The Grand Sophy

The Women's Web has a writing contest: the Favourite Fictional Female contest. What do you have to do? Just pick a female character from a novel that you would like/admire/appreciate, write about her in less than 500 words, and submit your entry to the Women's Web. Visit their website for more information. My entry for this contest is below:

I’ve always had immense respect for people who can fly in the face of convention and societal expectations to do what they want to and what they think is right. Sophy, from the book the Grand Sophy by Georgette Heyer, is a character who does exactly that. The book is a romance set during the period of English Regency. Women in this time did not have much freedom. Society was governed by strict rules of behaviour: sports such as driving and shooting were considered extremely unsuitable for women; single women could not entertain men without a chaperone; it was unheard-of for a woman to remain unmarried past the age of 21; flirting was one of the cardinal sins for a woman.

In such a society, Sophy is a breath of fresh air. She was brought up by her eccentric diplomat father who taught her to look out for herself instead of depending on a man for protection. Sophy learned to become an excellent shot and to “drive to an inch”, sometimes making her the talk of the town.

The independence and strength of mind that I love in Sophy is obvious throughout the book. When she’s left in London with her aunt while her father travels to Brazil, she proceeds to take the entire family in hand to solve their problems. She formulates a plan that is as scandalous as it is innovative to make one of her cousins recognise that the man she loves for who he really is; she goes to a villainous moneylender herself to stop him from harassing another cousin, something that no woman is ever supposed to do; she stops yet another cousin from foisting his unwelcome and unpleasant fiancée onto his family, and puts an end to his unquestioned but well-intentioned authority over his siblings.

I love Sophy’s practical way of looking at a situation and never giving up. According to her, the people who say that there’s nothing to be done are those who are “too lazy or too timorous to make a push to be helpful”. And Sophy was definitely neither: she came up with successful plans to put an end to any problem that she saw.

Sophy has a very witty sense of humour, which kept me in splits throughout the book. Her hot temper rises up only in situations where I can’t help but agree with her, but never drowns out her innate sense of fairness. She does not let her love for a person blind her to the person’s faults, nor does she ever blind herself to her own faults. She doesn’t hide her opinions from men the way she’s supposed to, and is not afraid to tell her equally strong-willed cousin (and future husband) when she disagrees with his actions.

It’s because of Sophy that I never go anywhere without my copy of The Grand Sophy. Not only would I love to have written her, but in many ways, I’d love to be like her.

Three Years, Countless Calories

Instant noodles, strong coffee,

Bread-and-cheese, flat Coke,

Midnight ice-cream tubs, soupy Maggi,

Readymade pasta sauce, packets of chips.

MTR Indian food, microwaved sweet corn,

Icy water, expired milk, old cereal,

Thai food, frozen cheesecake on sale,

Bars of chocolate, M&M packets.

Spicy potatoes with too much haldi,

Chola from cans, frozen parathas,

Baked-beans-on-bread, scrambled eggs,

A lot more Maggi.

Coke with JD, orange juice with vodka,

Salt and lime, tequila shots,

Frozen margharitas with stolen tequila,
Coke with Old Monk, surreptitious cigarettes.

What college tastes like.

Yeh Hai India, Meri Jaan

A friend asked me recently whether I want to live in India again, after studying and living abroad for a while. She’s lived in India only for a couple of years two years ago. She said that she’d believed that she could do it, that she wanted to do it, but when she came to India after two years this year, she realised that she really can’t. She said she just can’t deal with the chaos, the lack of respect for personal space, the problems you can face in just accomplishing a simple task such as getting a new phone number, the disregard for simple common sense or manners while driving, etc.

But for me, the shininess of Singapore gets old fast. Yes, there are tall buildings, and smooth roads, and air conditioning in every single building, and shiny new malls on every corner. There are rules that are followed; there is order in everything that’s done. There’s no need to think twice about being out any hour at night; there’s amazingly fun nightlife. I like the city, I enjoy studying there. But I can’t imagine living there permanently. And it’s not just because the entire country is just one city, or because I’d have to get a permit to protest against anything, or because the rules (even the silly ones) are followed because of the scarily excessive consequences.

I miss India when I’m in Singapore. Not just my friends and family, but the place. I miss the loud, muddled, dusty markets; the familiar looking people on the roads; the insane honking and driving; the casual chatting with shopkeepers; the delicious food. I miss my Rs. 10 golgappe, and paying Rs. 30 for an entire meal. I miss the way people manage to create order in complete chaos, and how sometimes chaos is just chaos.

Of course, the honking and the traffic fascination lasts for a week, then it becomes a constant cause for complaint. The loud, muddled, dusty markets don’t remain so lovable when I have to go out there in the Delhi heat. But somehow, there’s always more to like than to dislike. And I can’t imagine not living in India, and not calling it home.

What do you think?

That Still Only Counts As One!!

Of all the stunts Legolas performs in The Lord of the Rings trilogy, this is by far the coolest!



I recently got the extended versions of all three LOTR movies from a friend. And I was horrified to find that there were so many scenes that I'd never seen, despite the fact that my LOTR DVD set is probably one of the best buys I ever made! It's disappointing to think that I don't actually have the movies as well memorised as I had thought... I don't know all the dialogues and all the scenes. I didn't even know that Aragorn is 87 years old!

While I do understand that some scenes have to be deleted to control the length of a movie, they could have left this scene in. It is seriously cool!

An Hour in Heaven

One of the things I had decided to do over the summer was organise all the stuff on my laptop: have all my music in neat folders labeled properly with artist names; removing the many, many duplicates of songs; getting rid of old programmes I never use, which just slow my laptop down. I also went through an old external hard drive to see if there was anything there I want, and I came across this piece I had written when I was about 15, in the summer of 2006, I think, entitled An Hour in Heaven.

Reading things I wrote years ago generally makes me cringe: I hate reading my old diaries! But I'm kind of fond of this piece, so I've posted it here without any editing. There's very little exaggeration, and as far as I remember, the dessert items have been described quite accurately. I'm glad I haven't started caring about my weight enough to start counting calories yet: I am going to go eat a lot of chocolate now. :)

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An Hour In Heaven

Everyone has different ideas of what their perfect Heaven would be. My Heaven would basically comprise of thousands and thousands of books, my favourite music playing lightly in the background, and every sweet dish ever created available for me to eat. And though I still haven’t had the chance to experience full Heaven, I have spent an hour in what I can call “one-third of Heaven.”

I was spending a couple of weeks of July in Bangalore with my family. We were going shopping everyday, I had bought enough clothes to (hopefully) last me for the rest of the year, and the weather was perfect. And to top it off, Papa had just announced that we would be going to the Leela Palace, the best hotel in Bangalore, for lunch. What more could one want??

We were driven to the Leela in a Lancer (not a limousine, but nearly good enough) provided by Papa’s company. All dressed in the best clothes we could find, we entered the truly royal looking doors of the Leela Palace. The corridors were lit dimly by chandeliers, the huge French windows were hung with crimson satin, and the sweeping staircases reminded me of the castle in ‘Beauty and the Beast’. The passage had several doors leading into various restaurants, one Indian, one Chinese, one Italian, and a coffee house. None of us were in the mood for a quiet, dignified Indian lunch, or for Chinese, and my proposition of eating Italian was outvoted, so we chose to go to Citrus, the coffee house, for our lunch.

We were seated out in the sun by black clad waiters and duly given the menus. After carefully scrutinizing the menu, I decided to go for the lunch buffet. The rest of my family followed suit. I went inside to inspect the rows of dishes for the buffet which were laid out on several tables. There were curries, and pies, and some kind of Thai soup, and a lot of bread and salad. But what I was interested in were the desserts. Sugar and sweets have always attracted me, and needless to say, the sight of the mouth-watering, delicious-looking, chocolatey desserts set out on a counter, all ready for me to eat, made me completely forget about the rest of the lunch. I picked up a plate, and began helping myself to a piece of everything that I could fit.

A piece of the most delectable chocolate cake, which looked as if it would simply melt in my mouth, was the first on the plate. A large helping of chocolate pudding, all soft and gooey, and a big, fat chocolate-and-sugar coated doughnut went after the cake, followed by a piece of cheesecake smothered in sauce. A collection of small wine glasses containing chocolate mousse and what looked like jelly were standing beside the cheesecake, and one was cruelly separated from its companions, its contents soon to enter my stomach.

My mother appeared on the scene just as I was trying to decide whether or not to heap a piece of chocolate and banana pie onto the tiny white space I could still see on my plate, and looking scandalized, sent me to our table to “kill myself eating all that chocolate”. Looking around, I realised that there were several waiters observing my actions with austere, disapproving expressions frozen on their faces. Blushing, I fled from the scene, carrying my plate, to eat my way through heaven in peace.

My parents adamantly refused to believe that I could finish that huge helping by myself, but believe me, not only did I finish it, I went for more. By the time the bill was presented to us (by one of those judgmental waiters), my mother was crimson with embarrassment, my father amused with the proceedings, my sister regarding me with some awe, and I had successfully managed to drown myself in chocolate for the first, and probably the last time, of my life.

I checked my weight when we finally returned to Kanpur three days later. It had increased by two kilos, and even my friends were insisting that I had gained weight. It was not exactly a perfect ending for my Day in Heaven, but that experience was definitely worth every gram of those two kgs, and every word of teasing that I had to endure from my friends for the next two weeks!

Some Thoughts on Writing

One of the biggest problems I faced while writing was a lack of ideas. I just didn’t know what to write about. At that time, for me, “writing” meant fiction- novels or short stories. I hadn’t started reading any blogs then, so that was the only form of writing I was familiar with. I wanted to be like JK Rowling and Enid Blyton, and create worlds for readers like my favourite authors then had created for me. So while I knew that I wanted to write, I didn’t know what.

Then a friend gave me the link to his blog, and I became a regular reader. The links he’d posted on his blog led me to new blogs, and those blogs led me to more, and suddenly, a whole new world of writing opened up to me- a world where people wrote about their thoughts and ideas, their observations and everyday lives, as well as fiction. That’s when I realised that a lot of what I write can, and maybe should be about what I know, even if it is fiction. I cannot write a story about a girl living in Nigeria, or a poor child living in a slum, because I don’t know much about life in Nigeria or a slum. Anything that I might write about it will be improbable and maybe even implausible.

Not that this epiphany helped me suddenly overflow with ideas. Even after I deicded to write about myself and my thoughts and observations, even after I started my first blog, I had no idea what to write about. My blog lay untouched for days on end: I just didn’t know what to post about! Why would people want to read about my life and my thoughts? Then I decided to stop thinking about what people want to read, and just write. But I still didn’t have too many ideas.

In the past few weeks, however, this seems to have changed. Ideas are coming running at me, many times just before I sleep, so I keep a pad next to my bed and groggily jot down some words to help me remember the idea the next day. I’m seeing things to write about everywhere, from a trip to the mall to a conversation with a friend. And I really, really hope this lasts.

Those Lazy, Hazy, Crazy Days of Summer

My term ended last week, and I finally got home after about three months on the 1st of June. My summer holidays are more than two months long (and this is after I did an extra term for five weeks!) so I came home with Plans. Lots and lots of Plans. I made The List of things I wanted to do over the summer. Guitar classes, driving lessons, a loooong reading list, cooking lessons at home etc etc etc. I was fully prepared to make sure that I didn't "waste" my summer, but used it productively.

Now, it's been four days since I've been home. The "Summer To Do List" has been stuck up over my desk. All the books on my reading list are sitting in a pile next to my bed and on my bedside table. Four more books that I bought yesterday have been added to that pile. I have an article to write and submit by the end of this week, several ideas for pieces I want to write for myself, and some studying to do to be super-prepared for next semester. The guitar that tested the good humour and politeness training of the lady at the check-in counter at the Singapore airport is just sitting at one end of the room, looking desolate and unused.

Yet all I can seem to find the energy to do is play endless games of Bubble or Crazy Taxi on my laptop, trying to beat all my friends' high scores, or make fun of Aishwarya Rai in Bride and Prejudice (and sigh over Martin Henderson) or sleep for countless number of hours in a day. Or try and figure out a weekend on which the calendars of my considerably busier family members are empty, so we can go on holiday together (and laze around some more).

What is it about summer that makes one so lethargic? It's not the heat.. I haven't really left my relatively cool room in the last few days. I think it's just the knowledge that I have two-and-a-half months to accomplish all that I want to, so really, there's no need to start right now, is there?!

The Dark Side of Grey's Anatomy

Before I reached my rebellious, I'll-do-what-I-want phase, I had to follow the rules that were implemented at home. There weren't too many of them.. just some general curfew rules, and some about studies. I didn't have a problem with most of the rules. But the one rule I remember that irked me was the 'No-TV-on-weekdays' rule.

My father was always the anti-TV person at home. He believed that TV was a waste of time, especially for kids. He wanted my sister and me to do something "constructive" with our free time. He always told us to get out of the house, play something, try something new, do anything other than spending an hour in front of the TV. (He still says that, actually). And that was the time when IIT had just gotten many new channels on cable... Cartoon Network and Disney Channel were the new "thing" amongst the kids. And so, that 'No-TV-on-weekdays' rule really irked.

Then, when I grew past the age of having to follow the rules, I entered an obsessive TV-watching phase. I discovered the wonderful, wonderful world of downloaded episodes, fell in love with Patrick Dempsey and spent most of my after-class-10th vacations making my father hover on the brink of shouting at me by obsessively downloading and watching the entire series of Grey's Anatomy, among other shows. College in Singapore put a halt to my excessive downloading, but then the online streaming of Will and Grace and Two and A Half Men started.

After years of all this, I have, of course, realised that the world of TV-watching isn't as harmless as I had claimed when I argued with my father about his rules. I don't know whether all the violence on TV influences teenagers or not, or whether the "Western beliefs" showed on TV are infiltrating and corrupting my "Indian culture". I do, however, know that these TV shows can be highly depressing.

I don't generally wish that I had a guy as perfect as Derek Shepherd from Grey's Anatomy in my life, or go "Awwww...." when Derek and Meredith's legendary love overcomes all obstacles (such as Derek being married) in the show. It's not the love stories that make me jealous or melancholy. It's all the drama in TV series that I find depressing. I find myself wishing that my life had some of the constant drama that exists in Tree Hill or Seattle Grace Hospital. I want my life to be more interesting. I want something, anything, to happen!

That's why I think watching so much TV is bad for me. Not because it wastes a lot of time that would be better spent doing the work I have piled up, or because it gets me very involved in the lives of people that don't exist, but because the hectic and dramatic lives of those non-existent people makes me feel bored and unsatisfied with my own normal life.

A New Use for Pink Thongs Has Been Discovered

I was in the middle of my Technology and World Change class when my Times of India epaper homepage informed me about the the Chaddi Campaign. Believe me, not bursting out in laughter in the middle of another group's presentation was very, very hard.

The Consortium of Pub-going, Loose and Forward Women are hilariously cheeky, and amazingly creative. I shall try to send my newly bought hot-pink chaddis in from Singapore. So please, read about the Campaign, buy pink chaddis, and send them in!

See? Graphs Can Be Fun

My Maths prof sent us this link today. In his words: "In case you get bored/tired with exam prep, here's a fun way to waste your time relax". He also sent us the link to the webpage he uses to get "fun-facts" about brilliant [and dead] mathematicians, which he then shares with us in every class as "The Dead Person of The Week". See why I love this class?