a chair form the class to reach the nest easily. She also left us with a bit a disheartening trivia – “once a human touches a baby bird, the mother bird will no longer take care of it” sounded like a gypsy’s superstition. But once the teacher was inside the guys started making snide comment about how some "brave" people ran away screaming like a girl. My pride was hurt, and it hurt badly. To make matters worse, the first year girls where laughing. So I took a friend’s bag and in a new effort we put the baby bird on the bag and offered it to the mother bird (hoping it will take the baby back, despite the gypsy teacher’s warning)

this is not the actual mother, this one made a nest in our house.... but the mother bird is of the same kind.

                             And we suddenly realized why people say we must listen to the teachers, when the mother bird started pecking the baby, trying to kill it. So I lost all hope, I tried pushing the mother bird away with a small stick. The stick broke but it wouldn’t budge. Then one really mean guy threw a stone, it missed the bird but still scared it off for a while. (But the stone did cause a dent in my friend’s bike.) (Oh and the guy who threw the stone came really prepared for the exam and he was writing well, but he heard the commotion outside and left the exam hall, without writing a twenty mark question he knew. Crazy, I know!) And in the small window I got I lifted the baby bird in my hand and put it in the nest, the nest was still wobbly so I was adjusting it when something hit my helmet. The bird was attacking me, I ran away from there, it chased me for a few seconds (seemed like hours) and finally gave up attacking the intruder. And as for the poor intruder, I was a little out of breath but okay. Finally knowing the baby bird was safe we all left in peace, my ego still intact. 

A bird in the bush is worth nothing, it should stay there.

 It was just another day of my really long study holidays, and as any responsible student would do I decided to watch TV and entrenched myself on the couch. It was really a nice day to go out and get some much needed exercise, so when my neighbour called me out to play football, I ran out without even closing the door. And we played for a while then realized the bitter truth that 3 people playing football in the scorching sun could get really boring. And just when we were about to retreat back to the safety and the refreshing atmosphere of an air-conditioned room , we saw something fluttering in a tree nearby – a bat.                                                                     
                                                                
                                                             It was entangled on a tree between a branch and a fallen kite's twine. It became obvious that we had a little too much sunlight for a day, when a guy suggested we catch it and eat it. So before he did something truly crazy, I decided to rescue the bat. Then the other guys came to help me, by help I mean throw stones at the bat. After lot of unsuccessful attempts it was time to bring in our secret weapon, my neighbourhood tree climber, for a 7 year old he can climb into places that I would not dare to be in my worst nightmares. After 10 minutes we were setting the bat free, much to the dismay of the crazy bat eater.

                            When I got home I had more trouble waiting for me, I had left the door open and a bird got in and was flying into all the rooms in my house. My sister was screaming and running around, completely scared of the poor terrified bird. We opened all the windows and all the doors, and this bird brained bird still could not find its way out. My sister’s screaming and yelling was certainly not helping the bird get out.I ran around each room clapping my hands to get it out of there. Finally I managed to get the bird out of the house. You would think a person would get into funny situations with birds not more than twice, especially a guy like me who hates birds. ( they poo a lot)
                                                
                                             But I had one more avian encounter left for the day. My mom went to church and left me in charge of getting the chicken inside the coup (a small wooden box with a plank covering the opening) when my mom saw the village office giving away free chicks (chick-baby chicken, not what just crossed into your mind) she thought having them will get rid of the worms in the garden, and we get eggs, so its like killing two birds with one stone. (pun intended) At first there were four of them, after 3 month two survived to actually resemble a chicken.

                                 I thought to myself how hard could that be, mom does it always. Pick up the bird and put it in; simple as that. But with me, nothing is ever simple. First of all, chicken DO NOT like to be picked up, I ran around the house trying to catch at least one of the feathery fiends. I finally caught one bird's wing  then properly caught it put it in the coup, closed the plank covering the opening. But after another 15 minutes of trying to catch the next chicken (I cornered it to one side of the compound and played some serious mind games to catch it) and when I bought that one to the coup, the plank was down and the first chicken was standing next to it, almost laughing at me. Apparently I was supposed to place a weight against the plank, which at that moment I faintly remembered my mother mentioning. But with a little assistance from my sister I finally got them both in. I think these birds were trying to get back at me for all the chicken and duck I have eaten over my lifetime. But guess what I came out on top, and though I have seriously restricted non-veg I have in my daily diet, (I only eat non-veg when a guest comes and mom makes some NV food items or when I got to some functions) I will be relishing every piece of chicken I will be eating in the future.

right now the black bird and the one in the extreme right are alive.....for now.

The stupidest quiz master!

Last month our department conducted an inter-departmental quiz competition. The selection of the questions, creation of the presentation and the different rounds and it’s rules were to be decided and prepared by me. I had help from classmates and teachers, they gave me ideas for new questions. Not that I mind the hard work, but every single work was entrusted to me. Even I wouldn’t entrust me with more than one activity at a time. I worked possibly harder than I have done in my whole life. I stayed in the department staff room all day, missing classes (not that I mind that!) typing in hundreds of questions. There were days when I would come after the first hour and walk straight into the department staff room, and only come out for lunch. The questions were ready on the day before the quiz-festa scientia; the name means festival of knowledge in Latin. (cheeky huh? My idea, I know it’s silly) the promotion for the program was tremendous, we had 50 teams register for the quiz and it wasn’t for another day.

                                     My classmate binu handled the stage arrangements, he’s Michelangelo with a blade and thermocol. He made a cut out of popeye holding a board which read fest a scientia. I think it became more famous in our college than the new canteen. More people thronged to watch it than the new canteen. Back to the topic, the quiz was created by me so out of common courtesy; I was given the quiz master position along with another girl from the first year. On the D-day the prize money was announced the five finalist teams will get assured prize money.

I  -  rs. 1001

II - rs.501

III-rs.250

IV-rs.150

V - rs 150

Quite frankly this was jackpot for our college students, as no one has seen such a prize money in an inter-department contest since…..forever! and the prelims saw almost 40 teams show up, not bad considering we had a  private bus strike on that day. (most of the students come by private bus) The prelim questions were so tough that we had to correct by, asking all the people who corrected how many every team got wrong. The top score out of 11 questions (typo, I thought there were only 10, but typed the number 4 twice, so had 11 questions. No one figured it out though) was 5. so 5 teams were selected and announced.

                And after handing over the computer and projector to a nitwit and a troll of a first year guy Antony, who first broke the switch board and later screwed up a simple task. I started the questions pretty well (after a minor hiccup ..got confused about the first round’s rule) but at one point the nitwit scrolled through a few slides quickly, the questions and answers were clearly exposed. So had to adapt, but not before I passed a multiple choice question to another team.(which is an organizational nightmare on my part) The rest of the competition went okay..ish. You see I didn’t remember all the answers, so when a team gave the correct answer to a question I told them it’s wrong and when the answer came out, there was a lot of yelling and complaining(I explained to them that I was not as bright as the contestants we had that day, picture your average quiz master saying that out loud. I know I really am not that bright!). And there was an answer where a Malayalam sentence was written in English. I pronounced it awfully bad. (I can be excused, because half the college already makes fun of my Malayalam. The rest have not heard me speak Malayalam) But finally the rapid fire round came and I took over the computer from the nitwit and the first year girl took over the stage. And at the end there was a clear winner. And a tiebreaker decided the second place.

                  The prizes were handed out and my day as the stupidest quiz master ever ended.

8.00 to 800 a tale of a wasted day .......

Now I have traveled a lot in the short 19 years I have spent on this planet, courtesy of a father who was a railway officer who got transferred often.(just to say how used to travel I am) But yesterday I had the misfortune of having to travel to a college which was at a really remote area.(I went there to participate in an inter-college fest) My friend a new first year student kept pressuring me and another guy from the 3^rd year to go with him to the inter college fest, he told us that he has an agreement with the principal that we will get our travel allowance if we show the tickets. (SO naïve the first years, they believe everything anyone tells them) So after he agreed to buy a really expensive lunch we all set on a journey to the college (where we were supposed to be at/before 10.30, that’s when the registration closes) at 8.00 AM so I will give you a gist of what I went through at each hour from 8AM to 8PM.

08.00: We get on a private bus, after running behind it for a full 5 minutes through the busy streets (early morning exercise) destination: Kottayam

09.00: still on the bus, the third year guy, Karthik was sitting on my lap ( I was the only one to get a seat) and for your information, he weighs more that 80 kilos, though he will swear on his life that he is just 65.

10.00: still on the bus, traveled for 30 minutes with me sitting on Karthik’s lap. And when we reached Kottayam bus stand, we called the event organizer and asked him to extend the registration time a wee little bit, we said our bus broke down (we got a stay of execution till 11.00 AM. Then we got on a bus to get to the college, the conductor told us we would reach there by 11.40 so we were really “optimistic” about our chances to win (on this bus each of us got a seat so, thank god!)

11.00: Still on the bus, which by the way had a driver who was most certainly drunk. And the songs which were playing on the bus would make you rip your heart out and set it on fire.

12.00: Arguing with the organizers about how we traveled for 4 straight hours to get there, and that we needed to have something to show for it.

01.00: Saw the auto show, took some pictures. Had a fight with the first year guy Ajay, about how he dragged us there and wasted a perfectly good weekend. Then saw the guys at a college perform an air show. (Ya I was thrilled at first too, turns air show in that part of Kerala means an old guy flying a remote control plane in circles) it was almost exciting as we made quite a scene, yelling “We want plane crash” slogans, a lot of that college’s students joined in too. But the “pilot” played spoil sport and caught the plane just as it was about to hit a flower pot when it landed (that catch generated more disappointed “aw’s”, than a penalty miss at a world cup final.)

02:00: was on a bus back to kottayam. A lot of students of that college were talking with us after the incident, when I sat in a rolls roys(on display at the auto show) car to pose for a picture(the idiots organizers deleted the picture as punishment *sniff sniff)

03.00: Ate 230 rs worth of lunch + 1 Rs chocolate. (on me) Got on the bus back to my college (the bus stand near my college)

04.00: playing hand cricket tournament on the bus.

05.00: still on the bus. Sleeping, with my head out the window.

6.00: On the bus to my home from the college bus stand. Still 1 and a half hours travel left before I see my home.

07.30: At home, explaining to mom why I got so late.

08.00: Slept on the couch, even before I had dinner.

                                           ~~~~~Fin~~~~

A blast into the past!

Okay My friend Rinaya who by the way, is the best blogger I know, gave me the idea for this post. her blog is called wandering thoughts it's awesome check it out.  

1. Depending on your age, go back 10, 15, 20, or even more years.
2. Tell us how many years back you have travelled and why.
3. Pretend you have met yourself during that era, and tell us where you are.
4. You only have one "date" with this former self.
5. Answer these questions. 

Okay, as we start, what year is it and how old are you?

 I am already too young, but still if I have to go back 10 years, it would be the year 2000 and I would be a 9 year old studying in Erode. I must be in my 4^th std. It’s hard to say, I shifted schools and cities very quickly when I was a kid. 4 schools till I reached my 5^th std, ought to tell you how confusing it would be for me to calculate the whereabouts of my younger self (MYS).

1. Would your younger self (YYS, from here) recognize you when you first meet?

No way, MYS was cute, short and chubby and he seldom cared about what went on around him. So if he saw a creepy, tall and ugly looking guy, he probably would just start crying and make a scene (I would be beaten up by the kind strangers in the near surrounding) 

 2. Would YYS be surprised to discover what you are doing job wise?                                                 Um.... I’m still toiling to complete by B.com degree, He must think I would be taking      science stream during my +1. But boy is he in for a sore surprise. (I still don’t understand why I took commerce when the principal offered me both computer science and biology) And he would be surely surprised to know I do a little bit of catering work, just so that I could have some fun with my friends.

 

3. What piece of fashion advice would you give YYS?

I would not give him fashion advice; my wardrobe selection was made by my dad back then. And he had some great taste. But I would tell MYS to stock up on some great jeans before he moves to Kerala. Kerala has THE worst collection of jeans pants ever, and any good jeans you do find don’t fit you right.

 
4. What do you think YYS is most going to want to know?

I’m sure he would love to know if he would become a football player for Chelsea. (My favorite football club)

      5. How would you answer YYS's question?

I would just give him a slap and say this- “stupid, no Indian player is ever going to play in premier league (not in the near future any way) and even if by some voodoo magic they do get an opportunity to see you play, you need to have practice playing with other people, kicking around a ball alone isn’t going to help you. You don’t play football alone, it takes 11 players, and present you sucks, so practice harder make me a great player.” (I know I’m selfish)

6. What would probably be the best thing to tell YYS?

Dude, you are going to grow up and join big boys school, the guys sitting at the back may seem all that cool, and awesome. And you would be mighty disappointed that you couldn’t join them. Well here’s something to remember then, they are nothing compared to how awesome you are going to be in a college (I can always lie to him). Oh that is if you join my college, you see it’s always good to be the big fish in a small pond. And for Christ’s sake get rid of your stage fright.

7. What is something that you probably wouldn't tell YYS?

That MYS will get into a cycle accident that will humiliate him in front of all his friends very soon. (in 5^th std) But he’ll learn a very valuable lesson then, “beautiful girls can be… well really beautiful, but when you are down, hurt, and bleeding only the really kind ones help.” Ok, it’s not a valuable lesson.

8. What do you think will most surprise YYS about you?

That, compared to him, I look like an African person. Get out of the sun light, sports ain’t gonna get you places. But looks certainly can, I know I could have made the cut for that VJ event if I looked a bit better!

9. What do you think will least surprise YYS?

That I still eat a pack of biscuits, every evening. And that I’m still a die hard Chelsea fan!

10. At this point in your life, would YYS like to run into "you" from the future?

I can’t say, lotteries would be banned in Tamil Nadu that year. If that didn’t happen I would give MYS all the wining lottery numbers for the past 10 years. If I had a rupee for every time I thought of that I would be really rich. *drifts into a day dream

boredom can get you really hurt, here's why!

29/12/2010- situation: One of those boring days that could make my other boring days sit up and cry with envy. I found myself up very early and with absolutely nothing to do. 



I had brought a joystick to play the FIFA football game better, as if I don’t already spend enough to buy these games each year. And now I really found out how addicted I have become to the game. I started the day grieving, and shocked. (my friend’s call woke me up, our first year’s language results were out) To my relief I got first class and that worry got out of the way. I decided to just play FIFA for a while, then brush my teeth and start my day. But one game turned to 5-6 and the time was 10 am, brushed my teeth, had to buy a packet of biscuits for breakfast that I went through a pack of biscuits in 5 minutes and scalding hot tea to wash it down with. 

                                                     Then the joystick (or joypad as it is called) seemed to be glued to my hands again, usually I loose pretty bad at professional difficulty but today I beat Manchester united 9-0 (I hate man utd, am a Chelsea fan!) And that was like a first dose of heroin for me, because similar margins followed and the clock seemed to move in fast forward mode.

After every game I remember some chore that needs to be done, which I promise to do after the next game. But the whole cycle kept going in circle, and my hand griped the joy pad ever so tightly as each exciting moment came and went. My mom came back from the market (she never sends me to buy fish, apparently I have a special talent to buy stale fish) and she stood there staring at how I yanked , moved and jumped almost like I was trying to synch and do exactly as the tiny little player on the screen seemed to be doing. And I was in a world of my own, guests came and went, with me just dismissing them with a smile. Phone calls from friends asking about the results were just ignored. I was so determined to finish a season with a perfect record, which means I had to win every match.....all 56 one of them, including cup matches.
                               At 3 pm mom switched off the computer by just pulling the plug on the computer after two hours of politely asking me to have lunch, so took lunch as quickly as humanly possible, found out why hick ups occur- they occur when you eat too fast, because each mouthful I took was accompanied by a hick up. I was crazy; I had so much planed for today. I wanted to start reading the “new moon” book. (After much reflection I read twilight, it was actually not half bad) I had to write some intelligible post for my blog, but all of these ideas just vanished in front of all the semi finals and league matches I could play. Strangely my hand was almost numb, and I had trouble bending my fingers when I was eating, “it’ll pass” I thought. 
                                               And off I went to continue in the quest of a perfect season. And I played till 6 pm, and the final match, the finals of the European championship, my team was level at 1-1 ant I was afraid my perfect season will go down the drain at the very last match as the time in the match drew to a close. Then out of the blue one of my players took the ball from our half and ran all the way to score in the last 10 minutes! I was naturally ecstatic; I was jumping around like I was a real footballer who won a big final match. Then I realized I threw the joy pad in my utter joy, it took a hard hit when it fell down. And I hooked it in quickly, then I saw the score 2-2, while I was busy jumping around the stupid team scored again, and before I could react, they scored again in extra time as I sat there watching, helpless and heart broken. My left stick on the joy pad (the one with which I control the players) was not working and I could hear strange sounds from the joy pad when I moved it. The game ended with them winning and me loosing the perfect season at the very last match. (A result which I could not change) 

                                   My day’s hard work was there ruined by a stupid early celebration dance. And my 3 months hard work and sweat, the joy pad sat there broken and battered. But I called the company of the joy pad (the service center in Cochin) they said they can fix it for free because I had a warranty, all I had to do was send my beloved “late Mr. joy pad” to their office by courier and they would fix it and send it back (expense on them) and I realized the joy pad can be fixed, so can the perfect season (just have to waste another day or a couple of days) but the hardest thing to be fixed is my ego. And of course I can’t touch anything with either of my thumbs, and my fingers make a funny sound every time I move them for even a slight millimeter. You may wonder who typed this up then; well it’s my neighbor shaan who says hi to all: “hi!” Well that’s it.

a send off speech that made me cry!!!

Our B.com department's faculty consisted of 3 guest lecturers who were just a temporary replacements till the university appointed some new lecturers. Our batch were very close to each of those 3 teachers, they were like one of us. They try to draw a line and be serious sometimes, but a few jokes and non-cooperation from us they become normal and realize we are uncontrollable. Me and many of my classmates went into the department staff room to talk to them during interval hours, only to them. The HOD is strict like every other HOD in every other college. But the day finally came when two new permanent professors were to be appointed. It was like one of those reality shows where two contestants would be cut and only one contestant makes it to the next round. Two out of the three of the most friendly teachers were going to leave our college, and we had few and few students hanging out in the department staff room each day.

                                                   The only thing we hoped was the new guys (guy professors are always tough to mess with, you can't flatter them-bad news for all the boys in our department) were not so strict, but it was inevitable that our reign of terror in the department of commerce had to end one day. First sir came he was one of those guys no student would want a problem with, but he did teach well enough (barring the minutes of awkward silence when he goes through the text book to clear a doubt, which he finally agrees to clear some other time..... when that time would come -no one knows!)

                                                     And after bearing with every one of our tortures for one and a half year, two professors were being sent off. And our class planed a send off program for them, complete with mementos, draping of shawls, cake cutting,( One of the organiser kept saying "we need to cut a cake" , maybe he confused a send off with a birthday party but still some of the other organisers agreed and it was included)speech in both malayalam and english, and last and more importantly snow spray and confetti. I was given charge of the speech in english and part responsibility for an poem my friend was writing for the occasion.(more like the poem writer from whom he could steal the credit from) This program like every other program planned in our college had a lot of problems, we had to conduct the program after the last hour(much to anxiety of the students, I mean don't get me wrong we love those professors but any thing that means staying an extra minute at the college is always a sore subject among students) and also the principal didn't want us to decorate the class and make it messy, but he finally agreed to it after we promised to clean the class on our own. (yeah right!) 

                                            On the D-day I was talking with my friend, and second before the bell signalling the end of lunch hour, my friend asked me if I wrote the speech. That set of an alarm clock in my head, like one of those red alert sirens you hear in action movies. I had two hours to write a send off speech that was supposed to last 5 minutes,and not two free hours but one hour with the new sir and the second hour where I was to help the guys decorate the class! But thankfully the new sir was just teaching  the computer application lesson -powerpoint. Why is that good you ask me, you see even though I sit in the second bench and even though the sir can see what I am writing if he looked carefully, I had a skill in which I have excelled so much so that I am ashamed of it.

                                      I can pretend to be the most attentive guy in the class and still play tic tac toe with my friend. My skill is "the attentive face", as long as the sir doesn't ask me any questions I was safe. So after one hour of "the attentive face" and scribbling and scratching out of grammatically wrong lines. I had written the speech. I had no time to memorize it, I was busy with the decorating and final organising of the program. And the program finally began after every one else at the college were out. 

                                                                    The plan went well, we had a few students sing songs. (the ones who took a little long were given signals to shut up and complete the song) Of the people going off was a miss whom we forced to sing a song (she sang 2 lines and sat down. just like we hoped she would do.) next we asked the sir who was leaving, to sing. ( this guy was in our choir and he sang a classical song, for god knows how long  we were getting edgy, we all wanted to get that program over with and go home. So we started to clap when he hit a low note in the song, hoping that he would understand and sit down; but no! he thought we liked the song and he was singing the song longer that it really was, repeating lines and stuff) Finally the song that never seemed to end, ended. And it was my turn to bore the students with my english speech,the already agitated guys clapped and some even booed me for every single one of my lines, not because I was a good/terrible speaker but because they wanted the program to end. I cut short the speech so much that at one point it looked like I was reading random lines off a paper. I had written three jokes in the whole speech where I would pause for the guys to laugh ( what I failed to consider was that,  most of my classmates came from malayalam medium schools and even write their exam in malayalam. they didn't understand a word I said) only the two professors laughed. And with that the program ended, the snow spray foam was all over the cake, and When I ate a large chunk of the cake with "snow" al over it, I found out that "snow" spray was originally soap water.(not that I didn't know that before but when the students sprayed the teachers with the spray it fell on the cake, and the part they gave me had the foam all over it.) So when the program was over and I missed the last bus before nightfall I thought to myself the day couldn't get more worse after that. But then a classmate walks up to cheer me up, he says                                                                                                                            

" Man your poem was good, they were booing you off because they didn't understand it, and also they wanted the program to end soon, it not because your poem was bad"