The lesser-known me

25 things few people know about me! Ever since mixedblessings89 tagged me (it’s quite some time now), I was trying hard to figure out what few people know about me. I secretly(?) went and checked some of the blogs that took up this tag. No, I didn’t have the slightest intention to do CtrlC-CtrlV. Anyways, I was still clueless after reading a few posts.

Does that mean I am so transparent? People can see through me? Oops! That could also mean I am hollow. No way! I am full of substance, though few people know that. There it is… The first thing few people know about me.

For the remaining 24, I ‘made up’ this list. :-)

2. I am quite romantic though I don’t look like one.

3. I have three birthdays. No, I was not born thrice. Just that my date of birth in official records is two months earlier than the original one, and I’ve a star birthday.

4. My first poem (in Malayalam) was published in the children’s magazine Lalu Leela some time in 1980s. It was about my cat.

5. I had cats; 16 at one point of time. Reared and buried quite a few of them.

6. My first short story (in Malayalam and last so far) got second prize in a competition held by the local fine arts club and it was later published in the school magazine.

7. I remember most of what I hear except the classroom lectures. So get bored when people tell me the same stuff again and again and sometimes contradict themselves.

8. I intend to write my autobiography.

Enough of gloating.

9. I get angry fast.

10. I can be nasty at times.

11. I don’t bother about what others think.

12. I’m not religious, but I know there’s God.

13. I (we) decided not to have kids even before marriage.

14. I like kids when I'm not responsible for them 24x7.

15. However, I feel responsible for the whole world, but too lazy to save it.

16. I like being alone and I like being with family and friends.

17. I was crazy about Hindi movies in my teens. My favourite hero was Mithunda.

18. For washing cloths, I don’t trust anybody except myself, my mother, sister-in-law, and IFB washing machine.

19. I like only the curd I make or the packaged ones.

20. I don’t like to see oil in my food – I mean in the non-fried ones.

21. I’ve tried many times to become a vegetarian and failed. Then I married a pure vegetarian. That did work partially. I am a vegetarian most of the time.

22. I get put off by insincerity.

23. I like those who act over those who just talk.

24. But I often talk and not act.

25. So I believe, “Everything that irritates us about others can lead us to an understanding of ourselves." - Carl Jung

Now I feel I can write more. Who will have the patience to read it?

Meanwhile, mixedblessings89 gave me the Honest Scrap award.



I honestly made this 25 things up. :-)

Sunday selections

The title might ring a bell to Keralites of my generation. All India Radio, Trivandrum used to air a programme for dedicating songs, every Sunday at 3 pm. Not sure if they still have it. That was a time when cable TV was unheard of. Probably, it was the only programme where the audience could mail requests to broadcast English songs dedicated to someone of their choice. I don’t know if it was a popular programme because English songs were (and are) alien to me.

Today, TV channels are inundated with mutants of phone-in/write-in/SMS-in programmes.


I pooh-pooh the people who calls or writes with much passion and enthusiasm. Who has the time to do all these? Non-bloggers might be thinking the same about bloggers.

Then I realised I am a hypocrite.

Long back, I too had written to Sunday Selections. Well, not exactly. I hadn’t even heard about this programme until a hostel friend explained it to me. We were a gang of 17 gals and had named ourselves DDTs. Can anyone guess the expansion? We even had a logo. Okay, let me not digress. We made sure to celebrate everyone’s birthday. A gift was given and a treat was taken in return. Once, for G’s birthday, R came up with a new gift idea – to dedicate a song to G through Sunday Selections. That was when I first heard about it. We bought a post card (15 paise – misers we were!) and sent in our request. I don’t remember the song we had requested. G would be at home on Sundays. Somehow, we managed to get her listen to the programme, without revealing our secret. Those who were doomed to be in the hostel got a pocket radio. A red one, I remember.

So we sat at different parts of Kerala on that Sunday afternoon eagerly waiting for our letter to be read. Sadly, it was never read. Later, someone told us that they would give preference to letters written on fancy papers. Our humble postcard didn’t even stand a chance. Next day we told G about our failed attempt to sponsor a song for her.

I remember listening to Sunday Selections a few times after that. But it didn’t have the charm to retain my interest. But our excitement and the later disappointment is something I should consider while scoffing at the participants of today’s programmes.

Other than the song dedication programmes, I don’t like the reality shows, which many are crazy about. I can watch the former for its songs, but I can’t stand the latter. Facebook is another place where I feel lost. All these “What kind of a cat/dog you are”, “Do you have brains”, “Which famous people share bad hair day with you,” stuff do not kindle my curiosity. I ignore requests to join groups like “I love Upma”, and “I like the smell of drain – oops, rain”.

Does age has anything to do with lack of appreciation for all these new trends? Maybe.