Blue skies, the sun and dreams

New love, old love, older loves

sukhaloka@gmail.com (Suki) — Tue, 09 Mar 2010 11:56:00 +0000

I wondered why I continued to leave things at his place, while I was growing more and more attached to you.

I wondered even more why this continued, as I kept trying to figure out who I was more loyal to - me, you or him. Even as he was fast fading.

I knew he was truly fading as I failed to leave something behind for the first time in weeks.

I knew I had turned wholly to you the day I forgot something - not at his home, but at mine and ours.

Do you know what you are? Do you know that you are? You, who will forever remain an enigma, provoking actions and reactions that only few can sense, understand and explain.

Through my old, old love, I discover you... you, both inside and outside, everywhere and unseen.

What not to do while giving a face massage

sukhaloka@gmail.com (Suki) — Mon, 01 Mar 2010 16:50:00 +0000

Keep hands clasped right in front of the face being massaged
Spend 50% of your time squeezing the nostrils shut
Press down with all your finger strength on the hollow of the temple
Keep up the same repetitive motion on neck and cheek, ignoring the jaws that are completely tensed up thanks the nasal shenanigans
Work as if you were being paid by the stroke rather than for the package as a whol

And what to do?

Communicate! Ask what feels good, and what doesn't.
Feel for pressure points, found by testing on self and multiple others
Go slowly and carefully, working out kinks
Spend time on forehead and neck, where stress accumulates
Work along the jawline, loosening a clenched jaw
Use feather-light touches under the eyes, over eyelids...
... anything that puts the massage-ee to sleep!

Multilingual bombardment

sukhaloka@gmail.com (Suki) — Sat, 23 Jan 2010 07:27:00 +0000

When 90% of the Tweets on my page are in a language I don't know, what do I do?

Answer:

a. Sharpen my Google Translate skills. Tap-drag, Cmd-c, Cmd-v.

b. Buy a Larousse Anglais-Français dictionary

c. Learn my way around typing special characters on the Mac's keypad - THANK YOU APPLE for the keyboard map!

d. Learn how to say "Je ne parle pas le français" and "no habla español".

Clearly, the dominant unknown-language in the equation is French. Now, how do you say "I speak very little French", hmm? Google Baba says it's "Je parle très peu le français" :)

Do I need to go to the Alliance Française? Ah, if only Google would teach me to "PARLER" Français instead of just "lire et écrire Français".

As for Español? That might have to wait!

More resolutions

sukhaloka@gmail.com (Suki) — Thu, 21 Jan 2010 17:38:00 +0000

I haven't been doing too well with the "Sleep-instead-of-procrastinate" resolution, but I haven't given up on it either. Slowly, things ARE getting better. Even though I ended up sleeping at 5 last night/this morning, I'd been fairly productive through the night.

Now, I'm making another resolution to somewhat the same effect.

I am going to shut my Mac down every night.

I've left the Mac on sleep mode whenever I'm not using it - in fact, I've probably booted it a total of 5 times in a month and half. I'm not sure I shut it down while flying, either. I know, kill me!

Enough is enough. I just calibrated the battery, and now I see 92% battery health on just 50 cycles :(. Wish the battery was user-removable. But since it isn't, I might as well minimize my comp use and maximize its health - as well as my own!

Trip Tidbit #1

sukhaloka@gmail.com (Suki) — Sun, 10 Jan 2010 21:58:00 +0000

I realized that blogging coherently about the Mumbai-Goa trip is not going down well with me right now. My mind is working like Scrivener does - in bits and pieces, which need to be arranged to form a whole that makes sense. So, I'm going to give you scrambled impressions, in bits and pieces, about the trip.

Here's a brief overview/itinerary because I'm a crazy rule-bound organization whore.

I left for Mumbai on 16/12/2009. Touched the airport at nearly 3 pm, an hour late due to runway delays etc.
Stayed with relatives in Mumbai
Left on the morning of 19th, met up with Kiran, Ro, Krish, Ayaan and Baby T, and then rushed to meet MrS at the airport. I'll add here that Ro dropped me off, and got to say hi to my sleep-deprived, click-happy boyfriend :P.
Stayed at a hotel near VT - a Hotel New Bengal, absurdly cheap and seriously nice though the staff seems badly clueless. I have fallen head over heels in love with Mumbai's dairy - the yoghurt is fantastic! Oh, and the hotel's restaurant Zaffran deserves good mention. At hardly Rs 250-300 per meal for two, they had such brilliant food that we ate there three times in a row, completely forgetting that other places to eat do exist.
Left for Goa in a train on the 22nd, and had a gruelling 12-hour journey that left MrS with hundreds of photo ops through the Western Ghats.
Chilled out in Goa until our return(by air) on 27th.

Notable happenings from Mumbai, Relatives Phase:
1. Asking my granddad ("great-uncle" for you non-Indian peeps) how far we'd travelled after a 20 minute trip, and being told "Oh, 20 km?". That distance would take two hours in Calcutta. I kid you not.
2. Meeting shooting coach Sanjoy Chakravarty, who is also my grandfather. It was pretty amusing to hear him describe his job as "Oh, I just sit there. They come to me when they want to." I didn't know you could make a shooting range sound like ... meditation camp?
3. Ending up completely exhausted after working AND going out on the 16th and 17th, to hear granddad say "Oh, I thought you were leaving on the 18th, or we would have fixed up a program for you!" I was extremely glad I hadn't enlightened them earlier :P

Meeting Satru-dida was, without a doubt, the highlight of this leg of the trip. "Satrudida" to me was Reba Vidyarthi to the Kathak circuit, was the guru of my only dance guru, is my grandmother's second cousin in ways that I haven't bothered to understand. Dida was "kind" enough to remind me of a highly embarassing, fairly amusing story involving me, my guru and herself, but I'll save that one for people who email me to ask :P.
Memories tumble out everywhere as I think of Dida and the time I - it was we back then - had at that house in Laxmi Nagar. After an hour of ~~torture~~ dance class on Sunday morning, Mom would take me to Dida's place. Dadu - Govindji as my grandparents called him, and Govindji-dadu as I called him. There would always be some food from Dida, books to talk about with Dadu, and in short, ample consolation for the torture I had been put through before.
Ma, Bhaiya(my maternal granddad) and I had gone to their place the night before she died. I suppose he thought that Satrudida or Govindji-dadu would be able to... console her? knock sense into her brain? I don't know. I don't know if he knew.
I wish Dadu had been alive. Their son, my uncle but someone I invariably think of as "Ashish-dada", has put up a poignant little writeup in his memory. To me, however, Govindji-dadu will always be the stately figure in the big chair, with dark skin, white hair, white clothes, spectacles and so much interesting knowledge.

It takes effort to pull myself out of 1997 and into the present, but it must be done. I can only hope that some day, this excess of love, sorrow, joy, pain and tears will cease to leave me exhausted and.. dry, incomplete.
As I said, it must be done.
Speaking to Satrudida did two things. It reminded me that I am very, very, very glad to have chosen my own love and goal, and it showed me once again the wonder of people who live completely dedicated to one passion and one cause.
Satrudida has spent her life dedicated to Kathak. I will not go into details of her own tutelage, because these are things I know only from hearsay. What I can and will treasure, instead, is the memory of an old, toothless old lady, animatedly telling me how she devises ways of teaching children dance even when she can no longer walk. I connected with her after all these years, the moment she said that she wanted to teach her students the basics of dance, through one and only one lesson. It reminded me of the professor I revere today, the man who now smiles and says "I have taught you to read. So read!"

Dida made me proud once again by her reaction to my confession that I hated dance, and will always hate dancing. She admitted that I had been forced to dance when I didn't want to do it [Note: AND I was woken up on Sunday mornings. GRRRR], and that was more than enough reason to hate it. I suppose I'll be this zen about people not liking psychoanalysis when I'm 80 years old.
At any rate, we spent some lovely time talking about dance, and the process of teaching. I agreed with her at some points, disagreed at a few, and tried hard to explain to her what psychoanalysis was. I realized then that some memories are worth reviving, and that the bittersweet pain is worth feeling instead of blocking out. I may not see Dida again, but at least I can live on with a clear image of an intent face, mobile eyebrows and graceful hands, trembling ever so slightly as she demonstrated the very first Kathak lessons she gives to beginners.

In Absentia

sukhaloka@gmail.com (Suki) — Sat, 09 Jan 2010 20:18:00 +0000

Sometimes, I just want verbal chocolate. Not even actual chocolate, because it's sure to give my dehydrated stomach some pretty nasty treatment. Yes, I've been forgetting to drink water.

Sigh.

What have I been doing?

Hunting for Twitter desktop clients
Trying to make Mail(Mac's mail client) stop downloading Spam and stop creating annoying draft files.
Resolving to read Lacan, and going back to hunting for a Twitter/social media app.
Busy fighting the freakiest of technical problems, like my mail account that synced only the second time I followed the SAME steps, or the desktop client that accepted two Twitter accounts but not a third.
Realizing that there exists an extremely well-known set of apps that allow blog editing, social media and email. They're called browsers.
Realizing that Firefox is still pretty much unbeatable, and that Flock somehow manages to do little except taking FF and slowing it down with lots of features.
Wishing Mac users would get the pokers out of their arses, admit that Macs don't always "just work", and get to providing good support! (Yeah yeah, I know you want to kill me)
Not getting to bed on time. Sigh.

Time to go, really. Nearly 2 am, and for some reason I'm stressed enough to feel the base of my neck prickling and burning away to glory. I need to get me a life.

PS: Handbrake - that's an app that needs VLC for some reason - isn't detecting VLC though they're both installed in the same folder. Kill me, anyone? Please?

I have a New Year's Resolution

sukhaloka@gmail.com (Suki) — Sat, 02 Jan 2010 17:32:00 +0000

I'm going to sleep when I want to if I'm home.
Damn the consequences.

It'll save the time I spend trying to work and procrastinating instead.

Mac life

sukhaloka@gmail.com (Suki) — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 20:24:00 +0000

M, to me: Suki, could you send me this text?
Me: Yeah sure... . Oh wait, it's on the PC. I don't feel like firing up that old hag!

Uncle: My PC is prehistoric! Pentium I, 230 MHz processor, 64MB RAM!
Me: I have... er... 20 times the processing power and 40 times the RAM you got.

Note: Major respect for the patience of people still living with PCs.

Coincidence, similar aesthetic tastes, or just plain annoying?

sukhaloka@gmail.com (Suki) — Sat, 26 Dec 2009 06:22:00 +0000

The boy is henceforth to be known also as Mr S if I feel like it. He and I have often been told by his sister that we look like siblings - and that she doesn't look like him at all; rubbish, in my opinion.

But after being told at a college fest early in 2008 that some strangers wondered what the hell the DJ was doing with his sister, we took a good look at ourselves and realized this - we were wearing almost identical backpacks, black-on-white bandannas, and similar fake Chuck Taylors.

Since then, we've got a bit worse.
Out to buy bandannas, we both go to Chamba Lama in New Market and hunt for the black-on-whites. Then, we step into Asian Arts right next to Chamba and pick up silver jewellery (no, it's NOT "jewelry", it's NOT!) - I love earrings, while his penchant is for finger-rings.

We entered South City Mall to buy ACTUAL Chuck Taylors - having attained requisite income levels by this time - and ended up with identical pairs. My defence? When you want versatility, you want black. And when you want comfort, you want hi-tops. And then, you will obviously prefer the pair with a lovely graphic over the pair with a single yellow line, right?

You'll be heartened to know that I'm wearing capris and skirts at the beach instead of sticking to the Mr S-style of beachwear which includes halfpants, swimming trunks and more halfpants. Well, and i do have a decided preference for reds, yellows(thanks, Ro!) and oranges in my wardrobe - a drastic contrast to Mr S' blues, greens and brownns.

But. BUT. We hit rock-bottom the day we went out for beach slippers. After a massive fight, barely speaking to each other, we firmly turned our backs on each other and... emerged holding identical pairs of red slippers.

He bought the blue version of those red slippers. We're yet to live this one down.

PS: This morning, 27th, the day after I published this post, the waitress at the shack asked me if Mr S and I were brother and sister.
Sigh.
Should I assume that they play safe and ask people if they're siblings rather than ask if they're a couple?

Pinging in from Mumbai

sukhaloka@gmail.com (Suki) — Wed, 16 Dec 2009 11:57:00 +0000

Sitting in my maternal grandmother's cousin's - er... my grandfather's - living room, surfing wirelessly on my Tata Photon Plus. The lappie is at a convenient height on a low table in front of a comfy sofa that seems made for people five feet high or less.

I have had several occasions to thank my five-foot-nothingness today and yesterday - effortlessly walking under a thick wire, being able to stand upright on the last seat of a bus, and best of all being able to stretch out my legs in an Economy class airplane seat!

For the record, Hans Zimmer RULES. Oh yeah he does. Especially when you hear him on superb headphones, while the plane you are in descends through banks of clouds all forming fantastic, brightly illuminated shapes.

<3.
I am happy.

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Even more WTF tech things

sukhaloka@gmail.com (Suki) — Mon, 14 Dec 2009 10:33:00 +0000

I activated GPRS on my phone a month ago. It worked once I got the settings thing through my thick skull.
It stopped working a week after it started. Nothing I did helped.

This morning, I found it working again.
Has BSNL found out I took a Tata Indicom connection? Are they trying to win me back? Do pigs fly? Do govt undertakings know the meaning of customer service? Can people fathom the unconscious of a computer?

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Broadband WTFs

sukhaloka@gmail.com (Suki) — Sun, 13 Dec 2009 22:26:00 +0000

My BSNL Internet connection started working wirelessly this afternoon. At least, I noticed it this afternoon. I've been trying to get it to work since I got the Mac, but it simply REFUSED to.

Either some stars have aligned somewhere, or installing the Tata package has got the BSNL working too. That's the only explanation I have.

Anyway, I'm not complaining!

Blogged with the Flock Browser

Installing Tata Indicom Photon+ on Mac OS 10.6 Snow Leopard

sukhaloka@gmail.com (Suki) — Sat, 12 Dec 2009 16:00:00 +0000

I subscribed to Tata Indicom Photon Plus, a wireless broadband connection, today - 12th December 2009. My computer is a MacBook - the latest basic model, with pre-loaded Snow Leopard (OS 10.6).

When I plugged in the USB dongle, the installer program started up. But when I tried to click on the installer file, it refused to open and crashed every time.
Here's what made it work -
1. Two-finger click on the installer file, and click "Show Package contents"
2. Click the .pkg file in the contents/resources folder. The package installs automatically, and opens network preferences.
3. Enter a phone number, account name and password. Account name and password are usually sent via email (a bit inconvenient if this is to be your online Internet connection, hehe).
4. Start surfing!

Yes, it's as simple as that. Problem is, no one tells you to do it.

Yeah, this post is designed to get traffic. "Traffic" here = Tata Indicom users who are on Snow Leopard and feeling victimized by inept customer service ;-). Much gratitude to the person who put up this post, where I got my info.

Of Flock and MacBook

sukhaloka@gmail.com (Suki) — Tue, 08 Dec 2009 07:17:00 +0000

I FINALLY bought the MacBook about a week ago. True to form, can't remember the exact date, though I could deduce it if I wanted to :P.
Suffice it to say, I have spent the first week of December drooling all around my new white polycarbonate unibody beauty, trying my level best not to get copious amounts of saliva on the still-pristine keyboard. I tell myself it would be this way even if my last computer had not been a 2003 assembled PC, with 1.66 GhZ processor, 640MB of DDR RAM and a monitor that needed gamma adjustments every time I booted.

Over this week...
I have ecstatically clicked on three apps at once, confident that my computer wouldn't stall for the next three minutes.
I have oohed and aahed over the fact that my PC... er... comp takes less time to boot than my router does. We'll overlook the fact that my colossal ignorance has prevented me from taking advantage of wireless Internet yet. Let's hope that gets remedied soon!
I have lamented the fact that my complete Freud eBook is in .hlp format(that's Windows Help), and am trying to work up the enthu to fire up my ancient desktop, decompile it and put it back together as an HTML archive. No, I'm not as tech-savvy as I sound. I know what these things are called, but can't do them.
I have suddenly realized that there is a shitload of noisy construction going on in the neighborhood. I never heard it over the sound of my PC. Yeah, a fan cleaning has been long, long due!
I can sit facing the window of my room, under the ceiling fan, instead of staring at walls and the door while I work. Wheee!
I tried to find a substitute for Windows' "F5" for refresh. I found it - Cmd-R. I tried to find a substitute for Windows' "F11" - the key that turns browsers into full-screen view. I failed.
I have discovered Scrivener Gold - my annotations just became that much easier! Been thinking about trying WriteRoom, but the change in file formats is seriously annoying. I'm wondering whether to get hold of iWork - Pages and the whole deal.
I am wondering how to get rid of Time Machine - I want to access every ounce of power that I can out of this well-endowed beauty of mine ;-).
I have kept touching the trackpad, just because it scrolled at a rate that matched my mind. Or maybe because ... you know, because the warmth of the glass, the ability to stroke it and watch it read my mind is a sensual experience beyond compare. Oh, and the fact that I can view the latest wallpaper on display with one stroke of my hand - emptying my screen for as long as I wish? Priceless :D.

I have set up Flock, the browser, with this gmail account. That explains the recent spurt in Facebook and Twitter activity, for those of you who have befriended me on those services.
I have wished - and still wish - that Flock supported multiple users - each with his/her own set of email, blog and social media accounts.
I am insanely grateful that I don't need NoScript any more. Bloody resource hog! Oh wait, the resource hogging wouldn't hurt me that much right now :-D.

Gah, now my Mac has decided to update. This means over 700 MB of downloads. Lets' hope I can post this, coz I'm totally gonna wrap up now.

PS: People who want Macbooks in Kolkata, check out MacIntel Solutions, 3 Parasar Rd, behind Lake Market. The staff were almost unbelievably cooperative, even coming over to my place to get my certificates for the 6% education discount. But what really won me over was the looks I saw on the faces when they opened the MacBook - that reverent, enthusiastic look of love that I see on all die-hard Apple lovers. Yup, these people love what they do!
In fact, one of the partners actually uses an iBook G4, and they have one of the first ever iMacs in their office - running Tiger, nothing less! Well, the bubbling-over enthusiasm in this post is mostly due to the MacBook rather than MacIntel Solutions, but my recommendation still stands. Smooth deal, good deal, and a 400-rupee discount because I wheedled or because I didn't wheedle enough :-).

Blogged with the Flock Browser

sukhaloka@gmail.com (Suki) — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 04:59:00 +0000

Life keeps changing - irreversibly, imperceptibly. Sometimes, the changes culminate and have to be acknowledged. Decisions have to be taken, the pace of the change changes. One wonders if things could have been different, but one realizes that things happen for the best. Yet, one mourns for the past - until one realizes the future of hard, rewarding work that awaits.

Today, I took a decision - every day, at least from now till December 15, I will do ONE thing that makes me VERY proud of myself.
I don't expect this to last too long, primarily because I don't think I have that many things that can be done in a day and make me so proud of myself ;-).
Still, this is a start.

What the media chooses to ignore - this time, it's gun-toters in a university

sukhaloka@gmail.com (Suki) — Tue, 24 Nov 2009 09:43:00 +0000

This is what happened at Jawarlal Nehru University, Delhi, on Sunday the 22nd of November 2009. Originally posted by my friend Srin on facebook, here - http://www.facebook.com/note.php?saved&&suggest&note_id=181353647538

Last Night

When I met Kar for tea yesterday evening she told me about this gherao she'd seen at the North Gate. Four men inside a police van, students milling around aimlessly and the main gate locked. Neither of us being in the mood for Renaissance art, we walked to the gate to see what was happening. Apparently these four Delhi types had come onto campus drunk and harassed some women who called the guards on them. Common occurrence, they get beaten up and kicked out but this time one of the smarties pulled a gun on the guard and so the police were called. Apparently, the police refused to lodge an FIR, so the crowd had surrounded the van and wouldn't let it leave.

The scene at the gate was quite cheerful, we stood around for a bit (I got into a fight) laughing at the poor fucks stuck inside the van and at their car which had been d-e-m-o-l-i-s-h-e-d c-o-m-p-l-e-t-e-l-y (we even took photos with the overturned car but that was later). There were people outside the gate and on the walls. Maia was taking photos from her perch on the wall. Sandeep Singh, the Student's Union President, got up on the roof of the van to address us, once in a while a roar went up, which we joined in even though we couldn't hear much of what he said.

Then we went back to dinner and came back, having accumulated Rajani and Dhawale on the way. About forty five minutes had elapsed. There were more people there when we returned, Karan went up to the car with Kar's camera to take photos of the people inside (Nitin Kapoor, Ankit Nanda, Amit Chauhan and Gagan Kumar), got some nice photos. Then we saw the van heave. Dhawale spotted Oompy in the middle of the crowd trying to stop people from pushing the van and then everything erupted. The gate opened, the van sped out, somebody chucked a stone and shattered the back window. And for a brief moment the crowd just inside the gate stood face to face with the RAF outside the gate. A crowd of students, most of whom were just bumming around on a Sunday evening vs. a posse of riot policemen, with helmets, sticks and shields. Then somebody chucked a stone, the police lathicharged and the crowd surged back. So we ran, laughing at the absurdity of it, I think most people were laughing. I stopped running because I didn't want to get caught in a stampede and one kind RAF uncle ran up to me and said "bhaago, bhaago". The police retreated and the crowd came back. This is when it started to get serious (and where this will get really incoherent). Both sides started throwing bricks at each other and the police lathicharged again. I ran up the side of the road to the faculty quarters. One enterprising young man was throwing chocolate bombs at the police on the road below, who were now beating up individuals, so a couple of policemen followed us up. There were about ten to fifteen more people outside the house where I went, the woman whose house it was pushed us in and told us to stay in. There were people inside who had broken noses, broken heads, broken chins etc. The door was open and one policeman came inside and tried to drag a boy out but the faculty member whose house it was screamed at him for coming inside her house (she told me later that he was drunk and said to her, "haath mein lathi hain, jahan chahe jayenge"). I left by the back gate and went back to the road. Kar and Karan were outside, both with streaming eyes. They had been teargassed. The police had retreated to the gate and the crowd had retreated too. Some students had been arrested. The crowd refused to disperse till the police left and the police refused to leave until the crowd had dispersed. Finally, the gates were closed after about an hour and the crowd had dispersed a little, most were at Ganga Dhaba (which is close to the gate) waiting to know what would happen to the arrested students. I left around 1130, things had still not been resolved.

I heard today that the arrested students had been brought back around 130, that Oompy had three sections of his right arm bandaged because he tried to save a girl from being hit, that another woman who had tried to prevent a fellow student (who she did not know, by the way) from being beaten up on the street outside had been dragged to a police van and the student who she had been trying to save threatened with a rape case. I heard this was the second time students had been lathicharged on campus, I heard the Vice Chancellor was not in the country and that the Dean of Students had also been beaten up. I also heard a lot of party politics bullshit.

One name that came up again and again while Sandeep Singh was trying to pacify the crowd was Manu Sharma (the man convicted for murdering Jessica Lall) and how he had gone free for several years. The prevailing sentiment was that if we let the van leave then these four guys would also get away scot free (somebody's daddy was somebody important, or rich, same shit in Delhi). The prevailing sentiment was that you can't trust the police. Both correct. In blocking the van from 330 in the afternoon to 930 at night, yes, we obstructed the police in it's work but there is still no justification for this sort of violence on a crowd that was largely peaceful.

Don't believe the news. Nobody I spoke to today thought we had "over reacted" (and I spoke to a lot of apolitical, peaceful people), we didn't start the fight and it could not have been a toy gun.

Edit:

To add to that, the father of the boy who pulled the gun out said that it was his son's "constitutional right to own a gun". Also, according to a DSU pamphlet I read some time after posting this, the police intervention happened because there was a Police Control van outside the gate that came in to protect these guys. Found in the car were some mall development papers. These are things that I have heard/read, might be untrue. I will put up the photos that Kar took when I get them from her.

Shikakai in my eye - not fun!

sukhaloka@gmail.com (Suki) — Sun, 08 Nov 2009 20:39:00 +0000

It's been a year and more since I went off shampoo.
Right now, my haircare routine is simple. Scalp massages as often as I feel like it - YAY short hair! - and combing as often as I feel like it. Shikakai in place of shampoo.

When I first used shikakai, I used a paste of shikakai powder and water, left it on for an hour, and then washed it off.
My hair came out dry, but i noticed that shikakai kept dandruff off my scalp longer than any goddamn shampoo did.

With liberal doses of impatience, the time spent with the shikakai paste on my scalp continued to decrease. I noticed, to my pleasant surprise, that the only side effect of washing off the paste quickly was that my hair felt nice and silky instead of stripped down. Note here that my hair used to be so silky that ponytails were out of the question - rubber bands would slip off. Right now, we're returning to that texture slowly but surely.

My latest experiment with shikakai consists of boiling the powder in water or soaking it overnight, then decanting the liquid and using it as shampoo. I am again pleasantly surprised to note that the liquid alone works equally well at eliminating dirt, while doing nothing to damage my hair as shampoo used to. Without the abrasive action of the powder, I do have to scrub my scalp a bit harder, but it sure is worth it!

My recommendation for shikakai use, therefore, stands as follows -
1. Soak shikakai in water to make an opaque but thin mixture
2. Let it sit overnight, decant.
3. Use the liquid a a shampoo
4. Use the solid as a face/body/foot scrub - it works MUCH better than soap, and I don't even need moisturizer after it.

I <3 this fruit, this shikakai.

sukhaloka@gmail.com (Suki) — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 21:09:00 +0000

Something begins to change, when you realize that the hole in your heart isn't everything you have anymore.

You begin to grow. You get bored of dwelling on the loss, and you tell yourself - sternly, repeatedly - that brooding is a no-win thing.

One day, you realize you can talk about most things that happened.

One day, you realize that even though you can talk about those things, you have been talking about them for years without being able to forget, forgive or accept.

Then you know why you chose your life's goal.

How short hair is WEIRD

sukhaloka@gmail.com (Suki) — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 06:51:00 +0000

It's in my face ALL the time! No more bundling into a clutch or braid and putting it out of the way
There's hair around my ears! :gasp: And I - Miss "Hair OUT of the Way!" - allowed it instead of pinning it severely back! :gaspandchoke:
The comb abruptly goes into nowhere halfway through a stroke
There's no damp hair clinging to my neck when I shower
Towelling dry, no turbans involved. Oh boy.
Being able to wet my hair, whenever. Liberation!

Ok, last haircut post, I promise!

sukhaloka@gmail.com (Suki) — Mon, 26 Oct 2009 18:14:00 +0000

Well, how could I NOT put up these gorgeous snaps Solo took?

No, I don't look this good in real life. I swear.

I don't look like this either. Is it just me or do I look - what? - 10 years old here??

Now THIS? Absolutely spot-on accurate! :D

All we need is one of me licking my nose.

The after!

sukhaloka@gmail.com (Suki) — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 16:43:00 +0000

Okay, so this is how I looked - and felt - just before leaving for the haircut.

After some twenty minutes of the hairdresser tut-tutting about "the shampoo isn't right", "your hair is oily", "you have dandruff because you don't shampoo right and that's why your hair is falling out"... and then subsequently mellowing down a bit in the face of my innocently batted eyelashes, there was this.

Better pics to be edited into this post soon.

This is the first time I've had short hair since... 2001. I feel liberated :-).

EDIT: Will someone tell me how to get images to be opaque? Like... opaque and NOT translucent? ARGH!

One of my most coveted assets

sukhaloka@gmail.com (Suki) — Sun, 25 Oct 2009 07:03:00 +0000

used to be my hair. It has been shorter than shoulder-length only once since I was eight years old, typically falling somewhere around mid-back.

Through the years, I watched it fall out, bit by bit. It went from "wow, that's so THICK!" to "nice hair" to "looks good today".

I gave up on it about five years ago. The blue turtleneck pic was taken a year after that, ie in 2005.
It's a bit hard to believe I actually had those eyes. Or that chubby face. Oh well - I'm happier now :).

For the past three years, I've been thinking of shaving my head. I'd always think of doing it before the monsoon and its humidity hit, but the hair I enjoyed after winter was just too good to let go of.

Here's a specimen from exactly three springs ago (well, it's late March, but that is spring/summer in India). My best friend was playing around with my - very straight - hair, and this is what we ended up with.

Then, last year, I discovered no 'poo. I gave up shampoo last September, and used anything shampoo-like for the last time in November.
My hair has been much better, as long as I clean it regularly. At least it looks healthy and doesn't fall out as much.

Today, I've finally decided to chop it off and get something... short. Maybe I will shave my head when monsoon hits - let's see.
I don't know what to say. I've always gone to parlors and said "Trim. Straight. Remove the split ends, but that's all". At best, "U-cut".

We'll see what happens this afternoon.

Would you believe it? I'm actually misty-eyed and shaking slightly!

For the record, this is what my hair looks like now - right now, today. Yes, and that's the expression on my face when I think of cutting it off.

Oh, and the pic below?
That's my mom.
Apparently she cut her hair off during Masters too.

Fountainhead

sukhaloka@gmail.com (Suki) — Thu, 15 Oct 2009 19:21:00 +0000

The word has always made me think of a penis. There, I said it.

Right now, I'm reading Rand exactly as I read pornography - to satisfy the imaginary desires that are untenable to the point of obscenity in real life.

I should post again, very soon. Just so that this doesn't show up for too long as my most recent post.

Application woes

sukhaloka@gmail.com (Suki) — Mon, 05 Oct 2009 06:23:00 +0000

Dear X University Abroad,

I had sent you an email asking for some very specific information, and supplying everything except my (Indian) telephone number, marital status and income level to help you answer the same.

When I got an automated reply the next day, I was mildly surprised. Few universities seem to bother with the automation.
But, TEN DAYS later, I got another automated reply, asking for information I had already sent. And conveying "kind regards."

That has pissed me off. You can say goodbye to at least one full fee-paying student for the session of 2010!

PS: I had sent the same mail to other universities. Who are ranked higher than you. If THEY managed to answer in three days, what the hell is keeping you?

With extremely kind regards,
-

There I go... turn the page

sukhaloka@gmail.com (Suki) — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 09:46:00 +0000

It's official. My days of being a carefree student are over.

By now, everyone in uni knows that I decided not to do an MA. Different people have heard different facets of the story from me depending on who they are, how they approached me and what my mood was like at the time. There is no "the whole truth" of the story that I know myself, so why would I make up a nice complete framed and outlined story?

What am I doing now?
Working from home. Not like I'm making much just yet, but I can support myself. We'll see where I end up. Rather, somebody will. Goodness knows who.

Working from home means that I need to set up my room as an office. As a result, my room saw the first of a series of transformations this afternoon.

Old setup:

Huge wooden writing desk, complete with three drawers on the right hand side.
Computer crammed onto the desk.
Me, on a wooden chair with armrests, built for my grandfather who was seven inches taller and twenty five kilos heavier than I am.
If I sat straight, my monitor would be at neck level. So I slouched - head on neck rest, feet up on desk, curled into something like an ab crunch but with my body sagging completely. Now you know why I have back problems - I'm just lucky they're mild.
Keyboard on the desk, my elbows on armrests - a five-inch level difference between the two. This explains why my knuckles started aching like crazy a week after writing 2000 words a day(only!).
Any reading or writing that involved paper would be done sprawled out on my bed. While scribbling for two hours last night, I realized that this could not go on.

Current setup:

I am sitting on a wooden stool, just the right height for me to sit up straight, rest my feet comfortably on the ground, and see my monitor with my back upright and my eyes nearly level.
My computer is still on the huge wooden writing desk.
My two pillows are on my lap, so my keyboard is at elbow level. The mouse is still on the desk - I stretch my arm out to use it, or pull it onto my lap if I'm reading instead of writing.
My butt will start aching in a few hours from the unforgiving wooden seat.
A long, wheeled table that came with a grandfather chair as a writing apparatus. The accompanying chair is in the living room... things are kept on it. I could sit in it cross-legged, but that is NOT my preferred posture for reading or writing. Well... it hasn't been since I was in middle school.

Setup that is being planned:

A computer table, people! A computer table! Ok, wait. I also need a reading/writing table. Any ideas? I'm open to a L-shaped desk too.
A laptop and a USB keyboard rather than this six-year old antique which still runs surprisingly well.
Less family heirlooms(from harmoniums to warm clothes to sarees to dressing tables to knick-knacks) and more things that I actually need. Why don't people do junk sales in India? I'd made a fuckin' fortune!
A comfortable chair, an exercise ball, or both. I'll need it to be between 15 and 17 inches high. Yes, I'm short. Don't remind me.

Whoah boy, i have work and purchases ahead of me!