On Study Holidays

         Hello, everyone :) As the more perceptive of you may have realized, the last post was a bit of a departure from the norm. Fact is, I've always wanted to try writing a web series, and the Tale of Redbird seems as good a place to start as any. I hope you liked it, and the next edition of the story will be up by next Sunday or whenever I feel inspired to write again.

         I really have very little to write about today, as I am doing nothing at this point in my life except siting at home and staring blankly at my books. The sun's gift, melanin, is slowly draining from my skin and I'm becoming pale and sickly-looking. And, since I have absolutely no exercise except lifting my enormous textbooks, I'm also getting chubby. Sigh.

       Don't get me wrong. Study holidays have their benefits. For one thing, I can spend the entire day in my pajamas with my hair in an unflattering ponytail and nobody freaking cares. The diligent student look is very low maintenance- the only time I bathe nowadays is either when I have to go out somewhere or when the fumes rising from my unwashed skin start melting the low-density plastic objects in our house. Also, in our South Indian family system, anybody who's studying is a top priority, first class citizen.

(When I'm not studying): Ma, can I have a glass of water?
Mum: Do I look like your servant? Get up and get it yourself, you lazy fool!

(When I'm studying): Ma, can I have a glass of water?
Mum: Of course, darling, still or sparkling?
Me: Mum, Abi's breathing is disturbing my Physics.
Mum: ABIGAIL, STOP BREATHING. Can't you see your sister's studying?
Me: Can you feed me?
Mum: Do I have nothing better to do? Am I an unpaid servant in this house? Feed yourself.

     Ah, well. It was worth a shot.

     One of my Mum's few eccentricities is her attitude towards toothpaste. In many other respects,she is a very reasonable person, but there is a slight streak of insanity in her when it comes to toothpaste. She absolutely refuses to throw the tube away until every last drop of flouride-infused goodness has been squeezed out by means of blood, tears and elbow-grease. One morning, when I just couldn't get any more from the dry shell of the toothpaste tube, I walked to the dustbin and announced, determinedly, that I was going to throw the toothpaste out.

     She flew out of her room like she had wings, took the toothpaste from me and, after around fifteen minutes of slightly demented squeezing, she pushed a minuscule glop on to my brush.

      "There," she said triumphantly, in Malayalam, which made it a lot funnier. "And you wanted to throw it away."

          Have a very good Monday, everybody! If you're feeling overwhelmed by something, remember that the world is actually very big, and you're actually very small and unimportant. Hope that helped.

P. S.: Shout out to my readers in America, Poland and Germany. Thank you for reading!

P. P. S. I'm thinking of cutting all my hair off! This is a madness that comes occasionally on me and it always ends in sorrow and destruction. Please, please, someone, convince me otherwise.

Insert Witty Title Here

Guess what! We reached 500 views! *high-five!!!* Now if only you, my lovely reader, would take the trouble to move your mouse up to the upper left hand corner of your screen and click the follow button. I swear nothing bad happens. Sorry the posting's taking so long but I'm actually spending my time these days out of the house in the fresh air rather than in front of a computer screen. I don't think I qualify as a teenager anymore.
Oh and by the way to prove I wasn't lying:

<----- LOOK IT CLEARLY SAYS POOP!!!

















Hey y'all how's it going? I don't know why people say Kerala's boring. There is so much stuff to do here. Yesterday I cleaned out five kgs of chicken with my bare hands. Incidentally, this holiday was supposed to be fun.
 Let me take you through the different stages of cleaning chicken.
First its like "OMG OMG dead flesh get it away from me!"
Then you get kinda used to it and you're like, "Okay, whatever, lets just get this over with."
The third stage is definitely the most disturbing. Its the stage where you are gagging but oddly content. There is a sort of calm acceptance and satisfaction.
The next stage is when you hit the harder pieces that hide at the bottom of the basin. I'm not going to lie: this bit is terrible. The chicken you're handling at this point isn't that clean drumstick piece where you don't have to do anything. Its the horrible bit from deep inside the dead bird where all the gore and excess fat is attached. It took every ounce of my resolution to keep from throwing up all over the bloody bowl. Five minutes into this stage and you're swearing off meat for the rest of your life and deciding to go hit non-vegetarians in the face with a piece of tofu.
And by the last and final stage, you're just bored. The worst, most horrible thing about the whole experience was that the chicken tasted really good at the end.

Speaking of the kitchen, my fun duties in that hellish place do not only involve the routine handling of blood and gore, they also involve doing the dishes. Its not the enjoyable kind of doing dishes that you see in American movies where you just scrape everything into the sink and put the plate in a sleek silvery machine. Even though the conference center is amazingly technologically advanced, the one thing they don't have is obviously a dishwasher. Dear universe, we appreciate your sick sense of humour. 

Now normally I wouldn't be annoyed by having to clean utensils large enough to cook for fifty people in. What annoys me is that the large population of foreigners in the conference center never wash their own plates because apparently being from Norway and Canada is an excuse. Don't get me wrong, they are all lovely people and I adore them but sometimes I feel like dismembering them gently with a hack saw. So yesterday, I decided that would change. I positioned this girl at the kitchen entrance with two extremely large meat cleavers to convince the foreigners to do it themselves. Guess what happened. The @#$#%$$%#$ didn't even bring their own plates into the kitchen, they sent someone else to do it. Don't worry, justice will ultimately triumph, I just have to figure out a more threatening form of intimidation. Kerala loves me, people.

Anyway, that's all for now folks. I'm going out again (be very jealous of my amazing life). I'm having a pretty awesome holiday, all dead fowls considered, and I hope you're having a good summer too. Take care! xoxo

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The One About Poop

The standard of this blog is clearly increasing. Don't worry, I haven't descended to the level of actually talking about poop YET. I'm  not saying I won't if I become truly desperate but this ones not about poop in the sense that we usually take it. Did you know that the most superior quality of pasteurized milk in Kerala, a company worth crores of rupees, that brings nourishment to thousands of Malayalee homes, is called poop? The name of the product is actually poop.
Scene: a normal Keralite family. Time: Breakfast.
"Honey, have you had your poop yet?"
"Sweety, can you pass that glass of poop?"
"Don't forget to take your poop! It's good for you!"
Hey y'all how's it going? I'm still in Kerala and I am having such a good time. I mentioned in the last post that I've lately been on a lot of kitchen duty. Well today, I was in front of house and let me tell you, its not half as fun as it looks on Master Chef. My hands used to be soft and pink and I used to be able to actually touch things without feeling like somebody was routinely stabbing needles into my fingers just for the heck of it. Now they are covered in blisters (using those freaking shovels), burns (from the industrial toaster. I am literally from the stone age) and cuts (thanks, Susie. She's my cousin and today she was a bit bored so she took off half my finger with a meat carver). Who says Kerala can't be entertaining?
Speaking of food, did you know that a chakka in Kerala means a jackfruit? I find this pretty hilarious because a chakka, in Bangalore, means something completely different and its incredibly hard to keep a straight face when  mallus bring it up in conversation. I was in the car with my cousin and we were driving along when we saw some chakkas right, (the Kerala kind. The kind its okay to want to eat) and my cousin REFUSES TO STOP TALKING ABOUT THEM. I'm trying so hard not to laugh at anything she says especially because my grandparents are like fifteen centimetres away from me. It was hard.
"Hey Joe, look at that chakka! Dude, that is so big. Look, its so juicy (*lip smacking noise*). I just want to take that home and eat it." Must. Not. ROFL.
It is so freaking hot in Alwaye. Its a pretty good idea to build a church center over here because if hell is anything as hot as this I do not want to go there.
Why this Kerala experience is especially interesting for me is because I am spending an entire two weeks away from my Mom. How lame does that sound? HEY, before you judge, I know fifty year olds who still live with their parents. I'm fifteen! Its absolutely brilliant because:-
a) I don't have to eat vegetables unless I want to. Freaking hell! You know what the really weird part is? Even though I don't have to, I voluntarily do it now. I'm growing up y'all,
b) Nobody asks me really loudly in public if I went or not before I left the house.
c) Nobody checks if I'm wearing underwear. I don't have to wear it unless I feel like! (Which of course I do. Sort of. Why am I posting this online again?)
d) I can wear any inappropriate thing I want, provided I run past my grandmom really fast. She thinks I'm mentally imbalanced by the way.
Okay, I'm just going to finish this post really fast because I started writing this an unbelievable two hours ago. The current goes every 5.6 minutes. Kerala is like God's practical joke on mankind, he puts a bunch of people in the hottest place on the planet and then he gives them power cuts. Forgive me if this post isn't that good, it was written under a lot of pressure.
Byee! I'll try to put up pictures soon. Mwaah!
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The One About The Silicon Valley

Okay, before I start, big shout out to everyone who took the trouble to tell people about this blog. Thank y'all so much. Some of you wanted to know where I am right now and what I'm doing so basically I'm in Alwaye where I'm helping my church build a conference centre. Oh yeah, they can't do anything without me. I don't want to brag or anything but... yesterday I peeled cucumbers. And filled like seventy five litres worth of water bottles. Actually, I think they just put up with me because its fun to watch the kitchen idiot cut herself again. And again. 
Hey y'all how's it going? In case you are unaware of Bangalore's ultra cool nickname, this post is going to be about my favourite city. Now I'm not exactly sure if I'm officially a Bangalorean or not because every single person in my family is a Malayalee, and (fun fact) I actually only moved to Bangalore when I was nine. I'm very touchy about this by the way. You know how some people are scared of spiders? I'm paranoid that people will refuse to acknowledge my Bangalorean...ness... ity? Anything even remotely related to my origin/Kerala freaks me out and sends me into Super Denial Mode.
"So, where are you from?"
*sweating profusely* "Bangalore."
"Oh, really? I would've guessed-"
"BANGALORE, OKAY? BANGALORE!"
"Oh.. um, okay. Pass the hair oil?"
"WHAT ARE YOU IMPLYING?!"
So, while we're talking about this, let me tell you my six favourite-est things about home.

1. Bangalore has some incredible wildlife. For example-->
The Cow.
These babies are rare in other parts of the world. In Bangalore, we see them just walking down the street, in the middle of traffic, stampeding on the highway, everywhere. It's beautiful. The Silicon Valley may be the IT capital of India, but we've stayed close to our roots. These magnificent beasts are good for the economy too. Looking for a place to start that perfume company you've always dreamed about? Bangalore is the place for you! With all that cow dung, you won't even need advertisements!

2. The scenery. Bangalore has some pretty awesome views.
Look at that tree. That right there is amazing.










3. Bangalore is never crowded. Sick of places where you can't go anywhere without meeting a few thousand people? Want to be able to move your hand slightly in public without getting slapped by three separate women? Bangalore, with our meagre population of five million (and counting!) is the place for you.
Observe this deserted landscape and call your real estate agent.


4. Okay, enough with the sass, one of the things I truly love about Bangalore is Comm Street, which is incidentally the place shown in the picture above. Commercial Street is just brilliant, its always crowded, always lit up and there's something new to see or do every time. It's got all the big names and then the infinitely more fascinating tiny independent shops. By the way, when you're there check out the Cottage Emporium. If the Kashmiri dude behind the counter offers you half-price provided you figure out how to open the jewellery boxes, the trick is to use a little force.

5. The food in Bangalore is another thing I really like. I'm not talking about the restaurants although those are awesome too, I'm talking about the street food. It's kind of ironic that this is on here because I actually got typhoid when I was twelve and almost died (kind of) because of it. However, this is actually a pretty exceptional thing to happen. One of the many advantages of living in this germ-ridden city is that you build up  really good immunity so, as long as you're reasonably sure the food is somewhat clean, I think you should just go ahead and eat it because it's pretty freaking good. Pani puri, kulfis, guava with the works- its like a little bit of heaven till the diarrhoea kicks in.

6. Bangaloreans are awesome. They're wicked fun and hot. Although that might just be me? Provided I really am a Bangalorean of course.

Sorry the posting's a bit irregular nowadays, I'll try to get the next one up faster. mwaah xoxo
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