Tuesday, March 31, 2009

The Frustration that is blind - Part I

I'm sick. Oh so very sick. I don't have a thermometer right now, but if I did, it'd probably be as terrifying as a positive pregnancy test.

My life is fucked. From a shitload of homework, to persistent tests, to the fact that the goddamn webcam won't work, to the fact that I'm too sick to do anything about it. FFS. The frustration is building...

Like for my friend Ankush. The other day, we were in the 24-hr computer lab. He's been breaking his head over this one program for the last 3 hours. At least. His hair is graying from the stress. He's just that 1 little step away from crossing the bridge. And then somebody points it out to him. He was using the wrong file all along.

There are outbursts of frustration, and there are outbursts of frustration. This was the latter. The most dangerous, where you don't speak, respond or act. Just stare out into space. Unfortunately, he had promised to help me later doing some Math. We exited the computer lab.

Me: "Hey man, don't take it so hard. It happens to the best of us."
Him: "..."
Me: "You hear me?"
Him: "..."
Me: "Yo...dude...is something wrong?"
Him: "Do you see any security guards around here?"
Me: "No...why? HEY WTF!!! WAIIIIII!!!"


Before I can even finish, he takes his glass bottle from Starbucks, and hurls it to the floor as hard as he can. I don't have time to react, and a piece of glass shoots up and cuts me on the nose, right next to my right eye.

Me: (Writhing in agony on the ground) "AAAAAAAAAAAA!!! AAAAAAAA!! MY EYEEES!"
Him: "OH SHIT DUDE ARE YOU OKAY!!"
Me: "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!"
Him :"Fuck man, did it hit you?"
Me: "AAAAAAAAAAAHHHH YOU MANIAC!! YOU JUST GAVE ME AIDS!!! AAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH"
Him: "SHIT DUDE YOU RE BLEEDING!!!"
Me : "Congratulations on spotting it, genius. AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!"
Him: "Dudeee, I'm gonna call 911!"
Me : "Hahaahhaahahhaha yeah do that"
Him: "fuck you."

--------

Watch out for part II!!!

Sunday, March 29, 2009

EUREKA!!!!!

Ladies, gents, and those undecided...

I've found it. No, this is not another one of my crazy social experiments where we tell people their loved ones are dying from terminal diseases. (Yes, that would be sick) And no, I'm not talking about my third nipple either - although debates have been raging on about it for quite sometime. (For the record, I DO NOT HAVE A THIRD FUCKING NIPPLE. FUCK YOU SID FOR SPREADING THAT SHIT)

For centuries and generations, we Indians have painted such a fucked up picture of ourselves in the Western world, ranging from our unease to get used to western toilets, to dropping phrases like "There you go!" and "Good fer you!" (With an accent and all, just to sound more American. I'm sorry 'Roger' Patel, it just makes it harder for the rest of us to be taken seriously.

But I digress. I have truly found the root of our bitchiness. The reason we constantly try to get one over our friends, double cross and backstab them repeatedly, and ultimately sleep with their wives.

It is something so deeply ingrained in everything we do and everything we live - an indelible and invisible mark on every single one of us. From the gullies and slums of Dharavi to Shah Rukh Khans bungalow in Bandra (?). Cricket.

Let me explain.

Cricket makes us bitchy.

Yesterday, I played cricket for the first time in about...7 years. Believe it or not, once upon a time, I actually used to be good. (Read 6th grade) But I still played.

I'd almost forgotten how to even hold the bat. I was the last man in; we needed 4 runs to win. The bowler; Anant. He played for his state a few months ago. He has pace like fire. Every ball he releases lands bang on in front of the stumps. They call him the Daytona Express. (LMFAO)

I reluctantly make my way to the pitch. This is like facing hell's wrath for molesting little kittens.

And then - something wonderful happens(arguably). I got superpowers. Powers that I'd left behind a long time ago to become a better man.

"Hey Anant! Does anyone know you have a pink laptop?"

His face flushes. People start poking fun at him; boy is he pissed now. He runs in like the express train that he is. It goes wide.

He's a good friend of mine, so I won't post much of what went on between that, but this one I can't refrain from...

He ran up, and then stopped just before he was about to release the ball. Evidently I'd shaken his confidence. One of his teammates shouts to ask him what's wrong.

I shout back "He's feeling the pressure! Gujarat State Team! Against newbie playing after 7 years! Aaaaah!"

Everyone is in splits. I felt sorry for him after that. So I just let him get me out (tihihi)

Anyway, after that, we all went to grab a bite to eat. This girl from one my classes comes over to talk. I'm telling her why she's a bad girl, when this fucking dumbass wannabe player Indian guy comes up. This guy is about 6'5 tall, and his brain is probably inversely proportional to that.

This is probably what he was thinking - "Tool anky in front of girl - Girl impressed - Thinks of me as prince charming - We run away to Wonderland and get married with her fairy godmother watching over us"

Which sounds reasonable in theory.

So he comes upto me.

Him: "Aey...tu peeche se ladki dikhta hai."

I turn to him and look him over.

Me: "Tu toh aage se bhi ladki dikhta hai...chutiye"

Everyone at the table: "hahahahahahahahahahahahahaha"

Obviously the girl didn't speak hindi, but she got the hint. She isn't going home with him tonight :(

My point is, I'd probably not even have paid attention to the reflexive, systematic psychological rape of another human being 2 days ago. I'd have just ignored the person, and there would be no problem. But Cricket I tells you, is a very potent thing.

Wednesday, March 25, 2009

The Art of The Fart

Since I've got here, more than one person has asked me what the biggest change in my life has been.

Is it the weather?
Is it the women in bikinis?
Is it the 8 lane highways?
Is it the wide open spaces?
Is it the piss-drunk dart-throwing competitions?
Is it the bitchy NRIs?


No.

It's the food.

I've realized for a fact, that the first and final step to becoming a hardcore yank is the food.

I've also realized for a fact that Americans fart about 300 times more than all other nationalities combined.

No ****ing wonder, when they have Taco Bells, Burger Kings, Big Macs and Wendys.

You wouldn't recongnise me if you saw me. If you thought that a guy like me, who couldn't let off enough toxic waste after a Cheese Schezwan Dosa, or a truckful of Maruti's Pav Bhaji, think again.

It's almost like a half-hourly ritual.

Fuck that Fernando. He's leaving and I have to take his math book. Later blogreaders!
Like I said, the weirdest fucking thing happened to me the other day.



I'm sitting on my bed in my dorm room. Mtn dew in one hand, and this really friggin good book in the other.(The girl who played with fire. READ IT!!!)

The plot is thickening...
She's going to kill somebody...
She's going to do it tonight...
OH MY GAWD!!! SHE'S GOING TO KILL HER DAD!!!

She slowly walks up to his house...
You can cut the tension with a butterknife at this point...
So many emotions are going through her head...
Her childhood...
Her shattered dreams...
Her attempts to live a normal life...
All this ends tonight...
With the man responsible for it...
She sees a vague shape in the dark and takes aim...
Uncocks the safety...
AND!!!


The phone rings.

I have a message. Bah, what a time to interrupt.

It's some weird number from Missouri. All it says is Brynn?

It's not the first time I've been pranked. Or the last. I just reply WTF? And forget about it. (It's hard being popular you know, too many people to remember who the hell they are B-))

I go back to my book. Lisbeth Salander is a woman with a plan and she won't stop at anything.

I'm just finding where I'd left off when the phone goes off again. FFS.

It's the same number. "Brynn, it's echo."

How dare this imbecile disturb me while I read? Can't she see I'm trying to concentrate here? She must be punished.

I text her back, and a sadistic, evil grin plays on my face. I flap my evil wings and do the dracula laugh.
"OMG ECHO!!! I LOVE YOU SO MUCH!!! PLEASE COME BACK TO ME!!!"

I hit send.

30 seconds later, the phone goes off. She's calling now xD

"Hey?"
"HEY! I'm sorry Brynn...I don't love you anymore. Just please leave me alone."
"No I wont!"
"You jerk, stop stalking me!"
"Then you tell your paedophile dad to stop harassing my sister!!!"
"Brynn...you don't have a sister...Who is this?"
"Hey, have you seen any good movies lately?"
"Hahahahahahah what?"
"I'm bored, and I can't be bothered to look up the listings. Tell me a good movie."
"But WHO ARE YOU?"
"You know what? You're just wasting my time...you won't even tell me a good movie.
"Hahahahahah lol"
"This isn't funny. I'm hanging up."
"Nooooooo!! You're wayy cooler than Brynn! Who ARE you?"
"Spongebob"
"OOEE EMMM GEEE!!! I LOVE SPONGEBOB!!!"
"So you have the most retarded name and you're a dumb blonde. Perfect."
"hahahaha noooo!! I'm not a dumb blonde!!"
"Yawn."
"Do you even know Brynn?"
"No."
"You're sooo much cooler than him though!"
"I have a girlfriend."
"Oh, but we can be besties!"
"I'm actually reading a book..."
"..and brynn is my ex-boyfriend."
"Oh, cool. Hey do you want Brynn's number? So you can tell him to stop callin you..."
"Yeah sure..." (Note her stupidity. I just said like a sec ago I dont know wtf Brynn is)
"949-800-255" (AIDS hotline, California)
"Thanks!"
"Yeah, I have to go now. You take care!"
"Ohkayy...byee!"
"


And yes, that really did happen.

Tuesday, March 24, 2009

Good Morning Anky

There's robots everywhere. The destruction of the world is imminent. I'm a bit confused as to why America's newest stealth bombers are flapping their wings as if they were pigeons. The robots are coming after me. I'm all alone in my house. This doesn't even look like my house. I'm bathed in a mild panic of fear and confusion. What the fuck is going on?

Suddenly, out of nowhere I find myself being hoisted into the air with mechanical precision. The grip around my neck suddenly tightens as I feel the cold touch of metal. Then, a bald guy walks in. He introduces himself as the ruler of the world.


What the fuck?

He introduces the whirring claw around my neck as Samantha 2000, his wife.

What the fuck?

She's a robot.

He tells me he's going to ask me this once, and once only. If I don't answer correctly, he will have me killed without a second thought. I believe him.

"What is the name of your girlfriend's classteacher?"

"Yo, Ankit! Wake up! You have class in like...8 minutes"
"Shut up, baldy! You're just pissed off that Samantha won't take it in the ass from you."
"Huh?"
"Oh, sorry. I got you mixed up with someone else. What time is....SHIITTTTT!!!"

I throw on the same shirt I've been wearing for the past week, hurriedly brush my teeth, grab a jacket and bolt out the door.

Exactly 7 seconds later, I return. I forgot to fix my hair. Must always look sharp. Or messy. Whatever your style is, lol.

I just realized, I spend 10 minutes every morning, not disciplining my hair, but actually trying to make it look like my head was hit with a howitzer cannon. Strange world.

I walk over to my friend to pick up the day's copied homework. I am a leech. A parasite. I've been living off other people's efforts for as long as I can remember in my college life. And I seem to have made a pretty good living of it, too. A normal person would probably feel some pang of guilt, a flicker of consciousness, a late-night visit from God - to tell him he was wrong, but not me. You see, the fact that I'm Indian overrides everything.

Being American gives you a free pass to Europe.
Being a rockstar gives you a free pass to drunk pissing on the streets
Being Indian gives you a free pass to being an asshole.

It's as simple as that.

This very privelage will now allow me to walk into my class 30 minutes late; like I own it. ha-HA. (Because after I did my hair, I sat down to blog - philosophically)

I'm on the path to self improvement, though. I've decided to dilute the acid a bit. You know, do something other than convince my friends to do my homework, while I sit home watching Rock of Love bus on TV. (Addictive show)


Ah yes, watch out for my post on the perils of American TV in the near future, only shortly after the post on the perils of American fast food.

Yayness! Excitement :D

Next time I'm going to tell you guys about the weirdest fucking thing that happened to me the other night. Stay tuned!

Saturday, March 21, 2009

I Miss You

Whoever you are, reading this post, you've touched me in an intangible way. Thanks for that. And tonight, I'm missing you.

I'm miss my girlfriend, who is now back in her hometown after a whirlwind Spring break here.

I miss my family. My mom who wanted to be all strong and never told me how much she's going to miss me when I'm gone, but went and told the parents of all my friends how I was her only son and it was breaking her heart.

And my dad who refused to eat pani puri on his anniversary, because it was my favourite food and I'm being starved of Indian food here :(

And of course Grandma and Grandad who say that my ghost haunts their lives everyday in the now empty house :(

I miss you guys, who'd made my life so amazing in the hellhole that we call Mumbai. :(

I come here, and all the Indian kids are a bunch of pretentious, bitchy faggots whose sole purpose in life is to out-alphamale the other guy. I now realise how great you all are =)


Basically, I'm doing a whole lot of missing right now.

So fitting that Wish You Were Here is the next song on my iPod xD

Tjingtjing

Midnight Ranting

One thing I've realised, is that sorrow can make you very philosophical. (And Himay, that just means that I spout more bullshit than usual, and coat it with fancy words and my trademark sarcasm.)

I come from a place that has been dogged by poverty, gang-wars, sexism, religious issues, corruption and of course terrorism. Slumdog Millionaire does not tell the whole tale, but it darn well tells a good part of it. One of the many faces.

I live in a place that has 300 days of sunshine every year. There's bald eagles and squirrels and sprinklers and sand everywhere. 6-lane highways, wide open spaces, disney world. It really should be the American dream. Or the American-Indian dream; rather. Since at one point or the other, every Indian person dreams of living on this hallowed soil. It is a no-brainer, given what you just read above.

But there's a viciously ugly side to Uncle Sam. For most people, as soon as they land here, they're swiftly pigeon-holed into a sweepingly generalized box. Imagine a huge broom, tossing little ol' miniscule you into a dark place, and that is what you will spend the next 4 years of your life trying to wrestle out of.

We're sadists and hypocrites. Both of us. We may have strikingly different skin, we may have hugely different tolerance to ultra violet light, but that's about it. We're both constantly fighting stereotypes and generalizations, and then we settle comfortably into our respective mobs and proceed to whitewash the days' progress. Pakis, Blacks, Whites, Mexicans, Asians. We love to pin labels. Why not humans; for a change?

Grr.

I cannot wait before I can get the fuck out of this hellhole, to a place that I feel comfortable at. Daytona Beach is certainly not it.

And that was your thought for today :)

Now I just realized how fucked I am with Integration :( I'm going to get pwn'd. Tudeles!

F*** my life

Yes, few things have been invented by the human race that are as potent and headslappingly hilarious as http://fmylife.com

If you're ever down, don't hesitate to swiftly make your way to this site. It is, hands down, the best shit I've read in a while. And I read a lot of shit.

Here are some of the best ones I've found:

-----------------

Today, I was sitting in class and I fell asleep during the lesson. I was wearing sweatpants and had an erection. My teacher came up to me and grabbed my penis. She thought it was my phone. FML

----------------

Today, I heard my sister masturbating in her room. I took the dog around the block to get out of the house, and I came back to see her leaving her room... my electric toothbrush in her hand. FML


---------------


Today, my boyfriend told me he couldn't hang out with me because he felt really sick. I went to his house anyway to surprise him with homemade soup. I walk in to his room only to find him hooking up with my sister. She can't drive, our mom drove her there. FML


---------------


Today, I was having sex with my boyfriend. When he was about to orgasm, he screamed "Yes Brittany!" at the top of his lungs. My name's not Brittany. That's his sister. FML

Friday, March 20, 2009

Oh dear god

I just found a note from her under the bedcover that she had nicely arranged.

Love you Doris,

<3 Nemo.


...and here I go again.

P.s>I love you too, Nemo

Who will console me?

I didn't know what to expect while I dragged my feet grudgingly up the steps. A sigh and a fumble later, and the key was in the door. I still didn't know how I would react, as I turned the little golden key in. With a shiver.

Utter and complete devastation. That's how it feels. The first thing I notice is the stack of empty pizza boxes - that we'd had every single day for the past week; all stacked rather unkemptly one above the other. Then there's the sand all over the floor. Her pleas to apologize to my roommate for turning this place into a hurricane shelter. The sand is still fresh. The sand still itches - since the day we went to the beach. When I meekishly prodded towards the ice-cold water, away from the 40-degree sun. She crept up behind me and dunked me face first into the water. And sand.

My clothes are in a neat pile by the corner. I'm not used to this. The bed's been made and my clothes are neat. My room is always a mess. Seems like she took the time to clean up a bit; as if that would make it okay for her to have left so suddenly.

I can't handle this.

I look to the bathroom for comfort. A release; an escape. Mercy. But no. The tap is still running from our hurried showering this morning. "We have to go, Aanks." The shower smells distinctly Scandinavian. Peach-lavender breeze. I think I'm going to get sick. There's a really ugly lump in my throat that's been nagging away all day at me.

The converter is still in the power socket, from when she wanted to charge her laptop. "I'll get my own charger just in case, YOU KNOW ITS DIFFERENT IN AMERICA FROM SWEDEN!" I know.

There's empty Mountain Dew cans all over the place. She'd have it with her pills, she'd have it with our daily Pizza dinner, she'd have it when we snuggled up to watch a horror movie, she'd have it when we put the TV on to make fun of that stupid Chelsea Lately show. One of the cans I see is only half empty. The lump in my throat gets bigger.

Near the microwave, I see an empty packet of Indian Mithai. My mom sent those to me, a bunch of them. I only got to eat two or three. You can only guess where all the others went. Swedes love their Indian food. There's also the empty packet of Dal Makhni from when she made it for me. Please come back?

Bang in the middle of the room is something I just noticed. Empty shoe boxes and shopping bags. Aeropostale, Hollister, American Eagle - they're all there. I remember the time we went to Victoria's Secret and I just sat awkwardly outside the store, repulsed at all the pink and barbie in there. I would pretend to hate shopping so we could go home and snuggle up, but I never really told her how much I loved seeing the glint in her eye when she saw a hot handbag or a nice pair of heels. The lump is now rising.

It's been a rough day. I'm holding in my hand her half-finished bottle of diet coke, the only real thing I have to hold on to from earlier today. It was rough. Heartwrenching. Mindnumbing. I held her for hours. And hours. And we checked her in and held on and on. It was 20 minutes before her flight, and I still wouldn't let her go. Her eyes were bloodshot red. She'd been crying constantly the last 18 hours. My throat hurt. My voice was hoarse from singing all those songs of her leaving me, trying to lighten her spirits. I didn't shed a single tear, until it was time to let go of her hand as she walked toward the plane. Not a single one.

And then I broke down. Harder and worse than I'd ever expected or imagined. I haven't cried in years. I don't cry. But I did. I wept like a little baby. And I'm not even ashamed of it. Summer can't come soon enough. She showed me probably the best week of my life; I'm going to return the favor when I get to Stockholm. I promise.

But for now, I'm in this room that's stuck in time, stuck at the morning of today, stuck at cries of happiness and laughter. And I'm stuck with nothing but an ever increasing workload, a paper and a pen, and a lot of acid humor.