I Love Malls... Not

It doesn't matter if the mall has the worst stores on the planet. I doesn't matter if you can't afford anything in the mall. It doesn't matter that the food court sells disgusting sub standard food. A million and two people will be there.

There's something about just going to a mall that excites Indians (at least Chennaiites and Bangaloreans) no end. I know... "BOO Sharanyaa! Generalisation is terrible! You disgrace your country." But seriously, I wouldn't be saying this if half the Indian population wasn't at the mall I went to the other day. They swarm to the mall and just walk around, creating terrible vehicular and pedestrian traffic jams both inside and outside. All the yuck-sick 'machas' will 'sight-adichify' the 'figures' and try ramming into their shoulders. Smooth.

I think that just going to the mall has become something awesome to do. But here's what happens every time I go to a mall;. movie theatres are all booked out, eating places are boring cause you can't eat all the time, I barely ever want that coffee, the clothing stores have the lamest stock of clothes and accessories and there are groups of strange people who just sit around there and watch you.

Among those people are the highschool crowd. Good Lord! They size me up and give me dirty glares as they look up form their Zinger Burger or McSwirl ice cream, like I'm not cool enough for them. Fortunately, I couldn't care less. But the fact that I'm probably shorter than every last one of them doesn't help {even though I'm feisty... like an ant!).

I don't mind the one or two people who are afraid to use the escalator. In fact, I've been known to help a few get over this fear. I even let a strange smelling lady cut off the blood supply to my left arm by clinging on so tight that it turned blue. But more often than not, I've come across entire families of 7 or 8 people who are terrified of the moving staircase. They cling on to each other, yelp, scream, shove each other forward and extend their feet gingerly, threatening to touch the first stair. Inevitably, I am standing behind them, behind all of them, trying to ascend/descend the same set of stairs. I can't help them all!! (Because that's how I roll)

You know the other thing that bothers me about malls. Take a wild guess. What happens when there are at least 1000 people walking around, talking and perspiring in an enclosure? That's right! They generate heat! This makes the air conditioning highly ineffective. In my mind, people's perspiration heat waves are red and the air conditioner waves are blue, and they have an epic purple battle where the redness emerges victorious. It's painfully stuffy in there.

So do me a favour, the next time you feel like going to a mall to loiter, don't.

Territorial Pissings

Don't you just love the smell of stale urine wafting your way? Even if you have no intention of sniffing it; hell, even if you resist sniffing it with all your might, those little tendrils of yellow smell pry open your nostrils and weasel their way into your olfactory sensitivities.

I think that this compulsive need to pee on the streets. I was walking down the road leading to the beach tonight and I noticed about 7 distinct areas which smelled very strongly of pee, characterised by drippy marks running down the wall. What I found even more curious is that there was a free public toilet just around the corner which didn't smell of urine at all.

So I can only attribute this road-peeing to primal territorial tendencies. That way, the auto drivers now own most of Chennai. But seriously, how can it even be territorially effective? Won't your pee scent get mixed with other pee scents and make us believe that a strange hybrid of about 10 men own the same spot?

I like that the city has been getting innovative in trying to stop these excretory offenders. They paint the walls with pictures of gods, religious symbols and in the case of Bangalore, they just paint may 'pretty' pictures all over the walls. I hope this works but something tells me the urge to pee on a wall is greater than all these base aesthetic and possibly even religious considerations.

But somewhere down the line, I don't blame a lot of them. Especially the ones who don't work in offices with proper pee-space. The number of places available for bladder relief are few and not very frequent. Therefore it's probably a choice they're making between the wall and their pants. The choice is very obvious and the smell is very evident.

If only pee smelled like Cool Water by Davidoff. [Because everyone I've ever come across claims to like that perfume]

A Love Letter To The Electricity Department

It’s like this. The Bangalore City Electricity Department (hereinafter referred to as Those Lousy A$$%$^@# [TLA]) woke up one day and said “#$@! this city! We don’t give a flying fart in space about what the people need or what we’re here to do. Who needs electricity?”

So the result of this wonderful decision is that the entire city doesn’t have any power for most of the day. The areas the high-flyers don’t live in are plagued by perpetual power cuts. They started off by testing it out. They cut the power two times a day for one hour each; once at 10 in the morning and once sometime in the evening. Okay, we grumbled. But we got used to it.

The past 3 days have been nothing short of excruciating. They decided to screw us over once and for all. Here’s the schedule for today:
10:00: Power Cut
11:00: Power Returns
12:00: Power Cut
14:00: Power Returns
15:30: Power Cut
17:00: Power Returns
18:00: Power Cut
18:30: Power Returns
19:30: Power Cut
21:00: Still no power

So I think that they give us power only in order to possibly charge our gadgets at regular intervals and use the same to entertain ourselves when the power is gone. Also, they have failed to realise that due to this very interesting phenomenon called ‘Global Warming’ (which can now be equated to a meme, honestly), it’s so blazing hot that it hurts to move.

Now I can’t quite fathom why this has to happen but rumour has it that the new BJP government refuses to borrow power from the Tamil Nadu and Kerala power grids which Karnataka has been tapping into for a while now. I would research this but my modem isn’t working and when the power returns, I’ll probably have just enough time to upload this before the world goes black again.

The other reason that sounds very feasible to me is that they’re trying to get us in touch with our roots. They want us to remember what it was lie to be our forefathers. Before the invention of electricity. Before electricity dependence. Before bloody televisions and the internet. When all we could do is sit around a fire, scratch our heads and stare at each others’ faces (and then maybe club each other to death due to pure boredom).

But despite these excellent intentions of TLA, I can’t help but to want more time to charge my phone. Reasonable request, yes?

I can’t help but to think that due to this chronic power cut disease that this unsustainable city is spiralling downwards into mutual powerlessness. No pun intended. Think about it, if the power is gone for more than half the day, then we’re paying half the electricity bill we’d be paying otherwise, which means less revenue for the department. Sure, you can say that they’re just “load shedding” and already have enough people consuming power. But the last time I checked, that’s not how the economy works. Supply needs to rise to meet demand, yes?

I guess the only positive that came out of this power situation is the fact that I feel lousy, miserable and angry enough to write this blog post.

I’d like to end with a letter to the electricity department.

Dear Bengaluru City Electricity Department,

Chennagidiya? Oota aitha? Then get off your lazy arses and work on getting this situation sorted out.

As much as we all love a good power cut, this is overkill. It was refreshing in the beginning. I almost enjoyed feeling the anonymous beads of sweat slide down my spine every now and again while sitting in darkness without any gadgets. But after 3 times a day, it becomes a lot less fun. Even the wonderful single-player games I’d invented like “Guess When The Power Will Return”, “Plot Innovative Ways To Murder Electricity Department Reps” and “Count Your Own Toes In The Dark and Check If The Number Matches Up When The Power Returns” have become a lot less entertaining.

If the problem is higher up in the government, I suggest that you collaborate with the Hoysala and stage a coup. Overthrow the Electricity-Demon and restore power to this godforsaken city. Please.

You see, it’s too hot to do any of the following activities:
1. Eat
2. Sleep
3. Study
4. Go Out
5. Live
Therefore, all we can do is drink liquids and watch ourselves cook in the heat. Because the development authority around here decided to uproot every tree in sight so we don’t have any hope for a cool breeze either.

So really, as enjoyable as I’ve found your sadistic games of wanting to kill me with a combination of heat, boredom and general aimless misery inflicted due to lack of power, get your act together or I will stab you in the eye… with a knife… with a handle shaped like a banana. You will regret it.

Regards,
Sharanyaa WillKillForElectricity

Oh Joy! Moral Police!

There's something highly appealing about an institution dictating morality and culture to you. It just satisfies me to know that there's a higher force dictating right and wrong to me. Thank God for the security on campus too! Those guards in Khaki are the best, they yell and threaten you for all the 'wrong' things you do like hugging members of the opposite sex, wearing t-shirts as opposed to an Indian print top of the same length, talking in clusters and the latest, listening to your iPod.

I think that my campus is one of the only ones in which every single employee of the institution takes complete and utter liberty to belt you for whatever you do. If you need a piece of paper stamped form then, they never do it without pretending you've asked them for an arm, leg, their genitals and their babies before they actually stamp the damn thing. Therefore, a 3 second process takes 7 minutes in lectures, 4 minutes in making you shuffle between different offices, 6 minutes in verification and another 12 wasted in argument. Bureaucracy in all it's glory.

The dress code policing is almost as hilarious as the mingling-with-members-of-the-opposite-sex policing. A couple of friends of mine [a boy and a girl] were walking down slightly later and the boy put his hand on her shoulder, like a Genie rising out of the very same action, a moustachioed guard appears and uses his voice of authority to say "Yeh Lalbagh hain kya?" ["is this a garden?"].

The 'Office of Exams' is by far, the best. It's so interesting that all the clerks there make you feel so terrible about doing badly just because they have access to your scores. They are sarcastic, mean and condescending. Took me a while to figure out that they must not have done too well in their exams to have landed up stamping and filing at my university. But who gives? They take the liberty to tell you that you suck and you're not gonna succeed and such like. What?

I feel loved!

So Not Naked?

Is it just me or are Hollywood celebrities shedding more and more clothes these days? While the "good girl gone bad" theme is definitely in, how stupid do you have to be to keep naked pictures of yourself for people to easily access and publish?

It started off with Miley Cyrus' photos where she was wearing just underclothes. She took it on her webcam or something and ultimately it landed up on every teenage or pedophilic male's computer. Parents also somehow caught a whiff of this widely publicised scandal and lashed out at the teen star for betraying their trust and corrupting their 15 year old kids' minds. Are you kidding me? Every 15 year old now knows everything there is to know about the birds and the bees. I hate to break it to you, parents, but Miley or no Miley, they'd probably be doing the same things.

Harry Potter star Danielle Radcliffe played a role in a theatre production called Equus. It was about a disturbed boy who was aroused by horses and hence rode them naked. Posters came out of the previously bespectacled little wizard-boy sporting six-pack abs and completely shirtless. In fact, he was completely naked during the play. Parents were infuriated again by the fact that young Harry Potter was now being corrupt and sexual. Firstly, he was 19 or 20 when he did this and he wanted to explore different aspects of his career. Leave him be. Secondly, where were you when Harry Potter himself was running around "snogging" Cho Chang and Ginny? Nobody is forcing you to take your kids to the play and watch Radcliffe parade around naked.

Then came Vanessa Hudgens. Ah, you stupid stupid girl. What's wrong with you? She took nude pictures of herself on her phone camera and stored them for god knows what. Her phone got hacked and next thing you know, those pictures are all over the internet. The sweet and holy "High School Musical" star then became a bad, bad girl. After clearing out all the press, one of two things happened:

1. She missed the publicity desperately

2. She got hit on the head so hard that she forgot that she shouldn't be stupid

I say this because the girl took more pictures of herself naked on the same phone which got hacked again and there we have it! More pictures of Ms. Hudgens and her girlyparts! I wonder how Zac Efron feels knowing that half the world has seen his girlfriend naked.

All of this along with Britney Spears showing off her *cough cough*, Cassie Ventura and her nude photos and probably a whole archive of C-List celebrities have made scandals and controversies a lot less scandalous and controversial. Simply because the next time I hear that someone or the other has nude photos of themselves on the internet, I'm just not surprised. In so far as it being a publicity stunt, I guess the fact that I'm writing about it makes it pretty clear that nakey-nakey time sells!

Wednesday Woes: University Food

To explain the title, this is a little concept I'm experimenting with. A Wednesday Woe is anything I feel not-so-happy about on a Wednesday. Well, not necessarily on a Wednesday but I write about it on Wednesday; just because it's a convenient time of the week. I'm hoping this can turn into something I can do once in two weeks, which makes it twice a month. We can't have a Wednesday Woe overdose now, can we? And you know what's even more exciting? My new Adopt-A-Woe programme! This involves you naming a 'woe' of yours and me adopting the ones I connect with and writing about it. Alright, who am I kidding? That's a fancy way of me asking for suggestions. Anyway, here we go.

I haven't heard any Indian student tell me that their University has great food on campus. Don't pick now to raid the comments page and tell me that your university has great food, cause if it did, you would have told me earlier.

My university has four places where you can catch a bite to eat. All four of them serve trash. I don't know how that's even possible. The food is bad, substandard, watery, not filling and all in all, unsatisfactory. I'm sure you can take the same ingredients, spend the same amount of money, and make much much better food. Just look at those places that open just outside the university gates. They are cheaper, serve better food and are much faster. Employ them!

Karnataka Sambar is also prevalent in my canteen. Sambar is supposed to be a thickish and spicy/salty gravy-type thing. Karnataka Sambar has sugar added to that. It is the oddest tasting thing. The pastries are strange and squishy, the coffee is watery, the food is oily so I stick to one principle. If it's not pre-packaged, it probably won't taste good.

But this institution of mine became smart this semester and introduced a juice and sandwich joint. Though I get sick of eating sandwiches everyday, at least there is one thing on campus worth eating.

So while I go and figure out if there is actually a canteen-conspiracy to make us all lose weight, drop a comment and share a woe. You will be thanked with e-hugs and appreciation from the bottom of my heart.

I Am Competing. w00t

I know I blog for fun but a little exposure wouldn't hurt, right.

The Colors Magazine has a Blog Contest! So I thought I'd give it a try! Anyone interested in participating can do so by looking into this link right here.

And if hyperlinks confuse you, just click on this: http://www.thecolorsmagazine.com/index.php/2010/01/blogcontest-show-your-best/

If I win, I will send you all a hug. If I don't, I won't. It depends on how good looking you are.