Aug 30, 2012

Password Mania!

Can you put a number on the websites you have made an account on? Probably not. At least I can't. I sign up for just about everything that catches my eye. And a lot of things catch my eye. So you can imagine the number of websites I have accounts on.

Accounts require passwords, and passwords you have to remember. For most people, this isn't really a problem. Most of us have these standard passwords which we use just about everywhere. But the problem comes in when you have been using the same password for 2 or 3 years and you come across an article on the web which talks about how a lot of accounts are being hacked these days. These type of articles usually suggest ways and means to keep your account from getting hacked. And the one thing that they ALL mention is to keep changing your password on a regular basis. 
Resetting passwords over and
over can be very very stressful. 

This is when that feeling of apprehension creeps onto you. You realize that it is time. It is time to change your standard password. It's kind of like a feeling of enlightenment. 
And then the lengthy task begins. You go from account to account changing all the passwords, trying to remember the important places where you have online accounts.

It's kind of like cleaning. No one likes to do it, but when you reach a certain saturation point, you don't have much of a choice! 

Aug 29, 2012

TV time


When my brother and I were little, our parents had set a "TV time" for us. We could only watch TV for one hour every day. My brother and I would usually divide it into two halves. We used to watch half an hour of TV in the afternoon and half an hour before sleeping.
The love of our life- the television!

But those were the times when the advertisements weren't longer than the show itself. When the two of us finally realized that the lengthy advertisements were costing us a lot of TV time, we came up with a strategy. We used to sit in front of the TV with a stopwatch. When the ads would come, we would stop the time running on the stopwatch, and turn our heads away from the TV, claiming that since we weren't actually looking at the TV, this shouldn't count as TV time. It worked very well for a few days. Then our parents realized our tactic and that was the end of our astute (but very effective) scheme.

Although our clever trick didn't last very long, our efforts to prolong TV time never failed. I no longer have a TV time, but my younger brother does. And he still finds ways and means to violate it.

Some things never change! Be it people, their strange or wonderful habits, or our desperate attempts to trespass our TV time.

Aug 28, 2012

Soak more and more!

This post is an entry for The Surf Excel Matic #SoakNoMore Contest on Indiblogger! Enjoy :)


It was just a month ago, July of 2012. My friends and I graduated from school this year. No one's college had started. We were in that wonderful stress free stage where no one had anything to do or anything to worry about.
All we had to worry about was how to fill up our long summer days. One of our adventurous ideas was to go ice skating in one of the biggest mall of the country-Ambience Mall in Gurgaon, a suburb of Delhi. The monsoons still hadn't arrived and we hoped with all our heart that an ice skating ring would give us some relief from the heat.

The minute we arrived at the skating ring, it started raining. Ofcourse we only found out much later when we got frantic calls from our parents. Our parents worried that the rain was so heavy that we wouldn't be able to make it home. We ignored it, thinking of it as just another exaggerated concern.
When we came out of the skating ring and into the mall, we suddenly saw why our parents were worrying. The ice skating ring had been on the 6th floor of the mall. The roof was right above us. And it was leaking. The sweeper's of the mall were running all over the place with buckets and mops to somehow keep people from slipping on the wet floors. (Now if any of you reading this are from another country, I would like to clarify, that although some houses in India may leak, malls normally do not. I am merely trying to emphasize on the harshness of the rain).

Neither of us had the luxury of a car to drop everyone home. And since most of us lived in Delhi , we had to take the metro. There was no other way to get home. Calling a radio cab was not an option. It was 8 pm, which meant people were returning home from work.
Peak time+rains=Chaos on the Delhi roads.

Our two options were to either wait till the rain reduced or to take a chance and run out and look for an auto that would take us to the metro station. That is when we thought, "what the hell! We have nothing to lose. If we can't take small risks like this at the age of 18, will we ever be able to?" We had been taught all our lives to be cautious. Don't bunk school. You may get caught. Don't go out now. It's too dark and unsafe. Don't date boys. You're too young.

Although this really wasn't that big a deal, it meant a lot to us. Going out there in the rain wasn't simply a matter of getting wet. To us, it meant denying everything we'd been taught. I don't blame our parents for teaching us to be cautious. They only did it for our safety. It's more like living in a city such as Delhi that made us so cautious and scared of little things.


So that is exactly what we did! We ran out of the mall while the entire crowd who was waiting for the rain to die down a bit stared at us, wondering which devil from hell had gotten into us. The rain was amazing. It was the first monsoon shower that Delhi had been anticipating for the past month. To some people it meant better weather, to some others it meant that their crops wouldn't die and there family would have enough food for the winter. And to us? To us it meant a free spirit. This was the first time since graduating school, that we actually tasted our freedom. We realized that we were new adults in the world, in a free world, where we had the liberty to do whatever we wanted! So the city is a little unsafe! And maybe some people can harm us. But we didn't see why that should affect what we do.

It was the rain and the soaked clothes and the splashing in the puddles that made us realize that. One monsoon shower was all we needed. And I cannot be more thankful for that.

If that is what one monsoon shower did to us, I say "SOAK MORE AND MORE AND MORE"

Aug 27, 2012

Reasons to find a best friend who is just like you!

My best friend turns 18 today! I was thinking of the crazy things we have done in the past 2 years, and I realize, that there is nothing better than having a best friend who is similar to you in more ways you can imagine any other person to be. This post is dedicated to her, hoping she will decide to remain as crazy as she is now, just so that there is someone in the world to give me company. Happy Birthday Zivani!! (I did not spell her name wrong. that is just what i call her). I love you, you lunatic!

Here is why you need to go hunt for YOUR carbon copy:

1. You will both arrive late to class and therefore will end up sitting on the very first bench

2. A 5 line conversation will take days to conclude just because both of you are too lazy to reply right away

3. The entire day at school will be spent decorating the desk, just because the teacher won't let you talk in class and neither of you want to ruin the last page of our notebooks.

You don't have to LOOK similar too,
 in case you're thinking that.
4. Your study sleepovers in effect, will be about 1 hour of studying and 10 odd hours of taking breaks.

5. You will spend the eve of an exam talking on the phone, discussing ways to get a job when you are eventually kicked out of school.

6. You will also come up with millions of (practically impossible) plans to become a billionaire (for example, selling your appendix)

7. You will put no less than 6 alarms before going to sleep (on a sleepover) so that you can get up early and go out the next day. Despite that, neither of you will wake up or respond to the alarms.

8. You will attempt to cross a road which has traffic zooming at such a high speed that it can very easily be the end of you, so that you can get an auto home, only to discover that your home is in the other direction and you need to cross the street again and catch an auto from the other side.

9. Your pathetic sense of direction will not allow you to reach anywhere without getting lost several times. One of you will have to activate the internet on your phone so that google maps can be of some help. You will still get lost all the time.

I realize that I may just have given you reasons NOT to find your carbon copy. But believe me, it's worth it!

HAPPY BIRTHDAY ZIVANI!

Aug 26, 2012

Shopping Disappointments

One would think that being a girl, I like shopping. I don't. Not that I don't like new things. (I like them for one or two days after which I get bored and forget about them) But I don't like going out and buying new things myself. Shopping can be really disappointing.

Whenever I go with money in my wallet and a mood to try on clothes, there are absolutely no good and reasonably priced clothes to be found. But whenever I go without any money and an extremely lethargic mood, VOILA! The end of season sale is on!
Disappointed Shopper

I wish there was a mobile app which would just let me browse the stores before I actually got there. *sigh* where is technology when you need it?

Aug 25, 2012

Peeping Toms

My bedroom window has been causing me a lot of trouble lately. It seems like everyone who passes by looks at it (and therefore I have people constantly peeping into my room). It's so uncanny. Someone who is just walking past, whistling, talking on the phone, WILL turn to look at my window. And it's not nice. It would be nice if people would see me inside and wave. But people just glance at it and walk by.

I suddenly feel sorry for ugly naked guy


The problem is that all the people who live in the same building as I do have to pass by my window to get to their apartment. So I have about 10-15 people peeping into my room on an everyday basis. I certainly have come to respect the curtains much more than I used to.

Rain Rain Go Away!

They say rains bring joy. Of course they do. The smell of rain, the sudden change of weather and (for Indians) the bollywood feel it brings with it is known to be unbeatable.

But what I wonder is, do they bring more joy than sorrow? The traffic jams, the clogged streets and the flooded colonies manage to make up for all the joy the first few drops gave. And not to forget the wonderful after affects- the malaria and jaundice and dengue.

Rain rain go away!
No joy without sorrow huh?

Aug 22, 2012

Why so "complicated"?

I recently happened to be talking to an old friend after a long time. Normally, when you talk to an old friend, catching up involves a little bit about school/college/work and a lot about the love life. Now the one thing about girls sharing their love life is that although they make it seem like something very confidential, it actually isn't. They will tell just about everyone who they come across. Show the slightest interest in a girl's love life and that will be enough to get her going for a good 2 hours. It's like saying that you wouldn't want to advertise something via an fb status, but you wouldn't mind sending an inbox message to everyone in your list.

The funny thing is that the length of any girl's love life does not vary with the number of relationships she's had. A girl with no boyfriend at all will also have plenty to say, which may involve how unfortunate she's been, or how she's afraid she's not a catch and she'll die alone, or how a lot of boys asked her out but she rejected them on the premises that they weren't really 'her type'. On the other hand a girl with 20 boyfriends will talk about what was wrong with each one of them and how she's sick of relationships and is never going to date anyone else ever again. It's such a cliche. We all know that isn't gonna happen!

But anyways, coming back, I started thinking about the logic behind all this. Why do romantic relationships have to be so complicated? They are actually just like any other relationship. The kind that you have with your family and friends. But yet, we spend so much more time analysing these kinds of relationships than any other. "I think he likes another girl", "I think he's losing interest in me". These are classic dialogues. Girls spend hours thinking over such things. Even the most subtle hints can throw her mind in the wrong direction. Things as simple as a guy having a long and light hearted conversation with another girl, or not having texted or called for two days.



If you really want to know, then why snoop around or take advice from hundreds of people or make a long heart felt story out of it. Just ask him! It's really simple, and extremely straightforward and will save you a very long phone bill and a lot of people's time.

Another classic trick that girls spend hours plotting is "ignoring the guy". It is a way of getting attention. I'm not saying that it isn't effective. It is. But then, "ignoring" someone can take more effort than you can imagine. Ignoring a guy involves constantly checking your phone to see if your little trick is working and if he is texting, wondering what you are upto and tracking his every move on facebook to see how he's taking your cold treatment. 

Jealousy is another big fat problem. And this comes from both sides of the enemy line. Boys are as jealous and possesive as girls are, if not more. When a guy sees his girlfriend or potential girlfriend within a 5 metre radius of another guy, he will immediately look for a girl to talk to as intimately as possible, so that they're both even. The girl, seeing that the guy is being all close and personal with another girl, will continue to talk to the guy she was hitherto talking to, apparently enjoying herself more than ever and laughing at the lamest jokes he makes. The guy seeing the girl having a good time with another guy, will return the favour. This is something that does not end. And it works the other way around.

And then we have the popular 'it's complicated' relationship status on facebook. I have never actually understood what that meant. Either you're dating or you're not. Sometimes, I feel that a 'it's complicated' status is simply a committed girl's effort to grab her boyfriend's attention or a single girl's effort to show that she has a life. It's hard to say. Most comments on any change of relationship statuses go unanswered. Most people's queries are generally answered by comments such as "i'll tell you when we talk next".
If you want to tell all your friends about your recently upturned love life one by one and not via facebook, why  bother changing your relationship status on facebook?
The people I think are actually sensible are the ones who also mention the name of the person they are dating. They're the ones who're accomplishing the purpose of putting up a facebook status. Although most people think it's a very abominable thing to do, I think it's better than people putting up a status followed by secretive comments which kind of nullify the purpose of using facebook.

Keeping it simple and not so complicated is much easier for everybody. Little tricks and insinuating comments are pretty much useless and a waste of time and energy. Imagine a world where everyone would just say what they thought and what they really mean to convey. It's kind of like putting an end to diplomacy!

Here's hoping you can unravel your life and make it a little less complicated! (And I really mean that)