Tuesday, October 26, 2010

CONFINED spaces


I know the first thing that comes into the mind after hearing confined spaces is chetan bhagat’s one night @ the call centre and the scene there after. But the confined space over here is a tad bit different. It’s the confined space of a train berth. So you see, having sex on the train berth would be highly uncomfortable and dangerous, unless you are an yoga expert or you wanna be stuck in a weird pose for the rest of your life.not to mention the high public viewership. But then innovative ideas are always welcome. After all you never know.

so coming back to the confined space of a train berth. Well I have never really hated trains, unlike most other people. Actually I kinda love it. I love the berths too. Especially the upper berths. More especially the side upper berths. Travelling in trains, they feel like heaven, more so if you have a plug point you can plug your lappy into. But then sometimes situations can be very challenging. Even for a train lover like me. First take for instance sleeping on the train berth. Few hours its okay. If you are really sleepy, more than few hours also okay. But if not then it can be very irritating. Especially when you can’t even sit straight on your berth. Sometimes I will get up at night without realizing where I am and WHAM, my head would strike the ceiling. That hurts. A lot.  And then if you have the habit of really spreading out while sleeping, then big problem. With my experience of travelling in the train (which is a lot), I have tried out all possible positions of sleeping and concluded that the best position to sleep is straight, face up or down. The fetal position works too, it’s the second best. The second problem is when you are tall. Your feet are left hanging outside so that every person going down the aisle touches your feet with his/her head. Unless you really like to give out blessings in that way, it can be very uncomfortable. But that’s all manageable problems. Certainly not enough to lessen my love for the train.

But then there are other issues too with confined spaces of the train. People. Big issue. So you slept for the better half of your journey on your blessed top berth but how long can a person sleep? So eventually you come down. Maybe just to stretch you back. You plop down, sit on the berth, pop in your earphones and start waiting for the lovely journey to end. But wait, that’s too soon. Ofcourse the aunty sitting in front has to talk to you. Even though you are listening to music so loud that, you cant even hear yourself speaking. So being the nice person that you are, you take out your earphones and answer her curious queries. Smile, answer, smile, answer, smile some more. This goes on for a while, until she realizes you are a lost cause for gossiping. She gives up. You give yourself a HIGH high five inside your head and pop in your headphones again. So its actually been over 20 hours inside the confined space and right now our love for the train is actually waning.

And then the eternal trip to the bathroom. Inevitable and unquestionable. You see bathrooms in trains are well bathrooms in trains.People here work on some unanimous thought process that unless a bathroom stinks how the hell would one know that there’s a bathroom around? So trip to the stinky bathroom. Before you go inside it, you take a deep breath, hold it, get inside, do things as if you life depends on it (i:e in 30 secs flat) and then come outside and breathe out. PHEW!!!! Mission accomplished. Back to the confined space now. For time being.

So now finally your journey is coming to an end. You are more than ready to leave the confined space (bursting to get out actually). But yet, when you walk away from the train, you kinda feel connected to it. Not deep but still a connection. Yes you dint sleep like the seal that you always do. Yes you ate some the worst cooked food inside of it. Yes your legs feel cramped. Yes you look like mess. But still you cant help but feel a bit nostalgic. There is nothing like travelling in a train in India. And if your train is running late, like mine always does, well then God help you!
use of confined spaces!!!

Saturday, October 23, 2010

Conversations

Yes conversations. Rather daily affair for everyone of us. a way of life, some would say. Their sole life, there are some who would say that too. Conversations makes us what we are. Human. though most of the time most of the conversations are rather inhuman. But what-so-ever.
but why am I writing a blog about conversations? Trust me i got no idea. This was a rather spontaneous thing. Coz I am no expert when it comes to conversations. in fact I belong to one of those people who practice having a conversation with a person before actually having it and then have the awesome talent of still totally goofing it up out there (though i have  almost outgrown it, trust me, at least I like to believe I have).

So back to conversations. There are many types of conversations. The confrontational conversation. The awkward conversation( the types you have with your parents after they catch you watching porn!), the Oh-did-you-know conversation. the "hi there, how are you?" conversation. (Its more like "hey dude. wassup" now-a -days, but you get the idea!), the i-am-so-sorry-BUT conversation. the i-am-so-sorry *sob sob* conversations. the ultimate 'we need to talk' conversation. The conversation that you have just for the sake of having conversation. the we-got-a-problem conversation. The honey-I-love-you-so-much conversation. and finally the imaginary conversation. The conversation that takes place between two people but the only problem is both of them is actually you. So this is the type of conversation i am going to write about basically.

These imaginary conversations are at the least ridiculous, weird, mind boggling and well imaginary.
i end up spending most of my alone but don’t really want to be alone time having these conversations, where on one side am I and on the other some other person, impersonated by me of course. yeah I know that’s crazy. but don’t all of us have imaginary conversations where the person in front of you (being impersonated by you) says all those things that you want him/her to say. so I m having these conversations while I am walking alone, which means I attract more than just jerk looks (surprise!! Yeah even girls like me get those jerk looks). I am usually always mumbling. Answering questions I am asking to the person being impersonated by me. Laughing at jokes being made by the person impersonated by me. Giving an angry retort to one of the impersonated one's weird comment. Yeah I do that. I even act the part. I smile. I look angry. I even laugh. Yeah I am more than half the crazy people think me to be. but these conversations, ah they are good. They calm me down when I am really angry (usually at the person being impersonated by me). They help me deal with depression (conversations that you emerge out of, victorious, can be amazingly mood uplifting). I can have a nice heart to heart conversation with the person I want to and not be tensed about hurting anyone's feelings or saying something wrong. Coz I can always be assured the person being impersonated by me has not heard anything wrong when i actually did say something wrong. i can actually take back my words in this conversation. How awesome is that?

These conversations have their drawbacks too though, sadly. Sometimes they can be so engrossing and interesting that you actually forget what you are doing currently. Which is why I get up at the middle of the night (jolt upright more like it) and wonder if I have closed the balcony door or not. Which is why I cant remember if I have put salt in the dish I am cooking or not. Which is why I end up searching for the pen I was just holding for half an hour coz I cant remember where the hell did I put it. Some might say these are just early signs of Alzheimer but trust me its actually coz all the time i am having a imaginary conversation going on inside my head. I don’t try to stop having these conversations though. They are fun. At least more fun than actually having the real conversations sometimes. So, what the heck?


Ohkay I think I should give this crazy meandering post a rest right here. And guys I am sure you can make drinking game out of the number of times I have used the word "impersonated" (and its variations). Totally HIMYM way!!!! Maybe I should change that to the number of times I have used "conversations" actually!!! cheerios!!!