Friday, June 22, 2007

7. On mopping the floor


The sudden ditching of a household by a house-maid can have a great impact(disastrous) on the lives of the poor souls of the house. The impact would be greater if you happen to be the only female kid around and especially if you have reached that age when people classify you as a ‘matured lady’(:-/) and double especially if this happens so coincidentally in the middle of a 3-month long vacation when you have officially declared yourself to be utterly jobless(moan!…I had to admit that!). Now.. now..let’s not grumble and groan about the throes of household chores…look at the bright side… Such mishap should instead be considered as an excellent opportunity for discovering those hidden talents lurking inside of you!(height of optimism!).

Being the lazy bones that I am(remember garfy!), I try my best to keep myself aloof from any forms of housework. If at all I am cornered by some work, I choose the least laborious, the least time consuming and most important of all… the least yukiest of work(yuk!!).

But this time, the case is different. You see…Mom gets pissed with me for no fault of mine(after all I am always the pavam, innocent one :D) and I badly want her to give me permission to see POC-3 along with two of my friends(the imp n the devil) the next day. Gotta get into her good books asap…and nothing pleases a tired, overworked Momma like a willing, obedient daughter offering her to lend a helping hand.

So donning the sweetest of my smile, I approach Mom and declares that I’ll be mopping the dirty, mud covered staircase and the adjoining sit-out, which apparently have had no contact with any sort of cleaning gadgets what-so-ever for over a week(thanks to the darned rains, and to those people who find their damn muddy foot-wares too precious to be left at the foot of the staircase).

I wait expecting a broad grin of gratefulness from her. But there came none… (hmm…gotta put more lather in the soap).Struggling to keep that smiling look on my face, I politely inquire about the location of the moping gadgets, about which she directs me briskly, in a very business-like manner(Still no sign of that grateful smile on her face…)

An old, weather-beaten, water-filled bucket in my left hand and a mopping rod in my gloved right hand – I stand on top of the staircase and scan the stairs one by one…one..two..three…….seventeen 30x90cm stairs in all…a total of 45,900sq.cm.+ the 36,450 sq.cm sit-out too…hmm….

First I switch off the front-door light –this way preventing any nosey neighbours from spying on me @ work. I start from the topmost stair…one dip of the moping rod in the lotioned water…and one swish on the floor(I expect a sparkling, speckless, spotless, stair like how those commercials show)but what really happens??O my gosh!!a flood of muddy water on the stairs!!too bad the commercials never show the entire thingy…you gotta squeeze out the extra water before swabbing(hmpf!!)

Second attempt –I carefully squeeze out all the extra water and make another swab...ok...that’s better! but one swish alone doesn’t do the magic…have to do 2-3 swabs and that too exerting much pressure on the floor…its not that easy a task u know…u see this mopping rod in the discussion is quite long/heavy(longer than me…)and I am using a plastic cover as a glove too. I realise...you can’t get much grip with a plastic cover on a plastic rod especially if you are working with water. 

Okie..step 1 gets over somehow!!
Step 2(Oh!)
Step 3(puff!)
Step 4(pant!!)
Step 5(hmpf!!)
Step 6(grrr…..)
Step 7(groan!...)
Step 8(grumble!)
Step 9(aaargh!!!...this stubborn mud!!)
Step 10(aaargh again!!!...this dumb rod)
Step 11(now..now..dont be a whinny kid)
Step 12(gosh !! When will this be over!!??)
Step 13(hey chill!!..think about tmw’s POC)
Step 14 (hmpf again…me and my dumb ideas!!)
Step 15(chill… its not all that bad.)
Step 16(ya right! u can say that again!grr..again)
Step 17(pheeeeew!!!...............................finally!!!)

Hands on my hips, I scan the entire steps once again…Yipeee!!! I did it!!! Not so fast chinky…still half the work still remains…remember the sit-out??…oh yeah right…I make my way carefully up the stairs (shouldn’t spoil my mopped stairs).

Up the stairs I continue my swishing with the mop. Hey this is fun…not like the stairs…just gotta do left..ritght..left..right..left…trrang…er..what was that? I discover a big screw on the floor (not mine k??? mine are all still perfectly intact).Omg!! these people!! How careless can they get to be?? leaving dangerous things anywhere they want just like that!!Oh right ..and my bro claimed to have swept the floor earlier too..Ahaa..this is how he sweeps eh??

With another swish I sent that 2 inch ‘life-threatener’ flying out through the railings down to the garden. And another swish... Er..did something go wrong? My longer/heavier-than-me rod doesn’t seem to be that heavy now. My gaze moves from wherever it was down to the rod. Omg! the so-far-one-unit-mopping-rod has now become 2 separate units -a rod and a piece of rag…what happened??? Hmm… Now that explains the missing screw!!

Mom’s face comes to the forefront of my mind(gulp!)….closely followed by the next day’s POC(gulp again!)Aargh!!that’s scary!Shake it off!!..let’s finish off this crap now.

Pressing the tip of the rod hard against the cloth, I continue my left-right swishing, but with lesser amplitude. My sound receptors suddenly pick up the rumble of an approaching vehicle. It again senses the sound of the gates opening …Who could it be? What if it turns out to be some friend of mine? Worse ...what if it turns out to be a young handsome dude?(though I know the probability of it be precisely 0). Cant let whoever it is to see me in this clumsy way. I make a dash for the door; into the house; to the kitchen where Mom was(leaving the muddy-watered bucket where it was on the stairs…the ragged piece of cloth fell somewhere in the living room -that too in a non-unnoticable palce…and me still holding on to whatever was left of the rod..).When one is in a flight or fright or in this case a ‘chammal’ one hardly thinks of a broken mopping rod or POC or anything at all for that matter.

The visitor turns out to be an ‘old’ relative, and he leaves as hurriedly as he came(okay..so far so good…but wait…not so fast…lemme complete…)HE CAME WITH HIS PRECIOUS FOOTWARE ON, all the way up the stairs and then down, leaving my sparkling-clean steps back to their original state.. (Aargh!!!)…

Moral: Don’t spare the mopping-rod and spoil the POC.
Lesson learnt: Never take ‘mopping the front door staircase’ as a chore to please your Momma on a rainy day.

6. Gud ol’PCs



Ask me which is the class I’ll miss the most next year….I’ll say…PC. Ask me which is the most important of all the first year classes….I’ll say…PC. Ask me which is the class that provides both information and entertainment at the same time…. I’ll say…PC. Ask me which is the most idiotic of all classes…. I’ll say again…undoubtedly its PC ---ED(engineering drawing)being a close competitor though. Ask me….arey that’s enough of asking…now read on…

Ok, so what is this PC all about??? Well I guess it supposedly stands for Professional Communication---the one and only course which equips a budding engineer with the required communication and interaction skills which will fetch him/her an easy campus placement, GRE, CAT..and what not!!!
Whatever it is supposed to stand for and whatever its purpose of existence may be, I’ll say that it’s an indispensable part of our academic course… I mean…how else could we have managed to cope up with the rest of the btech courses??

For those non-NITians who happen to read this, let me explain…well this PC class of ours, because of its uniqueness, is not conducted in any normal classrooms. We have this ‘Bhaskara hall’ exclusively allocated for this subject. It’s kind of a seminar hall which accommodates two of our batches together, where we have these types of chairs with wooden writing boards attached to it--- these writing boards can be conveniently used, either for resting sleepy heads, or as scratch pads to scribble on- just in case you forgot to bring paper to play ‘cows n bulls’, or hey… it can even be used to keep your PC books on and write... in case you happen to bring your PC book…that is if you have a PC book at all!!!lol!
Making you thus acquainted with the settings of this much renowned class, let me move on to the actual classes…

The very first of our PC classes witnessed us, innocent-minds, racing for the front row, in order to facilitate the better perception and reception of the ‘great man’ and his even ‘greater lectures’…However, as the classes progressed, we were still racing…but this time it was for the back rows. Our translocation from the front rows to the back rows was so apparent, so strikingly notable that our ‘great man’ finally said “Sorry for the inconvenience… by next sem we’ll make arrangements for the extension of the hall further backwards”.

A quick inspection of the entire class reveals a wide variety of different facial expressions---the dumbstruck face of the one who cannot get either head or tail of what the proff is trying to achieve by his classes; the utterly bored face which seem to scream out-“yea dil mangee NO MORE of PCs”; the highly tensed face of the one who is unsure whether he/she will be able to finish off the next period’s assignment within this one hour; the exuberant face of the one who has just won a cows n bulls game; the invisible face of the one who has already crashed on the writing board---the place is just apt for anyone who is interested in researching on the diversity in human countenance.

Well, nothing would have been possible without our great ol’man. He is a real sport(er…irony intended). But it is really sad that none of us, including myself fail to recognise ‘aa full-sleevinullile kalakaaran’. But one thing I do appreciate is his attempt at making humour which hits the bulls-eye with a probability of about 0.01--- but sometimes it does hit--- he often advises his class, not to give more than one proxy for the same person –something which happens very often especially in his classes –and to wake up atleast during the attendance session –something which seldom happens.

Talking about PCs….now I understand the reason for my pathetic performance during the 2nd sem…….hmmm…
No PCs => No time to complete assignments and tutorials => No time to get proper sleep => No source of entertainment to refresh my poor lil’brain => Reduction in efficiency => poor output => Low gpa.

Yup!...now I got it!!that’s why…hmmm…and all this while I have been blaming myself...poor me…
Gud ol’PCs…. miss you soo much…[,’)]

5. The Muse Returns!


Seconds pass by, minutes pass by, hours pass by, days pass by, weeks pass by, a month too passes by…WHAT!!! It has been that long?? And still no sign of him? Where the heck is he? How can I miss him for this long? How can he be such a ditcher? My friends have already started asking…what’s happening to you ? Why? Its really sad...how can I answer them all?? Can I tell them the truth? Survival without him is a matter of question…dying without him…dying…almost dead… my blog’s dying… O Muse! where art thou??

The state of a blogger who has nearly run out of ideas is a really miserable one. Cant express it in words. A large number of cases have been recently reported in quite a number of blogs(http://www.iamthereforeithinkalot.blogspot.com/) With the number of blogs in the net increasing progressively day by day,and thereby the Muse being kept busy, the matter is feared to go out of control. Timely action needs to be taken before this plague claims more lives. So here are some quick facts for you.
Scientific name: looso musia syndrome
Most vulnerable ones: those bloggers, writers,chatters and scrappers who being temporarily jobless and have found some solace blogging and whose creative juices have either dried up in the summer heat or have got dissolved in the monsoon rains.
Symptoms: sudden mood-shifts which may result in sudden variation of facial expressions; often getting lost in thought; often seen scratching the head or scribbling on pieces of paper, or for the more advanced techies.. staring at the blank screen of the MS Word at length; an increase in the number of blog-hopping he/she makes in an attempt to get some ideas and so on…
Remedy: Wait for the return of the Muse or blog at your own blog’s stake… no other cure known till date.
Sensing that I am slowly becoming a victim to this deadly disease, I suddenly got into action. Tried out ‘n’ number of things which proved to be of no avail. Finally I decided to try out in the old ‘Mayavi’ style…Om krim Museee… Om krim Museee…
(well this piece of crap is inserted as a result of a certain friend who keeps chanting this often…so much so that I penned it down)Anyway….the Muse senses one of its blogger in trouble(that's me!) and Voila!the Muse returns…and after 1 month 3 weeks 3 days 2 hours
and 15 minutes ..here I go blogging again…somebody stop me!!!