Mercedes' Mind Mirror

"Goodbye!"" Cya!""au revoir"---everyday phrases chucked about like candy wrappers.So hollow,so impotent. Do we really care if  we meet them again or not? How many people do you really really care to see the next day.How many are important to you that you can't pass a "goodbye" without feeling? The University has been one of my favourite haunts since last year. I love the 19th century palatial college with huge magnificent halls of wood and giant windows and walkways adorned with very old banyan and tamarind with a thousand golden blossoms that sail down helically in the afternoon breeze.So I found myself wandering into the English department last Thursday and sat down at my mother's desk with absolute authority.Often I watched her students come up to her and talking in a very friendly manner but with due respect. She would often tell me how some of the most unassuming of her class would ask her to correct a piece of translation they att...

What started out like the most boring chapter of  my life, about as interesting as the obituary page Year 2010 had one too many surprise packages for me. I started out with a couple of resolutions (hah!)and tried to get a mental makeover.One of the first things I did,however, was crop short(and incredibly short) my hair inviting month-long jeering and gasping. People! If I were the Queen of Hearts it'd have been "Off with their Heads!!" Then came along YENTHA! One helluva place! Some time in February I took up my first Job.(no pay of course.too bad eh?..I thought I'd spend them on oils and photography). Well who cares 'cause once You're at Yentha you're at home,that is if  you are crazy like us. By the way, Yentha is an online web portal/online newspaper whatever you wanna call it exclusively for Trivandrum,one of the very few of its likes and we were off the charts in a couple of months since its inauguration in Feb.The two months I worked for Yentha wa...

Let me get there straight. Yesterday was the last day of school.Photographs,goodbyes,girls and slam books,hugging each other Merry Christmas and new year..I'm not the hugging-kissing kind but I made it a point to wish everyone. So I walk up to one of my teachers and wished her a merry Christmas.She gave a displeased snort and muttered something. I took a moment to comprehend her reaction.I was first confused and when I understood the slightly repulsed expression on her face I was taken aback.I was left in utter disgust after the incident. Christianity is not her religion, which was why she refused shake hands or return the greetings. Apparently she thinks I follow her religion.I follow it only on application forms,purely an official blank filled.Religious intolerance-it was not something you'd expect of a person of this age,and particularly a person of her profession. I felt the sudden urge to tell her my mother is a Christian. She would be appalled to know I'm a c...

Sleepy town woke up to dusty dawn To deafening rumble an roar,not a sign of fear But indeed War had come Men were paid to pave Paths to pestilence an' pain thick with stench of the slain There lay in ruthless neglect upon a soaked red earth the dying limbs of green friends As they grew black of death Man's monster machines played on,their game of destroy The tree of  thousand years lay in a mangled heap no one to mourn or weep Of love,war and peace it had had many stories to tell but for the blade of man whom it once let breathe

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. ...

Of all human traits I find arrogance most interesting. I believe there are two sides to it. There is plain unworthy arrogance and there is reasonable justified arrogance. Sometimes I'm drawn to arrogant people. To those who are really good at what they do and know it themselves too. Some call it being over-confident.Some call it sheer arrogance. I too call it arrogance sometimes.With a bitten lip and a grudging smile. Why do you secretly admire that arrogant son of a bitch?Simply put , because he's so AWESOME!~ *droool*. Why do you seem to overlook the fact that he nevertheless is arrogant. Because arrogance becomes an attribute to the person (though I always make it point to keep that to myself). I don't encourage arrogance but I don't want to criticize it either.Sometimes arrogance provides what humility does in terms of inspiration. Humility is a good thing.Being modest and not boastful, yes I do respect such people.But put both kinds on the counter and ...

  I remember the beginning of this year. I felt I were in a race car with a shaky foot on the throttle. Everyone was very considerate and all I heard them talk was about how not easy the Class XII examinations were going to be, tuition,grades,entrance examinations. Gah! I pretended to be dumb and deaf for some time. But inside I felt uneasy. Everyone else knew what they wanted to become or at least had had someone make the decision for them. Sometimes I’d wonder aloud, “Maybe I should become a movie director” after watching some major Mani Ratnam or Spielberg flick. One thing I knew—I would never join the zombie fray of doctors and engineers if I could help it. There are already too many of them in the country. Six months into Grade 12 I’m somewhat still in the same condition. I haven’t bunked or flunked much. But I haven’t started learning my lessons or doing my homework either. You can find me glassy-eyed and distant in my physics class. I'd be floating in outer space. I’d...