Mercedes' Mind Mirror

Magda was a girl I knew Though I doubt she did me She was better than the rest thought I,twelve year old I always wanted to talk to Magda But I was scared my "hello" wouldn't sound right She was kind to others and let me play Not like the rest of them They called her Maggie I wanted to too But may I? No,just play rather,what's in a name Magda was pretty I thought Big new teeth,yes But pretty I thought I wished Magda and I were best friends I stopped going to Magda's street Her friends scared me How could she like them! No matter,Magda probably did not even know me I stopped going to Magda's street One Christmas later I went to Magda's street Not to see Magda of course Simply on an errand at the corner shop Ran into Rosie her old friend I could talk to Rosie She had been playing hide and seek she said With Maggie! Oh yes, I pretended,Maggie They had been playing when... Her eyes widened to break sad news She slowed down...

Bringing her lips to a full pout she would carefully dab on her mauve lip gloss.Then she would wipe clean any extra around the corners while examining herself in the mirror.Then she'd put on her kajal or Kohl,whatever that is.Meticulously. Her kurtie is purple today. She rummaged her numerous little boxes for a pair of studs that would go with her top. She  is my sister. I always find it fascinating to watch her fuss over the minute details. She would throw a huge tantrum if she couldn't find her white and gold, enamelled bangle that would go perfectly with her bag or if her wristwatch looked out of place. On those mornings you can find me at the table ,eyebrow raised and sometimes trying hard not to laugh. What is with girls and make-up and jewellery! Maybe my opinion is in accordance with my poor sense of style. I'm sorry if you think big flat strap-on sandals are unwomanly and a trusty digital watch is an ugly bit of junk to be on a girl's wrist.But that's wha...

I was walking back from after school classes with Aparna whom I barely knew two years back.She has become one of my best friends. Waiting beneath the old banyan bus stop with the rest of Mar Ivanios, we stood talking about how things had just fallen into place. How we ended up doing everything together. Like best friends. It's funny because we had been in the same school for 7 years back in Muscat but the only thing that we had in common was Christy as our best friend. Nothing more than a hi-bye person. I  am a very bad friend. I don't always remember birthdays and text at toc-12 or walk people to their house (which may be on the very next right) because they are afraid of getting mugged. Bottom line: i'm not "sweet". I detest people who put up silly quotes (and worse their own) on friendship as stats--and those who like them. Coming back to live in India was like some sort of a test. Except it was more important that one made mistakes.The right mistakes. ...

Last week my chemistry teacher told us all to get lab coats and goggles. And this year we were going to have droppers in the reagent bottles. Yes yes, this year things were going to be safer in the chem lab. So on Tuesday we all walked to the lab, coat-clad, feeling proud. The chemistry lab has the aura of funeral meeting. It is deadly quiet even when a class of forty-two is inside. Then the once friendly chemistry teacher turns severe. She begins to talk in a hard stony voice. “You will not talk to anyone. You will look for reagents yourself and follow the procedure yourself. If any apparatus is broken you will pay. You are to put back the reagents where you found them. We’re short on reagents so don’t perform so and so tests.If I see anyone talking you will be out (pointing to the door). If you have any doubt don’t ask your friends.Come to me.” The last sentence after all instruction did not in the least sound comforting. “Start.” We took our positions according to roll order....

“Amiya okay now stand up!” I stood up slowly and hung my head, my face still red from laughing crazy. I stifled the treacherous torrent of laughter making its way up as Mr. Hussein said: “Okay now Anantthhha stand up okay now.” “Idiot!” hissed Anantha. The little embarrassment I had felt a second before evaporated as fast as it had come. Anantha Venkatraman was one of my best friends and partner in crime. We were the bickering twosome. All our fights usually ended in uncontrollable spurts of laughter. “Now okay if you continue this okay behaviour it will affect your okay performance. This is not a joke,” continued Mr. Hussein. I tried my hardest not to laugh when I caught sight of someone in the next row making tally marks on his desk to count the number of times Mr. Hussein said “okay now”. Anantha, eager to get back into the teacher’s good books, said: “Sorry Sir”, resetting his features to a grim and sorry expression. I feared he would get away with it because Anantha was one of Mr....

t’s always a little depressing that the smarter guy grabs the glory everywhere, be it at school or at workplace. We resort to all sorts of things to beat the smart guy. The little green monster takes over and makes us do either of the following. We work harder and score better, or simply continue envying and do nothing about it or the worst, cheat. Once after a particularly tough Maths exam I came home and dialled my sister seeking solace. She told something she had read somewhere. Every human brain has the same capacity. The smart people just keep theirs warm and working. I found this quite inspiring and ever since lessened the number of times I call myself stupid. Even when I score low at school I feel guilty for not having put enough effort but I also feel quite happy about the fact that what I have scored is with me and my brains alone. The conscience centre in my head works better than most people I believe or else I would have virtually been suffocated by wrong doings. We used...

I want to inspire people. Now you may think 'who's this little kid saying that big word?'. But I have a reason to want to inspire people. It's because I have been inspired by a few. I have been to four different schools since I first joined the crèche at Mary Nilayam and have been taught by a great many teachers or rather many great teachers. And when I left each school some of the people who left a lasting impression on me were my teachers. I was one of the average kids in the class since grade 8 at my old school - Indian School Al Ghubra - in Muscat. And definitely did not belong to any cliques and ‘popular gangs’. I was just another kid. Yet I still got those “good work”, “excellent” and “keep it up” remarks whenever I submitted an assignment or scored well in a test. I don’t know if the teacher meant any of it or if it was part of the protocol whenever a student did well. Either way those remarks produced the effect it was meant to have. It meant encouragement fro...

If I said I met Edward Cullen you probably wouldn’t believe me. But I did meet someone just as perfect as him. Gregor was the most handsome, beautiful, godlike creature I had set my eyes on when I first met him over tea at his house. His father, Gagik was a brilliant astrophysicist who had come to the University as a consultant. His mother Karine (pronounced as kah-ri-nay) too an astrophysicist had accompanied Gregor on a short visit to his father. They were Armenian. I had never heard of Armenia before, so I Googled it. It was a cold,Caucasian country bounded by land on all sides. I now understood why Gagik loved the sea. Armenia was known to have faced the worst of poverty in the wake of the world wars. Karine explained in her very poor English how they had absolutely no electricity or cooking gas till a few years back. I shuddered imagining a cold dark place without food. I gathered Armenians must be very strong, fierce people at heart. They looked quite powerful on the outside...

I had a haircut few days back.I do almost every six months but had not attracted as much attention as this time. Maybe it wouldnt have been sucha big hype were I back in Muscat. But people here in Kerala just can't take it if a 16 year old girl has her hair cropped off below her ears.I guess they have not seen many. The perfect girl here is one who has waist length oiled hair neatly braided and tied with ribbons.Excuse me! So as I walked into school it felt a movie with a hundred pairs of eyes staring at me.Hundred pairs of wide open shocked.,horrified ,surprised( yup! i got all kind of response)eyes.I walked into 11b first looking for Aparna.Loud Gasps, girly screams and more shocked faces.Aswathy screamed her way to me. "Alice!"..yeah i wish. But the closest thing that Alice Cullen and I have in common is the hair(hers is spikier and shorter) because Alice Cullen is a vampire and she's beautiful! The guys all seemed quite confused. They didn't like it. Hahah...

That's right.I can exaggerate well.Let me tell you what really happened.Today I went to school after an eight-day vacation to Muscat after debating whether i was really tired after the journey or i was just pretending too hard. It was by far the best day at school-partly cuz we weren't really at school.We went for this joy ride and nearly got us killed in this stampede and nearly lost the one of our classmates.(can't i ever stop?----no) I trudged heavily to my classroom still sleepy from the day before.Groggily I helloed n hi'ed everyone.My ever-eager-to-know-more-brainy-stuff friend Kirthana was ranting on about this Indian Science Congress held at the College of engineering,Kariyavattom.She badly wanted to attend the thing and had gone up to the princy for permission a couple of times to take the 11th grade for the exciting science hungama packed with oily nerds. hmm....was all i thought about the marvellous idea.Finally in the second period they sent for us and h...

It is the holy month of Ramadan.I heard the rest of the family at the table taking their early breakfast to keep them strong till dusk.I did not get up.I had proclaimed yesterday that i wasn't going to fast today because i was down with a flu(hopefully it's not the swine flu.hehe..or even if it is it may help to develop an immunity toward such horrible diseases).I rolled over and fell asleep.The next thing i knew was my mom yelling,"She's taken the car and gone!" "WHAT?!" I sat upright.'She' was my elder sister. "I have sent Omar after her.I'm dialling Gogo ..," Mummy said pushing the buttons quickly.Okay then it wasn't that big a catastrophe then.I hoped nobody else had the same idea as my sister,going out for a ride in their already-once-crashed-brand-new car ,at the crack of dawn.I imagined her stuck at the top of the sloping terrain,at the end of the lane wondering how to manoeuvre the vehicle next.I did not want to spend m...

If you're joining in kindergarten things are so easy to get along with.You're your silly, small, innocent,forgetful, cute self.So nobody has a problem with it because everybody is more or less the same at that age.A little fight over some silly thing is forgotten before the day ends.That way it's so convenient to get along with the other kids.Its pretty fine till you've reached teenage.It's funny how things go so horribly weird around this time.I don't know about other teens but I get really conscious when among an unfamiliar crowd.So far, going to a new school has been most terrifying for me.I gathered the following over the past 3 months about things you can,can't,should and shouldn't and won't be able to do when you're new(if you are a girl): 1. You just won't be fully satisfied with how things run in this new place.I kept comparing my old school to this new one and realised i had been living in heaven that just looked like hell. 2.Don...