I am fat and ugly

Anyone who saw the Korean movie 200 Pounds Beauty know exactly what I will talk about today. But the solution is not always going under the knife or other quick-fix solutions

Many of my friends often complain about their weight problem. They crib and cry how unfair life is giving them the few extra pounds. But very often they fail to see that they are the "doers of the doing"(wow! that rhymes somewhere in my mind :P) . Only hogging and no playing makes Jill a fat cow. I have come across the following three types.

1. I don't care cow: Very dangerous type. Once upon a time they decided to do some dieting. When it didn't work but made them more hungry instead, they simply gave up. Now they just don't care 'coz they are overly depressed with their appearance. They hog double giving their depression as an excuse.  A serious case of overeating

2.Diet till I die cow: They are the hyper cousins of the above variety of cows. One morning they wake up to find out that they won't fit into their favorite pair of jeans. And then they stop eating completely, maybe just one meal a day. Often leads to serious eating disorders like anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa etc. This leads to very dangerous symptoms. Trying to quick-fix their problems, they slowly become the third type.

3.Pill popping cow:If the last ones were dangerous, this one is suicidal. There is no coming back because the market is filled with loads of Orlistats, Sibutramines, Symlins etc. and you have easy access to them. Also available are the cellulite treatments. A little bit of snooping in Allmart showed there are three types of weight loss creams being sold at present in the VIT campus. Next best sell to the fairness cream products. 

Now I may continue ranting about the pitfalls of dieting etc. But thats not the point. You may be on the heavier side but its not the end of the world. Instead of resorting to the short-cuts, do it the right way. Do exercise. A little bit of workout won't kill anyone(Unless  you are medically adviced not to.) So put on your running shoes and sweat your fats out. Its not just about looking beautiful, its about staying healthy.  And working out will not make you any less feminine. Do the cardios regularly and you may not even have to cut out your favorite chocolate!The path is difficult and the results are slow. Atleast it won't harm you.

Instant weight reducing regime does this. Blow the bubblegum and then burst it. Continue it for sometime and after the 5th-6th time, the gum becomes loose.Same thing happens to your body. It sags at unwanted places owing to the sudden weight loss, followed by ugly stretch marks. And the body takes a funnel-shape.Most importantly you lose the glow in your face.

Controlling the palate is again very difficult task. Cut down the fattening foods but do treat yourself once in a while. In the end, its a win-win situation. Drink lots and lots of water.If you are not into work outs, try yoga. But never starve yourself. Its a crime. Our body is the most amazing gift of nature. Love and respect it.

If nothing mentioned above works for you, try the Vatsyayana way of losing weight! ;)

Random thoughts

Ever since the high court of Tamil Nadu passed the decision of closing of all the colleges in the region, students have been homebound in flocks. Its interesting to see their eagerness in “going home” for they tend to forget everything else. The world around them becomes blur coz then they just move towards one single goal. Home.  What a beauty!

Somehow I didn’t catch this home fever and stayed back. Not that I don’t have a home and don’t enjoy the company of the people I love. Its just that strangely, the eagerness wasn’t there. Or maybe I was plain lazy. My dear mother, God bless her soul, was worried about me staying in the almost empty campus. But how can I make her understand that I enjoy this emptiness. Many would say that I am under some kind of weird depression mumbo-jumbo. But the truth is I love the empty hallways, the almost empty campus and mostly the empty hostel corridors. Sounds ghastly to some, but its beautiful. Lesser the people, lesser is the effort required to connect with them. Humans have this strange behavior of finding connection with others. But I don’t see anything humane enough when a person has to forgo himself inorder to blend in.

Being a chronic loner, I like this sudden change in campus. Atleast I don’t have to pretend that I am having a great time in the crowd and connecting with people. Its not that I hate human contact, but after sometime its unbearable. They talk, shout, scream, laugh, cry a lot…making a lot of noise. Unfortunately you can’t “mute” them and so you adjust or simply blend in.

The advertisements scream offers like “Run away to the exotic Caribbean”   or “Enjoy quality family time in Europe” or “Find paradise in the Greek islands” or “Celebrate the silence of the Himalayas”. Unfortunately these promises are short lived and very commercial. These places are always way too crowded with tourists. You just can’t escape the noise. If I ever had a chance of such retreats, I believe I would find myself in some place surrounded by hills. Just standing on the edge of the cliff and facing the wide void ahead, the green valley below with the river flowing towards the rising sun, can be out of some artist’s canvas. Or maybe somewhere such a beauty do exists. I wonder how it would feel falling off that cliff with the air rushing past my face and engulfing me. Its not like dying but more of flying away over the valley seconds before hitting the ground…. 

A musical hangover

Last evening was the craziest in months...its Riviera'09! celebrating the 25th year of VITU. The best part of the 1st day of this fest is the musical pot-pourri. In one day, u simply get a taste of different types of music. Sometimes u tend to miss some because there ain't enough time to catch up with all of them.

12.30 PM: Prelims of HEADBANGER'S KALL. College bands especially from south(I wonder why they never call any1 4rm north!) did their gig. Some of them were really sad to the core. There was this one girl vocalist band and they made us listen a torturous version of "Zombie". Trust me sister, u better stick to classical music! 

The worse part is my favorite drummer was missing. Last year he enthralled the crowd with his superb drumming plus leading the vocals.

4.10 PM: Finals of HEADBANGER'S KALL: Madhouse shook the entire crowd with their innovative Arabic fusion. Followed by the powerful chinese rock. Hi5 to Pritam on vocals! E-Flat too amazed us with their Indian fusion. At the same time, Touchwood was a great disappointment. Their music was way too bleak and had strains of pop in it. Sadly that was the inhouse band and they were awesomely shitty. Finally towards the end, there was this band(ummm....greyshack?!?! Dont rem d name) who thrashed the crowd. Now this is what the stage was meant for. They had the style, the guts and some real hardcore music. My neck almost snaped and my ears went deaf after their performance. They did justice to that event.

7.45 PM: RAGHU DIXIT PROJECT: They did the opening of the evening extravaganza. Beautiful original piece of work. My personal favorites "I still love you" and "Smoking". But the crowd response was too low. Thats what happens when you perform in a total diverse crowd. Many of them were not familiar to that music and many of them didn't even bother to listen. Many of them couldn't even even make out whether he was singing in Hindi, English or Kannada. Result: More boo-s than yay-s!

9.20 PM: VISHAL-SHEKHAR:The crowd loves dhin-chak and they delivered it. For the next 3 hours the stage was on fire. They sang their top bollywood numbers and the whole crowed screamed,danced and jumped. And then there were the inbetween repartees which just added to the onstage magic. Crazy numbers like "Dil dance maare" to romantic ballads like "Suno na" simply entralled the crowd. Even songs like "Allah ke bande" and "Tu aashiqui hain" captured our hearts. Hard stuff like "Dil haara" drove the crowd to frenzy! The duo gave us a night to remember. My personal favorite was "Desi girl" which they played in the end. What A NIGHT!

It was after midnight when we returned to hostel. My neck, throat, head, legs.....gone baby gone! I woke up today with a headache and a very hazy mind....cluttered with music. What a hangover!

Chasing Dreams and Butterflies- Part 1

This is the story of a girl called Red who loves chasing Yellow butterflies. Red lives in the Green mountains which touches the Blue skies. This was her world. It was her dream was to catch all the Yellow butterflies and make them into a beautiful ladder, so that she could climb high up the Blue skies. Now these butterflies lived in the White valley. Red had no idea where this valley was. All she knew was that she needed those butterflies. Thus began her journey of chasing dreams and butterflies....

My Industrial Visit

Thats my class....more or less :P(in the CPCL township)

Finally the chemical batch ’09 went for the much pending industrial visit. And it was fun. Actually, FUN. The 10 hrs journey to Chennai Petro Chemical Limited was really tiresome. Initially I was really skeptical about taking the trip for my batch was infamous troublemakers in the entire school. But I was wrong. The entire 36hrs that I spent with my class was amazing. Never in 4 years I had so much fun. And it would be really unfair to tell about my trip in just one post. Lets ‘fractionate’ the trip to the refining industry and back, into 3 ‘cuts’ :P

Cut 1: it all started with a “Jo bole so nihal..” around 11pm. With top numbers blaring from the speakers, the bus “floor” was on fire. Our class Pappu (Devansh) was all in mood to prove that he can really dance ;) Few of them joined him in what looked more like jumping than dancing. Along with the hootings, it was just a warm up. Dreading a disaster, I simply looked out of the window and turned on my player. Didn’t realize when I dozed off but on waking up, found the dance session was over. It was past 1 am and this time something else was on cards – Antakshiri. Now this was too good to miss for typical “driver collection” songs were being sung. I joined Pappu and Bansal’s team. It was more of shouting and having fun then singing. It began with just few of us but then the entire bus was crooning expect the 8 other girls of my class. Now Megha and Afrin were on vomiting spree and the rest 6 were sleeping?!?!?!
It was past 3am when we were all exhausted of songs and energy. Even our throats hurt. Finally the two faculty members there asked us to shut up and let them sleep. So when the lights went off, Bansal’s “Chutkule” session started. Anand has an awesome gift of gab. Each joke killed us with laughter and ended with us shouting “Encore! Encore!”
Slept around 5.30 am only to wake up to the sound of Mote(Mohit) clicking pictures of the rising sun and the sleeping beauties..lol
We reached CPCL township around 7am and after a 2 hr break we started for the refinery. Now what we learned there was doubtable for when the presentation started, we all dozed off in the ac conference hall. The tour of the plant was awesome though. Finally I got 2 see the “stripper” of chemical plants (btw,it’s a gas/liquid stripping column ;)). By midday it was really hot and after lunch in the plant canteen, we hurried back to our bus which was like a furnace. We then started for the second part of the journey : the BEACH.

Surving Life and Love

Lately I have been noticing that people come to me asking for advice on relationships.. I mean its ironical 'coz I am the last person to know about relationships...lol.. And these people are my friends so I m in a fix. I mean what do I say to a girl whoz been dumped recently and now hates men.. ?!?! Even though I am a feminist at heart,paint my toenails pink n black and listen 2 rock only....that doesn't mean I am a man-hater. I love my dad, my bro and my dear BFFs (Sid n Chey) and do believe that there are few good men still left.
My pathetic advice 2 her on being indifferent to the entire situation was received with a sigh. I realised she expected something more filmy like calling her ex names, or planning something evil to trouble him until he is sorry etc. etc. But that was old ME. I just don't believe in such extremes anymore. I have fallen so many times and picked myself up that now I welcome and acknowledge the presence of setbacks in life. And so when I couldn't give my friend any better advice, I just made her listen to Let It Be and let John,Paul,Ringo and George teach her this imprtant lesson on life and love.

When I find myself in times of trouble, mother Mary comes to me,
speaking words of wisdom, let it be.
And in my hour of darkness she is standing right in front of me,
speaking words of wisdom, let it be.

Let it be, let it be, let it be, let it be.
Whisper words of wisdom, let it be.

And when the broken hearted people living in the world agree,
there will be an answer, let it be.
For though they may be parted there is still a chance that they will see,
there will be an answer. let it be.

Let it be, let it be, .....

And when the night is cloudy, there is still a light, that shines on me,
shine until tomorrow, let it be.
I wake up to the sound of music, mother Mary comes to me,
speaking words of wisdom, let it be. Let it be, let it be, .....