Kismet

Kismet(KIZ-met) is not remotely related to what I was going to write now.I use 'was' because using 'am' always makes me feel distinctly uncomfortable.Exactly like committing to something that I may or may not do,connected imperceptibly to the vagaries of my mind and hence as uncertain as todays weather.On second thought since the weather these days seems very much predictable(just as loads of water and misery for Bombay or slisha cloudy but with a little sunshine for dear old hyd) it would be prudent for me take back my last few words and replace the analogy not with todays weather,but say the hotness quotient(1) for NDTV's female reporters.

Yes,Kismet.Kismet supposedly comes (via Turkish) from Arabic the qismah, "portion, lot."It means fate or destiny,quite a close resemblance to the hindi kismat.The word is also as beautifully close to kishmish as it is to kiss,the former being something I absolutely adore the taste of and the latter errr..being something I wouldn't mind.(hypocrite!!)

So Kismet has it that I went today to get a new frame for my poor spectacles,as strained from being thrown about the footer fields and the badminton courts as from long pointless excursions on the internet as from being unceremoniously flung away before I go to bed,suffering probably the agony of contact with the bottom of the maids foot twice or thrice,as from being literally squished under my pillow,as from the pressure of the lascivious gazes and wide eyed stares from one side of it to the miss USA teens posing in their bikinis on the other.Not to mention the UV rays(somebody please seal the hole,they plead),the ignomity of fog and rain,dust,mud,smoke,CO,sweat...

Anyway the point of this post is not the nirvana of my long languishing specs which are not so blessed to have their owner word reparo but the fact that this bloggers confidence levels(which is not very much to say the least) dip to at least 60% of their original values in the presence of a girl.Now,not all girls have this effect,but I see it very wise and prudent to just say 'girls' rather that try being precise(do I give myself away?) with a longer 'hot girls'.You see,the blogger is making sure that he is not embarrased,with the oft-repeated girly question that the blogger wont mouth here(consider it taboo like Lord Voldemort.I only pray that the male readers of this blog dont have to answer to that question) if he ever has the most gratifying experience of meeting any of the female readers of his blog.

So there I was haggling with the optician(my old specs lay forgotten.A new,classy frame was dangling from my hand) over fourteen hundred or three hundred more because rest assured if the guy had his way(all my senses were on red alert) then I would be pretty much penniless over the weekend which was by all means to be avoided.I tried an old tactic.A little look-i-am-smart-so-you-better-stop-haggling trick.Lets say astigmatism.The greenish white card that the doc had handed to me minutes ago pronounced very clearly that i needed some 0.5-0.5 cylinders(God knows what they are) and that my sight stood at -0.75 for the right eye and -1.25 for the left(2) one.Now,already wise from the few minutes of chat with the worthy doc and a recollection of the old-high school optics fundaes,I tried proving to the optician why the specs I was buying now could not prevent me from having a different power in different directions or in more layman terms why it could not prevent me seeing the lengths of the vertical and horizontal radii of a circle as different or in pseudo-impress-listeners terms why it was no good for astigmatism.Everything was going well.I had him sufficiently muted and he looked (i think) to be on the verge of letting the three hundred bucks stay in my purse for a little more time.Then...disaster happened!

She came and stood right behind me.She was tall(5'11 i guess) and fair.She was pretty young(20 or so I think).The very thought of her now makes me write three very simple sentences which my grammar teacher would take one look at and shoot a note to my mom saying that her son did not know the basics of combining sentences, or in other words,unfamiliar to conjunctions and give me disapproving stares the rest of the week.Anyway,so she had the most beautiful eyes ever.Lips that would have made Love Hewitt(ya so?) feel inferior.And a beautifully toned skin color that would have made the white sea gulls take the next ship back to North pole.She had the most perfect ass.A statement i could well justify,having first seen that part of her in the mirror before turning around to gape at her.Well,she was beautiful and it I would not need Jeeves to open the little door at the side of my head,reach a finger inside and switch on the little bulb which seemed to have gone phusssss to tell me that she was wayyy(Note the extra y's) out of my league.

To cut a long story short,she seemed to suck up my confidence like maybe a Dementor, in those few seconds she stood behind me waiting for her turn.The three hundred bucks in my pocket went bravely to the smiling cashiers drawer.My fundaes on astigmatism seemed to evaporate,leaving a temporary bulge in my throat and a suddenly strained voice which seemed to say something like
Gurrp Burp Gurrrum Burrm Gurgle Furble Furrrrm ph Wuakkkk 300 Wuakkkkk.

And I hear there are hot chickos in the corporate world...God help me!

"We are all weirdoes together ... but the 'together' is the important part."
Rhiow, "The Book of Night with Moon" (p.216)

MS Word

I vividly remember the lot of red strikes and round clear red circles I got as a school boy in my notebooks.The math teacher,being particularly zealous when it came to correction,used to circumscribe my calculations with particularly large ovals which started from one end of the page,encompassing all,ending with a flourish cutting the start of the oval forming a decent sized noose.In fact,I beleive,so much was her zest for redding my notebook that the circles included for a majority of times,elementary calculations that were without doubt correct.Even if I ever ,in regard of the matronly figure,forgave her on that account,she would definetely need to apologize to me someday on taking away my power of assumption or rather redding it.It was because of those overbearingly large red circles that I doubted my statements like "Let x=no. of mangoes that Ramu has". :P At that time most of my englih teachers had about the same habit.It was as if any 250 word piece of witing would look good only if the blue mass of words was suitably punctuated with a lot of red.

The first time I met Microsoft word,I was reminded of them again,after a very long time.You see,they have the same highly disconcerting habit of redding stuff.While it is most helpful,if you put that indicative curvy red line below "words" like benaeth or curwy,My dear Bill Gates,you still have to apologize to mankind on how your deplorable software decided to red proper nouns?? Now,I sit writing references to my report with Sankalp on The Word.Fine if you think Haykins(a no unordinary author let me assure you) should be spelt Haskin or Harkin or Hakim or Haying but it is agonizing when I enter my name for a change and find that according to Word Aditya is wrong and it should instead be spelt,Abita,Anita or Dainty????

Anyway the name stuck.I am called Dainty nowadays.(rolls eyes..hmph) but not before I turned tables on my dear friend Sankalp by redding his name too in Word.Out of Sank Alp,Sandal and Sanyal,wicked me chose to call him Sandal.:P It was a pity,we mused later,that Bill Gates didnt know Hindi because the closest hindi expletive that came close to ShivRam's redded castration by WOrd, Hiram, is harami. :)It also turns out,we joked about later,that Gates might have been afraid of our professor because Word hardly touched his name.The maximum it did was to sugeest meekly to try putting a space between the name,which was not taken anyway.

Discliamer: Word or no word,nuffink cann correct da speeling mishtakes here on this paage.Screw red.