Reddy's Cinderella Story

Once upon a time there lived a tall, dark prince(ss). Her name was Harsha Reddy. She had 2 step-sisters, Srajna and Swati, and an evil step-mother, Anjali.

Her stepsisters had everything. But for the poor unhappy girl, there was nothing at all. No dresses, only her stepsisters’ hand-me-downs. No lovely dishes, nothing but scraps. Even when she bought her own meals, others used to eat them up. She had to work hard all day, sitting in COM1 and coding.

Reddy used to spend long hours all alone talking to her laptop. The laptop used to tell her, "Cheer up! You have something neither of your stepsisters has and that is beauty." It was quite true. Reddy, even when dressed in old rags, was a lovely girl.

Her graduation was to be held at the grand Hon Sui Sen auditorium and the stepsisters were getting ready to go. Reddy didn't even dare ask if she could go too. She knew very well what the answer would be: "You? You're staying at home to wash the dishes, scrub the floors and do the projects and lab reports for your stepsisters. They will come home tired and very sleepy."

Suddenly something amazing happened. As Reddy was sitting all alone, there was a burst of light and a fairy appeared. She said "Don't be alarmed Reddy. My name is Saaket. I am your fairy Godmother. I let people take my case so that you will be spared. I know you would love to go to the graduation. And so you shall!" "How can I, dressed in rags?" Reddy asked, "My batchmates will turn me away!"

The fairy smiled. With a flick of her magic wand Reddy found herself wearing the most beautiful WHITE dress she had ever seen. "Now for your coach," said the fairy; "A real lady would never go to a ball on foot! Quick! Get me a pumpkin!" "Oh of course," said Cinderella, and brought back Akshay. The fairy turned him into a carriage and reminded Reddy that she should be back before midnight else she would get lost in the darkness of the night.

As she rode away to the graduation, Reddy thanked her lucky stars for having sent her such a wonderful fairy Godmother in the form of Saaket.

Reddy had a wonderful time at the ball. She met her Prince Charming, a handsome young man with a tendency to go pink every now and then. She didn't even realize when the time flew by. But when she heard the first stroke of midnight, she remembered what the fairy had said, and without a word of goodbye she slipped from the Prince's arms and ran down the steps. As she ran she lost one of her high heeled slippers, but not for a moment did she dream of stopping to pick it up! If the last stroke of midnight were to sound... oh... what a disaster that would be! Out she fled and vanished into the night.

The Prince, who was now madly in love with her, picked up the slipper and said to his batchmates, “Go and search everywhere for the girl whose foot this slipper fits. I will never be content until I find her!”

And since then the hunt for the beautiful dark princess has continued.

[THE END]

Older. But none the wiser.

:'(

I am going to get old very soon. My age will no longer start with 1. I will no longer be a teenager. I will feel old (though not any wiser) when I meet JC kids who are 15 or 16. It feels so long ago when I was 15 and had just come to Singapore.

But other than the occasional checking of the 20-25 age group checkbox, will anything else be different? There are so many people who have done so many more things by the time they are 20. Some stupid guy invented polarizers when he was an undergraduate! And I have to crack my head open just to solve my tutorials.

Maybe I should make a list of things to do for every year from now on and make sure I complete it. Like Phoebe. Hmmm.

Look how PRETTY!!

Nate Archibald
From Gossip Girl
Original name Chace Crawfurd
IS SO PRETTY! He's like autumn. In a package. Like potpourri :D
I mean look at him.
His perfect smile.
Such perfect pics.
SO PRETTY!! :)

जीवन के सफर में राही
मिलते हैं बिछड़ जाने को
और दे जाते हैं यादें
तन्हाई में तड़पाने को |

Expectations ruin everything.

I miss the days when we did not live with the people whom we called friends. When you just met them during the day, had fun, and then went back home. And then maybe tuition to meet a different group of people.

The problem with living with your friends is that they become like your family. And once they become your family, you start expecting things from them that you normally would not. And once you do that, disillusionment is bound to follow.

So, as I said, expectations are pointless, because they ruin everything.

Grey wisdom

There's an old proverb that says you can't choose your family. You take what fate hands you. And like them or not, love them or not, understand them or not, you cope. Then there's the school of thought that says the family you're born into is simply a starting point. They feed you, clothe you, and take care of you until you're ready to go out into the world. There you find your own tribe.

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Don't wonder why people go crazy. Wonder why they don't.

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When you're young, nothing is scary, that's the beautiful thing. I know I'm not young anymore because now I'm scared of stuff.

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You know how when you were a little kid and you believed in fairy tales, that fantasy of what your life would be. You would lie in bed at night and close your eyes and you had complete and utter faith. Santa Claus, the Tooth Fairy, Prince Charming, they were so close you could taste them, but eventually you grow up, one day you open your eyes and the fairy tale disappears.

Most people turn to the things and people they can trust. But the thing is its hard to let go of that fairy tale entirely because almost everyone has that smallest bit of hope, of faith, that one day they will open their eyes and it will come true.

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A couple of hundred years ago, Benjamin Franklin shared with the world the secret of his success. Never leave that till tomorrow, he said, which you can do today. This is the man who discovered electricity. You think more people would listen to what he had to say.

I don't know why we put things off, but if I had to guess, I'd have to say it has a lot to do with fear. Fear of failure, fear of rejection, sometimes the fear is just of making a decision, because what if you're wrong? What if you're making a mistake you can't undo?

The early bird catches the worm. A stitch in time saves nine. He who hesitates is lost. We can't pretend we hadn't been told. We've all heard the proverbs, heard the philosophers, heard our grandparents warning us about wasted time, heard the damn poets urging us to seize the day.

Still sometimes we have to see for ourselves. We have to make our own mistakes. We have to learn our own lessons. We have to sweep today's possibility under tomorrow's rug until we can't anymore. Until we finally understand for ourselves what Benjamin Franklin really meant.

That knowing is better than wondering, that waking is better than sleeping, and even the biggest failure, even the worst, beat the hell out of never trying.

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Maybe we like the pain. Maybe we're wired that way. Because without it, I don't know; maybe we just wouldn't feel real. What's that saying? Why do I keep hitting myself with a hammer? Because it feels so good when I stop.

Change is good (?)

I don't like the new Facebook. Frankly, I didn't like it when they changed it last time either. When I opened Facebook just now, it opened the old version of the homepage again. And it somehow brought with it an overwhelming sense of relief and nostalgia. Ok it didn't and I'm just being dramatic, but it did feel good. It was familiar.

I don't like change. I am never comfortable with it. Its one of the reasons I don't like trying out new dishes. I like to stick to what I know and am familiar with.

Which is why I'm a little concerned about how I will deal with a whole semester of everything so overwhelmingly new.

People in my life

People are so interesting.


The people I would like to thank for being there (recognise yourself - more than 1 description can suit you):

1. The person who is very predictable in the way they will bug you, and you sometimes voluntarily seek them out to be bugged, when you're very bored.

2. The person who needs things to be black and white, and is constantly at battle with the world because its so full of grey.

3. The person trying to get back on their feet and accept life for what it is now, and what it will never be, despite all their hopes.

4. The person who is constantly on the path of self-discovery.

5. The person whom I call at least once a day, and re-create my whole day's happenings to.

6. The person who would take a few days to find out after I have a life-threatening accident, mainly because having me as a part of their life is of no benefit to them.

7. The person who has helped me transform my thinking about men. In a good way or bad way, depends.

8. The person whose usually unstable life has found a safe harbour to anchor in.

9. The person who goes missing, coming back for a gulp of breath of the real world only once in a while.

10. The person you know will get very concerned when anything goes wrong with you and you know you can depend on them.

"Today Has Been OK"

"If love were enough, she'd still be here with you."

Friends tell me it's spring
My window show the same
Without you here the seasons pass me by
I know you were not new
That loved like me and you
All the same I miss you
Today has been ok
Today has been ok

The preacher lost his son
He's known by all in town
He found him with another son of God
Feeding on the prayer
Nevermind what God said
But love had lost its cause
And I thought today had been ok
Today has been ok
Today has been ok

Wind has burned your skin
The lovely air so thin
The salty water's underneath your feet
No one's gone in vain
Here is where you'll stay
'Cause life has been insane but
Today has been ok
Today has been ok
Today has been ok
Today has been ok

I love this song, specially when it comes up in Grey's.

Blue. And yellow and red and green.

I feel the need to document this feeling. Since I so rarely have it. I'm homesick.

Due to Holi. It was like a given at home. You're gonna get up early morning on Holi, cover yourself with oil so that the scrubbing process later would be easier. And you would help mum make gujhiya, if you could not get out of it by making a "But I need to study!" excuse. Then you would eat lots of gujhiyas, right out of the kadhai, despite the fact that the khoya inside was too hot.

Then you would go and get generously coloured by neighbours and all the random people in the world whom you saw only on Holi and such occasions. Oh and the aunty who was very scared of colours and would hide at home and tell her kids to tell everyone who came that she wasn't home. And how the house was literally broken into and she was eventually coloured, despite the claim everyone made "bas teeka lagayenge".

I even remember the route that was taken every year. The pichkaris and all. And the gulal. And the buckets of coloured water that were made and kept at home in the porch. So that they could be dumped on people who came to visit. But somehow or the other ended up on you. And the 'geela' purplish-pink colour that runs when you bathe and how people would empty the whole packet on your head, so that when you had a bath, a few buckets of water would change colour ever so fast.

And then the eating of sweets with your hands a combination of colours.

Oh and then the long long baths. And the scrubbing. Wah.. I miss Holi! :)

Interesting links

UFO sightings!

Facebook group with the title "I have more Foreign Policy Experience than Sarah Palin"

Holi ke din dil khil jaate hai rangon mein rang mil jaate hain..

So I just realized its Holi today. HAPPY HOLI! I really look forward to playing with colours some day soon :)

And I got randomly reminded of my neighbours. My neighbours had some friends who used to come around 2pm on Holi when everyone had had a long, painful bath and were finally relatively clean. And they used to paint them in silver paint, every year!!

Of unproductive days and nights

So I just wasted about 5 hours plus doing jackshit. Watched Batman Begins - kinda interesting. And Friends some more. And Alchemy and Chuzzle (Yahoo! Games). And re-opened the same sites about 5 times each. But apparently no news seems to come up in 5 hours. BBC is as depressing as ever. TOI is as stupid as ever. Facebook is not used much by humans anymore, no notifications. The little red flag at the bottom right somehow usually cheers me up. Not even many status updates. So basically I did nothing useful.

I haven't even had dinner. Don't think I'm going to either, unless someone drags me out of the room. I can't remember if I had any yesterday.

And I also think that I should take my blog off the net. So that I don't piss off/depress any more people with descriptions of my interesting state of affairs.
Ahh wth this blows.