Tagged again!

By this gentleman, so any questions or protests on the lines of 'Did we *really* need to know that??', and 'Overshare! Overshare!!' are to be directed straight to him.

So, eight random facts about me.

1) You know that idiotic make-a-wish-on-a-fallen-eyelash thing that girls in Hindi movies do? Yeah well, guess what. I know, I know, totally pathetic. But look, I shook off some nineteen years of extreme religion - I'm entitled to one tiny equally baseless belief? Think of it as a nicotine patch of sorts, it might seem a little more tolerable.

When I was a kid, I had a mental picture of this silver-bearded old man, sitting on a pile of clouds, hunched over his worktable, prising open eyelashes with a pair of microscopic tweezers. The eyelash would then roll open scroll-like, and written on it would be the wish you'd made. I have no idea who I should blame for this.

2) I hate long nails. On myself, that is. I completely envy women with slender hands, tipped with perfectly manicured nails (the bitches), but it drives me nuts if mine grow long enough that I can feel the edges.

3) I once dated a neanderthal who said - "मैं चाहूंगा कि मेरी बीवी मुझे कम से कम एक वक़्त का खाना बना के खिलाये" - I was horrified, and argued till I was blue in the face, but I did not dump him. Well, not right away at least.

4) I people-watch to the point where the watchees begin to worry. It's not deliberate - I don't mean to make them uncomfortable, but the thing is that after a while, it's just my eyes that are focused on them; my brain has run off to pick daisies. When the brain comes back from her flower-picking, we have a good laugh about it. And then they (the watchees) worry even more.

5) I hate being tickled.

6) I cannot smoke. I've tried to, oh about a hundred times till date, but I always end up coughing and wheezing like a chain-smoking asthmatic. Oh and pot? Same difference.

7) My second toe is longer (taller? higher? faster? stronger?) than my big toe (on both feet). Superstition says that a woman with this particular toe-configuration will lord over her husband. Superstition is a lying bitch.

8) I think boobs are a bad design feature. Really. I think I might've even been lesbian if it weren't for boobs.

Done! Now I'm supposed pass on the tag to eight people but I'm fairly sure that only four out of eight will do it, so here goes:

Izzy (who I think has done this before but so what, tell us eight more things)
Revealed
Beth
The Ideasmithy

One is late...

...for the silly pic tag passed on by Vulturo, but one had, what is known as, a problem of plenty.

































This guy is a clear winner, but one thinks one comes a pretty close second, what?

Oh and this guy has a jolly little gallery of participants.

And I tag Phantasmagoria, Straight Curves, Saltwater Blues, Arthur Quiller Couch (wiggle out of this one Couch!) and Rhyncus.

Tag! Or 'Meme', if that's what YOU call it!

Well, since no-one *ever* tags me (and yes, I'm enough of a blogging newbie to sulk about it) I shall go ahead and tag myself! So there!

Also, I'm suffering from the worst attack of blog-clog *ever* (no wisecracks. I FORBID you to make wisecracks!) and I have read from reliable sources, that a tag is the best way! Cures it right away, it does*. So, here goes.

I'm thinking:
About these lines from the title song in Iqbal -

Guzre aise har raat raat,
Ho khwaaishon se baat baat...

- and I'm trying to remember the last time, if ever, I was this excited, this hopeful about anything (and no, romantic stuff doesn't count). You know the lying awake at night, thrilling with anticipation for the next day? Yes, that feeling. And I'm wondering, will I ever have it again?

And the answer is scaring me.

I said:
"Oh, what the hell!" and went ahead and did it anyway.

I want to:
Be in The Yellow Submarine song. You know how when you're listening to a song, you can see it happening in your head? The yellow submarine, the bells, the marching band, the happy stoned-ness of the whole picture? You can just see them all drinking beer and having a jolly good time, and in the picture? I would totally be the happy high guy echoing Ringo Starr as he sang,"everyone of uuuus (everyone of us!) has all we neeeed (has all we need!)! Sky of bluuuue (sky of blue!), and sea of greeeeen (and sea of green!), in our ye-he-llow submareeenn!".

Don't you?

I wish:
I was oh about ten kilos lighter...and about eight inches taller...and had a sharper nose. Who needs world peace when you're pretty, I ask you!

I miss:
Not caring about consequences. Or hell, not even considering that there might be any. "Consequences Shmonsequences!" is what I would have said, if you'd mentioned them a year ago.

I hear:
Everything wrong. And the few occasions I hear right, I misinterpret completely! I either have a hearing problem, or a perception problem.

I wonder:
At the fact that S and I are friends. It just seems so...unlikely. She's the kind of girl who lights an agarbatti every day in front of her potted tulsi plant. She also believes that if she touches the darn thing during her periods, it (the plant) will shrivel up and die. She's been fasting every goddamn friday for the last ten years and believes, really believes that 'God will take care of her'. Despite all the evidence to the contrary.

She has a room full of (ugh) stuffed toys, loves Madhuri Dixit and (Oh horror!) Hum Aapke Hain Kaun which she's watched FOURTEEN TIMES. Hold me up somebody, I'm fa-ll-ing.

Still, we're friends.

I regret:
Very little. Except the 'Oh what the hell' decisions.

I dance:
Well enough, but not better than n. That woman can *move*!

I sing:
Waaayy better than I dance.

I am:
in a funny sort of place right now. Y'know...in my head. AS IN, my head is IN a funny sort of place right now (and again, let's just skip the wisecracks, shall we?), NOT that my head is funny place to be in. How would you get in anyway?

I cry:
And then I get really mad at myself for being such a wuss.

I'm not always:
Soft-spoken. And those days, I am not a nice person to know.

I make with my hands:
A delicious mushroom and potato subji...and fish in *hot* mustard curry. Oh and music on my guitar...and dog-ears to mark my pages in books.

I write:
Much better in my head. No, honest. My head is filled with thrilling prose, but somehow, it doesn't get past my fingers. Damned fingers. *aside to fingers* I ought to chop you off for being so darned un-co-operative.

I confuse:
People...or so I've been told. Why that should be is beyond me. Far as I know, I'm an open book.

I need:
...do you really want me to get into this again? A NEW JOB!


***

I've been reading a collection of Carl Sandburg's poems, gifted to me by the Crazy White Girl (whom, sadly enough, I did not have the planned angry dance-off with, because the dance-off-erred did not show. Hmpfh.) and while I know that he's talking about Chicago, I can't help thinking that all of his poems seem to fit Bombay just as well.

Sample this:

They tell me you are wicked and I believe them, for I
have seen your painted women under the gas lamps
luring the farm boys.
And they tell me you are crooked and I answer: Yes, it
is true I have seen the gunman kill and go free to
kill again.
And they tell me you are brutal and my reply is: On the
faces of women and children I have seen the marks
of wanton hunger.
And having answered so I turn once more to those who
sneer at this my city, and I give them back the sneer
and say to them:
Come and show me another city with lifted head singing
so proud to be alive and coarse and strong and cunning.

Doesn't it sound like it was written expressly for Bombay? Sorry Carl Sandburg, and thank you Beth! :)


*And see? It works! Not only did the tag make me post, it made me do a Long Rambling Post!