Absent Minded Much?? Pretty much! :(

A very dominant trait in my personality is that I am absent minded. I have several times in the past demonstrated this aspect of my personality much to the chagrin of my Mum.

Once I was visiting my favorite cousin who lives in the same city. I sprinted up the stairs to his flat with a spring in my step. Finding the door open I happily entered and closed the door behind me. When I turned around to face the room I saw a stranger sitting on the couch watching TV.

Errr…Where is Bhaiya?

Bhaiya?? he asked. Who are you?

Err…His cousin.

“Whose cousin”?

I looked around and saw a lady I had never seen before staring at me from the kitchen. It was then that I surveyed the room, stood there for what seemed like eternity, gulped and realized this was not my cousin’s home at all!!Panic stricken, my eyes shot back to the man on the couch who was gaping at me quizzically waiting for an answer.

“Sorry wrong house”. I managed to mumble. “Ok thanks bye.” And with that I turned back and dashed out of the house leaving the man staring dumbfounded at my retreating back. My cousin’s home was just one floor above. Don’t ask me how I managed to enter the wrong house even though I have been to his house hundreds of time. Don’t ask me why it took me an eternity to realize I had entered the wrong place. The answer is very simple I am me! :D

There have been other instances as well like the time when I made popcorn in the microwave without putting the lid of the vessel causing the microwave to be inundated with popcorn. Or the time when my Mum wasn't well and the responsibility of managing the house fell on my slightly irresponsible shoulders. I was making rice. I am a pro at it mind you. When the pressure cooker started whistling I scurried to switch off the gas. I was just wondering how come the rice got cooked so fast today? When I noticed raw rice staring back at me from the kitchen slab. What I had smartly done was put water in the cooker , forgotten to add rice and had let just the water steam.  Or the many times when my mum or papa ask me to do something and I stare and nod and go away. Then come back after a minute or two to ask what exactly did they want me to do? Because I had nodded without really listening because I was lost in some other thought. Or the innumerable times I lose track of the conversation going on when I am with my friends and have to be brought back into reality by someone poking me and asking “Are you with us ?” and at other times when  someone puts a question to me and I go Huh? What were we talking about?

Before you conclude I am cerebrally challenged let me take an opportunity to boast that I have surprised many a soul with my excellent memory. I recall incidents and events very graphically. I left a friend dumbstruck by exactly telling her what the first sentence of our first gtalk chat ever was and another one by reminding her exactly what we had in the canteen at a college fest 2 years back. So you see all is not lost in my case.

Eating Out!

Eating out is one I activity I enjoy the most. It never fails to brighten up my day or light up or bring a goofy smile on my face. When someone cannot tell me the exact name of the dish they had I feel annoyed. No, saying I had chicken won’t do with me. I need to know exactly which chicken :-?.  It’s not just the food part that is the most enjoyable for me.  It’s the whole preparation that goes into it. It starts right from choosing the correct restaurant for the day keeping in mind the preferences of your friends. My friends let me inform you are lazy bums of the first degree. They will each individually tell me to make outing plans but will come up with none themselves. So the entire arduous task of deciding that ideal time and venue falls on my slim shoulders (ok not that slim now :-/ ). After making around dozen  calls and sending some more messages to coordinate everything we finally land up in the restaurant which everyone has agreed on. Phew! 

After settling down we get busy chatting and catching up, leaving the poor waiter hovering around our table with his notepad. Absolutely no one of them feel any pity for the poor waiter except me. So I wave the menu card in front of their noses and remind them to order. But no! I get the menu card thrust under my nose and is made to order for everyone. Did I mention my friends are lazy bums? I then take to playing mother goose quieting down everyone for a minute or so to ask everybody's preferences. This is the toughest part since my friends never seem to be out of topics to talk about. Well since this happens almost all the time I almost know everyone’s preference by rote. :D Who doesn't eat onion and garlic, who is a vegetarian, who doesn't like paneer, who loves pasta.etc etc. I decide a dish then put it to vote. If it doesn’t get a majority or gets vetoed altogether then it’s back to square one. All this while the waiter would have hovered over our table and left at least thrice. So through this process of voting we arrive at a consensus. Sometimes though we skip the voting process altogether. This happens when my friends get exasperated with me and ask me to order anything and agree to eat it without blaming me if it turns out anything less than delectable. I make sure that I am exonerated of this blame only then I order without consulting.

Then comes the giving order to the waiter part. This is the time I become very finicky. If the menu does not describe the preparation for the dish, I make it a point to make the poor waiter (notice how he is becoming poorer by the minute) do it. I ask about the sauce base used, how does it taste (mildy spicy, very spicy, sweet :P ) whether it will have mushrooms as ingredient, (I am not a fan of mushrooms you see) etc etc. This is the time I get unkind stares and amused smiles from my friends because they are all waiting for me to finish with my interrogation. And oh did I tell you ordering involves a lot of brain storming too when you have vegetarians friend with you. It involves getting the correct combination of vegetarian and non vegetarian dishes so that we don't exceed our budget or waste food. 

When the food is served and we begin eating, if any one of my friend compliments a dish of my selection my face acquires a glow as if it was me that had laboured in the kitchen to prepare it. When the food does not go down well with my friends I take it personal affront and feel apologetic about it and mumble excuses like it tasted good when I had it in a different restaurant. And I absolutely cannot see good food being wasted so in case we over order and are over stuffed I play mother hen again and serve a little bit on everyone's plate and cajole them to finish it off. I go, "See just a little bit everyone, yes there you go, we can finish it off, there is no need to waste."

Now from the whole description you might wonder why I enjoy eating out so much when I make such a fuss about it and make it sound like such a cumbersome process. Well to me it is not. The whole process of choosing the restaurant , getting there, studying the menu ardently, deciding the various combination of dishes gets me excited to put it mildly and hyper to tell you the truth. But most of all the friends I am surrounded with makes it so enjoyable. I like it that they subconsciously or maybe now consciously know that I like it so much that they hand me the menu as soon as we get to the restaurant. They tell me that they would end up talking and not ordering if I wasn't so hyper about it.  I love the way conversation flows in that set up. How all of us begin talking at once and then try to shush each other and then everybody takes turn to lay out their gossip. I like the way they shake their head when I spill food. I have a knack of doing this always.  Ok I am getting a bit sentimental now *sniff*. Here is to many more such 'eat-outs' with friends. :) :)

When I was Away from Home

Ok this post is going to put a huge question mark on your face regarding my intelligence. However I feel the world needs to know my predicament.

It was 2008, I was fresh out of school and heading for college in a distant land.Away from the cocooned shelter I had enjoyed at my home, I was unleashed on the the big bad real world without proper training. I was on the other hand   very smug that I was fully equipped to take on the challenges of living in the hostel. However I could not have been more wrong.

My antique phone <3

I have always had an aversion to mobile phones. Bloody nuisance is what they are.My mobile phone can be classified as an antique. I have been planning to get a new one for ages but then my present one never gets broken,damaged and of course no one will steal it either. I am not finicky about features of a phone either. One reason is that I am a technology illiterate and moreover I use my phone only for calling and messaging( err isn't it that was it was meant for in the first place?) When buying gadgets I just go on looks. Thats why my laptop is a pretty purple color with flowers  :P and the phone im planning to buy is a cute looking square one.

Square phone <3 which im getting soon <3

And I just drifted from the point. What I was basically trying to say was I avoided using mobile phones when I was at school. What is a landline for anyway? And when I was out I happily forgot my phone at home. Mum had to call on my friends phone. So in college when I was handed a phone by my parents I went to  The Idea shop which gave me a huge form to fill for applying for a new number and handed me some SIM cards and asked me to choose the number I wanted. All this was new for me mind you. I inky pinkyed ponkeyed and chose a number and then happily came out of the shop. After 10 mins I get a call and i stared at my phone in amazement. Who could it be I wondered? since i had not given my phone number to anyone. Turns out it was the Idea shopguy I had very conveniently forgotten to pay for my sim card. :-| I entered the shop sheepishly, apologized profusely and paid up. And thats not the last time that happened. Over the next few days I would forget to pay the photocopy guy, for my juice at the juice stall and so on and so forth. Sometimes I remembered on my own and would run back huffing and puffing to pay up. But other times the shopkeeper had to call out to my retreating back and yell O madam. Aaap paise dena bhul gayi!! Those times i wished i was an ostrich so that i could dig a hole and hide my face in it. 

I soon found out that I am utterly incapable of taking care of myself. I found going to a bank to be a very daunting  task. Everybody would look so sure of themselves there and I would look around like a lost puppy. I had once gone to get a bank statement of my account from the bank. The lady there informed me that I would be charged for it. I immediately whisked out my wallet and said how much. The lady gaped at me incredulously for 5 secs and said it will be cut from your account. Oh ya right! i said and quickly put away my wallet.

I also have an uncanny knack of falling on ridiculously flat surfaces also.Once I went to a medical shop with a friend. There were just two small steps leading down to the shop yet I managed to lose my balance and land on my bum on the second one. Obviously all the heads in the shop turned towards me. And I got up assuring my friend that I was alright and rubbing my wrist where i had got hurt.As I was coming out the shopowner i  noticed the shop owner was trying to get my attention. He was offering me pain relief ointment to put on my wrist which i was still rubbing. I politely declined it. This later on evoked fierce calls of gender biasness from guys to whom i narrated the incident. They protested they wouldnt have an offer of ointment had they had landed on their bums :P

And the one which takes the cake is when i fought with the IDEA shopkeeper. I had gone to get balance for my phone for the first time ever on my own. I asked about the plans he told me abt several such as 100 rs with 80 rs talktime and so on and so forth.However why should i get 80 rs talktime when i am paying 100 rs defied all logic for me and what did talk time mean anyway? The poor guy had trouble making me see sense and finally got exasperated and said Arey aap samjhi nai rahi hai! Rukiye main dusre customer ko dekh ke aata hu. I stood there wearing a hurt expression.  I was moping for having been chided by him. The shopkeeper saw this and came and apologized to me too. He said arey aaj dimag kharab hai mera ! aaj log aarhae hai and kuch khareede bina hi ja rahe hai. Sorry aap pe gusaa hogaya. Then he went forward and explained the concept to me. :P 

Such times I wished I was a kid again. No worries, no daunting bank tasks to do, no need to spend time comprehending technology which changes everyday, when we would be home and would just had to stretch to get our hands on eatables which would magically keep replenshing itself( unlike hostel where one is always out of food stock) :(