Prologue : This blog does not care for the feelings of Thalimpu Reddy. This is my version of a story that had been told to me and many others, in the first person. This post is purely, a practice of vendetta against him as I have had to bear the brunt of his TRIES in this nation. I have already done enough to shut him up with due help from extremely disgruntled and cooperating friends in the town of Gainesville. But then after all, Yeh Dil Maange More.
There was a time when Thalimpu Reddy went by one of the common names of a Hindu God, whose IUPAC equivalent is the Sun. This is a story of the times when our Thalimpu Reddy, was in school. He was, as he is now, very much pretending to be the goody goody boy. He was , as he is now, failing miserably at that. Well, almost. Because there was one person, who felt otherwise. That person bought his story.
Considering the frailties of the anachronistic memory of the author, this story can be dated to the season of 2000-01 with a tolerance of one year towards negative time. This was the time when our hero used to go to school with his cousins. It so happened, that none in his class bought his theory of goodygoodyness, but as it so often happens, he was proposing it to the wrong audience. In his cousin’s class, there was this innocent dame, who got enthralled by this theory and got deeply involved with it. Her mind started weaving stories ( just like this one ), and started taking genuine interest in Thalimpu Reddy. But then again, which gullible female, who ended up having a good opinion about him, would not want a tall, dark and handsome hunk to be her knight in shining armour.
And so started the series of short sightings. Short, since the boundaries of classrooms was becoming a serious barrier for her. She could not get to see him for much of the time in school. Our hero, even went off home for lunch, which seriously reduced her chances. But this girl was very determined and made every effort to see him. Mind you, there wasn’t any talking as yet. Ah the pleasures and pains of teenage love! One sight of the beloved and the heart fills with joy. Her only way of getting in contact with him was his cousin in her class and use that way she did. Our hero, too involved in getting more believers to bite into his theory, was totally oblivious to all of this. Why? Well, we all know why.
These mini meetings and small talk was not getting her anywhere. She for one, wanted to pour her heart
to him, but couldn’t. From all that she had learned Children’s Knowledge Bank Volumes 1 - 6, Bollywood songs and Tollywood movies, it was very clear to her that he was expected to start the confession/ proposal. She took her time, tried every little way possible, to let him be aware of her feelings without actually doing it. But, it was Thalimpu Reddy, and for people who know him well it is common knowledge that there are certain things even when directly told, with absolutely no allusions , still do not attract his attention ( further stories on this in the very distant future ).
There came a day, when she decided that she couldn’t hold it any more and that she had to express her feelings. She decided upon penning a letter, as she knew she would not be able to face him and tell it. Fair play I say. The letter reached our hero via the obvious postperson, the cousin.
It is every schoolboy’s dream that he have a beautiful girl as his girlfriend. Not so much for the possible love, care , attention and the related melodramatic crap. No. That never matters does it. It is for the sheer pleasure of “Neighbour’s Envy. Owner’s Pride”.
Got sidetracked there a bit. Yeah , our hero got the letter. Thrilled to bits was he? No.Since he was the prophet of goodygoodyness, he decided that he was not part of the every schoolboy clan described in the previous paragraph. He was scared as hell. He saw this as a possible blot on his theory and that this could seriously damage his ( non-existent ) good boy image. She was seeing this as a lifelong commitment. He was seeing this as a battle. He sent message through emissaries( who else but the cousins ) and called for a meeting.
So on one fateful evening after school hours, the meeting began. For her, it was an opportunity for a prolonged sighting and possible exchange of pleasantries by word and not blink. Little did she know of what was in store for her and how life changing it would end up being. Thalimpu Reddy, started talking. Not one pleasant word from him. He started shredding all her dreams that she had built up over these days. Infatuation it was, that we all agree, but in one ruthless speech involving words such as education,career, future, parents,culture, morals, RSS, principal, curd, lassi and buttermilk, he ruthlessly shattered all the enthusiasm , all that could have been, in one go. She wept. Well that was all she could do then.
Days passed by. She still wept. Every right she had to that. That was the least she was entitled to do, as further efforts to contact him through emissaries or even eye-talk to him were repeatedly turned down.
And they lived happily ever after, separately.
Epilogue : This blog still does not care for the feelings of Thalimpu Reddy. But it cares for that girl and is sympathetic towards her and all that she endured in the times described in the story and the times left out of the story.
Notes : Due to repeated re-telling of this story, many discrepancies have entered the actual story. Pepsi Blue or Chota Pepsi were not contemporary drinks, as research suggests that Pepsi Blue was released in India as a special edition drink sold only during the ICC Cricket WC 2003 and 200ml Chota Pepsi bottles were introduced during 2002.
This blogs intends to wish Thalimpu Reddy, a Very Happy Birthday.
He underwent this and later he gifted himself one of the most costliest gifts, an ISD call so that ALL ( pun intended, he wanted only one, we all know that don’t we :P ) our friends could wish him.
I know it has been a tough time for him, missing someone so much over the last 2-3 days, due to the momentous occasions that COULD have BEEn, but don’t worry ra, all will BEE well in the end.
Pandaga Sesko :)
More than 3 months have gone by since the last ( first ) post. I am a bit free right now , this being the Thanks-giving weekend and so I finally sit down to end the procrastination on this front.
If I say that not a lot has happened over that period then I would be lying and if I say I have gone through a great deal , even then I would be lying. I intend to include all that I can remember over the past 100 days.
Starting with the house and house-mates, after a lot of chopping and changing we finally are 5 of us who are to spend time together at 51 Crittenden till next August. Kamesh & Aymen - MBA candidates, Mansi - classmate of mine and Trina - PhD Geophysics are the ones bearing me at home. I would love to dwell upon the idiosyncrasies that I have observed but then lets leave it at that for another day. There is also Karan, done with his Phd- English Literature , who will be leaving in about 10 days or so. He has taken me around a few places as well as introduced me to a new people.
I did do some funding search, but found out to be a futile exercise. Took up jobs in the Strong Hospital, one at Cardiac surgery another at Psychiatry , both office assistant jobs involving some kind of accounting / peon type work. I prefer going to the cardiac surgery one because of the people I work under. All very motherly ( grandmotherly as well ) and make sure I have something to eat or the other whenever I go there.
Coming to coursework, I took up Digital Signal Processing, Introduction to Random Processes and Image Processing. Have been doing pretty well in DSP , ok in IP and ok-ok in RP. I will be working under the DSP prof., in the next semester for credits( not sure yet, have a meeting with her on Monday )
Food. I am missing every chaat-bandi , irani cafe, tiffin centre, kwality-icecream bandi, anusha’s and the related and mum, dad & aunts' made food and anusha’s mum made curd-rice. Why? I can in no way be even compared to being a half decent cook as 1/10th of any of those above mentioned. Tried eating omlette but after a few days left that as well. Eating better these days due to Mansi’s cooking ( she is planning to shift away to UTD , bad news for me ) and my escapades to restaurants in and around here( not lost that habit ) . Juice intake has significantly increased. As such , I am not that bad a cook ( local relativity has a lot to do with that statement ), but it is the lethargy to cook that is the reason for me not eating well. That is changing in the recent past for the better and hopefully I eat well. By the way, tyre size has increased( for others, baby is growing ) but I have lost 8 kilos after coming here. This can either be attributed to my not eating well in the last 3 months , or to the fact that I have cut down to my original size after the bloating that ensued for the 4 months prior to this.
My first love : Laptop - Dell Vostro 1400. My second love : Phone - Nokia 6126. Both compete very well for my attention and I see to it that I keep both of them very happy. Who am I kidding; I would die without either one. They are the only lifelines I have, to be connected with the people I have known for the best part of my life. The lack of these two for the initial month made me realize a few things about myself, but one in specific is I NEED LOTS OF PEOPLE TO BE AROUND , ALL THE TIME. I have finally found a few , similar to me, in the past two weeks so lets see how things go on from here.
I do spend a significant amount of time on weekends on the phone, mostly UD3 mates having a roundup of the week, pouring in their troubles, laughing at each other, discussing deals for unnecessary electronic gadgetry and the alike. I suppose at some level, each one of us needs that crap talk to just be normal, i.e., the normal of the past because after all, we are all missing our family a lot. Quoting Mr. Thalimpu Reddy - " I have never seen myself so senti but here it goes. I am missing a lot of people all the time".
Onset of winter has finally begun with the Thanksgiving weekend. Since this is the first time I am experiencing snow without my mum being around to scold me for making snowballs and hitting people, I did all that. Experienced the sale-crazy american public. I could so clearly see Corporate America ( for that matter, add China as well ) laughing their pants off , all with the lines of miles outside stores in the chilly snowy conditions. We went to one such line just for the heck of it. 5 of us, standing in the line for about 2 hours , inside Walmart( they were the only ones who had made arrangements for people to make the line inside the store ) and just bought one microwave oven which one of us had to buy anyway. We were being looked down upon with contempt. Is this all you have to buy on a Thanksgiving sale kind of look. Then started the snowball wars. Double teaming. Double crossing. All that and much more. Luckily I was one of the three who had thought of getting gloves along, so that put me at an advantage. Had another round of it at BestBuy( Should have gone here , lots of gizmos on sale ) . Just couldn’t stop stuffing snow into others' jackets. To hell with all those who say snow is depressing. Definitely not as far as first day first show results go. Snow is fun. End of story.
That is how as it stands with semester end fast approaching. Hopefully the general pace of things catches up with my pace :P :-).