My 100th post

This is my 100^th post and it has taken me 2 years to come to this point. Looking back at the time I started writing in this space – I was a fresher in a big, tough world called ‘I.T.’ fighting it all by myself, armed with only my power to talk and nothing else. I was on bench which gave me ample time to write as much as I could. I had no readers. But this space grew in content and so did I and the number of readers. And now I am at this place where I feel like an old lady already. A lot of people know me (by ‘knowing’ I mean knowing my emotions, my actions, the changes in my life, what makes me laugh – everything there is to know about me) through this space and it makes me proud of myself to have achieved it in 2 years.

This started off as a personal blog – kind of like an online diary where I would scribble, crib and pour out anything that came to my mind (which used to be a lot). This was mainly because nobody used to read it. Later on, as people started reading my posts, I had to filter out a lot of what I thought, simply because it would scandalize a few of them – I had to keep readers’ feelings in mind before I put down anything that I felt/experienced. A few of my friends told me that I was losing my freedom as the number of readers increased; but I had a moral responsibility. I stayed away from a lot of hot topics for fear of being considered rude or judgmental.

Now I have learnt to strike a balance between what I want to write and what the readers may want to read. I wrote my first short story (for which I received a few bouquets and a lot of brickbats). In between, I got the courage to start with my first novel (which is still in its infancy due to my laziness). It is amazing how there is a learning process in everything we undertake. Blogging is something I started for personal satisfaction and now I have learnt so much about a whole new world, made a few awesome friends – friends who are ready to guide and help and appreciate me.

Blogging gave me an address – a door to a soul that was unknown to the rest of the world. It made me popular. Being an Arian and a girl, I enjoyed all the attention I got (and am still getting). Now I have an online diary of the past two years of my life – how much my little world has changed and how much I have changed! But one thing remains – I still go about doing my work (yes, I do work sometimes) and living my life (the happy and the not-so-happy moments) with a broad smile pasted across my face; that hasn’t changed and I hope it won’t ever.

I hope I get to the 200^th post very soon. It will happen when I have interesting things going on in my life. And the next one year looks like it will easily become the interesting year of my life! It includes foreign travel, change in work (not the company, though), a wedding (perhaps?) – looks very promising and exciting. Need your blessings and wishes!

Semmozhiyaana Tamizh mozhiye...

This time around, I am at Coimbatore to attend my friend Arch’s wedding. The city has been decorated as nicely as a bride-to-be – all for the Tamizh Semmozhi Maanaadu. The flyovers have been painted, the roads widened, new traffic signals, a lot of police at the Railway Station, a lot of traffic police deployed – all this for just the next one week. Lot of Tamizh cultural art forms are going to be performed at different venues in the city. I feel proud to be a Tamizhian. The schools and colleges in Coimbatore have been asked to declare holiday for the next one week. How I wish I were in school now! All city buses will be ticket-free. There is no need to buy bus tickets for the next one week. Food festivals are being organized. Now is the best time to be in this city; well, if you like crowded places.

I miss my dad now. He would have really enjoyed this Semmozhi Maanaadu – being a staunch Tamizh-patriot himself. He would have forced me to take a week’s leave and taken me to all the programmes and lectures and made me listen to the glory of my mother tongue. I can almost see the pride in his face when someone praises Tamizh.

But the city has lost a lot of its trees in the name of road-widening. The programme will last for about a week or so, but the city might never get its climate back. Sigh…

Although so much is being done to ‘improve’ the city and its infrastructure, the people of the city still remain the same. They still talk with so much respect, throw rubbish on the streets, wait for TASMAC (wine shop) outlets to open in the morning and form a queue in the counter there, the auto-drivers still demand exorbitant amount money from the people, the city hasn’t changed one bit in its character.

But no matter what happens to this city, no matter what the people are like, this will always be my home. This is the city that I have grown up in, the city that has made me what I am through the school and college I studied in, through the innumerable people I have met; it is my favorite city (ok, next to Chennai). Chennai is still my most favorite J

I have a couple of good news to share with all the kind people who visit this space. There will be an announcement in a few days’ time (if all goes well). Pray for me, people!!!

My First Crush...

The day I saw you first, I was amazed by the color of your eyes. They were a clear bottle green. It was then that I remembered that I had not listened to your name correctly. It was so embarrassing. I didn’t want anyone to know that I had a crush on you and I didn’t ask for your name again. I had never been like that before I met you. Though we were classmates, I had to bring up every ounce of courage inside me to even look up to you in the eye. The toughest part of it was to hide it from others; mainly you. I fell for you again when you smiled – although it was not at me. What a kind smile you had! I fell for you totally – from the color of your eyes to the color of the clothes you were wearing. When I came to know that you needed help in understanding a few lessons, I volunteered to share my notes with you. When I knew that you hadn’t completed your laboratory record, I volunteered to write it for you. When I knew that you lacked attendance, I spoke to the professor (being the teachers’ pet) to set this alright for you. But still all this was overlooked by you. I was furious when I saw you chatting up to a pretty girl and exchanged numbers.

After those initial days of adoration where I was bowled over by your personality and your eyes and your smile, I started observing you much more. It was then that I realized that you were human too and not flawless. I noticed that you had a Himesh-like nasal tone to your voice, a little too short to my dream-guy (not that I am tall or anything, but you did not match up to my expectation), your green eyes were in fact fake (you wore contact lenses), lacked the IQ that I wanted my guy to have, a little too slow in grasping things, no knowledge whatsoever of the books I was referring to – all in all hopeless to have a future with. But still my heart wouldn’t listen. Whenever I saw you, there was that familiar drum-roll in the place of the heartbeat, that involuntary smile popping up on my lips, that tiny corner of my heart wanting you to come and talk to me, to hold your hands, the jealousy when you spoke to other girls – all that was still there, only for a moment though. Because the very next moment, when my brain started giving out instructions, it started emphasizing on the flaws in you and I saw you as someone not worth all my attention.

Now all that is gone, it has been a long 5 years since that first day. I don’t think about you every day now. I have grown out of being that silly teen into a busy professional. I simply don’t have the time to reminisce about the past or to feel bad about having missed your company for so long. You are not on my Orkut/FaceBook/Twitter friends’ list. But I still do visit your page and think about how different it would have been if you and I had indeed gotten together. The very reason I am writing this post is with the hope that you would visit my blog just the way I visit your pages and know that I still think about you and even now for a moment my heart beats twice as fast. But as you can see, I am very happy with my life and you are nothing but an occasional, distant, drunk thought. Nevertheless, you are my first crush and will always be special to me.

Oh, how confused I am! One minute I say I still want to be with you and the very next I say you are like one of my pets that I grew when I was younger. I guess that is just me or are all first crushes like this? I would never know. But I am not worried about it. I am happy with what I have and the occasional visit to your pages that remind me that you are alive in some part of the world.

Cheers!

This post has been published for a great contest called My first crush! organized by pringooand blogadda.